After Liu Bei withdrew to the plains, he immediately defended the city and prepared for a new battle.
But in the next few days, Yuan's army did not attack. Instead, the army dispersed and quickly crossed the rivers and lakes in the north and south surrounding areas of the plain, occupying a large strategic area and surrounding the plain.
Liu Bei had nothing to do about this matter. Hebei was extremely cold this winter, much colder than Youzhou in previous years. The small rivers and lakes were all frozen and could not be used as a defense zone.
Therefore, almost all the areas around the plain were occupied by Yuan's army, except for Longcuo Ferry and Ande County, Xipingchang County, Ban County and other places in the northwest.
Yuan Jun was like the tentacles stretched out by a giant. Pingyuan County, as the mainstay, was at the forefront, but behind it, on the left and on the right, all began to be harassed by Yuan Jun, and large areas of land were occupied.
Pingyuan is a large county. Because of its flat terrain and vast arable land, it has a large population. During the period of Emperor He, the total population of Qingzhou was only more than three million, and Pingyuan alone had one million.
Nowadays, Qingzhou is becoming more and more prosperous. As a trade center between the north and the south, it is the frontier of the confrontation with Jizhou and a centralized sales place for salt, cotton, grain, and ironware. Pingyuan County has become the most prosperous county in Hebei. Compared with Wei County, the seat of Jizhou, and Qingzhou,
Linzi is still flourishing.
Above the fertile fields, there are villages and fields everywhere. Yuan Jun raided everywhere. Fortunately, Qingzhou had already responded and moved the people on the north bank of the Yellow River to Le'an, Jinan and other places to settle down. Hundreds of thousands of people dragged their families across the Yellow River and waited.
Victory in the war.
Although the Yuan Army gained nothing, they occupied or destroyed a large number of sentries, camps, fortresses, and defense areas originally located by the Qingzhou Army near the river. The advantage of the defense area in the Jiuhe area on the north bank of the Yellow River was instantly wiped out.
Liu Bei led his army to lift the siege of Dahegudu, but he was trapped in prison and was surrounded by Yuan's army. There was still a stock of food and grass in the city, because Pingyuan County is the seat of Pingyuan County and the largest trade center in the entire plain.
When the population of Guangxian County was the largest, it once reached more than 200,000 to 300,000 people, which was even more than Linzi.
Therefore, the city was built very large, several times larger than Anyang, the temporary military town Yuan Shao built in Hanoi. The city is now completely empty, and the people have moved to the south bank of the Yellow River. Liu Bei has been hoarding grain and grass in the city for about a year, and there are still nearly
With an army of 40,000, half of Qingzhou's main force is basically here.
In addition, Pingyuan City has been reinforced with cement and its defense has been greatly improved. With a large number of troops in the city, sufficient food and grass, various military facilities, and a greatly increased defense of the city, Liu Bei is confident that he and Yuan Shao will start a long-term tug of war here.
war!
This is also the second strategy of Qingzhou. In the first strategy, Qianxian, Lingxian and other places are used as short-term buffer zones. Just like Cao Cao used Yanjin, Baima and other places as the first sniper points during the Battle of Guandu.
After briefly intercepting Yuan's army, they immediately retreated to Guandu, and then began the second phase of the protracted war strategy.
Originally, the second strategy envisaged in Qingzhou should not be so passive, but they had no choice but to say the same thing, it was too cold in winter today, and there was no other way. So they had to abandon the Jiujiu area that was originally supposed to be stationed by Zang Ba, Dian Wei and others.
The river defense area was changed to Ande and Xipingchang County in the rear area.
Both sides were carrying out various military maneuvers in full swing. After Yuan Shao crossed the river, he did not immediately attack by force. Instead, he strengthened the county and the vicinity of Dahe Gudu, and used the two camps left by Zhang Liao Tai Shici to carry out repair work again.
.
This includes setting up a large number of iron locks on the Gudu River to intercept the Qingzhou Navy, and connecting all the pontoon bridges together based on the original pontoon bridges to form several large pontoon bridges four feet wide and forty to fifty feet long.
It facilitates the passage of carriages and horses transporting grain, grass and baggage, thus facilitating the Jizhou Army's continuous operations in Pingyuan Kingdom.
Soon, December is coming. It has been more than a month since the Jizhou Army entered Pingyuan Kingdom. Outside Pingyuan City, the new Yuan Army camp has also begun to be built. Craftsmen are building siege equipment. The cavalry is cruising in the wilderness.
, Ande, Xipingchang and other places, the two sides often fought in the wild.
At this moment, when Yuan Shao's troops were approaching Pingyuan City, at the junction of Hanoi County and Wei County, in Anyang City, the food and grass had completely bottomed out, but the water around the city still showed no downward trend. Huanshui River
The waves continued and Anyang was completely flooded.
It is only seventy miles from Anyang to Yecheng, and there are defense areas such as Wucheng and Jiuhou City in between. In order to deal with the threat from Luoyang, Yuan Shao deployed heavy troops here. Naturally, there are also important camps of Yuan's army stationed nearby near the north bank of Huan River.
field.
At this time, in Yuan Junying, about ten miles away from Anyang and about thirty miles away from Wucheng, Yuan Tan and Xin Ping were discussing countermeasures.
When Anyang City was flooded at first, the soldiers stationed on the north bank of Huan River didn't pay much attention. This was because it had happened once before, and the water level had dropped on its own after the heavy rain stopped.
Unexpectedly, the flood lasted for more than half a month. People in the city were unable to get out, and people outside the city were unable to enter. It turned into a besieged city.
Yuan Jun stationed here immediately reported to Yuan Tan in Yecheng. After Yuan Tan learned the news, he asked Fengji to guard Yecheng, and then summoned his counselor Xin Ping, generals Wang Zhao, Cen Bi, Peng An and others to personally lead the two troops.
Thousands of people came to support.
Twenty thousand troops, plus more than ten thousand soldiers stationed locally, thousands in Jiuhou City in the northwest, thousands in Wucheng, and more than ten thousand troops in Huang Fanyang area, the total force reached fifty thousand.
This is only the troops near the north bank of Huan River. There are still 20,000 troops in Yecheng. Taking into account the less than 40,000 Yan Liangwen Chou tribe in Anyang City, as well as the troops stationed in other counties and townships, the total military strength of Wei County is almost 12.
Around 100,000 people were gathered along the Guang Anyang front line. Jizhou also came out in force this time and took out all their belongings.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! In fact, the army of more than 200,000 is almost the entire family of Jizhou. During the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao's entire army of 130,000 was wiped out.
Zhang He led tens of thousands of people to surrender to Cao Cao, and 80,000 people were killed. But after Yuan Shao died, each of the three Yuan sons divided their property and each had tens of thousands of elite soldiers, which shows the Yuan family's rich heritage.
It took Cao Cao many years to conquer Hebei. When Liu Bei attacked Yuan Shao, Chen Mu did not dare to bet on the Battle of Guandu again, so he could only gongs and drums in front of him and engage in a head-on confrontation with Yuan's army of more than 200,000 people.
, whether it is Luoyang, Youzhou or Qingzhou, the pressure is not small.
However, his grand strategy of flanking three sides was obviously effective. Yuan Shao divided his forces severely, although there were crushing forces in each direction. But every time they met head-on, the strength of both sides was actually about the same, just because of Yuan Shao's strength.
It was caused by Chen Mu's design of being too scattered.
At this time, the total strength of the Luoyang Army in Hanoi reached 60,000, which was only less than the 100,000 soldiers and horses of the Yuan Army on the front line. And due to the supplement of the Black Mountain Army, after several months of training, there will be tens of thousands more elites.
The gap will be further reduced.
Of course Yuan Tan didn't know that Luoyang's strength was growing. Only when he came with his army did he realize the seriousness of the matter.
The Huan River overflowed, and even areas more than ten miles away suffered floods. The military camp was forced to relocate to a relatively high place. The closer to Anyang, the deeper the water became. The area closest to the Huan River was even flooded.
The waist.
The scouts who went to check the city only dared to look at the city from a high slope about two miles away on the north bank of Huan River. They saw that the city tower was empty, with no one and no movement, and only the flags were fluttering above.
Because they were too far away, the scouts could not clearly see the specific situation in the city, so they could only come back and report the situation truthfully.
Although the situation in the city could not be detected, Yuan Tan knew that the food reserves in Anyang City were only three months. Even if he saved some food, he would definitely not be able to last four months.
So in early December, he was actively looking for ways to contact the city.
Unfortunately, the water is so huge and the waves are so high that ordinary ships cannot pass through it. Even if you can use a large ship, it is difficult to cross due to the rolling river. Every time you travel, you will only be washed downstream.
Finally, Xin Ping came up with an idea to use a large boat to cross the river from the north bank of Huan River, diagonally opposite Anyang City.
Due to the roar of the flood, when the boat goes to the other side, it will be moved diagonally downward by the water. By the time it almost crosses the shore, the position should be just under Anyang City.
This is a simple physics problem. If you can know the speed of the water flow, you should be able to quickly calculate where to sail the boat to reach the city on the other side of the river.
But if you wanted to find a physicist in the late Han Dynasty, it would be better to look for a few thousand dollars in your bank card balance.
Therefore, Yuan Tan could only experiment over and over again.
In the end, after several days of experiments, and after boarding two large boats and dozens of soldiers, he finally succeeded in getting a large boat to pass through the rolling waves of the Huan River and sail into the moat outside the city.
Anyang is not on the edge of the Huan River. Its north side is half a mile away from the Huan River. Then a canal was dug from the Huan River to divert water from the north and surround the city.
Under normal circumstances, large ships can sail on the flooded Huan River. However, due to the terrain of the surrounding flooded land, the deepest water level only reaches a person's shoulder, and the shallowest point only reaches a person's ankle. It is impossible for the ship to do so.
past.
In other words, this moat helped to allow this big ship to get closer to the city.
I saw this big boat floating on the river, with dozens of hemp ropes as thick as a child's arms tied behind it, rising and falling in the waves, stumbling into the moat, and finally not being washed downstream by the flood.
However, because the sailors on the ship were inexperienced, the ship did not slow down in time. Under the horrified eyes of everyone on the ship, it crashed into the city wall.
Jizhou's shipbuilding skills are definitely incomparable to Qingzhou's. In other words, the most sophisticated shipbuilding skills and crews in the entire Han Dynasty are basically concentrated in Qingzhou, Jingzhou and Jiangdong.
However, shipbuilding technology had been well developed as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties. When King Wu of Zhou conquered the Shang Dynasty, he used 47 large ships to cross the Yellow River from Mengjin and destroyed the Shang Dynasty.
Therefore, in fact, the ship at this time was still very strong. Except for the damage to the bow, there was no serious damage to other parts.
In the past few days, Yuan Jun outside is trying to contact people in the city. Of course Yan Liang, Wen Chou and the others know this, so they have been paying attention to the situation here.
After discovering that Yuan Tan's ship was coming, they immediately dropped the gondola and pulled the crew on board.
When they came up, Yan Liang and Min Chun immediately stepped forward to ask.
There was a captain on the ship who was leading the team. When he saw them coming, he quickly said: "General, chief secretary."
"Can the reinforcements outside the city bring food and grass?"
Min Chun asked him questions immediately.
The captain replied: "We have all the food and grass, but the water is so strong that it is difficult to transport them."
"Oh, what can I do?"
Yan Liang was not very intelligent, so he just felt helpless and sighed.
The captain hurriedly said: "General, don't worry. Your Majesty has already prepared the windlasses to be placed outside the city. The ropes on the windlass have also been brought by ships. As long as the ropes are fixed in the city with the windlass, the grain and grass can be transported into the city using the windlass."
middle."
"Wind wheel?"
Yan Liang quickly looked outside the city in the distance and saw that on the other side of the river, about three miles away, on a hillside, Yuan Jun had densely prepared a large number of wooden oars.
Although it was too far away to see clearly, Yan Liang had seen this type of oar before. It was called a windlass and it was a labor-saving device.
It turned out that after discussing with Xin Ping and others, Yuan Tan believed that Anyang must not be lost, and decided to transport a batch of grain and grass to the city first to solve the urgent need. But how to transport it to the city was a big problem.
Finally, a craftsman in the army came up with the idea of using a wheel to drive the cart.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The windlass cart is a fixed pulley device. It was widely used in wars as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The most common one is the nest cart. Below the nest cart is a crane.
The person is in the hanging basket, and the pulley is used to send the person to a high place to facilitate observation of the enemy's situation.
But if it is a short distance, such as about four to five feet, and you are fishing in the river, fetching water, etc., an ordinary fixed pulley will definitely be fine.
However, it is a full three miles from the slope to the city, which is 1,200 meters. Such a long fixed pulley distance was almost impossible to achieve in ancient times except for the modern industrial level in later generations.
Later, Yuan Tan Xinping and others discussed with the military craftsmen for a long time, and finally decided to push the oars to the Huanshui River, use a large number of stones to fix them, and at the same time move the stones and sand to build a small highland nearby.
Then put the oars on the high ground and transport the grain and grass to the other side of the river through the windlass.
Although the Huan River surged and submerged above the surface, the water on the original river bank was far less rapid than in the middle of the river. The Huan River was not a super-large river like the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, but an ordinary medium-sized river, with the narrowest point only more than twenty feet.
That is more than forty meters.
Yan Liang also built a high ground outside the city and made oars. In this way, roller skating transportation could be carried out on both sides of the Huanshui River. Although it was still in the water, this was at least a completely feasible plan.
After deciding on this plan, Yuan Tan made the oars used to install the windlass while sending out large ships to continuously test them, and finally sent the required ropes to the other side of the river.
After hearing this method, Min Chun felt that it was very feasible. However, Yan Liang was suffering from the fact that the food supply in the city had run out, and the army would be hungry in three to five days. He was as anxious as ants on a hot pot. Although he did not know this with his intelligence,
Whether the method can be used, but if you seek medical treatment in a hurry, you can only treat the patient like a dead horse.
At that moment, the craftsmen in the city also immediately started to make windlasses. This thing was originally used on the body of the siege equipment nest. It was not difficult to make. It was just two round logs, hollowed out in the middle and fixed on a wooden cart, and then covered on both sides.
Just get on the rope.
As for how to return the rope here to the other side, it is simple to let the ropes on both sides form a complete fixed pulley device. They have already brought the rope here, and fixed the rope at the head of the city, using the height difference to pull the rope back to the other side.
Just slide the hanging basket transporting the rope over again.
So, in the next few days, Yan Liang sent people to secretly build a high slope by the river outside the city, using large rocks and sand to cover the north gate of the city. On the high slope platform, he built
Pulleys are used to build transport pulleys on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Don't underestimate the wisdom of the ancients. The fixed pulley device is recorded in Mozi's "Mo Jing". During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was also often used in wars and daily life. Including the windlass used to draw well water, later generations are still in use. As for communicating between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,
There are more ropeways in tourist attractions, so it is not a strange thing.
However, limited by the level of technology, the ancients were unable to build the ropeway longer and further, so they had no choice but to forcibly build it from both sides of the bank.
After a few days, the pulley was finally built and installed.
A steady stream of grain and grass began to be transported into the city, and the food shortage in Anyang City finally eased.