Qin Official

Thirty miles north of Fenlingdu is a rocky river beach with large mountain cliffs on both sides. The locals call it Shimen. There is also a Shimen in Zhongtiao Mountain southwest of Anyi, just like there are many red cliffs on both sides of the Yangtze River. More than a hundred years have passed, and times have changed. Qin Xiangong beheaded 60,000 people, and Qin and Wei were not sure where the Battle of Shimen was fought for the first time.

But this area is really not suitable for crossing water. The surging river is churning with white waves, washing against the knife-like cliffs on both sides, making a deafening sound. There is only a path on the stone beach leading up to it. Let alone crossing, you can just stand on the shore. Looking down will also give people a feeling of dizziness.

Because of this, there is almost no Wei army defense here. They only set up a beacon pavilion every five miles on the high bank, and sent a few rangers to take a look when traveling to Puban...

The guard of the beacon did his job and always kept watch on the sentry tower. However, it was mid-winter, the weather was cold, and the river was foggy. Looking from the west bank, he couldn't see anything clearly on the other side. He stared for a long time, and was blown away by the wind. Shivering, he got off the sentry tower and wanted to drink a bowl of hot soup.

He could not see that, hidden by the mist on the water, an army of six to seven thousand men had been waiting behind the high bank for a long time.

The soldiers of Qin had their backs against the loess and shoulders close together to keep them warmer. Even though they were wearing thick woolen coats and dog-skin hats, their fingers were still slightly red from the cold - because Captain Dong strictly prohibited lighting fires.

Occasionally, low-pitched chatter can be heard, all in the authentic Xihe dialect. These thousands of people are all young men from Xihe. They are the victims of the six-nation coalition's rampage in Xihe a few months ago. They may have served in the old Qin army at that time. , or fled with their families, but there were also cases where the whole family was victimized, and all the women's belongings were stolen by the Six Nations.

In short, when everyone returned to Xihe, they were faced with a ruined home.

They hated Zhao Gao who betrayed Qin, and even more hated those "bandits" from the Six Kingdoms who destroyed their hometown.

The wheel of hatred seems to have turned in a circle. In the past, the people of the Three Jin Dynasties had a ten-generation feud with Qin and were driven to migration and death. Now it is the Qin people's turn to suffer.

Fortunately, the regent loved the people as his own son. Not only did he send the imperial cooks and doctors to come to Xihe, but he also arranged hundreds of plays to express condolences. The performance of "Battle on Xihe" made all the soldiers of Xihe's army furious, and they called for an early war against the Six Kingdoms. One wave after another.

Over the past few months, everyone with vengeful intentions has been intensively trained.

Now, the opportunity for revenge has finally come.

"The Xihe Division, as the vanguard of the Heel Army, will be the first to cross the river!"

When Dong Yi, the eastern captain of Neishi, announced the news, the entire Xihe division was excited. This was a real joy after hearing the battle.

But not everyone was happy. In the end, Dong Yi only selected three thousand people because they were good at water...

Three thousand people were trained under the scenes in Weinan, while the rest pretended to be stationed in Xihe, but in fact moved little by little to Fenglingdu.

The battle was about to begin today. When Dong Yi was patrolling among the soldiers, many people in the follow-up troops asked him to fight.

"Captain, I'm already proficient in swimming! Let me join the army!"

"Me too!"

Although this so-called mastery is nothing more than a few dog scratches.

Dong Yi's face was stern, and he said to these disciples from his hometown who were eager for revenge: "You can't wait half an hour later to reach the east coast. Is it possible that the bandits from the Six Nations can still be killed by the vanguard?"

"That's not necessarily the case." A mature man with a scar on his face said coldly. He was a distant relative of Dong Yi, named Dong Chuan. He was originally a minor official in the army of the old Qin Dynasty. Both his parents died in the Linjin Massacre. Dong Chuan returned After arriving in my hometown, I almost cried to death in front of the ruins of my home that was burned to ashes.

He then politely declined Dong Yi's order to serve as a personal guard, and willingly joined the dead soldier camp, practicing offensive skills all day long. As the first batch of dead soldiers to cross the river, he, like the other eighty people, had already sharpened their swords. The sound is bright.

"Military morale is available."

From beginning to end, as night was approaching, Dong Yi received a total of thousands of requests to join the heel army. He understood that this was the most powerful moment for the people of Xihe...

While people were watching the clocks in the tents to calculate the time, Dong Yi stood on the high bank and looked to the southeast.

At this moment, the feint attacks at Puban and Longmen have begun, which will firmly drag the main force of the Wei army and the reinforcements of the Zhao army there, making it unclear what is happening in the south.

And when night falls, the Fengling Ferry in the distance lights up with bright beacon flames, which is the signal for the start of the Xihe Division's operation!

"The momentum of Han Xin's feint attack is bigger, it is really big enough." Dong Yi thought to himself, and asked people to pass the message to the troops one by one:

"Launch the raft and cross the river!"

Following Dong Yi's order, the three thousand forwards trained in Weinan immediately got up, carried sheepskin rafts one by one to the river, and threw them into the water.

This is the method of crossing water that Liangjiazi in the North learned from the Hu people. The leather bag is made of sheepskin or cowhide. After slaughtering the cow or sheep, use a knife to cut a small opening from the neck, insert a thin tube and blow air into the skin to make the space between the skin and the flesh Create airflow and beat the sheepskin hard, and the sheepskin will separate from the mutton.

Cut off the sheep's head and limbs, then tear the sheepskin down from the head, and the sheepskin will peel off completely. Just tie the holes in the head, limbs and tail tightly, and finally blow air into the skin bag, and the sheepskin will expand. It's a bulging leather bag. This single leather bag can be used by one person to cross a river. If several leather bags are tied together, it can even carry a raft, allowing many people to float across it at the same time without making too much noise.

Three thousand people have been training by the Wei River for a period of time, learning how to blow the bags and how to swim across the water. After a while, they successfully filled their leather bags and hung them one by one on their chests. There were also several leather bags carrying Rafts were used to transport weapons.

The first batch of people to be forcibly crossed were 80 people with the best water quality and eight rafts. Dong Yi made a special trip for them. Each bowl was filled with a cup of the strongest liquor in Xihe. After they took the wine, they drank it in one gulp. All!

Then he didn't throw the bowl, he didn't shout vigorously, he just silently wiped the wine from the corner of his mouth.

The early morning wind is biting and the wind is biting. Anyone standing by the river will shiver a little - either because of the cold or because of fear.

But these eighty people came because they were excited.

"Do you still remember the last scene in "War on the West River"?"

The scarred-faced man Dong Chuan who had just threatened to "kill all the bandits from the Six Nations as soon as we get ashore" suddenly said.

"The thief Xiang was able to escape, and Qin and Guan stood on the river and swore an oath."

"The two of them will pursue Thief Xiang and his accomplices to the end of the world! Let him pay for his crime and pay with his life!"

The roars of the two protagonists in the play have always been remembered in Dong Chuan's heart - they did what he wanted to do, and now it is the Xihe people's turn to tell the story themselves!

"And now, we are going to chase him." He held on to the raft and stepped into the water with one foot.

Everyone was pouring into the water. The river water in winter was freezing cold, but they were driven away by the revenge and anger in their hearts. Even if it was ice water, they had to go over and insert the sharp blade of revenge deeply into the chests of the thieves from the Six Nations.

The rafts tied with leather bags collided with the river waves, rising and falling in the water. Each raft carried ten people. If it were an ordinary small river, it would have passed in a while, but this was a big river, several miles wide, even in the night I can't see clearly how far away the other side is.

Some rafts capsized halfway through the rowing, and the people on them struggled to get out. They were obviously closer to the west shore, but they were ashamed to look back and still struggled to swim to the east shore.

Although after a period of training, the rafts were also equipped with a big river boatman, some rafts rowed smoothly to the middle of the river, some were swept back by the rapids, and some capsized directly, but even the people who fell into the water still held their breath. Ya continued swimming without looking back, cutting through the waves, and swam straight to the other side.

Some had an accident when they docked. Because it was dark and without fire, they could not find the direction and could easily go astray. In the end, they were hit hard by the waves and hit the rocks on the shore. The entire raft was scattered, and some soldiers suffered head injuries. Blood flowed, and he was swept into the water and never showed his head again.

Despite the dangerous process, dozens of people finally reached the shore a few miles downstream. Regardless of their shivering bodies, they crouched and touched the enemy beacon on the high bank.

In the second batch, there were 800 people, and nearly a hundred rafts entered the water. This time the momentum was a bit huge, and the Wei Jun beacon on the east bank finally discovered something was wrong, but just after they lit the beacon and blew the horn, they were stopped by the second batch. A group of Xihe soldiers who landed ashore attacked and killed him.

Countless pairs of feet stamped and kicked, the fire was extinguished by the sand, and the slowly rising smoke may be very conspicuous in the daytime, but no one can distinguish it in the night sky, and the fleeting light just now is far less than the seal. Thousands of people in Lingdu shouted in unison, torches lingering...

Things were much simpler at this point. The first and second groups of people had taken control of the pavilion beacons and beach entrance positions. The wooden rafts behind them were quickly launched into the water. The Xihe people had been holding back their energy for a long time and used all their strength to paddle. hands.

Finally, even Dong Yi arrived at the east bank, looking at the wet soldiers and grinning.

"The plan is done."

At the expense of thousands of sheepskin bags, three thousand people successfully crossed over. Although the landing point was several miles long from south to north, there were even troops who came ashore and fought with the roving enemy cavalry. The forced crossing was no longer a secret, so he simply lit the torch to scare the enemy. At this moment, the general attack on Fenglingdu had also begun, and General Wei could not spare any manpower to come here.

But the thousands of people behind and the tens of thousands of people at Fenlingdu cannot cross the river like this! Dong Yi's top priority is to assemble his troops, launch an attack on the enemy troops guarding the ferry on the west bank, and cooperate with the forward troops sent by Han Xin to force the crossing and occupy the ferry in one fell swoop!

It will be a tough battle. The opponent has at least seven or eight thousand people, and many of our own soldiers have died in the river.

When counting the number of people, among the first batch of dead soldiers who crossed the river, two of the eight boats were missing. Probably because the rafts broke up and were washed downstream by the current, including the scarred Dong Chuan. Inside, there was no trace.

"What a pity." Dong Yi couldn't help but feel regretful.

But what is needed now is overall victory, and he cannot care about the casualties of a few people. Dong Yi tried his best to gather more than 2,000 people, and marched towards the brightly lit downstream with one watermark at a time.

When they arrived at the next pavilion ten miles away, they found that the battle here had already ended.

The corpses of Wei soldiers were everywhere, and they were stabbed after death. Dong Chuan was sitting outside the house, with another scar on his face. He had two bleeding heads beside him, squatting on the ground to warm himself over the fire.

"Why is it too late? I've even dried my clothes."

The new wound on Dong Chuan's face hurt when he smiled, which made his smile even more ferocious. Dong Yi went over to help him up, patted his shoulder heavily, and laughed: "Sure enough, walking by water is better than walking by land. too much!"

When Dong Chuan and a few of his surviving men returned to the team, it was almost dawn, and the Xihe soldiers who had been marching all night could already see from a distance the chaotic Wei army camp, which was scrambling to deal with the Qin army's forced crossing.

The Wei army was originally a ragtag group of knights, surrendered soldiers, and local armed forces. At first, when they saw another fire coming to the northwest, they thought it was reinforcements. However, when they saw the flags clearly at dawn, they couldn't help but be horrified...

When the sun rose, hundreds of ships began to leave Fenglingdu and advance towards the east bank. The three thousand people on the shore did not hesitate at all. They launched a fearless charge towards the west bank of the ferry...

"Don't let a gangster go!"

"And don't take any prisoners!"

In this cold weather, they moved their spears forward and used unswerving steps to crush the enemy blocking the road.

At this moment, Dong Chuan and others were finally able to shout out the oath shouted by the two protagonists at the end of "Battle of the West River" - it is said that this word was changed by the regent himself.

"Thirty years to the east of the river, thirty years to the west of the river!" As he roared, the new scars on his face were dripping with blood.

"It doesn't take thirty years, just three months, Xihezhi will be rewarded!"

…

In mid-November, Zhang Er, who was in Anyi, was happy to have an extra bowl of rice after receiving the good news that Puban and Longmen had "repelled the Qin invaders." There were diners outside hurriedly came to report:

"Xiangbang, the Qin army has crossed the river from Fenglingjin and Shimen. The eight thousand people led by Zhang Xian and Chen Ze were attacked from the front and back, and almost all were killed. The captain Zhang Xian returned home dead, Sima Chen Ze died in battle, and Ruicheng fell. The main force of the Qin army, numbering in the tens of thousands, has all boarded Hedong, and its chariots and cavalry forward have reached Jiechi!"

…

ps: The second chapter is before 0 o'clock, the fourth day without comments from the readers, I miss them.