Fifty or sixty small and medium-sized boats, carrying nearly 40,000 rebel soldiers, filled the river. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info This is already half of the rebels' soldiers. That's not all, in addition to An Qingxu's giant dragon boat, the remaining seven giant ships are also dispatched behind these small and medium-sized ships full of soldiers. There were nearly 10,000 archers on seven large ships, and their task was to cover the attack of small ships.

Yan Zhuang used almost all the strong bows and crossbow arrows, all the long-range equipment that could be suppressed, and he wanted to completely suppress the defenders on the walls on both sides of the river, so as to cover dozens of small ships to break through the mouth of the river smoothly.

In the midst of the earth-shattering drums, dozens of enemy ships pressed by the black pressure on the river quickly approached. Wang Yuan's brows tightened, he realized the urgency of the situation. Having lost the excellent firing position on the suspension bridge, it was difficult to resist the enemy with only a small number of archers on the walls on both sides of the river. Because of the range and angle, there were only a few dozen paces on the walls of the city wall where archers could stand and shoot arrows, and even if they were crowded with archers, there would not be more than two thousand people. The rest of the archers were left in a hurry in the rear, as they were too far from the river to attack the enemy ships.

Moreover, Wang Yuan couldn't let everyone crowd here, because in this case, he would not be able to dodge the arrows that the other party shot at the head of the city, which would cause huge casualties.

"Master Liu, it seems that you need to work hard. The head of the city is temporarily inseparable. Wang Yuan turned his head to Liu Tan beside him.

Liu Tan arched his hand and said: "Wang Xiangguo, please command." Liu is here to assist Xiangguo. ”

Wang Yuan nodded and said, "Okay, please ask Master Liu and General Wang to immediately lead two thousand soldiers and horses at the dock on the east side of the river bank to prepare to meet the enemy." ”

Liu Tan and Wang Youdao, the general of the city guard, were stunned and said, "What? Sangkook thinks they're going to attack the city? ”

Wang Yuan said in a deep voice: "Obviously, they are trying to break into the estuary. Their boats could not enter, but their soldiers could swim into the water at the mouth of the river. There were tens of thousands of soldiers on these dozens of ships, and our defense was too unfavorable to stop them, and their attempt was to take advantage of the numerical advantage and rush into the city at the cost of casualties. But don't worry, they will only choose to go ashore from the nearest pier because the river is cold and they can't hold up in the water for too long. What we have to do is stop them in the river, not let them go ashore quickly. Once they are forced to soak in the river for a while, the cold water will kill them. Although the rebels were fierce, this battle was bound to be a battle in which they suffered heavy losses. The premise is that you must defend the embankment and not let them go ashore easily. ”

"Understood. General Wang, let's go. Liu Tan was not verbose, and waved his hand to take dozens of Cui family guards down to the city. Wang Youdao also arched his hand, turned around and shouted and quickly went down the city with two thousand soldiers.

"General Qian. You also immediately went to the other side to inform Zeng Guozhong that one of you would guard the city wall, and the other would lead two thousand soldiers and horses to guard the dock on the east bank. Not a single rebel soldier must be allowed ashore, understand? Wang Yuan ordered again.

The guard general Qian Gaozhi promised in a deep voice and hurried down the city.

Dozens of small boats were approaching at an unhurried pace, and they needed to control their speed, because if they were too fast, they would enter the river obstacles and cause a violent impact, which would cause huge casualties. The rebel soldiers on the ship curled up together with nervous expressions, holding huge wooden shields above their heads, like turtles in their shells. No one controls the boat, just allows it to come slowly along the current.

Three hundred steps, two hundred steps, one hundred and eighty steps. As they approached the distance of the arrows at the head of the city, the rebel soldiers curled up tighter, their shields more tightly covered, and they knew that soon they would be attacked by a storm of feathered arrows, and it was up to heaven to live or die.

"Woo-woo, buzz." The low roar of the bowstring vibrating and the wind of feathered arrows breaking through the air resounded in the air. The four small ships at the front were the first to be attacked. A thick crossbow bolt hit a small boat with a huge impact. The bolt burst into the shield overhead, but apparently the bolt was not very penetrating, and the shield on top shattered into pieces, but the rebel soldiers below were unharmed.

Moreover, only a few crossbow arrows seemed to be fired, and although the sound was terrifying, most of them only shot into the water.

"What is this?" The rebel soldiers on the small boat who were shot suddenly felt a slippery juice running down from the crack in the shield, and more than a dozen soldiers were covered in their necks.

"It's grease! Fuck, what are these guys going to do? Are the bolts greased? Someone scolded.

As he spoke, another small boat on the left was also shot by a crossbow arrow, and the crossbow arrow did not cause casualties, but there was also a greasy liquid that burst when the crossbow arrow was fired, and the grease flowed all over the ground.

"Woo woo bang."

The few bed crossbows of the defenders fired stubbornly, and did not cause much casualties, but the skins attached to the arrows of the crossbow arrows burst one by one, and greasy grease flowed all over the ships.

"What do these people mean?" The dull-brained soldiers hadn't reacted yet, but many of them had already suddenly realized the enemy's intentions.

"Is this going to be attacked with fire?" The shocked words of several soldiers had just spoken, but countless arrows with fire slashed through the night sky on the black city, pouring down like meteors. It was a beautiful and terrifying scene.

The five small boats that were a hundred paces close to the city wall were hit by rockets, and although most of the arrows fell into the water, it didn't matter, the important thing was that only a dozen rockets landed on the boat, and the flames of grease immediately began to rise and burn. The flames were small at first, but soon the five small boats were soon five blazing fireballs, thanks to the grease and wind. The grease-stained soldiers burst into flames, screaming and jumping into the river. The rebel soldiers who were not burned had no choice but to jump into the water in the same way, because the boat was full of fire and there was no place for it.

Five small boats were the first to be targeted in the fire after being shot by the bolts of the crossbow of the bed with oil pockets hanging from the city. This is exactly one of the means used by Wang Yuan to resist the enemy. After piecing together more than a dozen bed crossbows that day, Wang Yuan realized that these bed crossbows might not be of much use to kill the enemy, but if he gave full play to his strong characteristics, he could use the abundant grease in Yangzhou City as fire oil to shoot at the enemy ships, then he could use the method of fire attack to repel the enemy. After a slight transformation, the crossbow arrows of these bed crossbows became the carrier of the firing oil bladder, although the range was nearly a hundred steps shorter, but for Wang Yuan, these were enough. Allowing ships within a hundred and fifty paces to be doused with grease and burn is already the most effective of these bed crossbows.

The rest of the rebel ships were stunned by the five burning ships ahead, but they soon understood what was happening. Although they witnessed the ship in front of them become a fireball, at this moment they had no choice but to choose to move on. Seven covering ships rushed forward quickly and began to suppress the city with a dense array of arrows. Suddenly, the arrows flew sideways and the bows and crossbows roared under the river, and the soldiers who were hit by the arrows on the city screamed again and again, and on the river below the city, the raging fire shone on the river, and the ships that rushed into the range of the bows and arrows also suffered the return fire of the dense feathered arrows at the head of the city.

Twelve bed crossbows shot rounds of oil bladders from a rain of arrows, and the soldiers in charge of firing were almost unprotected because they had to be on a protruding platform. They were shot several times, and every arrow fell from the platform into the river and the river, with no hope of survival. However, even so, when a soldier falls, one of them will step forward to fill the gap and shoot the crossbow arrows hanging from the oil bladders.

On the river, a dozen more boats were soon set on fire and turned into ships of fire, and the rebel soldiers on board had to jump into the water to take refuge. Almost everywhere on the fire-lit river were the heads of floating soldiers, raising their hands and shouting for help, or swimming desperately in the icy waters to the nearest boat.

However, no one paid any attention to them, and the rebel boats quickly rushed to the mouth of the river, ignoring the rebel soldiers who were floating in the water and cried for help, and even ran over the river full of human heads like a rolling machine, crushing them to the bottom of the boat and hitting the bottom of the river.

Yan Zhuang gave a death order before the war, regardless of the cost or losses, this time he must break through the river. Together with more than 10,000 people covering, Yan Zhuang paid nearly 50,000 troops to launch this night onslaught. Even if only half of the people succeeded in going ashore, the city of Yangzhou would be broken. This is not the time to worry about losses.

Under this desperate plan, more than 20 boats full of rebels rushed to the mouth of the river, despite the fact that there were more than a dozen boats on fire on the river and four or five thousand soldiers struggling in the water. After being stopped by a shipwreck, they jumped out of the boat, crossed the shipwreck barrier, and swam down the current to the city.

Arrows rained down on the river, and countless rebels died in the water. However, because the suspension bridge was burned, the number and angle of bows and arrows on the walls on both sides were restricted, and they were unable to shoot all the rebel soldiers on the river. The strong current of the water carried these soldiers through the obstacles, and it only took a few dozen paces for the dark sky to merge them with the river, and the soldiers at the head of the city could only shoot aimlessly at the surface of the river, and could not shoot effectively at all.

In this way, the first group of about 6,000 soldiers managed to break through the obstacle and reach the canal. Next, they swam towards the shore on both sides. The icy water of the river froze their bodies stiff, and they had no choice but to go ashore as soon as possible. Fortunately, the river in the city is less than 40 steps wide, and as long as you are out of the traction of the current, you can reach the wharves on both banks. However, when they approached the river bank a dozen paces away, countless arrows whistled along the river bank. The Yangzhou defenders, who were on the banks on both sides, stood on the banks of the river and slaughtered the rebels in the river.

The rebel soldiers, who had managed to break through the Ghost Gate, wanted to cry without tears, and except for a few who chose to continue downstream, most of them chose to go upstream to the riverbank. More than 1,000 of the 6,000 rebel soldiers were shot and killed, and 2,000 rushed up the river embankment on the west bank to fight with more than 2,000 defenders led by Wang Youdao of Liutan. More than 1,000 people landed on the east bank, but were immediately blocked by more than 2,000 Yangzhou defenders led by Zeng Guozhong himself.

There were still more than a thousand people in the river going down the river, and they soon rejoiced in this decision, for they found that as they farther south, the sound of the defenders shouting for death disappeared from the shore. This was apparently due to the fact that the defenders were too small to have enough manpower to guard the riverbank. The bad news is that their hands and feet are stiff when the river is cold, and they will all freeze to death in the river if they don't go ashore. So in a few miles north of the city, more than 1,000 people swam desperately to the west bank.

However, they soon realized that they seemed to have made a huge mistake. On the west bank of the river, more than 100 people were watching the battle in Beicheng from afar, when they suddenly found many people swimming towards the shore in the river, and they were startled.

"It's the thieves, they're rushing in, they're going to go ashore." A citizen shouted.

The crowd was immediately in a mess, and one of them shouted, "Quickly beat the gong and call the people, you can't teach them to go ashore." ”

"Yes, yes, you can't teach them to go ashore and call people by beating gongs." Everyone suddenly came to their senses.

As soon as the gong sounded, the people seemed to rise from the ground, and thousands of people gathered on the embankment on the east bank in an instant.

"Smash, smash them." Someone shouted.

Stones, bricks, grass forks, and wooden sticks rained down from the riverbank, and the more than 1,000 rebel soldiers, who were already less than a dozen steps away from the riverbank, were killed by this smashing of their heads and faces. Their hands and feet were stiff and exhausted, and they had the heart to rush to the riverbank and slaughter the people, but they had more than enough strength to do so.

The people gathered more and more, and the stones and bricks became more and more dense. Hundreds of rebel soldiers managed to get ashore and were attacked with more stones and bricks as they rushed up the stone steps. More than 100 people were stoned to death on the stone steps. The rest were not able to climb to the embankment pier at all, so they sprinted south along the riverbank. Thousands of people on the shore roared and chased along the streets, and people rushed to reinforce and intercept them, and all the hundreds of rebel soldiers who were lucky enough to land on the shore were stoned to death on the spot by the people. Hundreds of exhausted rebel soldiers in the river could not dare to go ashore, and they had no choice but to continue south with the current. However, they were desperate to see that the lights on both sides of the river embankment were as bright as day, and the dense crowd of people was eyeing both sides of the river bank, and there was no chance to go ashore at all. In desperation, one by one, the rebel soldiers stiffened and sank into the water because of the cold. Soon after, the hundreds of rebels drowned and froze to death in the icy waters.

……

At the head of the city, fierce fighting continued. Under the cover of the dense arrows of seven large ships, the second group of more than 20 small boats also broke through the rain of arrows and the sea of fire to reach the mouth of the river. Seven or eight thousand rebel soldiers jumped into the icy water and swam across the city. On both sides of the city, the sound of killing shook the sky. On both sides of the river, the soldiers and civilians of Yangzhou and the rebels who broke through the city defense launched a desperate battle.

Wang Yuan was anxious, if the other party was allowed to rush into the city in such a steady stream, even if they suffered heavy casualties, they would break through the river bank with an absolute numerical advantage, and then there would be no way to save them.

But Wang Yuan didn't have any good way to stop it, he stared closely at the seven rebel ships on the river, they were getting closer and closer because of their absolute superiority, and the bows and arrows at the head of the city were becoming more and more fierce. The archers at the head of the city were far inferior in number and number of bows and arrows because they had to shoot and kill the enemy in the river and counter suppress them. If this continues, they will all come close under their noses.

Wang Yuan's eyes saw several small boats that were burning freely stuck at the mouth of the river, because the boats were small, they burned all the way after catching fire, and when they arrived at the estuary, most of them were already wreckage, and the fire was not big. But Wang Yuan suddenly had a flash of inspiration, pointed to the seven big ships that were approaching with great martial arts, and ordered loudly.

"Rockets attack big ships. Burn them. ”

He personally manipulated a bed crossbow and braved the rain of arrows to shoot grease crossbow arrows at a large ship on the river. Several bed crossbows immediately concentrated and began to shoot at the big ship. All the archers also turned their arrows and fired a round of rockets at the big ship. I saw two large ships rise and burst into flames, and soon they burned into raging flames.

The rebel archers on board began to jump into the water to escape. Under Wang Yuan's expectant gaze, two large uncontrolled ships that burned into fireballs swept all the way along the current, and soon arrived close to the mouth of the river. They burned a wall of fire across the barriers between the walls.

Wang Yuan laughed and said, "Look how you guys come in, catch turtles in this urn." ”

Only then did everyone understand Wang Yuan's intentions, it turned out that he wanted to use the two large ships that were on fire as a barrier to prevent the soldiers on the small boats that rushed after him from entering the city. That's a good idea.

A wall of fire blocked the mouth of the river, and dozens of small boats behind were dumbfounded, of course they could not rush into the fire, nor could they stop on the surface of the river to be beaten, so they turned their bows and began to flee from the range of their bows and arrows.

After the two large ships caught fire, the remaining five large ships also realized the danger and hurriedly retreated out of range of the defenders. This wall of fire had to force the other party to stop the follow-up attack.

As soon as they retreated, the pressure on the city head suddenly decreased, and the soldiers could immediately shoot calmly down the river.

Wang Yuan laughed and said, "Damn, I want to thank you for teaching me a method of fire wall defense." When someone came, he ordered the people in the city to carry firewood and use a small boat to add firewood to the fire, and not to teach the fire to be extinguished. This wall of fire needs to be kept burning to stop the enemy from attacking. The archers continued to shoot in the city, and all the rest followed me to the banks of the river to kill the enemy, and the lower ones were afraid that they would not be able to resist. ”

Wang Yuan led more than 1,000 soldiers to rush down the city wall, through the wide square, and then went straight to the dock. It's already been killed there. Two groups of nearly 10,000 rebels swam into the city, and the second group all went ashore from the west bank and advanced to the wharf on the river embankment by taking advantage of the advantage of numbers. Although the two thousand defenders led by Liu Tan and Wang Youdao began to occupy the geographical advantage, after all, the number of the other party was too large, and at this moment, there were only a few hundred people left to resist desperately. As more and more rebels came ashore in the river, they could no longer resist.

"Kill!" Wang Yuan led more than 2,000 defenders to rush to kill, and the shouts of killing shook the sky. Liu Tan was fighting hard and was overjoyed to see the arrival of reinforcements. In his gaze, a man rode a black horse and rushed down the slope above the dock, his long sword shining brightly, and rushed straight into the crowd of rebels. With the flickering light of the sword, the rebels in front of and behind his horse fell like straw, and the corpses fell to the ground.

"Who's that? So fierce. Liu Tan was stunned.

"It's Wang Xiangguo, it's amazing." Several soldiers shouted.

Liu Tan looked at the spear in his hand, spat at the mouth, took off the armor on his body and threw it aside, and rushed into the enemy army without saying a word. He prides himself on being a great martial artist, but today he is a little shy in the face of many enemy forces. That's why just now I only kept the formation to fight the rebels, and even put on my armor. But at this moment, seeing Wang Yuan rushing into the enemy group alone and with one horse, he realized that no matter how high his martial arts skills were, he was compared to this Wang Xiangguo in terms of courage to charge and kill the enemy. Wang Xiangguo's actions made the soldiers take the lead in a lifeless rush, and this kind of behavior can boost the morale of the soldiers. Looking at the surrounding soldiers as if they had been beaten with chicken blood, you can see how encouraging his behavior is.

Liu Tan no longer hesitated, and the sword also rushed into the enemy group. The morale of the soldiers was high, and they shouted and rushed down the slope to suppress and kill.

The thousands of rebels who thought they were about to attack the river embankment were suddenly caught off guard by the ferocious pounce of the reinforcements defending the city. Soon they were forced to compress under the wharf slope. Soon after, he retreated down the embankment under the fierce onslaught of the defenders of the city. But under the river embankment is the Jedi, where there is no way to retreat, and it is a disadvantage of the terrain. After that, they will inevitably be slaughtered.

The rise of Wang Yuan's own killing. Riding horses on the river embankment rushed back and forth to kill, and if the long sword in his hand chopped melons and vegetables, he generally did not know how many people he had killed. By the time the last standing rebel fell, Wang Yuan was covered in blood, his head and face were covered with flesh and blood, and his whole person looked like a bloodthirsty ghost. The big black horse also became the big red horse, and the horse was covered in blood.

When the cheers of the soldiers rang out, Wang Yuan realized that the war was over. The cold wind blew, and the feverish brain was in a lot of trouble. Looking around, the river beach pier is full of corpses, and the tragic situation is shocking.

In the rush just now, those wet rebel soldiers who climbed up from the river were like stakes and mustard in Wang Yuan's eyes, cutting one after another, and there was no need to think about it at all. Many rebels actually raised their hands in front of Wang Yuan and surrendered, but Wang Yuan was crazy and also swung his sword and cut down. This move also served an exemplary role. Later, many rebel soldiers actually lost their weapons and shouted for mercy, but they were also indiscriminately beheaded by others.

At the time of the battle just now, the people on both sides of the river were almost crazy. Many rebels drifted down the river, and they did not dare to go ashore. The people chased along the banks of the river with torches, sticks and forks, and all those who came ashore were stoned to death, and at last they froze and drowned in the icy waters, and none of them could die well under the eyes of the angry people of the city.

Yangzhou City is still a city that never sleeps, but in the past, Yangzhou City was full of lights, wine, and green songs. People stay up all night in search of pleasure and enjoyment of life. But today, the people in this city that never sleeps are killing people all night, and they are killing happily and unscrupulously.