In the southwest of Songling Mansion, the winding Tianhe River flows through here, and the rolling river water churns day and night.

Luoyandu is located in a concave inlet into the land, here, there was once stationed a water camp, the scale is not large, all add up to only about 30 boats, but this location is very important, because here is more than 30 miles upstream is the boundary of Shuzhou.

This water battalion set up a card on the water to assist the government in collecting transit taxes, it can be said that this position is a fat shortage, but after the Holy Religion uprising, this small water battalion was threatened, and soon surrendered under the leadership of the fat battalion captain, without any temperance.

This water camp is very dilapidated, more than 30 warships are still new, there is also a small dock in the water camp, there are more than 20 shipwrights, maintaining these more than 30 warships, but these are the situation more than half a year ago, and now Luoyandu has long become a forbidden area.

Originally, before the occupation of the Holy Religion, Luoyan Town had a brief period of glory, because of the Jinhe waterway, merchants unloaded goods from here, and then took the land route through the south of Chuzhou and finally transported the goods to Yangzhou, but this prosperous time period, before and after the sum of no more than half a year.

But even so, it still attracted a lot of people who relied on boats to eat, and after this place was occupied by the Holy Sect, most of those who knew a little bit of craftsmanship were recruited by the Holy Sect, but after half a year, many of these people who were shipwrights returned here.

Dry docks were built near the shore, where large trees cut down from the nearby hills were processed into timber, and then keels were laid, and shipbuilding began on a large scale.

The shipbuilding foundation of the Holy Sect is still far worse than that of the Tang Army in Zhongzhou, and the Holy Sect, which only has a few shipwrights, can't build a large warship like a Lou ship at all, and even the shark ship that fights on the surface is a little difficult, but these shipwrights don't need to build warships, and the Holy Sect only needs to let them build those big-bellied cargo ships that can carry a lot of cargo.

In the past six months, nearly 300 cargo ships have been built and anchored in the bay of Luoyandu, and some people who are good at water have been gathered and trained to operate the boats and become a qualified sailor.

And in the golden autumn and October, the harvest season, in addition to maintaining a sufficient military presence in the local area and defending several important towns near Jiuchuan, the elite soldiers and horses of the Holy Sect were transferred to the Luoyan Ferry under various pretexts, and they were accompanied by a large number of newly built armor and logistics supplies piled up like a hill.

From mid-October to early November, for almost half a month, more than 30,000 of the most elite warriors of the Holy Sect gathered here, and most of the two core main forces of the Holy Sect, the Holy Water Banner of Shanshui and the Holy Fire Banner of Good Attack, gathered here.

In early November, the autumn tiger is still there, but with an autumn rain falling, the temperature is a little cooler, the turbulent Tianhe water, it seems to be more convergent, it has become mild, after preparing for a small half a year, the wild goose ferry, the sails cover the sky.

Ferry trestles, cargo bridges, these large unloading wooden bridges built in the inlet during that prosperous period, docked with big belly cargo ships, and on the trestle, people waiting to board the boats gathered here, slowly moving forward.

Although the Holy Sect soldiers still looked a little sloppy and did not have a neat queue, there was a trace of killing on the faces of these soldiers.

"Damn, such a big ship, you have to stuff the whole flag, and you have to load the horses and food, let alone lying down, you can't even stand up!" A big man with a fierce face and even a hideous scar boarded the boat, scolding and complaining.

"Okay, it's just a few dozen miles of waterway, and it's quite right!" A middle-aged man with a gentle face said nonchalantly, but the vicious man said: "Flag master, I'm seasick, what if I vomit later, can you let me stand on the deck!"

"You bag, it's been five days, and you're still seasick, and when you get to the place, don't expect someone to carry you to the battlefield!"

One by one, the soldiers boarded the cargo ship one after another, although the belly of the cargo ship was very large, but it was only a cargo ship of the same size, loaded with ten horses, hundreds of soldiers, and some food and supplies at a time, and the cabin was stuffed, and even there were more than thirty numbers standing on the deck, counting the sailors who operated the ship, a cargo ship was fully loaded and boarded, and then it took anchor and left.

A full three hundred and twelve such cargo ships, as well as those thirty warships, carried more than 31,000 elites of the Holy Sect Army and sailed out of Luoyan Bay and entered the Tianhe Waterway.

The speed of the cargo ship is not fast, by November, the southeast wind has already changed, fortunately, this section of the Tianhe River from Luoyan Ferry to Shuzhou is southwest, northeast, and the north wind blows, so that the sails can be bulging.

Shuzhou, located in the southwest of the empire, surrounded by mountains, northeast of Shuzhou is the Jiange Mountains, this mountain range is known for its danger, and there are only a few trestle passages between Zhongzhou, but this passage has been defeated by the Tang army when the Emperor of Shu **, the emperor ** retreated, destroyed most of it, unless riding a flying beast, otherwise this will not be able to pass at all.

The north of Shuzhou is the Kunlun Mountains, this huge mountain range lies between Shuzhou and Yongzhou, but there are several mountain passes that can be passed, there are relevant passes built near the mountain passes, they are easy to defend and difficult to attack, the west of Shuzhou, the southwest, is the giant wild plateau that suddenly rises, it is said that there are colored barbarians on the plateau, but the continuous snow peaks become a natural barrier.

The southeast of the south of Shuzhou is 100,000 mountains and rivers, which seems to be the mountains that extend down from the Juye Plateau, this series of mountains encloses the Shuzhou Basin, and the Shuzhou Basin is like spring all year round, the temperature changes little, and in the basin, the criss-crossing rivers constitute the most fertile Sichuan Basin in Shuzhou.

If it weren't for the fact that Shuzhou is too remote, and the entire Sichuan Basin has many mountains and rainforests, and there are also many barbarian tribes, it is difficult to govern Shuzhou, and I am afraid that it has already become the most important granary of the empire.

But even so, the Sichuan Basin still has the reputation of the Tianfu Basin, the Shu brocade produced here is a good thing side by side with Suzhou silk, and there are countless precious giant trees here, producing a wide variety of fruits, and here is also a large trading place for leather goods and animal bones, it can be said that Shuzhou has a lot of treasures.

The area really controlled by the empire in Shuzhou is the central part of the Sichuan Basin, the vast alluvial plain formed by the four tributaries of the Tianhe River, the Guihua River, the Yunluo River, the Pingyang River and the Jinsha River.

And from the Tianhe waterway into Sichuan, is the first Sichuan Qingyang Mansion, here to guard the Sichuan waterway, can be said to be the gateway to Sichuan, in Qingyang Prefecture Pingyang County, there are 5,000 sailors stationed here, there are no less than 20,000 emperors.

In the afternoon, outside the Fuhu Ferry in the northeast of Pingyang County, a cargo ship of more than 100 ships slowly approached the ferry, and this cargo ship did not have any flags, and soon a fast boat from the cargo ship stepped forward and entered the Fuhu Ferry first.

It didn't take long for the water camp near the ferry to be allowed to pass, and on the ferry, a large group of soldiers happily poured up to the pier pier, as if they were greeting large boxes of gold and silver, or a boatload of women.

Hundreds of cargo ships entered the Fuhu ferry without being inspected, and slowly leaned towards the trestle, and just as guessed, a large group of ragged women suddenly walked out of the cabin, and were pushed and shoved onto the deck by a strong man, and then walked up the trestle along the board.

The first few boats were all women, and there were three or four hundred of them, and when these women got off the boat, they were surrounded by a large crowd of soldiers and men and walked towards the camp, while the soldiers who remained on the dock were pitiful, and seemed to be no longer interested in the things on the subsequent ships.

When another wave of ships approached the trestle, it was not the ragged women who even showed their snow-white skin that came up again, but the murderous and fully armed Shengao soldiers, and after these Shengjiao soldiers landed on the trestle, they immediately launched an attack on the defenders on the pier.

Obviously, that wave of women paralyzed the defenders, and in an instant, most of the docks were lost, and the Holy Cult army also won precious time to build a sparse defensive line on the docks, while the cargo ships in the rear leaned against the trestle, and more Li Holy Religious soldiers jumped off the ships and joined the ranks.

And the screams on the pier quickly alarmed the guards of the ferry, and the generals of the defenders, who had returned to camp and were dividing up the women, knew at once that they had been deceived, that the damned slave traders, had deceived them.

Yes, as early as more than three months ago, the Holy Sect began to lay out, and in order to paralyze the water camp here, a few bold slave traders began to trade in human beings, at first there were only a few, but as the slave traders got in touch with the leader of the water camp, every few days, two or three boatloads of women would be trafficked from here to Shuzhou.

It is normal for there to be many refugees in Chuzhou next door, and in the troubled times, there are many women who can't survive, so the behavior of this slave trader does not arouse people's suspicions, especially the benefits offered by this slave trader, so that the defenders who have not had oil and water for a long time because of the war were quickly defeated, and they were completely suspicious.

This time, the slave traders, on the pretext of doing a big deal, told the people in the camp in advance, and promised a good enough to make them happy, such as 300 women, such as 50,000 gold coins.

The Shu scarf defenders who rotted to the bones, when they reacted and counterattacked on the dock with weapons, they were so weak and powerless, and the first wave was quite imposing, but when they were killed together, there were seven or eight defenders who fell, and these soldiers who had forgotten what the drill was, expecting them to fight with the Holy Sect Army who survived under the Vermilion Bird City and licked the blood with their knives, it was simply a joke.

Originally, the Holy Cult Army was very cautious at first, but the poor performance of the defenders who rushed up in two or three waves in succession made the Saint Cult Army, which had only landed less than a thousand people on the shore, start to launch a counter-charge, and the seemingly steady stream of Imperial defenders actually collapsed unexpectedly.

In this ferry, there are 5,000 naval troops and 5,000 infantry garrisons, which is the second most important place in Pingyang County after the county seat, and it actually made a series of plans formulated by the Holy Sect in advance useless, and the gorgeous collapsed again.

As more and more Holy Sect troops landed, Fuhu Ferry fell, and the Holy Sect army won a complete victory in the first battle of Shu!

(To be continued.)