I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 431: The Solid Shenglong City
The rain started to fall again, and the sound was like the only sound left in the world.

Pan Yinglong was wearing a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat, standing on a hill. Behind him stood Wu Weizhong, Wang Xiaofu and others, who were also wearing straw raincoats and bamboo hats.

"The Tao River flows into the sea and is divided into more than ten channels, all of which split north of Thang Long Prefecture. The main channel is divided into two routes, north and south. The northern route passes north of Haiyang and goes directly into Halong Bay. The southern route passes Xing'an and goes straight down to Taiping Island.

The other rivers vary in size. Fifteen miles west of Thang Long City, there is a branch, which is no more than 300 meters wide and more than ten meters deep. It is called Xuan Mei River. It meanders for less than 100 miles and merges into the main road in the south.

Our plan to break into the city lies along this river."

Wang Xiaofu came from a family of military households and had been familiar with military books since childhood. When he heard what Pan Yinglong said, he suddenly became enlightened.

"The soldiers should devise a water plan to flood Thang Long City with floodwaters."

Pan Yinglong laughed and said to Wu Weizhong: "General Wu, the brothers under your command are brave and resourceful!"

Wu Weizhong chuckled, "Of course, it's up to me."

Pan Yinglong continued, "I asked the surveying team to survey the terrain around Thang Long City. The terrain around Thang Long City is flat. It is the rainy season now, and the river level is high. Now the land around Thang Long City is only one or two meters higher than the river level.

The west side is slightly higher, only three or four meters higher than the surface of Taojiang River. The north side is the lowest, less than half a meter higher than the river surface.

Our army laid siege to the city, dug two trenches outside Thang Long City, and built a 20-meter-high earthen dam. In the past few days, we mobilized 200,000 Annan civilians to reinforce the earthen dam in the heavy rain and quietly changed the trenches to go directly from the west to the north gate.

Now everything is ready, only the east wind is missing!"

After saying that, Pan Yinglong stared at Wang Xiaofu, and Wu Weizhong and the generals behind him also looked at Wang Xiaofu.

Wang Xiaofu wiped the rain off his face and shouted, "General, please give me an order. What do you want me to do?"

"I'll let you risk your life!" Pan Yinglong shouted, "No matter whether you can survive in the end, Wang Xiaofu, you and your brothers are the first to conquer Thang Long City and destroy the Annan Mo family!"

Wang Xiaofu was silent for more than ten breaths, then he bowed to Wu Weizhong and Pan Yinglong and said, "I am willing to serve the Ming Dynasty till death!"

Pan Yinglong and Wu Weizhong took the lead, and the other generals bowed and saluted to Wang Xiaofu.

The rain got heavier, hitting everyone. The rain was cold, but everyone's hearts gradually became warm.

On the Xuanmei River, more than 20 miles southwest of Thang Long City, there is a bend where the river becomes narrower.

Centipede boats were sailing back and forth on the river, and hundreds or even thousands of people gathered on both sides of the river, running around busily in the heavy rain.

Two or three hundred wooden stakes were densely packed in the mud on both sides of the river bank. Thick ropes were wrapped around the stakes again and again, and then all tied to six iron chains.

The iron chain crossed the river and went straight to the other side, and was also tied tightly to two or three hundred wooden stakes.

"Iron chains are used to lock the river! How much iron must be used to make such a long chain?" Someone was talking while busying himself.

"Anyway, we collected all the iron from the baggage camp, and even melted more than twenty cannons. Fortunately, there was plenty of coal in Halong Bay, so we built more furnaces and worked hard to cast these six iron chains."

"The other side is waving a flag, asking us to work together to tighten the chain." Someone shouted.

Rhythmic horn calls rang out on both sides of the river, penetrating the sound of the rain and echoing on the surface of the river.

The iron chains were slowly pulled up, with two hanging above the river, one half-hidden above the river, and three sunk in the water. At this point, you can see that on the six iron chains, there are slightly thinner iron chains hanging across each other, interweaving into a web of iron nets.

Now the two iron chains on the river are tied with red cloth strips, which are particularly conspicuous in the uniform color of the river water due to rain.

The two sides waved flags to communicate, and after confirming that everything was correct, one person fired a flare. The red flare flew in the heavy rain, piercing through the gray rain curtain, looking particularly dazzling.

After waiting for half an hour, a large ship floated down from upstream. Judging from the shape of the ship, it should be a captured Annan official ship.

Its deck was not much higher than the river surface and was fully loaded with cargo. At the bow and stern, thirty or forty bare-chested boatmen nervously controlled the large boat. People on both sides of the river watched the large boat drift down, flocked to the riverside, looked up, and tried to find the shape of the boat in the gray rain.

The boatman at the bow saw the red cloth dots in front of him and knew that he had to get closer to the iron chain. After a shout, the ship slowly turned sideways and hit the iron chain hard with the right side of the ship.

There was a rumbling sound, followed by a teeth-grinding creaking sound of wood being squeezed. In the gray rain, the big ship lay steadily in front of the iron chain.

It worked!
Thousands of people on both sides of the Chunmei River burst into cheers.

Then, one after another, fully loaded Annan ships were placed across the iron chain. In less than half an hour, ten large ships were connected end to end across the river, just crossing the entire river surface.

The boatmen left one after another, leaving only four or five people on the boat.

Those who stayed behind began to scuttle the boat and let water into the cabin.

The boat was originally filled with mud, sand and gravel filled with straw bags. Once water was released, the hull slowly sank. The four or five boatmen also jumped onto the boat in time and left and returned to the shore.

The first batch of ten large ships sank to the bottom of the river, blocking half of the surging river water. Soon after, more than ten large ships floated down, were pulled by iron chains, and sank on the hulls of the first batch of sunken ships.

Most of the river water was suddenly blocked. Iron chains and twenty large ships filled with mud and gravel formed a dam. The riverbed of Chunmei River below gradually dried up, and countless fish jumped around on the pebbles and gravel.

The rain suddenly stopped at this time, and with more than a dozen red flags waving on both sides of the river, tens of thousands of people poured out from the river bank.

Rushing in the front was the engineering battalion of the Ming navy, and behind them were the Annan civilian workers from the detachment. They carried wood and planks, pushed wheelbarrows full of bricks and stones, and poured down from both sides of the river into the dammed riverbed like a tide.

Under the command of the engineering camp craftsmen, the Annan craftsmen quickly used wood and planks to build a dam frame to support the iron chains and the sunken ship.

After building a dam framework, tens of thousands of Annan laborers used wheelbarrows to continuously fill it with soil, gravel, and bricks and tiles. They must have been the demolished Annan government offices and manor houses of wealthy families nearby.

Tens of thousands of laborers were like ants, winding into dozens of long lines, busy but not chaotic, and working in an orderly manner.

Yang Fengming, the envoy of the Propaganda Bureau of the Nanhai Xuanwei Mission, led dozens of propaganda teams to various places, speaking and singing loudly in the drizzle.

Most of the propaganda team were Annan artists, who either played clappers or sang in Annan slang, expressing the same meaning in Annan dialect.

Let's work hard! Take down Thang Long City! Destroy the Mo clan!

After the Mo family is destroyed, the fields and houses distributed to everyone by the Ming Dynasty will belong to everyone forever, and there will be no need to worry about them being taken away!
Mud and water flew everywhere, and the gaps between the sunken ships blocked by iron chains occasionally gushed out a stream of river water. As the river water rose higher and higher, the six iron chains as thick as arms were shaken by the sunken ships, and it seemed that they would break in the next second, and then the river water suddenly burst.

However, thousands of Ming engineering camp craftsmen and tens of thousands of Annan civilians turned a blind eye. They worked quickly, either building frames or dumping mud and rocks.

By evening, a dam more than 300 meters long and 20 meters high, spanning the Chunmei River bed, suddenly appeared in front of everyone.

Tens of thousands of people cheered on the river bank, holding their hands high and roaring loudly with tears in their eyes. For the first time, these Annan people realized that the power they gathered together was so great that they could tame a raging river that had been unruly for thousands of years.

As early as noon, the level of the cut-off Chunmei River had risen by four or five meters.

At Pan Yinglong's order, the Ming army blew up the dike on the east side of Chunmei River. The river water rushed towards the land, first rushing northward, but was blocked by the dike built by the Ming army and had to turn east.

They had just rushed forward less than five or six miles when they were blocked by an earthen dam built by the Ming army on the north and east sides of Thang Long Prefecture, which was more than 20 miles long and more than 20 meters high. They had no choice but to turn around and rush towards Thang Long City in the south.

The muddy and reddish river water rushed to the north gate of Thang Long City, but was blocked by the tall and solid city wall and stopped at the foot of the city. The Mo family defenders on the city wall were frightened by the sudden flood, but now they finally felt relieved.

Haha, our Thang Long city walls are high and solid. Your Ming army can’t destroy them with artillery, and you can’t break them open with floods!

We are solid as a rock!

(End of this chapter)