The sky is deep blue, the sea water is like indigo, and there is a glimmer of white light where the sea and the sky meet. While the continent is still boundless and deep, the southeast corner of the island has ushered in the dawn.

On the mudflats reflecting the scales of light, the voices of people are boiling, and the fire is dotted. Groups of soldiers and auxiliaries carrying torches carrying their own equipment, some pushing vehicles to drive cattle, horses, mules and sheep, walked down the long pallets at the side of the ship, stepped into the knee-deep shallow sea, stepped on the waves, and stepped step by step on the muddy tidal flats.

This is a tidal flat more than ten miles away from Wanning, nearly ten miles away from Chilong Mountain, covered with large black reefs of high and low. In the past, it was a deserted beach, but now five large and small boats, hundreds of people, and vehicles and livestock have appeared, and the noise has boiled, dismembering the dead silence of the past.

After a day of careful investigation, the ships of the Great Song Longque Expeditionary Army finally chose a docking place and officially landed.

An hour before that, Shi Yang had already led the first team of the Broken Battalion to land, spread out for several miles, and used woods, reefs, and high slopes to build early warning defense points. Although it was judged that the Yuan army would not prevent the landing of the Dragon Bird Army, it was a matter of life and death for the first army, and Zhao Lie still relied on the method of the battle formation and strictly implemented it.

According to the military proposal, Jiang Fenglie and Ouyang Guanhou will lead the Baiyi Guard, the Zhongshun Team and the B Team of the Broken Battalion, plus some auxiliary soldiers, servants, and craftsmen, totaling more than 260 people, to form an assault battalion. They will bypass Chilong Mountain and Wanning County, abandon the enemy of Chilong Mountain, and go straight to Wan'an Military City, the base camp of the Yuan army.

Zhao Lie led the junior team, Shi Yang's Broken Battalion A team, and most of the craftsmen and auxiliaries left behind to guard the ships—or rather, to act as bait.

When the plan was proposed, everyone had no objection to the general strategy of attacking the Wan'an army and luring the enemy by staying behind, but Jiang Fenglie and Zhao Lie had a dispute over who led the large army to attack and who stayed behind.

Jiang Fenglie proposed that he lead the White Guards to stay behind to lure the enemy, and the rest of the troops followed Zhao Hunt to attack the Wan'an army. Zhao Lie resolutely disagreed, believing that in the absence of strong fortifications or fortified cities, it would be difficult to hold off the five or six hundred new annexed troops of Ma Fuji with only fifty or sixty flintlock guns, and support the large army to come back. In the end, Zhao Lie persuaded Jiang Fenglie and others with an irrefutable reason: "We divide our troops, for Ma Fuji, the most advantageous plan is to flank our attack force with the Wan'an army, but for us it is the opposite." So, how do you get Ma Fuji to do what we have and not his? It's not enough to have these ships and supplies as bait, it's not enough to have the temptation to cut off my back, but also to have a bigger and more attractive bait - that's me! ”

Zhao Lie repeatedly told Jiang Fenglie: "Shi Yi remember, Ma Fuji is not an idle person, it is not easy to lead him to the hook, if you want to attack the Wan'an Army, you must treat the attack as a real attack, don't play any tricks." Only in this way will it be possible to lure the snake out of the hole. As soon as the horse machine moves, I will send a messenger as fast as possible, and then you will leave one to contain the enemy army in Wan'an, and the rest will immediately leave the battlefield, return to the reinforcement at full speed, and join forces with me to attack the horse machine. If this battle is won, the Wan'an army will be defeated. ”

Jiang Fenglie glanced at Zhao Lie deeply, and nodded heavily: "Don't worry, you can save the end general." ”

Zhao Lie and Jiang Fenglie took a lot of thought to choose this landing site. It was a muddy tidal flat, which could have the effect of holding back enemy forces. To the southeast of the tidal flats is a large area of scattered reefs, which can be effectively shielded by moving ships here.

Zhao Hunt's plan to lure the enemy had an obvious flaw, that is, the remaining troops were insufficient, and it was difficult to evenly distribute them to the defense of each ship. The total number of the junior team and the first team of the battalion is only eighty or ninety, and if they are divided into ships, each ship will have less than 20 people, and the firepower is scattered, making it difficult to give full play to the advantage of dense firearms, and it is easy to break through each of the enemy. The best defense is to concentrate all on a single ship to form a dense firepower. However, if the forces are concentrated, the defense of the remaining four ships will be completely empty, and if the enemy attacks from the sea, it will be like a pack of dogs biting, and it is very dangerous to rely on a fully armed ship to cover it alone.

However, you can't increase too many troops, otherwise you will lose your original intention of luring the enemy - you have few troops, and people will only come when they see that they have a advantage to take advantage of; There are too many soldiers, and it is clear that they can't gnaw at it, who will give up their geographical advantage to do that stupid thing that is easy to defend and attack?

Once Ma Fuji launches an attack, there will be two ways: one is to raise the sails to attack from the sea, and the other is to gather troops to attack from the tidal flats. Zhao Lie hoped that the opponent would choose the latter, and only in this way could one warship be used to shield the other four ships. It's just how can you force the enemy to act according to his intentions?

Shi Yang, who was born in the navy, proposed a plan, which was to run all the ships aground. If Ma Fuji attacks from the sea, it will inevitably have to run aground, which is no different from attacking from the tidal flats, and it is also inconvenient. In the face of the enemy's stranded ships, he will not choose to attack from the sea.

Everyone praised the goodness, so they resolutely stranded all five ships on the tidal flats, and even if the tide was high, they could not take advantage of the situation to go to sea, and the determination of this move was no different from that of a shipwreck.

In addition to arranging most of his troops on the outermost ship wall, battle grid, cabin spear hole arrow hole and heavy building guardrail, Zhao Lie also selected the three tallest reefs on the tidal flat and arranged three defense points on them. It can be used as a flank support fire, and it can also effectively prevent the enemy from sneaking up on the weakly defended four ships from between the reefs.

While he was talking, several sentry spies suddenly rushed over, knelt down on one knee, raised their hands for the leader, and presented an object: "Report to the capital, we found this on the trunk of a tree at the intersection of seven miles away." ”

Zhao Lie took it, it was actually a painting, and when he unfolded it, it was six big characters dripping with ink: Zhao Mengbei died here!

The generals changed color, but Zhao Lie smiled: "I thought that the horse stroke machine could play any tricks, but it turned out to be just picking up people's teeth and wisdom, imitating the story of Sun Bin and Pang Juan's horse tomb." Okay, let's learn it too. Are you literate? The last sentence was to ask the sentinels.

The sentry detectives below the gang leader all bowed their heads in shame.

Zhao Lie waved his hand: "It's okay...... Zhang Junbao. ”

"Yes." Zhang Junbao, who was rolling up his trouser legs and carefully groping with Jueyuan to explore the terrain between a pile of slippery reefs, hurriedly responded, turned around and left, his movements were a little hurried, and he didn't slip under his feet, but fortunately Jueyuan didn't fall because he held it up.

Waiting for Zhang Junbao to run over with a puff of sand and slurry, Zhao Lie made a big cross on the word with a pen, changed a few words, rolled it up and stuffed it into Zhang Junbao's hand: "Go back to the place with them, engrave the words on the trunk of the tree, and come back as soon as you are done." ”

"Obey."

When the first rays of dawn hit the tidal flats, the figure of the last soldier of the assault battalion disappeared into the depths of the damp woods.

Zhao Lie and the soldiers left behind silently stared at the woods in front of them, maybe soon, a large number of armed soldiers would reappear in the woods, but they would no longer be friendly troops, but enemy troops.

Zhao Hunter used his hands and feet together, climbed a reef, and turned to face the rows of left-behind teenagers and soldiers on the tidal flats. The morning sun shone on his angular face, reflecting a deep outline, he took a deep breath of salty air and exhaled hard, and suddenly said in a loud voice: "We are going to face five times or even six or seven times the enemy, are you afraid?" ”

There was silence on the tidal flats, many of the soldiers had solemn faces, the knuckles of their guns were white, and many of the members of the junior clan were also pale, and there was unconcealed fear in their eyes—after all, they were still a group of brave and underage teenagers who had not experienced much battle.

Zhao Lie's eyes wandered, and he pressed the two guns on his waist, but he didn't pull them out, but said loudly: "Afraid? Well, like me, at least prove that we are all living - only the dead are not afraid. ”

The boy and the soldier let out a burst of laughter—strange to say, the laughter together loosened the heavy and oppressive atmosphere, and everyone had a feeling of breaking free from something.

Zhao Hunting pulled out his five-four pistol, the muzzle of the gun was facing the sky, and his tongue was full of thunder: "I don't want to give you useless anger, and I don't want to say any old-fashioned encouragement." You can be scared, you can tremble, you can even pee your pants! But don't forget to do one thing – pull the trigger! ”

Bang!

The sound of gunfire was crisp, piercing the dawn.