The fleet sailed down the river to Xinjin City and sailed into the Nanhe River, and sailed for half a day to a place called Caidu. Here, there are two rivers, the Pujiang River and the Xiejiang River, which flow into the Nanhe River.

The Perak Army fleet was also divided into three parts, and Liao Loach led his headquarters, a company of the field battalion and a company of the Guizheng battalion, and continued to the west along the Pujiang River to Pujiang City.

The width and volume of the Pujiang River were far inferior to those of the Binan River and the Xiejiang River, so Liao Loach only brought four light gunboats and transport ships with a shallower draft.

Zhou Jianshen took the three companies of the Guizheng Battalion to the north along the Xiejiang River and went to Dayi City, accompanied by the teaching company of the garrison battalion.

The teaching company, equipped with artillery, was definitely a first-class combat force among the companies of the Perak Army, and their role in this trip was not only to provide fire support for the Guizheng battalion in the event of a fruitless surrender, but also to prevent the Mongol cavalry from supporting Dayi City.

Ouyang Xuan took Cao Ergou and Le Quanan to lead the main force and went to Qiongzhou City in the northwest along the water.

As an important fiscal and taxation area in western Sichuan, Qiongzhou not only has a large area of fertile land but also a large number of mountainous areas, and its abundant products are more than those of Chongqing, especially the two industries of salt and iron are the most valued by the government of previous dynasties.

The Mongolian army stationed 500 cavalry and 1,000 new annexed troops here, and the number of garrisons was even more than that of Genting City, and it was the military center in western Sichuan after Chengdu of the Mongolian army.

After the Battle of Hengyuan Fort, the Mongol army contracted its defense, and the cavalry of various counties retreated to Chengdu one after another. Instead of retreating, the Mongol army in Qiongzhou was transferred to Qiongzhou with the elite of the neighboring new annexed army, and now the number of new annexed troops in the city has reached 1,500.

The Mongol cavalry in the direction of Chengdu tried to support Qiongzhou from the direction of Pengshan City because they could not cross the Jinma River to the west, but they were also detected by the Thunderbolt army and gave up.

The Thunderbolt Navy in Xinjin City has reconnaissance ships monitoring the movements of Pengshan City at any time, and as soon as the Mongolian Navy shows up, it will be driven back to the water village.

The city of Qiongzhou is about one mile away from the Nanhe. The Thunderbolts came from the south, and the south gate was naturally within the firepower of the warships.

Ouyang Xuan first ordered people to dig a trench outside the arrow range and pile up the earth into a chest wall, and then Cao Ergou led his army to land at the south gate to build fortifications, and gradually extended the ditch and breast wall to the east gate.

During the trenches and construction of the wall, the defenders of Qiongzhou City bombarded the Perak soldiers with siege weapons, but they were torn apart by the heavy bombardment of warship artillery - not only the siege equipment but also the human body.

The defenders also sent cavalry to assault, but to no avail under the blockade of shotgun fire. In this way, it took Cao Ergou five days to build the improvised fortifications.

Although this kind of fortification, composed of trenches, earthen walls and horses, although simple, with artillery and grenades, was a nightmare for the cold-armed army, sealing the south and east gates of Qiongzhou to death.

After sealing off the two gates, the Thunderbolts stopped digging. The Mongol army in the city thought that the Thunderbolt army was tired of digging and needed to rest.

In fact, braving the scorching sun to dig in the heat of the day is indeed very physically exhausting, but this is not a reason to stop, the real reason is that Ouyang Xuan is waiting for the opportunity - before the departure of Hengyuan Fort, he has sent people to sneak to Jiading Mansion and Yazhou and Baizhang County respectively, requesting to send troops to attack the Mongolian army.

According to Ouyang Xuan's plan, after taking Pujiang City and Dayi City, it was to completely cut off the way for the Qiongzhou Mongol army to flee to the east and south.

Not to mention that it was impossible for the Mongols to cross the river with the Thunderbolt army controlling the waterway, just the artillery on the two walls of Pujiang and Dayi would make the Mongol army retreat.

As a result, the Mongol army in Qiongzhou could only retreat to the north and west. To the north, on the other hand, is the steep Longmen Mountains, and those sheep's intestine trails are difficult for even Orion to pass, let alone cavalry and untrained new annexes.

As for retreating to the west, you need to pass through the Baizhang Pass in Yazhou. This Baizhang Pass is the county seat of Baizhang, although the city is not big but it is precipitous, it is also a fortress that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is the throat of the western Sichuan Plain leading to the mountains.

Ouyang Xuan sent people to Jiading Mansion to meet Yu Xing because Yazhou, a land of half Han and half Tibet, belonged to Yu Xing's sphere of influence.

The Mongol invasion of Sichuan several times greatly reduced the prestige of the imperial court and weakened its control over the border areas of Tibet, so Yu Xing was appointed as the deputy envoy of Chengdu pacification and the prefect of Jiading, responsible for the border defense of Wei, Mao, Li, Ya and other places.

Chongqing Mansion is also under the jurisdiction of Chengdu Fulu, and Ouyang Xuan, who is the commander of Yongkang County, is naturally also Yu Xing's subordinate, but Yu Xing does not care about the people of Chongqing Mansion who have been ravaged by the Mongolian army.

In fact, Ouyang Xuan was so disappointed with Yu Xing and other corrupt officials in the Southern Song Dynasty that he didn't expect them to send troops to help, and only hoped that they would not delay the cause of resisting Mongolia.

On the one hand, he sent an envoy to report to his nominal boss that the Perak army was going to attack the Mongol army in Qiongzhou, and on the other hand, to remind the defenders of Yazhou and Baizhang City to prevent the Mongol army from fleeing westward.

The days of waiting are an ordeal. For the Perak army, the siege was not difficult, there was plenty of food, tents to shade the sun, and they could swim in the river in batches.

As for the work, they shelled the city from time to time, so that the Mongolian army could not sleep well and eat well, and their nerves were in a tense state.

For the Mongol troops in the city, the waiting days were too difficult, in addition to not knowing when the shells that fell were harvesting their lives, the first problem was the lack of food.

Qiongzhou, like other prefectures and counties in western Sichuan, the grain in the city was also sent to the secret Huoli part of the attack on Hengyuan Fort according to Liu Heima's order.

The Mongol army in the city originally planned to send people to the countryside to loot some of them, and it would be autumn harvest time if they held out for another month.

Unexpectedly, the battle situation changed so quickly, and in the blink of an eye, the offensive and defensive forces changed, and five hundred new annexed troops poured into the city, and the food supply was even more stretched.

Now under the siege, it is impossible to go out of the city to loot, and now most of the nearby cities and cantonment points have fallen into the hands of the Thunderbolt army, and it is estimated that the only way to meet the Mongolian army's grain collection team is to meet head-on.

Even more of a headache than the lack of food is the problem of horses. Mongolian horses, although extremely tough and tolerant of rough feeding, are extremely unaccustomed to hot and humid climates, just like the Mongolians.

Before the Thunderbolts attacked Qiongzhou, these horses were grazed in a place where the water and grass were abundant by the river, and when the sun was at its peak, they had to be driven to the dense forest outside the city to shade the sun.

Now that the riverbanks and the woods outside the city were under artillery, the risk of grazing was just a way to add meat to the Perak recipe.

The Mongol army also went out to graze cattle by the small rivers and ponds outside the north and west gates, but was unexpectedly attacked by the Thunderbolt army's small boats.

There were only two or three people in these dinghys, and they were paddled at a fast pace. They used the cover of aquatic plants to sneak up, fired a few shots with muskets, threw a few grenades and left, and disappeared in a blink of an eye, causing the horses to be startled and unable to graze with peace of mind.

The Mongol army had no choice but to keep the horses in the city and send soldiers from the new annex army to cut the grass. It's just that the soldiers of the new annex didn't know about poisonous weeds at all, and these mixed with poisonous weeds were eaten by starving horses, and more horses were killed by poisoning or disease or death than by the Thunderbolts.

What's worse is that although Qiongzhou City is big enough, more than 1,000 horses are in the city, and a large amount of horse manure ferments in the midsummer weather, making the whole city smell of foul odor.

If the Mongolian soldiers felt both physical and mental torment, the Mongolian generals defending the city smelled the signal of extreme danger.

The general of the Mongolian army is called Cheri, and he is a fierce general under Niu Lin. Because the salt and iron of Qiongzhou were really important to stabilize the rule of the Mongols in western Sichuan, they were sent by the New Moon.

When the Thunderbolts first started attacking, Cheri was quite confident. The 500 cavalry under his command were not Semu or Mongol Han troops, but pure Mongols, and the configuration was also one man and three horses.

If this kind of elite cavalry is in the grassland or the northern plains, even if it faces ten times the Song army, it will dare to fight, and even if it can't win, it can retreat with all its body.

Although the Thunderbolt artillery is powerful, it is not very mobile, and as long as it shows the slightest flaw, it can be defeated by the invincible Mongolian army.