On the sixth day of October, a dusty army came out of the sea of sand and appeared in the open grassland east of Dengkou.

As if they had come out of the local legend of the ghosts of the sand sea, this army of tens of thousands was all wearing masks and face shields, and the dust raised by the sand on the grassland looked as if it was made of sand.

Several Tatar boys who were playing and grazing on the steppe first saw the black pressure out of the desert out of the army, they looked at the steady stream of these people coming out of the sand dates and sand willow bushes, first surprised, then frightened, after discussion, they immediately rode their horses back to the town of Dengkou, and spread the news of the resurrection of the ghost army in the desert.

There were only about 1,000 herdsmen gathered in the town of Dengkou, and there were also more than 300 Tatar soldiers stationed there, and after figuring out the situation, the Tatar herdsmen and soldiers fell into a panic. Although here and the front of Wuhai are hundreds of miles away, there is also an insurmountable desert in the middle, but the news that Wuhai was captured by the Ming army is much faster than the pace of the Ming army, and they also learned the news of the fall of Wuhai and Dayan Khan's retreat to Hangjin two days ago. Suddenly, tens of thousands of Ming troops who had captured Wuhai emerged from the desert, how could they not make their souls scatter.

Fortunately, these Ming soldiers looked like fierce gods one by one, but they were tired just out of the desert, beside the Xiaoqing River flowing on the grassland, these sand people seemed to be crazy one by one to rush into the river water to drink clean water to wash the dirt, and toss a clear river like the water of the Yellow River.

The Tatar people and soldiers had no time to complain about the rudeness of the Ming army, they knew that when the Ming soldiers recovered and became angry, that was the beginning of the tragedy, and the rumors that spread to this point about the Ming army killing people and eating human flesh without blinking made them regard the Ming army as the devil, so they decisively took advantage of this time to choose to flee.

So, within two hours of the Ming army's rest, the entire Dengkou town has been empty, more than 1,000 people and Tartar soldiers have already abandoned here, sitting on a sheepskin raft to cross the river to the north bank of the Yellow River, the opposite bank is unwilling to be Linhe County, where there are more than 3,000 Tatar soldiers and horses stationed, with them, plus across a surging Yellow River, the heart will be a lot more steady.

Song Nan dug out a large lump of wet sand from his ears, and all the holes in his nostrils, mouth, eye sockets, and ear canals were filled with sand when he crossed the sea of sand behind him. Although Song Nan made arrangements based on the experience of several expeditions in the desert in later generations, and dealt with various problems in the desert, the whole army and horses were still extremely difficult to cross through, and hundreds of soldiers and a lot of supplies were lost along the way. Several Tartar guides found in Wuhai played a key role in the incident, and Song Nan was cautious at first worried that they would deliberately lead the wrong way, and every once in a while Song Nan would send someone to verify whether the direction they pointed out was correct, and a simple compass was the best means of inspection. Later, Song Nan found out that these Tartar guides were not people who sacrificed their lives for righteousness, and they also wanted to live, so they didn't do much.

The drenched army set up camp on the spot to make a fire, dry their clothes, eat a hot porridge of meat, and sleep beautifully, which is the best way to restore the body. Therefore, even when the scout cavalry reported that the Tartar soldiers and civilians in the town of Dengkou had fled one after another, and more than a dozen boats on the banks of the Yellow River in the north had been burned, Song Nan did not take any action. He knew that the first priority now was to quickly restore the morale of the body, and the other qiē was secondary.

In the evening, after the sun sets on the mountains in the west, the twilight on the empty grassland is four, and the north wind blows the body cold. A troop of cavalry was galloping north, to the banks of the surging Yellow River. The roaring and galloping Yellow River is in front of you, the turbid waves under the embankment are monstrous, the yellow torrent is rolling and rushing with the trees and sand, and even the war horses under the crotch are frightened and silent.

Looking at the more than a dozen wooden boats burned to ashes on a slightly flat bank, Song Nan frowned, it seems that this is the place where the Tartars in Tartarkou Town escaped this morning, the river in front of him is rolling in turbidity, it seems that it is definitely not a good place to cross the river, and I don't know how those Tartars crossed the Yellow River. Song Nan knew very well that such a place to cross the river was by no means suitable for a large army to cross the river; The soldiers did not know whether water was secondary, and the most important thing was that war horses, rocket artillery and heavy materials could not be transported across the Yellow River, which was absolutely impossible.

"My lord, on the other side is Linhe County, and the foggy place to the east of the mountain cliff is the entrance to the Hara River, where the terrain is so dangerous that it may be difficult for the army to cross the river." Wan Zhi Dao.

Song Nan nodded and said: "It's not just difficult, it's simply impossible to cross, if there are no large ships with heavy firearms, it can't be crossed at all, or it is all carried by small boats, and the number of our ships is probably not enough." No matter how capable Xu Tai is, he can't get the hundreds of boats and rafts we have collected across the desert, and it seems that he needs to think of another way. ”

Wan Zhi said: "What my lord said is that besides, there are Tartars stationed on the opposite side, this kind of place should be a place heavily guarded by Tartars." After all, this Linhe Town is the outpost of the Tartar Urat Banner, and it is directly related to the ventral dorsal passage in the southeast of the Tartar Wolf Mountain. ”

Song Nan said with a smile: "On the contrary, the more the river is turbulent and the terrain is dangerous, the fewer soldiers and horses the Tartars will have. However, in a few days, Linhe County on the opposite bank will be a place where heavy troops will gather, and if nothing else, the main force of the bald and fierce can will arrive on the opposite bank in three or five days at most. ”

Wan Zhi was surprised: "Are they so fast?" It takes four or five hundred miles to return from Hangjin to the north shore and then arrive here. ”

Song Nan said: "Slow down is four or five hundred miles, which is twice the distance, and the bald man will definitely arrive quickly, they have horses to walk, even if the horses are tired to death, we will not be allowed to run behind their backs." ”

Wan Zhi hurriedly said: "In this case, we have to cross the river before them, don't they have three or five days to arrive?" Let's figure out how to do it in the next three to five days. ”

Song Nan turned his horse's head and said: "I can't think of a way, go back to the camp and ask the generals to worry about it together, I really don't have any good way." ”

The meeting on how to cross the Yellow River here was at an impasse from the beginning, if it was just to cross the river, then it could have been tried by building various rafts from local materials, but the problem was that the general asked for 35 Song Madame rocket artillery to cross the Yellow River with the hard work of the army, as well as a large number of materials, food, arrows, ammunition and other materials on the sand sled, and this request immediately made everyone fall into silence.

This is the Yellow River, not the calm Dusitu River on the shore of Bulong Lake, here is known as the Yellow River that throws a piece of goose feathers will be swept into the bottom of the river, it is not easy for people to cross the river, how to talk about the war horses weighing thousands of pounds of expensive firearms?

Song Nan held his cheeks, looking at everyone's sad faces and a little funny, in silence, Jiang Bin finally couldn't hold his breath and said: "General, before you came, you didn't say that you couldn't cross the river here. When we set off, you deliberately spread the news with great fanfare, and wanted to let the bald man know the news that we were going north to attack the mouth. If we had known that this was the case, we should not have done that, or we would have had a few more days to think about how to cross the river. Now it's good, while we are talking, the Tartars gather on the other side to defend, and we have no way to cross the river, hey. ”

Song Nan said lightly: "In this case, it's not mine." ”

Jiang Bin hurriedly said: "I don't blame you, I guess you don't know that you can't cross the river here." ”

Song Nan shook his head and said, "I really don't know, but what does it matter?" I didn't even think about crossing the Yellow River, I just wanted to attract the bald men who could shrink to the north bank of the Yellow River. Now it seems that my goal has been achieved, Xu Tai sent someone to send a message, in addition to leaving a small group of soldiers and horses to guard Hangjin, he will lead 20,000 cavalry to cross the river from the front banner of Urad in the starry night and shrink, and rush here through Wuyuan. In other words, there is basically no main force of Tartars on the south bank of the Yellow River. ”

Jiang Bin said: "I know all this, Xu Tai divided 5,000 troops and horses to attack Hangjin, and then sweep away the remnants of the enemy on the south bank of the Yellow River, these are all things in our plan, but the question now is, how can we take the Tartars on the north bank of the Yellow River, we can't even cross the river, how to complete the recovery of the entire Hetao area you said, and restore the system of the Dongshengwei Daningwei and other guards north of the Yellow River once and for all?" ”

Song Nan said with a smile: "Marquis Jiang is really impatient. ”

"Didn't you say that time waits for no one? It's getting colder and colder, and we can't afford to wait any longer. ”

Song Nan laughed and said: "At this time and that time, I am not blindly afraid of the cold weather, as long as the supply line is unblocked, I don't care about fighting the Tartars in the ice and snow." Let's wait for the news, if the bald man has indeed withdrawn all the main forces to the north shore, then our supply line will be unimpeded, and after Xu Tai clears the remnants of the enemy, I don't mind spending time with the Tartars until the snow is heavy and the sky is freezing. ”

"But what's in it for us? We still can't cross the river and seize the land on the north bank of the Yellow River. ”

"Wrong, the weather is extremely cold, it is a breeze to cross the river, although it is not possible here, but after dozens of miles down the bend of a few zigzags, the water will become relatively gentle, there will be a thick layer of ice, not to mention people and horses, our rocket artillery as long as the bottom of the flat sliding, it is also easy to cross the river."

"Huh?" Everyone was surprised, it turned out that the general had this idea, and had been swearing to warn everyone to fight quickly, and this time it would be delayed until the crossing of the river when it froze, and the blink of the handsome's eyes was an idea, and everyone couldn't keep up with his rhythm at all.

"Of course, I personally don't stay up until the river freezes, and although it is relatively easy to cross the river, our soldiers are afraid that the cold will not be good for the battle. In fact, I had already ordered the manufacture of tools for crossing the river, but it was suitable for crossing the river where the current was gentle, so I chose the site of a river thirty miles downstream; It was a location that Wan Zhi personally chose. ”

"Is it shipbuilding? I'm afraid it's too late. The people were very confused.

"Well, I'll take you to take a look at it early tomorrow morning, and by the way, everyone will also give a comment, after all, this is the first time I have ordered someone to make this thing, maybe there is something that needs to be improved. Well, that's all for tonight, you guys have a good rest these days, enjoy the scenery of the grassland, and in a few days, we will have to fight hard again, and there will be no more leisure. ”

Song Nan spoke, smiled and took a sip of the teacup, and the generals were full of doubts and discussions, and they went back to the camp.