Although the Huainan military furniture has shrunk into the town, because of the foundation laid by the previous activities in Huaibei, it has not completely cut off the source of Huaibei. As time passed, more and more news about the conclusive movements of the Qianghu army spread through Huaishui, and the situation became clearer and clearer.

If they had learned the news before, even if the Huainan people would not collapse immediately, they would have been in turmoil and would have no intention of fighting. On the one hand, there is indeed a huge disparity in strength between them, and on the other hand, the karma has been raging for a long time, accumulating great power, which makes it difficult for people to have a heart of confrontation.

But because of Shen Zhezi's early warning, coupled with the encouragement of the successive victories. So even if it is now certain that the Qihu army is indeed planning to attack Shouchun, it has not caused much turmoil. The military town was still in good order inside and outside, and the civil and military officials were all performing their duties, and there was not much commotion even in the countryside.

And Shen Zhezi is no longer greedy for anything to take the lead, except for the necessary ranger scouts, all the people and horses in Huaibei have withdrawn to the town, putting on a posture of stubbornly guarding the Huai line. Previously, he gave Xi Jian a batch of war horses, and Xi Jian not only sent an envoy to thank him, but also sent several warships that could gallop on the river, although it was not the kind of building ship that was several stories high, but it also had a gain for the current defense of Huainan.

The Huainan army may not be able to pick out too many qualified knights, but there are many qualified sailor soldiers. After all, even if these soldiers have not been in the military for a long time, since they were born in the land of fish and rice, they are also used to pedal waves.

The battle on the waterway is the top priority of Huainan's defense. Shouchun is directly in front of the Huai, and the defense of the Huaishui line alone will be from the upstream Rukou to the downstream Luojian, a waterway that is hundreds of miles long, and any place may become the location of the enemy's assault and crossing.

The Huainan army is called 50,000 people, but if it is completely dispersed on such a long front, the strength will be diluted and diluted to the extreme, and it will not be enough to rely on the slave army from the south. There is no danger in the land of Huainan, once it is robbed by the slave army, Shouchun will become a lonely city. The entire land of Huaixi will become a horse place for slaves to gallop on horseback, and it will also bring a serious blow to Shen Zhezi's business in Huainan, Liangjun and other places.

Therefore, regarding the defense of Huainan, Shen Zhezi only wanted to be able to block the slave soldiers in the north of Huaishui, and did not think twice at all. It's hard to defend perfectly on a long front, so you can only make trade-offs. Similar to Rukou, which is far away from Shouchun, has been designated as a secondary battlefield by him, and it is really impossible to defend, so he can only give up shrinking.

In these hundreds of miles of water, the most important is Yingkou. Yingshui directly connects the hinterland of the Central Plains and connects the chasm, which is the most important tributary of Huaizhong. It was a very difficult task to go down from Yingchuan to prevent the slave army from rushing directly into the Huaishui.

Therefore, in Yingkou, Shen Zhezi not only stationed Guo Yu, who has the most experience in fighting slave soldiers, but also Han Huang as his successor, and prepared Chen heavy troops around Yingkou, with more than 20,000 water and land rangers.

When arranging the defense line, Shen Zhezi was especially glad that he was the commander of the ancients. With the chariot formation, the Moon Formation can allow the amphibious army under his command to obtain the maximum mobility, without having to be trapped in one place, out of the fixed station, and able to be put into any battlefield in Huaishang at any time due to the needs of the war.

However, the Moon Array is not a weapon to win a hundred battles, and its power is by no means limited to the battle array itself, it has extremely strict requirements for terrain, troops, equipment, and even the coordination of fighters. If the focus is only on the battle array itself, then instead of being a winner, it is a gift package that is packed and delivered to your door.

The shocking battle of Liu Yu's Northern Expedition in history was not the first battle of the Moon Formation, but the embodiment of a masterpiece. However, the real origin of the Moon Array was when the Beifu Army entered Wuzhong in the south to suppress the rebellion of the Heavenly Master.

Wuzhong has a dense water network, and many of the Heavenly Master Dao rebels have joined Wuzhong Haozong, who is familiar with the geographical situation, although the Beifu army is brave and good at fighting, but in that kind of war environment, there is almost no advantage at all. If the squad advances, it is very likely to be broken by the rebels' flexible dispatch of local superiority, and if the brigade assembles and advances, then the rebels can break up and wander around the countryside to avoid the battle.

In such a situation, the Moon Array has a place to play. First of all, it is necessary to have an absolutely superior naval army to control the waterway, so as to resolve the lack of mobility of the moon array, and quickly put the vehicle formation into the battlefield through the naval army, and at the same time guard against the flank and rear road to respond. And if you want to maximize the results of the battle, you also need to cooperate with light cavalry, after breaking the enemy's charge, the cavalry rushes out of the charge and breaks the formation, so as to maximize the victory.

In short, the Moon Array is a mobile fortress that can be thrown into various battlefields at any time through the cooperation of the naval army to achieve the effect of a strong formation. But at the same time, the effect of the chariot formation is actually much weaker than the camp base on the right track, and because of the lack of mobility, if it is too far away from the waterway and there is no flexible waterway cooperation, it is very likely to be trapped on land.

In order to make up for the far inferior protection of the chariot compared to the barracks, the sergeant must have sufficient and diverse weapons, so as to have flexible defense methods and combat rhythms, and increase the lethality as much as possible.

Without the cooperation of these conditions, the moon array would not be practical. After all, chariot formation is essentially a tactic that has been obsolete by history. And the biggest role of the Moon Formation is not to take the initiative, but to defend. Especially in the defense of land and water, the enemy must attack, because it saves the time of building a fixed barracks, the formation is convenient, there is suddenness, and it itself has a certain degree of deception, so it can often achieve miraculous results.

In other words, if Shen Zhezi had enough time, energy, and a large amount of money to be able to establish all the strongholds along the Huai, then he would not need to rely on the expedient strategy of the Moon Formation at all. However, the amount of human and material resources invested in that is unimaginable. Moreover, the barracks were fixed and dead, and once they were besieged and breached, they lost their military role.

Therefore, after entering the town, Shen Zhezi also focused on building chariots and training this kind of combat method of combining land and water. In this Shouchun defensive battle, although the Huainan army was in a great inferior position, it had great control over the control of the waterway. At the same time, every crossable section of the Huaishui River is a must-attack place for Qianhu.

Therefore, this battle is simply tailor-made for the Moon Array, or the Moon Array itself was invented for this battlefield environment. The slaves thought they were charging in a military formation, but it was actually a fortified city, and it also had the means of counterattack and mobility that the city did not have.

Of course, Shen Zhezi doesn't think that this method alone can win the game, and the huge gap in strength is not something that can be made up for by just one or two tactics. In the defense of the waterway, there are not many skills that can be used, and in essence it is nothing more than setting up obstacles and destroying ships.

Sun Hao, the queen of Wu, in order to resist the southern expedition of the Jin army of China and North Korea, crossed the river with an iron cable, although it sounds a bit stupid, but it is actually the basic tactics of water warfare. Although Shen Zhezi has a deep friendship and close relationship with the Jiangdong people, he can't be as powerful and heroic as the king of a country, and the cost is too high, but the practicality is not great. The smelting and casting workshop he owned was already too busy to simply make ordnance, and it was impossible to build such flashy things as iron cables.

Therefore, in the defense of the waterway, except for several narrow and dangerous places such as Kip Stone City, there are many water fences and giant trees to block the river at critical moments, and as for other directions, the focus is still on destroying ships. In the town, many people who are good at swimming and daring to fight, gather into an army, and when the thief ship arrives, they will swim and build ships. At the same time, in the armament, it also increased the amount of oil and other combustion-fueling materials to prepare for fire attacks.

Similar preparations are still ongoing. Many of the affairs that had been temporarily put on hold because they were busy with the Huaibei War were also busy at this time, in order to make the best use of the little time on the eve of the war and make more thorough preparations.

Wars are fought only with human lives and money. At this moment, Shen Zhezi felt particularly deeply, he had been living in the town recently, and he also understood why Du He was so anxious. Nowadays, there are more than 100,000 military and civilian people in Shouchun Town, and although some of them have begun to reclaim, they have not yet produced anything, so they need to be supplemented by external food.

With such a large population and the necessary animal power, even if they stay still, the daily consumption of grain will reach thousands of hundreds. But now, the soldiers have to train and prepare for war, and Dingkou has to work to produce materials, and the consumption has doubled. Moreover, these manpower are not concentrated in one place, especially in Yingkou and other front-line stronghold places where heavy troops are stationed, so as to prevent the danger of the slave army cutting off the grain route after the war begins.

In this way, in order to maintain the operation of the entire Huainan, the amount of grain consumed every day alone will reach tens of thousands of hundreds. Such a figure makes people's hearts awe-inspiring just by hearing it, and as a specific handler, Duch can imagine the great pressure he bears.

In fact, in the current situation, a considerable part of Shen Zhezi is to blame. The princes in Taiwan have a grudge against him, and it is not unreasonable, from recovering fertilizer, building Liang County, and then recovering Huainan Shouchun, the pace is too fast. This will inevitably double the consumption, and the internal replenishment will be far from sufficient.

To tell the truth, if it weren't for the fact that Shen Zhezi had other channels to raise materials, relying solely on Taichung's support and not waiting for the slaves to attack, when he advanced into Shouchun, Jiangbei might have collapsed without a fight.

But Shen Zhezi also has his own reasons, he did not have the strength and opportunity to intervene in Jiangbei affairs before, and he waited until Wang Shu was eliminated to get such an opportunity. And the Northland is about to usher in big variables, and there is too little time left for him. And such a fast-paced advance, although you need to face a variety of problems, but even if you slow down the pace and play steadily, you will face other endless problems, which may not be better than now.

Recently, it can be called good news, that is, Daddy Shen Chong went north to enter the capital of Zhenjing with the history of Yangzhou assassination. In this way, Shen Zhezi's back road guarantee is more stable. And in his opinion, even if Shouchun is defeated in this battle, his family wants to survive the great disaster and seize Jiangdong, and go straight to Jiankang from Beijing, it is much more convenient and smooth than entrenched in Huiji.

But this news did not make Shen Zhezi happy for too long, and soon his mood became bad. The vanguard of the Qianhu army has appeared in Huaibei, and as soon as it appears, it is accompanied by a bloody battle report!