Occupying Chang'an is only the first step in occupying Guanzhong. Of course, it is not necessary to send troops to every county to occupy it. It is enough to occupy the strategic locations in Guanzhong.
Among the various strategic locations at present, Shangzhou is the most important. After Li Bing occupied Lantian Pass, he received an urgent order from Guo Song to intercept the bronzes in Shangluo County.
Li Bing immediately led 7,000 cavalry troops southward and entered Shangzhou. They were not in a hurry to attack Shangluo County, but went directly south to Wuguan.
Wuguan was previously captured by Yao Jin in a sneak attack. In order to prevent it from being captured a second time, Zhu Si once invested heavily in defense here, with a force of 8,000. However, after Zhu Si moved the capital, he strengthened the defense of Dengzhou, and both sides of Wuguan were attacked.
As it was its own territory, it gradually lost its strategic significance, and the garrison continued to decrease, down to a thousand people today.
The guard general of Wuguan was called Wang Lun, a close confidant of Zhu Jinqing. This man got the job of guarding Wuguan by boasting and flattering horses. He immediately squeezed the financial resources of Wuguan to the extreme. All caravans passing through Wuguan must follow the rules.
Then pay 50% of the tax bill, euphemistically called the safety tax. If there is no tax bill, then you can only let Wang Lun set the price arbitrarily.
In just half a year, basically no caravan dared to go through Wuguan. They would rather go through Tongguan to Luoyang and then turn south. Although it is a ten-day journey away, I am still willing to do so.
The money from the caravan could no longer be obtained. During this period, the greedy Wang Lun became interested in being a soldier again. Just last month, he exchanged the new money issued by Zhu Si into the small money issued by the feudal town in Hebei. Although Zhu Si's
The copper content of the new money was also very low, but it was better than small money. New money could always be exchanged for 1,500 small coins. As a result, each soldier was deprived of 30% of his military salary in this way.
This incident almost provoked a mutiny. After Zhu Jianqing scolded him severely, he restrained himself a little.
At noon, Wang Lun was eating in the big tent as usual. Their tent was in Wuguan. Wuguan is dangerous in the south and flat in the north. It is mainly used to deal with the enemy troops coming from the south. If there are enemy troops in the pass, Wuguan will be killed.
Basically there is no defensive significance.
At this time, the food on the table began to shake. Wang Lun had experience. He stood up, grabbed the sword and rushed out of the tent. As expected, dust was flying in the distance.
"Go back to the pass quickly!"
Wang Lun yelled, "This is at least five thousand cavalry, but Chang'an has no cavalry, so it cannot be his own army. You don't need to think carefully to know where the army came from."
A thousand soldiers panicked and fled back to Guancheng. They closed the city gate tightly. A thousand soldiers stood on the top of the city with their bows and arrows ready, waiting in full formation.
Seven thousand cavalry came at lightning speed, but slowed down two miles away. Li Bing was not worried about the enemy defending the city, and did not need to use any sneak attacks. They knew Wuguan very well, and it was easy to capture Wuguan.
"Enter Archers!"
Li Bing gave an order, and three thousand cavalry rushed up like a long snake formation. They shot arrows while running, and the dense arrows shot at the top of the city, suppressing the defenders on the top of the city. The defenders on the top of the city could only
Use the method of blind shooting, half-crouching on the top of the city, and shoot arrows without any target at the bottom of the city.
This kind of blind shooting is effective against the dense siege soldiers, but it is basically not effective against the running Long Snake Formation cavalry. The siege cavalry firmly suppressed the soldiers at the top of the city, and immediately several soldiers moved a large iron
Huolei rushed forward.
They used a wooden frame to place the iron fire thunder on the gate. At this time, Wang Lun discovered the enemy's intention through the observation hole. He shouted: "Use kerosene! Use kerosene!"
Immediately, a soldier threw more than a dozen jars of kerosene down, and the soldiers below all dodged. One soldier was unable to dodge and was hit on the shoulder by a jar of kerosene. The pottery jar shattered and black kerosene poured over him.
"No! It's kerosene."
Several firearms battalion soldiers were shocked. Once the kerosene was used, the match would probably be lit from the root. They turned around and ran towards the team, shouting as they ran: "Quickly retreat! They used kerosene!"
The cavalry also turned around and ran towards the north, quickly away from the city wall. At this time, seven or eight torches were thrown down from the city wall, and the kerosene in front of the city gate burst into flames. Almost in a moment, the iron fire thunder exploded with earth-shattering explosions.
Not only did they blow up the decaying city gate to pieces, they also blew up the very old city head. Last time, the Jin army discovered that the Wuguan city wall was in disrepair and could not withstand the explosion of a large iron fire mine.
The plan to seize Wuguan has been formulated long ago. It is crude, simple and effective.
The entire city tower collapsed together with the surrounding city walls dozens of feet wide, and dust flew into the air. Hundreds of soldiers on the city head and the general Wang Lun were crushed underneath by the collapsed city bricks and towers.
Li Bing waved his sword and shouted, "Kill!"
"Kill--"
The cavalry shouted and rushed towards the city. The soldiers on top of the city were so frightened that they turned around and ran wildly. They opened the south city gate and escaped from Wuguan...
The soldiers dug out the enemy general from under the rubble. He had been dead for a long time. He was not crushed to death, but was shocked to death by the shock wave of the iron fire thunder. The other soldiers basically died like this, with all their internal organs shattered.
Already.
But Li Bing still had another important task. He left 500 soldiers to defend the city, while he led more than 6,000 cavalry to kill Shangluo County.
Shangluo County is the second largest county in Shangzhou, and its state government is Shangluo County.
Shangluo County is actually a small county, with a circumference of only fifteen miles and a population of less than 2,000 households. Because it is relatively close to Wuguan, caravans or travelers usually go here for supplies and rest, which makes Shangluo County's business relatively small.
However, in the past six months, Wuguan guard Wang Lun tried his best to extort and exploit the caravans, which almost caused the caravans to disappear. Shangluo County was also greatly affected, and business withered.
But ten days ago, a team of 2,000 people came here, escorting thousands of carts, and stopped in Shangluo County, which made the business in Shangluo County boom all of a sudden.
Although these soldiers also have bad habits of sneaking around, they are generally pretty good. They spend money generously. They drink, eat and go to brothels every day, which makes the restaurants in Shangluo County profitable. There are thousands of coachmen who also want to eat and drink.
Although the expenditure was not as generous as that of soldiers, it was still a waste of money and brought a lot of traffic to the small vendors in the city.
This team is the one responsible for transporting bronze wares to Luoyang. There are no copper ingots in it. The copper ingots were already transported to Luoyang when the capital was moved. They are basically bronze wares, bronze tripods, bronze bells, and bronze statues.
, bronze lamps and bronze utensils for daily use, etc., there are more than 10,000 pieces in total, including all the bronze utensils in Dayingku and Daming Palace, and the bronze utensils from more than a dozen temples in Chang'an, weighing tens of millions of kilograms.
According to the usual calculation of three kilograms of copper in new money, these copper wares can be minted more than 3.5 million guan, which can support Zhu Si's military expenditure of 300,000 troops for a year.
This is actually the first step for Zhu Si to acquire the wealth of Guanzhong, and then the 120,000 wealthy households in Guanzhong. The food, cloth, silk and gold, silver and bronze they bring will be even more considerable, which can support Zhu Si's military expenditure for at least ten years.
.
Finally, he exchanged the clean Guanzhong and Li Shi for the prosperous Yangzhou. This was really a very cost-effective deal.
As for Guo Song, Zhu Si couldn't care about it for the time being.
The reason why this team of transporting bronze wares stayed in Shangluo County was because Zhu Si suddenly wanted to transport the jade wares in the Daying Treasury to Luoyang.
The jade articles in Daying's warehouse were extremely valuable and could be sold to wealthy families in Luoyang, making a huge profit. Zhu Si originally wanted to leave them to Guo Song in accordance with the agreement, but he regretted it and took advantage of this opportunity to transport bronzes.
The jade articles were also transported to Luoyang.
Shangluo County is very uneasy. In the middle of the night yesterday, seven thousand Jin cavalry flew past the county and headed for Wuguan. They all knew it. At noon, a thunderous sound came from the direction of Wuguan. You must know that Shangluo County and
Wuguan was sixty miles away, but they could still hear the explosion.
Maybe the soldiers don't know it yet, but Zhu Si's generals basically know that the Jin army has a very powerful fire and thunder weapon that can blow down the entire city wall, and the general Zou Xing is no exception.
Zou Xing was extremely anxious, what should he do?
Of course he knew that they would definitely not be able to defend Shangluo County. The city walls were too short, the gates were dilapidated and had not been repaired for almost fifty years. There were also several walls that had collapsed due to disrepair and could be blown down by a fire and thunder.
Zou Xing was pacing back and forth in the room with his hands behind his hands, feeling upset. At this time, the soldiers shouted at the door: "What are you going to do?"
"We want to see the general!"
There seemed to be a lot of people outside. Zou Xing was surprised. When he walked out of the room, he saw twenty or thirty people standing in the dark yard, all middle and low-level generals.
"What's the matter with you?" Zou Xing asked.
The first captain said: "General, we all know that Wuguan has probably been lost. Now the Hedong Army cavalry is coming towards us. What should we do?"
"Well...I'm also considering whether to withdraw to Chang'an?" Zou Xing said to everyone.
Another captain asked: "General, do you think Chang'an still belongs to us?"
Zou Xing was speechless for a moment. Since Guo and Song's troops had entered Guanzhong, there was a high probability that Chang'an would not be able to defend it. This was common sense that even ordinary soldiers knew.
"What do you think?"
Zou Xing suddenly understood that these generals must have reached a consensus when they came to him.
After a moment of silence, the captain said: "Everyone wants to either disband and go home, or surrender and let the general decide."
Zou Xing looked at the eyes staring at him. He lowered his head and thought for a moment. His family was still in Luoyang. It was impossible for him to surrender. His family would be implicated. But if he resisted and he was killed, what would happen to his wife and children?
After much deliberation, there is only one way to retreat. It is said to be a retreat, but in fact it is an escape.
He sighed and said: "Let the brothers gather immediately. We will evacuate Shangluo. After returning to Guanzhong, everyone can choose where to go."