Chapter 377: The Storm of Jianghuai (IV)

The room was very quiet. After a long time, Chu Xingshui saw that his second brother Chu Xingyun was silent, so he asked Chu Jinglei again and said, "Jinglei, what do you think now?"

Although Chu Jinglei was rude on the outside, he was a delicate person inside. He always insisted that the Chu family must not give up the army, otherwise the Chu family's huge wealth would become the fish on Zhang Huan's chopping board. For this reason, he tried his best to convince the Chu family's tribesmen and won a lot of support. Now that Zhang Huan has sent troops, he still refused to lose. He snorted coldly and said, "Zhang Huan's troops were probably not targeting the Chu family, but to take advantage of the situation to eliminate Li Shidao. I still remember that Zhang Huan wrote a secret letter to kill Li Shidao. This shows his importance to this person, so he killed him. Things should not reach the worst step. If it really doesn't work, we can shrink our troops. If Zhang Huan feels that the price to pay is too high, he will sit down and negotiate with us."

"Jinglei thought Zhang Huan too simple." Chu Xingyun, who had been silent, spoke, "If he just wanted to kill Li Shidao, why did he want to slaughter the troops? This is clearly for our Chu family to see. If we don't know the current affairs, he will slaughter all our Chu family."

"What does it mean to slaughter the Chu family? Does he even want to kill his own mother?" Chu Jinglei said with some dissatisfaction.

Chu Xingyun glanced at him sideways, sneered in his heart, and retorted: "It is precisely because we are his uncles that he wants to kill even more. He wants people all over the world to know his determination and even his uncle dares to kill, let alone others."

"You're exaggerating!"

"Okay!" Chu Xingshui interrupted their argument, "You stop first, it seems that the information I'm going to wait for is here."

At this time, I heard from a guard outside the door report: "Master, Wang Lianjiang is here."

"Come in." Chu Xingshui ordered tiredly.

The door opened, and the man in black bowed to the door, "See the Grand Marshal!"

The man in black was specially sent by Chu Xingshui to monitor Zhao Yan, named Wang Lianjiang. He was directly under the command of Chu Xingshui. A few days ago, he found someone secretly came to find Zhao Yan and immediately reported Chu Xingshui. Chu Xingshui ordered him not to alert the snake and stare at the whereabouts of this person. He has been following this person these days, but last night this person suddenly disappeared and burst like a bubble, without any trace. Chu Xingshui was angry and ordered him to find out the identity of the person, otherwise he would have his life.

Chu Xingshui glanced at him and said coldly: "Have you found out the identity of the person coming?"

Wang Lianjiang took out a registration book for inn and said with a thorny note: "I have found all the places I can check, but there is only a clue in this inn registration book."

"What clue?" Chu Xingshui did not accept his book.

"This person has been registering with the name 'Qin Tai', but his name changed on the last day, and he was called 'Longyou Dumei'."

"Du Mei!" Chu Xingshui stood up in a hurry. He grabbed the book. Sure enough, the words "Longyou Du Mei" were written on the last line. Chu Xingshui certainly knew who Du Mei was. Zhang Huan's former chief aide, Pei Jun once praised him, saying that he was good at seeing the big picture from the small, and he actually came to Guangling. For a moment, countless questions arose in Chu Xingshui's heart, "What did he come to Guangling for? Why did he keep his real name? Aren't he afraid of betraying Zhao Yan?"

Chu Xingshui stood there, unable to say a word. At this time, Chu Jinglei next to him slapped the table with a "bang!" and gritted his teeth and said, "What a Zhao Yan. We have let him be the acting governor for so long. It would be fine if we don't know the reward, but he even betrayed the Chu family. Are you really impatient to live? Wait for me to destroy his whole family."

"Jinglei, don't be impulsive." Chu Xingyun stopped Chu Jinglei who was about to get up, and then hurriedly said to Chu Xingshui: "Brother, since Du Mei dares to keep her real name, I'm afraid the situation in Linhuai will not be good."

One sentence reminded Chu Xingshui. He sat down dejectedly, covering his face with his hands without saying a word. Seeing that his elder brother was already in a mess, Chu Xingyun said in a deep voice: "Brother, why not go there yourself and explore Zhang Huan's bottom line."

Chu Xingshui sighed, "I thought the court would send important officials to negotiate and resolve the issue, but I didn't expect that Zhang Huan came in person, and even he started a murderous act as soon as he arrived. Even Li Shidao, who was good at leading troops, was defeated so badly, let alone the rest of our Chu family. Things have reached this point today. I'm afraid our Chu family will be in trouble."

"Brother, don't be discouraged. Even if there is something wrong with Linhuai, we can transfer 30,000 naval troops north, together with Guangling's elite troops and more than 40,000 people to guard Guangling. With Guangling's strong city and the accumulated food and grass, he may not be able to conquer it in a year or two..."

Before Chu Jinglei could finish his words, Chu Xingshui waved his hand and said, "He defeated Li Shidao without even using the regret of the thunder. This shows the sharpness of his army. Forget it, the people of Guangling have been supporting our Chu family for decades, so let's leave them a way out!"

Speaking of this, Chu Xingshui solemnly said to Chu Xingyun: "The second brother can fully represent the Chu family and Zhang Huan to negotiate. As long as the conditions he raised were not too excessive, we can all agree."

Linhuai County is an important transit station for the canal transportation and the most important ferry of the Huai River. The Chu family deployed nearly 40,000 troops here to fight the southward advance of the Longyou Army.

Linhuai County is high in the south and low in the north. There is a mountain that stretches for twenty miles in the territory - Duliang Mountain. The Chu family's army is stationed on an open highland north of Duliang Mountain. The dense tents are one after another, stretching for several miles. Less than two miles away from the Daying is the vast Huai River going east. On the other side of the Huai River, tens of thousands of Longyou Army have already prepared to cross the river. Nearly a hundred large ships line up, and the battle is about to begin.

Unlike Li Shidao, a professional soldier stationed in Yancheng, the general who commanded the Chu family army in Linhuai was a Confucian general with a civil servant. His surname was Jiang, named Jiang Kaiyuan. He was nearly fifty years old. He was a Jinshi in the fourth year of Zhide. Before that, he had served as a civil servant in the army and had great prestige in the Huainan army. His other identity was Chu Tan's second son-in-law and Chu Xingshui's brother-in-law. Chu Tan had six daughters at that time, and his eldest daughter was Zhang Huan's mother Chu Wanlan, and his second daughter Chu Fangfei married Jiang Kaiyuan.

Although Jiang Kaiyuan lacks a murderous aura to cut off the killing, he is clear-headed and cautious in his work, and has served in the army for a long time. Therefore, Chu Xingshui ordered him to command the Linhuai army. In the past few days, Jiang Kaiyuan's defense deployment seems to prove that Chu Xingshui knows and uses it well. The iron chains on the river are locked across the river, and small boats filled with firewood and hay are filled with firewood and hay. Dozens of huge catapults are lined up on the shore, and ten thousand crossbowmen are on the shore. In the defense that is not leaking, Wang Siyu's army has hundreds of large ships, but cannot cross the river.

But Jiang Kaiyuanque's joy did not last for a few days. Soon, news came from Yancheng that Li Shidao's entire army was wiped out. Following the news, 30,000 cavalrymen cut off his retreat. Jiang Kaiyuan then realized that the reason why Wang Siyu refused to cross the river was to drag him to Linhuai.

At noon, a soldier ran into the barracks and rushed to the tent to report: "Empress, two ships on the other side floated to the river and were stopped by iron chains. Somehow?"

Jiang Kaiyuan was stunned, and he immediately stood up and said, "Take me to see!"

After a moment, a team quickly left the camp and rushed towards the bank of the Huai River. Twenty thousand Huainan troops had been deployed on the south bank of the Huai River. From this morning, there was movement on the other side. This made the Huainan army even more nervous. Everyone took a bow and arrow, and the catapults were creaking and creaking. But what surprised them was that there were only three ships on the river. The two ships in the front were slightly larger, all of which could carry more than a hundred people. The one behind was a small boat, which could only take three or five people. What made the south bank even more strange was that there seemed to be no one on the first two ships, who flowed downwards, and were now blocked by long chains in the river. There were several people on the back, hundreds of steps away from the two large ships.

The movements on the north bank lasted a morning result, which really made the soldiers on the south bank unable to understand. If they wanted to burn the iron chains, the two ships seemed to be missing a little.

The soldiers on the south bank were in a commotion and dodged to both sides. Under a large banner, Jiang Kaiyuan came to the shore with hundreds of cavalrymen. Several generals came to visit. Jiang Kaiyuan put his hands on the curtain and looked at the river, and asked, "What's going on now?"

"Report to the envoy, the river surface is very quiet, and it has been almost an hour since the three ships remained in the status quo."

As soon as he finished speaking, a noise came from the shore. A soldier rushed forward and shouted loudly: "There is any movement in the small boats in the river."

The generals rushed to the shore and watched the situation on the river. Sure enough, the small boat behind began to slowly approach the two big boats, and the two big boats were only more than two hundred steps away from the south shore. There seemed to be hooks on the boat, hooking the iron chains, and undulating in the water with the river waves. There was indeed no one on it. At this time, Jiang Kaiyuan suddenly had a strange intuition that the enemy was waiting for him to come before he started to act.

"They ignited!" A soldier pointed at the river and shouted suddenly. At this time, the boat was less than a hundred steps away from the two large ships. You could see that someone had lit a torch on the boat. Then, two people lit a rocket.

Jiang Kaiyuan suddenly remembered something, his face turned pale in an instant, and he shouted anxiously, "Release the catapult and smash the ship."

Everyone was unhappy with the intention, but they still went to carry out the command of the general. "Woo!" A huge rock flew out first and smashed four hundred steps away, and a pillar of water rose from the river.

But at the same time when the huge rocks flew out, two rockets also soared from the small boats, drawing an arc, and accurately landed into the two big ships. The big ship was obviously covered with tinder oil, flames flew, and the rolling smoke rushed straight into the sky. The small boat then turned around and rowed towards the north bank. At this time, huge rocks in the sky flew across the sky, stirring up water columns in the river. One of the huge rocks hit the burning ship, "Crack!" the mast broke and fell into the river.

Jiang Kaiyuan knew that it was irreversible, so he sighed helplessly and subconsciously covered his ears. At this moment, the two large ships burst into earth-shaking loud noises almost at the same time. Two large balls of white smoke instantly covered the hull. The red flames in the white smoke soared into the air, and countless pieces of the hull flew across, "Boom!" "Boom!" Explosions continued, and the 20,000 soldiers on the south bank all had pale faces. Countless people were already standing unsteadily, kneeling on the ground, covering their ears tightly. The thunder of the Longyou Army suddenly appeared at a moment that no one expected.

The explosion stopped, the thick smoke dissipated, the two large ships on the river had disappeared, the subway chains with thick arms were blown off, and the river was filled with fragments of the two large ships.
Chapter completed!