Suddenly, there was a commotion in the courtyard, and looking out of the window, a black flag herald ran straight here, and the craftsmen avoided it.

"Who?" The guards outside the door asked.

"The General Staff Section forwards an urgent report!" The herald stood on his feet and gave a military salute in reply.

"Verbal or written?" Brother Mao stepped forward.

"Written."

"Bring it in!"

Mao Zai took a cover in his hand and asked, "Do you need a reply?"

"Yes!"

"Wait."

Mao Zai entered the door and presented the cover.

Li Dan glanced at the completeness of the word "confidential" stamped in red on the seal, stretched out his hand to open it, and first saw an introduction, which read:

Lei Jiawan reported the enemy's situation, and the following is the signature of the confidential staff officer in charge and Zhao Jingzi's drawing.

Below is a piece of folded mulberry paper, which is a handwritten book of Majiu.

This letter is Ma Jiu's report on the evacuation of the inspection sub-division from Wuni Town and its arrival in Leijiawan.

According to his figures, 2,300 people have already taken refuge in Leijiawan, and more than 1,000 are about to arrive.

The day after the division withdrew, about 1,000 lake bandit vanguard troops entered Wuni Town, and the guards of the inspection division saw the smoke of fires in many places. In addition, both Lulu Harbor and Lijiadu have already been infested by enemy squads.

"Yo, they're finally here." Li Dan sneered.

"What?" Chen Sanwen was taken aback, he thought that Li Dan was talking about the enemy in Huxi: "The lake bandits are dispatched? But we only have three cars and ships to use right now!"

"It's not Huxi, it's the town of Wuni that has been occupied by Tatehanako." Li Dan thought for a while:

"Speed up the construction of the trailer catapult and replace it with hardwood and grease lubricants as much as possible, it's too late. How many are there, how much will be sent to Santang Town first!"

He pondered for a moment and then asked, "Can you transfer a few trebuchets to Leijiawan first?" Strengthen its defenses, and at the same time test and improve in actual combat?"

"This ......," Chen Sanwen bit his lower lip, "Transporting the parts over like Santang, and letting Tang Kai send two craftsmen over to guide the installation, is this okay?" It's just that in this way we have to separate the experienced craftsmen."

"It's okay, go to the actual battle, so they don't make mistakes like you and me!"

Li Dan decided, immediately found a piece of paper and wrote a few lines, looked up and down to see if there was no problem, and after drawing the book, he took out the "Southern Metropolitan Inspection Judgment Seal" in his bag and pressed it.

Then he called in the herald, put the introduction that had been written, Ma Jiu's handwritten letter, and the order he had just written, and handed it to him in an envelope, saying, "Tell Zhao Xianfu to pay close attention to any news from Santang Town, and I will be back soon."

"Whoa!" The herald turned around and went out quickly.

"The flowers can't hold it back, can the Chen family father and son here in Huxi still endure it? Xie San'er has been gone for a few days, why is there no news?" Li Dan was secretly anxious, but he had to calm down in front of Chen Sanwen and talk to him casually.

"I just asked them to send three trebuchets to reinforce Leijiawan, if Tatehanako hits there first, it would be better to use him to practice his hands."

Li Dan suddenly felt that this knotweed flower was like a turtle, and he couldn't help but poke his head out, who expected that there was a stick on his head outside and was about to knock it down, thinking of this, Li Dan couldn't help but smile.

"What is Saburo laughing at?" Chen Sanwen asked.

"Nothing." Li Dan waved his hand: "I'm thinking about setting up two traps, I don't know how many turtles I can catch?" It turns out that Li Dan's original intention is two meanings:

Hinder the enemy's attack on the remnants, and try to pin down or prioritize one of them to weaken their offensive power.

It seems that this is exactly what is being done now. As promised to Zhao Chongbi, he must drag the main force of the lake bandits in Yugan as much as possible, and give Raozhou Mansion time to recruit the Anmine Chaos and appease Bai Lang.

At this moment, there was another shouting outside, and Brother Mao jumped in and raised a letter in his hand: "My lord, Zhao Tongzhi's letter!"

Li Dan's eyes lit up, he stretched out his hand to take it, opened it and looked inside, and it was indeed a letter with three feathers sealed with red trowel and fire paint.

Pull it out

Look, I saw the words written on the cover: "To the deputy envoy of the regimental training in Huanzhou, the southern capital of the southern capital to inspect Li Dan in person".

After opening the letter and reading it carefully, a smile appeared on Li Dan's face.

"Freely, how many trebuchets can be completed in two days?" Sending off the herald messenger, Li Dan turned around and asked.

Chen Sanwen picked up a folder. This thing is a thin wooden board fixed with two bamboo clips, and then can be used to clamp scattered single pages, between the bamboo clips can be hung on the bamboo nails on the wall, with any use.

He flipped to the "Yujiadu trebuchet production schedule" reported by Tang Kai and looked at it, and replied:

"So far, six trailers have been completed and all have been loaded. Three of them have been allocated to Gaojiawan just now. Another 11 were waiting for the bearings to be unfinished. In addition, seven more are under construction.

Four of them have been assembled and handed over to the navy to begin practice at Lake Biwa. Six of them are being assembled on the slipway, and another six finished ones are waiting to be assembled at the dock because they do not have bearings."

He knew what Li Dan cared about, so he said:

"If we change the process now and remove all the bearings from the catapults, then the progress will be very fast, at least all the bearings can be shipped with a slight modification.

In this way, Santang Town can receive and assemble 17 units within three days, and another 7 units can be completed quickly."

After thinking for a while, he added: "The platform type can also be modified to the traditional method without bearings, so that the use of aiming and launching time may be slightly longer, but the number can be rapidly increased, and the three ships on the slipway can be delivered to the navy after three days."

"Okay, that's it! I'm afraid we don't have time to wait for the bearings, let's finish this battle first! At that time, there is more room for use or modification." After Li Dan finished speaking, he walked up to him and whispered:

"According to the information of Lord Tongzhi, the enemy in Huxi set out early yesterday morning, and they should have reached Meixi or Ruihong by now, and maybe they will reach Santang the day after tomorrow.

I'll try to delay them for a day or two, and give you all the trebuchets to get to the front and assemble them. However, I fear that the brothers may not have much time to learn how to use it."

He paused: "Let Tang Kai prepare three groups of craftsmen who will guide the installation of trebuchets on the front line, and go to Santang with the transport fleet to assemble and teach on the spot!"

Chen Sanwen nodded and agreed, very nervous. This situation is very urgent.

Now there is no time to wait for any bearings, and he regrets very much that he didn't listen to the second brother earlier in this matter!

As a result, there are now so many assembled parts on the site that are in an unfinished state due to waiting for bearings.

However, I am a little glad that Li Saburo actually made a suggestion for standardization and assembly line operation.

All catapults are of the same size and materials, the parts can be interoperable, and after the big brother participated in the design, a large number of mortise and tenon structures were used, so that both the trailer type and the platform type could be quickly assembled.

The former only takes half an hour, and the latter only an hour and a half.

The advantage of this is that it can be quickly disassembled and transported, or assembled at a new launch site to complete the preparation for war, and has very good mobility.

At the same time, if one is broken, you can find a spare car nearby, and replace it with the corresponding parts according to the number.

The purpose of Lee Saburo is to allow the team to obtain heavy weapons that can maneuver and flexibly hit opponents, and to achieve "distance strike".

By destroying local weapons and facilities, resulting in casualties and morale damage, he achieved what he called the goal of "delaying the offensive". So these pieces of equipment are very, very important and critical.

Chen Sanwen realized this, and couldn't help but clench his fists secretly and thought, "You can't make a mistake with me!"

How to convert the existing trebuchet products into equipment that does not use bearings, Li Dan didn't worry about this, and completely left it to Chen Sanwen to think about.

He first went home to change his clothes inside and outside his body, and then went to the backyard of Renli Inn to see the production of autumn and winter clothes in the quilt factory run by Wu Niang, and gave some guidance on the new placket military uniform style, and then returned to the capital inspection department.

When he entered the door, he bumped into Zhao Jingzi instructing a herald to see him

He came in and said happily, "Great, I don't have to send a herald to you when you come back."

"What's going on again?" Li Dan asked deliberately.

"Whatever you can do, everything is under control!" Zhao Jingzi is quite complacent. Returning to the hall, he turned around and handed Li Dan the letter that had not been handed over to the herald just now, and said softly:

"The father and son of the Chen family have sent troops, Xie San'er sent back a report that the matter was done, and more than half of the leaders in Huxi were willing to participate, and this time Chen Yuanhai was dead!"

Leijiawan, the newly built fort is named Sanhu Village, but people are still used to calling it Leijiawan Fort.

The northwest corner of the wall itself is not very high, but because it was built by taking advantage of the towering terrain of this area, the outer surface of the wall has been flattened several feet, and the cement is plastered to form a steep cliff, so if someone crosses the river, it will have the illusion that the wall is half a foot high.

It was also by using this platform that the northwest corner was built into a semi-circular enemy platform protruding outward, and the defenders began to call it the rounded corner platform.

Originally, Li Dan meant to make it echo with the enemy platform on the right side of the West Gate and the enemy platform on the left side of the Water Gate.

This enemy platform is not small, for the purpose of lookout and guard, a watchtower rises behind it, six feet high, and there are wooden stakes between it and the wall, and the personnel can enter and exit the watchtower from the enemy platform through the pedal, or take the ladder on the side of the tower to go up and down the fortress wall.

Since Li Dan sent people to transfer three catapults, Ma Jiu ordered people to arrange them on the rounded corner platform and the two adjacent enemy platforms.

At this time, he was holding a telescope and observing the movements of the enemy on the other side of the river from the watchtower, and a patrolman on each side of him was also holding a telescope to observe and guard in other directions.

"Looks like they've been bluffed, or the brigade would have been outside the wall." Ma Jiu seemed to be talking to himself.

"That's great!" Sun Liang, who was looking at the rice fields in the northeast with one hand on his waist and the pergola in the other, said:

"Tomorrow all the grain on the other side of the river will be harvested. As long as the rice is brought back, we can clean it up slowly, and it doesn't matter how much they like to make trouble outside!"

"That's what your lord said!" Sun Liang flattered. He knew that although this Ma Jiu had problems with his legs and feet, he had been awarded a martial arts lord by others, and he was Li Dan's master who learned martial arts, so he respected him a lot.

"But I think we have to hurry up, who can guarantee that the lake bandits will come tomorrow?"

"That's right." Ma Jiu thought for a moment and said, "I think so, you lead the district team to cross the river and line up to stand guard, and at the same time, I will go below to recruit laborers from the refugees in various villages and towns to go out to help, so that the grain will be collected faster, and maybe it will be finished in a few days."

"Okay." The two agreed to go their separate ways. Sun Liang's whole team crossed the river to the northwest to guard, and Ma Jiu consulted with the squires and pulled out 500 laborers to help harvest and transport grain in the field.

Originally, the reason why this fort was named Sanhu Village was because it had a large area of low-lying land in the northwest direction, which became a natural reservoir on the south bank of the Buhe River.

The three largest of these lakes are located between Lulu Harbor and Leijia Bay, with a width of four to five hundred paces in between, and are the only way to reach Leijia Bay from the occupied town of Wuni, and Sun Liang led his troops to defend here.

Due to the abundant water in the west, the rivers in the south, and the dense ponds and marshes, the main cultivated land around Leijiawan is concentrated in the north and east.

In the past, the farmers of Leijiawan and Xiaozhai had to cross the river by boat every day to go to their own fields, and it was much more convenient to build a bridge from outside the north gate, so the good deeds of the ancestors of the Lei family left a lasting reputation and wealth for their descendants.

Despite this, there were still people living along the river on the other side of the river, and the biggest obstacle to the clear field this time came from those people's homes.

Alas, the cat kennel and the dog kennel are not as good as their own kennels. These people say that they don't want to leave home and retreat to the other side, in the final analysis, they are still nostalgic and lucky, but there is only so much nostalgia they can have.

Ma Jiu actually understands, and is also very helpless, these people will still run to take refuge when the thieves arrive, but those houses can't be taken away, and they will be destroyed as usual.

He arranged for his deputy He Wei (that is, He Dalang, who was teased by his teammates when he entered the city) to take three sentry horses to Lulu Harbor to investigate, because that side could also be the direction of the lake bandits.

Not being able to figure out his opponent's intentions made him uneasy

, Ma Jiu hopes that this time He Wei and the others can catch a job and come back to ask.

Fortunately, there were three trebuchets sent by Li Dan yesterday, and as soon as these three big guys were erected, the morale of the people was immediately raised a lot.

Dan Ge'er and Chen Sanlang are really smart people, and I don't know how they designed it, such a big guy was assembled by more than a dozen people in one hour.

Ma Jiu often walked upstairs, and glanced at the catapult again with an admiring look. There were more than a dozen selected young men gathered there, who were following two men in the vests of the navy army to learn the use of the trebuchet.

Outside the city, they erected a white banner as a target, and several patrolmen stood guard outside, and helped them pick up the stone bullets that had been projected, and put them on a donkey cart to bring back when they returned to the city.

Ma Jiu heard the throwing rod bounce with the sound of the wind, and the people cheered loudly, and he couldn't help but smile slightly.

"Your Excellency, are you back?" Ma Jiu looked up and saw that it was a lookout patrolman who was about to go down. "I'm just about to teach you to know, it seems that Adjutant He and they are back!" The Inspector said hurriedly.

"Oh?" Ma Jiu hurriedly came to the watchtower and took out the binoculars to look in the direction of the patrolman's finger.

I saw that in the direction of the river ferry, several people were getting on the boat, and there were two people behind them leading horses down the riverbank.

"Great, looks like they've got it alive. Wave the flag and open the West Gate!" After he finished speaking, he put away his binoculars and walked downstairs, and his own soldiers hurriedly shouted behind him: "Old man, slow down!"