In August of the second year of Datong in the Han Dynasty, Xie Jun was unwilling to fail after returning to Yongzhou. He transferred soldiers and horses from Qianzhou, Yaozhou, and Shangzhou, combined them with the troops from the Yongzhou base camp, and recruited new soldiers. A total of 180,000 troops were divided into three groups to counterattack Huazhou.
At the beginning of August, 40,000 troops from the Left Route Army left Yaozhou and marched towards Tongzhou to threaten the Han army's retreat. 40,000 troops from the Right Route Army left Shangzhou, and 100,000 troops from Yongzhou went north to support each other. They crossed the Yuxu River on August 14th. Set up camp sixty miles away from Huazhou.
The guard general of Tongzhou is Maoli, the general of the Han army, who is the younger brother of the general Maoyuan of Jinzhou. There are only 3,000 Han troops in Tongzhou, which is obviously insufficient in strength, but there are still more than 10,000 gray-clothed troops who surrendered. These people passed by After two months of training, they already have a certain degree of combat effectiveness. And defending the city is different from field battles. Although the surrendered Gray Army has limited combat effectiveness, there is still no problem in using it for defense on the city wall.
Ma Wen, the general of the left army of the Yongxing Army, led an army of 40,000 to attack the city for more than ten days. The Han army could not hold on. Although Tongzhou was surrounded like an iron barrel, it remained stable. After Liu Ling occupied Huazhou, he mobilized a large number of The grain and grass were transported to Tongzhou to prepare for emergencies. As the saying goes, people without long-term worries will have immediate worries, and Liu Ling was prepared for a rainy day. The Tongzhou defenders did not lack grain and grass. However, the Zhou army brought limited grain and grass from Yaozhou, and Tongzhou The people living hundreds of miles away were all moved into Tongzhou City by the Han army. The Zhou army, which could not find any food and grass, was already running low on food and grass after besieging the city for more than ten days.
What worried Ma Wen the most was that there was a Han cavalry force of several thousand people, coming and going like the wind. They only plundered the Zhou army's grain transport team on the official road from Yaozhou to Tongzhou. They burned the grain and grass and then left, and reinforcements came to pick them up. By the time the news came, they had already fled far away and could not be found. In desperation, Ma Wen could only send out heavy troops to transport food. However, in this way, the strength of the soldiers and horses attacking Tongzhou became weak again.
When he was appointed as the general of the Left Army by Xie Jun, he once boasted that Haikou would be conquered in Tongzhou within five days. But now more than ten days have passed, and Tongzhou is still in the hands of the Han army, but he is in trouble because he is not able to get enough food and grass. , the morale of the army was unstable, and the common people did not support the brutal Zhou army but instead helped the Han people. The soldiers were increasingly war-weary, especially the newly recruited soldiers, whose quality was simply not comparable to that of the veterans of the Yongxing army. And After the Battle of Huazhou, half of the 200,000 Yongxing troops were killed alive by the Han army. Now among the 40,000 Zhou troops he led, only 10% were veterans.
We had just received another report from the scouts, and the team sent out to transport food was once again attacked by the mysterious Han army. Fifty carts of food and grass were burned cleanly. Most of the Zhou troops guarding the food were new soldiers. Although some Three thousand people were defeated by the Han army in a single charge. The Han army burned the grain and grass, robbed the horses, and fled. Ma Wen was so angry that he overturned the tables and tables, and sent his own soldiers in anger. He took his generals with him and went to Yaozhou to collect food.
On August 23rd, it rained yesterday and it was cloudy today, so it seemed particularly cool. The heat of the past few days was gone, making people feel a rare sense of comfort. A couple ran from Yaozhou The young couple who came out to prepare to go to Puzhou to fight against the invasion took advantage of the cool weather to speed up their journey. The two of them did not bring any luggage. They just carried a package each, a few changes of clothes, and a few things in Yaozhou. They took the deed of the old house with them and brought several hundred copper coins with them. The two of them had been walking out of Yaozhou for three days. Whenever they saw officers and soldiers passing by from a distance, they hurriedly hid in the grass. They were frightened but not in danger for the past three days.
As he was walking on the official road, he suddenly saw smoke and dust rising in front of him and a sound like thunder. The husband knew that it was a large group of official cavalry coming, so he quickly pulled his wife and crawled into the road.
In the grass beside him, he lay down on the ground and didn't dare to breathe.
Not long after, murderous Zhou cavalry in khaki military uniforms swarmed past, their horses galloping, raising dust on the official road. The husband covered his wife's mouth, and the two of them hid in the grass shivering.
They didn't dare to come out until this group of cavalry, which looked to be no less than a few thousand people, had passed far away.
The wife bent down and brushed off the dust on her husband's body with her hands, and she did not forget to complain about her husband's hasty decision: "We live well in Yaozhou, but you have to go to Puzhou. This long journey is full of things.
We're fighting, and I don't know how much pain I have to endure before I can get to Puzhou. Besides, you and your uncle haven't been in contact with each other for a few years, so he will definitely take us in?"
The husband spat and said, "You know nothing!"
He looked at the people around him and then said: "If the Yongxing army goes to war with the Han army, Yaozhou will be lost sooner or later. Then who is Liu Ling, the king of Han? He has not been defeated for ten years since he led the army at the age of sixteen.
The God of War! There were hundreds of thousands of Yongxing troops in Huazhou, and they only defended it for how many days? Let’s talk about distant places like Tongzhou, Puzhou, and Jiangzhou. Which city was defended in front of the Han army? Don’t look at Yongxing now.
The army mobilized 200,000 troops to counterattack Huazhou. They are no match for Liu Ling, the king of Han!"
He helped his wife remove the grass blades from her hair, pointed to the woods in the distance and said: "Go first and have a rest and drink some water. It will get dark soon. We can't find a village tonight and we have to spend the night in the woods."
"
"The two of them found a secret place to sit down in the woods. The husband continued: "Think about it, if the Yongxing army is defeated, can the Han army not take the opportunity to attack Yongzhou? There are not many Zhou troops in Yaozhou to defend the city now.
If the Han army besieges the city, the people in the city will have to be forced to go up the city wall and fight for their lives! We are ordinary people, why should we risk our lives? The Yongxing Army is bound to lose. Rather than follow the Yongxing Army and die, we should leave as early as possible!
"
The wife curled her lips and said: "Then I said that I would live with my mother-in-law in Fangzhou, why didn't you go? I had to go to Puzhou, which is now the territory of the Han people. I heard that the Han people would kill everyone on sight, and they would kill every city they conquered.
The people in Guangcheng are not the same as those of us who have traveled thousands of miles to die!"
The husband scolded: "You stupid bitch who heard from hearsay, who said that the Han army was cruel? It was those guys in the Yongxing army who ate human flesh and drank human blood! Do you listen to them? I have asked about it. Now those in Puzhou and Jiangzhou
The people there have all divided their fields, and the Han army also distributed seeds to the people. Taxes and taxes are extremely low, and the people there live a comfortable life. Didn't I tell you that the old jade passed down from the family was lost a while ago?
I'm lying to you. In fact, I thought of Puzhou and gave it to my old uncle. For the sake of that piece of old jade, how can he drive us away? As long as we get seeds from the Han army and get a good field.
, it will take half a year to recover!”
The wife thought for a while and said with a smile: "It's as far as you can think!"
The husband smiled proudly and said: "If you don't worry about the long term, you will have immediate worries. Men, you have to take a longer view!"
He suddenly remembered something and asked: "Did those Zhou soldiers who passed by just now have blood on them?"
The wife thought for a while and nodded: "That's right. I would have forgotten it even if you didn't tell me. The smell of blood even hit my nose from so far away."
The husband worriedly said: "It seems that the fighting ahead is lively. This team of Zhou soldiers must have returned to Yaozhou to move reinforcements and collect food and grass. Let's go to bed now and leave after dark!"
The two of them slept with their clothes on in the woods. When the moon came over the treetops, they ate some dry food and returned to the official road. After walking for more than thirty miles in the middle of the night, the wife couldn't walk anymore.
The east was already turning white, so the two of them discussed it and saw that there was a large wasteland on the left side of the official road. The weeds could be as tall as a person, so they got in and planned to find a more comfortable place to sleep. Then they walked into the grass.
Not far away, I suddenly smelled a strong fishy smell. The husband boldly went forward to explore the path, pushed aside the tall weeds and looked forward. His body was shaken, and he stood there frozen and unable to move anymore.
Already.
In a depression, I saw densely packed dead people who had their clothes stripped off! Judging from the layer upon layer, there could be no less than thousands of people. These people had obviously died not long ago, and some of the blood stains had not yet dried.
There were also a few really dilapidated Zhou banners thrown on the ground, and countless flies and rats were busy noisily on the pile of dead bodies.
Just when the couple stood there frozen and scared out of their wits, the Zhou army cavalry they encountered yesterday had already arrived outside Yaozhou City overnight!
The leading general of the Zhou army was a man who looked to be in his thirties. He was as skinny as skin and bones. Looking at his figure, I really worried that a strong wind would blow him into the sky. But this man
Although he is extremely thin, he has a strong aura that makes people dare not look at him. The armor on his body is covered with blood, and his face is also stained with blood. It seems that he has just experienced a fierce battle. Look at the person behind him.
All three thousand cavalrymen were wounded, and there was blood on their clothes and horses.
"Open the city gate quickly! General Feng Ma will return to the city to collect food supplies!"
The thin general's personal soldiers shouted at the defenders on the city gate tower, pulling their necks.
A hanging basket was put down on the city tower. The brigade leader who was guarding the city came down to check and saw that it was indeed his own army, so he ordered the soldiers to open the city gate. More than three thousand cavalry swarmed in and went to find the brigade leader.
Can you see his shadow? When you look underground, you will find that there is something like mud on the ground.
After these more than 3,000 cavalry entered the gate of Yaozhou City, they immediately raised the banner of the Han army. They first seized the city gate, and then rushed into the city. They killed the Yaozhou governor, the county magistrate, and the civil and military generals of Dazhou in one night.
Everything was clean. There were only a few thousand Zhou soldiers and horses left behind in Yaozhou, but they were caught off guard by the Han army. They lost Yaozhou without even forming an effective resistance! These Han soldiers wearing Zhou army uniforms, all
They were strong, cold and decisive, and showed no mercy in killing people. Every Zhou army officer or state government official caught by them was killed immediately. The Zhou army who had not had time to grab their weapons were killed in the camp.
He was surrounded by Han troops and had to surrender.
