Chapter 717 A Steady Choice
On the morning of April 11th, the Silver Spear Army stationed in Tongjue Park and the Southwest Military Camp began to take action.
The two battalions on the left and right are fully equipped and their morale is high.
Jingxing Pass has been broken, and Bingzhou has been successfully broken into. The war situation has become quite clear.
Their twelve thousand soldiers are the best of the best. They only fight in the field and rarely attack cities. After the front army cleared the road, it was their turn to go out and eliminate all enemies encountered in the field, so that large groups of enemy troops did not dare to appear in front of them, and various soldiers took advantage of the situation to capture cities, forts, and passes.
This is everyone performing their duties.
Before them, more than two thousand cavalrymen of the Luoyan Army had already set off as the vanguard and set off in advance.
After them, there were a large number of auxiliary troops (Ding Zhuang from various counties in Henan) who set off one day later.
Except for the 5,000 men who stayed behind in Yecheng, the remaining 35,000 people all sent out and headed towards Shexian County and Hukou Pass.
Before leaving, Shao Xun stood on the Tongque Terrace, overlooking the dense crowds in the wilderness.
In particular, the fleets and convoys transporting grain extend far into the horizon, day and night.
"It's time to go." Shao Xun waved and hugged Liu Xiaohe, Liu Yena, Yang Xianrong and Cui one by one to see them off.
Liu Xiaohe straightened his robe and said softly: "I will be back in May."
She was going to Pingyuan Liu Family to stay for a few days and return to her hometown to visit.
Shao Xun originally disagreed because Xiaohe was too moist and filled up, so she became pregnant again. However, she had been away from home for twenty years. If she didn't go home to visit, many of her relatives would never be seen again, so they agreed and assigned two hundred soldiers to escort her back to the plains.
Liu Ye took the bow tip and inserted it into Shao Xun's waist.
Shao Xun pinched her face and whispered: "Liu Cong has twenty sons. I can't be worse than him. When you come back, give birth to me."
Liu Yena He chuckled, not showing any shyness at all, and just nodded.
Shao Xun was very satisfied, good, good, good! If you don't give birth to Shi Le, give birth to me, that's how it is.
Yang Xianrong stood a little further away. He obviously wanted to come over, but he couldn't save face and stood there reservedly.
Shao Xun simply hugged her.
Yang Xianrong was a little angry at first, and then a little happy.
Shao Xun said: "When I capture Pingyang, no one will dare to gossip."
There were maids and soldiers around. Yang Xianrong was a little embarrassed, so he only said: " Then hurry up."
Shao Xun let go of her and walked to Cui again.
Ms. Cui was like a frustrated little daughter-in-law, no longer as noble, elegant, and proud as before. When she saw Shao Xun coming, she immediately lowered her head, looking pitiful.
Shao Xun patted her round buttocks and said, "After this battle, you can join my house and become a wife."
Cui raised her head in surprise.
"I have assigned two hundred people to escort you back to Qinghe. Do you know what to do?" Shao Xun asked.
"I know." Ms. Cui nodded repeatedly.
She is most afraid of being worthless.
As long as it is valuable, there is still a chance.
She is quite confident in her appearance, knowledge and ability to serve men, but she just wishes she didn't have a chance.
I will definitely kill that vulture-raising Hu girl in the future!
After saying goodbye to the four women, Shao Xun walked down the mountain with his two sons in each hand.
The carriage has been prepared, Jin Dao and Badger Lang got on the carriage.
Shao Xun mounted his war horse and slowly left the city under the protection of thousands of soldiers.
Everywhere they passed, the marching soldiers shouted loudly.
Shao Xun was happy in his heart.
This is his army, no one can pull it away.
He is about to conquer the land that belongs to him, and no one can stop him.
Destroy the Xiongnu troops so that they dare not resist.
Extract the land of the Xiongnu and place it in China.
Take Liu Cong’s wife and daughter and enjoy them as much as you want.
This is the end of life.
******
In the hilly wilderness to the west of Shogyang, groups of light cavalry emerged from the mountains and marched westward in formation.
They were composed of hundreds of people, mainly riding and shooting, supplemented by charging. They hide and seek with the Huns cavalry for several days, and finally drove them out completely.
As the sun set, Li Chong arrived in Yuci County.
The Huns cavalry used this as their base to attack and delay the king's division repeatedly.
Now the Huns have fled.
After paying the price of hundreds of cavalry casualties, they did not dare to fight again and gave up Yuci County.
The local tyrants in the countryside claimed that they had been ordered to "warm the wine" and organized two thousand men to occupy the county seat.
The county magistrate had prepared to advance to the banner, but these wealthy people were so dark-hearted that they did not listen to the county magistrate's excuse and cut off their heads as a meritorious service.
If you don’t have a good relationship with officials below the county magistrate, they will basically not be spared. It will be too late to surrender - or they will not give you a chance.
Your head is a credit!
Your wealth is a trophy!
Your wife and daughter will be our bed toys!
Why give you a chance to surrender?
Li Chong did not enter the city at all, he only stood on the hillside and observed the terrain.
When you reach this area, you are basically out of the mountains. The terrain is relatively flat and it is a typical mountain basin (Taiyuan Basin). But this basin is large enough to theoretically support hundreds of thousands of people, which is different.
"Captain." A literary official climbed up and said: "Liu Ling and Chen Wu have arrived at Jinyang City and are fighting with the Huns. Well, there is no winner or lose——"
"Winning or losing?" Li Chong stared at the clerk and asked.
"A small defeat will cost more than a thousand soldiers." The literary official replied honestly. Only then did Li Chong let him go.
The official asked again: "General Liu asked when the army will march westward and besiege Jinyang?"
Yuci is in the southeast of Jinyang. Theoretically speaking, Li Zhong could completely ignore Jinyang, turn around and go south, and attack Shangdang directly.
Of course, Jinyang can also be surrounded.
Liu Yasheng sent 10,000 cavalry south, and he still had at most 3,000 cavalry on hand, and the number of infantry was estimated to be about the same. He might also be able to recruit some rural peasants to serve as foot soldiers, but it is hard to say whether the scholars and powerful men will listen to him.
Yangqu and Shangai returned to Yiyi anyway, Yuci and Mengyang were dedicated to the city by wealthy families, and Leping County also sent representatives.
I heard that Wen Qiao went to Qi County to persuade the Wen clan to raise troops anyway. The results have been achieved so far, but they failed to capture the city because the Wang clan of Taiyuan defeated them.
Qi County was not yet established, but in Jiexiu, the Wen family united with powerful forces to raise troops, successfully killed the Xiongnu magistrate and captured the city.
Going south from Jiexiu, there is a road leading directly to Pingyang.
Currently, there are three choices before Li Zhong.
The first is to besiege Jinyang;
the second is to go south to Shangdang and grab Liu Yao's back;
the third is to go straight to Jiexiu and advance in the direction of Pingyang .
As for bypassing Jinyang and going north to attack Shile, or clearing the mountainous areas to the west, they are of little value at present and are not as good as the first three options.
"Go south to join the party." Li Chong only hesitated for a moment before making his choice.
Supervisor Cheng Xia's eyes flashed but he said nothing.
This decision is in line with Li Zhong's consistent style.
He doesn't like taking risks and doesn't intend to take risks.
In his opinion, he had only 20,000 soldiers and horses along the way, and his combat power was average. If he was defeated or even annihilated by the Xiongnu, the situation of the war would change again. Nowadays, the main thing is to maintain existence, so that the Huns always have a thorn in their backs, and they don't know what to do.
So going south to Shangdang is the best choice.
"Send an order to Liu Ling, and I will allocate another two thousand cavalry to him. Keep an eye on Liu Yasheng and don't let him come out." Li Zhong added.
The Art of War says that when you encounter a big city on the middle road, you must overcome it or prepare for it.
With Liu Ling's seven or eight thousand troops, it is definitely impossible to "conquer" and can only "prepare".
Being "prepared" is of course very dangerous, so if Li Chong goes south, he will have to deploy cavalry on the Yuci and Jinyang lines. In the end, only five or six thousand cavalry can be brought south to join the party.
But enough is enough, the most important thing is to exist.
As long as the Huns believe that a large army is coming from behind, it is enough. After all, they do not know the strength of the army going south.
******
At the foot of Danzhu Ridge, the drums were beating loudly.
Hou Feihu, who is usually extremely calm, could not sit still.
He pushed the drummer away and hit hard with the drumstick. As he hit, he turned his head to look.
On the mountainside, several small camps were built far apart. Under the call of the drum, the sergeants filed out of the camp, extremely brave.
After fighting for more than half a month, both sides have lost thousands of lives in Danzhu Ridge, and the battle line slowly extended from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain.
It's not that the enemy army was not fighting hard enough. In fact, Liu Yao sat in charge and personally supervised the battle. He personally killed more than a dozen members of the military academy who retreated without permission. The officers and soldiers were working hard. Being pushed up a mountain is simply unbeatable.
After the news came that Jingxing Pass was broken through and the Jin army marched straight in, even though it was concealed in every possible way, it was finally spread.
As soon as this incident comes out, it’s over! Morale is declining at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The sergeants who were still able to fight hard yesterday only resisted briefly and then withdrew today. Even though on the surface they looked like they were beaten to the core, in reality that was all. Even the old warriors could see it.
For example, when the two sides are fighting for a certain commanding height, sometimes they are just short of breath. It’s not that they can’t hold on by gritting their teeth, but now they are unwilling to grit their teeth.
Or, the enemy has just occupied a certain camp and has not yet established a stable foothold. At this time, if someone raises his arms and charges with strength, he may not be able to recapture it, but there is no such person now.
That's the difference.
It seems that the killing is loud and lively, but it is actually for the superiors to see. Once the battle situation is unfavorable, they will retreat immediately and no longer insist on waiting for reinforcements.
Of course Hou Feihu saw it too.
So he decisively invested in the elite soldiers selected from Shangdang Zahu, Xuchang, and Yanzhou Shibing, and used them as vanguards to take the lead in the conflict.
The elite Heijin Zuoying (formerly Heijin Army), with 1,800 men, followed closely and launched a fierce assault on Danzhu Ridge.
The drums became more and more passionate, and the two sides had started a fierce battle on Danzhu Ridge.
The first group of more than a hundred people were repelled, and the second group came up. After being repelled, the third group followed.
The corpses of both sides were piled on top of each other, almost covering the mountain road.
Those who advanced fell down, and those who came behind continued to charge on the corpses, breaking through the horses, crossing the ditch, and killing the earth wall...
A group of cavalry rushed out of the Huns camp and took advantage of a rare piece of flat land to launch a charge. .
This move was very useful before and saved the crisis several times, but now, our infantry retreated too fast and did not leave enough space for them. Ma Su mentioned Halfway through, they collided head-on with the Jin infantry climbing up the mountain.
For a while, people screamed.
The front row of the Jin army faced the charging enemy troops and suffered heavy casualties. The remaining troops also calmed down and dispersed to both sides.
In the past, this move had been successful, but today there were too many Jin troops coming up, and the cavalry could not increase their speed. The two sides froze for a while.
A stalemate, very unfriendly to the cavalry.
You can't move forward while riding on a horse. There are huge gaps on the left and right sides. The weapons you wield are not as fast and powerful as those who are down-to-earth. In one-on-one situations, being killed by infantry is a high probability, not to mention that they are far away. It's not one-on-one...
The Black Silk Army also came up. When Yaori's armor appeared on the battlefield, there was almost no suspense in this battle.
The remaining enemy cavalry fled in a hurry, and the enemy infantry also slipped away quickly and collapsed towards the camp.
More Jin troops swarmed up the mountains and plains, chasing the defeated troops and rolling towards Liu Yao's camp.
There was chaos in the camp, and the banner with the character "Liu" rushed backwards, as if it heralded the change of hands of Danzhu Ridge.
(End of this chapter)