Perched in June, the car is both sluggish.

The real direct contact between the Qianhu army and the Huainan army was already in late June. The 20,000-strong cavalry army arrived at Yingkou, and although it had not yet launched a formal attack on Yingkou, there were already skirmishes between them.

Yingshui runs through the land of southern Henan and connects with Heluo, which is the most important tributary of the middle section of Huaishui. Naturally, once the north is to be used in the south, Yingkou will become the biggest breakthrough in the middle section of Huaishui, once snatched, the army can continue to pour into Huaishui, down the river, straight to Shouchun!

Therefore, Yingkou is also the strongest fortress of the Huainan Army except for Shouchun Town. Yingkou here are erected forts on the left and right, sandwiching water for defense, the left and right forts are equipped with thousands of troops, and at the same time there are nearly 100 warships of different sizes patrolling the water, thinking that the left and right should respond.

In the middle of summer, the river became especially open, which had some adverse effects on the defense, and it was difficult to stop the enemy from sniping on the river, and it was not easy for the left and right forts to echo each other. However, at this time when there was no strong naval army in Qianhu, the Huainan army still held the initiative on the waterway, and was still in an advantageous position on the whole.

The former commander of the Qianhu army was Shi Hu's general Zhang Jackal. After arriving on the east bank of Yingkou, his troops did not directly attack the Huainan army stationed in Yingkou, but sent advance cavalry to sweep along the angle between Yingkou and Huaishui, and at the same time dug deep and built a camp on a high post more than ten miles away from the waterway, posing as if they were going to confront each other for a long time.

In the months of preparation for the war, the Huainan Army also made full arrangements for the operation of the Huaibei land. An area along the Huai River is not only clear of the wilderness and uninhabited, but even some vegetation on the ground that can be used for military purposes and at the same time provide shelter and other vegetation, which can be cut down, will be cut down, and those that cannot be cut down will be burned on fire.

These tasks were all handed over to the Huaibei refugees in Nantou, who took on these labors to donate to the military while they were in a hurry, and at the same time exchanged food and other survival resources. It can be regarded as taking into account the purging of the region while appeasing the displaced people, so that the arrangement of two pence saves the Huainan Army from special investment, and the results are also good.

Nowadays, this area between Huai and Ying, although it is not a single inch of grass, but large-scale woods and bamboo forests do not exist, and both sides are exposed to each other's surveillance, once there is a large-scale dispatch, it is difficult to maintain concealment. It is true that this caused difficulties for the Huainan army to sneak attack, but Qihu did not want to sneak through the surprise attack. In particular, there is a lack of local bamboo and wood materials, which has caused a lot of trouble to the Qihu from the beginning of its foothold.

Because they could not obtain enough materials, the construction of the camp was not completed enough to have enough protection, so they had to be vigilant day and night. The Huainan Army also made full use of this geographical advantage, and whenever it was night, the Huaishang was a series of boats and boats, raising torches and beating drums to disturb the enemy.

In such an environment, he had to build a camp during the day and be vigilant at night. It is tired from afar, and there is no peace day and night, and it can be described as miserable for a while.

In this process, the two sides are also fighting wits and courage. After two consecutive days of sweeping, taking advantage of the paralysis of the Karma, a group of hundreds of sword and shield foot soldiers rushed ashore at night, rushed into a camp tent on the outer edge of the Karma, and won a small victory. However, the next time he tried to repeat the old trick, he had already sent troops to hide on the water's edge in straw and felt, and as soon as the boat docked, he was swam and boarded, not only did not succeed, but was taken away from two warships, and more than 300 soldiers were killed on the riverside.

In order to provoke the enemy and harass the enemy, both sides are also doing everything they can. The corpses of the fallen soldiers of the Huainan Army were inserted into the riverbank with wooden stakes to kill the corpses to vent their anger. And the Huainan army will also behead the corpse of Hu floating on the river, luring fishing shrimp.

But in terms of troops, after all, it was still the Kahu who had the advantage, even if it was just the front line, it was better than the Yingkou defenders. After the initial tentative contact, the slave general Zhang Jackal took turns to rest and hurriedly built the camp day and night, while maintaining sufficient guarded troops. Even if the Huainan army harassed the enemy, it did not dare to land easily because of the lack of troops, and watched a fortress made of earth and stone rise from the ground!

Similar forts are not only found near Yingkou. Similar garrison fortresses also appeared on the lower reaches of Kip Stone City and on the other side of Bagong Mountain on the opposite side of Shouchun City. When these forts were built and the Qianhu had an initial defensive front in Huaibei, the slaves became more active and began to attack frequently to uproot the wharf and water village built by the Huainan army on the opposite bank.

In this process, the superiority of the Kahu forces and the strong mobility of the cavalry can be said to be vividly brought into play. Often, a temporary wharf with no more than 100 troops stationed in it can easily be besieged by thousands of soldiers. In such a battle, the Huainan army naturally had no way to resist, and could only float into the water to avoid the edge for the time being.

The lack of troops was the biggest shortcoming of the Huainan Army, and the Qianhu army gave full play to its superiority in strength when it first arrived, and it was impossible to completely sweep the Huainan Army into Huaishui by relying on the numerical superiority alone, and it was difficult to retain a foothold on the opposite side of Huaishui.

At this stage, the performance of the Huainan Army can be described as extremely poor. Although it has absolute superiority in the naval army, the strongholds along the river have been eliminated in the second place, and the naval army cannot quickly land and fight, so it is difficult to form a direct threat to the enemy.

Of course, this is also due to Shen Zhezi's tactical arrangement, because the town has many chariots used in formation, so it is inevitable to give up the construction of the camp stronghold on the other side of the Huaishui. The reason why there are still some insignificant strongholds left is that through this kind of hand-to-hand combat, in order to inflict as many casualties as possible on the Kahu strikers and discourage their spirits.

But these slave soldiers were completely outnumbered, and if they encountered the slightest resistance, they did not rush to attack, but paused, waited for reinforcements from the rear to gather, and then formed a formation to squeeze out with a completely superior force. And those camps are not lacking in shoddy, and they are not strong strongholds at all, and in the face of such an enemy, they can only be bombarded into the sewers, and it is really difficult to cause any big damage.

On the opposite side of Huaishui, fortresses were erected, and after these forts were established, they were quickly filled with sufficient slave soldiers. These slave soldiers echoed each other, and when they attacked one of them, they rushed to the aid of all directions, and soon built a complete and thorough defense network on the opposite side of Huaishui. And when this defensive network was built and formed a substantial deterrent to the Huainan army, the large army of the slave army began to enter the front-line battlefield for the first time.

Due to the wide field of vision on the other side, the Huainan Army also saw the movements of the Qianhu army clearly and clearly. The slave army is based on 10,000 people, maintaining an extremely stable frequency, almost every day, there are 30,000 or 50,000 slave troops arriving at the Huaibei battlefield, and soon a part of Huaibei is filled. As far as the eye can see, there are already banners on the opposite bank, and countless slave soldiers and soldiers enter and leave the camp, howling along the river.

The intention of the slave army is obvious, that is, to use such a way of arranging troops to break the resistance of the Huainan army as much as possible.

Of course, the terrain of Huaibei is open and vast, not to mention only hundreds of thousands, even if it is millions of slave soldiers, it is difficult to fill every inch of land. In addition, in the low-lying areas of the Huaibei Plain, there are not garrisons everywhere, so the garrison battle line is still very long, and there are gaps between all departments, which are as short as a few miles and as long as a dozen miles.

However, with such a short distance and a flat terrain, although the battalions were set up independently, there was no danger of being broken one by one. Once the Huainan army dares to venture into danger to attack one of them, it will soon be besieged by various departments and surrounded by rangers!

With the official arrival of the slave soldiers, Shen Zhezi has been eating and living almost on the boat in the past few days, anchoring on the river to look at the military formation of the slave soldiers, and there is no lack of disappointment in his heart. To be honest, as early as when the slave army was about to come south, Shen Zhezi did not dream of following the example of Lu Xun, the former sage of Jiangdong, and burning the company camp for 700 miles. But when I was really on the battlefield, I felt that this method of borrowing from our predecessors was a bit unreliable.

Lu Xun was able to burn the company camp, because the Shu army was far away from the waterway and scattered in the mountains and forests, which gave rise to the geographical environment of fire attack. But now there are many open places in Huaishang, and the bamboo and wood dense forests have been cleared by the Huainan army first, even if they take fire attacks, it is extremely difficult for the fire to spread, let alone burn the company camp for 700 miles.

Of course, it cannot be said that the Huainan Army's previous cleaning of bamboo and wood materials is a mistake of the small family, even if the Huainan Army does not cut, the slave army will also use local materials for military use. It would be irresponsible to leave a large amount of military materials to the enemy just for the sake of the delusions of a former sage.

There were many old people from Huainan who watched the battle with Shen Zhezi, and some of them even experienced the war in Shilenan in the early years. At this time, looking at the appearance of the slave army, I suddenly felt that the current situation of the slave army was indeed very different from that of more than ten years ago.

Of course, this is also nonsense, although Shi Le in the early years had the prestige of defeating Sima Yue's army, but he was only a general under the Han and Zhao Dynasty, ravaging the head of the first army in China, and he didn't even have a fixed base area.

Although he did not succeed in the end, the trip was not for nothing, and many of the remnants of the beggar army operating in Yuzhou at that time were mostly received by Shi Le, and became the backbone of his future sweep of Hebei. For example, Shi Kan, who performed well in the war with Han Zhao, and Shi Zhan, Ran Min's father, were all taken under Shi Le's command during this period.

Now, Shile seems to have become the lord of the Central Plains, exhausting the Chinese army and coming south, and the weather has naturally changed qualitatively compared with the early years.

The slave army put on such a posture, but it was quite a bit of a grandiose division. It seems that Shen Zhezi sent the text to Huaibei before, and Shi Hu really listened to it in his heart. But this is not enough to make Shen Zhezi happy, the slave army has been pressed down and forts have been set up everywhere in Huaishang, which has brought not only huge psychological pressure to the Huainan army, but also the actual dilemma of having to expand the defense and scatter the already small number of troops along the Huaishang line.

Of course, if you can know the reality of each part of the slave army, it is not impossible to guess the key points of the slave army's strategy by watching the battle and make defensive adjustments. But for the military situation obtained from the ancestral covenant, Shen Zhezi did not dare to believe it, even if the ancestral covenant did not harm him, but in the situation of the slave army, he may not be able to know the truth.

However, that information is still useful after all, at least it can be determined that Shi Hu and Guo Ao have a deep grudge, so that Lu Yongjun, who is guarding the vortex, can be transferred back to Shouchun, and the dilemma of Shouchun's few soldiers can be slightly alleviated.

On the last day of June, Shi Hu's Chinese army appeared in the enemy's formation, and sent envoys along the river to shout and invite battle.