The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 714 At a critical juncture, each show their skills

In the dead of night, except for the soldiers in charge of security, most of the soldiers of the Beizhen Army fell into a deep sleep; before dawn, waiting for them may be another high-intensity war, and it is impossible not to raise their mental and physical strength.Before the Tang army besieged the city, military officers at all levels even told them frankly: After losing Gucheng, the Beizhen army might fall into the Tang army's ambush on all sides. Because of this, the soldiers are hurrying to sleep.

Su Dingfang, Luo Shixin, Dugu Yanyun, Dugu Yanyun, Kan Leng, Da Xi'an and other major generals were still awake.

The many torches inserted on the wall illuminate the entire hall of the county government like daylight. In the middle of a wooden frame hangs a huge white cloth covered with many patterns, including mountains, rivers, cities, and official roads. , it is a topographic map of the world.

"After tomorrow, Li Yuan will definitely retaliate against us madly at all costs, and we will enter a period of extremely difficult days." Su Dingfang said: "Next, our task is not to kill many enemies and occupy many cities, but to protect ourselves. "

"Great general." Dugu Yanyun cupped his hands and smiled when he heard the words: "Li Yuan's army in Jingzhou is mainly distributed in three places besides the Xiangyang garrison: one is the Hanshui defense line, the other is Yiling County, and the third is outside the city. Once we succeed in breaking the embankment, at least half of the Tang army outside the city will be lost, and the other half will be washed away by the flood even if it does not die. With the current situation of the puppet Tang Dynasty, the soldiers who escaped by chance will never return to the army. After Liu Hongji's fiasco, leading to There are not many defenders left in Yin City, we can take them and notify the imperial army on the other side to go west. Even if we can't contact the other side for a while, Li Yuan can only dispatch Zhang Shigui from Junyang County, Xiyang County. Don't be afraid of him, how can this be difficult?"

"The general doesn't know something." Su Dingfang waved his hand and said in a deep voice, "The battle between Sui and Tang Dynasties will not be fought for the time being."

"But why?" When everyone heard this, their faces changed drastically.

They hoped that the Sui army would enter and besiege Xiangyang, forcing Li Yuanji to return to the army for rescue, so as to save the Yizhou people.But Su Dingfang actually said that the Sui and Tang Dynasties would not be fought, which made everyone a little unacceptable, and they all looked at Su Dingfang to listen to his explanation.

"Don't be impatient, generals, just listen to me." Su Dingfang knew that this was the biggest trouble he had encountered since he entered Xiang. If he didn't handle it properly, this group of people would immediately go it alone. Even if they continued to obey orders, they would probably be at odds , "Everyone does not know that the reason why the Holy Majesty did not launch the Sui and Tang wars is because the Sui Dynasty was fighting against the three major forces, and any battlefield is quite critical."

"Please tell the general." Dugu Yanyun and the others relaxed slightly.

"The first place is the Jiangnan battlefield. Zhang Zhenzhou and General Qin Qiong led an army of 30 to confront the coalition forces of Meng Haigong and Feng An in Dongyang County. The number of enemy troops was as high as [-]."

"Didn't Meng Haigong only have two counties? Where did they get so many troops?" Dugu Yanyun also pays attention to major events in the world, and knows a lot about the major forces.

"It is true that Meng Haigong only has two counties, but Feng An occupies nineteen counties in Jiaozhou. Since the confrontation between the North and the South, there has been no major turmoil in these places. After nearly a hundred years of governance by the three generations of the Feng family, it is no exaggeration to say that the country is prosperous and the people are safe. Jiaozhou The fact that the common people only recognize the Feng family and not the imperial court has a long history. It is no exaggeration to be able to pull out hundreds of thousands of troops. By the way, the food and equipment of the coalition soldiers are all supplied by Feng An."

Speaking of this, Su Dingfang picked up the wooden stick and pointed at the four counties of Yuanling, Lingling, Guiyang, and Nankang in turn, and then said: "The imperial court does not have many troops in these four counties, and the south is controlled by Feng An. An, Xiping, Nanhai, Longchuan, and Ngee'an, these five counties all have heavy troops. If Meng Haigong and Feng An's coalition forces win, they will definitely win a big victory. It will fall. The imperial court's nearly one-year war will be ruined in vain. Therefore, the Jingzhou Army under the charge of Li Jing, Minister of the Ministry of War, is ready to go south to fight at any time. Once he leaves, Yang Shanhui, the right servant in the direction of Nanyang, will divide his troops and send a part of them. Go to Nanjun to defend the Yiling Tang army. The Chongling Tang army is as high as 12, and the remaining troops in Nanyang can only be in a state of self-preservation."

"The second place is the battle between the Sui navy and the Japanese kingdom in the sea. You also know that when Emperor Wen conquered Goguryeo, General Wang Shiji encountered storms and the whole army was wiped out. Therefore, the biggest enemy is the ever-changing sea storms. Another force is needed to prevent accidents. The third place is in the northwest direction. Li Yuan has already formed an alliance with Tubo, a big country in the southwest, and the Tubo army is about to march into the two counties of Xihai and Heyuan."

"In order to prevent the flames of war from poisoning the existing territory of the Great Sui Dynasty again, and to prevent all the troops from being trapped in the battlefield, resulting in no available soldiers, the imperial court will not launch the Sui and Tang Dynasties for the time being, but will fight against Li Yuanxu."

Seeing that Dugu Yanyun showed signs of speaking, Su Dingfang continued without a trace: "I understand the revenge of the generals, but the situation of the country is like this, please understand the difficulties and difficulties of the court, but you can rest assured, we The Great Sui Dynasty will definitely destroy the Puppet Tang this year and next two years.”

Su Dingfang's words are [-]% true, and [-]% false is that after listening to his words, others will subconsciously think that Meng Haigong, Feng An, and Wa are very strong, and subconsciously think that the court is right to seek stability.If he didn't know what the 'Three Great Powers' were, Luo Shixin would have believed Su Dingfang's nonsense.

Dugu Yanyun also turned off the fire, and he couldn't say what he had said, because the war is changing rapidly, and no one can guarantee that he will win every battle, and everything has to be considered on the negative side, so the decision of the court to temporarily truce with Li Yuan not only Yes, it was the wisest decision.

The others also understood this truth, and all of them were silent, and the slight complaints disappeared in an instant, and the rest were worries about the Yizhou people.

"Generals, if there is something you don't understand, it's okay to say it." Su Dingfang said kindly.

"General..." Dugu Yanyun sighed, cupped his hands bitterly and said: "The decision of the imperial court is naturally correct, the final general has nothing to say, but we still have a family member in Yizhou, I am afraid we will not escape Li Yuanji's murderous hands. "

"That's it, you generals are justifiably worried about your people..." Su Dingfang 'suddenly realized', thought for a while, and then said: "But you don't have to worry too much."

"Oh?" After hearing the words, everyone looked at Su Dingfang in surprise. Hearing what he said, it seemed that there was still a turning point.

"Although the imperial government's secret work in Yizhou cannot be said to be pervasive, there seem to be quite a few of them. You can write down the names and addresses of the clan members one by one, and I will try to hand it over to the imperial court, and then ask the military secret work to try to rescue them. ..." Su Dingfang smiled wryly and said: "Just coming and going, it will definitely delay a lot of time. I'm afraid it won't save many people..."

Dugu Yanyun clasped his hands and said: "As the saying goes, life and death are determined by fate, wealth and honor are in the sky. If the court is willing to help, I will be grateful. As for how many people can be saved, we can only resign ourselves to fate."

Everyone echoed their voices. In fact, they also knew that the people of Yizhou were fish on the chopping board. Even if the soldiers of the Great Sui Dynasty Xiangyang successfully transferred Li Yuanji back, the Tang army in Yizhou could attack their people at the same time. .It's just that before things happened, they had certain illusions after all. If the imperial court did not hesitate to expose Yizhou's fine work to save people, it would be a great kindness.

Su Dingfang finally breathed a sigh of relief, and turned the topic to the beginning, "Li Yuan exchanged the five counties of Jingbei for the truce agreement of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Of course we can’t do harm, our next task is to protect ourselves, and then enter Badong from Fangling, and use the name of the Beizhen Army to stop Li Yuan from moving his capital to Shu.”

Dugu Qingyun hesitated and said: "Does the general know Xu Shao?"

"The son of the late Baling Governor Xu Faguang?" Su Dingfang asked uncertainly.

"Xu Shao is the son of the late Xu Faguang, governor of Baling County." Dugu Qingyun nodded and said, "Xu Shao was canonized by the late emperor as the governor of Yiling County. When Li Xiaogong was ordered to attack Yiling, he was blocked by Xu Shao in Yiling and could not march for a long time. Li Yuan secretly bought Zhang Junyi, the prefect of Yiling County, and ordered him to kill Xu Shao. Only Xu Shao's second son, Xu Zhiren, escaped from the Xu family. Yuan, maybe he can be said to surrender."

Su Dingfang nodded and said: "It's too early to say these things. If you really arrive in Padang, the general must remind you."

"The general will understand." Dugu Qingyun said.

Dugu Yanyun asked: "General, will General Cheng and General Gao be seen through?"

"The two of them will definitely not make mistakes!" Su Dingfang still trusts Cheng Yaojin and Gao Yan's abilities.

"If he is found out, Li Shimin is very likely to give up the tactic of encircling three ques and one, and instead encircle all sides. It will be very difficult for our army to break through." Hearing that the Sui and Tang Dynasties will not be fought for the time being, Dugu Yanyun knows The Beizhen army was still isolated and helpless, so it was inevitable that they became a little worried.

"They will never let me down. If Li Shimin sees through the plan of flooding and the flood is delayed, it will not be too late for us to break through from the west gate. At that time, the sky will be dark, and Li Shimin must not dare to let go of his hands and feet to pursue. "That being said, Su Dingfang doesn't think that Li Shimin found Cheng Yaojin and Gao Yan.Maybe he would be wary, but Li Shimin couldn't have thought that they would release water twenty miles away!
But what Su Dingfang didn't know was that both Cheng Yaojin and Gao Yan were in trouble, and it was a huge trouble!

Damming the cofferdam and digging the embankment may sound easy, but in practice, it is not simple at all.

First of all, Zhushui and Beihe Rivers are not like the Yellow River that flows eastward. They have no real embankments, and the entire river course is formed by natural erosion. If you want to build a dam to store water, you have to find a valley surrounded by two mountains, otherwise If it is, the river will flow to both sides, and if there is insufficient water, it will not be able to form a flood peak, and it will not be able to threaten Gucheng twenty miles away.

Secondly, digging the embankment is equivalent to digging the mountain on the side of the embankment. In this era, there are no explosives to dig the mountain, and the excavation is all done by manpower, and there is a time limit. When it comes to digging, the second general and the soldiers under his command are all stupid Eyes, but can not stop, what should I do?
It is natural to find the weakest place to attack.

Fortunately, during the daytime battle, more than 2000 horses were captured, so that the two generals each had more than 2000 men.

Compared with Gao Yan, a young man, Cheng Yaojin is not only rough but subtle, quick-witted, but also good at opportunism. When he chose the place to build the dam, he already realized that he had to dig a mountain, and the selected dam site was the weakest mountain. Moreover, after he built the embankment, he led more than 2000 soldiers to start work collectively. After working for more than half the night, he finally opened a small opening on the south bank of Zhushui. It was getting bigger and bigger, and it seemed that the flood was going to be out of control, but there were two huge stones below, which were stuck on both sides of the gap, one left and one right, and no matter how the flood washed, the big stone remained motionless.Unless these two big rocks are broken, with such a small amount of water, even if it is flooded for two years, it will not be able to threaten Gucheng, which is twenty miles away.It will be too late to re-select a place to dig again. The only way is to knock down a boulder.

But the problem is that the small stone is bigger than the house. If you smash it with a chisel and a hammer, it may not be able to break it even in a month, but now it is less than midnight before the agreed time.

At a critical moment, Cheng Yaojin was helped by his hobby of reading miscellaneous books and biographies. He remembered that when Li Bing and his son were building the Dujiangyan, the father and son, in order to speed up the progress and reduce the waste of human and material resources, calcined rocks and then quenched them with cold water to make the rocks Burst and fall off, and then peel it apart.

So he copied the method of Li Bing and his son, first emptying out the soil on a stone to the end, then set up dry firewood behind the root of the stone and forged it. Hit it with a hammer, and you can quickly knock off a thick layer.After repeating this many times, the foundation of the stone was finally cut off by more than half, and the stone became smaller and heavier and gradually unable to withstand the force of the flood. The wild horse gallops down!

Losing the confinement of the boulder, the torrential flood completely lost its limit, and the gap soon expanded from less than two feet to more than 40 feet. The area soon became a vast ocean.

It was miserable for Gao Yan, he was a young man after all, he didn't have as many detours as Cheng Yaojin, and after the embankment was built, the soldiers went to sleep in batches.It wasn't until digging that I realized the problem was serious.But he didn't know about the deeds of Li Bing and his son, and secondly, he didn't dig before he hoeed and didn't realize how difficult it was to dig a mountain until he started.At the critical moment, his ancestor Lanling King Gao Changgong helped him.

Gao Yan grew up listening to the story of Lanling King Gao Changgong, and admired him very much. After growing up, he not only learned about Gao Changgong's deeds, but also loved the house and the house and read the war materials of the Northern Qi Dynasty. Among them, the most classic battle, Nothing is better than the Battle of Yubi in the 12th year of Datong.At that time, Wei Xiaokuan was ordered to defend Yubi, and Gao Huan's army, with many soldiers, piled up earth hills outside Yubi City step by step, trying to attack Yubi City condescendingly. , so that Gao Huan's earth-mountain plan failed.From this battle, Gao Yan got the inspiration to find a place with towering mountains in the north and a low and soily place in the south to build a stronger embankment, then dig a ravine on the south bank, and then decide to open the first embankment. The dam, the rolling flood water met the second dam, and it naturally flooded to the lower side. The mighty flood swept the soil gully bigger and bigger, flooding the bottom into a swamp country as he wished.

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I would like to ask: Cheng, the sophomore general, whose method is smarter?

(End of this chapter)