Chapter 139 Taishi comes to help
Sun Ce came here this time just because he had the same thoughts as Liu Fengcun.
He was also worried about long nights and many dreams, so he wanted to enter Guangling first.
A few days ago, Yuan Shu and Liu Yao secretly reached a truce agreement.
Sun Ce secretly left Liyang City, went down the river, and entered the occupied Jiangdu. After resting for only one day, he led the Sun family army to Guangling, day and night.
In the evening of that day, Sun's army camped four or five miles outside Guangling City. They wanted to take a rest the next day and enter the city to garrison as a strong army.
Unexpectedly, in the middle of the night, the lights in Guangling City were brightly lit in the distance, and there were faint shouts of killing.
Sun Ce was immediately shocked and discussed with his uncle Wu Jing and veteran generals Cheng Pu and Huang Gai.
Although it is unknown what happened in Guangling, all the generals agreed that it was not a good thing to mobilize troops in the city in the middle of the night.
So, the Sun Army broke out of camp overnight and rushed towards Guangling.
The Han Dynasty was not an era of per capita night blindness, especially for a professional army such as the Sun Family Buqu. This was the darling of the warlords' families. Can it be compared with ordinary county soldiers?
These armies often have salaries. Although the salaries are not large and far from comparable to those of the Western Han Dynasty, they are finally paid regularly. Moreover, they were often rewarded with wine and meat from the state capital and warlords. They ate meat, seafood, and went into the water more often than ordinary civilians and county soldiers.
Otherwise, there would not have been so many night raids in history.
Could it be that all night raids in history were fought by noble officers?
Due to the rapid increase in population during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the living conditions of civilians and lower-class soldiers were greatly reduced. All land was used to grow food, and there was a lack of meat. This led to the particularly prominent problem of night blindness in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
This time, Sun Ce brought more than a thousand elite veterans from his father's old base, plus more than two thousand elite troops put together by his uncle and clan brothers. Each of them is a veteran with rich experience and superb martial arts, and they are usually treated very well. , and being stationed by the river for a long time, with an open supply of fish and shrimp, and rewards of pork and mutton every once in a while, naturally there will be no night blindness.
As for the quality of these soldiers and horses, it is quite amazing.
In the past, Sun Jian went north to attack Dong, and won more than he lost. Dong Zhuo's army began to focus on the south road.
Dong Zhuo took the initiative to lead his army to the imperial mausoleum, wanting to fight Sun Jianjian.
In Dong Zhuo's view, his subordinates were experienced regular troops who were accustomed to fighting. Sun Jian's troops were only soldiers from Yu and Jing counties. How could they be his opponents?
As a result, Sun Jian relied on the troops from Henan and Jingzhou counties with Buqu as the core, and defeated Dong Zhuo, forcing the opponent to withdraw from Luoyang.
It can be imagined how high the quality of this elite group is.
In the future, Sun Jian relied on this elite unit to first defeat Yuan Yi, the governor of Yuzhou sent by Yuan Shao, and the Zhou family coalition forces in the Battle of Yangcheng, forcing Yuan Yi to death and expelling the Zhou Zhe brothers. .
Subsequently, he went south to Jingzhou and defeated Liu Biao and Huang Zu several times.
If Huang Zu’s troops hadn’t killed the ambush soldiers in the end, Sun Jian might even have conquered Xiangyang and completely conquered Jingzhou for Yuan Shu.
After Sun Jian died in the battle, Wu Jing and Sun Ben took away their part of this trilogy, and the part that Sun Jian personally led was captured by Yuan Shu. Even if Sun Ce became an adult, he would not give it back to him. Because this army was quite capable of fighting, Yuan Shu was reluctant to let go.
With such an elite force, and the moonlight was very good that day, the official road was clearly visible. Sun Ce simply ordered the troops to extinguish the torches, marched along the official road only by the moonlight, and quietly reached the foot of Guangling City. .
At this critical moment, the mutiny in the city was going on. Everyone's attention was focused on the city. No one would have thought that someone would approach the city from the south, let alone Sun Ce and others after they approached Guangling. The horse's hooves are bound.
Fortunately, the city gate was closed, and Sun Ce and others could not directly attack the city. They could only suppress their anxiety and wait outside the south gate of Guangling City to see if there were any changes.
For Sun Ce and others, it is best to get in touch with the city, firstly to inquire about the situation in the city, and secondly, to cooperate internally and externally to seize a city gate and enter the city.
But if that fails, then look for other opportunities, such as waiting for the sky to get a little brighter and selecting soldiers who are good at climbing to try to climb over the city wall and seize the city gate.
If it really doesn't work, then we can only retreat temporarily, protect Jiangdu first, and then make progress.
Just when Sun Ce and others were trying their best to break the city, the south gate opened by itself.
There were still sounds of conversation coming from inside, and Sun Ce quietly touched to eavesdrop.
When he heard that the other party wanted to close the city gate again, he decisively decided to take action.
So, there was this raid.
After Sun Ce repelled the Li family troops on the front, Li Zhang and Li Luo on the flanks could not hold on and retreated.
"Bo Fu, Yuan Changshi is here."
Just when Sun Ce was blocked by the fire barrier and unable to move forward, his uncle Wu Jing from behind shouted to him: "Come here to visit Yuan "Chang Shi."
Sun Ce didn't expect that the old man was Yuan Sui, and he was shocked. He had been hesitating between Yuan Sui and Geng Zhao for a while, but fortunately he finally chose Geng Zhao, otherwise he would have been shot. Yuan Changshi.
Suppressing the fear and embarrassment in his heart, Sun Ce returned to the city gate, got off his horse, walked to Yuan Sui and prostrated himself: "Bo Fu visited Yuan Changshi, but Bo Fu failed to arrive in time, which frightened Chang Shi."
Yuan Sui looked at Sun Ce carefully with a torch, nodded and said: "So he is the son of Sun Wentai, how did you come so fast."
"General Zuo ordered us to be the vanguard, since Li Yang Sneaking into Jiangdu, he waited until the work in Guangling City was over before coming to help at dusk. He didn't want to disturb the people, so he stationed outside the city and waited until tomorrow to enter the city. When the fire broke out, Ce thought there was something going on in the city, so he sent troops and horses to come."
Sun Ce explained his itinerary in detail. Yuan Sui nodded repeatedly: "Okay, you arrived just in time. . The powerful Li family in the city does not want to surrender to Liu Xuzhou, so since you are here, you should drive them out of the city first."
Yuan Sui still thought about the bottom line and friendship, and told Sun Ce not to go too far and just drive out of the city.
However, Sun Ce sneered in his heart. How could a local tycoon be a powerful person? It was just used to show off his own strength, lest there would be some blind people in the city who would rebel one after another in the future, like flies. Bored.
However, Yuan Sui still has to give face. On the surface, Sun Ce respectfully obeyed his orders, but in his heart, he was dismissive. He only felt that Yuan Sui was old and too soft-hearted.
Liu Ye used the fire barrier to gather the defeated troops, and sent people to find Li Zhang and Li Luo, as well as the troops in the county government and arsenal, and asked them to come to the east city with the weapons they could take away.
Originally Liu Ye wanted the Bu Qus to go ahead and set fire, but when he thought of Yuan Sui’s warning and the sudden change, Liu Ye couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Secondly, he felt that these Bu Qus were originally from Guangling. , asking them to set fire to their hometown, it would be fine if they didn't obey, but if they were forced to rebel on the spot, it would be a big mistake.
So in the end, Liu Ye swallowed the order to set fire and asked everyone to come to the east city to meet up.
After all, the most important thing right now is not to defend the arsenal and the county government, but to defend the east gate.
As long as the East City Gate is in hand, there is still a glimmer of hope to hold on until reinforcements arrive.
If you lose the east gate, even if you hold on to the county government and the arsenal for a while, it will be just a turtle in the urn, waiting to die.
At the same time, Liu Ye also asked people to destroy the east city gate and smash the hook locks of the suspension bridge outside the city. At the same time, he built fortifications on one side of the city. All the archers went up to the city tower to prepare for the final resistance.
Until this moment, Liu Ye didn't think he had done anything wrong.
You must know that Yuan Sui's reputation in Guangling City is too high. He can't be killed or driven away.
But if you stay in the city, it will always be a big bomb that will explode at any time.
With Yuan Sui's reputation and status in Guangling City, most of the nobles are on his side.
Once the powerful nobles who are close to Yuan Shu get together, as long as they suddenly release Yuan Sui like what the Li brothers did, the color in Guangling City will change instantly.
The Li brothers were in the minority, and those who were close to Yuan Shu and Yuan Sui were the majority. If Liu Ye hadn't ventured into the city to persuade him, even the Li brothers would have defected to Yuan Shu by default.
In this case, it is too dangerous to keep Yuan Sui in the city.
Especially since the other party is willing to leave, Liu Ye simply wants it.
Once Yuan Sui is no longer in the city, the dragons will be leaderless. No one has Yuan Sui's high reputation and status and can unite the pro-Yuan Shu forces.
This cannot be readjusted in a few days. By the time they re-elect a leader, the main force of the Xuzhou Army has already entered Guangling City.
Therefore, when he heard that Yuan Sui wanted to leave now, Liu Ye was naturally overjoyed. He wanted to send him away as soon as possible as if he were sending off the god of plague. Otherwise, whether he forced Yuan Sui to death or imprisoned Yuan Sui, Guangling would only suffer The situation has become more uncertain.
Besides, in Liu Ye's knowledge, Yuan Shu's main force was still in Liyang, and Sun Ce's troops were also in Jiangdu, dozens of miles away. There are thousands of Li family members in the city, and there are no enemies outside the city. It only takes a short quarter of an hour to open the door and release people, but it can bring peace and stability in Guangling City. Why not?
No matter how hard Liu Ye and the Li brothers thought about it, they never expected that in the middle of the night, a Sun Ce army would actually lurk outside the city and wait for an opportunity at the city gate.
This is also a lack of intelligence. The intelligence Liu Ye received was that Yuan Shu increased his troops to Li Yang. But what Liu Ye didn't know was that Yuan Shu and Liu Yao had already reached a tacit truce. As early as when Qiao Rui led an army of 20,000 to Liyang, Sun Ce and Wu Jing quietly went down the Yangtze River with 4,000 troops and sneaked in. They have already surrendered to Yuan's Jiangdu City.
Originally, according to Yuan Shu's order, Sun Ce was supposed to wait for information from Guangling in Jiangdu.
After Yuan Sui convinced the people of Guangling City, he sent a message to Jiangdu, and Sun Ce led his troops to Guangling.
The Li family also knew this, so they didn't take Sun Ce's story to heart at all.
But no one expected that Sun Ce was so eager to achieve success that he arrived at Jiangdu early. He only rested for one day before continuing on his way to Guangling.
In his opinion, since Guangling has clearly tilted towards his side, he cannot delay, as delaying will lead to easy changes.
The king's way is to capture the city first.
As long as we can enter the city first, even if the local nobles and people complain and are dissatisfied, it is just a small matter and nothing to worry about.
So he didn't wait for Yuan Sui to send the message, but went directly on his own initiative.
Facts have proved that Sun Ce made the right move.
Not long after, Li Zhang and Li Luo also gathered with the remaining soldiers.
At this time, most of the Guangling County soldiers either took advantage of the chaos to escape, or returned to Yuan Sui's side and became enemies.
On Liu Ye's side, there are only more than a thousand people from the Li family left, hundreds of people in law and family friends, and seven or eight hundred hardcore people in the county soldiers.
Taken together, there are only more than 2,000 people, less than 3,000 people.
On the opposite side, there are four thousand members of the Sun family. Anyway, the nearly two thousand Guangling County soldiers are already twice as many as the Li family's troops. The situation is extremely critical.
Although Liu Ye still wanted to defend the city gate, waiting for reinforcements.
But the Li family and their allies don't want to defend it any longer.
We just had the right time, place, and people, but we were unable to defend the South City Gate. Now that all the advantages have gone to the opposite side, how can we continue to defend it?
Liu Ye still wanted to persuade Li Zhang and Li Luo earnestly, but these two people were also scared to death. They didn't care what Liu Ye said and just shook their heads desperately.
After the Sun family army took control of key departments such as the county government, arsenal, and granary, they gradually approached with the Guangling County soldiers anyway, and surrounded the east city gate from a distance.
Fortunately, Liu Ye had just collected supplies and opened a fire barrier. He lit it now and bought them some time.
Just when the Li family was preparing to retreat, and Liu Ye was upset and frustrated at losing a good situation, the sound of rapid horse hooves was heard outside the east gate of the city.
Everyone was shocked, and Li Zhang almost blurted out an order to close the city gate.
“It can’t be closed!”
Liu Ye’s spirit perked up, and he shouted loudly: “This is the east gate, and those coming must be reinforcements from Xuzhou. How can we close the door to welcome the reinforcements? "
In fact, Liu Ye was not 100% sure that this was reinforcements.
But if this is not reinforcements, but a cavalry unit that Sun Ce's army is bypassing, then even closing the city gate will be of no use. The Li family will only choose to surrender instead of resisting to the end.
In this case, it’s better to give it a try.
If heaven wants to kill Liu Ye, then Sun Ce's cavalry will come. He should kill himself to thank Liu Shijun for his kindness.
If God favors us, the reinforcements coming from Xuzhou will definitely come. Today’s crisis is especially likely to be broken.
I saw a majestic and strong cavalryman rushing straight into the city, reining in his horse and shouting: "This is Tai Shici of Donglai, where is Ambassador Liu! I was ordered by the young master to rush to the rescue at starry night, and the army came I will be able to enter the city from time to time after my death, and Ci will report the merits of all the kings truthfully, without any concealment.”
"General Taishi! Ye is here!"
Liu Ye was overjoyed and his eyes were red with excitement. He turned around and pulled the Li Luo brothers out of the crowd with one hand and another: "General Taishi, these two virtuous Kunzhongs are It was Uncle Liu Ye, a local celebrity from Xiang Minggong in the center of the city. Because he was dissatisfied with the chief minister Yuan Sui and wanted to join General Zuo, he raised troops at night to seize the city, but failed to allow the Sun family to enter the city. "
Li. Luo and Li Zhang were shocked by Taishi Ci's majesty, and saluted tremblingly: "Yes, yes, it's just that we and others were ineffective and failed to drive the Sun family out of the city."
"The Sun family has already Entering the city?"
Tai Shici's face sank slightly, and then he said with a heroic smile: "I heard from the young master that Sun Ce, the son of Sun Polu, has always been brave and brave, but Ci still has doubts, and today I can give it a try. ! ”
Hearing Taishi Cihao's angry laughter, the Li family tribe and the remaining county soldiers gradually calmed down and looked at this group of cavalry.
Because they were on the road, it was naturally impossible to wear them all, but this team of cavalry still had a set of leather armor, long and short weapons, and long-range bows and arrows.
After entering the city, everyone dismounted and let the horses rest for a while. They also took out salt, crushed it and put it into the food bag. After shaking it evenly, they hung it on the horse's head and let the horse eat by itself. Take out the brush and brush the hot sweat off the horse.
Each of these knights is carefully selected. They are all strong and confident. Although there are only fifty knights, they are extremely elite and bring great security to the Li family tribe and the county soldiers. feel.
“What is the situation in the city now?”
Taishi Ci had already dismounted, walked to Liu Ye, and asked about the situation of the battle.
Liu Ye gave an overview of the situation, and Taishi Ci's heart sank. He didn't expect that there was only one stronghold left at the east gate.
Luckily, Liu Ye finally guarded the east gate before he arrived, otherwise the Xuzhou Army would have been turned away.
"Don't worry, Mr. Liu, the young master is right behind me. All the ministries will advance in order, and we will be there in a moment."
Tai Shi Cixun glanced at the Li brothers, and looked at the two trembling men. He has naturally noticed a lot of things about this guy.
It's just that they still need to work hard right now, so naturally it's not easy to scold them, but to cheer them up.
"Two hundred armored sergeants will arrive later. As long as we hold on until they enter the city, we can guarantee victory."
Tai Shici did not say Rushan Camp, but the armored army. Naturally, it is because the name of the Iron Armored Army is more intuitive and people can understand it at a glance.
Sure enough, when they heard that two hundred armored soldiers were about to arrive, the Li brothers showed surprise on their faces.
These days, armored warriors are a powerful weapon, especially in this kind of urban offensive and defensive warfare, and they are even more effective.
After the horses finished their extra meals, the knights hung up water bags one after another and let the horses drink. After that, the rest was completed.
Seeing that the fire in the fire barrier gradually became smaller, Sun Ce's troops on the opposite side were looming.
"Envoy Liu, Li Gongcao, and Mr. Li, I will leave the city gate to three people. I will try to see what Sun Bofu is good at."
After that, Taishi Ci got on his horse, and with a whistle, all the knights got on their horses, took out their bows and arrows, and held the horse's head with one hand.
“Let’s go.”
With an order, the cavalry started again.
Sun Ce's army was on the opposite side of the fire barrier, and he vaguely saw many more knights on Liu Ye's side. He was suddenly startled, worried that it was enemy reinforcements, and hurriedly sent people back to report to Sun Ce.
Sun Ce was handling affairs in the county government at this time.
Because Liu Ye was concerned about the feelings of the county soldiers, the treasuries and granaries in Guangling City were safe and sound, and a large amount of goods and grain were stored in them. Sun Ce said that he had made a fortune.
Guangling is indeed a city that has never experienced war. Even though it has been robbed by Zuo Rong in the past few years, it is still so wealthy.
(End of this chapter)