Liu Laohan said: "This is the best way to walk, there is still a small road, but it is more difficult to walk." ”

"North or South?"

"North."

Zhu Gaoxu asked again: "How wide is the road we have now?" ”

"Five or six steps."

Zhu Gaoxu thought silently, and it seemed that the cannon could not be transported.

The officers and soldiers are at the bottom of the mountain, and if the artillery can be transported to Jiugong Mountain or Taiping Mountain, it can directly hit the officers and troops at the bottom of the mountain.

But the trail is a bit steep and not easy to walk.

Liu Laohan said that this is still easier to walk in front, and the road behind is getting more and more difficult to walk, especially when entering the junction of Jiugong Mountain and Taiping Mountain, the road is narrower and steeper.

"Can you go directly to Jiujiang from this mountain?" Zhu Gaoxu asked again at this time.

The faces of the generals around him changed drastically.

None of us thought about it.

If you can go from here to Jiujiang, and then fight with the official army at the foot of the mountain, you can raid Jiujiang City, as long as you succeed, you can immediately cut off the retreat of the official army.

At that time, the officers and troops could only retreat in the direction of Qizhou, and the water post road was completely useless, and all the baggage and grain and grass would be lost.

Moreover, if the two sides are unable to fight each other at the foot of the mountain, when it is difficult to distinguish the victory or defeat, the rebel army will raid Jiujiang, which may be able to turn the tide of the war.

Liu Laohan thought for a while: "I only know that I can go to Taiping Mountain, and there is Qinghuan Mountain to the east of Taiping Mountain, and from Qinghuan Mountain, it is Jiujiang." ”

He paused: "You can ask the locals to show you the way, the old man has really never been so far." ”

He stood silently, and the generals were waiting for him.

"Xu Xiaodao."

Zhu Gaoxu ordered Xu Xiaodao, the general banner of the personal soldiers, to take a team of personal soldiers and some food, and continued to follow Liu Laohan to the east, until he walked behind Taiping Mountain, and observed the terrain along the road.

After arriving at Taiping Mountain, ask the locals to lead the way and see if there is a way through Qinghuan Mountain and into Jiujiang.

If there is, send two people back, and the rest of the people will hide and wait at the foot of Qinghuan Mountain, so as not to be discovered by the officers and soldiers.

If not, come back together.

"Huh" Xu Xiaodao answered, took ten personal soldiers, distributed some food from everyone, took some silver coins and treasure money, and continued to the east with Liu Laohan.

"Let's go, let's go back first."

Zhu Gaoxu took the rest of the people back to Caijiayuan the same way.

This is the forward camp of the rebel army, and there are tens of thousands of Tusi people around the rebel army camp helping to build fortifications.

He looked at the fortifications for a moment, then turned back and asked, "Where is the cannon?" ”

Some people returned, and they were still gathering in Chongyang.

Zhu Gaoxu's more than 600 artillery pieces, plus various large-caliber guns, and the captured Hongwu cannons, are close to 1,000.

Except for some of the guns that arrived first, he first concentrated all the self-made artillery in Chongyang, and then transported them to the front line together.

It's not done yet.

Because now his soldiers and horses are not all arranged.

On the 7th, the rebel army arrived at the designated position one after another.

The 200,000-strong army swung between Caijiayuan and Chongyang County.

Sheng Jian and Zhou Tai led 50,000 troops to the north of the rebel army, along the Dawei Mountain to the east, to protect the left flank.

Qu Tao and Gu Xingguo guarded Chongyang and guarded the rear wing.

The right flank of the rebel army is also Jiugong Mountain, so there is no need to defend, and only a small number of soldiers and horses guard the way down the mountain.

Zhu Gaoxu himself went up the mountain, so he also had to prevent the officers and soldiers from touching him from the other side.

The forward battalion is He Ruhu and Zhou Hu, two tigers.

The main force of the Chinese army was Yang Lei, Wang You, Song Meng, Zhao Gui, Ma Fei and other departments, and Zhu Gaoxu himself was also going back and forth between the Chinese army and Chongyang County.

At this time, along the central axis of the battalions, thousands of natives were working overtime to build roads for artillery.

Once all the 600 guns and other guns arrived in Chongyang, they would be transported to the front from the best road.

Because Zhu Gaoxu also has to prevent rain, if it rains, not only is it inconvenient to shoot artillery, but it is difficult for his heavy artillery to walk in the rain and mud.

At the same time, the craftsmen were asked to make more canopies, which were erected on top of the artillery in rainy days to block the rain.

Zhu Gaoxu thought of everything he could think.

Beginning on the 8th, tens of thousands of people from the front of the rebel army left the camp, and tens of thousands of officers and troops on the opposite side also came out.

Zhu Gaoxu vomited blood when he saw it, Zhu Di has become a chicken thief now, and he put on a look of letting you attack, do you dare to attack.

He obviously wanted Zhu Gaoxu to attack him.

Zhu Di, who led tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in the Jing Disaster, crisscrossed the north and south, and fought for thousands of miles, is gone, and after several defeats, Zhu Di has become more and more cunning in battle.

Fortunately, I was about to delay time, but Zhu Gaoxu was not in a hurry, and continued to send a small group of troops and horses to test it, and also went to attack the official army camp.

In front of the battalion of the officers and soldiers was a dense wooden fence (including antlers and horses), and if it were not artillery, it would have been impossible to overthrow it.

There are countless pitfalls in the back.

A normal attack on this kind of battalion will definitely result in a lot of casualties in the early stage, and a large number of pits will have to be filled in and the fence will be pushed.

Zhu Gaoxu ordered the Hongwu cannon in the camp to slowly move forward, and fired a cannon every once in a while.

The wooden fence on the opposite side had been beaten a lot, but it was erected again overnight.

Jiugong Mountain and Taiping Mountain are all forests, there are many timber grades, and the officials and soldiers take local materials.

Zhu Gaoxu was not in a hurry, waiting for the artillery while arranging to walk the mountain road.

On the afternoon of the 8th, Song Meng and Dao Mengjiang led 2,000 Dao clan native soldiers and 2,000 Ming troops to prepare to enter from Jiugong Mountain.

The native soldiers of the Dao clan are good at climbing mountains, and they are like thin flat land in the mountains.

The two thousand Ming troops are also the perennial mountains of the Yunnan Guard.

The whole army took ten days' rations, changed into the clothes and armor of the Jiangxi Guard, and went up the mountain from the west of Jiugong Mountain.

During the Jing disaster, Zhu Di sent people to do this many times.

So after he raised the army, the clothes of the toast were the same as them, and the soldiers could not be faked, and then the hats of the rebel army were changed to other colors of hat cherry blossoms to show the difference from the official army.

The most important thing is to strictly order all units to find out the details when they encounter their comrades in the rebel army on the road.

Each battalion and each army has a numerical number, and more than 100 households know it, and if they lose the battle, the number will be changed immediately.

In addition, Zhu Gaoxu's sentry detectives are very powerful, patrolling everywhere, so up to now, there has been no example of the official army pretending to be a rebel army to successfully approach.

The two guards in Jiangxi participated in the previous Guangxi War, and they surrendered a lot of troops, and their clothes were Jiangxi Wei's.

Song Meng and Dao Mengjiang took the soldiers and horses to change their clothes and armor, climbed directly from the west wing of Jiugong Mountain, and went east.

On the 10th, Li Yuan led 150,000 soldiers and horses from Fujian through Jiangxi, from Ningzhou, Jiangxi to Zhu Gaoxu's rear wing, and on the 12th, he joined Zhu Gaoxu, with a total of 350,000 troops of the two armies.

This time, Li Yuanchang drove straight in, did not garrison troops in Jiangxi, he knew that the first battle of Huguang was very important, and if he won the battle, Jiangxi and Huguang were all returned to the king of Han, and he couldn't hold it if he lost, so not a single soldier was left behind.

From the 9th, the rebel army continued to attack the officers and troops, and Zhu Gaoxu watched the officers and troops fight from a high place.

More than 500,000 officers and soldiers were like shrunken turtles, huddled in a group, with wooden fences in front, waiting for the rebel army to attack.

In the field, the officers and soldiers were pikemen and spear and shield soldiers in front, and now they are all firearms soldiers and archers, who rely on wooden fences to block the attack of the opposite side, and then kill and wound.

As soon as the rebels broke the fence and other enclosures, the pikemen behind pushed to the front.

This is Zhu Di's most obscene way of fighting, Zhu Gaoxu believes that he will tell his brothers in future generations now, no one believes that the Emperor Zhu Di will fight like this.

Zhu Gaoxu let Li Yuan's soldiers and horses rest for a day, and the two discussed how to fight all day long.

Li Yuan thought that Zhu Di must have known that the rebel army had a lot of artillery and powerful artillery, and he dared to concentrate so many soldiers and horses, so the opposite side should be on guard.

The best way to prevent artillery is to use cloth bags of sand and build a parapet wall, and people will be fine if they hide behind the wall.

But Zhu Gaoxu believed that Zhu Di was not so smart, and he could not have carried too many woven bags.

I can't even think of using a sandbag wall to block it.

Then there is only one possibility, after they dug a ditch, they dug out the earth to build a wall, and people hid behind the wall.

But now the rebel army can't attack it, so you can't see the situation inside.

"We'll know when we attack it, it's pointless to guess now, seeing the moves, this king believes that no matter how smart Zhu Di is, he is not the opponent of this king." This is the advantage and self-confidence of Zhu Gaoxu's traverser.

Thirteenth.

Woo.

In the sound of the long horn, a large number of rebel troops left the camp one after another, and the officers and troops on the opposite side also responded quickly, and the officials and troops who were like water also left the camp one after another.

This time, the rebel army came out of the camp for a long time, and then lined up, and at a glance on the other side, he knew that the rebel army was preparing to come.

The forwards are tens of thousands of rebels neatly arranged, and the lineup stretches for miles.

"Li Yuan should be here." Zhu Di was also looking here from a high place at this time.

He knew that Zhu Gaoxu was waiting for Li Yuan to make a small fuss before, and he was also waiting for Zhu Neng.

Zhu Di didn't know how many soldiers and horses Li Yuan had, but he definitely wouldn't add up to more than himself.

"Teach the rebel a hard lesson." He shouted at the same time in his heart: "I really thought I couldn't beat you, but I didn't have a royal expedition and underestimated you." ”

At this time, there were many generals in the army standing in front of him, and Zhu Di began to arrange them one by one.

"The rebels are not as numerous as us, and we have to slowly consume their forces and artillery."

"Xu Cheng, Jiang Shan, you two guard the front line, my only requirement, no more than half of the dead, no retreat, violators of the order, beheaded."

The faces of the two changed slightly, but they immediately kowtowed and received the order.

But Zhu Di also said that after more than half of the casualties, you can come back.

After stepping aside, the two couldn't help but touch their foreheads at the same time.

It will be summer, and I just seemed to be scared out of sweat by Zhu Di.

Take the lead, and only after more than half of the casualties can you retreat?

It's not a war, it's a desperate effort.

Xu Cheng returned to his station depressedly, first assigned the defense, and was still adjusting part of the troops, boom, a cannon rang out on the opposite side.

He was standing at the end of the camp when he saw a cannonball flying.

"Mother's." He subconsciously shrank his neck, for fear of hitting himself.

But he is actually in a good position here, there is a ditch behind him, about two meters wide and two meters deep, which is already the deepest ditch dug by the officers and soldiers.

Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, only Zhu Di has learned from Zhu Gaoxu now.

On this side, the officers and soldiers piled up the excavated mud in front of it to form a wall to hide from the artillery.

But the officers and soldiers have not yet realized that using woven bags to fill soil and stacking them can be very good anti-artillery.

They pile up walls, just trying to hide behind them.

Zhu Di has been trying his best to learn the various deceit methods of the rebel, but he still hasn't learned it completely.

Besides, Xu Cheng subconsciously shrank his head, and suddenly found that the cannon was getting bigger and bigger.

"Not good." Xu Cheng hurriedly squatted down and shrank under the corner.

Plop, the cannonball smashed the earthen wall in front of him, and with a bang, the earthen wall collapsed, and a gap appeared like a battlement in the wall, and the cannonball passed through the earthen wall, plopped, and fell into the ditch.

Xu Cheng was about two steps away from where the shell had penetrated.

The cannonballs fell with a bang, and while he squatted down, several soldiers behind him also gathered in front of him, trying to protect him.

plopped, and after a loud bang, large mud walls collapsed one after another, leaving Xu Cheng and his soldiers all over their faces.

Xu Cheng faced the soil and ate a mouthful of soil.

I also felt a shock from my body, and sat on the ground with a fart.

His armor was full of dirt.

"Mother's." Xu Cheng scolded in horror, stood up, and saw the mud wall not far in front of him, about ten steps long, all of which had fallen.

There was a large gap in the middle, and the shells flew out of the hole and fell into the ditch behind.

The ditch was also broken.

"Bah, bah, bah" Xu Cheng spit out the mud in his mouth and scolded: "Who piled up this wall, why is it so thin?" Heap thicker, heap wider—"

Xu Cheng was scared, if he missed two steps just now, he would be able to shoot him in the head.

In the past, the officers and soldiers rarely dug ditches and built walls in wars, and only when attacking the city, they might dig earth, but they never built such a high wall.

The first time the people worked, there were no strict standards like Zhu Gaoxu's side.

Zhu Gaoxu's subordinates dug ditches and built walls, and there were standards for how deep and wide the ditch was, and how high and thick the walls were.

The officers and soldiers did not have standards, and everyone was in a mess.

So some walls are thick, some are narrow.

Xu Cheng's section of the wall was extremely narrow, and it was directly pierced by artillery, almost killing him.

He was shocked and angry, but the people who dug the ditch and built the wall had already gone to the rear, and Xu Cheng couldn't help it, so after scolding a few words angrily, he hurriedly changed places.

At this time, the drums in front of him continued to beat, and the rebel army pressed forward one by one, and the king of Han officially began to attack the official army camp.

(End of chapter)