The strategy adopted by the Sui army to encircle and suppress Du Fuwei this time was to take the camp step by step, cut the grass and eradicate the roots, and they were not in a hurry to fight Du Fuwei immediately, but first started to clear from the periphery, searched Du Fuwei's warehouse, and pulled out his outpost.

At the same time, as the head of Jianghuai Xingtai, Lu Zuo's shoulders are extremely stressful, and at the same time, he is also the most hard, the six counties of Jianghuai, he needs to run from county to county, talk to Taishou, appease county magistrates, county officials and other grassroots local officials, and visit the family and so on.

The Sui army not only had to eliminate Du Fuwei's army, but also to eliminate Du Fuwei's influence in Jianghuai, of course, Du Fuwei's influence in Jianghuai could not be eliminated in a day or two, especially Du Fuwei's prestige among the people at the bottom, the Northern Sui court could not be replaced for a while, so it could only start from the level of the government and the gentry to obtain their support, in this regard, Lu Zhuo's effect was very great, which was directly related to Zhang Xuan's influence in Jianghuai.

Zhang Xuan received similar information from various sources, all of which proved that Du Fuwei had corrected the mistakes he had made before, abandoning Banyang Mountain and Yinlong Mountain, and instead using Hefei as a foundation, concentrating his forces, and relying on Lujiang County and Sui army to confront him.

At this time, it was late September, and winter was coming in two months at most, and Zhang Xuan was also under pressure to complete the task of clearing Du Fuwei before the winter truce.

Despite this, Zhang Xuan was still not in a hurry to implement his step-by-step plan, first completely clearing the periphery, and then gradually shrinking the troops, and half a month later, that is, in early October, the Sui army completed the elimination of Jiangdu County, Liyang County, Zhongli County, Huainan County and other Jianghuai peripheral counties.

The Sui army was then divided into four routes, Luo Shixin led 40,000 infantry to press down from the north, and Hu'er led 25,000 sailors to march from the south to the north, Pei Xingyan led 10,000 cavalry from the east road into Lujiang County, and the last road was Zhang Xuan himself, he led 10,000 cavalry troops from Jiangdu and advanced to Lujiang County.

The Sui army dispatched a total of 85,000 men and 500 warships, and logistics such as grain and grass also set off from the waterway, advancing by land and water, and slaughtered Lujiang County.

The water system of the Lujiang River is very developed, the most important of which is the vast Chaohu Lake, Chaohu Lake is located in the middle of Lujiang County, the northernmost distance from Hefei City is only 50 miles, it is connected with Chaohu Lake through the water of the river, and Chaohu Lake is connected by the Yangtze River through the gate water, this water system structure extends in all directions, so that the warships from Jiangdu can also kill all the way to Hefei City.

It is precisely for this reason that the first Sui army to enter Lujiang County was the naval army led by Lai Hu'er, who needed to build a large water and land camp on the north bank of Chaohu Lake south of Hefei City as a logistics center for the Sui army.

At this time, Du Fuwei's ships had almost been wiped out, and the Sui army's naval division had completely controlled the water surface, but Du Fuwei also knew very well that the Sui army would definitely build a camp on the north bank of the Cao River near the river, and he sent the general Chen Baoxiang to lead an army of 10,000 to block the construction of the Sui army's camp.

Seeing that there was still more than a month to go into winter, Duvowe tried every means to delay the war, as long as the war dragged into winter, the two sides would enter a state of confrontation.

On the water surface of Chaohu Lake, hundreds of warships are sailing towards the north shore of the lake, Laihu'er stands on the big boat headed by him, carefully looking at the map drawn by the scout before, of course, Laihu'er hopes to build the camp at the place where it is close to the water and Chaohu Lake at the same time, but the north shore of Chaohu Lake is swamped, and there are not many places suitable for camping.

In fact, there is only one such place, located two miles east of the river, close to Chaohu Lake, there is a forest covering an area of thousands of acres, the soil is very hard, this forest is cut down, the wood is used to build the camp wall, the vast land can be set up under the camp, especially the surrounding swamps, the camp is a natural protection.

But Du Fuwei obviously had an ambush, more than a dozen Sui warships had just docked, a group of soldiers lined up to get off the boat, suddenly, there was a bang sound in the woods, and suddenly the arrows were fired together, and the dense arrows were shot at the Sui soldiers who were getting off the boat, and hundreds of Sui soldiers were caught off guard, and they fell down with arrows, and the screams suddenly sounded on the shore.

Thousands of Jianghuai soldiers were immediately killed in the woods, rushing towards a dozen warships docked on the shore, and the main general Zhou Meng shouted: "Retreat!" Retreat now! ”

The bell of retreat rang, the Sui warships did not care about the wounded soldiers, they turned around one after another, and quickly retreated to the lake, only leaving the shore for more than ten zhang, the Jianghuai army killed to the shore, dozens of wounded soldiers were cut into pieces, dense arrows shot at the ships offshore, and a cheer sounded on the shore.

Lai Hu'er saw from afar that the Sui army had suffered a big loss when he landed, and he was immediately furious, and shouted: "Give me a drum to attack!" ”

"Wait!"

Right Sima Zhao Yan shouted to the herald soldiers, he stepped forward and saluted, and said to Lai Hu'er: "Old general, it is better to outwit it by attacking hard, since this forest is surrounded by swamps, we might as well go to the periphery to cut off their retreat, forcing them to be cornered and have to surrender." ”

Laihu'er's anger calmed down a little, and it was indeed better to outwit it with a hard attack, he muttered and said, "I'm afraid that the other party has brought a few days of food, and we can't wait that long." ”

Zhao Yan smiled, "If they refuse to come out, force them out!" ”

Lai Hu'er suddenly came to his senses, and immediately ordered the soldiers to find Zhou Liang and Zhu Kuan, and said to the two: "You two can lead the army into the river to the north, block the enemy's retreat from the periphery, and if the deployment is completed, you can use the smoke to report the news." ”

The two bowed and saluted, "Obey!" ”

The Sui army's naval division immediately divided into two routes, Laihu'er continued to confront the enemy on the lake, while Zhou Liang and Zhu Kuan led a fleet of ships along the river to the north, because the riverbed was not wide enough to travel more than 2,000 stones, which made it impossible for the Sui army to set up the camp closer to Hefei, but only on the north shore of Chaohu Lake.

The fleet of ships to Hu'er slowly approached the north bank, 10,000 Jianghuai soldiers quickly lined up three rows of arrow arrays on the shore, Chen Baoxiang stared at the Sui warships coldly, as long as the Sui soldiers dared to dock, his arrow array would give the enemy a head-on attack.

At this time, a soldier rushed to report: "General, the brothers by the river have come to report that two fleets are heading north along the river, and their whereabouts are unknown. ”

Chen Baoxiang was shocked, could it be that Sui Jun wanted to copy his own back road?

There are only two ways out of this woodland surrounded by swamps, one in the northeast and one in the northwest, except for these two roads, the others are swamps that can flood the overhead, they only have five days of dry food, and now two days have passed, and they can still support three days, if the back road is broken, after three days they will cut off the food.

Chen Baoxiang immediately ordered a general: "You immediately lead three thousand brothers to the northeast exit, and if you encounter a large Sui army, immediately send someone to report to me!" ”

The general agreed, and with three thousand soldiers left the shore and ran northwest of the woods.

Time passed little by little, and the Sui warships never docked, nor did they enter the range of bows and arrows, and more than a hundred warships lined up in a long snake formation, patiently waiting for the opportunity.

Nearly an hour had passed, and a general walked up to Chen Baoxiang and whispered, "General, something is wrong!" ”

Chen Baoxiang was also quite worried in his heart, he always felt that there was a problem, but he couldn't see what the problem was? He was hesitant all the time.

He hurriedly asked, "What's wrong!" ”

"The lowly found that there are trebuchets on the ship, and the soldiers next to them are ready, with the range of trebuchets far exceeding that of bows and arrows, they can give us heavy blows, so why don't they do it?"

Chen Baoxiang nodded, this is indeed a big doubt, why didn't Sui Jun do it? Are they waiting for something?

The general said in a low voice: "A few of our brothers have discussed it, and we suspect that the Sui army is going to attack with fire. ”

Chen Baoxiang was shocked, and looked back at the woods, at this moment he suddenly understood that the Sui army must have burned this forest, and the previous fleet went north to intercept his retreat.

Chen Baoxiang was frightened into a cold sweat, and he immediately ordered, "Pass my order, and the whole army will retreat to the northeast!" ”

Seven thousand Jianghuai soldiers withdrew the arrow array, and quickly rushed to the woods, Laihu'er scolded in his heart, the other party must have seen through his intentions, and burning the woods at this time is to block himself, he did not hesitate to order: "The fleet docks, the sword and shield soldiers go first, and force the landing!" ”

One by one, the big ships docked to the north shore, the planks were set up, and a group of sword and shield soldiers ran down the fleet with their shields held high, this time there was no more enemy arrow attack, some soldiers ran into the woods to investigate, and came back in a moment to wave the red flag, which indicated that the enemy had retreated.

Laihu'er gave the landing order again, "The whole army lands ashore!" ”

(To be continued.) )