Lin Jian and the others entered Huaiyang City before nightfall, and there was no trace of Yanhu Youshao outside Huaiyang City.

Yanhu Youshao did not cross the defense line to give the Huaiyang army a chance to send cavalry to outflank him, and retreated after a little contact in the north of Huaiyang City. However, a small number of displaced people flocked to the south.

Before nightfall, the snow stopped, the cold wind was still blowing, blowing the face like a knife, looking at Liu Miaozhen wearing a bronze mask, Lin Jian thought to himself: No wonder there is no wind and frost on the face, white and tender like a baby.

"I'm afraid there is a large force of cavalry hiding in the north!" Zhou Pu frowned, and retreated after the slightest contact with Yanhu Youshao, quite puzzled, guessing that there was a large force of Yanhu outpost cavalry hidden somewhere in the north, and the strong and well-guarded Huaiyang City made them dare not easily penetrate in depth.

The Yellow River comes out of Tongguan, almost in a straight line to the east, after crossing the girder, it turns and goes to the northwest.

The Changhuai army withdrew to the south bank of the Yellow River, even though it still occupied several cities on the north bank, but due to the limited number of troops, it actually became the control area of Yanhu in the south of Jinnan from the southern foot of the Taihang Mountain to the north bank of the Yellow River.

From the southeast foot of Taihang to cross the Yellow River to the north of Huaiyang City, the straight-line distance is only four or five hundred miles, all the way to the river ice, a horse flat river, almost nothing to cover.

Originally, this area was densely populated, and a large number of villages, tunbao and local township soldiers would become an obstacle to the infiltration of Yanhu Tanma. After several years of war, this area was almost disabled, Dingkou was left with one or two, the village fortress was destroyed, and the township soldiers were also destroyed.

Tao Chun led his troops to retreat to the south bank of the Yellow River, expanding the number of soldiers and horses to about 40,000 people, and the defense line spread out on the left and right was about 300 miles. Compared with the 60,000 or 70,000 soldiers guarding the 600-mile defense line in Datong Town, it is not too weak in terms of troops. It was only in those years that more than 400 fortresses were built with Datong City and the side wall as the core, and according to the steep terrain, which constituted a complete Datong defense line, which could effectively prevent the infiltration of small groups of enemy cavalry.

Tao Chun withdrew to the south bank of the Yellow River, and the Yellow River was frozen in winter, and only a few remnants of the city could be stationed in a centralized manner, so the ability to prevent infiltration was naturally weak. As far as Jiangning drew up a strategy for Tao Chun, it was also to hold the city in winter to prevent Yanhu from crossing the river to seize the city, and after the Yellow River was unsealed, the Yanhu cavalry that infiltrated had no place to stay, so naturally they could only retreat to the north bank.

In the past six months, the post stations, ponds, shops and people stranded in the countryside who had been established with great difficulty between the rivers and Huai had no strong fortresses to rely on to defend, and they all became the targets of the infiltrated Yanhu Tanma raids.

The cultivation in the Hehuai area, which had just improved slightly, was once again destroyed.

As far as the Yanhu cavalry is concerned, it is very likely that a team of 3,500 cavalry will cross the Yellow River defense line and infiltrate deep into the Hehuai, and then disperse the raids and raids, reconnoitre, and then retreat to concentrate when encountering resistance, waiting for an opportunity to move.

Yanhu scouts infiltrated, and the weak post pond shop between the river and Huai was interrupted, and no news came from the north. However, it is not difficult to verify Zhou Pu's judgment, and today hundreds of displaced people have crossed the defense line and headed south, and it is enough to send people to interrogate them in detail.

Sent people to interrogate the displaced people who entered the city, and sure enough, they asked the news that there was a large group of Hu cavalry besieging Yanling before entering the city the day before yesterday, but the city of Yanling was complete, and there were more than 1,000 defenders in the city.

Based on the information obtained from the interrogation, it was confirmed that the Hu cavalry in the north of Huaiyang was about four or five hundred people.

"This cavalry will not be too far from Huaiyang, is it not to send the cavalry battalion, search north at night, and beat them hard?" Ma Lantou asked Liu Miaozhen. A large number of resources in Huaidong have been invested, and now there are a large number of captives lurking in the north of Huaiyang City, if they are indifferent, they will be a little too much to say.

"Good ......" Liu Miaozhen nodded, if she didn't take the initiative to attack, there would be more and more captives who came to stalk her, but it would be troublesome, and she looked at Lin Tie punitively.

Lin Jian said to Sun Zhuang: "You participate in the search for enemy cavalry to the north," and said to Liu Miaozhen and Ma Lantou, "The scope of the search to the north should not be too deep, limited to 100 miles, divided into two or three strands to outflank the search, and the way to meet and contact the location on the way, discuss it well before setting off, and formulate a detailed plan......"

Huaiyang Town Army has two battalions of cavalry, one battalion is more elite, search from the left flank, one battalion of horses is of poor quality, take the middle road at a slightly slower speed, Sun Zhuang led the Huaidong cavalry battalion to search north from the right flank, and agreed on two meeting points on the way, that is, with the cavalry to lead the horses out of the city to the north.

When the cavalry went out of the city, Lin Jian did not go down to the city wall to rest, but inspected the construction of the city.

Compared with the ruined earthen wall a year ago, the inner and outer sides of Huaiyang are covered with city bricks, and the wall foundation has also been reinforced, and more importantly, the transformation of the old city wall.

The old castle has a slightly better adaptation to defend against small groups of enemy troops and short-term strong attacks, but as large groups of enemy troops besiege the city for a long time, their siege methods will become more and more diverse and heavy, and the old castle will expose some fatal weaknesses.

The newly renovated Huaiyang City, between the big city and the outer moat, build a high thick sheep and horse parapet wall, dig the inner moat on the inner side of the main city wall, or call the inner moat, and call a thick wall on the inner side of the moat, forming a duplex structure of two moats and three walls. Abolish the city tower and urn city, build a gate wall outside, and build a three-story log chiseled hole in the city gate; Abandoned suspension bridges inside and outside trenches, and rebuilt fixed bridges; The four corners of the city wall were changed to arcs, the battlement wall of the city was changed to a flat-headed wall, the enemy tower on the horse face wall was abolished, and the parapet wall was rebuilt.

In order to strengthen Huaiyang City and Bianhe City, which is dependent on the horns of Huaiyang City on the west bank of Bianshui and Huaiyang City, the Gongyi Battalion recruited nearly 30,000 soldiers from Huaisi to build kilns, and fired more than 2 million city bricks before and after; Wood was consumed, almost twenty or thirty miles of trees around Huaiyang City were cut down, and the waterway between Nanhu Lake and Bianshui in the south of Huaiyang City was dug and dredged.

The four cities of Huaiyang, Bianhe, Suining, and Suyu constitute a solid defense line between Huai'an and Xuzhou that is two hundred and forty or fifty miles long.

Of course, this defense line is still weak with only these four cities, after all, there are not too many field cavalry to block the gaps between the cities. When the enemy's large force of cavalry is approaching, the range of activities of elite infantry out of the city is also limited, and a large number of fortifications must be built between these four cities to fill the loopholes.

Of course, whether the defense line is stable in the end, the city and the defense wall are relatively secondary factors, and the key is to see whether the soldiers and horses guarding the defense line are elite, and whether they have a firm will and determination to fight.

In order to strengthen the Huaiyang Town Army, ordinary ordnance is not counted, and Huaidong has allocated 3,000 sets of armor to the Huaiyang Town Army in the past half a year.

The predecessor of the Huaiyang Town Army was the elite of the downsized Wandering Army, with 30,000 soldiers and horses, and five or six thousand sets of armor, and the armor rate was not even worse than that of the newly formed ordinary town army.

Huaidong has successively replenished 3,000 sets of high-quality armor, so that the armor rate of the Huaiyang Town Army has increased to more than 30%. For example, the Northern Zhejiang Army controlled by Dong Yuan, the Southern Huinan Army controlled by Deng Yu, and the Changhuai Army controlled by Tao Chun, in terms of armor rate, did not even reach 30%.

In addition, Huaidong also provided the Huaiyang town army with more than 2,000 infantry bows, arm crossbows, and kick crossbows, more than 500 flying vehicles, 100 bed crossbows, and more than 100 light and heavy stone-throwing crossbows, including scorpion crossbows.

The sufficient supply of rice and grain for a year and the supply of 150,000 catties of meat mainly cured meat and pickled fish to Huaiyang Town every month in the later period made the physical fitness of the generals of Huaiyang Town fully recover and strengthen. There are also a number of generals who have been eliminated through brutal battles such as Liu Miaozhen, Ma Lantou, and Li Liang - by this step, the Huaiyang Town Army has been able to fight elitely.

Gao Zongting thought to himself, probably because of the changes in the Huaiyang Town Army over the past year or so, that Huaidong really won the trust of Liu Miaozhen, Ma Lantou, Li Liang and other Zhao'an generals, right? Obviously, Jiang Ning could not compete with Huaidong for control of the Huaiyang Zhenjun by relying only on the simple means of sealing officials and adding knights.

That night, while waiting for the cavalry who went out of the city to search for any good news, he exchanged experiences in the attack and defense of the city with the generals of Huaiyang Town.

When it comes to the attack and defense of the city, Yangxin and Jinhai defense battles have typical significance, and in the Jinhai defense battle, the progress and development of Yanhu in siege tactics can be seen the most, and the use of catapults and other large-scale siege equipment has made the Tianjin Navy pay more than half of the casualties in the past half a year.

Gao Zongting had been assisting in the defense of Jinhai for a long time, and he himself had studied tactics and military strategies, so it was naturally him who introduced the gains and losses of the Jinhai defense battle to the generals of the Huaiyang Town Army.

In the past six months, the generals of the Huaiyang Town Army have been fully supplied with armor, ordnance, and materials, and they will inevitably have the rash intention of inviting the battle to win merit. Therefore, Lin Jian needs to explain the relationship between the Yanhu army and the generals of Huaiyang Town to the generals thoroughly.

The generals do not have the morale to use, but if the morale is too high, it is inevitable that they will use the troops rashly, which will only increase unnecessary casualties.

I thought that when the Jiangdong Left Army went north to Qinwang, it was mainly because of the Achilles' heel of the Donghu people's rash and light enemy, and they bit them a few times fiercely, so as to completely beat out the morale of the Jiangdong Left Army.

Lin Jian didn't want the same lesson to happen to the Huaidong Army or the Huaiyang Town Army.

Although the Huaiyang defense line has been strengthened in the past six months, once the main force of Yanhu breaks through the first line of defense and more than 100,000 soldiers and horses are gathered in the front of Huaiyang, the pressure on Huaiyang will not be much lighter than the pressure borne by the Tianjin Navy in the sea of defending Tianjin.

Although Yan Hu also paid twice as many casualties as he attacked Jinhai, Yan Hu mainly drove the new annex army to attack the city, and the fierce and brutal siege battle was conducive to Yan Hu's integration of the intricate and uneven new annex forces, so that the generals of the new annex army lost their hesitation and repeated thoughts, and from then on they worked hard for Yan Hu.

Lin Jian has always emphasized the importance of meat to the combat effectiveness of generals, and the Hu people eat more meat, and compared with the Han people, they have a more obvious advantage in physical fitness.

Perhaps after Yanhu occupied the northern land, the rice and grain that could be directly plundered were limited, but after the occupation of Yanjing, a large amount of gold and silver treasures and a large number of Huangzhuang fields that could be looted from the royal clan alone could buy rice and grain from local wealthy households, and a large number of livestock could also be purchased from Yanxi to supplement meat, and the supply of the new annexed army was relatively sufficient

And Yanhu's attack, more conniving at killing, looting, rape/fornication, and being able to unleash the murderous side of human nature - the new annexed army can often show stronger combat effectiveness than before, and there is really nothing strange about it.

Of course, when Yanhu wantonly attacked the north, the Liang family and the Changhuai army who were guarding the front line of Hehuai chose to watch. There were more than 100,000 relatively complete and well-recuperated soldiers and horses on the Hehuai line, and Jiangning established a relatively stable regime as quickly as possible, which were also the main reasons why Yanhu did not rush south after capturing the north.

Maybe in this winter, Yanhu won't make a big move.

At least until there is a more accurate judgment of the combat strength and resistance of the Liang family and the Changhuai army, Yan Hu will not hastily use troops when the foundation of the northern land is not stable, but Qingzhou's weakness is too obvious.

Even if Yanhu's main task on the southern front this winter is to test the strength of the entire Hehuai defense line and disrupt the production of the inner line of the Hehuai, perhaps the focus will be mainly on the eastern front......

Lin Jian really didn't know how the people of Qingzhou would deal with the current predicament.