Badong County is almost the Chongqing area in later generations. There are really many mountains here, and it is a mountain city.
The advantage of having many mountains is that it is rugged and difficult to navigate, making it easier to defend.
But there's a problem.
Xia Houyuan's current location is in the mountainous plain in the northwest of Badong County. This place is relatively wide. If fighting here, the terrain advantage is not great.
Therefore, Zhang Xi's idea was to lead Xia Houyuan into a narrower mountain road, and use the mountainous terrain to block Xia Houyuan's army layer by layer.
After carefully observing the map, Zhang Xi discovered that Baihe Town in front of Hanfeng County was a good place.
Therefore, Zhang Xi took Chen Dao, Zhang Yi, and Li Qiu together to formulate a battle plan.
To put it simply, it is to lure the enemy deeper.
But after all, Xia Houyuan is not his brother Xia Houdun. A person who can achieve great fame in Liangzhou is obviously not a reckless man who is easily fooled.
Therefore, how to lure the enemy is the key.
The current situation on Xia Houyuan's side is actually a bit beyond Xia Houyuan's expectations.
Xiahou Yuan's strategic purpose of sending troops was not to conquer Bajun, but to relocate people to enrich the population of Hanzhong.
Therefore, Xiahou Yuan sent more than 30,000 troops this time, and sent about 10,000 troops to Zhang He. The purpose was just to disrupt Zhang Fei's sight in Brazil County, and at the same time expand the front westward, giving Xiahou Yuan enough time to relocate the population.
Xia Houyuan himself did not expect that Zhang He would be so fierce and hit the Dangshi area at once.
When Zhang He's battle report came, Xia Houyuan immediately ordered to suspend the march and stop the migration of the local population.
Then, Xia Houyuan began to hesitate whether to send troops to support Zhang He and intimidate Chengdu, or not to send reinforcements and continue to implement the original strategy. When Tan Ma came to report, Zhang Xi, the governor of Badong County, attacked his flank and easily removed him. Two camps were built.
Now Xia Houyuan can no longer leave it alone.
Badong County was actually within Xia Houyuan's plan.
The purpose of sending troops this time was to plunder the population, and Badong County was poorly defended. Xia Houyuan was planning to capture it, but he was just waiting for Zhang He's progress before deciding when to attack Badong County.
But now that Zhang He was progressing so smoothly, Xia Houyuan had his thoughts moved, so Badong County had to be taken down.
If Xiahou Yuan leads his troops westward to support Zhang He, then Badong County will be behind Xiahou Yuan's army. Once the defenders of Badong County go north and directly cut off Xiahou Yuan's return route, then Xiahou Yuan and Zhang He's 30,000 troops will be It is possible that they will be suffocated to death in Bajun, and eventually they will be divided and surrounded by Liu Bei's group and eliminated one by one.
Therefore, this threat from Badong County must be eliminated.
Originally, Xia Houyuan really didn't take Badong County seriously. After all, detailed intelligence said that there were only 3,000 county soldiers defending the northern part of Badong County, and they had to be scattered across various places, making it difficult to gather them all at once.
This kind of force distribution is good for Xia Houyuan, that is, the enemy defenders are scattered and their combat effectiveness will be weak. However, it also has the disadvantage that Xia Houyuan cannot defeat them in one fell swoop and must advance county by county.
But there were only 3,000 people in total, and if they were distributed among the counties, there might not be even 1,000 defenders in one county, so Xia Houyuan didn't take it too seriously.
As for Yufu's 10,000 Baijie soldiers, Xiahou Yuan actually received some deviations in the information. He did not know that the Yufu garrison was Liu Bei's own Baijie soldiers. Xiahou Yuan only thought that they were the thousands of Jingzhou soldiers that Zhuge Liang left behind when he entered Sichuan. Xiahou Yuan thought there were only a few thousand men, and they were all used to defend the southern part of Badong County.
Therefore, in Xia Houyuan's view, at least in the northern part of Badong County, he has an absolute advantage.
Xia Houyuan had not heard of Zhang Xi's reputation, and knew that he was a wise general. However, the reputation of generals these days is difficult to say. Zhang Xi did not have any famous representative battles. Most of the battles were "offensive". "I didn't hear of any experience in leading an army alone, so Xia Houyuan didn't take it to heart.
In addition, facing his own army of more than 20,000 people, Zhang Xi, who only had a few thousand people on guard, did not choose to fortify himself layer by layer. Instead, he concentrated his troops in Hanfeng County and even dared to sneak attack his own camp. In Xia Houyuan's view, this was a kind of Very stupid behavior.
Zhang Xi's behavior of concentrating his troops made Xia Houyuan see the possibility of capturing the entire Badong County in one battle.
As long as the Badong County garrison led by Zhang Xi is defeated, the entire Badong County will no longer have the defense force. Whether it is occupying the entire place or plundering the population and heading north, it is completely within Xia Houyuan's thoughts.
Moreover, Xiahou Yuan has more than 20,000 soldiers at hand, which is superior in strength, and most of these soldiers are the elite who followed Xia Houyuan to pacify Liangzhou. Local county soldiers.
Sure enough, things were exactly as Xia Houyuan expected.
When Xia Houyuan led his elite soldiers to the west of Badong County and led his troops to attack the defenders of Badong County, the elite infantry led by Xia Houyuan won three battles in a row.
In the first line, the Badong County defenders resisted a little and caused considerable damage to Xia Houyuan's infantry. But then the enemy commander inexplicably shrank the line, abandoned the camp in the wild, and retreated two feet. Camp ten miles away.
Xia Houyuan thought it was a scam at first. After carefully sending people to take over the empty camp, he carefully inspected the camp and found that there was a lot of military rations in the camp's granary that had not been moved out in time. Some of these military rations were actually moldy and damp. , cannot be eaten at all.
Xia Houyuan immediately guessed that the defenders of Badong County on the opposite side had retracted their front and retreated, perhaps not because they could not fight, but because they did not want to fight.
Any soldier who encounters such food treatment will not have much desire to fight.
As for the initial battle, it was probably because the general forced him to fight.
But this was just a guess. Xia Houyuan was obviously not an idiot if he could become a general, so the next day, he launched a second round of tentative attack on the Badong County garrison's camp.
Although they failed to break through the enemy camp, in terms of combat effectiveness, they were indeed more vulnerable than during the field battle during the day yesterday.
Xia Houyuan was still worried and continued to attack on the third day, but unexpectedly found that today's defense seemed to be tighter than the previous two days combined.
Disappointed, Xia Houyuan did not continue to attack, but ordered the troops to retreat.
At the same time, he sent a spy to sneak into the opponent's camp to find out the news.
After probably two days of rest, Xia Houyuan finally got the rewards of his careful work.
It is said that some time ago, the morale of the soldiers in Badong County was indeed low due to the problem of military rations.
But two days ago, Zhang Xi, the governor of Badong County, personally escorted a batch of grain and grass over and opened it in front of the soldiers. They were all good rice. Then Zhang Xi encouraged the soldiers in the camp, so in the past two days, Ba The combat effectiveness of Dongjun soldiers will suddenly increase.
Xia Houyuan didn't doubt the authenticity of this information.
After all, if he were from Zhang Xi's perspective, he would probably do something like this to temporarily boost morale. Zhang Xi would do this, and he would be worthy of his reputation as a "wise general".
The key is how it will end and whether we can continue to have such a supply of food and grass. This is the key.
Therefore, Xiahou Yuan did not rush to attack, but asked his soldiers to continue to camp and rest, waiting to see the reaction of the opponent's camp.
Rushing to attack may push the opponent's soldiers into a desperate situation. Once the opponent realizes this, they may fight to the death, which will cause greater losses to one's side.
It's better to wait and see what happens.
After another four or five days, Xia Houyuan suddenly heard a noise in the camp opposite, and hurried out of the camp to take a look. He found that the enemy camp was in a mess, with firelight and silhouettes everywhere. Many people were even trying to escape the camp. .
Obviously, there was a mutiny.
Xia Houyuan was overjoyed and was about to order the army to take advantage of the situation to attack, but then he calmed down.
Take a look and then talk.
If it is a true mutiny, then these mutinous soldiers will not return to camp, which can be regarded as weakening the military strength of the Badong County defenders.
And if this is a trap... Haha, just be sure to hold on to the situation first and then look at the situation.
Xia Houyuan continued to remain calm and waited until all the soldiers in the camp were dispersed before letting the soldiers occupy the empty camp and then check the camp's granary.
Because they were soldiers who had mutinied and retreated, although the granary was in a mess, a lot of grain and grass were there, just scattered all over the floor.
Xia Houyuan looked carefully and found that only the top part of the grain was rice. The further down, the grain in the grain bag all turned into chaff and bean skins.
It's not that these things cannot be eaten, but if they are used as military rations, then it is really not surprising that the soldiers mutinied.
Considering that it is almost August now, when new grains are not coming in and old grains are running out, it is not surprising that such a situation occurs.
The lack of food and grass would be of no use to Han Xin, let alone Zhang Xi.
Even if Zhang Xi is a "smart general" worthy of his name, in this situation, there is probably no better way than retreating.
After all, not everyone is Cheng Yu, and not everyone has the ability to let the grain and grass officer "voluntarily" take the blame.
Xia Houyuan no longer hesitated at this time, and immediately ordered the front army to pursue, catch up with the retreating Badong County defenders as soon as possible, entangle them, and lead his own army to follow, striving to completely defeat this army, and then completely occupy Badong County. East County.
The subsequent development of the war basically followed Xia Houyuan's expectations. The former army caught up with the defenders of Badong County. Although the soldiers of Badong County tried to form a defensive line to resist, they were quickly dispersed. They tried to assemble again, but were defeated again. Killed. Killed three times in a row.
After hearing that the war was progressing so smoothly, Xia Houyuan immediately ignored it and handed over the command of the rear army to Xu Huang. He led the Chinese army to advance quickly, and soon caught up with the front army, merged together, and continued the pursuit.
Then, they chased him to Baihe Town in the north of Hanfeng County.
After that, Xia Houyuan would be cut off.
(End of chapter)
