Lord of the House

It has been twenty-two days since the news of Huangtian Village's gain and loss reached Mindong.

In late October, Mindong still doesn't feel the depth of autumn, and the distant mountains on the north bank of the Minjiang River are lush and endless.

The fire of war on Nantai Island has not been completely extinguished, and clusters of black smoke rose up, obscuring the sky.

It has been two days since Nantai Island was taken, and there are still three or five disabled soldiers on the island who refuse to disarm. A group of soldiers rushed down the pier from the warship and entered Nantai Island. The soldiers and civilians were using ropes to remove obstacles such as sunken ships and hidden piles in the middle of the river...

Nantai Island is the gateway to the east of Jin'an City. The Minjiang River bypasses Jin'an City to the south, and the river water is divided into two branches, the north and the south, into the sea. The southern branch is wide and shallow, and the water is turbid, known as the Wulong River; the northern branch is narrow, about 80 feet wide, and the water is deep.

Nantai Island is just across the entrance into the Minjiang River, and the luxury family is building a fortress and garrisoning troops. It is the screen of the southeast of Jin'an City.

In the northern and southern branches of the river, the burned or sunk warships or half of the hulls are exposed to the water, or only the high masts are spent alone. The blood-stained river surface has been washed away by the upstream water and becomes clear again. The water plants on the shore are still entangled with the bodies of the generals of both sides, and the number of soldiers and battle armors sunk at the bottom of the river is even more numerous.

The war in East Fujian, which kicked off at the end of September, was the most intense battle on Nantai Island. Three thousand enemies were wiped out. She family was unwilling to give up Jin'an Mansion and this ancestral land that had been rooted for more than two hundred years.

In order to defend Jin'an Mansion, the She family was able to select enough dead soldiers, which also pushed the Huaidong Army to Jin'an City, and the resistance increased suddenly.

In the battle of Nantai Island, the Huaidong Army's First Water Battalion and the Quanzhou Army also suffered nearly 3,000 casualties. In addition, the number of casualties in Fuxing'an, Xiapu, Luoyuan, Jiaocheng and other places had not been added together, which indicates that the next fight against Jin'an will also be a tough battle with no low casualties.

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Jin'an City is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and is located in the estuary basin of the Minjiang River.

The lower reaches of the Minjiang River is the topography of the Estuary Basin, with Beifeng Mountain to the north, Gushan Mountain to the east, Qishan Mountain to the west, Gaogai Mountain and Wuhu Mountain to the north and south, and the Minjiang River passes through the basin.

Jin'an City was built on the north of the Minjiang River. After October, the defenders also retreated to the north bank of the Minjiang River. Therefore, Huaidong wanted to attack Jin'an City. Minjiang is in control.

After the capture of Nantai Island, the remnants of the Nantai Island navy of the Zhejiang-Fujian Army withdrew to the west and did not enter Jin'an City through the water gate. waterway.

Lin Bie stood on the deck of the aft cabin of the "Lin Zhengjun" and looked at Jin'an City in the distance.

Eight surnames entered Fujian, that is, Jin'an City was built. Over the past two hundred years, it has been built and repaired many times. Today's Jin'an City is as majestic as a mountain, and it is integrated with Shoushan and Beifeng in the northwest.

"The She family hid their troops in ambush in the deep valley, lost Huangtian Village first, lured the Anhui Southern Army to the south, and then ambushed and recaptured Huangtian Village," Gao Zongting took a copy of paper and said, "It seems that the Huinan Army has already Trapped in a luxury home..."

"When is the news?" Lin Bie asked.

"Huangtian Village fell on the 16th, and the news came through Mingzhou on the 18th..." Gao Zongting said.

"Six days have passed!" Lin Bie sighed softly and said, "Then we can't get involved at all. Well, we'll concentrate on hitting our..."

Up until now, with so many resources invested in East Mindong, Jin'an Mansion must be taken down.

Winning Jin'an Prefecture will not only shake the morale of the Zhejiang and Fujian troops and block the Zhejiang and Fujian troops in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River, but also ensure that only a small amount is needed in the coastal prefectures and counties in eastern and southern Fujian such as Xiapu, Quanzhou, Luoyuan, and Jiaocheng. The garrison can be firmly controlled in Huaidong's hands.

Jin'an Mansion cannot be defeated, Huaidong wants to occupy Xiapu, Quanzhou and other places, and needs to invest twice as much as the enemy rather than more troops. This situation is definitely not what Lin Fu and Huaidong people want to see. Maybe Huaidong also collapsed because of it.

What Huaidong had to face was not only an extravagant enemy.

After Lin Fu decided, Ye Junan, Song Fu, Zhao Qingshan, Zhou Tong, Song Yi, Song Bo and others all had different expressions, but they all responded in unison: "Follow your orders..."

"Immediately, Song Yi led the Quanzhou army to the west along the southern bank of the Minjiang River, and he must take Zhuqi before attacking the city. Zuo Shiying led the battalion in eastern Zhejiang to go west by boat, seize Jingxi on the north bank, and seize Jingxi, Zhuqi two places can block the Zhejiang-Fujian army Jian'an troops and horses from advancing eastward along the Minjiang River, approaching Jin'an City from the south, and Zhou Tong is in charge, if you have nothing else, go down and prepare!" Lin Fu Go ahead according to the plan you made earlier.

Jingxi and Zhuqi are the west mouths of the Mindong Estuary Basin. There are flat grounds on both sides of the river. After passing through Zhuqi, go to Jiashan on both sides of the West Minjiang River. Except for the Minjiang waterway, large groups of troops and horses cannot enter Minjiang by land. River Mouth Basin.

Even if Jin'an City were successfully captured, Zhuqi and Jingxi would be the key points and points of defense in the future.

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Zhou Tong, Song Yi, and Zuo Shiguang led their troops westward, and Lin Fu did not land on Nantai Island with the army until the third day.

Going westward along the north bank of Nantai Island, to the west end of Nantai Island, you will be across the river from Jin'an City and the western foot of Gushan Mountain. The Bailongjiang waterway here is even less than 700 feet wide.

After the fall, the climate in eastern Fujian is not yet cold, and the vegetation has not withered, but there is an obvious change that the water level of the Minjiang River has become shallower.

According to reliable information, there are less than 15,000 defenders retreating to Jin'an City on the north bank of the Minjiang River and the Qishan and Beifeng Mountains. occupy an absolute advantage.

But the next fortress is to attack the first fortified city in East Fujian, and the advantage of troops is not so obvious.

The Huaidong Army's sentinels landed from the north bank. Since the Gushan Mountain in the east of Jin'an City is far away from Jin'an City, there are large tracts of farmland in the middle, covering hundreds of thousands of acres. It is easy for the Huai'an Army to cut in. The defenders of the army in Gushan retreated westward into the city.

When Lin Fu landed from Nantai Island, the defenders could no longer be seen in the east of Jin'an City, and they all retreated into the city.

After the defenders were annihilated, the people of East Fujian could not be seen on Nantai Island, and they were all evacuated to the luxury family. Large tracts of farmland were deserted there. Surrounded by people, they headed west along the shore of the island.

Yingying is setting up two trestle bridges between the western end of Nantai Island and the western foot of Gushan Mountain. Camps must be built to defend the north and south of the trestle, but the main force will continue to approach the Jin'an River and set up camps to besiege.

Zhou Pu, the commander-in-chief of the siege, came over and said: "Qishan and Beifengshan have sent people to touch it twice, it is too high and too dangerous, and the She family's general fortress is built on the pass, so we can only honestly attack Jin. Ancheng..."

Lin Fu looked at Song Fu to see if he had any good ideas.

Jin'an City is almost next to Qishan and Beifeng Mountain, with peaks and peaks and Qianfeng Dicui in the northwest. If you want to encircle the Jin'an defenders, you must first take down several dangerous villages in Qishan and Beifeng Mountain. Cut off the possibility of the defenders escaping along the valley road between Beifeng Mountain and Qishan Mountain.

Song Fu shook his head. Shewenzhuang wanted to drag the main force of Huaidong troops and horses in East Fujian for a longer time. The last 10,000 defenders in Jin'an City should be loyal to the She family, and the family members should evacuate first. The eight Fujian war pawns, but obviously Shewenzhuang could not allow these 15,000 elites to be wiped out in Jinan City.

If the fortresses of Qishan and Beifengshan could not be captured, the Huaidong Army wanted to cut off the possibility of the Jin'an defenders fleeing to the northwest, and they had to send a small group of elites to sneak into the deep mountains and valleys to the northwest of Beifengshan and Qishan to intercept them.

Obviously, Shewenzhuang should also be prepared for this, and will not let Huaidong take too much advantage.

Song Fudu, who was most familiar with Mindong, had no good strategy, so he could only fight the siege honestly, Lin Fu nodded to Zhou Tong: "Then fight honestly, prepare those many fires. Oil tanks, catapults, you can't waste your time..."

Jin'an City is the root of the Bamin war pawns, and the defenders who stay behind Jin'an City are sad soldiers and dead soldiers.

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Twenty miles around Jin'an City, even if 30,000 soldiers and horses from Huaidong crossed the river from the east and south, they would not be able to surround the two walls with men and horses.

Zhou Tong sent people to block the gate of the city where the defenders were attacking, sent elite soldiers and horses to watch, and then used brigades and forced civilians to quickly dig trenches and set up camps behind. It only took two days to build a series of fortresses in the east and south of Jin'an City, and make preparations before attacking the city. It was so fast and efficient that the defenders at the head of Jin'an City were shocked.

East Fujian is rainy, and the springs are dense. Jin'an City is built of bricks and stones.

Taking the mound of earth and connecting it with the city to form a siege road is also a common method of siege, but it requires a lot of time and manpower. The sooner Jin'an City is captured, the more Huaidong will be able to seize the initiative in the entire battle situation, and there will be no time to waste here.

You can only use the usual means to siege the city honestly.

Although the Jin'an city wall is tall, it is an old-fashioned single-style city wall with only a moat on the outside.

When Huaidong built a large city in the Xusi area, the luxury family had enough financial resources to carry out large-scale renovation of Jin'anxiong City, which was more than 20 miles away in Zhou. Some.

War is always cruel. Huaidong has 30,000 soldiers and 10,000 soldiers in Jin'an City, and more than 40,000 civilians from Xiapu, Quanzhou, Luoyuan and other places.

80,000 horses piled up under the city and built camps. In two days, they also borrowed soil and filled trenches to fill in more than a dozen passages for the moat, which was seven or eight zhang wide outside Jin'an City.

The soldiers and civilians approached the base of the city wall under the cover of cave houses, veils, and half-cut boats.

The defenders smashed down the rolling stones and the wood from the top of the city. No matter how sturdy the cave car, the curtain, and the half-cut boat are, it is difficult to resist the repeated smashing of big rocks and giant trees. There are constantly smashed and smashed cave houses and carts, covering the civilians and soldiers under them, or being shot by arrows, smashed to death, or scalded and burned by the poured kerosene, and mourning is everywhere.

On the other side, Zhou Tong deployed a large number of nest vehicles, strong bows and scorpion crossbows, as well as a large number of counterweight catapults under the city, covering the southeast corner of the city wall, suppressing the defenders at the city head. , the cover soldiers took the ladder near the ants attached to the city.

The Zhejiang and Fujian troops also had a large number of stone throwing crossbows and other crossbow equipment in the city, and they did not show weakness.

Wangshao Yuntai has been erected to a height of 20 feet, and can see the situation in the city at a glance. Lin Fu went up to see it himself, and after coming down, he said to Song Fu and others: "In addition to the ten thousand defenders in the city, the extravagant family The people in the city are almost evacuated. This is good news and bad news. Immediately organize craftsmen to cut wood and build more catapults - the defenders' catapults are still old-fashioned. expand."

In addition to the scorpion crossbow, the stone-throwing crossbow used by Huaidong is a counterweight type. There is a large iron ball at the tail of the crossbow. Using the momentum of the falling of the large iron ball, the stone ball is launched, and a dozen people can operate a heavy-duty crossbow. Catapult. However, the old catapults use only human or animal power to pull and exert force, and a heavy catapult often requires dozens or even hundreds of people to operate.

Defending a city and attacking a city is not entirely a matter of generals. A city can be called a real heroic city only if the people are organized into a crowd.

Huaidong built 100 heavy-duty catapults, which only required one or two thousand people to operate. Since the She family has withdrawn the soldiers and civilians from the city first, even if a hundred heavy catapults are built, even if the advantages of counterweight catapults in terms of accuracy and ease of operation are not considered, there will not be enough in Jin'an City. manual operation.

The small number of civilians left by the She family in the city also helped to use stone and wood arrows to reach the city head, and even directly assist the defenders in battle.

She family does not have too many people in Jin'an City, and it can also be seen that the luxury family's population resources are in short supply.

In the end, Jin'an City did not defend, and the defenders abandoned their luggage and could withdraw from the northwest. The people were in a mess and could not be withdrawn with the army. She family was obviously reluctant to leave too many small mouths for Huaidong.

Before the East Fujian War, the population of the eight prefectures in East Fujian was about 3 million, and the population of Zhili in Jinan was as high as 800,000.

Even if the entire population of Dongmin was under the control of the luxury family, the adult Ding Zhuang would still be less than one million. After years of brutal wars, Ding Zhuang, who was directly lost by the war in Dongmin, was not far behind even if he didn't have 200,000.

At this point, in addition to grain fields, Dingkou has also become a scarce resource for luxury families.

Even if Huaidong did not disturb the coast of eastern Fujian in the later period, the luxury family would face the dilemma of deserted grain fields and unable to fully cultivate due to the shortage of labor.

The luxury family gave up the east and south of Fujian, and moved the generals, people and materials inward, but there were also a considerable number of people who were nostalgic for their homeland and refused to move westward.

Quanzhou and the 300,000 dingkou under Quanzhou Prefecture are naturally all attached to Huaidong, including the prefectures in southern Fujian and the three counties in northeastern Fujian. The new dingkou in Huaidong is about one million.

After the She family lost Jin'an Mansion, the people who actually moved inward to the upper reaches of East Fujian, together with the aborigines of Jian'an Mansion, probably would not exceed one million. What is even more troublesome for the luxury family is that the grain fields in the upper reaches of Fujian can only barely hold one million people, and the maintenance of its tens of thousands of troops depends on its war plundering from Jiangxi and other places.

Not to mention other things, only the Mindong River Mouth Basin around Jin'an City, Qishan, Gushan, Beifeng Mountain and Wuhu Mountain has two million acres of grain fields. what a pain.

Huaidong had prepared a large number of ordnance accessories before the war. Once he decided to build a large catapult, he would pull up the craftsmen and cut wood for materials, and he would be able to build sixty or seventy a day under the city.

The supply of stone bombs is not in a hurry. The kilns are sintered, and the mud brick bombs are thrown. The shape is more round than stone bombs.

In this way, for several days, most of the crenels at the head of Jin'an City were broken, and two large gaps in the South City were smashed. Although the defenders were asked to fill the gaps with wooden fences in time, they were also called the defenders in the past few days. Heavy casualties.

Next, Huaidong soldiers and horses strengthened their ant-attached siege efforts, using strong armor and sharp blades and thick kerosene shields to forcibly compete with the defenders at the front of the city one foot by one.

It was not until November 5th that the Zhejiang and Fujian troops finally showed their weakness, and the 6,000 defenders retreated directly from the cloud bridge at the head of the northern city wall to the western foot of Beifeng Mountain. The Beicheng Gate, which was directly connected to Beifeng Mountain, was blocked, and it was impossible to go out of the city to hunt down the fleeing soldiers for a while.

Counting the nearly 1,000 wounded soldiers in the city who abandoned their weapons and surrendered, Huaidong wiped out 7,000 enemies in this battle, and his own casualties were nearly 5,000. Counting the casualties of the soldiers and civilians, they even far exceeded the defenders. Terrible exception.

But as long as Jin'an City is successfully captured, Lin Fu can bear the doubled casualties.

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On the fifth day and night, before the remaining enemies in the city were cleared, Lin Fu couldn't wait to enter Jin'an City. He had to urgently arrange everything here and immediately lead the main force of Huaidong troops to return north.

New bad news kept coming from Mingzhou. Shewenzhuang assembled 30,000 elites in Tongziwu on the 23rd, and attacked Yuyan day and night~www.wuxiaspot.com~ The general of the southern Huizhou army urged to die in fierce battle, Yu Shizhai fell on the 28th, Shewenzhuang marched north without stopping, Deng Yu had to stop attacking Huangtianzhai, and personally supervised the Feihuang Mountain, and fought hard with the Zhejiang and Fujian troops in the narrow terrain of Feihuang Mountain. .

Huangtianzhai was once again lost. Although the news was revealed to Huaidong, the slap slapped the Yuyingjun in the face, and also slapped Emperor Yongxing in the face.

Jiangning refused to believe that Xie Chaozhong's 30,000 imperial battalions could not defend Yuling Pass, and only blindly urged Huaidong's troops in eastern Zhejiang to attack Dongyang and Hanghu troops to attack Tonglu, in the hope that Huaidong and Hanghu troops could have a way They broke through the eastern front in western Zhejiang and relieved the siege of the southern Hui army, but they refused to withdraw the main force of the Hanghu army to defend Ningguo.

In addition to gathering 30,000 elites in the Daqingxi River Valley to the north of Tongziwu, the She family also has 20,000 elites in Dongyang, Lanxi, and Quzhou to block Huaidong's troops and horses in eastern Zhejiang, and there are more than 10,000 elites in Tonglu and Chun'an. Intercept Hanghu Army.

At the same time, in central Jiangxi, from mid-October, She Feixiong had the purpose of abandoning the outer city of Yuzhang and concentrating his forces.

Although the city outside Yuzhang may be taken away from Yue Lengqiu's Jiangzhou in a short period of time, as long as Yuzhang is defended, it cannot change the fundamental situation of Jiangxi, and She Feixiong can gather the elites, except to firmly guard Yuzhang. In addition, troops should be sent westward along the Xinjiang River to support the war in western Zhejiang.

Obviously, the luxury family is more and more confident to make a big gap from Huizhou and directly attack Jiangning City.

Yue Lengqiu also realized the danger in Jiangzhou, decisively gave up the army Yuzhang, and withdrew his troops back to Jiangzhou, but he could not take further action in Jiangzhou.

Although there is no further news, the Huinan Army may be destroyed or surrendered at any time, even if the news of the fall of Yuling Pass has come across the sea, Lin Fu will not be surprised. My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter