In addition to Chen Youliang, there are also Kangtai, a one-eyed man and a burly man in the imperial study.
Liang Rong had seen the one-eyed man and knew that he was Chen Youren, Chen Youliang's favorite brother.
After Chen Youliang became emperor, he conferred dukes on all four of his brothers. Later, he spread rumors that he would confer kings on the four brothers to test the reaction of the officials.
As a result, Taishi Wuxingpu Sheng took the lead in opposing, saying that the four people had no merit and could not be crowned kings. Chen Youliang had no choice but to let it go.
But since then, I don’t know who took the lead and called Chen Youliang’s two brothers the second king and the third king, and the two younger brothers the fourth king and the fifth king.
Among them, the five kings are Chen Youren.
This was the first time I saw the burly man Liang Rong. I glanced at him twice and realized that the man's muscles were like rocks. He must have practiced horizontal kung fu.
Chen Youliang sat down behind the case, and without introducing the burly man to Liang Rong, he said directly: "Brother Liang, please tell us all about Yang Sanqiang and give everyone the details!"
Liang Rong agreed and said: "Yang Sanqiang was also a refugee and claimed to be a descendant of the Yang family generals in the Northern Song Dynasty..." He told Yang Sanqiang's situation in detail.
The burly man sneered and said: "According to what you say, he has never been on the battlefield. How dare Zhang Yangquan be entrusted with such an important task?"
When Chen Youliang saw that he was speaking out, he introduced Liang Rong: "Brother Liang, this is Commander-in-Chief Zhang Bixian, Duke of Heng. I've met him quickly!"
Liang Rong was taken aback and hurriedly greeted Zhang Bixian.
Zhang Bixian, like Zhang Dingbian, was Chen Youliang's brother. He won Chen Youliang's trust and stayed in Huangzhou to guard his hometown for Chen Youliang.
Later, after Chen Youliang became emperor, he was sent to Huguang Province to gather troops. After gathering more than 200,000 reinforcements, the pressure of the Han army's defeat in Xiangcun was greatly relieved.
Zhang Bixian continued: "In my opinion, Zhang Yangquan still doesn't believe Zhu Yuanzhang, so he sent Yang Sanqiang to monitor him. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that must not be missed!"
Chen Youliang also had the same idea. He turned to Chen Youren and said, "Lao Wu, what do you think?"
Chen Youren was silent for a long time, clenched his fists, and said: "I thought that I would either not fight, or strike with all my strength, and I must win this battle!"
Kangtai hurriedly said: "His Royal Highness the Five Kings are right. Your Majesty, we must win a battle to boost everyone's morale!"
Chen Youliang slapped the table and said: "Okay, let's fight them on the Yangtze River. Lao Wu, Marshal Zhang, I order you two to command a hundred thousand naval troops, and annihilate all the enemies who invade in the future!"
The two of them raised their hands together: "Yes!"
That night, Chen Youliang issued an edict, naming Chen Youren as the Grand Marshal for the Destruction of Chu, and Zhang Bixian as the Deputy Marshal.
On the morning of the third day, the two men led a hundred thousand navy troops down the river to fight against the Jiangdu navy.
On the day the two set out, Hu Yanrui from Jiangzhou also made some moves at the same time.
Taking advantage of the darkness, he led 60,000 naval troops out of the city and attacked the island where Jiangdu Army was stationed.
Li Er had not yet attacked the city at this time, but was only setting up camp on an island close to Jiangzhou.
Fortunately, he sent many scout ships to guard the perimeter. As soon as Hu Yanrui's army approached, they were discovered by the scouts and reported the news with firecrackers.
In the dark night, the sound of firecrackers was extremely harsh.
Li Er immediately assembled his army, but did not take the initiative to attack the opponent. Instead, he abandoned the half-built water fortress and retreated to an island further south.
Although Hu Yanrui's army did not achieve any success in this battle, it destroyed Li Er's water stronghold, which greatly boosted the morale of the entire army.
So when he learned that Li Er led his navy to attack the city the next day, Hu Yanrui sneered and led 60,000 navy troops out of the city to meet the enemy.
The two armies met near Nanshan Island, set up their positions, and immediately began fighting.
Hu Yanrui was originally worried about how powerful the artillery of the Jiangdu navy was, but after the attack, he discovered that although the sound of the opponent's artillery was loud, the range was by no means that exaggerated!
Although it is still more than twice as far as the range of a bow and arrow, as long as it resists a round of volleys from the opponent, one can approach within the range of the bow and arrow.
Relying on the advantage of being in a commanding position, the building ships had an absolute advantage under the shooting. In an instant, the Han army began to turn from passive to active.
Hu Yanrui was overjoyed and quickly ordered his left and right wings to surround him, hoping to encircle the opponent and annihilate them all in one fell swoop!
Jiangdu's army seemed to have discovered his intention and hurriedly retreated, while the Han army pursued him!
The two armies pursued them all the way to Songmen Island. After all, the Han army's building ship was too big and too wide to travel fast on the water, so it was gradually pulled away by Jiangdu's army.
Just when Hu Yanrui was about to give up the pursuit, he suddenly heard the sound of artillery fire, followed by waves of sharp whistling sounds.
In an instant, the Han military ship that was chasing the front made several "bang bang" sounds. This was the sound of being shot by artillery, but the sound was louder than before.
And what makes Hu Yanrui most unbelievable is that the enemy's nearest ship is three hundred feet away from his own warship.
How can they still attack us from such a distance?
Hu Yanrui felt cold all over.
As the whistling sound continued, he finally realized that he had fallen into Jiangdu's army's trick of luring the enemy, and hurriedly sent an order to his subordinates to withdraw the troops as quickly as possible!
The situation instantly became completely opposite to what it was just now, with the Jiangdu army chasing the Han army.
The Jiangdu Army's warships were faster, so the Han Army could not escape. Moreover, during the pursuit, the artillery kept firing, making the Han Army seem like a living target, with no power to resist.
Hu Yanrui had studied the fire blunderbuss of the Yuan Dynasty, and gradually understood that the opponent had reduced the amount of gunpowder and deliberately showed weakness to attract him to pursue.
Looking at the enemy's continuous spray of cannonballs and listening to the sound of his own warships being destroyed, he was both shocked by the power of the enemy's artillery and regretted that he had underestimated the enemy.
An hour later, nearly half of the Han army's ships had been sunk.
At this time, there were still dozens of miles away from Jiangzhou City. Hu Yanrui gritted his teeth and decided to personally lead 10,000 people to break up the rear and buy time for others to return to Jiangzhou.
Vice General Chai Peng said loudly: "Commander, you are the commander of an army, how can you easily get involved in danger? Let the future be the last to decide!"
Hu Yanrui didn't do anything, so he immediately asked Chai Peng to replace him and led more than 20,000 remaining troops back to Jiangzhou.
However, not long after he traveled, a fleet of ships appeared in front of him, blocking his retreat.
Hu Yanrui was shocked at first, thinking that Jiang Dujun still had a back-up plan.
After getting closer, I saw clearly that the navy was composed of broken fishing boats, and the largest fishing boat was flying the "Xu" flag.
Hu Yanrui immediately recognized the origin of this group of people and cursed angrily: "How dare Xu Da, that bastard, interfere with our affairs at this time? If I had known, I would have wiped him out!"
A deputy general said: "I'm afraid this person has surrendered to Jiangdu Army!"
Hu Yanrui's eyes widened and he thought that it was good, otherwise Xu Da would not have appeared by such a coincidence. He immediately issued an order and rushed towards Xu Da's fleet.
Xu Da's fleet only has 5,000 people. Although the ships are small and broken, they are extremely flexible.
Moreover, before the war began, the soldiers received ordnance supplies from Jiangdu Army, and each of them wore bright armor and was equipped with a large shield.
The volleys fired from the building boats could not cause much damage to the soldiers on the boats.
Hu Yanrui wanted to escape and did not want to get entangled with Xu Dajun. He only ordered the army to disperse them and there was no need to worry about them.
However, Xu Dajun was like candy, clinging to them, hooking the boat with an iron rope, and the boat was dragged by the boat, like a few running beetles covered with ants.
Under the entanglement of Xu Dajun, the Han army could not march faster at all. Not long after, the shadow of Jiangdu Army's ship appeared on the rear shoreline.
Hu Yanrui was shocked and angry, but he was helpless.
Xu Da gave an order, and the boat retreated from the east and west directions. Two quarters of an hour later, Jiangdu's army finally caught up, and the sound of shelling sounded again.
Hu Yanrui had no choice this time. In the end, the Han army was completely wiped out by the Jiangdu army in the sea ten miles away from Jiangzhou.
After Hu Yanrui died in battle, more than 10,000 Han troops surrendered.
Li Er did not take the opportunity to attack Jiangzhou, but led his fleet to salvage the surviving soldiers who fell into the water. At the same time, he sent Xu Da and others to the battlefield just now to salvage the Han soldiers who fell into the water.
Two days after the salvage, Li Ercai led the navy to attack Jiangzhou City.
Hu Yanrui is dead. Although there are still more than 50,000 defenders in the city, they are all divided. Some want to defend to the end, some want to surrender, and some want to retreat.
In the end, more than 10,000 troops evacuated from the west gate.
There was an internal fight between the capitulation faction and the persistence faction, and the persistence faction won, and all the senior generals of the capitulation faction were purged.
However, after two storms, the defenders' vitality was severely weakened.
Jiangdu's army's artillery was so powerful that on the first day of the siege, a hole was blasted through the city wall.
However, the defenders were tenacious and still fought street battles with Jiangdu's army in the city.
It wasn't until the afternoon of the next day that Li Er broke through the Marshal's Mansion and captured Jiangzhou City.