The cold wind was biting and the snow was blowing heavily. Yue Hailou and Meng Jie galloped straight into the camp surrounded by horsemen without anyone reporting.
At that time, Zhong Changqing, Mo Lihu, Jiang Zhaode and others were standing in trance in front of a narrow canal that crossed the camp and was used as a source of drinking water and waste discharge. After hearing the reminder from the guards, they saw Yue Hailou galloping into the camp and coming up together.
He came forward to greet him: "When did the Commander-in-Chief arrive at the West Bank? Why didn't you notify us to greet him?"
"The military situation is so urgent, what's there to welcome? It's not like I don't have legs!" Yue Hailou waved his hand and said nonchalantly.
Yue Hailou said he was being generous, but in fact he was still afraid of Chushan's infiltration and spying ability. He was worried that his whereabouts would be exposed in advance and he would be ambushed. He might as well just leave and it would be safer.
Yue Hailou looked at Zhong Changqing, behind Mo Lihu and others, and asked curiously: "What were you looking at just now? There is no fighting on such a cold day, and you are still standing outside the house blowing the cold wind."
"The scouts discovered that Chu Mountain had a large amount of coal stored in the military villages on the north and south sides of the Huaihe River. At first, they didn't pay much attention to it. Two days ago, they heard from an old potter that coal would melt much faster when covered with ice," Zhong said.
Chang Qing reported, "I urgently asked someone to find some coal today. When the sun rises, I will crush it and cover it on the ice to see if this is true..."
"Oh, there is this thing?!" Hearing this, Yue Hailou was shocked and hurried to the ditch to see what was going on.
The weather has become very cold. Although the Huaihe River has not yet been frozen, mainly due to its vast water area and fast currents, the small and medium-sized creeks and ditches have been completely frozen.
Yue Hailou walked to the ditch that was only three or four steps wide across the camp. He saw that a thick layer of ice had formed in the ditch. He had used crushed pebbles to cover the ice surface that was thirteen or four steps wide.
The ice surface is still exposed.
Although the sun was shining brightly at this time, it was too cold. I couldn't feel any warmth even when I stood under the sun. I felt the wind blowing on my face, which hurt like a knife.
Under normal circumstances, there is no way for this kind of sun to melt the river ice.
Zhong Changqing used a shovel to remove some of the gravel covering the ice, revealing that the ice underneath was indeed much thinner than the unglazed surface. There was water melting in the ice nests. When he reached out to touch it, there was nothing special about it.
cold.
This scene made Yue Hailou frown, smacking his lips and exclaiming: "What a cruel plot! I also wonder why the military villages along the Huaihe River in Chushan reserve so much charcoal for cooking. It is obviously too much!"
"What's the use of storing so much coal? Could it be that they still want to use this coal to cover hundreds of miles of Huai River after my army crosses the Huai River, blocking our way back?" Meng Jie felt that Yue Hailou
, Zhong Changqing made a fuss and said nonchalantly, "How many manpower and how much coal are needed for this? Could it be that our soldiers on the north bank were blind and watched them all over the sky and fields?
A hundred miles of Huai River to spread charcoal?"
"You idiot, read more if you have nothing to do!" Yue Hailou glared at Meng Jie and scolded, "This isn't the first time I've seen you about the ice platoon. You can't even figure out this little plot?"
Water drainage is also called Ling flood and ice flood.
Most of Yue Hailou and his generals had served in the Western Army for many years and were very familiar with the Yellow River floods.
Lingxun
To put it bluntly, there is a large temperature deviation in the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River, which will cause the lower reaches to freeze first in winter, and the ice in the upper reaches to thaw first in spring.
These will cause the upstream water to raise the water level due to ice blockage downstream, often causing major disasters and flooding the land on both sides of the river.
The Huaihe River Basin is short, and the seasonal temperature difference from the upper reaches of the Huaihe River to the end of the Huaihe River is very small, so generally speaking, there will be no freezing flood disasters.
However, as long as Chushan has the ability to thaw the Huaihe River in advance in some reaches of the upper reaches, for example, spreading crushed pebbles over a large area on the river three to four miles east of the new land of Chushan to thaw the ice in advance,
There is a possibility of Ling Flood.
Although the embankment on the north bank of the Huai River in Zhenyang is relatively thick, the water level will rise after the blockage is formed, and it may not flood the north bank. However, due to the congestion of a large amount of broken ice, the river water will overflow and flow above the ice layer.
Especially when temperatures rise, these will cause the ice in the downstream section to become fragile.
In the past two months, Zhong Changqing, as the former army commander, has used the strategy of advancing and building company camps, advancing layer by layer from the east bank of the Mingxi River to the west bank.
During this period, Zhong Changqing built sixteen Dazhai on the east bank of the Mingxi River, in addition to the two cities of Queshan and Zhenyang, based on the original village Wuzhai, and also built nine Dazhai on the west bank.
Each Dazhai was eight to twelve miles apart, and there were a larger number of sentry forts in between, which allowed them to advance the front line to a distance of more than ten miles from Chushan City.
Naturally, they are not afraid of a small group of Chushan troops attacking. If all Chushan's elite troops come out, they will rely on the strongholds to defend each other and reinforce each other, so that the Chushan troops will return without success.
This clumsy method seems to be very effective so far, especially when Chushan's strong morale and armor are generally stronger than theirs, it can effectively use the superior troops and horses to restrict Chushan's troops to the west of the Mingxi River.
Next, they can approach the eastern foot of Shimen Ridge.
Although this strategy was recognized by the Zhennan Zong Palace and the second prince, there were still a large number of red generals who were puzzled and dissatisfied, thinking that the Bianliang Chu army was too slow to move.
The Pingyan army on the east route captured Fengtai City on the north bank of Shouchun. They sent envoys several times to urge them to either attack Chushan City by force, or to prepare a group of troops to cross the Huaihe River and go south to cooperate with them to cross the Huaihe River and attack Shouchun.
It is impossible for Yue Hailou to think that the strategy of building a company camp is effective, so he can go his own way and completely ignore the repeated requests of the third prince Tu Huang and the general of the Pingyan Army.
He also secretly replaced the Huaichuan defenders with a group of elites. Mo Lihu also ordered the Kuoti troops to station in Huaichuan City, preparing to wait for the Huai River to freeze and then cross the Huai River to Huangchuan, Gushi, Huoqiu and other places to search.
Fighters, cooperate with the Ping Yan army to cross the Huaihe River from Fengtai.
However, Yue Hailou did not expect that Chushan had stored a large amount of coal in the military camp along the Huai River and was hiding such a poisonous plan!
Especially at this time, Luoshan County, east of Jinniuling and on the south bank of the Huai River, was still under the control of the Chushan Army.
Chushan can completely open the levee on the south bank of the Huai River east of the mouth of Shixi River, and when the flood occurs in the upper reaches, divert the flood to flood Huangchuan, Gushi and other places east of Shixi River, which happens to be covered by water.
Attack their retreat route across the Huaihe River.
Looking at the ice layer covering the crushed coal in the ditch, it is indeed
In fact, it melted much faster. Yue Hailou frowned and said: "Our army is advancing step by step, but Chushan only built the city and made no major counterattacks. I am very confused. How can Xu Huai remain calm? Is it possible?"
Aren't you afraid that we will build the fortress to the east foot of Shimen Ridge, completely cutting off other external connections, and then find a gap from Shimen Ridge to continue wedged into the hinterland of Tongbai Mountain?"
"So this guy is sure that we won't be able to hold on any longer and will definitely send troops to cross the Huainan River, so he's setting a trap for us here?" Meng Jie suddenly realized it after being reminded by Yue Hailou, and spat, "F*cking thief,
This bastard's tricks are so vicious! If Zhong Changqing hadn't been lucky enough to see through his plan, and Feng Shizhao, Kuo Ti really wanted to lead his troops across the Huaihe River, wouldn't he have suffered a big loss?"
"This is not necessarily the case," Yue Hailou shook his head and said, "The use of troops depends on contingency. Chushan has a plan to break the ice. It is just to block the retreat of our troops and horses. But if the troops and horses crossing the Huaihe River are flooded, it is completely possible.
Go east and penetrate into the hinterland of Huainan. Chushan's ice-breaking plan cannot turn hundreds of miles of the south bank of the Huai River into swamps overnight. Currently, the third prince, Tu Ge, is leading the main force of the Pingyan Army to attract the main force of the Huai King's army.
, my troops and horses crossing the Huaihe River may not be in trouble, but the situation will become more weird and complicated! In short, you must keep your eyes open and keep an eye on Chushan's every move, Xu Huai is by no means an easy person! And he is very cunning, so don't do it
In the past, it was easy to be careless when trying to figure out the secret!"
"I think so too," Zhong Changqing frowned and said, "Xu Huaiying should not place all his hopes of relieving the siege on breaking the ice and defeating our troops crossing the Huaihe River. There are many uncertainties in this matter...
"
"Then what did Feng Shizhao say, just working in Huaichuan?" Meng Jie asked.
Yue Hailou said that he had 60,000 Bianliang Chu troops under his control, but they were all gathered together after surrendering to the Red Husbands and receiving subordinate soldiers and horses from various tribes along the way. The soldiers and grassroots military officials were a mixed bag, and their combat effectiveness was also uneven.
For a long time, Yue Hailou mainly used the Yingzhou Han Army as its team to build an elite combat force. Soldiers, armor, weapons, and even money and food were all used as much as possible, and they were all organized into horse infantry to improve its mobile combat capabilities.
Yue Hailou handed over the command of this 5,000-strong horse infantry army to his direct general Feng Shizhao. No matter how much Yue Hailou valued Zhong Changqing, he would not let him get involved in the command of this horse infantry army.
Now it is clear that Chushan is going to take action on the ice of the Huai River. Yue Hailou certainly does not want to ask his few elite combat forces to cross the Huai River. Even if they can penetrate into the hinterland of Huainan to avoid the floods, the horse infantry will be blocked in the Huai River.
On the south bank of the water, Yue Hailou has no way to bring him back in a short time. If something goes wrong on the north bank, how can he deal with it in time?
However, the Third Prince Tu Ge was urging me. He had promised to send troops to cross the Huai River before, but suddenly changed his mind. Chushan had an ice-breaking plan as an excuse. Can he get the Third Prince Tu Ge's understanding?
Yue Hailou looked at Mo Li with some hesitation and asked, "General Yan, what do you think we should do?"
"If we don't cross the Huaihe River, we will still have to put more pressure on Chushan!" Mo Lihu said.
According to Mo Lihu's original intention, they gave up the idea of crossing the Huaihe River and just carried on with the usual plan here. However, they could not completely ignore the dissatisfaction in the army. They still needed to do something to deal with the accusations of others.
