Anfeng Village is about 140 miles away from Chaozhou City in the west, and the river channel of Nanqishui turns a big bend in Chaoxi Plain, making the waterway distance from Anfeng Village to Chaozhou City as long as 200 miles.

Although this led to the divergent routes interspersed with the attacking troops and horses, with the river channel of Nanqishui as the center, and detoured for sixty or seventy miles, the Shouzhou army could not see through the intentions of this side, and the defense line along the line was hurriedly mobilized, but before gathering enough soldiers and horses, who would dare to collide with the Tangyi soldiers?

Therefore, in addition to this, the soldiers and horses from all walks of life were interspersed with the periphery of Anfeng Village, but they did not encounter any twists and turns.

It's just a raid operation, and it's just starting at this time.

In the early and later years, in addition to the reign of Emperor Tianyou in Huainan, there were three Huainan Jiedu envoys before him, all of whom were committed to digging the Anfeng Canal to communicate the north and south of the river and strengthen the waterway connection between the Jianghuai River.

After the Anfeng Canal was dug through, the follow-up north to Shouzhou, west to Huozhou, Gwangju new post road, also passed through Anfeng Village, Anfeng Village as the most important water and land transportation point in Chaoxi area, in Gaocheng County more prominent than the county seat more than 20 miles away in the west.

Decades of development, there have been tens of thousands of people living here, the town is much more prosperous than the general county seat, and the periphery of the town, the ditch is vertical and horizontal, the fields are staggered, and there are large and small villages.

On the south bank of the Nanqishui River, there is a stone ridge of more than ten zhang, which is currently controlled by a cavalry team of Tangyi.

Han Qian took Wang Jun's hand, climbed the stone ridge, and saw that the mountain ridge was three or four miles long, as if the natural barrier on the south side of Anfeng Village, the frozen Nanqishui River was under the cliff of the stone ridge, and looked to the northwest, two or three miles away from the same low ridge extending to the north, as if the gateway to the west of Anfeng Village, and the Anfeng Canal was excavated at the foot of the east foot of the mountain range.

Han Qian did not look at the gathering of soldiers and horses in the north, nor did he look at the enemy troops in Anfeng Village from a high position, but looked to the southwest.

It has been more than an hour since dawn, and the mist has not yet dispersed, and the blue-black peaks and ridges are looming in the mist, which are much more majestic than the cliffs and low ridges here.

In the depths of the peaks and ridges, it is the Huaiyang Mountain, which cuts off Jingxiang and Huainan, is the watershed of the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River, and is thousands of miles longitudinal and horizontal, and it is also the famous Dabie Mountain in later generations.

Including Tongbai Mountain, Huaiyang Mountain seems to be a huge arc between heaven and earth, its northern slope borders Gwangju and Huozhou, the western slope borders Dengzhou, the southwest slope borders Suizhou, Huangzhou, the southern slope borders Shuzhou, and the eastern slope borders Chaozhou.

Huaiyang Mountain can be said to be the heroes of the conquest of Jianghuai, a majestic mountain that no one can avoid.

"In a certain sense, the strategic value of Anfeng Village is much more important than Huozhou City, especially for us; In addition to the planting area of hundreds of miles to the west, north and east, the Huaiyang Mountains in the south are also lined with villages."

Han Qian put the horsewhip in front of him and said to Wang Jun, who was riding the horse side by side,

"It is precisely because of the continuous wars in the Jianghuai region for hundreds of years, and the brutal exploitation under the fierce wars, that countless households have fled to the Huaiyang Mountains for thousands of miles to struggle for survival. Before the Jinling Incident, the statistics of the five states of Huaixi Chaochuguang Huoshou were only more than 800,000, after the Jinling Incident, more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians were engulfed by the Anning Palace to cross the river and retreat into Huaixi, making the total population of Huaixi barely exceed one million, but not counting the mountainous areas in Suizhou, Huangzhou and Shuzhou in the south, only the northern slope and east slope of Huaiyang Mountain, how many fugitive mountain people were hidden, and there was no accurate statistics in the more than 20 years since the founding of the Great Chu. Some people estimate that there are tens of thousands, some people estimate two or three hundred thousand, and some people even say that there are four or five hundred thousand mountain people hidden in the mountains under the jurisdiction of Chao and Huo Prefectures alone. However, it will soon be clear how many households are hidden everywhere in the mountainous areas of Chaoxi and Huonan......"

Han Qian was wearing a scarlet coat outside the armor to keep out the cold, and his figure looked burly, Wang Jun just tied a collar of not so eye-catching fur on his jacket and stood beside Han Qian.

Riding a horse with the army for three days in a row, even if she was well cared for, it was extremely hard, but at this moment she was radiant, her snow-white face lacked the luster of porcelain, and her beautiful eyes revealed a clear brilliance, giving people no sense that she was the slightest tired.

Although the main force of troops and horses interspersed by different routes was assembling on the north bank of Nanqishui to make the final preparations for the attack on Yongfeng Village, which was only defended by six or seven hundred Shouzhou soldiers, her mind was the same as Han Qian, and she still cast her vision to the depths of the peaks and mountains in the southwest.

She didn't know how much of a stir Tang Yibing's change would cause, but it was obvious that there would not be a few people in the world who could really see Han Qian's intentions; And the few people who are not in Huaixi should not be in Huaixi at this time.

Yes, Anfengzhai is a key point for them to attack in this raid, but Han Qian organized soldiers and horses, interspersed from the enemy's Chaozhou defense line, and attacked Anfengzhai, not to covet the materials hoarded by the Shouzhou army here, nor to burn this prosperous town to ashes with a fire, and then destroy the dam and sluice of Anfeng Canal, cut off the most important waterway passage in Huaixi, and then wantonly destroy the agricultural production in the hinterland of Huaixi.

In other generals, in this raid operation, if they can successfully lead the raid troops and horses to withdraw after successfully realizing the above-mentioned combat intentions, they are all qualified to squeeze into the list of famous generals in the world, but Wang Jun knows in her heart that her husband will not be limited to this.

In the first battle of Xichuan, Han Qian became famous.

The world is watching the bloody battle of the Dragon Bird Army, the young man Shen Yi of the Three Princes, the whirlwind cannon shining brightly, and Han Qian's unpredictable and clever strategies, but there is a more important factor that the world rarely mentions or rarely sees through.

That is, in addition to directly providing nearly half of the soldiers for the defense of Xichuan City, the Shanzhai forces also controlled the vast mountains west of the Xichuan River, so that the Liang army failed to completely block the retreat of Xichuan City during the entire Jingxiang War, and even failed to effectively cut off the communication between Xichuan City and Jingzikou on the west wing.

After that, when the west flank of the Louchuan Army was not threatened, the naval division of the Lou Boat Army easily broke through the blockade of the Liang army, arrived at the foot of Xichuan City, and successfully rendezvoused with the Longque Army to break the siege of the Liang army for several months.

Later, the cottage forces provided more than half of the soldiers and households in the re-established Junzhou.

The formation of cottage forces is the remnants of the displaced army who hid in the empty mountains and old forests during the war, and the ordinary civilians who fled the war and moved from the plains to the mountains to struggle to survive.

Only by deeply analyzing the deeper factors behind the first battle of Xichuan can we more clearly understand why Han Qian suddenly launched such a surprise offensive in this cold winter.

In the past 100 years, the land of Huaixi has experienced more wars than Jingxiang and Nanyang.

Even after the founding of the Great Chu, the Liang army had three large-scale invasions of Huaixi; Small-scale infestations do not last a year.

Since the Jinling Incident, especially Li Zhihe's command of the Huaixi Forbidden Army to cross the Yangtze River to the north, the war has lasted for nearly two years.

Although there are no remnants of the displaced army between the peaks and ridges on the northern and eastern slopes of Huaiyang Mountain, which makes the military strength of these mountainous areas to form villages to protect themselves, there are definitely not a few ordinary civilians who have escaped the war and moved into them.

In the past year, although it was impossible to make accurate statistics on the northern and eastern slopes of Huaiyang Mountain, which are adjacent to Chaozhou and Huozhou, and it was impossible to accurately estimate the specific scale of households in these mountainous areas, it also took great efforts to find out the bottom.

What is the real advantage of Tangyi?

Xuzhou, which Han Qian and his father Han Daoxun have been running for several years, can be said to be a standard mountain state.

During the Jinling Incident, Han Qian led the Chishan Army to move south, and once had the intention of operating Fuyu Mountain for a long time - after Maoshan was "captured", Wang Jun was by Han Qian's side for nearly a year, and this is all too clear.

Combined with these and then looking back at the significance of Yongfeng Village, it will be understood that Yongfeng Village is actually a deep gateway along the upper river valley of the north and south rivers into the northeast slope of Huaiyang Mountain.

Different from the Wujian Mountain Range, which is only forty or fifty zhang at the highest peak, the northeast section of Huaiyang Mountain, hundreds of peaks are three or four hundred zhang upward, the terrain is extremely steep, some streams and rivers that source out of Huaiyang Mountain, especially like the main main streams such as the north and south rivers, the river valley and river beach with relatively gentle topography are actually the main passages that go deep into the hinterland of the Huaiyang Mountains.

On the one hand, under the auspices of Tian Cheng, Feng Xuan and others, they were quickly gathering troops and horses on the north bank of the Nanqishui River to make the final preparations before the attack, and on the other hand, Xi Fa'er had already led more than 100 scouts to enter the Jiangjunling Ridge for preliminary reconnaissance along the valley of the Nanqishui River.

In the proposed battle plan, the situation of not being able to successfully capture Yongfeng Village was also considered.

However, the backup plan is not to withdraw from the original road, nor to enter Wujian Mountain to the east, but to enter the northeast slope of Huaiyang Mountain to the southwest, and then rely on the eastern section of Huaiyang Mountain to extend more than 500 miles from northwest to southeast and take root in the vast mountainous area with a depth of 300 miles.

This was Han Qian's fundamental intention to launch this surprise attack by taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Liang army were gathered on the north bank of the Yellow River and the Shouzhou army could not launch a large-scale offensive on the southern front alone.

One of the most fundamental points is that the main force of the Liang army cannot be transferred to the southern front within half a year to a year.

This main force, in addition to the elite soldiers and horses of the Liang army, and more importantly, the combat materials in the territory of the Liang State, in a short period of time, can only support the northern front, and cannot be inclined to the southern front.

Otherwise, Tangyi would have sent an elite army of soldiers and horses deep into Huaiyang Mountain at this time, but the Liang army and the Shouzhou army would be able to gather a large army and attack the Chuhe River and Fucha Mountain defense lines regardless of casualties, which may lead to a complete collapse of Tangyi.

Of course, the move of the Wuwei Army from the southwest of Huaiyang Mountain to Suizhou, forcing the Shouzhou Army to mobilize nearly 20,000 elites from the Chaozhou front line and transfer to the western part of Huozhou, is also a necessary prerequisite for the formation of this surprise operation.

Otherwise, the Shouzhou Army had 70,000 defenders on the southern front, and Han Qian did not dare to easily intersperse them.

A few horses rode quickly across the ice to the south bank of the riverbank.

Guo used both hands and feet, quickly climbed up the cliff, walked up to Han Qian with some breath, and said: "There are three thousand enemy horsemen, going south along the Beishui River, it seems that Xu Mingzhen personally led it, and after meeting with more than 2,000 foot soldiers killed in Gaocheng, there is no sign of stopping to prepare the formation, as if to take advantage ......of the unstable foothold of our army, and kill along the Anfeng Canal in one go."

Guo was quite excited, and the reinforcements around the point were what they were looking forward to the most.

"They wanted to fight, so they fought with them, and ordered Han Donghu to shrink the cavalry back from the western flank, not to intercept it, let the enemy's main force come over, and retreat to the south bank of the Nanqishui River; You first go to rendezvous with Tiancheng, adjust your deployment and prepare to meet the enemy on the northwest or north side of Yongfeng Village! I rushed over there. Han Qian said with a slight smile.

Gao Shao, Feng Yi and others stayed on the southern front, but half of the military attachés of the Military Intelligence Staff Department went out with the army to draw up specific combat plans, and there was no need for Han Qian to interfere too much.

Guo Ke rode his horse to join Tiancheng first, Han Qian glanced at the peaks and ridges in the southwest, and said to Wang Jun: "Let's go back too." If all goes well, maybe we'll be able to get a good night's sleep tonight. ”

"Xu Mingzhen personally led the reinforcements to kill non-stop, he realized the importance of Anfeng Village, but obviously still didn't expect that we could use the river ice to quickly transport weapons - he wanted to take advantage of our unstable foothold and hit us hard." Wang Jun said with emotion.

The scale of the Tangyi cavalry is far inferior to that of the Shouzhou army, and the most important thing to solve behind the enemy is the problem of supplies and the transportation of heavy weapons, which directly determines the ability of the raiding soldiers and horses to stay and attack the enemy territory.

Otherwise, even if the defenders of Anfengzhai only had six or seven hundred people, and there was only a rammed earth parapet wall less than three feet thick on the periphery, if there were no siege weapons, if they wanted to storm it, the casualties would be quite heavy.

Not to mention that I want to hold Anfeng Village in the later stage.

Of course, the enemy troops reinforced from Shouzhou in the north and Huozhou in the west, under the personal leadership of Xu Mingzhen, thought of taking advantage of the unstable foothold here to attack quickly, and they should not have seen through Han Qian's fundamental intention of launching this surprise attack at all.

They didn't expect that the Tangyi soldiers would defend Anfeng Village, so they would only think that after the Tangyi soldiers captured Anfeng Village, they would destroy the sluices, weirs, canals and other water conservancy facilities in the town and nearby as soon as possible, and then move quickly.

It is located in the junction area between the upper and middle reaches of the north and south rivers, and the terrain is high, and there must be weir sluices on both sides of the Yongfeng Canal to ensure that the canal maintains a stable water storage for boats to pass through.

It was not that there was no capacity to build a weir and a lock.

Not to mention Xuzhou, there are several weir locks built on the ditch, the core waterway that communicates with the Yangtze River and Huai River, so that the water level in the ditch can be controlled according to the rise and fall of the tide of the Yangtze River and the Huai River.

It is not that when the outer river is at high tide, the sluice gate is opened to accept water, and the sluice gate is closed at low tide to maintain the water level inside the ditch.

If the boat wants to enter and exit the ditch, it must pass through the lock.

In the early stage, in order to solve the problem of slow efficiency of grain ships passing through the locks, the sectional transportation method was adopted, that is, a storage warehouse was established at the weir dam sluice, so that the grain ships in various places were responsible for a certain section of transportation, that is, they arrived at the dam sluice, and the grain was unloaded into the granary and handed over to the fleet in the next section of the river to be responsible, so as to save manpower and material resources and increase the scale of grain transported to Luoyang and Chang'an every year.

However, even the construction of weir locks in a very small river is definitely a large-scale project in the world, and once it is damaged, it may take three or five years to repair it.

The dependence on the Anfeng Canal for the transportation of materials between Chaozhou and Shouzhou is not particularly serious, but after the Anfeng Zhai Weir Dam lock was destroyed, the Shouzhou Navy could not freely enter and exit the Huai River and the Yangtze River.

Xu Mingzhen and the generals of Shouzhou, if they believed that the core goal of the Tangyi soldiers' rebellion was to destroy the weir and sluice gates of Anfeng Village, they would not dare to delay without fighting.

Moreover, the two banks of the north and south rivers were the key reclamation areas of the Shouzhou army, and Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang attacked Huaidong last year and focused on destroying river embankments and dams and other facilities, resulting in the monstrous floods in Huaidong this year in Chu, Yang, and Taizhou, and they would not have forgotten it so quickly.

If it weren't for the worries, after two or three days, they would be able to gather thousands of more soldiers and horses, and the situation would be more favorable to them, and even if Anfengzhai was temporarily lost at that time, in their opinion, they should be sure to recapture Anfengzhai calmly.

…………

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The Nanqishui River flows from the southwest, passing through a cliff - the cliff on the south side is the mountain ridge that Han Qian climbed with Wang Jun after arriving at Anfeng Village - when Huainan Jiedu envoy was in front of the court, he dug a canal on the east side of the cliff on the north side, and diverted water to the north to connect with Beiqishui.

This cliff is not high, but the terrain is quite dangerous, which means that the enemy cannot calmly enter Anfeng Village from the south or west side to meet the defenders.

The northeast of Anfeng Village, which is also the east of Anfeng Canal and the north of Nanshui River, is relatively flat, but it has been occupied by the assembled Tangyi soldiers at this time.

In the further north, there are three small hills that are about a few zhang or a dozen zhang uplifted, and at this time, the Tangyi soldiers who came a day in advance set up a simple camp on behalf of Mu; This can also be said to be the outer defense line interception position established to cover the main force attacking Anfeng Village.

When Guo made the initial report, 3,000 enemy cavalry came from the direction of Shouzhou along the north and south of the river, and 2,000 foot soldiers from Gaocheng, but in the afternoon, when the enemy army came from the northwest along both sides of the Anfeng Canal, it was confirmed that there were still thousands of enemy cavalry from the direction of Huozhou at about the same time.

"Xu Mingzhen hasn't figured out whether this is a big counteroffensive that the imperial court has been planning for a long time, so he directly transferred cavalry from the west wing, it seems that he still attaches great importance to us!" Han Qian held a bronze telescope and observed the deployment of enemy troops on the west bank of Anfeng Canal.

Obviously, the enemy was worried that they would do something on the river ice, and the decent small group of cavalry repeatedly interspersed on both sides of the Anfeng Canal, but its outpost position had already been built to the east bank of the Anfeng Canal, and the two armies were so close to each other that a single attack could throw spears into the opponent's array.

"With the enemy's reinforcement and the defenders in Anfeng Village, the total number of troops they have gathered here has exceeded 7,000 people, and in any way, they have an absolute advantage in terms of strength. And in three days, we will go to Anfeng Village by different roads, in such a cold weather, rushing and camping in the enemy-controlled area, the physical consumption is very great, I believe that no matter how brave Xu Mingzhen is, he should attack directly," Tian Cheng said with emotion, "This is more than our night battle into the west bank of Anfeng Canal, it will save some trouble-night battle still depends on God's face,"

They will not ask the Shouzhou army to delay any longer, before dusk, the main force of the Shouzhou army on the west bank of Anfeng Canal will not be killed, and they will launch an offensive first.

The conditions for night battles are more harsh, only on a clear night, the vision is slightly better, and the Tangyi soldiers can have more advantages.

"Looking at their deployment, it is estimated that they still want to attack our center and left road in one go, and first seek to open up contact with Anfeng Village," Feng Xuan sat on the back of a tall horse, and they scattered hundreds of coals on their side, and it seemed that the generals were hurrying up to cook food and drink, so that they had the physical strength to fight, but in fact, they were in the cold air, creating a cloud of fog and vapor to block the enemy's sight, but they were not hindered by the enemy formation in the edge area, "The Chu Jiajun who climbed the south side of the hill surrounded by more than a dozen people should be Xu Mingzhenben." ”

"Xu Mingzhen can be as famous as Li Yu, Du Chongtao and others, but I don't know if he has anything outstanding this time to scare us......" Han Qian said with a smile.

"The husband adheres to the legacy of the ancestors, but Xu Mingzhen regards the husband as a traitor, and if there is such a big deviation in looking at people, no matter how good it is, it will be difficult to promote its strengths." Wang Jun said.

She tightened her robe to keep out the cold wind.

The big war was approaching, and there was an inexplicable emotion surging in her chest, both expecting and not expecting, and she couldn't help but lean a little closer to Han Qian's side.

Surrounded by generals and guards, Xu Mingzhen stood solemnly in front of a nunnery called Meishan Nunnery on the north cliff.

In the north of Anfeng Village, the 3,000 horse infantry of the Tangyi Army had dismounted and formed a formation in six places, but because the Tangyi Army was making a fire and cooking, a cloud of white mist was churning in the shallow valley north of Anfeng Village, so that they could not see the more detailed situation clearly.

The Tangyi soldiers had nearly 2,000 cavalry scattered on both flanks, and the formation appeared to be decent.

Of course, the messenger who sneaked out of Anfeng Village, the two battalions of Tangyi soldiers gathered in front of the village, are still preparing to attack the village, and have cut down several giant trees to make a simple siege vehicle.

It can be seen that if their side does not launch an attack and delays until the night, the Tangyi soldiers are very likely to attack Anfeng Village overnight.

Xu Mingzhen looked up at the sky, there were no clouds, and the wind was as cold as a knife.

The Tangyi soldiers, or the Chishan Army before, have stronger night combat capabilities than other elites in the world, which is directly related to the larger and more mature group of military attaches in the Tangyi army, and it is useless for Xu Mingzhen to envy them.

Because the Tangyi soldiers were divided into eight or nine roads from the Chaozhou defense line, for a period of time, the northern area of Chaozhou was controlled by the Tangyi soldiers, and the scouts of the Shouzhou army could not get through.

Therefore, except for the initial messenger sent by Chaozhou to report the news, they have been for a day and a half, and they don't know the specific situation of the southern line, which makes Xu Mingzhen worried.

Without enough information, no matter how famous he is, he is blind; And he suspected that Han Qian, the Marquis of Qianyang, was very likely to be in the military array opposite.

With such a large-scale raid, it was hard to imagine that Han Qian could really stay in Liyang City and enter the cave room with peace of mind, but unfortunately, there was still no way to verify this speculation.

Several counselors and generals of the military and various ministries have already discussed a specific battle plan, and the soldiers and horses that have advanced in the early stage are also arranged along both sides of the Anfeng Canal according to this plan.

Traditionally, the infantry army is used for attacking, and the cavalry covering the flanks is the orthodox way of playing, but their first batch of reinforcements and horses are mainly cavalry, and they have to inflict heavy losses on the Tangyi soldiers in the shortest possible time, so they can only adjust their tactics.

Many people advocated that the main force of the cavalry should be gathered to the front, and the impact of the cavalry formation should be used to cut through the defense line of the left infantry on the left side of the Tangyi soldiers approaching Anfeng Village as quickly as possible; At the same time, 2,000 foot soldiers and a small number of cavalry were arranged on both flanks to prevent the counterattack of Tangyi soldiers.

Of course, they also knew that even if the Tangyi soldiers did not carry heavy weapons and heavy chariots, the number of strong crossbows equipped in the army was extremely large, and the range of these strong crossbows was about 120 paces, and even slightly stronger than ordinary infantry bows.

As the main force of the attack, the three-way cavalry approached the past in a zigzag shape, and everyone also advocated placing a limited number of more than 200 armored cavalry at the front of the cavalry array, so that the crossbow array in front of the Tangyi soldiers could be defeated with fewer casualties and faster speed.

At this time, the defenders of Anfeng Village came out to attack, even if they could not defeat the Tangyi soldiers in one fell swoop, they could force them away from the front of Anfeng Village.

"Let's fight!" Xu Mingzhen waved his hand and ordered the generals to prepare to lead their troops to attack, but he still couldn't take the risk of Anfengzhai falling.

Even if Anfeng Village falls into the hands of the enemy for one day, the dam and sluice may be destroyed; The follow-up reinforcements need to be delayed until the day after tomorrow at the earliest, which also means that after the Tangyi soldiers stormed Anfeng Village overnight, there is still a chance to withdraw calmly.

I don't know what the situation is on the southern front, Si Zhao didn't send elite soldiers and horses to chase after him, and Shou and Huo didn't expect that Tangyi soldiers would dare to be so bold and interspersed, and the standing elite who could be mobilized was limited, and even a large number of war horses were free-range to various tunzhai to prevent and control horse plague and save the consumption of winter horse materials.

Coupled with such a cold weather, the assembly and mobilization of generals and horses between the various defense villages, tunzhai villages, and cities are really too slow.

Xu Mingzhen doesn't want to be able to hit the Tangyi soldiers hard, as long as the security Fengzhai is not lost, or the passage into Anfengzhai to join the defenders is opened, there will be a lot of opportunities in the follow-up to eat this bold raid soldier and horse in one bite......