In the spring of the tenth year of Wei Zhaowu, under the order of Wei King Zhao Run, the Wei army launched a second round of offensive against Chu.
Among them, the Wei army on the west route took the lead. Under the order of the commander Shen Yu, the Wei army garrisoned in the "Yunmengze (Dongting Lake)" area and moved south to capture "Changsha County".
Half a month later, the Wei army in the middle also took action.
At that time, Sima Shang, the commander-in-chief of the Wei army on the middle road, garrisoned "Shou Ying", while Suiyang guard Huan Hu garrisoned "Shu County (Lujiang)".
In early March, Wei general Huan Hu took the lead in leading troops to "Wankou" - the place where the Anhui River entered the river. He ordered his soldiers to cut down the trees there and build boats for crossing the river.
At this time, Lord Shouling Jingyun was stationed at "Pengze" on the other side of the river, while Lord Diyang Xiong Li led Chu warships to patrol the river, trying to prevent the Wei army from crossing the river.
Since Huan Hu's Suiyang army was not good at water warfare, Huan Hu and Chen Shou tried several times, but were repelled by the Chu navy led by Xiong Li, Lord Diyang, and were unable to successfully cross the river.
The Wei army lost the first battle.
In late March, Wei general Sima Shang led his army to the bank of the Dajiang River. He was surprised to learn that the two powerful generals Huan Hu and Chen Shou were blocked by Xiong Li, the king of Diyang, and could not cross the river smoothly. So he changed the path of advance and led his troops to "Ruxu". "Kou" - that is, the place where Ruxu River enters the river. In an attempt to avoid the Chu navy led by Xiong Li, Lord Diyang, boats were built in this area to cross the river.
But unfortunately, this matter was discovered by Di Yangjun Xiong Li. When the Wei army under Sima Shang was preparing to cross the river, the Chu navy led by Di Yangjun Xiong Li arrived in time. After a small-scale confrontation, they saw the battle situation. Unfortunately, Sima Shang had to cancel the crossing of the river that day.
I have to say that I believe no one would have thought that Wei generals such as Huan Hu, Chen Shou, and Sima Shang would be blocked by Di Yangjun Xiong Li and unable to advance. After all, if they were on flat ground, Di Yangjun Xiong Li would not be able to advance. Such Chu generals, Huan Hu, Chen Shou, Sima Shang and others may not necessarily take him seriously.
When both sides failed, Huan Hu got in touch with Sima Shang and decided that both sides would cross the border on the same day, leaving Di Yangjun Xiong Li to worry about one thing and not the other.
On the fourth day of April, Huan Hu and Sima Shang crossed the river at Wankou and Ruxukou respectively. As expected, Xiong Li, Lord of Diyang, could not take care of both ends, and finally had no choice but to attack Huan Hu, who was closest to Pengli County. This made the Wei army under Sima Shang We successfully crossed the river from Ruxukou and entered "Danyang" on the other side of the river.
After that, Sima Shang ordered his deputy "Zhong Gu" to go along the river towards Pengze, trying to sneak attack the water stronghold established by Di Yangjun Xiong Li on the south bank of the river.
After learning about this, Xiong Li, Lord of Diyang, had no choice but to retreat to the water village, which allowed Huan Hu to finally lead the Wei army to cross the river from Wankou.
At this point, Chu's danger on the river had been broken through by the Wei army.
On the ninth day of April, Huan Hu and Sima Shang's deputy general Zhong Gu joined forces to attack the water village built by Xiong Li, the king of Diyang, on the south bank of the river.
Although Di Yangjun Xiong Li repeatedly defeated Huan Hu and Sima Shang in water battles a while ago, when it comes to land battles, this Chu general is definitely not Huan Hu. He is the opponent of the Wei army under Sima Shang. When the enemy is strong and we are weak, Under the circumstances, Xiong Li, Lord of Diyang, had no choice but to lead his navy to withdraw into "Pengze (here refers to Poyang Lake)" to avoid the Wei army's advance.
Seeing this, Huan Hu and Zhong Gu led their troops to pursue them all the way to Pengze City.
Pengze City, located on the north side of Pengze (Poyang Lake), was once the residence of Xiong Zheng, Lord of Pengli. However, since King Xiong Tuo of Chu decided to move the capital to Pengli last year, the city has been repaired and reinforced as a fortress to resist the Wei army. .
Before winter came last year, Lord Shouling Jingyun also led his remaining troops to Pengze County and built defenses in the Pengze area.
On April 11th, Wei generals Huan Hu, Chen Shou and Zhonggu led their troops to Pengze. At this time, the woods within dozens of miles of Pengze had been set on fire by Chu soldiers before the winter of last year.
This forced Huan Hu to order his soldiers to dig soil and build a camp, which greatly delayed the date of attacking Pengze.
Coupled with the harassment from time to time by Shouling Lord Jingyun and Diyang Lord Xiong Li, it took Huan Hu and Zhong Gu two full months in the following days to barely dig out the earth for the wall and build it.
A small town-like Wei camp was built.
After building the earthen camp, Huan Hu tried to use troops against Pengze County. However, the south gate of Pengze County was close to Pengze. The Wei army had no way to surround the city, let alone cut off Pengze County's food and water sources.
The only option is to storm the city.
Due to the lack of siege weapons in the army, Huan Hu's progress in attacking Pengze County was not optimistic.
In this way, both sides spent a full three months, but Huan Hu still failed to capture Pengze County.
At this time, Wei general Sima Shang was attacking "Danyang (county)". Although he was a little surprised to learn that Huan Hu had suffered a setback in Pengze County, it was also expected. After all, Pengze County, including Pengze, had already
It is the last line of defense for the Chu State, and I believe that the Chu Army will definitely defend this place.
Since Sima Shang was busy attacking Danyang at that time, he did not provide support to Huan Hu.
At this time, Le Yi, the commander of the Wei army on the east route, had already led the Wei army out of Guangling, crossed the river and captured "Zhufang", and entered Diyang County, which was the fiefdom of the Xiong clan of Diyang.
However, at this time, the Xiong clan of Diyang had already fled to Pengli with their wealth, but there were also sporadic descendants of the Xiong clan who surrendered to the Wei army.
After that, Le Yi stationed his troops in Diyang and thought about the next strategy.
To the west of Diyang is Danyang, which has been almost occupied by Sima Shang, and to the east of Diyang is the Yue Kingdom.
I remember that before and after Le Yi attacked Guangling County, he had a confrontation with the Dongou Army led by Yue General Wu Qi. Although the Wei Army finally defeated the Yue Army due to the equipment gap between the Wei and Yue armies, this battle also made
Le Yi became more vigilant towards the Vietnamese army.
In Le Yi's view, although the Yue army is even inferior to the Chu army in terms of armament, in terms of combat effectiveness, even the Chu army under the command of Lord Shouling Jingyun and Lord Diyang Xiong Li may not be as good as the Yue general Wu Qi.
Dongou Army.
To be honest, the best strategy at this time is to send envoys to Yue to force Yue King Shaokang to surrender to Wei. Unfortunately, in view of Wei King Zhao Run's original decision of not making peace with the other countries, Tiance
The government has not used diplomatic means to force Yue to surrender.
In this case, Le Yi could only choose to use troops against Yue.
After discussing with the deputy general Tian Dan, Le Yi finally decided that he would be stationed in Diyang to appease the local Chu people to surrender to the Wei state. Tian Dan, along with Tian Wu, Tian Tian and his son, led the army to attack the Yue state.
To be honest, this is really not a good idea.
Although Tian Dan, who was arrogant and arrogant, did not pay much attention to the Yue Kingdom at first, he believed that as long as he stayed in the Yue area for a while, he would have a personal understanding of how the two Xiang Kuan brothers were attacking the Yue Kingdom at the end of Xiang Dynasty.
The frustration I suffered at the time.
Sure enough, even though the Wei army invaded the Yue Kingdom with overwhelming force at the beginning, as the Wei army penetrated deeper into the Yue Kingdom, the casualties suffered by the soldiers became more and more serious. The problem was that the Yue people did not confront the Wei army at all.
They would only resort to sneak attacks, using blow darts dipped in poison to sneak attack Wei soldiers - just like they did against the Chu people.
It is undeniable that the soldiers of Wei, who were accustomed to the "Central Plains-style" war model, could not adapt to the constant harassment warfare of the Yue Kingdom, and were frightened by the harassment by the Yue people.
Don't laugh. Under the threat of the Yue people, the number of Wei army's scouts was forced to increase to 20 to 50 people per team. Even the Wei soldiers did not even dare to poop or pee while patrolling the mountains for fear of being attacked.
When it was convenient for him, he was killed with poisonous arrows by Yue people who did not know where he was hiding.
If there is really no way to hold back, while the soldier is being dealt with, most of the other soldiers will form a circle around him, holding their shields high while watching and listening in all directions to prevent surprise attacks by Vietnamese.
Although it seems funny, in fact this problem is extremely serious. According to Tiandan's own statistics, after he led the Wei army into the Yue Kingdom, in just over a month, more than 5,000 Wei soldiers were killed in the Yue Kingdom.
He was killed by a blow of an arrow, and the scene of his death was extremely horrific, which greatly reduced the morale of the Wei army under Tian Dan.
It is worth mentioning that even the fierce general Tian Wu was injured by Yue people's blow arrows.
However, the main responsibility for this matter still lies with Tian Wu himself. Just because the Yue people hid their heads and tail, he personally led the team to find the Yue people's strongholds in the mountains and forests, and scolded the Yue people for being cowardly as mice. As a result, in the dark forest, no one knew who was there.
Tian Wu fired a poisonous arrow and hit the back of Tian Wu's left hand. Tian Wu's left hand immediately swelled up and caused unbearable pain and itching.
Fortunately, the Wei army found some local Chu people in Diyang County as guides. The guides quickly asked Tian Wu to bleed and detoxify, and then Tian Wu's left hand was saved. Otherwise, a strong general like Tian Wu who killed everyone on the battlefield would have died a coward even if he had not.
If you go too far, you may lose your left hand, or even your entire left arm.
Because Tian Wu was injured and his Wei soldiers were blocked in Yue, Tian Dan had no choice but to temporarily withdraw from Yue and return to Diyang County to discuss countermeasures.
At this time, he recalled the words of those Chu guides and realized that he was too trusting.
After all, the Yue State was the general of the Chu State, Xiang Mo, and Xiang Juan's brothers were both unable to surrender. Needless to say, Xiang Mo was, without exaggeration, the most adept military general in the Chu State, and Xiang Juan
Well, looking at his performance against the Wei army in the Battle of Yongqiu, we can see that this man is an unparalleled general in the world.
However, even the brothers Xiang Mo and Xiang Kuan spent nearly twenty years, but they failed to defeat the Yue State, so the Chu State had to choose soft methods to persuade the Yue King Shaokang to become a minister of the Chu State.
As a subordinate country, one can imagine the difficulties of the Yue Kingdom.
After learning that Tian Dan was defeated and returned, Le Yi, the head coach of the Wei army on the east route, could not believe it.
After all, even Le Yi recognized Tian Dan's ability in using troops. It was hard to imagine that a general like Tian Dan would be defeated by the small Yue Kingdom.
It wasn't until Tian Dan told the story of the attack on Yue that Le Yi felt relieved.
When the two were discussing countermeasures, Le Yi said to Tian Dan: "The Yue people's only support is the barren mountains and rivers. If our army burns the mountains and destroys the forests and makes camp step by step, the Yue people will have nothing to do."
Tian Danshen thought so, so he asked Tian Wu An An to recuperate in Diyang, and took Tian Tian to conquer the country again.
During this expedition to Yue, the Wei army carried a large amount of kerosene. Whenever they encountered mountains and forests, they poured kerosene in the forests and set them on fire.
Although this greatly delayed the progress of the Wei army's attack on Yue, it might only be able to advance more than a dozen miles per day. Even when it was necessary to burn a large area of mountain forest, the Wei army might have no choice but to set fire to the forest within two or three days.
However, the advantage of this strategy is that it is extremely safe. At least no Yue people can hide in the mountains and forests to sneak attack the Wei soldiers.
In this way, from June to September, it took Tian a full three months to advance from Qu'akankan to "Zhangdi". Although the marching speed was as slow as a turtle crawling, it was better than safety.
However, Tian Dan's move frightened the people of Yue.
As Le Yi judged, the reason why the Yue people in the land of Wu and Yue are difficult to deal with is mainly due to the local terrain and environment. Now, Wei Jiang Tian Dan has been destroying the Yue people's "geographical advantages" step by step. Once the Yue people completely lose
"Poor location", what can we use to compete with the Wei army?
During this period, Wu Qi, the general of Yue State, wrote a letter in his own handwriting to inform King Shaokang of Yue State of the matter.
More than ten days later, Shaokang, the king of Yue, received Wu Qi's letter in Kuaiji. After reading the letter, he remained silent.
It has to be said that what Shaokang, the king of Yue, was most worried about was that the Wei army would burn mountains and destroy forests, destroying the "geographical advantage" of his Yue people.
But now, as he had unfortunately expected, Wei General Tian Dan had indeed adopted the strategy of burning mountains and destroying forests after suffering a big loss previously. Although this method would greatly slow down the Wei army's advance, the problem was that he
As a result, the Yue people lost the opportunity to sneak attack the Wei army.
Confronting the Wei army on a white field behind burned trees?
Maybe a single volley of crossbow bolts from the Wei army would destroy more than half of his Yue army, leaving them unable to resume the war.
"Is this the end of it?"
After repeatedly thinking about countermeasures, the Yue King Shaokang sighed deeply and decided to negotiate with the Wei army and beg for surrender.
At this point, surrender is the only possibility for the Yue Kingdom to survive. The key depends on whether Wei King Zhao Run is willing to accept the Yue Kingdom's surrender. If Wei King Zhao Run refuses to accept it, then the Yue people who are about to welcome him will probably be one-sided.
massacre.
In order to prove his sincerity, King Shaokang of Yue entrusted domestic affairs to his trusted ministers and personally came to the army of Wei General Tian Dan to express his willingness to submit to Wei.
To be honest, because Tian Dan and his soldiers lost thousands of soldiers in Yue's useless areas, the Yue people were so angry that they wanted to kill them all.
Unexpectedly, Shaokang, the king of Yue, was aware of the current affairs. When he saw that the Wei army was serious, he immediately surrendered, leaving Tian Dan and his men unable to vent their anger.
After all, it was up to Tian Dan and his subordinates to decide whether to accept Yue's surrender. They had to consult King Zhao Run of Wei, who would make the decision himself.
Half a month later, Le Yi also learned that Yue King Shaokang was begging to surrender, and immediately reported the matter to Luoyang and asked Wei King Zhao Run for instructions.
In November of the 10th year of Zhaowu, Le Yi's letter was quickly delivered to Luoyang and handed over to the king of Wei, Zhao Run.
After Le Yi's letter, he told how Tian Dan forced the Yue Kingdom to surrender. This made Wei King Zhao Run understand that Le Yi and Tian Dan were actually capable of killing most of the Yue people. All they needed was
It's just time.
But in Zhao Run's view, it is meaningless to completely force the Yue people to death. It not only restrains Le Yi's troops, but also makes his Wei army bear the bad reputation of massacring innocent people. In addition, Zhao Run himself does not like senseless massacres.
, therefore, he finally accepted the surrender of Yue Wang Shaokang.
A few days later, the Luoyang court sent Zhou Yu, the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, to the Yue Kingdom.
Because of the weather, Zhou Yu did not arrive in Yue until April of the eleventh year of Zhaowu.
At that time, the entire Yue Kingdom had been occupied by the Wei army led by Le Yi and Tian Dan.
It's not that Shaokang, the king of Yue, trusted the state of Wei so much that he dared to let the Wei army enter the hinterland of his state of Yue without getting a response from King Zhao Run of Wei. He just had no choice.
After all, as long as they relied on the strategy of "burning mountains and destroying forests", regardless of whether the Yue Kingdom surrendered or not, the Wei army led by Le Yi and Tian Dan could still reach Kuaiji, the capital of the Yue Kingdom.
The only difference is that the losses of soldiers on both sides will be greater.
Fortunately, Wei King Zhao Run was not a bloodthirsty person. Around April of the 11th year of Wei Zhaowu, Zhou Yu, the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, met with Yue Wang Shaokang and conveyed the response from Wei King Zhao Run to accept the surrender of Yue Wang Shaokang on behalf of Wei.
According to the usual practice, Shaokang, the king of Yue, was renamed "Yuehou".
The King of Yue, no, the Marquis of Yue, Shaokang, carefully read the letter of Wei King Zhao Run. He was very happy to find that the conditions of the Wei State were not harsh, except that "the Dongou Army was moved to the jurisdiction of Tiance Mansion" and "the Yue State temporarily did not allow private affairs."
Apart from setting up an army, there are no other harsh conditions.
However, if you think about it carefully, if the Yue Kingdom is so poor and backward, the powerful Wei Kingdom may indeed look down upon him.
On the seventh day of April in the eleventh year of Wei Zhaowu, Shaokang, the king of Yue, formally surrendered to the state of Wei and was granted the title of 'Marquis of Yue'.
At this point, the Yue Kingdom fell, and the land of Wu and Yue became the territory of the Wei Kingdom.
At this time, Le Yi and Tian Dan had time to pay attention to the progress of Sima Shang, Huan Hu and others in attacking Chu.
What surprised them was that the Chu State had lost four-fifths of its territory. At this time, Wei general Shen Yu had captured Changsha, leaving only Pengli County, but the three Wei armies, Shen Yu, Huan Hu, and Sima Shang, had been gathered together.
, unexpectedly failed to break through the "Pengze Defense Line" of the Chu State, and then completely destroyed the Chu State.
It has to be said that even Wei King Zhao Run thought that Chu would fall soon, but the fact is that the three Wei armies, Shen Yu, Huan Hu, and Sima Shang, fought for a whole year, but could not break through Chu's army.
The reason for the "Pengze Defense Line" is simply that the "Pengze Defense Line" has too great a geographical advantage.
After all, the entire Pengli County is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and there are only two 'passages' in the north. One is the mountain valley road on the west side, and the outermost is "Chaisang County (Jiujiang)", which is located on the east side of Chaisang Mountain and is connected with the south side.
"Pengze County" faces each other across the river - it was this city that blocked the Wei army under Shen Yu.
Via Chaisang, one can go directly to the hinterland of Pengli County. There are still two cities along the way, "Liling" and "Haizhen (hun)", which made it difficult for the Wei army to break into Pengli County through this narrow valley road.
In fact, Shen Yu also tried to mobilize warships and break into Pengze by water, but the waterway connecting Dajiang and Pengze was too narrow, and on both sides of the river were the two cities of Chaisang and Pengze, which seemed to be two
The bridgehead prevented Wei ships from entering Pengze.
Even if Wei's warships try to force a breakthrough, they will inevitably be sunk by the soldiers of Xinyang Jun Xiang Pei who is stationed at Chaisang and Shouling Jun Jingyun who is stationed in Pengze County, not to mention Pengze's
On the lake, there is also stationed the Shuijun of Chu State led by Xiong Li, Lord of Diyang.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Chu State, which had given up a large amount of its territory and concentrated its troops, fought tooth and nail to resist the Wei army's attack. Even Shen Yu, Huan Hu, and Sima Shang fought for a whole year, but could not break through this road.
defense.
In the spring of the eleventh year of Wei Zhaowu, the State of Qin learned that the State of Chu had been defeated by the State of Wei and was on the verge of collapse. It decided to strike first to strengthen its power, and sent the Marquis of Wuxin, Gongsun Qi, and the Marquis of Changxin, Wang Jian, from the Hexi Corridor and Ba State respectively.
Step up the attack on Wei.
After learning about this, Wei Wang Zhao Run ordered Sima Shang and Huan Hu to continue attacking Chu in the name of Tiance Mansion. In addition, he dispatched Shen Yu's army to Xiying County to support Wu Ji, and then dispatched Le Yi, Tian Dan and other generals to quickly attack Chu. Bring elite troops to support Hexi in response to the war with Qin.