The torrent is like an arrow, and the sound of water is deafening.

Sun Ce pressed his sword in his hand and stood on the bank of the river, looking at the rolling waves, rushing and not returning, and a strong tragedy echoed in his chest.

He hadn't gotten the news of the Xiuwu War yet, but the information about Wang Yu's southward movement was sent to him as soon as possible. Although Sun Ceda did not think that Cao Cao would lose to Wang Yu from the bottom of his heart, the movements of Yu Ban and Jia Xu had already shown that Cao Cao had become the target of public criticism and was in danger of being surrounded and annihilated!

Of course, Cao Cao's veteran soldiers will not be so easy to comply. But there is no doubt that time is running out.

There is no time to continue to deal with the enemy, to probe and to advance or retreat. retreating, which is not in line with Sun Ce's character, will make him shameless to see Jiangdong's father; Enter, it is a desperate fight that does not leave a way out!

Gaotang is empty, the defenders are not strong enough, but they have the Yellow River moat to rely on, and Sun Ce and Xiahou Yuan's biggest obstacle on the way to the army is this.

With such a long riverbank, Sun Ce originally thought that it would not be difficult to find a weak point to cross the river. As a result, it was found that the enemy was much more difficult than imagined, and on the distance from Gaotang to Chiping, the enemy army was deployed everywhere, leaving no gaps, which brought great difficulties to crossing the river.

Chen Zhi, who presided over the overall situation on the other side of the river, was not a famous general in the usual sense, but this person gave full play to the four words of meticulousness and prudence. In the past few days of confrontation, Sun Ce launched a total of more than ten tentative attacks, and tactics such as night battles, surprise attacks, attacking the east and west, and hiding from the sky and crossing the sea were used one after another, but he never tore a gap in the defense line on the opposite bank.

Now, Sun Ce has fewer and fewer choices, and finally he is ready to launch a forced crossing.

In order to cooperate with Sun Ce's offensive, Xiahou Yuan had already led his troops to leave two days earlier and hurried eastward, aiming directly at Licheng, an important town in the west of Jinan.

Xiahou Yuan did this for the purpose of encircling Wei and saving Zhao, if Zhang Liao and Huang Zhong could not be effectively contained, the Jiangdong army during the forced crossing would not only face the trouble of being attacked by Bandu. It is also easy to fall into the crisis of being caught between two sides.

Sun Ce knew that the purpose of Xiahou Yuan's resolute eastward advance was not to defuse the siege of Cao Cao's main force by attacking the hinterland of Qingzhou. But since the two families have been fighting side by side until now, there is no need to be too clear about the details.

In terms of reason, he can only carry out the forced crossing to the end!

On the day after the Battle of Xiuwu, Sun Ce personally supervised the division and launched a strong attack on the north bank of the Yellow River.

The vanguard was 10,000 Jiangdong elites led by Chen Wu and Han Dang, and Sun Ce led 10,000 soldiers and horses in the center, thinking that he was the stamina. Liu Bei led 5,000 men and horses to guard the rear at the same time. It also has the responsibility of commanding long-range troops.

Zhu Huan was ordered to build a pontoon bridge for the army. Under his command and persecution. Tens of thousands of people jumped into the rushing river with swelling animal urine bubbles tied to their waists, carrying planks, bamboo poles and ropes.

The Yellow River is known for its turbulent currents, and the waves roar and crash against the reef, if people are swept into it. One moment it will be slapped into the bottom of the water and swept away by the turbulence. What's even more terrifying is the underwater undercurrent and the whirlpools on the water, no matter how good the water is, as long as you are swept into it, it is a life of death.

This is not the most terrible, as the pontoon bridge gradually took shape and began to stretch towards the center of the river, the Qingzhou people on the opposite bank could not sit still.

They are not Song Xianggong, and they do not know the virtue of allowing the enemy to calmly cross the river and fight in formation. Thousands of armor soldiers quickly assembled, rushed to the shore, and erected a long wall with wooden shields. Behind the wooden wall, more than 30 ballistae were pushed and drove the oxen and horses to twist the bowstrings. He put a nine-foot-long bolt on the crossbow bed.

The Yellow River not only has a fast current, but also a strong wind on the water, and when the distance is long, ordinary bows and arrows cannot cause trouble for the other party at all, and a powerful bed crossbow is naturally the most appropriate choice.

The sound of the gushing water was quickly drowned out by the whistling sound of the crossbow bolts breaking through the air.

The first man fell into the river, and was gently swept by the waves, and a circle of red ripples appeared in the yellow water, which soon disappeared. Then came the second, and then the third, and the people who were trudging through the water had nowhere to dodge, watching as one thick piece of wood flew after another, passing through the bodies of several people at the same time.

The people were in a mess, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to escape in the turbulent water, and when they left the pontoon, they would only be swept away by the waves. wanted to retreat, but the retreat was blocked by his companions, and at the beginning of the pontoon bridge, hundreds of overseers armed with spears forced up viciously, and retreating was also a dead end.

The cries grew louder.

The people can't understand why a small citizen like himself should bear such a danger? Is it because he is under the rule of Guo Yuanjun?

"Don't mess up, don't mess up, just build the bridge to the middle of the river, and it's finished! Those who work hard are rewarded, and each person pays ten pieces of corn! Zhu Huan took more than a dozen guards and risked their lives to run onto the half-section of the pontoon bridge, shouting with all his might, and using the method of grace and power to inspire the courage of the people.

"Don't be afraid, our ballista is also up!" The 'squeak' of crossbow arrows was also heard on the riverbank behind him.

Xiahou Yuan's light troops marched eastward, focusing on speed, and the generals only brought five days of dry food with them, which was completely a broken posture. The rest of the equipment and grain, he left all the brains to Sun Ce, who had the need to attack the fortifications.

The quality of these imitations in the hands of the Jiangdong Army is inferior to that of the Qingzhou Army, but it is stronger in quantity. Sun Ce gave the order, hundreds of bed crossbows and catapults were fired at the same time, and the people who were messing around in the river felt that the light above their heads had dimmed, and the next moment they heard a dull crashing sound and a terrible cry coming from the other side of the river.

"No retreat, no retreat! Continue to build bridges, and those who retreat will be regarded as deserters, and they will be killed! ”

Zhu Huan's overseers raised their spears and stabbed the people who fled to the shore to death on the shore, and the blood spread along the river, fusing with the blood of the people killed by crossbow arrows, staining half of the river red. Moving forward is also death, and retreating is also death, and the people who have no choice can only accept their fate, while tying the bamboo poles and wooden stakes used to build the pontoon bridge with ropes, while praying to the gods and goddesses, hoping to survive safely.

The firing continues.

More Qingzhou troops gathered from other places, holding shields and pushing ballistas, and more and more ballistas turned their targets from the people to the Jiangdong crossbowmen on the opposite bank.

"Crossbow!" In front of the crossbow array, a silver-armored military general held a spear high, majestic.

"Crossbow ......," dozens of pro-soldiers shouted in unison. At the sound of the horn, dozens of soldiers exerted force at the same time, the crossbow arms creaked and protested, and were slowly pulled into a half-arc, and the two strong men shouted loudly to raise a giant crossbow and stuck it on the crossbow groove.

Hundreds of crossbowmen repeated the same movements, and more than fifty iron-clad giant crossbows dazzled and chilled in the sun.

"Wind!" The silver spear swung down heavily, sending a gust of wind with it.

"Buzz!" More than fifty spears of death flew into the air with the sound of the wind, swept across the river, and smashed down on the enemy.

The shields raised by the first row of Jiangdong soldiers were smashed to pieces, and the second row of shields was erected in a mess. In an instant, the second row of shields also collapsed, and several late-firing giant crossbows flew through the gap between the dead bodies and flew towards the ballista that the Jiangdong Army was opening.

"Raise your shield, protect the ballista, raise your shield, protect the ballista!" The Jiangdong generals who supervised the battle shouted hoarsely.

Bed crossbows and slingers are considered new troops, and because they are fighting far from the front line, the generals are not willing to waste their elite strength here, so most of them are used by auxiliaries.

The courage of the auxiliaries was limited, and they were frightened by this terrible sight, and most of them scattered, and only a few brave men raised their small log shields and formed a semicircular array in front of their ballistas, regardless of life and death. But the huge crossbow bolts that flew from the sky were not at all able to resist by manpower, and everywhere they passed, only the shields were scattered, people flew upside down, and a rain of blood fell out of thin air above the protected ballista.

The frequency of the Jiangdong ballista firing was instantly disrupted, and although they also fought back, as more and more Qingzhou troops gathered, the replenishment speed of the ballista was also very fast. Moreover, the combat power of the Qingzhou militia may not be higher than that of the Jiangdong Army, but they are well-trained and can adjust in the tragic firefight, even if the number of ballistae is relatively small, they are not inferior in the battle.

In the roar of crossbow arrows, the bed crossbows and catapult arrays of the Jiangdong Army gradually became sparse, and the number gradually equalized with the opposite side, and then fell downwind. But their sacrifice was not in vain, having lost the threat of bed crossbows, the progress of the pontoon bridge was accelerated after all.

By the time the long-range attack gradually divided the winners and losers, and the Qingzhou Army had an advantage in both quantity and quality, the pontoon bridge had extended to the middle of the river.

Although the Yellow River is not like the Yangtze River, which is dozens of miles long, which makes people sigh, it is not comparable to ordinary rivers. The section of the river that Sun Ce deliberately chose was about three or four miles wide, and the extension of the pontoon bridge to the middle of the river can only be said to be a good start. It can be seen that when the pontoon bridge extends to the center of the river, the Jiangdong army burst into earth-shattering cheers.

With Han Dang's order, they were stacked on the edge of the riverbank, looking like bridge-building materials, and the logs connected by ropes were pushed down to the surface of the water in a row, and after sinking violently, they immediately floated.

"Sons, come with me!" Chen Wu jumped on the raft first, roaring like thunder. He held a shield in his left hand and a halberd in his right, and stood on a rough raft, and his figure was as steady as a mountain.

"Kill!" The Jiangdong army boarded the raft one after another, and some people in front of them pulled the rope head hanging down from the half-section of the pontoon bridge, and some people in the back rowed and propped up the penny, and they actually moved forward quickly.

More rafts were pushed into the water, and more soldiers climbed onto the rafts, like ants, on both sides of the three pontoon bridges, and at a glance, it seemed as if an island in the middle of the river had sprung up out of thin air.

"As the saying goes: Northerners ride horses, Southerners are good at boats, and it's true." Looking at the appearance of the Jiangdong army crossing the river on a raft, as if walking on the ground, Wang Mo sighed very emotionally: "But are they too anxious?" If you wait for the pontoon bridge to stretch forward a few hundred steps, you might be able to rush through it in one go. ”

Chen Zhi was silent, just staring and watching, and after a moment, his face suddenly changed, and he lost his voice: "It's not good!" The raft was not for crossing the river, but for building a bridge quickly! ”