The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

Wang Gua is from Anlu County, and he is short. Dong Kui, who is from the same village and the same rank as him, is tall and thin. Since they set out from the camp, although the leggings promoted by the commander in the army relieved their calf pain, the two still suffered from the extremely poor quality cloth shoes along the way. Their feet were full of blisters, and the thick winter clothes on their bodies also made them sweat profusely under the scorching sun, which consumed a lot of physical strength.

Fortunately, the commander loved his soldiers like his own sons. Not only did he give his summer clothes to the two of them, but he also had someone give them a pair of new cloth shoes. Although the summer clothes were a bit loose and the cloth shoes were a bit ill-fitting, they could at least wear them with a piece of cloth. Soldiers were humble, and it was good enough not to go barefoot when marching outside. Why were they so picky?

After leaving Yingyang, the Nanjun soldiers arrived at Qinqiu first. The Lord of Qinqiu had already fled. Heifu ordered the local Chu people to hand over 300 Xiashang and 300 pairs of shoes of different sizes. The two finally found shoes that fit their feet. The local Chu people secretly resented them, but the soldiers were grateful to Heifu.

As the vanguard, they did not stay long at each place. The next day, they hurriedly set off again. After two days of rapid march of more than 100 miles, they arrived at Hucheng and Ruyin (Yang)...

These are two cities, but they are only two miles apart from each other. They are quite similar to Jiangling and Yingxian. Hucheng has a high city wall and a deep moat, which is used to garrison troops to defend against the enemy. Ruyin is a place where shops and households are concentrated. The two cities are in a corner.

However, the feudal lord Dou of Hucheng was captured in the last war. The head of the family was young and there were not many soldiers in the city. When the Qin army arrived, they handed over Hucheng and concentrated the troops and people in Ruyin City.

The Qin army was relieved and quickly occupied Hucheng. Zhang Han, the military commander, commanded everyone to use the city as a fortress and sent people to fetch water, preparing to cook and eat before dark, in preparation for the attack on Ruyin tomorrow.

Wang Gua and Dong Kui, led by the head of the garrison and the chief of the troop Yuan Bai, escorted two hundred civilians to the river to fetch water. Yingshui is a big river, nearly a hundred steps wide. Buckets were thrown in one after another, breaking the calm of the sparkling water. The two also squatted by the river to wash their faces. The cold river water refreshed them. Just as they were about to hold up the clear water and drink a sip, they were kicked over by a flying kick from the person next to them!

Wang Gua was kicked to the ground, and the water splashed all over his body. He was furious. When he looked up again, he saw that it was Ji Ying, the messenger beside the commander...

"Ji Jun!"

Wang Gua hurriedly stood up and bowed his head. Yuan Bai also greeted him with a smile on his face. Although Ji Ying was only a small sergeant with a low title, he was the most trusted person beside the commander. Ten of his men rode on horses to pass military orders between the various villages.

"This water cannot be drunk!"

Ji Ying loudly conveyed the commander's order, and at the same time pointed to the upper reaches of the Yingshui River and cursed: "You are blind, don't you see what is floating there?"

Wang Gua and Dong Kui took a closer look and couldn't help but take a breath of cold air. It turned out that in the middle of the river, there were some things floating up and down. From a distance, they thought it was driftwood. When they got closer, they found that it was a few swollen and white corpses!

Looking up again, there were more floating corpses than fish! Among them were Qin soldiers in black armor, and more were Chu soldiers in red armor!

Seeing this, Wang Gua and others were frightened. The civilians who had just been impatient to drink water also hurriedly held their throats and spit out the water. They only felt that the whole river was full of fishy smell. Where was the clear water before?

Yuan Bai asked people to empty the buckets one by one, and then smiled at Ji Ying and said, "Ji Jun, why are there so many floating corpses?"

"Do you know where the Ying River flows?"

Ji Ying, who had seen the map in Hei Fu's army tent, began to show off his geographical knowledge and said proudly, "It's Xiangcheng! I heard that General Wang Jian's central army caught up with the Chu army in Xiangcheng the day before yesterday. The two sides fought, and the Chu army was defeated and retreated. Tens of thousands of Qin army bodies fell into the Ying River and were washed here by the current. The water in this river may not be drinkable within a month! The leader ordered you to go to the villages around the city to find ready-made wells! By the way, see if you can find food!"

Everyone followed the order and dispersed with the head of the village and the head of the squad.

Wang Gua and his group walked carefully on the road by the river with weapons in hand, but saw that the green seedlings in the paddy fields on the side of the road had just sprouted, and the water had dried up a little, but no one came to take care of it.

Along the way, they passed two villages, but they were empty, not even a chicken or a dog was left. They finally caught someone, but he was an old man who couldn't walk and was waiting to die at home.

The Qin army killed prisoners, but not the old, weak, sick and disabled, because killing them was useless. So everyone closed the door silently, and the kind-hearted Wang Gua left a small bag of fried rice in his arms. The old man thanked him weakly, and his voice was almost the same as that of Nanjun. Yuan Bai laughed at Wang Gua's foolish behavior of caring about a dying person when he could not protect himself.

Afterwards, in the next village, they caught three rogue rangers who were wandering around the village and searching for property. After capturing them, they replied that as early as yesterday, when they heard that the Qin army was coming, a gentleman in Ruyin City organized the people outside the city to enter the city.

"Everyone says that the Qin people are brutal. If we stay here, we will be captured. The Qin soldiers will chop off the heads of any men they see..."

These brave knights showed their yellow teeth and laughed, "It won't be that bad, will it?"

Yuan Bai, Wang Gua, Dong Kui and others looked at each other and smiled meaningfully.

When they left this village, three bloody heads with wide eyes were hanging on their waists...

"As long as they are not women, children, or old people, it's okay to chop them off. Especially, these knights may be spies left outside the city by the Chu people! Killing them is also a credit!" Yuan Bai argued, and everyone nodded.

Although they harvested several heads, they did not find any food or water, because the well water was either blocked by stones, or when the well cover was opened, a dead dog was found inside, flies were flying everywhere, and the well was polluted...

...

At nightfall, after receiving reports from people who went to the surrounding villages to look for water and food, Heifu also reported the matter to Li You.

"Captain, although there is no water source in Yingshui and the surrounding villages, the military commander can organize civilians to dig wells outside the city. Water can be obtained from Cihe, Liuhe, and Runhe, which are 20 to 50 miles away from here. The convoy can go there tomorrow morning and it can go back and forth in half a day..."

And if they are pressed to the limit, the water in Yinghe River can be drunk as long as it is boiled. It depends on whether the soldiers can bear the nausea and swallow it.

But Captain Li frowned, thinking that things were not that simple.

"It was only the day before yesterday that the Chu people discovered that our Xingjun had arrived. They hurried into the city yesterday, but they were able to organize everyone to clear the fields, take away all the food, and block and pollute all the well water..."

"That's right."

Qin Mo Cheng Shang, who was following Zhang Han, also said: "In addition, according to my observation, all the walls within the arrow range outside Ruyin City were pushed down, and all the trees within a mile were cut down. This is to avoid being used by our army as fortifications for advancement and to facilitate the manufacture of equipment nearby. Some wood and wooden houses that were not transported into the city in time were burned down to prevent them from falling into the hands of our army. Even the livestock were either transported away or slaughtered, and those that could not be eaten were thrown into the well..."

After speaking, Cheng Shang said: "There are people in the city who are proficient in the method of defending the city!"

Hei Fu also said: "Mr. Cheng is right, but General Meng Wu's military order says that Ruyin must be taken within three days!"

Since leaving the fortress camp, although the 10,000 soldiers of Nanjun, as the vanguard of the Southern Army, followed the route that Li Xin took last time to attack Chu and captured cities in the Yingnan area, they were relatively smooth along the way and did not encounter any tough battles.

This is because the main force of the Chu army was mostly concentrated in the area north of the Yingshui River, and was suspended by Wang Jian's main force. The two sides fought several major battles in Chenying and Xiangcheng within a few days. Because of the advantages of the Qin army in numbers and morale, the Chu army was defeated, and the dead were everywhere, and the Yingshui River almost stopped flowing...

At present, Xiang Yan's main force of 100,000 people has all retreated to the east of the Honggou, organizing a second line of defense between Kuxian and Xinyang, leaving only 10,000 people in Huaiyang (Chenying) for garrison.

Wang Jian's army only left 10,000 Qin troops and tens of thousands of civilians to besiege Huaiyang. The main force of more than 100,000 was increasingly pressing eastward. The Huaibei Plain had no strategic defenses, and the Chu army had been exhausted for a long time, and it was probably not going to hold out for long.

Wang Jian did not intend to let the Chu army retreat all the time. He hoped to fight a beautiful annihilation battle and destroy the main force of the Chu army in one fell swoop. Therefore, the 80,000 southern troops led by Meng Wu took on the task of strategic encirclement. They had to break through Yingnan, forcefully cross the Yingshui River, appear behind the Chu army, and complete the encirclement!

As the follow-up army, the Nanjun soldiers' task was to cooperate with the Xingjun army to capture Ruyin City, which controlled the Yingshui ferry.

"If we can get this city, we can cooperate with the central army to encircle the Chu army in the north, and we can seize Yingkou and drink Huaishui in the south, directly threatening the capital of Chu..." Li You's eyes were shining. This was a good opportunity for him to make achievements.

The Chu State seemed to know this, and they still prepared thousands of troops in Ruyin City, waiting for the Qin people to arrive.

There was no point in saying more. The knife of military orders was hanging over his head. Even if there were people in the city who were good at defending, Li You had to bite the bullet and fight this battle. So he asked the military commander Zhang Han to organize the civilians to cut wood, and then asked Qin Mo Chengshang to help make siege equipment. Tomorrow, he would start attacking the city!

After dusk, it was late at night and most of the Qin army went to bed. Only patrolling soldiers walked around Hucheng and the camp.

Suddenly, a violent drumbeat was heard in Ruyin City, two miles away! Then, the soldiers and civilians in the city shouted loudly!

Ten thousand people shouted, shaking the rubble. The Qin army inside and outside Hucheng were startled and got up and left the camp. Hei Fu initially thought that the enemy wanted to attack at night. He held a sword in his hand and looked in the direction of Ruyin. After asking Li Xian who was ordered to patrol, he learned that there were only shouts in the city, and no soldiers left the city.

"Is this intended to make us tired?"

"No, it is to suppress the arrogance of the Qin army and unite the soldiers and civilians in the city."

Qin Mo Chengshang, who was wearing a single coat, murmured: "This is also a common method of defending the city written in the Mohist Classic. If I am not wrong, there may be Mohists in the city assisting the Chu army!"

Sure enough, the next morning, Li Youzheng convened the military Sikong, Junyu, and the commander to hold a pre-war meeting. A military marquis came outside to report that a person fell from a bamboo basket on the top of Ruyin City. He said that he was an envoy in the city and wanted to see Li You!

"Bring him in!"

The military officer hesitated and said, "But this man is dressed in rough clothes, not like a doctor's envoy. We suspect he is an assassin sent from the city!"

Li You frowned slightly, but still asked the short soldiers to search the person several times and bring him into the tent.

After the man was brought into the tent, Hei Fu, who was sitting below Li You, saw that this was a young man wearing a rough fur coat and brown clothes, with a face as dark as his own, and a pair of straw sandals on his feet.

Is this the envoy from the city? He should be a craftsman or farmer...

The leaders thought he was here to amuse themselves, and showed anger. Meng Jia, who had argued with Hei Fu about Wang Jian's use of troops, slammed the table and stood up, asking the soldiers to take the man away.

At this time, Qin Mo Chengshang was a little excited and stood up and said: "You are wearing fur and brown clothes, and you are wearing long legs...Are you the Mo from the South?"

"Yes."

The young man, who was about the same age as Heifu, bowed to everyone present and said: "The Mo from the South, Xiang Lige, greets you all!"