Qin Official

At the end of the sixth lunar month in the lunar calendar, on the sea east of the Yangtze River, Wei Yang, Heifu's nephew and Captain of Louchuan, stared at the Xiangfeng Bronze Bird above his head.

I saw it rotating rapidly without direction, and looking towards the boundless sea to the east. The layers of dark clouds seemed to indicate that a big storm was coming...

The sound of shoes squeaking on the deck came. The captain of the ship came, a young military officer named Luo Yu. The sea breeze roughened his skin, and the sun also tanned his skin. The family is generally dark.

Luo Yu raised his hand to Wei Yang and said, "Captain, the vanguard has been ordered by the Commander to block the Guangling and Dantu rivers for dozens of miles with ten tower ships and dozens of stern ships. There must be no one in Jiangxi." Cross over to Jiangdong!"

Wei Yang nodded. When they were in Jiaodong a few years ago, Luo Yu was a member of the small fleet led by Wei Yang. Together they learned the art of holding stars and waiting for the wind from Xu Fu, and explored the Haidong Waterway together. However, Luo Yu's boat was unfortunately blown away by the sea wind. Fortunately, he was lucky enough to land in Sanhan and survived, and was later rescued by Wei Yang...

In Hepu in January this year, under the secret order of Heifu, Weiyang and Xu Fu launched a mutiny, put Ren Xiao under house arrest, accepted the command of the Nanhai Navy, and carried out a purge of the captains. Luo Yu was his strongest supporter. , although there were still a few ships loyal to the imperial court and loyal to Ren Xiao who fled south, most of the warships had to be controlled by Wei Yang.

After Heifu raised his army, Wei Yang immediately took the fleet back to Panyu, and divided the fleet into two, anchoring in Dongye (Fuzhou, Fujian) and Dongou (Wenzhou, Zhejiang).

In May, they received an order from Heifu, requiring the boat division to immediately go north to Jiangdong to assist Captain Wu Rui in capturing Jiangdong.

Although there were many storms on the sea in May and June, Weiyang still took the risk and set off. Fortunately, he did not encounter a major typhoon and only lost a few ships and hundreds of people. He arrived at the sea of ​​Jiangdong without any danger.

Jiangdong is no stranger to this rainy and humid land. Two years ago, the fleet that was named "East China Sea Navigator" used Jiangdong to go to South Vietnam.

Jiangdong and Jiangxi are separated by a river. Because the Yangtze River is within its territory and flows diagonally to the northeast, this section of the river is used as a standard to determine the east, west, and left sides. Jiangdong was divided into Kuaiji County and Zhang County. Kuaiji included later southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and governed more than 20 counties. It was surrounded by the sea in the east and the river in the north. There were fish, salt, rice, and crabs. Heifu wanted to take advantage of the Louchuan division of the Northern Expedition to seize this place. As a rear area, he could also prevent the "Chu State" from restoring Huainan from becoming powerful.

A few days ago, after leaving Dongou, the navy first attacked Huipu, Yuhang and other seaports in the south of Kuaiji. In cooperation with the troops of Qianyue, Minyue and Dongou led by Wu Rui, a total of 10,000 troops were captured in Zhejiang Province. Eastern counties.

The whole process was surprisingly smooth, and the local government had little room for resistance.

On the one hand, it is difficult to guard against a sea raid, and Wu Rui has tens of thousands of Yue soldiers under his command. Generally, small counties only have a few hundred county soldiers, making it difficult to stop them.

On the other hand, the southern part of Kuaiji was originally the center of the ancient Yue Kingdom. Although Yue was destroyed by Chu a hundred years ago, the south of Zhejiang (Qiantang River) was still under the jurisdiction of a group of Yue kings.

Qin has destroyed Chu. Although the feudal lordship of Yue has been revoked and counties have been established instead, 99% of the local residents are Yue people, not Qin people or Chu people. The Yue nobles were reduced to third-class citizens and had endured it for many years. Now that Wu Rui has returned with a group of Yue people, they naturally responded positively...

After witnessing the bravery of the Yue people in fighting barefoot, Wei Yang understood why Zhongfu dared to attack a large county with ten thousand men, so he made an agreement with Wu Rui to join forces with Wu County before the first day of July.

Although the name of the county is Kuaiji, the county seat is not in the south of Zhejiang, but in Gusu (Suzhou, Jiangsu), the former capital of the Wu Kingdom.

The current location of the fleet is roughly equivalent to Pudong, Shanghai in later generations. Of course, it is still soaking in the sea.

Knowing the importance of this task, Wei Yang did not dare to be careless at all. Seeing the clouds on the east sea getting thicker and thicker, he said:

"The storm is coming. I'm afraid we won't be able to wait until the land division arrives. Since the vanguard has blocked the river to prevent the Jiangxi Chu bandits from crossing, we have to leave too!"

Although Wuxian County is not near the sea, there is a thoroughfare that allows the building ships to attack the city unimpeded: to the west of the fleet, there is a surging river with a width of ten miles, rushing into the sea, and the widest part of the river mouth is trumpet-shaped, which is actually 20 miles. wide……

Looking at this size, Luo Yu thought it was the Yangtze River before, but Wei Yang corrected this wrong judgment.

"This is the Wusong River, which leads directly to Zhenze and leads troops to Wuxian County! Raise the flag and tell the ships to sail west and enter the Wusong River to avoid wind and waves!"

On Weiyang's order, a huge fleet slowly sailed into the river. Both sides were covered with grass and reeds, with cranes and cranes chirping, full of desolate and barbaric atmosphere, just like the Wuyue people of this era, giving people the impression He was a man with bare feet and tattoos, who would draw a sword whenever he disagreed with someone, either stabbing others or himself. He was far from the scholarly and delicate figure of the Xiaoqiaoliushui family of later generations.

They drove on the broad Wusong River for a day and entered a lake as vast as the sea, which was Zhenze.

At this point, they had entered the hinterland of the Wu army. The water network here was intertwined. The locals used boats as horses. Even when they went out to farm, they drove a bamboo raft. When they saw the huge fleet in the distance, they did not run away, but abandoned the boat. I ran to a high place on the shore, looked at it from a distance, and gave directions with great interest.

Luo Yu scolded: "The people of Wu and Yue are so bold. They want to put them in the Central Plains. When they see us, they will have disappeared long ago."

"They feel that no matter who fights with whom, it has nothing to do with them. Deep down, these people still don't think they are people from Qin or Chu, but people from Wuyue."

Wei Yang kept his gaze on the east coast of Zhenze. When the fleet passed a bay, he pointed into the distance and said, "Wuxian County is here!"

When Luo Yu saw it, he couldn't help but cursed: "It's so big!"

But no, there is indeed a huge city a few miles away from Zhenze. Its west wall alone is six or seven miles long. The entire city has a circumference of nearly forty miles, and there is also a small city nested in the north. The circumference is more than ten miles...

"Jimo is only half the size of it." Luo Yu was stunned. He was from Jiaodong. He originally thought that Jiangdong was a barbaric place of Wu and Yue, but he never thought that Wu County could be so grand.

Wei Yang smiled and said: "Master Xu (Xu Fu) said that in the Spring and Autumn Period, King Helu of Wu had defeated Chu and dominated the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, so he entrusted Wu Zixu with a plan to make him resemble the earth and water, like the sky and the earth, and build a small city around it. Ten miles later, King Wu Fu Chai built a big city outside the small city, which was four miles away."

"Ten years later, King Gou Jian of Yue destroyed Wu and made Gusu his capital and the southern capital of Vietnam. By the time of King Chun Shen of Chu, he had been running this place for more than ten years. Today's Wu County can be called a city in the southeast. The city gate alone , there are eight of them.”

Wei Yang had been to Wu County twice with Ren Xiao. At this moment, he unfolded the map Xu Fu gave him, pointed to the tower in the distance where soldiers were standing, and said: "This is Panmen (Suzhou Panmen) in the southwest. It is land and water. They are half-way apart, curved along the path, and the two gates are juxtaposed."

He also heard what Xu Fu said, "The Kingdom of Wu was in the Chen position, so a Panmen was set up in the south of the city. A wooden dragon was carved on the city, facing the Yue Kingdom, symbolizing Wu's conquest of the Yue Kingdom."

But the funny thing is that no matter how big the city is and no matter how good the gates are, Wu was eventually destroyed by Yue, Yue died by Chu, and Chu also died by Qin. The flags planted at the top of the city have been changed several times, but now, the flagpole of the governor and Cheng of Qin Kuaiji still firmly occupies the city tower. At this moment, the city gates are tightly closed and the city is hurriedly preparing for war.

Luo Yu looked troubled: "Captain, I'm afraid it won't be easy to defeat such a big city with just the boat masters."

Wei Yang smiled and said: "Do you know why Yue defeated Wu and Chu destroyed Wu? Or why Wang Jian conquered Jiangdong. Although Yue, Wu and Chu had the strong city of Gusu, they did not hold it for long?"

Especially Gou Jian's first sneak attack on Gusu. After winning the battle outside the city, he easily entered the city without any effort.

"Why?" Luo Yu expressed confusion. It seemed that the city was made of stone and earth. It was extremely strong and difficult to overcome.

Wei Yang laughed and said, "Nothing else. It's just that King Wu Fu Chai was too arrogant and wasted the people's energy. He built the city too big, but forgot that his country was vast and sparsely populated. When he defended the city, he even occupied the four walls of the city. Dissatisfied. It seems to be impregnable, but in fact it is leaking everywhere. You are focusing on one thing but not the other. Therefore, it is easy to destroy the city, but difficult to defend it!"

He pointed to the city tower to the west and said: "That is the Xu Gate to the west, which is also the Water Gate. There is the Xu River connecting Zhenze. It is the weak point of Gusu. Half a month ago, we attacked the counties in the south of Zhejiang. The county captain has led We are sending half of the county troops to Qiantang County to defend against the Vietnamese troops. There will certainly not be many guards in the city, and the Kuaiji County Guards may not dare to mobilize the people. We will camp by the lake! We will test Xumen and Panmen first, and wait for the arrival of friendly troops!"

At this moment, the soldiers who went to conduct reconnaissance reported back: "Captain, the guards took two people to Panmen, as if they were going to execute them at the top of the city!"

…

At the same time, at the head of Wu County City, Yan Qing, the governor of Kuaiji County, stood at Panmen and looked out. He saw that the green water of Zhenze in the distance was occupied by huge sailboats. This ship came from thousands of miles away. The fleet is really like falling from the sky.

"The Lingnan rebels have arrived."

Yan Qing found that the surrounding Kuaiji County soldiers were whispering to each other with fear on their faces, so he gritted his teeth and ordered:

"Jun Cheng, bring up those two thieves who secretly defected to the rebels! I will kill them here to strengthen the determination of the soldiers and people of Wu County to defend the city!"

The county magistrate agreed, and inside Panmen, the two prisoners were escorted to the tower.

One of them was still wearing the official uniform of a Qin official, smiling, and seemed fearless. The escorting officials did not dare to refute him. After all, this person was Xu Shu, the county meritorious officer. It is said that he had followed Marquis Wu Zhong in Yuzhang County more than ten years ago. .

Seeing the enemy troops approaching the city, everyone did not have the confidence of the county guard, thinking that they could definitely "defend this land for the Qin Dynasty."

The other is a small official in soap clothes. His hair is messy, his face is ashen, and he walks tremblingly. This man's name was Bo Sheng, and he was Xu Shu's subordinate. He was sent out of the city to deliver a message, and was implicated by him. He was just arrested from a nearby home, and his wife was also detained. Only a pair of children were missing.

Wu County was crowded with people, watching the two men being escorted to the city tower. In the corner of the street, an eighty-nine-year-old boy with a dirty face muttered in tears: "Sister, father... will father be killed..."

Before his voice was loud enough for others to hear, the boy's mouth was covered by a hand.

A girl of thirteen or fourteen years old with a quiet appearance. Although she is a lady, she is wearing the clothes of a gangster in Guizhou and her hair is messed up, like a beggar who is hiding from the chaos in the city.

The girl stood behind her brother and gently covered his mouth. She shed some tears as she watched her father being taken to the execution ground, but she gave her brother an unquestionable order:

"Bo Zhao, shut up!"

…

ps: Chapter 2 is at night. m.