Ji and Han's three-pronged army's crusade against Yecheng has now reached its final moment.
On the east route, Zhang Xi and Wei Yan led troops to besiege Wei County. Sima Yi blocked the troops on the east route. Zhuge Liang was the commander of the west route army and besieged Chaoge. Qin Lang and Xiahou Ba allied forces to attack it.
For the time being, there are still people in these two armies who can stop them and keep them out of Yecheng.
But for Deng Ai's army on the north route, Cao Shuang could only rely on the 20,000 Fanyang County troops led by Tang Long. At this time, Cao Shuang dispatched Sima Yi to return reinforcements. Not only did Sima Yi not return to the army, he also sent Jiang Ji to Yecheng to explain the situation. Cao Shuang could Aren't you angry?
To put it bluntly, Sima Yi was disobeying military orders and ignoring national affairs.
To put it more seriously, he, Sima Yi, was self-respecting as a soldier, harboring evil intentions, and was in danger of treason.
In particular, Sima Yi sent Jiang Ji back to Yecheng to explain the reason, which further deepened Cao Shuang's suspicion of Sima Yi.
If you are really loyal to the Wei Dynasty, you, Sima Yi, want to send someone to explain the reason for not deploying troops. Shouldn't you send your son Sima Zhao to explain? !
If you find a reason to transfer Jiang Ji away from Wei County, I'm afraid if you turn around, Sima Yi will surrender to the Shu thieves and lead his troops to counterattack Yecheng! ! !
Therefore, when Jiang Ji returned to Yecheng, Cao Shuang immediately chose to detain Jiang Ji, and then urgently sent his brother Cao Xun to Wei County with the emperor's decree to take over Sima Yi's military power.
It is necessary to capture Sima Yi and replace Sima Yi in guarding Wei County before Sima Yi completely controls the military power in Wei County and surrenders to the Shu thieves.
In fact, Cao Shuang also knew that doing so was just to remedy the situation. If Sima Yi really wanted to surrender or rebel, he could do it the moment Jiang Ji left Wei County. But now there is no way. If he doesn't master If the army in Sima Yi's hands is held, the Shu thieves will march straight in.
Therefore, what Cao Shuang did was just doing his best and obeying fate.
However, before Cao Xun could set out from Yecheng, Cao Shuang once again received a battle report from the north - Deng Ai led troops into Changshan Kingdom.
After Deng Ai captured Dai City, he did not take advantage of the situation to take over the other counties that surrendered to Dai County. Instead, he took a short rest in Dai City, replenished some food and grass, and immediately sent troops to Changshan Kingdom in the southwest.
The Hu Bing Yi Cong led by Liu Bao and Bu Dugen confronted Tang Long's 20,000 Fanyang County soldiers in the Zhongshan Kingdom. As a result, Tang Long did not dare to easily leave the city where he was garrisoned. On the Great Plains, the infantry gave up the advantage of city defense. In a field battle with the cavalry, no matter how you think about it, you don't have much chance of winning.
Even if the opponent is the Hu cavalry, the combat effectiveness cannot be compared with the Central Plains cavalry, but Tang Long is not a famous general, and the county soldiers under his command are not elite, so the restraint of the arms cannot be eliminated.
Therefore, Tang Long did not dare to leave the county town within Zhongshan State and go to Changshan State next door to set up defenses. Changshan State had no troops at this time, so Deng Ai simply drove in.
Although it was a circle from Changshan State to Yecheng, there were only 10,000 soldiers led by Xia Houxian on the marching route. The previous task of these 10,000 soldiers was to attack Huguan, and now they are also stationed under Huguan. There is not enough time to withdraw the defenses of Changshan State.
But apart from that, Cao Shuang could no longer find the last troops he could mobilize.
In desperation, Cao Shuang could only use the last resort - the wealthy family.
However, the situation has collapsed to this point. It is hard to say whether the wealthy families in Hebei are still willing to stand on Wei's side.
Whether it is the Hebei family or the Hedong family, they can indeed obtain the best interests of their family in the Wei Dynasty. If possible, they will of course be willing to support the Cao Wei regime.
But, if the Cao Wei regime is really in danger, the first thing that aristocratic families must consider is the interests of their own family, and secondly, how to preserve the Cao Wei regime.
Although the privileges given by Cao Wei were good, they had to live to enjoy them before they acted like Cao Wei and risked their own family's affairs. This was not in line with the usual style of a large family.
Therefore, when Cao Shuang tried to persuade the aristocratic families around Ye City to recruit enough private soldiers from them to protect Ye City, Cao Shuang himself felt that this was not very reliable.
However, to Cao Shuang's expectation, he actually assembled more than 20,000 private soldiers from major families.
This matter really made Cao Shuang overjoyed.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand that there are still three thousand nails in the rotten ship.
Cao Wei ruled the Central Plains and Hebei areas for decades, and went through three generations of emperors. Whether it was Cao Cao, Cao Pi, or Cao Rui, strictly speaking, no one was considered a faint king or a mediocre king.
After so many years, there will always be some ministers who are willing to support Cao Wei and do their best for Cao Wei. Even people like Liu Zhang can have loyal ministers like Zheng Du and Wang Lei. Why can't Cao Wei have them? !
Although the aristocratic families of this era are not too shameless, the values of this era still have a certain truth. At this critical moment of life and death, naturally there will be ministers who are loyal to the Wei Dynasty and are willing to stand up and be loyal to the country.
And it is not impossible that the aristocratic families represented by these ministers may not really choose to abandon Cao Wei at this critical moment and bet on both sides.
Therefore, Cao Shuang really asked him to gather more than 20,000 people.
It's just that, with more than 20,000 people, they come from more than a dozen different aristocratic families, and their organization and discipline cannot be guaranteed. Even if Cao Shuang provides them with standard ordnance, they don't look like a regular army.
Logically speaking, such an army should be allowed to defend the city somewhere and make use of their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, so that they can still have a chance of survival. But our General Cao decided to let his younger brother Cao Xi take the initiative to fight with them.
According to Cao Shuang's idea, he would order Xiahou Xian's troops to give up the attack on Huguan and return to Changshan Kingdom. Cao Xi would lead more than 20,000 soldiers to join Xiahou Xian and gather 30,000 troops to stop Deng. Aye.
After all, the intelligence obtained by Cao Shuang showed that when Deng Aixi entered Changshan Kingdom, his total military strength was only about 30,000.
Moreover, there was no cavalry.
In this case, as long as Cao Xi can arrive in Changshan State in time to set up defenses and join Xiahou Xian, he can still stop Deng Ai with the advantage of city defense.
After that, we can only take one step at a time to see if we can delay the Shu thieves until they run out of food and retreat, or if Tian Yu of Youzhou can organize a second wave of reinforcements to come to Yecheng to rescue King Qin.
This is Cao Shuang's only expectation now. But this expectation was quickly shattered.
First of all, the 10,000 county soldiers under Xiahou Xian's command were on their way back to Changshan Kingdom. Wang Ping seized the opportunity to attack and defeated them in one fell swoop.
Xia Houxian was not a capable person, nor was he a general. This can be seen from the fact that he led 10,000 county soldiers to besiege Huguan and fought for more than two months without making any progress.
As for Wang Ping, although he was stationed at Huguan and used 3,000 soldiers to resist the attack of Xiahou Xian's 10,000 soldiers, on the one hand, Wang Ping was good at defending, and on the other hand, the 3,000 people led by Wang Ping were all useless. military.
Huguan itself is built on the mountain, and Wudang Feijun is good at mountain warfare. With Wang Ping's ability, of course he will not defend in such terrain. Of course, Wudang Feijun will take the initiative to attack and harass the enemy. War preparation, half offensive and half defensive.
Therefore, although it is true that Wang Ping defended for more than two months, the actual losses to Wang Ping were not much. On the contrary, the attackers on Xiahou Xian's side suffered much greater losses than Wang Ping.
It is for this reason that when Xiahou Xian chose to withdraw his troops, Wang Ping still had enough troops to launch a counterattack.
Wang Ping's counterattack was naturally not a simple pursuit. If it were just that simple, no matter how incompetent Xia Houxian was, he would still be able to divide his forces and break up the enemy, and he would not be easily defeated by Wang Ping.
Wang Ping chose to take advantage of the Wudang Flying Army's mountainous marching ability and ordered the Thousand Wudang Flying Army to march to Xiahou Xian's flank to attack, while he led the remaining Thousand Wudang Flying Army to abandon the pass and attack, following in pursuit.
As soon as Xiahou Xian gave the order to divide his troops and cut off the rear, Wang Ping would seize the opportunity and cooperate with the Wudang flying army on the flanks to attack the cutoff troops, eat them up in one go, and then use the same method to continue to pursue Xiahou Xian.
If Xiahou Xian did not choose to divide his troops, then Wang Ping would continue to harass him all the way. After a long time, Xiahou Xian was eager to return to the army, and when the morale of the army was unstable, launching a surprise attack would definitely achieve twice the result with half the effort.
In this way, in fact, Xiahou Xian was harassed by Wang Ping all the way, but couldn't get rid of it. Finally, after Wang Ping brought down the morale of the army, he was attacked and defeated by Wang Ping.
And as Xiahou Xian's troops were defeated by Wang Ping, Wang Ping naturally led two thousand Wudang Fei troops to march straight in and entered the Changshan Kingdom.
At this time, Cao Xi had already led his troops to Zhending County in Changshan Kingdom.
At this time, the second news that made Cao Shuang desperate happened.
Outside Zhending County, Cao Xi won first and then lost, and was defeated by Deng Ai.
Cao Xi was defeated and fled, but happened to encounter Wang Ping's army marching towards Zhending County. He was blocked by Wang Ping and was defeated and captured on the spot. The rest of the army fled.
(End of chapter)
