Han Hai Tang Ergui

Chapter 863
In the eighth year of Shaoming, 954 A.D., in April, it took only one month for Zhang Tie to dispatch troops and generals.

After Murong Nobunaga left, he became the commander of Zuo Yulin Guard Qu Yanqing and Qu Qilang. He led [-] elite Zuo Yulin Guards and more than [-] auxiliary soldiers to Guilin Mansion from Luoyang, the capital of God.

Under Zuo Yulinwei's command, there are also a lot of talents now. The Fenghuo Cavalry Battalion, which was originally controlled by Qu Yanqing, has been handed over to Pan Mei as the commander.

At the same time, the rising stars of Hexi's next generation, Zhao Jingangnu, Fan Changgong, Li Zun, and others are all in the left feather forest guards.

The other two pro-armies Youjinwuwei and Youshenweiwei who arrived in Guilin Mansion were commanded by Wang Quanbin and Wang Shenqi respectively, and there were tens of thousands of auxiliary troops.

At the same time, another group of [-] elite heavy-armored soldiers belonging to the Houxiangdu of Regret Shandu also arrived at Guilin Mansion. They were led by Cao Bin, the current celebrity beside the emperor, Zuodu Hou of the inner chamber.

With their arrival, the number of available soldiers in Zhang Zhaojun's (Ma Shacai) skyrocketed to about 3 in one fell swoop.

And at least [-] of them are elites with extremely strong combat effectiveness, enough to form a strong oppressive force on the Southern Han army.

In addition, in addition to Zhang Zhaojun's army, which was the main force to destroy the country, Fanshun, the defense envoy of Jiangxi Province, also personally led the forbidden army Anhua Town, Baisheng Town, and the Weisuo Army with tens of thousands of soldiers, crossing Dayuling from Qianzhou (Ganzhou) to the Southern Han Dynasty. Xiongzhou (Nanxiong) and Shaozhou (Shaoguan) advance.

On the other side, Tian Guogong Liu Zaisheng, who guarded Fujian, also sent Lin Renzhao to lead a navy of [-], of which [-] sailed from Dongshan Island, and [-] infantry set off from Zhangzhou.

Of course, before the total of [-] to [-] troops conquered, Zhang Ting still gave Liu Sheng another chance.

On the first day of March, the second batch of court envoys arrived at Prince Xing's Mansion, ordering Liu Sheng to release Wang Jiu and personally go to Luoyang, the capital of God, to plead guilty.

He also made it clear that as long as Liu Sheng arrives in Shendu, the court can still let the past go, and only need to be deposed as the king of Pengcheng County.

After a brief silence, Liu Sheng rejected the edict.

The option of only being a rich man, in his heart, was a way out that he would only choose when he had no other choice, but it is obvious that this time has not yet come.

Moreover, after Jin Yi's personal guards intercepted and killed the envoy and Wang Jiu came to yell at him, Liu Sheng felt that he had seen the other side of Zhang Tie's benevolent face, and he couldn't believe Zhang Tie anymore.

So since this is the case, there is nothing to say, let's just start the fight.

In the eighth year of Shaoming, on the tenth day of April, Zhang Tiejun's troops divided into two groups. He personally led [-] main forces, and went down the Li River to attack Wuzhou, an important water and land town in the Southern Han Dynasty.

The other route, led by Qu Yanqing, selected [-] cavalrymen, and went straight to Liuzhou, an important town west of Lingnan Road, from the west.

Almost at the same time, Fanshun from Qianzhou went to battle in person, selected six hundred warriors, and carried only strong bows and crossbows and short weapons good at melee combat without armor. Yu led a sudden attack behind Meiguan, known as the first pass in southern Guangdong.

The Southern Han army's attention was almost entirely on the front, and they never expected that someone would be able to climb the cliff of Dayu Ling.

Caught off guard, he was defeated by the Panshun Divine Soldier, and the Shouguan Town General led hundreds of soldiers to resist for only a quarter of an hour before they dispersed.

Fanshun captured most of the soldiers, opened the door and enlarged the army to enter the pass, and then forced these Southern Han troops to be guides, leading the Zhou army to kill the next Southern Han pass, Xiongzhou (Nanxiong).

In this battle, Fanshun selected 2000 soldiers out of [-] elite soldiers, and ordered them to give up all their luggage, including armor, and only bring a small amount of water, dry food, and necessary weapons.

Two thousand elite soldiers flew for more than [-] miles in a period of one and a half to one hour and less than two hours.

Although it is much worse than the Qingfengdian death run during the War of Liberation, it can basically catch up with the rapid march standard of the ordinary People's Liberation Army of later generations.

This is very remarkable. We must know that in later generations, whether it is roads or soldiers' food and subjective initiative, they are not comparable to these cold weapons.

But Fanshun did it. When he arrived in Xiongzhou (Nanxiong) with [-] elite soldiers, the city gates of Xiongzhou were not closed, and there were no soldiers on duty on the city walls. Merchants and people came in and out contentedly.

Even Panshun's elite soldiers had entered the city, and the farmers on both sides of the city gate who picked vegetables to sell in the city were still watching the excitement with their mouths open, not realizing that it was the imperial army that had come.

Two days later, Fanshun once again played the characteristics of a galloping master. After he left 1000 people to defend Xiongzhou, he confiscated the mules and horses of the whole city and let the soldiers ride the mules and horses.

It is a full 160 miles from Xiongzhou to Shaoguan, and Fanshun led [-] elite soldiers to complete the journey in less than two days.

Just like taking down Xiongzhou, the Panshun army had already captured the city gate, and the defeated army who reported to Xiongzhou was summoned by the governor of Shaozhou to the lobby for questioning.

Before I finished the question here, the city gate over there had already fallen.

The governor of Shaozhou in the Southern Han Dynasty was terrified, because Shaozhou now only had a few hundred regiments in training, and it was impossible to repel the 2000 Fanshun soldiers who had entered the city.

In the military system of the Southern Han Dynasty, the standing army was divided into six imperial guards and twelve guards, and two town troops under the jurisdiction of the Jiedushi. These two were the main combat forces of the Southern Han court.

The rest are a large number of regiment training troops, left and right street troops, and Turkish troops.

Among these three kinds of armies, the regiment training army is a relatively well-trained army in the local area, which is lower than the Weisuo army of Dazhou and the Long March Jianyong who acts as a soldier and archer in the inspection department, which is only equivalent to Fan Shangyi of the inspection department from.

The Left and Right Street Army is composed of urban citizens who have undergone certain training.The Turkish army is composed of farmers in the countryside.

The combat effectiveness of these two armies can be said to be almost nil, and they can only catch small thieves when they are used to catch thieves.

What's more terrible is that from the founding emperor Liu of the Southern Han Dynasty, he paid attention to setting up imperial examinations to obtain Jinshi, and used civil officials to serve as the officials of various states and counties.

Of the Jiedu Envoys in the entire Southern Han Dynasty, only Liuzhou Jingjiang Army Jiedu Envoys and Yongzhou (Nanning) Jianwu Army Jiedu Envoys remained, and the rest were removed.

This is the Achilles' heel of using civilian officials to guard the border. From the perspective of the military system, after the use of civilian officials, with the removal of border towns, the military strength and defense have been greatly weakened.

For example, at this time, after the original Shaozhou Jiedu envoy was withdrawn, and the town army was disbanded or merged into the imperial army, in the vast area to the north including Shaozhou, only Meiguan had [-] town troops.

The rest are regimental training troops and rubbish left and right street troops, Turkish troops, etc. It is impossible to organize a new defense after the fall of Meiguan.

At the same time, civilian officials are far less vigilant than regular generals in terms of wariness.

For example, as early as last year, Liu Sheng asked the governor of Shaozhou to strengthen his defenses, but the governor of Shaozhou believed that the focus of Dazhou's attack was obviously on Guilin's side, and the Li River water transport was not used, so he came to attack Meiguan and Shaoguan when he was free. natural danger.

Moreover, once the defense is strengthened, it means that young men will be recruited from the people to supply the military supplies of the forbidden army from Xingwang's mansion.

The money and food needed will soon consume Shaozhou's savings over the past few years, and will also cause the status of generals to rise.

So he has always been a bit obedient and contradictory, pushing back and forth on the defense of Xiongzhou, which he was supposed to be in charge of, and not paying attention to Meiguan's supplies.

As a result, Meiguan, which is known as the first pass in southern Guangdong, has only three or four hundred soldiers, and Xiongzhou has a scale of three to five hundred soldiers, and Shaozhou, the northern gate, has only one regiment commander leading seven or eight hundred regiments to train soldiers. .

It is true that there are many civil servants who are both civil and military or who are sufficiently vigilant against the enemy's situation, but these are often outstanding people who can be met but not sought after. You can't expect all the civil servants under your command to have this quality.

Therefore, we should not go too far in terms of civil and military collocation. Professionals should be done by professional people.

. . . .

In Shaozhou, panicked, Governor Huang claimed that he was going to gather troops and horses to stand firm, but in fact, after he turned into the back hall, he took two confidants and ran away.

The pusher and regiment training commander from outside the government office waited a while before they realized something was wrong. They rushed in and saw that Governor Huang had long since disappeared.

But they were not at a loss. Governor Huang wanted to run away because he was a foreigner, but the pusher and command envoy were locals.

Now that Governor Huang ran alone, it was equivalent to shouldering all the responsibilities. They had no responsibility and surrendered very smoothly to the Zhou army who had already entered the city.

Almost at the same time, the situation in Liuzhou was similar. Although it was the most important town in the northwest of Lingnan, Machu, which was north of Liuzhou in the past, had a population of only 70 million, and its mobilization ability was not very strong.

Moreover, the area of ​​contention between Ma Chu and the Southern Han Dynasty was mostly in the area of ​​Guilin Prefecture, and Liuzhou only existed as a rear area, so the military equipment was not well-organized.

Liu Sheng is not a wise master, at best he can be regarded as an average person.

The court of the Southern Han Dynasty was not a classical military empire like Zhang Zhou, which had the Privy Council, the Ministry of War of the Minister of Ministers, and Luantai of the Minister of Zhongshu, which could quickly complete recruitment, training and logistics.

Whether it is Liu Sheng himself or the court of the Southern Han Dynasty, the administrative efficiency is very slow.

Even though Ma Chu has been gone for four or five years, the defense strategy of the Southern Han Dynasty against the north is still the same as that of Ma Chu formed over decades.

But Ma Chu is only a small country that sends troops at most [-] to [-], and the training, equipment, and morale of the soldiers are not as good as Zhang Zhou's separatist small country.

Therefore, when Qu Yanqing arrived with [-] elite cavalry, the Southern Han Dynasty was still adding troops to Liuzhou.

The military system of the Southern Han Army is actually very similar to that of the Northern Song Dynasty, both adopting the strategy of strong stems and weak branches.

Liu, Liu Sheng and his son organized the most elite troops into the Six Armies and Twelve Guards of the Forbidden Army. Apart from this, only the Jingjiang Army in Liuzhou and the Jianwu Army in Yongzhou have combat effectiveness, and the rest of the army relies entirely on regimental training. Waiting to dawdle.

After refusing Zhang Yu's order to go to Luoyang, the capital of God, to plead guilty, Liu Sheng transferred the left and right Longxiang troops of the Sixth Army of the Forbidden Army to Wuzhou for defense.

After considering that Liuzhou's position is important and there is only one town army guarded by the Jingjiang Army, the avant-garde of the Zuolongxiang Army was transferred to Liuzhou to strengthen its defense.

As a result, the avant-garde of the Zuolongxiang Army of the Southern Han Dynasty was discovered by Qu Yanqing who was running wildly before entering Liuzhou City.

Qu Yanqing immediately ordered Li Zun to lead [-] cavalry to rush to the east gate of Liuzhou before it had time to close, and he himself led [-] cavalry to intercept the vanguard of the Zuolongxiang Army who was still going north.

The first army of the Imperial Army of the Southern Han Dynasty was about 7000 people, and all the vanguards of the Zuolongxiang Army were about 500 people, and the number of civilian husbands would not exceed 5000.

Although their combat effectiveness is relatively strong, they are far inferior to the super elites of Zhang Zhou's Zuo Yulinwei Fenghuo Cavalry Battalion.

What's more, they were attacked suddenly while they were marching. The cavalry in Lingnan was even less pitiful, and the sentry cavalry only issued the alarm. Qu Yanqing rushed into the Southern Han army's camp with Zhao Jingangnu and Fan Changgong flank.

Before they even had time to deploy, they were still in a formation of long snakes, and they were rushed by the iron cavalry. In less than two quarters of an hour, the avant-garde commander of the Zuolongxiang Army of the Southern Han Dynasty died in battle, and more than [-] officers above the deputy lieutenant of the accompanying Rong died in battle. Thousands of soldiers and soldiers were killed and wounded, and the whole army collapsed directly.

Regardless of cleaning the battlefield, Qu Yanqing immediately returned to the army. They had three horses alone, and they had already left 50 people to look after the horses halfway, so as long as the people could carry them, the horses would be fine.

An hour later, Qu Yanqing led another 2000 riders back to the outside of Liuzhou City. At this time, Li Zun's [-] men who stayed here to rob Ximen had already achieved great success.

It turned out that after Li Zun succeeded in robbing the door, Gong Chengshu, the governor of the Jingjiang Army in Liuzhou in the Southern Han Dynasty, mobilized 5000 people from the Jingjiang Army and thousands of training regiments to attack.

Li Zun first let the sharpshooters in the army occupy a high place, and the soldiers of the Southern Han Dynasty who shot down from the heights turned their backs on their backs, causing heavy casualties.

Gong Chengshu then ordered his infantry to attack with heavy armor, but was shot and killed by a large number of god-armed bows.

In the end, Li Zun took advantage of their confusion and suddenly ordered three hundred elite cavalry to charge forward in armor. The Southern Han army was still changing formations.

If it weren't for Li Zun's fear that Liuzhou would be too broad to pursue and be ambushed, it is estimated that Liuzhou City would have been taken by now. Now that Qu Yanqing came back, he would immediately start to seize the whole city.

Qu Yanqing ordered people to throw the banners and armors of the Zuolongxiang Army of the Imperial Army of the Southern Han Dynasty all over the city, and shouted that the tens of thousands of reinforcements from the Southern Han Dynasty had been wiped out. Gong Chengshu was terrified, and fled to Yongzhou through the east gate. And go, the rest of them all descend.

On April [-]th, the navy of the Fujian Province defeated the Chaozhou navy of the Southern Han Dynasty near the later Nan'ao Island, captured dozens of warships, and quickly evacuated after destroying the Chaozhou military port.

In this way, although the Nanhan navy is still stronger than the Fujian provincial navy, without the supply base of Chaozhou, the current navigation conditions do not support them going north to harass Quanzhou and Fuzhou.

At the same time, the entire army of the Chaozhou Navy, which was familiar with the water network around Chaozhou, was wiped out, which greatly weakened the ability of the Southern Han Navy to support Chaozhou City from various waterways.

On April 25, Lin Renzhao personally led an army of [-], and more than [-] soldiers from Changzheng Jianyong and Fan Shangyi conscripted temporarily by the counties, besieged Chaozhou City.

Li Tinggong, the governor of Chaozhou in the Southern Han Dynasty, was originally a civil servant. He and his father Li Chuyan were both famous for their literary names. Both father and son had achieved political achievements in governing the local area.

Moreover, Chaozhou's Zhan Zhao commander, who knew military affairs, had died in battle, which made Li Tinggong not only ignorant of military affairs, but also had no one to discuss.

Chen, Li, Lin and other big families in Chaozhou City knew that Li Tinggong was not familiar with military affairs, and feared that after the stubborn resistance, the Zhou army would enter the city to retaliate and slaughter the city, so they simply made noise in the city.

The united soldiers and native soldiers in the city are all children of these big families. If they don't resist, Chaozhou City will not be able to hold on to it at all.

Li Tinggong was forced to have no choice but to open the city gate and surrender to the Zhou army outside the city under the hostage of these local tycoons.

However, Zhou Jun's unusually smooth actions came to an end.

Zhang Zhaojun led the main force all the way down the Lijiang River, breaking through more than ten military strongholds on the Lijiang River in the Southern Han Dynasty.

But after arriving in Wuzhou, the Lijiang River merged into the Yujiang (West River) here, not to mention the skyrocketing water volume, Wuzhou is still a strong city.

At this time, Wuzhou City had two cities, flood and drought, with suspension bridges and boats connecting each other. Come and go.

Due to the blocking of wooden piles in the river, Zhou Jun's larger ships with deeper drafts could not get through. If they sent small boats, there would be crossbowmen from the water city on the opposite side to rely on, making it very difficult to fight.

The most important thing is that the guard of Wuzhou is Yan Yun, a general of the Southern Han Dynasty.

This gentleman was originally Liu Sheng's black glove, and he specially disguised himself as pirates with his men to go out to sea to rob merchant ships. Most of the gold and silver they robbed were dedicated to Liu Sheng for his extravagance.

It can be said that most of the dozens of palaces that Liu Sheng built in Xingwang Mansion were earned by Ji Yanyun for Liu Sheng.

However, although he acted like a pirate, Ji Yanyun was strict in running the army and never detained the soldiers. On the contrary, he would find a way to help the soldiers solve any difficulties they had, so he won the support of the soldiers.

This Wuzhou already has a strong navy, and it has received reinforcements from the main force of the Imperial Army of the Southern Han Dynasty, so its defense is very strong.

In addition, Shao Tingjun, the envoy Liu Sheng sent to Wuzhou and the supervisor of the army, was also a well-informed soldier. He and Ji Yanyun cooperated with each other. .

Even Zhang Zhaojun has no good solution for such a strong city guarded by generals who are united in one mind.

He could only let the army camp outside Wuzhou City, cut down trees to make siege equipment, and use stupid methods to capture the city.

At the end of April, Zhang Zhaojun built more than ten large catapult airports on the north bank of Wuzhou

Although Ji Yanyun also knew that the Zhou army could not be allowed to build siege equipment calmly, but after the Zhou army came down to the stronghold, the army was strict and never slack, and never gave Ji Yanyun a chance to seize the opening.

Therefore, although Ji Yanyun sent elite soldiers to sneak attacks at night several times, they were all surrounded by the Zhou army and suffered heavy casualties. He could only watch Zhang Zhaojun's catapults being continuously built.

With this batch of trebuchets, Zhang Zhaojun can directly use them to bombard the water city in Wuzhou.

Due to the lack of carrying capacity across the water, the water city cannot conceal the defensive catapults and Fuyuan crossbows, so there is no way to deal with Zhang Zhaojun's catapults.

Ji Yanyun knew very well that if Shuicheng fell, Wuzhou City would not be able to withstand the Zhou army's strong attack without the key support of the flank.

Therefore, he could only take the risk of leading the 2 troops of the Southern Han Dynasty to line up against Wuzhou City and make an offensive posture.

Because the trebuchets that could bombard the city walls at this time were extremely heavy and could not be easily moved once they were put in place. Ji Yanyun led the army out of the city like this, which was a huge threat to the trebuchets.

In fact, Zhang Zhaojun was impatient to wait for the catapults to slowly destroy Wuzhou Water City. Seeing that Ji Yanyun took the initiative to attack, he immediately led his army to the Wuzhou City.

And in order to prevent Ji Yanyun from withdrawing, Zhang Zhaojun ordered Wang Quanbin and Wang Shenqi to select only [-] elite soldiers.

He himself took his confidant Qu Wubai and a thousand regrettable soldiers brought by Cao Bin as the Chinese army.

Ji Yanyun was worried that the whole Zhou army would come, and he really wanted to retreat to the city, but now he saw that there were only 8000 to [-] people in front of him, and the whole army had not arrived, so he was overjoyed.

On April 28, Governor Ji Yanyun led the main force of the Wuzhou Army of the Southern Han Dynasty with 2 people, and took the lead in attacking the [-] Zhou Army in formation.

Then, and then no more.

As soon as the battle started, the empty soldiers on the left and right flanks of the Southern Han Army were completely defeated in a little more than two quarters of an hour, and the main force of the Chinese Army, 1 people, hit the iron plate head-on.

These 500 people are Zhang Zhaojun's personal trilogy and Regret Mountain are all heavily armored soldiers!

Not to mention the countries where the army of the Southern Han Dynasty was not strong, even the elite soldiers of the Later Tang Dynasty in the past did not dare to fight against Regret Shandu without three or four times the strength.

Ji Yanyun charged forward full of hope, but his head was badly hit.

Regret Shandu came in formation, facing eight times the enemy force without mercy, severely damaged the Southern Han army in half an hour, killing more than [-] enemies.

Ji Yanyun couldn't hold back such rapid and heavy casualties, and the Central Army of the Southern Han Dynasty was defeated faster than the Xu troops on the two wings.

In the chaos, Ji Yanyun raised a banner to attract the defeated army back to the city to resist, but Wang Shenqi saw him, turned around from the left, and hit his head with a bow.

Ji Yanyun fell in response, the Southern Han army finally collapsed, and Zhang Zhaojun took the opportunity to attack the city.

Shao Tingyu, the supervising army on the top of the city, saw that the Zhou army was so powerful, and in desperation, he committed suicide directly at the top of the city and Wuzhou was captured.
.
(End of this chapter)