Wu Han led his army to a complete victory in Wei County and Qinghe County, pacified the rebel army, and consolidated Liu Xiu's rear. As a result, Liu Xiu was granted the second great title.
This incident caused quite a stir at the time, and it also made it clear to everyone in the world that Liu Xiu was not someone who would burn down donkeys and bridges. Liu Xiu was really generous to the heroes under his command.
Not long after this happened, Gengshi's old ministers, General Deng Ye of the Restoration Han Dynasty, and General Yu Kuang of the Assistant Han Dynasty both came to surrender.
Deng Ye and Yu Kuang were not simple people. They were both one of the heroes who captured Chang'an.
When Liu Xiu won the great victory over Kunyang in Yingchuan, which shocked the world, Deng Ye and Yu Kuang saw the opportunity and took about a hundred people to rise up in Nanxiang, Xi County to respond to the Han army.
There were only about a hundred people, which was not enough to do anything, but the two of them were so good at eloquence that they actually persuaded the then magistrate of Xixian County to surrender, thus taking control of the Xixian County soldiers.
Based on the analysis of county soldiers, the two of them implemented the national policy of the Qin State at that time, making friends with distant and close enemies, and plundering land everywhere, and their strength became stronger and stronger. When they were strong enough and had enough soldiers and horses, they
He led his army to attack Wuguan.
At that time, Zhu Meng, the minister of Xinmang, was guarding Wuguan. Deng Ye and Yu Kuang worked together to defeat Zhu Meng's army. Zhu Meng surrendered to them. After taking Wuguan, the two continued to advance north and attacked Song, the minister of Xinmang.
Song Gang, this battle was very fierce. The two sides clashed three times in a row. Deng Ye and Yu Kuang won three major victories in a row, and finally succeeded in killing Song Gang. Later, the two led their troops straight to Chang'an, and captured the city near Chang'an in one fell swoop.
Lake County.
The Xinmang court was shocked by the sudden appearance of Deng Ye and Yu Kuang. Wang Mang appointed nine generals with the character "tiger" in them, collectively known as the Nine Tigers, to fight against Deng Ye and Yu Kuang.
It's just that Wang Mang is both suspicious and stingy.
He was afraid that Jiuhu would rebel against him, so Wang Mang detained Jiuhu's family in the capital. He wanted Jiuhu to lead his army into battle, but he was reluctant to spend money, so he only gave each of Jiuhu's tribe a thousand coins.
You must know that prices were extremely high at that time, and a thousand dollars was not enough to do anything. Wang Mang was not without money. When the Green Forest Army captured Chang'an and occupied the palace, they found more than 600,000 kilograms of gold in the palace.
The fighting spirit of the Jiuhu tribe was not high, and Deng Ye and Yu Kuang were in the stage of consecutive battles and victories, with strong morale. There was not much suspense in the battle between the two sides, and Jiuhu was defeated.
The final result was that four of the Nine Tigers were dispersed and fled to nowhere, with their whereabouts unknown. Two tigers were transferred back to the court and had their heads chopped off by Wang Mang. The remaining three tigers gathered the remaining defeated troops and retreated to the Wei River.
Koujing Shicang defended to the death.
It can be said that Deng Ye and Yu Kuang greatly consumed Wang Mang's troops and made great contributions to the Green Forest Army's successful capture of Chang'an.
After Liu Xuan took control of Chang'an, he did not forget their achievements. He named Deng Ye the general of Fuhan and Yu Kuang the general of auxiliary Han.
Liu Xiu was very happy that Deng Ye and Yu Kuang came to seek refuge, and met them personally.
Speaking of which, Liu Xiu, Deng Ye, and Yu Kuang were not very familiar with each other. They joined Liu Xuan relatively late and had been in Chang'an. Liu Xiu was under house arrest in Wancheng at the time, and later went to Luoyang to work as a secretary.
Colonel.
Although they had never met each other, they had heard about each other for a long time. When they saw Liu Xiu, they couldn't help but feel filled with emotion. They knelt down, kowtowed, and said in unison: "Common people pay homage to your majesty!"
Their official positions were granted to Liu Xuan, but now Liu Xuan has been killed by the Red Eyebrow Army, and the Gengshi court has perished.
Liu Xiu founded the Jianwu Court in Hebei. As an official of the Gengshi Court, of course he was not counted in the Jianwu Court. They could only call themselves ordinary people.
Liu Xiu stood up, walked around the table, walked to the two of them, helped them up with his own hands, and said, "I am very relieved to see these two generals come to surrender! Gengshi and Jianwu are both Han Dynasties. As a family, now that the two generals have come to Luoyang, they should be reinstated."
The implication is that Deng Ye will continue to be the general of Fuhan and Yu Kuang will continue to be the general of Fuhan. Even their marquis titles will be retained.
Hearing this, Deng Ye and Yu Kuang were both excited, their noses were sore, and they almost cried on the spot. They knelt down again, kowtowed to Liu Xiu, and said with choked sobs: "Your Majesty, I am so kind to you. I will never forget it!"
Liu Xiu smiled and helped them up again. Deng Ye and Yu Kuang did not come empty-handed. They also brought 20,000 soldiers and horses. Most of these 20,000 soldiers and horses were their veterans. The subordinates are brave and good at fighting, have rich experience, and their fighting power cannot be underestimated.
Now that Liu Xiu was hiring people, how could he not value these two generals who were good at fighting.
During the conversation, Liu Xiu did not mention the grievances between himself and Liu Xuan, nor did he complain to Deng Ye and Yu Kuang about any of Liu Xuan's shortcomings. He just asked how they were doing after the fall of Chang'an. wavv
Most of the ministers of the Gengshi court came from Jingzhou. When the Red Eyebrow Army captured Chang'an and the court was destroyed, most of the old Gengshi ministers chose to go back to their hometown in Jingzhou and use their reputation to recruit a group of subordinates to manage their own power.
Deng Ye and Yu Kuang were no exception. They took their old subordinates and ran back to their hometown, Xi County.
Recently, Cen Peng followed Liu Xiu's orders to regain Jingzhou, and some separatist forces in Jingzhou chose to surrender.
Deng Ye and Yu Kuangyi discussed that it was impossible for the two of them, together with their 20,000 brothers, to occupy land in Xi County and become kings for a long time. Instead of going against Liu Xiu at swordsmanship, it would be better to join Liu Xiu.
Liu Xiu has always been a virtuous and benevolent person, and they have no old grudges with Liu Xiu. They took the initiative to seek refuge with Liu Xiu, so Liu Xiu would not make things difficult for them.
As a result, not only were their predictions correct, but Liu Xiu's courtesy to them far exceeded their original expectations.
Deng Ye and Yu Kuang were naturally grateful to Liu Xiu. At this time, they also made up their minds to become vassals under Liu Xiu's command.
They told Liu Xiu what they had experienced during this period, and then talked about the situation in Jingzhou in detail.
At present, Jingzhou can be regarded as the most complicated state in the country.
The old ministers of Gengshi rushed to Jingzhou one after another to establish their own separatist forces. This was already chaotic enough, but the powerful locals in Jingzhou would rise up from time to time and claim the land as king.
This situation is getting worse and worse. In a land hundreds of miles away, there are often three or four different separatist forces coexisting, which are hostile to each other but also check and balance each other.
Liu Xiu didn't go to Jingzhou, but just listening to their stories made him feel dizzy.
A few days after Deng Ye and Yu Kuang defected to Liu Xiu, Liu Xiu built the Sheji Altar in the southern suburbs of Luoyang. It was also from this time that Liu Xiu officially made it clear that the Han Dynasty advocated the virtue of fire and advocated the color red.
In the same month when Liu Xiu built the Sheji Altar in Luoyang, the Red Eyebrow Army who occupied Chang'an finally could no longer hold on.
The main reason is that the Red Eyebrow Army has long been out of food. Originally, the Red Eyebrow Army's forces were spread across Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yanzhou, and Yuzhou, so food was never a problem.
However, in order to capture Chang'an, the Red Eyebrow Army went out in full force, causing most of their forces in Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Yanzhou, and Yuzhou to collapse.
Even if there are still forces loyal to the Red Eyebrow Army, it will be difficult to transport food to Chang'an. After all, there are Liu Yong's forces and Liu Xiu's forces in between.
Hundreds of thousands of troops were in Chang'an, and their daily food consumption was astronomical. In order to raise food, the Red Eyebrow Army searched the Sanfu area countless times. The corpses of the people of Sanfu were everywhere.
The people could not survive, so they had no choice but to run away. At this time, Deng Yu had led his army to occupy Xiayang, which is now Hancheng in Shaanxi Province, about four hundred miles away from Chang'an.
People heard that Deng Yu was strict in running the army, had strict military discipline, and cared for the people. The people in Sanfu rushed to Xia Yang to seek refuge with Deng Yu.
The number of people Deng Yujun accepted could reach thousands in a day. Deng Yu and Liu Xiu were classmates, and their personalities did have many similarities.
Deng Yu was very considerate towards the people. Every time he led his army to a place, he would personally inspect the local people's conditions. If he saw people who were hungry, he would take out military rations and distribute them to the people.
Deng Yu treated the people well and was naturally loved by them. Many white-haired old people and children learning to speak often gathered around Deng Yu's carriage.
Even Liu Xiu, who was far away in Luoyang, heard about the situation with Deng Yu and wrote him several letters of praise.
The people of Sanfu were dying and fleeing. Gradually, the Sanfu area that was so prosperous in the past has almost turned into a place of death.
Hundreds of thousands of red-browed troops really couldn't stand it any longer in Chang'an. The starving soldiers even went around the city of Chang'an to hunt down the people, kill them, and eat them.
Several leaders of the Red Eyebrow Army, Fan Chong, Xu Xuan, Feng An, Xie Lu, Mo Yan and others got together to discuss and agreed that they could no longer stay in Chang'an and they must lead their troops to withdraw. Otherwise,
All the officers and men in the army had to starve to death in Chang'an City.
However, where our side should withdraw has now become a problem. Fan Chong, Xu Xuan, Feng An, Xie Lu and others had different opinions, each holding their own opinions and arguing.
According to the opinions of Xu Xuan, Feng An, Xie Lu and others, we have to retreat to the east. The four states of Qing, Xu, Yan, and Henan are all in the east. That is where our base is. If we want to retreat, we should retreat to the east.
But Fan Chong disagreed with their proposition. To be precise, Mo Yan believed that it was unrealistic to retreat to the east now, and neither Liu Xiu nor Liu Yong could let them go.
The only way out is to retreat westward. Fan Chong agreed with Mo Yan's analysis, so in the meeting, he always advocated leading the army to the west.
There were disagreements within the Red Eyebrow Army, and there were also disagreements on Deng Yu's side. At present, Deng Yu's army was approaching Chang'an, and his generals all advocated entering the pass and taking Chang'an in one go.
However, Deng Yu did not accept the opinions of his subordinates. In Deng Yu's view, although his army had a large number of people, most of them were civilians who came to seek refuge and had no combat effectiveness. The real combat effectiveness of his army was far less than that of the Red Eyebrow Army.
There is such a disparity that it is really not appropriate for our side to have a head-on confrontation with the Red Eyebrow Army.
Deng Yu was reluctant to march to Chang'an. The generals below were anxious, and so was Liu Xiu in Luoyang.
Luoyang.
When Liu Xiu and Yin Lihua were having dinner together, they received a battle report from the Western Front. Deng Yu led his army to conquer the North.
Seeing the battle report, Liu Xiu frowned and slapped the chopsticks in his hand on the table. Seeing Liu Xiu's unhappy expression, Yin Lihua asked curiously: "Your Majesty, what's the matter? But something happened to Mr. Deng?"
Liu Xiu casually handed the battle report to Yin Lihua. The latter took it, looked at it, smiled, and said: "Deng Gong conquered the North, this is a good report!"
Where is Beidi? It is the modern Gansu Province. Deng Yu and Chang'an were already close at hand, but he did not lead his troops to attack Chang'an, but instead led his troops to the west.
Liu Xiu thought about it and understood what Deng Yu was thinking. There were hundreds of thousands of red eyebrow troops in Chang'an, but Deng Yu was unwilling to lead his army to fight against them.
He sighed softly, shook his head and said, "Zhonghua is too cautious!" Liu Xiu pondered for a moment, called his chamberlain, and wrote a letter to Deng Yu.
"To govern Xijing (Chang'an), Situ is Yao, and the red-browed bandit army is Jie. The people of Xijing are in panic and have nowhere to turn. Situ should seize the opportunity to attack the bandits in order to maintain the hearts of the people."
After writing the letter, Liu Xiu handed it to Zhang Kun and asked him to send his servants to the north where Deng Yu was. After Zhang Kun withdrew, Liu Xiu smiled bitterly and said, "I hope Zhonghua can listen to me."
advice."
The relationship between Liu Xiu and Deng Yu was very familiar. Although Deng Yu was usually gentle, in fact, he had a very stubborn temper. It was difficult for others to change the things he was sure of.
Yin Lihua held Liu Xiu's hand and said with a smile: "Deng Gong has always been steady, so your Majesty does not need to worry too much."
