The thieves actually took the initiative to attack at night, which completely disrupted the original plan of the officers and soldiers. Zhao Dangshi immediately sent someone to Pegasus Express to Song Yihe. Song Yihe was still in the bed, and when he heard the news, he was alarmed, and urgently called the officers of the whole battalion to listen to the order, hastily put on his armor, put on his mending robe, and fidgeted.

Soon after, Huang Degong, Lin Baoguo and other officers arrived. When Huang Degong saw Song Yihe, he rolled the saddle and dismounted: "The last general is late, the rescue is not good, and the military gate will be punished!" ”

Song Yihe waved his hand generously and said: "This official is fine, there is an alarm in the camp, I am afraid that the thief Kou Zhoushi is coming!" Hurry up and start your ships and assemble to fight! ”

Huang Degong responded loudly, shouted left and right to send out notices, and then together with Lin Baoguo, he escorted Song Yihe and rushed to the port in a mess.

When he arrived at the port, Zhao Dangshi came to greet him, Song Yihe wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead, and asked anxiously, "How is the situation?" ”

Zhao Dangshi pointed to the black sea and said: "Don't worry about the military, I have sent two or three fast boats to the sea to reconnoiter the advance force of the thieves." According to the yacht report that warned earlier, the main brigade of thieves was still more than ten miles away. ”

Song Yihe nodded when he heard this, calmed down slightly, and went to the camp tent of the Chinese army surrounded by Zhao Dangshi and other generals.

After sitting down, other troops arrived one after another, Song Yihe felt that the men and horses were almost gathered, and he was a little bolder, and looked around at the generals and asked: "The thieves are cunning, and they come by night, how to deal with them?" ”

Zhao Dangshi said at this time: "In the opinion of the last general, the morale of the thieves is high, and our army is uneasy to assemble the army in a hurry, and if it is reluctant to confront it, it may not be able to gain the upper hand." Therefore, we should plant more flags, light more torches, and encourage the sergeants to shout loudly. When the thieves saw our army like this, they must have thought that our army was ready for battle, and they might not dare to attack rashly. ”

Huang Degong said: "Junmen, the last general doesn't think so. ”

Song Yihe's eyelids jumped, and he said with a little expectation: "You say." ”

Huang Degong looked at Zhao Dangshi, and then said: "The thieves attacked at night, although they had the upper hand for a while, but it was difficult to last long. Although our army was in a panic for a while, at this time, the soldiers and horses were gathered neatly, and there was not much disadvantage. In the humble opinion of the last general, he can rely on the fortifications on the shore of the port, set up two naval divisions on the left and right as ambushes, and then send one division to lure the thieves into the army, surround and annihilate them, and the battle can be determined! ”

Huang Degong's words were in Song Yihe's arms, and his meaning was also to send troops to meet the battle. It's just that although he was happy in his heart, his face was still reserved, and he stroked his beard with one hand, making a deep groan, and secretly observing the expressions of the generals.

Zhao Dangshi was noncommittal about Huang Degong's opinion, but he felt that Song Yihe's heart was towards Huang Degong's method, so he pushed the boat down the river, got up and took a step, walked to the middle, and bowed to Song Yihe with his fists: "The last general is willing to take a sailor to lure thieves for the military gate!" "In these days of water warfare drills, the 700 soldiers of the Zhao battalion have made rapid progress, and between advance and retreat, they are even better than the Huang and Lin departments, which is beyond Zhao Dangshi's expectations and is also his pride.

As soon as these words came out, Huang Degong and Lin Baoguo were shocked. Huang Degong was stunned for a moment, immediately reacted, and said to Song Yihe: "Lord Zhao is a tiger general in northern Chu, who has defeated thieves several times, and the reputation of being good at fighting is widely spread, so it is appropriate to have him in battle!" ”

Song Yihe praised and said: "I have long heard that Lord Zhao is heroic and heroic, and today's observation is true!" He patted the armrest and said loudly, "Okay, since Lord Zhao is asking for war, how can this official not allow it?" That is, you will be the vanguard, lead the headquarters of the boat division, and go out to lure the enemy! He added, "Lord Huang and Lord Lin, come close and discuss carefully." ”

Zhao Dangshi received the order to come out, passed by Huang Degong's side, and only heard him whisper: "Be careful in everything." So she smiled and nodded at him, and stepped out of the account.

When they arrived at the camp, Luo Wei and Guang Wenlu waited with the whole army early, and when they heard that their army would fight for the vanguard, they couldn't help but swallow their spit. Zhao Dangshi instructed: "Time is pressing, listen to my order, Lao Luo, you and I five hundred people will go out first, Luzi, you take the remaining two hundred and then send it later." ”

Luo and Guang Su responded with resolute expressions.

At that moment, Zhao Dangshi left Guang Wenlu, and since he and Luo Wei led five hundred sailors to fight, they soon got on the boat and sailed to the black and vast river.

The fleet he belonged to had three sand boats, three river falcons, thirty or forty net shuttle boats and horn bluff boats, and was the main force of Zhao Ying's department. Shortly after leaving the port, lights flashed on the east and west sides of the river, and Huang Degong and Lin Baoguo had also gone out of the river to ambush.

Zhao Dangshi ordered the soldiers to give back the lantern language, and at the same time asked Luo Wei: "Will the yacht sentry ship come to report later?" ”

Luo Wei said with a solemn face: "I haven't ...... I'm afraid they're all trapped......"

Zhao Dangshi's ship was a large sand boat, and the river boat had a shallow draft and was not as heavily armed as the sea boat. There were no large guns on board, but they were equipped with traditional firearms such as fire bricks, fireballs, bowl guns, etc., plus several small franc engines on the side and a fire gun in the bow. Even so, in the face of thieves who have not even become popular, such equipment can be called crushing firepower. He leaned on the wooden female wall on the ship, looked at the darkness in the distance and said: "The people who are released are the elite of our army's navy, and they will be all gone, it seems that the strength of the thieves and the thieves should not be underestimated. ”

Although he didn't know where the thieves came from, he was worried about it. Because the front part of the battle was the most elite fleet in the whole army led by Niu Youyong, a general under Ma Shouying. This fleet is not very large, mainly net shuttle ships, and is known for its flexibility and mobility. It had easily eaten some scattered sentry ships not long ago, and was rapidly approaching.

Niu Youyong, the master of the thieves, is a native of northern Shaanxi, and he was also a well-known head of the group at the beginning, and was later annexed by Ma Shouying and became his fierce general, with very old qualifications. He came up with the plan to attack the officers and troops at night. Since Ma Guangchun's defeat and surrender to the Zhao camp, he was keenly aware that this was an excellent opportunity to improve his status in the camp. As long as this battle is won, not only will the threat of encirclement and suppression by the officers and troops be immediately resolved, but as the proposer of the plan and the vanguard of the action, his prestige will naturally rise, and it is not impossible for him to become the second-in-command of the return camp.

There are still five miles to the port of Makou Town, no matter how slow the response of the officers and troops is, and how inefficient the assembly is, they should go to war now. He sat in the cabin and waited for the officers and soldiers to appear.

Sure enough, while he was thinking about his next step, the bright ship lights of the officers and soldiers appeared in front of him.

"It's coming!" Niu Youyong put a small wooden pole in his mouth at his feet, and yelled the order, "Turn off the lights quickly!" ”

As soon as the flagship's headlight goes out, all the lights of the net shuttle ship go out. The officers and soldiers watched as the bright light that was originally sporadic not far away disappeared into darkness in an instant.

"The thieves are nowhere to be found!"

Hearing the news from the soldiers, Zhao Dangshi looked at the wall with doubts. It was still dark, and it was really impossible to discern the traces of the enemy ships.

"The thieves deliberately extinguished the ship's lights!" Luo Wei was shocked and suspicious, and he didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in the opponent's gourd. If there is no clear indication of the ship's lights, let alone attacking the enemy, it is very likely that your own ships will collide first.

Zhao Dangshi frowned, and shouted: "All ships stop moving, and they are not allowed to move without orders." Stand by and guard against enemy attacks! ”

On the other hand, Niu Youyong found that the official fleet had stopped moving, and he was secretly happy in his heart, thinking that everything was under control.

Niu Youyong had been engaged in tomb robbery for several years before falling grass in his early years, walking in the barren mountains and mountains every summer night, and he could always see the faint green light in the mass graves. At first, he thought it was "ghost fire" like his ancestors and stayed away, but then he realized that these "ghost fires" were not actually ghosts, as if they were created by the bones of dead people. He paid attention to this, and later conducted special experiments, which found that there was indeed a substance in the bones that could produce green light. Then I learned from the scribes in the army that the so-called "ghost fire" is phosphorus fire, which is especially prone to appear in the hot summer.

At this time, it was the summer season, and the climate was unbearably hot, so he was keen by nature, and combined phosphorus fire with night raids: he dug a flat-bottomed round hole in the left, right, and back parts of all his ships, and distributed a certain amount of bone meal evenly. Because of the distribution of the left, right, and rear parts and the concave hole, the human eye located far in front of the boat cannot see these dim green lights due to the influence of visual angles, only the friendly ships arranged on the left and right can observe the friendly ships on both sides, and the ships located in the rear can also see the friendly ships in front, so as to avoid the situation that the friendly fleet does not distinguish the friendly forces in the dark night.

Such a strange method, Zhao Dangshi and others naturally couldn't think of it for a while. The thieves' net shuttle boats followed the lights of the official and military ships, and according to the pre-planned plan, they were inserted into the two wings, and the first team in the middle advanced directly. The officers and soldiers who had been surrounded were unconscious, and were still carefully observing the darkness around them.

There was only the sound of the wind and the sound of the river waves crashing against the hull of the ship, where were the thieves? Luo Wei stared at the dark curtain in confusion, anxious inside. Even if he couldn't see anything, he didn't dare to be distracted in the slightest.

Just as the encirclement of the thieves was about to take shape, a gust of wind suddenly blew. A shuttle boat on the left flank of the thief was jolted, and some unpressed bone meal drifted away in the wind, casting a thin green mist in the night sky.

Although the green light was faint, it was enough to alarm the officers and soldiers who were engrossed. Someone on the boat soon discovered the anomaly and reported the situation to Zhao Dangshi.

Zhao Dangshi did not dare to slack off, and hurriedly let people spread the word, and the right flank of the official army immediately began to shrink and retreat.

The thieves allowed them to escape easily, and the boatman rowed like a desperate oar, and in the panicked sound of the officers and soldiers, more than a dozen net shuttle boats broke the waves and rushed forward, instantly connecting with the right flank of the officers and soldiers.

On the outside of the right flank of the officers and soldiers were dominated by light boats, and the thieves and thieves relied on their speed to directly collide, and when they boarded, three or four officers and soldiers were overturned and sunk, and the officers and soldiers who had not died in the river struggled to swim towards their own boats, but the thieves stretched out long hooks from the shuttle boats and hooked the officers and soldiers to death like fishes.

At that time, although the thieves launched an offensive on the right flank of the official army, they still did not raise the torches, and the official army did not know the number of incoming enemies in the panic. Zhao Dangshi saw that the right wing was being attacked, and immediately said to Luo Wei: "Hurry up and mobilize the big boat on the left wing to rescue!" ”

Luo Weili blocked: "No! Now that the enemy is in the dark, we must not act rashly and recklessly to disrupt our positions, but we can first order the big ships on the right wing to be in front and the small boats to fight back and test the strength of the thieves! ”

Zhao Dangshi didn't have time to think about it, and said, "Let's do it according to this method first!" ”

When the military order was handed down, the officers and soldiers immediately lost three or four horn bluff boats and a net shuttle boat, but fortunately, the officer commanding the right wing was calm, and in the face of the wind and waves and the attack of the thieves, he was stunned to discharge the formation, but unfortunately lost another net shuttle boat in the middle.

The right flank had just gained a foothold, and the left flank was attacked by bandits. Because the right flank had already been attacked, the officers and troops on the left flank had already taken precautions, and they did not lose under the onslaught of the thieves, but launched a counterattack with a sand boat as the core.

Seeing that the thief couldn't succeed in a single blow, he didn't love to fight, and interspersed through the cracks and returned to the darkness. However, this time, the officers and soldiers had already mastered the skills and knew the clues of the green light. After some shock, the bone meal was also wiped out under the blow of the waves, and it no longer existed, so it could only raise torches and explore the waterway.

The shuttle boat shuttled back and forth around the ships of the officers and men, which made the officers and men who had only received training but had never experienced the battle formation very worried. Although several officers tried their best to suppress the pressure, it was still difficult to deal with the decline. Fortunately, the big ships of the officers and troops are strong, and they can stabilize the battle line for the time being. The thieves have been crisscrossing both sides of the river for many years, and they have seen more big boats, so they naturally know how to deal with them, but to give the sand boat the final blow, it is necessary to cut off the escort boats around the sand boat.

In the midst of this shouting one after another, the thieves skillfully lit the fire arrows and shot them into the sky. The chaotic fire arrows swept across the dark sky, drawing a dazzling trajectory, and roared towards the officers and soldiers. When the fire bolts came to the ship, some of them were bounced off by the cowhide covering the back of the canopy, and some of them took advantage of the wind to spread the fire. Many officers and soldiers were so flustered that they never thought of extinguishing the flames on the ship, but their first reaction was to plunge into the water. When I got out of the water, I was confused, I didn't know the east, south, west, and northwest, and most of them were easily killed by the thieves.

The right flank of the official fleet lacked large ships compared to the left flank, and Zhao Dangshi observed the situation and clearly felt that the left flank front with a sand ship was more stable, so he ordered a sand ship of the Chinese army to be sent to the right flank to support. The sand boat was originally guarding the sand boat as a ship, so dispatched, Zhao Dangshi's sand boat was only scattered in front of the sand boat, and there were only a few net shuttle boats and horn bluff boats distributed and protected.

Niu Youyong stood on the bow of the ship not far away, looking at the battle from afar. Zhao Dangshi's dispatch completely hit his plan, he clenched his left hand into a fist, and ordered the soldiers on the left and right: "The time has come, surprise attack!" ”

The soldiers on the left and right were already preparing, and as soon as they got the military order, they immediately passed it on. This elite army, which had been dormant in the darkness for a long time and was led by Niu Youyong himself, immediately shook the oars and rushed forward through the waves.