Chapter 853 Landing on the Island

The Hexin Island is about one hundred feet away from the north bank, but less than fifty feet away from the south bank. Generally speaking, boats sailing in the Huai River pass through the waters north of the Hexin Island, and few boats are willing to do so. Take the south bank route.

Therefore, Yuan Shujun's camp in the middle of the river has always been connected to the south bank through the pontoon bridge. This is why Le Jian did not destroy the pontoon bridge.

Every move of the navy on the other side was clearly detected by Huang Zhong. After receiving the news that the navy camp on the island in the center of the river was defended by only a thousand navy troops, Huang Zhong knew that the time had come for him to cross the river.

Following his order, the 30,000-strong army began to prepare to cross the river.

As soon as the third watch arrived, the Anton Army camp began to get busy. Groups of soldiers gathered in the dim light of the fire. They had a meal first and then walked towards the river under the leadership of the general, because the camp was still far from the river. It was more than ten miles away. In order not to attract the attention of Yuan Shu's army on the other side of the river, the soldiers in the rear held the lapels of the soldiers in front, and then lit a torch every ten steps.

Shortly after dark, dozens of warships hidden in the Qingshui River outside Xinxi City had quietly flown down the river, arrived in the Huai River, and then quietly sailed to the north of the river island. Hidden in the reeds.

At the fourth watch, sporadic torches finally appeared in the naval camp on the north bank of the Huai River and in the center of the river. The soldiers on duty saw this scene but did not warn them because in the recent period, they could be seen from time to time every night. Scattered firelight appeared on the north bank, but it would not take long for the firelight to disappear. Therefore, the soldiers on night watch thought that the Yuzhou Army on the other side was also patrolling the river at night, and were afraid that their own army would cross the river at night.

After this phenomenon occurred for a while, the soldiers on duty became accustomed to it. They knew that the flames would disappear in less than half an hour. Sure enough, at the end of the fourth watch, the fire disappeared and the north bank of Huai River fell into darkness again.

In the darkness beyond their field of vision, several generals, protected by personal guards, carefully observed the Yuan Shu army's navy camp in the middle of the Huai River in the darkness.

"General Zhou, how is the situation?" In the darkness, a middle-aged general's voice sounded, and it was Huang Zhong's voice.

Another general next to him said: "General Huang, don't worry. This time, the general will bring the two thousand most elite soldiers from our Hengjiang Camp and Nutao Camp. Most of them are old water bandits I brought from Jingzhou. These In the past few days, I have quietly explored Fushui Island twice, but Yuan Shujun has not discovered it. "

Huangfu Chaobo's naval general Zhou Tai was speaking. In order to cross the river this time, not only Huang Zhong led the elite Anton army, but Zhou Tai also personally led two thousand elite naval forces to cross the river and control Yuan Shu's navy and navy. pontoon.

Huang Zhong added: "It's just that our army has too few ships. If we have too few troops to cross the river at one time, can we withstand Yuan Shu's army's counterattack? And there are only a few ships. How can the army cross the river?"

Zhou Tai chuckled and said: "Don't worry, General Huang. There are a large number of troop transport ships in the water camp of Yuan Shu's army. We only need to control the water camp and the pontoon. It only takes an hour to have thousands of troops crossing the river. Even if It's no use just coming from Tuoguo County."

"Furthermore, among the first round of warships that have just set off, I have already ordered several of them to carry large cables. We only need to occupy the water village, and then we can use the cables and rafts to ferry some of the soldiers to the island first, and then use the ships to Cross the river and build a pontoon on one side.”

After waiting for a while, there was still no movement coming from the island opposite. Just when Huang Zhong was about to ask, a "gurgling" sound of water birds suddenly came from the middle of the river. When Zhou Tai heard this, he said with great joy: "It's done." Well, the little bastard has already landed on the island.”

Sure enough, not long after, Huang Zhong heard the soft sound of the river water, and then saw ropes rising from the water, slowly tightening on the river.

"General Huang, the second batch of soldiers going to the island will be led by General Mo himself, and they will go first!"

As he said that, relying on the faint firelight on the other side, Zhou Tai led his personal guards towards the location of the ship.

Soon, about forty stern warships, which had been prepared long ago, slowly slid along several ropes to the small island in the river.

Because they were afraid that the sound of rowing boats would alert the defenders on the island, there were ten ships in the first batch to cross the river. Their role was to pull the ropes on both sides of the river so that subsequent ships would not need to row, but Simply pull the rope to reach the island.

With the help of ropes, the second group of soldiers quickly landed on the island under the leadership of Zhou Tai. After leaving some soldiers to guard the ropes, Zhou Tai led hundreds of soldiers towards the naval camp on the island, while the ships in the river, led by the boatmen, returned to the north bank to continue transporting soldiers.

Soon, Zhou Tai led hundreds of soldiers to the navy camp. Looking at the quiet camp in front of him, Zhou Tai also breathed a sigh of relief. He finally boarded the camp without alerting the navy patrol. After landing on the island, he waited for the next time. After the third group of soldiers landed on the island, he began to storm the water stronghold and control the pontoon bridge.

However, at this time, he did not wait on the spot. Instead, he sent dozens of skilled soldiers to quietly approach the water village patrol sentry and try to clear out these wandering sentries as much as possible.

Half an hour later, another thousand soldiers landed on the island. This time, Huang Zhong sent Yuan Rong crossbowmen. With the help of these thousand crossbowmen, Zhou Tai was more confident about the upcoming war.

After all the soldiers were ready, Zhou Tai waved his hand, and all two thousand soldiers stood up and rushed toward the water village without saying a word.

When they were only a few dozen steps away from the water fort, the footsteps of two thousand soldiers finally woke up the soldiers on duty in the fort. With the shout of "enemy attack", Zhou Tai knew that he could no longer hide his whereabouts, so he stood up and shouted: "Crossbowmen, shoot! Everyone else, follow me into the camp!"

"Kill..."

With Zhou Tai's order, hundreds of the thousand crossbowmen who had been prepared stopped running and lined up to shoot crossbows at the wall of the water fort. Hundreds of crossbowmen continued to move forward for dozens of steps, then stopped and lined up to shoot. This went on and on, advancing step by step towards the wall of the fort.

Zhou Tai led hundreds of his navy soldiers to run wildly towards the wall and the gate of the fort. They had to rush into the camp before Yuan Shu's army could react.

The distance of several dozen steps was reached in a blink of an eye. The continuous barrage of arrows from a thousand crossbowmen suppressed the soldiers of Yuan Shu's army on the wall and made them dare not stand up to fight. Occasionally, one or two of them stood up and were immediately shot into hedgehogs by the crossbow arrows like flying locusts.

When Zhou Tai led his men to the gate of the village, there was no one on the wall that could pose an effective threat to the enemy outside.