Fang Guan was not famous in the history books of later generations.
However, in the Tang Dynasty at that time, Fang Guan was a well-known brand in the circle of court officials.
If you want to talk about the reasons:
First, Fang Guan's father was Fang Rong, and Fang Rong was the prime minister during Wu Zetian's period. He was proficient in political affairs and had profound attainments in Buddhism, which was highly praised by literati.
Second, Fang Guan has extremely rich political experience. He has held important positions in all six ministries, and when he was appointed as a state official, his political performance was also very good and he was deeply trusted by the court.
Third, Fang Guan had a loyal character and did not like to form gangs. He only loyal to the emperor. When Li Longji fled west to Shu, Fang Guan failed to join the fleeing team. He gave up his family and property and chased Li Longji from Chang'an.
When he arrived in Shuzhong, he was also favored by the Holy Spirit for this point.
These three points were summed up, and Li Longji regarded him as the pillar of the country and was willing to entrust him with important responsibilities.
But Fang Guan was an out-and-out civil servant with almost no experience in war. He asked Li Longji for troops to regain Chang'an, and he relied entirely on his passion.
However, Li Longji, who had experienced countless betrayals, felt at ease with such a civil servant.
Fortunately, Li Longji also knew that Fang Guan was not good at fighting, so he sent two deputies to him. One was the former Beiting Jiedushi and Tang veteran Cheng Qianli, and the other was who had served under Ge Shuhan.
Wang Sili.
Fang Guan led an army of 200,000 people, marching from Liangzhou to Chang'an. When he encountered the Yan army on the way, he always wanted to imitate the ancient military methods and come up with all kinds of strange and bizarre tactics to defeat the enemy.
Cheng Qianli is old, straightforward and has a bad temper. Every time he hears Fang Guan talk about the tactics in ancient books, he not only sneers, but sometimes even curses.
Wang Sili, on the other hand, is much smarter. He will try to use detours to persuade Fang Guan to give up those wild ideas and try to defeat the enemy head-on.
At first, the three of them worked together without incident.
When the army marched to Qingzhou, according to the original strategy, the army needed to be divided into two groups. The West Route Army went to Chencang and attacked Chang'an from the west. The East Route Army went to Tongguan and attacked Chang'an from the east.
In the end, the two armies from the east and west made dumplings and completely surrounded the enemy, forming a complete victory.
The ideal is beautiful, but the reality is very skinny.
First of all, the commander of the East Route Army is Wang Sili. His departure means that a peacemaker has left among the three of them. The remaining West Route Army members, Fang Guan and Cheng Qianli, did not like each other and they were discussing the accounts in the army.
It has become commonplace for people to exchange verbal abuse.
Secondly, both the generals and the soldiers in the army had the intention of underestimating the enemy. The army of 200,000 was already several times the size of the Yan army's garrison in Chang'an. Moreover, along the way, the Yan army in various prefectures either fled at the sight of the wind.
Either they want to surrender. Therefore, the army led by Fang Guan, from top to bottom, believes that Chang'an is already in the bag and can be recovered soon.
Under such circumstances, the West Route Army led by Fang Guan arrived in Chencang and soon faced off against Yan Army General Cui Qianyou (the general who defeated Ge Shuhan).
Before the war, the general Fang Guan and his deputy Cheng Qianli had another quarrel about how to meet the enemy.
Fang Guan was angry and ordered Cheng Qianli to take charge of the rear army, and asked his cronies to command the front army.
Although Cheng Qianli was furious, he could not disobey the military order and could only obey it.
Next, Fang Guan led an army of 120,000 men and officially started a duel with Cui Qianyou in Zhongguan (plain) west of Chang'an.
I don’t know which military book Fang Guan read about a strategy called Qianniu Formation.
To put it simply, two thousand cows were found and fought in the front line, and then the cavalry of the Tang army followed the cows, driving them with whips and other objects, and rushed towards the enemy's formation.
When Cui Qianyou saw Tang Jun use this move, he laughed so much that he almost fell off his horse.
He commanded the soldiers of the Yan army to use torches to light the grass in front of them when the Thousand Ox Formation came within thirty steps.
When the two thousand cattle encountered the fire, they were frightened and rushed back. Not only did they overturn the Tang Army cavalry behind them, they also defeated the Tang Army's front line that was charging forward.
Coincidentally, God was not in his favor. At this time, a strong wind blew on the battlefield, and the fire took advantage of the wind and rolled directly into the Tang army's camp.
As a result, before the two armies formally engaged in battle, the Tang army was killed by cattle, burned to death, and trampled to death by friendly forces. As many as 40,000 people escaped from the battlefield.
Seeing that the time was ripe, Cui Qianyou commanded his Yan army to charge forward.
The Tang army was in chaos and was unable to resist.
The 120,000-strong army was defeated like a mountain and was chased by the Yan army all the way, causing countless casualties.
At this time, Cheng Qianli, a veteran who led the rear army, stepped forward.
He led two thousand fine cavalry to charge the Yan army, stopping the enemy's offensive and creating an opportunity for other Tang troops to escape.
However, Cheng Qianli himself was unable to escape because he was trapped in a heavy siege, and was finally besieged by the Yan army in the Guanshan area.
After rejecting Cui Qianyou's offer to surrender, Cheng Qianli took his remaining 300 cavalry and launched a final charge against the tens of thousands of Yan troops.
In the end, this veteran who had served in the army in Anxi for many years died under random arrows and ended his tragic life.
After the Eastern Route Army led by Wang Sili arrived at Tongguan, they faced Yan Army General An Shouzhong.
The two armies faced off for more than ten days. While Wang Sili was waiting for news from the West Route Army, he fought back and forth with the Yan Army.
However, Wang Sili did not wait for the good news after all, but heard the bad news of the defeat of the West Route Army.
Wang Sili, who knew that nothing could be done, made a decisive decision and commanded the army to retreat while pretending to be suspicious of the formation.
An Shouzhong led his army to pursue, but was caught in an ambush by Wang Sili. Seeing that he would not get any favors, he withdrew his troops and returned to Tongguan.
At this point, the farce of Fang Guan leading an army of 200,000 to regain Chang'an finally came to an end.
There were nearly 90,000 Tang soldiers killed, missing, and defecting to the enemy. If Cheng Qianli hadn't fought to the death for the rear, and if Wang Sili hadn't seen the right opportunity to withdraw his troops, this number would probably have increased a lot.
After the news of the army's disastrous defeat reached Liangzhou, Li Longji, who originally thought he was sure of victory and drank and held banquets every day, suddenly fell ill after hearing the news and fainted in the hospital again.
The first thing Li Longji did after waking up was to use all his spare energy to write an imperial edict, urgently ordering Zhou Jun to come back and deal with the aftermath.
In this way, the important task of turning the tide returned to Zhou Jun's shoulders.
After receiving the imperial edict, Zhou Jun, who was in Boling City, temporarily appointed Guo Ziyi as commander-in-chief and Li Guangbi as deputy commander-in-chief.
Before leaving, Zhou Jun gave an order to Guo Ziyi, ordering him to lead the army and go north as soon as possible. After joining Pugu Huai'en, they participated in the siege of Fan Yang.
Zhou Jun himself took Kong You with him, mounted a fast horse, and hurried all the way to Liangzhou.
On the way, Zhou Jun looked solemn. Seeing this, Kong You asked.
Zhou Jun said: "When An Lushan launched a rebellion in Hebei, after getting rid of the foreign barbarians, he had 150,000 elite soldiers from Hebei. Among these 150,000 elite soldiers, 100,000 were brought to Guanzhong, and another 50,000
People are stationed in Hebei. The 10,000 defenders in Boling City are part of them."
"When I led the army from Lingwu, I conquered cities and territories along the way. First, I relied on the elite soldiers from the three towns to conquer and fight well, and second, I relied on Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi and other generals to lead the troops well. Then I easily captured Jiumen and Zhaojun.
Waiting for the prefectures and counties. At that time, not to mention other people, even I felt that the Hebei army was nothing more than the enemy, and that the name of a strong army was just in vain."
Kong You saw Zhou Jun shaking his head and waited for the latter's next words.
Zhou Jun continued: "The Boling Ambush and the Battle of Chang'an were a complete wake-up call for me. Let's talk about the Boling Battle first. Our army has 80,000 elite troops from the Anxi Army, the Beiting Army and the Shuofang Army, so we can fight more
It was an ambush again. If they were facing other armies, I am afraid that the enemy would collapse after just one encounter. But the 10,000 Hebei defenders in Boling City not only did not retreat, but became more courageous as they fought. If the general in charge was not Guo Ziyi
and Li Guangbi, if it were someone else, and after the ambush battle is over, it is still unclear who will win and who will lose."
"Let's talk about the Battle of Chang'an. Fang Guan had an army of 200,000 under his command. Although the general's command was incompetent, Cui Qianyou and An Shouzhong, the generals who fought in the front line of the rebel army, used an army that included 30,000 of the most elite troops in the rebel army.
The Yiluohe cavalry did not move, and only sent 20,000 Hebei soldiers, plus some other troops that were trapped, and the Tang army was defeated."
Kong You heard this and asked: "There are still 30,000 Hebei troops in Fanyang City. Are you worried about Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi's difficulty in attacking the city?"
Zhou Jun nodded lightly: "Hebei is the key to the entire war situation, and Fan Yang is the key to Hebei. When we can capture Fan Yang has become a crucial issue. I hope Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi and the others will not let me down.