The so-called Jingxiang refers to Xiangyang and the other is Jingzhou, which is Jiangling City. Jiangling City is the second largest city in Jingxiang. The city has a circumference of nearly forty miles, and the city wall is wide and thick. Six war horses can be run side by side at the top of the city. The city wall is three meters high and is extremely strong.

Jiangling City is about two miles away from the Yangtze River. In addition to a straight official road leading to the wharf, Jing River also passes through the city and flows into the Yangtze River.

At this time, the defense of Jiangling City was in chaos. Chai Shao issued a large number of orders within one day, which made the officers at a loss. Just like a person who was used to leisurely, he suddenly got a lot of work. He was at a loss, and then he was busy with no brains.

The generals were all dispatching troops and arranging their own defense areas, especially in the fight for civilians. Dozens of generals were even more quarreled. Everyone understood that the more civilians there were, the more oil and water there was in the middle.

If you want your children to go home, you can pay money to redeem them. This is the way to make money, and every officer knows it well.

After all, Chai Shao was a high-ranking general of the Tang Dynasty. He showed his courage at a critical moment. Each general arranged the civilians according to the size of the troops in his hands. This quickly calmed down the quarrel between the generals and began to deploy their own defenses.

The Tang army had a total of 70,000 troops in Jiangling. Except for deploying 10,000 troops on the dock as the first line of defense, all other troops were retracted back to the city. Sixty thousand troops were deployed on the four walls, and with the support of 50,000 civilians, Jiangling City was really built like a brick wall.

As soon as dawn was dawn, Chai Shao appeared on the city wall. He was in a good mood. Yesterday, he had a round of visits and actually collected 200,000 stones of grain. In addition, the 200,000 stones of grain stored by the official warehouse itself made the military ration he could control to reach 400,000 stones, which was enough for him to stick to it for a year.

Chai Shao's plan from the beginning was to defend, use the strong walls of Jiangling City and enough troops to fight against the Sui army, and buy time for Chang'an. As long as he could persist for half a year, the Tang Dynasty could gradually recover and compete with the Sui Dynasty for the world.

Before he set out from Chang'an, the emperor asked him to hold him back even if he could not win the Jingxiang Battle. The longer the time, the better. Chai Shao also knew in his heart that the Sui army might not be able to stand it.

On the top of the city, Tang soldiers were preparing for war nervously, preparing various weapons, and bundles of soldiers and arrows were piled up under their feet. Teams of civilians were lifted by the soldiers and rolled wooden stones to the top of the city.

Chai Shao greeted the soldiers kindly, and the soldiers' spirits made him particularly pleased. Morale was the most important. I heard that Li Mi's army was too low and was defeated by the Sui army in the war. Yang Yuanqing was very good at fighting against the heart.

At this moment, a soldier suddenly pointed to the distant river and shouted: "Look! Sui army warships."

Everyone looked at the distant river. Chai Shao also saw it, and saw hundreds of large ships appearing on the river, sails covering the sky and the sun. They rushed towards the north bank of the river.

Chai Shao suddenly became nervous. He did not expect that the Sui army would come so quickly. He destroyed the water camp yesterday morning, and today the main force of the Sui army came.

"Roar the alarm bell and order the entire army to enter the war preparations!" Chai Shao shouted loudly.

‘Dang!Dang!Dang!’ The deafening bell rang, resounding throughout the city. All the soldiers on the top of the city opened their bows and arrows, extremely nervous.

Every household in the city closed its doors, took his wife and children to kowtow and burn incense in front of the ancestors' spirit, begging the ancestors to bless the whole family's lives.

The Sui army's large ships were getting closer and closer. Liu Fangzhi whispered: "General, the Sui army's troops are only 50,000 or 60,000. Either Du Fuwei's army or Xiao Xian's army are not good at fighting. It's better for us to deploy troops out of the city and fight with them."

Chai Shao shook his head, "It's not as weak as you think. There are also Sui cavalry. At least Wang Junkuo's five thousand cavalry are there. We can't defeat the cavalry and will suffer a great loss."

At this time, Chai Shao looked at the 10,000 troops on the dock. What he was most worried about now was whether the fortifications of these 10,000 crossbowmen had their fortifications been completed?

.........

About fifty steps away from the wharf, the Tang army used sacks to build a defensive wall about three or four miles long, parallel to the wharf, and the defensive wall was about six feet high. Ten thousand Tang army crossbowmen hid behind the defensive wall and watched nervously as the Sui army ship approached.

The reason why such a crossbow army was deployed on the dock was mainly to prevent Sui soldiers from disembarking. Since the Sui army's large ships could not all reach the dock, they could only take turns to dock. In this way, at most six or seven large ships docked at the same time at the same time, unloading more than 2,000 troops from the ship at one time.

In this way, ten thousand crossbows of the Tang army were enough to use bows and arrows to block Sui soldiers from disembarking, which could produce great destructive effects, forcing Sui warships to dock.

The north shore is different from the south shore. The water on the north shore is shallow, and only a distance of three or four miles long is a deep water area, which can support warships over 5,000 stones to dock. The other two sides extend for more than a hundred miles cannot allow the Sui army warships to dock. This natural condition created a fighter jet for the Tang army.

As long as they use strong bows and crossbows to block the dock, the Sui army will find it difficult to land.

The commanding general of the 10,000 Tang army crossbow soldiers was named Li Changyuan. He was born in the Li family in Hexi. He was six feet three in height. He was tall and burly, with big arms and round waists. He was skilled in martial arts. He used an 80-pound mountain-slashing axe. He was one of the few powerful generals under Chai Shao and served as the assistant general.

Li Changyuan stared at the Sui army's ship approaching with a cold look. Although he was not good at water battles, he was good at commanding archers. He had already held his breath and wanted to give the Sui army a head-on attack.

The three Sui army warships have approached the dock one after another, all of them are ten thousand stone warships. The huge hulls as big as small hills are slowly approaching, less than thirty steps away from the dock.

Hundreds of soldiers suddenly appeared on the side of the ship, and raised their crossbows to shoot at the Tang army soldiers on the shore. A crackling rain of arrows shot at the Tang army crossbow soldiers lying behind the defensive wall. The Tang army soldiers were caught off guard, and dozens of soldiers screamed and fell to the ground with arrows.

Li Changyuan was furious and waved his sword, "Shoot the arrow!"

The sound of the clapper sounded, and the Tang soldiers on the dock shot thousands of arrows at the same time, and the arrows shot towards the large ship like a storm. More than a dozen Sui soldiers were shot and fell off the ship.

The dense rain of arrows filled the walls of the ship, which made the Sui army soldiers unable to raise their heads. Three large ships slowly landed on the dock, but the soldiers could not get off the ship. The arrow rain formed by ten thousand Tang army crossbowmen effectively blocked the landing of the Sui army soldiers.

The big ships behind were all parked on the river surface. The ships in front could not dock without leaving the dock. The Sui army seemed to have a bad start and encountered a big problem.

On the fifth large ship, Yang Yuanqing stood at the bow of the ship with his hands behind his back, looking coldly at the attack of the Tang army's crossbow army on the shore. Yesterday afternoon, his scout had already told him clearly that the Tang army soldiers were building fortifications, so the Tang army's archers appeared on the shore as expected.

In fact, Chai Shao was still a little lacking in consideration. He only thought of deploying a archer to intercept him to dock. If he was Yang Yuanqing, he would accumulate the remains of burnt ships in the water of the dock, or carry huge rocks into the water. His sea boats would not be able to dock at all. There were not many Thousand Stone River boats in the army that could dock at will, so transporting troops across the river would become a problem.

It can only be said that Chai Shao's experience is not rich enough, and the experienced local warriors seem to be unwilling to remind him. From this point, Yang Yuanqing felt that the Tang army did not seem to be very united, and the local generals may have already had ideas.

In this way, Yang Yuanqing's eyes looked east, and his eyes were full of expectations...

On the top of the city, Chai Shao was extremely excited. He did not expect that the ten thousand Tang troops deployed would play such a great role, forcing the Sui army's warships to be unable to dock.

Liu Fangzhi, the deputy general next to him, moved his lips, as if he wanted to remind him something, but in the end he held back. He was a local and knew all kinds of big ships well. The Sui army was all sea boats coming. Although there was no problem sailing in the Yangtze River, there would be great problems if he wanted to park on the north bank of Jiangling.

"What does General Liu want to say?" Chai Shao saw Liu Fangzhi's desire to speak but stopped, and asked a little displeased.

Liu Fangzhi pointed to the Jingshui Road several miles away from the west: "General, if the Sui army warships entered from the Jingshui River, it would be a troublesome."

A sentence reminded Chai Shao that if the Sui army warships approached the city wall from Jingshui, wouldn’t they be able to climb the city directly from the warship?

What should I do? Chai Shao's forehead suddenly had cold sweat, but he couldn't think of a solution for a while.

Liu Fangzhi reminded him again: "You can use tincture oil to flow out along the waterway. As long as the Sui army warship approaches, you can ignite the ship."

Chai Shao nodded. This method was good. When they attacked Jingxiang, they brought a lot of tincture oil from Bashu and stored it in Jiangling City, which was just right to use. Chai Shao immediately ordered: "Transfer half of the tincture oil next to the water gate to wait for the order."

At this moment, he suddenly heard a muffled thunder sound from afar, as if the earth was shaking slightly. Chai Shao suddenly thought of something. He turned around and looked east, his face turned pale, and he saw overwhelming cavalry coming from the east, like a black craze, sweeping towards the dock.

These are the 5,000 cavalry led by Wang Junguo. Last night, he crossed the river fifty miles eastward and rushed all the way and launched ten miles away from the city. The 5,000 cavalrymen rushed to the sky with their iron hooves, like a flying arrow, penetrated straight behind the Tang army at the wharf.

The Tang army crossbow soldiers at the wharf were in chaos. Without waiting for the order of the chief general, they turned around and ran towards the city. Li Changyuan shouted loudly: "Stay! Stay! Line up to fight."

But the morale of the Tang army was in chaos and no one followed his command. The Sui army's cavalry rushed like flying and rushed to the dock in an instant. Even if they could organize defense, it was too late.

Hundreds of Tang soldiers could not escape the Sui cavalry and were instantly swallowed up by the rolling iron cavalry. The Sui cavalry pulled out a long division line and cut off the way for the Tang archers to escape. They either fought to the death with the Sui cavalry or surrendered, and there was no other way.

At this time, Wang Junguo saw the enemy general and shouted loudly, "Axe thief, give me your life!"

With the Qinglong Yanyue Sword, the war horse was urged to rush towards Li Changyuan. At this time, Li Changyuan had no way to go. He roared, the war horse rushed out, swung his axe, and slashed towards Wang Jungu's neck with the power of opening up the mountain.

(To be continued)
Chapter completed!