Speaking of the war situation in Hebei at this time, it was actually even worse than Zhong Yu described. The more than 60,000 soldiers and horses of Beifu were divided into nine groups before the war and were stationed in Lulong, Juyong, Jixian, Zhuoxian, Fanyang, Wuruan, Yijing, Zhending, and Jingxing, each with only seven or eight thousand troops. people. However, when Cao Zhen entered Peiping via Bailang Mountain, the Lulong defenders did not receive the news. As a result, Lulongsai was surrounded by the Liao Army just after the warning of the wolf smoke.
The Eastern Dynasty captured hundreds of thousands of people from Dingkou, Hebei, and entered Liaodong. In the past two years, they also annihilated Goguryeo, Buyeo and other places. Therefore, although Hebei was lost, they actually built an army of 70,000. Counting the Wuhuan tribes and Murong Xianbei who were persuaded by him, there were no less than 100,000 troops at that time. Now that we are fighting back to Hebei, we will not send troops to attack Hebei. Instead, we will divide our troops into three groups. There will be about 10,000 people along the way, led by Xia Houyuan, heading straight to Jingxing. There will be about 20,000 people along the way, led by Zhang He, to attack Juyong, while Cao Zhen will lead the army. The troops gradually swept into Beiping, Yuyang, Jixian and other places.
In fact, according to common sense, there is nothing wrong with the layout of Beifu. In terms of the terrain of Youzhou, the Yanshan Mountains in the north are steep and the rivers and rivers are flowing. They occupy the backbone of the world and control the defenses of Yixia. The two most important roads are Juyong and Lulong. One passes to the west and the other to the east. They are the auxiliary wings of Youyan. In the south, Jingxing leaps over Taihang, connecting the land with Hebei and annexing it. It is guarded by elite troops, and one can equal ten.
But as Zhou Buji said, with the governor of the Beifu in Beijing, the generals were leaderless and the army had no one to control them, so they were at a loss as to whether they were advancing or retreating, fighting independently and suffering setbacks one after another. Then chaos broke out in Hebei, and various Wubao groups responded to Cao Zhen. Bandits took advantage of the situation to cause chaos, causing news from various places to be cut off, and the rest of the unorganized ministries were in chaos.
After allowing the Liao army to strike first, Zhong Yu and Lu Yu were in Fanyang and hurriedly summoned various ministries to gather in the Zhuoxian area. However, after the news was sent out, only five tribes from Yijing, Jixian, Fanyang, Zhuoxian and Zhending came to gather, with about 40,000 people.
However, Sun Zi, who was guarding Jingxing, was attacked by Xia Houyuan. He defeated him before he could set up his defenses. He was also unaware of the overall situation of Youzhou, and finally led more than a thousand people back to Taiyuan. After Gao Lan, who was granted the title of Juyongguan, saw that Liu Bei and Chen Deng died of illness one after another, the Prime Minister Chen Chong withdrew from the court again, thinking that the situation of the court was over, and was immediately persuaded by Zhang He to surrender anyway. Chen Zhang's troops at Wuruan Pass wanted to rescue Jingxing, but were ambushed by Xia Houyuan. They lost more than half of their troops and had to evacuate hastily to Xindu. Lu Long's Wang Ji headquarters was besieged by Cao Zhen's army and was unable to fly.
At this point, there were originally more than 60,000 Beifu elite soldiers in Hebei Province, but now there were only more than 40,000 people left, and they were trapped in Zhuoxian County.
However, Zhong Yu, Lu Yu and others did not know that the situation had deteriorated to this point. Fortunately, although they were not knowledgeable in military affairs, they were cautious by nature, so they did not rush to the enemy. After discussing with Guo Huai and others in the army, Zhong Yu decided to fly to the imperial court to report the matter, and at the same time garrison and fence inside and outside Zhuoxian County, waiting for the imperial court to send troops to rescue him. No matter how the situation outside the city changed, he remained unmoved.
Under such a situation, Cao Zhen basically grasped the overall situation of Youzhou. After he appeased the rebels and surrendered to the forts, he slowly settled in Jicheng and directly surrounded Zhuoxian. However, he did not attack by force. Instead, after clearing the strongholds around Zhuoxian, he stayed in Jin and led his troops to monitor. He continued to move south, encircling Yijing while continuing to incite rebellion in Wubao in Hebei.
In fact, in Dongchao's original plan, Cao Zhen did not expect to achieve such great results. Before Liu Bei's death, Cao Pi and Sun Quan exchanged messengers across the sea to discuss military affairs and proposed three strategies: upper, middle and lower. If we can "join the army in Guandong, spread the word to the world, take advantage of the new mourning of the old traitor, and use the name of restoring orthodoxy to fight the Westerners for life and death", this is the best strategy; but "the north and the south echo each other, control the enemy unprepared, criticize the arrogant and undermine the weakness, Gradually make progress." This is the middle strategy. "Fighting each other, waiting for the enemy to arrive, separatist forces and being trapped" is a bad strategy and will surely lead to defeat.
Therefore, the two sides have agreed that the Wu people will attack first in the summer to contain most of the Han army, and then wait until autumn and winter to attack Youyan and cut north of the Yishui River, making the Han army exhausted from running back and forth. It's just that although the Wu people mobilized a large army to the Huai River area, which seemed to be huge, in fact there was no real war and not many Han troops were mobilized at all.
Although Cao Pi saw Sun Quan's intention to prey on the Liao people, he had nothing to do. Although Liaodong had more troops and horses, it was short of food and the war could not be delayed, so he still ordered Cao Zhen to send troops. However, since there were many deviations from the plan, I didn't expect much. Unexpectedly, after the Liao soldiers entered Yan, they achieved such results in just two months. Cao Pi couldn't help but write letters praising Cao Zhen one after another, praising him as "the Le Yi of today". He also went to the Changli area to personally supervise the transportation of grain and grass to ensure smooth flow of the front line.
After Cao Zhen received the commendation, he was not happy about it. He knew that although the Liao army was powerful, the main force of the Han army had not yet been dispatched. Although Liu Bei is dead, there are still famous generals such as Chen Chong and Guan Yu in the Western Dynasty. Once they lead the army, will he be able to defend Youzhou? Cao Zhen had no confidence in his heart. Fortunately, after capturing Jixian, the Liao army obtained more than 100,000 grains and fodder, and the most urgent issue of military supplies did not need to be considered for the time being.
Therefore, he wrote back to Cao Pi, informing Cao Pi of the current situation in Youzhou. He thought that although the army had occupied Youzhou, the soldiers had already tried their best, and there were tens of thousands of Beifu still holding strong in Zhuoxian, so it was not appropriate to go south easily. He planned to follow the example of Green Lin in rebelling against Xinmang. As a precedent, Yijing was used as Kunyang and Zhuoxian County was used as Wancheng. They cut off Western reinforcements from outside and attacked and destroyed the trapped people from inside. If Sun Quan can be allowed to respond to Qingxu again, it should be like the green forest and red eyebrows crossing the north and south. As long as he can persist until the turn of spring and summer next year, it may not be impossible to restore Hebei.
But the speed of the Westerners' actions was beyond his expectation. In Cao Zhen's opinion, it would take two months for the Western Dynasty to send troops after receiving the news. As a result, in late August, before the Westerners' message was released, his subordinates from the south came to report that Han knights had appeared in the Xindu area, and their number was probably no less than 10,000.
When Cao Zhen heard this, he didn't bother to continue attacking Yijing. He immediately gathered all his troops and marched south from Hejian to garrison Yishui on his back. Just one day later, in the morning, he received news that the Western Dynasty's forward seemed to be under the command of General Wang Ling, and was heading north at a rapid speed towards Yi Jing. In the afternoon, the flying cavalry came to report again, saying: "The Western Army's thousands of cavalry and light baggage are coming from the north, both day and night. The vanguard has passed Wudi Pavilion. Rumor has it that tens of thousands of troops behind are starting their journey one after another."
The sun was shining brightly at this moment, and Cao Zhen was resting in a tent surrounded by a curtain. The main generals were all in his tent. They didn't have any armor, but they were all in military uniforms. His servants were waiting with their armors, bows and arrows. Everyone looked at Cao Zhen. Cao Zhen did not expect the reinforcements from the south to move so quickly, but he remained extremely calm. He said, "I guess they will arrive at night. When he is tired after running for a day, hit him first." Take the lead!" Order the soldiers to disarm and rest, waiting for darkness.
Not yet. The scout cavalry reported again: "The Southern Army's cavalry came all the way north along the west bank of Sushui River. They only stopped once to change horses and did not light a fire for cooking. They are less than thirty miles apart."
Cao Zhen stood up and ordered all the troops to wear armor. He deployed his horse and infantry troops in the poplar forest to the east, leaving more than a thousand horsemen to march several miles forward and line up across the river bank.
When Shen and You met, the thunderous sound of horse hooves on the post road on the shore gradually approached, and the black mass was the leading cavalry of the Han army. Seeing that the road was blocked by the defenders, the Confederate army stopped and waited for the arrival of the subsequent cavalry. After a while, more and more Confederate troops gathered. It was not completely dark yet. Seeing that Cao Zhen's troops were few and far between, the Southern Army thought they were scouting ahead, so they rushed over on horseback without waiting for the formation to be formed.
Cao Zhen's army did not wait for the enemy to approach, and they all fled on horseback. The Confederate army actually rushed to pursue them, killing and capturing more than a hundred knights of Cao Zhen's army, and fled several miles away in an instant. At this moment, in the dim poplar forest, between the faint white trees, Cao Zhen's army came out in full force to launch an interception . Suddenly, arrows and stones were flying like rain, and the Confederate army was all on light cavalry. Countless people were killed when their horses were hit by arrows, and the knights on horseback fell off their horses and died. The knights and horses of Cao Zhen's army were all wearing armor, and the soldiers were wearing armor and holding long swords, and rushed in from the side. The Confederate army was outnumbered and suffered heavy casualties. The sergeants behind rushed to the ground first. It was dark, the road was narrow, and the crowd of people and horses crushed the slope of the shore. The soldiers fell into the river and were piled on top of each other, blocking the flow of water.
After the southern army fled, Cao Zhen ordered his trusted governor to lead thousands of cavalry, all of whom had lost their armor, and pursued them with light cavalry armed with bows, arrows, swords, and knives. The chasing cavalry shot and killed the fleeing Confederate troops along the road. The defeated troops fled in fear and could not stop themselves. They could not escape for dozens of miles. The frightened and thirsty sergeants crossed the Beizhang River overnight and arrived at the military town in Anping County. . The infantry's baggage was still in the military town and had not yet set off. Seeing this, they could only stop.
The vanguard of the Han army was defeated, and the subsequent recruitment of the army began to enter Xindu. At this time, the nominal general in charge of the northern expedition was Wei Yan, who was in charge of all armies in the northern expedition. The armies of Henan arrived at Xindu and advanced northward along the Zhang River. When Cao Zhen heard that the Southern Army had returned, he asked Xi Zuo: "Who is the commander-in-chief of the Westerners?" He replied: "Wei Yan, the former governor of Nanfu." Cao Zhen breathed a sigh of relief and said to the generals: "The new king of Luoyang has lost his head. , with Chen Chong and Guan Yu, instead of sending a fighting general from Wei Yan, can we still be victorious?"
But as the southern army gradually approached Youzhou, more and more news came to Youzhou. At that time, the scouts sent a message that there were about tens of thousands of Han troops approaching, but there was an endless stream of people crossing the river. Some people not only saw the banner of Wei Yan, but also the banner of the Jizhou governor, and even the banner of the chariot general Huang Zhong. At this time, no one can say for sure who the real coach of the Confederate army is. It was not until mid-September that the Liao people suddenly realized that it was Emperor Luoyang himself who had come to conquer the city! The number of accompanying soldiers and horses was as high as 100,000.
The people in Hebei were shocked for a while. Unexpectedly, after Liu Bei, his son also acted like this. After Liu Xie settled in Xindu, he sent a letter to the military: "The Liao captives blocking the mountains can still be solid, but now they are doing the opposite. They come from far away from the mountains and seas. They combine the art of military writing to teach people; they are also greedy and despise the states and counties. If you don't know how to retreat, you will be defeated now." The transcoding has been serious recently, which makes us more motivated and updates faster. Please use your little hand to exit the reading mode. Thanks
