This year's plum rainy season is shorter, but the drought has arrived earlier than expected.
Wang Xi held a sharpened wooden stick and nestled in the shade of the camp. The sultry weather made him want to stick out his tongue.
The water level of the Yuanjiang River has dropped a lot. If the drought continues for another half month, the paddy fields will probably crack and open up.
The eldest brother, named Wang Fu, died young.
The second brother is Wang Gui, and he died in the battle to suppress the Wuxi barbarians last year.
The third brother's name is Wang Cai. He was drafted into the army this year and is currently in the military camp.
Wang Xi was a civilian husband who was recruited. He helped transport military supplies when he set out, then cut down trees and dug soil to build a camp. He also helped the regular soldiers with some chores.
In fact, there was no need for many civilians here, but Wang Xi was still left behind and given a sharpened stick as an auxiliary soldier to fight.
Next to him, Song Qiao sighed: "The rice is about to joint. If we don't go back and water it, how will it be done?"
"The altar master will help." Wang Xi was comforting his friends as well as himself.
Song Qiao smiled strangely: "Hey, last year there was enough rain, the altar owner would definitely help. With this drought this year, he will definitely water his own fields first, so how can he take care of us?"
Wang Xi stopped talking.
Dingzhou divided the land very thoroughly. After the landlords were killed or driven away, the families of the soldiers were given priority in the land distribution, and ordinary people were also able to get some. In addition, the water conservancy facilities were shared by everyone, and the small altar owner in the village was responsible for the arrangements.
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In the first year, everyone was very motivated and life was prosperous.
In the second year, the Chu court was short of military rations, so farmers enthusiastically handed over rations and still had some surplus.
In the third year, the war continued, and military rations became even more scarce. The farmers were still willing to pay for the rations, but they were already very unhappy.
In the fourth year, that is, this year, there is no harvest in the spring, and every household is hungry. After the rapeseed is harvested, people near the Ming Dynasty often secretly exchange rapeseed for food.
Now that the drought has advanced again, farmers in Dingzhou are planting rapeseed and mid-season rice in rotation. The rice is already in the tillering stage and will soon face the jointing stage.
Regardless of tillering or jointing, basic shallow water irrigation needs to be maintained.
Wang Xi and his brother were dragged into the war. There were no adult men in the family. How could the women and children in the family get water? There is definitely no problem now, but it will be hard to say if the drought comes next month. When the river water is insufficient, it will depend on whose male family.
Dindo!
Not only are they worried about their families, they also have no confidence in the war ahead of them.
Because the military rations are not enough.
That evening, common people like Wang Xi and Song Qiao could only eat a small bowl of gruel.
The next day, they were sent to collect river mussels and snails, and those who knew how to fish went to cast nets in the Yuan River.
In the afternoon, when he returned to the camp half dead from the heat, Song Qiao whispered to Wang Xi: "We attacked twice more today, and the other side was guarding the camp. I heard that hundreds of brothers were killed, and many of them came back wounded.
"
Wang Xi was worried: "How can we fight this?"
Song Qiao said: "No matter whether I win or lose, I just want to go home and irrigate the fields as soon as possible. The rice will not be short of water."
The two were chatting when suddenly there was a noise in the distance.
They quickly ran over to take a look, but they caught a few deserters.
To be precise, I caught a few escaped civilians.
The peasants cried and begged, saying that they were not afraid of death, but wanted to go home and serve the rice fields.
The military judge didn't care about this, and directly killed all the escapees, and then summoned the civilian husbands to lecture: "Your Majesty has won a great victory. In a few days, he will bring reinforcements, and he is guaranteed to beat the shit out of the Ming thieves on the other side. Just hold on for a few more days.
God has won, no one is allowed to think about going home, this is the fate of these deserters..."
The civilians were too frightened to speak, so they returned to their camps one after another, but they were filled with anger.
They have been favored by Master Zhong and are willing to work hard for him. They have paid all the grain they should pay. However, it is only natural for farmers to farm for food. There are too many men recruited this time. Do women have to take care of the rice fields at home?
?
When encountering drought, you have to be a man!
A few days later, there was still no rain. The water level of Dongting Lake dropped seriously, and more than 70% of the water area of Qingcao Lake was inaccessible to large ships.
The food of the peasants was reduced to one meal a day, and it only had a small bowl of gruel.
Early that morning, an officer came to deliver a message.
Immediately afterwards, a low-level officer in charge of civilian husbands came to Wang Xi and said: "Your brother is in the army, you can go home."
Wang Xi was very excited after hearing this. The rice at home was saved.
Song Qiao asked: "What about us?"
The officer said: "If there are two men in the family serving as soldiers, only one can go home."
Song Qiao lowered his head and turned to leave, cursing secretly.
Wang Xi asked: "Will you provide me with food for the trip when I get home?"
The officer said: "I will give you grain. When the rice is harvested this year, I will deduct a small amount when paying for the grain."
Wang Xi was immediately frustrated. He had to walk back hungry.
The reason why some civilians were allowed to go home was simply because the military rations were running out.
Wang Xi packed his bags and left the camp with more than 20 fellow villagers. After walking only a few miles, he suddenly heard the sound of drums behind him.
The decisive battle begins!
Bai Qi was also short of military rations, so Xiangyang and Jingmen shipped two batches of wheat and sorghum, and also requisitioned some rice from Huainan, so that he could keep up with the Chu army until now.
The new rice in Sichuan has not matured yet and can only supply some corn. Bai Qi has to fight before the army loses food.
Wang Xi turned around three times. His third brother Wang Cai was still in the camp, and he didn't know if he could return home alive.
After stopping and looking at it for a long time, Wang Xi sobbed and wiped away his tears before embarking on the road home hungry.
On the battlefield.
The wooden cannons unloaded from the naval warships were placed one after another in front of the formation.
Even though they had firearms, they fought so cautiously because the opponents were all veterans who had experienced battles for a long time. Even the farmers who were recruited temporarily had practiced seriously during their off-farm breaks, and each of them had fought three or four tough battles on average.
Bai Qi only had 6,000 Shu elites in his hands, and the combat effectiveness of the rest of the troops was only slightly better than that of the Xiang army of the Song Dynasty.
All the real elite soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were transferred to the north to deal with the Jin people this year!
When Bai Qi made a move, not only did Zhong Quan's reinforcements all come out of the camp, but Liu Heng's defenders in Chenyang City also pulled out.
The Ming army relied on the Yuan River to the north, and due to the drop in water level, small warships could not come to support it. To the west were Zhong Quan's tens of thousands of reinforcements, and to the south were Chenyang's Liu Heng garrison, which meant that Bai Qi needed to defend the enemy from two sides.
The Fujian monk soldiers stationed at Chongxiao Village were also brought over by Fan Ruwei.
As for Huang Zuo, the surrendered troops under Liu Rui were not trustworthy at this time, so they were thrown by Bai Qi to besiege Yuanjiang County.
After the Ming army formed their formation, they were not in a hurry to attack.
The row of wooden cannons in front of the formation also made Zhong Quan and Liu Heng palpitate.
The two sides were about to fight a decisive battle, but they ended up confronting each other on the battlefield.
After all, the Chu army, which was short of food, couldn't stand it at first. The drums were beating loudly, the flags were waving, and the front troops were sent over to test the attack.
These Chu troops were afraid of being bombarded, so they were scattered among their teams.
Bai Qi asked Fan Ruwei to lead the monk soldiers to deal with the Chenyang defenders on the flank, and also assigned Fan Ruwei 3,000 Huainan recruits.
Thousands of new troops from Huainan were sent to fight head-on with the Chu army's front troops.
It is true that the Chu army was elite, but they had not had enough to eat these days, and their cheeks were visibly sunken.
After several rounds of exchange of bows and arrows, the front armies of both sides fought without a clear winner and were locked in a stalemate in the center of the battlefield.
Moreover, the Chu army also used the Yuanyang Formation, and this thing had already been learned by Zhong Xiang!
Bai Qi's female formation was in a defensive posture, but it was actually attacking. The protrusions at both ends of the female formation were all wooden cannons.
The entire formation moves forward slowly. If Zhong Quan's army does not move, its front army will soon be surrounded.
The Chu army's left and right armies moved forward quickly, and the Ming army's left and right armies also accelerated with their wooden cannons.
"Boom boom boom!"
The wooden cannon fires a volley of solid stone bullets, and the range is not far, about a hundred meters.
The advancing Chu army did not suffer too many casualties, but there was a small-scale chaos in the formation.
The distance between each other is even closer, the wooden cannon is replaced with shotgun, and the pebbles fly out like flowers.
In open terrain, the lethality of wooden cannons is really limited.
"Dong dong dong dong!"
With the sound of drums, Bai Qi's left and right armies rushed forward to engage the Chu army after rotating shelling. They immediately achieved victory because their enemies were disrupted by wooden cannons.
Upon seeing this, Zhong Quan quickly invested more troops and finally stabilized the formation of the left and right armies.
On the side, Fan Ruwei and Liu Heng were also fighting together.
Until this moment, Bai Qi's elite troops had not yet entered the battle.
Among them, three thousand elites were in Bai Qi's central army formation. The other three thousand elites were led by Lin Chong in a large-scale outflanking.
A few nights ago, Lin Chong left with his troops and took small boats in batches along the Yuan River into Dongting Lake. He then took a naval warship to thirty miles east of Chenyang and camped on the shore of Dongting Lake to recharge his batteries.
Sharp three days.
Last night, we took a small boat from Dongting Lake to the west, then abandoned the boat and traveled at night, reaching six miles south of the battlefield and lurking in the woods beside the Cangshui River (Cangshui and Langshui merged to form the Canglang River).
He was so cautious because he was afraid that he would be discovered by the people and the local farmers would report the news to the Chu army.
"Woooooo~~~"
The horn sounded a warning from the top of Chenyang City, and the Chu army finally discovered that a large number of enemies were coming from the southwest.
The battlefield is surrounded by rice fields, but the water has dried up and there are even small cracks. Without irrigation, the harvest is likely to fail.
Lin Chong led three thousand elite troops, first trotting along the field ridge.
Each of them wore thirty kilograms of armor, and they were almost fainting from the heat under the scorching sun.
When they were two miles away from the battlefield, they jumped into the rice field and formed an array, wading knee-deep in straw and advancing slowly.
The location where Lin Chong appeared was at the side and rear of the Chu army's formation.
At this time, the two sides were in a stalemate, and the Chu army had already fallen into a disadvantage. Mainly due to lack of food and physical strength, they suffered two rounds of shelling. The severely damaged left and right armies had withdrawn three units.
The morale of the Chu army had plummeted.
Lin Chong entered the battlefield from the side and rear, immediately causing chaos in the enemy's army.
Zhong Quan urgently mobilized his reserves and civilians to try to stop Lin Chong from charging towards the Chinese army's formation.
Bai Qi also sent the elite around him to the battlefield, but he went to cooperate with the Fujian monk soldiers, intending to first deal with the Chenyang defenders on the side.
Liu Heng's Chenyang garrison was short of food, and the people outside the city fled into the city. The people inside and outside the city had to eat every day, and they couldn't live in vain, so they simply recruited a large number of young men to defend the city, and the rations were reduced to two rations a day. Suddenly.
Due to lack of physical strength, he was already being beaten by the monk soldiers, but the elite soldiers from Shu suddenly came out, and Liu Heng could only lead his own soldiers to resist.
The two sides had just engaged in battle, and a group of Chenyang Chu troops recruited temporarily began to flee without any warning. Not only were they tired and hungry, they could not last long, and they could not withstand the pressure of the battlefield, so they fled towards the county seat.
At this moment, the main right army of the Chu army also collapsed.
Those were the civilian men who had just been replaced. Their morale was already low, and they discovered that the main force was fighting from behind. These civilian men did not know what was going on, they only knew that the main force had been outflanked, and they were so panicked that they just wanted to escape back to their hometown.
Gaps appeared almost simultaneously on the Chu army's front and side battlefields.
"Issuing the order, let Gong Yi lead the troops to tear apart the enemy's formation!" Bai Qi finally seized the opportunity.
Gong Yi is the second son of Gong Xiu. He was transferred to Chengdu last year as a cavalry officer and trained 600 cavalrymen with the help of southwest war horses. This year he was transferred temporarily and only arrived at Dongting Lake last month. Due to the unsuitable climate and climate, he only had 530 cavalrymen. More than ten cavalrymen have recovered, but there are still many sick people lying in the military camp.
These hundreds of cavalry seized the opportunity and rushed through the gap, charging wildly through the dry rice fields, chasing the fleeing enemy army away.
After chasing for a while, they turned back to attack and shoot arrows, and cooperated with the infantry to cause chaos in the Chu army's right army.
The Chu army did not have large-scale cavalry, only some sporadic sentry cavalry. When the formation was intact, they were not afraid of the cavalry, but now it was difficult to resist them.
In less than half a quarter of an hour, all the units of the Chu army's right army collapsed one after another.
The morale of the Chenyang Chu army close to the right army was also affected, and a second and third army broke up.
"Dong dong dong dong dong!"
Bai Qi personally beat the drum and ordered the entire army to attack.
Amidst the shouts of killing that shook the sky, the rural soldiers and civilians recruited by the Chu army scrambled to escape, and tens of thousands of defeated troops flew towards the Canglang River.
"Your Majesty, leave quickly!"
The soldiers dragged Zhong Quan away, and if he didn't leave, they would not be able to escape, because Zhong Quan's Chinese army had been broken through by Lin Chong.
Zhong Quan seemed to have lost his soul, looking at the battlefield with a lifeless face, and allowed himself to be dragged away by his own soldiers.
