Chapter 853 Xuanhu
The northern wind has already reached Xuanhu City in Runan.
This city was renamed Caizhou City in later Sui and Tang Dynasties and was an important hub and fortress in the Central Plains.
From here, you can go south to the Huai River and connect to Xu Yang, which was originally a key node for water transportation in Chen, Cai, Ru, and Ying.
Not only that, Xuanhu City also has a special feature, that is, the entire city is surrounded by Ru River, and the whole city is like a gourd hanging on Ru River.
So even though this city seems not famous now, in fact, in later generations, it has determined the direction of history countless times.
At that time, Tuoba Tao led an army of 200,000 to besiege Xuanhu City and prepared to go south to attack Jiangnan. However, no one expected that he would be blocked here by the thousands of defenders in the city.
In this dimension, because of Guo Jia's precautions, while he was in Xuanhu as the governor of Runan County, he once again expanded the original city defense to include the entire land in the river.
Previously, Xuanhu City was just a small wall, with a circumference of only six miles, and a city wall was only eight hundred steps long.
But later, after Duke Chen moved the political center from Pingyu to Xuanhu, he began to expand the city outward in order to accommodate a large number of military officials, craftsmen, and scholars.
After Guo Jia came to power, it finally expanded into a layout of internal and external twin cities.
The inner city is the original Xuanhu Old City. Apart from the height of the city wall being raised to four feet high, there are generally no changes and there are four gates.
The outer city is very huge. It is built around the entire Hezhong Land, so it can be regarded as an irregular city wall, with an overall circumference of twenty-four miles, surrounding the entire Hezhong Land.
Because there was Ru River as the perimeter, the outer city wall was built to a height of three feet, and there were three gates, namely the west gate on the left side of Ru River, the east gate on the right side of Ru River, and the east gate.
As a natural moat for the outer city of Xuanhu, how wide is Ru River? It is fully thirty feet wide.
It can be said that with the scale of the border defense of Xuanhu City, it became the number one city in the Central Plains from the day it was completed.
However, no matter how strong the fortress was, it could not save the overall situation. At this time, only a few cities of the Chen Kingdom were still holding on in the vast Central Plains, and the rest had already raised apricot-yellow flags.
At this time, there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians gathered in Xuanhu City. These people were the core of the Yuan family and powerful families such as Ru, Ying, Chen, and Pei who were unwilling to succumb to the Taishan Army.
It can be said that the current Xuanhu City is the last bastion of the anti-Taishan Army forces in the Central Plains.
But even though Xuanhu City is so strong, it still cannot bring much safety to the residents in the city.
Not long ago, the leading figures in the city and the core of the shogunate such as Yuan Shang, Yuan Xi, Guo Jia, Feng Ji, Guo Yuan, Xin Ping, Xin Pi, Guan Tong, Hua Yan, Kong Shun, etc., came to the city together.
Originally, they were going to welcome the reinforcements coming from nearby, but unexpectedly they saw a desperate scene.
At that time, about two to three thousand Runan soldiers came from the Pingyu area to support them.
But when they were about to reach the north of Xuanhu, that is, the north bank of Ru River, they suddenly encountered a Taishan military sentry with twenty riders.
This sentry team was a standard Youyi detective sentry of the Taishan Army. After encountering the Runan soldiers, they had no intention of launching an attack and were preparing to withdraw.
But the Runan military general at that time saw the figures of Cong Cong on Xuanhu City in the distance, and decisively decided to intercept the Taishan Army of more than 20 riders.
The intention was obvious. Seeing that there were few people on the Taishan Army side, they felt they could be bullied and wanted to use their heads to boost morale in the city.
Since these Runan soldiers are so arrogant, these Taishan Army sentries have no intention of retreating.
They directly listed a small formation, with ten cavalry at the front, and then five cavalry on the left and right wings as the leaders.
Before the Runan soldiers had time to form their formation, the Taishan Army's cavalry began to charge fiercely.
The ten cavalry at the front spread out side by side and charged straight at the Runan army with their horses and horses. The Taishan army on the two wings scattered arrows and shot down the Runan army officials wearing gorgeous military uniforms.
In a moment, these twenty tigers riding down the mountain rampaged through Runan's army, killing each other in front and behind.
The Runan soldiers had no will to resist at all, but in this round, more than half of the army was killed and wounded in a sudden rush.
The rebels rushed down Ru River in a hurry, but except for a few people, they all drowned in Ru River.
Those Taishan military sentry riders never thought that they could achieve such results with a casual charge. After covering up the killing for a while, they chopped off the heads of some military officials and then walked away.
More than twenty riders left, but they brought a huge blow to everyone in Xuanhu City.
Twenty versus two thousand, the disparity in the numbers of the two sides reached a terrifying one to one hundred. That is, two thousand versus twenty, even if one person grabs an arm, there are still 1,920 people who can't grab it.
But just like that, our side still lost, and it lost completely, without any fig leaf.
In fact, among the group of people on the top of the city, perhaps only Guo Jia was the most indifferent one. In his heart, he had already expected such battle losses.
Although there are more than 2,000 troops who came from Pingyu, how many real veterans are there?
The battle in Heluo could be said to have completely broken the bones of Duke Chen, and lost veterans and warriors from hundreds of battles. What troops does Duke Chen have now that can fight with the Taishan Army in the field?
What about the other side? Although there are only twenty cavalry, they are a team of semi-armored cavalry. Except for the war horses, the whole body is equipped with iron armor and iron helmets.
Although the number of such troops is small, as long as they charge, it will be a rampage.
At this time, the Taishan Army has developed to its current level, and the construction of the cavalry army has reached its peak.
In addition to the armored cavalry specifically used to break formations, there are also half-armored cavalry like the Youyi Sentry Cavalry. These troops are used according to different scenarios.
Although Guo Jia did not participate in the Heluo Battle, he always paid attention to the intelligence of the Taishan Army's cavalry.
You must know that this kind of half-armored cavalry is just ordinary, but that kind of armored cavalry is the real killing weapon in the world. From a distance, each cavalry seems to be an iron tower.
If the reinforcements encountered these armored cavalry, they would probably be even worse.
After sighing, Guo Jia said to Yuan Shang beside him:
"We have seen how strong Taishan's army is in field battles. For now, we can only defend the hanging pot and wait for the world to change again."
It sounds depressing, but it's true.
With such field results, no one in the city would be willing to go out to fight.
At this time, Yuan Shang, who was wearing mourning clothes and iron armor, was about to cry but had no tears.
Yes, he finally defeated his father's other sons and inherited the Duke of Chen, but at this time what his father left to him was only a broken country in a mess.
There are no more than two cities, no more than 10,000 soldiers, and no more than 100,000 citizens.
At this time, Yuan Shang listened to Guo Jia's words and looked at the miserable wailing scene on the Ru River below the city. He burst into tears and said:
"Why is my Yuan family like this?"
As he spoke, he shed a lot of tears and runny nose.
But everyone present knows the reason:
"This is the fate of a true dragon. If you win, you gain everything. If you lose, you will die and your family will be destroyed. Isn't that the truth?"
It's just a pity for Yuan Shang. Before he could do anything, everything was already irreversible.
In fact, Yuan Shang still has a means that he can rely on, and that is the 10,000 new troops organized and trained by Shang's father Guo Jia.
In the past, when Yuan Shao was still in power, he had always implemented a policy of elite soldiers. Because the village system supported a large number of qualified warriors, this policy has always been very useful. But later when Duke Chen went north to Heluo, in order to supply a large number of elite soldiers with military rations, Yuan Shao ordered all counties and counties to search for strong men and go to the front line to get rations.
Later, these strong men began to slowly join the army, so that the combat effectiveness of each army declined significantly.
But even this ratio became a luxury in the post-Yuan Shao era. Due to the loss of a large number of elite warriors, this military model with warriors as the backbone and slaves and slaves as meat was officially bankrupt.
Without a backbone, what's the use of forcibly recruiting Dingkou as an army? It will only be a waste of food.
Moreover, the forced conscription into the army caused local cries and complaints to spread among the neighbors, and resentment filled the roads, making the Yuan family, which had no popular support, fall into the hatred of the people.
Therefore, it was Guo Jia who took the initiative and disbanded these disciples and armed forces, and instead began to train a new army.
Although the establishment is new, the people are still the same.
Guo Jia just integrated the powerful tribes from Liang, Chen, Ru, Ying and other places who moved into the city into an army, and organized and trained a new combat army with the children of each family as the core.
But it was by streamlining the troops and eliminating redundant troops that Guo Jia was able to free up a large amount of resources for these troops.
These selected elite soldiers are generally infantry, strong, agile, and extremely refined. They can carry six or seven tons of armor and military rations on their backs and travel two hundred miles day and night.
To be able to do this, Guo Jia and the others spent a lot of money. Generally speaking, the military pay and military rewards for a soldier were three times that of raising soldiers in the past.
There must be a brave man under a heavy reward. Now Duke Chen, who only has wealth, can only train his troops in this way.
But even so, it is not enough to send these new troops out of the city to fight in the field, because they are all infantry.
But there is no need to underestimate this army. As the last military officer of Duke Chen, there are still many warriors in the army.
Some of these people are naturalized people from the North, such as Ma Yan, Zhang Yi, Li Fu, etc.; some are generals of powerful families, such as Su You, Yin Kai, Han Fan, Liang Qi, etc.; some are These are the only remaining essences of the Yuan family, such as Yan Jing, Peng An, Cen Bi, Wang Zhao, etc.
Many of them came from Yuan Shang's private army and had followed him long ago.
It was the existence of these people that gave Yuan Shang some confidence to defend Xuanhu.
But at this time, Yuan Shang may not know that most of them will disappear one by one in the bloody battles in the days to come, and finally withdraw from the stage of history together with Da Chen.
In the days that followed, the Central Plains area became increasingly colder, but the generals on Xuanhu City never saw the Taishan Army.
Could it be that the Taishan Army is not coming?
……
From the beginning to the end, Zhang Chong never considered Xuanhu as his target for the next stage.
Although he did not know how difficult Xuanhu City was historically, this did not prevent Zhang Chong from making the right decision.
Coming from a later generation, he has a profound understanding of war, that is, as long as the enemy's effective forces are completely wiped out, the rest will just happen naturally.
That's why Zhang Chong was keen on fighting a decisive battle, in order to annihilate the enemy's effective forces in the decisive battle.
In his opinion, Yuan Shao's power had actually collapsed in the Battle of Heluo, and what was left was just hanging on.
And things developed exactly as Zhang Chong expected, that is, the counties in the Central Plains collapsed on their own without even having to push them.
And now, if Xuanhu City is not captured, what impact will it have on Zhang Chong?
However, Zhang Chong would not relax in the direction of Xuanhu City. In order to prevent enemy troops from rushing out of the city and disturbing his food routes, Zhang Chong specially arranged for a partial division to stay in the Central Plains area.
The cavalry army led by Le Jin, in addition to guarding Yuan's army in Xuanhu City, was also responsible for destroying bandits, hunter groups and other armed forces scattered in the Central Plains.
In this case, Le Jin's army alone was not enough, so Zhang Chong ordered Le Jin to send elite warriors to various counties and counties to pull up the local field protection troops.
At this time, Niu Jin, the warrior next to Le Jin, was in charge of training local field guards in Chen County, Chen State.
Under the scorching sun, Niu Jin, wearing a helmet and armor and holding a slender stick in his hand, was pacing on the training platform.
Under the stage, hundreds of archers were practicing to the sound of horns.
When the horn sounded, everyone picked up their bows and arrows. When the horn sounded again, hundreds of arrows flew to the target more than 20 paces away.
But even after reaching such a close position, many arrows could still be seen missing the target.
Niu Jin was already a little angry. He shouted at the drum horns in the audience:
"Stop f*cking bragging, what kind of shit did you cum?"
After hearing Niu Jin's scolding, the young man who had just learned to blow the horn immediately stopped playing.
After calling off the horn, the horn began to curse at the hundreds of archers below:
"As a Taiyuan native, I have heard that Chen Guo was good at shooting and was said to be unparalleled in the world. But this is how you shoot? Don't give me actual arrows to shoot, just draw the bow for me and waste my arrows."< br>
After speaking, several Taishan military officials who taught archery in the audience quickly asked the Chen County soldiers to put down their arrows and use their bows to draw them in the air first.
Looking at the group of naughty soldiers below, Niu Jin didn't feel much interest, so he jumped off the stage and walked behind the curtain.
There, several cavalry officers were pointing and drawing on the map.
Niu Jin came over, looked at the map first, and then complained to one of the young military officials:
"Xiao Chen, is this the soldier you recruited? Damn it, I have never led such a bad soldier. He can shoot at a target at twenty steps and miss six out of ten. This kind of person should not be a soldier. Just keep getting the hoe.”
The one named Xiao Chen is from the Chen country. He came from the Yellow Turbans of the Chen Kingdom. Later, the momentum of the Yellow Turban team was wiped out, so Xiao Chen moved to the Taishan area, where he was exposed to more systematic training.
This time the Taishan Army arrived on the ground of Chen State, and the local selection department found Xiao Chen's file and transferred him from Taishan to Chen State.
The group of archers now trained by Niujiao was the first thing Xiao Chen did when he arrived.
At this time, Xiao Chen also smiled bitterly after hearing Niu Jin's complaint:
"Brother, there's really nothing we can do about it. Yuan Shao caused a lot of harm to Chen Guo before, and someone with some shooting skills was taken away. The rest are the best."
After Xiao Chen finished speaking, a military officer beside him said without raising his head:
"Let's practice like this. We don't need these people to go to the battlefield anyway. We just need to be able to deal with those hunter teams."
Niujiao shrugged, seeing that the Xuanwei envoy had said so, why was he so anxious to get angry?
He had just looked at the drawings made by several people on the map, and it was clearly the location where the king's army was heading out.
Seeing that the people present were all members of the Cavalry Army, Niu Jin finally said what he had been thinking during this period.
He asked in a low voice:
"Did our military leader offend the superiors? Otherwise, why are we not included in every decisive battle? In terms of field battles, our cavalry army is not bad at all."
This sentence speaks to the sentiments of several people present. Yes, where do we fall behind in the cavalry?
What are they doing here to draw the map? Don’t you still want to fight this battle?
Hey, forget it, we dare not ask whether the military leader has offended anyone, maybe this is fate!
(End of chapter)