In April of the eighth year of the Shaoming Dynasty, AD 954, it took only one month for Zhang Gao to deploy his troops and generals.
After Murong Nobunaga left, he took up the post of commander Qu Yanqing and Qu Qilang of the Zuoyu Linwei. He led three thousand elite Zuoyu Linwei and more than 10,000 auxiliary troops and rushed from Luoyang, the sacred capital, to Guilin Mansion.
There are now many talents under Zuo Yu Linwei's command. The Fenghuo Assault Cavalry Battalion originally controlled by Qu Yanqing has been handed over to Pan Mei to command.
At the same time, the next generation of rising stars from Hexi, Zhao Jinggangnu, Fan Changgong, Li Zun and others are all in Zuoyu Linwei.
The other two pro-army troops that arrived at Guilin Prefecture, You Jinwu Guard and You Shenwei Guard, were commanded by Wang Quanbin and Wang Shenqi respectively, and there were tens of thousands of people including auxiliary troops.
At the same time, a group of one thousand elite heavy-armored soldiers belonging to the Houxiangdu of Hanshandu also arrived at Guilin Mansion. They were led by Cao Bin, the famous man next to the emperor and the left capital of the innerxiangdu, Yuhou Cao Bin.
As they arrived, Zhang Zhaojun (Ma Shacai)'s available troops suddenly increased to about 30,000.
And among them, at least 20,000 are elites with extremely strong combat effectiveness, which is enough to form a strong oppressive force on the Southern Han army.
In addition, in addition to Zhang Zhaojun's army, which was the main force in destroying the country, Jiangxi defense envoy Fanshun also personally led the imperial army of Anhua Town, Baisheng Town and the guard army, which numbered tens of thousands of people, from Qianzhou (Ganzhou) across the Yu territory to the Southern Han Dynasty. Xiongzhou (Nanxiong) and Shaozhou (Shaoguan) advanced.
On the other side, Tian Guogong Liu Zaisheng, who was guarding Fujian, also sent Lin Renzhao to lead 15,000 naval and army troops. Among them, 5,000 naval troops set off from Dongshan Island and 10,000 infantry troops set off from Zhangzhou. They marched by land and water directly to Chaozhou in the Han Dynasty.
Of course, before the total of 50,000 to 60,000 troops went into battle, Zhang Gao still gave Liu Sheng another chance.
On the first day of March, the second batch of imperial envoys arrived at Prince Xing's Mansion and ordered Liu Sheng to release Wang Jiu and go to Luoyang, the sacred capital, to plead guilty.
He also made it clear that as long as Liu Sheng came to the capital of God, the court could still forget the blame and just reduce him to the title of Pengcheng County Prince.
After a brief silence, Liu Sheng rejected the edict.
The option of just becoming a rich man was originally a retreat that he would choose only when he had no choice but to do so, but it was obviously not that time yet.
Moreover, after the incident in which Jinyi's personal guards intercepted and killed the envoy and Wang Jiu came to the door and cursed, Liu Sheng felt that he had clearly seen the other side of Zhang Gao's benevolent face, and he could no longer believe Zhang Gao.
So since that's the case, there's nothing more to say, let's just start fighting.
In the eighth year of Shaoming Dynasty, on April 10th, Zhang Zhaojun's troops were divided into two groups. He personally led 25,000 main troops and went down the Li River to attack Wuzhou, an important water and land town in the Southern Han Dynasty.
The other group, led by Qu Yanqing, selected 5,000 cavalry and attacked Liuzhou from the west, an important town on the west side of Lingnan Road.
Almost at the same time, Fanshun of Qianzhou went into battle in person and selected 600 warriors. Without armor, they only carried strong bows, crossbows and short weapons that were good at melee combat. Taking advantage of the bright moon at night, they took the risk of climbing over the cliff from the east side of the mountain and going around to the big mountain. Yu led Meiguan, known as the first pass in southern Guangdong, from behind and suddenly launched an attack.
The Southern Han Army's attention was almost entirely on the front, and they never expected that anyone could climb the cliff of Da Yu Ling.
Caught off guard, Panshun's divine soldiers descended from the sky and were immediately defeated. The general guarding the pass and hundreds of soldiers only resisted for two quarters of an hour before they dispersed.
Fanshun captured most of the soldiers, opened the gate and let the army enter. Then he forced these Southern Han troops to serve as guides and led the Zhou army to kill Xiongzhou (Nanxiong), the next Nanhan pass.
In this battle, Fanshun selected 2,000 of the 10,000 elite soldiers and ordered them to give up all their baggage, including armor, and only bring a small amount of water, dry food, and necessary weapons.
Two thousand elite soldiers marched more than 60 miles in a little more than one and a half hours and less than two hours.
Although it was much worse than the Qingfengdian Death Run during the War of Liberation, it could basically catch up with the emergency march standards of the ordinary People's Liberation Army in later generations.
This is remarkable. You must know that in later generations, whether it is the roads or the food and subjective initiative of soldiers, they are not comparable to today's cold weapon era.
But Fanshun did it. When he personally led two thousand elite soldiers to Xiongzhou (Nanxiong), the gates of Xiongzhou were not closed, there were no soldiers on the city walls, and merchants and people were coming in and out happily.
Even Fanshun's elite soldiers had entered the city, and the farmers on both sides of the city gate who were picking vegetables to sell in the city were still watching the fun with their mouths open, not realizing that the imperial army had come.
Two days later, Fanshun once again showed his characteristics as a galloping master. After leaving a thousand men to guard Xiongzhou, he levied the entire city's mules and horses and let the soldiers ride the mules and horses wildly. When the mules and horses were tired, they dismounted and walked.
It was a full 160 miles from Xiongzhou to Shaoguan. Fanshun led two thousand elite soldiers to complete the entire journey in less than two days.
Just like they had captured Xiongzhou, the Panshun army had already captured the city gate, and the defeated troops who reported the news from Xiongzhou were summoned to the lobby by the Shaozhou governor for questioning.
Before he could finish his questions here, the city gate over there was already lost.
The governor of Shaozhou in the Southern Han Dynasty was horrified because there were only a few hundred regiments training in Shaozhou and they were unable to repel the 2,000 Fanshun who entered the city.
In the military system of the Southern Han Dynasty, the standing army was divided into six forbidden troops and twelve guards, and two types of town troops under the jurisdiction of the Jiedushi. These two were the main combat forces of the Southern Han court.
The rest is a large number of regiment training, left and right street troops, local troops, etc.
Among these three types of armies, the Tuanlian Army is a relatively well-trained local force. It is lower than the Weisuo Army of the Zhou Dynasty and the Changzheng Jianyong who serves as catchers and archers in the Inspection Department, and is only equivalent to the Banshang Yi of the Inspection Department. from.
The Left and Right Street Army is composed of urban citizens who undergo certain training. The Turkish army is composed of farmers in the countryside.
The combat effectiveness of these two armies can be said to be almost non-existent, and they can only catch petty thieves.
What's even more terrible is that starting from the founding emperor Liu of the Southern Han Dynasty, he paid attention to the establishment of imperial examinations to obtain Jinshi, and used civil servants to serve as officials of various states and counties.
In the entire Southern Han Dynasty, only the Jingjiang Army Jiedushi in Liuzhou and the Jianwu Army Jiedushi in Yongzhou (Nanning) were left, and the rest were removed.
This is the fatal weakness of using civilian officials to guard the border. From a military perspective, after the use of civilian officials, with the removal of border towns, military strength and defense were greatly weakened.
For example, at this time, after the original Jiedu envoys from Shaozhou were withdrawn and the town troops were demobilized or merged into the Forbidden Army, in the vast area to the north including Shaozhou, there were only 300 town troops in Meiguan Pass.
The rest are just regiment training and garbage street troops, Turkish troops, etc., and they are unable to organize a new defense after the fall of Meiguan.
At the same time, civilian officials are far less alert to war than regular military officers.
For example, Liu Sheng asked the governor of Shaozhou to strengthen defenses as early as last year, but the governor of Shaozhou believed that the focus of Zhou's attack was obviously on Guilin Prefecture. The water transport of the Li River was not used, so he only came to attack Meiguan and Shaoguan when he was free. of natural danger.
Moreover, once the defense is strengthened, it means that men and women must be recruited from the civilian population to provide military supplies for the forbidden army coming from Prince Xing's Mansion.
The money and food needed will soon exhaust Shaozhou's savings in the past few years, and will also cause the general's status to rise.
Therefore, he has always been somewhat submissive, obstructing the defense of Xiongzhou that he was supposed to be responsible for, and not paying attention to the supplies of Meiguan.
As a result, Meiguan, known as the first pass in southern Guangdong, only has three to four hundred soldiers. Xiongzhou has three to five hundred soldiers including government officials. Shaozhou, the gateway to the north, has only one regiment training commander leading seven to eight hundred regiments to train troops. guard.
It is true that there are many civil servants who are good at both civil and military affairs or who are alert enough to the enemy's situation, but these are often outstanding people who can only be encountered but cannot be sought. You cannot expect that all the civil servants under your command will have this quality.
Therefore, we should not overdo it when it comes to the combination of civil and military affairs. Professional people should do professional things.
. . . .
In Shaozhou, in panic, Governor Huang claimed that he was going to gather troops to defend, but in fact, after he entered the back hall, he took two of his confidants and ran away.
The promotion officer outside the office and the commander of the regiment training army waited for a while before they realized something was wrong. They rushed in and saw that Huang Jishi had long disappeared.
But they were not at a loss. Governor Huang wanted to run away because he was a foreigner, but the officials and commanders were locals.
Now that Governor Huang ran away alone, it was equivalent to shouldering all the responsibilities. They were free of responsibility and surrendered very smoothly to the Zhou army that had entered the city.
At almost the same time, the situation in Liuzhou was similar. Although it was the most important town in the northwest of Lingnan, Machu, which used to be north of Liuzhou, had only a population of 600,000 to 700,000, and its mobilization ability was not very strong.
Moreover, the contested areas between Ma Chu and Nan Han were mostly in the Guilin area, and Liuzhou only existed as a rear area, so the military preparations were not strict.
Liu Sheng is not a wise master, at most he can be regarded as a middle-aged man.
The Southern Han Dynasty was not a classical military empire like Zhang Zhou, which had the Privy Council, the Ministry of War of Shangshu Province, and Luantai of Zhongshu Province, which could quickly complete recruitment, training, and logistics.
Whether it was Liu Sheng himself or the court of the Southern Han Dynasty, the efficiency of administration was very slow.
Even though Ma Chu had been gone for four or five years, the Southern Han Dynasty's defense strategy against the north was still the same as the back-and-forth with Ma Chu that had been formed over decades.
But Ma Chu is only a small separatist country that can only send 20,000 to 30,000 troops at most. The training, equipment and morale of the soldiers are not as good as those of Zhang Zhou. It will naturally be bad luck to use the system used to deal with Ma Chu to deal with the big Zhou.
Therefore, when Qu Yanqing arrived with five thousand elite cavalry, the Southern Han Dynasty was still sending more troops to Liuzhou.
The military system of the Southern Han Dynasty was actually very similar to that of the Northern Song Dynasty. They both adopted the strategy of strong branches and weak branches.
Liu and Liu Sheng and his son organized the most elite troops into the Sixth Army and Twelve Guards of the Forbidden Army. Apart from this, only the Jingjiang Army in Liuzhou and the Jianwu Army in Yongzhou had combat effectiveness. The rest relied entirely on regiment training. Waiting for a while.
After refusing Zhang Gao's order to go to Luoyang, the sacred capital, to plead guilty, Liu Sheng transferred the left and right Long Xiang troops from the Sixth Army of the Forbidden Army to Wuzhou for defense.
After considering that Liuzhou was in an important position and only had Jingjiang Army as a defensive garrison, the vanguard of Zuo Longxiang Army was transferred to Liuzhou to strengthen defense.
As a result, the vanguard of Zuo Longxiang's army of the Southern Han Dynasty was discovered by Qu Yanqing, who was running towards Liuzhou City.
Qu Yanqing immediately ordered Li Zun to lead two thousand cavalry to storm the east gate of Liuzhou before it could be closed. He himself led three thousand cavalry to intercept the vanguard of Zuo Longxiang's army who was still heading north.
The Forbidden Army of the Southern Han Dynasty has about 7,000 people. The vanguard of Zuo Longxiang's army is about 3,500 people. Including the civilians, it will not exceed 5,000 people.
Although their combat effectiveness is relatively strong, they are far behind the super elites such as Zhang Zhou's Zuoyu Linwei Fenghuo Riding Battalion.
More importantly, they were suddenly attacked while marching, and the Lingnan cavalry was even more pitiful. The sentinel cavalry only raised the alarm, and Qu Yanqing, Zhao Jinggangnu, Fan Changgong and others suddenly rushed into the Southern Han army. flank.
They didn't even have time to expand their ranks, but they were still in a long snake formation when they were charged by the cavalry. The battle could not last more than two quarters of an hour. The vanguard commander of Zuo Longxiang Army of the Southern Han Dynasty died in the battle, and more than 60 officers above the rank of deputy lieutenant were killed in the battle. Thousands of soldiers were killed and wounded, and the entire army collapsed.
Regardless of cleaning the battlefield, Qu Yanqing immediately returned to the army. They had three horses per person, and they had already left fifty people to look after the horses halfway, so as long as the people could bear it, the horses would be fine.
An hour later, Qu Yanqing led 3,000 cavalry back to the outside of Liuzhou City. At this time, Li Zun's 2,000 men who stayed behind to rob the west gate had achieved great success.
It turned out that after Li Zun succeeded in seizing the gate, Gong Chengshu, the governor of the Jingjiang Army in Liuzhou of the Southern Han Dynasty, ordered 5,000 Jingjiang troops plus thousands of regiments to train for the attack.
Li Zunxian asked the army's sharpshooters to occupy a high position. The Southern Han soldiers who shot from a high position fell on their backs and suffered heavy casualties.
Gong Chengshu then ordered his infantry with heavy armor to attack, but was killed by a large number of divine arm bows.
In the end, Li Zun took advantage of their confusion and suddenly ordered three hundred elite cavalry to rush forward in armor. The Southern Han army was still changing formations. They were caught off guard and were defeated and collapsed. The armies trampled each other and suffered numerous casualties.
If Li Zun hadn't been afraid that Liuzhou Taikuanguang would pursue him and be ambushed, he would have captured the entire Liuzhou city by now. Now that Qu Yanqing came back, he immediately began to seize the entire city.
Qu Yanqing ordered his men to throw the flags and armor of the Zuo Longxiang Army of the Southern Han Forbidden Army all over the city. He shouted that the tens of thousands of reinforcements from the Southern Han Dynasty had been wiped out. Gong Chengshu was frightened and fled through the east gate to Yongzhou. When he left, the rest of the people descended.
On April 19, the Fujian Provincial Navy defeated the Chaozhou Navy of the Southern Han Dynasty near Nan'ao Island, captured dozens of warships, destroyed the Chaozhou military port and quickly evacuated.
In this way, although the Southern Han Navy was still stronger than the Fujian Provincial Navy, without the supply base of Chaozhou, the navigation conditions at this time did not support their march north to harass Quanzhou and Fuzhou.
At the same time, the Chaozhou Navy, which was familiar with the water network in the Chaozhou area, was completely wiped out, which greatly weakened the ability of the Southern Han Navy to support Chaozhou City from various waterways.
On April 25, Lin Renzhao personally led an army of 10,000 and more than 20,000 Changzheng Jianyong and Fanshang Yicong who were temporarily recruited from various counties to besiege Chaozhou City.
Li Tinggon, the governor of Chaozhou in the Southern Han Dynasty, was originally a civil official. He and his father Li Chuyan were both famous for their literary names. He and his son had political achievements in governing the local area. However, if you let him serve as the prefect of a border area like Chaozhou, he would be blind when it comes to military matters.
Moreover, Chaozhou's war commander who knew military skills had died in battle. This left Li Tinggon not only ignorant of military skills, but also without anyone to discuss with him.
The wealthy families in Chaozhou City, such as Chen, Li, and Lin, knew that Li Tinggon was not familiar with military matters. They were afraid that after stubborn resistance, the Zhou army would march into the city to retaliate and massacre the city, so they simply started making noises in the city.
The unity soldiers and local soldiers in the city are all children of these wealthy families. If they don't resist, Chaozhou City will not be able to hold on.
Li Tinggon was forced to open the city gate and surrender to the Zhou army outside the city.
However, Zhou Jun's unusually smooth operation ended here.
Zhang Zhaojun led the main force all the way south along the Li River and defeated more than ten military strongholds on the Li River in the Southern Han Dynasty.
But after arriving in Wuzhou, where the Li River merged into the Yu River (Xijiang River), Wuzhou was still a strong city despite the skyrocketing water volume.
At this time, Wuzhou City had two cities, flood and drought, connected by suspension bridges and boats. There were wooden stakes in the middle of the river, and iron cables to intercept them. Under the cover of the archers and crossbowmen at the head of the city, the Wuzhou navy moved in the middle of the river. Come and go quickly.
Because there were wooden piles blocking the river, Zhou Jun's larger ships with deeper drafts could not pass. If they sent out small boats, there would be crossbowmen on the water city on the opposite side to rely on, so it would be very difficult to fight.
The most important thing is that the person guarding Wuzhou is General Yanyun of the Southern Han Dynasty.
This man was originally Liu Sheng's black glove. He and his subordinates disguised themselves as pirates and went to sea to rob merchant ships. Most of the gold and silver they robbed were dedicated to Liu Sheng for his extravagant life.
It can be said that most of the dozens of palaces built by Liu Sheng in Prince Xing's Mansion were earned by Ji Yanyun for Liu Sheng.
However, although he behaved like a pirate, Ji Yanyun was rigorous in running the army and never undercut his soldiers. On the contrary, if the soldiers had any difficulties, he would find a way to help solve them, so he was deeply supported by the soldiers.
Wuzhou already had a strong naval force, and was reinforced by the main force of the Southern Han Forbidden Army. It had a strong defensive force.
Moreover, Shao Tingxuan, the internal envoy and military supervisor Liu Sheng sent to Wuzhou, was also a good soldier. He and Ji Yanyun cooperated with each other, so that there was no one to restrain the soldiers, and the rewards were not withheld. Therefore, their morale was high and their combat effectiveness was very strong. .
Even Zhang Zhaojun didn't have any particularly good ideas for a fortified city that was guarded by such a united front and a knowledgeable general.
He could only let the army camp outside Wuzhou City, cut down trees to make siege equipment, and use stupid methods to capture the city.
At the end of April, Zhang Zhaojun built more than ten large trebuchets on the north bank of Wuzhou
Although Ji Yanyun also knew that he could not allow the Zhou army to build siege equipment calmly, after the Zhou army entered the stronghold, the army was in good order and never slackened off, never giving Ji Yanyun a chance to seize the flaw.
Therefore, although Ji Yanyun sent elite troops to sneak attacks at night several times, they were all surrounded and killed by the Zhou army with heavy casualties. He could only watch Zhang Zhaojun's trebuchet being built.
With these trebuchets, Zhang Zhaojun can directly use them to bombard the water city in Wuzhou.
This water city has insufficient carrying capacity across the water and cannot conceal the trebuchets and Fuyuan crossbows that defend the city. Therefore, there is nothing that can be done against Zhang Zhaojun's trebuchets.
Ji Yanyun knew very well that if Shuicheng fell, Wuzhou City would not be able to withstand the Zhou army's strong attack without this key flank response.
Therefore, he could only take the risk and lead 20,000 Southern Han troops to form an offensive with his back to Wuzhou City.
Because at this time, this kind of trebuchet that can bombard the city wall is extremely heavy and cannot be easily moved once it is placed in place. Ji Yanyun leads his army out of the city like this, which is a huge threat to the trebuchet.
In fact, Zhang Zhaojun was impatient to wait for the trebuchets to slowly destroy Wuzhou Water City. When he saw Ji Yanyun taking the initiative, he immediately led his troops to attack Wuzhou City.
In order to prevent Ji Yanyun from retreating, Zhang Zhaojun ordered generals Wang Quanbin and Wang Shenqi to select only 6,000 elite soldiers.
He himself took his confidant Qu Wubai and a thousand Hanshandu heavy armored soldiers brought by Cao Bin as the central army.
Ji Yanyun was originally worried that the whole Zhou army would come, and he did have the idea of withdrawing into the city. But now he saw that there were only seven or eight thousand people in front of him, and not all the army had arrived, so he was overjoyed.
On April 28, Governor Ji Yanyun led the main force of the Wuzhou Army of the Southern Han Dynasty, 20,000 men, and took the lead in launching an attack on the 7,500 Zhou troops arrayed.
Then, and then no more.
As soon as the battle began, the virtual troops on the left and right wings of the Southern Han Army were completely defeated in a little more than two-quarters of an hour. The main force of the Chinese Army, 10,000 strong, hit the iron plate head-on.
These 1,500 people are Zhang Zhaojun's personal entourage and Han Shandu's heavy armored soldiers!
Not to mention that the Southern Han Dynasty did not have a strong army, even the elite tooth soldiers of the Later Tang Dynasty in the past did not dare to fight against Xianshandu without three or four times the strength.
Ji Yanyun attacked with full hope, but his head was bruised and bloody.
Han Shandu came in formation and showed no mercy in the face of eight times the enemy's force. In half an hour, he severely damaged the Southern Han army and killed more than 2,000 of the enemy.
Ji Yanyun could not hold back such rapid and heavy casualties, and the Southern Han Army was defeated faster than the virtual soldiers on both wings.
In the chaos, Ji Yanyun raised a banner and wanted to recruit the defeated troops to return to the city to resist. However, Wang Shenqi saw him and came around from the left, hitting his head with a divine arm bow.
Ji Yanyun fell in response, the Southern Han army finally collapsed, and Zhang Zhaojun took the opportunity to attack the city.
Shao Tingxuan, the supervisor on the city, saw that the Zhou army was so powerful. In despair, he committed suicide on the city and Wuzhou was captured.
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(End of chapter)
