Chapter 234: The Danger of Wei Country [Supplement 24/40]
"Protector, the two captains of ten thousand, Hecha Haqi and Hagar, died in the battle."
Just when Bosile, the chief general of the Jiejiao cavalry, was leading his army to attack the Chu army's main formation, some cavalry scouts brought the bad news.
After hearing the bad news, Bosile opened his mouth and said nothing for a while.
You must know that the two captains of ten thousand are both old subordinates who have been with them for ten years. Although they were not originally from the same tribe, the ten years of getting along with them can completely offset the alienation caused by this and even make them closer.
"How did the two of them...die?" Bosile asked with a solemn face.
"Hechahaqi was designed by the Chu army in the south of the city. He went deep into the enemy's army alone and was unable to break out and was killed; while Hagel was in the eastern suburbs and was suspected of being killed by the Chu army general Xiang Juan..." The cavalryman
explained.
After hearing this, Bosile turned his head and glanced at the eastern suburbs of Changyi City, but he did not see any signs of defeat by the Jiejiao cavalry there.
This is related to the customs of the Jie people. The Jie people use a fighting method similar to the "wolf pack". Their instructions are very simple, such as "kill the opponent", "rout the opponent", "defeat the opponent", etc. In this instruction
Basically, the Jiejiao cavalry fought against the enemy under the leadership of their respective commanders of thousands and thousands.
Every captain of ten thousand or ten thousand is like the leader of a pack of wolves. After the death of the leader, a wolf pack will immediately elect a new leader. The same is true for the Jiejiao cavalry. After the captain of ten thousand dies in battle,
Then the most courageous captain will take over the command.
This sounds quite similar to the promotion of generals in the Central Plains army during the war, but in fact it is very different. For example, the Jie people, who are aggressive and ruthless, are not very resistant to death in battle and die of illness.
On their beds, they would rather die in battle at the hands of a worthy opponent.
Anyway, they believe that their souls after death will be protected by the gods of the plateau.
Some people may think that since the Jie warriors are so brave and fearless of death, why did they surrender to Wei in the first place?
The reason is largely due to the "fierce oil" used by Zhao Run when he conquered Sanchuan County, that is, petroleum.
The fires caused by igniting oil could not be extinguished even by heavy rains. This shocked the people of Sanchuan, who mistakenly believed that the Wei State was protected by a fire god, and that this god's power was so powerful that he could use rainfall to
The gods of the plateau who came to save them in various ways were no match. Therefore, the Yi, Yi, and Jie tribes surrendered to Wei one after another.
Later, in order to strengthen the court's control over Sanchuan County, the Ministry of Rites of the Wei court spared no effort to instill in Sanchuan County ideas similar to "God-given monarchy". This made many people in Sanchuan "suddenly realize": It turned out that the King of Wei was the son of God.
How can we mere mortals defeat the Son of Heaven?
Since they knew that they could not win, but did not want their tribe to perish because of "acting against heaven", the Sanchuan people, including the Jie people, one after another surrendered to the Wei State, or in other words, surrendered to the one who made them respect and fear them.
The "Son of Heaven", King Zhao Run of Wei.
But now facing Chu's army, the situation was completely different.
Although the Chu army is more than ten times larger than the Jiejiao cavalry, these Jie warriors do not think that the opponent is invincible unless there is a powerful god standing behind these Chu people and demonstrating extraordinary strength.
Let them see with their own eyes a miracle like "the water from heaven cannot extinguish the fire".
Otherwise, the Jijiao cavalry will have no fear. If a captain of ten thousand dies in battle, the captain of thousands will be on top; if a captain of thousands dies in battle, a centurion will be on top until victory is achieved.
Because of this, even though the two captains Hechahaqi and Hagel died in battle, the Jiejiao cavalry in the suburbs in the south and east of Changyi City were not defeated. Of course, their morale was negatively affected.
The impact is inevitable.
"Chu General Xiang Kuan...?"
Because he only knew the name of one enemy general, Bosile secretly kept this name in his heart to avenge his two subordinates one day.
But at the moment, he couldn't care about this, because he was commanding his cavalry to attack the Chu army's main formation, where Chu Shuijun was located.
It has to be said that the army under Chu Shuijun is indeed incomparable with Wu Qi's Dongou Army and Xiang Kuan's Zhaoguan Army. No, in the face of the harassment and raid of about 20,000 Jiejiao cavalry in Bosile, there were many troops stationed there.
The main formation of the Chu State, with more than 200,000 Chu troops, was actually overwhelmed and was not as capable as the Dongou Army or the Zhaoguan Army, which had only tens of thousands of people.
This is not surprising. After all, although the army under Chu Shuijun has an absolute advantage in terms of numbers, it is filled with a large number of grain recruits. When facing fierce cavalry like the Jiejiao Cavalry, even hundreds of thousands of them
Food and soldiers are not as effective as ten thousand calm and brave elites.
No, Chu Shuijun encountered this kind of trouble: he was attacked several times by the Jiejiao cavalry, which caused the soldiers to be distracted and move in an unorganized manner. Not only did they fail to effectively limit the Jiejiao cavalry's breakout, but they repeatedly blocked the enemy's attack.
On the way forward of our own army, the Chu army was unable to make an effective counterattack.
This made Chu Shuijun look very unhappy.
Although for the Chu army with hundreds of thousands of troops, the Jiejiao cavalry's surprise attack could only bite off a few pieces of flesh on their bodies at best, and could not seriously damage their roots. However, watching these foreign cavalry come and go freely,
It is inevitable that I am also upset in my heart.
It's a pity that no matter how upset he is, Chu Shuijun has nothing to do for the time being.
"That's all, let these Yin Rong cavalry continue to be rampant for a while. When our army captures Changyi, we will deal with them again!"
Chu Shuijun thought bitterly.
It has to be said that Xiang Juan and Wu Qi did not disappoint him.
By around dusk, the Zhaoguan army under Xiang Kuan had captured the wall of the east city and took advantage of the situation to control the city gate.
In historical siege battles, once the city gate is breached by the enemy, the defeat of the defender is basically determined, and it is rare to reverse the situation of the battle.
Especially when the military strength is far inferior to that of the siege party.
Obviously, Changyi City cannot be a rare case. After learning that the Chu army had captured the east city gate, Anling King Zhao Shen and other Wei kings had the idea of retreating.
It is undeniable that they also hope to defend Changyi, but if things must be done against it, they will not choose to coexist and die with the city. They are the nobles of the Zhao family of Wei, and this country has not reached the point where they must make sacrifices.
.
This is not Daliang, let alone Luoyang. It is just a city in Song County. It is no different from the dozen or so eastern cities in Song County that Wei State had abandoned before.
"King Chengling, please make your decision carefully."
When he learned that Chengling King Zhao Shen and others were about to retreat, Cui Yong, the special envoy of the Fu Song Dynasty, pulled the former to plead.
Didn’t you say you can hold on for ten days? This is the first day!
As if he had guessed Cui Yong's thoughts, Chengling King Zhao Shen said with some embarrassment: "I didn't expect that there are such elites in the Chu State Allied Forces... Mr. Cui, it's not that I am refuting your face, it's just that at the moment the city The gate has been breached by the Chu army, and our army is not the Shangshui army, the Yanling army, or the Wei Wu army. How can we possibly come back to life? Rather than wasting our troops here in vain, it is better to retreat to Dingtao and regroup..."
It's not that Cui Yong doesn't understand this truth, it's just that he has lived in Changyi for many years and has already developed feelings for this city and its people, and he really can't bear to abandon it.
Seeing this, Chengling King Zhao Shen advised: "Master Cui, put the overall situation first."
In the end, Cui Yong was persuaded by Chengling King Zhao Shen and sadly decided to give up Changyi.
For a time, the Wei army retreated from the west gate of Changyi City, including the county magistrate Jian Tiao and other local officials and prominent families. In addition, there were also some people who saw the opportunity and followed the migration.
The Jiejiao cavalry quickly learned that the Wei army had abandoned Changyi, and gave up entangled with the Chu army. Under the command of Supervisor Bosile, they protected these people and slowly evacuated from Changyi to Dingtao. .
This battle of Changyi can be called the largest war that has occurred in Song County since the outbreak of the "Conquer Wei" war.
In this siege, the Chu army dispatched more than 400,000 troops. More than 30,000 people were killed and tens of thousands injured, about 30% of whom were regular troops.
On the Wei side, the loss of troops was around 20,000, of which more than 6,000 Jiejiao cavalry were lost, and two captains of 10,000 were killed in the battle.
It is worth mentioning that half of the 100,000 casualties suffered by the Chu army were caused by the Jiejiao cavalry.
On July 12, Chu generals Ji Wu and Huan Hu led the Qufu Army and Xuecheng Army (formerly Suiyang Army) to Changyi respectively.
On the 13th, General Xiang Kuan of Chu led his army southward to assist Shouling Lord Jingyun in attacking Suiyang.
The Wei army in Suiyang had few major generals and was unable to resist, so they had no choice but to retreat and retreat westward into Shangshui County to join forces with the Shangshui Army.
From the 14th to the 18th, Jun Jingshe of Chu Shouling and Chu general Xiang Kuan joined forces to attack and capture "Xinling" and "Xianling", approaching Yongqiu and approaching Daliang.
At the same time, General Xiang Mo of Chu and Tian Dan, general of Qi, respectively led their armies to catch up with Chu Shuijun's main force. The "armies of Chu, Qi, Lu and Yue" finally met in Dingtao, Song County, and formed the Four Kingdoms Alliance Army.
On July 20, after three days of hard defense, Dingtao County was finally breached, and Chengling King Zhao Shen and others were forced to retreat to Liang County.
By the end of July, Chu Shouling Jun Jingyun occupied "Chengkuang" and "Xiangling", cutting off the connection between Shangshui County and Liang County. He wrote to Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu and prepared to launch a front and rear pincer attack on Shangshui County. .
The Chu general Xiang Kuan led his army back to the main force of the Chu navy.
In early August, the Allied Forces of the Four Nations under Chu Shuijun advanced to Daliang after capturing almost half of Yingshui County.
Daliang, the former capital of Wei State, was in danger.
On the second day of August, the bad news of the Wei army's successive defeats on the battlefield in Song County arrived in Luoyang like the falling snow in December.
The Luoyang court was also extremely shocked by this. They never expected that the offensive of the Four Nations Allied Forces would be so fierce.
While the court ministers were arguing in the court meeting between "taking the initiative to send troops to rescue Daliang" or "sticking to Chenggao Pass and guarding the new capital Luoyang", Wei King Zhao Run sat on the throne, looking at his hands with a heavy face. Those battle reports.
His country, Wei, seemed to be on the verge of life and death all of a sudden.