In mid-October, Guo Shao heard the news and Li Chuyun captured Tongling (northeast of Chizhou).

The situation is a bit complicated. There are two Jiangxinzhou in the river near Chizhou, called Fengyi and Changxiang. The existence of Jiangxinzhou greatly shortens the distance across the Yangtze River, making it possible for Li Chuyun to build a floating bridge. However, the river water here is relatively fast and the water surface is not narrow. The fragile floating bridge was destroyed in a few days.

Gao Yanqi's troops of the Jiannan Army were still in Jiangbei and were ordered to cross the river by boat, but failed to catch up with Li Chuyun's main force. Li Chuyun rushed to Tongling, captured the base of the Southern Tang Army and the water camp, and seized more than 200 warships... At this time, Gao Yanqi's men were still in Chizhou and did not completely cross the Yangtze River.

Li Chuyun was unstoppable all the way, and the general could not stop in this situation. After occupying Tongling, he continued to go north to Wuhu, completely ignoring the threat from Hukou (Poyang Lake) and Gao Yanqiu's situation.

Guo Shao couldn't sit still and hurriedly ordered the head of the Central Army to move to Hezhou (He County on the other side of Caishiji, Ma'anshan City) to pay attention to the battle situation in Jiangnan nearby. He also sent people to urge the Hu Ben Army of Luzhou to hurry to Chizhou.

In the late month, the Tang garrison in Wuhu was empty and was defeated. After Li Chuyun's army occupied this place, he stayed a small number of troops and continued to spy on Dangtu Town near the quarry ferry... When Guo Shao received the report, Li Chuyun had already set out towards Dangtu.

...In the lobby of Hezhou Government Office, all Guo Shao could do is to use a ruler to continuously measure the distance between places.

Wang Pu said from the side: "Li Chuyun rushed faster than Shi Yanchao..."

Shi Yanchao's expression was very awkward, and he could not reveal Li Chuyun's shortcomings at this time.

Guo Shao felt that he couldn't stop even when he stepped on the brakes. It was only a few dozen miles from Dangtu in Wuhu. Even if he sent someone to order Li Chuyun to stop the attack, it would be too late. Maybe Li Chuyun had arrived in Dangtu now... What's more, Guo Shao didn't want to stop Li Chuyun at all, otherwise he would have ordered it long ago.

Dangtu Town is the "Gushu" that is always mentioned in the history of military books. The places that are always mentioned in books are very important strategic locations. Because wars always occur in these place names, they are mentioned many times. Here, the quarrying area is controlled, the upper reaches of Jiangning Prefecture, and the very important place in the Jiangnan area... After this city is captured, the quarrying ferry is the thing in the bag.

As long as this place is occupied, the war will directly burn to Jiangning Prefecture, the central central government of the Southern Tang Kingdom, and the blocking effect of the Yangtze River's natural danger is gone. The central government breaks through and a very fast offensive route; compared to advancing from the upstream, this path is a shortcut. Li Chuyun is greedy for achievements, and Guo Shao is also anxious.

There are really loopholes in the defense management of the Southern Tang Kingdom, and Guo Shao is unwilling to stop Li Chuyun. Otherwise, if he re-recommends this battle in the future, he may be questioned about being timid and afraid of missing out on the opportunity.

But at the same time, Guo Shao was also under great psychological pressure... The strength of the Southern Tang Kingdom is still very strong, and there are at least hundreds of thousands of troops everywhere. This is not an imaginary number. Li Chuyun and tens of thousands of people are threatening on all sides of the country's border. With the support and lack of preparation, he pulled the front line for hundreds of miles and went deep into the strategic important area of ​​the Southern Tang Kingdom alone.

Guo Shao felt that Li Chuyun's approach was very risky and could not afford any accidents. Once he was defeated, the entire front from Dangtu to Chizhou, Chizhou to Jiangbei would be broken.

"It was nearly November, and the war had started for more than a month." Guo Shao pondered, "The enemy troops in Nandu still remained unmoved, so they were not coming?"

Wang Pu said: "If Zhu Lingyun could come from Hukou, he would have come long ago. If Li Yu or Zhu Lingyun could delay the reinforcements in Hukou for more than a month, it would have delayed it for longer..." He advised again, "Li Chuyun could thread needles and threads all the way through the river, so he must be an experienced person. He is eager to attack Dangtu, so he should have a chance of winning."

Guo Shao paced back and forth: "Jiangning Prefecture (Nanjing) wants to reinforce Dangtu, and the journey is not long... I just hope that Li Yu will continue to make mistakes, and the court of the Southern Tang Kingdom is still as slow as before."

...

Dangtu Town, Li Chuyun took the lead in riding his horse to the south bank of Guxi River, and the army was still in the rear. They also had conflicts with the scouts of the Southern Tang Army.

The ancient city walls and towers looked across the river. Li Chuyun first observed the city within his sight. This city was not big, but the Southern Tang Kingdom had a Jinzhen army. The brick walls and moats made it look different from other small cities. The Guxi River in the south of the city became a natural moat on the south side of Dangtu. There was also a water gate in the city wall, and a moat was also dug from the east and west sides... If this city was defended carefully, it would not be easy to attack.

There were scattered warships of the Southern Tang Army cruised on the Guxi River. Everyone on it could see clearly, but the warships did not come rashly to threaten Li Chuyun's team of men. They only watched from afar on the river.

Li Chuyun looked back at the surroundings and saw a flat open land, which was very suitable for the army to set up a battle formation. The place where he stood was located, in the north, the Guxi River and Dangtu Town were crossed to the north, and to the east were the Qingshan River flowing north and south, and then flowing west into the Yangtze River; there was an open land to the west of Li Chuyun Station and the west of Dangtu City.

The neighing of a horse came from afar behind him. Li Chuyun turned his head and saw that several troops on the road had appeared in sight, and his men were advancing here.

On the west side of Dangtu City, there were also signs of the Southern Tang Army on the other side of Guxi River, and the Southern Tang Army seemed to have deployed troops outside the western city.

Li Chuyun looked at the sun in the west and said, "I ordered all the troops to choose places to camp. I sent a small group to cross the river to report the situation of the Southern Tang army."

"Get orders!"

Zhang Lingduo, commander of the right wing of Longjie Army, asked at this time: "Duke Li has a plan to take Dangtu?"

"No." Li Chuyun said frankly, "This city has strict fortifications. We have too few people now, and it is difficult to make a comeback."

Zhang Lingduo asked: "Are you waiting for Gao Yanqi to reinforce?"

Li Chuyun disagreed and said, "Why would the Shu people work hard for us? They are not very useful, don't worry about it... Don't wait. If our army does not attack the city, we will cross the Guxi River first and seize Caishiji.

Dangtucheng defenders had no strength to block our troops. First of all, their naval forces were very weak, and obviously no reinforcements came to strengthen their defense; secondly, the Southern Tang army was huddled on the north bank of Guxi River, showing signs of being defensive, and only if the troops were insufficient would be so conservative."

Li Chuyun rode his horse along the river westward and walked to the edge of the Yangtze River. The sun was almost setting. The soldiers advised him to return to the military camp, but he still sat on the horse and observed the situation around him with his own eyes.

Looking west, the Yangtze River is very narrow here, but the other side is not Jiangbei, but Jiangxinzhou. If the terrain had not been discovered in advance and when I walked here, I might have thought that the Yangtze River had narrowed here, and the opposite was Jiangbei land... In fact, it was not, it was just because this Jiangxinzhou was too large, and the river water was divided into two streams.

Not far from the north is Caishiji, one of the most important ferry crossings in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. However, Li Chuyun still couldn't see it with his eyes. His eyes looked at the horizon in the north and could imagine that place.

Opposite Caishiji is the north corner of Jiangxinzhou, and the other side is the territory of Jiangbei Hezhou. Li Chuyun has learned that Guo Shao has moved the headquarters of the Central Army to Hezhou, and at this time the two are already very close.

Caishiji is a very important place and has always been a breakthrough for the north to attack Jiangnan. Judging from the strategy of attacking the Southern Tang Dynasty formulated by Guo Shao, the target is also here, and this place will be the core of the entire battle.

Li Chuyun secretly thought: No other military general's contribution to taking down the quarry will be as great as me! As long as Guo Shao ascends the throne in the future, I will build the Li family's 100-year fortune with the two most critical contributions of the Tokyo Mutiny this year and the Battle of Southern Tang!

"Tomorrow, cross the river and sweep the Southern Tang army outside Dangtu City, and then attack Caishiji. To achieve the goal, the quarry is connected to the big river floating bridge. At that time, reinforcements from the north of the Yangtze River cross the river and then go to Dangtu City." Li Chuyun said to his generals.

...At the morning of the next morning, the main force of the Longjie Army's right wing was set up on the south bank of Guxi River, setting up a formation on the river. In the morning, the water surface started to fight first, and the Southern Tang Army was quickly swept away. The most important function here is to control the Yangtze River Ferry, but the Southern Tang Army had very few naval forces here, and they were no match for the more than 300 Zhou army warships.

When the sun rose, the Zhou army warships with shallow drought had entered the Guxi River to move.

The large number of troops from the Southern Tang Army on the north bank were across the river from the Zhou army's battle formation, but this did not stop the Zhou army from crossing the narrow Guxi River. Just to the west of the city, there were more than ten miles of river bank. The Southern Tang Army could not disperse the originally small troops on the river bank.

More than 200 members of the Zhou Navy took the lead in getting ashore in one place, and the Southern Tang Army mobilized cavalry to the other side. When Li Chuyun rode his horse to the place where he crossed the river, he saw that the Southern Tang cavalry had dispersed the phalanx of the navy's infantry. The sound of killing on the other side was shocking, and swords and guns were dancing in a mess. More naval soldiers abandoned their boats and landed on the shore and assembled battle formations by the river.

Zhang Lingduo, the commander of the wing capital, was a little anxious. After looking at it for a while, he shouted: "Looking at the war, I feel so angry that I can take my troops on a boat!"

Zhang Lingduo had little to do with Li Chuyun. He was in charge of his wings and could not control the military power of the Long Jie Army's right wing now. So Li Chuyun did not stop him.

Zhang Lingduo then took his personal soldiers to abandon his horse and cross the Guxi River. The river surface was not wide, and the battle over there could be seen clearly from the south bank. Seeing Zhang Lingduo jumped off the boat, he rushed up with a spear, and instantly killed the two of them. This guy's martial arts skills were really good... Zhang Lingduo had no one on top, and he could basically rely on military achievements to be the commander of the wing capital. These generals were all brave.

Seeing that the Southern Tang army could not conquer a group of people who landed on the shore, Li Chuyun judged that there was hope for crossing the river from here. He immediately ordered the elite soldiers of the guards who rushed over to cross the river by boat, and more and more Zhou soldiers on the other side.
Chapter completed!