More than 40 pirate ships took advantage of the rising tide in the Salt River at noon to open the North Water Gate and leave the blockade, which made the salt protection troops on the north bank really nervous for a while.
At this time, the elite of Jiangdong's left army had already controlled the south beach of the seawall stone dam. Lin Fu stood at the beach of the stone pond, watching the pirate boat leave the river mouth and turn around to go south on the shallow beach.
Standing on the bow of the loach boat, She Feihu was wearing scale armor and was not very conspicuous surrounded by guards. However, on a clear and cloudless afternoon, Lin Fu was only 140 to 50 steps away from him when he was closest.
Naturally, she saw his slightly distorted face clearly in her eyes, smiled and said to the people behind her: "It seems that he really hates me to the core!"
Behind him, Zhou Tong smiled knowingly and secretly said, "How can the young prince of She be able to deal with the hatred of seizing his wife? This kind of joke should not be said in public. He carefully analyzed the enemy's situation and said: "The bandits are sailing in shallow water.
Heading south, we are probably going to approach the mouth of the river, forcing my Jinghai Battalion, which is responsible for guarding the mouth of the river, to not dare to send out the whole division to participate in the war here..."
Cao Ziang looked at the pirate ship heading south in the shallow water and said: "Looking at She Feihu's behavior, it can be regarded as a semi-public direct control of the East China Sea pirate troops. It seems that it will not be long before the She family raises the flag of rebellion again..."
"Let him go..." Lin Fu said calmly, turned back and walked down the stone pond.
Here, in the name of Song Xiaobo, the Superintendent of the Hecheng Division, all the grassland households in the coastal area were evacuated to the west, forming an uninhabited grassland forty to fifty miles deep on the east beach of Hecheng, and in Jiangmen Village in the southeast sand corner.
Heavy troops were stationed to block the mouth of the river, and the bandit soldiers took boats to the south in shallow water, which was unable to contain the left army east of the river in any way.
Lin Fu did not immediately mobilize the thoughts of the Jinghaihai camp at this time, but She Feihu divided his troops and sent out the fortress. Although it was not the time to attack by force, he could free up his hands and feet to speed up the blockade of Hecheng Fortress.
Although the Yanyan River is more than a hundred paces wide, after the tide recedes, there is only shallow water less than two feet deep in the river. We organized people to bring five or six thousand wheelbarrows of soil and pour it in to fill in a mud dam before the next wave of tide rose.
Come out and directly seal the last section of the river connecting Hecheng Fortress to the outer sea.
By building a mud dam, the north and south banks will be connected and form a single body. The Jiangdong left army can support the salt protection army camp on the north bank. According to the established plan, Mao Wenjing can dedicate part of his troops to restore the coast from Sheyang to Hecheng in the north.
Watch fort and beacon pier.
The defenders also gave up their efforts to maintain the land passage from the east gate to the seawall. After the Yanyan River was blocked, there was room outside the east gate for Jiangdong's left army to maneuver and insert. It was easy to fight against each other.
A war of attrition that was extremely disadvantageous for the Japanese invaders.
Since She Feihu personally led his troops to sea, the main responsibility of the remaining bandits was to guard Hecheng Fortress, contain as much of the Jiangdong Left Army as possible, and hold on until the situation on the southern front became clear, so that enough troops could be mobilized to relieve the siege.
Since the defenders had this mentality, the Jiangdong Left Army was naturally free to rush to repair the trench walls. The number of civilians recruited in front of the formation once increased to 10,000.
In addition to the camp of the salt protection army on the north bank, the Jiangdong left army built a trench wall on the south bank in six or seven days that was more than 2,000 steps long, six feet thick and more than ten feet high, completely surrounding Hecheng Fortress.
Under the leadership of Cao Ziang, the four forts of the Chongcheng Infantry Camp were directly embedded in the moat.
First, a palisade wall was erected, filled with three layers of rammed earth inside, and built to a height of two feet. Then, the palisade wall was covered with green bricks on the outside, and four layers of green bricks were laid on top to prevent rainwater from penetrating. A crenellated wall was built on top of it.
Although each garrison camp has a circumference of less than two hundred steps, and has a prismatic trench wall with a strange shape. There are only three to four hundred elite soldiers stationed in the camp, but it is extremely strong. In order to build these four small camps,
The manpower and materials used were even more than the trench wall, which was more than 2,000 steps long.
After the prismatic fortress was built, it was integrated with the trench wall and stationed with a small number of elite soldiers. It could not only completely seal off the Hecheng Fortress, but also prevent the reinforcements from attacking from the outside.
After the fortification system was built, it was necessary to completely surround Hecheng with 2,000 soldiers. On the south bank, there were more than 1,000 elite soldiers from the Chongzhou infantry camp to assist with 2,000 rural soldiers for defense. In addition, more than 1,000 soldiers from the north bank were built for defense.
The salt guard army is enough.
The cavalry battalion can be freed to be used as a mobile combat force on the inside of Chongzhou, instead of having to be restrained and responsible for guarding the outside of Hecheng Fortress.
Even Zhang Yan, who didn't know much about military affairs, could see the reason why the Jiangdong Left Army spent so much time recruiting tens of thousands of civilians to build the trench wall after inspecting the south bank defenses: after the war, Lin Fu only needed to guard the trench wall.
On the basis of further thickening and heightening, covering it with blue bricks, and opening three or two city gates, the Crane City Fortress in front of you can become the real Crane City, and the fortress city surrounded by it at this time is the inner city of Crane City.
Lin Fu really unceremoniously treated the Jiangdong Left Army's defense area as his own territory. Zhang Yan felt extremely depressed, but he had to admit that although Lin Fu's tactics consumed a lot of manpower and materials, they were solid and effective.
Not only were the harvest of autumn grain and the construction of new cities in Chongzhou not affected by the large-scale raids by the Japanese soldiers, but even the Hecheng Si Yamen, temporarily located in Xishutai, began to organize grassland households to cut grass and bundle it in the area near Xishutai.
---Except for Chongzhou, which other county can be so calm and calm under the threat of thousands of bandits?
However, after Lin Fu entrusted all military and political affairs on the northern front to Cao Ziang, it had been several days since he left Hecheng. Even if Zhang Yan was still burning with anger, he could not find anyone to vent to.
*************
The waves were like angry waves, hitting the bow of the ship and scattering them into jade flowers.
In October, the monsoon gradually turns. At this time, the southeast wind and northwest wind alternate on the East China Sea. As long as you wait for the wind, it is very convenient whether you are going south or north.
Daheng Island, the main island of the Shengsi Islands, looks like a giant chicken claw lying on the sea one hundred, seventy-eight or eighty miles east of Haiyu. The Jinji Mountain at the western end of Daheng Island stands seventy or eighty feet high, in the vast East China Sea.
It looks extremely majestic and majestic.
After the Jiangdong Zuo Army's naval force rose up in the East China Sea, She Feixiong carefully managed the Jinji Mountain stronghold on Daheng Island.
The East China Sea pirates' lookout post on the north cliff of Jinji Mountain was the first to see the dark shadows of several sails and masts on the northern sea skyline. Soon, a huge fleet appeared on the sea. Even from a very far distance, they could see
Feeling that the ships at the head of this fleet were obviously several times larger than the ships on the side, the long warning horn blew "Woo-Woo": "Enemy attack, enemy attack! The Jiangdong left army warships are attacking.
!”
Su Tingzhan boarded the outpost, looked at the sea to the north, and frowned slightly. Compared with the Jiangdong Zuo Army's naval patrol in early August, the Jiangdong Zuo Army's fleet that attacked this time was much larger: that kind of carrying capacity
With a weight of 5,000 stone, there are actually as many as four large warships designated as Jinhai class for the Jiangdong Left Army, and as many as sixteen Jiyun class warships, supplemented by sixty or seventy sea loaches and sea falcons.
The huge fleet of small and medium-sized warships such as Cangshan and Dayi is like a floating island on the sea. Following the wind, it seems to be slow but actually it is rushing towards Daheng Island.
At this time, there were only 3,000 defenders on Daheng Island. In terms of the number of small and medium-sized warships, they were only equivalent to the number of boat divisions of the Jiangdong Zuo Army, not to mention the huge difference in the shape of the warships.
In particular, Jiyun and Jinhai warships appear to be huge, but they have many more sails and masts on the deck than ordinary sailing ships. They can ride on the wind and travel faster than loach ships. The side walls of the ship are wrapped
The ship is made of iron plates, has an iron ramming horn on its bow, and its structure is exceptionally strong, with extremely strong collision capability at sea—Su Tingzhan simply has no warship that can compete with it at sea.
In the past, I still wanted to win by relying on the number of warships. At this time, the entire Jiangdong Zuo Army Navy Division arrived. Seeing that the situation had been strengthened, the number of troops was probably no less than three or four thousand. Su Tingzhan immediately gave up the idea of going to sea to fight and sent an order to everyone.
The warships took refuge in the inner harbor and transferred all the crossbows to the Jinji Cape camp to increase the defense of the bay mouth and prevent the Jiangdong Left Army's boat division from suddenly breaking through the blockade of the Cape.
************
She Feihu's division of troops in Hecheng allowed Lin Fu to easily deploy troops from the northern front. The cavalry battalion was freed from the northern front and became a mobile combat force that could be used inside. Lin Fu was not afraid of the pirates who went to sea and dared to land and harass in Chongzhou.
All the Jinghai battalions stationed at Jiangmen to block the river mouth were mobilized and attacked Daheng Island.
Once Jiangdong's left army used the boat division to expand the front line to the outside, the Hecheng Fortress guarded by two thousand bandits would become a dead end, and there would be no danger at all. She Feihu led more than two thousand bandits who went to sea to harass other areas along the coast.
With more than enough prefectures and counties, it poses no threat to Chongzhou, let alone compete with Jinghaihai camp for supremacy at sea.
As for the possibility of She Feihu breaking into the river mouth on a pirate ship and invading counties such as Jiyang and Hailing upstream, Lin Fu was not worried. First, these areas belong to the Ninghai Zhenshui camp for defense, and Lin Fu would not be so kind as to attack Ninghai Zhenshui.
The battalion's defense responsibilities were also shouldered. Besides, She Feihu really dared to go deep into the Yangtze River. It would not be too late for the Jinghaihai Battalion to return to the division to blockade the river mouth and catch turtles in a jar.
In fact, after She Feihu divided his troops and left Hecheng, he saw that the coast of Hecheng had become an uninhabited grassland and there was no opportunity to take advantage of it, so he continued to go south through the shallow water to invade Haiyu, and burned the Ludong Palace, Haiyu, and Jinhu.
and other counties.
Lin Furushan stands on the deck of the tail cabin of the Jinhai, overlooking the headland at the northwest corner of Jinji Mountain on Daheng Island.
Unlike the coast of the sand island, which has only shallow water silts, the surrounding large bedrock islands are thirty to forty miles long, and the coastal terrain is complex enough - clever use of the coastal terrain is enough to construct a complex defense system.
The Donghai Bandits' strongholds on Daheng Island were mainly located at the northwest foot of Jinji Mountain.
There is a natural bay here, which is connected to the Qingshi River flowing down from Jinji Mountain on the island. Although Qingshi River is shallow, it forms a three to four mile long deep water bay at the northern foot of Jinji Mountain, making it a natural haven.
There are many rocks at the mouth of the bay. People who are not familiar with the waterways can easily break in and have a high chance of running aground on the rocks.
Far into the mouth of the bay, there is a headland island crossing out from the south shore. When the tide is low, the headland island is connected to the south shore by a shoal. When the tide is high, the shoal is submerged. The headland island divides the northern foot of Jinjishan Bay into an inner and outer harbor, and the main channel on the north side.
It is only over 300 paces wide. Considering that there may be hidden piles under the water near the beach, the waterway that is truly conducive to traffic may only be over 100 paces wide.
The Donghai pirates built a fort on the port island, like a giant spirit god guarding the inner harbor. The giant crossbow arrows at the entrance of the fort's crenellated walls shone with cold light, warning any enemy who wanted to force the port to consider the price they would pay.