Chapter 211 City Defense
Not long after Taishan's army entered the city, a riot broke out in Puyang City. The already oppressed people of Puyang gathered in groups to hunt the lone foreign soldiers of the Han army.
Puyang City has four thousand Han soldiers and eight camps. They are Cao Shao's county soldiers with one thousand soldiers, Baima Chenggong's family soldiers with 300 soldiers, Wei Guo Ji's soldiers with 200 soldiers, Puyang Tian family and other family tribes with 500 soldiers. Later, there were 300 soldiers from Lihu, 500 soldiers from Baima, 400 soldiers from Yanxian County, and 800 soldiers from foreign countries, a total of 4,000 soldiers.
As for the five hundred soldiers Cao Shao recruited in the past two days, they dispersed as soon as Taishan's army entered the city. Not only that, they also went home with the weapons issued by the arsenal. Cao Shao's thousand county soldiers are about the same, they are all from Puyang City. Because of Cao Shao, they are often disliked by the people in the same area. If it weren't for this stable Shi Gao, they might not be able to continue.
Originally, when the moth thieves entered the city, they had to fight to the death to block them. However, they discovered that these moth thieves did not loot and set fire everywhere after entering the city, but acted in a very well-organized manner. After entering from the north gate, one wave went to the top of the city to control the suspension bridge, one wave rushed to kill the assembled Han soldiers, and the other wave went straight to the arsenal. Seeing this, the county soldiers looked at each other, took off their uniforms, and went home.
However, the resistance of the military tribes of other families was particularly fierce, especially the Chenggong family. Their family was from the Wu family, their tribes were bound by military laws, and there were many good warriors. Therefore, when the Taishan Army's assault cavalry rushed into the city first, they were invincible. However, they failed to charge twice at Chenggong's house. At that time, the leader of the team, Wang Dang, roared, and his fifty cavalry bypassed Chenggong. Soldiers, chase and crush the scattered Han soldiers behind.
The Cavalry has already developed its own tactical characteristics. When encountering a strong formation, they will rush if they can, and they will leave if they can't. They will not hesitate to fight. Because there are soldiers following behind to deal with them.
Sure enough, the soldiers of the Chenggong clan thought they had repelled the bandits and all fought hard. However, they unexpectedly encountered a group of enemy soldiers, especially the leader, a warrior holding a double halberd. The man's majestic armor was Can't stand it.
Poor Chenggong soldiers were also good at fighting, but they met Dian Wei. What Dian Wei is best at is this kind of small-scale fighting. He is already at the peak of his fighting skills and courage. In less than a moment, Dian Wei and his soldiers have already killed the Chenggong clan soldiers, and their leader Chenggong has been killed. Gong Gao also became another trophy of Dian Wei.
The Chenggong clan had strong soldiers, but that was all. Seeing that Puyang could not be defended, other tribes retreated from the west and south gates one after another. Among them, eight hundred jujube soldiers protected Cao Shao and walked straight to the west gate to retreat to Yan County. Unfortunately, Zhang Chong had already set up an ambush all the way to the west. Xie Bi and Li Damu had already moved here to wait for the Han soldiers who were fleeing to the west.
In the end, Cao Shao was captured, and the jujube soldiers knelt down and surrendered after a little resistance. After that, Xie Bi and Li Damu took Cao Shao's prefect's talisman and put on the uniforms of the jujube soldiers. They easily defrauded Baima and Yan counties, directly connecting the western area of Dong County.
In fact, Dongjun could no longer mobilize any troops. The four thousand troops assembled in Puyang City were the entire military strength of the Han Dynasty in the west of Dongjun, but when Puyang fell, they were all reduced to nothing.
In the battle of Puyang, the Taishan army was counted. He killed 600 officials of the Northern Army and captured 400. He killed 300 river bandits and captured 700. Then the biggest gain was the Puyang soldiers, a total of 4,000 soldiers, but they could not annihilate 400, captured 2,000, and another 1,000 people were scattered and disappeared. Then the three cities of Puyang, Baima, and Yan County were all occupied by the Taishan Army and were not owned by the Han.
The great victory in the Battle of Puyang quickly spread in the surrounding areas. More and more Taiping Dao armed forces and anti-Han forces came to Puyang to camp with Zhang Chong. They either had a bloody feud with the Han court, or they were jealous of the Taishan army. In short, Zhang If you rush to Puyang, you will find it has the potential to embrace all rivers.
Over the past few days, Pan Da, the remnant leader of the Taiping Road in Baima, and 600 people have come to defect to him one after another. They defected directly to Xie Bi who was stationed in Baima. Then there were a hundred thieves from Pingyang Pavilion, led by Ling Gai. They were old bandits who were hunting for Dongjun. They hid near Pingyang Pavilion. When they saw Xie Bi occupying the white horse, Ling Gai took his old brothers to join him. In addition, there are the Taiping Dao brothers in Yan County, Liu Hai, and Liu Ba brothers. They have retained the strength of the local Taiping Dao. They have thousands of people, but there are too many old and weak ones. In addition, Wei Xian, Wei Chang and others, the righteous citizens of Wei Township, led the rioting 600 villagers straight to Puyang to seek refuge. There were also thousands of volunteers from Wating and Taoxiang, led by Shi Nai, who also came to Puyang to pay homage to General Chongtian.
In this way, after the capture of Puyang, the strength of the Taishan Army expanded again. The original main force was 6,000 soldiers. After the war, 4,000 volunteers defected, and nearly 3,000 Han soldiers were captured. It can also be seen from here that the anti-Han situation has become more and more intense after two months of fermentation. There are more than ten armed groups in the western part of Dong County alone. Originally, they did not have the strength to attack the county seat, so they could only burn down the local tyrants in the village. . But now that Taishan's army, the leader of the First Rebellion, has arrived and lived up to expectations by capturing Puyang, why should there be any hesitation? Let's take the whole family to eat him!
Zhang Chong naturally accepts all comers. He will set off a new round of craze in the western region of Dongjun to defeat the powerful. The more these alliances come, the better.
Zhang Chong understands the truth that as long as there are many friends and few enemies, things will go smoothly. On the contrary, no matter how capable you are, time will be wasted. The armed forces who defected were naturally mixed, but Zhang Chong did not rely on these people to fight, but valued their manpower more. They were incompatible with the Han court. With these, there are many things you can ask them to do for you.
For example, leading the way and contacting places. The majority of the Taishan Army are from Taishan, Jinan and other places, and have basically never been to Puyang. Originally, without the people from these places defecting, it would have been almost difficult for the Taishan Army to take root in the places. As long as you are a foreigner and your words are incomprehensible to the locals, they will not support you.
Why does Zhang Chong continue to attack foreign countries, even to a certain extent, to make himself a rogue? It's not that he didn't know the shortcomings of rogue bandits. In this battle in Puyang, their shortcomings were clearly revealed, that is, without base support, the army could not fight positional warfare at all. For example, the consumption of arrows. The arrows they carried before setting off for the expedition had long been used up in previous wars. There are also various military supplies and equipment, which will become a bottomless pit when consumed, and it is very difficult to replenish these during the march.
Why did Zhang Chong have to take the initiative to attack away from the base area? In addition to leaving Aocang in the west, mobilizing the two wings, and preserving the strength of Taiping Road, another important reason is to attract more people from other places.
Originally, the main body of the Taishan Army was from Jinan, Taishan and other places. The team was pure and widely supported in the Taishan area. But if the Taishan Army wants to continue to develop, the original local color will be too strong. In order for the group to rise from a local perspective to a global perspective, there must be people from all over the world within the group. These people can provide real information about the place and make the strategy go more smoothly.
But this still could not prevent the evils of rogue bandits, so after Zhang Chong obtained the great city of Puyang, he set out to establish a base in the Heji Plain.
The Taishan Army set out from Bo County in April and fought for two months. Although they won successive victories, the veterans of the division were exhausted. All supplies were also consumed a lot. Although the soldiers were silent, the pain of marching was not without them. Therefore, Zhang Chong also planned to repair here in Puyang and began to establish the Heji base area.
The first step is to establish a joint city defense system for Puyang City. The original city defense was naturally complete, but it only had the inner city wall. On the outside, there were obvious loopholes, because there was only one peripheral stronghold in Heyangjin. Zhang Chong has already sent troops to occupy Jiacheng on the north bank of the river. In this way, the passage on the north bank of the river was temporarily blocked by the Taishan Army. To the east, there is the Yellow Turban Army of Divination in the direction of Dong'a. Although they are somewhat in conflict with the Taishan Army, they can still block the enemy from the east. Now that Zhang Chong has occupied Yancheng and Baima in the west, it can be said that there is temporary resistance in the west.
The most important thing is to build fortifications in the south of the city to form a tight deep city defense together with Puyang City. Therefore, Zhang Chong decided to deploy all his main forces in strongholds outside the city, leaving two thousand soldiers inside the city, namely Zhang Chong's headquarters.
Thanks to the guidance of the local Taiping Road in Puyang, Zhang Chong learned that from the south of Puyang to Pushui, there are six li communities that can form fortifications, namely Fushanli, Pinganli, Changshouli, Beishuili, Doushili, and Sanshuli. Huli.
Among them, Beishuili is the southernmost and can be the southern gateway of the entire city defense system. Then Fushanli and Sanhuli are close to Puyang City and can be the horns of Puyang. And Ping'anli, Changshouli, and Doushili are all in the middle and can be used as a countermeasure.
There were no troops stationed in these places. On June 16, Zhang Chong ordered Ding Sheng, Li Bi, Yu Jin, Dian Wei, Gao Ya, Zhao Liang, and Zhu Ying to march to these six li communities. They dared to build camps day and night and dug deep trenches. Three roads, vertical and horizontal roads. In addition, various communities also built side roads as marching walls between each other.
Zhang Chong planned to build the entire defense system with Puyang as the general rear, Beishui Village as the gateway, and the other villages as the support. They would be connected by corridors and provide mobile support, which could be said to be impregnable.
In terms of troop allocation, Zhang Chong almost deployed most of his elite troops outside the city. For example, Dianwei was stationed in Beishui Village, and Li Bi, Yu Jin, and Ding Sheng were stationed in Ping'an and Changshouli later. Dou's house. Gao Ya, Zhao Liang, and Zhu Ying were stationed in Fushanli and Sanhuli, which are closest to Puyang, showing a pattern of emphasizing the outside and undervaluing the inside.
In addition, these six tribes are not only stationed in Liuli Society, they are also responsible for allocating land to households, dividing and dismantling the local tyrants, and establishing a field protection army controlled by the Taishan Army. All in all, Zhang Chong did not want them to defend the city wall, but to rely on it to continuously extend their tentacles to the Pu River area. Let these people who have been allocated the land become the spies and preparers of the Taishan Army.
All in all, when another round of anti-Han upsurge set off in the Puyang area, Huang Wan, the herdsman of Yanzhou who was stationed in Chenliu Fengqiu, was in despair.
(End of chapter)