"Qian Biao personally led the troops back to Suzhou?" Xue Wanli was outside Suzhou City, and he was originally going to take action against Suzhou immediately, but he received the latest information from Xuan Yingwei.

Because it was a specific battle, Yang Tiancheng and Wang Houchun did not intend to interfere in the command, so after reading the information, Xue Wanli called Li Tianyi, Chai Jia and Li Lisan with a deep groan, planning to divide the troops.

"You mean to besiege the city and send reinforcements, and annihilate the enemy outside the city? I'm afraid it's too late. Suzhou City is well defended, the moat is extremely wide, and it is connected to the canal, so it cannot break into the city in the short term. Moreover, Qian Biao's reinforcements are coming very strongly, and we can only do a little. Li Tianyi opposed the plan.

Chai Jia nodded and said: "I agree, let the reinforcement corps stop Qian Biao south of Suzhou, and give the siege corps enough time to conquer the city defense, once Suzhou City is captured, then Qian Biao will inevitably withdraw his troops, and if he loses the rescue target, if he hesitates to move, he will fall into the situation of our army's encirclement." After speaking, he picked up the pen and marked the interception position on the map and said: "It is an ideal blocking position near Xiaocang Mountain south of Suzhou, which can concentrate five to seven battalions of troops, plus Tianyi's cavalry, enough to confront Qian Biao, and the siege corps only needs about three battalions." ”

"The marshal might as well intercept Qian Biao in person, and I will be responsible for the siege. I will find a way to take Suzhou within ten days. Chai Jia said with a smile: "I'm afraid that the emperor will ask when the time comes, Suzhou City has been blown upside down, you can't say that I did it alone, otherwise I will definitely be scolded to death." ”

Xue Wanli nodded and said: "In that case, let's do this, give you four battalions, plus artillery troops, and take Suzhou City in ten days." The rest of the people are pressed by the whole army, and we will go to meet Qian Biao. Chai Jia, if you can't finish it within ten days, then I will have to ask for help from the Middle Route Army. ”

"You can rest assured, I promise to complete the task in ten days. I might be able to support you then. Chai Jia patted his chest and smiled.

The four battalions of the siege corps, together with the artillery units, stayed behind to camp in Suzhou City, and the rest of the men and horses immediately moved to start deploying across Suzhou City to the south.

"Houchun, what are you doing here? Isn't it going to be a two-pronged battle? Is his strength sufficient? Why do I think this guy can't take care of both ends? Yang Tiancheng's command headquarters stood still, watching the Eastern Front Group Army quickly pack up its troops and divide them into two roads, and said in surprise.

Wang Houchun said with a smile: "Then it depends on how they grab time, if the siege is protracted, it will inevitably be consumed by Qian Biao under the city, and Qian Biao's troops this time are not less than ours, almost out of the city, I don't know what the hell this guy is fighting." Didn't they all plan to go south to Fuzhou before? That Fujian observer Chen Yan heard Xiaosi say that he was terminally ill, isn't this his chance. This is when you suddenly want to fight to the death, why bother. ”

Wang Houchun's words made Yang Tiancheng suspicious for a while, and ordered the guards to find Xuan Yingwei's people to hurry up and find out Qian Biao's true intentions, and then shook his head and said: "How do I think that the war here in Suzhou has a strong sense of conspiracy. Eighty percent of Qian Biao has a back hand. ”

"Then give Qian Ning an order and order him to complete the battle in Lizhou within ten days, exterminate the Red Turban Army, and then gallop east to aid Suzhou." Wang Houchun said: "Now that you can't figure out Qian Biao's movements, then let Xue Wanli beat them out, and if necessary, you can temporarily give up exterminating the Red Turban Army and go all out to eliminate Qian Biao." Guards, let the staff officers write orders immediately. ”

In other words, Wang Houchun and Yang Tiancheng were worried that Qian Biao would have a backhand, so they began to prepare Xue Wanli for the next support outside the army early. Liu Yi, as Chen Fan's old partner, immediately issued orders to the subordinate corps of the command after receiving Chen Fan's order, so that the troops that had completed the spring ploughing task immediately went north to Jizhou, Danzhou and Wuzhou, and the materials of the logistics department were also transported to the three places through the transportation companies of the Xu family and the Murong family, which had gradually formed a network.

"Marshal, this is the distribution map of the battles on the Northern Front that I have drawn up. According to the commander's intentions, this time the command headquarters did not interfere in the specific command of the front line, and divided the total force into two parts, one was in charge of Hou Yong, and acted along the coastline of the Bohai Sea, attacked Pingzhou, and then went north to Yanjun City and Shenzhou. The other part was in charge of Tuoba Siji, starting from Shangjing and other places, sweeping Longhua Prefecture and Tongzhou, and the two troops converged in Shenzhou and Tongzhou for a period of time in early May, and then waited for an opportunity to enter the territory of Bohai State. "Liu Yi's strategic arrangement has been done, and all the people in all departments have been marked. Moreover, this arrangement also optimizes the strength of the army to the limit, and the two roads of men and horses are divided into joint attacks, and after converging near Tongzhou, they enter the Bohai State together is also conducive to dealing with the encirclement of Yelu Hanxiong and the army of the Bohai State.

"Very good, issue an order to all participating troops, let them complete the rebuilding on a certain day, and the north and south must complete the formation in mid-April and then go to the northeast to find fighters to start the war." Chen Fan nodded and asked Liu Yi to immediately issue an order to let the two major group armies complete the formation.

The order of the northern front suddenly rolled iron hooves, the army gathered, and the southern front is mainly infantry, the northern line of nearly 400,000 troops is mainly cavalry troops, if there is no need to siege the city, there is almost no infantry, it can be said that this is the most elite troops of the Tiance army.

Although the speed of information transmission is slow and the means of communication are backward in this era, intelligence and information sharing can still be achieved by relying on a set of mature means within the Tiance Army. After Chen Fan's actions on the northern front were transmitted to the southern front, Yang Tiancheng and Wang Houchun also learned that this year's campaign of the Tiance Army finally kicked off on the northern and southern fronts. At that moment, without hesitation, he directly issued an order to Chen Yu in the middle lane and asked him to contact Hu Xiaosi one last time, if Xuan Yingwei could not complete the goal in mid-April, the army would directly attack the city.

At this time, Xue Wanli on the eastern front also encountered Qian Di's brigade south of Suzhou, and the two sides quickly broke away from the opponent's attack range as soon as they first made contact. This situation also made Xue Wanli rush strangely. But by this time, Chai Jia had already begun to deploy for the siege, and the navy's two warships sailed into the canal from the Yangtze River and then prepared near the moat of Suzhou, responsible for providing artillery support. The artillery of the infantry did not keep up with the infantry artillery because Li Xuanqing was bent on engaging in infantry and artillery coordination tactics, and the explosive pack had been deeply loved by the front-line soldiers before, so it did not appear in the battle sequence of the army on the southern front at this time.

"Ordered the artillery battalion and naval warships, and aimed at the concentrated fire bombardment near the north gate of Suzhou, and the infantry battalion immediately prepared to fill the river and build bridges." Chai Jia waved his hand and began to issue orders, and suddenly the artillery battalion of two hundred ballistae lined up in three neat phalanxes aimed at the north city gate, and the warships of the navy also quickly received the order, the two warships began to turn the bow, and the six artillery pieces took the lead, only to hear a loud rumbling sound one after another, and six projectiles were quickly sprayed out, smashing towards the city wall of Suzhou City.

"It seems that Wanli is also worried, so they will mobilize so many siege weapons at once, and prepare to take Suzhou City as soon as possible. But are so many soldiers carrying sand and gravel preparing to fill in the moat? It's a bit difficult, right? Yang Tiancheng looked at the scene of the rumbling of artillery in front of him and nodded.

"Go and tell General Chai Jia to find cloth bags and sacks to put sand and gravel in them, and then tie all the bags together with ropes and throw them into the river, so that it will work." As soon as Wang Houchun's eyes were transferred, he immediately went to find Chai Jia.

"You've got a ghost idea all the time. Forget it, let them do it themselves. We can't do everything for them. The emperor's meaning is to cultivate the front-line generals' ability to fight. Yang Tiancheng said with a smile, disapproving Wang Houchun's actions.

At this time, Chai Jia on the front line also discovered his mistake, but before he could come up with a way, Wang Houchun's personal guards had already sent the way, which made him overjoyed, and hurriedly arranged for the deputy general to prepare. At this time, the artillery battalion and the navy of the combined artillery bombardment of the sea and land have gradually reached a climax, compared to the army's explosives bags are basically the main targets, the navy's artillery is a veritable attack weapon, the whistling shells continue to explode on the city wall, the dust and fragments of the city wall fall into the water, the entire city wall of the north city was blown to pieces, coupled with the raging explosives bag, the Suzhou defenders can not stand on the city wall at all, Rao is Qian Biao's army is prepared, but under this kind of firepower, even the Tiance army itself can not stop, so in less than half an hour, almost half of the defenders of the entire northern city had been killed or wounded, and the opponent's firepower continued as if they didn't want money, which made Liu Shiyi, the defender of Suzhou, have no choice but to change his strategy and send a small number of troops to the city as an outpost to observe the opponent's movements, and most of the troops are hidden in the urn city for preparation and assault.

The absence of Qian Biaojun on the city tower quickly made Chai Jia guess the other party's intentions, but this was exactly the result he wanted, but the hundred-meter-wide moat seriously slowed down the progress of his soldiers at this time, otherwise the blaster would have stepped forward at this time, and estimated that the city gate would have been opened. Back then, fighting Xiangyang was not as laborious as fighting Suzhou today.

However, after seeing that Wang Houchun's method was really effective, he immediately asked three of the four battalions of the siege corps to immediately devote themselves to the work of laying roads and blocking the river, and they were ready to pave the roads under the city walls before the other party could react. However, after this battle, the report of the battle was transmitted back to the base camp, which also prompted the industrial group to copy the engineering bridge of later generations in advance. Similar to the boat bridge of the later generations, it came out in advance, which provided great convenience for the subsequent siege battles in the south, and the role of the moat was completely ended.

"Let's go to Ogurayama, Chai Jia's advance here won't be completed in a while. Liu Shiyi obviously used all the troops as reserves, as long as Chai Jia's explosives bags and shells stopped, the other side would definitely counterattack. Let's go see how Wanli is doing. Yang Tiancheng saw that the shelling of the artillery battalion gradually slowed down, and said thoughtfully.

Wang Houchun nodded, knowing that his mind was not on the siege, but on Qian Di's backhand, and he didn't say much to order the guards to set off to bypass the siege troops on both sides and head south.

Xiaocang Mountain is more than 100 miles away from Suzhou City, which is the most important dangerous place south of Suzhou City, and it is also the first checkpoint to hold the southward retreat of Suzhou defenders. When the two of them arrived with their personal guards, Xue Wanli was also preparing to attack the other party's camp.

"This Xue Wanli is thinking about offensive combat wherever he goes." Yang Tiancheng looked at Xue Wanli's deployment and said with a smile.

"Tiancheng, look at Qian Biao's military formation, it's so strange, there seems to be countless weights in the void and reality, and it seems to be very mysterious inside, and the strength is not right, it seems to be more than 200,000, where did he get so many troops?" Wang Houchun glanced at Qian Biao's military formation and shook his head and said, "This battle is a bit interesting. ”

"Should it be a virtual soldier?" Yang Tiancheng looked at it and said a little uncertainly: "This guy doesn't want to use these false tricks to block Wanli's line of sight, and then ambush the heavy troops to attack the front exit of our army, right?" ”

Wang Houchun nodded and said with a smile: "It seems that this Qian Biao really has two hits, and I estimate that Wanli really doesn't know where to start with this formation." ”

"With his temperament, it is estimated that he will ignore and directly rush to the Chinese army. And Tianyi's temperament is the same, I'm afraid that this will also be ambushed. Let's hurry over. Yang Tiancheng shook his head, obviously not optimistic about Xue Wanli and Li Tianyi.

Wang Houchun stopped him, pointed to his own formation that had been launched, and said with a smile: "They also left a back hand for thousands of miles, and the cavalry corps did not attack, but on the flank." But when will this guy get his fault with charging into battle? ”

With the words of the two, Xue Wanli's Eastern Front Army had already begun to attack, and at the moment when the explosive package fell, the forward troops had already crossed the middle line of the two armies and rushed towards the opponent's large formation. And the troops led by Xue Wanli rushed to the forefront.

And although this guy didn't understand the formation of Qian Biao's army, he did a good job of matching his distance and proximity, and a full 5,000 archers lined up behind the forward troops, following the dispatch, bending their bows and arrows in places where the ballista troops could not support, and completing the support for the forwards. For a while, the team that accompanied the charge, arrows rained down, and this flexible long-range support force played a great role in covering Xue Wanli's charge, and even blocked the counterattack of Qian Biao's army alone before the follow-up troops followed.

"It seems that Wan Li has a good understanding of infantry and artillery coordination tactics, although I don't know how to cover these archers behind him, but at least the forward troops have broken through." Yang Tiancheng muttered to himself.

At this time, Xue Wanli on the battlefield did not have so many thoughts, after swinging a knife to cut down a small colonel of the Qian Biao army in front of him, he roared wildly, and led the army directly towards the opponent's Chinese army, ignoring the Qian Biao army that surrounded him, and only thought about relying on the impact of the Chinese army to drive the entire change of the opponent's formation, so as to win time for his follow-up troops.

Li Lisan, the chief of staff in charge of the command of the entire group army, mobilized the second line army to quickly follow at the moment when Xue Wanli broke in, on the one hand to provide cover for the archer troops, and on the other hand, to take advantage of the situation to widen the gap opened by the forward. At the same time, the first part of the artillery unit has begun to move, ready to provide continuous artillery cover.

On the other hand, at this time, Qian Biao's army, because Yang Tiancheng and others were far away from the battlefield, they could no longer see who was in command, but there was no good way to face the artillery cover of the Tiance army, and the continuous chaos seriously disrupted the normal adjustment.

"Tiancheng, Qian Biao's back hand has surfaced, you see that their front army is changing, and the troops on both wings have begun to retreat, what does this mean? Want to rely on ambushes to deal with thousands of miles of surprise? That's too much. Wang Houchun noticed something unusual at this time and shouted.

"Oops, this guy is trying to kill Wanli and his personal guards." Wang Houchun's words made Yang Tiancheng wake up suddenly, and he didn't have time to say anything more and went directly to the command platform where Li Lisan was.