Zhao Mingting bent his knees and half-squatted among the reeds, looking at the sail mast covering the sky and sun on the south side of the lake, his thin face was in the cold wind, like a mountain rock in the depths of the year; The wind blows, and the reed flowers flutter up, as if it is snowing heavily.

Although after crossing the river and fleeing north, he was appointed as the assassin of Haozhou, and he was one of the many generals who fled north, except for Wen Bo, who was not much used by Xu Mingzhen.

Wen Bo is good at guarding, and at present, he is leading the remnants to stick to the main force of the Chu army under the command of Li Zhihe in Chaozhou City, which can be said to be precarious, but Zhao Mingting, who only has more than seven or eight thousand remnants in his hands, is not having a good time in Haozhou.

Whether he can breathe a sigh of relief depends on the battle in front of him, how can he not feel the weight of his shoulders?

"There are two hundred and sixty-seven warships, large and small, and the soldiers and horses of the Left Fifth Tooth Army have all sailed into the mud dun lake! The Right Five Tooth Army has been lured to the north. My lord, if we don't keep our mouths shut again, the warships of the Left Fifth Tooth Army may enter Qingweidang tomorrow morning, and Liu Zhi and them only have sixty or seventy small boats and more than 2,000 horses, so I am afraid that they will not be able to resist there! A military attache in armor bent over and walked to Zhao Mingting's side under the cover of reeds and said.

"Okay, send someone to order Wu Jin to scuttle the boat and seal the mouth of the Loach River and the Shatang Pond!" Zhao Mingting gritted his teeth and said.

Hongzepu is a shallow bottom lake group composed of a series of large and small lakes and swamps, depressions, etc., between different lakes and marshes, there are short and long water outlets of different sizes, such as rivers and depressions, forming a whole with each other.

Hongzepu is close to the Wujian Mountains to the southwest, and the lake bed on the southwest side is also significantly higher than the east.

It's just that the water from Hongzepu is mainly injected from the Qianshan Mountains in the southwest, the Zhuxi River in Wujianshan and the Huai River on the west side, and the lake water is blocked by the sand and mud between the lakes and the mud groups, and the flow is slow.

However, after entering the winter, the flow of the streams and rivers originating from Qianshan and Wujian Mountain drops significantly, and the lakes on the southwest and west sides mainly rely on the water from the upper reaches of the Huai River to replenish the lake water.

Zhao Mingting planned to scuttle the paddle boat full of sand and gravel and sink it into several water-replenishing streams and rivers on the north side of the mudun lake that received water from the Huai River, blocking the waterway.

Although this practice may not be able to reduce the water level of Nidun Lake by a foot overnight, the impact on the pointed bottom warships of the Left Wuya Army, which has a deep draft, is already very great.

Of course, Zhao Mingting and the others had prepared several sets of plans before.

If the main warships of the Left Wuya Army can be lured into Caowei Lake further south, the effect will be even better.

The lake bed there is even shallower, and once the water mouth is sealed, a considerable part of the main warships of the Left Fifth Tooth Army can be stranded directly in the middle of the lake, unable to move.

However, in that case, they would have to consider the possibility that the remnants of the more than 2,000-storey ship army that had retreated into Caowei Lake as bait in the early stage might be annihilated.

The naval army in Shouzhou's hands was already extremely limited, and Zhao Mingting was reluctant to sacrifice the more than 2,000 ships and horses that retreated into Caowei Lake at this time, and decided to use Nidun Lake as a battlefield to severely damage or even completely annihilate the main force of the Zuowuya Army's naval division, and comprehensively launched the battle plan.

In order to prevent stepping into the trap, Gao Chengyuan, as the main general of the vanguard, deliberately concentrated the main warships of the Left Fifth Tooth Army in the mudun lake, which was nearly 20 miles open on the water, before nightfall, and sent a small fleet of boats to form a guard in the direction of the three main entrances and exits of the lake, so as to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the night to attack the mudun lake.

It was initially found that the water level had dropped

, is responsible for guarding the western side of the lake's mouth.

One of the warships dropped anchor before nightfall, and it was confirmed that the bottom of the ship was still some distance from the riverbed, but in the early morning it was found that the bottom of the ship was directly resting on the riverbed, and the hull of the ship was obviously tilted over.

Gao Chengyuan received the report and felt that the situation was not good, and was about to send his generals out in small boats to reconnoiter the enemy's situation, but at this time, the guard ships on the periphery issued warning signals one after another.

After two sticks of incense, Gao Chengyuan, with a grim expression, saw hundreds of small enemy ships, covering the sky and the sun from the surrounding lake mouths, although he tried his best to remain calm on the surface, commanding the left and right soldiers and horses to form a boat formation to meet the enemy attack, but he was groaning in pain in his heart: Changguo Gong harmed me!

As one of the two main generals of the Great Chu Water Division, Gao Chengyuan guarded by Emperor Tianyou in his early years, and was assigned by Emperor Tianyou to Yang Yuanpu to guard the safety, and then served as the general of the Dragon Bird Army, and can be said to be the most trusted general by Yang Yuanpu from beginning to end.

After the war of cutting the domain, he served as the assassin of Yuezhou, and was responsible for the formation of the Yueyang Water Division, thus becoming the main commander of the Great Chu Water Division.

Gao Chengyuan is not a famous general in the traditional sense of water warfare, but he also knows in his heart that he has not figured out the water situation in Hongzepu, and the main warships of the Wuya Army are mainly pointed bottom boats built in Xuzhou, and the draft is not conducive to entering the Hongzepu battle in the shallow lake area.

Chang Guogong proposed a plan to attack Hongzepu with the main force of the naval division as a partial division, and he was resolutely opposed, but His Majesty and most of the princes of the imperial court longed for the imperial court to obtain more dazzling military exploits in Jiangbei before the year, thinking that the remnants of the Lou Chuan Army had been extremely weakened, and the Liang army had almost no decent naval army, and the Wuya Army Naval Division would definitely be able to overcome the unfavorable factors of Hong Zepu, and even if it was to scare the remnants of the Lou Chuan Army out of Hongzepu, as long as it was conducive to the right Shenwu army to attack Zhongli City by land, it could be regarded as achieving the goal.

It's just that where is the remnants of the Lou Ship Army in front of him looking frightened?

Gao Chengyuan looked at everything in front of him painfully......

…………

…………

In the white mist, Li Chong stopped on a low hill at the mouth of the pine forest.

Blocked by the mist, the scenery more than 100 steps away became blurred, but Li Chong still made a look of overlooking the cliff.

After a while, Xu Jing, who was dressed in official robes, climbed to the hill with two strong men dressed as woodcutters, and said to Li Chong: "The defenders of Haozhou received a report late yesterday morning, and hastily sent two thousand foot soldiers out of the city in the early morning to reinforce Zhongli!" I just don't know if I can catch Zhao Mingting's head this time? ”

Before the Jinling Incident, the Privy Council was in charge of Zhao Mingting, and Xu Jing did not seek to stand out in the army at this time, but it was also a symbol in a sense to be able to cut off Zhao Mingting's head in the war.

There are still seventy or eighty miles away from Hongzepu in the west of Haozhou City, and the important town walled city that really controls the Huai River into the west mouth of Hongzepu is Zhongli City.

The first goal of their plan for this attack was to inflict heavy damage on the remnants of the Louchuan Army and occupy Zhongli City, so that the Right Shenwu Army could be anchored to the west bank of Hongzepu with the main force of the Naval Division, relying on each other on land and water.

Seeing the rebels' soldiers and horses in Haozhou City rushing to Zhongli City to reinforce the past, Li Chong thought that the development of the situation was everything they expected, his expression was greatly lifted, and he said with great pride:

"Good! Let's go and cut off Zhao Mingting's head as a urinal. ”

He personally led more than 1,000 elite cavalry to sneak in from Mopanling the night before, and entered the northern foot of Cangwugang in the southeast of Haozhou City last night, and was responsible for intercepting the reinforcements from Zhongli City.

Even if you can't be in the field

Outside the heavy damage or annihilation of the enemy reinforcements, he also has to use the mobility advantage of the cavalry to delay the enemy reinforcements, and wait for Chen Mingsheng and Gao Long to lead the main force of the Right Shenwu Army and the Mabu Army to rush over from Mopanling to encircle and annihilate, and then take advantage of the situation to besiege Zhongli City.

Li Chong ordered to light the wolf smoke piled up in the mountains, send a message in the direction of Mopanling, gather the cavalry hidden in the pine forest, trample on the mud road in the field, and gallop to the north.

The cavalry was superior to the foot soldiers in the shallow hills, low ridges and fields, and they could pass quickly even if there were no roads, and it only took them more than an hour to intercept more than 2,000 enemy reinforcements galloping out of Haozhou City.

…………

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The rising sun on the treetops, looking up, was so gentle in the mist that it was not dazzling.

A few points of wolf smoke lit one after another in the direction of Cangwugang are more than 30 miles away from Haozhou City.

Wen Duqiao and Niu Gengru, standing on the city wall of Haozhou, were blocked by the mist, so they naturally couldn't see the wolf smoke lit up by Cangwugang, but after they heard the news from the horses, they vaguely seemed to be able to hear the sound of the war horses galloping on the ground.

"Do you really want to abandon the two thousand men and horses who just left the city and not save them?" Niu Gengru asked Wen Duqiao with difficulty.

"If you keep making decisions, you will suffer from it, and Shouzhou has no qualifications to hesitate." Wen Dusk opened his old cloudy eyes and looked at the white mist rolling on the surface of the moat outside the city walls.

"......" Niu Gengru sighed.

At this point, they have two options.

The first choice is that the elite cavalry of the 20,000 Shouzhou Army, which has been assembled on the southwestern edge of Haozhou, is now pouring eastward and completely annihilating the main force of the Youshenwu Army that was lured to the north of the Wujian Mountains.

This can not only force Li Zhihe to lead the elite of the Chu army such as the Left and Right Wuwei Army and the Zuo Longque Army to break the siege from Chaozhou City, but also protect Chaozhou City and the defenders inside, and also take advantage of the situation to recover Chuzhou City and block the passage for the remnants of the imperial court sailors to flee south.

At this point, there is no need for the elite main forces of the Liang army gathered in Yingzhou and Xuzhou to go south, and Shouzhou can almost maintain its independent status without completely throwing itself into the arms of Liang State.

However, even if they severely damaged the main force of the imperial court's naval division and the main force of the Right Shenwu Army, for the Great Chu Imperial Court, such a setback would only take three or five years to recover; What's more, they will also completely anger Liang Jun.

Wait until the next time, how will they face the surging court soldiers and horses?

The second choice was to abandon the 2,000 miscellaneous soldiers who had already left the city, and called idiots like Yang Yuanpu and Changguo Gong Li Pu to believe that even if the main force of the sailors was ambushed in Hongzepu and suffered heavy losses, it would not prevent them from having enough time to capture Chaozhou City.

Drag the left and right armed guards and the Zuo Longque Army under the command of Li Zhihe, Guo Liang, Zhou Yi and others under Chaozhou, even if the Chaozhou defenders are completely wiped out, as long as they wait until the elite cavalry of the Liang Army crosses the Huai River, they will go south with the main force of the Shouzhou Army, and they can almost destroy the military power of the imperial court in Huaixi in one fell swoop.

After that, the Liang army was able to capture Jingxiang and Huaidong.

Of course, if this is done, it is said whether Wen Bo can hold Chaozhou City and survive, and the Shouzhou army and them can only completely throw themselves into the Liang State, and it is impossible to maintain their independence again.

In fact, there is no need for Wen Duqiao to remind him, Niu Gengru also knows in his heart that they only have a second way to choose, but he is a little unwilling in his heart......

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