Mo Yan said cheerfully: "When Xu Xiang pretends to be defeated, he can leave the grain truck behind. When the enemy sees the grain truck, they will definitely grab the food frantically. At this time, it is the best time for Xu Xiang to lead his army to fight back.
opportunity."
Xu Xuan stared at Mo Yan and thought seriously. After a moment, he said solemnly: "But our army doesn't have that much food now." Returning the food truck? The food truck has already been eaten up.
Mo Yan smiled and asked, "But who knows?"
"ah?"
"If the grain truck is loaded with soil and stones and camouflaged, how will the enemy know whether there is grain in it?"
When Xu Xuan heard this, his eyes suddenly lit up. He nodded slowly while thinking about it, feeling that Mo Yan's idea was really good. After thinking for a while, Xu Xuan looked at Mo Yan strangely and asked, "Why do you want to help?"
I?"
Mo Yan smiled and said meaningfully: "Xu Xiang, our enemy now is not ourselves, but Liu Xiu."
After a pause, he added: "As long as Prime Minister Xu can defeat the enemy and march eastward, I can help Prime Minister Xu conquer Hongnong County in one fell swoop and capture the city of Hongnong County!"
Xu Xuan's face immediately showed a look of joy and asked: "Mr. Mo, is there any way to conquer Hongnong County?"
Mo Yan Chengzhu said with a deep smile: "It's as easy as turning the palm of your hand."
Xu Xuan adopted Mo Yan's tactics and first asked his soldiers to pretend to be defeated and all retreated. Upon seeing this, Deng Hong and other Han troops on the opposite side saw this, their morale was high, and they took advantage of the situation to pursue.
As the Red Eyebrow Army retreated, all the grain trucks that had been left behind the Red Eyebrow Army camp were exposed.
As Mo Yan said, Deng Hong's department has now run out of food. When they saw the Red Eyebrow Army's food truck and the food piled on the truck, people seemed to be crazy, climbing on the carriage and grabbing the food in the truck.
But there is only a thin layer of grain in the grain cart. If you peel away the top layer of grain and look down, you will see that it is all stone and soil.
Just when the Han army ignored them and rushed to grab food, and the whole army was in chaos, the Red Eyebrow Army suddenly came back with a killing blow.
The Han army, which had been fighting fiercely with the Red Eyebrow Army for three days, could no longer withstand the offensive of the Red Eyebrow Army and was severely defeated. Deng Hong led 30,000 soldiers, and finally followed Deng Hong in retreat.
There are only 3,000 Han troops left.
Even though they had won a great victory, the Red Eyebrow Army still refused to give up and pursued and killed Deng Hong's remaining troops. Deng Hong's remaining troops fled eastward, and halfway, they happened to meet Deng Yu and Feng Yi who came to rescue them.
Deng Yu's and Feng Yi's troops had gathered together, totaling more than 100,000 people. Seeing that the main force of the Han army had arrived and was heavily outnumbered, Xu Xuan ordered to stop the pursuit and the entire army to retreat.
In this battle, Deng Hong was completely defeated. Even after gathering some remnants of his troops, only six or seven thousand of the thirty thousand soldiers were left, and more than twenty thousand soldiers were wiped out.
In fact, since Deng Yu led his troops in the Western Expedition, although there have been defeats, there has never been such a disastrous defeat and such heavy casualties.
In this battle, Deng Hong, who led the army privately, could not escape the blame, but Deng Yu, as the commander-in-chief of the entire army, could not escape the blame.
Deng Yu proposed to Feng Yi that his side should now take advantage of the victory to pursue the victory and fight to the death with the Red Eyebrow Army.
Feng Yi did not agree. His opinion was that either our side should be stationed in Hu County and Yiyang, and the Red Eyebrow Army should be sent between Hu County and Yiyang, and our side would attack from east to west;
Yang and Chimei fight to the death.
His subordinates had just suffered such a heavy loss, and Deng Yu was unwilling to give up and insisted on chasing the retreating Xu Xuan troops.
Feng Yi had a look of helplessness on his face and repeatedly tried to persuade Deng Yu not to pursue the enemy, but Deng Yu refused to listen and insisted on pursuing the Red Eyebrow Army.
At Deng Yu's insistence, the Han army pursued the Red Eyebrow Army led by Xu Xuan. As a result, during the pursuit, the main force of the Red Eyebrow Army arrived in time and merged with Xu Xuan's troops.
Then, the Red Eyebrow Army launched another counterattack against the pursuing Han Army.
The pursuing Han army was caught off guard by the counterattack of the Red Eyebrow Army. They rushed to fight and lost to the counterattack of the Red Eyebrow Army. They were killed and defeated, and the army was completely routed.
Deng Yu led the remnant of his troops and fled all the way to Yiyang. Feng Yi fled to Huixi (located in the west of Yiyang).
In this battle, the Han army lost completely. Not only was the main force of Deng Yu's army wiped out, but also the main force of Feng Yi's army was wiped out. The strength of the two western expedition armies was severely damaged after just one battle.
The Battle of Hu County was caused by Deng Hong's private war, which resulted in Deng Yu and Feng Yi having to lead their troops to rescue.
After seeing Deng Hong's disastrous defeat, Deng Yu was eager to make up for his mistakes and insisted on pursuing the Red Eyebrow Army. As a result, the Han Army was defeated by the Red Eyebrow Army's counterattack.
After this battle, Deng Yu, who was defeated and retreated to Yiyang, took the blame and submitted his resignation to Luoyang.
Because of his relationship, one hundred thousand soldiers were lost, which is really unjustifiable. Even if Liu Xiu did not punish him, he himself would be embarrassed to continue sitting in the position of Chief Situ.
Speaking of which, Feng Yi was quite unlucky. Liu Xiu sent him to the Western Expedition with the original intention of asking him to replace Deng Yu and take over the post of commander-in-chief of the Western Expedition Army. As a result, Feng Yi was led into a ditch by Deng Yu, not to mention losing his troops and generals.
, and also made him smell fishy.
Feng Yi, who retreated to Huixi, ordered his soldiers to build high barriers and defend themselves.
At the same time, Feng Yi actively contacted the noble families around Huixi and asked them to provide money to help him. At first, the local noble families responded indifferently to Feng Yi, but soon they became active
.
The direct consequence of the defeat of Deng Yu and Feng Yi was that the city of Hongnong was directly exposed to the eyes of the Red Eyebrow Army.
Xu Xuan's troops, who had won consecutive battles, had high morale and launched a strong attack on Hongnong County.
Currently, the person stationed in Hongnong County is Jing Dan, the prefect. He led more than 10,000 Hongnong County troops to desperately resist the siege of the Red Eyebrow Army, and repelled several strong attacks by the Red Eyebrow Army.
Regarding Hongnong City, which had been unable to be captured for a long time, Xu Xuan became anxious and asked Mo Yan beside him, saying in a deep voice: "Mr. Mo, didn't you say that taking down Hongnong City would be easy?"
Mo Yan was confident and said cheerfully: "Why is Mr. Xu so anxious? Hongnong is now in the pocket of our army!"
It was extremely difficult for more than 10,000 Hongnong County troops to resist the massive attack of the Red Eyebrow Army, and the Red Eyebrow Army outside the city was not the main force. Jing Dan recruited strong men in the city and called on the people in the city to participate in the city defense.
Jingdan's condition has not completely recovered. This time he was ordered to go to Hongnong. After a lot of hard work, his condition, which had been relieved, began to rebound again. At this time, Jingdan was still defending the city despite his illness.
The people in Hongnong City still loved Jingdan very much, and many strong men participated in the city defense. Jingdan resisted the Red Eyebrow Army for three days in a row. On the fourth day, the Red Eyebrow Army began to attack the city again early in the morning.
Jing Dan personally went into battle despite being ill, commanding the county troops and strong men on the city wall to resist the enemies outside the city.
When the fierce battle was in full swing, no one expected that a cold arrow suddenly shot out from among their own county troops and went straight to Jing Dan's neck. Jing Dan realized that something was wrong and tried his best to dodge, but he was still a little slow.
Hit by an arrow.
The strong man who took advantage of the chaos and shot a cold arrow jumped off the city wall without even hesitating afterwards. Although the assassin who was among the strong men was killed to pieces, Jing Dan was not able to survive either.
The arrowheads of the assassin's crossbows were quenched with poison, and the poison was so poisonous that it sealed the throat with blood.
When Jing Dan was carried off the city wall and rescued, he was already on his deathbed. He intermittently told the generals around him to escort the people in the city and leave the city from the east city as quickly as possible. There were as many people as they could escape.
After saying this, Jing Dan passed away.
All the officers and soldiers in the army, as well as the common people who participated in the defense of the city, burst into tears. Once Jing Dan died, Hongnong City could no longer be defended. According to Jing Dan's instructions, the officers and soldiers of the county army led the people in the city to fight against the red eyebrow army.
Evacuate in the direction of Dongcheng.
However, Hongnong City is a county town, and there are tens of thousands of people in the city. They can evacuate wherever they want. In the process of people escaping from the city, the West City has been breached, and the Red Eyebrow Army invaded the city like a tide.
The Red Eyebrow Army that entered Hongnong followed the same pattern they had in Sanfu, grabbing whatever they saw, including food, women, and gold, silver, and jewelry. If they encountered resistance, they would be killed.
In the end, the officers and soldiers of the county army successfully escaped with only more than 10,000 civilians. Also, Jing Dan's body was carried out of the city by the officers and soldiers. Finally, it did not fall into the hands of the Red Eyebrow Army.
Hongnong City was plundered by the Red Eyebrow Army, causing widespread grief and innumerable casualties.
The local nobles who were unwilling to influence Feng Yi's call at the beginning changed their attitude immediately after seeing the tragic situation in Hongnong City, and sent Feng Yi money, food, and young men.
After receiving strong support from the local landlord class, Feng Yi's army began to increase rapidly. In just a few months, Feng Yi returned to Xixi and incredibly reorganized an army of 80,000 people.
It has to be said that Feng Yi's ability is really strong. He was affected by Deng Yu and killed tens of thousands of people. In a short period of time, he recruited tens of thousands more and restored his military strength to its original state.
Of course, in this matter, the Red Eyebrow Army also played a great role in assisting.
Deng Yu and Feng Yi were defeated in Hongnong, and Jing Dan was assassinated. The Red Eyebrow Army marched eastward and was unstoppable. It was approaching Yiyang. Bad news spread to Luoyang one after another, and the government and the public were shocked.
Luoyang is located in Henan County and Yiyang is located in Hongnong County. Henan and Hongnong are bordered by the two counties. Henan is in the east and Hongnong is in the west. Luoyang is located in the west of Henan County and Yiyang is located in the east of Hongnong County.
So regardless of Luoyang, Yiyang belongs to two counties. In fact, the distance between the two places is very close. If you travel on horseback, it only takes two days.
It can be said that Yiyang is the western gate of Luoyang. Once Yiyang is defeated, the Red Eyebrow Army can directly take Luoyang.
Now that the Red Eyebrow Army is approaching Yiyang, Yiyang is in danger, and Luoyang is also in danger. With the war reaching this point, it seems that the Jianwu court established by Liu Xiu will soon make the same mistake as Liu Xuan's reform of the court.
The defeats of Deng Yu and Feng Yi were not a big blow to Liu Xiu. Victory and defeat are common matters for military strategists. Liu Xiu also took this very seriously. He himself was a military general and he did not dare to say that he could
Even if he is victorious in every battle, he will sometimes be defeated.
What really hit Liu Xiu and made him heartbroken was Jing Dan's death in battle.
If Jingdan died in front of the two armies, and died in the hands of the enemy in an upright and dignified manner, it would have been a death that was vigorous and tragic, but Jingdan was assassinated by an assassin who had sneaked into his own defenders, and his death was aggrieved and painful.
It's heartbreaking.
Liu Xiu issued an order that Jing Dan died of illness rather than being assassinated. Liu Xiu issued such an order to help Jing Dan clear his name. As a famous general, his final destination should not be under the assassin's secret arrow.
In addition, everyone knows that Jingdan has been ill for a long time. It can indeed be believed by people that Jingdan died of illness.
Liu Xiu's decree was equivalent to a seal, and Jing Dan's assassination was changed to death due to illness. After that, Liu Xiu appointed Jing Dan's eldest son Jing Shang to inherit Jing Dan's marquis title and continue to be the Marquis of Yueyang.
.
After sealing up Jing Dan's death, Liu Xiu issued a nationwide conscription order.
This was the first time Liu Xiu had issued a conscription order since he became emperor, but it was not mandatory.
Many of the veterans who followed Liu Xiu in the Hebei campaign have now retired from the army. The conscription order issued by Liu Xiu was mainly to call on these veterans to rejoin the army and accompany him to personally conquer the Red Eyebrows.
At this time, Liu Xiu had been completely angered by the Red Eyebrow Army. He made up his mind to fight to the death with the Red Eyebrow Army.