At dawn, many people in Huaichuan Xingyuan Camp have not rested yet. The lights are brightly lit in the tent, and the bonfire is burning outside the tent. Tireless messengers and post riders gallop into the camp, hurriedly dismounted, and
Send the latest letters from the front line to the big account.
The map of Yingzhou's military situation is hung on the west wall of the main tent, more than eight feet high.
Yingzhou is a flat river with no major undulations on the terrain; except for the Huaihe River, which is still quite powerful, all other rivers in Yingzhou are basically frozen solid. Not only can people and horses move, but also people with a load of two to three thousand kilograms can move
Horse-drawn carriages can also pass smoothly.
At this time, Yingzhou is equivalent to a large flat surface without terrain obstacles.
Therefore, directly deploying, mobilizing and marking the enemy's and our own troops and horses on the map is much more intuitive than a sand table.
Xu Xin'an walked into the big tent and saw Xu Huai sitting cross-legged on the soft couch placed against the north wall very casually. He held his cheek and looked at the situation map. He walked over and said: "I heard that from the Southwest Camp to Leijiagang
The rutted road has been rolled out, and now we can transport siege weapons to Leijiagang. Next, it depends on whether Yue Hailou can resist running away..."
"Do you think Yue Hailou will be able to resist running away?"
Xu Huai asked with a smile.
"A few days ago, a batch of gravel, sleepers, rails and other materials were shipped to Huaichuan. Zixiao has now arranged for these materials to go north first -
Your question is too easy, isn't it?" Xu Xinan laughed and said, "Now we all expect Yue Hailou to stay, wouldn't it be too boring if he slipped away?"
"It would be easy for him to leave, but it may not be our best choice," Chen Zixiao walked aside and said, "The ambassador is also very hesitant, right?"
"Yes," Xu Huai stood up from the soft couch, looked at the situation map with his hands behind his hands, and said, "There is no new news coming from Jiaopi now. It seems that Yue Hailou still has some backbone - really want to
To scare the snake away, Wanqiu may not be easy to bite..."
In the battle plan drawn up by the military intelligence staff, it was considered that after the advance troops and horses raided and captured Ruyin, Yue Hailou would flee from Jiaopi to Chenzhou at all costs.
If this is the case, Xu Huai will personally lead an army of 200,000 to follow him and rush directly west to Zhiwan Qiu in Chenzhou on the north bank of the upper reaches of Yingshui River.
But this was not what Xu Huai expected.
Chen Zixiao smiled and said: "The enemies of Jiaopi and Quanhe have no signs of fleeing directly to the west. Yue Hailou is obviously also afraid that our division's main force of hundreds of thousands of troops will follow the defeated troops and kill them in Chenzhou.
, at the same time, they still have some confidence in building a defense line in Jiaopi-Quanhe in the past year..."
…………
…………
The Jiaopi-Quanhe camp area is composed of two cities, Jiaopi and Quanhe, which are thousands of steps square. However, more than 40 camps were set up between the two cities and Yingshui, and 60,000 soldiers were stationed.
Tens of thousands of forced laborers and a large number of livestock were conscripted into the army, and countless grains and fodder were accumulated.
The entire camp is spread out along the south bank of Yingshui River, about thirteen or four miles deep from south to south, and stretches for more than thirty miles from east to west.
After learning that the outer city of Ruyin was completely lost and that the remnants of Sun Yanzhou and Hu Dangzhou were not worth looking forward to, the only thing Yue Hailou was lucky about was that after the Ping Yanzong Prince's troops were defeated at the mouth of the Peishui River, he spared no effort to push Jiao Pi -
Quanhe camp construction.
As far as the area under the jurisdiction of the General Mansion of the Military and Horse Capital in the West of Beijing is concerned, it is also divided into three east, middle and west roads bordering Beijing and Xiangzhou:
In the past ten years, the Western Front has maintained active military pressure on Beijing and Xiangzhou with Xuchang as the center, and also relied on Jishan and Yingshui to build a tight defense line.
The middle road is centered on Chenzhou Zhiwanqiu, and the southern part is a large floodplain area formed by Beijing and Xiangxiang digging dikes and breaking mountains to divert irrigation from Ruying.
Although the short freeze period in the twelfth lunar month of winter can allow people and horses to pass through, except for raids and harassment operations, it is far from enough to support a long-term large-scale military operation. Therefore, for both sides, the defensive pressure on the middle road is the lowest.
Because for a long time, the General Mansion of the Army and Horses in the West of Beijing (including the soldiers and horses in Bianliang, Hedong, Yunshuo and other places of Zhennan Zongfu) has maintained absolute military strength against Beijing and Xiangzhou, and at the same time, Xuchang on the western front has been the main troop dispatcher.
Channel, east line Yingzhou, including Huaichuan, even though most of the area is not covered by floodplains, but because it is located in the middle and lower reaches of Yingzhou and Ru, floods are serious in the flood season, with lakes crisscrossing it and Huaihe River.
Blockage is not conducive to marching operations, and the construction of the defense line has always lagged far behind the Western Front.
However, in the past year or so, the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp has not only built denser forts that can accommodate larger soldiers and horses, but also covered the original simple barracks with rammed earth.
Multiple trenches were excavated inside and outside, more sheep and horse walls and protective walls were built, and as many Western Region stone cannons were deployed as possible, and reinforcement channels were built between different camps, so that the entire camp area became a more tightly defended whole.
Although the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp at this time could not be said to be impregnable, the villages and fortresses were connected to each other and the fortresses were connected to each other.
In the clear morning light, the simple camp of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses of the Beijing and Xiang armies in the southwest corner of Jiaopi looked like an extremely huge cone.
Compared with the formation, the Jiaopi-Quanpi camp is definitely extremely tight - Yue Hailou is also quite confident in the 60,000 infantry and cavalry he personally commanded in Jiaopi-Quanhe, at least not by any means.
The German army can be compared. It may not be as elite as the Beijing-Xiang army fighting in the ice and snow, but it will never be afraid of holding on to a stronghold.
As for the camp where the Beijing-Xiang army deployed overnight, to put it simply, it can only be called the car camp at the moment.
Cheying currently maintains a triangular (conical) layout with one corner pointing directly at the Jiaopi-Quanhe Camping Area.
This is mainly due to the fact that the defense of the car camp is too crude, and there is no way to directly close up. We can only use the current troop formation to be prepared to contain or chase the deserters.
Yes, we set off from both sides of the Yongjin River at dawn yesterday. There were more than a foot of snow on the ground in Yingzhou. In order to rush to the south side of the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp as quickly as possible, every general and soldier
In addition to necessary rations, blankets for keeping out the cold in the snow, rainproof cloths, etc., other equipment can be as simple as possible and as sparing as possible. It is impossible to carry bulky war equipment with you. The main thing is to use tens of thousands of pack horses to pull light and heavy loads.
A fine iron shield vehicle and a small number of crossbow vehicles set off with the army.
On the one hand, so many fine iron shield vehicles were deployed on the two wings of various troops and horses during the march to prevent the Red Husband cavalry from charging out from the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp and attacking loose flanks in a roundabout way; on the other hand, they were deployed when they arrived in Jiao.
On the south side of the Pi-Quanhe camp, large and small refined iron shield chariots were interlocked to form a cone-shaped chariot array, providing the most basic protection so that the soldiers could rest on the spot under the protection of the chariot array.
However, if Beijing and Xiangxiang want to attack the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp area with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, it is not enough to deploy a conical vehicle camp south of Jiaopi. At least they need to be on the south and east sides of Jiaopi-Quanhe camp.
and the west side, forming an arc-shaped company camp with a width of more than 40 miles.
But in this way, the material consumption of the joint camp will be too much.
In Huaichuan County, almost all the trees that could be cut down had been cut down when the Jiaopi-Quanhe Camp was being built and strengthened.
Almost all the needed supplies, including millions of fences, have to be transported from behind. How could it be such an easy task?
Standing on the watchtower, Yue Hai Tower had a panoramic view of the simple carriage camps of the Beijing and Xiang armies in the southwest.
Yes, he decided to stick to the Jiaopi-Quanhe line and wait for reinforcements. The most important thing was that at this time, Wanqiu had less than 10,000 defenders left.
When the Jingxiang army had already closed in and Ruyin had fallen, Yue Hailou knew that if he led his troops to flee westward in a hurry, his 60,000 cavalry would be defeated by the main force of the Jingxiang army that was three or four times his size.
He knew how many defeated troops could be gathered and fled into Wanqiu City.
If Xu Huai then personally led hundreds of thousands of the main troops of the Beijing-Xiang army to the gates of Wanqiu City, he would only have 20,000 to 30,000 remaining soldiers. How sure would he be that he could hold Wanqiu City before reinforcements arrived?
Will this winter, Chenzhou will fall one after another after Yingzhou, so that Xuzhou will also be unable to support itself, and will eventually have to evacuate from Xuzhou, thus making the entire southern region of western Beijing completely fall into the hands of Jingxiang.
Furthermore, he also saw that Yingzhou is now full of ice and snow, making it inconvenient for people and animals to pass. Although Beijing and Xiangxi improve transportation efficiency by rolling cars out of the snow, the actual effect is not too significant.
The remaining snow that has been trampled by horses and horses has refrozen in the biting cold wind, making it relatively easier to walk; the same is true for rutted roads.
During the day, the Beijing-Xiangjun Army used special wheels of heavy-duty carriages to grind out relatively neat ruts on the snow. At night, the crushed snow froze into solid ice. Next, when the carriages were loaded with supplies, they only needed to lock the wheels.
Driving on a rutted road is even more convenient and faster than taking a post road.
However, when the sun rises and the weather warms up a little, these rutted roads will be crushed into mud; repeatedly rolled over and frozen, the rutted roads will soon become more rugged and difficult to navigate.
Generally speaking, if you want to use a trick like rutted roads to transport supplies, you can only organize horse-drawn carriage transportation at dawn when the weather is the coldest. But when the sun rises and the weather warms up slightly, you have to start in time.
Stop to prevent the rutted road from being destroyed.
This crude method can only slightly alleviate the difficulty of obtaining supplies such as food and war weapons in the ice and snow, but it cannot solve the fundamental problem.
Therefore, Yue Hailou believed that as long as they did not mess up their positions and were not frightened by Xu Huai's technique of frightening the birds with empty strings, it would still take a month for Beijing and Xiangzhou to complete the deployment of storming the Jiaopi-Quanhe Camp.
.
And if it can really be delayed for more than a month, Yue Hailou also believes that King Zhennan and King Pingyan can also gather 150,000 to 60,000 cavalry to reinforce Yingzhou. It is really hard to say who will win by then.
This is the only chance they can fight for at this time, instead of running away to Wanqiu like a bereaved dog.
However, after Yue Hailou made the decision to stick to the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp area, what he did not expect was that Jingxiang did not use these simple rutted roads as soon as possible to prioritize the transportation of camp supplies to the south of Jiaopi.
In addition to building camp camps along the Yongjin River to the north, Sikong Mansion spread truckloads of gravel along the simple rutted road as quickly as possible, and then laid sleepers and rails.
More than 30,000 troops were distributed along the 40-mile-long rutted road. In just two days and nights, two rail planks were laid out from Yongjin River to the south of Jiaopi.
A specially-made heavy-duty carriage transported truckloads of supplies and defense equipment to the front line.
In recent years, coal and iron have been mined on a large scale in Beijing and Xiangzhou. In order to improve transportation efficiency and reduce costs, they have long tried to lay cast iron tracks between the mining areas, docks, and iron yards, and the results are quite good.
This time, it only took one month from the time Xu Huai made up his mind to carry out comprehensive mobilization to the time he finally sent troops to attack Ruyin. It was unrealistic to temporarily prepare so many sleepers and rails. Xu Huai ordered the troops to be mobilized from Huaiyuan, Xinyang and Yunyang.
In the local mining area, sleepers were removed directly from the existing track, and the rails were transported to Huaichuan for later use.
In the end, in less than half a month, the Beijing and Xiang armies set up camps on three sides of the Jiaopi-Quanhe camp, including semi-encirclement preparations before the storm...
