At the beginning of October, the Han Tong Naval Division arrived near Guazhoudu in the southeast of Yangzhou from Caoqu, and the large ships went south along the river to enter the Yangtze River. (The location is east of Nanjing, near Zhenjiang City.) ）

At this time, the Battle of Chizhou took place, and Jinling had mobilized troops to strengthen the eastern defense. Liu Cheng, the general of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was ordered to deploy to the east, and he gathered the southern ** naval division in Jingkou (Zhenjiang), and when he heard the news, the Zhou division went south and broke into the Cao Canal with a large ship carrying reeds and fierce fire oil.

At that time, the sea wind in the east was blowing violently, and the southern ** ship rushed to the east side of the Zhou warship and set it on fire. Suddenly the fire soared into the sky, and the fierce fire oil (oil) burned up black smoke, and watering did not help; The fire caused by the reeds in the boats was even more astonishing, like a mountain full of wildfires, and it was roasted a hundred paces away. The fire spread to the Zhou warships in the east wind, and after a while, a large Zhou army ship in front of it was on fire.

The burnt black ash rushed into the air in the scorching air, and the entire sky was covered with black dust, falling in the distance like a black snow.

The soldiers on the Zhou warship could no longer care about fighting the fire, the flames were raging in the wind, and they were burned to death if they approached, and the soldiers on the deck were in a mess, and many people jumped into the river and drowned. The soldiers were more or less clothed in armor, and in water battles, arrows from the enemy were more likely to kill people than the danger of sinking ships and falling overboard; If a man in iron armor falls into the water, he will be drowned immediately. It is difficult for those with little armor to survive, and the river is cold in October, and those who know how to water cannot last long, not to mention that the clothes are very bulky after wearing thick and wet.

The people who paddled and tread the water wheel below the deck were not burned for the time being, and many of them stripped naked and jumped into the river with logs. There was shouting on the river, and it was a mess.

On the south bank of the Yangtze River, a military general was laughing "haha", he pointed to the fire in the distance, and laughed so much that he was almost rolling on the ground with his stomach in his hand. This person is Liu Cheng, and the surrounding Southern Tang Dynasty soldiers are also celebrating. There was a burly man not far away, but he looked coldly at a group of people over there, and the burly man was Lin Renzhao.

Lin Renzhao had just been appointed to stay in the southern capital (Nanchang), and before he left Beijing, he rushed to Jingkou to watch the battle.

Liu Cheng laughed for a long time, and finally found Lin Renzhao who was watching, so he stepped forward to say hello: "General Lin watched my battle today, can it be called a great victory?" He didn't pay much attention to Lin Renzhao, he still stretched out his hand to catch a wisp of black dust, looked up, and reached out to stroke his hair, as if a person who loves cleanliness was shaking off the dust, "The fire is too strong, and the soot is drifting across the river!" ”

Unexpectedly, Lin Renzhao said angrily: "Burning a Zhou army warship, is it called a great victory?" ”

Liu Cheng was immediately very unhappy...... are all colleagues, even if you don't want to congratulate, won't it be over if you don't say anything? Liu Cheng suppressed his smile and said coldly: "General Lin probably doesn't understand, the valley of Caoqu is not as deep as the big river, and the two big ships are burned and sunk in the river, and the Zhou warships won't want to enter the river for a while." ”

Lin Renzhao said: "What's so difficult about this, just clean up the river and pull out the larger wreckage, at most, it can only block it for a few days." The Zhou army suffered a loss, and the next time he broke through the estuary, he had to observe the wind direction, and the method of fire attack could be used once. ”

Liu Cheng was stunned: "The mouth of the Caoqu is narrow, and the river is wide. If the enemy ships want to get out of the canal, they must line up in a long column, and I patrol the river day and night with warships, and when they want to come out, they will attack it with a group of superior warships and block the mouth of the river. The Zhou army could not go out of the canal. ”

Lin Renzhao said: "The important thing for the defense of the river is quarrying; The Zhou army attacked Chizhou in the west, obviously for quarrying, otherwise why did they bypass the mouth of the lake (Poyang Lake) and suffer the enemy on both sides? However, the water surface of Jingkou is vast, and our army only needs to operate defense on land and water in Runzhou, and it is difficult for the enemy to enter the territory from here...... General Liu consumed all the eastern naval army here, how could he fight the Zhou army on the quarry river? ”

Although the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are very long, there are not many places suitable for large armies to cross the river; For example, most of the river banks are shallow, and ships are about to run aground before they can dock, and the ferry usually has a protruding section to the center of the river, which is convenient for ships to dock in deep water. After thousands of years of operation, most of these places have become familiar ferries, such as Jingkou and quarrying.

Liu Cheng said angrily: "I was ordered to deploy the eastern defense, but you talked to me about quarrying. Why don't you go to Asari and talk to Your Majesty, what do you mean by talking to me? ”

Liu Cheng's words were to the point, Lin Renzhao was stunned, unable to argue, and had no choice but to leave the riverside at the moment. Hearing Liu Cheng muttering behind him, as if he was saying bad things about himself, Lin Renzhao knew that he had accidentally offended him, but Lin Renzhao didn't care about such things.

…… Lin Renzhao rode back to Jiangning City, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was not good, Chizhou had been occupied for almost a month, and the imperial court had not made any useful arrangements, not only did there be no sign of recapturing Chizhou in a hurry, but there was no reinforcement for the defense of quarrying; Instead, all the eastern sailors were concentrated in Jingkou, and I don't know whose idea it was.

He thought about it and thought that he had been ordered to go to Hongzhou to take up his post, and now he couldn't see the king, so he remembered a person: Chen Qiao (when Guo Shao asked Liu Renzhan for advice, Liu Renzhan mentioned this person). This person is the auxiliary minister of the Guangzheng Yuan, and when the Emperor Taishang passed the throne to the lord Li Yu, he was the hand-picked assistant minister, and he was very able to speak in the court.

The key is that Chen Qiao is not like other people, Chen Qiao looks up to Lin Renzhao very much, and recommended it in front of the lord of the country a long time ago: Let Lin Renzhao lead troops outside, and Chen will be in charge of the government in the center, although my country is small, it is difficult for the Central Plains to plot. The praise of Lin Renzhao is not sparing in good words.

So Lin Renzhao hurried to Chen's mansion, wanting to find Chen Qiao to talk about his military opinions and discuss the defense of the river.

Unexpectedly, Chen Qiao directly refused Lin Renzhao's visit, and unceremoniously asked someone to blow him away from the gate. Lin Renzhao was confused, and hurriedly left the Chen Mansion at a loss, and just walked to a secluded side street, when suddenly someone behind him said, "General Lin, please get in the carriage." ”

Lin Renzhao looked back and saw that he was a strange scribe. But he was brave and brave at all, and he was not afraid at all on the streets of the capital, so he was respectful and obedient at the moment, and got into the carriage. The carriage immediately left where it was.

The scribe frowned and said: "In broad daylight, you, a foreign general who is about to leave Beijing, went to visit Chen Gong's gate, what is the relationship between Chen Gong and you?" Aren't you afraid of people talking about collusion inside and outside? ”

Lin Renzhao wondered: "I am a minister in the same dynasty as Duke Chen, and I can't even meet?" ”

The scribe sighed: "Chen Gong also said that the shortcoming of this person is that you don't understand the world. A while ago, someone had already impeached you for returning to Beijing without listening to moderation, and now you are going to Hongzhou, and some people say that you want to sacrifice Hongzhou to surrender to the Zhou court. How many people have you offended? ”

Lin Renzhao scolded: "Mother, you have a grudge against a little thing, how can such a villain be an official!" ”

The scribe said: "You are a general of the Fujian State, many people look down on you, and you often speak disrespectfully, without respect, and no one is convinced...... That's it, that's it. Chen Gong knew that before you came to the mansion, he guessed that you were going to talk about Jiang Fang. Chen Gong asked me to bring you a message, hurry up and write it down in detail, and I'll pick it up early tomorrow morning at the alley where we met just now. ”

Lin Renzhao said: "I don't have many literary talents......

"Just write the meaning clearly, and it's not for you to take the top exam." The scribe said angrily.

The two had not spoken a few words, and the scribe was in a hurry to drive Lin Renzhao out of the carriage.

Lin Renzhao returned to his residence, scratched his head and bit the pen shaft when he picked up the pen, and didn't know how to put down the pen. I threw away the brush and walked around the yard, and my mind was very clear.

He believes that in the current situation, the most important thing in defense is quarrying, and the offensive is to cut off the retreat of the enemy army in Chizhou...... The naval division of the Southern Tang army was the least likely to suffer, but the combat strength of the land horse infantry was not as good as that of the Zhou army.

Part of the eastern naval army contained the Zhou army from Caoqu, and the Caoqu waterway was narrow and shallow, and it was not easy for the Zhou army to transfer troops; A part of it followed the river and attacked the Hukou naval army on both sides, cutting off the enemy's passage to break through the river defense from Chizhou. and then strengthen the quarrying and other defenses, so that the enemy army in Chizhou fell into the encircled place......

Lin Renzhao pondered for a long time and summed up his own opinions: first prevent quarrying, then defend upstream, and rely on the city walls and water advantages of important towns to resist one by one.

……

Chen Qiao arranged Lin Renzhao's strategy and presented it to Li Yu.

But this thing is only one of the countless notes, and Li Yu has a lot of cases in front of him. Not only that, but the Zhou Dynasty also sent envoys to intimidate him, claiming that the army of 800,000 troops on the three routes was on land and water, and the destruction of the Southern Tang Kingdom was only in the mite!

Among them, it was claimed that hundreds of thousands of the main army had crossed the Cao Canal, and Keri had gone to Jiangning City to go down to Yunyun. The closest part of the enemy army is indeed the naval division of the Han Tong Department on the Yangzhou side, and Li Yu also got the information that the warships east of Yangzhou stretch for dozens of miles, and the ships shade the entire river; And there are a large number of land foot cavalry elite soldiers into Huainan.

The heavy soldiers hoarded at the door of his house were obviously the most panicked by Li Yu; And Chizhou and Wuchang have been attacked one after another, which is very important, but after all, it is a little farther, and it is still thousands of miles away.

At this moment, Liu Chengjie reported that he had defeated the Zhou army at Jingkou. Liu Cheng wrote a book, skillfully attacked the Zhou division with the east wind fire, burned the Zhou army's sailors to death, and the sinking ship blocked the Cao Canal, and the Zhou army defeated Beiyunyun in embarrassment.

Li Yu heard the eunuch's shouting of good news, and first read Liu Cheng's report. Winning a game under his nose, Li Yu suddenly felt a little relieved...... He remembered that when Liu Cheng was in the court, he had a respectful attitude, and he didn't think that the lord of the country had been on the throne for a long time, and he flattered and defended himself everywhere, and Li Yu suddenly felt that Liu Cheng was really a pillar of talent. hurriedly sent a decree to the eunuchs, and went to Runzhou with a heavy amount of money and a holy decree to reward Liu Cheng, so that he could continue to deploy the defense in the east.

Then Li Yu found Chen Qiao's recital, which was an important minister, and when he picked it up, he saw that it was Jiang Fang's strategy. After reading it, Li Yu felt that it made sense, so he first found a time to convene the ministers to observe and discuss.

At this moment, an official of the Hanlin Academy asked to see him, and quietly told Li Yu that Chen Qiao sent someone to meet Lin Renzhao privately, and explained the details of how they connected and how they whispered in the carriage.

After speaking, the official reminded: "Your Majesty, Chen Qiao is a native of Hongzhou, the southern capital, and Lin Renzhao is going to Hongzhou to serve this time...... It's a bit of a coincidence, but unfortunately I didn't hear what they were talking about. ”