The slave soldiers were fighting the north bank, posing as if they were about to fight a decisive battle, and the Huainan army was also actively responding here.

The war has been going on for more than two months, even since the Battle of Yingkou in late June and early July. Although the middle has not always maintained a high-intensity battle, but the Huainan army, as a passive defensive side, is bound to pay more efforts than the slave army to deal with, the slave army has a slight move, the Huainan army here will have a lot of adjustments, and it is also a great test of manpower.

Although the morale of the Huainan Army has always been good, it is actually tired until now. This is especially true for combat armies, which are always on the front line, and the strain is much greater.

The decisive battle that will begin this time can be said to be actively sought by the Huainan Army. At the end of the war, Shen Zhezi finally decided to seize the initiative in the war and squeeze out all the war potential of the Huainan Army in order to seek the final victory.

From the day Shen Zhezi arrived in Luojian, all the boat and vehicle transportation capacity in the town was quickly mobilized, and even the cattle in the tuntian were put to use, and all the materials related to the war in the town were gathered and transported to Luojian. The corn grains that have just been harvested and have not yet been taken off are all used as military rations. All the iron tools that can be collected by the people are melted and smelted and cast into clusters of arrows directly near the front line. There are also a large number of civilian servants gathered here to provide ordnance for the continuous production of the army.

This is not only the case in Huainan, but also in Hefei and Liangjun and other Houzhen bases, the mobilization of civilian forces has also reached a limit, and every effort has been done to inject the Huainan Army with the ability to continue fighting.

All the people in the town, Dafan still has the strength to fight, and they are all assembled in Luojian to stand by. Although the Huainan Army is called 50,000 people, but in fact, a considerable part of them do not belong to the first sequence of soldiers, whether it is in Yingkou, or Runan and Feikou double-front battles, the largest single battle investment is only more than 20,000 people, and nearly half of them are still only responsible for carrying equipment, rotation and standby.

In the previous fierce battles, the soldiers in the first series were seriously injured. Therefore, at present, many armies that are used as reserve forces have also been incorporated into the direct battle sequence, such as the armies composed of the local villagers in Huainan, who mainly defended the local areas, and now they are also used as the main force to fight with weapons.

In the coming battle, Shen Zhezi planned to invest more than 30,000 combat forces. These 30,000 people do not include auxiliaries and military forces, but are purely combat units. This is almost all the forces that can be used in frontal combat in the Huainan Army, and it can be said that it has poured out.

In order to maintain the normal operation of such a large combat corps and smoothly put it into the battlefield, even if it is not a one-time delivery to the battlefield, at least an equal amount of soldiers is needed to cooperate. If we take into account that there will be cross-border operations in the future, then the manpower required will need to be multiples. In particular, the 5,000 cavalry that had been reorganized under the new instruction of Shen Zhezi wanted to exert their due combat effectiveness on the battlefield, and the logistical cooperation required was almost the sum of all the remaining combat units.

So today's Huainan really has a taste of recklessness. Almost all of the personnel are revolving around the next battle. More than 100,000 people have been directly or indirectly invested in the preparation of this war! Outside of the military, people's livelihood and the like are just barely maintained, and they have fallen into a state of suspension.

It can be said that if this battle cannot be won or the expected results cannot be achieved, even if Huainan can be held, it will be in a state of exhaustion and weakness for the next few years, and no longer has the potential to start a major war. And Jiangdong is no longer likely to continue to donate subsidies to Huainan on a large scale as it has done since the beginning of the year.

Xi Jian stayed in Luojian for a few days, and was fortunate to see such a powerful mobilization force of the Huainan Army, and his feelings could be described as complicated.

Perhaps in terms of overall strength, the early town of Huainan is far inferior to Xuzhou. Before Nandu, the Xuzhou Defense Area was one of the key areas operated by Yuefu, and after Nandu, it was the main gathering point of Qingxu Township people, and it was the forefront of resisting the slave army.

With such a strong accumulation, it can even be equal to Jingzhou, which is an important town in Shaanxi, and it is by no means that Huainan can catch up in a short period of time. Simply by the armor of the soldiers, Xuzhou is nearly twice the Huainan army, and it is by no means a patchwork hastily promoted army, almost every soldier has at least one or two battles with the slave army.

But after seeing with his own eyes such a strong mobilization force of the Huainan Army, Xi Jian also had to admit that even if there was a head-on conflict with the Huainan Army now, the Xuzhou Army might not be able to gain the upper hand, and it was even very likely to be defeated. This has nothing to do with the overall strength and potential of both sides, but it is simply impossible for the Xuzhou Army to achieve such a concentrated deployment and operation.

Although Xi Jian is the assassin of Xuzhou, this position does not give him the power to strictly control the locality. He is more similar to the leader of the army alliance in the region, in the case of not being able to reach a consensus, only his own descendants can be directly commanded, even if he adds some military leaders who are deeply influenced by him, the manpower that can be directly called on is no more than 20,000 people. If we take into account the deeper constraints on people's resources and logistical provisions, this number will be even smaller.

Therefore, since the start of the war, the performance of the Xuzhou Army has almost no bright spots, and it is dwarfed by the nearby Huainan Army. On many occasions showed the problem of being unresponsive and unable to catch the fighter. For example, on the eve of the Battle of Yingkou, Shen Zhezi judged that Shi Kan, the slave army sitting in Huaiyin, was very likely to have left the town, and suggested that Xi Jian might as well storm Huaiyin.

At that time, Xi Jian was a little hesitant, one was to seek stability, and the other was also resistance from the subordinates. As a result, a great opportunity was missed to capture Huaiyin before most of the slave army arrived in Huaibei. Although it was launched again, in addition to military considerations, it was more due to the pressure brought by the Huainan Army's victory to the leaders of the Xuzhou Army.

Although Huaiyin was successfully captured in this battle, it put the Huainan army in a dilemma of fighting on three sides, and also caused the loss of the vortex. Although the vortex is the joint defense of Huainan and the Xuzhou army, it is still the defense area of the Xuzhou army in Taichung, and it is a common battlefield with Xuyi.

If the Huainan army did not forcibly block the slave army's Yingshang boat division at Feikou, resulting in the useless boats of the slave army, it is very likely that Shihu's army would have broken through the Huaishui and raged in the land of Huainan. Once that happens, after taking Huaiyin, the Xuzhou army must also retreat to the heart of the defense, and attacking Huaiyin before will become a stupid move to take care of one or the other, and the gains outweigh the losses.

A situation similar to Huainan, where there is absolutely no objection in the town under the order of the general, and the army and the people, and the soldiers are all working together to prepare for the war, is absolutely impossible in the current Xuzhen. Even if Xi Jian forcibly gave the order, the generals would be arguing over the arrangement of troops, who would attack the fortifications and who would take the rear, and they would not be executed quickly.

Therefore, for Shen Zhezi's undisputed authority and prestige in Huainan, Xi Jian is really envious from the bottom of his heart. But even if he was envious, he understood that if he changed to another person in this position, he might not be able to do Shen Zhezi's step, even if Huainan was now the nominal Shangguan Yuyi. The prestige is still second, and everything in Huainan from the recovery to the establishment of the town, including the subsequent rectification, maintenance and preparation for war, is decided by Shen Zhezi alone. This is a situation that no other military town, including Jingzhou, has.

What's more, now the military and civilian use of Huainan rely on external supplements, and the most critical core of this external supplement is Shen Zhezi. If Shen Zhezi was not in his place, even if those Wu people were crazy, they would not be able to put a grain of rice into a distant country thousands of miles away.

Of course, in addition to these factors, it is also due to the proud achievements of the Huainan Army since the start of the war. The Huainan army was put together as a division, and it must not be called a strong force, especially those villager armies, and at the beginning of the war, Shen Zhezi did not even dare to put it into the first sequence of battles. The slave army repeatedly attacked, like a sledgehammer, beating the entire Huainan army more solidly and as a whole. If the potential is squeezed in this way at the beginning of the war, the resistance from the villagers will be so great that it will become an uncontrollable hidden danger in the war.

Xi Jian came to Luojian this time, and privately apologized to Shen Zhezi for his previous behavior. Originally, with his identity and qualifications, there was no need for such a low profile, and the Xuzhou Army itself had no obligation to cooperate with the Huainan Army in combat. But now, not to mention the excellent performance of the Huainan Army in this war, just Shen Chong moved to Jingfu, and the Shen family, father and son, have formed a semi-encirclement posture against Xuzhou, and the other half is the sea. Therefore, Xi Jian is really worried that the Shen family will continue to investigate because of this, and it is better to eliminate the misunderstanding as soon as possible.

As for the other point, I want to ask Shen Zhezi what his attitude is towards the next war. The current posture of the slave army clearly shows that there is no intention of continuing to fight. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that Shi Hu deliberately acted to paralyze his opponent, but when it was expanded to more than 100,000 troops, morale was easy to collapse and difficult to revive, and there was no possibility of falsification. Unless Shi Hu can control every part of the army like an arm, but if he really has this kind of control, why should he paralyze his opponent again.

Therefore, the southern army only needs to stick to the current results, and then wait for the slave army to withdraw naturally. If you rashly invite the war, there will be a possibility that the war situation will repeat again. Therefore, in the Xuzhou army, the voice of stubbornly waiting to recover the lost territory is not weak.

But now looking at the posture of the Huainan Army, it saves Xi Jian from bothering again. However, he still couldn't help but persuade a little bit: "Although the slave army is tired, it is gradually retreating. But Shi Jilong has been fighting for a long time, and he may not be without dangers, Wei Zhou still has to be cautious. Don't stop the teacher, don't chase the poor, don't guard against it. ”

Although Shen Zhezi is not a genius commander who uses soldiers like a god, he is not unaware of this kind of art of war. Like he was able to maintain calm and restraint when the Yingkou Nu army was defeated before, and did not make a long-range attack, he was worried that after the battlefield expanded, the Huainan army's grasp of the battle situation would become weak. And whether to invite war this time is also different opinions within the Huainan Army, and Xi Jian is not the first person to persuade Shen Zhezi so much.

Those who hold such views, including Han Huang and even Guo Yu, who is recuperating from his injuries in Liang County, these generals have been undertaking the most dangerous battles since the beginning of the war, and of course they must not be cowardly in battle. However, based on the current reality of Huainan, being able to hold Huainan firmly and keep the slave army out of the country has actually exceeded the previous strategic goals. Forcing a decisive battle when the slave army is about to retreat may further expand the results of the battle, but the result will inevitably outweigh the losses.

However, the reason why Shen Zhezi made this decision was also due to his own considerations: "Since Yongjia, the king has been weak, and the Central Plains has not been taught by the king for a long time. Although it inherited the legal system of China and North Korea, it was far away from the Jiangbiao, and it was difficult to educate and educate, and most of the Chinese scholars were regarded as foreign countries. Although today's Wang Shi is based on the slaves in Huai, relying on the danger of the time, becoming defensive and inferior to attacking, it can not be called a great sound of Jin, but still owes the majesty of the king's order. Although the people who come to attack have nothing to do, they can still retreat with their whole body, which will make the thieves of the Central Plains more arrogant, and the internal and external groups will raise the heart of rebellion! ”

"Ji Long is fierce, he is the best among slaves, and his sexual cruelty is even more cruel than that of the world's dragons. Now that this thief is trapped in Huaishang, it is a good opportunity to severely damage the thief. If you indulge this thief for a day, you will harm more than ten years, you will cause more than one disaster, and you will lose more than just your eyes. ”

There is still no definite news on the situation in the slave countries. But even if Shi Le is still alive, with Shi Hu's violent temperament, his people are in extreme distress and embarrassment in Huaishang and abroad, and if he really returns to the Kingdom of Qi with his strength preserved, Shi Le will no longer be able to contain him. If Shi Hu really made a brazen attack, Shen Zhezi did not underestimate the civil and military officials of the current Qi Kingdom, and there were really not many people who were Shi Hu's opponents.

If the internal and external affairs are quickly pacified by his people, then the situation in the Central Plains will once again return to its old trajectory. Regardless of whether the Northern Expedition will be difficult or not in the future, the first people to suffer will inevitably be those Jin people in the Central Plains. And in order to make up for the frustrations and losses suffered in Huaishui, the people will inevitably become more brutal and unrestrained.

Therefore, some things really can't be measured by the actual gains and losses, even if it costs a lot, this battle must also play the prestige that the king should have, in order to announce to the people in the fallen areas of the Central Plains and the people who are watching from the four Yi that the southerners do not only have the power of self-protection and have no long-term deterrence!

The generals of Huainan are naturally the only ones who look forward to Shen Zhezi, even if they have different views, when Shen Zhezi makes a decision, they all work hard to prepare for the battle.

However, if you want to reap enough results, it is still a little reluctant to rely on the strength of Huainan Town. In today's Huainan, the war potential has been seriously overdrawn, and even if it can defeat the vortex slave army, it does not have much pursuit power. In other words, if Shi Hu really made up his mind not to fight the Huainan army again, the Huainan army would not have much strength to prevent his army from retreating.

Therefore, this battle still needs the cooperation of the Xuzhou Army, and the cohesion of the Xuzhou Army may not be as strong as the Huainan Army, but if the war potential fully breaks out and the pursuit of the wind is fought, it will still be stronger than the Huainan Army.

What is the situation of the Xuzhou army, Shen Zhezi also knows very well. Even if there is any unresponsiveness and unfavorable cooperation, Shen Zhezi also understands that Xi Jian cannot be blamed alone. In exchange for the full help of the Xuzhou Army, Shen Zhezi also made a heavy promise: if the Xuzhou Army can participate in the war in time and cooperate with the Huainan Army to annihilate the slave army at the vortex, then it will still be returned to Xuzhou after the recovery of the vortex and resume the previous cooperation. And with the Xuzhou army as the boundary of the vortex, respectively, to recover the territory of Huaishang County.

If the Xuzhou army still refuses to go all out to participate in the war, and only holds the idea of waiting for the slave army to withdraw by itself and then picking up the lost land, then of course Shen Zhezi will not go all out in this battle, so he will adopt the same attitude as the Xuzhou army and wait for the slave army to retreat. At that time, the Huainan army will not only take advantage of the situation to recover the vortex, but also directly block the Huaishui main road with the navy, as for Pengcheng, Peiguo and other places in the north of Xuzhou, it will never be left to the Xuzhou army.

Hearing Shen Zhezi's statement, Xi Jian could only repay him with a wry smile. Whether Shen Zhezi has the courage or not, he doesn't have to doubt it. If the Huainan Army really dares to do this, it is conceivable that the leaders of the Xuzhou Army will never be willing to be bullied by this, and the two towns may turn against each other at that time. If that really happens, then Xuzhou's prospects are really worrying. It's not that the strength is weak, it's that the people are not aligned.

Now that I think about it, at the beginning of the war, Shen Chong moved to the capital mansion, but there was a bit of a sense of coercion of the Xuzhou army in the future.

Of course, Shen Zhezi's request cannot be said to be arrogant. After all, since the start of the war, the Huainan Army has mainly been under the pressure of Shihu's Chinese army, and the Xuzhou Army was able to recover Huaiyin or pick up the advantage of the retreat of the general of the slave country, and it is reasonable that the distribution of interests after the war was forced by the Huainan army. Even if the lawsuit reaches Taichung, the Xuzhou Army does not have the confidence to fight on the basis of reason.

Therefore, after a little silence, Xi Jian also quickly stated that the Xuzhou Army will participate in the first battle in Japan, at least the main force of his lineage will cooperate with the Huainan Army in Huaishui to attack the slave army.

With Xi Jian's promise, Shen Zhezi breathed a sigh of relief, and after sending Xi Jian away, he prepared for war without distraction.

In the next few days, the Huainan Army kept shouting along the river, and continued to increase troops in Jingshan Gorge on the north bank of Huaishui to establish a solid stronghold. In the process, the slave army exerted very little obstruction, and the strength of the army was even more restricted, which made it more difficult for the Huainan army to spy on the movements of its army. Only in the few places near the mouth of the vortex, the newly built ships were all transferred to the main road of the vortex mouth, indicating that the slave army was also planning a decisive battle.

But the judgment drawn from this single phenomenon is too weak to be reliable. The ships assembled at the mouth of the vortex can be seen as either the slave army preparing for a decisive battle, or the army planning to retreat along the vortex. Although the retreat of the army of more than 100,000 troops could not be completed overnight, Shi Huda could lead the core force to retreat from the army and retreat sharply, and then defend the key points in the back town to collect the defeated people, and still be able to recover a considerable part of the army.

In the final analysis, the southerners had few strongholds in Huaibei, and even if they pursued, they had to rely heavily on waterways, and the way of attack was traceable, and it was much easier to deal with.

And the slave army put on such a posture, but the Huainan army did not dare to launch a decisive battle easily, although the first batch of soldiers who were ready to enter the battlefield have been rectified, and tens of thousands of armor soldiers can be killed on the ship in an instant, but in order to wait for the cooperation of the Xuzhou army, Shen Zhezi can only lead but not fire for the time being.

In September, the autumn was cold, the river breeze was even more damp and cold, and the atmosphere in the core area of the two armies at the vortex mouth was even more solemn than the autumn wind. The scout ships of the Huainan Army had even approached within range of the slave army in the Vortex Water Camp, and the slave army also sent out many light boats to the south bank of the Huaishui to spy on them. The scouts of the two sides frequently come and go on this body of water, and the activity time seems to be tacitly intersected, and neither side takes the initiative to fight the first battle.

In the evening of this day, near night, it was customary for the Huainan Army to scout and cruise, and dozens of light boats shuttled back and forth on the river. The slave army has a towering water fence, a deep shelter, and a strict defensive posture.

Suddenly, a lot of commotion broke out in a slave army camp on the east bank of the vortex, and among the slave soldiers who were originally guarding the camp, there was a group of nearly 100 people in the front line who suddenly burst out, and actually slashed their blades directly at the nearby robes. At that time, both armies were heavily armed on the front line, and the soldiers were also tense for a long time and their spirits were almost numb, and the mutation occurred suddenly, and the slave soldiers on the nearby side did not react at the first time, and more than a dozen people were cut down to the ground by the slave soldiers who broke out.

As for the others, who stood a little farther away, they subconsciously scattered in all directions after panic and stunned, and after a few moments, the shouts of the commanders were heard in the barracks, and then the scattered soldiers gathered around again. However, the nearly 100 riot slave soldiers had already rushed out of the camp and rushed straight to the water camp in front. Along the way, some slave soldiers encountered, most of them did not react at all, and even if the occasional slave soldier noticed that something was wrong and stepped forward with a knife, they were all scattered by this group of violent slave soldiers and failed to intercept it.

In a very short time, the rioting slaves rushed to an empty ship moored in the docks. There were still more than a dozen men on the ship who had not had time to disperse, and suddenly they had a sharp blade on their necks, and they were ordered to leave the ship immediately.

By the time the slaves in the rear had organized themselves and rushed to this place, the ship had already reached nearly ten feet from the shore and crashed into the first water barrier. The slaves on the ship were slashing the water fence with their swords, and at the same time, some of them turned around and shouted: "The lord of the country, Shilongye, is dead, and the prince will punish the king of the mountains in the next dynasty!" The king of Zhongshan has abandoned the army and fled north, we will not stay here to serve the kingdom to the death, if Er Cao wants to be saved, they will flee for their lives! ”

At this time, the commander of the soldiers on the shore was still shouting and mobilizing his bow and crossbow to shoot forward, and let the soldiers near him board the boat to pursue, hearing such a shout, everyone was stunned for a while, and even the movements became panicked. After a while, the commander of the soldiers reacted, waved his knife and roared: "The evil words of the traitors are not credible, quickly kill these thieves!" ”

However, by this time, the light boat had already broken through the water fence and sped straight towards the river. But before leaving, the slaves shot more than half of the ship's pawns in a single round of fire. When the soldiers heard the words of the shouting of the rebels, the general's face changed in a panic, and his mind was no longer on chasing and killing those rebels, so he immediately ordered his own soldiers to block the camp here, and did not allow the soldiers to enter or leave, and at the same time he quickly left the camp and went straight to the command post in a higher place to report the news.

This slave camp is not very large, and it is nothing more than a speck of dust in the entire vortex defense line. However, due to the large number of scout boats on the water of the Huainan army, some scouts soon discovered the riot here, and when several light boats turned to this place, they quickly intercepted this bloody, corpse-laden slave ship.

After breaking out of the slave water barrier, most of the surviving men on this ship jumped into the water and fled, and after the inertia of the forward rush disappeared, the whole ship drifted across the river. When the Huainan army scout approached to drop the hook and pull the ship, several slave corpses on the deck were lifted from below, revealing a bloody human face, and shouted at the Huainan army scout: "I am Xin Shili, the protégé of Shen Concubine, tell the concubine quickly, the slave owner is dead, and Ji Long will escape!" ”