Chapter 1149 Stirring

Chapter 1149 Stirring

Chapter 1149 Stirring
When Huan Wen and others arrived in Xuanhan, it was already the 21st day of the first lunar month, the day when Duan Liang left Dangqu and headed south to Dianjiang.

Since Commander Duan was away, Huan Wen took over the command without any hesitation.

The first order he issued was to send Feilongshan Town Commander Chen Chite (son of former Town Commander Chen Wu) to lead his troops north along the Dangqu River to capture Hanchang.

There were not many soldiers from Feilongshan garrison who arrived in Xuanhan. Excluding the casualties, the sick and the stragglers, there were less than two thousand soldiers. Huan Wen assigned him an additional 500 Qiang people and ordered him to rush to Hanchang as soon as possible.

The purpose of this order is to appease.

Hanchang (now the area around Bazhong) is already a hilly area, but there are many Bandun barbarians in the area. The Gong family has familiar tribes and has sent people to persuade them to surrender. Huan Wen was providing support to the Gong family's children.

Once the appeasement is successful, not only will the situation change drastically, but it will also be possible to obtain food, fodder, and equipment supplies, which is crucial.

The second order was to send the commander of Badong County, Guanqiu Yin, to lead 900 county soldiers and 600 Qiang people to go south to Dangqu to take over and secure a retreat for Duan Liang - after all, he still couldn't fully trust the Gong family in his heart.

He led the Xiangyang transport troops and He Lun's personal soldiers, about a thousand people, to defend Xuanhan. At the same time, he used the children of the Gong family to collect food, livestock, and equipment from tribes near and far.

As for Xu Yaozu himself, he had taken over the prisoners from friendly forces with hundreds of Qiang people and escorted them back to Badong. By the way, he asked his military advisor He Lun to send reinforcements and enter Dangqu County through a small path.

After entering the heart of Shu, Huan Wen felt that more than 10,000 soldiers were not enough. He could not escape without any retreat and just rob all the way to Chengdu. If he won, he could directly enter the city, and if he lost, the whole army would be wiped out. But Duan Liang would not allow it.

As for the news about Luo Yan and Luo Gu, he also knew about it. After the two escaped from Dangqu, they only brought a few hundred people with them and rushed all the way to Langzhong, apparently to recruit troops and prepare for a counterattack.

Come to think of it, if we can't defend Dangqu, we can't just give up and do nothing, right?

From his point of view, he would have to find a way to recruit troops and supplies from Baxi, Dangqu and other places, and do everything possible to counterattack and eliminate the flank threat from the Jiangzhou army.

Although the Jiangzhou army was a mixed bag with varying combat capabilities, its numbers were very impressive. There were more than 20,000 young men from the six counties, 10,000 shield soldiers excluding the seven surnames of Dangqu, 10,000 people from the county, and 10,000 elite Liao people, totaling more than 50,000.

Once it was lost, to be honest, the gateway to southern Shu would be wide open, and it would be very likely that the Liang army would swallow up several counties in one go, and then calmly rest the troops, collect food and fodder, fight to support the war, and then march north in a large-scale attack on Chengdu.

The Luo family has been blessed by the country for generations, and at this critical moment, they have to rack their brains and try every possible way to save the situation.

There is actually not much time left for Luo and even Li Cheng...

Outside Yangguan, the battle is going on.

Looking down from a high place, the river turns here, and instead of flowing normally east-west, it flows first to the southeast and then back to the northeast. Yangguan is located at this turning point.

To the north, there is a mountain range running from north to south, with deep and dense forests, making it difficult for large groups of people to pass through. Only in the south, near the north bank of the Yangtze River, there is a narrow passage with mountains on the top and the river on the bottom, where a fortress was built.

The State of Ba resisted the State of Chu here, and sometimes blocked the three passes of Chu. This was one of them.

During the Shu Han Dynasty, the seat of Deng Zhi, the governor of Jiangzhou, was not in Jiangzhou City, but in Yangguan.

Yangguan is not a big city. It was built entirely for the purpose of military defense. On weekdays, there are almost no normal civilians except the garrison and tax collectors. But now in wartime, the city is crammed with 3,600 soldiers from the counties, almost filling it up - the city is very narrow from north to south and only two miles long from east to west, and can only be attacked from the east.

Since the end of the twelfth lunar month, when a large group of Liang troops arrived nearby one after another, the siege began. It lasted for more than twenty days but failed to capture the city.

At the beginning, Shao Shen was full of confidence and deployed elite palace soldiers and silver spear troops, attacking for two consecutive days.

They once captured the top of the city, but failed to gain a foothold.

There were too many people on the city walls and the defensive equipment was sufficient, which made the siege ineffective. So they changed their tactics and called in Hu soldiers and young men to fight in order to consume the enemy's forces.

During this period, he also organized people to cross the dense forest in the mountains and detour to the back of Yangguan. However, the old problem still existed: the forest was too dense, the mountain was too high, and there were no mountain paths opened since ancient times. It was impossible for too many people to pass through, and the equipment and armor were not complete. In the end, they were discovered by the Bantun barbarians and besieged from all sides.

It was only because the Heilongjiang Army was so powerful that they were able to fight hard and return.

At this point, we return to the honest attack on the city.

But around the 25th day of the first lunar month, Shao Shen received news from Nanpu that the military advisor He Lun had sent his generals to take a detour through a small path, and had won several battles along the way. They were approaching Xuanhan and the recovery of Dangqu was imminent.

Shao Shen, who was already extremely annoyed by the news that the navy was defeated in Huangge Gorge and Yu Cheng's army fled back to Badong, was overjoyed. He immediately ordered to intensify the offensive and not let the Yangguan defenders have a chance to catch their breath. At the same time, he spread the news that Dangqu and Baxi had been lost, and the barbarian nobles headed by Gong Zhuang and Qiao Xiu had risen up and returned to the right path...

******
There are no Jiazi in the mountains, and it is so cold that I don’t know the year.

On the 26th day of the first lunar month, Qiao Xiu, who was preparing for spring ploughing, frowned and looked down the mountain.

This is a small valley in the mountains, barely big enough to accommodate dozens of families.

There are clear springs in the mountains that flow all year round and can be used for drinking by humans and animals, as well as for watering the fields.

Qiao Xiu had been living in seclusion here for a long time. He refused the invitations sent by the Jin and Cheng dynasties many times.

The relatives were puzzled, so Qiao Xiu told them the truth: The world will be in chaos, and I will kill everyone. Don't come to see me anymore, and let me live in seclusion in the mountains. After the chaos, Li Xiang and Li Shou heard of Qiao Xiu's fame and offered him a marriage proposal, but he refused.

As for the matters of selecting filial and honest officials in the county and selecting scholars in the state, they were even less likely to do so.

Qiao Xiu refused countless opportunities to become an official, which others desperately wanted, throughout his life.

He seems to be quite satisfied with his life now.

They were not rich, and even their clothes were a little worn, but they farmed and raised chickens, chopped wood and carried water, worked from sunrise to sunset, and in their spare time they taught the little children next door to read and write, or made some bamboo and lacquerware and asked people to sell them down the mountain. In fact, it was not bad.

And because of this, his fame has grown, and more and more people have asked him to come out of retirement and serve as an official, but he has not agreed so far.

It turned out that his choice was right.

At the foot of the mountain a few miles away from where Qiao Xiu stood, the soldiers of the Right Cavalry Guard gathered the only hundred or so war horses they had and distributed them.

In an instant, more than a hundred riders were seen skillfully controlling their horses and charging straight towards a panicked grain transport convoy.

There were many boats loaded with grain on the river parallel to the convoy, which were now turning around in a panic and heading towards the wider water.

Amid the sound of horse hooves, Tuoba Sigong raised his hand and shot an arrow, knocking an officer of the Cheng army who was giving orders loudly to the ground.

Amidst exclamations, two arrows shot towards him rapidly. Tuoba Sigong had already fallen on his horse's back after shooting the enemy, and this instinctive action saved his life. Both arrows passed by his body.

Tuoba Sigong took out the arrow from his mouth and threw it away while lying on his side.

"Swoosh!" The arrow flew through the air and knocked the enemy archer on the right to the ground.

The horses continued to gallop, passing by the convoy.

Tuoba Sigong took out another arrow, and recalled the place where another enemy archer had stood just now. He put his hands behind his back, without even turning his head, and "shot with faith."

"Swoosh!" The arrow flew a short distance of thirty steps and hit the enemy right in the chest.

This time both the enemy and us were stunned!

It's normal to shoot the enemy in front of you head-on - in fact, it's not that easy on a galloping and bumpy horse.

Using the prone shooting skill to shoot down an enemy on the side is an extraordinary skill.

It is very rare for someone to be able to lie on the horse's back after passing the enemy, not look back, and kill the third person by shooting from behind.

Shoot with both hands, shoot sideways, shoot lying down, shoot from behind...

What else doesn't he know?

Of course, Tuoba Sigong was just the "best of the match", in fact the other hundreds of people were also good.

After the charge began, except for a few unlucky ones who were shot to the ground, most people rushed to the front and the first wave shot down the few enemy archers.

After the horses turned around, the second wave of encirclement and shooting knocked down all the melee county soldiers who were escorting the grain and fodder.

The third wave fired a volley, and the grooms, coachmen, and militiamen fled in all directions, crying for their parents and abandoning the grain carts.

This is the classic tactic of the grassland cavalry: first lure the enemy deep into your territory, lengthen their food supply routes, and then send out light cavalry to intercept them, causing the Central Plains army to be cut off from food and eventually collapse.

To deal with this tactic, besides building cities every few dozen miles or transporting grain by water, there is only one way: send more regular troops for guarding. It is best if this regular army is equipped with three weapons, all members can fight in close combat and shoot arrows, that is, a flower team. A pure team is too dangerous.

It is impossible for Li Cheng to have such a high-level escort team. All the capable fighters are at the front line, so what are the crooked ones in the rear?
Naturally, the grain transport team was defeated. Except for the dozens of people who jumped into the river to escape, almost all of them were wiped out, and more than a hundred ox carts and 7,000 hu of grain were lost.

Qiao Xiu watched the whole process and finally sighed.

The Liang army had crossed the dangerous mountainous area and entered the hinterland of Baxi, like a tiger among a flock of sheep. If Li Cheng's court still wanted to save the situation, it might have to dispatch troops from Chengdu to help, but could those soldiers who were temporarily recruited perform better than those county soldiers and civilians at the foot of the mountain?

But no matter what, war is inevitable, Brazil may become a battlefield, and he doesn't know how long his secluded place can be peaceful...

After the Right Cavalry Guard captured and killed 400 people and seized 7,000 hu of grain on the 26th of the first lunar month, they continued their efforts and intercepted a grain team on the 28th, killing 1,000 enemies and seizing more than 10,000 hu of grain.

On the first day of February, the entire army rushed straight to Dianjiang and burned a large amount of food and military supplies piled up near the river bank. The militiamen in charge of guarding the river fled in all directions, and panic began to spread rapidly.

It was also on this day that Emperor Cheng Li Xiong reviewed the troops in the suburbs of Chengdu.

(End of this chapter)