Chapter 62: Half-crossing attack

There were dense military camps on both sides of the Bishui River. Hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides stood together, but there was no conflict. The army in the court did not launch an attack because of the generals' unyielding attack, while the rebels did not have much morale because of rebellion. This was the first time that the chief general Yuchi Dun commanded such a large army to fight. He had no experience and had to maintain the defensive momentum.

However, the day after Gao Yang and Yang Yong arrived at the front line, the official army began to move. The entire west bank of Bishui changed the calm atmosphere in the past. Under the command of the army, countless craftsmen took small boats to transport various woods and began to build pontoon bridges on the river. The marching generals rushed to the front, and no one dared to neglect them. There were six pontoon bridges on Bishui at the same time.

It was July, and the river was cool. Some excited craftsmen jumped directly into the river. When they saw the official army building a bridge, the rebels on the east bank were shocked and quickly organized their troops to shoot at the craftsmen in the river, but were shot back by the prepared official army. Behind each floating bridge that was being built, there were hundreds of crossbow beds and thousands of archers waiting for the battle. The standard crossbow beds had a range of more than 300 meters, with fine steel as the edges and mature iron as the feathers. They could easily tear off the shield and nail the people to the ground. The rebel archers organized in panic were no match for them at all.

When setting up the floating bridge, the government army was not idle either. The hundreds of fishing boats collected these days began to carry soldiers and cross to the other side. The widest part of the water was only about 200 meters, and the narrow part was only dozens of meters. In less than a cup of tea, the first batch of government troops had already crossed the river.

There are simple fortifications built by the rebels on the east bank of the river, which blocked the way for the official army to get ashore with wooden stakes. However, after the defensive rebels were dispersed by the rain of arrows of the official army, these wooden stakes became decorations and were quickly cut down. The official army rushed to the river bank from the cut-down gap. These wooden stakes were instead used by the official army to build fortifications in front to prepare for the rebels' counterattack.

The rebels were too careless and thought that the opposite government army would not attack these days without attacking. The West Bank had dispatched troops early in the morning. Such a large amount of movement was ignored. The rebels were immediately caught off guard by the attack by the government army. The vanguard of the government army crossed the river without any stop.

Yuchi Dun was still lying high in the camp. When he heard the shouts of killing, he quickly got up: "What's going on? What's going on?"

Several personal soldiers rushed into the tent: "Marson, it's not good, the opposite side is attacking our army."

Yuchi Dun cursed: "What a panic, just send someone to drive them down." After that, he hurriedly put on his clothes.

Tens of meters away from the Bishui River, the official army built a high platform, which was used by Wei Xiaokuan to command the crossing of the river. The platform was full of flags. He army advanced and He army retreated, and Wei Xiaokuan relied on these flags to command the command of Wei Xiaokuan. Yang Yong and Gao Yang stood beside Wei Xiaokuan. Seeing Wei Xiaokuan as he was commanding tens of thousands of people, he looked at each other and was shocked.

On this high platform, the enemy and us on both sides of the Bishui River were clearly mobilized. Seeing that the vanguard of the government army had crossed the river, Gao Yang and Yang Yong both breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they gained a foothold, the first step to crossing the river would be considered successful.

When Yuchi Dun arrived ahead, the official army had already crossed the second round, and there were more than 2,000 soldiers on the shore. Yuchi Dun was furious and shouted loudly: "Turn them down, drive them down."

Tens of thousands of troops were transferred from behind, and the officials who were going upshore were pressing over like a group of locusts. The two sides immediately launched a bloody battle on the other side. Arrows were flying everywhere in the sky, and people were even rolling at the junction of the two sides.

Wei Xiaokuan closed his eyes, rolled out several tears, and sighed: "These are all my loyal soldiers of the Great Zhou Dynasty, but now they are killing each other here, so how can I bear it?"

Du Qingxin comforted: "Your Majesty, don't blame yourself. This is because of the ambition of Yuchi Jiong and overestimating his abilities and wanting to resist the court."

"Wolf ambition, who is the wolf ambition? Maybe I was wrong?" Wei Xiaokuan murmured.

Du Qingxin was furious and sweated coldly. Didn’t Wei Xiaokuan’s words point directly at the Prime Minister and couldn’t help but look up at Yang Yong, but Yang Yong just watched the battle on the other side, as if he had not heard Wei Xiaokuan’s words. Du Qingxin felt relieved and dared not accept Wei Xiaokuan’s words again.

Relying on the large number of people, the rebels gradually could not stand firm and were pressed by the rebels step by step towards the riverside. The officials on the river surface tried their best to row over to reinforce. The officials on the west bank also organized strong archers to try their best to suppress the rebels. However, the two sides fought together, and the crossbow bed was not distinguished from each other and could not be used at all. The effect of the archer was minimal.

While the rebels were all paying attention to the official army crossing the river, the floating bridge on the water stretched forward little by little, and the fastest floating bridge had been completed dozens of meters.

The rebels finally came back to the scene. They also had many crossbows. The rebels began to push the crossbows to the place where the official army set up the floating bridge. Countless sharp arrows shot into the river. The thick arrows could even directly shoot the ships used by craftsmen to build the floating bridge. Some crossbow arrows flew into the air and directly hit another person. A crossbow arrow often passed through the corpses of several people before falling into the water with a bang. The river water quickly became dyed red.

The rebel crossbows interrupted the construction speed of the official pontoon bridge. Many craftsmen saw that their companions died so miserably, and immediately lost the courage to continue to stay in the water and rowed desperately towards the shore.

"Continue to build, no stop!" The officials on the shore had no mercy. Even though they were their own people, as long as a craftsman dared to go ashore, he would stab him to death with a spear. The craftsmen could only continue to build bridges in the river in fear, praying that the crossbow arrows would not hit them.

"Bandao, counterattack, counterattack." The officers on the shore shouted at the top of their lungs. Hundreds of crossbows immediately shot towards the rebels' crossbows. However, the rebels had already calculated the distance. The crossbows used by both sides were the same. They just needed to aim at the craftsmen in Hanoi to shoot. They were not within the range of the Guanjun crossbows on the shore. Only a small number of giant arrows could fly over, and most of the crossbows could only land in front of the rebels' crossbows.

The crossbow chariot in front of him could not protect himself. The craftsmen who pressed down could no longer help but feel fear in their hearts. They cried and shouted that they would go ashore no matter what. It would be better to die on the shore by being shot to death by crossbow arrows in the water, at least the body would not be thrown into the water and fed fish and turtles.

The official army could only helplessly let go of the gap and let the craftsmen get ashore temporarily, but they could not kill all of these craftsmen. The construction of the five pontoon bridges came to an end for the time being, but the pontoon bridge protected by the pontoon troops on the east coast was moving forward tenaciously. As long as the official army on the east coast had not been cleared, the rebels would have no choice but to use the pontoon bridge being built.

Wei Xiaokuan ordered the flag to point a finger and ordered the craftsmen who had withdrawn from the other five bridges to join the pontoon bridge being built to speed up the construction of the pontoon bridge.

Although the number of the official army was not smaller than that of the rebels, the small boats transported were limited, and they could only transport more than 1,000 people at a time. After an hour, they transported seven or eight thousand people. This was because the rebels were careless and transported two battles first. Faced with the tide of the rebels, most of the official army crossed the river had been killed and injured. Each time the people transported by the transport were not even enough, which became the most taboo tactic of adding fuel.

Fortunately, the officers and soldiers are strong in their morale and know that there are reinforcements behind them to fight to the death, otherwise they will have collapsed long ago. However, if the situation does not change, the officials who cross the river will be driven down by the rebels. At that time, this crossing operation will be completely defeated.

Liang Shiyan, Yu Wenxin, Yuan Xie, Yu Wenshu, and Cui Hongdu all came to the platform, and only Yang Su was still commanding the soldiers to cross the river and build bridges. Seeing this situation, everyone looked nervous.

"Marson, what should I do?" Yuan Xie asked.

Wei Xiaokuan frowned tightly and couldn't answer for a moment. At this moment, there was a sound of clattering golden sound from the other side, and the rebels who were attacking retreated.

"What's going on?"

"What are the conspiracies of the rebels?"

...

All the generals of the official army were puzzled. As long as the attack continued, the troops deployed by the official army could not keep up with the consumption, and the official army crossing the river would collapse soon after it would support it.

"Marson, why stop the attack?" Many generals on the other side of the river were puzzled and asked Yuchi Dun.

Yuchi Dun said proudly: "Why stop attacking? If we destroy the people who cross the river, we will not only destroy tens of thousands of people. The main force of the Zhou army has not been damaged. Now I let them go. I have to wait until they set up a pontoon bridge and cross half of the men before destroying their pontoon bridge. The military strategy is everywhere. This will still be half-crossed and attacked. At that time, you can determine the victory in one fell swoop."

Several generals suddenly realized and said, "The Marshal is wise!"

A general raised an objection carefully: "Marson, if the enemy is over halfway, how can he destroy their pontoon bridge?"

Yuchi Dun said: "I have prepared fire boats and other items, and then I will ignite them upstream and rush them down. How could the Zhou army's floating bridge be destroyed? I sent an order to retreat five miles and let the Zhou army cross the river."

Although there were still people who felt it was inappropriate, Yuchi Dun's order was faithfully executed. More than 200,000 troops moved back together, and many ordinary soldiers were confused. Rumors suddenly broke out, maybe they were going to be defeated. Poor Yuchi Dun was completely unaware of it, and was proud and immersed in the joy of defeating the Zhou army.

Without the interference of the rebels, and with the craftsmen doing their best, the floating bridge was quickly set up, and Wei Xiaokuan ordered the flag to point forward: "Send the order, and the whole army crosses the river."

Yuan Xie said cautiously: "Marson, the other party suddenly retreats, beware of fraud."

Wei Xiaokuan smiled: "Why are you cheating? Yuchi's son wants to attack halfway, how could I not be careful?"

Teams of Zhou army rushed over the floating bridge quickly. In half an hour, tens of thousands of people had already crossed the river. The soldiers of Yuchi Dun in the distance suddenly became turbulent, but they did not dare to move around for the time being without the order of the commander.

"Marson, should I order an attack?" a general couldn't help asking.

Yuchi Dun didn't care: "Wait a little longer, there are only tens of thousands of people on the side, and it's not too late to attack after 100,000 people."

One person said anxiously: "Marson, you can't wait any longer, the soldiers are no longer at ease."

Yuchi Dun turned his head and looked at the soldiers in the distance. Sure enough, except for his personal guards, the other soldiers did not understand the intention of the commander, and their faces were already in panic. He thought to himself that these soldiers were too stupid and did not even understand his simple plan. He had to nod: "Okay, beat the drum and march." He said in his heart that being able to destroy tens of thousands of Zhou troops was barely a great achievement.

As soon as the drum sounded, the rebels finally recovered a little confidence. Hundreds of thousands of troops rushed towards the official army. The official army was not showing any weakness. The two sides shouted and shouted wildly, and soon collided. The morale of the official army was as strong as rainbows. Although Yang Jian took office, he had done a lot of things in just over two months. He stopped building the Luoyang Palace, which saved all soldiers from 45 days of labor a year and re-implemented the equal-field system, so that the soldiers had no worries and everyone was willing to fight for the court.

The rebels were not very morale, and their inexplicable retreats made the soldiers full of doubts. The morale aroused by the drums quickly collapsed when they encountered the strong counterattack of the government army. Moreover, although the number of rebels was large, the area of ​​fighting was limited. Under Wei Xiaokuan's personal command, the official army often fought at more and less in the local area. The rebels' army was suppressed and retreated step by step. If it were not for the supervision team's desperate suppression, many rebels would turn around and flee immediately.

Seeing that the situation on the battlefield was not good, Yuchi Dun was shocked. He had to place his hope on the arson ship and shouted loudly: "Stop it, hold it for me! We are about to win."

The firelight emerged from the river. The arson ship arranged by Yuchi Dun finally ignited and rushed towards the floating bridge built by the Zhou army. The Zhou army was ready to set up many wooden stakes hundreds of meters away from the floating bridge to intercept them. The arson ship was stuck by the wooden stakes and could only burn hundreds of meters away from the floating bridge. Except for the generation of a little smoke, it had no effect on the army's crossing the bridge.

Seeing that the raging fire in the river had already started, Yuchi Dun thought it had burned to the Zhou army's floating bridge, he was overjoyed and shouted to the soldiers beside him: "The Zhou army is going to be defeated, and the Zhou army is going to be defeated."

Yuchi Dun's shouts came to the front line, which really played a role. The rebels, who were about to collapse, barely gathered a little more morale and pushed back the attack of the official army.

After waiting for a while, the official army continued to reinforce. And as the battle became stronger and stronger, the morale aroused by the rebels suddenly collapsed. Several Zhou troops on the front line had an idea and shouted: "The rebels were defeated, the rebels were defeated."
Chapter completed!