Lu Ming

Chapter 440

On the morning of March 28, it was the third day that the Flying Tiger Camp broke into the mountains.

Xuan Chengzi straightened the Taoist crown on his head, stroked his long beard under his chin, and after silently saying "Infinite Heavenly Lord" in his heart, he stretched his legs across the high threshold and entered the main hall of Bixia Palace.

In the majestic hall, there are some "pilgrims" wearing strange green jackets.

The only person in this group of soldiers, who was dressed in the robes of a military officer of the Ming Dynasty, was turning his back on Xuan Chengzi at this moment, looking up at the righteous god enshrined in Bixia Palace: Bixia Yuanjun.

"General, have a sip of camellia tea."

Xuan Chengzi came behind the benefactor, turned sideways, and revealed Xiaodaotong holding a tea tray behind him.

"Oh, and tea, thank you, Daoist."

The general turned around, took a sip from the tea bowl, and nodded involuntarily: "The tea is good, with a unique flavor."

Taoist Xuan Chengzi explained with a smile: "This tea was passed down by the patriarch of the old Taoist. It is made in a unique way. In the past, the generals at the foot of the mountain liked to drink it. The old Taoist heard from the master when he was young that General Qi used to come here often. tea in the palace."

"Hehe, I understand. The officers and soldiers of Ji Town often come here to worship the gods. I know this."

When the general said this, he reached out and took out a few shiny silver pancakes from his pocket and handed them to the old Taoist: "At any rate, you can be regarded as half of the people of Ji Town, and our men are no exception today. Now, this is incense money."

"Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable, thank you General."

"Hehe, old man, please don't thank me, I still have something to ask you."

"Also please show me the general."

"Well, do you know how many Tartars there are in the military city at the foot of the mountain?"

"The total number is about five or six hundred, all of whom are cavalry."

"Does that generation have any contact with the left and right neighbors?"

"In recent days, more people go east, and fewer people come west. There are always two or three riders crossing the road every day."

"Hehe, Old Daoist, I found that you have a lot of feelings, don't you?"

"To tell you the truth, General, since the foot of the mountain was occupied by the Tartars, the old Taoist has been watching day and night, praying for the return of the heavenly soldiers."

"Very well, Ben will assure you that you will be able to receive offerings from pilgrims again in a short time."

The terrain of the entire Yanshan Corridor is as follows: from the capital to the east, after passing Ji Town, a narrow mouth between two mountains, there is the Zunhua Plain, which is 40 miles long and wide.

Continuing to the east and crossing the Zunhua Plain, the terrain will narrow sharply and become a mountainous arteries 80 miles long with an average width of less than one mile.

This section of the main road leads to the Li River on the left and the Luan River to the right, and the water and land run parallel, which is extremely important.

After leaving this narrow road, there is another Luanhe Plain.This place is already close to the sea, close to Qinhuangdao, and to the north is a series of dangerous passes including Shanhaiguan and Xifengkou.

In short, the terrain of the entire Yanshan Corridor is like a dumbbell, with plains at both ends and a thin bar in the middle.

The battle plan of the crossing crowd this time will start from the midpoint of the dumbbell.

As for the left side of the dumbbell, since Zunhua, which was occupied by Tatar soldiers, is only eighty miles away from Ji Town, which is occupied by the Ming army, the two sides are currently in a tense confrontation, so the crossing people don't plan to go into the muddy water.

It is the most reasonable solution to keep Zunhua, let the two groups restrain each other, and make time for the Tartars on the right of the cross-travelers to pack the dumbbells.

In this way, Santunying, a strategically important place in the middle of the dumbbell, became the first nail to be pulled out by the traversing crowd.

The seat of Jizhen was arranged in Shiziyu in the early Ming Dynasty.During the Ming Yingzong period, due to the intensification of conflicts with the northern nomads, the pressure on the frontier troops increased, so Hu Yong, who was the seventh general of Jizhen at that time, moved the town to Santunying, which had a better location, thus creating a Santunying established a 186-year town governance foundation.

Santunying is a T-shaped intersection in the middle section of the Yanshan Corridor.

The geographical location of this place is extremely important, and it has been guarding the tribute road for the northern Mongolians to pay tribute all year round: "Go to Xifeng and Ershe. The mountains and seas on the left, the mediocrity on the right, and the tribute road in the middle of the hub."

At the intersection of Santunying, take the mountain road to the north, and it is only two houses away from Xifengkou, which is sixty miles away.

Santunying, located in the middle of the dumbbell narrow road, is about the same distance from Shanhaiguan and Juyongguan on the east and west sides. It is the best place to serve as the northern military command center of the capital. ".

For more than 100 years, as the "No. [-] town in the world", Jizhen has successively served as the chief military officer, and they all set up their governing offices in Santunying City.

From March 3th, the cavalry troops who crossed the crowd went northward across the 25-mile plain and entered the remaining veins of Yanshan Mountain.After that, the troops dispersed, and after carefully searching the mountains with a radius of more than a hundred miles, they gradually gathered at the foot of Jingzhong Mountain on March 150.

Jingzhong Mountain is 610 meters above sea level, at the foot of which is Santun Yingcheng, just overlooking it.

Jingzhong Mountain has beautiful scenery and many scenic spots. It integrates the three religions of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.As early as the second year of Jiajing, Ma Yong, the general officer of Jizhen, built the Bixia Palace on the mountain, enshrining the statue of Bixia Yuanjun, and the incense became more and more prosperous.Since then, officers and soldiers of Jizhen, including Qi Jiguang, have often visited the mountain and left many famous stories.

The main purpose of the cross-traversing people to climb the mountain and worship the temple today is to collect local intelligence and investigate the military situation at the foot of the mountain.

Zhang Zhongqi, the newly appointed battalion officer of the Flying Tiger Battalion, after chatting with the old Taoist in Bixia Palace, went out of the palace to the viewing platform in front of the mountain.

The Bixia Palace is full of incense, so the old Taoist just now looks quaint and strange, but he is actually an invisible rich man. The viewing platform is paved with white marble from Fangshan, and the engravings on it are extremely exquisite.

On the viewing platform at this moment, a group of people headed by Qian Tieshan is standing around a set of pocket drones and looking at something.When Zhang Zhongqi walked in and took a look, on the LCD screen of the ground station, there was an aerial picture of Santunying City below.

"How many people are there? The old saying is that there are five or six hundred Tartars."

"Almost." Du Dewei, the vice-captain of the Special Forces, answered, "The same number was used in our initial investigation, and there has been no change in the past two days."

Zhang Zhongqi hummed: "Then when?"

"Tomorrow." Qian Tieshan stood up straight at this time, and looked around the surrounding mountain scenery with his hips on his hips: "Tonight, Lao Du will lead people to investigate again, and then we will have a meeting and wait for the supplies by the way."

An unnamed valley not far from the foot of Jingzhong Mountain has become the advance base of the troops.This valley has a relatively high terrain, and there is a small river on the side that can provide water, so several rows of grass-green canvas marching tents have already been erected here.

On both sides of the river, two long rows of horses were drinking water with their heads down.A little upstream, the Flying Tigers who had come here earlier were carrying water in canvas buckets and preparing to set up pots for cooking.

Since the main force of the Houjin army had withdrawn, the Tartar soldiers who stayed behind in the cities in the back road had no fighting spirit. In history, after Sun Chengzong organized his troops, he took down all the cities in a single wave. .

The same Ming troops were beaten to the ground by the Eight Banners soldiers not long ago.

And these same Eight Banners soldiers, the first-class Sun Chengzong who had the superior force attacked the city, these people opened the city gate and whistled and ran away, with large and small bags on their horses.

This is what will inevitably happen: the strength of the Eight Banners soldiers is not in the city's offensive and defensive battles. What's more, the cavalry left behind have no long-term supply of food and grass, and their numbers are so small that they can't even fill the city walls.

In this situation, the Flying Tiger Camp, which is already separated from the Santun Camp by a mountain, has begun to camp out ostentatiously, and no longer cares about exposing the problem—the Tatar soldiers have begun to shrink in an all-round way, just waiting for someone to attack the city , There is no need to let go of the probing horse again.

As the soldiers who had been scattered over the past few days returned to the building one after another, the nameless valley became more and more lively, and the smoke continued to rise.

In the evening, a team of temporarily recruited auxiliary horsemen brought the first batch of supplies from outside the mountain on pack horses.

These auxiliary soldiers are the real support personnel.After they parked the convoy at the mountain pass in the south, they transferred the supplies to the pack horses, and then crossed the Baili Mountain Road to send the supplies here.

Seeing the arrival of the first batch of supplies, the cross-travelers who had already set up a temporary headquarters in the valley, no longer have to worry about the future, and began to prepare for the night's reconnaissance activities.At ten o'clock in the evening, the reconnaissance team led by Du Dewei, the deputy commander of the special forces, set off on foot on time.

The moon was bright and the stars were sparse. The reconnaissance team came out of Jingzhong Mountain Pass, and it was only a mile away from Santun Yingcheng, so there was no need to ride a horse.

Half an hour after departure, the team came to the deserted shanty town outside the moat.The special fighters wearing night vision goggles then released DJI drones equipped with infrared lenses and night vision lenses.

The drones released during the day can only take aerial photos at high altitudes. At this time, the drones released can approach hovering for investigation.Soon, the drone sent a detailed picture of the city, and Qian Tieshan at the Wuminggu headquarters also received the data at the same time.

When Santunying was in the third year of Wanli, Qi Jiguang, who was then the chief military officer of Jizhen, allocated funds for a large-scale maintenance of the city.

The rebuilt Santun Yingcheng is a masonry structure with a wall height of 3 feet, a top width of 1 foot and 5 feet, and a circumference of 7 miles.

There are three main gates in the city: Jingzhong Gate in the south, Binri Gate in the east, and Gongjing Gate in the west.Each gate is also built with heavy gates to strengthen the defense of the city.Fifty meters north of the east and west main gates, there are two side gates, commonly known as Xiaodongmen and Xiaoximen.

The city defense facilities of Santunying are very complete: the hopeful building on the city gate, the Ziji Palace on the north city platform, 5 turrets on the city corner, towers on the east and west gates, and 9 towers evenly arranged along the city platform. An enemy platform.

In addition, there are two water gates in the city, through which the water inside and outside the city can circulate.The water of the moat, 7 feet wide and 3 feet deep, is drawn from the nearby Henghe River. It not only circles the city, but also has a 350 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 7 feet deep Zhenhu Lake outside the east gate.

It's a pity that there is no supporting army to guard such a superb and complete city defense system. This choke point is surrendered.

While investigating the architectural details of the city, the infrared outlines of the Tatar guards wandering around the city wall were also clearly displayed on the LCD screen.

After scouting the city wall, the drone flew to the General Military Mansion inside the city. The main force of the Tartars was there.

(End of this chapter)