Yang Liu downstream, Changqing County, Liujia Village.

It is a small village near the Yellow River, and the people of the village mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

More than half a year ago, the county officials suddenly sent people to the village to recruit people, saying that the imperial army was confronting the Shatuo barbarians in the Yellow River, so they wanted to recruit a group of people to patrol the river to prevent the Shatuo people from suddenly crossing the river to attack.

Since the confrontation between Jin and Liang more than 20 years ago, these people have always regarded the Shatuo people as enemies; Now, although the rising state of Wu from the south has raised troops to eliminate the Great Liang, the Shatuo people are still enemies in the eyes of the locals: after all, in various legends, the Shatuo army is a foreign bandit who kills people without blinking, and in comparison, the southern Wu state is more popular.

Of course, the more important point is that those who apply for the recruitment can get a payment, which is distributed every ten days, although the money and food distributed each time is not much, but it is also a great gain for the people who have been devastated by the war, which naturally attracts a large number of people to apply for recruitment and act as the eyes and ears of the Wu army.

At this time, on the beach on the south bank of the Yellow River, a skinny teenager slowly walked towards the riverbank, wrapping his thin shirt tightly as he walked.

"It's hell to come and patrol in such a cold weather. It's been more than half a year, and those Shatuo people haven't even seen a shadow......" The young man complained in a low voice.

The court of Wu did not open a good hall, and spent money to recruit people to inspect the riverbank, in order to find the enemy at the first time when the Jin army crossed the river, and naturally would not let the people be lazy and happy, so that the opportunity was missed, so every county and even every village had people sent by the court to supervise it.

The young man was in charge of this morning's patrol, and when he came to the bank of the river in the cold wind and began to look across the river in a routine manner, he was shocked by the scene that appeared before his eyes.

"This—this is ......" The young man was dumbfounded, his face pale.

On the river ahead, a large number of boats were carrying groups of soldiers struggling to approach the riverbank, and the armor on the armor of those soldiers, the swords and spears in their hands, all reminded the young man that the legendary Shatuo people really appeared!

"The Shatuo people have crossed the river!"

After a few moments, the boy came to his senses, yelled, turned and ran back.

……

On the river, rushing to a warship at the forefront, Li Cunqiao, the king of Jin, looked at the young man who was running away like a frightened rabbit in the distance, and couldn't help frowning, and then stretched out again.

"It seems that it has been discovered, but it is normal, such a big movement, it is impossible to completely hide it from the Wu people; I just hope that the speed of the Wu people is not too fast. ”

As the master of the Jin Kingdom, the commander of hundreds of thousands of troops, and the most noble Jin king in the world, Li Cunmiao was supposed to cross the river by boat after the army crossed the river safely and seized a solid position. However, Li Cunmiao knew that the next battle would determine the national fortunes of Jin and Wu, and decide who was the master of the Central Plains; In such a crucial decisive battle, Li Cunmiao naturally had to take the lead and personally lead the army to cross the river as the vanguard to boost the morale of the whole army.

And his decision did work, even the king of Jin himself took the lead in crossing the river, and the other soldiers naturally did not hesitate, they followed one after another, and under the leadership of their king, they were ready to plunder the next victory.

The oars tumble in the water, bringing up splashes.

The opposite riverbank has become clearer and clearer, and Li Cunmiao's mood has begun to drift.

"Even if everything goes smoothly across the river, it will be difficult for our army to exceed 30,000 troops, and the enemy's army in Pingyin is said to have 70,000 or 80,000 troops.

"Our army in the city of Yunzhou has been besieged for more than half a year, and all news has been cut off for most of the year, what happened to the soldiers in the city? Can you hold out until our army breaks the siege? ”

"Yang Liu Nancheng's enemy army has deep ditches and barriers, tight defenses, and Zhou Ben, a famous general, if he gets the news that our army has crossed the river, what will he do?"

……

One question after another appeared in his mind, making Li Cunmiao feel uneasy.

And these are just the many problems about the current war, in fact, the problems faced by the Jin State are far more than these.

The historical Jin State was exhausted just by dealing with a Hou Liang, although with Li Cunmiao's genius play, the Hou Liang was finally eliminated in one fell swoop, but the weakness hidden behind the prosperity of the Jin State at that time is also an indisputable fact.

In the years after the elimination of the Later Liang, Li Cunmiao was even more carried away by the great military achievements, so that he was at ease and happy, wasted in political affairs, coupled with the contradiction that had been accumulated in the country for a long time, and finally died in the Xingjiaomen Change.

And now in this history, the rise of the Southern Wu State has brought more pressure to the Jin State, and the worries in Li Cunmiao's heart are naturally far greater than those in the original history.

Although his heart was full of worry, as a qualified commander, his face did not show any worry, but was full of infinite confidence, as if victory was in sight.

The soldiers around him were also infected by his self-confidence, and their faces were full of confidence.

"King, we have landed, it seems that the enemy army is not defending here; The last general is willing to lead his soldiers as strikers to open the way for the king. At this time, Li Shaorong, who had been following him, spoke.

Li Cunmiao retracted his thoughts, he turned his head and slowly looked at the many troops behind him, he saw the spears of Rulin, saw the perseverance on the faces of the soldiers, and saw the neighing war horses, at this moment, not only was his face full of confidence, but the worry in his heart disappeared instantly: with such a strong army, even if the enemy army is million, it may not be impossible to win in a battle!

"Okay, you lead a thousand men to open the way, and you must let the enemy see the strength of our army!" Li Cunmiao ordered loudly.

"All troops, ashore!"

……

With Li Cunmiao's order, tens of thousands of Jin troops began to climb the river bank in an orderly manner, while Li Shaorong led a thousand cavalry and began to drive inland.

More than an hour later, the first batch of more than 3,000 people had completed their landing; Then the large and small ships quickly returned to the north bank, ready to transport the next group of troops and their baggage horses across the river.

By the time it was dark, more than 10,000 men, their weapons, armor, and horses had been transported across the river; At this time, there was no sign of Wu Jun's appearance, that is, Li Shaorong's forwards rarely touched Wu Jun, as if Wu Jun was still ignorant of their arrival.

But Li Cunqiao knew that it was just because their crossing of the river came suddenly.

In other words, the Wu army did not plan to control the banks of the river separately at the beginning, but concentrated the army in Pingyin, Yangliu, Yunzhou and other places, and waited for the Jin army to cross the river before launching a counterattack.

And it will take time for Wu's navy to rush over, and the real test will not begin until Wu's navy arrives.

……

Outside Pingyin City, in the camp of the Wu army.

The chaotic and complicated movement of troops also made Yang Wu feel a little worried.

Perhaps because of his long-term stay here, even if various methods such as army rotation and increasing rewards were used to boost morale, Yang Wu found that there was still an inevitable trace of impatience in the army today, especially when the army did not arrive for a long time, and many generals even took the initiative to ask for battle.

And this time the rotation of the army has made these impatience even more unmistakable.

Since the rotation order was issued, it took only three days for the army in charge of the siege in Yangliu Nancheng to withdraw, but the army adjustment on the Pingyin side showed a trace of chaos, and three days have passed, but the matter of rotation has not been straightened out, and the subsequent troops from the south have not been able to arrive in time for various reasons.

Of course, there may be some confusion, but it doesn't necessarily matter how serious it is, at most it will take a little time to adjust.

What really worries Yang Wu is that if the Jin army still does not move like a mountain and continues to confront each other, the morale of the Wu army will be completely consumed; In that case, he might have to give the order for a forcible siege.

In addition to morale, another concern for him is finances.

The war dragged on for many years, which was not only a heavy burden for the Jin State, but also for the Wu State.

After all, the military system of the Wu State and the Jin State are still different.

The soldiers of the Jin army were usually poorly paid, so the soldiers had to fight the battlefield in order to make a living, in exchange for rich rewards or booty.

The soldiers of the Wu army were paid much higher salaries on weekdays, and the result was that the cost of raising the same number of troops in the Wu state was much greater than that of the Jin state.

In addition, the Liang State has just been destroyed, and there are too many places to spend money, so even the wealth of the Wu State is a little unbearable; Now Luo Zhixiang and other ministers in charge of finance in the DPRK and China have put forward either explicitly or implicitly, hoping that Yang Wu will end the campaign as soon as possible and recuperate.

Perhaps because he saw what Yang Wu was thinking, Yang Yan, the second prince who was standing behind him, persuaded softly: "Father, don't worry, although our army can't afford to delay, but the Jin army can't afford to delay." If it drags on for too long, whether it is Yangliu Nancheng or Yunzhou, as long as one place is broken by our army, it will be an unbearable consequence for the Jin State. ”

"Huh? You can see it. Yang Wu immediately laughed when he heard this.

During the Northern Expedition last year, Yang Wu left the crown prince Yang Jiong in Jinling to supervise the country, responsible for guarding the rear, but took his second son Yang Yan and his third son Yang Yu with him, so that they could have experience and increase their knowledge.

Later, Yang Wu personally led the troops into battle, and left the two Yang Yan brothers in Xuzhou.

After capturing Luoyang and destroying the Liang state, the Wu army went to war with the Jin army, and then there was a half-year confrontation between the rivers.

During this period, the third prince Yang Jiong returned to Jinling at the request of his mother Xu, but the second prince Yang Yan did not go back, but came to the front of the Pingyin army and served beside Yang Wu for half a year.

In the past six months, Yang Wu was surprised to find that his second son actually had extraordinary views on military affairs, and his vision of seeing problems was even as good as that of some old generals.

With this discovery, Yang Wu no longer regarded him as an ordinary child, but gradually cultivated him, and many important military affairs did not avoid him.

And after this training, Yang Wu was more and more pleasantly surprised, and even sighed from time to time: Why not the eldest son?

As a descendant, Yang Wu of course knows that there are serious problems in the primogeniture inheritance system, the problem is that the current prince is not immoral, and he guards Jinling, governs the rear in an orderly manner, and there are no mistakes in the allocation of grain and grass for the army, the transfer of troops, etc., which shows that the prince's ability to be a king of success is still enough.

Coupled with the fact that his mother is the queen, and with Zhou Ben, a veteran in the army, as his backing, as well as the prestige and connections accumulated over the years, it can be said that his position is extremely stable.

If you want to say that the only thing that makes Yang Wu feel dissatisfied, perhaps is that the prince has no interest in military affairs, but has a hot fight with those civilian officials, which makes him worry that in the future, Wu will not follow the old path of the Northern Song Dynasty, emphasizing literature over military force, and lacking enterprising spirit.

But the appearance of the second son Yang Yan made his eyes light up, and he couldn't help but praise in his heart: This son is like me.

It's a pity that even Yang Wu can't easily depose the prince because of his love, that's too child's play.

So he could only sigh a few words in his heart.

At this time, after listening to Yang Yan's words, he asked with a smile: "Then if you are the King of Jin, when will you cross the river to relieve the siege?" ”

"If the child is the king of Jin, the child will choose to cross the river at this time." Yang Yan lowered his little head and muttered for a moment, then replied affirmatively.

"Really?" Yang Wu had a smile on his face, but his heart moved: "Maybe he is right, and the Jin army is really likely to attack at this time." ”

As soon as the words fell, a flying horse suddenly arrived outside, and while riding a horse and galloping, he shouted: "The Jin army has crossed the river!" ”

Yang Wu's face suddenly turned grim, he glanced at Yang Yan, and then ordered the herald beside him in a deep voice: "Pass Gu's order, call the commanders and make the generals at all levels above quickly go to the big tent of the Chinese army to participate in the military meeting!" ”

"Command!"

……

On the other side of Majiakou, the place where the Jin army crossed the river.

The night is getting darker, and on the cold river, the Jin army is still busy crossing the river.

This decisive battle of the Jin army dispatched are the most elite troops who have been fighting for many years, of which there are three main parts as the main force, the first part is from the horse, which has a lot of proud soldiers and strong combat power, and has made great contributions in the war against the Houliang and against the Khitans.

Now fierce generals including Shi Jingjiao and Li Shaorong are serving in this army.

The second part is the assault cavalry, that is, the main force of the Jin cavalry, and it is also the trump card of the Jin State to conquer the Quartet; This time, Li Cunmiao can be said to have transferred the most elite cavalry, there are 8,000 cavalry alone, if you add the guards from Ma Zhi and Li Cunmiao's side, the entire Jin army will use as many as 10,000 cavalry this time.

As for the third part, it was incorporated by Li Cunqiao as the silver spear service capital of the forbidden army, led by Zhao Zaili, and Liu Ci was his deputy.

Although the number of this elite army established by Yang Shihou is only 8,000 people, every soldier in it is a carefully selected strong soldier, coupled with the tempering of the Quartet over the years, the combat effectiveness of this army can be imagined.

The three armies, each of which is an elite soldier who has fought on the battlefield for many years, and these armies are also the basis for Li Cunmiao's decisive battle.

In addition, there are more than 20,000 relatively old and weak troops left on the north bank, and they will cross the river last, but it is difficult to say whether they can cross the river before the Wu army blockades the river, at least Li Cunqiao did not expect much from them.

(It is impossible for eunuchs to work hard to code words and speak with facts)