The so-called Jingxiang, one refers to Xiangyang, the other is Jingzhou, that is, Jiangling City, Jiangling City is the second largest city in Jingxiang, the circumference of the city is nearly forty miles, the city wall is wide and tall, the city head can run six war horses side by side, the city wall is three zhang high, and it is unusually strong.

Jiangling City is about two miles away from the Yangtze River, in addition to a straight official road leading directly to the wharf, there is also Jingshui through the city, flowing into the Yangtze River.

At this time, the defense of Gangneung City was in chaos, and Chai Shao issued a large number of orders in one day, leaving the officers at a loss, just like a leisurely and accustomed person who suddenly got a lot of work, first at a loss, and then without a head and a brainless busy.

The generals are all mobilizing troops and arranging their own defense areas, especially in the competition for the people, dozens of generals are even more arguing with red faces, everyone understands that the more people in their hands, the greater the oil and water in the middle.

If you want your children to go home, you can, pay money to redeem it, this is the way to make money, and every officer knows it.

After all, Chai Shao was a high-ranking official and a famous general in the Tang Dynasty, and he showed courage at a critical moment, and each general allocated the people according to the size of the troops in his hands, so that the quarrel between the generals was quickly quelled and they began to deploy their own defenses.

The Tang army had a total of 70,000 troops in Jiangling, except for the deployment of 10,000 troops on the dock as the first line of defense, all the other troops shrank back to the city, and 60,000 troops were deployed on the four city walls, plus the support of 50,000 people, which really built Jiangling City like a copper wall.

As soon as the morning dawned, Chai Shao appeared on the head of the city, he was in a very good mood, yesterday he visited a circle, and actually raised 200,000 stone grain, plus the 200,000 stone grain stored in the official treasury itself, so that the military food at his disposal reached 400,000 stone, which was enough for him to hold on for a year.

Chai Shao's plan from the beginning was to defend, using the strong walled city of Jiangling City and sufficient troops to confront the Sui army, and buy time for Chang'an, as long as it could hold out for half a year. The Tang Dynasty was able to gradually ease its breath and compete with the Sui Dynasty for the world.

Before he set out from Chang'an, the Holy Lord asked him to do so, even if the Battle of Jingxiang could not be won. It is also necessary to hold off the Sui army, the longer the better, and Chai Shao also understands in his heart that the Sui army may not be able to afford it.

At the head of the city, the soldiers of the Tang Army were nervously preparing for battle, preparing various weapons, and the bundles of arrows were piled up under their feet. A group of civilians were released by the soldiers and carried the rolling wood and stones to the top of the city.

Chai Shao greeted the soldiers kindly, and he was particularly pleased with the soldiers' energetic spirits, morale is the first important thing, I heard that Li Mi's army was too demoralized, and was defeated by the Sui army in a battle, Yang Yuanqing is very good at attacking the heart.

At this moment, a soldier suddenly pointed to the river in the distance and shouted: "Look! Sui warships. ”

Everyone's eyes were on the river in the distance. Chai Shao also saw it, and saw hundreds of big ships appearing on the river, with sails covering the sky and the sun. The mighty roar is heading towards the north bank of the river.

Chai Shao's heart suddenly became nervous, he didn't expect the Sui army to come so quickly, it only destroyed the water village yesterday morning, and the main force of the Sui army came today.

"Ring the alarm bell and order the whole army to enter combat readiness!" Chai Shao shouted loudly.

'When! While! While! The deafening bell rang throughout the city, and all the soldiers at the head of the city were very nervous with their bows and arrows.

Every family in the city closed their doors, and took their wives and children to kowtow and burn incense in front of the ancestors' spirits, begging the ancestors to bless the lives of the whole family.

The big ships of the Sui army are getting closer and closer. Liu Fangzhi suggested in a low voice: "General, in fact, the Sui army has a maximum of fifty or sixty thousand troops, either Du Fuwei's army or Xiao Miao's army, which are not good at fighting, so it is better for us to deploy troops out of the city." Fight with them. ”

Chai Shao shook his head, "It's not as weak as you think, there are still Sui cavalry, at least Wang Junkuo's five thousand cavalry is here, we can't defeat the cavalry, and we will suffer a big loss." ”

At this time, Chai Shao's eyes looked at the 10,000 troops on the dock, and what he was most worried about now was these 10,000 crossbowmen, whether their fortifications had been completed? ……

About fifty steps away from the wharf, the Tang army loaded sacks with soil and built a defensive wall about three or four miles long, parallel to the wharf, the defensive wall was about six feet high, and 10,000 Tang army archers hid behind the defensive wall, nervously watching the Sui army ship approach.

The main reason for deploying such a crossbow army on the wharf was to prevent the Sui soldiers from disembarking, because it was impossible for all the big ships of the Sui army to dock at the wharf, so they could only take turns to dock, so that at most six or seven large ships would dock at the same time at a time, and more than 2,000 troops would be unloaded from the ships at a time.

In this way, the Tang army's 10,000 bows and crossbows were enough to block the Sui soldiers from disembarking with bows and arrows, which could produce a great lethal effect and force the Sui warships to be unable to dock.

The north shore is different from the south bank, the water on the north bank is shallow, only the wharf is three or four miles long and a distance is a deep water area, which can support more than 5,000 stone warships to dock, and the other two sides stretch for more than 100 miles can not make the Sui warships dock, this natural condition created fighters for the Tang army.

As long as they blocked the area around the dock with strong bows and crossbows, it would be difficult for the Sui army to land.

The commander of the 10,000 Tang Army's crossbowmen is named Li Changyuan, who was born in the Li family in Hexi, is six feet three tall, looks burly, has a big waist and a round waist, is strong in martial arts, and is skilled in bows and horses.

Li Changyuan stared coldly at the approach of the Sui army's big ship, although he was not good at water warfare, he was good at commanding archers, and he had already held his breath in his heart, and he wanted to give the Sui army a head-on blow.

Three Sui warships have approached the dock one after another, all of them are Wanshi warships, and the huge hulls like small mountains are slowly approaching, less than thirty steps away from the dock.

Hundreds of soldiers suddenly appeared on the side of the ship, raising their crossbows and shooting at the Tang soldiers on the shore, and a burst of crackling arrows rained down on the Tang crossbowmen who were lying behind the defensive wall, and the Tang soldiers were caught off guard, and dozens of soldiers screamed and fell to the ground.

Li Changyuan was furious, and waved his sword, "Release the arrow!" ”

The sound of bangzi sounded, and the Tang soldiers on the dock fired thousands of arrows, and the arrows shot at the big ship like a storm, and more than a dozen Sui soldiers were shot and overturned, and several people were planted from the boat.

The dense rain of arrows nailed all over the wall of the ship, so that the Sui soldiers could not raise their heads, and three large ships in a row slowly docked, but the soldiers could not get off the boat, and the arrow rain formed by the 10,000 Tang army archers and crossbowmen effectively blocked the landing of the Sui soldiers.

The big ships in the back were all parked on the river, and if the ships in front did not leave the dock, the ships behind could not dock, and the Sui army seemed to have a bad start and encountered a big problem.

On the fifth big ship, Yang Yuanqing stood at the bow of the ship with his hands in his hands, coldly watching the resistance of the Tang army's crossbow army on the shore, yesterday afternoon, his scout had already told him very clearly that the Tang army soldiers were building fortifications, so the appearance of Tang army archers on the shore was early his expectation.

In fact, Chai Shao still lacked a little bit of consideration, and only thought of deploying an archer to intercept him from docking, if he Yang Yuanqing would pile up the wreckage of those burned ships in the dock water, or carry boulders and throw them into the water, his big ship would not be able to dock at all, and there were not many Qianshi river boats in the army that could dock at will, so it would become a problem to transport troops across the river.

It can only be said that Chai Shao's experience is not rich enough, and the experienced local generals seem to be reluctant to remind him, from this point, Yang Yuanqing feels that the Tang army does not seem to be very united, and the local generals may already have ideas.

In this way, Yang Yuanqing's eyes looked east, and his eyes were full of expectation......

At the head of the city, Chai Shao was very excited, he didn't expect that the 10,000 Tang troops deployed would play such a big role, forcing the Sui warships to be unable to dock.

Liu Fangzhi, the deputy general next to him, moved his lips, as if he wanted to remind him of something, but finally held back, he was a local, he knew all kinds of big ships well, and the Sui army was all sea ships, although there was no problem sailing in the Yangtze River, but if you want to anchor and dock on the north bank of Jiangling, there will be a big problem.

"What does General Liu want to say?" Chai Shao saw that Liu Fangzhi wanted to speak and stopped, and asked with some displeasure.

Liu Fangzhi pointed to Jingshui, which was a few miles to the west, and said, "General, if the Sui warships enter from Jingshui, it will be a troublesome matter. ”

A sentence reminded Chai Shao that if the Sui warship approached the city wall from Jingshui, wouldn't it be possible to board the city directly from the warship?

What can I do? Chai Shao's forehead suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, but he couldn't think of a countermeasure for a while.

Liu Fangzhi reminded him again: "You can use fire oil to flow down the waterway, and as long as the Sui warship approaches, you can set fire to the ship." ”

Chai Shao nodded, this method is good, when they attacked Jingxiang, they brought a large amount of fire oil from Bashu, and they stocked it in Jiangling City, just enough to use, Chai Shao immediately ordered: "Carry half of the fire oil and wait for the order by the water gate." ”

At this moment, he suddenly heard a thunderous sound from afar, as if the earth was also shaking slightly, Chai Shao suddenly thought of something, he turned around and looked eastward, his face turned pale, and he saw that the east was killing an overwhelming cavalry, like a black tide, sweeping in the direction of the dock.

This is the 5,000 cavalry led by Wang Junkuo, who crossed the river in the middle of the night in the east in the middle of last night, rushed all the way, and launched 10 miles away from the city, and the 5,000 cavalry galloped with iron hooves, murderous and fierce, like a sharp arrow flying in the air, straight behind the Tang army at the dock.

The crossbowmen of the Tang Army at the dock were already in chaos, and without waiting for the main general to give an order, they turned around and ran wildly in the direction of the city to desert, Li Changyuan shouted loudly: "Steady!" Steady! Lined up to meet the attack. ”

However, the Tang army was in turmoil, no one listened to his command, and the cavalry of the Sui army rushed like flying, and rushed to the dock in an instant, even if they could organize a defense, it was too late.

Hundreds of Tang soldiers could not outrun the Sui cavalry horses, and were instantly swallowed by the rolling iron cavalry, and the Sui cavalry pulled out a long dividing line, cutting off the escape path of the Tang army's crossbow soldiers, and there was no other way to either fight to the death with the Sui cavalry or surrender.

At this time, Wang Junkuo saw the enemy's commander, and he shouted, "Axe thief, bring me my life!" ”

With a wave of the Qinglong Yanyue Knife, the war horse rushed towards Li Changyuan, at this time Li Changyuan had no way out, he roared, the war horse rushed out, brandished the big axe, and slashed towards Wang Junkuo's neck with the strength of opening a mountain...... (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )

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