Chapter 324: Victory in the first battle and smooth start of the war
"Too outrageous."
In the early morning of September 13th, the atmosphere outside Cao Jun’s camp was in full swing.
Cao Hong saw from a distance that Shen Chen's army just surrounded the outside with a simple fence without digging a trench, and he was furious.
Because he found that Shen Chen didn't seem to pay attention to him at all, and actually didn't build any fortifications at all.
On the other hand, he was facing a formidable enemy. The soldiers were as tired as dogs. They worked all the time in the whole camp, digging trenches and building towers. No one rested except the soldiers who were on guard.
It seemed that he was defeated in terms of momentum. Cao Hong was very angry and said to his left and right: "Send the order, let Xiahou Cun lead 5,000 troops and charge the enemy camp for me."
"General, not allowed."
Zhao Yan, the prefect of Runan who was beside Cao Hong, quickly dissuaded him: "There are only two possibilities for Shen Chen's actions. One is that the general does not dare to attack, and the other is that there is an ambush. With Shen Chen's wisdom, he will definitely not be without any possibility. Be on guard, lest there be an ambush."
"General!"
But his intelligence is far inferior to that of Cao Ren.
Seeing that the enemy's soldiers had not yet come out of the village gate, Xiahou Cun gave the order to attack without hesitation.
The brave general Xia Houcun stepped forward and said: "Don't you hear what this scholar said: "When water comes, the earth will cover it, and when it comes, troops will meet it?" Our army is waiting for work, and we can win. How can we just defend without attacking?"
Almost as soon as they heard the sound of ringing gold coming from behind, all Shen Chen's troops instinctively stopped their pursuit and began to retreat backwards.
As a result, Cao's army thought that there was no possibility of help in the camp and easily fought outside the camp gate. Instead, they were defeated by bows and arrows.
"kill!"
Therefore, even if these places are besieged by Shen Chen's army, as long as they can withstand it for a few days, Cao Hong can immediately send people to rescue them. He can even attack Nanyang and take Wancheng directly while Shen Chen's main army is dispatched to attack these remote places.
However, Gan Ning beheaded the enemy general Xia Houcun in the middle of the rebellious army. As he was fighting vigorously, he suddenly heard the sound of gold from behind and quickly retreated.
Cao's army was caught off guard and retreated one after another.
However, Cao Cao said to Cao Xiu privately, "You are called a soldier, but you are actually the commander of the army."
Xia Houcun immediately led his troops to fight.
It was early in the morning, and the two sides had just arrived yesterday. They had only set up camp and had not yet built any fortifications.
At present, Cao Hong is overhauling the fortifications.
But he was obedient but not resourceful, so Cao Cao asked Zhao Yan to stay here because he might as well have asked Zhao Yan to help keep an eye on him.
Seeing this situation in the distance, Cao Hong quickly ordered his generals Niu Jin and Liu He to lead troops to rescue.
Because if the fence wants to stop the enemy, it must be built very high, often more than one foot.
That is to say, his cavalry and Huangmen soldiers, who Liu Bei called the best in the world, were sent as a partial division to attack Runan County. Otherwise, Shen Chen would send Huangmen soldiers to cooperate with the cavalry as a food protection team. Cao Honglai would kill as many as he could. I don’t worry about running out of food at all.
Soon both sides broke away from the battle, and Shen Chen's army retreated into the camp like a tide, leaving only more than a thousand corpses of Cao's army in place.
Therefore, Xia Houcun felt that Shen Chen had just arrived at Taiting yesterday and it was impossible to build so many fortifications, so he confidently and boldly ordered the charge.
The reason for this kind of defense is that those places are the areas closest to the Dabie Mountains in Runan, far away from the hinterland of Henan, and there are several large rivers in the middle such as the Huai River, the Ru River, the Ying River, and the Ying River. Even if Langling is broken, Chen Liu will not be threatened in a short time.
However, Shen Chen's army had been carrying food and grass for several months this time. At this time, Ye County did not send anyone to transport food at all. Therefore, even if Cao Hong wanted to cut off the food road, he would basically be left alone.
"Retreat, retreat quickly!"
"General, don't panic. Shen Chen is also alone this time and is surrounded by us from the north, south and east. We can surround them and then send light cavalry straight to Ye County to cut off their food routes."
After Shen Chen defeated Cao Hong, he did not build any fortifications.
Over there, Cao Hong saw that there had been no movement in Shen Chen these past few days, so he calmed down and continued to build fortifications.
So in the next few days, Cao Hong sent out his light cavalry and cruised on the road between Ye County and Taiting, hoping to catch Shen Chen's grain transport team.
Therefore, since it is far away from the center, it is of course impossible for the main force to divide its troops. Both sides send partial divisions, one to defend and the other to attack. The king is against the king, the general is against the general, and the small soldiers are against the small soldiers.
Of course a person cannot be three and a half meters tall.
If a person wants to shoot an arrow behind a 10-foot-high fence, he or she must at least lean out. Just standing on the ground, you have to be 15-feet tall, which is about three-and-a-half meters tall.
In the distance, Cao Hong saw Xia Houcun being beheaded by Gan Ning, and only more than 3,000 of the 5,000 soldiers sent out fled back in embarrassment. He suddenly became anxious and angry, jumping on the spot.
The position Shen Chen occupied was the exit from Nanyang into Henan. However, this was not a mountain trail that only allowed a few people to walk side by side. It was a wide official road, more than ten miles apart from north to south, and it was impossible to block it.
Seeing that the army was defeated, Zhao Yan took the opportunity to persuade and said: "General, Shen Chen has many tricks. He did not build fortifications just to ambush us. This has already defeated Xia Houcun."
Not only did they cooperate with each other as a five-person team as in daily training, and constantly kill the enemy under the leadership of the corps commander and chief, they also always paid attention to the orders from the rear.
Three people held up an archer. As soon as the enemy arrived, they immediately carried the archer out and half of his body emerged from the fence to shoot.
Cao Hong said unhappily: "Are we just going to watch like this? They have all come over."
Zhao Yan thought for a while and said: "What's more, even if he is not fortified outside, he will build fortifications and arrange ambushes inside. But it is often said that you can only commit a thief for a thousand days, but there is no principle of guarding against a thief for a thousand days, so we confront him first and wait for him If you relax or cut off the food route, your troops will inevitably be defeated, and then you will send out troops to break it."
Cao Hongshen agreed, nodded and said: "Shan, you go out to fight."
As soon as they shouted, the soldiers carrying them below knew the victory and became excited and shouted loudly.
For a time, many people below were excited and failed to stabilize the archers above, causing many soldiers to fall.
Seeing the victory in the first battle, Shen Chen's army was in great momentum, and the archers who emerged shouted loudly.
"only."
However, what he never expected was that almost as soon as Cao Jun rushed to less than fifty meters away from the camp, countless heads suddenly appeared from behind the fence, and a round of bows and arrows were fired at Cao Jun. In an instant, Cao Jun fell on his back. , hundreds and nearly a thousand people were killed and injured.
But three days later, on September 16, he got the news that Langling was surrounded by nearly ten thousand people. Although the two sides did not start a battle, the guard general Zhai Yuan had only three thousand men under his command. Feeling that he could not resist, he quickly sent out People come to ask for help.
Because this was the routine of our army in later generations, with three people working together, they could even climb a four- to five-meter-high wall, let alone a one-foot-tall fence that was only two and a half meters high.
After Cao Hong learned of this incident, he no longer interfered with military affairs and handed over full power to Cao Xiu. He also followed Cao Xiu's command, defeated Wu Lan, killed his general Ren Kui, and forced Zhang Fei and Ma Chao to retreat.
Cao Hongshen thought so, so he ordered: "Continue to build fortifications and hold on to the fortress."
When Niu Jin and Liu He came over, Shen Chen's army had already withdrawn more than 20 steps, and rescued Lonely, who was about thirty or forty meters away. They had to order to gather the defeated soldiers, shouting to stop, etc., and made a fuss for two quarters of an hour. Then he returned to camp angrily.
The defense forces in Langling, Yang'an, North Yichun, and Ancheng in the Dabie Mountains at the rear are slightly weak, with only 10,000 to 20,000 people garrisoned, and the strength of each city is basically around 3,000 to 4,000.
"good."
The scene in which thousands of people are unorganized and defeated is extremely chaotic. Once people become chaotic, they run around like headless chickens without caring about what is in front of them.
"Run!"
Naturally, Cao Hong's 100,000-strong army was not gathered together, but scattered in various surrounding cities.
Zhao Yan still wanted to persuade, but Cao Hong was angry that Shen Chen underestimated him, so he did not listen to the advice. Then Zhao Yan changed his mind and asked Xia Houcun to test the truth, so he stopped persuading.
Gan Ning gathered more than a thousand soldiers at this time. Seeing the enemy's defeat, he immediately shouted: "Kill!"
For example, in the 23rd year of Jian'an, during the battle between Liu Bei and Cao Cao, Cao Cao sent Cao Hong as the chief general to attack Wulan, and Cao Xiu joined the army as the cavalry captain.
It turns out that Shen Chen's approach was not to build wooden platforms and ladders, but to simply use human ladders.
"Um."
This tactic obviously did not occur to Cao Jun at all.
Therefore, camps with relatively complete fortifications at that time usually built a five- to six-foot wooden platform behind the fence, with pillars supporting it underneath. People stood on the wooden platform and shot arrows.
However, Cao Hong's side was already busy, but there was no movement in Shen Chen's camp. Cao Hong also wanted to know what Shen Chen was going to do, so he sent Xia Houcun to take a look.
The camps of the two sides were two miles apart. When the two men arrived, Cao's army was already defeated.
Compared to Cao's army, which was defeated due to being shot with bows and arrows and the death of its general, Gan and Ning's army of more than a thousand people was much more organized.
From this we can know that Cao Hong was not a strong character in his later years.
He was not worried that the enemy would suddenly pop up from the fence and shoot arrows.
Thousands of soldiers surged away, slashing and killing Cao's army, and the situation became chaotic.
Because he won't stay here for long. Once word comes that Chendu was attacked, Cao Hong will definitely be in chaos and send troops to Chenliu to return reinforcements.
Of course, you can also use a ladder, but the ladder can only allow one person to go up. In a large-scale legion war with thousands of archers, it is even more impossible to build thousands of ladders at the same time. Even if you bring ordnance, you can't carry so many. .
"What should I do?"
Therefore, Niu Jin and Liu He did not dare to intercept the defeated troops head-on. They could only outflank Gan Ning's troops from left to right, hoping to surround and kill Gan Ning's troops.
"Ah ah ah, I've been hit by an arrow, please help me."
When the time comes, Shen Chen will take the initiative to attack, so why spend so much time digging a useless defensive fortress?
Therefore, in the following time, in addition to the soldiers who were on guard, patrol and rotation duty, Shen Chen ordered half of the soldiers in the army to train in the camp in the morning, take a good rest in the afternoon, maintain their physical strength, and prepare for the subsequent battle.
This guy is already in his fifties. Historically, his temper has actually gotten much better, and he is far less impulsive than when he was young.
Xia Houcun led five thousand soldiers and horses and slowly approached Shen Chen's military camp. The gate of the camp was closed tightly. After a while, the gate of the camp opened wide. Gan Ning took the lead and rushed out, shouting: "Bajun Gan Xingba is here, who dares to come up?" war."
Among them, the main defense points are in the area of Dingling, Kunyang, Wuyang, and Linxian. They are the front line of defense for Cao's army, with a total strength of 70,000 to 80,000 troops.
"kill!"
Cao Hong learned that Langling was being attacked. Although he was not afraid, the main force was dragged on the Nanyang front line. If Langling and other places were attacked and the hinterland was unguarded, his 10,000 side troops could stir up trouble in the rear.
So he sent his general Dong Chao and 5,000 men to rescue him.
Then on September 21, Cao Hong heard news that caused him to suffer a cardiopulmonary arrest.
Two days ago, on September 19, imperial physician Ling Jiben, Shaofu Geng Ji, Sizhi Weihuang and others launched a rebellion, killed Wan Qian, and were attacking the palace gate.