Dong Zhuo was overjoyed to learn that the Hanoi Army had not been harmed, but he also fell into chagrin later. In less than ten days, all the land in Hanoi County was lost. It was all the land that his subordinates had just captured after two months of bloody battles. Now not only was it all occupied by Chen Chong, even Mengjinguan was easily conquered by him. This was all because of himself. Fear of excess enemy.
Dong Zhuo once again had 50,000 mobile troops and horses in his hands, and Dong Zhuo became bolder again. He gave up the idea of returning to Hangu Pass and had free time to observe Chen Chong's movements on the north bank. After all, he was also quite curious: Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu each had nearly 200,000 troops, but they both stopped moving forward, but Chen Chong dared to send troops to the river bank to confront him at Mang Mountain. What did he rely on? Or does he have unknown foreign aid?
Of course Chen Chong would not think so, even though most of the Central Route Army had already gathered in Heyang. After Wang Fang withdrew from Hanoi, he took over the two cities of Yewang and Wenxian, and re-adjusted the defenses. About 12,000 people were left to guard Yecheng, Yewang, Wenxian, and Zhixian, forming Heyang into a square shape. After being protected, another 3,000 people were used to transport the baggage from Tianjingguan to Hanoi. Only 40,000 people could be used for the confrontation in Dahe.
This was much lower than the 70,000 people Dong Zhuo had expected. However, in Chen Chong's plan, the Central Army was originally used to contain Dong Zhuo. He never expected that 40,000 people could defeat Dong Zhuo. Just to contain Dong Zhuo, he had to take risks. Now he pulled the battle line to the Mengjin Pass in one go and faced off across the river. With the few Ling Zhong, it cannot be said that it is not in danger. But just because the strategy was too dangerous, Dong Zhuo didn't know Chen Chong's details, so he naturally didn't dare to act rashly. What Chen Chong had to do was to use this opportunity to stabilize Mengjin's defense line and nail Dong Zhuo's army to Luoyang.
Now Chen Chong has captured Mengjin Pass and is facing off with Dong Zhuo's army in Beimang Mountain. Mengjin South Pass is isolated on the south bank, forming an extremely delicate situation. Dong Zhuo may not be able to conquer Nanguan, but Chen Chong cannot cross the river to fight, and because he has to garrison troops to defend Nanguan, Chen Chong cannot easily move his army. Dong Zhuo only needs to leave a small number of troops in Mang Mountain to guard it, and then he can use the remaining main force to search for it. If the fighter plane crosses the river to attack Chen Chong's flank, Chen Chong can still hold on. If he attacks Yuan Shu and Sun Jian first, the center army will be completely defeated.
Therefore, he planned to build a floating bridge on the Yellow River in Mengjin.
The floating bridge on the Yellow River has existed since ancient times. In the fiftieth year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin, as a result of winning the Battle of Changping, the State of Qin expanded rapidly in the three Jin areas. In order to ensure the convenience of travel between Qin and Jin, King Zhaoxiang built a river bridge at Pubanjin in the east of the river. It's a pity that after Wang Mang's chaos, the Red Eyebrow Army took control of Chang'an and Guanzhong was in chaos. No one repaired the Puban River Bridge, so it was damaged and has not been rebuilt to this day.
But the river bridge built at Mengjin is different from Pubanjin. The water situation on the river north of Luoyang is complicated, and the river bank is sometimes wide and sometimes narrow. Especially the section from Heyang to Gongxian forms a thin and round shape, like a snake swallowing an elephant. This means that the river suddenly converges at both ends, with a width of only about two hundred feet, but suddenly widens in the middle of the river, reaching a width of nearly seven hundred feet. It stands to reason that the river surface is wide, and the water flow will slow down because of this, but the river water It is full of sediment from the upper reaches. After the water flow slowed down, the sediment from the upper reaches settled here. Over thousands of years, two sandbars, one large and one small, were piled up in the middle of the river. The large sandbar is about five miles long and the small sandbar is about Three miles, which then caused the river to flow from the sandbar into two narrower waterways, making the water flow more turbulent. …
It is said that when Yu the Great divided the nine states, he decided to settle in Yiluo and once wanted to build a bridge here to connect the north and south of the river. But he built the bridge three times, and each time half way through the construction, the bridge piles were washed away by the river. He sighed and said: "I have succeeded in controlling the water. I have always followed the flow of the water, because I understand the truth that those who follow the heavens will prosper and those who go against the heavens will perish. Now I have failed to build the bridge three times. It can be seen that it is a warning from the gods not to allow this bridge to be built." ." So he gave up building the bridge. Three generations later, there were not many people who made Luoyang their capital, but they all believed that they were not as good as Dayu in controlling water and building bridges, so no one built river bridges in the north of Luoyang.
But once the river bridge is completed, the geographical impact will be earth-shaking, the natural dangers of the Yellow River will become a smooth road, and Luoyang's danger to Hebei will no longer exist. If Chen Chong's army were at Mengjin Beiguan, starting from Heqiao, they could reach the north of Luoyang City in one day. Only Beimang Mountain was the only barrier to Luoyang between the two armies. Dong Zhuo would never dare to do so unless he gave up Luoyang. , nor can they move the army and let Chen Chong cross Beiman Mountain.
Therefore, Chen Chong summoned all the generals accompanying the army in Beiguan and told them his plan. The generals were shocked by Chen Chong's bold idea. Tao Qiuhong questioned this and said: "The river has flowed eastward for thousands of years, and countless river bridges have been built, but I have never heard of them being built in Mengjin. What's more, there are many capable and wise people in the past dynasties, and no one has ever proposed to build it here. Building a river bridge means building a river bridge here. Isn’t it unwise for Dragon Head to do this?"
Tao Qiuhong was as famous as Hua Xin in Beihai. He stayed out of office after being promoted as Xiaolian, so he had a reputation of being noble. After Chen Ji became Pingyuan Prime Minister, he visited him repeatedly and asked him to serve as the chief secretary of the government. Soon after he heard that Chen Chong was participating in the challenge against Dong, he sent him to help him. Everyone in the army respected him very much.
After listening to his speech, Chen Chong did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked at the eastward flow of the river. After everyone was calm and breathless, he said: "Brother Tao Qiu's words are biased. The so-called unwise is because he doesn't know that he can't do it. , and we still have to force ourselves to do it. The so-called worrying about the sky and carving a boat for a sword is nothing better than this. The ancients knew that they were beyond their capabilities, so they did not build river bridges. This is indeed wise, but how can ancient and modern times be the same? What the ancients couldn't do is not what people today can't do. , I know how to build river bridges, so I just came up with this proposal, how can I call it unwise?"
Chen Chong also took the example of going out to Taixing and said: "The generals who went out to Taixing before were just opening up a new path that had not been seen in ancient times. The world is changing day by day. Today's people are better than the ancients. Do we need to talk more about it?" Previously, Chen Chong sent Tao Qiu. Hong arranged to go down the mountain with the cavalry at Tianjingguan, so he couldn't understand. The other generals who followed Chen Chong down the mountain thought of the scene of climbing up the mountain and under the clouds, and they all believed that what Chen Chong said was reasonable.
Then came the question from Taishan Colonel Chang Xi, who directly focused on military issues and said: "Not to mention how to build the river bridge, will the Liang people on the south bank sit back and watch us build it? The pontoon bridge is difficult to build, but easy to destroy. If they cross the river to harass , and a large army besieged Nanguan, and we have no foothold, how can we build a bridge?"
This hit the point directly. Chen Chong admired Chang Xi greatly. He patted Chang Xi on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Mr. Chang's words hit the mark, so we can't build the river bridge now." He paused slightly and pointed his finger at the crowd. He looked towards the small sandbar in the river and said, "Let's build a city here first."…
On July 16, the sky was still between turbid and bright. The Liangren scouts in Beimang Mountain vaguely saw a noise on the other side, but they couldn't see it clearly. They could only vaguely see black masses on the small yellow-black sandbar. film. So they waited for another half an hour, and when the sky turned into a deep blue color, the scouts saw clearly: People were landing one after another on the small sandbank three miles long. They lined up on the sand and gravel, with long swords and flags standing tall. It is like a forest, and the north side of the sandbar is full of small boats, which are densely packed like the hair of the sandbar, swaying back and forth with the white waves in the river.
The scouts rushed to report to the Prime Minister. Dong Xiangguo was greatly surprised when he learned about it, and personally led his staff to Beimang Mountain to watch. When he arrived, he saw that people were still being transported to the sandbank on the north bank. From a distance, there were as many people as a swarm of ants in the corner of the city. Dong Zhuo roughly estimated that there were no less than ten thousand people on the island. He did not embarrass Cai Yong and turned to I asked Zong Zhengjia's attendant and Prime Minister Shi Liu Ai for his opinion: "Liu Changshi, what do you think?"
Liu Ai speculated for a long time, and finally frowned and said, "Could it be that he plans to build a fortification here?"
Dong Zhuo shook his head and said with a smile: "If he were an ordinary general, I would think so. But with Chen Chong's strategy, I would not be ignorant. With the strength of the two passes in the north and south of Mengjin, as long as the defenders are sufficient, even if I lead my troops to attack by force, it will be difficult for a while. Why bother building another city on the sandbank? It's a waste of the strength of the soldiers."
"He must be building a city as a cover." After saying this, Dong Zhuo paused for a moment, put his forehead on his forehead to sort out his thoughts, and then said more firmly: "Chen Chong's battles are very deceitful. Now he is leading thousands of people to cross the sandbank. The sandbank is only two miles away from the south bank. Baizhang, a soldier can cross the Yellow River in two quarters of an hour by rowing a boat. When we believed it and relaxed our vigilance, thinking that he really wanted to hold on to Mengjin, he repeated his old tricks and led his army to cross the river and surge up to Nanguan. Our army had no time to react. It can be seen that he calmly crossed the river and missed the opportunity to attack halfway across the river."
This speculation was quite reasonable and filled with various games among the generals. When Liu Ai heard this, his horizons were widened and he admired Dong Zhuo greatly. He asked again: "The prime minister's wise strategy can see through Chen Chong's plan, but he doesn't know that we are waiting for him." How to deal with the enemy?"
Hearing this, Lu Bu, the general of the Tiger Guard, stepped forward to ask for a fight: "I saw the two thieves Liu and Chen in Bingzhou. One was a scholar who could not fight, and the other was a prodigal son who was conceited and took risks. Only his subordinates Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were still alive. Even if they have some skills, the rest are just little people with little money. They are now trapped on the sandbank. Once there is a fight, there will be no way to escape. Why not let my generals go ashore in boats and kill them all like sheep. Absolutely,"
Dong Zhuo didn't want to agree at first, but then he thought about it, he had never fought against Chen Chong head-on. Now that Chen Chong is leading the troops, how can he not fight for more than ten days? When he thought of this, he felt itchy, and immediately agreed to Lu Bu, letting him take two thousand soldiers to fight on the sandbank for a while to explore the depth of the enemy.
Lu Bu then picked two thousand of his old troops and went down the mountain to Xiaopingjin in a big way. When Jia Xu of Xiaopingjin heard that Lü Bu had asked for a fight and was going to fight on the sandbank, he worriedly said: "I see there are many boat operators under Chen Chong, so you have to be careful." Lü Bu replied nonchalantly: "How big of a difference can it make? But It’s just a hundred feet of river surface.”
He picked eighty small boats in Xiaopingjin, each boat was manned by two boatmen and carried ten soldiers. The cable was loosened on the side of the ship, and the bow of the ship rose and fell with the waves. Lu Bu faced the river wind and stood at the front without hesitation. He was wearing a chainmail armor, carrying a long bow with horns on his back, and a silver tiger helmet on his head. He waved his halberd in the wind with both hands. He couldn't help but feel high-spirited and smiled at the generals behind him: "Today I will test my courage for you."
