Zhu Di looked at Lingbi City lying in front of him, preparing to issue today's attack order.

The four gates of Lingbi City are tightly closed. This is the thirteenth day since Zhu Di's army invaded.

Half a month ago, an urgent edict was sent from the capital to transfer back Xu Huizu's 100,000-strong army composed of the Yingtian New Army and the Capital City Guards, including Xu Huizu himself.

After Xu Huizu left, only less than 300,000 Southern troops from the original Shengyong tribe remained in the entire Huaibei battlefield.

During this period, Zhu Di always held the Louzhuang camp securely. Although Sheng Yong launched many attacks, they all encountered stubborn resistance from the Yan army and ultimately returned without success.

In view of the geographical location of the Louzhuang camp to the east of Suzhou, the Suzhou City at this time can no longer play a role in blocking the Yan army from going south. Sheng Yong ordered the original garrison to be stationed in Suzhou's Ping'an, and He Fu's second division was moved to Lingping, southeast of Louzhuang.

Bi, Xuzhou to the north and Huaishang to the southwest echo each other, forming a new "Three Cities Defense Line".

Lingbi is located on the plain between Suishui River and Huaihe River. Because it is in the middle of this new "three-city defense line", its strategic significance is very important.

In addition to Ping An He Fu, Sheng Yong also sent an additional Chu navy army led by Lan Daoxing to Lingbi for support. At the same time, he withdrew the people in the city, leaving only officers and soldiers, in an attempt to stabilize the defense line and keep Zhu Di north of the Huaihe River.

Zhu Di worked hard on the expedition, but when his supplies were exhausted, Sheng Yong would win without a fight and calmly counterattack.

However, what Sheng Yong didn't expect was that Zhu Di had no signs of shortage of food and grass, but he had problems with his own military food supply.

The southern army's food and grass supply mainly came from the capital via waterways, first down the Yangtze River, to Yangzhou, and then turned into the canal, all the way to the banks of the Huaihe River.

Nine days ago, an "unexpected" accident occurred, paralyzing this efficient transportation line.

After a series of grain ships departing from the capital entered the Yangzhou section of the canal, they suddenly caught fire inexplicably. In the end, they not only sank one after another, but the wreckage of their huge hulls also blocked the river, making it impossible for subsequent grain ships to pass.

According to reports from people who witnessed the incident, the cause of the accident seemed to be the negligence of the grain transport officer on duty. Others said that the Jiangdu Gang in Yangzhou was closely involved in the incident, but because the grain transport officer had drowned in the shipwreck,

Without corroboration, there is no way of knowing what the truth is.

In any case, it would take more than ten days to clear the obstacles in the canal and restore the water transport route. The imperial court's supply of food and grass to the Huaibei army had to temporarily switch to land route.

At the same time, Lan Feng designed a powerful firearm called the Divine Fire Flying Crow based on the drawings in "The Art of Machinery and Fire".

At first glance, the Divine Fire Flying Crow looks a bit like a large kite. Its structure is made of branches and wooden strips, and is covered with flammable oil paper, rosin and other materials.

Like a kite, it can be pulled by a long string and flown in the wind. As long as the direction is calculated correctly, the divine fire crow can fly in the designated direction and cross the enemy's defense line from an altitude of dozens of feet.

On the tail of the sacred fire crow, there is a long fuse, which can be ignited when it is released. When the fuse burns out, the crow's "wings" will begin to burn, and then it will start to fall after losing its "wings".

How far it can fly before falling depends on the length of the fuse.

So when the sun was dark and the wind was high, Zhu Di sent people to release five thousand of these magical crows at the same time. After calculating the wind force, direction and flight distance, the five thousand magical crows dragged long ignition ropes, like

Like a huge red cloud, it flew towards the heavily guarded Lingbi City.

The ignition ropes of the five thousand sacred fire crows burned out just after the crows crossed the city wall, and then ignited the crows' bodies, and the sparks instantly turned into groups of terrifying flames, like fire rain falling from the sky, hitting the houses in the city.

Fall away from the house.

Amidst the screams and shouts of the soldiers in the city, houses were caught in fire, and the fire quickly began to spread in the city with the help of the wind. Ping An, although He Fu, Lan Daoxing and others wanted to put out the fire, but there were too many fire points.

Bicheng was not near the river. By the next morning, the Confederate soldiers suffered few casualties, but almost all the houses in the city were burned to the ground overnight.

Burning them all means that all military facilities such as the barracks and weapons depots of the Confederate soldiers were destroyed, and the most fatal loss among them was the granary that was also destroyed in the fire.

The main camp in Lingbi City had enough military rations for 60 days, which was enough to hold on for two months even if no external supplies were received. However, the granary was burned at this time, and the nearly 100,000 soldiers in the city only had a small amount of dry rations they carried with them.

Survival immediately became a big problem.

Sheng Yong Company sent two grain transport teams to Lingbi urgently, but they were intercepted by Yan Army generals Zhu Neng and Zhu Gaoxu.

In desperation, he had no choice but to order Zhang Zhongjie to lead his Four Elephant Army, instead of using bulky grain carts, they would use cavalry to carry them, allowing the riders to wear light clothing and use war horses to carry grain bags to break through the Yan army's blockade and relieve Lingbi's urgent need first.

The soldiers of the Sixiang Army had internal strength, and it was not dangerous for them to wear light armor. At this time, due to the heat, many soldiers boldly went into battle shirtless, not paying attention to the Yan Army ambush that might appear at any time.

Sheng Yong's idea was correct. The combat power of the Four Elephant Army could indeed be superior to any other team on this battlefield. Each of them possessed superior internal strength, and ordinary soldiers could not pose a threat to them at all.

Every time they attack, they will either cause the enemy's organs to be damaged, bones to be spewed out with blood, or their weapons to fall off their hands or break. Even if they are accidentally hit by the enemy's sword, there will usually be no pain or itching, and serious injuries are unlikely to occur.

Affection.

But a force that had never fought in Huaibei before caused the Sixiang Army, which thought it was invincible, to suffer a disastrous defeat.

That was Lu Ziting, who arrived in Huaibei from Peiping in time, and a brand-new team he brought with him.

Shenji camp.

Lan Feng once said on the night when Hua Yuxi and Lan Qiao got married that it would take two months to produce enough fire guns to equip the entire Shenji Battalion.

They got married on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The Shenji Battalion completed the equipment of three fire guns on the fifteenth day of the third lunar month. Then, under the leadership of Lu Ziting, they left Peiping and followed the path to bypass the enemy troops along the way.

Heading south, we finally met up with Zhu Di's main force at the end of April.

When Zhu Di heard that the Shenji Battalion had arrived for the battle, he was overjoyed. He immediately ordered Lan Feng, who had burned down the Lingbi Granary with the Divine Fire Flying Crow, to take charge of the Shenji Battalion and join Lu Ziting on the mission of blocking Zhang Zhongjie's food shipment.

He was afraid that the Shenji Battalion, which had only 2,500 men, was too small, so he ordered Zhang Fu and Zhu Gaoxu each to lead a team of light cavalry to set off later as a follow-up force for this battle.

When Zhang Zhongjie saw the riders from the Shenji Battalion blocking the road, he couldn't help but see that most of the riders were short in stature and 500 of them were women because he didn't recognize the new weapon "three-barreled firecrackers" in their hands.

laugh.
Chapter completed!