Chapter 8 Crossing Lu

As mentioned last time, Liu Hou gave Gao Ding 30,000 old and weak soldiers and asked him to "get it" Zhu Bao. I led people to loot the Yuewangcheng treasury first, Gaoding is known as the king of Yuewangyi, and usually looted a lot of property, but now it is cheaper Liu Hou.

He sent a team of soldiers and horses to transport the looted gold, silver, jewelry, ivory, rhino horn and other valuable items back to Chengdu first, and at the same time asked them to supervise another batch of grain and grass.

Although he looted the treasury of Yuewangcheng this time and got a lot of grain and grass supplements, his troops also increased a lot, and the subsequent conquest was far away, and once the supply of grain and grass could not keep up, it was likely to lead to the consequences of being very strict. Besides, if you really have to go to Jiaozhou, there will not be enough grain and grass at that time. After arranging a qiē, Liu Hou led a large army to follow Gao Ding slowly to pick up bargains.

Zhu Bao was in Qike County (now Fuquan, Guizhou), and in order to defeat him, he first had to cross Zhuti County (Zhizhuti County (Zhaotong City, Yunnan)), and the journey was not ordinarily long.

On this day, the vanguard troops of Gaoding came to the edge of Lushui, but unexpectedly found that Meng Huo's brute soldiers appeared on the other side of the river. This is in trouble, the barbarian troops are guarding the river, and Gao Ding's men and horses have rushed several times and have not been able to cross the river.

By the time Liu Hou arrived at the bank of Lushui with the main force, Gaoding had lost more than 3,000 people, and all the rafts built to cross the river were destroyed. Liu Hou was furious, and he was about to beat Gao Ding. E Huan persuaded Liu Hou to spare him, and later Zhao Yun also persuaded Liu Hou, saying that the crime was not his, but the enemy was guarding the river, and it was difficult to cross the trench.

Liu Hou gave up and ordered Gao Ding to immediately lead people to cut down trees on the spot and build more rafts. I took the generals to the river to check the terrain, and I couldn't help but gasp at this look. Why is this current so fast?

Lushui is the Jinsha River of later generations, its riverbed is narrow, the bank slope is steep, it is a "V" shaped riverbed, with the characteristics of "high, deep, narrow, curved and steep", which is a typical high mountain and deep valley type river. Such a landform has caused a situation where many sections of the Lushui River are difficult to cross.

If it is a place like Tiger Leaping Gorge, the flow speed, the drop, and the momentum can not be called a river, and the waterfall is not much different, and it is estimated that the world's top rafting masters may not dare to go down to play.

In addition to the rapid flow of Lushui, there is also a more terrible thing is that there is a miasma on the surface of the water according to the legend, and people and animals will die when they come into contact with these miasma. Li Daoyuan's "Notes on the Book of Water" "Lujiang Water" clouds: Lushui has a unique miasma, in March and April, "the meridian must die", and after May, "the walker is harmless".

Fortunately, Liu Hou set out from Chengdu in June, and it is now August when he arrives here, which is the time when the miasma is the thinnest, and it will not cause too much danger to the army.

Liu Hou now knows why Gao Ding can't beat it, the water is so fast, as soon as the raft is put into the water, it will float downstream, and when it reaches the opposite bank, it will already float downstream I don't know how far away.

In addition, the slope of the shore is steep, and not every place can climb ashore, so even if you reach the opposite bank, you have to continue to float down until you find a relatively low place to land, and then climb up to the shore as hard as climbing the city wall.

How can you play beach landing in such an environment? To get ashore, it is necessary to concentrate superior forces to defeat the defenders on the shore. But as soon as the troops got out of the water, they floated everywhere and spread out within a radius of several miles.

The defending troops on the shore could calmly concentrate their superior forces and shoot the Shu troops scattered on the rafts one by one. How can such a battle be fought? It is no wonder that Gao Ding lost 3,000 people in a short period of time, let alone 3,000, in such a terrain, if the traditional cold weapon troops are still used to fight hard, no matter how many people fill it in, it is not enough to die.

"The ancients had a saying that the whip was thrown to cut off the stream, I don't believe it, I can't cut the stream if I throw it into the tree." Liu Hou said with hatred.

"Your Highness, what is the whip to cut off the stream?" Guo Youzhi still looked curious and asked Liu Hou.

"Oh, this, this, it means that we are strong and strong, and throwing a horsewhip into the river is enough to silt up the river, and we can cut off the river and let us cross the river."

"Dare to ask Your Highness, where did this allusion to whipping and breaking the flow come from, and why you have never read it." Guo Youyi's style of breaking the sand pot and asking the end embarrassed Liu Hou, and he accidentally told the allusions of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, how can he explain this?

"This, this, this is a legend from ancient times, and the legends at that time were exaggerated. Think about it, how can such a ridiculous thing as throwing a horse and whipping a river happen, it is something that belongs to the means of immortals, I seem to have seen this story in Master Zuo's Taoist canon, it is the magic power of the ancient immortals, and it is not strange that Mr. Guo has not seen it. Liu Hou said.

It's Zuo Ci again, I can't ask now, when it comes to Zuo Ci, no matter how unbelievable it is, it's not surprising.

"With the current situation, it is obviously not feasible to cross the river on a raft, but unfortunately we only have 10 hot air balloons, otherwise, we can go there in a hot air balloon." Guo Youzhi.

Liu Hou was taken aback when he heard this, this guy thought of the concept of the Airborne Forces so quickly? Sure enough, he's not stupid.

"Hehe, Mr. Guo is right, so after we go back this time, we must make more of this hot air balloon. As long as there are hot air balloons and gunpowder, there are hardly any fortifications and fortresses that we cannot impregnate. Liu Houdao.

"His Highness seems to have said something about throwing trees to cut off the stream, could it be that His Highness wants to use the trees here to silt up the river?" Guo Youzhi continued to ask.

"Don't silt up the river, it's okay for a while, but after a long time, the river will overflow, and even overflow the riverbank, and become a flood, and then it is likely that our camp on the bank will suffer." Fei Yi, who had been silent next to him, said anxiously.

"Hehe, Mr. Fei, don't be nervous, how could I do such a stupid thing." Liu Houdao.

"Seeing that His Royal Highness is confident, it seems that he has a countermeasure, dare to ask His Royal Highness the Prince, will he be released?" Guo Youzhi.

"Quite simply, the rafts are not usable, so we will connect the rafts and make a pontoon bridge, so that we can walk on the ground." Liu Hou said confidently.

"This, this is also very difficult to do, to make a pontoon, you must first pull a thick rope to the opposite bank to fix it, as the 'keel' of the pontoon. So that the pontoon bridge is not washed downstream. Now the enemy is eyeing the other side, and the current is so fast, that we can't build a pontoon bridge calmly. Fei Yidao, who is familiar with civil affairs.

"Hehe, what's so hard about that? We have enough manpower now, you listen to me slowly......" As Liu Hou said the construction method of the pontoon bridge, Guo and Fei's frowning brows gradually relaxed.

After explaining to Guo and Fei, Liu Hou issued an order to arrange the tasks of each army, except for Liu Hou's 20,000 elite troops who continued to recuperate, the other soldiers and baggage soldiers all moved.

First of all, logging, Liu Hou requires that the wood for the main body of the pontoon bridge should be large enough, at least a tree as thick as the waist of Liu Hou's father Liu Bei, that is, a diameter of more than 40 cm and a length of more than 15 meters; Secondly, it is necessary to choose tree species with lighter wood materials, not to choose those tree species with high density of ironwood, which are half-floating and half-sinking or even sinking directly to the bottom when put down the water.

Fortunately, there is not much here, just a lot of woods. Historically, the Central Plains Dynasty has always liked to go to Shu to cut wood to make pillars, which shows how rich the forest resources here are. Since raw materials are available everywhere, and there are 100,000 soldiers and horses on hand as labor, it is a very simple matter to build a pontoon bridge.

In just three days, the shore was full of thick trees, because most of the time had to be spent on choosing the tree species, otherwise it would have been done in a day if it had been cut down.

In the past three days, the shore has not been idle, Liu Hou and the craftsmen are experimenting with building a pontoon bridge. Liu Hou asked them to tie 10 thick logs together to make a large raft, and then spread a layer of wooden planks on top to make a big floating platform.

This floating platform is about 15 meters long and 4 meters wide, Liu Hou calculated, such a floating platform can provide buoyancy of 18 tons, in addition to the weight of the trees themselves, it can carry up to 9 tons of goods and people, what else is there to worry about, even the cannon is no problem to go up.

After the pontoon was built, Liu Hou asked people to push the gun cart onto the pontoon to test it, and sure enough, there was no problem. This time, the total weight of the artillery company and artillery truck brought by Liu Hou is only 300 kilograms, plus a few people pushing the cart, the floating platform can easily deal with it, what you need to pay attention to is not to put things on one side, pay attention to the balance, and avoid the floating platform from turning over.

Once the pontoon platform was set up, the biggest problem was how to build the pontoon bridge to the opposite bank in the panting river*.

Liu Hou asked people to put down the first floating platform first, only to see that as soon as the floating platform was put down, one end floated downstream, and the other end was tied to a large rock on the shore by thick vines.

Then, Liu Hou asked the soldiers who were good at supporting the boat to go up to the floating platform, and floated the floating platform to the downstream end and slowly held it up to the direction of the center of the river. That is, the floating platform is changed from the vertical direction to the horizontal direction. Then, at this point, several wooden stakes are hammered to the bottom of the river, so that the pontoons can be fixed to these wooden stakes.

Considering the strength of the current, the trees chosen for the stakes were also thick, sharpened at the lower ends, like a giant nail, nailed into the silt at the bottom of the river. Leaning on a few of these wooden stakes, the pontoon was firmly fixed even though the water was panting again.

Successfully succeeded in the first floating platform, and the Shu army let out a cheer. After that, the cats and tigers were painted again, and soon, one by one, the floating platforms were connected and extended towards the center of the river.

When I arrived at the Jiangxin location, the problem appeared. It turns out that in this section of the river, the bottom of the river is also V-shaped, and the deeper you go to the center of the river. When I arrived in the center of the river, the depth of the tree stump was more than ten meters high, and the stump that put down the water sank with a snort and disappeared. Obviously, there can be no more fixing with stumps here.

Liu Hou casually drew a pattern of an anchor and asked the blacksmith with the army to build it according to the picture. The blacksmiths picked out some weapons and equipment of different quality and melted them, and quickly made a batch of anchors, and then twisted long ropes with tree vines to tie these anchors to make a difference.

Liu Hou asked people to take these anchors to the floating platform, go to the center of the river to find a suitable place and throw them to the bottom of the river, and these anchors really lived up to expectations, hooked the sand and gravel at the bottom of the river, and firmly fixed the floating platform in the center of the river. The Shu army let out another burst of cheers.

Meng Shu looked at the rapidly extending pontoon bridge on the other side of the Shu army, and his heart was filled with inexplicable fear, and his mouth couldn't help but become astringent. The Shu army was so terrifying, he never thought that he could build a bridge in such a panting river, and the speed of construction was so fast.

The pontoon bridge quickly crossed the center of the river, a little closer to the shore of Meng Huo's side, and the stump reached the bottom of the river again, and the Shu army began to nail the stake to fix the pontoon platform.

Meng Shu became more and more nervous and irritable, he single-handedly knocked out the wine bowl brought to him by a maid beside him, called the herald, and ordered the mobilization of troops to guard the place where the pontoon bridge was about to land.