The torrential rain poured down, not only drenching the ground into mud but also breaking Chen Shujian's heart, and the commander of the Chen army, who was sitting in Xisai Mountain, was now sad when he looked at the emergency report that had just been delivered.

The Sui army attacked the Jinzhou in Jiangbei and burned the grain and grass cleanly, which not only burned the ambition of the official army to recover Jinzhou, but also put the main force of the official army in Yongxing in a dilemma.

When there is no food and grass, the army can only be withdrawn, but the Sui army is in front of it, but it is not so easy to go, retreating in front of the enemy has always been a difficult thing, if it is not handled well, then the retreat will become a rout, and finally evolve into a fiasco.

He couldn't say how the officers and troops on the Yongxing side retreated, and thinking too much was only adding to his troubles, but there was another thing that he had a headache about: what to do with the officers and troops under Qichang City.

This army was to cover the flank of the recovering Jinju official army, and now there was no need to stay there, so how to safely withdraw in front of the Zhou army became his trouble.

The plan at the beginning was perfect, send troops to attack Qichang in Qizhou, Zhou, Jiangbei, and nail it there if you can't take it, first of all, you can mobilize the troops on the Bazhou side on the west side to put out the fire, so that the soldiers and horses sent by Wuchang and Xisai in Jiangnan can besiege Yanji, which is to attack the east and the west.

Secondly, the official army nailed to Qichang was able to restrain the Zhou army so that it had no time to look eastward, so as to ensure that the flank of the main force recovering Jinzhou would not be disturbed, and the originally good plan was reversed due to the attack on Xincai.

The official army under the city of Yongxing and Qichang is in a dilemma, once the improper handling leads to a big defeat, it is a devastating blow to the morale of the official army, and the offensive of the northward advance for two consecutive years has been disintegrated, and now if the northward advance in the third year is defeated again, the consequences are serious, and the official family will most likely not send troops to the north in the future.

Chen Shujian had a headache when he thought of his brother who had just been on the throne for less than a year, this great Chen Tianzi knew that he was drinking and having fun all his days, or chanting poems and banquets with his favorite concubines, and he was not interested in state affairs at all, and the last wishes of the previous emperors to regain their homeland in the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains did not seem to be taken to heart.

Chen Shujian looked at the drifting rain outside the window, and reluctantly put down the emergency report, once the rain in the south of the Yangtze River came down, it was not easy to stop, the roads were muddy, the river water was surging, the lakes and ponds were overflowing, and even the warships were inconvenient to drive on the river during the heavy rain, so that the actions of both the enemy and us had to stop.

How the officers and troops under Qichang City retreated can only wait until the rain stops, anyway, he has sent orders several times to let the leading generals be cautious, whether they can do it is the other party's business, as long as the main warships of the naval army stationed in Xisai Mountain are still intact, then the situation will not be bad.

The only thing that people can't let go of is Yanji, the only stronghold of the Zhou army in the south of the Yangtze River is very tenacious, and it stands tall under the constant siege of its own army, and it has been attacking the officers and soldiers for several days with heavy casualties, but they still have not been able to break through the Zhou army camp.

A sense of powerlessness came to his heart, and Chen Shujian felt that leading troops to fight was really a headache, that is, the imperial court needed the clan vassal king to be the overseer, and he didn't want to take on this kind of drudgery if he had to choose, so how good it would be to hand over the war to the generals who could fight.

"Pass the order down, and continue to attack Yanji after the rain stops......

Yanji, the Zhou military camp in the rainstorm.

The state soldiers are walking on the muddy ground to patrol the defensive area of the team, he wears a hat, a coat, a trouser leg, a straw sandal, a dress in the rain, the Chen army besieged Yanji for several days, because the arrival of the rainstorm finally stopped and the Zhou army guarding the village could breathe.

The Chen army attacked day and night, and the defenders defended day and night, and the state soldiers finally saw what it means to be a big scene, such as a tide of soldiers, dense siege equipment, and 'stones like flying locusts' and 'arrows like rain'.

Quan You cautiously walked up to the wall of the village and looked outside the wall, only to see that the open space where the corpses were originally strewn everywhere had now turned into a pool of water, and the corpses of many Chen soldiers who had died in battle were soaked in the water and oozing a trace of scarlet.

A number of ponds outside the camp have been filled in by Chen Jundan's soil, if it is sunny, there is no problem, but once soaked by rainwater, it will turn into a mire, the original scattered on it pointed wooden donkeys, ladders and other siege equipment remains have been mostly submerged into the mire, and most of the boulders thrown by their own catapults have also fallen into the mud.

"Ah, it doesn't matter if these catapults are raining, right?" Liang Ding asked on the side, as a young man and a comrade, the two have a close relationship, and now they are also stationed together in Yanji Village.

"It shouldn't matter, Chen Tongjun said that these big guys are not afraid of rain." Quan You turned to look at the catapults towering in the village, these catapults are full of power without being pulled, and it is thanks to these ordnance that many people can save a lot of manpower, otherwise not many people can survive a day just by pulling the rope and firing the cannon.

"This thing is really powerful, it doesn't need to be pulled by people, but it is much more powerful than a cannon truck pulled by dozens of people." Liang Ding sincerely admired that his catapult was protected by a wall in the camp, although he couldn't see the scene outside, but with the command of the lookout on the wall, he still pointed where to fight.

"It doesn't matter if the iron on it is rusty, after a few days of war, the rust will be gone." Quan You added that this was the 'secret' he had newly heard, "This thing is firm, and when the sky clears, Chen Jun will be dead if he dares to come again." ”

The stones on the ground in the camp are piled up, these are continuously transported from Jiangbei, thanks to the trestle bridge built at Yanji to allow the warship to dock, not only the stones but also the arrows are continuously transported from Xiyang City.

This kind of catapult is a good thing, in order to protect the cannon during the battle, the cannon also pulls up the curtain in front of each catapult to resist the flying stones, the Chen Jun catapult in the wilderness outside the city is not so lucky, first, the cannon needs many people to pull the rope together, and the second is that the cannon is close to each other, even if a big shield is placed to shield it, it is useless, because the stones thrown out by their own side weigh dozens of pounds each.

A stone with a large shield and a catapult was smashed to pieces, and if you were lucky, it even hit the crowd with the rope cannon, and at least a dozen lives were killed in this fall.

There are also those ladders as long as they take a break to collapse, of course, the pointed wooden donkey is more leathery, but it is also half-crippled, and when you come to the wall, you have to throw stones and fall down, plus the arrows that can't be shot, everyone is full of confidence in sticking to Yanji.

Quan You and Liang Ding returned to the barracks after walking around the defensive area of the team, most of the barracks built in a hurry were built with bamboo and wooden planks, and they were stilt houses for the sake of preventing waterlogging in the rainy season.

Although it is a stilt house built with bamboo and wooden planks, it is very sturdy, of course, there are no problems, the creaking sound of walking on the floor is more prominent, but there is no light rain in the house outside of the rainstorm, and the soldiers lie on the couch and listen to the sound of the rain and fall asleep.

A stilt house can accommodate two stilt houses, a team of five stilt houses with soldiers' belongings and armor and weapons, Quan You and Liang Ding first inspected one of the stilt houses of their own team, and then moved to the second room next to check out.

The soldiers are lighting a fire to bake clothes, and the most annoying thing about the continuous rainy days is that the clothes are wet, and it is not impossible to wear them, but this time they are stationed in Yanji very thoughtfully, and they have prepared a lot of dry firewood in advance, which is to facilitate the soldiers to bake clothes and even bedding.

The stilt house is most afraid of fire, in order to prevent the besieging Chen Jun from setting fire to the house, the roof is covered with an extra layer of wet thatch, but if there is a fire in the house, fire prevention is also a very important thing, and it must be supervised by the chief himself.

"Is all the firewood enough?" Quan You asked, and the chief who was supervising the soldiers' baking clothes got up and replied when he heard this, he said that the new batch of firewood had just been distributed to each of them, and Quan Youyan nodded and looked at the soldiers' bedding, and made sure that there were no traces of dampness and turned around and walked to the next stilt room.

"Where's the bow?" Quan You asked, and a soldier led him to the first large wooden box in the corner, and carefully opened the lid, revealing a neatly arranged bow inside, which the soldier immediately closed when he saw Quan You.

"A hundred people in the whole team can rest assured, these bows will definitely be fine in the drying oven, Yang Sima has demonstrated it before."

"Isn't that right?"

"Take a few of my heads if you have one less!"

The maintenance of the bow and arrow in rainy days is a big problem, the bow body and bowstring are most afraid of moisture, especially in the south of the Yangtze River, so moisture-proof is very important, if it is rainy, it is not impossible to forcibly pull the bow but after the bow will be costly, so under normal circumstances, rainy days are not fighting.

In order to maintain the bow body and the bowstring, the state government made many moisture-proof drying ovens, distributed to each team to let them keep the bow properly, of course, from time to time there will be a random inspection, if it is found that the storage is not appropriate, the whole team will be punished.

"What about the arrows? Where" Before he finished speaking, he saw a bundle of feather arrows in the corner, he stepped forward and pulled out a few arrows to check, the soldier smiled and said that there was no problem, when they received the arrows, they had checked too much, and they could rest assured.

"There can't be a mistake, our state soldiers rely on bows and arrows to kill the enemy, if the bow is weak and the arrow is bent, it won't work."

"You can rest assured that the whole team has shot more arrows in the past few days than in last year!" The soldier rubbed his shoulders and said, "It's good that I can rest and rest in the rain these days, otherwise I would have almost been able to lift my hands by pulling my bow and firing arrows all day." ”

"What, you want to go back?"

"Where, if we are not injured, what will we do when we go back." The soldier said with a smile, the comrades who were wounded and lost their combat effectiveness were all taken back to Jiangbei by boat to recuperate, although they could avoid the war and save their lives when they went back, but the state soldiers all wanted to stay in Yanji to kill the enemy.

If nothing else, it's the words 'meritorious service and reward'!

It is said that next year it will be possible to prevent floods and reclaim twice as many fields, and the state government has released news that soldiers who have made military merits can divide the fields, although the newly cultivated fields will take several years or even more than ten years to become mature fields, but this is already a great temptation for soldiers.

For the common people, everything else is nothing, only the fields are real, and seeing that the opportunity is in front of them, where will someone give up easily, but looking at the meaning of this rainstorm without stopping, the soldiers also have some doubts.

"Whole team, it looks like the Santai River is going to be flooded, do you think the newly built embankment on the south bank can hold it?" (To be continued.) )