Qishan can be divided into broad and narrow sense. In a broad sense, Qishan Mountain is a mountain range that stretches for fifty miles, starting from Beiqian in the west, ending at Lucheng in the east, bordering Tianshui and Longxi in the north, and Wudu in the south, with beautiful mountains and towering peaks.
Qishan in the narrow sense refers to Qishan Fort, which is located in the middle of the Qishan Mountains and is the most critical place.
The location of Qishan Mountain is extremely important. If the Han army goes north along the Qishan Road and passes through the many Qinling Mountains in the Wudu Road area, they will leave the mountainous area and enter the plains, and Qishan Mountain is right in front of this exit.
In addition, Qishan Fort is only a hundred steps away from the Western Han River. If the Han army uses ships to transport grain and grass, it will be discovered by the Wei army in Qishan Fort.
Although the Wudu earthquake destroyed Tianchi Daze and caused the water in Western Han Dynasty to become turbulent, it was difficult for ships, especially small boats, to navigate and often capsized. However, water transportation after all saves time, effort and food than land transportation.
What's more, one can go directly to Tianshui County by going upstream along the Western Han Dynasty, so the Han army is even less likely to give up shipping.
This time Zhuge Liang marched from Qishan Avenue. Although the rivers were frozen by ice and snow in the winter and Wudu County was not really controlled, he had not yet borrowed the Western Han Dynasty water to transport military supplies. However, when the weather is still warm and the ice and snow melts, it is inevitable to use ships to transport food. OK.
Therefore, if Qishan is in the hands of Cao Wei, he can monitor the exits and warn the enemy. If the Han army occupied this place, they could use it as a base to march more than a hundred miles north to Tianshui, and to the southwest they could enter Qiangzhong and threaten Nan'an County.
Therefore, Qishan Mountain is the key to entering Longyou. Once the Han army gets this key, the door to Longyou will be successfully opened.
It's just that the troops are fast and the situation waits for no one. Now Zhuge Liang does not have enough time and troops to break Qishan Fort, so he can only besiege it and leave it to be solved later.
However, in order to scare the Wei army at the fort, Zhuge Liang ordered his army to launch a tentative and fierce attack. As expected, the fort was strong and well-defended. If he wanted to break the fort, he would have to lose a lot of troops.
Zhuge Liang would not sacrifice a large number of casualties in exchange for conquering the fort, so he still followed the original plan and ordered Chen Shi to lead 5,000 troops to besiege Qishan Fort, while the rest set out overnight to target Lu City.
"General, the Shu army seems to have retreated."
Seeing the large group of Han troops withdrawing with torches, a close lieutenant happily said to the commander-in-chief Gao Gang.
Gao Gang first looked relaxed and nodded, then pointed at the Han troops moving down the fort, shook his head and shouted: "Not all the Shu troops have withdrawn. Look, they still have thousands of people left behind, and they are changing positions." , seems to still be surrounding us on all sides."
"Ah, general, how should we respond?" the captain said in a panic.
Gao Gang frowned and said, "You immediately send an order to all the troops not to move rashly, and anyone who disobeys the order will be killed. It is already dark and the situation is unknown. This is probably a conspiracy of the Shu army. We will wait until dawn tomorrow to figure it out."
"promise."
After the captain left, Gao Gang murmured to himself: "The news came from Tianshui a few days ago. Didn't it say that the main force of the Shu army was over there in Guanzhong? Why did tens of thousands of Shu troops suddenly appear here?
It seems that either the imperial court fell into a trap, or the Shu army really had 100,000 or 200,000 troops. Alas, no matter what, now tens of thousands of Shu troops have come to kill them all at once, Longxi is in danger! "
Lucheng is part of Tianshui County, and Cao Wei calls it West County. The city was not big, with only three to four hundred defenders, and there were only about a thousand families in the city. Therefore, when Wei Yan led 20,000 Han troops to the city, the county magistrate Su Jing was completely unable to resist, so he knew the current situation and started to attack. The city surrendered.
Zhuge Liang led 3,000 troops into the city and ordered Su Jing to remain the county magistrate. He also summoned the army and the people to ensure that Qiu did not commit any crimes. The people in the city gradually felt relieved when they saw that the Han army's military discipline was really strict.
In the county temple, Zhuge Liang summoned the generals to discuss a plan to capture the counties in Longxi. He was seen standing in front of the map of Yongliang Prefecture with a feather fan in hand and said to everyone: "Everyone, taking down Lucheng means that we have truly entered Longxi. The next step for the army is to recover the four counties of Longyou."
As he spoke, he used his feather fan to point out the four counties of Longxi, Nan'an, Tianshui, and Guangwei one by one on the map.
"As long as we successfully recapture these four counties and defeat the counterattack of Cao Wei's reinforcements at Longshan, all the west of Longshan will be mine. By then, whether we take Liangzhou in the west or Guanzhong in the east, I, the great Han, will will take the initiative
, In this way, the Northern Expedition can gain full success. Zhuge Liang continued.
His tone was a little excited. This was the first time that he had revealed all the goals of the Northern Expedition in front of everyone.
The primary goal of this Northern Expedition is to capture Longxi, and then take advantage of Liangzhou and Guanzhong. It is best to capture Yongliang and regain Chang'an, but it is also acceptable to only capture Longyou.
All the generals were excited after hearing this, and they all said: "Please give the order, Prime Minister."
Zhuge Liang smiled, returned to his seat and sat down: "According to detailed investigation, the Wei army in the four counties of Longyou only has more than 10,000 troops. Even if Liangzhou sends troops to rescue, it will only be more than 20,000 people. Therefore, our army has the advantage. It will be easy to capture the counties."
"Prime Minister, just give the order, we've already gone crazy from holding it in." Wei Yan shouted.
Zhuge Liang smiled slightly and said, "Commander, don't be impatient, you will fight the battle." With that, he called the surrendered Lucheng County Magistrate Su Jing into the tent.
"County Magistrate Su, is the puppet Wei Tianshui Governor Ma Zun in Jicheng at the moment?"
Su Jing replied: "Prime Minister, as far as I know, Ma Zun is leading the officials in Tianshui to follow Guo Huai, the governor of Yongzhou in the puppet Wei Dynasty, from the west to Luomen to carry out the case."
"Guo Huai is in Longxi?" Zhuge Liang asked in shock.
Su Jing said: "Exactly."
"Prime Minister, according to the Wei system, it should usually be carried out in August. As the governor of Yongzhou, Guo Huai should be on his way to Luoyang to report the annual report. How could he appear in Longxi?" Yang Yi said.
In the Later Han Dynasty, except for Guanzhong, which was under the jurisdiction of Sili Xiaowei, the entire west of Longshan was under the jurisdiction of Liangzhou. During his lifetime, in order to increase the territory of his Wei Kingdom, Cao Cao forced the emperor Liu Xie to change the Thirteen Prefectures to the Ancient Nine Prefectures, and set the entire twenty-two counties west of Tongguan as Yong Prefecture.
Later, when Cao Pi succeeded to the throne, Dunhuang County, Jiuquan County, Xihai County, Zhangye County, Wuwei County, Xiping County, and Jincheng County were renamed Liangzhou, and Wuwei was the administrative seat. Jingzhao County, Fengyi County, Fufeng County, Anding County, Longxi County, Nan'an County, Tianshui County, Guangwei County and Wudu County were merged into Yongzhou, with Chang'an as its administrative seat.
Therefore, Tianshui and other four counties in Longxi are currently under the jurisdiction of Yongzhou, and Guo Huai, the governor of Yongzhou, has the responsibility of inspecting all counties. It's just that the governor's case is usually held in August during the autumn harvest, but this year it was moved to the first month, which is very strange.
Zhuge Liang glanced at Su Jing with confusion, and Su Jing quickly replied: "I don't know why, but Guo Huai came to Longxi for inspection more than ten days ago."
"Prime Minister, I thought that Guo Huai smelled the smell of war, so he went to Longzhan on a whim. Although our army set up two groups of suspects in Guanzhong to attract Cao Wei's attention, Guo Huai, as a famous general of the generation, may have sensed that our general We took action against Longxi, so we went to Longxi for inspection." Yang Qingdao.
Although Guo Huai was from Bingzhou, he often served as an official in Yongzhou and Liang. He participated in the Battle of Hanzhong and quelled many rebellions in Yongliang and Yongzhou. Therefore, he was highly regarded by Cao Pi and was named the governor of Yongzhou and the governor of Yongzhou. Sheyangtinghou.
Guo Huai was familiar with the terrain, customs, and sentiments of Yongliang and Liang. Zhuge Liang originally thought that he was in Guanzhong or on the way to Luoyang, but he did not expect that this person was now in Longxi.
Zhuge Liang glanced at Wei Min again, and Wei Min quickly bowed and said, "Prime Minister, this is all dereliction of duty and failure to find out Guo Huai's movements."
