Chapter 253 Reunion
Guanghe six years, August 26th.
On that day, the Han army in Pitang, under the leadership of Ren Jun, formally surrendered to the Taishan army in the periphery. Afterwards, Ren Jun was retained in the army because he was the first to correct the situation, and was sent directly to the Taishan Army's collision team. I don't know how many people envied him.
It's a pity that the only fly in the ointment is that Zheng Hun ran away after all. Also injured was Mao Shao. His troops had originally been in contact with the Taishan Army, but first he was robbed of the merit by Ren Jun, and then when he led his troops to intercept and kill Pan Zhi, he was In the last bloody battle, only Pan's tribe was killed.
In the end, he had neither the merit of righteousness nor the merit of being a leader, so after being coerced by Ren Jun and surrendering, Mao Shao became only a general and was subordinate to Xiaowei Ding Sheng.
I think Mao Shao also regretted it. At that time, Chen Qin, the chief secretary of Ding Sheng's department, personally recruited and surrendered. If he had surrendered at that time, he would have been promoted to a garrison general at least, but now, hey!
Time is also fate.
After dealing with the remnants of the Han army in Pitang, the Taishan army had been reorganizing in the Guancheng area for two days. After cleaning up, the whole army moved north again.
Zhang Dan's troops stationed in the small town of Yanshi had sent out several messages saying that the Han cavalry from the Xingyang area had been cruising nearby. Zhang Dan's troops were worried about the enemy's pre-emptive strike and eagerly asked Zhang Chong about his next stage plan. Should we continue to let Zhang Danbu stick to it? It is better to move south to join our army as soon as possible.
When these messages were introduced to the Taishan Army shogunate, Zhang Chong was very annoyed. He said to He Kui next to him:
"It is expected that Adan has been with me for a long time, learned something, and later took charge of the army. He should be a man of his own opinions. But look at these letters? None of them necessarily think for themselves. They are all waiting, relying, and wanting. Wait for Ben The army ordered to move closer to our army and ask for our support. "
He Kui comforted Zhang Chong with a smile:
"Qushuai, you are being a little harsh. A'dan still has his own opinion, otherwise how could you let him do the work? The reason why he is like this is just a matter of superiority and inferiority. He asked for help several times because he felt that he was more handsome. You are far-sighted. Therefore, it is not because Adan has no opinion, but because you are too powerful."
He Kuixiao flattered Zhang Chong, and sure enough, Zhang Chong laughed and said jokingly:
"It seems it's not mine."
He Kui knew that Zhang Chong was not really angry with Zhang Dan, nor did he not know the reason for Zhang Dan's request. The reason why Qu Shuai was so anxious was all because of one person, the divine envoy Ma Yuanyi.
This man is catching monsters again, but this time he is not talking about dividing the troops, but is preaching in the army.
After Ma Yuanyi went north with the Taishan Army, Zhang Chong and others said that he had changed, because Ma Yuanyi followed Zhang Chong's command all the way, and even the command of the 6,000-strong Yingchuan Yellow Turbans was gradually handed over to Zhang Chong. .
But soon Zhang Chong understood why Ma Yuanyi didn't fight? People are starting to fight over ideology.
Ma Yuanyi took the group of Yellow Turban warriors he organized to preach Taiping Tao doctrines everywhere in the Taishan Army camps. Ma Yuanyi is worthy of being the best preacher in Taiping Tao. Not only does the teachings he preaches cater to the interests of the grassroots, he even eats and lives with the Taishan soldiers.
You must know that at this time, the Taishan Army was still affiliated with the Taishan Fang of Taiping Road. This is a fact known to the entire army. But in fact, Zhang Chong rarely preached in the army because he did not agree with the specific teachings of Taiping Dao. Although he also has a preacher, he talks more about dividing the land and how we can make decisions for the poor.
So when Ma Yuanyi came to the grassroots level, he quickly converted a group of Taishan Army grassroots officers and soldiers to Taiping Taoism, and they performed the same rituals and recited the "Taiping Sutra" as Ma Yuanyi every day.
Zhang Chong soon learned of this. He hurriedly called out to the military officials at all levels and ordered each battalion not to allow Ma Yuanyi and others to enter the camp to preach. On the other hand, he hurriedly discussed the solution to the matter with a group of military staff. road.
This incident made Zhang Chong immediately realize that a question he had deliberately avoided for a long time could no longer be avoided.
That is whether the Taishan Army is a religious army or an army that serves the head of Guizhou.
The answer is of course very clear. Zhang Chong never thought of relying on religion to transform the world. It's just that in the past, because the Taishan Army was weak, it needed to find Taipingdao as an ally in order to win over the vast number of Guizhou believers below him. Therefore, Zhang Chong needs to stay under Taiping Road to develop.
But nothing has only advantages and no disadvantages. Although Taipingdao's resistance to the Han Dynasty was righteous, in the final analysis it was a primitive religious organization with a lot of mystery and ignorance.
If Zhang Chong allowed these things to breed in the army, on the one hand, the religious authority would usurp his prestige, and on the other hand, it would also corrupt the spirit of the Taishan army officials. So Zhang Chong had been keeping these on purpose before.
And now? Ma Yuanyi obviously saw his advantages and the shortcomings of the Taishan Army. He gave up fighting Zhang Chong for the leadership of the army head-on, and instead influenced the lower-level soldiers from the side. This method obviously works.
Zhang Chong specifically talked to Ma Yuanyi about this matter, but Ma Yuanyi meant that he felt that he was not as adept at military affairs as Zhang Chong, but he felt that he had some merits in doctrine. So Zhang Chong was in charge of the army, and he disciplined them, and together they shaped the Taishan Army into a Taoist army loyal to Taiping Dao.
Zhang Chong was silent for a long time, without saying much, and then retreated.
It was before the Xingyang War, and he couldn't break up with Ma Yuanyi now. When the time comes, those close to him would be bitter and his enemies would be happy. But after the battle of Xingyang, Zhang Chong had a solution.
But this is the truth, but in the end it makes you feel frustrated. To be honest, without Zhang Chong's bloody battlefield, the Yellow Turban Army would have been destroyed long ago.
In the previous battle at Yingyang, without him running hundreds of miles to support, the Ruying Yellow Turban Army would have been a thing of the past. But actually? How did Taipingdao treat him? In the past, Tang and Zhou ostracized him, Zhang Jiao wanted to depose him, and Ma Yuanyi wanted to take advantage of him. With all these things, how can one not feel aggrieved?
Ma Yuanyi had not preached before, but insisted on preaching before the final attack on Xingyang. He was sure that Zhang Chong would take the overall situation into consideration and did not dare to fall out with him, so he did this test.
And once there is no countermeasure to this temptation, there will immediately be another temptation. Just like cutting sausages, the smaller they get, the lower Zhang Chong's bottom line becomes.
To be honest, Zhang Chong is also an ordinary person. He didn't know how many times he thought, let's just withdraw. Why is he the one taking care of the overall situation? Why does he always suffer the loss?
But reason told him that the fundamental reason for all this exclusion was that Zhang Chong had enough strength to influence the overall situation, but he did not yet have the corresponding prestige. So these people will only control him and guard against him, instead of respecting him and following him.
This situation is like the historical division around 1935.
Therefore, the key for Zhang Chong to correctly untie this knot is not to give up, but to do more, turn the tide at a critical period, and tell everyone that only by following him can Zhang Chong reach the end!
So even though it's aggrieved, it's just aggrieved. Since you are feeling aggrieved, just find a place to vent. Unfortunately, Zhang Dan became a harmless outlet.
Here He Kui was amused, Zhang Chong finished scolding, and quickly assigned the next stage of tasks.
"Zhang Dan's tribe continued to build more forts in the small town of Yanshi and successfully joined the main army."
After that, Zhang Chong continued northward with nearly 20,000 troops without any delay. Because Zhang Chong knew that Zhang Dan's troops were indeed insufficient at this time, and he was also worried that the Han army would boldly surround Zhang Dan's partial division.
On August 26, Li Damu and Dian Wei formed a front army with a total of 2,000 people and set out first to go north to open up the communication line. On August 27, Zhang Chong and Ma Yuanyi both led the Yellow Turbans to bypass Guancheng and go directly northward. The carriages and horses were moving all the way, and the army was in full bloom.
But as soon as Zhang Chong went north, a thousand-man Han soldiers from Kaifeng planned to take the opportunity to intercept the Taishan Army's rear.
The leader of this Kaifeng army is named Tao Wei. He is a descendant of Tao She, the Marquis of Kaifeng during the Pre-Han Dynasty, and is now a Kaifeng Wei.
Since He Miao took office as Yin of Henan, he began to mobilize soldiers from counties in eastern Henan to rescue Guancheng. The Kaifeng Order ordered Tao Wei to take a thousand soldiers and sail north along the Bian River.
But Tao Wei was timid and returned with his troops only two days after setting off. He didn't dare to take risks under the control of the city. It was an egg against a rock, and a wise man would not take it. He told the Kaifeng Order that the sergeants were unwilling to leave their homeland to fight in other places because of their pay.
But the Kaifeng Order came from the grassroots level, so he naturally knew what was going on. He reprimanded Tao Wei:
"The bandits will definitely go north to Xingyang. How many soldiers will be left in Guancheng then? Now they are not patrolling forward. If I can't explain it here, how will they explain it to Henan Yin then?"
Obviously, Tao Wei understood the subtext of the county prince. Since the military order above was to support Guancheng, it must be completed. But as for the rest, they won't care too much.
So Tao Wei went north along the Bian River again and got off the boat twenty miles west of Guancheng. Not long after he arrived, he saw an army of long snakes winding towards the north. He did not pursue it. Instead, he waited until all Taishan troops had withdrawn from Guancheng before he led his army into Guancheng.
In this way, Guancheng was "recovered" by Tao Wei.
After getting an advantage, Tao Wei planned to make persistent efforts, so he continued to pursue, but when he saw the Taishan Army's rear, he continued to wait and see.
But little did they know that at this time, the situation of Tao Wei's troops was coming under the eyes of a cavalry army.
When Tao Wei saw that the rear of the Taishan Army continued to move north, he was busy leading his troops to follow up. At this time, there was a sound of horse hoofbeats from the southeast, and Tao Wei was shocked.
I saw a sudden cavalry of about 1,000 people coming directly from the dense forest on the left rear. In the blink of an eye, it rushed into the rear of the Kaifeng soldiers, causing screams for a while.
This Han cavalry was Tian Jun, who was responsible for the ambush. When Tao Wei and others entered Guan County, Zhang Chong received the news from the city's messenger. Tian Jun was immediately ordered to take Qianqi back to the left rear and deliver a fatal blow to the advancing Han army.
Three moments later, when the banner with the word "Tao" was cut off, Tian Jun accepted Tao Wei's head, briefly cleaned the battlefield and led the cavalry northward.
Just like that, Tian Jun was trying his best, and another Han soldier was broken on the plain. This is the advantage of the cavalry on the plains, it is the king.
But the interesting thing is that when the Taishan Army used cavalry to annihilate another Han army, the three thousand Youzhou assault cavalry that were supposed to be stationed in Xingyang also broke into Yanshi and planned to attack Zhang who was stationed here. Danbu gave a devastating blow.
Zhang Dan, who has always attached great importance to battlefield reconnaissance, quickly detected this situation. After discussing with Fan Chang, the chief secretary, he decided to ambush halfway instead of holding on.
They placed the ambush location in a dangerous place from Xingyang to Yanshi, Xingze.
Xingze is actually a deep water pool that stayed in a deep depression after the Jishui River flooded. Yanshi is the confluence of Pu River and Jishui River. Whenever the summer floods occur, the Jishui River overflows and stops here in Yingze. Then when the water recedes, the Yingze River is left behind.
Xingze is a large moor with dense reeds, so Zhang Dan planned to lead two thousand troops to ambush the passing Han cavalry here.
In order to ensure an ambush, Zhang Dan also ordered Pan Zhang to choose two hundred people who were good at water to serve as bait around him to lure the Han cavalry into pursuit.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for the Youzhou cavalry to arrive and find Pan Zhang's tribe resting on the side of the road. The main force of the Han cavalry did not stop and continued to run along the official road. Only a hundred-man cavalry separated from one side, apparently to annihilate Pan Zhang and others.
Seeing Youzhou horses rushing past, Pan Zhang and others were really a little panicked. They had never seen thousands of cavalry crossing the road, and they didn't have the courage to fight back. They all ran towards Xingze.
The hundred-man cavalry chasing Pan Zhang were flying the "Xianyu" flag. The leading cavalry general looked at the scurrying bandits with contempt, waved his hands and gave orders, and then fired a burst of arrows at Pan Zhang and others.
More than twenty people who ran slowly were shot into hedgehogs, but more of them had already swam to Zenei with Pan Zhang and disappeared.
The Xianyu Cavalry Commander secretly cursed "rats" and led Baiqi to leave the queue and circle towards the reed swamp. But Baiqi had just passed through the reeds and was about to choose a wide area to continue shooting at the moth thieves in the swamp, when a denser rain of arrows directly covered them.
It turned out that when the Han cavalry came, Zhang Dan left Wei Zhou, Li Fu, and Luo Gang to continue to lurk, and ordered Huo Chan, Li Cun, and Zhang Neng to ambush the enemy cavalry from the head, waist, and tail at the same time.
General Xianyu did not break in, but when he saw that his troops were stuck in the reeds, he was frightened, turned his horse's head and ran towards his troops.
Zhang Dan could not let the cavalry general run away, so he quickly ordered the six soldiers lurking in the reed swamp to intercept and kill the Han cavalry rear team. Zhang Dan chose this moment very well. At this time, the front army of the Han cavalry had long disappeared, and only the cavalry of thousands of people was still walking slowly on the official road beside the reed marsh.
Zhang Dan's purpose was to eat these thousand cavalry troops.
Zhang Dan wanted to eat Han Qi, but little did he know that others also wanted to eat him.
It turned out that the Han cavalry commander, Zong Yuan, saw through Zhang Dan's ambush plan at a glance. As soon as Zhang Dan showed up to ambush his rear army, Zong Yuan led the front and middle cavalry and killed them back.
Fortunately, Zhang Dan had left himself a backup plan. When the clan members raised the encirclement, he led his troops back to the reed swamp, took out the small boat that had been hidden in the reed swamp, and rowed quickly towards Zexin.
Seeing that they could not catch the Yellow Turban Army, the clan members were not discouraged. They surrounded the Xingze and began to burn the reeds with kerosene, intending to trap the Yellow Turbans inside.
In this way, Zhang Dan, who was defeated in the battle, and his troops were besieged by three thousand Han cavalry in the middle of the river, and were in danger.
(End of chapter)