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After the Huaidong Army put the bed crossbows, scorpion crossbows and other war weapons into defensive positions, the reinforcements that followed Azige to cross north and entered the iron pile wharf completely suppressed the low-lying river beach. Several upward attacks were carried out.
Blocked by the bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows, they were repulsed with heavy casualties, but could not shake the Huaidong Army's position outside the Iron Pile Pier.
The night was getting darker, and it was already past midnight when looking at the stars. The killings in Fancheng gradually disappeared, indicating that Fancheng had almost been captured by the Huaidong Army.
pursuit.
The scarlet battle flag of the Huaidong Army had been raised on the top of Fancheng City. Azig was very anxious. According to the reports from the scouts who were approaching Fancheng, the five thousand soldiers and horses who attacked Fancheng were the elite of the two brigades under the Huaidong Chongcheng Army. As for the
How they sneaked in, how they disguised themselves as Chaishan grain escorts and approached Fancheng, whether someone from Luo Xiancheng's side had already defected to Huaidong, we can't know for sure...
For now, the intention of this Huaidong Army is obvious, which is to control Fancheng and the Qiaodu area in the south of the city, and cut off the grain road going south from Fancheng. The destruction of the tens of thousands of grain and grain stored in Fancheng will be minor. After all, Fancheng
It is just a relay storage station on the grain road. Thanks to Fan Lan's method of transporting grain in sections, the grain in the northern section of the Han River is actually stored in sections in Ruyang, Fangcheng, Nanyang, Xinye and other cities. If
Hundreds of thousands of stones of grain and fodder were stored in Fancheng to allow the Huaidong Army to successfully attack. Even if Fancheng was recaptured afterwards, the entire Jingxiang War would not be able to reverse the defeat.
However, Fancheng was lost and the food route was cut off. If Fancheng could not be recaptured as soon as possible, the supply of troops and horses in Jingzhou and eastern Hubei would be unsustainable, which would also lead to major disasters...
At this time, Azig's army and horses, which had previously attacked Fancheng by surprise, were here to cut off the grain road and relieve the siege of Jingzhou.
Although Azig led the Xiangfan garrison on the north bank and still occupied the iron pile pier and the pontoon bridge at Feiyu Cape, they could not fight out. If the battle formation expanded slightly, they would encounter a fierce counterattack by the Huaidong Army, and they would suffer heavy casualties.
Coming back - the hard laborers who had been enslaved to transport grain were now willing to be driven by the Huaidong Army and dig long trenches outside the east fortress - all this made Azig feel anxious and uneasy.
The prefect of Xiangyang, Shen Haobo, and his deputy, Tong Ruilin, crossed the river to join Azige. Shen Haobo followed him across the river. It's not that he was very brave, but Azige died in the battle on the north bank. Shen Haobo knew that even if he defended Xiangyang, he would be in Beiyan in the future.
There will be no good days to live.
Shen Haobo once served as the deputy envoy of the Qingzhou Zhidu Envoy Department and was trusted by Gu Wuchen. However, he failed to maintain his integrity after the Qingzhou War. In order to survive in Yangxin, he chose to surrender to Yan. Later, he spared no effort to suppress the Qingzhou Army for Beiyan in eastern Shandong.
The remaining forces gained the trust of Beiyan, but they were also hated by Huaidong and were listed as a target of death.
Shen Haobo looked at the bed crossbows, scorpion crossbows and other war weapons in the Huaidong Army's defense formation, and felt cold in his heart: This Huaidong Army is sneaking to attack the Jingxiang grain road, be well prepared!
Deputy General Tong Ruilin said: "If we don't want to affect the war on the southern front, the troops outside Xiangfan that can be mobilized to recapture Fancheng are Shicheng, Jingmen, and Nanyang. However, just sending troops from one of these three places is not enough.
To recapture Fancheng, we should give up the entanglement at the iron pile wharf, go east to the mouth of Baihe River, establish a position in the southeast of Fancheng, wait for the reinforcements from Shicheng, Nanyang and Jingzhou to arrive, and then advance together to the gate of Fancheng..."
"What General Tong said is true," Shen Haobo also advised Azige, who looked like a murderer. "You should also immediately send someone to ask for help from the King of Ruzhou, Chen Zhihu. If the King of Ruzhou can come over with reinforcements, it will be even better to recapture Fancheng."
confident……"
Apart from Xiangyang, the closest thing to Fancheng is the troops and horses stationed in Nanyang. But on the other side of Nanyang, the main force of Tu'an's command must guard Biyang to prevent Huaixi troops from passing through Tongbai Mountain and attacking Nanyang Basin City.
The cities such as Nanyang, Xinye, Xichuan, Zaoyang and Wuguan to the west within a hundred and fifty miles from Fancheng have very limited military strength. Except for the core city of Xiangyang, the total number of troops stationed in other cities is only six to seven thousand.
people.
After Ye Ji Luorong led his troops south, these places were regarded as absolutely safe hinterlands and not key cities. How could they put too many troops on guard?
Within two hundred and fifty miles from Fancheng, the cities with large-scale garrison mainly include Wuyang (where Chen Zhihu's general Leng Zilin led 10,000 elite troops to garrison) and Shicheng (where Su Tingzhan led more than 15,000 infantry and cavalry to garrison).
), Jingmen (Ye Ji Luorong had 10,000 cavalry there to protect Jingzhou's retreat) and Suizhou.
The reinforcements from Suizhou were already very unreliable. If we wanted to get enough reinforcements to recapture Fancheng in two days, we could only count on the troops garrisoned in Wuyang, Shicheng, and Jingzhou to return for reinforcements.
It is impossible for the defenders of these three cities to send out all their reinforcements to attack Fan City. It is very likely that they will send half or even one-third of their troops back to assist Fan City. Then no reinforcements along the way can recapture Fan City alone——
The most sensible thing is to, as Tong Ruilin said, Azig choose an open area outside Fancheng to stand up, wait for the reinforcements from the three routes to gather, and then go under Fancheng to recapture Fancheng, instead of blindly attacking Fancheng and giving Huai the enemy who occupied Fancheng.
The Eastern Army attacked in divided positions, taking advantage of every opportunity to defeat them...
Although Azig was unwilling to give in, he could still maintain his rationality: although he still had five or six thousand elites in Xiangyang, they fought for a long time and were still suppressed at the bridgehead and iron pile dock and could not get out. As time went by,
This Huaidong Army will have tighter and tighter control over Fancheng and Qiaodu District, especially as a large number of war weapons are added to the defense line and Fancheng's hard labor is willing to be used by the Huaidong Army. He only relies on Xiangyang's five or six thousand soldiers.
It is undoubtedly a delusion for the soldiers to take back Fancheng...
Tong Ruilin was born in the Tong Jia family and changed his Han surname to Tong. He was a veteran general of Beiyan. Azige had to admit that what he proposed was indeed a prudent strategy, and he was more prudent than himself in key situations.
Neither the iron pile pier nor the pontoon bridgehead is a place where reinforcements can be gathered.
The terrain of Tiezhuang Wharf and Feiyu Cape is too narrow. No matter how much force they have, they will not be able to deploy it. It will only take advantage of the Huaidong Army, which has a large number of heavy crossbows in the defensive formation.
It is not that Beiyan did not attach importance to craftsmanship and war weapons. Although many princes and ministers who fought on horseback and made great achievements in war paid unremitting attention to these, Emperor Tianming paid great attention to craftsmanship such as smelting and forging as early as when he was governing Liaodong.
When Yanji was acquired, Emperor Tianming even sent out the elite of the royal army to protect the Zunhua Iron Works to ensure that it would not be destroyed by the rebel army; he also sent an important minister equivalent to the Minister of Household Affairs to manage the Zunhua Iron Works, so that
Tieshi's annual iron production increased to four million jins in two years.
After occupying Yanjing, Emperor Tianming first listed tens of thousands of craftsmen in Yanjing city as military households for protection. They also manufactured large-scale production in the army, using bed crossbows, catapult crossbows and other war weapons, and even used
Craftsmen imitated Huaidong warships, scorpion crossbows, and heavy sling crossbows that were fired with a weight attached to the end of the cannon...
It's a pity that Huaidong's heavy crossbow weapons benefit from its overall manufacturing level and cannot be easily imitated by others.
The counterweighted stone crossbow is simple to say. It lifts a heavy object weighing thousands or even tens of thousands of kilograms at the end of the tip pole, then suddenly drops it, and uses the principle of leverage to hit the large stone projectile weighing more than a hundred kilograms at the tip.
Out of the box, it is not much different from an ordinary sling crossbow - the key is the construction of the weight at the tip and tail.
The Huaidong Army directly made large iron balls, hemispherical iron balls weighing four to five thousand kilograms, and merged into two on the battlefield, weighing more than eight thousand kilograms to about twelve thousand kilograms, to form the tip and tail weight of the heavy stone crossbow.
Not to mention that the price of iron and copper was the same in the world, and the value of eight thousand kilograms of iron was astonishing. In a siege battle, fifty heavy-duty catapults were used, and the weight at the end alone would use four to five million kilograms of iron.
Material, which force can easily play with it?
In addition, how to transport hemispherical iron balls that weigh more than 4,000 to 5,000 kilograms quickly and easily into the battlefield is also a worrying problem...
The combination of various factors means that even if others can imitate Huaidong's heavy catapult crossbow, they will not be able to use it on a large scale!
The Beiyan army was equipped with some crossbows, but the priority was to protect the troops and horses attacking Jingzhou. With Xiangyang as the rear and the hub of the grain road, how could the defenders have many heavy crossbows?
They don't even have a crossbow on hand, and they are suppressed in a narrow area that is not easy to deploy. How can they compete with the Huaidong Army, which is equally brave but has dozens of heavy crossbows in the defense? If they fight again, they will only be defeated.
Ask the Huaidong Army to wear out the elite Xiangyang garrison in vain.
Azig thought through this and returned to the warship with Tong Ruilin and Shen Haobo. Azig did not abandon the bridgehead and the iron pile pier, but reduced the number of troops to avoid being too dense and causing large-scale damage to the Huaidong Army's war equipment to ensure that
The bridge head and the iron pile wharf are still the main points, and we no longer want to open up these two narrow areas. However, we will take advantage of the naval force's control of the Han River to find an open landing point in the downstream direction. We plan to stand on the outside of Fancheng and wait for the converging forces.
After the reinforcements are sent, we can attack Fancheng.
Azige, Shen Haobo and Tong Ruilin never thought that the troops lurking in the hinterland of Jingxiang in Huaidong were far inferior to the ones in front of them, nor did they think of establishing a new river crossing channel in the west of Xiangyang as soon as possible to connect it with Baiyang Pass and Danjiangkou on the north bank.
, but wanted to take back Fancheng.
The enemy would slow down their offensive, which was exactly what Huang Zuyu and Zhou Bin wanted. They seized the time to pull the carts loaded with various supplies into the city, seized the time to build the east and west defense fortresses in the bridge crossing area, dug long trenches outside the defenses to strengthen defense, and chose
Some reliable young civilians were directly issued armor and incorporated into the army to make up for the lack of troops defending Fancheng.
Even if the reinforcements led by Sun Zhuang were blocked halfway and failed to arrive in time, Huang Zuyu and Zhou Bin were determined to lead five thousand generals and five thousand civilians to defend until the main force of the Huaidong Army reached the gates of Fancheng...
*********************
On the 18th, Huang Zuyu and Zhou Bin led five thousand elite troops disguised as Chaishan grain guards to attack Fancheng.
Azige, the defender of Xiangyang, failed to counterattack Fancheng. He led his water infantry to retreat to the mouth of Baihe River, 30 miles east of Fancheng, and dug a long moat to wait for reinforcements to arrive. At the same time, Xiangyang Xinqi rode out to various places at night to report the news.
To show respect: Go to Jingmen in the south, Nanyang in the north, Wuguan in the west, Zaoyang in the east, and ride in Suizhou to spread the news of the attack on Fancheng to all places in Jingxiang in the shortest possible time.
Considering that the soldiers and horses attacking Fancheng came from the east, scouts and horses may be left in the area east of Fancheng to carry out a tight blockade. Azige sent the troops to Zaoyang, and the Xinqi who reported the news to Suizhou took a detour from Zhongyi on the south bank of the Han River.
.
In the early morning of the 19th, four messengers from Xiangyang and eight fast horses took a boat across the Han River from Zhongyibei. They planned to reach Heishigou before branching off to Zaoyang and Suizhou.
Heishigou is called a ditch, but it is actually a mountain, with rocks forming a beach and no vegetation. The four messengers rode to the sparse forest in front of Heishigou to rest and tiptoe, and ate some dry food randomly, planning to rest for a while and then continue on their way.
The scouts who scout the horses and the messengers who carry the message are usually the elite of the Northern Yan army. Not to mention other things, just running a fast horse in the wild without getting lost is something ordinary people can do. They don't know the news that Fancheng has been lost.
, they firmly believed that the Huaidong Army that attacked Fancheng was just a small group, and as long as all localities cooperated well, it would not be a problem to recapture Fancheng.
At this time, a small wildfire burned on the top of the mountain in Heishigou. Under the rays of the pre-noon sun, it was not so obvious. Only a faint blue smoke rose into the sky, and was blown away by the wind, leaving no trace.
On the east bank of the Han River east of Zhong Yi, there were some people living and farming. However, as the war unfolded and a large number of young men were drawn to the battlefield, this area became completely deserted. There were occasional people in the ravines, but most of them were people.
Poor people who deserted military service and some unfettered hunters.
The wildfire on the top of the mountain did not arouse the suspicion of the four of them. After eating dry food, they changed their horses and headed north. There was a deserted post road to the north of Heishigou, leading to Zaoyang in the north and Suizhou in the west. The four of them planned to separate there, but unfortunately they arrived in time to make the reservation.
At that location, dozens of horse riders rushed out from the sparse forest. Although the horse riders were wearing ordinary leather armors that horse thieves would wear, the four Xinqi who went to Zaoyang and Suizhou to warn them all quickly understood that Fancheng
The enemy blocked the passage and actually blocked this side. This shows that the enemy's ambition is not just Fancheng.
Blocking the channel will only slow down the spread of the news, but cannot completely prevent the spread of the news. Especially the sneak attack on Fancheng by 5,000 troops will inevitably spread through word of mouth to all parts of Jingxiang. Sending a large number of people to blockade it, just call
Other places cannot get the news as soon as possible and make correct response.
The four knights didn't know if there were any enemies on the road ahead, but their responsibilities made them continue to rush forward even if they knew there were enemies on the road ahead...
For the Huaidong Army, they did not care at all about the enemy forces in Shicheng, Jingmen or Nanyang attacking Fancheng at this time. The reason why they focused on blocking the channel to Suizhou was to delay Suizhou's vigilance as much as possible to benefit the main force of Chaishan's troops.