Shu Chen

Chapter 335 Choices
The water source is the top priority in the conquest march.

Especially for the Hexi Corridor, which is dry and rainless.

Therefore, in the face of the incoming nomadic cavalry of the Wei State, apart from Wuwei County, which bears the brunt, the Hexi Corridor, Mingze (Shule River system), Juyan, and Xiutu, which spread from the Qilian Mountains into the desert, are the three major lakes of the Han Dynasty. The army needs a place heavily guarded by troops.

Among them, Mingze, which straddles Jiuquan and Dunhuang County, has no hidden danger of being stolen. 【Note 1】

Not only because Dunhuang County is the western end of the Han territory, which has always been heavily guarded, but also because there is Mazong Mountain in the north as a natural barrier, and the alluvial fan of the Shule River, where Li and Shu live, is very close to the Qilian Mountains, which is relatively easier. guard.

As for the unnamed small marsh formed near Yumenguan after the confluence of the Shule River and the Dang River, if it is occupied by nomadic tribes, it will directly threaten Dunhuang County and Guangzhi County, so there is no need to worry.

These two counties are backed by the Sanwei Mountains, and the prefect Liao Hua is stationed with troops and horses from his headquarters, and the soldiers and horses that Zhang Jiu supervised when he was in office are all intact, so it is no problem to fight against the nomadic tribes in the area.

Hugh Tuze needless to say.

Today's Han court does not have enough national power to recover, and there is no way to prevent Wei Guo from engulfing the Southern Huns and Xianbei from entering.

However, with Xuanwei City as the outpost of defense, as long as the counties of Wuwei County have sufficient soldiers and horses to take strict precautions, they can defend the border without worry.But it is unavoidable that under frequent disturbances, the people's livelihood and the government's inventory will be severely consumed.

Zhangye County is the only place where you can farm with peace of mind.

Zhangye County, which is sandwiched between Jiuquan and Wuwei, has Longshou Mountain and Heli Mountain (collectively known as the Corridor North Mountain) in the north as natural barriers. It only needs one army to station in Zhaowu County at the junction of the two mountains, and the Wei State will have no Road into bandits.

However, Zhangye County's supplies, money and food cannot be used to support Wuwei County.

Because Xihai County, where Ju Yanze is located, is a place that Wei Guo must commit, and it is also the most difficult place to defend in the entire Hexi Corridor.

The weak water system originated in the Qilian Mountains, after nourishing Jiuquan and Zhangye County, traveled northward in the desert for about [-] (Han) miles to form Juyanze.

Such a long distance is equivalent to the isolated Hexi Corridor in Xihai County, so it is too difficult to defend.

The vast grassland has always been divided into two parts by the Gobi Desert in between. In the former Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu invaded the Hexi Corridor from Mobei, and Juyanze would be the first stop.And vice versa, if the former Han wanted to go straight to Mobei, Ju Yanze could also be a springboard.

Therefore, for the strategic purpose of defense in the former Han Dynasty, Emperor Xiaowu of the Han Dynasty set up a Juyan vassal state here, but there was only one Juyan County and the Juyan Great Wall.

It was only used as a defensive outpost, and no large-scale resettlement of people was carried out.

So far, although the Juyan vassal state has been relocated to Xihai County, the population is few and the products are not abundant enough to supply too many garrisons, and the attribute of being mostly nomadic tribes has not changed.Now if the big man wants to defend Xihai County without losing it, he can only transfer all the products of Zhangye County to there.

Furthermore, when the former Han Dynasty built the Great Wall of the Pass, they did not shelter Ju Yanze in the rear.

Originating from Juyanze, it is divided into East and West Zeze. The water of Xizawa (called "Gashunuoer" in Mongolian, meaning the sea of ​​bitterness) is bitter and undrinkable; The water of Doe Lake) is plump for fish and birds, and it is really a good place for animal husbandry.

Regardless of whether the Wei State ordered the Xianbei or the Xiongnu to migrate to Xihai County, they could all occupy Juyan Dongze as pasture land and become the rear of the besieged Juyan Fortress.Regardless of whether it is the Xianbei or the Xiongnu, as long as Xihai County can be captured, then, according to their customs of being good at migrating and fighting, Jiuquan and Dunhuang counties will never have peace.

The Silk Road trade, which the Han court relied on to appease the nobles in Yizhou, will also face the dilemma of frequent looting.

After all, they sent troops from [-] (Han) miles away to plunder, even if the big Han had set up beacon guards in various places, it would be difficult to protect the safety of the caravans coming and going.

Both the Han and Wei dynasties understood such an obvious strategic significance.

At this time, Wei Yan, who was granted the right to supervise and guard Liangzhou by the prime minister, was still training and recruiting Wei Jiangzu in Lingju County of Jincheng with the Taibu of the state.

After discussing for a while, the two used Ma Dai to drive the Xiliang iron cavalry from the headquarters to Huishui County in Jiuquan County to station there. While urging the county soldiers to transfer supplies along the current, they were also ready to rush to help Xihai County.Jiang Wei, on the other hand, was stationed in Guzang County, Wuwei County. While guarding against Wei Guo entering Hexi from Mingsha Mountain, he took advantage of the situation to monitor the real situation of Xiu Tuze.

The reason for this division of responsibilities is that compared with the cavalry of the Qiang Huying camp, the Xiliang iron cavalry, which is good at running thousands of miles, is more suitable if they want to rush to support Xihai County, which is about [-] (Han) miles away.

That is to say, in the upcoming battle of Hexi, the disadvantage of the big man is very obvious.

The terrain of the Hexi counties located along the Qilian Mountains is too narrow and long, and the only way to rely on cavalry is to rely on cavalry. However, the big Han has too few cavalry and the Wei State has too many cavalry encircling the Huns and Xianbei. The big Han is likely to fall into exhaustion. .

You may even be surrounded and killed!

For example, when the state of Wei besieged Xihai County without attacking, Ma Dai was lured to come to rescue.With the terrain of hundreds of miles, they have enough time to dispatch troops to encircle and wipe out Xiliang iron cavalry first.

Or when the Wei State attacked Xihai County, don't send two thousand cavalry into the vicinity of Mingze and Jiuquan Salt Pond to harass and not attack, leaving Ma Dai's tribe in a dilemma of where to rush to help.

The only way to resolve this dilemma is to expand the recruitment of cavalry soldiers.

In fact, Ma Dai and Jiang Wei have already obtained the approval of the prime minister to expand their enrollment.

In the previous Battle of Liangzhou, the cavalry led by the two of them were damaged and retreated a total of more than [-] cavalry. This expansion of recruitment is only to complement the previous system.

It's not that there aren't more suitable sources of soldiers.

In the Battle of Lingju, the Hexi Allied Forces had about [-] cavalry soldiers, who surrendered to the Han after being cut off from their way back.

Born in Hexi, they are all courageous and proficient in riding and archery. They only need a little martial arts to become qualified cavalry soldiers;

But the big man can't collect them all.

Very helpless reason.

Today's Han court really can't afford to support so many cavalry.

The material resources in Bashu are already on the verge of exhaustion, and there is no food and fodder to support the war in a short period of time; Hanzhong County and Longyou, which have been farming for several years, can only barely supply the local garrisons; Compared with the local garrison's production, the farmland's production is still beyond its means, and even now the grain and fodder that has been transferred successively from the trade with Sun Wu's war horses are used to supply the Hexi Corridor garrison and as a strategic reserve.

After all, who dares to judge how long the Battle of Hexi will last?

Besides, the difficulty of the road to Shu is not a lie.

Transshipped from the east of the Yangtze River thousands of miles away, it would be a blessing if half of these grains and fodder could survive in the Hexi Corridor!
In this situation, how dare the prime minister allow them to recruit more cavalry!
Or to put it another way, the invisible shackles on the big man-the small land and few people and insufficient military equipment, it is impossible to disappear before the rich Qinchuan of [-] miles is recovered.

Ugh.
This is the time!Also fate!

Jiang Wei, who has been criticized by the prime minister, is well aware of the plight of the court.

Therefore, after asking Zhang Te the whole story in detail, he made a dispatch that seemed to send many scouts to their deaths, which was contrary to the common sense of military warfare.In order for the big man to be less attacked and reduce the loss of manpower, food and supplies in the upcoming battle, he wanted to plant a seed of suspicion in the invading Wei State in advance.

Even if you want to achieve this goal, you have to pay the lives of many soldiers under your command first.

Time flies and flies by.

After several years of conquests after entering the Han Dynasty, his perspective on problems is no longer that of a general.

Instead, the prime minister expected that one day he would grow into a commander in chief who supervised the war. No matter how bad it was, he would be able to supervise several troops as the vanguard of the army like Wei Yan.

He is working hard in this direction.

As a supervisor, he only cares about the pros and cons of the overall situation of the military battle, and will never soften for the few.

If ten people died in order to save one person, he would never save one;

Therefore, when Zhang Te euphemistically advised that it was not advisable to send scouts again, he just waved his hands flatly, "I've made up my mind, Zichan, let's go and rest."

No explanation is given, and no explanation is required.

Right!

But if you have lofty ideals, why should you say it to others since you have lived in the past?

Five days later, in Huanggu, the eastern section of Wushao Ridge.

The four teams of Wei Guo scouts shuttled back and forth with about two hundred riders. If you look closely, you will find that there is a ray of eagerness and anticipation in everyone's eyes.

They couldn't wait for the Han army scouts to appear.

Wei Guo's reward for beheading the scouts is also very impressive, and they have gained a lot in the past few days.

For some unknown reason, the Han army has frequently sent scouts here to spy on the area recently, and after being outnumbered and killed many by them, they still come in a team of 20 people.What is even more surprising is that the scouts of the Han army kept spying on the same place.

After they went back to report this weird incident, the chief officer and general Fei Yao didn't know what happened, and just told them to be careful.

However, they didn't care about the reasons behind the Han army's move.

They are scouts rather than generals, and what they care about is the rewards they get.

Therefore, the four teams of scouts responsible for patrolling this area all came here by appointment to wait for the Han army scouts to appear after hastily patrolling other places.

Who can miss the military exploits that are at your fingertips?
In fact, they did not wait in vain.

Just after noon, three teams of Han army scouts appeared in their eyes.

Overjoyed, they still adopted the previous tactics of outflanking Zhang Teshi, just like hunting wild yellow sheep together, and began to chase after them with crossbow arrows to harvest military exploits.And the three teams of Han army scouts were just like in the past, they kept shooting up the dysprosium to the sky as a warning, while turning around and fleeing.

Just like the previous few days, they have also chased for about seventy miles recently.

When the power of the war horse was almost exhausted, the scouts of the state of Wei also achieved more than ten levels of merit.

With the generous reward of military merit and an extra [-] coins for winning the first level of the enemy scout, what they got today is enough to satisfy them and return.

But just when they were about to turn their horses to return, the scouts of the Han army, who were being chased in a hurry, also turned their horses for some reason, and formed a formation intended to charge into the formation and fight.

But the scout leader became angry from embarrassment, so he led his subordinates to fight evil to the death?
Some Wei scouts, especially the Xianbei and Xiongnu cavalry, were all beaming and ready to fight with swords and spears.

But there are also some quick-witted people who feel a little uneasy in their hearts: These scouts from Nishu have been sent to death frequently in recent days, could it be to lure the enemy?
With such thoughts in mind, they began to look around with worried faces.

Therefore, they also vaguely heard, there was a muffled thunder coming from the vast desert in the north; Banners.Behind the banner, a cavalry force of about [-] men swept towards them with unstoppable power like arrows drinking the long wind!

"Enemy attack~~~~"

"There is an ambush! Go!"

All kinds of shrill roars and hysterical screams continued to rise and fall in the Wei army scout formation.

Likewise, they all turned back and fled, desperately urging their horses to gallop, trying to escape the fate of being transformed from a hunter to a prey.

But how much horsepower is left of the horse that has just gone through a rapid chase?Faced with the temptation of the Han cavalry to lure the enemy into deep, how can they escape?

The distance of five miles is but a moment for a galloping horse.

Jiang Wei, who came with the cavalry, personally held the banner and rode his horse forward, his eyes were like eagles, and he cast his eyes on the more than two hundred Wei scouts who were fleeing in a hurry.When they saw that they were in a mess and there was no formation to speak of, they tilted their heads and ordered, "Blow your horns!"

The guard next to him didn't dare to neglect, and quickly put the huge horn on his back to his mouth.

"Woo~~~~Woo~~~~~"

The low and mournful bullhorn resounded across the battlefield.

I saw that the Han cavalry who came from a long dragon suddenly split from the middle, turned into two long snakes, one left and one right, and outflanked the Wei scouts. It only took a quarter of an hour to get close.

"kill!"

The sound of hooves is rapid, the spear stabs, and the sword shines!
And the red banners of the Han Dynasty, still like off-string arrows, passed by the sides of the Wei Jun scouts who were in disarray, harvesting lives layer by layer like peeling cocoons.

All of a sudden, heads flew and blood flew!

Amidst the neighing of the war horses and the wailing of the wounded, a declaration resounding through the deserted valley burst out.

"Big guy!"

"mighty!"

In just one round of passing by, there were forty or fifty scouts of the Wei army who fell off their horses.

Moreover, the two Han cavalry on the left and right, relying on their abundant horsepower, both rushed ahead of them, cutting off their hope of escaping back.

Therefore, when the voice of "surrender will not die" came from the mouth of the Han army, except for a few stubborn species who were still galloping and were killed, they all tightened the reins to stop the horses, abandoned their weapons and dismounted to surrender.

Afterwards, the Han army escorted them back separately from the Huns according to the Han family.

As for the Xianbei captives, Jiang Wei ordered the return of the horses and armaments, and then comforted them with kind words and let them go.
Zhang Te, who came to ambush him, was puzzled by this behavior.

The dozen or so Wei scouts who escaped by hiding in the rocks of Wushaoling were also puzzled.

When chasing the scouts of the Han army earlier, they also escaped being ambushed because they got off their horses to obtain the combat merit certificates of the Han soldiers who were shot.
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[Note 1: When the west end of the Shule River flows out of the Changma Canyon, it first penetrates into the gravel-covered Gobi Desert to form countless undercurrents, travels forty to fifty kilometers underground in the Gobi Desert, and then emerges from the surface, converging into the lower reaches of the Shule River river course.This phenomenon is called "stealth", so the ancients named it Mingze. 】

(End of this chapter)