open sea

Chapter 1383 Stone Castle

The vigilance of the opponent is much lower than Dong Yiyuan imagined.

The weather is getting colder and colder, and Dong Yiyuan is unwilling to follow in Kuchu Khan's footsteps, waiting for the Siberian army, which is as powerful as a militia, to launch a siege next spring.

The rumors of the Siberian Khanate have seriously deviated from his own judgment.

This prompted him to decide to take the lead before the armor of the Ming army could withstand the cold of November, try to approach the bank of the Irtysh River in the south of Isker City, and launch a prepared field encounter with the enemy to personally fight against the enemy. Measure the combat capability of the Cossacks who occupy the city.

On the sixth day of October in the 11th year of Wanli, with the help of the severe cold in the wilderness, Dong Yiyuan's troops approached the Irtysh River without anyone noticing, and his scouts could even faintly see the dilapidated Yisi River on the other side of the river in the blowing snow fog. Kyle City.

On the south bank of the Dahe River, which is only ten miles away from Isker City, Dong Yiyuan's thirteen hundred households counted the number of people, a total of 120, three Mongolian light cavalry, two Zhejiang army gunners fell behind during the march due to frostbite, and a Mongolian heavy cavalry The war horse broke its leg on the frozen soil, and the spare horse could not bear the impact task, so it withdrew from the battle.

They will spend the entire winter in the ruins of the village in the south. The nearest post station is seventy miles away. Dong Yiyuan has sent military doctors for them from the rear, but the military doctors who are good at treating trauma have limited effect on the situation they encounter.

The Mongolian Qingqi from Mobei swam on the south bank of the Irtysh River for three full days.

In the past three days, even if the sheep were lost in the winter in Mobei, they would not go out to look for them. Braving the freezing temperature and the bone-chilling wind passing through the wilderness, they performed super-level, just to detect the traces of the enemy scouts .

In the past, they were helpless and worthless warriors on the grassland.

And in the three days, they were all nine-year-old Temujin who had been kicked out of the tribal wandering grassland, with unparalleled tenacity and fighting spirit.

It was not Genghis Khan who shaped their fighting spirit, but their enemies, the Cossacks who seemed to be 'hiding in the dark'.

The Ming army marched 470 miles with the attitude of entering the enemy's territory. They completed the mission of scouting along the way with the most serious attitude, but in the end, the hunky men in sheepskin jackets were so ashamed that they wanted to hit their heads against the wall-they didn't even see a single person !

How is this possible?How could they not see an enemy when the distance from an occupied capital was getting closer and closer, shortened from a hundred miles to forty miles, or even twenty miles?

The enemy must be hiding in the shadows and they must be found.

It is precisely this belief that allowed them to report back to Dong Yiyuan, who was in the middle army, and Zhu Yu, who led the soldiers to dig trenches, in the weather where negligence could freeze people to death. Lived three lone Cossacks.

The Chuvash Fortress was a fortress built by the Siberian Khanate in the past. It is condescending and guards the only passage on the Irtysh River within a radius of [-] miles from the city of Isker - not a bridge, but a boat.

There is no decent bridge on the Irtysh River, which is more than one mile wide. There are only many ways to get to the city of Isker.

Punting, freezing in winter, building pontoon bridges, swimming and swimming, you can do anything... But there are no ready-made bridges.

People who are frightening will also live in fear all the time.

People who are in fear will expose their weaknesses.

The Cossacks are a notorious civilian armed group, but when they were singled out from the armed group and bound to kneel in front of Dong Yiyuan, they were just poor fishermen who peed their pants scared of death.

The reason there was one fisherman instead of three was because Zhu Yu didn't like armed gangs like Japanese pirates.

The other two people didn't seem to be so afraid of death, so Zhu Yu asked them to try, so that they could have a suitable answer when they encounter this kind of problem in the next life.

The first one is fearless, the second one sees death as home, the third one finds that his brothers are dead and no one can laugh at him for being cowardly, so he throws it neatly, like pouring beans from a bamboo tube.

The Mongolian Qingqi's three-day suffering was in vain. The Cossack checkpoints imagined by the Ming army scouts did not exist at all.

The Cossacks did not have any intelligence personnel, and the only person who knew how to deploy scouts was Yermak. This experience was a lesson he learned after the big Cossack gang of thousands of people was defeated by the Tsar's regular army in the past.

But now Yermak is not in the city of Isker. He took advantage of the fact that the Irtysh River was not frozen, and went north to sweep all the villages and towns of the Khanate along the river to raise food and grass for the winter for his troops trapped in the city.

Yermak is not here, the group of Cossacks is a mess, the three captured Cossacks appeared in the Chuvash fortress not as scouts, but hungry and weak, looking for something to eat in the cellar of the destroyed fortress was left behind.

The cellar was naturally clean, but it was quite warm. Anyway, the three of them didn't have the strength to go back, so they simply wanted to sleep in the cellar before leaving. They were arrested without even raising their weapons in their sleep.

This meant that the city of Isker was almost defenseless, but the wide Irtysh River blocked Dong Yiyuan's way.

The shortage of materials left him with no choice. It was impossible for the Ming army to build a pontoon bridge at this juncture, but he had a plan that looked better—relying on the abandoned Chuvash fortress to dig trenches and set up large military camps to avoid the cold, Garrison troops until the river freezes.

"Their consistent actions against the Siberian Khanate prove that they have the habit of reckless men. When they see the Khanate's army, they will immediately send out small soldiers to attack."

Even though Dong Yiyuan had guessed a little about the result of the battle through the understanding of the equipment of both sides, he still felt ironic: "They both won. They are a proud soldier. I think they will immediately send troops to attack after they find us."

It is true that the Ming army did not have boats, but the Cossacks did. This is Dong Yiyuan’s idea. As long as the Yermak Cossacks send the boats, will the Ming army be able to cross the river soon?
"If they defend the city and refuse to fight, we can also garrison food and supplies in Shibaozi. When the river freezes, try to beat him. If they fall into the city, they will fall into it. For more than ten miles, advance, attack, retreat, or defend."

With this in mind, the soldiers of the light soldiers shoveled the engineers who had experienced the permafrost test of Majiagang to the Chuvash Fort in the past. Now Dong Yiyuan started large-scale trench operations on the stone fortress with the bright flag in his mouth. The entry is slow, but the work is in full swing.

The intelligence responsibility along the river is handed over to the Long Live Army scouts with more experience and better cold-proof equipment.

In fact, the Cossack's reaction was much slower than Dong Yiyuan imagined.

Shibaozi was brightly lit every day and night, and they could see a little bit of light in the night of Isker City, and they could also see their little lights in the city, but they still failed to attract the attention of the Cossacks.

Until October 23 of the same year, just after a heavy snowfall, the whole world turned into a silvery white.

The scouts on the south bank of the Irtysh River finally reported that there was movement in the city of Isker. Under the cover of night, a 200-man troop dragged the sloop on the snow with horses and walked towards the river bank.

For the long-awaited Long Live Army, this means an exciting signal: brothers are coming to work!

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)