When the Halalu Guard was surrounded and the trenches were gradually unfolding, a Song army was nesting in a dry ditch a hundred miles away from Fucheng. They could not make fires and cook every day. They ate dry food, drank muddy water that was oozing from the pits on the spot, and they were sleeping without any clothes and were on standby, living like frightened mice, which was really frustrated.

"Oh..." In a drainage canal covered by shrubs deep in the dry ditch, Luo Datong, the commander of the Fifth Brigade of the Imperial Guard, half tilted on the earth slope, squinted his eyes and sighed at the sunset hanging west.

Luo Datong was ordered to stay at Zero Wall to take on the task of protecting the camp and supplies, which made him lament that God was unfair. The Fifth Brigade had fought in Changshu since he joined the war, but it was also a battle to defend the city. He was surrounded by the enemy. Although he won, he was very frustrated. Before they could fight back, the Fifth Brigade could do a lot of effort and not much gain, and he was very depressed.

After the Battle of Jiangdong, the Fifth Brigade followed the army northward and was preparing to participate in the battle to capture the two capitals, but watched the other brigades of the Guards go north to Fu Li to join the war, and they are left at the Zerobi to guard the house. This job sounds nice, which is to hinder the safety of the emperor and the lives of the entire army above and below the Fifth Brigade. To put it in a big way, it is even more related to the victory or defeat of the battle, and even the rise and fall of the country. It is a heavy responsibility.

Luo Datong felt that the task of protecting Your Majesty was glorious, but their daily task of the guardians in front of the emperor was to protect the emperor's safety, that is, to blame him. Letting him stay was a "discrimination" against the Fifth Brigade. He thought that they were newly formed troops and their combat effectiveness was no less than that of the old-fashioned First Brigade, Second Brigade and Third Brigade, and they were only qualified to perform simple tasks left behind, so he was very breathing.

Although the Mongol Yuan enemy attacked Zero Bible during this period, Luo Datong thought that the Fifth Brigade did not play any role in this battle, mainly because of the navy and the personal guards. He had just surrounded the enemy and drove into the reed marsh, and his Majesty put a fire on the enemy's armor and kept it. At best, they were just beating the side drums. Unfortunately, they did not have real swords and guns, and they defeated the enemy with dignity.

So this time the emperor asked the Fifth Brigade to be established and participated in the task of encircling and annihilation of the enemy. Luo Datong was very happy and thought that he could finally confront the enemy on the front battlefield, let the Fifth Brigade fight a turnaround, and no longer let his colleagues underestimate him. However, when he led his troops to Fu Li in a hurry, he received the task of bypassing Fu Li, sneaking to the battlefield before entering the battlefield, intercepting the enemy troops coming out of Yingtian Prefecture, and cooperating with the other three brigades of the Guardian to complete the encirclement and annihilation mission.

When Luo Datong watched Du Shuai lead the first, second and third brigades to encircle and annihilate the enemy in Xuzhou, he was really angry and disappointed, and felt that he had used them as a reserve team. However, what made him feel relieved was that the guard artillery brigade and cavalry brigade were accompanied by his unlucky luck, but he was not happy soon. Du Shuai only said that they would set up an ambush behind the enemy, but did not tell them how to go.

You should know that there are not ten or eight, one hundred or eighty people who set up ambushs behind the enemy. Four regiments of the Fifth Brigade plus one artillery regiment and direct team, with tens of thousands of personnel; three artillery regiments of the Artillery Brigade plus one baggage regiment, with a number of 3,000 people; the cavalry brigade has a smaller number of people, with more than 4,000 people, but they still have horses! In short, it would be a bit difficult for the 20,000 horses to startle the enemy to the rear of the enemy-occupied area and march on the plain without any covert.

Faced with this problem, Luo Datong and the commander-in-chief Fang Sheng of the Cavalry Brigade, and Zhang Ping of the Artillery Brigade were worried. Relatively speaking, in addition to the large number of people, the Fifth Brigade had the advantage. They could walk on two legs, and could march in various terrain, obey orders, and take care of themselves. It is hard to say about the two brigades. Especially Zhang Ping, his hair was almost white, his artillery was powerful, but heavier, he needed to be dragged by livestock, and his marching speed was slow. In addition, the artillery had poor self-defense ability, and marching in war zones generally needed to follow the infantry to provide cover for them, which was a drag.

The cavalry ran fast, but their weaknesses were also very obvious. One was that the brigade was marching heavily, and the horses were filled with dust and smoke when they ran, and the sound of hooves was shaking the sky. You could know that the cavalry was coming from ten miles away. The other was that it was restricted by the terrain and it was difficult to march in mountains, wetlands and beaches, otherwise it would cause horses to be injured. In addition, the horses ate a lot, and eating grass alone could not guarantee that the war horses were full of energy, and they also needed to supplement feed to charge. In addition, the war horses were animals after all, but were not as obedient as people after training. If they got angry, they suddenly rushed out of a hidden place or were frightened and shouted a few times, they would be exposed.

As the saying goes, "Three cobblers are better than Zhuge Liang." After all, the three of them are all senior officers who are young, have been on the battlefield, have entered martial arts, and have both theoretical and practical experience. They know that the war is urgent, so they have no difficulties to go to, and they have to go to the point where they have difficulties. After a few people calmed down and discussed, they came up with solutions to the difficulties they encountered.

Luo Datong and the other two decided to streamline all unnecessary personnel and equipment to keep the team capable. At the same time, since they are fighting behind enemy lines, they cannot obtain supplies in time. In addition to carrying five days of dry food, individuals can ensure that they can carry as much ammunition as possible. In order to avoid being discovered by enemy sentry probes, the march route must avoid the main route and march at night.

Therefore, they chose to cross the river south first, avoid the road from Yingtian Mansion to Fuli far away. The population was sparse, and Linhuan on the other side had just passed the battle between the two armies. The residents had already fled, and the enemy's whistle cavalry would not cross the river to patrol. They camped in woods or villages during the day, and they were not allowed to make fires and cook, and they marched at night. At the same time, they sent scouts to closely monitor the enemy troops in Yingtian Mansion to observe their marching speed and camping sites.

When approaching the ambush area, the team turned north and crossed the water to prepare for ambush. However, they faced another problem. There was a lack of shelter in the plains and it was difficult to hide 20,000 troops. There were merchants and travelers on the main road, and even if the enemy's mail cavalry did not arrive, they would be discovered. In addition, the hidden areas should not be too far from the ambush area, and the transportation was convenient, allowing them to quickly enter the battlefield.

However, Luo Datong and others still thought of solutions. In the past, whether it was Kaifeng, Yingtianfu, Fuli, or even the Central Plains, the transportation relied on the canal transport materials. However, during the Zhenghe period of Huizong, the delivery department changed the effective transfer method since the Tang Dynasty (transported in sections according to the flow, water level and characteristics of the canal in different seasons) to direct transportation, which not only increased the losses of the canal ships, increased the transportation costs, and greatly reduced the transportation volume of the Bian River. It also led to the increase in the Bian River bed year by year, and large sections of the channel were stranded, and the transportation of the canal was quite hindered.

After Jingkang, the Bian River sometimes even dried up for more than a month, resulting in the confinement of the waterway. At this time, the emperor and his ministers of Zhao Ji still plundered the "Huashigang" in various parts of the south of the Yangtze River, robbed the ships of the waterway, blocked the waterway of the waterway, and further overloaded the canal. The Jin soldiers then invaded the south in large numbers, and Kaifeng was surrounded soon. The upper reaches of the Bian River were already "dipople guarding the embankment and the Bian canal was cut off for a long time." After the fall of Bian Jing, the Song Dynasty crossed south. The Jin people used the waterway of the Bian River to chase the boats. In order to prevent the Jin army from advancing, Emperor Gaozong issued an edict to destroy the waterway of the Bian River, and the waterway of the north and south was thus cut off.

After the Song Dynasty moved south, the Song and Jin dynasties fought many battles here. They used water as soldiers to destroy the river channel many times, causing the river to be frequently diverted and the canal to be further silted. More than 30 years later, the Song court sent an envoy Lou Ya to the Jin Kingdom, and they passed through the old Bian River. At that time, he saw the abandonment of the Bian River with his own eyes. Not far from the Lingbi north, the Bian River began to flow out. When it arrived in Suzhou, the Bian River was even more silted. In some areas, the river channels were almost level with the river banks, and carriages and horses were walking in the river channels. In some places, houses had even been built and crops were planted at the bottom of the river.

In the past, in order to ensure the abundant water volume of canals, human intervention allowed the surrounding rivers such as Huan and Huan to flow into the Bian River. With the silt of the Bian River, the destruction of war and natural forces, it not only caused the canal to dry up or cut off, but also affected the changes in the water system of the entire region, causing many rivers to change routes, cut off or become seasonal rivers. As a result, many rivers that flow into the Bian River have become many dry ditches of large and small, crisscrossing.

Some dry ditches are dozens of miles long and dozens of feet wide. Some rivers have been broken for decades or even hundreds of years. The dry ditch has already grown weeds, and the banks are covered with shrubs and miscellaneous trees, covering the river. People and horses are hidden in it, and it is difficult to find them from a distance. If you deliberately disguise yourself, you can avoid the patrol of the whistle and cavalry.

Two days ago, Luo Datong and others led their troops to lie in the daytime and night. After going through hardships, they arrived at the area of ​​fury hundreds of miles away. The parts were scattered and hidden in several dry ditches distributed around them. What made Luo Datong anxious was that the enemy troops set out from Yingtian Prefecture were almost here, but the reinforcements led by Du Shuai had not heard of them for a long time. I wonder if they could arrive at the battlefield as scheduled, otherwise they would have to face several times their own troops alone, and with their strength, they would not be able to complete the plan to wipe out the enemy.

As the enemy approached, Luo Datong became more anxious. If he didn't fight the enemy, he would drive straight to Fuli. Then Fuli, who received reinforcements, would greatly strengthen the strength of the enemy, which would form a greater obstacle to the subsequent battle. The battle might last longer, and he would not be able to complete the task of regaining both capitals before the rainy season arrived. Moreover, he was very unwilling to let the enemy pass by, and he really didn't want to let go of the rare fighter.
Chapter completed!