The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"Zhao Tuo? A native of Zhao?"

Hearing Heifu say that a 500-man leader of the tower ship army would join their expeditionary army with a dozen ships, several of Heifu's 500 leaders became excited. When they heard that Zhao Tuo was from Hengshan County, the hometown of Zhao State, Heifu's younger brother asked in surprise, "Is he related to the royal family of Zhao?"

He has been a disciple in the school for three years. He has not only learned laws and regulations, but also gained a lot of knowledge.

Shi Anpu, the lieutenant of Jingling County, who was a good friend of Heifu when he was a pavilion chief, shook his head and said, "There are at least thousands of people named Zhao in Zhao. How can they all be related to the royal family? Even if they are related, they are probably far away. Otherwise, how could they become 500 leaders of the Qin Army?"

However, he was curious about how a Zhao man from Hengshan County in the north could get to the southern fleet of the Qin Army.

Heifu said: "He should be a wealthy family of the distant Zhao family. He said that his parents died at the hands of the treacherous minister Guo Kai, so he had no attachment to Zhao. After the Qin army defeated Zhao, he was awarded a title by paying grain. Tu Duwei built a fleet in Zhang and He, and he started as a garrison commander and was promoted to the lord of five hundred in a few years."

Zhao Tuo claimed to be slightly younger than Heifu. When Wang Jian destroyed Zhao six years ago, he was about 16 years old.

"So this person really lived for more than a hundred years..."

Heifu felt his scalp tingling just thinking about it. More than a hundred years old, and in a hot place like Nanyue, he was really a centenarian. Maybe the food in Guangdong has been nourishing since ancient times.

No matter how ignorant he was, he had heard of the name "Zhao Tuo, the King of Nanyue". Alas, the "Hero of Kaigan" in this dimension met the "Hero of Kaiyue" in history. This was something Heifu did not expect.

Heifu guessed that the reason why Qin Shihuang sent Tu Sui, Zhao Tuo and other "shipmen" as the main force to fight Baiyue in a few years was because in the impression of northerners, the south was all water and marshes, and only shipmen could play a role. Although the south is indeed crisscrossed with water networks, Guangdong and Guangxi are still more primitive forests, and the navy is only good at transporting grain. After going deep, it is not very useful. This may also be an imaginary misunderstanding of the people in the Central Plains at that time.

But no matter how prosperous it is in the future, everyone is now a small Qin official, a cadre appointed by Qin Shihuang to go south. However, Zhao Tuo, who can become the king of a state in the future, must have the ability. Tu Sui really left Heifu a capable assistant. With this person's help, why worry about not being able to conquer Jiangxi?

Tu Sui asked Hei Fu to treat Zhao Tuo as his subordinate, but in fact, Zhao Tuo and his dozen large and small ships were only responsible for their transportation and food transportation. The two sides were just temporary partners. The war still had to rely on their own "direct descendants".

At this time, Hei Fu looked at the bowls of everyone. They were all normal rice, fish soup, but Dongmen Bao's plate was different. It was very disgusting. It looked like eyeballs. After being cooked, it was sticky...

"What is this?" Hei Fu looked disgusted and asked with a frown.

"It's a crocodile."

Ji Ying answered first: "Abao heard from a relative that eating this thing can give birth to a son, so he asked the soldiers who hunted a big crocodile on the nearby ship for some."

Last year, when Dongmen Bao followed Heifu to the battlefield, his wife was pregnant again. However, when he came back, he found that it was a daughter. So Dongmen Bao now has three thousand gold. Ji Ying joked every day that if anyone marries his daughter, he will inherit the family property of Guan Daifu Bao in the future and will definitely make a fortune.

"What does it taste like?" Heifu asked him curiously.

Dongmen Bao raised his head and said helplessly: "It smells like earth and it rots when you put it in your mouth."

Heifu was speechless and could only pat Dongmen Bao on the shoulder and say something to him.

"Heaven will not let down those who work hard!"

...

The next day, the fleet officially entered Pengli Lake.

Peng means big, and Li means gourd ladle, which means that this depression lake is like a big gourd ladle, which gathers the Yangtze River, Gan River and other water systems.

At the beginning, the lake was calm and the boat was sailing on it, just like sailing on a bronze mirror.

But good weather came and went quickly. Not long after the departure, a north wind suddenly blew over the lake, and the wind and clouds changed color in an instant, and the waves hit the shore. The performance and navigation technology of ships in these days were very poor. They did not dare to travel in bad weather, and hurriedly docked in the nearby Xunyi (now Jiujiang) and tied the rope.

A sudden rain cloud passed by, and the next day, the sky cleared up again. Heifu and his 3,000 men just transferred to the dozen ships under Zhao Tuo's control and continued to move forward.

When they went deep into Penglikou by boat, they looked around and saw that there was no limit. It was really "opening the sail into the mirror of the sky". Compared with this vast water surface, the hundreds of warships under Tu Sui were like a group of small fish floating in the water.

Hei Fu now realized that Pengli Lake was not much different from the Poyang Lake in later generations. The main body of the lake was on the north side of the river, and it was longer from east to west and shorter from north to south.

"We have arrived at Dagu Mountain." The old boatman who was guiding the boat told them loudly.

Hei Fu and others were on the deck enjoying the lake breeze, and they really saw a mountain in the lake. From ten miles away, there was endless lake water all around, but there was a green peak rising alone, reaching the sky, as if floating on the water.

When they got closer, they found that there were cracked rocks and various caves on this lonely mountain, with strange shapes, bright colors and moist colors, which were also different from other stones. There is another huge rock that is not adjacent to the main peak. It rises majestically from the ground, about a hundred feet high, with red vines and green creepers entwined on it, like a screen inlaid with gems.

Zhao Tuo nodded: "It is indeed hanging alone in the lake, and the four sides are far away."

Then he sighed to Hei Fu: "If I hadn't come to the south, I wouldn't have seen these wonders."

It can be heard that this young Qin official, who is slightly younger than Hei Fu, seems to have a kind of curiosity and longing for everything.

The scenery of Yunmeng Lake and Pengli Lake is indeed a wonder for a Zhao person. Heifu secretly complained: "I'm afraid you will have to go to the coast of the South China Sea in the future. When you stand by the tropical rain forest at the mouth of the Pearl River, looking at the vast sea and the waves rushing onto the beach, I wonder what you will feel..."

At noon, they had arrived at a place where rivers and lakes meet, but they saw that it was like a clear distinction here. The water of Pengli Lake was muddy, while the water flowing into the lake was extremely clear...

Zhao Tuo opened a map drawn by Tu Sui who sent people to explore the waterway, pointed to this place and said: "This is the mouth of the lake. Ganshui, Fuhe River, Xinjiang River, Raohe River, and Xiushui River all flow into Nanjiang River (Poyang Lake), and Nanjiang River flows into Pengli Lake from here."

Heifu suddenly realized that if he turned south at this bend, he would enter the Poyang Lake of later generations. But at present, Poyang Lake has not yet taken shape. There is only a narrow stretch of water running from north to south, called "Nanjiang River". When the water rises in spring, it connects with Pengli Lake to become a larger lake. Now in autumn and winter, the water shrinks, and most of the area is covered with yellow grass and white reeds, as vast as a plain.

The water in Pengli Lake is very turbid. Whenever Heifu and his men want to draw water from the river, they need to clarify it and wait for a night before they can drink it. The water in Nanjiang River is very clear, with clear pools rising far away and green waves condensing and clean. The confluence with Pengli Lake is like a division by a rope and ruler, and there is no confusion.

Looking at this place, Zhao Tuo seemed to have some ideas: "The flow of rivers flows north to Pengli Lake, and the mouth of the lake is the place where it is discharged. If a small town can be established here to control the waterway, the entry and exit of Yuzhang's thousands of miles of land can be controlled!"

"Zhao Tuo's vision is quite accurate."

Hei Fu glanced at the future King of Nanyue. He had learned geography after all, and knew that Akalin Province was surrounded by mountains in the east, west and south, and entering the Yangtze River through Poyang Lake was the most convenient entry and exit.

So Hei Fu smiled and said, "When we conquer the entire territory of Yuzhang, how about setting up a garrison here?"

The boat was traveling at a very fast speed. Two hours after crossing the mouth of the lake, they were close to their destination, the Chu town of Pengze on the south bank of Pengli Lake...

From a distance, this town was a typical waterside town, two miles away from the water, with a small pier on the shore. Suddenly, a huge fleet appeared on the water. The Chu people on the shore immediately fled, but before escaping, they did not forget to burn the wooden dock.

Seeing the blazing fire on the dock, Heifu asked Zhao Tuo how to moor in this situation without knowing the depth of the water on the shore?

"Sima can only reach the shore with a small boat."

Zhao Tuo smiled indifferently: "But I'm afraid we will have to repair the dock later, otherwise we will have nowhere to moor."

With countless oars, the centipede-like long boats were put on the water, each of which could seat fifty people. Fortunately, most of Heifu's soldiers had been boatmen, and they followed the calls of the tower ship soldiers and began to row towards the shore.

Fortunately, there were not many guards under Peng Zejun, and they did not dare to send people to stop them. As the oars rose and fell, dozens of long boats boarded smoothly.

The first batch of 500 Dongmenbao soldiers who landed had already formed a square formation. The soldiers held shields and swords and looked at the closed gate of Xiaoyi vigilantly. After Lixian, Gongao, Anpu, Man, and Xiaotao landed in the rear, they moved forward one by one. It took half an hour to form a square formation of 3,000 people on the shore. Then, they followed the Heifu army flag and walked towards the city with neat steps accompanied by the beating of waist drums!

Some people on the top of Pengze City watched and saw that the river was full of Qin warships, all with hard sails spread out, like a cloud covering the lake, endless, and there were probably tens of thousands of people on the boats. The 3,000 Wuben who landed were in neat formation and aggressive, and seemed to be just the vanguard of this army, which made people tremble with fear.

Heifu's soldiers stopped a mile away from the city, leaving a thousand men on guard in front, while the rest went to cut trees or go back to the shore to get tents and other things for camping. Heifu had assigned them tasks yesterday, so the process was well organized.

Heifu was determined: "Tu Sui will not bluff for me for long, and will leave soon, so we will attack the city early tomorrow morning, and we will take the city within two days!"

His original plan was to use the power of the tiger to scare the people in the city, so that it would be easier to attack, but he did not expect that in the evening, when the camp outside the city was not yet set up, there was a sudden fire in the city and chaos. Then the flag of surrender was quickly erected on the top of the city, and the people on it shouted to surrender to the Qin army, and said that they would send someone out to negotiate the surrender...

Heifu's men looked at each other, and couldn't help but think of the battle of Yingyang that made them successful.

"Could it be a false surrender?" The five hundred leaders were a little worried. It was getting dark. What if the army entered the city at this moment and was ambushed?

"Whether it is true or not, let the surrendered people go out of the city and see."

Hei Fu was not afraid. He sat on the mat and asked Ji Ying to shout and ask the city to send people out quickly.

Not long after, a scholar of about 30 years old fell down the city wall less than two feet high with a rope and was brought to Hei Fu by Gong Ao.

Ten steps away, the scholar raised the bloody head in his hand and said:

"Xu Shu and Xu of Pengze have killed Pengze Jun and welcome the Qin King's teacher!"