Anfeng Village is about 140 miles away from Chaozhou City in the west. The river course of Nanfeishui turns a big bend in the Chaoxi Plain, making the waterway distance from Anfeng Village to Chaozhou City as long as 200 miles.
Although this caused the troops and horses to attack in separate routes, with the Nanfeishui river as the center, and detoured for more than sixty or seventy miles, the Shouzhou Army could not discern the intention here, and they were hurriedly mobilized along the defense line.
But before enough troops and horses are gathered, who dares to attack the front of Tangyi soldiers?
Therefore, apart from this, it was a little harder, and all the soldiers and horses crossed to the outskirts of Anfeng Village, but they did not encounter any setbacks.
It's just a surprise attack that has just begun.
In the early and late years, except when Emperor Tianyou ruled Huainan, there were three Huainan Jiedu envoys before him who worked hard to dig the Anfeng Canal to connect the north and south Feishui River and strengthen the waterway connection between the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers.
After the Anfeng Canal was dug, the newly built post roads to Shouzhou in the north, Huozhou in the west, and Guangzhou also passed through Anfengzhai. As the most important water and land transportation hub in the Chaoxi area, Anfengzhai is located in Gaocheng County.
Its status is even more prominent than the county seat more than 20 miles to the west.
After decades of development, tens of thousands of people have settled here. The town is much more prosperous than ordinary county towns, and outside the town, there are ditches and fields, and there are villages of various sizes.
On the south bank of the Nanfeishui River, there is a stone ridge of more than ten feet, which is currently controlled by a team of Tangyi cavalry.
Han Qian took Wang Jun's hand and climbed up the stone ridge. He saw that the mountains were three or four miles long on the left and right, like a natural barrier on the south side of Anfeng Village. The frozen Nanfeishui River was under the cliff of the stone ridge.
Looking to the northwest, the same low ridge extending northward two or three miles away looks like the gateway to the west of Anfeng Village. The Anfeng Canal is excavated at the foot of the eastern foot of that ridge.
Han Qian did not look at the gathering of soldiers and horses in the north, nor did he look at the enemy troops in Anfeng Village from a high position, but looked to the southwest.
It has been dawn for more than an hour, and the mist has not dissipated. The blue-black peaks are looming in the mist, and they are much more majestic than the cliffs and low ridges here.
The depths of those peaks cut off Jingxiang and Huainan, where the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River divide water. The Huaiyang Mountain stretches thousands of miles, and is also the famous Dabie Mountain in later generations.
Including Tongbai Mountain, Huaiyang Mountain looks like a huge arc between heaven and earth. Its northern slope borders Guangzhou and Huozhou, its western slope borders Dengzhou, its southwest borders Suizhou and Huangzhou, and its southern slope borders Shu.
It borders Chaozhou on the east slope and Chaozhou on the east slope.
Huaiyang Mountain can be said to be a majestic mountain that no one can avoid for the heroes who conquered the Yangtze River and Huaihe River.
"In a certain sense, the strategic value of Anfeng Village is much more important than Huozhou City, especially for us; in addition to the planting area covering hundreds of miles to the west, north and east
Outside, there are also many villages in the Huaiyang Mountains to the south."
Han Qian held the riding whip in front of him and said to Wang Jun, who was riding the horse side by side,
"It is precisely because of the constant wars in the Jianghuai region over the past hundred years, coupled with the harsh exploitation caused by the brutal wars, that countless households fled into the thousands of miles of Huaiyang Mountains to struggle for survival. Before the Jinling Incident, Huaixi Chaochuguang
The population of Huoshou's five prefectures is only over 800,000. After the Jinling Incident, more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians were forced to cross the river and retreat to Huaixi by the Anning Palace, making the total population of Huaixi barely more than one million. However, not counting Jingxiang
In the mountainous areas of Suizhou, Huangzhou and Shuzhou in the south, only the northern and eastern slopes of Huaiyang Mountain, there has been no accurate statistics on how many mountain residents who escaped from their households were hiding in the Chu state more than 20 years ago.
Some people estimate that there are hundreds of thousands, some estimate that there are two to three hundred thousand, and some even say that there are four to five million mountain residents in the mountains under the jurisdiction of Chao and Huozhou alone. There is no consensus. However, Chaoxi, Huonan
How many households are hidden in the mountainous areas, we will soon find out..."
Han Qian was wearing a scarlet cloak outside his armor to keep out the cold, and his figure looked burly. Wang Jun just tied a less eye-catching fur coat on his coat and stood beside Han Qian.
Riding a horse with the army for three days in a row, it was extremely hard even if she was well taken care of. But at this moment, she looked sparkling, her snow-white face lacked the luster of porcelain, and her beautiful eyes revealed a clear brilliance, which made people feel uncomfortable.
Until she felt even the slightest bit tired.
Although the main force of troops coming in from separate routes was gathering on the north bank of Nanfeishui River and making final preparations for the attack on Yongfeng Village, which was only guarded by six to seven hundred Shouzhou soldiers, her thoughts were the same as Han Qian's.
The view extends deep into the peaks and ridges to the southwest.
She didn't know how big a stir this change of Tangyi soldiers would cause, but it was obvious that there were not a few people in the world who could really see Han Qian's intentions; and a handful of people should not be in Huaixi at this time
within the territory.
Yes, Anfeng Village was the focus of their attack in this raid, but Han Qian organized his troops to penetrate through the enemy's Chaozhou defense line and attack Anfeng Village because he was not coveting what the Shouzhou Army had hoarded here.
Materials are not meant to burn this prosperous town to ashes with fire, then destroy the dams and sluices of Anfeng Canal, cut off the most important waterway in Huaixi, and then wantonly destroy Huaixi.
Agricultural production in the hinterland.
For other generals, in this raid, if they could successfully realize the above-mentioned combat intentions and then successfully withdraw the raid troops, they would be qualified to be among the famous generals in the world. But Wang Jun knew in her heart that she
Your husband will not be limited to this.
During the Battle of Xichuan, Han Qian became famous.
What the world sees is the bloody and brave fight of the Dragon Bird Army, the young Third Prince Shen Yi, the brilliance of the Cyclone Cannon, and Han Qian's unpredictable and ingenious strategies, but there is another layer that is deeper.
Important factors are rarely mentioned by the world or very few people understand them thoroughly.
That is, in addition to directly providing nearly half of the troops for the defense of Xichuan City, the copycat forces also controlled the vast mountains to the west of the Xichuan River. As a result, Liang Jun was unable to completely blockade Xichuan City during the entire Jingxiang War.
The retreat route did not even effectively cut off the communication between Xichuan City and Jingzikou in the west wing.
Later, when the west wing of the Louchuan Army was not threatened, it easily broke through Liang Jun's blockade, arrived at the gate of Xichuan City, and successfully rendezvoused with the Longque Army, breaking Liang Jun's months-long siege.
Later, the Shanzhai forces provided more than half of the civilian households in the re-established Junzhou.
The formation of copycat forces is either the remnants of the refugee army who took refuge in the old forests in the empty mountains due to the war, or the ordinary civilians who fled the war and moved from the plains to the mountains to struggle for survival.
Only by deeply analyzing the deeper winning factors behind the Battle of Xichuan can we more clearly understand why Han Qian suddenly launched such a surprise attack in the coldest month of winter.
The land of Huaixi has experienced more wars in the past hundred years than Jingxiang and Nanyang.
Even after the founding of the Chu Kingdom, Liang Jun invaded Huaixi three times on a large scale; the small-scale invasions did not stop for a year.
Since the Jinling Incident, especially when Li Zhigao led the Huaixi Forbidden Army to cross the Yangtze River and march north, the war has lasted for nearly two years.
Although there are no remnants of the refugee army between the peaks on the northern and eastern slopes of Huaiyang Mountain, which makes these mountainous areas insufficient in military strength to form strongholds for self-protection, there are definitely not a few ordinary civilians who have fled the war and moved into them.
In the past year in Tangyi, although it was impossible to conduct accurate statistics on the northern and eastern slopes of Huaiyang Mountain adjacent to Chaozhou and Huozhou, and it was impossible to accurately estimate the specific size of households in these mountainous areas, we also made great efforts to explore
end.
What is Tangyi’s real advantage?
Xuzhou, which Han Qian and his father Han Daoxun have been cultivating for several years, can be said to be a standard mountain state.
During the Jinling Incident, Han Qian led the Chishan Army to move south. He once had plans to manage Fuyu Mountain and mount a long-term resistance. After Maoshan was "captured", Wang Jun stayed with Han Qian for nearly a year, and he knew these very well.
But.
Combining these and looking back at the significance of Yongfeng Village, we will understand that Yongfeng Village actually enters the deep gateway to the northeastern slope of Huaiyang Mountain along the upper reaches of the Feishui River in the north and south.
Different from the Wujian Mountains where the highest peak is only 400 to 500 feet high, in the northeastern section of Huaiyang Mountain, there are hundreds of peaks rising up to 300 to 400 feet high. The terrain is extremely dangerous and steep. Some streams originate from Huaiyang Mountain.
Especially major rivers such as the North and South Feishui, whose relatively gentle valleys and floodplains are actually the main passages deep into the hinterland of the Huaiyang Mountains.
In fact, the raiding troops gathered outside Anfengzhai. On the one hand, under the auspices of Tian Cheng, Feng Xuan and others, they were quickly gathering troops on the north bank of the Nanfeishui River to make final preparations before the attack.
On the one hand, Xi Faer had already led more than a hundred scouts along the valley of the South Feishui River and entered Jiangjun Ridge for preliminary reconnaissance.
In the proposed combat plan, the situation of not being able to successfully capture Yongfeng Village was also considered.
However, the backup plan is not to retreat to the original route, nor to go east into Wujian Mountain, but to go southwest into the northeastern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, and then rely on the eastern section of Huaiyang Mountain to extend from northwest to southeast for more than 500 miles, with a depth of 300 miles.
Take root in the vast mountainous areas.
This was Han Qian's fundamental intention to launch this surprise attack while the main force of the Liang Army was concentrated on the north bank of the Yellow River and the Shouzhou Army was unable to launch a large-scale offensive on the southern front alone.
The most fundamental point is that the main force of the Liang Army cannot be transferred to the southern front within half a year to a year.
This main force, in addition to Liang Jun's elite troops and horses, and more importantly, the combat materials within Liang State, can only protect the northern front in a short period of time and cannot tilt towards the southern front.
Otherwise, Tangyi would detach an elite force and go deep into Huaiyang Mountain at this time, while the Liang Army and Shouzhou Army would be able to assemble a large army and attack the Chuhe and Fucha Mountain defenses regardless of casualties, which might lead to the complete collapse of Tangyi.
Of course, the Wuwei Army moved from the southwest of Huaiyang Mountain to Suizhou, forcing the Shouzhou Army to mobilize nearly 20,000 elite troops from the Chaozhou front line and move to the west of Huozhou, which was also a necessary prerequisite for this raid.
Otherwise, the Shouzhou Army had 70,000 defense troops on the southern front, and Han Qian would not dare to break in easily.
Several fast horses crossed the river ice and rushed to the south bank of the river embankment.
Guo Que used his hands and feet to quickly climb up the cliff. He walked up to Han Qian with some breathlessness and reported: "There are three thousand enemy cavalry going south along the Beifeishui River. It seems that Xu Mingzhen personally led them, and they fought out of Gaocheng."
After the more than 2,000 infantry soldiers gathered together, they showed no sign of stopping to prepare their formation. They seemed to want to take advantage of our army's unstable footing to attack along the Anfeng Canal..."
Guo was quite excited, and calling for reinforcements was what they were most looking forward to.
"If they want to fight, fight with them. Send an order to Han Donghu to retract the cavalry from the west wing. Don't intercept. Let the enemy's main force come over and retreat to the south bank of the Nanfeishui River. You go to meet Tiancheng first and adjust your deployment to prepare for the attack.
Meet the enemy reinforcements on the northwest or north side of Yongfeng Village! I will rush over soon." Han Qian said with a slight smile.
Gao Shao, Feng Liao and others stayed on the southern front to take charge, but half of the military attachés from the Military Intelligence Staff Department went with the army to formulate specific combat plans, so Han Qian no longer needed too much intervention.
Guo Que first rode his horse to meet Tian Cheng. Han Qian glanced at the peaks in the southwest and said to Wang Jun: "Let's go back too. If everything goes well, maybe we can have a peaceful sleep tonight."
"Xu Mingzhen personally led the reinforcements to fight non-stop. He was aware of the importance of Anfeng Village, but obviously he still didn't expect that we could use the river ice to quickly transport weapons - he wanted to take advantage of our unstable footing and hit us hard.
"Wang Jun said with emotion.
The scale of the Tangyi soldiers and cavalry army was far smaller than that of the Shouzhou army. When they penetrated behind enemy lines, the most important thing they needed to solve was the transportation of supplies and heavy weapons. These directly determined the ability of the raiding troops to stay in the enemy's territory and attack difficulties.
Otherwise, even if there are only six or seven hundred defenders in Anfeng Village, and there is only a rammed earth wall less than three feet thick on the outside, if they want to attack without siege weapons, the casualties will be considerable.
Tragic.
Not to mention wanting to defend Anfeng Village in the later stage.
Of course, the enemy troops reinforced from Shouzhou in the north and Huozhou in the west, under the personal leadership of Xu Mingzhen, thought of taking advantage of the unstable foothold to attack quickly. They probably did not see through Han Qian's plan to launch this surprise attack at all.
fundamental intention.
They did not expect that Tangyi soldiers would guard Anfeng Village. They only thought that after Tangyi soldiers captured Anfeng Village, they would immediately destroy the town port and nearby water conservancy facilities such as sluices, dams, canals and embankments, and then quickly
transfer.
This is located in the connection area between the upper and middle reaches of the North and South Feishui River. The terrain is relatively high. There must be weirs and sluices on both sides of the Yongfeng Canal to ensure that the canal maintains stable water storage for boats to pass through.
It is not that the world did not have the ability to build weirs and ship locks.
Not to mention Xuzhou, there are several weirs and ship locks built on the Hangou, the core waterway connecting the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, to control the water level in the Hangou according to the rise and fall of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River tides.
It means that when the tide rises in the outer river, the gate is opened to receive water, and when the tide is low, the gate is closed to maintain the water level inside the Hangou.
Boats entering and exiting Hangou must pass through ship locks.
In the early stage, in order to solve the problem of slow efficiency of grain transporting ships passing through the locks, a segmented transportation method was adopted, that is, storage warehouses were built at the dams and locks, so that grain transporting ships from various places were responsible for the transportation of certain sections, that is, to the dams.
At the sluice, the grain is moved into the granary and handed over to the fleet in the next river section. This saves manpower and material resources and increases the scale of grain transported to Luoyang and Chang'an every year.
However, even building a weir, embankment and ship lock on a small river channel was definitely a large-scale project in this world. Once it was damaged, it might take three to five years to repair it.
The transportation of materials between Chaozhou and Shouzhou does not rely particularly heavily on the Anfeng Canal. However, after the Anfengzhai Weir and Locks were destroyed, the Shouzhou navy was unable to freely enter and exit the two major water systems of the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River.
If Xu Mingzhen and the Shouzhou generals believed that the core goal of the Tangyi soldiers' movement was to destroy the weirs, dikes and sluices in Anfeng Village, they would not dare to delay the fight.
What's more, both sides of the Feishui River in the north and south are key reclamation areas for the Shouzhou Army. Emperor Zhu Yu of the Liang Dynasty harassed Huaidong last year and focused on destroying river embankments, dams and other facilities, causing huge floods in Huaidong this year in the three prefectures of Chu, Yang and Tai. They can't help it.
Will be forgotten so quickly.
If they were not worried about this, if they postponed it for two or three days, they would be able to gather thousands more soldiers and horses, and the situation would be more favorable to them. Even if Anfeng Village is temporarily captured by then, they should be confident and calm.
to recapture Anfeng Village.
…………
…………
The Nanfeishui River flows from the southwest and passes through a cliff - the cliff on the south side is the mountain that Han Qian and Wang Jun climbed after arriving at Anfengzhai - when the Huainan Jiedushi Mansion went to court, the cliff on the north side was
The mouth of the canal was dug in the east and water was diverted northward to connect with Beifeishui River.
This cliff is not high, but the terrain is quite dangerous, which means that the enemy cannot easily enter Anfeng Village directly from the south or west to join the defenders.
To the northeast of Anfeng Village, also to the east of Anfeng Canal, and to the north of Nanfeishui River, the terrain is relatively flat, but at this time it has been occupied by Tangyi soldiers who have gathered.
Further north, there are three hills that rise about several feet or more than ten feet. At this time, the Tangyi soldiers who came a day in advance set up simple camps on their behalf; this can also be said to be to cover the main force.
Ma attacked Anfeng Village and established a peripheral defense line to intercept the enemy.
When Guo Que initially reported, there were 3,000 enemy cavalry coming from the direction of Shouzhou along the Bei Feishui River and 2,000 infantry coming from Gaocheng. However, in the afternoon, when the enemy troops came from the northwest along both banks of the Anfeng Canal, it was confirmed that they were attacking.
There were also thousands of enemy cavalry arriving from the direction of Huozhou at about the same time.
"Xu Mingzhen hasn't figured out whether this is a major counterattack planned by the imperial court for a long time, so she directly dispatched cavalry from the west wing. It seems that she still attaches great importance to us!" Han Qian held a bronze telescope and observed the Anfeng Canal.
Enemy deployment on the west bank.
It was obvious that the enemy was worried about their manipulation on the river ice, and sent small groups of cavalry to repeatedly cross the banks of the Anfeng Canal. However, its outposts had already been built to the east bank of the Anfeng Canal. The forwards of the two armies were so close that an impact was inevitable.
, can throw the spear into the opponent's array.
"With the enemy's reinforcements and the defenders in Anfeng Village, the total strength they have gathered here has exceeded 7,000. No matter from which aspect, they have an absolute advantage in strength. And within three days, we divided
The road cuts through to Anfeng Village. In such severe cold weather, traveling and camping in enemy-controlled areas are very physically demanding. I believe that no matter how timid Xu Mingzhen is, he should launch an attack directly," Tian Cheng
He said with emotion, "This is much less troublesome than our night battle to the west bank of Anfeng Canal - the night battle still depends on God's face,"
They will not ask the Shouzhou Army to delay any longer. Before dusk, the main force of the Shouzhou Army on the west bank of the Anfeng Canal will not come over, so they will launch an offensive first.
The conditions for a night battle are even more stringent. Only on a clear night can the field of vision be slightly better, and the Tangyi soldiers can have an advantage.
"Looking at their deployment, they probably want to attack our center and left road in one go, and first seek to open up communication with Anfeng Village," Feng Xuan sat on a tall horse, and they burned hundreds of coals here.
It seems that the generals are seizing the time to cook and eat so that they have the strength to fight. In fact, they are creating clouds of mist in the cold air to block the enemy's sight. However, they can look at the enemy formation from the edge area without any obstruction. "
The general Chu Jia who climbed up the southern hillside surrounded by a dozen people should be Xu Mingzhen."
"Xu Mingzhen is as famous as Li Yu, Du Chongtao and others, but I don't know if he will do anything extraordinary this time. He came to scare us..." Han Qian said with a smile.
"My husband upholds the legacy of his late husband, but Xu Mingzhen regards her husband as a traitor. If there is such a big deviation in the way you look at people, it will be difficult to promote your strengths no matter how outstanding you are." Wang Jun said.
She gathered her fur clothes tightly to keep out the cold wind.
The battle was approaching, and there was an inexplicable emotion surging in her chest. She was expecting but not expecting, and couldn't help but move closer to Han Qian.
Xu Mingzhen, surrounded by her generals and guards, stood solemnly in front of a nunnery called Meishan Nunnery in Beiya.
To the north of Anfeng Village, the Tangyi Army's 3,000 horse and infantry troops were dismounted and divided into six positions. However, as the Tangyi Army was making fire for cooking, clouds of white mist billowed in the shallow valley to the north of Anfeng Village.
, making them unable to see the more detailed situation.
The Tangyi soldiers had nearly two thousand cavalry scattered on both wings, and their formation seemed quite orderly.
Of course, the messenger who sneaked out from Anfeng Village reported that the two battalions of Tangyi soldiers gathered in front of the village were still preparing to attack the village. They had cut down several giant trees to make simple siege vehicles. Anfeng Village
A thin protective wall may be breached after a few blows.
It can be seen that if they do not launch an attack and delay it until night, the Tangyi soldiers will most likely attack Anfeng Village overnight.
Xu Mingzhen looked up at the sky. It was cloudless and the wind was as cold as a knife.
The Tangyi soldiers, or the former Chishan Army, had better night fighting capabilities than other elites in the world. This was directly related to the larger and more mature group of military attachés in the Tangyi Army. It was useless for Xu Mingzhen to envy them.
Since the Tangyi soldiers were divided into eight or nine groups and passed through the Chaozhou defense line, for a period of time, the northern area of Chaozhou was controlled by the Tangyi soldiers, and the scouts of the Shouzhou army could not pass through.
Therefore, except for the initial messenger sent from Chaozhou to report the news, they had not known the specific situation on the southern front for a day and a half, which made Xu Mingzhen worried.
Without enough intelligence, no matter how famous a general he was, he would still be blind; and he suspected that Han Qian, the Marquis of Qianyang, was probably in the opposite military formation.
With such a large-scale raid, it is hard to imagine that Han Qian can really stay in Liyang City and enter the bridal chamber with peace of mind, but unfortunately there is still no way to verify this speculation.
Several military counselors and various generals have discussed a specific combat plan, and the troops and horses that were approaching in the early stage were also deployed along both sides of the Anfeng Canal according to this plan.
Conventionally, the infantry is used for attack and the cavalry is used to cover the flanks. This is the orthodox strategy. However, their first batch of reinforcements are mainly cavalry, and they have to severely damage the Tangyi soldiers in the shortest time, so they can only adjust their tactics.
Many people advocate gathering the main force of the cavalry to the front and using the impact of the cavalry formation to penetrate the middle-left infantry defense line of the Tangyi soldiers approaching Anfeng Village as quickly as possible; at the same time, the two thousand infantrymen can be penetrated.
and a small number of cavalry were arranged on both wings to prevent the Tangyi soldiers from counterattacking.
Of course, they also knew that even if the Tangyi soldiers did not carry heavy weapons or heavy chariots, they still had a large number of strong crossbows, and the range of these crossbows was about 120 steps, which were even slightly stronger.
than an ordinary walking bow.
As the main force of the attack, the three lines of cavalry approached in a formation. Everyone also advocated placing the limited number of more than 200 armored cavalry at the front of the cavalry formation so that they could attack the front line of Tangyi soldiers faster with fewer casualties.
The crossbow array was defeated.
At this time, the defenders of Anfeng Village came out to attack. Even if they could not defeat the Tangyi soldiers in one fell swoop, they could still force them away from Anfeng Village.
"Fight!" Xu Mingzhen waved his hand and ordered the generals to prepare to lead his troops to attack. He still could not take the risk of Anfeng Village falling.
Even if Anfeng Village falls into the hands of the enemy for a day, the dams and sluices may be destroyed; and subsequent reinforcements will not be able to be assembled until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. This also means that after the Tangyi soldiers stormed Anfeng Village overnight,
There is still a chance to evacuate calmly.
I don't know what happened on the southern front, but Si Zhao didn't send elite soldiers and horses to chase them. Shou and Huo Zhou never thought that Tangyi soldiers would dare to penetrate so boldly. The standing elites that could be mobilized were limited, and even a large number of war horses were scattered.
Raise them in various villages to prevent and control horse plague and save the consumption of horse feed for winter.
Coupled with such severe cold weather, it was too slow for the generals, soldiers and horses to assemble and mobilize in various fortifications, fortifications, and cities.
Xu Mingzhen does not want to be able to severely damage the Tangyi soldiers now. As long as the security of Fengzhai is not lost, or the passage into Anfengzhai is opened to join the defenders, there will be a lot of opportunities in the future to kill this daring raider.
