In August, the Huainan army once again put on a big move, and the sailors who were originally cruising in the Huai River began to gather in Yingkou, and even the boats and boats in the back road of Weishui, Shaobi, and even Chaohu Lake were mobilized into the Huai.

For a time, Huaishang was densely populated with boats, large and small, and ships of all kinds of purposes, with more than 300 boats and nearly 20,000 boatmen alone. If it weren't for the Huaishui breach, the river near Yingkou would have greatly expanded, and so many boats and ships would have gathered in Huaishang, and it would have been inconvenient to even divert to navigation, let alone fight flexibly. After all, no matter how much Huaishui soars, there is still a gap with Dajiang after all.

Of the many ships that were gathered, only one-third of them were used exclusively for warfare, and the rest were ships that were used entirely for transportation and were not capable of combat. As for the number of soldiers, there were more than 15,000 people. In the previous battle of Yingkou, the damage of the Huainan army was huge, and with the partial withdrawal of the Xuzhou army from Xuyi, it was necessary to divide troops to defend at the vortex. If it weren't for the Hefei and Liang counties that successively sent in more than 10,000 troops to defend various places along the Huai, the Huainan Army alone would not be enough to launch such a large-scale military operation.

Even if there are reinforcements from the back road, the Huainan army launched such a large-scale naval army, and the troops of many forts along the Huai were also transferred to a rather dangerous situation, but it has the ability to warn a little, once the Shihu army comes south again, it does not have the power to stop the enemy.

The Huainan army is strong, and it is not just talk. Important ordnance such as warships alone is dazzling and effective.

Among the more than 100 warships, more than half of them were small warships, such as sterns, red horses, and boats.

Among them, the ship is the most flexible, the ship is about ten people, carrying soldiers between twenty or thirty people, convenient to advance and retreat, most suitable for use in complex water conditions battlefield, in addition to the soldiers on the ship, the bow is also wrapped in iron armor sharp thorns, once galloping on the water, can be directly used to break the enemy's boat, the destructive power is far from comparable to the bow and crossbow.

The red horse ship is long and narrow, the draft is extremely shallow, and the space inside is not too large, so it will not carry too many people, and it can play a small role in direct water battles, but it is most suitable for penetrating into the enemy position and spying on the military situation. Coming and going is like the wind, difficult to stop.

It is a general term for small ships, and it is a supplement to medium-sized warships such as fighting ships, which are often towed behind large ships, and once the large ships are blocked and intercepted, when the advance and retreat are blocked, the soldiers will be dispersed and transferred to the boats for splitting or evacuating.

In addition to these small ships with less than 100 troops, there are also more than 20 medium-sized ships such as fighting ships and flying dragons with a capacity of between 300 and 500. This type of warship is the main force of water warfare, and its hull is a sharp weapon, with sharp wooden piles in the front and rear, one for impact, and the other for separating or encountering fire attacks or receiving gunwales.

In order to maintain sufficient mobility and combat effectiveness, these ships are usually not fully manned and are loaded with a lot of equipment used in water warfare. A fighting ship often carries more than 200 soldiers, although there are more sails, but because the wind direction changes more, in the season when the climate is changeable, it is not really possible to borrow the wind power, so it is mainly to control the ship to advance and retreat by manpower, and the like is equipped with less than thirty or forty, and more than nearly a hundred. In addition to the ordinary long-range strikes of bows and crossbows, the weapons carried are also hooked and rejected, hung stabs, and bamboo guns, etc., which are used to destroy the opponent's ships and clear and harvest the ordnance of the enemy who have fallen into the water.

Among these medium-sized fighting ships, there are several special ones that are not mainly powered by oars, but vehicles and boats with wheels hanging on the side of the hull and relying on foot pedaling to obtain driving power.

These vehicles and ships are built by Shen Zhezi in Wuzhong, before Shen Zhezi lived in the township had such ideas and convened craftsmen to try to build, so far only a few have been built, through the first line of waterway to reach Huaijing, this is the first official launching operation.

In fact, the pedal as a power source has appeared slightly in today's Jiangdong folk, compared with the power such as the oar, although the pedal runner structure is more complex, but it is more efficient for power conversion. However, similar technology is still very simple and sloppy, mostly used in civilian ships and cargo ships, and it is only an auxiliary, not the main power mode. As for the military warship, the technical requirements are higher, and once there is a mistake in the battle, the entire ship will suffer a catastrophe.

However, if the vehicle and ship technology is put into the military, the significance is not only to provide another way of ship power, but also to more effective kinetic energy conversion, which not only strengthens the maneuverability of the boat, but also saves part of the capacity. In addition to carrying more soldiers, this part of the transport capacity can also be used to load some large-scale water warfare weapons, such as slapping rods and catapults that can directly destroy enemy warships, which can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of warship units.

The craftsmen of the Shen family spent several years of work, wasting a lot of money in the middle, and finally under the current technical conditions, the technology of this ship line was polished and matured, resulting in a usable warship. However, how effective it can really be in a water war will not be known until after the actual battle.

In addition to the boats owned by the Huainan Army itself, Xuzhou Xi Jian also supported some boats of the Huainan Army out of guilt compensation, including two giant building ships.

These two building ships, one of which is called Lianfang, is the building ship built by Wang Jun in Shu when the Chinese Dynasty planned to destroy Wu, with a boat side of 120 steps, nearly 200 meters, known as unprecedented since ancient times. In fact, it is not so exaggerated, Shen Zhezi has seen it in person is only more than 100 meters, or maybe the ship sent to him by the Xuzhou Army is not the largest size, but it is also a well-deserved behemoth at the moment. After the destruction of Wu, such a large warship was useless, and many of them were abandoned in various towns along the river. Shen Zhezi also didn't know if this one was a remnant of China and North Korea, or if the Xuzhou Army was built again.

Another building ship, named Chang'an, was not inherited from the Chinese Dynasty, but was built by Emperor Sun Quan in the early years. If the number of soldiers is full, one ship can carry 3,000 soldiers!

In addition to these warships, there are also some special purpose ships such as bridge ships and Ge ships. The body of the bridge boat is extremely long, mainly not used for combat, but in the narrow part of the waterway to build a temporary pontoon channel, the ship crosses the waterway, the iron cable hooks the two ends to connect the shore, the floating plate is connected in series, and the effective coverage distance is more than 20 zhang wide. It can be said that as long as it is not a major water artery such as the Great River and Huaishui, the general tributary shoals can be quickly passed by pontoon bridges.

The south ship and the north ride, this is the natural north and south limits, where the north and the south are facing each other, the southerners or lack of progress, but if you want to defend the ground, it is by no means what kind of opponent can drive straight in. Therefore, even if Shi Hu did not suffer a big defeat because of the light enemy in Yingkou, it would be extremely difficult to break through the interception of the Huainan Navy in Huaishang. Even though the karma slave is powerful for a while, it is too shallow, even if there are many armor warriors gathered, it is still too strong to break through the dense Huaizhong and even Jiangdong layer by layer. But success always makes people blind, not only Shile and Shi Hu, but also Fu Jian, who later spoke out of the whip.

Such a large-scale action of the Huainan Army could not be completed in a day or two, and it was difficult to completely conceal it.

When the boats were still being mobilized, a small group of Qihu ranger scouts had already appeared in Huaibei to peep from afar. The Huainan Army also spies on the military situation and does not send people to drive them away. So a series of actions of the Huainan Army were quickly reported to Shi Hu, who was still staying outside the city.

"What is the intention of the southern thieves to gather such a large number of boats?"

After Shi Hu received the letter, his heartstrings suddenly tensed, on the one hand, he ordered to step up spying, and on the other hand, he wondered where the southern thief Shen Wei and Zhou Bingfeng were pointing: "Could it be that the raccoon dog slave is planning to take the initiative to attack our army's Chen County camp from afar?" ”

To be honest, if Shen Zhezi really went north to Yingshui to attack Chen Jun and other places, Shi Hu was not only worried, but was right in the middle of it. It is true that the Huainan Navy is powerful, but it is also very restrictive, and once it is separated from the wide waterway of Huaishui, its combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

Although at the moment the army of the Karma Hu is still a frustrated crowd, it is useless. However, if the Huainan Navy wantonly went north to Yingshui, and there was no shortage of shallow Gulf Streams in the upper reaches of Yingshui, the flow would be cut off to block its retreat, and its army would be trapped and killed on Yingshang, and there would be no need for the army to be dispatched at all, and his own descendants would be able to complete this task.

Even if he was afraid of a new defeat earlier, Shi Hu still secretly ambushed his troops near Yingshui, preparing to ambush the Huainan army's distant attack. At present, although the centrifugal departments are still heavy, the situation is still slightly better than at the beginning of the new defeat.

Previously, those distant generals and Hu Qu commanders, there was no shortage of leading troops to self-consolidation, although on the surface they were still on orders, but in fact, Shi Hu could not command at all, if he blindly interfered and suppressed, he would not only cause embarrassment, but also be more likely to inspire mutiny.

In order to reverse this situation, Shi Hu also used both grace and power, first firmly controlled the heavy battalion set up in Chen County, defended many retreat routes, and ensured that these soldiers could not be scattered in a hurry. Next, in the name of cleaning up the place, he allowed those miscellaneous beards to sweep the countryside, and all the captives were returned to their troops, and the lives of these Jin people in southern Henan were used to strengthen the morale of the army that had fallen to the bottom. Even Pengcheng, Peiguo and other places were not spared, in addition to strengthening the army's heart, Shi Hu also used this to strengthen his sons who were active in Qingzhou.

But even so, there has been no substantial improvement in the morale of the military. Those Hu chieftains were keen on plundering, but when Shi Hu ordered the crowd to discuss how to do the military next, they either couldn't refuse, or they were silent when they came, which was not enough at all.

Previously, Shi Hu also felt the withdrawal of the Xuzhou Army and the adjustment of the Huainan Army, and even wrote to Shi Kan in Huaiyin, hoping that they would join forces to take the vortex, but Xuzhou did not reply for a long time. It is conceivable that Guo Ao, who fled to Xuzhou, should be the obstruction.

Relying on Shi Hu alone, he did not dare to attack directly. He seems to have more than 100,000 people, but he also fell into the dilemma of insufficient troops, on the one hand, to defend Chen County, on the other hand, to deter the army near Qiaocheng, once lightly, if there is an accident and riot in any of these two places, the damage is much more serious than the defeat of Yingkou.

But it is not a long-term solution to be trapped in this way, although the army is not available, but it still needs to be raised, and the daily consumption is an alarming number, although there is a captivity to make up for it, but it is also difficult to maintain it for a long time. And judging from the time of time, even if he didn't report the war situation himself, the country should already know about it now.

The lord's defense of him is getting stronger and stronger, and this time the war is like this, Shi Hu does not believe that the lord will be indifferent, and he will definitely target him, and even directly remove his military position and transfer it to Shi Kan to take over the army. Although Shi Hu will not obediently obey orders, once such a situation occurs, it will undoubtedly cause more damage to his prestige.

Therefore, the tide of battle must be reversed, and it has reached the point where it is imminent!

Soon, the latest movement of the Huainan Army from the front-line scouts was not to advance to Yingshui, but to go up to the west.

After Shi Hu got the news, he was overjoyed, and sure enough, at the critical moment, he was still an old friend. Presumably, the peach leopard exerted a lot of pressure on the southern thief, and the raccoon slave Shen Weizhou was stunned because of his victory, so he underestimated that he had no combat power, and began to mobilize his troops to retreat to the enemy in the west.

So, on the one hand, Shi Hu sent someone to inform Peach Leopard that he made a heavy promise, hoping that Peach Leopard could contain the southern thieves as much as possible for a while, and on the other hand, he informed Chen Jun's naval army to prepare for a big southward move.

Although he was defeated in the first battle of Yingkou, he also completed the tactical goal, so that Yingkou was no longer an obstacle to Huaishang. Previously, because he was afraid of the strong Nanren naval army, he did not dare to go south, but if the Nanren naval army was invested in Runan, the internal defense would be empty.

After Yingkou's defeat, Shi Hu also adjusted his mentality, and did not plan to fight with the southerners to win the waves. However, if a large number of Nanren boats and ships are pinned down in Runan, the interception force on the Huai Shang will inevitably become weaker. The boat can break into the south and transport the army across the Huai! And as long as you set foot on the solid soil of Huainan, whether it is a field battle or a fortification, you will have a lot to do!

Moreover, with the army operating in southern Henan for a long time, there is a lot of understanding of the situation in Huainan, and the southern goods are gathered in Huainan, which is undoubtedly a great temptation for those miscellaneous servants who have no desire to fight. Even if they don't fight for themselves, if they talk about looting and plundering, they will not be left behind! As long as they can use this as a temptation to send them through Huainan, there is no need to dispatch them on the spot, and these people will rush to be the first to plunder them!

However, Shi Hu was also a wise man, worried that the Nanren's move might still harbor evil intentions, so he personally looked south to Linhuai, and could not decide that the Nanren waterway army had indeed gone to Runan, and he still did not dare to move lightly.