Ferry No. 2, where the main force of the Ming army had crossed the river before, was particularly lively tonight. Both sides of the Lanjiang River were brightly lit, with a large number of torches burning and people surging, as if announcing that a super war was about to break out. Great war.
The Ming army on the east bank of the Lanjiang River is treating them seriously. Not only are the nearly a thousand Ming troops originally stationed here, but there are also more than 500 reinforcements urgently dispatched by Song Zhiwen on the way.
Since the Ming army could think of crossing the river from here, they were also prepared for the puppet Tang rebels to cross the river from here. Therefore, after the failure of the second cross-river battle, Song Zhiwen sent people to strictly defend here.
They built a lot of beachhead fortifications with the simple idea that if the puppet Tang rebels dared to cross the river from here, then they would fight a half-crossing attack here to let the puppet Tang rebels also have a try. Huge casualties during the landing.
However, unlike the Ming army on the east bank of the Lanjiang River, which was waiting in full formation, several Tang army officers on the west bank of the Lanjiang River were looking at the other side of the river with grim faces.
One of the lieutenants said: "Sir, do you think we can hide it from those Ming troops?"
As he spoke, he pointed at the "soldiers" who were holding artillery pieces and although they were wearing the uniforms of Tang Army soldiers, they didn't even have weapons in their hands.
The captain in front of him also said with a stern face: "It's hard to say, it's not easy to test these people and hide it from the spies of the Ming army!"
"But it's night now, and it might not be easy for them to find out. Even during the day, the Ming army's spies, no matter how brave they are, don't dare to sneak into our team to see if our people are ordinary villagers or soldiers. !”
"I hope we can contain more Ming troops for the main force!" A second lieutenant on the side also said the same: "As long as we can contain the Ming army of 2,000 people, it will be much safer for the main force to cross the river! "
"But who came up with the idea to let nearby villagers pretend to be our army?" At this time, he seemed to suddenly think of a question.
"I'm not sure. I heard it was the staff officers from the Operations Department who came up with it!"
Of course they didn't know that this method was not actually proposed by the Operations Department, but Li Xuan had an idea!
Since they wanted to set up a enchantment formation at the No. 2 ferry to confuse the Ming army and make the Ming army mistakenly think that they wanted to cross the river from the No. 2 ferry, they naturally wanted to make the formation larger.
And the bluff on the surface was easy to see through, so Li Xuan simply faked it and recruited nearly two thousand villagers from nearby, dressed them in the military uniforms of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, and took long wooden sticks to disguise themselves as musketeers or musketeers. For the spearmen, in order to make them more like real soldiers, he even took out some old cold weapons for them to hold.
The military uniforms they wore were the same military uniforms used by the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty!
According to their own wishes, these villagers were naturally unwilling to come to such a dangerous front line, but the new army of the Tang Dynasty used half inducement and half force to pull them away.
Meals are included when you arrive. Every meal is filled with white rice, and an extra two kilograms of rice will be given to you.
If you don't want to come like this, it's easy, just wait for me with swords and guns!
The efficiency of temporarily recruiting young men was quite high. It only took one day to recruit more than two thousand villagers nearby. In order to avoid exposing their secrets, they were all men. However, these men were old, young and weak.
After all, they were just used to put on a show to confuse the Ming army, and they were not actually allowed to go into battle.
In addition to the nearly 2,000 villagers pretending to be the Ming army, there are also the real Tang Dynasty new troops at Ferry No. 2, but they are not large in number and they are still second-line troops.
There are only two teams of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty here, one is the spear team of the 4th Infantry Battalion, and the other is a team of the Pirate Battalion.
These troops are naturally not used to fight against the Ming army, but to maintain the order of this performance. After all, the nearly two thousand villagers are not regular troops and have not been trained, and many of them are unwilling to do so.
Reluctantly, there are not enough troops to guard the side, so there is no guarantee that they will not disperse in a hurry.
However, although the Tang army on the No. 2 ferry was just acting, the acting was just like the real thing. The boats used to cross the river were moved out one by one and then placed on the riverside. Villagers pretending to be soldiers gathered at the beach.
Just looking at this posture, one would think that it wouldn't take long for more than 2,000 puppet Tang rebels to cross the river and fight.
This frightened the Ming army general on the opposite side to become extremely nervous. He sent people to report to Song Zhiwen several times, requesting for more reinforcements, and vowed that there were as many as two thousand puppet Tang rebels preparing to cross the river.
There are only half of the main force holding fire guns, so this pseudo-Tang bandit army must be the main force.
The main force of more than 2,000 puppet Tang rebels is about to cross the river at No. 2 Ferry. How can these thousands of people resist it? We must request reinforcements!
Song Zhiwen couldn't sleep at all tonight. Based on the intelligence reported by various flying horses, he was already very sure that the general offensive of the puppet Tang rebel army across the river had already begun. Now night was the preparation period, and there might be
Send partial troops to cross the river directly at night, and by tomorrow morning, I am afraid that the puppet Tang rebel army will have fully crossed the river.
But so far, he still couldn't tell where the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army would cross the river.
At the No. 2 Ferry, the defenders reported that they had discovered more than 2,000 puppet Tang rebels, and they swore that they were the main force of the puppet Tang rebels.
But here at the Lanjiang Ferry, the puppet Tang rebel army on the other side is also making a big show, and the momentum is even greater!
Even at Ferry No. 3, as many as two to three hundred people of the Puppet Tang Bandit Army were found.
And so far, it seems that these three places may be the places where the puppet Tang bandits crossed the river, so he always dared not act rashly.
Even though the defending general at Ferry No. 2 asked for reinforcements over and over again, he only sent 500 people there.
Even though there were not many puppet Tang rebels at the No. 3 Ferry, he still put about 500 troops to guard the No. 3 Ferry.
Today, he still holds about 4,000 troops at the Lanjiang Ferry, including 2,000 guardsmen, 500 recruits led by him personally, and the rest are naturally young and strong.
Before he finally determined where the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army was, he would not dare to dispatch too many troops to the No. 2 ferry or the No. 3 ferry.
Song Zhiwen's caution also made Li Xuan and others frown!
"I didn't expect someone named Song to be so cautious!"
"Now how to do?"
Li Xuan also frowned after listening to the words of Zeng Ziwen and others. After a while, he said: "Send orders to the No. 2 Ferry, let them increase their noise and turn the lie into reality. They must start crossing the river before dawn!"
Zeng Ziwen asked with some confusion: "Your Majesty, do you want the No. 2 ferry to actually cross the river?"