Chapter 184 Comparison
Comparing the military strength of the Han Dynasty that Zhang Chong mastered with the strength of all parties in Taiping Road that he knew, anyone who is not stupid knows that Taiping Road has no chance at all.
Let’s look at the Han court first. We only count the administrative divisions on the books. The first major part is the soldiers of the various counties and counties. Because of the difference in military pressure between the inner and outer counties, generally speaking, the inner county has a thousand soldiers, which is probably a captain's department, with 500 soldiers and 50 cavalry, and the remaining 450 troops. Then there are two thousand soldiers in a foreign county, and then a similar number of land reclamation soldiers composed of prisoners attached to death, which is almost four thousand soldiers.
And how many counties did Hanting have?
Thirty-six in border counties and seventy in inner counties. There are 150,000 frontier troops and 70,000 inner county troops here, totaling 220,000.
In addition to the permanent troops in the prefecture, the Han Dynasty also had garrisons on the dock walls at various strategic points. For example, there were 616 dock walls in the Zhongshan Mountain of Changshan in the State of Zhao, which were built to defend against the Qiang people. There are also 300 Longdao beacons in Fufeng Hanyang. According to the organization of Hanting, there are nearly 200,000 soldiers here. However, these are generally land reclamation soldiers, half farmers and half soldiers.
Then there are camps in four major areas on the border. Among them, there were 1,000 soldiers from the Wuji School of the Western Region Protectorate and 1,000 cavalry from the Duliao Camp of Yunzhong County. There are two thousand each in Chang'an Camp and Yong Camp under the command of Captain Huya from Guanzhong. Liyang Camp in Hebei, Yuyang Camp and Fuli Camp in Youzhou each have one thousand soldiers. In addition to the Wuhuan, Qiang and Xiongnu captains, each has a thousand battalions. Here on the border, the Han court has 12,000 soldiers, and these are generally elites. In particular, the three guard captains can recruit thousands of Qiang, Wuhuan, Xiongnu and other barbarian soldiers during wartime. These special ones don't count.
Finally, there are the northern and southern armies in Kyoto and the standing armed forces of various governments. Kyoto has military power and probably has the following systems:
The first one is from the general's guard system, with about 4,500 troops. There are 200 Tiqimen holding Jinwu and 520 halberds, a total of less than a thousand people on standby, who are responsible for the affairs of water and fire outside the palace. Then there are Guang Luxun's halberd-bearing men, a thousand men, and Huben Zhonglang's men's officers, fifteen hundred men. These are all the children of the ministers in the court and the two thousand stone prefect of the county. There are also two thousand Yulin cavalry of General Yulin Zhonglang, and the attendants of the Zhangsu Guards. These are the elites of the Han court, and they are supplemented by good families from six counties including Hanyang, Longxi, Anding, Beidi, Shangjun, and Xihe.
The second is the five-battalion system of the Northern Army of General Chariot and Cavalry, with a troop strength of 4,000. The five battalions are Tunqi Xiaowei, Yueqi Xiaowei, Infantry Xiaowei, Changshui Xiaowei and Shesheng Xiaowei. Each battalion has 800 soldiers.
The third is the palace ban system of the Hussars General, with the number of troops also being four thousand. The palace gate guards have three thousand soldiers. The chariot commander and two hundred soldiers, the seventh palace gate commander and eight hundred soldiers.
The fourth is General Wei's Gyeonggi system, that is, the Southern Army, with 4,000 troops. Among them, the Sili Xiaowei had 1,200 officers and disciples from Zhongdu, and the Eight Pass Schools in Gyeonggi had 300 soldiers each.
Therefore, the total number of central soldiers in Kyoto is about 17,000. In this way, the entire Han Dynasty has 250,000 standing troops and 200,000 colonization troops on its books, which makes it 450,000.
And if the Han court does not intend to survive, as long as the military power is delegated to the powerful counties and counties, and they are allowed to bring their own troops to defeat the thieves, then at the limit, the Han court can break out another 200,000 troops. Of course, this is also theoretically . Because if it reaches that level, the local situation will be extremely difficult to control, and the Han Dynasty will almost be over.
However, Zhang Chong estimated that these were the total strength of the Han court, but in fact, only a hundred thousand soldiers could participate in the conquest of Taiping Road. This was already the limit of the Han court's mobile troops. The Qiang people rebelled on a large scale. At that time, they mobilized around 100,000 Yulin, Wuxiaoshi, and soldiers from nearby states and counties.
But as far as the conquest and suppression army, which numbered more than 100,000, Zhang Chong knew that Taiping Road could not be defeated. Because in history, when the Han Dynasty defeated the Yellow Turban Army, it gave Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun 40,000 troops, and the five schools of the Northern Army, the Three Rivers Knights and the elites of each county were transferred. And Lu Zhi in the north gave 25,000 troops, including 5,000 Wuhuan cavalry. Coupled with some other troops such as Cao Cao and Sun Jian, the total number of troops is probably around 100,000. What's the end result? From the time of the uprising to the time when Taipingdao was put down, it took ten months or one year to hold on.
The above is the situation in Hanting, but what about Taiping Road?
Taiping Road is called the Thirty-Six Squares of the World, but in fact the main ones are Jizhou Main Road, Qingyan Taiping Road, Nanyang Taiping Road and Ruying Taiping Road. Zhang Chong himself is from Qingyan, and is quite familiar with this. According to his understanding, the six counties of Qingzhou can support 15,000 soldiers. On average, one county has less than 3,000 soldiers, and the remaining The ones who get killed are just flag-wavers and followers of Taiping Dao. By analogy, there are millions of Taiping Taoists in the world, and there are probably around 100,000 extreme warriors.
But it is a pity that Taiping Road does not practice the five soldiers, the military formations are not strict, and they fight independently. When the Han Dynasty conquered Taiping Road, their strategy was very clear, which was to cut off the Taiping Road troops from all sides. Therefore, the first target to be attacked by troops was Yingru's Taiping Road, which was located in the middle of the Taiping Road. If this area was destroyed, the Taiping Road in various places would not be connected together. Then they concentrated on attacking Taiping Road in Hebei and beheading them. Therefore, the great uprising that had developed on Taiping Road for 20 years was put down in eight months.
But now that Zhang Chong has come to this world, the situation has naturally changed. First of all, he has five thousand Taishan soldiers under his command. He is confident that he can defeat the most elite northern and southern armies of the Han court. Therefore, as long as Zhang Chong makes good use of his tactics, he can maneuver to support Taiping Road in various places, which is not available in the original world. Then there is Zhang Chong's knowledge. The main reason for the failure of the Taiping Dao Uprising was that he was betrayed by Tang Zhou and leaked the beheading operation in Kyoto. And now, if Tang and Zhou Dynasties can be eradicated and the Taiping Dao Success Center can blossom, the chances will probably be greater.
But Zhang Chong knew rationally that this strategy would basically not succeed. First of all, the North and South Palaces in Kyoto are not just palace groups, they are actually military fortresses. This is a tradition passed down from the Han Dynasty. When Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, moved the capital to Guanzhong and built Chang'an, he first built the North Palace as a military fortress. At that time, Chang'an did not have a city wall, but it was built when his son Liu Ying came to the throne. The same is true for this dynasty. Emperor Guangwu built Luoyang from the ruins. He built the South Palace first and then the North Palace. The two palaces were connected by an air corridor. The rest were towering palace walls. It can be said that they were just one more building for Taiping Road. With twice the strength, they can't even think of breaking through the palace gate.
Secondly, there is no such successful uprising in the capital in history. Because there are many people there, and those people are talking a lot, so they will not be able to keep the secret. There are few people there, and it's in the center of people's homes, so it's completely useless.
For this reason, Zhang Chong is not optimistic about Taipingdao's central flowering strategy. But he, Zhang Chong, is not a decision-maker in Taiping Dao. After all, he has only been involved in it for four years, so no matter how great his achievements are, he still lacks seniority.
Therefore, in the face of an uprising that had a high probability of failure, even Zhang Chong was a little confused, and he mostly took it one step at a time.
But the Mr. Tao Antao he met in Bo County directly planned a grand strategy for him, which was to change the base area, and this base area was the area with the highest probability of winning the world in the past, Guanzhong.
Don't tell me, when Tao An said this, it really broadened Zhang Chong's horizons. As a person of later generations, he certainly knew that it was indeed feasible to use Guanzhong as a base.
If the inertia of history is strong enough, Dong Zhuo's entry into Beijing will still happen. Because the entire Liangzhou people were alienated from the Han court, they had no moral burden to break the order of the Han court. More importantly, the Liangzhou horses, which had become stronger during the Pingqiang war, were fierce enough and powerful enough to overturn the table. Therefore, even if Dong Zhuo did not enter the capital, it was other military leaders who entered the capital.
If Dong Zhuo enters Beijing, it will be inevitable for the princes of Guandong County to challenge Dong. At that time, Dong Zhuo will still move west to Guanzhong and move millions of people from the capital to fill Guanzhong, although the chaos in Guanzhong later caused the victims to be displaced. But if Zhang Chong can enter the pass and defeat the Liangzhou Army at that time, he will directly occupy a good foundation.
By that time, he has consolidated his foundation in Guanzhong, collected the horses from Liangzhou, then taken Hedong, and left the Taihang Mountains to enter Hebei. As long as he defeated Yuan Shao, the whole situation would be completely different.
Thinking of this, Zhang Chong was really excited. He immediately plotted against Tao An:
"Tao Jun's words are very good. If you want to take Guanzhong, what are your plans?"
Tao Anyan was at ease, painting with clay, and offering advice to Zhang Chong:
"The land of Guanzhong was called the Land of Four Fortresses in ancient times, which refers to the four roads into Guanzhong. The closest ones to us are the Xiaohan Road and the Wuguan Road. But the two hundred miles of the valley in the Xiaohan area connects the two capitals, which is the strength of the Han Dynasty. The strongest area. So the only way left is to enter Nanyang through Wuguan and go directly to Chang'an. The first emperor took this route three times when he left the Guandong Kingdom. Later, at the end of Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang took Xiang Yu to enter Guanzhong. This shortcut. Later, when Zhou Yafu quelled the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu, he traveled to Luoyang. It can be said that this is the best route into Guanzhong."
Zhang Chong pondered, if this was the case, he would need to go west across Yuzhou, pass through Lu, Liang, Chen, Yingchuan, and finally reach Nanyang. This route seems difficult to follow. This is the Han family The core area is full of powerful people and densely populated forts. If he really wants to attack them one by one, his small number of troops will be defeated before they reach Nanyang.
He was thinking here, and Tao An continued to introduce:
"But Wuguan is so important, so the Han court is heavily guarded. In addition, Wuguan is built in the middle of Wuguan Road. There are thousands of walls on both sides. As long as our army cannot attack Wuguan, we will be worried about the entire army being annihilated. So now we still need to accumulate strength in Qilu Yangwei.”
Zhang Chong understood what Tao An meant. Usually the passes were built at the beginning or end of the mountain road, but the Wuguan Road was built in the middle. This means that once the enemy army goes deep and cannot quickly defeat Wuguan, the enemy army will be blocked at the mountain pass. Once the rear is blocked, the entire army will be in trouble.
It seems that this matter needs to be discussed in the long term, but no matter what, there is something about this Tao An. Zhang Chong left him with the shogunate and often consulted him on matters, and they got along well with each other for a while.
(End of chapter)