After the mobilization of the troops, Shen Shuren personally boarded the ship and took advantage of the morning light to lead the troops on the journey-

He personally went there to boost morale and to put on a posture, so that when the time came, he could better hit the morale of Liu Xiyao's side.

But in order to ensure his personal safety, he will not be on the front line during the decisive battle. When the time comes, just hide in the ship and provide fire and moral support to the friendly forces on the shore. The work of going ashore to command is still within the responsibility of Zhang Huangyan, Zuo Zixiong and others.

Shen Shuren now has a reorganized regimental training guard at hand, as well as a thousand supernumerary Shen family members and sailors.

Of these people, about 1,000 were scattered in Qishui County and several other county towns to take up the defensive work. Combined with the previous battles, there were also hundreds of casualties.

Therefore, the troops of this sortie were only 3,000 people when they were fully attacked. Fortunately, they all tried to select the elite, and left the wounded soldiers to defend the city.

Liu Xiyao, on the other side, had only more than 6,000 fresh troops before, but after seven or eight days of delay, some of the lightly wounded barely recovered their combat effectiveness, and the vital force was estimated to have risen to 7,000.

Just looking at the fact that the number of people is still nearly 2.5 times that of the officers and soldiers, it seems that the field battle is somewhat risky.

But Shen Shuren was very confident, he knew that Liu Xiyao's elite cavalry had been destroyed under Liu Xiong and Yidougu before. At least half of the brothers in the old camp were buried by Niu Ziquan's sneak attack on the back of the deception. In the remaining half, a considerable number of them died in the strong attack trap of Qizhou Ximen.

Therefore, those veterans who fought with Liu Xiyao for more than two years and served in the army before the last surrender to the imperial court will not exceed 2,000 at most. The remaining 5,000 of the 7,000 people are either fish belly or newly caught strong men in Huangzhou, so there is nothing to fear.

……

Looking at the flotilla in the distance, on the tower of the south gate of Qizhou City, a group of female dependents were also nervous, and a few of them cried out bitterly.

Shen Shuren and Zhang Huangyan said that they were going to go out in the field, and their wives and concubines would naturally be worried, after all, they were all civil officials.

Zhang Huangyan's wife, Sun, couldn't help but think of her father and uncle, who died in a thief's rebellion, which caused her mother and aunt to be widowed. was also quite resentful of Shen Shuren for letting Zhang Huangyan follow the army.

Chen Yuanyuan and Dong Xiaowan were also a little sad. Chen Yuanyuan was taught to sing music since he was a child, and he didn't understand any national righteousness, but Dong Xiaowan's family education was stricter, and he was born as a wealthy lady.

Although Dong Xiaowan is the youngest of the three, she is quite responsible at the moment, and gently persuaded Sun:

"Sister Sun, don't worry, Brother Zhang is skilled in arching and horses, and Zuo Dusi is brave and daring to fight. My young master asked him to go, but also to help him mix up more credit, so that he could be promoted together in the future.

After annihilating Liu Xiong and Yidougu last time, the young master played a battle report to Yang Ge Lao, which said that Brother Zhang personally risked the arrow stone to reinforce and shot down Liu Xiong's mount, and then Zuo Dusi took the opportunity to behead. I heard that Yang Ge replied later, and he also mentioned a word of praise. Although it is not worth the direct promotion, the accumulation should not be underestimated. ”

The incident mentioned by Dong Xiaowan was also seen with her own eyes.

It was about ten days ago, Shen Shuren was working at night with a lamp and writing official documents, and she was next to her with red sleeves and incense to help spread paper and polish ink.

Strictly speaking, Liu Xiyao's eldest son Liu Xiong was shot down and killed, and it was impossible to find out who shot the arrow, but the random arrows were hit by stray arrows.

But the credit is cheap, and outsiders are not as cheap as their own family, since there is no evidence, of course Shen Shuren has to settle on his cousin's head.

Sun had never heard of this before, but now she realized that the little uncle was putting gold on her husband's resume, and she couldn't help but be very ashamed:

"Sister Dong, my sister is short-sighted, don't be like me. You are very kind, but in this troubled world, alas, ......"

Dong Xiaowan reluctantly squeezed out a smile and comforted:

"Those who achieve great things are not informal. In such troubled times, if you want to live in seclusion alone, I am afraid that the tree wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop. Only by having the power and the army can we keep the peace of the army and the people of one side and the old friends of our relatives and friends. ”

……

The resentment of long hair and short knowledge in the back is not mentioned for the time being.

After Shen Shuren set sail with the fleet, the first thirty-mile voyage was completed in just one hour.

This section is along the Qishui downstream, the river drop in the Dabie Mountains is relatively large, the water speed is very fast, and the boat speed is naturally fast.

When he arrived in Huangqikou Town, he didn't see the whereabouts of Liu Xiyao's troops at all, and sure enough, he had already retreated, so far, the whereabouts of the Shen family army are still hidden.

Liu Xiyao was very trusted, and he didn't even scatter the scouts behind the palace, and just withdrew in one go, at most he only divided the heavy grain and grass and the soldiers into two parts.

All of this is obviously the credit of Shen Shuren's fatigue and paralysis for many days before, which made Liu Xiyao feel that he was very timid.

"It seems that the suddenness of this battle has added another layer of protection, and it was ordered that after the fleet enters the Yangtze River, try to sail a few more miles to the center of the river, and rely on the channel on the Ezhou side of the south bank, which can be more hidden.

In addition, troop carriers are not allowed to carry flags, and their formations should be as dispersed as possible. Make sure that even if you see a ship from the other side of the river, you can't confirm whether it is a military ship or not. ”

After Shen Shuren observed the situation clearly, he immediately added an order, and of course the sailors of the Shen family immediately and unconditionally carried it out.

This second section of the voyage is sailing in the Yangtze River, because it is against the water, it is much slower than the first stage.

Fortunately, the sailors of the Shen family are all the second elite such as today, and they are very good at using crosswinds, and the quality of the hard sails used by the Shen family is also good. The flow speed of the Yangtze River is far less than that of the small rivers in the mountains, and the wind can carry the water power, so it continues to move forward steadily.

In the area of Huangzhou and Ezhou, the land route on both sides of the river is more difficult to walk, when Su Dongpo came here to serve as the deputy envoy of the regiment, it was on the bank of the Yangtze River between Huanggang County and Qishui County, and he wrote the "Red Cliff Fu" before and after——

Although Su Dongpo was actually mistaken, he mistook the Chibi Rock in Huangzhou for the Chibi Ancient Battlefield, and the real Chibi Ancient Battlefield should be further upstream in Wuchang.

But in any case, the words in "Hou Chibi Fu" are what Su Dongpo saw on the spot, "the river has a sound, the bank is thousands of feet, the mountains are high and the moon is small, and the water falls out of the rocks", which are all real portrayals of the riverbank terrain near Qishui County.

Liu Xiyao's troops, when passing through these sections, inevitably had to climb a little mountain, and the march was even slower.

However, they have no better way to go, so there is only this one choice - if they don't go along the river, but go deeper inland to find their way, they will really have to toss in the lofty mountains of Dabie Mountain.

When he first came to attack, he could let the troops travel so far in two days and one night, and in order to sneak attack, he chose to force the march. This time, the withdrawal was not so urgent, and it was normal to bring so many belongings and camp for three days and nights to sleep.

After a day and a night of sailing, Shen Shuren's troops finally arrived at Lanxi Town near Qishui County in the early morning of the next day, which was an estuary town where the Xishui River flows into the Yangtze River, and was also blocked on Liu Xiyao's way home.

After crossing the Xishui River, further north is the boundary of Huanggang County, which is also Liu Xiyao's base.

Before Liu Xiyao's troops arrived, Shen Shuren immediately ordered Zuo Zixiong and Zhang Huangyan to take the main force ashore to line up and rely on the original terrain of the town as much as possible.

Not long after they were busy, as the sky turned bright, the lookouts of the officers and soldiers found through the binoculars: On the mountain road along the river in the south, a long snake formation of thieves and baggage troops appeared.

The thieves did not have binoculars, so naturally they were not able to spot the enemy at the same time.

Shen Shuren didn't go ashore, and Zhang Huangyan couldn't ask for instructions, so he immediately ordered: "Zuo Dusi, let the soldiers hide first!" This thief is just a baggage, and has no combat effectiveness, so if you get closer, you will ambush it, otherwise you will be scared away! ”

Zuo Zixiong thought about it for a while, and immediately let the soldiers hide in the town.

The thieves and baggage team walked closer with a big grin, and when there were only the last two miles left, they gradually found that the atmosphere was not normal-in Lanxi Town, there was no sound of dogs barking. Even if most of the original people had fled, it would not have been so frighteningly quiet.

However, by the time they could hear the anomaly, it was clearly too late. As the baggage convoy stopped and the generals sent scouts to check, the officers and soldiers had already swooped out of the town.

The thieves' baggage team carried so many ox carts, donkey carts, rickshaws, of course, they had no time to escape, and they easily beheaded hundreds of people under a cover killing.

There are also nearly 1,000 people who abandoned the supplies and scattered in a hurry.

……

Liu Xiyao's main force was about twenty or thirty miles behind the baggage troops, and after more than an hour, he was rewarded for his loyal defeat.

"Report! King! Big things are not good! The officers and troops suddenly appeared in Lanxi Town in front of us, and blocked the return route of our army along the Xishui Ferry! In the early morning, they also ambushed our army's baggage team and robbed our army of the grain and grass that our army had managed to harvest and loot! ”

Liu Xiyao was so shocked that his jaw almost dropped: "Officers and soldiers? Where are the officers and soldiers? Could it be that Zuo Liangyu crossed the river from Ezhou? How did it come so quickly...... I knew that a few days ago, I shouldn't have acted in a moment of anger and killed Zuo Liangyu's concubine's family. ”

Until this moment, Liu Xiyao's first reaction was actually thinking of Zuo Liangyu.

There is no way, Shen Shuren gave him the impression that he was too cowardly, too cowardly, too hobby, and shameless.

"No, it's not, it has nothing to do with Zuo Liangyu, it's just that Officer Shen Gou is chasing us with his troops!" The scout cried with a sad face.

"Shen Dog Official? How did he get ahead of us? That's impossible! Liu Xiyao couldn't figure it out for a while.

Or his righteous son Liu Sandao thought for a while and speculated:

"Not good! Father! Could it be that it was passed by walking on the Yangtze River? At dusk yesterday, I also saw a boat coming in the distance behind us, and we didn't pay much attention. But there were no boats in sight this morning, and the boats did not rest at night, so they rushed ahead of us! ”

Liu Xiyao realized that the Shen family is a maritime merchant family, and its water strength is not trivial, and it does have this strength.

Liu Xiyao gritted his teeth: "No matter!" So far, the only way to move forward is to move forward! Take back the grain and grass! Take it back! Soldiers, follow me fast! When you meet on a narrow road, the brave wins! ”