Chapter 56 Battle of Datong
Because it was some events during this period that made him excluded from the succession competition by the old man, he had a lot of reflections. But there are many things I still don’t understand. However, he did understand one thing.
His two nephews are not good people.
King Jin always thought about how to become the master of the world. Rather than being a king.
Although he had this intention, the situation in the world was stable and he gradually gave up.
Now suddenly, the old man was gone, and the two nephews started fighting openly. King Jin suddenly felt that his destiny was mine. The King of Yan did not have the idea of killing two birds with one stone, but the King of Jin did.
Therefore, in King Jin's view, his most important thing was to develop his own power. Before your own power rises, do not intervene in the main battlefield of the North-South War.
Is Datong important?
important.
But in King Jin's view, once he wins Datong, it means that he is likely to have a battle with Beijing for Datong. Datong certainly has terrain, but Datong's terrain is for the outside world, not Beijing.
Once he confronts Beijing in advance, his capital will be consumed. He will definitely be controlled by Nanjing, and future events will be out of his control.
Even in the view of King Jin, it might not be a bad thing for Datong to fall to Beijing.
First of all, there is a world-famous pass between Datong and Taiyuan, which is Yanmen Pass. A level that even flying geese cannot pass. Even in the age of artillery, Yanmen Pass was still a natural danger. King Jin felt that as long as he defended Yanmen Pass, there was nothing Beijing could do to him.
While Beijing is approaching Yanmen Pass, Shanxi is facing enemies on almost two sides, both of which are blocked by mountains. It is easy to defend but difficult to attack. In the view of King Jin, Beijing will not attack easily unless it is kicked in the head by a donkey.
Holding these two lines of defense is easy.
This situation is most beneficial to King Jin. Because he is in the south, Shanxi is in the south, he is in the north, and Shanxi is in the north. If he comes, he will be very important to both the north and the south. Only in this way will the south allow some of his small actions.
How could he save Datong? He was even happy to see it happen.
Zhao Yong's words actually gave a glimpse of King Jin's thoughts.
King Jin stopped pretending. He sneered and said: "Nanxiong Hou, there is no need for Nanxiong Hou to take care of my king's affairs. The affairs of Datong are not something that I can interfere with. If Nanxiong Hou wants to ask for it, he can do it himself."
Zhao Yong sneered, said nothing, and walked away.
The King of Jin also ordered to strengthen the front line defense of Yanmen Pass. In the eyes of the King of Jin, Datong had been lost.
------
Zhu Xiongying and his party didn't know anything about Taiyuan.
They were also very cautious about attacking Datong. Without him, Datong is a strong city. It is an important fulcrum of the northern front. It was carefully built by Xu Da, Duke of Wei State. Even with the rapid development of firearms, it is not easy to conquer Datong by force.
Heavy artillery must be used.
Even if heavy artillery is used, is there no heavy artillery at the top of Datong City? As for the army's northern patrol, most of them were cavalry, which does not mean that there were no artillery among them. Some of them were small cannons that were very light and could be carried by horses, rather than heavy cannons. If heavy artillery is used, it must be transferred from Beijing.
It takes a month to come and go.
Coupled with the siege, Datong will not be defeated within a month or two.
Although it is said that it takes a month or two to capture a strong city like Datong, which is not very profitable. But there are a lot of things to do today. It is impossible for him to stay in Datong for two months, and it is impossible for him to keep Zhu Xiongying here.
There will be a lot of personnel disputes.
The best result is to raid into Datong City. After all, there are at least 10,000 or 20,000 elite soldiers in Datong City. Once Datong is unified, the guards below Datong will probably not resist. Tens of thousands of elite soldiers will be available. If we fight a Datong offensive and defensive battle, we will have to spend money.
Qu Neng originally planned to lead a raid on Datong City, but Zhu Xiongying and He Xi were unwilling. After all, Qu Neng's influence in the Dongsheng Army was undoubted.
, once he dies in Datong City, there will be many branches. So Qu Neng recommended his son Qu Liangcai.
Zhu Xiongying and He Xi naturally agreed.
Whether Qu Liang can command thousands of troops, He Xi still doesn't know. However, there was no problem for Qu Liangcai to command a small-scale assault. After all, it was historical history that if the King of Yan was shot on the helmet, without the King of Han coming to rescue him, the King of Yan would probably die under Qu Liangcai's sword.
He Xi had seen King Yan's martial arts, but with He Xi's ability, he couldn't tell who was better than King Yan or Qu Liangcai. But Qu Liang had such a record, and now there is no problem in raiding Datong City.
In fact, the Battle of Datong also went smoothly.
It's not an ordinary success.
Qu Liangcai took advantage of the evening, when the city gate was about to close, and led more than a hundred cavalry, saying they were a caravan from the north, and seized the capital in one fell swoop. Afterwards, Qu Neng led a large group of cavalry into Datong City in a mighty manner. Zhu Xiongying and He Xi followed.
There was little resistance.
After Zhu Xiongying and He Xi entered the city, they immediately summoned the officers of the Datong Guards to appease their subordinates, distributed silver rewards, and allowed officers loyal to the Southern Army to go south. After some operations, Datong is already Datong in Beijing.
After all, the guard system allowed the soldiers and their families to stay locally, and a very small number of them were loyal to the Southern Army. Most of the soldiers actually did not have any firm ideas. There was no obvious difference between being loyal to Beijing or loyal to Nanjing.
At least not to the point of fighting to the death for this distinction.
However, He Xi also felt strange.
Datong City got it too easily.
Today is not the Jianwen Dynasty in history, but now Zhu Yunwen has a lot of famous ministers and generals. Generals like Xu Da, Feng Sheng, and Fu Youde, looking at five thousand years, are also heroes of the moment. He Xi's military confidence in the South was based on the elimination of cold weapons in the firearms era, which was an updated version. After all, each version has a generation of gods. He Xi doesn’t know how the great gods of the old version will perform in the new version. But he is confident that he will perform better than these veteran masters.
After all, he has a strategy.
But that doesn't mean that He Xi underestimates the strategic vision of these great masters.
He put himself in the shoes of the Southern Army and felt that the Southern Army should not ignore Datong under any circumstances.
And some letters intercepted in Datong City also made He Xi understand. These are letters in which Zhao Yong reminded Datong over and over again to beware of the pincer attack between Beijing and Dongshengwei.
However, Zhao Yong's reminder even had the opposite effect.
Without him, I have mentioned the thoughts of the Datong Guards before. Datong has tens of thousands of soldiers, plus their families, and the city is fully stocked. Faced with the enemy's siege, it is not a problem to grit one's teeth and fight for several months, or even two years. But it depends on whom?
If the Communists were to go south, Datong would definitely unite as one and fight through mountains of corpses and seas of blood without saying anything. But facing the Northern Army, there was no such intention.
You must know that Datong is often under the command of Beijing. The relationship between Datong and Beijing is very close. The generals all know each other, and some of the same clans even serve as officials on both sides. The local officers in Datong were unwilling to beat Datong to pieces for the sake of their superiors.
Moreover, many generals in Datong have combat experience. The most tragic wars in the world are the battles to attack and defend cities. This kind of tragedy is not only for the army, but also for the people. After all, the most brutal battle to defend the founding of the Ming Dynasty was the Battle of Nanchang, which is still fresh in the memory of many people. ..
In other wars, most of the time the people are not affected. The most important thing about this kind of city defense battle is to organize the people in the city into households, men, women, old and young, and to collect food and supplies throughout the city.
In every household, everyone has to contribute.
At that time, there was no distinction between those who were soldiers and those who were not.
But now Shanxi only sends a reminder and does not send troops. Because of the guard system, the soldiers in Datong are all locals. Are these generals really willing to fight like this?
At that time, they did not dare to surrender to Beijing.
As a result, Datong city defense was so lax.
For everyone in the Datong Army, they would rather be taken down by Beijing like this. If the situation repeats in the future, it would not be their fault.
They surrendered voluntarily. There would be no obstacles for them to surrender to the Confederate Army in the future. Anyway, this is a civil war, and there are so many people on all sides. Even if Nanjing wins, it is impossible to kill everyone who follows Beijing, right?
