Meng Tiannan's offensive in Haizhou was actually smoother than Li Mu's.
The Sui State's garrison in Haizhou did not expect that the Qin army would send troops to Haizhou, and their defenses were even more lax than those in Liangzhou.
After Meng Tian entered Haizhou from Wudu, he marched for more than 300 miles without encountering a Sui army sentry. He did not encounter Sui soldiers until the Honggu Shandi Realm, but they were very loose and defeated them with one arrow.
After that, Meng Tian hardly encountered any strong resistance when he attacked the key areas in northern Haizhou. He basically attacked, fled, attacked and fled. It was not until he entered the boundary of Xining County that he encountered some decent resistance.
The chief governor and governor of Haizhou in the Sui Dynasty were Yang Xingmi, the founding king of Southern Wu, and Yang Xiong, the king of Guande in the Sui Dynasty.
Yang Xingmi is known as "the first person in the Ten Kingdoms", and Yang Xiong, Gao Jun, Yu Qingze, and Su Wei are also known as the "Four Nobles in the Court". Both of them are outstanding men in both civil and military affairs.
But even if the two of them guard Haizhou together, the defense on the northern front is still extremely lax. The main reason is actually that the main energy of the Sui army is used to defend against other forces.
Where is Haizhou? It was the original habitat of the Qiang people, and in addition to the Qiang people, there were also dozens of foreign ethnic groups such as Hui, Tu, and Salar.
The national structure is extremely complex and the contradictions are extremely acute.
The Qiang people in this time and space are very lucky, but also very miserable.
Fortunately, a group of heroes from Yelu Abaoji were implanted and worked hard to subdue the various tribes and unify the Qiang land in a very short period of time.
Unfortunately, the opponents faced by the Qiang people were too strong. Whether it was during the Dong Zhuo period or his successors such as Li Yuan and Yang Jian, the Qiang people could not win on their own.
Under the continuous weakening of Dong Zhuo and others, the Qiang people became weaker and weaker, and were eventually eliminated by the third-generation successors of the Liang family, Yang Guang and Li Shimin, and were established as Haizhou by Yang Guang after the fall of Li Tang.
The Qiang people in Haizhou, the Baiyue people in Jiaozhou, the Shanyue people in Yangzhou, and the major barbarian peoples in Jingnan can be said to be inseparable.
These alien races were in similar situations. They were all wiped out by the Han people, but their endings were completely different.
After the Baiyue, Shanyue, and Jingnan barbarians were destroyed by Liu Xiu and Sun Jian, both of them integrated, digested, and completely transformed these foreign populations into their own assistance.
But the Qiang people are different from these races.
Haizhou has seven counties. It has experienced two periods of division between the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and two periods of independent rule by the Sui and Tang Dynasties. No matter which period, the Sui and Tang Dynasties invested a lot of financial and material resources.
However, because Yelu Abaoji unified the Qiang people and ruled the Qiang people, the Qiang people awakened their national consciousness.
Baiyue, Shanyue, and the barbarians in Jingnan, these foreign tribes did not have the consciousness of a clan, so they were easily assimilated after they were conquered.
But the Qiang people are different. After awakening their national consciousness, if they want to assimilate the Qiang people, the difficulty is not at the same level as that of Baiyue Mountain.
In addition, the Han Dynasty's killing of the Qiang people was too heavy, which caused the two groups to accumulate too much hatred, so rebellions and uprisings broke out in Haizhou from time to time.
Although each rebellion was quickly and easily extinguished by the Han people, and gradually fewer and fewer Qiang people rebelled, there would always be Qiang people who continued to stand up.
Building is difficult, destroying is easy.
Every foreign uprising in Haizhou will cause great damage to Haizhou's various constructions. It will be destroyed while developing, so the development of Haizhou will naturally be slow.
This is also the main reason why the Qiang people have been exterminated for many years, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties also invested a lot of manpower and material resources, but Haizhou is still extremely barren and backward.
In a land as big as Haizhou, although there is not much arable land, it is extremely rich in mineral resources. In addition, the population is not large. The recorded population in the seven counties alone is 6 to 7 million, and the hidden resources of various ethnic groups and villages The population will only be larger than this number.
This shows that the potential of Haizhou is not small.
If Yang Guang could liquidate the population of Haizhou, completely win over the people's hearts, and digest Haizhou, the Sui State's national power would definitely increase significantly, and it would definitely not be the weakest country among the countries.
But the reality is that Yang Guang cannot count the hidden population of the Qiang tribe at all, because they are the foundation of the Sui Kingdom's rule over Haizhou.
Once their fundamental interests are touched, it will only be counterproductive, and the situation faced by the Sui Kingdom will be even worse.
In addition, the Sui State only had five and a half counties in Xiliang, and the total population of Han people under its rule was only more than 1.2 million. With such a small size, it was obviously not that easy to digest a foreign population of more than 1 million. easy.
Yang Guang knew that his own strength was insufficient, so he could only boil the frog in warm water. This also destined that the Sui State's digestion of Haizhou would be protracted.
In the minds of many Sui people, Haizhou was simply worthless. Not only could it not provide the Sui State with much tax revenue and food, but it even required the Sui State to continue blood transfusions and deploy heavy troops to prevent the Qiang people from rebelling in order to maintain the Sui State's rule in Haizhou. , and this undoubtedly restrained a lot of energy of the Sui State.
So another voice emerged in the public opinion of the Sui Kingdom, which was to abandon the policy of continuing to assimilate foreign races, and instead to completely conquer and destroy, make all foreigners who refused to be naturalized into slaves, and plunder all the properties of these foreigners.
At that time, the Sui State was in a stage of rapid development, and this voice received support from many people as soon as it appeared. After all, if this was true, the Sui State would gain hundreds of thousands of slaves and massive wealth for development.
This incident made a big fuss and alarmed the Sui court. The military headed by Yang Shuang also supported this.
It can be said that as long as Yang Guang nodded at that time, the end of the Haizhou alien race would have come, but it was only the last step, and Yang Guang's indecisiveness occurred again.
Yang Guang was very satisfied with the development speed of the Sui State at that time. He was worried that the development process would be interrupted, and he was also worried that the matter would be too big to end, and he was too timid to make a decision.
Facts have proved that although Yang Guang was indecisive, he made the right choice this time.
The public opinion of completely destroying the alien race was actually secretly promoted by the people of Da Qin in order to disrupt and interrupt the development process of the Sui Kingdom from within.
Da Qin's attacks on enemy countries were never just military destruction. They were also a sharp sword in terms of economy and public opinion.
However, although Da Qin's purpose this time was not pure, it was indeed a great opportunity for the Sui State. If Yang Guang could seize it, he could solve Haizhou's hidden dangers.
But unfortunately, Yang Guang lacks courage and would rather drink poison to quench his thirst than dare to pierce this layer of window paper and completely solve his own hidden dangers.
There are advantages and disadvantages to doing this, but in general, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. After all, the Sui State cannot afford such a torment.
If there are really millions of aliens who oppose Haizhou, then even if the Sui Kingdom mobilizes all its troops, they may not be able to suppress them in a short period of time, but it will easily give Great Qin an opportunity to take advantage of them.
It was with this in mind that Yang Guang did not dare to take action, but he was really worried about the foreigners in Haizhou, so he left 70,000 defenders in Haizhou.
The main force of the Sui army is 70,000. What is this concept?
The Sui Dynasty made three western expeditions, and the largest one dispatched only 40,000 troops.
When the Sui State united with Li and Tang Dynasty to destroy the Qiang, they only sent out 40,000 troops.
The 70,000-strong army was almost double the total strength of the Qiang extermination force.
It can be seen that for the Sui State, it was actually more difficult to rule Haizhou and the Qiang people than to destroy the Qiang people.
The 70,000 defenders left by Yang Guang in Haizhou ensured the Sui's absolute rule in Haizhou. No matter where there was rebellion in any of the seven counties of Haizhou, the Sui army could extinguish the rebel forces as quickly as possible, and the Qiang There is almost no possibility of success.
But even so, there will still be Qiang people launching rebellions, and the rebellion areas are mainly concentrated in the central and southwest regions. What these three regions have in common is that the number of Han people is sparse and the Sui State's ruling foundation is relatively weak.
It is precisely because of this that most of Sui's 70,000-strong army in Haizhou were stationed in the central and southwestern parts. The total number of defenders in the northern and eastern regions was less than 20,000. How could they stop Meng Tian himself? Leading an army in a sneak attack?
When Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong learned that the northern region was attacked by unknown forces, they thought it was Qiang rebels.
After all, although most of the Qiang rebellion areas were concentrated in the central and southwest parts, some rebels who escaped suppression fled to the north and continued to cause rebellion.
Neither Yang Xingmi nor Yang Xiong took it seriously, and just sent more than a thousand elites to pursue them. However, they soon received a message from Yang Guang, and learned that the Qin army sent troops to attack the Sui Dynasty and had sneak attacks to defeat Yuzhong, while Yang Guang The garrison forces across the country were ordered to be on alert.
When the matter developed to this point, although Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong did not think it was the Qin army, they were already vigilant, so they quickly summoned the Haizhou garrison to prepare to rush to Daxing and deal with the living bandit.
But what neither Yang Xingmi nor Yang Xiong expected was that while they were gathering their troops, major key points in the north were lost one after another.
No matter how stupid Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong were, they knew that this was definitely not done by the Qiang people. After all, even the Qiang rebels in Haizhou combined did not have this strength.
Then it is obvious who the opponent is, it must be the Qin Army.
At this time, Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong did not know the news of the fall of Heguan, so they were extremely puzzled by the Qin army's sending troops to Haizhou.
Because even if the Qin Army occupied Xining County and cut off the connection between Haizhou and Liangzhou, the reinforcements from Xiliang would still be able to reach Daxing. So what is the significance of the Qin Army's doing this?
In the consciousness of Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong, the Qin army started war with the Wei, Song and Ming Dynasties at the same time, and had already dispatched most of its troops. Now it was divided into two groups to attack the Sui Kingdom. There must not be many troops left in the country.
But what Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong didn't know was that their judgment of the Qin Army's strength was wrong, because the Qin Army had been hiding its strength from beginning to end, so even if they started a war with Wei, Song, and Ming at the same time, they could still make up twenty-five Ten thousand troops were divided into four groups to attack the Sui Dynasty.
Yang Xingmi and Yang Xiong felt that even if the reinforcements from Haizhou could not reach Daxing, the reinforcements from Xiliang could reach Daxing, not to mention that the Qin army had not yet captured Xining.
Although Yang Xingmi could not figure out Li Jing's true intention, the current situation in Xining was indeed not good. They could not just sit back and watch Xining fall into the hands of the Qin army, so they quickly led the army to support Xining, but unexpectedly they were still a step too late. .
Meng Tian personally led 15,000 vanguard troops, marched 300 miles in four days, and made a surprise attack on Xining City, the seat of Xining.
There were only 3,000 defenders in Xining City, and they could not withstand the fierce attack of the Qin army, which was five times more than itself. In the end, they were defeated by the Qin army after holding on for a day, and the defender Yang Wo was also beheaded by Yang Ren.
Yang Wo, the guard of Xining City, was the eldest son of Yang Xingmi and the second king of Southern Wu.
When his eldest son died in battle, his father Yang Xingmi was naturally furious. In anger, he immediately prepared to fight Meng Tian, but was stopped by Yang Xiong.
Yang Xiong said that the enemy is hidden and we are clear. Without knowing the details of the enemy, it is not appropriate to rush to war with the Qin army. He suggested collecting intelligence on the Qin army first. .
Although Yang Xingmi was angry because of the death of his eldest son, he did not completely lose his mind, so he did not insist on having his own way. However, after collecting the information, he broke out in a cold sweat.
Although Yang Xingmi didn't know exactly how many people Meng Tian brought, according to the intelligence analysis, the Qin army had at least 50,000 to 60,000 troops.
With the fighting power of the Qin army, the combined total of 70,000 Sui troops in Haizhou may not be the opponent of the Qin army, let alone the Qin army still defending the city.
Yang Xingmi knew that it was impossible to recapture Xining from Meng Tian with the power of the Haizhou Sui army alone, so he prepared to wait for the upcoming Tibetan reinforcements.
The 100,000 Tibetan troops led by Qin Ling will arrive in Haizhou in the near future. The combined strength of the Sui and Tibetan armies is 160,000 to 70,000. It will not be too late to compete with Meng Tian at that time.
Yang Xingmi reported the news from Haizhou to Daxing through flying pigeons, explaining the reason why he could not lead his army to Daxing in a short time because Xining was captured by Meng Tian and the passage between Haizhou and Liangzhou was cut off.
After Yang Guang received the news, his vision suddenly darkened and he almost fainted, because before receiving Yang Xingmi, he also received a piece of news from Xiliang, and it was also bad news.
Long Qie, the deputy governor of Liangzhou of the Qin Army, led his army to surprise and conquer Xianmei City. The connection between Zhangye County and Wuwei County was completely cut off, and the Xiliang reinforcements led by Gao Huan could not get through.
Therefore, the Qin army did not attack in two directions, but in four directions against the Sui Dynasty, directly cutting off all support from Daxing, turning Daxing into an isolated city and a caged bird.
Yang Guang no longer cared about analyzing how many troops the Qin army dispatched and where they came from. He only had one thought in his mind, and that was that Li Jing was too ruthless. He targeted the Sui State's vital points as soon as he took action. , not giving him any chance to fight back.
"Li Jing, Li Jing."
Yang Guang looked up to the sky and roared, his face full of unwillingness and panic, as well as deep despair for a future with little hope in sight.
