"Wu-wu--"
"Enemy attack!"
In the early morning of February 14, the second year of Jianwen, when the trumpet sounded melodiously at the Jiugong Pass in Shanxi Province, hundreds of Ming troops stationed here woke up from their sleep, hurriedly put on their armor, and hurriedly climbed up the gate of Guancheng. On the horse trail.
"What's going on! Are the Tatars from the north coming?"
A thousand-household official holding a hat in his hand ran onto the horse path and shouted loudly. The hundred-household official stationed at the city gate saw this and ran over quickly.
"Wang Qianhu, from the east...the enemy is coming from the east!"
"East?" Wang Qianhu heard the sound and looked to the east of the city gate, only to realize that he was in the wrong place.
"I'll go to the east and take a look. You can keep watch here."
After saying that, he took a few servants and ran towards the East Pass of Jiugong Pass, and soon appeared on the horse path of East Pass.
But when they came here, hundreds of soldiers nervously moved away from the walls.
"what happened?"
Wang Qianhu found the official from Baihu who was stationed here. When the official from Baihu saw Wang Qianhu, he seemed to have seen his backbone. He immediately held out an arrow with a letter in his hand with a sad face.
"Wang Qianhu, Yan Ni's tens of thousands of cavalry troops are coming to attack, and they are building siege equipment right now. I'm afraid this is a surrender letter. You... what do you think we should do..."
"Huh?" Seeing what the Baihu official in front of him said, Wang Qianhu bravely looked outside the wall. Sure enough, he saw a huge crowd crowding the eastern valley of Jiugong Pass.
He didn't even have time to look further before he retracted his neck.
"Why...how come so many Yan Ni's cavalry troops are here? Didn't the general bring hundreds of thousands of people to the north?"
Wang Qianhu was frightened to death by the scene outside the city. The last time he fought was when he followed the former King of Yan. Now the common people of Yan went to Kaiping Beibian and killed some people who crossed the border and came to Monan. Just nomadic Tatars.
The Tatars were not enough for them, and their number was only a few hundred.
Looking now, the person who led him to perform the feat was outside the city, but now he was here to attack the city.
"We only have less than 400 people here, how can we hold on..."
Wang Qianhu swallowed, and then opened the surrender letter in a panic.
What's rare is that this letter was actually written by Zhu Di himself, and he also called Wang Qianhu his brother and asked him to open the city gate and take the family members in the city to the north. Don't resist here, lest his wife, children, and children mourn for them.
When Wang Qianhu saw the content of the letter, he cried sadly and said: "Brothers, there are 60,000 people outside the city. We... surrendered."
His words made the more than 200 nervous soldiers look at each other. Although they felt that surrender was not good, no one wanted their wives, children, and children to cry in mourning. Therefore, a quarter of an hour later, the city gate at Jiugong Pass slowly opened.
Thousands of Yan army cavalry entered the city to take over the city. Wang Qianhu stood at the city gate and watched the cavalry take over the city defense. After a quarter of an hour, he saw the original King of Yan.
"Wang Mu, I knew you were sensible, so you took your family north to Huai Lai earlier. I prepared a carriage there. You can take your family to Juyongguan."
Zhu Di laughed heartily on horseback. Wang Mu could only bow and lower his head after hearing this.
He still doesn't know how Zhu Di came from Peiping, more than 400 miles away, to appear at the Jiugong Pass like a divine soldier descending from the sky.
He didn't know it clearly, but the generals of the Yan army knew it very well.
Three days ago, Zhu Di left all the infantry for Zhang Yu to lead the troops to garrison in Peiping. He led the cavalry and horse infantry all the way south. Before the Southern Army made any movement, he walked into a small post road in the Taihang Mountains and crossed all the way into the Taihang Mountains. The Nine Palaces Pass.
As Zhu Di expected, Shanxi's troops and horses are now in the Zhuozhou and Xuanhua areas, so even on such an important route as the Taihang Eight Trails, there will not be many defenders left.
He led an army of 60,000 people to attack all the way. In just three days, he attacked 400 miles and captured Jiugong Pass before the southern army went north.
Right now, what was before his eyes was Weizhou City behind Jiugong Pass.
Taking advantage of the time when the army passed through Jiugong Pass, Zhu Di took Zhu Neng, Wang Yi, Qiu Fu, Chen Wu, Tan Yuan and others up to the city gate tower and looked at the terrain of Jiugong Pass.
It has to be said that Jiugong Pass does have the momentum that one man can guard the pass and no one can open it. However, without enough defenders, this pass will not be able to play its own advantages at all.
"I think most of Shanxi's troops and horses have been mobilized. Most of them should be with Li Jinglong at the moment, and a small number are in the hands of Fang Zhao in Xuanhua in the north."
"That Fang Zhao is my defeated general, so don't worry about him at all. What we need to do now is to attract Li Jinglong's attention, so we have to capture Weizhou quickly to make Li Jinglong think that we intend to capture Datong."
Holding the map in his hand, Zhu Di spread it on the ground and explained it to the generals around him.
Zhu Neng reacted quickly. He pointed to the reputation in the north and said: "If news spreads that Yuzhou is being attacked, Li Jinglong will definitely come to help from Zijingguan in the east and enter Yuzhou from the North Pass."
"We can take the lead in taking the North Pass, and then wipe out all his troops here."
Zhu Neng thought very well. If it were to deal with ordinary generals, then this method would definitely be useful, but it would not work against Li Jinglong.
Although Zhu Di had previously belittled Li Jinglong as nothing, he knew Li Jinglong's abilities very well, so he pointed at the main force of the Southern Army entrenched in Zhuozhou and said:
"The Southern Army has hundreds of thousands of people in Zhuozhou, and Xu Kai, Yu Tongyuan, and Ping'an's 50,000 people are in Dong'an County. I guess they will march with Fang Zhao from three sides and attack the northwest, southwest, and southeast of Peiping respectively. direction."
"Right now, Zhang Yu and 60,000 people are defending Beiping City, so I'm not worried."
"But if we try to attract Li Jinglong here as Zhu Nengqian said, it won't work."
"It's impossible for this guy Li Jiujiang to lead his entire army to fight us. He will definitely leave Yu Tongyuan and the others to defend Yongping's support, and then let Xu Kai lead his infantry to attack Beiping City."
"Even if he leads his troops by then, his intention will not be to fight with us quickly, but to hold us back and make us unable to take care of Peiping."
Zhu Di prejudged Li Jinglong's intention. Wang Yi heard this and asked: "What should our army do?"
He asked what everyone was thinking, and Zhu Di raised his head and scanned everyone, his eyes flashing: "Let him come, the more he comes, the better."
He didn't go into too much detail, but the generals already knew that he had a plan in mind, so they all bowed to show that they were obeying the order.
"Right now, most of my army is in the pass, and the only thing I'm worried about is the families of the soldiers and their families of Kaiping's Fifth Guards."
"There are too few defenders there, so they are easily invaded by Hu soldiers."
"Before departure, I have already written letters to Kun Timur, Mengge Timur and the others. If they dare to come, I will attack them first after this battle."
Zhu Di not only has arrangements within the pass, but also has methods for Beiyuan outside the pass.
At present, the Northern Yuan Dynasty is engaged in a struggle for the throne of Khan, and a large number of Tatar Mongolians are being squeezed out.
If they go south to Kaiping to seize pasture because of being squeezed out, and the families of Kaiping soldiers are attacked, it will inevitably lead to unstable military morale.
Therefore, Zhu Di released some Tatar and Oara Hu soldiers in Peiping and asked them to take their letters to the Tatar, Oara and other tribes in the Yuerhai area, and even to the new Northern Yuan Dynasty Khan Kun Tiemu. He wrote a personal letter to Timur, his brother Meng from the Wala people who was a powerful official in the Northern Yuan Dynasty.
Regardless of whether these two letters can make the Tatar barbarians realize their threat and give up the idea of going south, at least they can calm the morale of the Yan army.
Zhu Di thought this while the 60,000 horse and infantry cavalry had already crossed most of the Nine Palaces Pass.
He and everyone put away the map, walked down the city gate, and smiled at Wang Mu who was guarding the city gate: "I'm looking for one of your men to go to Zhuozhou and tell Li Jinglong that the Jiugong Pass has fallen and that I have attacked Yuzhou and left."
"Ah?" Wang Mu didn't expect that Zhu Di would reveal his intentions, but after a moment of confusion, he bowed and agreed.
Not long after, several Tangqi were sent to Zhuozhou to deliver the message, and Zhu Di also led an army of 60,000, which took an hour to pass through the Jiugong Pass and arrive at the mountain basin in northwest Hebei to the west.
However, the distance of fifty miles was quickly crossed by the Yan army's horse, infantry and cavalry. When they appeared at the foot of Yuzhou City, Yuzhou guards Wang Zhong, Li Yuan and others also learned about the Yan army from the peripheral Tangqi news reports. The appearance of military cavalry.
Li Jinglong's strict military management was effective. If it were ordinary Weizhou, Zhu Di would definitely be caught off guard, but now they can still defend the city wall with three thousand troops.
Sixty thousand troops gathered under the city wall. Zhu Di simply led his cavalry to circle around Yuzhou City, and then he understood how to conquer it.
"Zhu Neng, have you seen those old platforms?"
Outside Yuzhou City, there are many old towers left over from the Yuan Dynasty. These old towers were not demolished and rebuilt. They were originally intended to facilitate the future expansion of Weizhou, but now they are being used by Zhu Di.
"Have your people build ladders to climb up to the old platform, and then lay earth bags to build a bridge. The distance is only a hundred steps, and you can build an earth bridge into the city in a day and night."
"The last general takes command!"
After hearing Zhu Di's arrangement, Zhu Neng immediately led his 20,000 troops to build ladders and climb up to the old building platform, and then began to throw bags of earth to build a mountain of earth, intending to pile earth from the old building platform a hundred steps away to Yuzhou. city wall.
"What does Yan Ni want to do?"
In Weizhou City, guard generals Wang Zhong and Li Yuan, who led three thousand troops, looked at each other and at the same time glanced at the city defenders beside them.
Except for the few hundred soldiers who had armor, the rest of them only had simple mandarin duck war jackets, and the weapons in their hands were only simple spears and waist knives.
Although there are several bowl-mouth blunderbuss and Hongwu iron cannons in Yuzhou City, they may not be able to withstand the fierce attack of 60,000 people.
For a moment, Wang Zhong and Li Yuan felt timid, but they were still prepared to wait and see the situation.
Time passed little by little. From noon to dusk, the Yan army had relied on three old platforms, and the earth belt had moved forward more than 30 steps. In just half a day, one-third of the project had been completed.
Until late at night, the sound of the Yan army digging earth and building mountains still did not stop.
Seeing them entering the moat, Li Yuan immediately prepared to use artillery to greet them, but Wang Zhong raised his hand to stop him.
"What are you..."
Li Yuan looked at Wang Zhong in confusion, but Wang Zhong said: "Look at the brothers around you, how can we defend this Yuzhou City with three thousand people, and we don't even have armor."
"Then what do you mean..." Li Yuan glanced around and slowly put down his hand.
"Stop it..." Wang Zhong had a complicated expression, but Li Yuan breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.
"Kaicheng, surrender."
One hour later, under the orders of Wang Zhong and Li Yuan, Yuzhou City opened the city gate and surrendered to Zhu Di.
After Weizhou surrendered, Zhu Di personally met with Wang Zhong, Li Yuan and others.
Although he had not had close interactions with the two of them, he had gotten to know many Shanxi generals during the two border preparations in the 28th and 31st years of Hongwu. Naturally, he could find topics of conversation with Wang Zhong and the others.
After a short night's rest, Zhu Di ordered Li Yuan to escort the young and old from Yuzhou north to Huailai and into Juyongguan to settle down. Wang Zhong led hundreds of soldiers from Yuzhou to follow his main force to Datong.
To attack Datong from Weizhou, the marching distance was nearly 250 miles. However, Zhu Di did not order the army to raid as before, but marched slowly in order to give Li Jinglong time to react.
Almost immediately before Li Jinglong's entire army set off, Tangqi at Jiugong Pass rushed for more than 200 miles and finally brought the news to Zhuozhou.
"Yan Ni went to Yuzhou?"
On the official road from Zhuozhou to Peiping, the generals looked at Tang Qi in surprise when he heard the news. Li Jinglong frowned slightly, but he was not as surprised as the other generals.
"How many people have died in Yan Ni, and how did you get here?"
Li Jinglong asked Na Tangqi, and he gasped and said:
"Back to the general, Yan Ni has lost fifty or sixty thousand people, and all of them have horses..."
"The mark was specially released by Yan Ni to send a message to the general. That Yan Ni went to Yuzhou to attack."
"I understand, you can retreat to Zhuozhou and wait." Li Jinglong nodded and motioned for him to retreat.
After he left, Yu Tongyuan, Ping An and others rode forward.
Although the veteran general is old, his eyes are still vicious: "General, this Yan Ni is clearly following the previous attack on Changxing Marquis and trying to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao."
"It is to surround Wei and rescue Zhao, but if we don't send troops, we will easily lose Datong." Li Jinglong's judgment was correct.
"The city of Yuzhou is large and has few troops. There are old towers outside the city. Facing Yan Ni's tens of thousands of people, they must be able to defend the city."
"Right now, I'm afraid that Yuzhou City has already surrendered, and Yan Ni is on his way to Datong."
"If we don't go, encircling Wei and rescuing Zhao will mean the fall of Datong. By then, our army will lose control of the western part of Yanni."
"According to the order, the 100,000 horse and infantry officers and soldiers changed their route and entered Datong from Zijingguan. All the cavalry in the army returned to the control of the Yuexi Marquis and cooperated with Xu Kai's troops to attack Beiping City."
"The last general takes orders!" Yu Tongyuan bowed, and the generals also went to each army to adjust the marching route.
This kind of rash change of marching route is prone to riots if not done properly. However, such riots did not occur in Li Jinglong's army.
The 100,000 horse and infantry officers and soldiers in an orderly manner changed the rear army into the front army, and the front army into the rear army, turned the carriages and rushed towards Zijingguan in the south.
For Li Jinglong, commanding 100,000 troops is nothing more than a daily routine. Each time he conducts a large-scale military training, the troops range from 50,000 to 60,000 to more than 200,000.
Even if Zhu Di led more than 200,000 troops out of the fortress for the first time, it was only during Hongwu's 31st year of preparation for the border.
In the hands of Li Jinglong, the 100,000-strong army was like a tamed hound, marching southward to Zijingguan at a speed of 70 miles a day to the battlefield of Datong.
They began to move south, while Yu Tongyuan, Ping An and others led 20,000 cavalry to the north.
As expected, they will cross the Lugou Bridge at noon tomorrow and look at Beiping City.
At the same time, the regiment led by Xu Kai will slowly advance, arriving outside Peking City around the 18th, and begin to storm the city.
In order to deal with this situation, Zhang Yu, who stayed in Beiping, moved all the people from towns south of Beiping into Beiping city.
Beiping City, which originally had a population of only 140,000 to 50,000 people, suddenly gathered more than 300,000 soldiers and civilians.
Zhang Yu believed that there was plenty of food in the city and was not worried about the Ming army heading north. Instead, he was strengthening the city's defenses.
Although he did not know how to fight, Zhu Gaochi also walked around the city wall and horse paths as the prince, motivating the soldiers who defended the city.
But when he met some soldiers, Zhu Gaochi felt that they looked at him a little strangely.
"General Zhang, why do those soldiers think so strange of me?"
On the horse road, after Zhu Gaochi left the section of horse road full of stares, he took Zhang Yu to the archery tower to ask.
Hearing this, Zhang Yu also looked at the Ma Dao that Zhu Gaochi was talking about. His expression froze for a moment before he cautiously said: "Over there, there are people from Daning..."
"..." After hearing the answer, Zhu Gaochi finally understood why they looked at him strangely.
This is why Daning's soldiers can still look at him so quietly. If it were Bohai's soldiers, they would have scolded him countless times in private.
As mentioned before, the literacy rate of the Bohai Navy is very high, but the high literacy rate means that they know better what the title of heir apparent means.
Bohai was beaten to death in the north, and now he was transferred to Beiping to resist the southern army. This was not for the sake of King Zhu Di of Yan, let alone Zhu Gaochi, the prince he had never met. He was simply following the military orders of His Highness.
Zhu Gaochi was not stupid either. After hearing Zhang Yu's explanation, he started to complain in his heart.
"When will the days of hanging on to the waistband come to an end..."
He had a grimace on his face, but some people were laughing.
"Uuuuuu——"
Thousands of miles away, when horns sounded continuously in Dengzhou Bay, more than a hundred wooden hard-sailed warships entrenched here slowly left the port.
The hard sails were bulging and swaying gently. There were thousands of them, which looked very spectacular.
On the deck, all the crew members wore plain armor or paper armor, held long guns, and looked solemn, as if they were ready to fight enemy ships at any time.
The artillery was already in place, mounted on the bow and sides of the ship.
There are only more than 150 warships, but there are more than 2,000 artillery pieces.
Looking at any country at the same time, it would be difficult to pull off such a majestic fleet.
The flags of the Ming Dynasty Pingwa Navy fluttered and buzzed in the still biting cold wind in February, showing the Ming Dynasty's dominance and strong sense of oppression over the ocean.
Due to the diversion of the Yellow River, the water in Bohai Bay is not blue, but it is clear enough.
The clear waves beat violently against the hull. The northerly monsoon winds in winter and spring, and the wind direction in the Bohai Sea and the North Yellow Sea are also dominated by northwest winds. Therefore, it is slightly difficult for the Pingwa Navy to sail towards the northwest, and they must not sail. The boat is sailed without rowing oars or side sails.
When the hard sail was adjusted, the original northwest wind changed from resistance to assistance. People in the port gathered to watch, admiring this spectacular scene, praying that the fleet would be able to win and bring victory.
Under their gaze, more than 150 warships began to march towards the Imperial City Islands in the north, and slowly disappeared on the horizon.
Out of sight of them, the Pingwa Navy began to head towards the western waters of the Liaodong Peninsula after traveling dozens of miles.
Standing on the deck, Yang Qiu, wearing armor, looked at the navy under his command and was filled with emotion.
He has received Yang Zhan's letter and knows what the Bohai County King behind Yang Zhan wants him to do.
He didn't think much about it. After all, Yang Zhan was his only son. As long as Yang Zhan could live a good life, he had nothing to complain about.
Calming his mind, he adjusted his attention to hydrology.
Stretching out his hand to feel the northwest wind, Yang Qiu also shook his head.
"Even Feng Xiang is helping..."
After he said these words, the Ping-Japan Navy, which carried 10,000 troops and more than 150 warships and horse-drawn ships, gradually sailed away from the main island of the Imperial City.
While they were heading north, Chen Xuan, who stayed behind in Dengzhou City, also led his Yangtze River Navy to Chenghuang Nanbei Island.
Chenghuang North Island is only 70 miles away from Lushun by sea. If the boat goes smoothly, it only takes three hours to reach Beichenghuang Island.
Chen Xuan has already had a stone fortress built there. What he has to do now is to lead his Yangtze River Navy to garrison there, while Dengzhou is led by Qi Jian's 6,000 Denglai Navy and 3,000 Dengzhou garrison troops. garrison.
An hour later, Chen Xuan led the Yangtze River Navy with 10,000 people on twenty 2,000-material fortune ships, 70 1,000-material fortune ships, 100 500-material big bird ships, and fifty double-sailed boats. Go to sea.
Although the north wind is strong and constant, because the Ming army is the defender, and the Imperial City Islands are under the control of the Ming army, and the Imperial City Islands are very close to Dengzhou, they can return to Dengzhou even if there is a storm. Prefecture, so Chen Xuan did not stop, but continued to command the army to march towards Beihuangcheng Island.
After they left, Qi Jian led eight thousand land and water defenders to defend.
Spring has completely begun in the Bohai Strait, although the northwest wind is still blowing, but fortunately the sun is shining brightly, and it is so warm that people can't help but relax.
"Fighting at sea is indeed different from fighting in the Yangtze River."
Walking on the deck, Chen Xuan and his lieutenant were talking about the difference between the sea and the Yangtze River.
Although the Yangtze River can also be windy, it has never been as windy as the Bohai Strait.
As long as they adapt to the wind direction of the Yangtze River, the entire navy can sail with confidence, but not in the sea.
The constantly blowing northwest wind requires the helmsmen and sailors of the Yangtze River Navy to constantly adjust the direction of the rudder and sails to prevent the entire fleet from deviating from the course.
It is a hundred miles from Dengzhou to Beichenghuang Island. Coupled with changes in wind direction and hydrology, it will take at least four hours to arrive.
Chen Xuan is adapting to the Bohai Sea, and as time goes by, she becomes familiar with the Bohai Sea's culture.
From Dengzhou in the south, they passed Changdao, Tuoji Island, Daqin Island... and walked slowly for eighty miles. Listening to the sound of the waves, they gradually saw Nanchenghuang Island.
However, at this moment, a warship appeared on the west side of Nanchenghuang Island.
"Why is there a boat?"
"Did the Pirata Navy ship run aground?"
Everyone thought of the Ping-Japan Navy who had set off two hours ahead of them. Only Chen Xuan noticed something was wrong.
"It's not them. The Pingwa navy is familiar with coastal hydrology. There is no way that a warship would be stranded!"
Chen Xuan reacted quickly and picked up the wooden whistle around his neck and started blowing.
"Beep--"
A shrill whistle sounded, and then the sailors of each warship began to operate the rudder and sail. They had been training in the offshore waters of Dengzhou for several months. Although they were still unable to completely control the hydrology of the Bohai Sea, there was no problem with the formation. .
The entire fleet began to form an array, and the warships hidden in the direction of Nanchenghuang Island also appeared one after another.
With the appearance of the warship, everyone in the Yangtze River Navy showed tension and solemnity on their faces.
A total of seventy warships of various sizes sailed out of the north of Nanchenghuang Island and sailed towards them in the northwest wind.
"Enemy attack!!"
When the two fleets were less than ten miles away, the voices of enemy preparations were heard one after another. Opposite them, Yang Zhan, a man in armor, had led 5,000 Bohai navy to wait for them for a long time...
"Records of Emperor Taizong of the Ming Dynasty": "In the spring of February, I led my troops to Jiugongkou to attack Weizhou. I ordered the prince and Yuyan to guard and be careful not to fight the enemy when they arrived."
"Bohai Chronicles": "In the spring of February, he successfully led the navy out of Lushun, avoided the Japanese, and entered Nanchenghuang Island to meet Xuan."
(End of chapter)
