As time passed, the temperature became lower and lower. The Goguryeo soldiers still went to the riverside to pry the ice every day, but they also discovered a fatal problem, that is, it was not so easy to pry the ice apart now. It took longer and longer every day, and now the ice began to freeze during the day.
Many people have told Gai Yuansuwen that this method is meaningless. Even if we can keep the river surface in front of us from freezing, the entire Taedong River is so long. Can we really keep the entire Taedong River ice-free? It's simply impossible, unless we don't eat or sleep and stare at the entire river surface, breaking the ice at the slightest bit.
But Gai Yuansuwen wouldn't listen. He had so many soldiers under his command, and now they were doing nothing. How could this be? Gai Yuansuwen was already in a state of confusion. If his men had any problems, he would think they had done nothing to resist the Tang army. If he stayed in the barracks every day, he would really have done nothing, and he would be extremely anxious. Although his current work was useless, at least he was working, and he felt a little more at ease.
Li Xiang has sent people to investigate the matter and has also called over the elderly people around. According to them, in five or six days at most, the entire river surface will be frozen solid, and by then, horse-drawn carriages and other vehicles will be able to travel freely.
However, to be on the safe side, Li Xiang still planned to split his troops, allowing only one thousand people to pass at a time, and the rest had to wait on the shore. After the first group of people passed, iron chains would be pulled on both sides, and the soldiers had to hold on to the iron chains when crossing the river. In case the ice in the middle broke, they could still save their lives by relying on the iron chains.
As for the cavalry crossing the river, everyone had to dismount, and then fifty people formed a small team, and they had to be evenly dispersed to try not to cause too much vibration to the river surface.
Li Xiang was actually being too cautious. In previous winters, the Goguryeo army would cross the river directly on horseback, but now it was just the beginning of winter, so there was nothing wrong with being cautious.
The soldiers under his command were also prepared. They had been resting here for nearly two months. Although they went out for training on weekdays, they stayed in the tent most of the time, bragging and chatting. So they were almost getting angry. Now the order had been issued from above, asking them to conduct restorative training every day. The attack was about to come, and the opportunity to make achievements was also coming.
Listening to the sound of the Tang army training opposite, the Goguryeo army was not happy at all. Their faces were full of worry and they were shivering with cold. Although the King of Goguryeo sent them some cotton clothes, the quantity was too small. Twenty people could not get one. The rest of the people could only put on everything they found.
Although this can temporarily keep their bodies warm, its combat effectiveness is greatly reduced. Many people are looking for clothes from the bodies of dead people. The clothes are colorful and from a distance, they don’t look like an army at all, but like beggars.
Even this kind of beggar's clothes were a novelty in the Goguryeo army. When someone fell asleep and didn't get up, they would be stripped of all their clothes the next morning and thrown out. No one even had the energy to dig a hole to bury them...
They don’t have any dry food to eat every day, and all they drink is ice water. Even a fire is a luxury. Who has the energy to bury someone?
Gai Yuansuwen saw all of this, but he had no other choice. He couldn't care less at the moment. The court's treasury had all been emptied. There were still things in the warehouses of many nobles in the rear, but the King of Goguryeo could not make up his mind. If those people's things were sent to the front line, it would be tantamount to offending all the nobles across the country. There were not many troops in the rear now. Once those nobles rebelled, the life of the King of Goguryeo himself would be in danger.
Seeing that the Tang army was training more and more powerful, Gai Yuansuwen also knew that they were about to attack. In the past few days, he sent his most trusted men to understand the entire Taedong River defense line. If the Tang army came to attack, they would not be able to hold on for even a few days, and would even collapse on the same day.
So Gai Yuansuwen had to make some preparations for himself. When he came from the capital, he was also thinking about reorganizing the house, and then taking advantage of the natural barrier of the Taedong River to make the Tang army lose a large number of troops here. Then he could use the victory to negotiate with the Tang army, even if it meant giving them all the land north of the Taedong River, as long as Goguryeo could be preserved.
Ideals are very beautiful, but the reality is very cruel. After arriving at the front line, he also understood that he could only rely on the troops in front of him and not expect to cause any losses to the Tang army. If you can run faster and not be captured by the Tang army, it will be considered a contribution to Goguryeo.
So this guy plundered the entire army to get enough supplies for his 3,000 armored soldiers, including food and drink, so that they could run faster when the war started.
The soldiers under Gai Yuansuwen also understood that they were placed at the southernmost end of the camp. They were the most capable fighters in the entire army and should have been placed on the front line in the northernmost part. But now they were placed in the southernmost part, wasn't it just for escape? If they were in the northernmost part, when the war was about to break out, it would not be so easy to shuttle through the entire Goguryeo camp.
Now the generals of each camp still know you as the prime minister. If the situation gets chaotic, they will do anything to escape. Not to mention that you are the prime minister, even if the King of Goguryeo himself is here, these people will dare to kill people with swords. At that time, who cares about class hierarchy? As long as they can survive, they have to keep killing.
Gai Yuansu Wen had seen the chaos on the battlefield, so he had to be fully prepared. He entrusted important tasks to his generals, hoping that when the Tang army attacked, these generals could hold out for two hours, which would buy time for his escape. However, the generals also had their own plans. Do you think only the prime minister would run away?
