Although Gongsun Shu of the Eastern Han Dynasty had also done the work of erecting a pontoon bridge over the Yangtze River and turning the moat into a thoroughfare, he was using it to block the Han army led by Cen Peng from going up the Shuojiang River and attacking Bashu, not for the army to cross the river. Nowadays, this giant pontoon bridge of the Zhou army is used by tens of thousands of troops and countless baggage to cross the river, in terms of function and difficulty, it is more complete and more complex than the "Jiangguan pontoon bridge" described by Gongsun Shu.

It is precisely because of its complexity and difficulty, so when the news about "the Zhou army erected a pontoon bridge in Quarry Rock" reached Jinling City, Zhang Xun, who was summoned by Li Yu to the palace to consult about the matter, had exactly the same attitude as Chen Qiao - since ancient times, no one has ever erected a pontoon bridge over the river, and Zhou Jun's move was just a waste of manpower and material resources, and there was no possibility of success in what he did. In fact, Li Yu himself did not believe that anyone could erect a pontoon bridge on the river that could cross people and cars, especially in the rainy season, when the river had already begun to rise sharply. He summoned Zhang Xun and Chen Qiao to ask for the right question, just to show his caution. Therefore, after listening to the answers of Zhang and Chen, Li Yu only said that "Gu Yi thought that Zhou Jun's move was just child's play", and he no longer bothered about this matter that he thought was impossible to achieve, but focused the discussion on defending against the enemy - although he did not think that Zhou Jun in Hezhou could cross the river by pontoon bridge, the other party could still cross the river by boat. What's more, the Zhou army from Jinghu successively broke through Chizhou, Tongling, Wuhu, and Dangtu, and is now stationed in Quarshiji, I am afraid that it will soon rush to Jinling, and it is necessary to send troops to meet the enemy.

After some discussion among the monarchs and ministers, Li Yu finally decided to send 20,000 troops to Yang Shu, the deputy capital of the Ma Bu Army, and Sun Zhen, the commander of the soldiers and horses, on the basis of the 20,000 troops under the command of Yang Shu and Sun Zhen, the commander of the Soldiers and Horses, and then send Zheng Yanhua, the envoy of Zhenhai Jiedu and Tongping Zhangshi, to lead 15,000 sailors, and Du Zhen, the Marquis of Yu, the capital of the Tiande Army, to lead 15,000 infantry troops to resist the Zhou army. Before leaving, Li Yu specially summoned Zheng and Du into the palace and told them to cooperate with each other by land and water, so that they could be invincible. Zheng and Du bowed down and said yes when they heard this, saying that they would never live up to the trust of the country.

sent away Zheng Yanhua and Du Zhen's 30,000 land and water army, and Li Yu did not let go of his heart. After all, the Zhou army is powerful, and there are firearms to help, and it is still between the two whether the soldiers and horses of Yang and Sun and Zheng and Du can stop the Zhou army. Therefore, while ordering the soldiers and horses of the counties in the south of the Yangtze River to recapture the occupied land, Li Yu also sent several envoys to the Khitan, Southern Han, and Later Shu forces, as well as Li Yun, who had secretly communicated with him before, and secretly sent envoys to contact Qian Yu, the king of Wuyue, hoping to move the Wang brother who followed the footsteps of the Great Zhou to stop the army, fight against the Zhou army with himself, and reproduce the good story of "Sun Liu against Cao". For this reason, Li Yu specially wrote in a secret letter to Qian Yu: "Without me today, how can there be a king tomorrow!" Tomorrow, once the son changes places, Wang Yiliang will be clothed and eared."

Li Yu's secret letter was written very earnestly and straightforwardly, clearly telling him that once he was defeated, the next one would be King Wu Yue. But the problem is that Qian Yu, the king of Wuyue, is a smart man, and he has long given up his plan to compete with the Central Plains court. If it weren't for the fact that the Later Zhou court had always disagreed, he would have taken his family and carried a bed cover to Kaifeng to become an idle rich man. Therefore, after receiving Li Yu's secret letter, Qian Yu didn't say a word, and even the messenger sent the secret letter to Kaifeng City with the secret letter, and handed it over to the Later Zhou court for disposal.

Compared with Qian Yu, although the emperors and important ministers of the Later Shu and Southern Han Dynasty did not take the initiative to go to Kaifeng to be a prince, it was impossible for them to send troops to relieve the siege of Jiangnan at this time. Because the balance of strength is there, even the most mediocre king will not put himself on the muzzle of the Zhou army for the sake of aid that is destined to have no good results, and follow in the footsteps of Jinghu and Jiangnan as quickly as possible. And the Khitan, out of resentment against the Beiping Army, and for the sake of the face of those expensive gifts, although they agreed to send troops to help. But the problem is that its own elite has long been wiped out by the Beiping Army on the battlefield of the Battle of Youyun and the "Overlord Operation", and it can't take out a decent army at all - although there are still tens of thousands of elite pro-troops in Yelujing's hands now, this little force is a little powerless to suppress those Khitan nobles who covet the throne and are ready to move, as well as those vassal countries and tribes who are uneasy about the status quo and want to get rid of the Khitan control, let alone go south to fight against the Beiping army that has long been afraid of them. Therefore, the promise of the Khitans is just a blank check, and there is no possibility of fulfilling it at all.

Speaking of which, among the several forces sent by Li Yu to ask for help, there is only one Li Yun, who is the weakest, who can be regarded as responsible. Although he was not very satisfied with Jiangnan's appearance since the Zhou army's southern expedition, thinking that the speed of its defeat and retreat was too fast, he still promised the envoy again that as long as the Jiangnan army could hold off the southern expeditionary army for two months, his Zhaoyi army would definitely raise troops in the name of "Qing Jun's side", and unite with the like-minded and loyal to the Great Zhou royal family to cut off the back road of the southern expeditionary army, making it difficult to take care of the beginning and end and even internal chaos, so as to solve the danger of Jiangnan.

Although he did not have much hope for Li Yun's plan to attack Kaifeng and support Emperor Zhou, for the drowning person, even a straw floating on the water would desperately grasp it. Therefore, Li Yu continued to send secret envoys to contact Li Yun, and on the other hand, he gave death orders to Zheng Yanhua and Du Zhen, asking them to delay the advance of the Zhou army, so as to buy enough time for the imperial court to strengthen the defense of the capital, mobilize the army of King Qin, and seek foreign aid.

When the will came, Zheng Yanhua and Du Zhen naturally did not dare to slack off, and immediately urged their subordinates to speed up. At the same time, more than 20,000 soldiers and horses of Yang Shu and Sun Zhen's subordinates, who set off a few days earlier than him, had already met the Zhou army on the 22nd day of the fourth lunar month of the second year of Jianlong, that is, Xu Shao'an and Zeng Zhilin's troops were stationed in Quarry Rock, and began to erect pontoon bridges two days later. Although Yang Shu and Sun Zhen's troops did not receive Li Yu's additional order to fight to the death because of the early departure time, when they saw the giant pontoon bridge that had begun to take shape across the river, they already realized that the situation was very unfavorable to Jiangnan. Therefore, the two generals sent messengers back to Jinling City to ask for more reinforcements, and on the other hand, they lined up in formation, preparing to fight to the death with the Zhou army.

Although the 20,000 Jiangnan Army will not be taken seriously by Xu Shaoan and Zeng Zhilin, at this critical moment of erecting the pontoon bridge, no interference or obstruction will be allowed. Therefore, after a little discussion, the two brothers decided to divide the troops into two routes, the West Route Army led by Zeng Zhilin to block the Jiangnan Army, and the Middle Route Army led by Xu Shao'an to guard the erection of the pontoon bridge - it stands to reason that it is not necessary to dispatch the main force of the West Route Army to deal with the 20,000 Jiangnan Army, but considering that the Jiangnan Army should never stop this way, it is likely to come in a steady stream, and all the members of the West Route Army can take turns to fight, which will not make the blocking troops too tired, but also conducive to training.

30,000 against 20,000, the Zhou army, which was originally superior in equipment, training, and su zhì, had a numerical advantage, and the outcome of this battle in Jiangkou Village, 20 miles northeast of Quarshiji, was not suspenseful. The battle for an hour and a half was completely one-sided, although the commander of the Jiangnan Army had the will to die, and his soldiers also bravely moved forward one after another, but in front of the fire network composed of various artillery, light and heavy machine guns and rifles of the Zhou army's land troops, and under the fierce flank attack of the Zhou army's surface fire, individual bravery was useless, and the flesh and blood were even more difficult to resist the steel. The frantically attacking Jiangnan army left pieces of corpses in front of the Zhou army's position, but none of them were able to break through to within fifty steps of the trenches. When the Jiangnan Army could not bear the huge casualties and showed signs of chaos, the cavalry regiment of the Western Route Army attacked at the right time, and dealt a fatal blow to this already somewhat shaky opponent, completely annihilating it.

In this battle, the corpses of the Jiangnan Army were more than ten miles, except for the commander Ma Bujun's deputy deployment Yang Shu, the soldiers and horses supervisor Sun Zhen and other more than 1,000 people were captured when there was no hope of breaking through, and less than 500 soldiers escaped into the countryside, and the rest of nearly 20,000 horses were all killed on the battlefield. Rao is a general like Zeng Zhilin who is accustomed to seeing battle formations, and he is also embarrassed in the face of such a tragic situation. I not only admired the rare bravery of the Jiangnan army in front of me, but also felt the fragility of life.

Shortly after the battle, in order to show respect for the dead and to avoid causing a plague epidemic, Zeng Zhilin ordered the bodies of the fallen soldiers of the Jiangnan Army to be disinfected and buried as necessary. As a result, the battle, which lasted only one and a half hours, kept the sanitary and logistic soldiers in charge of cleaning up the battlefield busy for a whole day and failed to complete the disinfection and burial of all the corpses. In the end, Zeng Zhilin had to send another regiment of "security forces" to assist, so that this "arduous" task could be completed before Wang Kunjun and the East Route Army crossed the river.

On the 26th day of the fourth lunar calendar of the second year of Jianlong, on the second day of the meeting of the whole army of the Southern Expeditionary Army, the 20,000 Jiangnan water and land troops led by Zheng Yanhua and Du Zhen arrived at Jiangkou Village, 20 miles northeast of Quarshiji.