Chapter 212 How Dare to Compare to Climbing the Wall
Zhao Yulin took a nap. The warship had passed Gucheng. The guards reported that a fishman was clamoring to see the general manager and had important military intelligence reports, and he was escorted over.
After Zhou Ping met the visitor, he learned that it was a messenger from the Beggars' Sect Elders' Hall. The secret letter said that the Xiangyang garrison commander had defected to the Mongolian army, the city gates were under martial law, and the commander Li Boyuan sent troops out of the city to guard the dock bridge, and the navy deployed defenses five miles upstream. The Shenwei Army was asked to consider carefully and must recapture Xiangyang City, because there were still hundreds of thousands of innocent people and a large amount of food and supplies in it.
Zhao Yulin looked at the beautiful handwriting and thought it must have been written by a woman. He wondered if it was reliable.
He looked at the person who came in confusion.
The messenger said that the secret letter was written by their new female leader herself, and that the Beggars' Sect would definitely pick them up in the city, so he stayed on the boat to prove his innocence and reliability.
Zhao Yulin first expressed his gratitude and asked Zhou Ping to arrange for the people to go down and rest. He then thought about how to defeat the enemy.
Zhou Ping came back and said that the northern barbarians were coming fast, so he asked him to lead the speedboat first, occupying the dock and seizing the floating bridge was the most important thing. Haha, this black-faced man is not stupid at all, he actually knows the key points.
Zhao Yulin said that he didn't know how to dispatch the navy, so he asked him to lead the clipper and gave him all the selected experts to take away.
Zhou Ping refused to do it. How could a commander serve as a vanguard? It was too risky. If anything happened to the young master, he could not afford to compensate even a hundred of them.
Hu Yidao glared at Zhou Ping and said, "What will happen if I am here? Don't be afraid, my dear son-in-law."
Zhao Yulin said it was already late, no need to discuss, Zhou Ping led the navy to quickly seize the dock pontoon. The vanguard troops landed 20 miles away from Xiangyang, and they would climb Xiangyang City at dawn tomorrow as the messenger said.
Zhou Ping went to make the arrangements helplessly.
Zhao Yulin smiled and said, "Why are you discouraged? Let's get down to business. The purpose of our coming here is to defend Xiangyang City. We have to work hard no matter what we do."
He walked into the cabin and asked to prepare to change to a speedboat.
Hu Yidao asked him excitedly: Do you really want to climb the wall? This is going to be interesting.
Zhao Yulin said with a serious expression: Today, Xiangyang City can be regarded as being in the hands of the Mongolian army. The rebels have strengthened the guarding of the city gates, and there are also barbicans outside those city gates for protection. It will definitely be difficult to launch a head-on attack.
Of course Hu Yidao understood what he meant, so he could only ask experts to climb the wall and try to break through the city gate with the help of both inside and outside forces.
However, Xiangyang City had a solid wall nearly ten meters high, on which horses could run. Hu Yidao counted on his fingers, and the number of people he could climb up the wall, including himself, was no more than three.
Zhao Yulin raised his right hand and said, "With him, there are four of us, and we will definitely be able to break into Xiangyang City."
Hu Yidao was delighted, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Great! Brothers fight together in war, fathers and sons fight together in battle. Let's go up and kill them happily like chopping melons and vegetables. It will definitely be a good story."
Zhao Yulin took a speedboat for a while and went ashore at a river bend beside the Han River. The group quickly disappeared into the wild mountains and wilderness.
The leader of this small team is called Yi Shuigui. His brothers call him water ghost, so he must be very good at swimming.
He reported to Zhao Yulin that Xiangyang City was 20 miles ahead. The brothers would definitely fight to the death to protect the Third Young Master .
Zhao Yulin said it doesn’t matter whether we live or die, we must all stay alive, so let’s go.
This small team of less than 100 people immediately deployed in battle formation and searched forward. After walking about ten miles, the pathfinder team caught two fishermen. The guards saw that the two men were big and strong, which was not like the fish at all. They grabbed the fishing rods and found that there was no hook on them.
Hu Yidao was even more of an old hand. He walked up to them and told them they were clearly spies. If they didn't tell the truth, he would tie them up and throw them into the river. He also tied their hands and feet into knots with thin hemp ropes. Since the thieves knew how to swim, he found two wooden sticks to block their nostrils.
The two fishermen felt like they had encountered a living devil after hearing Hu Yidao's vicious tricks. Their legs began to tremble and they quickly confessed that they were sent by the city to lookout. After two hours, a group of three people saw the fleet of the Shenwei Army coming down, and one of them had already gone back to report the news.
Zhao Yulin said expressionlessly that the military situation was urgent and that he could not take the prisoners away, but that the secret must be kept. The water ghost immediately ordered the two men to be stripped of their clothes, their necks broken and buried.
After dealing with the scout, everyone continued to move forward, but their progress became slower and slower.
The battle between the navy and the rebels could be heard from afar, with shouts and explosions one after another. The navy of the Xiangyang rebels was not weak in strength, but it was far inferior to Zhou Ping's team, and most of them followed Zhao Fan to Jingmen.
When Zhao Yulin and his men arrived, the Shenwei Army's navy had already broken through the rebel defense line and rushed over like a flood.
By the time Zhao Yulin and his men reached a village outside Xiangyang City, the Han River north of the city and the docks on the shore were already in chaos.
Zhou Ping is just a fool. Once he is given a target, he will do it to death.
He hurried to the foot of Xiangyang city and saw from afar that the Mongolian army had occupied the dock on the opposite bank and some soldiers had already lined up on the pontoon bridge. He was so anxious that he launched a charge regardless of the consequences and used his warships to knock down the pontoon bridge.
The Shenwei Army suddenly arrived and stopped the Mongolian army on the north bank of the Han River. Li Boyuan in the city was so angry that he stomped his feet on the city wall and ordered catapults to bombard Zhou Ping's fleet like crazy.
Zhou Ping turned a blind eye to the attack from the city. There were catapults on the large ship behind him to deal with the enemies on the city. He commanded the Marines to move forward and began to storm the dock on the opposite bank.
The navy of the Shenwei Army is different from the general navy in its organization. It is an independent unit specially organized for shore combat, the earliest marine corps.
There were two or three new-style catapults mounted horizontally on the navy's large ships. They had fierce firepower. When they fired a salvo, the splitting bombs were like hail. After covering the dock with firepower and extending the attack, the Marine Corps' speedboats headed straight for the dock.
After an incense stick of time had passed, Zhou Ping stood on the dock on the opposite bank and called on his brothers to quickly expand the results of the battle, seize favorable terrain and consolidate their positions.
After interrogating the prisoners, we learned that the Mongolian army's vanguard was about 20 miles behind, and there were only a thousand scouts here. It was a close call.
The navy immediately deployed to block the river, and the marines quickly landed and established defenses.
Hu Bili knew that the navy of the Shenwei Army had arrived, and he stood still on his horse. In half an hour at most, he could stand on the top of the city wall of Xiangyang.
Damn it, take it back for me, he ordered angrily.
Five thousand Mongolian cavalrymen rushed past him.
Hubili hurriedly reported to Tachaer, asking for reinforcements and urging the army to fight a joint battle in Xiangyang.
At this time, after receiving the news that the rear guard had arrived in Nanyang, Tachaer had already led the central army south. When he heard that the vanguard of the Shenwei Army had also arrived in Xiangyang, he regretted his slow action. He felt like the fat meat in his mouth was gone and the cooked duck was about to fly away. He immediately drove the troops to speed up the march.
In this way, the Mongolian army had an overwhelming advantage of 50,000 soldiers and horses on the front line of Xiangyang, not including the 20,000 soldiers and horses that had already joined them in the city.
The small village where Zhao Yulin rested was actually just a courtyard with a few thatched houses. The people had already run away when they saw the war break out.
He was thinking in the yard when the water ghost came in to report that the brothers on guard had discovered that the navy coming down from upstream was going ashore with the intention of attacking the west gate.
Zhao Yulin said that we are too close here and will be exposed soon, so we should continue to move south.
He asked Shuigui to send two people to find Zhou Ping and tell Commander Zhou that the current focus was to block the Mongolian army. Only two thousand troops should be left on the south bank to guard against sneak attacks by the enemy.
But Zhao Yulin thought that the Mongolian army had already arrived and would try desperately to seize the dock and enter the city. In this case, Zhou Ping's troops would be seriously insufficient.
The team immediately moved south and entered a river bend in the wilderness. The water ghost smiled and said that no one would come to fight this time, so they could sleep in the open air.
Zhao Yulin said that we must not be careless and asked us to strengthen the vigilance and let's take a rest.
Hu Yidao said cheerfully that he was an old man and still had to sit in the wild, come on, let's lean on each other and keep warm.
The old man came over and sat on the ground with his back to back and took a nap.
Zhao Yulin thanked his father-in-law for taking care of him and fell asleep peacefully.
The old man said that most of his life has passed, and this world still needs my brother's Divine Mighty Army to protect it. I will definitely keep my son-in-law safe.
Zhao Yulin stopped talking, shook his body gently in response, and soon he began to snore.
Before nightfall, Hubili's vanguard, 5,000 cavalrymen, rushed up to confront Zhou Ping, but failed to charge repeatedly and returned. These light cavalrymen had to rush to the front of the position to shoot arrows to be lethal. Zhou Ping would definitely not sit and wait for them to shoot. He had already arranged the fleet's artillery fire plan to set up positions and carry out long-range strikes under the coordination and command of the flag bearer.
Before the Mongolian cavalry could even see the dock, they were bombed by shrapnel, incendiary bombs and lime bombs thrown from the Han River.
When they saw the dock, they were attacked by mortars again. Because the road was narrow, the shells fell on the assault surface like hail. The Mongolian cavalry suffered heavy losses, and the light cavalry that actually rushed to the Shenwei Army's position were sparse.
The Shenwei Army used the sacks and carts on the dock to quickly build three fortifications and organized cross-fire cover. The Mongolian army fought fiercely again and again to no avail. They retreated very reluctantly. After being escorted out of the country by catapults, a group of them lay on the ground and went to report to Hubili in embarrassment.
It was getting dark. Zhao Yulin had a nap and felt that his father-in-law was still awake. They talked about exercising and walked around the camp together.
The water ghost came up to report that he had sent people to scout the route and brought three mortars . He had already calculated that when the time came, he would bombard both ends of the city wall to block the enemy reinforcements.
Zhao Yulin nodded and asked him how many people could climb up with bare hands?
The water ghost blushed and said that they were fine with diving, but they dared not compete with the young master in climbing the wall. The wall was thirty or four meters high, and no one, including him, could climb up the wall only with the help of a rope.
Zhao Yulin said that in the future our Shenwei Army should discover more such capable people, as they will be useful at critical moments.
He invited his father-in-law to come over for discussion, and later he and Hu Yidao would go up first to open up the battlefield, kill the guards, and then cover the brothers below to climb the wall together.
