Huai River, known as Huai Shui in ancient times, and the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and Jishui are called "four desecrations", but after seeing the majestic flow of the Yangtze River, but the Huai River with a width of one mile seems to be a little flat and stable, therefore, compared with the Yangtze River with the embankment towering, there is almost no trace of embankment building up and down the Huai River in this era.

As one of the cradles of civilization in ancient times and the earliest birthplace of farming technology, the biggest feature along both sides of the Huai River is that the almost ubiquitous tributaries and various water conservancy and irrigation facilities that have been inherited from the past dynasties have turned the thousands of miles of Huaihe River basin across the east and west to the sea into fertile fields with dense water networks.

Among them, the old site known as Shaopi can even be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period, presided over by Sun Shuao, the prime minister of Chu, and Dujiangyan, Zhanghe Canal, Zhengguo Canal and called the four major water conservancy projects in ancient China.

However, under the fire of a hundred years of war, most of the years have been in disrepair or have been silted, only the Tongji Canal that was penetrated by the Sui Dynasty in the previous dynasty is still in use, and you can also use small and medium-sized boats to go to the Bianshui in the north, which is also an important channel for the south to be transported to the north......

Since ancient times, the Huai River and the Qinling Mountains, as the basic dividing line between the north and the south of traditional China, are separated by a river, and there are obvious differences in the clothing, food customs, climate, hydrology, soil vegetation and agricultural production of people on both sides of the river.

The resulting salty and sweet controversy over traditional flavors such as bean curd, zongzi and glutinous rice balls has even spread to modern society, becoming a long-lasting heretical dispute between countless keyboard banner parties and competing on online forums.

The so-called regional characteristics of drought in the south and flooding in the north, dry in the east and wet in the west, different winds in the north and south, and gradual change in the east and west. But what I see here is only decay and death, and the so-called white bones are exposed in the wild, like a ghost domain.

Not only because of the war, but also because of the drought that lasted for several months. Many of the Daxiao canals in Huaibei have dried up to the bottom, leaving only the dried and cracked silt, which is very choking with dust when stepped on.

The Huainan feeling in Huainan is relatively humid and warm, and after stepping on the land of Huaibei, it becomes a hot dry roast. Therefore, as soon as the Huaibei soldiers who were in charge of clearing the field and fortifying the wall set fire, it was an uncontrollable trend.

This is also one of the means of those Jianghuai feudal towns to deal with the Southern Dynasties, in the history of the Liang Division, there are also successful examples of sending troops to the north to Jianghuai and Shannan generation, but they were combined by these feudal towns, and they used various means to delay and organize but under the strong city, they could not advance for a long time, and the old teachers were tired and exhausted, and the central center of the Northern Dynasty came to help, so they would naturally retreat and return, but they obviously underestimated the determination of the Northern Expedition of the Southern Dynasty.

Between the rolling hills are large fields and villages in ruins, and long dragons with no edge in sight are slowly marching through the thirsty and scorched land.

At the head were several armoured spearmen, followed by a large group of white soldiers with shields, and in the middle were gunmen with firearms on their backs.

The air is still filled with a lingering smell of burning, in addition to the ruins and broken walls, the vision back and forth, full of all kinds of blackened and mottled residues, so that the soldiers can't help but feel thirsty and irritable, and frequently pick up pots and utensils to drink water, and then provoke the non-commissioned officers and veterans, reprimanded and corrected over and over again.

Drinking too much water also means that it is easier to urinate frequently and the risk of falling behind, and any experienced soldier knows how to control the physiological frequency of drinking water and excretion during the march, maintain his physical state to a minimum, and be in tune with the rest and intervals of the brigade, so as to cope with various emergencies.

The severe situation of drought in Huaibei made us extraordinarily search for all kinds of loading utensils, carrying several times more water for people and animals to drink, but nevertheless, before encountering the enemy, we still need to control consumption and try to use the water sources found on the spot along the way.

According to the surveys of the craftsmen who accompanied the army, the water table of this generation has dropped so much that the wells found in the ruins of most villages and towns have dried up or are only a little sticky mud.

As a result, more charcoal is collected and piled up on board trucks that still have spare space, which can be used to filter impurities in the water on the one hand, and to boil the water as an emergency fuel on the other.

And I was surrounded by hundreds of paces, carrying the Grizzly Panda V slowly during the period, feeling the so-called "one person over 10,000, boundless" sense of achievement, chasing the so-called "unnecessary" fleeing enemy, after crossing the Huai River, now my command has reached eight or nine thousand people,

It is mainly divided into three levels and sequences, the first sequence is the main combat force with the main combat units of the three firearms battalions as the core, and it is also the fist and hammer that are specially responsible for attacking and deciding the outcome of the battle;

The second sequence is the six auxiliary brigades in the fourth battalion of the provisional formation, which are mainly responsible for guarding the base and protecting the core in peacetime, and are the precursor of the first attack when encountering the enemy, or are attached to specific battalions as a cover and response for close combat, so the auxiliary brigade is also the priority source of replenishment for battle-damaged white soldiers and spearmen in the third battalion of the main battle;

The remaining proportion of nearly half is that although they only eat and do not lead the army's salary, they can share the spoils of war, and they also carry the battlefield miscellaneous to drive the labor of the peripheral scattered soldiers, which is also the source of replenishment for the auxiliary army brigade. It's just that compared to the auxiliary brigade with relatively neat and unified equipment, they are much more messy.

In addition, the auxiliary brigade that stayed in Jiangdu to manage rear affairs and transit materials was comparable in number to an army that was not satisfied with the number of troops.

These stragglers were also the product of a certain compromise, as the battle line advanced and the supply line lengthened, mainly to deal with those in the rear, hungry and wandering on the road or the stragglers who were scattered in the Jianghuai land and reduced to bandits, and those local soldiers and prisoners were selected from the cannon fodder of the cannon fodder transformed from the weapons and armor captured on the battlefield.

After all, using a capable and experienced firearms battalion to deal with these conditions on the road is simply a knife for killing chickens, and even the auxiliary army brigade is a bit of a waste of overkill, so these scattered soldiers who have enough strength and physique, can bear all kinds of hard labor, and have a certain ability to protect themselves have become some kind of cheap alternative.

You must know that after Jianghuai was gradually pacified, there were not too many local troops in the feudal towns that were dismissed or dismissed, and only a few could be retained on the basis of merit. I originally wanted to give these scattered soldiers who were selected along the way, and give some regular money or something, but I was collectively persuaded by others.

The reason is very simple, in this troubled era in the Northland, for these Ding members who are often trapped between hunger and hunger, giving them money may not be more effective than the relatively abundant distribution of materials.

It is obviously much more economical to spend the same amount of money to build up food routes to get more limited supplies, or to exchange excess military supplies with friendly forces, or even to buy some canned rations in the rear at a discount, and it is completely possible to maintain a larger quantity.

But the so-called greed can't chew too much, so it's good to keep it on a slightly larger scale in the current three-layer progression, so that even if there are changes and rebellions, any of the three battalions in my hands can easily suppress or annihilate these signs of uneasiness and ****.

After a day and two nights of marching, my outpost finally found the city gates confined to Xia Cai City (near present-day Fengtai County, Anhui), which was facing the enemy, and was covered with the banners of the Yingzhou army and the once-disappeared town of Zhongli.

Finally found a decent enemy, I obviously felt relieved left and right, the excuse of privately crossing the border to pursue, finally had a goal, otherwise I really don't know how to end it.

Unfold the cat's paw print flag representing our main general, and the wind and thunder flag with a large group of flames and lightning embroidered on the left side of the new army. There was a sudden commotion in the city, and some people even shouted loudly, but unfortunately they couldn't hear it from a distance.

Then on the head of the city, which was about two feet high, the chain reaction began to release arrows, but unfortunately even if they were condescending, but the range was at least a part away from us, so in the end there were only some weed-like arrows, which fell aggressively on the ground in front of us, and the nearest one was dozens of paces away.

My team burst into laughter, and continued to complete the semi-encirclement in an orderly manner, and then, except for a few vigilant cruising squads, all the rest sat down, began to drink water in pots, and then ate dry food.

And the scattered soldiers rushed to the front, using the shooting range of those bows and arrows as a reference, and using shovels and pickaxes and other tools to dig trenches like flying.

Other stragglers brought down bundles of ordnance from carts and distributed them one by one to the resting and eating soldiers under the leadership of the flag and number, most of whom took their weapons and placed them on their knees and continued to complete their simple feeding, while those who had finished eating began to adjust the strings of their bows and crossbows, or to inspect and clean the bore and flint of the muskets.

The chasseurs had left in a hurry, and began to scout the environment and find a suitable shooting range, and they were temporarily useless in the siege, so they went around the perimeter of the island to find a commanding height, to act as a guard and a secret sentinel.

Soon after, the artillery wagons of the rear team were also pushed up, and a parapet wall and slope were temporarily piled up with a belt filled with wet sand, facing the firing angle of the city gate.

With the efforts of the scattered soldiers, soon a long irregular shallow ditch was initially formed, the ditch was five feet wide, just so that people could not step over, and the soil that was dug out was piled up on one side of the ditch, tightened, and patted solid, forming a breast wall with a height difference from the bottom of the ditch.

Then, with this ditch as the benchmark, the cavalry pulled the rope at both ends and dragged out parallel lines, that is, the positions of the left and right camp walls and trenches, and then dug a crossed diagonal line as the main drainage ditch in the camp, and the four diagonal ramparts were used as platforms, as four-sided observation posts, and long-range archers stood on guard.

Then between the earthen platforms, according to the half-body gap, insert the sharpened wooden stakes cut down, and if there are not enough wooden stakes, they are obliquely inserted with spears, and after being crossed and tied and fixed, a relatively sparse repulsion wall is formed, and the soil continues to be piled along the mountain wall to form a new breast wall.

Then all the baggage is piled up at the middle point of the crossing line, surrounded by large carts, forming a second level of barracks, and then separated into areas with different functions such as the Chinese army, barns, and arsenals, so that the basic preparation for the establishment of the camp is completed.

Then the soldiers' tents are set up one by one on the square ground that is divided line by row according to the direction of the drainage ditch, and the ground will be raised with relatively dry sand to facilitate drainage and cleaning up domestic garbage, and then spread hay mats or roll mats, supplemented by covering, which is a temporary living place.

There is enough passage and distance between each tent for marching and patrolling, and the delivery of a spear is generally the standard.

There must also be large deep pits and diversion channels between every 20 tents distributed in the four corners of the camp that serve as reservoirs and fire barriers, as well as temporary water intake points. All tents open in unison towards the camp gate in their direction, so that the camp is completed.

All that remained was to add perimeter guards and patrols, to add some defensive measures to the trenches and breastwork, and to spread pits on the perimeter. Settings such as crossbows and ground spikes.

At this time, the defenders in the city seemed to react, and after some kind of uproar and dispute, the city gate slowly opened, and the enemy soldiers who discounted the Yingzhou banner were in the lead of the cavalry team.