The development of the entire situation in the first year of Zhangwu can only be described as unexpected. Whether it was the war in the south or the north, from the cause of the war to the final outcome, it far exceeded people's expectations.
The wars in the Four Kingdoms all began with Sun Ce's bizarre assassination and death. Although various signs have already shown that this matter was a secret plan of Liu Fan, it is always sad and lamentable that Sun Ce, a talented man, did not die on the battlefield but was assassinated in the face of an assassin. Afterwards, the Wu people were in civil strife and their two grandsons were fighting for power. Liu Fan led his troops to Anlu and peered downstream. All knowledgeable people thought that the southern kingdom was about to be settled. After all, one side had accumulated for many years, the country was prosperous and the people were attached to it, and there were many famous generals. On the other side, a powerful lord suddenly died.
The new master lacks attack, the people are unsure, and the strong and weak forces are clearly divided. If nothing unexpected happens, the foundation of the three generations of the Sun family in Jiangdong will be completely destroyed in this year.
It was reasonable for the Western Dynasty to take advantage of the turmoil in the Southern Kingdom and send a large army to the Eastern Dynasty. What I never expected was that after the Battle of Pingcheng, Cao Cao faced Liu Bei again. The war was still at a stalemate, and nothing happened as Liu Bei had imagined.
A one-sided situation.
This is not because Liu Bei is incompetent, but because Cao Cao has made up his mind not to fight in the field. When Liu Bei led his army to surround Yecheng again and divided his troops to surround Handan, Cao Cao only ordered Cao Ren to guard Handan and judged his men to guard Yecheng. Instead, he
He led the main force to garrison at Kuiqiu, and constantly used cavalry to harass the Westerners' supplies and logistics, making Liu Bei tireless of the trouble.
Xun You proposed a plan for this, saying that this is the enemy's territory. The Eastern Army comes and goes like the wind, but the Western Army is not familiar with the customs. A strong pursuit will be fruitless. It is better to attack the city first, and then attack the Zhang River, Huan River, Dang River, and Zhan River.
A canal was built between them to transport grain and grass by water. As a result, the Eastern rebel cavalry was helpless with the transportation and did not dare to fight to the death. As long as the two cities were captured again, Hebei would be leveled.
Liu Bei readily accepted it and ordered Fazheng, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Army, to attack Ye, and Guan Yu, the commander of the Central Army, to attack Handan. At the same time, he ordered Yuan Tan to return to Henan and mobilized 100,000 people to Hanoi to dig waterways between the cities and camps and repair ships. The people were shirtless.
He worked hard and long at night, carrying earth and digging stones, and finally built the canal in mid-June. As expected, Cao Cao's cavalry was helpless.
However, Shenpei had a good plan for defending the city, and the Han army still encountered setbacks in Yecheng. Fa Zheng initially ordered the generals to raise mountains of earth around the city, and surrounded the city with ants from all sides.
The city gate. And the judges built high towers and ordered the soldiers to hide in the towers and wait for the enemy with hook knives. Some people climbed up the city and climbed up the stairs. The soldiers in the tower chopped off their hands and feet with hook knives. Over the past ten days, the walls of the city tower were broken.
Countless limbs.
The chariots under the city once broke through the city gate, but behind the city gate, the judges had already tied up the fence. When the Han army wanted to take advantage of the situation and enter the city, rolling stones were thrown from the city towers, causing the Han soldiers to scream and have to withdraw from the city.
Outside, Shenpei blocked the city gate with huge rocks and ordered the Euphorbia soldiers to guard the back, which made the Western Army sigh with excitement.
Fa Zheng then proposed to Liu Bei that although the attack on the city was unfavorable, the popular sentiment in Hebei was swaying at this time, and it was a good opportunity to stir up rebellion in Youyan. As long as he could stir up trouble, Cao Cao would be supported by the left and right, and the governors of the eastern dynasties
He must have thought that the situation was over, and when the time came, he would contact him privately and offer a large sum of money to lure him back, and he would definitely gain full success. Liu Bei also thought so, so he ordered Gongsun Zan's old subordinate Wen Ze to go to Yan County to contact Gongsun Zan's old friend Liu Weitai, the diviner, and sell Li Yi
Son, how can a merchant be happy?
These three people are all sworn brothers of Gongsun Zan, and their family wealth is hundreds of millions. However, time has changed, Li Yizi and Le Hedang have both died of illness, and only Liu Weitai survives. But it is enough. Liu Weitai, as a divination master, was in Youyan
He was quite well-known among the prominent families. When the Western Army Canal was about to be completed, he raised troops in Jixian County. Eight ethnic groups in Yan County responded, and more than 10,000 people gathered at one time, which was quite impressive.
Unfortunately, this did not achieve the effect expected by Fazheng. When he learned that there was chaos in Yan, Cao Cao did not move his troops, but ordered Cao Zhen to lead Liaodong's troops to the west for encirclement and suppression. Liu Weitai knew that he was unable to defeat him, so he led his troops to leave Jixian and turn around.
Then they entered Dai County via Wuruan Pass. Some of them missed their hometown and refused to leave, so they were all captured and beheaded by Cao Zhen who came.
The stalemate lasted until mid-July. The Western Army, which had an absolute superiority in strength, was still unable to open a breakthrough. Many of the wounded in the army were thinking of returning home, which made Liu Bei very uneasy. But no one expected that at this time, Chen Chong
The news that they had captured Hanzhong and penetrated deeply into Brazil came, which unexpectedly reversed the situation.
After Liu Bei received Liu Xie's letter reporting his victory, he couldn't help but sigh to his surroundings: "The Prime Minister, with just one army from the Western Prefecture, was able to achieve such a victory, it is unprecedented and unparalleled! I'm afraid the people of Shu will be frightened by this!"
He notified the three armies of the matter and ordered the soldiers: "Our three armies cannot win without a prime minister. If it is passed down to future generations, wouldn't it be a laughing stock?"
When the officers and soldiers of the three armies heard this, they all felt deeply ashamed, and their morale was greatly boosted. The next day, Huang Zhong, the general against the invaders, selected 500 men who dared to die from the army. They were all covered with armor and stomach, and went straight up to the tower in the rain of arrows and rolling stones. Huang Zhong wore a bright light
A, regardless of his own safety, rushed to the front and attacked the Yecheng wall in one go, finally opening a gap in the south.
Zhao Yun, Chen Dao and others followed closely behind. More than a thousand people fought in bloody battles all day and night, and finally captured the outskirts of Yecheng from Shenpei. Shenpei had no choice but to retreat to Zicheng. After the war, Huang Zhong took off his armor.
When Liu Bei found his stomach, Mingguang Armor was filled with arrows like hedgehogs. The soldiers counted the arrow clusters carefully, and there were as many as 164 arrows. After Liu Bei heard about it, he asked Huang Zhong for this armor and stomach. After seeing it, he couldn't help but encourage Huang Zhong.
Zhongdao said: "Han was promoted to the top of the three armies in bravery. Even though he was given infants, how can he compare with Geng Yan?" He was immediately promoted to General Zuo, and his reward was second only to Guan and Zhang.
Since the outer walls of Yecheng were lost, the Zicheng was certainly not a problem. Around late August, the Eastern defenders ran out of bows and Shenpei was at the end of his rope. He hanged himself in the city that day. His nephew Shenrong opened the city and surrendered, bearing thorns.
Waiting for Liu Bei to deal with it. In the same month, Guan Yu led his troops to attack Handan and captured Cao Ren. Seeing that the two cities were lost and the second general in the palace was lost, Cao Cao couldn't help but burst into tears and cried bitterly by the river. But the defeat was irreversible, so he had to lead the remaining troops to retreat.
To Guantao, Qingyuan area.
Seeing this, all the generals of the Han army asked Liu Bei to fight, hoping to take advantage of the victory to pursue and defeat the enemy in one fell swoop. However, Liu Bei thought for a long time and declined the suggestion. He said: "It has been a long time since we have been attacking the city for months.
After the battle, the whole army was exhausted. Although Cao Cao lost many generals, he was waiting for work. In addition, the soldiers were in a desperate situation, and they may become mournful soldiers. If they failed to win, they were afraid that the hard-won achievements would be in vain. It is better to go first
Take a rest."
When he discussed the war with his cronies in private, he added: "As the saying goes, you should take care of one thing and the other, but you can't have it both ways. So when we formulated the strategy in Chang'an at the beginning of the year, even though the war was going on at the same time in Bashu and Hebei,
The reality is that the west route attacked and the east route broke through, but since the prime minister has made a breakthrough and is likely to win the battle of Bashu, then I should not take risks anymore, but should give my full support to the prime minister!"
So Liu Bei left Guan Yu to lead the Chinese army to garrison in Yecheng, while he led the rest of his troops back to Luoyang. The war in Hebei temporarily came to an end with the Western Army taking Wei and Zhao counties.
The impact of Chen Chong's invasion of Shu was not only limited to the Western Dynasty, but more far-reaching was the outcome of the dispute between the two grandsons in the south of the Yangtze River.
After Liu Fan learned that Chen Chong had entered Shu, he hurriedly led his army back. This freed Sun Quan from worries and was able to mobilize Lu Su, Lu Yi and other troops in the north of the Yangtze River to go south to participate in the war against Sun Shao. While Cao Cao was confronting Liu Bei
, still painstakingly supported Sun Quan and collected more than 4,000 war horses from Youyan, which were all sent to Jiangdong. After Sun Quan gave them to Lu Meng, the governor of Xuzhou, he spread all over the south of the Yangtze River for a while, causing Sun Shao to be defeated repeatedly in field battles.
, we can only defend ourselves around Luo County.
For Sun Shao's camp, the loss of Liu Fan's support is undoubtedly a huge bad news. Liu Fan not only took care of Sun Shao in terms of military supplies and supplies, but more importantly, the Jingzhou navy could serve as Sun Shao's reinforcements, which made Sun Quan's navy
They didn't dare to act rashly. As soon as Liu Fan withdrew, Sun Shao couldn't help but fall into a military disadvantage. What's more terrible is that the waterway on the flanks was completely open to Sun Quan, allowing Sun Quan's navy to move between them.
Deng Dang persuaded Sun Shao that it would be better to retreat south to Guiyang, wait for Sun Quan to pursue and extend the front line, and then wait for an opportunity to counterattack. However, Sun Shao dismissed it as nonsense. He told the generals: "I am the Marquis of Wu.
My legitimate son, the country should belong to me, but now my late father has unexpectedly happened, Sun Quan pretended to usurp power, and the country and counties do not know what to do, so I have to reiterate my righteousness to the states. Once I return to Lingnan, my father will regard me as an incompetent person.
If you are a frightened person and succumb to the thieves, Sun Quan will trap me in Lingnan and attack me with several times the number of thieves. Is it possible that we will survive?" Deng Dang was speechless.
However, there was no suspense about the war at this point. As Deng Dang expected, Sun Quan ordered Zhou Yu to lead the navy south along the Xiang River, cross Sun Shao and take Linxiang directly, and conquered it in one day, thereby locking Sun Shao's army between Linxiang and Luoxian.
Then Zhou Yu took charge of the southern counties on behalf of Sun Quan, claiming that once he did anything, let bygones be bygones.
Sun Shao's army was an impromptu attack without careful planning. Officials in Jiaozhou and Jingnan were forced by the situation. When they heard the news from Zhou Yu, they all responded to the envoy anyway. By August, except for Sun Shao's own army,
In addition, all officials under the original Sun Ce shogunate have recognized Sun Quan as the orthodox one.
Under Sun Quan's heavy siege, Sun Shao's troops were in food shortage and morale was low. Soldiers fled every day, and Sun Shao was unable to support him. Sun Quan knew that the time had come, so he sent Liu Ye to make peace with Sun Shao, saying that as long as Sun Shao
After giving up his claim, Sun Quan acquitted all the rebel soldiers. Sun Shao was not allowed to hold important positions, but he was still supported by the state government and had a rank of thousands of stones.
When the situation reached this point, the morale of the people and the army were unavailable, and there was no way to escape. Sun Shao had to admit defeat. In early September, Sun Shao, dressed in white, came out of Sun Quan's camp in a single boat. All the troops in Yangzhou cheered.
The successful resolution of the dispute between the two grandsons also means that Sun Quan, the former governor of Lujiang, has won the unanimous approval of Jiangdong and officially became the new leader of the Yangzhou shogunate.
At this point, the war in the first year of Zhangwu came to an end, and the continuous turmoil between the north and the south finally evolved into a situation where the Western Dynasty was dominated by one family.