(Chapter 1, Asking for a Red Ticket)

The Jiangdong Left Army fought on the inner line in Chongzhou, with accessible roads, no logistical worries, and rapid dispatch. In the afternoon, the Chongzhou infantry camp and the cavalry camp set off from the Zilang Mountain camp at the same time, and within three o'clock, as soon as the sun set westward, Lin Jian and Cao Ziang and Zhou Pu led the cavalry camp and some of the personal guard battalion cavalry guards to arrive at Hecheng Xishutai.

Just in time for twenty or thirty Kou ships coming from the east, they did not dare to rush to the hinterland of Chongzhou easily, and docked at the south embankment outside the east of Shutai, and three or four hundred Kou soldiers landed on the shore, tentatively approached the garrison, and repelled the bows and crossbows.

Lin Tie dismounted, accompanied by Liu Zhenzhi, the former general of the West Garrison of Hecheng, and Cao Ziang, Zhou Pu and others boarded the garrison to watch the enemy formation. Relying on the flotilla of horizontal boats lined up in the river, this group of soldiers lined up on the river embankment, and the formation was much stricter than last year's bloody battle in Jiyang.

"The horses still have the strength to rush two or three waves," Zhou Pu rubbed his hands beside him and said, "We must drive out this group of turtle grandchildren before it gets dark, so as not to stay here and be an eyesore......"

The project of connecting the Xishan River and the Yunyan River only needs to excavate a three-mile-long river, and in early August, more than 10,000 people were recruited, and tens of millions of dollars were spent to dig and open the river in early September.

The Qianshi warship of the Jiyun class can sail directly from Zilang Mountain to the northwest hinterland of Chongzhou by the Xishan River, but the Yunyan River from Jiuhua to Hecheng has been in disrepair for a hundred years, and the silting is so bad that it is difficult for the Baishi ship to be unimpeded.

In order to achieve the goal of making the large warships run unhindered in the inland rivers of Chongzhou, Lin Jian is planning to carry out large-scale dredging of the Chongzhou section of the Salt River after the autumn.

It will take another month for this matter to be officially launched, and it is expected that it will not be completed until the spring of next year.

In the sea area where the Jinhai-class warships can pass unimpeded, the Jinghai Sea Battalion can rely on the advantages of warships and tactics to fight against two to three times the number of Kou soldiers without suffering, but when fighting in shallow waters, large warships cannot participate in the battle, and the number of small and medium-sized warships is insufficient.

In order to facilitate the invasion of Jiangdong and the coastal counties of Zhejiang and Zhejiang, the East China Sea Kou chose mostly flat-bottomed boats with shallow drafts, and the loach boats could directly sail onto the shallows to dock and land. The Donghai Kou also saw the advantages and disadvantages of each other's sailors, so this time they avoided the unimpeded water estuary and chose to attack the coastal zone of the shallow tidal flat terrain.

Lin Jian did not plan to transfer the Jinghai Sea Battalion into the Yunyan River to confront the Kou soldiers, and only equipped a few small oars on the side of the Xishutai in Hecheng, and a large number of Kou soldiers attacked, and could not expect these small boats to be able to fight against the Kou soldiers, but calculated that the situation was wrong, and these small boats were used to scuttle and block the river.

At this time, twenty or thirty small Kou soldiers came from the Hecheng army, relying on the garrison built next to the river, blocking the river with bows and crossbows, this section of the salt river is only 100 steps wide, all within the blockade range of strong bows and crossbows, so that the Kou boats do not dare to rush over with arrows and stones.

Cao Ziang looked at the sky and said: "The sky is clear and cloudless, if the sky does not change, the stars and moon are bright at night, which is enough to support the night battle, this group of soldiers gathers but does not retreat, I am afraid that we will wait until it is dark to rush over, divide into small groups and infiltrate and disturb the rear, and then we will be much more passive......"

The Jiangdong Left Army is fighting on the inner line, and if it is a battle, it will be more convenient to gather troops, form a local advantage, and achieve the goal of defeating the Kou soldiers, but the Kou soldiers obviously have no intention of fighting with the Jiangdong Left Army, once they are divided into small forces to infiltrate the hinterland along the small river, slaughter and loot civilians, and the Jiangdong Left Army will fight on the inner line, and there will not be enough troops to defend Chongzhou.

Lin Jian frowned, looking at the Hecheng military fortress in the distance, the loss of Hecheng made their side much more passive, otherwise as long as he concentrated his forces in Jiangmen and threatened the side of the Donghai Kou, as long as the Donghai Kou looted in the Huainan salt field without results, he would withdraw in ten days and half a month.

"The Kou soldiers are in formation on the river embankment, there is no worry about the flanks, our troops rush their wings from both sides of the river embankment, and they will be hit by the bows and crossbows on the boat," Lin Jian retracted his thoughts and responded to Zhou Pu's request for battle, "You can only use the armor to press from the front, as long as you disrupt its position, and then use the cavalry to walk the river embankment to quickly attack, in order to achieve the purpose of repulsion - but before it gets dark, it is to frustrate their spirit, you guys have a good discussion about how to fight this first battle, Ziang and I are here to watch." ”

"Okay." Zhou Pu responded, slapped Liu Zhenzhi on the shoulder again, and said, "The first pawn is the main, the cavalry camp cooperates, how to fight, you will plan." ”

Liu Zhen was twenty-six years old at the time, and he was also a homeless person from Xisha Island and a native of Wu County, Zhongjin.

The year before last, Jinzhong was in the middle of the great wilderness, Jinzhong and Yanjing were adjacent, and there were very few local warehouses, but there was a batch of relief grain transported to Jinzhong by Taihang Mountain Road, but each link drifted badly, and finally there was little left in the hands of the victims, and the officials of Wuxian County were even more greedy, and the grain of rice was not saved.

The victims of the disaster in Wu County gathered under the city to beg for relief, and drove Chen Zhihu to lead his troops through Wu County, and drove the victims of the disaster by force.

To this day, people in Jinzhong still talk about tiger color change.

Liu Zhenzhi led his clansmen to participate in the gathering to beg for relief, and was included in the list of 23 bandit leaders in Wu County, and was forced to flee south to Chongzhou with his clansmen to avoid trouble. Last year's Xisha Island disaster, Liu Zhenzhi's people were extremely injured, with him going south 2,300 Wuxian people, less than 30 people survived, his wife drowned, and the three sons survived alone.

Liu Zhenzhi actively participated in the disaster relief after the disaster, joined the Xisha Island Township Battalion, participated in the defense of the Taihu Lake pirate invasion, and was later incorporated into the Jiangdong Left Army, and used the spear as the banner head of the fifteen pawns with his strong body. In the battles of the king of Qinwang in the north, they were all good at fighting bravely, and they dug up Lin Tie from the army, and quickly promoted him to the position of the first sentry general of the Chongzhou infantry battalion.

Earlier, he also dispatched Jiuhua to Lin Jian to block one side alone, and after the west garrison of Hecheng was tight, Liu Zhenzhi was transferred to this side.

In the army, Zhou Pu's status is naturally much higher than Liu Zhenzhi, but he knows that in order for the Jiangdong Left Army to develop, there must be more outstanding young generals like Zhao Hu, Ning Zechen, and Liu Zhenzhi to come forward, and he doesn't mind giving Liu Zhenzhi a foil in the first battle.

Liu Zhenzhi's expression perked up, it was the year of forging ahead, and he didn't push back, arched his hand towards Zhou Pu, and thanked: "Please ask Zhou Yingguan to mention it." So he and Zhou Pu went down to the platform to arrange a war.

Hecheng Xishutai is built on the south bank of the Yanhe River with a height of five zhang, it is a hollow enemy platform structure, nine zhang square, with a stone as the base, the wall is thick and more than zhang, the brick rammed earth is the core, it is built quite solidly, and along the river bank on the west side of the garrison, it is a small military base that can be stationed with three hundred soldiers.

As early as the beginning of June, Lin Jian replaced a large number of tuntian fields nearby, with as many as 1,000 tuntian households, and in addition to Liu Zhenzhi's 200 military guards, more than 400 people were mobilized to assist in the defense. Lin Tie led the cavalry battalion to rush to help, and Zhou Tong led the second, third, and fourth posts of the Chongzhou infantry battalion to arrive before dark.

Before dark, the number of troops gathered here will be twenty-four or five hundred.

"I don't know if the Li Army's military training in Jibei has any actual achievements, and whether it can resist the entry of the Eastern Prisoner after the autumn," Cao Ziang didn't look at the Hecheng military fortress in the distance, turned to look back at the Yunyan River in the west, and sighed, "If you can survive this winter, no one will be able to shake the foundation of the adults in Chongzhou......"

"If I don't want to fight a big war, I don't want to fight a big war," Lin Jian said, "But if you want to let the soldiers of eastern Zhejiang enter the country, the action here must be small, so that Quan Ciqing can rest assured that he will attack Changguo, I am really worried that Quan Ciqing will be deceived." As soon as the situation in eastern Zhejiang is bad, even if Li Shuai can block the eastern capture in the north, the general trend of the world will still not turn around. We were able to desilt the Yunyan River this year, which can be regarded as laying some foundations, but the reserves are too thin to withstand the consumption of the war. ”

"Brother Lin, tomorrow is your big day, why do you personally command the troops," Ge Siyu wore a short shirt, climbed the platform, and asked, "Are you really going to storm the Hecheng military fortress?" ”

"Why are you here," Lin Jian asked in surprise when he saw Ge Siyu ascending the platform, "It's too dangerous here, besides, it's rare for Shu Han to rush from Jiangning to Chongzhou as a guest, I asked you to pick you up in Jiuhua, why did you come here?" ”

"I'm worried, I'm relieved to see you here, you brought so many soldiers here, I heard that there are still soldiers gathered here, it seems that there is going to be a big battle," Ge Siyu ran out of breath and said, "The old man is worried that I came to Chongzhou to fight with him for the construction of the city, you can talk about it, I have a fight with his father and son, it will be so uninteresting, but compared to the construction of the city, the dredging and digging of the Salt River is really a major event that has been famous in the local area for thousands of years." Only you have the courage to do this in Chongzhou, and you can't even think of it if you were someone else. ”

Lin Jian smiled slightly and said: "You can stay by my side, Chongzhou is no longer safe, I don't know if this battle can be fought tomorrow - who wants to lead the troops to fight outside on the big day?" ”

In early August, after Lin Jian ordered the last batch of sea ships from the Longjiang Shipyard and delivered them, he would no longer be able to obtain warships from the Longjiang Shipyard for a short time. In the future, the Longjiang Shipyard will concentrate manpower and material resources to build a number of warships for the Jiangning Water Camp and the Ninghai Town Water Camp, most of which are small and medium-sized warships for inland river operations.

Ge Siyu was determined to supervise the construction of large sea ships that his predecessors did not dare to imagine, so he was unwilling to stay in the Longjiang Shipyard to waste time; In the name of building the city, Lin Jian seconded Ge Siyu to Chongzhou as a supervisor.

The supervision of Chongzhou New City has been undertaken by Ge Fu, the old engineer and Ge Siyu's old father, and Ge Siyu's actual work after arriving in Chongzhou is to lead a group of master craftsmen and officials to prepare for the dredging project of the Salt River.

The dredging of a 100-mile-long salt river channel to the point where a thousand stones or even 5,000 stones of large ships can pass without hindrance is a major event costing hundreds of millions of yuan, and the preliminary estimate is that it will cost 450,000 taels of silver and 100,000 people.

Generally speaking, there is no financial and manpower in the local government to do such a thing, even if the imperial court wants to do this, such a big project, it is more common to send a squire from the Ministry of Industry to serve as a superintendent, Ge Siyu is a minor official of the Jiangning Ministry of Industry, and he is naturally very excited to be responsible for such a big project that has been famous for thousands of years. Zhao Shuhan rarely came from Jiangning, and he couldn't get out of his body and rushed back to Zilang Mountain.