The first year of Kaiqing, the first day of November.

When the sky was slightly bright, Kublai Khan had already arrived at the pontoon bridge head of Baihu Mountain. Looking back, the array of tens of thousands of people on the riverbank was solemn. These people were all northerners, and they followed Kublai Khan all the way from the north to the south bank of the Yangtze River. These brave warriors overcame all kinds of difficulties and defeated many Song troops. Crossing the Yangtze River and stepping on the land south of the Yangtze River, but Ezhou City became their limit. These people not only stopped here, but also retreated from here to the north of the Yangtze River.

If you look closely, you can see the expectation on everyone's face. They are looking forward to returning to the north.

Kublai Khan said angrily to the generals behind him: "I am waiting for the return of the north today to crusade against rebellion and destroy lawlessness. When the north is stable, we will definitely return to this place and take Ezhou! Would you like to follow?! ”

When the generals were able to return, they all raised their arms and shouted, "Long live the Great Khan!" ”

Logically speaking, Kublai Khan was only the younger brother of the Mongol Khan Möngke. But at this time, the generals who returned to the north knew that at this time, they could only follow Kublai Khan and Ali Buge to compete for the position of Mongol Great Khan. ......No. They wanted to follow Kublai Khan and eliminate the Mongol rebel Ali Buge. Wipe out all forces opposing Kublai Khan.

In the crowd of people who raised their arms and shouted, the civil official Hao Jing's face was flushed with excitement, and he shouted with great effort. For Confucianism, the emperor is the inheritance of the father and the son, and even the strict primogeniture inheritance system must be adopted. The Mongolian cultural system in which various tribes meet to select the Great Khan is simply absurd in Hao Jing's view.

Among the Mongol kings, Kublai Khan was the only Mongol prince who favored Confucianism and was willing to accept Confucian ideals. He is also the only prince who is willing to use force to eliminate political opponents, destroy the tribal electoral system, and institutionalize the inheritance of the eldest son as a Han Chinese model.

When Kublai Khan succeeded, the Mongol state collapsed and a dynasty would rise. Thinking that he was an important promoter of this dynasty, Hao Jing longed in his heart that this battle for the throne could end in an instant, and that a new dynasty would be established in the next moment.

Confirming the obedience of the generals, Kublai Khan shouted to the generals: "You wait for the orders of the subordinates, cross the river!" ”

With that, the Mongol Khan walked towards the pontoon bridge. The guard Wang Donglu trotted on the pontoon bridge first, and walked over step by step. If there was any problem on the pontoon, it was Wang Donglu who fell into the water first.

There were some black spots on the pontoon, and Wang Donglu, who had been on the battlefield, knew at a glance that it was bloodstains, which were left by the wounded Mongolian soldiers who had been sent to the north bank through the pontoon bridge before. The battle of Ezhou was quite tragic, and the Mongol army had done its best. To no avail of destroying the city walls with siege equipment, they launched a siege of the city. However, each attack was futile, and the casualties of the 100,000 army plus the plague lost half of their combat effectiveness. The remaining Mongol army was completely unable to conquer Ezhou.

Looking up at the river shrouded in mist, Wang Donglu was very unsteady in his heart. There was also a strong Song naval army on the river. In the past, Wang Donglu always felt that water warfare was nothing more than warships shooting each other with bows and arrows, ramming, and jumping to fight in gangs. Seeing the warship built by the civil official of the Song State named Zhao Jiaren, Wang Donglu finally knew that those water battles were like children playing, and there were real water wars in this world.

The brisk pace took the lead in crossing the pontoon bridge, and Wang Donglu turned around to see Kublai Khan walking to the north end of the pontoon bridge with no less brisk pace than Wang Donglu. In a few more steps, Kublai Khan set foot on the land of Jiangbei. Wang Donglu's heart finally fell back into his stomach. The most important commander-in-chief of the whole army will no longer be effectively stopped by the enemy. As long as the feet on the earth, the Mongol army is invincible.

The rumbling sound came from far and near, and it was the sound made by the Mongol army when they stepped onto the pontoon bridge. The Great Khan Kublai Khan crossed the bridge, and the Mongol army, who was expecting to return to the north, immediately embarked on the road home, and those hurried footsteps were exactly what these Mongol soldiers were looking forward to.

Zhao Jiaren did not know that the Mongol army had embarked on the return journey. At this time, he was most concerned about the safety of Jia Yidao, the navy army was only patrolling between Hanyang and Ezhou, and had no intention of continuing to act against the Mongolian army. If Jia Yidao unfortunately has an accident, Zhao Jiaren's credit will still be recognized, but I am afraid that it will be discounted. After all, he just held the Yangtze River. In the eyes of the Great Song Dynasty, the annihilation of the Mongol army on the Yangtze River was the norm. Like the Song naval army that was completely destroyed by the Mongol naval army in the previous Battle of Huangpi, it was called an accident.

A Fujian Lutidian prison is not qualified to point fingers at the prejudice of the imperial court, and Zhao Jiaren knows this. So he also makes the choice that is best for himself, even if this choice is not necessarily the most beneficial for the whole war. People will always become self-interested, how can a person who cannot even defend his own interests be embraced by others?

On the morning of the third day of November, Jia Yidao's envoy stopped at Zhao Jiaren's residence in Hanyang. Under the guidance of the guards, the envoy met Zhao Jiaren. First, he saluted, and the messenger said eagerly: "Zhao Tidian! Jia Xianggong ordered you to break the pontoon bridge of the Mongol army at Huangpi. Go now. ”

"Oh......" Zhao Jiaren suddenly had some admiration for the Mongolian army in his heart. These northerners were able to erect pontoon bridges across the Yangtze River, and they were able to reverse engineer artillery by visual inspection. The Mongolian army was barbaric in terms of life and culture, and this barbarism could not be used to negate the military advancement of the Mongolian army. As long as it is related to the war, the Mongol army has the ability to learn, create and practice.

Of course, these words of praise were not spoken, and Zhao Jiaren immediately went to the port to lead the fleet to set off. After noon, Zhao Jiaren finally saw the pontoon bridge. I also saw more than a dozen small return guns on the outside of the upper reaches of the pontoon bridge.

Without an order, the flotilla stopped. The small return cannon can fire several pounds of rocks or mud. This thing smashed into the boat, and the boat probably couldn't stand it. The gunners who returned the guns also saw the Song convoy coming in a neat queue. They immediately operated the counterweight trebuchet of the return cannon, firing stones and mud at a distance of eighty or ninety meters from the gun position.

Seeing the shells of the return cannon making a big splash on the surface of the river, the Mongolian troops on both sides of Baihu Mountain and on the pontoon bridge were noisy. Tens of thousands of people cursed and laughed loudly at the Song navy, which had terrified them and forced them to desperately nail wooden stakes in the already cold river water in October.

Zhu Guobao, a thousand households of the water army, was one of these people, and he cursed loudly in his hometown dialect for the eighteen layers of hell under the Song State water army. The amount of work to build the pontoon bridge is huge, even if the water is shallow, but it is common for northerners to work in the Yangtze River and accidentally fall into the water. One of Zhu Guobao's nephews accidentally fell into the water and was washed away. There are at least 400 people who repaired the bridge, those who crossed the bridge, disappeared after falling into the water, and those who were scooped up after falling into the water but could not be saved.

Of course, such losses are only a fraction of what the Mongol army was directly killed and captured by this Song naval army. At this time, seeing that the Song State naval army was finally blocked, Zhu Guobao, like the rest of the Mongolian army, felt that the anger in his chest finally had an outlet.

In the noise of tens of thousands, under the gaze of tens of thousands. Forty small boats divided into two groups and rowed to a distance of seventy paces from the riverbank. Six large ships came to anchor in the middle of the river seventy paces away from the return gun.

Under the noise and gaze of tens of thousands of people, six large ships took the lead in firing at the Huihui artillery battery. I saw fire and smoke erupt from the deck of the ship's side, and a huge spray was stirred up on the water ten paces away from a return gun battery in the middle of the river, which was far larger than the splash caused by the shells of the return guns.

Almost at the same moment, the boat fired on the riverbank. At this time, there are so many people gathered on the riverbank that there is no need to aim at all, just adjust the angle of fire to the maximum. Forty two-pound shells flew into the crowd, creating at least 60 bloody incidents in an instant. The two-pound iron ball easily smashed the person in front to death first, and then broke the bones and tendons of the person behind him, and spurted blood all over his mouth.

The Mongols had always thought that the firearms on those small boats could only shoot at a distance of 40 paces, but they never expected that the range of such firearms could exceed 80 paces.

After only three rounds of shelling, tens of thousands of people on both sides of the shore could not stand it. They screamed and cursed as they began to withdraw from the riverbank. With so many people running together, it can easily cause many stampede accidents. The gunners on the small boats did not bother to pay so much attention either, they simply fired heavily at the shore with the maximum rate of fire.

Zhu Guobao's position was on a high spot on the shore, just outside the range of the small boat shelling. He watched as tens of thousands of men were defeated in front of him by the warp of forty small boats. The Huihui artillery batteries on the river, which once showed the demeanor of the Mongol army, were even more miserable, and six large ships fired at the batteries almost without stopping at a distance of 70 paces. It didn't take long for one of the return guns to hit a shot, and the crossbar of the fire was broken.

Before Zhu Guobao had time to take a closer look, two more platforms under the return cannon were hit, and in the violent vibration, the return cannon slowly tilted and slid into the water in slow motion.

Zhu Guobao watched this one-sided massacre in amazement, watching fifteen water forts that had taken a huge amount of manpower to build be destroyed in the time of a stick of incense. While watching the Song State Navy firing fiercely at the pontoon bridge, they also lowered a few small boats downstream.

"They're going to burn the pontoon! Quick, shoot the boat with a bow and arrow! Zhu Guobao shouted at the top of his voice.

Except for a few people around him, no one listened to him. The Mongol soldiers on the riverbank retreated desperately to the distance in order to avoid the iron ball that fell from the sky. A large open space was vacated on the bank of the river in an instant, and many people were lying on the open space. The bodies of the slain were silent, and the wounded and trampled Mongols groaned and cried for help.

The Mongols on the pontoon bridge were being fired at by the guns on the big ship at this time, and they screamed to rush across the bridge as soon as possible and return to the north bank of the Yangtze River. The fellows slowed down as they pushed their companions into the water, and were then pushed into the water by their companions further behind. At this time, everyone is in danger, where is there time to pay attention to those small boats down the river. The scraps of wood from the boat and the fort were stopped by the pontoon bridge far upstream, and they stopped silently beside the pontoon, as if they were harmless to humans and animals, and did not ignite a fierce flame.

Before Zhu Guobao could figure out what was going on, suddenly, these small boats exploded like shredded paper, with a fire and a loud bang. Zhu Guobao felt as if there was a feeling under his feet that made him feel sore. When the fireworks dissipated, Zhu Guobao looked at the first pontoon bridge again, as if the impregnable pontoon bridge had been blown up in several places.

Zhu Guobao was completely stunned, and he found that he could no longer understand what was going on. When he heard the exclamations of his subordinates, and when he saw the Song State Navy releasing a few small boats down the river, Zhu Guobao's brain could no longer comprehend what was happening. The Song Navy did not fall into the eighteenth layer of hell, but they seemed to have led the flames of the eighteenth layer of hell to the mortal world.

It was nightmarish for more than an hour, and three pontoon bridges were blown up. The river was covered with all kinds of broken wood, and on the banks of the river were thousands of dead and wounded. The more than 2,000 Mongolian troops who were blocked on the south bank of the Yangtze River were completely stunned, and the Song naval army indifferently leaned forward and continued to shoot fiercely at the Mongolian troops on the south bank. Without waiting for the more than 2,000 Mongol troops to disperse, they rushed from behind to surround more than 20,000 Song troops.

In peacetime, the Mongol army was not afraid of the Song army, which was ten times their size. However, the Mongol army that is still on the south bank of the Yangtze River has been defeated and completely lost the heart to fight again. They threw down their weapons, took off their armor, and rushed into the river, just wanting to be able to cross the Yangtze River as quickly as possible and return to Jiangbei.

After the massacre, the Song navy did not go up to intercept it, they actually returned. The Song fleet that followed behind the Song army swarmed up, and on each ship stood the Song army with long weapons, and they who were not at all in front before began to reap the fruits of the battle at this time.

The first year of Kaiqing, the third day of November. The Song army and the Mongol army fought on the Huangpi River, breaking three pontoon bridges and causing heavy casualties. The river is congested. At night, the cry of the North Shore shook the sky.