Fenghou

Chapter 336 Pursuit
Chen Qing's [-] troops invaded the city and quickly occupied key points such as warehouses, barracks, government offices, and city gates.

But to Chen Qing's surprise, the puppet Qi army did not collapse, but retreated out of the city in an orderly manner. It can be seen that Dong Xian made a lot of preparations for the retreat in advance.

What made Chen Qing unacceptable was that Dong Xian also carried a large amount of strategic materials during his retreat. All the bags of kerosene were taken away, as well as gunpowder. At least half of the kerosene and all the gunpowder were taken away.

This is also the strategic material that Chen Qing is eyeing. He ordered Hu Yanyun to bring the remaining [-] catties of kerosene back to the ship to transport away, and seal up all other warehouse materials and hand them over to Li Gang.

Chen Qing personally led [-] cavalry out of the city gate from the north city, and chased westward.
Originally, Dong Xian wanted to retreat, and Chen Qing didn't really care about it, so he left as soon as he wanted to, but Dong Xian took away strategic resources such as kerosene and gunpowder, which touched Chen Qing's vital interests. How could he tolerate?

It was already dawn, and Dong Xian's [-] troops retreated all the way westward, about [-] miles away from Xiangyang, and the team entered the mountainous area.

Dong Xian had already prepared for this evacuation. He even made a prophecy. He also specially recruited [-] mules, took away [-] bags of kerosene and [-] barrels of gunpowder, and other grains and the like were only dry food.

Like Chen Qing, he regarded kerosene and gunpowder as extremely important strategic materials, which were all materials left over from the Song Dynasty. In this battle of Jingxiang, he took away half of Bianliang's total inventory.

Other grains and the like can be grown. For strategic materials such as kerosene and gunpowder, the Qi State has no source of raw materials and no purification technology, so the little stock in it is extremely precious.

After another thirty miles of walking, it was almost noon, and there was a stream not far away, but a thin layer of ice formed on the surface. Dong Xian ordered the whole army to rest in place. The soldiers were tired and hungry, and they ran to fetch water and food. dry food.

Although Dong Xian was also very tired, he was still very happy in his heart. This time he retreated in an orderly manner, the [-] main force was saved, at least he could give the emperor an explanation.

At this time, a general came over and said: "Beizhi just went to the Han River to have a look. The river is relatively shallow and not wide. I suggest you don't use Fangzhou and build a pontoon bridge to cross the river."

"How far is Hanshui from here?" Dong Xian asked.

"Not far, just three miles to the north."

Dong Xian heard that it was only three miles away, so he got up and said with a smile, "Go and see!"

Not long after, Dong Xian brought a group of generals to the bank of the Han River. Compared with the wide and mighty Han River in Xiangyang, the Han River here is indeed much narrower, and it is not much wider than the moat. If it is spring and summer, The water here may be very strong and the current is fast, but now it is winter, the water here is much lower and the current is gentle.

A soldier tested the water depth with a bamboo pole and shouted: "It's only three feet deep!"

The riverside is only three feet deep, and the center of the river is at most one foot deep, and it looks like it’s only twenty feet wide. It would be great if we could cross the river here, so we don’t have to take a long detour to Fangzhou.

"How to build the floating bridge here?" Dong Xian asked the generals.

Ding Wenlan, the commander in chief, said with a smile: "Marshal, it is very simple to make a pontoon bridge. It is to cut down trees, tie them into rafts, connect them back and forth, put them into the river, and then fix the two sections on land. The ready-made pontoon bridge is It's done."

Dong Xian nodded, and said to Ding Wenlan: "You led five thousand brothers to chop down trees to make a pontoon bridge, and successfully crossed the river. I will remember your great contribution!"

"Follow the order!"

Ding Wenlan took five thousand troops to the forest to cut trees.

But not long after Ding Wenlan's army had left, a spy rushed over and reported in a hurry: "Marshal Qi, the cavalry of the Song Army was found ten miles to the south, about seven or eight thousand!"

Dong Xian was taken aback, and immediately got up and shouted, "Order the whole army to assemble!"

Hearing that there were seven or eight thousand cavalry, the whole team panicked and got up and assembled one after another.

At this time, Dong Xian also saw black spots in the distance, densely packed, how many are there?He knew in his heart that there was only one cavalry of the Song Army, and that was Chen Qing's cavalry, and they came after them unexpectedly.

A general stepped forward and said, "Marshal, it's a little strange. Normally, the Song army should attack us while we're resting, but they didn't do that. Do they want to attack us while we're crossing the river?"

"marshal!"

A commander rushed over, holding an arrow letter in his hand, "This is an arrow letter from the other party!"

Dong Xian took the letter in a hurry, only to see that it said, "Yue, Ezhen Fushi, Du Tongzhi, Jing Guogong Chen Qing to Puppet Qi Marshal Dong Xian." '

Sure enough, it was a letter from Chen Qing. He quickly opened the letter and read it carefully. After a long while, he smiled wryly and said to the group of generals who surrounded him: "He told us to leave all the kerosene and gunpowder, and then let us go. otherwise."

"Otherwise what will happen?" the generals asked.

Dong Xian sighed, "He is nicknamed Human Devil, what do you think will happen to him?"

Unexpectedly, none of the generals jumped up and shouted, but unexpectedly fell silent.

Everyone knows that if an army of [-] is fighting with seven or eight thousand cavalry, it is basically impossible to win, and they are in a losing position now, and dragging them will drag them to death.

Dong Xian saw the meaning of the crowd, and everyone wanted to return to their hearts, and they didn't want to fight anymore.

He pondered for a moment, then sighed and said, "Chen Qing's request is not too high, kerosene and gunpowder are belongings outside the body, so it's fine if you can't take it away, so let's do it! I'll send someone to talk to him, I guess he I don't want to fight either.

Chen Qing is not a bloodthirsty person, and his mission is not to destroy the puppet Qi. Of course, he also has to consider the cost. Dong Xian's [-] troops are not a rout, but a kind of withdrawal. The morale and combat effectiveness of this kind of army are still there. He wiped out [-] people, and he himself had to pay the price of [-] to [-] cavalry.

He didn't want to waste his precious cavalry on this kind of meaningless battle, so as long as the other party was willing to leave the kerosene and gunpowder behind, Chen Qing could let them live.

At this time, the soldiers brought up a civil servant, who was about thirty years old and looked very gentle. He looked like a scholar.

The civil official bowed and said, "Han Xiu is here. Marshal Dong joined the army under his tent. On the orders of the marshal, he came to confirm some things with Chen Dutong."

Chen Qing asked coldly: "What does your marshal need to confirm?"

"If we hand over the kerosene and gunpowder to Du Tong, will Du Tong turn around and leave?"

Chen Qing nodded, "The premise is to hand over all the kerosene and gunpowder to me. I have checked the quantity in Cangcheng. If there are [-] bags of kerosene and [-] barrels of gunpowder, one bag or one barrel will not work."

"If you hand over everything, of course, there's no point in keeping any of it. My marshal said that he will hand it over to Dutong along with [-] mules. The condition is that Dutong will leave immediately, and we will go our separate ways."

"Yes, I can promise!"

Han Xiu saluted, turned and left.

Yang Zaixing said to Chen Qing worriedly: "If you let them go, I'm afraid I won't be able to explain to the Xuanfu envoy."

Chen Qing said lightly: "You have to understand that we didn't receive any order to go north from Baling. The Xuan Fu envoy just hoped that we could go north to support. Every battle we went north was decided by ourselves, including our Attacking Xiangyang, and now chasing Dong Xian's army, have nothing to do with Xuanfu envoy."

Yang Zaixing sighed softly and said: "Xiaozhi understands the meaning of Dutong. We are an independent army, which is different from other Huguang armies. I am just a little worried. The imperial court will not tolerate our independence forever. system is not good."

Chen Qing smiled slightly, "You don't have to worry, Zhang Jun, Liu Guangshi, Han Shizhong, and Yue Fei are all independent troops, and it won't be our turn until we finish solving them."

Yang Zaixing wanted to say something more, but he also knew that it was meaningless to discuss this issue now, so he didn't say any more.

Half an hour later, hundreds of soldiers came over with [-] mules loaded with kerosene and gunpowder, and handed them over to Chen Qing.

Chen Qing confirmed that the kerosene and gunpowder were correct, and then led the army to turn around and go east.

Dong Xian's army crossed the Han River overnight and retreated to the north. A few days later, Li Gang's army recovered Fangzhou, Junzhou, Dengzhou, Suizhou and Guanghua Army.

The battle of Jingxiang, which lasted for two months, ended in the disastrous defeat of the puppet Qi army.
(End of this chapter)