I, Liu Bian, the hero

Chapter 53 Discussing the progress of the rebels in Liangzhou ([-])
Cross the Weishui River to the north and march about [-] miles north-west of Jixian County to reach Pingxiang.

Although the county seat of Hanyang County is in Ji County, Pingxiang is a strategically important place. It connects Langan to the west and Chengji to the east. Only by recovering this city can the imperial army block the rebels from Liangzhou in Hanyang County; Conversely, if Pingxiang is in the hands of the rebels, then the rebels can completely resist Ji County while marching towards Sanfu.

Although Huangfusong is currently stationed in Youfufeng, one of the Sanfus bordering Hanyang County, in order to prevent the rebels from raiding Sanfu, but considering that Huangfusong does not have many troops under his command, even if there are, they will be new troops just recruited Mostly, Zhu Jun naturally hopes to recover Pingxiang as soon as possible.

Although even if the imperial army regained Pingxiang, the rebels could attack Youfufeng by detour from Anding County in the north of Hanyang County. Su Ze got in touch and ordered Su Ze to set up obstacles in many places in the county. It was not so easy for the rebels to break through from Anding County.

At noon on August 1, Dong Zhuo led [-] Hedong troops to the city of Pingxiang.

When ordering the army to rest in place, Dong Zhuo took Li Ru and several generals to spy on Pingxiang City from a distance. Seeing that the city wall of Pingxiang City was quite high, Xu Rong, a general under Dong Zhuo's command, asked in puzzlement, "How can such a fortified city be built?" But I don’t know how it fell into the hands of the rebels.”

Dong Zhuo stroked his beard and said, "According to what Fu Nanrong said, it is said that the Qiang Hu in the city killed the officials in the city and joined the rebels."

"Damn it!"

Xu Rong cursed.

At this time, Li Ru sighed: "There is no siege equipment in the army. If we attack such a fortified city by force, the soldiers will have to sacrifice a lot..."

As soon as the words fell, a young general not far away said: "Why should the military commander sigh? A certain is a pioneer, and he can attack the city wall with one blow of the drum!"

Dong Zhuo turned his head and saw that it was Hua Xiong, his captain, and said happily, "Okay, then you will be the vanguard."

"Obey!" Hua Xiong was overjoyed.

Although Dong Zhuo appointed Hua Xiong as the vanguard, Dong Zhuo handed over the post of general in the army to Xu Rong.

Unlike the overjoyed Hua Xiong, Xu Rong is serious, but his appearance gives off a sense of stability and reliability.

Before attacking the city, Dong Zhuo thought of Zhu Jun's instructions, slapped his head and said, "I almost forgot, Wen You (Li Ru), send someone to surrender first."

Li Ru was puzzled and said: "Liangzhou's rebels are generally strong, and the rebels in the city will definitely not surrender, why bother?"

Dong Zhuo shook his head and explained: "Zhu Gongwei told me that if the rebels in the city refuse to surrender before the battle, then our army will not have to survive this battle."

Li Ru was startled, and then said in amazement: "I heard that the court has made up its mind this time. I didn't believe it at first, but now it seems..."

"It should be said that His Majesty has made up his mind." Dong Zhuo said with some teasing.

Also, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes and heard it with his own ears, he wouldn't have believed that the current emperor would be willing to spend a total of [-] million yuan to beg the thief.

It has to be said that this incident surprised all the officials in the DPRK and China.

Not long after, the people sent by Li Ru came back and told Dong Zhuo, "My lord, the city refuses to surrender."

"it is good."

Dong Zhuo was not surprised either. He nodded and said, "It looks like a big kill today...siege the city!"

With an order, Xu Rong, who had already prepared to attack the city, immediately ordered all the troops to attack the city, and Hua Xiong, who was the vanguard, took the lead in attacking the city wall, leading dozens of Hedong soldiers to fight against the rebel army several times his size. , Forcibly gained a firm foothold on the city wall, allowing the subsequent Hedong pawns to continuously attack the city wall.

Although most of the Hedong soldiers died in battle during this period, in general, Dong Zhuojun still had the upper hand.

Immediately after hearing a loud bang, as Hua Xiong bravely killed the rebels guarding the gate and opened the city gate, Xu Rong swung his troops into the city without hesitation.

"surrender!"

"I am willing to surrender!"

Seeing that the situation was over, the rebels in the city knelt down and begged for surrender.

It's a pity that the soldiers of the Hedong Army under Dong Zhuo's command had already received the order of 'no prisoners will be kept in this battle', so they raised their weapons without hesitation and chopped down on the rebels who were kneeling and begging for mercy.

By the time Dong Zhuo entered the city, almost all the rebels in the city had been massacred, only some locals who defected to the bandits remained and fled back to their homes in a panic.

Aware of this, Zhang Ji, the Sima of the other Ministry, reported to Dong Zhuo: "My lord, some soldiers have reported, and some of the remaining rebels have fled to the houses in the city. Most of them are locals. I don't know how to deal with it?"

"Find out and kill!" Dong Zhuo said in a deep voice, "There will be no prisoners in this battle!"

"As ordered!"

Under Dong Zhuo's order, the soldiers of the Hedong Army kicked open the houses in the city and searched for traces of rebels from house to house. Anyone with wounds and blood on their bodies, regardless of Han, Qiang, Hudi or Huns, was dragged outside the house to be killed. .

In the beginning, most of the soldiers of the Hedong Army honestly searched for the escaped rebels according to the traces of injuries, blood, etc., but gradually, it was inevitable that some people would do evil things, such as taking the opportunity to rob property, or seeing a beautiful woman, and taking advantage of it.

During this period, if someone resisted, these evil Hedong soldiers would kill him in the name of "escaping rebels".

As for this, Dong Zhuo turned a blind eye and didn't ask.

He is not like Lu Zhi, Huangfusong and others, condoning the evil deeds of the soldiers under his command from time to time is the way he always wins the hearts of the soldiers.

After all, besides this, he has no extra money to reward his subordinates.

Under Dong Zhuo's connivance, the city of Pingxiang was in chaos, and many innocent people were implicated, especially those with some money in their families, or those with beautiful wives and daughters.

Even Dong Zhuo's nephew, Dong Huang, took the opportunity to lead a team of guards to plunder, and specifically selected the big families in the city.

It was not until there was nothing to grab and the soldiers under his command had almost vented their anger. Then Dong Zhuo ordered the battlefield to be cleaned up, ordered the soldiers to pack up the corpses, moved them outside the city, and dug a deep pit to bury them.

Immediately, Dong Zhuo sent someone back to Ji County to report to Zhu Jun, and conveyed the news of recovering Pingxiang.

Zhu Jun didn't know that Dong Zhuo condoned his subordinates to do all kinds of evil deeds in Pingxiang. He was very happy to see Dong Zhuo regaining Pingxiang, and ordered Dong Zhuo to temporarily garrison Pingxiang to prevent the rebels from coming back to seize the city.

But at this moment, Wang Guo, Han Sui, Ma Teng and others have not yet reached an agreement on launching an attack on the court soldiers and horses. Even Han Sui was frightened by Zhu Jun's previous call for thieves, and mistakenly thought that the court came from ten other troops. A dozen or 20 troops were transferred from Erzhou, and they were temporarily waiting to see how many troops the Han court would send, so they dared not attack Hanyang County immediately.

So for the next few days, Dong Zhuo's army was stationed in Pingxiang doing nothing.

As the saying goes, if you have tasted the sweetness once, you will never forget it. Most of Dong Zhuo's Hedong Army, under the connivance of the general, looted a lot of property in Pingxiang City. After this time, they will naturally want a second time.

No, Sima named Li Jue suggested to Dong Huang in private: "A soldier inquired and found out that there are many Qianghu and Huns living near the city. When the kingdom led the rebel army to invade Hanyang, the local Qianghu and Most of the Xiongnu went to defect, since they defected to the thieves, why not attack and destroy them?"

Because Dong Huang was Dong Zhuo's nephew, he grabbed the most in the battle of Pingxiang. Although he took the initiative to donate a lot to his uncle, he still kept a lot. Hearing Li Jue's words, he couldn't help but feel a little moved.

So he said to Dong Zhuo: "Uncle, I heard that there are many Qianghu and Xiongnu living outside the city. Most of these people's fathers, brothers and fellow countrymen defected to the kingdom in the past. It may be a disaster to keep them. It is better to attack them as soon as possible."

"Heh." Dong Zhuo smiled, but didn't respond.

Dong Juan immediately understood, and immediately led his troops out of the city with Hua Xiong, Li Jue, Guo Si and others who were close to him, and attacked the places where the Qiang Hu and Xiongnu lived.

It is undeniable that the Qianghu and Xiongnu lived in Pingxiang County. There were indeed many local Qianghu and Xiongnu who defected to the kingdom and rebelled against the Han Dynasty. rebellious.

However, Dong Huang didn't care about these things, and led his soldiers from Hedong to attack the local villages of Qianghu and Xiongnu, looting women and property, and killing all the men, pretending to be rebels.

At that time, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had also learned that Dong Zhuo's army had recovered Pingxiang County, and under Zhu Jun's order, they led Henan cavalry to wander around in order to inform Dong Zhuo in advance when they found signs that the rebels had regained Pingxiang.

On this day, Guan Yu was leading more than [-] Henan cavalry to wander around Pingxiang, when he suddenly saw a fire outside Pingxiang City, he was very suspicious, and hurriedly led his cavalry towards the fire.

Before he got close, Guan Yu vaguely heard the cries of a group of women.

He hastened his horse and led all the knights to the village, but was shocked to see that a group of Hedong troops forcibly pulled the women in the village out of the city, while another group of Hedong troops burned, killed and looted the village.

"Stop!" he snapped.

At this time, there was Sima Li Jue in the Hedong army outside the village. He heard the sound of horseshoes, turned his head, and saw Guan Yu leading more than [-] Henan cavalry galloping towards him.

He screamed inwardly that something was wrong.

You must know that he was also present at the banquet where Zhu Jun welcomed Dong Zhuo. Of course, he knew that Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei had a strong background, and he couldn't afford to provoke him, so he hurried forward and explained to Guan Yu: "This is the residence of the Huns." When the former kingdom invaded Hanyang, many local Huns defected, and we feared that these Huns would also defect to the rebel army, so we led the army to attack."

Guan Yu glanced around at the weeping women, and saw that the arms of the nearby Hedong Army were all bulging, so he couldn't understand.

He scolded angrily: "The Huns who surrendered to the bandits have already surrendered to the bandits. These are obviously good and obedient people. How are you killing good people and looting their property and women? How is it different from the rebels?!"

While he was cursing, Captain Hua Xiong walked quickly from a distance, looked at Guan Yu with a scabbard in his hand, and said coldly, "Guan Yunchang, the prefect respects your brother and Shihou's family. , I advise you to be sensible, don't interfere with the affairs of our Hedong army, and leave quickly..."

Guan Yu squinted his eyes and said, "What if a certain person doesn't want to know?"

Hua Xiong drew out his sharp sword with a clang, and said with a sneer, "Let's see if my sword is sharp?"

Guan Yu squinted his eyes, his murderous heart suddenly arose, he clenched the Yanyue knife and sneered, "Your sword is sharp, but my knife is not bad!"

Hearing this, the nearby Hedong Army raised their weapons one after another. Almost at the same time, more than [-] Henan cavalry behind Guan Yu also raised their crossbows or drew their swords out of their sheaths.

(End of this chapter)