"General Lu is here." Ye Chuchu said to Sun Hui on the stretcher.

Sun Hui turned his head to look and saw a group of Song cavalry surrounding a Song Dynasty general riding a jujube red horse walking towards this side.

The general in front of him was wearing a phoenix wings and a vermilion lacquer mountain armor, about forty years old, but his face was thin, his body was slightly rickety, and he was quite old, and there was always a hint of melancholy in his eyes, after Sun Hui saw him, he heard Ye Chuchu say that his surname was Lu, and he knew that this person should be Lu Wenhuan.

Ye Chuchu doesn't know much about history, and his understanding of the important generals of the Song Army in the Xiangyang War, that is, the appeasement of the two concubines described in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" is still trying to "pacify" the two concubines when the enemy is current, but he doesn't know anything about Lu Wenhuan, who is one word worse than Lu Wende.

Sun Hui knew that the reason why Jin Yong artificially replaced the commander of the Xiangyang Song Army from Lu Wenhuan to Lu Wende in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" included sympathy for Lu Wenhuan, a general who finally became a "second minister" after being loyal to the mediocre Southern Song Dynasty court, was because he didn't want him to continue to bear trumped-up charges in it.

The Battle of Xiangyang, recorded in the history books, was a major event with turning significance in Chinese history, which profoundly affected the trend of Chinese history.

Xiangyang is located in the throat of the Yangtze River moat in the Southern Song Dynasty, and it is a place that the Mongols must seize to conquer the Southern Song Dynasty. Kublai Khan and his military staff spent a year seriously discussing and pondering the plan for the Song Dynasty. As far as the route of attack was concerned, they decided to avoid the thorny "blank barrier" and choose the Hanshui basin. Naturally, the main targets of the Mongol attack were Xiangyang, the key point in the upper reaches of the Han River, and the two major cities of Fancheng on the opposite bank. This strategy was proposed by Liu Quan, a general who switched from the Southern Song Dynasty to Mongolia. However, judging from the situation at that time, in order to achieve a large-scale attack of practical significance, no matter who could probably only think of the Hanshui Valley. Kublai Khan made this natural choice, and the Southern Song Dynasty naturally expected this.

In September of the fourth year of Xianchun in the Southern Song Dynasty (1268), Kublai Khan set out from the Henan Plain to the southwest with Ashu as the main general and Shi Tianze, the commander of the Han army, as the deputy general, and this "Mongol army" of about 100,000 first surrounded Fancheng on the left bank of the Han River.

The Southern Song Dynasty attached great importance to these two cities, using them as front-line strongholds for the defense of the country, and was fully prepared to meet them. Lu Wende, the director of the Jinghu System and Construction Department who governed the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Hanshui Basin, had a close relationship with Jia Nidao, the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty. Under the instruction of Jia Rudao, in order to repel the menacing Mongol army, he handed over the most elite troops with the private army as the main body to the party brother Lü Wenhuan, and at the same time transported a large amount of military pay and equipment into the city, preparing to intercept the attack of the Mongol army on the spot through protracted warfare.

Although the battles of Xiangyang and Fancheng were the first battles, they had the color of a decisive battle between the two armies from the beginning, and for about six years, they became the focus of attack and defense of the Mongols and the Southern Song Dynasty.

Curiously, the Mongol army, far from attacking hard, began to build on a large scale.

Wherever the 100,000 Mongol army went, every inch of land would be dug up. First, trenches were dug and earth walls were built, and piers were built everywhere to monitor the enemy's situation. The Southern Song defenders, led by Lü Wenhuan, failed to intercept and block the attack, and they watched in amazement as the Mongols moved. And when they discovered this trend, a long "ring city" earthen wall had already appeared around the two major cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng.

Since then, the earthen wall has become stronger and stronger, and two major encirclements have appeared on the south side of Xiangyang. The headquarters of the Mongol army and the command structure of the various units were located in higher areas and on the hills, and the encirclement line formed by the connection of these strongholds was more than 100 kilometers long. Moreover, the Mongol side built more than 40 fortresses and "temporary cities" in various military and transportation fortresses, and also erected forts in the middle of the Han River, and drove piles between them and the fortresses on both sides of the river to play the role of blockade. In this way, the two cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng are completely isolated from the outside world.

From the very beginning, the Mongol army was ready for a protracted war. Camps of various Mongol armies were widely distributed around and outside the encirclement network, which had become a key armed area, where soldiers began their "lives" without any signs of attack.

Instead, it was the defenders who attacked. When Zhang Hanying, the defender of Fancheng, and Lü Wenhuan, who defended Xiangyang, couldn't wait to lead the army to attack, the Mongol army behind the trench hid behind the barrier and launched a dense attack of ballistas, bows, and even various gunpowder weapons, rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the Song army in person, so that the defender of the city had no other choice but to constantly lead troops to attack.

In addition, the Mongols did not deploy all their forces on the encirclement line, but sent troops to the military station base in Kaifeng, or even crossed the Yellow River to the northern base or returned to Kublai Khan in the capital, depending on the situation. And the guards around the city also adopted a shift system.

Xiangyang and Fancheng were gradually surrounded by the complex of "Earth City Wall", and after the Song army could not hold its breath and took the initiative to attack, it was repelled again by the "long-range weapons" of the Mongol army, which was diametrically opposed to the ordinary way of fighting. Under this unprecedented tactic, the morale of the Song army defending the city gradually declined, and on the contrary, even various merchants and entertainers came to the Mongolian camp that had been stationed outside the city for a long time. The suburbs of Xiangfan began to show the scene of a vibrant and developed economic city during the war.

Battles occur only casually and occasionally, and on the surface it seems that the calm state continues. In fact, the Mongolian side has suddenly begun the next layout, that is, the construction of the naval army, which is also from Liu Quan's suggestion.

The strongest of the Southern Song Dynasty armies was the navy. After about 150 years of confrontation with the north and south of the Jin Kingdom, the Yangtze River, the largest "northern defense" barrier in the Southern Song Dynasty, including many rivers that flow into the Yangtze River, there were many patrol and surveillance water units, which had developed into a "standing fleet" at that time. The combat effectiveness of the fleet possessed by the Southern Song Dynasty as a "continental country" is noteworthy not only in the history of China, but also in the history of the world.

For Kublai Khan, he had to think about how to confront such a powerful water force, so the construction of a naval army was inevitably put on the agenda. Kublai Khan decided to assemble a powerful naval army with Liu Chuan as the core to fight the Mongols in the Southern Song Dynasty.