Lengshuiguan is close to Lujiang City. Taking Lengshuiguan is equivalent to opening up the road into Lujiang City. Moreover, the location of Lengshuiguan is very special. Taking Lengshuiguan will not only threaten Lujiang City, but also move northward.
Cut off the road going south from Gushan.
Now that Shucheng has been captured by the border troops, Huoshan is in danger. It can be said that the peasant army stationed in Gushan has only Lengshuiguan as an escape route. Therefore, Gao Yingxiang and others attach great importance to Lengshuiguan. After learning that Shucheng soldiers
After the defeat, Gao Yingxiang sent an urgent letter to Li Zicheng and ordered Wang Yan to withdraw from the Tongling battlefield and lead his troops to station at Lengshuiguan.
Zhou Dingshan was not in a hurry to attack Lengshuiguan. Instead, he led his people to explore nearby and carefully observed the terrain of Lengshuiguan. It must be said that Lengshuiguan has a typical southern landform, with steep stone walls on both sides. The entire Lengshuiguan looks like
A semicircle, which is very wide on the outside and becomes narrower as you go inward. Lengshuiguan is built at the highest and narrowest place. Lengshuiguan has many similarities with Hangu Pass. The only difference is that the mountain road in front of Lengshuiguan is much gentler.
.
The officers and soldiers were not in a hurry to attack Lengshuiguan, but Wang Yan was a little worried. In fact, after the Xuanfu border troops entered Luzhou Prefecture, their offensive was so sharp that they even attacked Shucheng and other places. On the opposite side was Zhou Dingshan, the number one general under the command of King of Hell, Wang Yanzhen
He was afraid that if he was not careful, he would not be able to defend Lengshuiguan. In the past two days, Wang Yan would come to the city in person almost every two hours to take a look, "The officers and soldiers outside have not moved yet?"
"Don't worry, Chief Wang. There are no signs of attack by the officers and soldiers, but another army has come from the north. Now the number of officers and soldiers on the opposite side has exceeded 10,000. Also, they have brought those Vulcan cannons!"
"Artillery?" Wang Yan shuddered involuntarily. He was too impressed by the new artillery. At first, this kind of artillery was so powerful that it almost made him pee. Because it was so powerful, the peasant army even fired
It was nicknamed "Vulcan Cannon". This place should not be suitable for firing artillery. The mountain road is rugged. How can they send the artillery up? This thing is very heavy and it is unrealistic to lift it up by people. Wang Yan thinks it is all a bluff.
Human beings had to cheer themselves up and said: "Brothers, don't be afraid, the ones in the cannon are just like ghosts, they won't be lucky, let them toss them around."
With an uneasy mood, Wang Yan returned to the command post with a dark face. It was purely to appease morale and cheer himself up. In fact, Wang Yan was extremely afraid, what if the Xuanfu gang really sent the Vulcan cannon up the mountain?
, then how can we guard Lengshuiguan? Of course we can guard it, but the price must be very high. After sitting in the room for a while, a guard rushed in with a heavy breath. Wang Yan was just thinking about something when he was hit by this sudden collision.
He was startled by the sound of the door and said angrily: "Do you still understand the rules? You bastard."
The guard trembled and said quickly: "Chief Wang, I didn't mean it, it was... something happened outside..." The guard swallowed his saliva, his eyes full of fear, just like what happened just now
It was like seeing a ghost.
Wang Yan screamed angrily, stood up, stamped his feet, and cursed coldly: "You bastard, what happened again? I just came back a little while ago, and you are trying to fix things for me. Is someone causing internal strife again?"
"
Wang Yan instinctively thought that some of the leaders under his command were causing trouble again. He hated this kind of thing deeply and had no choice but to do anything about it. The military discipline under Wang Yan was the worst, and the leaders had their own agendas. The leaders often because of
Wang Yan had long been annoyed by some trivial interests causing trouble. But this time, Wang Yan was obviously wrong.
The guard trembled with his hands and shook his head with a sad face, "Chief Wang, that's not the case, it's the officers and soldiers... When the brothers were just watching, they saw the officers and soldiers carrying a Vulcan cannon up the mountain. They are loading the cannon now.
?”
"What is this?" Wang Yan's eyes suddenly widened, as if he was about to pop out. In just a moment, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, "No way, how did they get such a heavy thing up? It flew up.
?”
"Chief Wang, I saw this with my own eyes, and many brothers saw it. If you don't believe me, you can go out and have a look!" The guard was also helpless. This thing is indeed quite bizarre, but it happened. Wang Yan still didn't dare
Believing, or rather unwilling to, this fact, he vomited a sigh of relief and followed the guard angrily out of the house. He came to the top of the city and received a telescope from the deputy.
Nowadays, the telescope is no longer a secret. Ever since a telescope was seized in Xuanfu, the leaders knew how big the gap between the two sides was. Later, although they could not get a telescope, each of them
The leaders valued the captured telescopes very much and kept them as treasures. Recently, the Xuanfu government seemed to have discovered this problem. Once the situation was unfavorable, important objects such as telescopes were destroyed first, making it increasingly difficult to seize the telescopes.
, in this case, the existing telescope in hand becomes even more important.
Through the telescope, Wang Yan could clearly see an artillery piece placed in a relatively flat area in front of him. The muzzle of the gun was swinging around like a man-eating beast. His heart trembled, and Wang Yan really wanted to look up to the sky and roar.
, why did the officers and soldiers really bring the artillery up? This is not consistent with common sense. I have come across this thing before, it is very heavy, and it can be dragged by horses on two wheels in ordinary places, but the mountain road is rugged, how to do it?
Besides, I have long heard that Xuanfu’s baggage is insufficient. After the battle of Maojin Ferry, the shells in the hands of the Living Hell King have been almost empty, and they have not yet been replenished. An artillery without shells is a tiger without teeth, so
, Wang Yan had to comfort himself and said: "Brothers, don't worry, the officers and soldiers are probably trying to scare people. They have long run out of shells. I think they are just empty shells."
Wang Yan thought it made sense, but what happened next was a bit unexpected. Not long after he put down the telescope, he heard a bang, and the stone wall not far from the city wall let out a painful groan, and pieces of gravel fell off.
Leaving a black and gray mark.
Looking at the thick smoke there, Wang Yan was completely dumbfounded. He held a telescope and opened his mouth, as if someone had cast a restraining spell on his body. Several leaders next to him also had the same expression. One of them had a pale face and slapped his hands.
Shivering, he couldn't even speak anymore, "This... this... Leader Wang, that cannon is not fake, it's real... it's real... this cannon
, My mother, if we bombard the city with a few cannons... wouldn't we be... in danger..."
"Yes, this thing is too scary... We are nestled on the top of the city and there is no way to disperse." The other leader was even more unbearable and was already leaning against the city wall, breathing heavily.
It is true that this new type of artillery has brought too much fear to the leaders of the peasant army. To this day, they still cannot forget the craters with a radius of one foot and the fragmented corpses. To deal with this kind of artillery, the best
The way is to disperse the formation to minimize the losses. Now everyone is gathered at the head of Lengshuiguan City. They cannot disperse and can only rely on Lengshuiguan to defend. Can a mere Lengshuiguan block the artillery fire of the officers and soldiers?
The leaders are not confident about this. When Lengshuiguan was first built, they probably didn’t even consider this aspect, right?
Wang Yan didn't speak for a long time. After a while, he turned his head with a gloomy expression and walked towards Guanxia, "It seems that it is necessary to tell King Chuang about the situation here. Lengshuiguan... is not optimistic.
ah!"
In fact, what Wang Yan really wants to say is, can we stop guarding the Lengshui Pass? Let Gushan's soldiers and horses withdraw quickly. If Lengshui Pass is blasted open, Gushan's soldiers and horses will really be alone.
At that time, tens of thousands of Xuanfu elite soldiers surrounded him, and he could eat whatever he wanted. But Wang Yan did not dare to say it openly. If he did say it, would he lose his face? He couldn't tell everyone directly, Wang Yan was afraid
Want to die or run away?
Strange to say, the officers and soldiers hid the cannon after testing it and were not in a hurry to attack. Wang Yan had a headache. Someone put a knife on his neck and kept raising it and putting it down without cutting. Do you think it would be better?
Huh? What's going on if you kill people with no more than a nod?
Just when Wang Yan was frowning, Zhou Dingshan, who was under Lengshuiguan, was also frowning and showed no joy at all. Li Jiucheng looked at Lengshuiguan in the distance and muttered in his heart, "General Zhou, is Mr. Wang's method reliable?"
?”
"Zhou doesn't know either, but Mr. Wang has his own reasons for arranging it this way. You might as well wait, maybe there will be results soon." Zhou Dingshan did not dare to speak too fully, although he was very satisfied with Tie Mo and Wang Zuo.
I was very confident, but what happened this time was too weird. I fired off a fake cannon and wanted to take down Lengshuiguan. No matter how I thought about it, I thought it was a bit fanciful.
In fact, the cannon just now was completely to scare people. Although the new artillery is lighter and more flexible, it is still a bit unrealistic to transport it along the mountain road. The artillery just sent up the mountain is actually
An iron shell has nothing but its appearance, and its weight is at most one-tenth of a real cannon. As for that cannon, it looks bluffing, but in fact, the explosives were secretly buried in advance, and after igniting the explosive twister, it was calculated.
At about the same time and under similar circumstances, he pretended to fire a cannon.
This kind of trick is not clever. As long as Wang Yan sends knowledgeable people to the explosion site to investigate carefully, he will be able to find out the trick. But it seems that Wang Yan has no such idea. At this time, he is probably the one who was shot by that bomb.
Terrified.
It is not a big problem to scare the bandits with one shot, but the possibility of getting the bandits to let the cold water out of the gate is very slim.
As Zhou Dingshan expected, Wang Yan was frightened as soon as the cannon came down. He returned to his residence and quickly repaired a letter and sent it to Anqing Mansion. By the time the letter arrived in the hands of Gao Yingxiang of Anqing Mansion, it was already the next day. See
After reading the contents of the letter, Gao Yingxiang didn't come back to his senses for a long time. After a while, he said with a cold face: "Come here, please invite Mr. Niu to come over. I said we have something important to discuss."
Niu Jinxing arrived very quickly. When he learned about what happened in front of Lengshuiguan, Niu Jinxing's first reaction was that he didn't believe it, "King Chuang, is the news confirmed? According to my subordinates' knowledge, the cold water pipes are built along the mountains.
, the road is narrow and rugged, how can the heavy artillery thing be transported up, unless it is dismantled."
"Mr. Niu, this is absolutely true. The people of Living Hell have already tried a cannon in front of the pass. Many people have seen this with their own eyes. In my opinion, Wang Yan is extremely brave and would not dare to do it here."
Lying about all kinds of things!"
"This..." Niu Jinxing frowned, thought for a moment, remembered something, patted his forehead and said hesitantly: "King Chuang, has there been any movement over Gushan recently?"
"That's not true. The Living King of Hell only sent troops to station in the north of Gushan and did not launch an attack." After Gao Yingxiang finished speaking, he thought for a while and added, "There is new news from Chaohu. According to the spies, the Living King of Hell has
Butcher Geng took pictures of Chao Lake. Recently, Butcher Geng has been collecting boats and soldiers on the east bank of Chao Lake. The purpose is unknown."
Upon hearing this, Niu Jinxing's expression changed, and he quickly climbed to the map to start thinking about it. Although the map was very simple, the basic place names were still clear. After looking at it for a while, Niu Jinxing raised his head, with a trace of panic flashing in his eyes, "King Chuang.
, we are afraid that our estimate is wrong. Looking at this situation, the real goal of the officers and soldiers is not Lengshuiguan at all, but Laoshan Mountain in the southwest corner of Chaohu Lake."
Pushing the map forward, Niu Jinxing pointed to the location of Laoshan Mountain and said worriedly: "Look, King Chuang, Laoshan Mountain is sandwiched between Gushan and Lengshuiguan. It seems safe and secure, but if the officers and soldiers set out from Chaohu, they will be in trouble."
Laoshan can be reached directly by water. At that time, in cooperation with Geng Butcher and the navy, Zhou Dingshan's fellow can turn around and head north, and then he can attack Laoshan directly. With the two of them working together, is there any reason why Laoshan cannot be taken? Of course we can counterattack Laoshan.
, to carry out a pincer attack, but my subordinates have learned that before this Geng Butcher came to serve under the King of Hell, he was the number one general under Mao Wenlong in Liaodong. His ability in water battles is beyond our comparison. There was Geng Butcher who led the navy to cruise in Chaohu Lake.
Even if we multiply our troops several times, we may not be able to recapture Laoshan. By then, Gushan’s 20,000-strong army will be unable to withdraw even if they want to."
Gradually, Gao Yingxiang also realized the seriousness of the matter. His face turned cold and he asked in a low voice: "From this point of view, isn't it meaningless for us to defend Lengshuiguan?"
"If it really happened, it is true!" Niu Jinxing nodded with some difficulty. If the Xuanfu army Chen Binglaoshan is not in a hurry to take Lujiang City, what is the point of deploying heavy troops at Lengshuiguan? Such a situation
Now, I'm in a bit of a dilemma.
If everything is correct, Lengshuiguan will become useless, and there is no point in defending it. What if the soldiers leave Lengshuiguan and fight with the officers and soldiers near Laoshan? As soon as this idea came up, Gao Yingxiang and Niu Jinxing automatically filtered it out
.Both of them are well aware of the combat effectiveness of the Xuanfu border army. In recent years, among the nine frontiers of the Ming Dynasty, Xuanfu has the most terrifying combat effectiveness, because most of the Xuanfu soldiers and horses are Yunfu soldiers who are directly under the command of the original King of Hell.
These soldiers and horses, direct descendants of the Yun Mansion, have been facing off against the Mongolian Tatars on the grassland all year round. Especially the cavalry, which stretches across Mobei, has few opponents. There is Lengshuiguan, and you can still fight against the city. If you pull it outside, even if
The terrain in this area is not conducive to cavalry operations, but we really don't have much confidence in a head-on confrontation with the Xuanfu army. And even if we win, I'm afraid it will only be a battle.