The Mongols' march will naturally not be smooth sailing, just in the Yangtze River and the Han River water battles there are as many as seven times, the scale of the battle ranges from 100 to 1,000 ships, all in all, the Song army won two wins and five defeats, lost the right to control the river, and the Mongols' tactics are exactly the same every time, that is, first use land artillery and artillery crossbows to attack the vanguard of the Song army's warships, and then the tortoiseshell ships broke into the Song army's fleet in one fell swoop, relying on the narrow river, the Song army's warships could not dodge, and were hit by the tortoiseshell boats that broke the side of the ship, and broke countless oars. The famous Dongting gunboats and Guazhou flying hooves were powerless against such simple and effective tactics.

The Mongol army then controlled the water surface of the upper and lower reaches of the Sanjiang estuary for hundreds of miles, so it began to build pontoon bridges on the Yangtze River and the Han River with more than 10,000 people from the Yang Fu Division, a craftsman of the artillery and water army.

One of the core plans of Möngke's expedition to the south was to build a super pontoon bridge large enough to cross the river.

As we all know, the river near Ezhou is open and not suitable for building pontoon bridges. But no difficulty can stop the determination of the Mongol Great Khan to conquer the south of the Yangtze River, Meng Ge convened shipbuilders, specially made a large board boat used as a pontoon base, more than 20 zhang long, six zhang wide, with iron oxen as ingots, front and back left and right four iron oxen once into the water, the board boat is like being nailed to the water, stable and solid, such as walking on the ground, the board boat one by one with a huge iron lock as thick as a human arm to connect together, lay wooden planks on it, establish a railing, build a gorgeous and magnificent pontoon bridge, at the bridgehead on both sides of the Yangtze River, Then set up wrought iron cast wolf statue and white deer statue, each respect tens of thousands of catties, with iron locks to tie the pontoon bridge to fix the bridge.

There are three such bridges, one crosses the Yangtze River, connecting the Ezhou encircling army and the baggage battalion in the north of the river, one across the Han River, so that the new phosphorus army on the east bank of the Han River and the Ezhou encirclement army on the east bank are integrated, one is built in the upper reaches of Zhuankou, heavy ballistas and firearms are set up on the bridge, 3,000 shooting corps is deployed for defense, and dense fortifications and barriers are set up on both sides of the bridgehead. This is a great wall on the water that rises out of thin air, and even if Zheng Yunming's navy can defeat the tortoiseshell boat, it will not be able to break through this strong defense line and rescue Ezhou from the waterway.

Perhaps Möngke Khan did not need to be so cautious to guard against Zheng Yunming's troops who came all the way downstream, because in the initial vanguard battle, the Mongol army found out the true strength of Zheng Yunming's new army, maybe they were not as exaggerated as they were exaggerated beforehand, but in essence, they were still delicate and extravagant candy, and they were by no means the opponents of the fierce and brave Mongol warriors.

Zhang Shijie led 11,000 horse infantry troops, along the Yangtze River all the way to the west, in the east of Hanyang City 100 miles away with the Mongolian army rangers had contact, Zhang Shijie led the soldiers and horses to pursue the rangers, soon chased to Chenjiayu. Chenjiayu is nothing more than a small village of a few dozen households, located in a shallow valley along which a small river runs through the village, and the slopes on both sides are lined with low trees.

Zhang Shijie's vanguard cavalry saw faint signs of enemy activity in the village, so they did not report back to the general and rushed into the valley of Chenjiayu. The musketeers and sword and shield men who followed behind did not know where to go, but also rushed forward.

The battle began smoothly, but it was only a new army under Shi Tianze in Chenjiayu, and after a day and night of marching, they were stationed in Chenjiayu, where the residents had fled, to bury the pot and make food, and the Mongol rangers were not quite sure what was going on in front of them when they passed from the village. So when the cavalry of the Song army broke into the village, most of them had not yet had time to pick up arms.

The vanguard captured three or four hundred Mongol troops in a short time, and then continued to pursue down the road. This could have been a good start for the Shenwu New Army, but it was unfortunate that the day was the unfortunate fact that Niu Phosphorus himself was patrolling the front line.

Marshal Niu Phosphorus is a well-known fierce general in the Mongolian army, he does not like to stay in the camp like other generals on weekdays, but likes to lead dozens of followers to patrol the front line, and personally go into battle to capture the flag when encountering war, which is a very courageous talent among the Mongolian generals of the later generation. After receiving the news of the Tanma Red Army, he quickly sent 500 cavalry as the vanguard to contain the offensive of the Song army. The cavalry of the Shenwu Front Army encountered the cavalry of the New Brothers on the narrow road on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and since both sides were the elite of the Song and Mongolian spearheads, their equipment and training were about the same, the Mongol army could not use the sprinting ability of the big horses, and the Song army was also unable to find a suitable position to place their characteristic cavalry artillery.

As a result, the two armies were entangled in the narrow road without distinguishing victory or defeat, until Newpho himself led thousands of elite cavalry reinforcements.

The Mongols had numerical superiority and forced the Song cavalry back into the valley of Chenjiayu. At this time, the cavalry of the Song army made a second mistake, they did not occupy the two flanks of the hill in time, which were not actually steep, and cover the retreat of the infantry comrades in the village, but retreated into the valley in a panic, and collided with the infantry who were passing through Guò Chenjiayu, and the front and rear cavalry infantry were mixed, unable to advance or retreat.

At this time, Niu Phosphorus led the army to rush up. He commanded the archers and musket-armed cavalry to rush up the hill and shoot condescendingly from the heights, and ordered the vanguard to fire at the village with muskets. The Song army in the valley was in chaos under the attack from three sides, and Zhang Shijie, who was in the rear, completely lost control of the situation. He could only send out the herald soldiers again and again, so that the troops in front could get rid of the unfavorable terrain and retreat under the cover of his own army.

The chaotic battle was finally ended when Wang Jian led his troops to rush up for reinforcements. In the intensive exchange of fire between the two sides and the trampling of the Song army, more than 1,500 soldiers of the Shenwu Front Army were killed, missing, or wounded, and 327 were captured by the Mongols. According to the description of the report to Meng Ge after the war: "Although the combat effectiveness is stronger than expected, it is still a sugar seed, and our army's southern expedition will definitely be smooth sailing and take the south of the Yangtze River." ”

On the other hand, Zheng Yunming did not give an extremely severe reprimand to the defeated officers and soldiers, and after the solemn burial of the officers and soldiers who died in the battle, he summoned only one person.

"Tomorrow, you take the Shenwu Zhongjun to go, don't come back to see me if you don't win the battle!" He said to Han Feng, who had just returned to serve as the commander of the Shenwu Zhulu Capital and the Grand Governor of Jinghu.

The next day, in Bailingzhai west of Chenjiayu, the defending Mongol army was surprised to find that there were countless Song Dynasty horse infantry advancing here, the defenders of Bailingzhai were not a miscellaneous force, they sent forward to harass the scattered cavalry, and on the other hand, they organized a small force of surprise formation, in order to harass the Song army's array, so that the Song army's attack could not go smoothly, and to buy time for the arrival of the army's brigade.

However, the Song army did not seem to be prepared for their delay plan to succeed, and when the enemy's cavalry squad rushed to close range, the soldiers armed with new arquebuses formed three rows and fired a shocking salvo at the enemy, and the small cannons that followed the advance also opened fire, knocking the enemy cavalry who tried to charge down with shotguns. The Mongol cavalry had never encountered such a large number of muskets and light artillery fire interceptions, all cavalry assaults failed without exception, and even the harassing archers had to retreat under dense fire.

The Song army did not wait for the mortars to arrive before starting to attack the enemy's fence as usual, only to hear the order of the front army, the musketeers rushed forward, and fired a volley at a very close distance, and before they could reload, the front army shouted, and the spearmen rushed forward with their spears, although the spears of the Song army were much shorter than the mainstream spears used by the Song and Mongolian armies, but they were wrapped with wrought iron behind the spear heads, so that the Mongols relied on the spear formation to break the Song army's spear formation with a sharp sword to cut off the shaft of the spear was difficult to work. Crucially, the spearmen did not seem to lack the courage they had assumed to be, and they shouted loudly in the Jiangnan dialect that the Mongols did not understand, and charged forward in such unison motion that every Mongol soldier who tried to rush into the spear formation with their swords had to stop and retreat in front of the iron spears.

As early as when Zheng Yunming was preparing to organize a new army dominated by the children of Jiangnan, he talked to Han Feng about the so-called selection of people.

"There is a saying in the market: the same rice raises a hundred kinds of people, the area south of the Yangtze River is so vast, the population is so prosperous, how can there be cowardly people everywhere?" Zheng Yunming casually pointed out a few places on the map and said: "The people of Taizhou are brave, trafficking in illicit salt is prevalent, recently the government-run salt farms have been opened, the official salt is fine and cheap, most of the illegal salt dealers are unprofitable and unemployed, and they are very likely to become bandits. As for the men of Hangzhou, Changzhou, and Mingzhou, although they are weak, they are good at selection, how can there be no one or two out of ten strong people, and the population of these places is often in the millions, how can they not recruit good soldiers? ”

"What I am worried about is that it is located in a prosperous place south of the Yangtze River, the conditions of the soldiers are too good, the temptations are too many, and the supervision given by the generals is too weak, so that they cannot understand the strictness of discipline in the army." Zheng Yunming slapped the table and shouted at Han Feng and the others: "Make the most of the skills you have learned in the battlefield of life and death, and train these farmers who were ridiculed and cowardly into first-class warriors!" ”

In the battle of Bailingzhai this time, the spearmen recruited in large numbers from Dongyang County finally lived up to the prestige of Zheng Yunming and the invincible Han Dutong, and their spears hung with the terrible screams of the Mongols, and when they stepped past the corpses of the enemy pierced by spears, it proved that as long as they undergo absolutely rigorous training and have brave and resourceful commanders, there will never be natural cowards.