"Daosi, that is the old city of Qichun, the thief didn't run, looking at his posture is to resist stubbornly, this battle is not easy to fight!" Du Shu rode on his horse and pointed in front of him with his whip. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

This was the fourth day after the decisive battle, and the Sizhou army finally hit Kong Yanzhou's lair.

In fact, since his debut, every victory he has won has been a blitzkrieg that hits the enemy's most critical joints in an instant, giving the opponent no time to react. But this time he ran into trouble, after defeating Kong Yanzhou's main army, there were too many seizures, counting materials, screening soldiers, and absorbing qualified recruits into the army.

Moreover, in these few days, he also sent men and horses to recover other county towns in Qizhou, cut off the branches and leaves of Kong Yanzhou, and avoided these places from providing material and manpower support for Kong's army.

Today, the number of troops has swelled to 10,000, and more than half of the liberation troops have declined in combat effectiveness and military discipline. If the recruits want to completely integrate into the Sizhou army, it will take some time to get used to the tactics of the Wang family's army.

10,000 soldiers, plus more than 10,000 people who were recruited, is indeed a headache. Perhaps, in the eyes of modern people, 20,000 is a number. In the afterlife, the number of residents of any ordinary town can exceed this number, which is nothing.

But to really manage so many people and horses, let them obey orders, eat three meals a day, and eat and chew, all of them have to be considered. Even the soldiers and masters have to think of pooping and peeing, the weather is getting hotter day by day, and the feces produced by 20,000 horses every day is an astronomical amount, if it is not handled well, the plague will last a lifetime, and everyone will die of illness if they don't wait for Kong Yanzhou to fight.

War is not romantic, especially for a commander-in-chief, and a campaign is made up of these lethargic and boring details from beginning to end. But you can't help but be careful to deal with it, there is a devil in the details, maybe if you do something wrong, you will fail.

Today, with almost no resistance, Wang Shen took Qichun, passed through the city, and was blocked by a river.

I saw that the river passed through the city, and it was the dry season, and the water was not deep, so it did not reach the thighs of people. It's not wide, it's only a narrow line, and it looks like a hundred steps. In the sun, large areas of pebbles are whitened by the sun.

A foot of water, you can pass it with your legs raised. However, on the opposite bank of the river, a strong red sandstone city wall was built, which was crowded with soldiers of the Kong family army and the people who had come from Kong Yanzhou.

"What old town?" Wang Shen was a little baffled.

Du Shu is the general judge of Huangzhou, and it can be said that he has run all the cities in the two states after Laiqi and Huang, and he naturally knows the local people's feelings.

He replied: "Qichun is the seat of Qizhou, this city is connected to Shouchun in the east, Jianghan in the west, although the place is barren, but it is the gateway between Jianghan and Huaixi, and it is a place where soldiers must fight. During the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Houzhu sent a large army to garrison here, and built a strong city defense on the east bank of Qishui, which was the old city. It's just that the old city of Shuidong is hilly and narrow. After Yizu destroyed the Tang Dynasty, the war subsided, and the prefect of Qizhou built another new city in Shuixi, which was convenient for transportation. I have heard that when the Jurchens crossed the river in Zhangjia the previous time, Wanyanchang's Chinese army was located here, and the people also built city defenses. General, with all due respect, when you came to Qi and Huang, you should have used this place as a defensive envoy. In this case, how can there be any problems today? ”

Hearing the blame in his mouth, Wang Shen had no choice but to say: "I am the defense envoy of Huangzhou, and the governance office is naturally set up in Huanggang, how can I run to Qichun?" In fact, when he first came to Huangzhou, he found that Qi and Huang were too poor and not a place to live for a long time, so he went to Jianghan with one of his hearts, thinking about how to pocket that anointed land in the future.

Moreover, in the future situation, the area north of Xiangyang is the place where the Song and Jin countries clashed fiercely. Whether the Jurchen and pseudo-Qi invaded southward or the Song army's northern expedition to the Central Plains, they were all fighting for the ground and a springboard for the general trend of the whole world.

Wang Shen has also been preparing to cross the river to Ezhou, but he doesn't want to, Kong Yanzhou gave himself a slap in the back of his ass.

Standing at the water's edge and looking at the past, I saw that the old town of Qichun was not big, and it was the scale of a small mountainous county in later generations. However, the terrain in the city is high, there are several rolling hills, and the roads in the city are narrow, which is simply a miniature mountain town.

The city has strong walls and many forts, which are really easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Moreover, before Wang Shen's army came, Kong Yanzhou had already taken the first step to entrap all the people of the new city into the old city, carried out the clearing of the wilderness, and set a fire.

To this day, the fire is still burning in the new city.

When the people of Qichun met Kong Yanzhou, a beast, it can be said that they suffered a great disaster.

It's no wonder that I am too slow to use troops, everything is planned and then moved, it is true that the older the rivers and lakes, the less courage I have.

Wang Shen regretted it in his heart, feeling that the next battle would not be easy to fight. The battle of tackling tough battles is a new topic for the Sizhou Army, a pure field army, and it is difficult to say that it will be a sandwich meal.

If there is a loss, it is my Wang Shen's fault.

"The soldiers are fast, so they must take the old city of Qichun as soon as possible, and don't give the thieves a chance to breathe." Although he was depressed in his heart, Wang Shen still showed a confident look and said: "Give Gu Lie and Wu Xianxian an order, and order the two armies of Breaking the Enemy and Shengjie to attack the Shuixi Gate immediately." Aren't they fighting for prisoners and supplies, entering the old city, and having everything. Tonight, a certain person has stayed in the old city tonight. ”

Having said that, seeing the dry water in front of him, Wang Shen felt a little uneasy in his heart. The terrain did not seem to be conducive to the deployment of troops, and it was impossible to use siege equipment.

His hunch turned out to be true.

The military plan that thought that the old city would be taken in one day also failed completely.

The origins of Wang Shen's soldiers are very complicated, including veterans of the Western Army, Huaibei Huaixi Wanderers, and Hebei Yiyong, all of whom are fierce and brave in battle, but they all have one characteristic -- they are not accustomed to water -- many of them have never gone down the river in their lives before coming to the south.

The water has now dried up, and the water is only two to three feet deep, and you can wade through it. However, as soon as the soldier stepped into the river, his face was frightened, and after he could not walk a few steps, some of them fell to the ground. Fortunately, Kong Yanzhou's troops are limited, otherwise he would have led an elite killer to come out, and the troops would not have been in chaos.

There was no way, Gu Lie and Wu Xianxian could only come to firewood and set up more than a dozen rafts to cross the river. After rowing out a few steps, the rafts began to circle in the middle of the river, crashing into each other, and the soldiers on the raft fell into the water like dumplings, and then huddled together in a mess, standing in the water like goose-headed geese, not knowing what to do.

There were dead and wounded in such shallow water, and three soldiers were panicked because they were wearing iron armor after falling into the water, and they didn't know how to stand up, and they were drowned alive.

Seeing that they really couldn't organize an attack, Gu Lie and Wu Xianxian had to withdraw their troops, and were scolded by Lu Can: "What are you two fools doing, the military envoy asked you to fight the vanguard, what you want is to destroy the withering and decaying, you can wait, don't say anything about the shame, and lose the morale of our army, deduct your allowance this month to set an example." Something that has no brains, what kind of raft to build in such shallow water, immediately take someone to collect wood, and directly build a pontoon bridge. Also, the siege equipment should also be prepared a little, and be prepared. ”

Fortunately, it was Lu Can that they met, and if they were replaced by military judge Chen Da, it was estimated that both of them would inevitably eat a military stick.

At Lu Can's suggestion, each army sent soldiers to collect wood.

There is another problem in this, Qichun New Town has been burned by Kong Yanzhou, where to find so much wood for a while. As a result, the troops scattered everywhere to collect materials and people.

More than half of the current Sizhou are the surrendered troops of Kong Yanzhou, who had just surrendered, and these people were used to robbing in the Central Plains and Shandong before, and their military discipline was corrupted. Although the combat effectiveness is not bad, in the past six months, it has been broken and fled for thousands of miles, and you have just experienced a bloody battle with the Sizhou army, and the whole psychology has been distorted.

And they are not used to the strict military law of the Sizhou army, this time they came out to recruit wood, and the beast nature on their bodies immediately burst out. In just one day, the countryside near Qichun was burned to the ground.

Although Chen Da's military justice department was all dispatched, it still could not suppress the rioting soldiers.

More than 5,000 soldiers and the other 6,000 pigtailed soldiers who were enriched in the auxiliaries and civilians were red-eyed, and they rushed around with their weapons.

The most infuriating thing is that Kong Yanzhou didn't know where he got the courage, so he actually led 200 soldiers out of the city when the Sizhou army fell into chaos, and burned the half-built pontoon bridge and the timber piled on the west bank of the river.

If it weren't for Yue Yun and the Beiwei army to attack, they might have entered Wang Shen's old camp.

"What a bunch of bastards." Lu Can finally broke out, and scolded the commanders and deputy envoys of the armies who knelt on the ground like thunder: "It's out, it's out, it's out, I know that I've harmed the people, and I've burned and killed the captives." Look at your appearance, are you still considered officers and soldiers? Our army came to Qi and Huang, and the will of the imperial court was to exterminate the thieves and hang the people. I think we have to crusade against you first! Judge Chen Jun, according to the military law formulated by the military envoy, how should it be dealt with according to the law? ”

Chen Da: "According to the law, if the department is chaotic, the officers will all have twenty military sticks!" ”

Lu Can: "Of course, you and the others are all commanding the troops to fight, and it is impossible to kill them all." How to decide, please ask the military envoy to instruct. ”

Wang Shen was also very annoyed in his heart, he didn't expect that the army beast nature of feudal society would be like this. In this way, what is the difference between himself and those thieves and rogues, how to raise hope in the future, and how to win people's hearts with kindness and nationalism. The most terrible thing is that once the military discipline of the troops is bad, it will be difficult to firmly grasp it in their own hands in the future. It's not good to say, other people promised a big reward, and the army that saw the money was pulled away.

"This wind can't rise, this case can't be opened!" Wang Shen tried his best to calm himself down, and said slowly: "The matter of attacking the old city of Qichun will stop for a while, and Kong Yanzhou will not be able to escape anyway." First of all, we should rectify military discipline and restore order. Except for Yue Yun's back army, everyone went down to the troops and captured the rebel army for me. Kill what you deserve, and never tolerate it. ”

The last time Kong Yanzhou's main force was defeated, the strength of each army swelled by nearly half, but the Beiwei army did not increase because of the strict selection of personnel. Because of this, this riot didn't have anything to do with Yue Yun.

As soon as the word "kill" came out, a cold snap arose on everyone's backs.