Chapter 878 Xia Hou
Regarding the city of Dongpingling, the old people of Taishan Army have mixed feelings.
Here, they left too many memories. This city that gave birth to the Taishan Army fell into the hands of the Han Army many times.
This time they finally came back, but this place was no longer what it was back then.
In fact, before Ding Sheng entered Jinan, he was worried about one thing. It was not that he was worried about those Cao soldiers, but that he was worried about how to get along with the local government.
There is one thing that cannot be avoided no matter how hard you try, and that is that Dongpingling, as the place where the Taishan Army started, has always had a deep foundation.
But later Qingzhou as a whole fell into the hands of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao was really powerful. He relied on various means to win people's hearts and stood firm in Jinan.
But here comes the problem. This place was originally the old area of Taishan Army children. After Cao Cao came, how could he not take care of it?
And after this governance purge, who are the remaining people in Jinan?
To put it mildly, they are Cao Cao's obedient people, but to put it harshly, aren't they the enemies stained with the blood of the children and family members of Taishan Army?
But there was no way to prove this, so Ding Sheng didn't know how to work with the local government.
After all, what are the rules of the Taishan Army? With blood on your hands, do you still want to live?
It was with such a tangled mentality that Ding Sheng led his army to the outside of Dongping Mausoleum.
At this time, Dongpingling had been abandoned by Cao's army, so Ding Sheng drove into Dongpingling smoothly, and then Ding Sheng wrote three military reports.
One letter was sent to Wang Shang's camp in Wuyan, reporting the current battle situation in Qingzhou to the king. One letter was sent to Pingyuan County to cheer up Dong Fang there and ask him to send grain and grass there.
The last letter was to Taishan, asking the friendly forces there to come out as soon as possible to take over Dongpingling and other places.
After all, what Ding Sheng led was a field legion, which would be wasted if used to defend the city.
While Ding Sheng was waiting for relief here, Xia Houyuan's army, which had been adhering to the strategy of clinging to the wall and clearing the field, was also not feeling well.
……
In a small settlement dozens of miles away from Dongping Mausoleum, Cao Jun's second-in-command, Xia Houyuan, was writing furiously in a hut.
After launching the stronghold to clear the country, in order to preserve the strength of each army, Xia Houyuan divided his troops and lurked in various places. Only the direct battalion leaders were with him, lurking in this small settlement.
This is Xia Houyuan's astuteness, that is, the more under the lamp, the darker it gets.
Under the protection of his direct troops, Xia Houyuan was writing a letter to Cao Cao. At this time, Cao Cao was stationed in Linzi with his troops.
In this military report, Xia Houyuan conveyed to Cao Cao the difficulties currently encountered by the army in a very practical way.
"Since the retreat to the south, our troops, including Xianyu's Auxiliary Division and Lu Qian's Division, totaling 15,000 troops, have been moving south along the Tokaido Road since February and arrived at Dongpingling Tomb on February 5th. At this time, the enemy's troops totaled four Ten thousand people, since crossing the river, the army has been divided into two places, one is entrenched in Pingyuan County, and the other is heading south to Jinan."
"Because our army moved south in a hurry, the road was not completely broken. The enemy built the road quickly. We just dug it, and the enemy built it in a few days."
"After that, I ordered Lu Qian's troops to attack the enemy's sentry cavalry one after another, and met three thousand enemies in the wilds of Tai County. After a fierce battle for one day, I killed and wounded hundreds of enemy soldiers. However, due to the scattered strength of our army, we were unable to expand the results again, and were defeated by the enemy. The cavalry found that Lu Qian's troops were slightly defeated and retreated to the Zouping area to rest."
This military report is a secret letter written by Xia Houyuan to Cao Cao, so he said what he had to say without any evasion or concealment.
Even in the previous organized war, he won first and then lost. Even if the victory is a small victory, the defeat is a big defeat.
But in fact, these difficulties are only general. What is more serious is Cao Jun's internal problems at this time.
In the following letter, he wrote about the serious problems encountered by Cao Jun at this time. These problems boil down to two things.
One is that Cao's army is not strong at this time.
The legion under Xia Houyuan was the elite of Qingzhou previously stationed in Pingyuanjin, and had always been responsible for the northern gateway to Qingzhou.
But later, Cao Cao, who was facing Zi, dispatched several elite troops to go south, with a total strength of more than 16,000 troops.
At this time, Taishan's army only had 40,000 troops on the north side, which was nearly three times the current strength of Xiahou Yuan's army.
In Xia Houyuan's words, it is difficult to compete with the enemy with this small force, not to mention that the enemy also has a large number of cavalry troops.
However, there is also a turning point here, that is, the enemy's 40,000 troops actually began to divide their troops. Some of them stayed in the plains, and some moved forward to Jinan.
Although the distance between the two sides is not that far, it still gives Xia Houyuan opportunities to defeat each other.
It's just that Xia Houyuan can't make a decision now. He's not sure whether the enemy's division of troops is deliberately to lure him to attack.
But no matter what, the lack of troops at this time was the biggest difficulty Xia Houyuan encountered.
The second difficulty Xia Houyuan encountered was the complicated situation in northern Qingzhou at this time.
As Cao Cao transferred most of his resources, personnel and troops to the Linzi area in southern Qingzhou, the Cao family's influence in northern Qingzhou declined sharply.
And this also exposed the shortcomings of Cao Cao's previous victory over Qingzhou, that is, he won it too quickly, and the powerful factions in many places did not have time to clean up.
Now, as the main force of the Qingzhou Army returned to Linzi, Xiahou Yuan dispersed most of his troops in the Jinan area, trying to attack Ding Sheng in Dongpingling.
He and Ding Sheng were old enemies, and they had bumped into each other frequently over the years.
But at this time, other places in Qingzhou were a little less obedient. Not only did he not pay attention to the policy of strengthening the walls and clearing the country, but the supply of Xiahou Yuan's army was often not timely.
And this made Xia Houyuan feel a little hairy.
There are large enemy corps pressing down on the border outside, and there are all kinds of small thoughts internally and locally. Who can care less about this?
Therefore, in this military report, Xia Houyuan also made a request, that is, to allocate the Gaitong Army Corps stationed in Linji, Le'an to himself.
He decided to assemble his tribe, Xianyu Fu tribe, Lu Qian tribe and Gaitong tribe to start a battle against Ding Sheng who was stationed in Dongpingling and annihilate this tribe first.
In fact, Xia Houyuan knew very well that even if Gai Tong mobilized his troops, they would only have about 10,000 troops. These troops would be similar to Ding Sheng.
And the real combat power is definitely not as good as the Taishan Army's hundreds of battles.
But what can Xia Houyuan do? The current situation is like this, and there is no room for him to fight for wealth.
But when Xia Houyuan was hesitating his troops and preparing to annihilate Ding Sheng, he was also a prey in the eyes of others.
……
Xu Shu, who was stationed in the old village of Taishan, learned that the Hebei Legion had gone south to Dongpingling, and immediately realized that the time had come to go out.
At this time, Xu Shu was already a battalion general leading thousands of troops. It can be said that he has made rapid progress in the past few years.
He first came to prominence in the battle with Chen Deng when Guan Yu sent troops to Qingzhou. Since then, he has made many military exploits.
It was during the battle to defend Mount Tai that he made great achievements and was promoted by Guan Yu to the rank of General of the Mount Tai Camp.
Mount Tai is the place where the Taishan Army was founded, so the fact that it can be named with these two characters shows the special status of this camp.
Originally, when Xu Shu was in charge of Mount Tai, he attached great importance to the intelligence outside the mountain. He also sent the most intelligent generals to the mountain as spies, in order to grasp the trends outside the mountain.
So when he learned that the main army from the north had moved south to Jinan, Xu Shu knew that his opportunity had come.
He knew very well that in the face of his own main force moving south, Cao Jun adopted the policy of retreating step by step and strengthening the walls to clear the country. Therefore, Dongping Ling seemed to be easily captured by the main force at this time, but it had no effect on the overall war.
As a local general, Xu Shu certainly knew where Cao's army was at this moment.
It's not a city at all, but a vast countryside. Although his main force is strong, he is not familiar with the local situation, so this is his opportunity.
Therefore, after gathering 2,000 troops from the old camp, Xu Shu personally led them out of the mountain from Hushan Pass and directly into the rear of Jinan, that is, in the Tugu area.
This is the old base of the Taishan Army, and there are field guards of the Taishan Army in every village.
After Xu Shu gathered the field-protecting soldiers in this area, he began to attack Cao Jun's dock wall in the southern area of Jinan.
In the first battle, he successfully ambushed a military post stationed twenty miles northwest of Tugu. After a fierce battle, he annihilated more than 200 Cao troops here.
After that, Xu Shu followed the same method and successfully captured several forts and seized countless money and grain.
Originally, Xu Shu was just harassing Cao's army, but when he captured the enemy's dock wall, he found several letters from the enemy.
The content of the letter was obviously sent here by a big shot in the Cao Army, and that big shot must not be far from here, because some of the things mentioned above are very trivial.
It even mentioned asking them to find honey water.
Obviously, Cao Jun in this camp shoulders certain logistical supply tasks for this big man.
Realizing this, Xu Shu was overjoyed. Once he could catch this so-called big shot, he would definitely be surprised by the whole situation.
So Xu Shu began to torture the prisoners of Cao's army all night long, and he actually got a location.
Unfortunately, it was the community where Xia Houyuan was lurking.
……
It is a cold spring in February, and the wilderness of Jinan is cold and quiet.
The cold wind from Shuobei flows into Qingzhou along the endless Hebei Plain, and then is blocked by the protruding Taishan Mountains, pouring the last chill of the entire winter into Jinan.
At this time, in this quiet Xiaolishe, Cao Jun's officers and soldiers were scattered near Lishe and began training.
Among Cao's troops, Xiahou Yuan is quite special. Even though Xiahou and the Cao family have been married for generations, Cao Cao's trust in Xiahou Yuan is much higher than that of Dun, Yuan, Ren, Hong, Xiu, Shang, and Zhen.
The reason is very simple, that is, Xia Houyuan does have the style of his ancestor Xia Houying. He has a loyal nature, and he is loyal and courageous whether he is facing superiors or subordinates.
Because Xia Houyuan clearly understood rewards and punishments and treated his subordinates as if they were their own, his subordinates were happy to die for him and could always carry out Xia Houyuan's military orders.
Let's just say training now. Although it's not too cold today, it's still very easy to get sick once you sweat.
In this era of lack of medical treatment and medicine, a small cold may kill you.
Even so, Cao Jun was still willing to come out to practice swordsmanship, which shows the depth of Xiahou Yuan's control.
Speaking of illness, Xia Houyuan felt a little hesitant today. Maybe he caught a cold while lighting the lamp and writing the military report last night.
However, the military report was sent out overnight. Now Xia Houyuan only needs to wait for Cao Cao's reply before he can start preparing for the siege of Dongpingling.
However, he was not idle during this process.
On the one hand, training the direct battalion to be more elite, on the other hand, he can also think about how to fight the subsequent encirclement and annihilation war.
So he just asked the soldiers to make a pot of millet porridge, and he had all the staff and assistants under the tent called over.
Everyone can eat porridge and sauce while discussing how to defeat the enemy's 20,000 elite soldiers.
Twenty thousand elite soldiers is not a small number.
That is to say, Cao's army has developed over the years, otherwise this force alone would be enough to sweep across their Qingzhou.
Soon, aides living nearby gathered over. After learning that Xia Houyuan was going to attack the Taishan Army in Dongpingling, these people were in trouble.
At this time, the millet porridge outside was also cooked, and the guard came in carrying a pot.
None of the people present had eaten, so when they saw the corn porridge, everyone was salivating.
Although they are all directly under the shogunate, they are dormant in this small village at the moment, and the supply is still insufficient.
Not to mention, when cooking the porridge, the chef put in a little more meat oil, and now it's so oily that it's even more appetizing.
Xia Houyuan didn't waste any time. He smiled and asked the officials to share the porridge with the staff.
The staff present were all wealthy families and scholars from Qing and Yan regions. They were usually very orderly in their daily lives and work, but after having been in the army for a long time, they were no longer so particular.
At this moment, these people were holding wooden bowls, blowing on them, and slurping the porridge in mouthfuls.
So delicious.
Maybe there is something in the stomach, and everyone's brains are getting excited.
One of the Yanzhou staff named Liang Mao first came up with an idea:
"Commander Ming, the current situation can be described as the enemy is strong and we are weak. Therefore, our army can only be outsmarted, but cannot defeat the enemy."
Seeing Liang Mao, a hairless young man, saying some nonsense, Xia Houyuan didn't take it too seriously. It was just because he was the first to break the deadlock that he asked encouragingly:
"Oh, does Bo Fang have some wisdom?"
Unexpectedly, Liang Mao actually came up with a solution.
It turns out that Dongpingling was the base of Cao's army before, and he knew its city defense very well.
Therefore, Liang Mao suggested that he send people into the city in advance to contact several wealthy families and surnames in the city, and make an appointment with them, and then Xia Houyuan's side would launch an attack on Dongping Ling overnight.
Night attack is a very good way to make up for Cao's army's military disadvantage.
After all, the enemy did not know how many people they had. Moreover, if the people are in chaos, the enemy may be able to surprise the enemy, but that is not impossible.
Xia Houyuan was also thinking about this matter, and the more he thought about it, he felt that this method was really good.
In fact, after having fought and led troops for a long time, Xia Houyuan understood what the so-called wisdom and strategy were.
In the past, he had always heard people say that he could win a victory thousands of miles away by strategizing, and he thought that top-notch intelligence was so mysterious and mysterious.
But when he actually led troops, he understood that there were indeed strategies, but in fact, the ones that were really effective were not the complicated ones, but the simpler, the more successful they were.
But this is not simple, it is not easy, but you have to find the opportunity and find the key people.
The time is right, the people are right, and the strategy is right.
In this way, Xia Houyuan really began to wonder which companies in Dongping Mausoleum could handle such a thing.
But just as Xia Houyuan was thinking about it, fierce shouting suddenly broke out from inside and outside the society.
Xia Houyuan drew his knife and stood up, shouting to the people around him:
"Wear armor for me!"
The other staff were also shocked and stood up with their swords raised.
At this time, the guards outside the tent finally came in, and the first words they said were:
"Commander Ming, there are enemy troops outside the company. Let's protect you and retreat first!"