Chapter 854 Seizing the Floating Bridge

Yuan Shujun's water stronghold was built of wood, and the stronghold gate was also made of big wood. Zhou Tai and others did not bring any siege equipment. Instead, dozens of soldiers rushed to the stronghold gate, shouted, and opened the gate inward. Push away.

As more and more soldiers joined the camp, the gate of the camp finally fell to the ground. Zhou Tai took the lead, rushed into the camp, and fought into a group with the soldiers of Yuan Shu who were coming to the camp gate to support. However, if the soldiers who had gathered in a hurry were Zhou The opponents of the navy soldiers led by Commander Tai were killed and fled in all directions after just one encounter.

Zhou Tai led his troops into the camp, but the crossbowmen outside just stopped shooting and followed the sailors into the camp. After entering the camp, the soldiers were immediately divided into several groups. One hundred sailors and two hundred crossbowmen guarded the gate to receive the arrival of subsequent soldiers and horses. And he led three hundred sailors and three hundred crossbowmen to kill directly towards the gate at the other end of the camp. Because the gate on the other side was connected to the pontoon bridge, he had to kill it as quickly as possible. At the other end, control the floating bridge.

The rest of the soldiers were also divided into several groups, with the water soldiers as the front arrow, and the crossbow soldiers following closely behind, killing the rest of the water army camp. They must control the water army camp as quickly as possible. The captured ships were then used to transport the army across the river.

When Zhou Tai's army engaged the defenders of Yuan Shu's naval camp, Huang Zhong on the north bank of the Huai River had already arranged for the third batch of 1,000 people to board the ship. Seeing that the battle on the island in the center of the river had begun, his army crossed the river. The intention has been exposed, so he no longer hides the traces, and loudly orders: "Come, raise fire, the army will quickly board the ship to support General Zhou's headquarters!"

Following Huang Zhong's order, several huge fires that had been prepared were lit by Anton's soldiers. The sky-high fires quickly illuminated the riverside and the river surface. With these firelights, the soldiers boarded the ship. The speed was obviously much faster, and with the light of the fire, there were more soldiers on each ship than the previous two times.

I originally thought that the navy would have a big battle, so most of the ships built by Xinxi were ramming warships for close combat. Who knew, it turned out to be a sneak attack in the end, so all the previous preparations were useless. These ramming ships were used for close combat. Warships are fine for fighting in small rivers. They are fast and have strong attacks, but they are not very useful for transporting soldiers. Even under the light of the fire, Huang Zhong only dared to let the warships carry four soldiers. Ten soldiers, but in this way, there will be two thousand soldiers transported to the island in each round.

Now Huang Zhong could no longer care about so much. After each boat was filled with people, he ordered the boat to sail, and the boatmen began to pull the cable towards the island in the middle of the river. The soldiers on the boat were not idle either. The soldiers on both sides They all picked up the oars on the boat and helped row the boat. However, at the beginning, because most of the soldiers did not know how to row, the boat not only did not move forward, but almost spun in place. Later, some sailors still saw this In response to the situation, he stepped in to coordinate and asked the soldiers with oars to paddle at the same time according to his call, so that the boat started to move smoothly. With the help of the soldiers, the speed was indeed much faster.

Within the camp, Zhou Tai had led 600 soldiers to kill two waves of more than 100 Yuan Shu's soldiers, and soon they reached the south gate of the navy camp. After killing the soldiers of Yuan Shu who were guarding the camp gate, Zhou Tai Immediately, he asked people to open the south gate of the camp, leaving a hundred people to guard the gate. He led the remaining nearly 500 people and ran towards the other end of the pontoon.

When he was about to leave the southern end of the pontoon bridge, Zhou Tai found that many soldiers had gathered there at the head of the bridge. He didn't know what happened on Hexin Island, but they were all ready. He vaguely saw Zhou Tai leading people from Hexin Island. Running over, the leading captain shouted loudly: "Who are you, and what's going on in the navy camp? Stop quickly, or my subordinates will release arrows!"

Seeing this situation, Zhou Tai frowned slightly and quickly came up with a plan. While running, Zhou Tai ordered the crossbowmen behind him to prepare for a surprise attack. Then, he shouted from the side: "Don't let go of the brothers on the other side. Arrow, someone is from the navy, hurry, hurry, the Anton Army has already arrived on the island, send people to the island to support,

He also immediately sent people to Tuo County to report to General Lejiu, telling him that the Anton Army had crossed the river in large numbers and asked him to send people to support him immediately! "

Because Zhou Tailai is from Jiujiang, the pronunciation of Jiujiang and Lujiang counties is not very different. In addition, the sound of killings on the island is so loud that Zhou Tailai's voice sounds a bit intermittent from a distance, making it difficult to hear. Clearly, this made the defending captain relax some of his vigilance.

When he was about to inquire in detail about the situation on the island, Zhou Tai had already led his men to a distance of less than 80 steps from the bridge. Seeing that Yuan Shujun on the opposite side had relaxed his vigilance, the crossbowmen on the other side had already entered the attack range. Inside, Zhou Tai shouted: "Crossbowmen shoot five times in a row, fire!"

"Buzz buzz buzz..."

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..."

With the whistling sound of crossbow arrows, hundreds of crossbow arrows rushed towards the bridge like locusts. The nearly one hundred soldiers who had gathered were suddenly enveloped in the rain of arrows.

"Puff puff..."

"Not good, enemy attack..."

Although the garrison soldiers had reacted, it was already too late. He fired more than a thousand crossbow arrows in five rounds and pinned them all to the bridge head. When Zhou Tai ordered the crossbows to stop shooting, he then led the people to the bridge head. At that time, there were only soldiers who were dead and wounded.

Le had already arranged defenses at the bridgehead, but the Anton Army had not crossed the river island from last year to now, so both the navy on the river island and the soldiers on duty at the bridgehead were very lax. In addition, everyone knew that the Anton Army had a large army stationed in the south of Qisi, 200 miles downstream. Everyone thought that the Anton Army would cross the river from there, but they did not expect that they would suddenly come to him today. In this way, both the river island and the bridgehead were captured by Zhou Tai at lightning speed.

Rushing to the bridgehead quickly, Zhou Tai did not care about resting, and loudly commanded the soldiers to quickly move all the corpses of Yuan Shu's army to a place more than ten steps away and throw them there. Of course, the soldiers who had not died were also killed one by one. Now they had no time to take care of these injured soldiers. They had to arrange the defenses before the thousands of defenders two miles away reacted and hold on until the reinforcements arrived.

Sure enough, less than an incense stick of time later, a large area of ​​fire lit up in the darkness in the south. It looked like Yuan Shu's reinforcements, numbering at least a thousand men, had hurried over to support him.

However, Zhou Tai was not afraid of this. The five hundred men he led were all real elites, and they were no worse than Yuan Shu's so-called imperial guards. Among them, there were also two hundred Yuanrong crossbowmen, while Yuan Shu's soldiers guarding the bridgehead totaled only two thousand men.