"W-w-w-"

"Enemy attack!"

In the early morning of February 14 in the second year of Jianwen, when the horn sounded melodiously at the Jiugong Pass in Shanxi, hundreds of Ming soldiers stationed here woke up from their sleep, hurriedly put on armor, and hurriedly climbed onto the horse road of the Guancheng.

"What's going on! Are the Tartars of the North Killed? ”

A thousand-household official who ran onto the road with a hat-shaped helmet shouted loudly, and the hundred-household officials stationed at the city pass hurriedly ran over when they saw this.

"Wang Qianhu, eastern...... It's the enemy from the east! ”

"East?" Hearing this, Wang Qianhu looked to the east of Chengguan, and then realized that he had run to the wrong place.

"I'll go to the east and have a look, you can keep watch here."

After that, he took a few family members to run to the east pass of Jiugong Pass, and soon appeared on the horse road of Dongguan Pass.

It's just that when they came here, hundreds of soldiers nervously stayed away from the battlements.

"What's going on?"

Wang Qianhu found the hundred household officials stationed here, and when the hundred household officials saw Wang Qianhu, they also seemed to see the backbone of the main body, and immediately wept and handed out an arrow with a letter in his hand.

"Wang Qianhu, Yan is attacking tens of thousands of horse troops, and siege equipment is being built right now, this is probably a letter of surrender, you ...... What do you think......"

"Huh?" Seeing that the officials of the hundred households in front of him said this, Wang Qianhu had the courage to look outside the battlement, and sure enough, he saw that the crowd of people was crowding the eastern valley of the Jiugong Pass.

He didn't have time to look at it before he retracted his neck.

"How... How could there be so many Yan rebel horse troops here? Didn't the general go north with more than 100,000 people? ”

Wang Qianhu was frightened by the scene outside the city and lost his seven souls, counting the last time he fought, it was to follow the original King of Yan, and now the Yanshu people went to Kaiping Beibian and killed some Tartars who crossed the border and came to Monan to herd.

There were not enough of them to divide them, and there were only a few hundred of them.

Looking at the moment, the person who took him to make meritorious service was outside the city, but now he is here to attack the city.

"We only have less than 400 people here, how can we hold it......"

Wang Qianhu swallowed, and then opened the letter of surrender in a panic.

What is rare is that this letter was actually written by Zhu Di himself, and he also called Wang Qianhu a brother, telling him to open the city gate and bring his family members in the city to the north, don't resist stubbornly here, lest his wife and children cry for them.

When Wang Qianhu saw the contents of the letter, he wept and said, "Brothers, there are 60,000 people outside the city, and we ...... Dropped. ”

His words made the nervous more than 200 soldiers look at each other, although they felt that it was not good to surrender, but no one wanted their wives and children to cry and mourn, so a quarter of an hour later, the city gate of the Nine Palace Pass slowly opened.

Thousands of Yan cavalry entered the city to take over the city, Wang Qianhu stood at the gate of the city, watching those cavalry take over the city defense, and only after a quarter of an hour did he see the original Yan King.

"Wang Mu, I know that you are interested, I took my family to the north earlier, I prepared a carriage over there, you take your family to Juyongguan."

Zhu Di laughed heartily on horseback, and Wang Mu could only bow his head when he heard this.

He still doesn't know how Zhu Di appeared at the Jiugong Pass from Beiping, more than 400 miles away.

He didn't know, but the generals of the Yan army knew it very well.

Three days ago, Zhu Di left all the infantry for Zhang Yu to lead troops to garrison Beiping, and he took the cavalry and horse infantry all the way south, and before the southern army moved, he walked into a small post road in Taihang Mountain, and interspersed all the way into the Jiugong Pass of Taihang Mountain.

As Zhu Di expected, the soldiers and horses in Shanxi are now in the Zhuozhou and Xuanhua areas, so even if it is an important route as the Taihang Eight Paths, there will not be too many defenders left.

He led an army of 60,000 to attack all the way, and in just three days, he ran for 400 miles, and took Jiugong Pass before the southern army went north.

Right now, in front of him is Ulju City behind the Nine Palaces.

Taking advantage of the time when the army passed through Jiugong Pass, Zhu Di took Zhu Neng, Wang Yi, Qiu Fu, Chen Wu, Tan Yuan and others to the city gate tower and looked at the terrain of Jiugong Pass.

I have to say that Jiugong Pass does have the momentum of being a one-man pass, but without enough defenders, this pass will not be able to give full play to its own advantages.

"Shanxi's soldiers and horses have almost been transferred, and most of them should be on Li Jinglong's side at the moment, and a small part are in the hands of Fang Zhao in Xuanhua in the north."

"That Fang Zhao is my subordinate defeated, don't care about him at all, what we have to do now is to attract Li Jinglong's attention, so we have to take Ulzhou quickly, so that Li Jinglong thinks that we intend to take Datong."

Holding the map in his hand, Zhu Di spread it on the ground and explained it to the generals around him.

Zhu Neng reacted quickly, and he pointed to the reputation of the north and said: "If the news of Ulzhou's attack comes out, Li Jinglong will inevitably come to the aid from the Bauhinia Pass in the east and enter the boundary of Ulzhou from the North Pass. ”

"We can take the North Pass first, and then annihilate his soldiers and horses here."

Zhu Neng thought very well, if it was against ordinary generals, then this method would definitely be useful, but not against Li Jinglong.

Although Zhu Di had belittled Li Jinglong as nothing before, he was very clear about Li Jinglong's ability, so he pointed to the main force of the Southern Army entrenched in Zhuozhou at the moment and said:

"There are more than 100,000 people in Zhuozhou in this southern army, and 50,000 people from Xu Kai, Yu Tongyuan, and Ping'an are in Dong'an County, and I guess they will march with Fang Zhao from three sides, respectively in the northwest, southwest, and southeast directions of Beiping."

"Right now, there is Zhang Yu in Beiping City with 60,000 people on the defensive, and I'm not worried."

"But if you attract Li Jinglong to come as Zhu Nengling said, it won't work."

"It's impossible for this kid Li Jiujiang to lead the whole division to fight us, he will definitely leave Yu Tongyuan and them to guard against Yongping's support, and then let Xu Kai lead his infantry to attack Beiping City."

"At that time, even if he leads his troops to come, his intention is not to fight with us quickly, but to drag us down and make us unable to take care of Beiping."

Zhu Di prejudged Li Jinglong's intentions, and Wang Yi asked: "Then what should our army do?" ”

He asked everyone's thoughts, but Zhu Di raised his head and scanned everyone, his eyes flickering: "Let him come, the more comes, the better." ”

He didn't go into too much detail, but the generals already knew that he had a plan in mind, so they all made a gesture to express their obedience.

"At present, most of my army is in the pass, and the only thing I am worried about is the families of the soldiers of the Kaiping Five Guards."

"There are too few defenders there, so it is vulnerable to invasion by Hu soldiers."

"Before the pull, I have already written a letter to Kun Timur, Brother Meng, Timur, if they dare to come, then after this battle, I will attack them first."

Zhu Di not only has arrangements for the Guan, but also has means for the Northern Yuan outside the Guan.

At present, the Northern Yuan was in a struggle for the throne of Khan, and a large number of Tatar Mongols were sidelined.

If they went south to Kaiping to seize the pasture because they were excluded, causing the families of the Kaiping soldiers to be attacked, it would inevitably lead to unstable morale in the army.

Therefore, Zhu Di released some Tatar and Warat Hu soldiers in Beiping, and asked them to bring their own letters to the Tatars, Warat and other tribes in the area of Yuerhai, and even wrote a personal letter to the new Northern Yuan Great Khan Kun Timur and the Northern Yuan Dynasty's powerful minister Timur.

Regardless of whether these two letters can make the Tatars realize their threat and cut off the idea of going south, in short, they can at least appease the military spirit within the Yan army.

Zhu Di thought so, and at the same time, the 60,000 horse infantry cavalry had already crossed most of the Jiugong Pass.

He put away the map with everyone, walked down the city gate, and smiled at Wang Mu who was guarding the city gate: "Looking for one of your people to go to Zhuozhou, tell that Li Jinglong's Jiugong Pass has fallen, and I have attacked Ulzhou and left." ”

"Huh?" Wang Mu didn't expect Zhu Di to reveal his intentions, but after a moment of shaking, he responded.

Not long after, several Tang cavalry were sent to Zhuozhou to deliver the message, and Zhu Di also led an army of 60,000 to spend an hour through the Jiugong Pass and came to the northwest mountainous basin of Hebei in the west.

However, the distance of fifty miles was quickly crossed by the Yan army's horse cavalry, and when they appeared under the city of Ulzhou, the Ulzhou guards Wang Zhong, Li Yuan and others also learned about the appearance of the Yan cavalry from the news report of the Tang cavalry on the periphery.

Li Jinglong's strict management of the army has had an effect, if it was an ordinary Ulzhou, he would definitely be caught off guard by Zhu Di, but now they can still rely on 3,000 troops to defend the city wall.

An army of 60,000 gathered under the city wall, and Zhu Di simply led the cavalry around Ulzhou City to understand how to conquer it.

"Zhu Neng, have you seen those old platforms?"

Outside the city of Ulzhou, there are many old platforms left in the Yuan Dynasty, which have not been demolished and rebuilt, originally to facilitate the expansion of Ulzhou in the future, but now they are being used by Zhu Di.

"Let your people build a ladder on the old platform, and then build a bridge with soil bags, but a distance of a hundred steps, you can build an earthen bridge into the city in a day and night."

"The last general commands!"

Hearing Zhu Di's arrangement, Zhu Neng immediately led 20,000 people in his headquarters to start building a ladder to walk up the old building platform, and then began to throw earth bags to pile up soil for a mountain, intending to pile up soil from the old building platform a hundred steps away to reach the Ulzhou city wall.

"What is Yan Cheng going to do?"

In the city of Ulzhou, Wang Zhong and Li Yuan, the guards who led 3,000 troops, looked at each other, and at the same time glanced at the guards beside them.

Except for a few hundred soldiers with armor, the rest of the people only had simple mandarin duck battle jackets on their bodies, and the weapons in their hands were only simple spears and waist knives.

Although there are a few bowl-mouth guns and Hongwu iron cannons in the city of Ulju, they may not be able to withstand the onslaught of 60,000 people.

For a while, Wang Zhong and Li Yuan were timid, but they were still ready to wait and see the situation.

Time passed little by little, from noon to dusk, the Yan army had relied on three old platforms, and the soil belt had moved forward more than 30 steps, and only half a day had completed one-third of the amount of work.

Until late at night, the sound of the Yan army digging the earth and the mountain still did not stop.

Seeing that they had built up soil and entered the moat, Li Yuan immediately prepared to greet him with artillery, but Wang Zhong raised his hand to stop him.

"You're ......"

Li Yuan looked at Wang Zhong suspiciously, but Wang Zhong said: "Look at the brothers around, how can we use three thousand people to defend this Ulzhou City, and we don't even have armor. ”

"Then what do you mean......" Li Yuan glanced around and slowly lowered his hand.

"Come down......" Wang Zhong's expression was complicated, and Li Yuan breathed a sigh of relief after hearing it.

"Kaesong, surrender."

After a word, the city of Ulzhou opened the city gate under the orders of Wang Zhong and Li Yuanjun and surrendered to Zhu Di.

After the surrender of Ulzhou, Zhu Di personally met with Wang Zhong, Li Yuan and others.

Although he did not have a close intersection with the two, he met many generals in Shanxi during the two border preparations in the 28th and 31st years of Hongwu, and naturally he and Wang Zhong could find a topic.

After a short night's rest, Zhu Di began to order Li Yuan to escort the old and young of Ulzhou to the north and enter Juyongguan to settle down, while Wang Zhong led hundreds of soldiers from Ulzhou to follow his main force to Datong.

The march from Ulzhou to Datong was nearly 250 miles, but Zhu Di did not order a surprise attack by the army as before, but marched slowly, in order to give Li Jinglong time to react.

Almost at the front and rear feet of Li Jinglong's entire army, the Tang cavalry at the Jiugong Pass finally brought the news to Zhuozhou after more than 200 miles of running.

"Yan went to Ulzhou?"

On the official road from Zhuozhou to Beiping, the generals looked at the Tang Cavalry who had news in front of them in surprise, and Li Jinglong frowned slightly, but he was not as surprised as the generals.

"How many people have Yan rebelled, and how did you get here?"

Li Jinglong asked Natang to ride, and he also gasped and said:

"Back to the general, Yan went to fifty or sixty thousand people, and everyone has a horse ......"

"Under the mark, Yan Reverse deliberately released a message to the general, and Yan Reverse went to Ulzhou to attack."

"Got it, you go back to Zhuozhou and wait." Li Jinglong bowed his head and motioned for him to stand down.

After he left, Yu Tongyuan, Ping'an and others stepped forward.

Although the veteran is old, his eyes are still vicious: "General, this Yan is clearly following the previous attack on Changxinghou and trying to encircle Wei to save Zhao." ”

"It's to encircle Wei to save Zhao, but if you don't send troops, it's easy to lose Datong." Li Jinglong's judgment was correct.

"The city of Ulzhou is big and the defenders are outnumbered, and there are old platforms outside the city, and in the face of tens of thousands of Yan rebels, it must be impossible to defend the city."

"Right now, I'm afraid Ulzhou City has already surrendered, and Yan Cheng is on his way to Datong."

"If we don't go, the siege of Wei and the rescue of Zhao will become the fall of Datong, and our army will lose the suppression of the western part of Yanwei at that time."

"The order was issued, the 100,000 horse infantry officers and troops changed their route, entered Datong from Bauhinia Pass, and all the cavalry in the army returned to the Yue Marquis to control it, and cooperated with Xu Kai's troops to storm Beiping City."

"The last general commands!" Yu Tongyuan made a move, and the generals also went to the armies one after another to adjust the marching route.

This kind of rash change of march route is prone to riots once it is not done well, but this kind of riot did not appear in Li Jinglong's army.

The 100,000 horse infantry officers and soldiers orderly changed the rear army to the front army, and the front army to the rear army, and turned the carriage to rush to the Bauhinia Pass in the south.

Commanding 100,000 troops was nothing more than a daily routine for Li Jinglong, and his large-scale training ranged from 50,000 to 60,000 and more than 200,000 at each time.

Even if it is Zhu Di, the only time he led more than 200,000 troops out of the fortress at the moment is just the preparation of Hongwu for 31 years.

In the hands of Li Jinglong, the 100,000-strong army was like a domesticated hound, marching south to the Bauhinia Pass at a speed of 70 miles a day, rushing to the Datong battlefield.

They began to move south, and Yu Tongyuan led 20,000 cavalry to the north with Ping'an and others.

Not surprisingly, they will cross the Lugou Bridge at noon tomorrow and look out at Beiping City.

At the same time, the corps led by Xu Kai would also advance slowly, arriving outside Beiping City around the 18th and beginning to storm Beiping City.

In order to cope with this situation, Zhang Yu, who stayed in Beiping, moved all the people from the towns south of Beiping into the city of Beiping.

Beiping City, which originally had a population of only 1440,000, gathered more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians at once.

Zhang Yu held that there was plenty of food in the city, and he was not worried about the Ming army going north at all, but was strengthening the city defense.

Although he didn't know the soldiers, Zhu Gaochi also walked around the city wall as a prince, inspiring the soldiers who defended the city.

It's just that when he met some soldiers, Zhu Gaochi only felt that the way they looked at him was a little strange.

"General Zhang, why do those soldiers think of me?"

On the horse road, after Zhu Gaochi left the section of the horse road full of stares, he pulled Zhang Yu up to the arrow tower to ask.

Hearing this, Zhang Yu also looked at the horse road that Zhu Gaochi said, and the expression on his face froze for a moment before he said cautiously: "Over there, it's Daning's people......"

"......" Hearing the answer, Zhu Gaochi understood why they looked at him a little strangely.

This is why Daning's soldiers can still look at him so quietly, if he is changed to Bohai's soldiers, I am afraid that he has been scolded in private many times.

As I said earlier, the Bohai Navy has a high literacy rate, but the high literacy rate means that they know better what it means to be a prince.

Bohai fought and died in the north, and now he was transferred to Beiping to resist the southern army, not for Zhu Di, the king of Yan, let alone for Zhu Gaochi, the prince he had never met, but simply obeyed the military orders of his Royal Highness.

Zhu Gaochi is not stupid, after listening to Zhang Yu's explanation, he complained in his heart.

"When will this head be a head in the days when the trouser belt is hanging......"

He had a bitter face, but someone was laughing and laughing.

"Woo-woo-"

Thousands of miles away, when the sound of horns sounded endlessly in Dengzhou Bay, more than 100 wooden hard-sailed warships entrenched here slowly sailed away from the port.

The hard sails are puffed up and gently swayed, and there are thousands of faces, which is very spectacular.

On deck, all the crew members wore bright armor or paper armor, held spears, and looked solemn, as if they were ready to meet the enemy ship at any time.

The guns were already in place, mounted in the bow and on both sides of the gun.

There are only more than 150 warships, but there are more than 2,000 artillery pieces.

Looking at any country at the same time, it is difficult to pull out such a majestic fleet.

The banner of the Ming Ping Shui Division was agitated in the cold wind of February, and the hunting sounded, showing the Ming Dynasty's domination of the sea and a strong sense of oppression.

Due to the diversion of the Yellow River, the waters of Bohai Bay are not blue, but they are clear enough.

The clear waves lapped against the hull, and the northerly monsoon in winter and spring, and the northerly winds in the Bohai Sea and the North Yellow Sea were also dominated by northwesterly winds, so it was slightly difficult for the sailors who were marching to the northwest, and had to use rocking oars and side hard sails.

When the stiff sails were adjusted, the original northwesterly wind turned from resistance to help, and the people of the harbor gathered to watch the spectacular scene, praying that the fleet would be victorious.

Under their watchful eyes, more than one hundred and fifty warships began to march towards the Imperial City Islands in the north, and slowly disappeared into the sea horizon.

Where they could not see, the Pingwei Sailors began to move towards the western sea of the Liaodong Peninsula after traveling dozens of miles.

Standing on the deck, Yang Li, who was wearing armor, looked at the sailors under his command and was full of emotion.

He had already received Yang Zhan's letter, and he also knew what the Bohai County King behind Yang Zhan wanted him to do.

He didn't think much about it, after all, Yang Zhan was his only son, as long as Yang Zhan could live well, he would have nothing to complain about.

Calming down, he turned his attention to the hydrology.

Stretching out his hand to feel the northwest wind direction, Yang Li also shook his head.

"Even the wind is helping......

After he said this, the Pingwa Naval Division, which carried 10,000 troops and more than 150 warships and horse ships, gradually sailed away from the scope of the main island of the imperial city.

At the same time as they went north, Chen Xuan, who stayed in Dengzhou City, also led the Yangtze River sailors under his command to the north and south islands of Chenghuang.

Chenghuang North Island is only 70 miles away from Lushun, and if the boat goes well, it only takes three hours to reach Beichenghuang Island.

Chen Xuan had already ordered the construction of a stone fort there, and what he had to do now was to lead his Yangtze River sailors to garrison there, while Dengzhou was garrisoned by Qi Ji's 6,000 Denglai sailors and 3,000 Dengzhou troops.

An hour later, Chen Xuan led 10,000 sailors of the Yangtze River to sail on 20,000 ships, 70 ships, 1000 ships, 100 big bird ships, and 50 shuangfan ships.

Although the north wind was cold and continuous, because the Ming army was a defender, and the Huangcheng Islands were already in the hands of the Ming army, and the Huangcheng Islands were very close to Dengzhou, even if they encountered a storm, they could return to Dengzhou, so Chen Xuan did not stop, but continued to command the army to march to the North Huangcheng Island.

After they left, Qi Ji led 8,000 defenders on land and water to start defending.

Although the northwest wind is still blowing in the Bohai Strait, which is completely spring, the sun is shining brightly, and it is warm on people's bodies, so that people can't help but relax.

"Fighting in the sea is really different from fighting in the Yangtze River."

Walking on the deck, Chen Xuan and his lieutenant talked about the difference between the sea and the Yangtze River.

Although the Yangtze River can also be windy, it has never been as cold as the Bohai Strait.

As long as you adapt to the wind direction of the Yangtze River, the entire sailor can drive with confidence, but not in the sea.

The constant northwesterly wind made the helmsmen and sailors of the Yangtze River Division constantly need to adjust the rudder and sail direction to prevent the entire fleet from deviating from course.

It is a hundred miles from Dengzhou to Beichenghuang Island, and with changes in wind direction and hydrology, it takes at least four hours to arrive.

Chen Xuan is adapting to the Bohai Sea, and in the passage of time, he is familiar with the Bohai Sea culture little by little.

From Dengzhou, the southernmost part, they passed through Changdao, Tonji Island, and Daqin Island...... Eighty miles of walking slowly, listening to the sound of the waves crashing, gradually they have seen Nanchenghuang Island.

However, at this moment, a warship appeared on the west side of Nanchenghuang Island.

"How can there be a ship?"

"Is it the ship of the Sailor who has run aground?"

Everyone thought of the Pingwu Water Master who set off two hours in advance, but only Chen Xuan sensed that something was wrong.

"It's not them, the Pingwu Naval Division is familiar with coastal hydrology, and it is impossible for a warship to run aground!"

Chen Xuan reacted quickly, and picked up the wooden whistle on his neck and began to blow.

"Beep-"

The shrill whistle sounded, and then the sailors of the warships began to operate the rudder and sails, they had been training off the coast of Dengzhou for several months, and although they could not completely control the hydrology of the Bohai Sea, there was no problem at all.

The entire fleet began to line up, and the warships hidden in the direction of Nanchenghuang Island also appeared one after another.

With the appearance of the warship, the faces of all the people in the Yangtze River Naval Division appeared nervous and dignified.

Seventy warships of various sizes sailed out of the north side of Nanchenghuang Island and sailed towards them in the northwest wind.

"Enemy attack!!"

When the two fleets approached less than ten miles, the sound of preparing for the enemy had already sounded one after another, and on the opposite side of them, Yang Zhan, who was dressed in armor, had already led five thousand Bohai Navy to wait for them for a long time......

"Records of Taizong of the Ming Dynasty": "In the spring of February, Shang led his division to attack Ulzhou at the mouth of Jiugongkou, and ordered the prince and Yu to be strictly guarded, and the enemy was cautious not to fight. ”

"Bohai Chronicle": "In the spring of February, he successfully led the sailor out of Lushun, avoided the water division and entered the southern city god island, and met Xuan. ”

(End of chapter)