Li Laiheng wiped the sweat from his forehead. Although it was already late September, the weather near Yingzhou was still very hot today. The sun only peeked out half of his head, like a dark curtain that was not completely closed, revealing the
There are a few rays of light, but its heat has already made people feel unnaturally anxious.
From the north of Yingzhou, one north-south river after another merged into the Huaihe River. The dense water network prevented the rapid pursuit of the intruders. Li Laiheng was riding on the horse, and his hair was blown by a small wind blowing from the river.
When they got up, more soldiers from the intruder army gathered at the designated ferry crossing.
Everyone was ready to cross the river. They were all very excited and eager to cross the small river in front of them as soon as possible and fight to the vicinity of Bozhou and Guide, which they had longed for, and have a battle.
However, although most of the invading troops were mentally prepared to attack, and although the military plan formulated by Marching Sima Gu Junen had been carefully considered and intensely deployed, during the implementation process, everyone also strived to follow the plan in a step-by-step and orderly manner.
Executed correctly.
But 100% success is never possible.
Because any war cannot be built accurately according to pre-drawn construction drawings like building a house. Various factors that are unpredictable in advance have hindered and changed the original plan, making it impossible to comprehensively plan.
Executed correctly.
After some teams had made all preparations, new circumstances suddenly occurred, which delayed their departure time. Some teams were blocked by other teams traveling in an intersection while moving forward smoothly, and had to stop and wait in the chaos.
The troops that should have gathered at the ferry at A lost their way in the darkness. As other troops gathered at the ferry at B, the two teams joined together and became a powerful attacking force. Originally designated
Suddenly, unexpected obstacles were discovered at the C ferry crossing, and the troops automatically moved to Ding ferry, which was not in the original plan and was indeed much better than the original plan.
They did not ask their superiors for instructions because they could not find where their superiors were. They did not receive new orders because their superiors could not find them and did not understand their implementation of the plan. Everyone followed the plan with more authority than the plan.
Based on the actual local situation at that time, through the will of the public and individual people, temporary decisions and modifications were made, and preparations were made to cross the river happily.
The plan drawn up by Sima Gu Junen, the commander of the march, and his soldiers who joined the army beforehand could not be 100% implemented. This was actually a minor issue.
However, it later proved that most of the temporarily revised plans were more realistic and more likely to be implemented than those originally prescribed by superiors.
This point made Li Laiheng not very satisfied. These plans did not come from the hands of the army commanders and soldiers. They did not come from the unified will of the leaders. They were not comprehensively balanced. Instead, they relied on the subjective initiative of generals and officers at all levels.
Finish.
This made Li Laiheng feel that his approach of specially selecting a group of officers from the camp academy to join the army and formulate military plans was very ineffective.
Li Laiheng felt worried. It seemed that the General Staff Headquarters could not be built just by gathering some officers with experience in campaign organization and bringing them together in the headquarters to draw maps and issue orders.
At least it seems now that whether it is Gu Junen, the marching commander, or the newly established army joining division, there is still a huge gap between the plans they made in advance and the actual results of the marching army's actions.
"Master, please drink some water."
Fang Yiren handed Li Laiheng half a bag of water. Gu Junen and the Army Secretary shared a lot of work, so Fang Yiren seemed much more relaxed.
Secretary Fang should have been left behind by Li Laiheng to direct the overall political affairs just like Guo Junzhen who was left behind in Wuchang and Huguang as the Prime Minister. But after all, he had the title of being from the Fang family in Tongcheng. Li Laiheng considered that there were many people in the Xuzhou Suppressor General.
Many of Fang Yiren's old friends decided to let him participate in the Eastern Expedition.
Fang Yiren also had some opinions on the river-crossing plan formulated by the Department of Military Affairs. He pointed at the army crossing the river in the distance and criticized:
"It's so chaotic. I didn't expect the possible chaos when crossing the river. Now all the ministries just want to cross the river quickly, fight to Bozhou, and get rid of Yuan Shizhong. Everyone has not considered the Chuang Army himself at all.
We are in a dangerous situation, and if Xiao Yuan’s battalion takes advantage of the chaos before and during our crossing to attack halfway across the river, we will surely achieve astonishing results.”
Li Laiheng didn't dislike Fang Yiren's half-drinking water bag, and directly reached out to take it.
It had been more than a month since they left Xiangyang. The Chuang army left Huguang from the Dabie Mountains and then entered Huaibei via Xinyang. They first caught up with Xiao Yuan's camp near Yingzhou and fought a wonderful rout.
The firearms unit "Ting Jun" equipped with new muskets and the Three Walls Cavalry equipped with new sharp armor showed their prowess and captured more than ten officers above the management team of Xiaoyuan Camp.
From these people, Li Laiheng learned the reason and purpose of Yuan Shizhong's rebellion against the Chuang Army:
Yuan Shizhong put a lot of pressure on Li Zicheng to strengthen the centralization of the Henan rebel army. However, the key reason that ultimately prompted Yuan Shizhong to defect did not come from within the rebel army, but from external factors recruited by the imperial court.
The imperial court has promised Yuan Shizhong that as long as he abandons the dark side and surrenders to the bright side, not only will he be immediately appointed as a high-ranking officer in charge of the army, but the Xiao Yuan Camp will also be provided with additional pay and equipment. And the most important point is that the imperial court does not require Xiao Yuan Camp to encircle and suppress Xiao Yuan Camp after he is recruited.
Comrade-in-arms, Xiao Yuan's camp was asked to cross the Yellow River north and go to Zhili to fight against the Eastern invaders.
Although Yuan Shizhong was dissatisfied with some of Li Zicheng's increasingly arbitrary practices recently, he would not betray the rebels because of this. The most important reason for Yuan Shizhong to make up his mind to leave Henan was that the superior recruitment conditions provided by the imperial court were only for Yuan Shizhong to rebel.
After the army was defeated, the imperial court turned its back and refused to admit it. Not only did it replenish the agreed pay and equipment to Xiao Yuan Ying, but it also refused to give Yuan Shizhong any flood land or official positions, leaving Xiao Yuan Ying to patrol the Huaibei area and was in a dilemma.
After Li Laiheng defeated part of Xiao Yuan's camp in Yingzhou, Yuan Shizhong took the remaining main force of Xiao Yuan's camp and retreated to Bozhou. They used a half-forced attack and half-persuasion method to forcefully occupy Bozhou from the imperial court, and then moved towards Xuzhou.
General Shi Kefa and General Soldier Chen Yongfu of Henan Town, who were stationed in Guide, asked for help.
They tried to use the small triangular alliance of Guide, Bozhou and Xuzhou to resist Li Laiheng who was biting behind him. They also tried to use this force to threaten the flanks of the Central Plains Army and cooperate with Sun Chuanting who was attacking Luoyang and Hulao Pass to eliminate Li Zicheng's main force.
Fang Yiren's criticism of the intruders' careless actions was very reasonable, but Li Laiheng looked at the situation on the other side of the river and couldn't help laughing:
"If Xiaoyuan Camp is a strong force with strong morale, as long as any junior officer leads an angry counterattack with hundreds of people, we may suffer heavy losses. However, in the battle of Yingzhou, Xiaoyuan Camp was defeated by our Tingjun and San
Blocking the wall has chilled our courage. Now that morale is low and everyone is depressed, I am afraid they simply cannot muster up the courage and determination to fight with us and perish together!"
Just as Li Laiheng said, the performance of the Tingjun and the Three Walls in the Battle of Yingzhou shocked Xiao Yuanying. The psychological impact of that brand-new fighting form was so huge that even now Xiao Yuanying
Most of the soldiers in Yuan camp have not yet recovered.
On the other side of the river, there were some sporadic soldiers of Xiaoyuan Camp huddled on the river bank. They used the increasingly bright light before dawn to observe the movements of the intruders, pointed and poked, discussed loudly, shouted, and told each other what they had seen.
The movement of the arriving troops crossing the river.
However, no one actually fought back and drove back the soldiers who were crossing the river in confusion, as if they were just a group of bystanders watching the fire from the other side.
"Although this is the case..."
Fang Yiren still frowned. Li Laiheng understood his intention and waved his hand and ordered:
"Leshan's vigilance is right, Zhang Pizhu! You can lead 700 cavalry from Qinjunbiao to help wave the flag! Keep a reserve of cavalry and keep an eye on the Xiaoyuan Camp on the other side of the river, and also be on guard against our left and right wings.
, to avoid being attacked by others during the process of crossing the river and causing heavy casualties!"
Zhang Pili returned a military salute to Li Laiheng. This once very immature and passionate young man has now grown into a resolute and capable cavalry general.
He looked with disdain at the scattered soldiers of Xiaoyuan Camp on the other side of the river. These people had been completely defeated mentally by the Chu army in the Battle of Yingzhou. Even if they were halfway across the river and attacked, Zhang Pili didn't believe them.
How big a result can be achieved.
The pro-military-standard sergeants are all carefully selected current warriors from the army. They all wear refined cloth face armor coated with Yangwu blue dye. Even the horses are covered with exquisitely crafted cotton armor, which can be used at medium and long distances.
Block the firecrackers fired by officers and soldiers.