The value of these peripheral fortresses had been mentioned to Zheng Yunming by Bai Yijie before. In fact, not only Bai Yijie, almost all the generals and main staff members had raised the issue of the outer fortress of Xiangyang with Zheng Yunming. Even a literati like Liu Kezhuang took his own "Tour to Baizhang Mountain" to talk to Zheng Yunming about how important the Nanshan fortress group was and needed to strengthen the garrison.

How could Zheng Yunming himself not know the importance of the outer fortresses of the Lu Dao, the fortresses have always been attacked and defended, and the outer fortresses are an inseparable part of the city's attack and defense system, for this understanding, Zheng Yunming should be much more profound than this era. If the importance of the city and the outer castle in this era was five to five, then around 1900 in the Christian calendar, the importance of the periphery and the city became seventy percent important in the periphery and three percent important in the city, and then the importance of the city in the defense of the city gradually weakened, and the periphery became the core factor of the city garrison. This is because the ability to deliver firepower, the mobility of the troops, and the intelligence search ability in the era in which Zheng Yunming lived before the time were all different from the current war, so the space for war must be infinitely expanded.

In this era, all kinds of complicated affairs in Xiangyang City entangled Zheng Yunming's hands and feet, so that he could not spare energy to arrange the defense of the periphery, but the result was that Zhao Kui personally ordered Xu Yuanjie to manage the repair of the outer castles in a unified manner. But he is safe and does not leave a tail of his hand. Since he was in charge of the renovation of the outer castles, he first fixed the defenders of each castle to make up for the vacancies, and sent officers from the city to make up for the lack of commanders in some of the castles. Then he began to repair the city walls, increase the antlers, dig trenches, repair weapons, dig wells, and finally replenish the food and grass for the various forts, and Wang Deng sent people to supervise their drills for the local terrain. Many of the outer forts were previously vacant, or guarded by local militia and native soldiers, and once a Jin or Mongol soldier approached, they would often abandon the fort and flee in a hurry. But a drill conducted in August by the deputy capital of Jing'e showed that the castles had been reorganized and had become a reliable stronghold in Xiangyang. If the Mongols did not spend a lot of effort, it would be difficult to conquer easily.

But Zheng Yunming also knew the pain of the outer fortress hanging alone, and the soldiers who relied on the city were protected by the tall city walls of Xiangyang, with a large number of people, sufficient food and grass, and complete equipment to defend the city, so their morale was naturally high. However, these outlying fortresses had low walls, few defenders, and had to bear the brunt of the Mongol attacks, and the morale of the defenders was difficult to maintain.

In order for these fortresses to exert sufficient combat effectiveness, the fortresses must be equipped with qualified defenders and tenacious defenders, but the final fate of these feeder fortresses is invariably captured by the Mongol army, and the generals are either killed or surrendered, and it is a pity that the elite soldiers are lost on the periphery for no reason.

How to grasp the scheduling is a test of the general's overall planning ability.

Everyone talked about it, time passed like the waves of the Han River, and in the blink of an eye, the night was thick, the moonlight gradually thinned, and the time of the third watch had passed.

At this time, several faint explosions were heard in the north of the city, and then, several dazzling sparks suddenly burst out from the Mongolian army camp that was camping on the river bank due north. Zheng Yunming recognized that it was the fire of the 10,000 enemies carried by the night raid team. Almost at the same time, a fire broke out in the Mongol camp outside the east gate.

The sounds of shouting, explosions, and commotion came from far away from the north and east, and the Mongol army's previously quietly burning bonfires became agitated, and figures could be seen shuttling back and forth in the firelight, accompanied by the sound of blades clashing, shouting and neighing.

Zheng Yunming held the pheasant in his hand and looked into the distance, the fire was lit in the distance, and the killing was noisy. Literati such as Wu Qian and Ma Guangzu just watched the excitement and didn't understand the inside story at all. Zheng Yunming could clearly identify that the small sparks that flashed were the fast guns firing, and the sudden burst of a large firelight was the bowl mouth gun showing off its might, and the intermittent series of fires at that time were the Song army using a flamethrower to burn the enemy's baggage and tent.

In order to motivate the morale of the soldiers in the bloody battle, he always avoided long-distance firearms spraying and encouraged to narrow the distance between the enemy and us, whether it was the use of spears and halberds to block the enemy's cavalry, or the use of swords and axes to engage in melee with the enemy, in order to encourage the soldiers' blood and courage.

Yang Luo is completely different, he once said to Zheng Yunming: "The northerners are good at horsepower, we have to be good at firearms, when did you see the Mongols fighting with us in hand-to-hand combat, since they can use the advantages of war horses to the limit, wouldn't we be fools if we don't use the advantages of firearms to the fullest?" From then on, firearms should be placed in the same important position as the cavalry of the Northern Captives. ”

Therefore, with the support of Zheng Yunming at no cost, the Tulong Army was equipped with a variety of firearms, and it could use suitable firearms to engage in both long-range and close combat, but with the current level of firearms, most of the time it was just to frighten the enemy.

However, Zheng Yunming knew that the most important point of a night attack was to create panic and chaos among the enemy as much as possible. It's not enough for the troops out of the city to make it. He shouted and ordered: "Order General Simen Tong and General Zhu to open fire and give the Tartars a little disturbance." ”

A series of huge fires and roars resounded on the four walls. Regarding the horrific scene of this scene, Liu Kezhuang left a poem of "thunder and thunder falling from the sky", although this is an exaggeration, but it is obvious that the Mongolian army in the distance is not indifferent to this, and the lights in the west are also rioting, not only that, Zheng Yunming can even see that the Mongolian army camp on the north bank of the Han River has also begun to make abnormal commotion. Could it be that Qin Wu of Fancheng is also making a move?

In any case, the setbacks suffered during the day were finally compensated in the darkness of the night, and the Xianggong was also excited, standing on the head of the city and saying to Zheng Yunming: "There are military horses like this, why worry about the instability of Jinghu?" ”

"Don't overdo it." Zheng Yunming thanked him: "Only when there are regular soldiers to deal with the dignified formation, will there be a surprise victory effect, otherwise the famous generals of the past dynasties do not need to study the formation, as long as they organize various sneak attacks." ”

But he looked at the Mongolian camp that was still in turmoil in the distance, and felt a little comforted in his heart: Yang Luo finally pulled back a game for the Song army.

Yang Luo's troops returned to the city near dawn, and with the sound of three loud partridges, the defenders raised the iron gates of the water gate as promised, and one after another flat-bottomed boats loaded with captured goods drove in from outside the water gate. Each flat-bottomed boat carried ten soldiers on board, light and difficult to maneuver, but when it returned, it was loaded with ordnance and supplies, and the river almost flooded the board.

"The rest was burned, and the Mongols were left as little as possible." Yang Luo picked up the head and handed it to Zheng Yunming while carrying the gold medal engraved with the dragon pattern, "I took advantage of the chaos from the enemy's general's tent to see what was written on it?" ”

Zheng Yunming took the gold medal, and some soldiers held up the lamp to look carefully, but there was no half of Chinese characters on it, but it was full of zigzag earthworm characters.

"Mongolian language modeled after Uighur characters." Zheng Yunming shouted: "Looking for a translator." ”

After the end of the war last year, the city set up a recruitment hall to recruit all kinds of talented people, including translators who are proficient in the Mongolian language, and there are also many Mongolian prisoners of war in previous wars, including the Mongols, who were captured by the Song army and naturally turned to the south to serve.

The guards of the government office immediately brought an interpreter, who read the words on the gold medal to Zheng Yunming, which turned out to be an edict issued by Wokotai to the generals of the southern expedition, ordering the scholars, Taoist priests, monks, diviners and doctors in the south, as well as all the craftsmen, to be pardoned and not killed when they captured the city and slaughtered it, and sent it to the north to serve the Mongols.

"What is there to deserve a special decree?" Yang Luo asked puzzledly: "After capturing the city, isn't it the established policy of the Hu people to leave the beautiful women and craftsmen as slaves and drive them, and kill the others?" ”

"The beauty of this command is not in the craftsman." Bai Yijie shook his fan and said: "They even need Confucian scholars, monks, Taoist priests and divination, and the knowledge in the middle is deep. ”

Zheng Yunming said: "Mongolia originated from Shuofang, which was originally crude and unliterate, but now that they have entered the Central Plains, it is a matter of course to collect all the talents who are useful to them, so why should the military advisors be surprised." ”

"What worries me is that the Mongols are adapting to how to be the emperor of the Central Plains, not just the Great Khan of Mobei." Bai Yijie shook the feather fan and told in a tone, as if he was talking with his classmates in the grass house, rather than telling the master about the rise and fall of the country: "These characters, you say that they can also be used to serve the Great Khan, but more often they can be used to manage the people in the north." With Confucianism as an official, Buddha as a believer, and divination and astrology to reassure the hearts of the people, if they gradually gain a foothold in Jiangbei with the help of the officials of the Fan and Han dynasties in the north, and become a normal country like Jin Liao, this is the most worrying thing. ”

Yang Luo nodded and said: "If it is just the Mongols, Jin people or Khitans, even if they bring more than 100,000 armor, they will not worry about slowly staying up with them for time, looking for opportunities to eliminate, I am afraid that they will become Liao, Jin, and Xia people, and they will wash away all kinds of diseases of the nomadic tribes and become an orthodox country with a large population. ”