Anxu (now Langfang) is located in the southeast of Yanjing, one of the twelve counties of Gyeonggi Zhili, different from the mountainous counties in the northwest and northeast, Anxu is a flat river, and the fertile land is ten thousand hectares.

After Yanhu invaded the south, almost half of the fields in Anxu County were occupied and distributed to the military households who moved south.

Over the past seven or eight years, hundreds of granges have sprung up on the land.

Most of the new owners of the Grange are Hu military households, and there are also a small number of new Han military households that have been rewarded for their military merits. And the people who forcibly took away the land were forced to live in these granges because of their intimidation, powerlessness to struggle, and the pressure of survival. He was called a tenant farmer, but he was actually a serf.

There are more than 100 acres and hundreds of acres of small fields, and thousands of acres of large fields, and the Hu people and military households with a little power or military merits build houses as strong as a city fortress, scattered on both sides of the Feng River.

The Whirlpool River, Chaobai River and Wei River flow through the edge of Anxu County, and the Feng River is a main river that crosses the border of Anxu County, and the two ends are connected with the Whirlpool River and Chaobai River. Although the Fenghe River was 150 or 60 meters wide and 34 meters deep when the water was at its peak, after the embankment was opened and a large area of the embankment soil was pushed into the river, the Fenghe River was only a long trench that cut through the battlefield, and it was not easy for large warships to enter.

More than 30 war horses rode in small steps in the dark night, wading through the water depression on the east bank of the Feng River, and the horses' hooves with the sound of water clattering; On both sides of the Feng River, the cavalry outposts on both sides were so dense that there was no need to deliberately hide their tracks at night.

Hu Gouzi set fire to the two pontoon bridges on the Feng River at night, the fire was not extinguished at this time, and from a distance, it looked like two fire dragons squatting in the night.

A large number of captives and cavalry assembled in the area west of the Fenghe River, intending to use the Fenghe River as an outer trench to intercept the westward advance of the soldiers and horses of the Huaidong Army, but many military households failed to withdraw in time and became the object of anger of local farmers.

The sentinels could not prevent this kind of chaos, because Yan and Hebei moved into a large number of Liaodong Han households loyal to the Northern Yan, the Huaidong army could not even distinguish between the Liaodong Han households and the local Han households for a short time, and could only temporarily expel the people from the core area of the battlefield in a blanket manner.

The neighing of the war horses on the other side of the river could be faintly heard, and the sentry rider of the First Rider patiently touched the shallow silt that flooded the river inch by inch to make sure that Hu Gouzi did not do anything else on the Feng River.

Looking back, the Fenghe River hidden in the night was sparkling and shining, and the front rider took off the flames from the saddle, raised his hand and lit it, and the fireworks snorted and sprayed into the air to bloom, like a thousand trees and silver flowers, so as to convey the news of the safety of Fengli on the east bank to the rear.

About half an hour after the fireworks were heard, several groups of horse infantry appeared on the land on the east bank of the Feng River as if they had come out of the night.

The opening of the estuary caused a large area of land in the eastern section of the Fenghe River to be flooded in shallow water and turned into a depression, which did cause a big problem for the Huaidong Army's westward advance, but it was not enough to make it difficult for the Huaidong Army to move an inch.

Chen Yan accompanied Yang Yihang to the east bank of the Feng River to inspect the terrain, took off the stinking riding boots, rolled up the trouser legs, waded through a pond of stagnant water, and stood on the remnant embankment on the east bank of the Feng River. In order not to arouse unnecessary vigilance among the enemy cavalry on the other side, Chen Yan and Yang Yihang only had seven or eight soldiers around them, and the other cavalry were hidden in the night in the distance.

Yang Yihang squatted down, stretched out his hand and touched a handful of wet soil on the embankment, and said to Chen Yan: "Hu Gouzi is trying to build a dam to store water in the upper reaches of the Vortex River, although the possibility of them building a dam in a short period of time is not high, but we still need to solve the war before the rainstorm season comes, otherwise a few heavy rains will further destroy the embankment in Yandong, and the silting problem will become more serious......

"Hu Gouzi of the dog days, they withdrew all the cavalry to the west of the Feng River, but the distance is east of Yanjing, probably they want to beat us a half while we cross the Feng River!" Chen Yan took a sip and asked Yang Yihang again, "How fast is the bridge built by the Gongyi camp?" If it is fast enough, we can wait patiently for two days in Fenghedong. Wait for the trestle materials to be transported, find a night of work, build the bridge in the first half of the night, and rush through the foot brigade in the second half of the night......"

The Fenghe River is smaller than the Whirlpool River and the Chaobai River, and the narrowest part is only 350 meters wide, so it is not impossible to rush to build a trestle bridge in front of the enemy. As long as you cross the Fenghe River, the soldiers and horses on the middle road go further west, all the way to Yanjing City, there are no major terrain obstacles.

Chen Yan and Yang Yihang personally touched the terrain, and the Gongyi battalion also sent engineering officials to conduct a detailed survey of the Fenghe River, and worked out a plan to build a trestle bridge and break through to the west bank of the Fenghe River overnight, and sent fast horses to Jinhai to ask Lin Tie for instructions.

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The enemy's intention to use Fenghe to attack Anxu to intercept the battle was obvious, and the Huaidong Army naturally could not intercept the momentum of the attack for the small Fenghe.

"If the enemy army does not retreat, the battle should start on the west bank of the Feng River, right?" Lin Jian read the battle plan sent by Gao Zongting, picked up the charcoal, and carefully circled several key points on the west bank of the Fenghe River on the map, except for the Fenghe River, there is no other dangerous terrain in Anxu, for the enemy army, it is the Hu people who built several large villages that can be garrisoned after occupying the grain fields in Anxu, and said, "The enemy army obviously will not ask us to cross the Fenghe River happily and then fight again, I see that when our troops cross the river, it is when the battle begins......"

"Then call the Zong Ting and them, make the plan more detailed, and make more preparations." Song Fu said.

Wu Qi said: "Sun Huai sent someone to ask for help. Although we equipped the heavy artillery group with six horses, the enemy army wantonly tore the embankment, causing serious siltation in Xiqing, Heqiao and other places, making it difficult for the artillery trucks to pass through, and lagging behind the infantry brigade a lot, if we break through the west bank of the Fenghe River within two days, the artillery brigade will probably not be able to catch up! Is it a temporary transfer of a thousand horses from the jockey? ”

"At this time, a thousand war horses will be drawn from the jockey, and Zhou Pu can turn his face with me," Lin Jian said, "If there are not enough horses, then use people to pull them and transfer a reserve brigade to Sun Huai's command." Tell Sun Huai that if he can't drag the artillery to the east bank of the Fenghe River within three days, tell him that the brigade commander will stop doing it! After thinking about it, he added: "Before the announcement, artillery could only be deployed on the east bank in the early stage, and the soldiers and horses entering the west bank in the early stage must be psychologically prepared to have a defensive line to penetrate the captives. The core trestle must be made of iron bridges, and there is no need to ignore the determination of the enemy to break in and destroy the bridge...... Where did the Iron Bridge Battalion advance? ”

The Iron Bridge Battalion is a part of the Workers' Battalion, which carries a large number of iron bridges with the battalion, which is extremely heavy, although there are a large number of horses and heavy-duty carriages traveling with the battalion, but the speed of advance is very slow. The only advantage was that the cast-iron elements were spread over more heavily loaded wagons, which were slightly faster to advance the heavy gun wagons.

Song Fu heard Lin Lian's inquiry, leaned over, and marked the accurate location of the Tieqiao Battalion on the map at this time.

Lin Jian nodded, satisfied with the speed of the Tieqiao Battalion's advancement, and said, "Then let the former commander change the plan and delay the river crossing until three days later......

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Three days passed in a blink of an eye, Tong Huacheng ventured to the embankment on the west bank of the Feng River to look at the deployment of the Huaidong Army on the east bank, without the support of the Emperor of the Mandate of Heaven, Fan Wenlan and these Hanchen were seriously squeezed out, especially Fan Wenlan in the defensive strategy with Nahe Wugu The conflict was too deep, and he had no intention of staying in the camp to be angry, regardless of the danger of fighting at any time on both sides of the Feng River, he still went to the front with Tong Huacheng.

As more and more Huaidong troops entered the east bank of the Fenghe River, all the people with the appearance of the Hu people were detained as prisoners of war, while the other people were temporarily expelled from the east bank of the Fenghe River, so that the soldiers and horses of the Northern Yan were blind to the east bank and could not figure out the specific movement of the soldiers and horses in the middle of the Huaidong Army.

"How does Master Fan think the Huaidong Army will cross the river?" Tong Huacheng asked Fan Wenlan.

Fan Wenlan and Tong Huacheng stood on this river for a full hundred and fifty or sixty meters, but they were still within the range of the Huaidong Army's strong crossbows, not to mention those ambush fire crossbows that could shoot three or four miles away.

The Fenghe River was destroyed like this, even if the Huaidong Army controlled the estuaries on both sides, its large warships could not come in, and the Huaidong Army came across the sea, and it was impossible to have a large number of small ferries and boats to accompany it, so the Huaidong Army had to cross the Fenghe River in a short time, enter the west bank, and continue to approach Yanjing, either by forcibly building trestle bridges, or directly transporting earth to fill in a few dam roads.

Fan Wenlan said: "The embankment on the east side of the Feng River has opened dozens of gaps, and if the Huaidong Army sends people to carry earth to fill the dam to cross the river, it will only aggravate the siltation on the east bank." If there is a heavy rainstorm, the area east of the Fenghe River is likely to become a deeper flooded country because of the lack of water...... The Huaidong Army attaches the most importance to industrial construction, and will not consider this situation, it should be built a trestle bridge to attack it! ”

Tong Huacheng knew that Fan Wenlan was a person with great insight in military affairs and governance, so he could be reused by the emperor, but it was a pity that the emperor was unconscious, and the princes and ministers of Yanjing City couldn't wait to reveal their distrust of Hanchen. Even if he was born in the Tong family, because of his different opinions, he didn't give a good face for three or four days.

Listening to Fan Wenlan's judgment that the Huaidong Army would build a trestle bridge to cross the river, Tong Huacheng nodded, the strongest thing about the Huaidong Army is not how strong the soldiers are, and its craftsmanship is unparalleled in the world.

The Huaidong army only used a day or two to quickly build more than a dozen trestle bridges over the Fenghe River, so that its horse infantry could force their troops to the west bank—Tong Huacheng, who had been studying Huaidong at close range for seven or eight years, did not have much doubt about this.

The widest part of the Fenghe River is only one or two hundred steps, and the narrowest part is only twenty or thirty steps, although the Great Yan soldiers and horses control the west bank of the Fenghe River, but the Huaidong Army is on the east bank, and the space of two or three hundred steps can be blocked with a bed crossbow, and the range of the ambush fire crossbow is even farther to an astonishing extent.

The soldiers and horses of the Great Yan wanted to prevent the Huaidong Army's engineers from building a trestle bridge on the Feng River, and the generals could only resist the intensive shooting of the Huaidong Army's crossbow array, and approach the west bank of the river embankment to destroy the bridge—perhaps not to stop the Huaidong Army from building a bridge, so that the Huaidong Army had a few soldiers and horses to cross the river, and then use the elite cavalry to rush to kill its formation, and use the cover of the Huaidong Army's soldiers to approach the trestle bridge and destroy it; Such repetition will definitely consume the offensive spirit of the Huaidong Army!

Tong Huacheng thought so in his heart.