Chapter 474: Attack and Defense
Amidst the clanging sounds of houses being built, Shao Xun climbed to the top of the city and looked to the north.
Several days have passed and today is the sixth day of October.
The abandoned camp is still scorched black. The crumbling earth walls and charred trees complement each other, showing a messy beauty.
Shi Le did not send anyone to seize this camp.
Both sides seemed to have a tacit understanding of using it as a buffer zone, each giving up and confronting each other at a distance.
In the past few days, Shi Le selected 500 elite soldiers and took more than a thousand cannon fodder to sneak across Qikou and tried to attack the ferry from behind, but He Lun led his troops to repel them.
Since then, the fighting has been at a standstill, even to this day.
Currently, Shi Le placed the cavalry on both sides and the infantry in the center, digging trenches and building earthen walls day and night, seemingly to besiege Fangtou North City.
But in fact, it cannot be surrounded. As long as the Yellow River is still there, ships will continue to bring supplies, reinforcements, and carry away the wounded.
Schle certainly knew this. He dug the trench mostly to protect himself, or to feel more secure. Now he should worry about Shao Xun taking the initiative to attack him.
But now Shao Xun is too lazy to pay attention to him.
Fangtou North City does not have direct access to the Yellow River. It is still seven or eight miles away from here - even if it is only a few miles, it may be used by the enemy.
So he planned to build Fangtou Nancheng, which integrates a wharf and a city, and then dredged the old river channel of Qikou so that ships could drive directly to Fangtou Nancheng, without the need to unload large quantities of materials on the beach like now. Carrying people on their backs, they trudged forward in the soft mud along the river.
After the construction of the two cities is completed, more than 20,000 troops can be stationed, more than half a year's worth of combat supplies can be stored, and they will become the fulcrum north of the river.
Shao Xun is looking at Shi Le, and Shi Le is also looking at Shao Xun.
So far, although he knows that he cannot take the built city, Shi Le is still waiting for news from Henan.
This is the last hope and the only hope.
If his cavalry can successfully burn, kill and loot in the hinterland of Henan and shake the morale of Shao's army, the battle will still have to be fought.
If it doesn’t work, even though we are extremely reluctant, we have no choice but to withdraw.
But what will be the consequences after the withdrawal?
Shi Le looked at Zhang Bin and Diao Ying who had just returned from Pingyang.
"Do you two have any good strategies for the future?" Shi Le turned around with a calm expression, but looking at the corners of his eyes, he had thick dark circles, obviously he hadn't had much rest recently. .
"Your Majesty, Shao Xun will attack Yecheng, so we need to prepare early." Diao Ying said first.
Shi Le was noncommittal and just looked at Zhang Bin.
Zhang Bin cupped his hands and said: "Shao Xun may not attack Yecheng directly. He may go eastward and northward along the Baigou to Neihuang and Wei counties. In this way, Dunqiu and Yangping All are in danger. If we go north to attack Yecheng, there will be no advantage of boats for more than a hundred miles, and our cavalry will easily block the food route."
Shi Le nodded silently.
"Your Majesty, Ye is a famous city in Hebei Province. Shao Xun can't bear the temptation-" Diao Ying said again.
Shi Le stopped his words and asked directly: "How are the kings and ministers of Pingyang?"
"The king of Zhongshan received reinforcements, more than 40,000 in number, and won several battles in a row. I heard that this meeting is going on. Recruit the heroes in Guanzhong," Diao Ying replied.
Shi Le laughed when he heard this.
In the Guanzhong, the most important thing is not to capture cities and territories, but to recruit local nobles, powerful people, and chiefs of various tribes.
If you want to expand your territory, Chang'an can be occupied now. But it's just an empty city and it doesn't mean much. The most important thing now is to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to win and get the heroes in Guanzhong to change their banner and join the imperial court.
I just don’t know whether the people who went to appease him were from the imperial court or from Liu Yao.
But Shi Le also felt tremendous pressure.
The proposal of the "cross-Yong merger" strategy was a strategic change that the imperial court had never seen in so many years. This meant that the imperial court invested a huge amount of resources to the west of the Yellow River.
In fact, even if Diao Ying didn't say it, Shi Le knew some inside information. He had his own information channels.
There are rumors in Pingyang that Wang Can of Hanoi will soon become the commander-in-chief of all the armies in Guanzhong and the governor of the war.
If this appointment is implemented, it will be meaningful.
The emperor would hand over his best soldiers and generals to the King of Hanoi, but he would never hand them over to the King of Zhongshan. After all, there is a difference between closeness and distance.
Speaking of which, this matter is also related to Shao Xun.
He is so capable of twisting and turning, and he has forced a big country with 200,000 strings to turn around. This alone is enough to be proud of.
But this is not a good thing for Hebei.
From now on, even if the emperor is willing to send troops to support Hebei, it will probably only be partial divisions, not the main army.
"Have you collected all the goods you sent?" Shi Le asked again.
"I took it, and no one returned it." Diao Ying said.
Shi Le snorted.
Just accept it, even if you don’t necessarily speak for him sincerely, it is better than turning him away.
In the future, if you sell it badly, if you say a few soft words, you might be able to trick some of the imperial army into coming for reinforcements. After all, the emperor doesn't want to see all of Hebei fall into Shao Xun's hands, right?
"Meng Sun..." Shi Le moved a few steps, walked to Zhang Bin, and whispered: "If Shao Xun goes north along the Baigou, how can he refuse?"
Zhang Bin was silent for a long time and said: "Manage Guangping, Julu, Zhaojun and Zhongshan. With Bingzhou as the back, it is the imperial vassal screen."
Shi Le was also silent for a long time, the expression on his face changing. At the end, he suddenly smiled freely and said: "I think back then, when I was in the worst situation, I only had 18 riders, but now I have tens of thousands of riders, and I have already made a profit. The journey of the war is destined to not be smooth sailing, haha, it's a small matter."
"Your Majesty is wise." Zhang Bin praised him sincerely this time.
Having an indomitable will is an essential quality for those who achieve great things.
In this regard, Da Hu is much better than the emperor and ministers of the Pingyang court. If Shao Xun hadn't stood in the way, he might have had a chance to soar, but now he doesn't have it, or the hope is slim. But even so, Da Hu still did not get discouraged. Instead, he gathered his mood and silently waited for the opportunity. For this alone, it would be worthwhile to follow him.
Let’s take a step at a time.
******
At the top of the city of Suiyang in the Liang Kingdom, Yu Chen, the internal historian, silently watched the sergeants passing by the city.
The enemy cavalry withdrew one after another and quickly disappeared into the distant sky.
Before leaving, they set fire everywhere, burned down many houses, and blocked ditches and wells.
The most regrettable thing is that the mulberry trees that were just transplanted this year were almost destroyed.
Yu Chen was a little angry in his heart, not only angry at the Huns for not doing anything, but also angry at the lack of solid walls and clearing of the wilderness in the eastern Yano and Henan areas.
The grain in the fields was easily harvested by the Xiongnu and turned into their own supplies, which helped them attack everywhere, burning, killing and looting.
They have caused such trouble this year, but I don’t know how much energy and cost it will take to recover.
He looked back at the city again. It was full of people, with almost no place to stand.
This situation shocked him. If a plague broke out, few people, including him, might survive.
I heard that this is already the case in some places. People infected with the disease are directly driven out of cities, forts, and manors and left to fend for themselves, but many people still die.
Such a scene reminded him of the time when he kept time for Ji County.
Under repeated attacks and destruction, the husbands were unable to plow and the women were unable to weave. The more they were beaten, the weaker they became, and finally they could no longer hold on.
Even if you finally drive them away and capture a group of heads, in the end you will still be at a huge loss.
Yu Chen raised his eyes and looked to the north. In the vast and empty wilderness, a group of knights were surrounded and shot by the Huns.
Every time the knights wanted to charge, the Huns immediately scattered and retreated at high speed in the open field, looking back and shooting arrows as they ran.
The knight stopped chasing, and the Huns came back and continued shooting arrows.
The knights chased again, and the Huns fled again, and then outflanked them.
The knight wanted to lead the Huns to a complex terrain with woods and rivers, but the Huns stopped and the two faced each other.
In the end, the knight could only retreat into a manor to temporarily avoid the edge.
Yu Chen couldn’t take his eyes off it.
These scenes are actually very common in Hebei. The shock cavalry under his command were worn to death bit by bit in this way.
To deal with them, we still have to make a surprise attack, attack their camp, or use logistics to drag them to death.
In their reverie, the Huns slowly gathered their troops, retreated eastward, and disappeared into the wilderness.
The scene outside Suiyang County is just a microcosm.
Although Shi Le did not issue an order to retreat, after learning that Fangtou's fortification was completed, Zhao Lu and Kongdu understood that there was no point in fighting for it anymore.
Although the army's food and grass can still last for a month or two, new food supplies can no longer be obtained in the fields. If the battle continues, the food and grass will become less and less day by day, and they will eventually have to leave.
So they sent messengers to various places and ordered the tribes to gather quickly
On October 13th, the Huns cavalry almost completely withdrew from Jiyin. When the last troop passed by Shanfu to rest, he was Marshal Wubao tipped off the enemy, and Yi Congjun pursued them and beheaded more than 300 people.
On October 17, Xi Jian led hundreds of cavalry to raid Rencheng, destroyed a camp and killed more than 700 infantrymen left behind.
On the 20th, all the army retreated to Dongping territory. Kong Dou set up an ambush in Onezawa. Taking advantage of the Jin army's eager pursuit, they annihilated more than 300 aristocratic cavalry who came from Mount Tai and Lu and the vanguard of the Yi Cong army. Two hundred cavalry.
On the 21st, the main force of the Yi Cong army pursued them to Dongpinglu. A charge broke through the Hun cavalry behind them, beheading 500 of them.
……
The fighting between the two sides lasted until the end of October. The Huns abandoned a large amount of baggage and roared back to Jibei, detouring through Qingzhou.
Jibei Hou Xunzhen took the opportunity to intercept and captured and killed more than 400 Huns cavalry.
In Dongping, the 3,000 infantrymen mobilized by Cao Yi, as well as the 4,000 Dingzhuang people from Yanzhou captured along the way, surrendered in despair to the approaching Gaoping soldiers.
The war has calmed down.
Although there was no spectacular scene of tens of thousands of troops arrayed in a field battle, the three major battlefields of the front, flanks, and rear were still extremely bloody.
The commanders and generals of both sides are above the horizontal line and strive to follow the principle of "use one's own strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses". One side will take advantage of the heavy infantry, and the other will take advantage of the mobile and flexible cavalry to fight to the end. , it all depends on who can carry it.
There are no tricks, nor any blind moves caused by a sudden drop in IQ. It is completely a head-on battle between men.
Just after the Xiongnu cavalry withdrew, the first snowfall since autumn fell on the land of Henan.
Heavy snow fell on the Wubao, in the fields, in the forest...
All traces of the war seemed to have been covered up.
But outside Fangtou City, nearly 20,000 soldiers from both sides who died in the battle were still telling everyone about the cruelty of this battle.
South of the river, countless destroyed mulberry forests, ditches, and houses clearly show the trauma of the war.
But this is not the end, but a beginning.
If Mr. Chen wanted to take a breather for two years before, but after building the city in Hebei, he could no longer stop the war.
This time, it may be him who will attack.
(End of this chapter)