Later generations will call the Linyu Pass Road the Liaoxi Corridor, and it is also an appropriate description to say it is a corridor. From Yuguan Road to Songshan, sandwiched between Songling Mountain and Liaodong Bay, this section is 3670 miles long and only 100 meters wide.
The long and narrow terrain ranging from ten to twenty miles, connecting the old county of Liaodong and the land of Yanji, is really a standard corridor terrain.
After the defeat of Chentangyi, all the frontier troops withdrew into Linyu Pass, handing over the land in western Liaoning outside the pass to the Donghu people.
The land of western Liaoning was backed by mountains and bordered by the sea. The Donghu people had no intention of building fortifications and confrontation with the Yue Dynasty on the narrow terrain. After gaining the territory of western Liaoning, the Donghu people moved the Liao people into Liao to manage Liaodong. They also destroyed the fortresses in western Liaoning and killed hundreds of people in western Liaoning.
Tens of thousands of acres of farmland were all turned into wasteland, and only Songshan, Tashan and Jinxi cities were built at the northern end, which became the defense line outside the royal capital of Liaoyang.
After winter, on a frosty and windy evening, among the hills south of Ningjin in western Liaoning, on the top of a bare and cold mountain, there was a ruin. In the depression in the southeast corner of the ruins lay a boundary monument broken into two parts.
On the stone, you can see the three characters "Chentangyi".
This is the main battlefield of the Battle of Chentangyi. The fortress of that year has been completely destroyed. Perhaps you can see the majesty of Chentangyi fortress from the scale of the ruins, but now it is not as good as the solitary pine tree on the top of the mountain.
More upright.
There are about two hundred cavalry standing on the top of the mountain, wearing black armor that makes people feel chilled just by looking at it, and blue-black cloaks. It is already early winter, and the wind hurts the face like a razor. Without the cloak,
If anything, the weather is really pleasant.
Gao Zongting rode over hard and saw the commander-in-chief standing in front. When he walked over, he saw the boundary stone at the feet of the commander-in-chief. This is Chentang Station. Gao Zongting personally left Yuguan and walked through Liaoxi.
It was the main battlefield for the confrontation between the border troops and the Donghu people. There were dozens of post forts and fortresses that were destroyed. If you couldn't see the boundary stone, Gao Zongting would have been riding a horse all the way, and the frost and wind would have beaten him so hard that he couldn't even open his eyes. It was really
I didn't know that I had already arrived at Chentangyi.
In front of the mountain is a shallow valley that is not deep. Since the wind and snow covered the earth, you can still see the corpses all over the mountain and valley. In the battle of Chentangyi, all the elite frontier troops were lost.
There are more than a hundred thousand corpses lying in the mountains and forest valleys. Listening to the howling north wind, it seems like countless ghosts are howling.
Gao Zongting subconsciously wrapped his cloak tighter and said: "News came from the south that the bandit Changle army captured Qichun, which negated the results of Huaidong's raid on the east coast of Fujian - Jiangning was caught off guard.
We intend to mobilize Zhihu to go south and attack the Changle Army first. There is no new news from Datong, and we should be able to support it until the spring in the hands of Ye Jiduo. Hao Zongcheng also brought the Holy Edict, perhaps urging us to speed up the march.
, I’ll ride over first to find the commander-in-chief!”
Li Zhuo stood like a bronze statue in the frosty cold wind and asked with a sigh: "Did Qichun fall?"
"Well, Qichun fell, and everything from Jinghu to Jiangxi and then to Jiangdong was in chaos," Gao Zongting said. "Zhihu fought fiercely in Henan, and finally joined forces with the Changhuai Army and besieged the Red Coat Army in Huaihe
On the Yangtze River, if he is suddenly sent south, the battle results accumulated since July will be destroyed in one day! Maybe Jiangning should send the Huaidong Army to move westward!"
"Huaidong," Li Zhuo turned to look at the dark sky in the south, shook his head and said, "Lin Fu will not go westward. He reminded Qichun over and over again that something might go wrong, but he turned a deaf ear to it. At this time, it's really
If something goes wrong, he won't run over to help... The people of Huaidong are not you and me."
Gao Zongting turned to look at the ruins on the hilltop without saying anything. He knew that if the Donghu people had not sent troops to besiege Datong as scheduled, the commander-in-chief would have postponed the issue of sending troops until next spring before considering whether to send troops.
The Donghu people are becoming more and more confident and willing to fight. In order to prevent the Donghu people from besieging Datong and then dividing their troops to attack Jinzhong or Yannan, Li Zhuo can only follow the established plan and attack from Linyu during this season.
Guan sent troops, hoping to attract the main force of Donghu to the north of the Liaoxi Corridor - Li Zhuo suppressed the speed of the army, just to wait until the Donghu people could not resist the pressure and withdraw their troops from the periphery of Datong.
As long as the Donghu people withdraw from Datong, Li Zhuo will be charged with resisting and disobeying the order and will withdraw his troops and return to the pass.
What a shame, the Donghu people were not moved at all by the Northern Expeditionary Army that left Linyu. The number of soldiers and horses assembled outside Datong always remained at more than 100,000, and the imperial edicts urging them to speed up their march came one after another.
Feng asked Li Zhuo to take advantage of the Donghu troops gathering on the outskirts of Datong to attack Liaoyang, the heart of the Donghu people.
"Ta-ta-ta" the sound of horse hooves was mixed with the sound of the wind, which was blocked by a hill, but a group of horses could be heard approaching. Gao Zongting said: "Maybe Hao Zongcheng can't wait any longer at the camp..."
After a while, it turned out that Hao Zongcheng, surrounded by dozens of cavalry, rode over.
"Li Shuai, after the army came out of the pass, they recaptured the cities of Ningjin and won many great victories. The Holy Spirit was greatly relieved and asked me to bring an edict to commend the generals..." Hao Zongcheng dismounted his horse as if rolling and said loudly.
Gao Zongting glanced at the ruins and thought to himself: Is this considered a recovered city?
In the battle of Chentangyi, the frontier army was defeated thousands of miles away and lost the power of field battles outside the pass. The Donghu people kept the land in western Liaoning and did not take it. They only built a city at the northern end of the Liaoxi Corridor. First, the city-building technology of the Donghu people was limited; secondly, maybe the Donghu people
People want to attract the main force of the frontier army to go out and build forts, in order to once again defeat the frontier army in the outer field battle...
The 60,000-strong Northern Army marched very slowly. In more than ten days, they only covered half of the more than 300-mile-long Linyu Pass Road. They were still 140-50 miles away from Songshan, Jinxi and other cities in the north. In addition to exterminating the Donghu people,
Outside the few outposts in western Liaoning, the Northern Army had no other gains, but it became a great victory in Hao Zongcheng's eyes.
Li Zhuo didn't say anything else. He cupped hands with Hao Zongcheng and said, "Master Hao, it's hard work traveling back and forth..."
"What do I have to do so hard?" Hao Zongcheng said with a smile. He put the imperial edict in his sleeve. According to the rules, he had to wait until he returned to the big tent and set up the incense table before reading it out. So he only told Li Zhuo what was written in the imperial edict, not
He would directly hand over the imperial edict to Li Zhuo and said, "The war in Datong is getting tighter, and everything is waiting for Li Shuai's final decision. The Holy Emperor specifically asked me to ask Li Shuai whether he can push the army to Liaoyang City... I also know that Liaoyang may not be good.
However, as long as we capture Songshan and other cities, we can force the soldiers who besieged Datong to withdraw from the siege. We can also regain the old county in western Liaoning and restore the situation to what it was five or six years ago. Although the situation in the south has been repeated, Chen Zhihu is really a fierce general today.
There should be no big worries. Chen Zhihu went south in June. In just over four months, he has already achieved more than 50,000 first-level awards. He is truly a famous general! Although there are many bandits, they will be killed at some point. The situation in Jianghuai will be calmed down soon! Li Shuaixiu
If you complain, I will nag and urge you. I respect Li Shuai as the pillar of the imperial court, but I don’t want Li Shuai to lead the Northern Expedition but be much inferior to his beloved general in the past!"
"In the past, we had a bad reputation. Didn't we rely on the help of Zhihu and the others to support it?" Li Zhuo's expression remained as usual. He ignored Hao Zongcheng's provocation and asked again, "I heard reports that there has been heavy snowfall in Yannan. This winter it may be possible."
It will be extremely cold, so donating food and supplies won’t be a problem, right?”
"Even if the Jinhai Sea may be blocked by sea ice in a few days, there will be no problem," Hao Zongcheng said. "The Duke of Lu spent a lot of effort to build a post road in Jinan that leads directly to the Wei River. The rice grains in Shandong and Hedong,
You can take the land route to Weihe and then transfer to Gyeonggi. The food and grass stored on the Changli line can be used to ensure that the Northern Army is fully utilized..."
The sediments of the Yellow River have almost silted up all the canal channels in Jinan and Pingyuan Prefectures, taking away the channel of the Zhulong River to the sea. To open the canal, the river channel must be dug again. The imperial court did not have the strength to do it for the time being, and Liang Xi, the Duke of Lu, did not have the strength to do it either.
Just building a post road to transport grain to Beijing would actually be very limited.
The last time the Donghu people broke through the border and entered the customs, they took away nearly 400,000 Dingkou from the three prefectures of Yannan, and also took away 600,000 to 700,000 livestock from Yannan and Shandong.
The region suffered another setback.
In Yannan and other places, don't think that the vitality can be restored in ten or eight years. First, there are too many losses in Dingkou, and secondly, there is a serious shortage of farming animals...
It was a good thing to build a post road to transport grain, but Gao Zongting doubted whether the Liang family could find enough mules and horses to transport grain: transporting grain by land from Jinan to Weihe cannot be a high expectation. The Liang family did not have anyone who was truly proficient in political affairs.
, I’m afraid you haven’t thought of the stubborn disease, right?
But what is even more worrying is the imperial court's over-optimism about the situation in Jianghuai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang - the Changle army captured Qichun, which has obviously disrupted the deployment of Jiangdong, but the imperial court is more willing to believe that as long as Chen Zhihu is transferred south, the solution can be solved
All questions.
Gao Zongting met Chen Zhihu in Yanling in mid-July. In fact, he did not expect Chen Zhihu to listen to his words. In fact, it proved that after that, Chen Zhihu still went his own way and was accustomed to using killing to solve all problems, which also made the court and Jiangning
Opinions against the refugee militia tended to be one-sided in favor of suppression and annihilation.
Hao Zongcheng saw that Li Zhuo and Gao Zongting were thinking about something at the same time. When the Liang family built the Yuncao Post Road, they were touched. He looked at Li Zhuo and sneered in his heart: You support Huaidong's monopoly on the Jinhai grain road, probably because you don't want to see it.
The Liang family should also take a share of the pie!
At the beginning, Hao Zongcheng could obtain some private grain from the Jinhai Grain Road and transport it to the capital for profit. After Tang Haoxin's death, Lin Fu cut off the supply of private grain to Hao Zongcheng and allocated this part of the private grain to Gao Zongting for use.
To make up for the shortfall in pay for the Jibei Army - this was also a reward for Li Zhuo's support for Huaidong in the matter of "salt and silver to protect grain".
Hao Zongcheng, on the other hand, held a grudge. The Liang family built the canal transport road and was able to get a share of the Tianjin-Hai grain road. He put in a lot of effort and was inevitably a little proud. He added: "The Holy Emperor saw that the weather was getting colder in the palace. He thought
When I arrived in the north, I was specially asked to bring a fine tribute coat to Li Shuai, asking Li Shuai to take good care of himself and serve the imperial court."
"The emperor's kindness is so great that Li Zhuo feels it deeply in his heart. He should devote himself wholeheartedly to the imperial court..." Li Zhuo bowed his hands in the southwest direction.
Gao Zongting was worried: Hao Zongcheng, on behalf of the emperor, braved the bitter cold weather to come over to supervise the army and urge the battle. How could the commander-in-chief delay the attack on Songshan?