Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 38: Mud Marching and Enjoying the Hardships

July 20th.

Liu Huai shook off the wet mud on his feet and realized that the straw sandals on his right foot had been lost at some point.

After cursing inwardly, he took out a pair of new straw sandals from the warhorse beside him, tried them on his feet, but felt reluctant to do so. He simply took off the left straw sandal, shook off the mud, hung it on the side of the saddle, and continued to move forward barefoot.

Looking back at where he came from, Liu Huai cursed again.

Damn it, I finally got out of this.

The ninety-mile muddy journey was enough for him to have a clear understanding of the disastrous consequences of the Yellow River taking over the Huai River.

The fertile Huaihe River and the Sihe River were turned into an uninhabited area full of swamps. Even the route Wei Sheng had explored in advance was muddy.

After all, no matter how good the official road is, it cannot withstand the annual flooding of the Yellow River!
But the good news is that this road has finally come to an end.

Because the Shushui River and Shuofu Lake serve as flood diversions, and the river is close to Shuyang County, the river channel is relatively intact and has not been affected by the Yellow River flood area.

Liu Huai led the horse and looked back from time to time.

Behind him, there were eight large carts in the middle, each pulled by two slow horses, carrying baggage, armor, food, and other miscellaneous items.

Except for more than ten scouts who were sent out to explore the way, the rest of the armored cavalry and light cavalry all led their horses and advanced one step deep and one step shallow in the mud on both sides of the road.

This is completely different from the imagined cavalry charge!
During the Three Kingdoms period, Xiahou Yuan could travel 500 miles in three days and 1,000 miles in six days.

The times are developing and technology is advancing. By the time of the Song Dynasty, it must have been able to develop rapidly and make great progress, right?

But the facts prove that only a few people can be recorded in history books.

When an army moves, it must have baggage, and if it has baggage, it must have carts.

A knight needs to eat two to three pounds of food every day, a warhorse needs to eat two pounds of bean cakes and eight pounds of hay every day, each armored cavalryman needs to wear more than 50 pounds of armor, and each light cavalryman needs to wear more than 10 pounds of armor. In addition, there are dozens of kinds of wooden fences, chevaux de frise, tents, and braziers used for camping.

With so many things, if there were no baggage carts, it would be impossible to move them just by relying on the strength of humans and animals, even if they died of exhaustion!
Can we charge forward with light cavalry without any baggage?

of course can!

Or he could learn from Sima Yi and raid Meng Da. All the prefectures and counties along the way would be his own, and he could use the treasury at will.

Or you can learn from the Mongolian soldiers of later generations and rob as you go, leaving a thousand miles of barren land!

Otherwise, you have to pay a huge price in terms of horse damage and knight injuries, and be determined to die if you don't succeed, and go all out to give it a shot!
You know, although theoretically a horse can survive by eating grass, if a warhorse carries a knight on a long-distance charge and only eats grass, it will lose weight and become weak, or even die of exhaustion.

If you have no choice, just take the baggage carts and move forward. Even in the Napoleonic era, the marching speed was based on the speed of the central army's baggage carts.

Just as Liu Huai was distracted thinking about the terrain, the cart behind him made a strange squeaking noise, and the right front wheel fell off. The cart tilted to the side amid the driver's exclamations.

Liu Huai quickly threw away the reins, ignoring the long neighs of the horses pulling the cart, and pushed the two pack horses away. He held the overturned cart with his shoulders, grasped the axle with both hands, and lifted it up with force.

Zhang Xiaoyi, who came from behind, was stunned when he saw this scene.

It's important to note that this four-wheeled cart can only carry a thousand pounds of grain. Although most of the grain and fodder had been consumed due to the muddy roads and the march, there was still over three hundred pounds left. Adding the weight of the cart, it was enough to crush a person. I'd heard that Wei Jia Dalang possessed supernatural powers, but I didn't expect it to be true!

If Liu Huai knew what Zhang Xiaoyi was thinking, he would definitely scold her mother. Why is he sighing at this time? Why doesn't he come to help?

If a cart falls over in this muddy road, the cargo on the cart must be emptied before it can be righted. During this process, the road will be blocked, delaying one or two hours, and today's marching plan will be ruined.

So, even though Liu Huai's muscles were bulging, his feet were already deep in the mud, and his face was red, he still shouted loudly: "Quick...quickly straighten the wheel!"

Zhang Xiaoyi hurried forward.

Even faster than him was Lu You.

The middle-aged scholar jumped off his horse at a speed that was not suitable for his age. He lifted the hem of his long gown and tucked it into his belt. He bent over to lift the wheel, put it on the axle and pushed it forward, but found that he couldn't move it at all.

"You bastard!" Lu You cursed loudly and kicked the wooden wheel. However, not only did he fail to move the wheel, his body became unstable and he sat down in the mud.

"I come!"

Zhang Xiaoyi, his tattooed body shaking, swung the wooden hammer and smashed the wooden wheel into the axle with just one blow. He then used a wooden wedge to wedge into the side of the axle, fixing the wheel on the inside.

Liu Huai slowly put down the axle and breathed a long sigh of relief.

While hurriedly pulling Lu You up, Liu Huai couldn't help but blurt out: "Du Chong, that son of a bitch!"

In the second year of Jianyan, the Jin army marched south. Du Chong, who was in charge of Tokyo at the time, did not dare to fight them. His only countermeasure was to order the Yellow River dike to be breached, so that the Yellow River water could flow into the Huai River from the Si River, in an attempt to stop the pursuing troops from behind.

However, Du Chong's breaching of the river not only failed to stop the Jin Kingdom's eastern army, but also caused more than 200,000 local people to be drowned, and the death toll from displacement and plague was several times that.

The Lianghuai region, the most prosperous and thriving region during the Northern Song Dynasty, was destroyed, and nearly 10 million people were left homeless and became refugees.

It would be excessive to place all the blame for the Yellow River flooding on Du Chong. However, to have him hacked into pieces or shot for ten minutes for the sole crime of digging the Yellow River was absolutely not an injustice!
"A scholar is useless!" Lu You said with a wry smile, shaking off the mud on his body.

Liu Huai, also covered in mud, simply took off his shirt, imitating Zhang Xiaoyi, leaving him bare-chested in his trousers. He forced a smile at Lu You's shabby appearance and said, "Mr. Lu, you should wait until we have pacified Haizhou before heading north. It's too tiring to be the vanguard now."

Lu You struggled for a long time, but couldn't bring himself to strip shirtless. He simply tucked the hem of his robe into his belt, rolled up his sleeves, and opened his chest, acting like a madman. Hearing Liu Huai's question, he shook his head vigorously, "I've wasted half my life. If I don't join the Northern Expedition right away, I won't be able to rest in peace even in the grave."

Under normal circumstances, Liu Huai would have been forced to lift the sedan chair after hearing such bold words, but at this moment he was a little tired and just nodded randomly when he heard the words.

After the incident, the team continued to advance in the mud.

After Lu You swatted a few mosquitoes to death, they kept coming in larger numbers. He became annoyed and found a topic to distract himself: "Liu Dalang, there's something I don't understand."

"Mr. Lu, please tell me."

"Do you really trust Shi Qilang? He was originally a signed soldier. Even if we had a heart-to-heart talk for one night, it would still be too short. If you let him act as a spy, aren't you afraid that he will tell the Jin thieves all the truth about the army?"

Although they were on the march, Lu You's question still made several people around him laugh.

(End of this chapter)