In the spring of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Wei State raised three armies to attack Chu State.
In the strategy formulated by Wei King Zhao Run, he divided the Chu Kingdom into three parts: "West, Middle, and East", and Wei generals Shen Yu, Sima Shang, and Le Yi launched attacks respectively.
Let’s talk about the "West Road Battlefield" first. This battlefield starts from "Wujun" in the west and ends at Runan in the east. It includes "Xiling (Jiangling)", central Guizhou, Changsha and other places further south in this direction. In terms of area, it is more than 20 years old. The Wei State was even bigger in 2000.
In this battlefield, the main force of the Wei State is the Shangshui Army led by Shen Yu and Wu Ji, and the targets of the attack are Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu, Xiying Jun Xiong Tao, Biyang Jun Xiong Qi and other Chuxi troops Xiong's Yijun.
As for the "Middle Road Battlefield", it starts from "eastern Runan" in the west to the winter solstice. It includes Jiujiang further south in this direction, and its area is larger than that of the Wei State more than 20 years ago.
The main force of the Wei army in this battlefield was more chaotic than the battlefield on the west route. In addition to the Wei State and Song Dynasty military departments headed by Song County Governor Sima Shang and Rencheng Governor Xu Li, it also included Wei Shao, Wei Yun, and Wei Zhen. The army of the land, and the Jiwu army of the land of Lu, etc.
At this time, King Fei of Wei had already taken the initiative to downgrade the state to a prefecture of Wei, allowing Wei to annex the territory of Wei, and also allowed the three generals of Wei, including Wei Shao, Wei Yun, and Wei Zhen, to officially become Wei's commanders. 's general.
The hostile parties on this battlefield are undoubtedly Chu's newly promoted Three Heavenly Pillars, Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei, and Shouling Lord Jingyun, who is also a Three Heavenly Pillar.
According to the prediction of Wei King Zhao Run, the Chu army on the middle battlefield may have the largest number of troops. After all, the capital of Chu State, Shouying, is in this battlefield area, and this battlefield connects Chu East and Chu West. Once the Chu army is in this battlefield, If the battlefield suffered a defeat, it would undoubtedly be divided by the Wei army. Therefore, it is not unexpected that the Chu State deployed heavy troops here.
Precisely because the number of Chu troops in this battlefield was probably the largest, Wei Wang Zhao Run wrote a letter instructing Sima Shang, the governor of Song County, telling the latter to advance slowly and without greed for credit. If necessary, he could "deliberately delay the war" to kill Xinyang Jun. The armies of Xiang Pei and Shoulingjun Jingyun left the latter two with no time to support the west or east.
Finally, let’s talk about the “Eastern Route Battlefield.” If the strategic purpose of the Western Battlefield is to “cut off the connection between Chu and Ba,” and the strategic purpose of the Middle Battlefield is to “attract the main force of Chu,” then the Eastern Battlefield is responsible for Raid' the Wei army all the way.
The generals of the Wei army on this route include Le Yi, Tian Dan, Tian Wu, Qu Cheng and many other generals. There are even two naval armies led by generals Yan Cree and Li Ji to assist in the campaign. In terms of offensive capabilities, they may be the best among the three armies. The strongest one.
As for the targets of this battlefield, they are undoubtedly the Chudong Army and the Yue Army.
In general, Wei's army has an absolutely favorable advantage. As long as there is no accidental change, it is really difficult for Chu to resist the simultaneous attack of the three armies of Wei.
What shocked the Central Plains was that this was not the entire force of Wei. In fact, Wei still had King Huan Zhao Xuan, King Yan Zhao Jiang, Sima An guarding Hexi, Wei Ji guarding Hedong, and Jiang Bi guarding Shangdang. The armies led by generals - these armies are mainly responsible for imposing strict security on the Qin State and preventing the Qin State from sending troops to the Wei State while the Wei State is attacking the Chu State.
Let’s talk about the West Route battlefield first. In late February of the ninth year of Zhaowu, Huan Hu, the defender of Suiyang County, Song County, Wei State, took the lead in sending troops.
To the south of Suiyang is Gulingyi, which was the fiefdom of Xiong Wu, Lord Guling, and later became the place where the Chu State exiled the Qu family. However, in the past two years, in view of the Qu family's attempt to defeat Wei in the "War of All Countries"
” once again fell to the side of the Chu State, Wei general Boxi Le, who was born in Jie, led his troops to capture this land, and killed all the Qu family who tried to turn to the Chu State, except for a small part.
Surrendered to Wei.
However, after the capture of Gulingyi, the Wei court had no plans to build this land. The reason was that Gulingyi was located on the border between Wei State Song County and Chu State. If Wei State attacked Chu State or Chu State attacked other Wei State,
It is very likely that the country will pass through this land, so the Wei court is too lazy to spend energy on unnecessary construction here - it will always be destroyed anyway.
Since then, Gulingyi has become the buffer zone between Suiyang, Shangshui and Chu.
Further south from Gulingyi is Runan.
Going back more than 40 years, Runan was the front line of Chu's defense against Wei and Song. The king of this county was Xiong Hao, the biological father of Queen Mi Jiang of Wei.
At that time, Runan County was quite spacious and had strong military strength. What's more, there were Xiong Hu, Biyangjun, Xiong Qi, Xiyingjun, Xiong Tao and other Xiong clan lords in western Chu, including some descendants of the Xiang clan.
, their father and brother were all controlled by Runan Lord Xiong Hao and were subordinate to the latter.
However, after civil strife broke out between Western Chu and Eastern Chu, Runan County was split by the Chu State and divided into several small counties such as Pingyu, Chen, Guling, Yangcheng, etc., and awarded them to different nobles, and even
Yu, return
These small counties were awarded to the descendants of the Xiong family who were biased towards Chudong, such as Xiong Ren, the Lord of Xiangcheng, in order to suppress the Xiong clan, such as Xiong Tuo, the Lord of Yangcheng, Xiong Hu, the Lord of Pingyu, and others who were close to Xiong Hao, the Lord of Runan.
Children.
However, this suppression had been broken many years ago by Xiong Tuo, the then Lord of Yangcheng. After Xiong Tuo became the monarch of Chu, he tried to merge Runan County again. However, given that his uncle, Lord Xiong Hao of Runan, only had
He had two daughters but no heirs, and Xiong Tuo did not want anyone else to inherit the title of "Jun of Runan", so he simply called Xiong Hu, Lord of Pingyu, to govern the entire Runan.
Since then, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu has become the ruler of Western Chu and shouldered the important task of resisting Wei.
Runan County, or Pingyu County, the core cities of this land are "Chen" and "Pingyu". The former has an important river port in Runan, where smuggling and trade were carried out between Wei and Chu.
In 2000, the river port in Chen County was mainly connected to the river port in Shangshui County. Moreover, Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu also built several water villages in Chen County for building warships and training naval forces. Generally speaking, it was
An important border county on the Wei-Chu border.
Pingyu City, which is the fiefdom of Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu, is the rear defense of this area.
Taking advantage of the convenience of trade with the Wei State, Xiong Hu made his fiefdom construction area quite prosperous. He even built a forging workshop in this area and secretly studied to imitate the iron smelting technology of the Wei State - improving the iron smelting technology.
, this is one of the few things Xiong Tuo told Xiong Hu.
It is no exaggeration to say that as long as "Pingyu" is captured, Runan will have no resistance.
Of course, this was not the main reason why Wei general Huan Hu led his army to attack Chen County, but the persistence of Chen Shou, the general under Huan Hu.
In order to avenge his father Chen Bing by killing Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu, Chen Shou waited for more than twenty years before he came to Wei State to start a war with Chu State, giving him a legitimate opportunity to avenge his father.
Huan Hu was also a little helpless about this.
Because to be precise, he is not actually affiliated with the three "three-way army commanders" Shen Yu, Sima Shang, and Le Yi. The reason is that Huan Hu tends to use troops strangely and is good at sneak attacks and surprise attacks. Therefore, Wei Wang Zhao Run allowed him to During the war, he made his own judgment without having to obey the orders of Shen Yu, Sima Shang, and Le Yi - as long as it brought victory to Wei, even if Huan Hu ran from the west battlefield to the east battlefield, Wei Wang Zhao Run would not Go blame him.
Someone with similar authority also had Tian Dan, the deputy general of Le Yi, the commander-in-chief of the Wei army in the east.
Because of his authority in this area, Huan Hu originally planned to play tricks with Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei. After all, Xiang Pei, the guy he had defeated, has now become the Three Pillars of Chu State. Huan Hu has full power. With his confidence, he defeated Xiang Pei again, and with the merit of "defeating the Three Pillars of Chu", he became one of the nobles of Wei.
In his opinion, what's so difficult about defeating Xiang Pei? This is obviously a free effort.
But unfortunately, his general Chen Shou was determined to attack Pingyu.
Huan Hu said to Chen Shou at that time: "With Shen Yu in the west and Wu Ji here, Xiong Hu will definitely be defeated. You and I will lead the army to support. Maybe people will not appreciate it and think you want to take credit..."
In his opinion, it was okay back then, but now they are all living in the Wei State, taking credit from Shen Yu, Wu Ji and others. This is really unjustifiable. In comparison, they are taking credit from Sima Shang, the governor of Song County. , there is no problem. After all, in terms of qualifications, he and Sima Shang were generals who defected to Wei at almost the same time, and they were both Koreans. Even if he took away the credit, Sima Shang would not say anything.
Not to mention, the middle battlefield where Sima Shang is responsible is itself very stressful. Maybe Sima Shang is eager for Huan Hu to go over and help him and share the pressure with him.
There is clearly a better choice, why bother competing with Shang Shui and his gang for credit?
But it was a pity that Huan Hu failed to convince Chen Shou in the end and had no choice but to send troops to Pingyu.
In order to avoid misunderstanding, Huan Hu sent someone to deliver a verbal message to Wei army coach Shen Yu on the West Road battlefield.
Shen Yu would certainly not have any objections to Huan Hu and Chen Shou's intention to attack Pingyu County.
Similar to the situation where King Zhao Jiang of Yan did not care about Le Yi, Shen Yu also did not care about Huan Hu and Chen Shou. After all, he was the former chief bodyguard of Wei King Zhao Run. No matter how high Huan Hu climbed in Wei, he would not care about him. There is absolutely no way to threaten Shen Yu's status, and there is no fundamental conflict of interest between the two parties.
In contrast, Shen Yu was only slightly worried about the outcome of Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu.
The bad relationship between Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu and Wei King Zhao Run has lasted for more than twenty years. From the beginning, the two sides hated each other with gnashing of teeth. Later, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu had a bad relationship between Wei and Chu. Next, I went to Shangshui County alone to drink and have fun with Shen Yu, Wu Ji and others. During this period, too many stories happened.
Although they are now enemies again, this is only because of their different positions, not because of grudges. Therefore, if possible, Shen Yu still hopes to save Xiong Hu's life. This is not only for the years of friendship between the two parties, but also Taking into account the attitude of his Queen Mi Jiang.
But when Huan Hu and Chen Shou intervened in this battlefield, Shen Yu could not protect Xiong Hu secretly.
Fortunately for Huan Hu, Chen Shou and Xiong Huna had hatred. Although Chen Bingnai, Chen Shou's father and former magistrate of Zhaoling County, was ordered to be shot by Wei King Zhao Run, in the final analysis, it was because Xiong Hu was a pioneer back then. , captured Zhaoling County and captured alive Chen Bing and other civil servants who struggled to resist.
Therefore, there is actually no big problem for Chen Shou to blame Xiong Hu for killing his father.
But in this way, it will be difficult for Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu to have a good ending. After all, Chen Shou, who was born in the Yangwu Army of Wei State, is also a fierce general who is not inferior to Wu Ji in terms of personal bravery. Once they bump into each other, Wu Ji will Ji may still be merciful and capture Xiong Hu alive without killing him, but Chen Shou may not.
"I hope Xiong Hu knows how to advance or retreat..."
Shen Yu said secretly.
On March 19, the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Huan Hu led the Suiyang army to Chen County. He divided his troops into two groups and ordered Chen Shou to attack Chen Gang and Shuizhai, while he personally commanded the attack on Chen County.
Since the river port and water village in Chen County had no city walls for defense, they were quickly defeated by Chen Shou. The Chu navy in the water village could only withdraw its warships and evacuate southeast along the river.
On the contrary, Huan Hu had no way to capture the city in a short time due to the lack of siege weapons in his army.
However, it is only temporary. After a few days, when Huan Hu's soldiers have built wells, ladders and other objects for siege, I believe that the capture of Chen County will be just a matter of seconds.
At the same time, Xiong Hu was actively preparing to deal with the attack from Shangshui County in Pingyu City. He unexpectedly received the news that "Wei General Huan Hu attacked Chen County." He sighed with melancholy.
To be fair, he really didn't have much confidence in this battle. Wei general Wu Ji was leading an army to attack Xiying in Dangyang of Xiying County; Shangshui guard Shen Yu was about to lead an army to attack Pingyu County. This was originally a battle. It was a fierce battle that was related to the life and death of Chu Xi, but he never thought that Huan Hu and Chen Shou would also join in the fun.
Although Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu actually has a large army under his command, the problem is that there are neither generals who can take charge of their own affairs, nor strong generals who can resist Wu Ji and Chen Shou.
"You can only do your best."
Xiong Hu, Lord Pingyu, thought to himself.
On March 21, after learning that Huan Hu led his army to attack Chen County, Shangshui garrison Shen Yu immediately led his army to attack Pingyu County, trying to make Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu unable to take care of both ends and unable to send troops to support Chen County.
Since the most elite Shang Shui army in the Shang Shui military system has been taken to Dangyang by Wu Ji, the strength of the army under Shen Yu is inevitably weakened. Although Ma You and You Ma Qingqi are coming from the side, there is a problem. It was Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu who knew the Wei army so well that he adopted the tactic of "strengthening the wall and clearing the field", refusing to fight with the Wei army on the ground, and tried to use the defense of the city wall to cause more casualties to the Wei soldiers.
This limited the speed of Shen Yu's advance.
However, his goal was achieved. Under his attack, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu was unable to send reinforcements to support Chen County.
On March 26, due to the delay in Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu sending reinforcements, Chen County was finally captured by Huan Hu and Chen Shou.
At this time, Huan Hu had also learned that Shen Yu was attacking Pingyu County, so he planned to join Shen Yu's army. Unexpectedly, Chen Shou raised objections.
Chen Shou believed that the next steps should be to attack "Xiangcheng", "Linyang", "Xincai" and other cities in order to cut off Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu's escape route to the east.
When he heard this, Huan Hu opened his mouth and was stunned for a long time, but he didn't react.
It cannot be denied that Chen Shou's suggestion is actually very wise, but Huan Hu cannot accept it for a while, because based on his many years of understanding of Chen Shou, this brother has almost never thought about tactics so proactively, so that it has always been him Huan Huan.
This brother would hit wherever the tiger told him to hit, as if he didn't care at all, or was too lazy to think about it - such as when he defended Lu against Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei and Chu General Xiang Mo.
I didn't expect that this brother would be so interested this time.
But after thinking about it, Huan Hu understood: His brother Chen Shou had waited more than twenty years to avenge his father by killing Xiong Hu, Lord Pingyu. How could he let Xiong Hu escape so easily?
Thinking of this, Huan Hu nodded and said: "In that case, after Nanton is captured, let's take the lead in attacking Xiangcheng."
Nandun is a small county located between Chen County and Pingyu. Judging from the scale of the city, Huan Hu does not think it can stop his troops. He will conquer the city within three days.
However, what even Huan Hu did not expect was that the opportunity for revenge might be right in front of him. Chen Shou showed unprecedented bravery, so that when Huan Hu launched the first wave of exploratory attacks on Nanton, Chen Shou
Braving the rain of arrows, he took the lead and fought on the city wall, so that the city was captured by Huan Hu's army in just two hours.
"Let's go to Xiangcheng!"
After the war, Chen Shou appeared in front of Huan Hu covered in blood.
Seeing that this brother was covered in blood and his eyes were bloodshot, looking rather ferocious and ferocious, Huan Hu opened his mouth and gave up the thought in his heart of resting for a day in Nanton.
On March 30th, Huan Hu and Chen Shou attacked Xiangcheng.
Xiangcheng was once the fiefdom of Xiangcheng Lord Xiong Ren. Similar to Xiong Li, Juyang Lord of Eastern Chu, Xiong Ren was also an incompetent and pleasure-seeking owner. In addition to using the wealth scraped from the fiefdom to repair it,
The city was built to be impregnable, and it made no contribution to the land and the Chu people under its rule.
But today, the city repaired by Lord Xiong of Xiangcheng blocked the momentum of Huan Hu's army. No matter how brave Chen Shou was, he could not capture the city in a short time without siege weapons.
And this gave Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu time to predict the warning in advance.
Today's Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu is already over fifty years old, and he is still as foolhardy as when he led his army to attack Wei more than 20 years ago. He saw that after Huan Hu captured Nanton, he did not go straight south to attack Pingyu, but instead
He turned east to attack Xiangcheng, guessing that Huan Hu wanted to cut off his retreat to Chudong.
Some people may think that Huan Hu is attacking Xiangcheng at this time, or he may be preparing to attack Xiangpei, Lord of Xinyang. After all, further east from Xiangcheng is Xinyang, the fiefdom of Xiangpei, Lord of Xinyang.
But in fact, although it is true that Xinyang was the fiefdom of Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei, the three-day pillar is not in Xinyang at present, but in "Qiao County" and "Xiangcheng", so Huan Hu attacked Xinyang
, and has no strategic significance.
What's more, given that Chen Shou had assassinated Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu many times alone after he defected from Wei, Xiong Hu was also very concerned about this person.
Combining various reasons, Xiong Hu saw through Huan Hu's army's purpose at a glance.
In this case, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu had to make a choice: should he continue to defend Pingyu and be attacked by Shen Yu and Huan Hu, or should he lead the army before Huan Hu and Chen Shou cut off his return path?
The Pingyu army withdrew.
"Oh, do you think that I, Xiong Hu, will run away to Chu Dong?... Are you just looking down on me, Xiong Hu, like that?"
Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu shook his head mockingly.
Many people, including Huan Hu, Chen Shou, and even Shen Yu, thought that Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu might flee to Chudong when the war situation was unfavorable, but unfortunately, they guessed wrong this time.
I remember that the last time "all the kingdoms attacked Wei", Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu was driven around by Wei general Wu Ji. That was because Chu State still had a way to retreat. If there was a way to retreat, of course Xiong Hu would cherish it. own life.
But this time is different, this is a war related to the life and death of Chu State: if Wei State loses, Chu State will survive; but if Wei State wins, Chu State will be destroyed.
Since defeat means the country will be destroyed, then what is the point of escaping to Chudong?
Do you want to see the Chu State fall with your own eyes and then surrender to the Wei State?
"... Surrendering is actually not a bad idea."
A slight smile appeared on Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu's face.
Think about it, his cousin Mi Jiang is now the queen of the Wei Kingdom, can't she still save her cousin's life?
However, Xiong Hu would not surrender to Wei.
Because he knew that Xiong Tuo, the monarch of Chu State, would never surrender to Wei State.
"As a monarch of a country, it would be too shabby to go to the underworld alone in the end... If our great Chu is really unable to escape the fate of destruction, A-Tuo, let Brother Yu explore the road to the underworld for you first!" 』
The image of Yangcheng Lord Xiong Tuo came to mind, and Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu flashed a trace of determination in his eyes.
In April of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Wei generals Huan Hu and Chen Shou led their troops to capture "Xiangcheng", "Linyang", "Xincai" and other cities successively, cutting off Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu from Chudong. A way out.
During this period, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu had no intention of withdrawing his troops and ordered all gates in the city to be sealed, making preparations to defend to the death.
"Then Xiong Hu...doesn't he intend to evacuate?"
Wei general Huan Hu first realized something was wrong.
It would be reasonable if Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu did not guess his intention when they attacked "Xiangcheng", but when they attacked "Linyang", any fool would know what the purpose of Wei Jun was, but even if In this way, Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu still stood still and made no move to recapture "Linyang" to preserve his retreat.
"It seems that Xiong Hu is ready to defend Pingyu."
After thinking about this matter, Huan Hu said to Chen Shou.
After hearing this, Chen Shou sneered: "It's exactly what I want!"
In early April of the ninth year of Wei Zhaowu, Huan Hu sent someone to inform Shen Yu and agreed that both sides would besiege Pingyu together.
Like Huan Hu, Shen Yu also noticed something strange about Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu.
According to his understanding of Xiong Hu, although Xiong Hu is quite capable, he cherishes his life and is afraid of death. If he encountered similar situations in the past, he might have fled with his soldiers and horses, but today, Xiong Hu did not retreat at all. meaning.
In order to confirm his guess, Shen Yu sent the Green Crows to Pingyu to inquire, but found that the gate of Pingyu County was tightly closed, as if they were ready for a deadly battle.