When the Southern Song Dynasty resisted the Mongols, Jiangling and Xiangyang were collectively known as the "Jingxiang Defense Line".

It is said that guarding Jing must defend Xiang, but in fact, Xiangyang is lost, and Jiangling can continue to defend. Because in the Southern Song Dynasty, the area where Zhu Ming's army was located at the moment was artificially turned into an endless lake.

It is even the "Great Lake Community", known as the "Three Seas of Jingzhou" in history.

Originally, in order to resist Cao Wei, the Sun Wu regime introduced Fushui and Zhangshui into the low-lying areas of Jingbei. Later, Sun Wu's general Lu Kang ordered the guards to build a weir to store water to resist the southward movement of the Western Jin army, thus forming the "North Sea" in the north of Jiangling.

In the following hundreds of years, any unified dynasty would enclose the lake and create fields to encroach on the "Jingzhou Three Seas", because it itself was artificially made by water diversion.

During the Five Dynasties, in order to resist the Later Zhou, Gao Baorong once again built a weir to divert water to open the Beihai, and Zhao Kuangyin forced Gao Baorong to decide the Beihai.

How did Jingxiang come from when it was so vast and sparsely populated?

The three seas of Jingzhou in Jiangling account for one, the swamp area around Honghu Lake accounts for one, and the marsh area in the northern part of Zhijiang River accounts for one. Without the imperial court's systematic improvement of water conservancy and the large-scale relocation and reclamation of the imperial court, it is difficult to achieve significant results by relying only on private reclamation.

After 20 years of reclamation, a great flood will be over!

The entire Northern Song Dynasty, after years of collecting months, barely restored most of the "Three Seas" into fertile soil.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to resist the Mongols, water was diverted again to build a weir, and the north of Jiangling was turned into a lake and marsh.

This land can be described as vicissitudes.

If Zhong Xiang had read the history books carefully, the best plan would be to defend the Zhijiang River and dredge the upper reaches of the Zhanghe River with heavy troops. Then use the water division to control the river, dig ditches and build weirs, and rebuild the three seas, directly flooding the north of Jiangling, and Zhu Ming's army will not be able to survive no matter how awesome it is!

At this moment, Zhu Ming's army gradually returned to the camp.

Relying on the camp, the Chinese army was placed in a large array. This is the usual formation of the Song and Ming dynasties, and the civilian commanders especially like it, because it is safe and effective enough.

As long as you don't mess around, the formation is fine.

Zhu Ming had 30,000 troops in the new territory, and trained 6,000 militiamen to be led by the generals. Today, Han Shizhong's militia is in the direction of Zhijiang, Zhang Guangdao led his troops to defend Hanyang, and Sun Lan led his troops to defend Weiyang in later generations (also under the command of Zhang Guangdao).

There were only more than 20,000 people on the battlefield of Jiangling, which was personally commanded by Zhu Ming.

The people were coming back little by little, passing through the rear passage of the large array. More people continued to retreat with food, away from the area near the battlefield as soon as possible.

Chen Ziyi's cavalry and Hua Rong's firecrackers have all come to Zhu Ming's command.

But like Deng Chun's cavalry, it was difficult to gallop, and the neighborhood was full of low-lying areas, and it became muddy after a long rain.

Eighteen artillery pieces were still on the north bank of the Zhijiang River, and the Chu army failed to sink into the river, and they did not know how to destroy it. They didn't even have a hammer, how could they smash the cannon body to pieces? However, when dragging, the mud blocked the fire door, and it had to be cleaned up slowly afterwards.

On the Chinese army's position, Hua Rong and his musketeers, more than a dozen people sat in a group and began to dry a small amount of gunpowder.

This kind of behavior is very dangerous, they don't dare to do too much, it is enough to be able to temporarily dry and shoot two or three shots.

It rained for days, and even the firewood was damp, and it was not easy to cook in the army.

The Shenji Battalion has been reloaded with paper-shell ammunition, and those paper-shells are also in a semi-wet state, so maybe it will be better to fight in the north in the future.

They laboriously lit more than a dozen bonfires, tore open paper shells and poured out gunpowder. Each person poured out only three shots and placed them in a bowl that had been dried, not daring to get too close to the flame.

The sky was cloudy and it didn't rain, but it could rain at any moment.

Zhu Ming had already set up a large array, and in the distance, the Chu army was still in the array.

Zhong Xiang doesn't know how to sympathize with the people, and many of the people in his core territory are half-soldiers and half-people, and they can be pulled up to fight at any time.

But the combat effectiveness is worrying!

Its armor is mostly cloth inlaid with bamboo pieces, which are made of thick and hard bamboo, which are dried in the shade to make armor pieces, which are strung together like armor and sewn on tough cloth. Some elite troops strung iron or bamboo pieces on leather.

In Jiangling City, Zhong Xiang has 50,000 soldiers!

No matter where he develops in the future, he must first hold Jiangling, and it is best to defeat Zhu Ming's army.

Otherwise, on the Jingjiang line, Zhong Xiang would always have to divide his troops along the river to defend the city, and he would not dare to go south or east with all his might.

As long as Zhu Ming is defeated, these 50,000 people can be used as a mobile force, which can be taken to attack Guiyang Jian to seize the silver mines, or they can be pulled to attack Jiujiang and annex Jiangxi.

Zhu Ming used a telescope to observe the enemy's situation, and when Zhong Xiang's army formed a formation, not only was the whole army chaotic, but the connection of various departments was also extremely chaotic.

At this time, if he could use cavalry, Zhu Ming was confident that he would defeat it in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, the distance was too far, and the road was muddy, so not only could the cavalry not rush up, but the infantry had to pass for a long time.

Zhong Xiang finished the whole army, moved forward a distance, and reorganized the team. The next step was not to attack immediately, but to bring out the leveling cannon for assembly.

When he rebelled, he got some bed crossbows and small return cannons from Wang Yu's warship.

The bed crossbow is like a bow and arrow, and it is impossible to use in rainy and wet weather.

It's not that the bowstring has become soft, but that the bow glue has become unstable and must be re-glued after the rainy season.

The wheels of the leveling cannon would get stuck in the mud and could not move as a whole, so they had to be disassembled and carried out and assembled.

Of course, Zhu Ming also had this thing, and at the beginning of the battle between the two armies, a large number of leveling artillery bombardments.

At the same time, Zhong Xiang sent 10,000 troops on each side of the flanks to slowly circle to the side of Zhu Ming's large array, and he wanted to rely on the superiority of his troops to clearly engage in a siege on three sides.

"The enemy's strict banner is the most chaotic, the army is not in order, and the command is sluggish." Wang Yu carefully observed with a telescope and said.

Wang Yuan speculated: "Chen Ziyi and Han Shizhong are on the Zhijiang side, and they defeated Yan Ziqi and Li Ziqi. The enemy troops in front of him may have been reorganized, or even recruits who had not been in the army for a long time. ”

Zhang Bo said: "The Zhong thief only knows the rainy and muddy weather, and our army's cavalry, firearms, bows and arrows are not good, but they don't know that the combat power of the mandarin duck array has doubled. It doesn't matter if he is an elite or a new recruit, it is the same when he encounters the Mandarin Duck Formation! ”

Naturally, it was impossible for the Mandarin Duck Formation to increase its combat power out of thin air, but the muddy road was slippery, and the Chu army moved slowly. The Mandarin Duck Formation only needs to stick to the face of the slow-moving enemy, and can calmly form a formation to kill the enemy, and the fight is easier than normal.

After nearly 40 minutes of leveling the artillery bombardment, the artillery battle finally ended.

It's not that the catapults on both sides were all smashed, but Zhong Xiang's stone bullets were consumed, and there were still a lot of stone bullets left on Zhu Ming's side.

The Chu army slowly advanced on three sides, and Zhu Ming's artillery continued to drop bombs.

The two Chu troops in front of them were hit by stone bullets one after another, no matter how the generals boosted their morale, they all seemed flustered and sluggish, and some soldiers even turned around and fled.

Zhong Xiang was furious and personally ordered the execution of the fleeing soldiers, and then moved forward as a group.

The enemy forces gradually approached, and all of Zhu Ming's artillery vehicles withdrew.

The main commander of the frontal Chu army is Zhong Yi, this old man is Zhong Xiang's younger brother, not only became the prime minister of the Great Chu State, but was also named the king of Shu last month.

Such a king's horn, it is self-evident who is disgusting.

The commanders of the Chu army on the two wings were Xia Cheng and Huang Zuo.

In another time and space, Xia Cheng would rather die than surrender, and Huang Zuo took refuge with Yue Fei.

Half of the rest of the generals who took refuge in Yue Fei, such as Yang Qin, Liu Heng, Jin Cong, Liu Xu, Yan Qi, etc., were on the battlefield in Jiangling at the moment. They were an important part of the Yuejia army, and their improved naval warships and tactics influenced the entire Southern Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty naval forces. Even the naval armies of Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang have remnants of the fighting methods of these people.

When the Chu army moved, Zhong Xiang sent Yang Qin and Jin Cong, each with 5,000 Chen soldiers in front of the army and between the two wings. They are part of the Mobile Reserve Force, which rescues when friendly forces are unstable.

Zhong Xiang estimated that he had read "The General Essentials of the Martial Arts", and he also knew how to use the defensive formation for offense with a slight change.

There is nothing wrong with arranging troops, but unfortunately they do not pay attention to training, or they don't have time to train them. Barely able to arrange the formation and understand the order, he went directly to the war, and after a few actual battles, it was the "elite" who survived.

Zhu Ming's camp only had a wall, and there were no trenches or walls.

This is because he didn't think about relying on the camp defense, and wished that Zhong Xiang would take the initiative to attack. If there were really trenches and barriers, it would be impossible for this field battle to start, and Zhong Xiang's brain was flooded before attacking the strong camp!

The thistle terrestris still has to be sprinkled, mixed in the muddy water and not easy to identify, when the Chu army approached the camp, sporadic screams were made one after another.

"Throw guns!"

The javelins of the rattan players and the long players were thrown, and the Chu army raised their shields to block.

A little closer, the squad leaders began to shoot arrows.

The bow and arrow can still be used, but it should not be full, the bow glue is not stable when wet, and too much force will damage the bow arm.

To be honest, the armor made of bamboo pieces can still effectively defend against arrows.

After carrying javelins and bows and arrows, the generals of the Chu army who commanded on the front line were overjoyed, because the enemy did not rely on the walled wall to defend, they could easily tear down the wall.

Of course, this is deliberate, the mandarin duck array thinks that the wall is too obstructive, and it is inconvenient for wolf milling and boring and raking to move.

"Boom!"

The wooden fences and walls everywhere were knocked down by the Chu army.

They stepped on the fence and seemed to see the hope of victory, but they were met by wolves like a forest.

Zhong Xiang's strength was 2.5 times that of Zhu Ming, but he could not all of them into battle, and the number of troops facing each other was close to 1:1.

Seeing that the battle was deadlocked, Xia Cheng and Huang Zuo immediately sent their idle troops to Zhu Ming's rear army.

Countless mandarin duck squads formed a large formation, and they received military orders before the battle, and before the enemy was defeated, they tried not to move as much as possible. Even if the enemy falls and retreats, he ignores it and fights in formation.

Muddy roads are slippery to save physical strength.

The entire battlefield seemed to stand still, and Zhu Ming's army stood still.

With the passage of time, on the contrary, the Chu army began to be unstable, and constantly invested in reserves to respond.

Chu general Xia Cheng even took his own soldiers and went around to Zhu Ming's rear army to fight. The man was dressed in iron armor, and he was very hard to move, but he was brave in fighting, and he slew through the wolf bushes with mud, and was soon pushed down by a boring palladium.

Xia Cheng, who fell, was dragged back by his own soldiers, but the rebels did not chase and kill the enemy generals, and still maintained a fixed formation to defend.

Encircled on three sides, it has turned into an attack on four sides.

After a long battle to no avail, Zhong Xiang became more and more anxious, and personally beat the drum to cheer.

No matter how many troops he has, it is useless, a large number of troops are idle on the periphery, and they cannot engage in battle at all.

There were also passages for the Chinese army's large array, and some Chu troops went to attack those passages, but they were blocked by refusing horses and grain trucks. Finally moved away from the obstacles, and was immediately attacked by the cavalry.

The battlefield is Zhu Ming's camp, and the roads of several passages have long been compacted.

Especially the eighty heavy cavalry, who could not charge outside the camp, but could move calmly in a few passages. Even if the charge distance is short, it is enough to charge the enemy.

On the high platform erected in the center, Wang Yu held up the telescope and said, "It's almost." ”

Zhu Ming raised his arm, and the herald immediately waved the order flag.

Gu San and Shi Biao took 3,000 personal guards, all wearing the kind of iron cans of foot armor, and they each led 1,500 heavy infantry and went out through a passage.

Chen Ziyi's eighty heavy cavalry, also abandoned their horses and led their followers, passing through another passage. Hua Rong led more than 500 musketeers and followed behind Chen Ziyi, and the dried gunpowder was enough to hold two or three shots.

(End of chapter)