Chapter 429 Recover Guanzhong and return to the old capital
Chapter 429 Recover Guanzhong and return to the old capital
Author: Playing with Basilisk
Chapter 429 Recover Guanzhong and return to the old capital
"Form up, bring me the spear, bring me the spear!"
In the wilderness, the generals of Cao's army shouted heartbreakingly because they saw an incredible scene.
At first, the Liangzhou cavalry were still far away and could not see clearly. They could only vaguely see the silver light of the enemy.
As the distance got closer and closer, all Cao's troops were shocked to find that the menacing enemy turned out to be thousands of elite cavalry covered in heavy armor.
And not only the people are heavily armored, but even the horses are armored and fully armored, which can be said to be armed to the teeth.
They all have stirrups, equipped with high bridge saddles, and their bodies are as stable as Mount Tai.
After half a year of fighting with Shen Chen, Zhong Yao had not seen these things before, and even imitated them so that their Cao Wei cavalry could also have double stirrups and high-bridge saddles with metal buckles.
It's just that he has never captured Shen Chen's war horse, so the only things he has copied so far are the stirrups and saddles that can be seen from the appearance, but the horseshoes are unknown.
However, no one thought that with these things, heavy armored cavalry, which was originally difficult to achieve, could actually appear in an organized manner.
You must know that even though Yuan Shao was powerful in history, he only had 300 pairs of horse armor, and since there were no stirrups, only extremely skilled generals could drive them, making the practical value very low.
Now that we have stirrups, something as rare as heavy armored cavalry is naturally no longer as hard to come by as before.
At this moment, after discovering that the enemy turned out to be thousands of heavily armored cavalry, Cao Jun was frightened to death. Several senior generals were still calm and immediately shouted and wanted to set up their formation first.
But they had just fled from Chang'an City to the outside of the city in shock, and now they were still in an extremely scattered formation, and they were not prepared at all.
Before the soldiers could get into formation, the cavalry had already arrived a mile away, and they were about to arrive in a blink of an eye.
Fortunately, several generals urged them hard, and the first row of spearmen finally lined up. Holding their spears, they looked tremblingly at the cavalry that was already charging not far away.
They found that the ground seemed to be shaking.
As the opponent's figure got closer and closer, the dust and smoke billowed, and like a giant beast, it crashed into Cao's army's formation.
The first row of cavalry collided fiercely with Cao's army, and the sharp spears easily pierced their bodies, knocking them away even with their weapons. They vomited blood and fell in their own formation.
Many people even had their fragile bodies torn apart, and their bodies were separated directly by the impact. The fragments of their limbs were broken on the ground. With a casual cut of the ring knife, heads or limbs flew everywhere, and the ground was dyed red with blood.
What followed was an even more terrifying reality, that is, after the first row of spear formations was pierced, the formation behind them was completely disrupted. Many Cao soldiers were afraid of the cavalry, dropped their weapons, howled and fled in all directions, and even rolled back. the entire queue.
Then, under the charge of the cavalry, they were immediately defeated as soon as they made contact, not to mention the other soldiers around them. Seeing that the opponent was being crushed like a bulldozer, they had already run far away and did not dare to approach.
Ma Dai led thousands of cavalry and charged straight into the entire Cao army's formation as if they were in an uninhabited land.
Along the way, people and horses fell on their backs, and Cao Jun's soldiers tried to avoid him one after another. No one was willing to risk his life to touch his edge. The only result of doing so would be to be trampled to pieces by the galloping horses, and there was no chance of a second ending.
In the chaos of the army, Wei soldiers were trampled by horse hooves, and it was considered lucky to be killed with spears or ring-headed swords. Some unlucky ones were collided by horses and had their internal organs ruptured. Some were trampled by horse hooves and their bodies were dented.
A big pit was created. Some were brought down directly, and their bones were trampled out.
The torrent of steel swarmed over, and the ground was full of corpses and Wei troops fleeing in panic. The formation of more than 20,000 Cao Wei troops was instantly in chaos. Even Zhong Yao's convoy was not spared in the chaos. It was smashed by the fleeing Cao troops all around.
The small boat in the middle is teetering on the edge of collapse.
Ma Dai was riding on horseback, and his sharp eyes immediately noticed the carriage not far away. He immediately shouted and rushed over there with more than a hundred knights. The guards around Zhong Yao bravely stepped forward without fear of death.
Intercepted and wanted to cover Zhong Yao's convoy to evacuate north.
However, as soon as they rushed over, they were directly knocked to pieces by the cavalry. Ma Dai personally killed two enemy generals, then galloped his horses and led the soldiers to kill them all the way, and rushed to the side of Zhong Yao's motorcade.
The coachman chopped it off with a knife.
Zhong Yao was in the center of the formation at that time, and as the general he must be commanding the formation. As a result, the eastern defense line was directly penetrated by the cavalry, and the entire formation suddenly fell into chaos, and his convoy was almost scattered.
If the guards had not killed some of the deserters who had collided, I am afraid that all the horses that Zhong Yao was pulling would have been taken away.
However, there were people everywhere in the rebel army. Even if the bodyguards had eight hands, they could not help Zhong Yao fight his way out. As a result, he was targeted by Ma Dai, who actually killed him as close as possible.
The personal guards who originally carried the general's flag have long since disappeared, and the chaotic battlefield is full of people, scurrying around like headless flies.
When his own life was at stake, no one cared about Zhong Yao's safety.
There was a curtain on the carriage. Ma Dai rode on the horse and used a steel knife stained with blood to open it, and saw an old and expressionless face.
He grinned and said, "Mr. Zhong, long time no see!"
Ma Dai met Zhong Yao.
Zhong Yao had been in charge of Chang'an for many years and had many discussions with Ma Teng and Han Sui in order to ease the conflict between them.
Afterwards, Ma Teng agreed to become an official in the imperial court. Before leaving, he left Ma Chao and Ma Dai to command the Ma Jiajun in Guanzhong. When bidding farewell, Ma Dai also went to see Zhong Yao for the last time.
In a daze, it seemed like it was more than ten years ago.
Zhong Yao let out a long sigh and said softly: "General Ma, it's been a long time. Is Meng Qi okay?"
"It's not very good. I just listened to my husband's words and my uncle's family went to Chendu. As a result, Cao Cao killed more than three hundred people in Chendu. Every time my brother thinks about this, he wants to vomit blood. He misses him very much.
Where is sir?"
Ma Dai glanced around.
All the enemies around him have been killed by the cavalry he brought.
Zhong Yao was captured alive.
From a distance further away, Shen Chen's light cavalry were already coming.
Because Cao's army was dispersed by them, there was no resistance at all.
After that, there was a great victory with the cavalry chasing down the infantry. The other generals only needed to take command, and there was no need for him to do anything else.
Catching Zhong Yao is a great achievement.
Zhong Yao had a wry smile on his face and said: "What happened back then should have been Meng Qi's fault. General Ma Teng had already agreed to submit to the imperial court, so why did he launch a rebellion? It's not like you don't know Cao Cao's character. You knew General Ma Teng well.
There will be danger, and Meng Qi will insist on betraying the imperial court, which is not a wise choice."
"Now that Cao Pi has usurped the Han Dynasty, it means that what my brother said at the beginning is right. If you open your mouth and talk about the court and shut up about the court, where is your loyal Han court? Doesn't this mean that Cao Cao has the intention to usurp the Han Dynasty? You all are It’s rebellion!”
Ma Dai sneered, lowered the car curtain, waved his hand and said: "Let's go into the city and send this traitor to the governor!"
At that moment, several knights got off their horses, two of them squeezed into the narrow carriage and controlled Zhong Yao, while the other drove the carriage towards Chang'an City.
As the sun sets, the sky becomes darker.
It was only then that Shen Chen stepped into the main hall of Weiyang Palace.
As the southern city was broken, the main force of the Han army entered Chang'an and joined forces with Zhao Yunpang's troops in the north. They were now strangling Xiahou Mao's troops who had not yet left the city.
There were fires everywhere in the North City, there were constant shouts and shouts, and there were horse hooves surging outside the city.
The night wind howled, mixed with the heat of midsummer.
Countless Cao soldiers were running in the wilderness. No one was crowding together to escape. Instead, they dispersed as much as possible and stayed as far away from the crowd as possible.
At this time, having too many people is not a good thing, as it will attract the attention of predators.
Only when the number of people was reduced to single digits, would the Liangzhou cavalry, who were chasing after them and killing people wantonly and almost crazy with their desire for human heads, become interested, and possibly escape.
"Report! General Lei has captured more than 2,000 Cao troops and has already reached Weiyang Palace."
"Report! General Dou killed the enemy general Fei Yao!"
"Report! Cao's army outside Bamen was defeated by our heavy armored cavalry."
"Report! General Zhao and Pang Jiangjin have defeated Xuanping Gate and Qingming Gate. Now tens of thousands of Cao's troops are defeated in the city."
"Report! General Ma captured Zhong Yao alive."
"Report"
The latest battle reports continued to arrive in Weiyang Palace, and good news came from everywhere, making the army even more joyful.
At the end of the day when it was almost dark, the entire city of Chang'an had fallen into Shen Chen's hands. There were probably about 20,000 Wei troops still fighting in the city.
But they can't support it for long, because now the south city gate is controlled by Shen Chen, and the east and north city gates are controlled by Pang De and Zhao Yun. The huge Chang'an city of more than 20 square kilometers is almost impossible to fly.
At this juncture, Cao's army was almost at the end of its rope. With no one to lead them in the counterattack, Shen Chen could predict that most of Cao's army would only make one choice when they saw that they were at the end of their rope - to kneel down and surrender!
It cannot be said that the Han army treated prisoners preferentially, but at least Liu Bei's character was guaranteed. In all his years of traveling in the south, whether fighting Cao's army or Jiangdong's army, he had never killed any prisoners of war.
At the beginning, the Battle of Jingzhou and the Battle of Guanzhong captured many soldiers of Cao's army. Some of them were unwilling to stay in the south and took the opportunity to escape back to their hometown.
Then the fact that Liu Bei did not kill the prisoners naturally spread slowly.
In a way, this is also a good thing, because it will make it easier to destroy the enemy's resistance. They know that stubborn resistance is probably a dead end. If they surrender, given Liu Bei's reputation, they can still save their lives.
Therefore, when the enemy forces fighting Liu Bei's group are at the end of their rope, they will rarely fight to the end. This is the benefit brought by reputation.
"Report!"
At this time, a horse came to report: "General Pang personally killed Xiahou Mao, and most of Cao's troops in the city have surrendered."
"Um."
Shen Chen was sitting on the side below the main hall of Weiyang Palace. Hearing the news, he nodded slightly to express his satisfaction.
Weiyang Palace was the residence of the Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, and the main hall was where Liu Bang went to court. Naturally, it was impossible for him to sit on the throne.
At this time, several disciples below him had returned. Except for Wu Tao and Shan Yi, who were recovering from serious injuries, Wu Dang, Huo Yang, Deng Ai, Jiang Wei and others were all sitting below.
Hearing these words, Wu Dang immediately laughed and said: "Grand Governor, Zhong Yao was captured alive and Xiahou Mao was beheaded. We have won a great victory. Chang'an City has been gained and Guanzhong will be recovered."
"Well."
Shen Chen's expression was not too happy, he just mused: "Although we have regained Guanzhong and let the big man return to the old capital, don't be too happy. There are no people in Guanzhong for thousands of miles. If you want to fight back to Guandong from Guanzhong, We have to move the people back to cultivate grain and grass so that the grain roads can be kept open."
Deng Ai said: "The Governor, I don't know what the situation is on Your Majesty's side. Now that we have captured Chang'an, we can immediately send troops south to attack Lantian Valley, and then send people to Nanyang to report to Your Majesty. We can attack from both sides and open up Wuguan. ."
"Yes, Grand Governor."
Jiang Wei also said: "If Wuguan can be opened, grain can be transported from Nanyang, which will be half the distance than transporting grain from Hanzhong."
The direct distance from Hanzhong to Chang'an is actually only more than 200 kilometers, while the distance from Nanxiang County in Nanyang to Chang'an is more than 300 kilometers, but Jiang Wei said that the distance should be less than half. This is a practical problem.
The only difficult place in Wuguan is around Lantian Valley, and there are too many difficult places in Hanzhong. Taking Chencang Road requires a big circle, which is equivalent to going from Hanzhong to Baoji, and then from Baoji to Xi'an in later generations. It's more than 400 kilometers, and transporting food will indeed be too much trouble.
On the other hand, at least 200 kilometers of the road from Nanyang to Guanzhong are wide official roads. Only the one from Shangluo County to Lantian County is slightly more difficult. So in summary, it is closer to transport grain from Nanyang to Guanzhong.
Shen Chen nodded slightly.
After a while, the sky darkened completely, and the whole hall was lit with candles.
The war outside is coming to an end, and the turmoil and noise are much smaller than before.
The latest battle report has come up.
As expected, most of Cao's troops in the city had surrendered. Zhao Yun, Pang De and Ma Dai led the light cavalry to pursue Cao's troops that collapsed outside the city.
All the materials and grain of Cao's army in the city were given to them. Millions of stones of millet and wheat were enough for them to march into Guandong.
The most important thing is that now that Chang'an City is captured, we can cooperate with Liu Bei's army in the direction of Nanyang to attack Cao Zhen in the Lantian Valley of Wuguan and completely eliminate the Wei army entrenched in the Guanzhong area.
It wasn't until noon the next day that Pang De and Zhao Yun came back.
At this time, there were already as many as 20,000 Cao's troops captured in the city. Adding in the Cao's troops who had been killed and injured in the past few days, I am afraid that only more than 10,000 people could escape back to Huayin.
The 50,000 elite soldiers in Chang'an City were almost wiped out. After Shen Chen and all the generals returned, they held a meeting in Weiyang Palace.
Everyone in the hall was beaming with joy, everyone was smiling and sitting cross-legged in their respective positions.
Shen Chen looked around at the crowd and the first thing he said was:
"Everyone."
"Recover Guanzhong and return to the old capital!"
"We succeeded!"
The moment he finished saying this, there was already a boil below.
Half a year of hard work has finally yielded results!