There are endless reeds and swamps, the pattering of light rain and the rustling wind; occasionally there are water birds that are frightened by the puff and fly up, and the ducks and birds hovering in the sky are chirping urgently. And all of this was like the roar of the wind, stimulating more than a dozen figures who were running for their lives.
Then, people kept stumbling one after another, and some people fell into puddles and fell unconscious. In the end, there was only one person left. When he stopped and tried to take a few breaths, he only felt a wave of nausea and discomfort, as if he wanted to vomit out all his internal organs.
Previously, he had been a member of the enviable Jingzhou Navy, with his own warship and the status of a naval officer. But now he was just a fish that slipped through the net and escaped from the brutal water battlefield; the screams of his captured comrades and abandoned wounded were still in his ears.
He was so devastated that he mistook every slightest movement behind him for the demons that were chasing after him. That's right, they are demons. The demons and giant beasts that roam freely in the water and attack them day and night have become the biggest nightmares for these soldiers of the crusade.
The ships responsible for carrying officers and soldiers from various states were often moored at night, or traveling in narrow waterways. At some point, the bottom of the ship was secretly dug open by aliens in the water, or the bottom of the ship was suddenly appeared. The pig dragon (crocodile) overturned and smashed the ship.
Then, they fell into the water with the officers and soldiers on the ship, or were forced to jump into the mire of unknown depth; they were torn into pieces by the hidden aliens or dragged away screaming. Then more rebels came from all directions in small boats, completely defeating the officers and soldiers who were fighting each other and were trapped in the quagmire.
Even the warships from the Jingzhou navy were still not immune; the overly large hulls galloping in the rivers and lakes could easily be intercepted by hidden obstacles in the water and be temporarily separated; they could only watch with helpless eyes. There was an endless clamor of friendly forces in the distance being besieged.
The bed crossbows and stone cannons fired from the ship were also unable to keep up with the elusive monsters and giant beasts that came and went in the reed swamps. They put down the boat and tried to support them, but were quickly overturned by the lurking aliens. All that was left in the waterway was a rolling patch of turbid mud and blood.
At least this sailor was on his warship, fighting fiercely with the endless stream of aliens and thieves with swords, guns, bows and crossbows, and did not abandon the ship until the last moment. But he still couldn't understand how things had deteriorated to such an extent during the hundred years of peace during the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Yunmeng Daze in the contemporary traditional sense is a wetland that spans Jingnan, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Huainan; it covers both sides of the river and the Jianghan Plain, including lakes, swamps, tidal flats, woodlands, mountains, and residential farmland, etc., and a variety of wetlands. and large areas including dryland types.
Although it is dotted with many densely populated towns named Dayi, it is also mixed with large and small waterways as dense as a spider web, and contiguous swamps and reeds, which have become all kinds of lawless people, escaped slaves, bankrupt and landless refugees, and even desperate people. A place where smugglers gather.
In particular, the hundreds of miles of swamps located between Jiangling, Gong'an, Shishou, Jianli, Mianyang, and Jingling have become a place to harbor filth and evil practices to shield these alienated people. The maze-like complex waterways and hidden river islands change with the rise and fall of the water every year.
Therefore, although the officers and soldiers of the past dynasties carried out raids from time to time and captured hundreds or thousands of heads, they were never able to completely wipe them out. Instead, they allowed these alienated people to unite together, block the shipping routes along the river, and plunder passing merchants. With the name of Yunmeng Thief, he is one of the Seven Great Bandits in the World.
Even during the Yuanping period, they once approached the city of Jingzhou, revealing the situation that the local officials had been trying to keep secret. This attracted the attack envoys dispatched by the imperial court, and became the beginning of the reconstruction of the Jingzhou navy in addition to the patrol and waterproof camps on the river. In the end, several states joined forces to sweep the caves.
The result of destroying dozens of water forts and settlements, beheading tens of thousands, and capturing tens of thousands of people, made the Yunmeng Thieves become a legendary historical term in the following decades. However, as time passed, people gathered spontaneously again and gradually filled the gaps in this vast swamp.
It's just that they no longer easily take actions such as cutting off waterways, robbing merchants, and even attacking villages and towns, openly provoking the authority and order of the government; instead, they take advantage of the chaotic jurisdiction and mutual pushback at the intersection of Jingnan, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Huainan. Due to the favorable geographical location, they engaged in smuggling and smuggling.
Eventually, a considerable underground industry and illegal livelihood groups formed in the surrounding areas; even wealthy families and low-level officials in some places were secretly involved. Therefore, when the government troops somewhere decide to attack, the Yunmeng thieves will abandon some strongholds and quickly move away.
After this long-term cat-and-mouse tug-of-war, the two sides even formed a tacit understanding that would never end. However, after this tacit understanding lasted for decades, it was suddenly broken in the past two years. For some reason, the Yunmeng thief, who had greatly increased in strength, actually took the initiative to attack several counties.
Although these are just a few small towns that have been in peace for a long time and the city defenses are in disrepair; for the officials of the nearby Jing, Fu, Yue, and Li states, it is an unprecedented responsibility for losing their land/a blow to the head. Therefore, before the court could investigate and hold them accountable, they organized several troops to attack the officials.
Then, as they scrambled to attack each other, they were defeated (defeated each one) without any surprise. This incident also greatly shocked Jiangling City, the capital of Jingnan Road, which was nearby Chichi. As the local Jingnan Governor's Office, he ordered the dispatch of the guards and soldiers under his direct jurisdiction to fight against the rebellion.
And this is the first time Yunmeng has been calmed down in the imperial palace newspaper. That's right, even if the rebellion is suppressed, local reports still regard it as a civil uprising/riot where thieves coerce the masses. As a result, the tens of thousands of crusaders marching by land and water easily recaptured Liyang and Anxiang counties.
Then, when approaching the garrison in Ouchi Town near Shishou, the Chinese army was attacked at night by the Yunmeng thieves Liyingwaihe. The leading guard, Wan Shouyi, and a dozen generals, Ben, were killed on the spot. The troops were leaderless and collapsed in chaos. They trampled on each other and fled without seeing the enemy...
At this time, the special envoys sent by the imperial court had just arrived in Jiangling; they severely punished a group of local generals who fled before the battle, and dismissed several officials who were unable to defend the territory. This was a moment of shock, and four groups of people from Yuezhou, Lizhou, Fuzhou, and Jiangling Prefecture were assembled to coordinate the suppression.
But what people didn't expect was that this time it seemed to be a four-way attack tactic that was advancing steadily and step by step; after successfully regaining the surrounding towns and villages, uprooting and burning more than a dozen strongholds outside Yunmengze, However, he suffered a serious setback when he continued to penetrate deep into Yunmeng Daze.
First, the Jiangling army, which was reorganizing nearby, encountered a sudden heavy fog and a strange attack that came with the fog; after the fog of fighting and retreat dissipated, it had lost less than half and was temporarily unable to fight again. Immediately afterwards, the soldiers and horses of Yuezhou and Lizhou were ambushed and raided by Yunmeng thieves.
The weakest Lizhou Army was defeated first, and then attacked the Yuezhou Army who had just arrived nearby. As a result, the Yuezhou Army failed to fire an arrow and missed, and was swept away. The Jiangling army that stayed on the spot was first attacked by a herd of beasts, and then was killed and defeated by the Yunmeng thieves.
The Fuzhou Army, which was the farthest away, actually got lost in Yunmeng Ze. Until the defeat of several other routes, it was unable to reach the meeting point in time. Finally, after encountering a rout and hearing of the defeat, they retreated to the original route relatively intact. . This is all the news Jiang Tian can get when he goes south.
But among the messy news, what concerned him the most was the confession of several soldiers who had escaped back, who were treated as if they were talking in their sleep: Yunmeng Daze seemed to be alive, with mud traps and obstacles everywhere, It didn't take long for the places I walked through to become unfamiliar.
In addition, there are also some aliens who have escaped from Yunmeng Daze, claiming that the Yunmeng thieves are no longer the same people in the past, or that they are suspected of being occupied by human birds; not only do they have a large number of breeding and methods to drive aliens, and also used a large number of people as blood food and sacrifices.
Therefore, this statement also became an opportunity for Jiang Tian to temporarily put down the affairs at hand and personally lead the team south to explore. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but poke out the window of the waterwheel boat and saw Dalu accompanying the marching team with bare hands and light equipment. They were reinforcements from Shannan East Road.
The 5,000 soldiers mobilized in Dengzhou, Shangzhou, Junzhou, and Fangzhou were stationed in Nanyang, and the 1st Battalion of the Left Leading Army Guards (1,000 members) was stationed in Nanyang. It also includes the fifth layman battalion of Xijing Lixingyuan, which is located in Shangluo County near Wuguan and serves as the two mobile teams of Jingnan and Shannan.
But for Jiang Tian, the more reinforcements that follow him south, the better. In other words, facing an unprecedented situation like Yunmeng Daze, a large army that is unfamiliar to each other, lacks trust and may have inconvenient command is not as useful as the fifth battalion of laymen who know the basics.
With this in mind, Jiang Tian took a car and boat along the Danshui River, the Han River, all the way down the river. He didn't stop and rest for a while until he arrived at Xiangyang Prefecture, the capital of Shannan East Road. Because, here he still has to wait for another route, from Shannan West Road to rush to join the reinforcements.
Therefore, he declined most of the invitations from the local area. Even the reception banquet held by the local Xiangyang Prefecture Shaoyin and various envoys and officials only showed his face symbolically and stayed behind closed doors; I devoted myself to studying all kinds of news and reports collected from the south...
It was not until the morning of the third day that reinforcements from Shannan West Road arrived; Jiang Tian also saw a familiar face again. After the Battle of Xingyuan Mansion and the assassination of Hanwangtai, he had not seen his deputy general Pang Xun for more than a year. It's just that after he narrowly escaped death, he has now officially paid homage to Nan Zheng Shou as his envoy.
