Xiang Yu fights the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 102 Logistical Impact
It is said that Sun Jian was fighting Han Sui in Yunwu City, and Dong Zhuo on the other side was leading the army to attack Yunwu City from the east of Yunwu City. To the north of him was a tributary of the Yellow River. To the south is a group of mountains. It is quite difficult to march in such steep mountain and hilly terrain, but Dong Zhuo resolutely chose to attack from land.

Because he didn't believe that attacking Yunwu City from the water would be possible. Although attacking from the land was very difficult, at least it was safe. Unlike sitting on a boat, he didn't feel down-to-earth. Neither the soldiers nor Dong Zhuo himself could adapt. , at least he himself thought so. He told his generals that he was sure that Sun Jian must be beaten by Han Sui's troops now, and he was in a panic.

Although Sun Jian is not so miserable, he is indeed at an obvious disadvantage. Of course, he did not deduce this based on some reasonable guesses. In fact, the main thing is that he simply does not want Sun Jian to have a better life, so I don't even hope that Sun Jian will be better.

In fact, the troops he attacked from land also needed to cross this tributary of the Yellow River by boat first, but they went ashore earlier, but in fact, a large part of the logistics supplies were still transported by water, Sun Jian and The core of Dong Zhuo’s logistics supply line is in the two cities of Lanzhou and Yuzhong, and these two cities are also logistics transfer stations. Part of the grain needs to be transported from the Guanzhong area by land, and the other part needs to be transported from the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Areas are transported upstream.

In fact, no matter what kind of transportation, it takes a long distance and time to transport. In ancient times, the longer the transportation route, the more food was actually consumed. This consumption rate often does not increase linearly, but geometrically. Soldiers transporting food also need to consume a lot of food. In this era of inconvenient transportation, to support a core force above a large scale in long-distance battles, sometimes it even requires logistical supplies several times that of combat troops Team.

So in fact, many times in ancient times, it was said that there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers participating in the battle. It seems to be a very scary number, but in fact it often contains a lot of water, some of which are deliberately exaggerated during external publicity, and other One aspect is that there is no distinction between combat troops and logistics supply troops, but they are unified and called soldiers. Although it is said that when the combat distance is relatively short, a large part of the logistics soldiers can be temporarily converted into combat troops. troops.

However, in long-distance combat, the demand for the number of logistics soldiers is a rigid number. If it is less, it will not work. There are deserters, surrenders and even rebels, and these situations may spread rapidly once they appear in many cases, thus disintegrating an originally very strong army in a short period of time. These are not uncommon in history. of.

Therefore, it can be said that the farther the expedition is, the weaker the number and combat capability of the soldiers in front will be, because many of them may even have to be temporarily called into the logistics force to ensure the maximum logistics supply and That is to say, the logistics force is very likely to compete with the main force. Of course, there is a dynamic balance point, which requires the general who commands the entire army to have a general understanding, and this is actually a very test for the general. ability, often requires a wealth of experience to be able to make good judgments.

But even many famous generals in history will inevitably lose sight of the other. The two are like two ends of the balance. If either side is too seriously skewed, it may lead to very serious consequences.

The logistics supply methods of the expeditionary troops are actually different. For example, rebels like Han Sui, their logistics supply capabilities are obviously not as good as the Eastern Han Dynasty army, but they have an advantage. That is, you can use war to support war, and you can plunder wherever you go. In this way, you can supplement a certain amount of food demand. Yes, it can be transferred quickly.

But the disadvantage of this kind of non-giving is that the stability is very poor. When Han Sui's main force encountered resistance and couldn't take Sansuke and Chang'an in one go, they lost more targets to plunder, so They did not confront the Eastern Han imperial army in one place for a long time. In this case, their food supply was very dependent on their own logistics supply line, so when Sun Jian and Xiang Yu cut off their logistics supply line, Han Sui could only choose to retreat. The army, because the cavalry is purely free to fight Chang'an, and there is no chance to fight desperately. How much food will the tens of thousands of cavalry consume in a day?

And Han Sui also adopted the Sanguang policy to a certain extent during the process of withdrawing the army, looting the cities along the way again, but he still left a little bit of spare energy, after all, these cities are also in Liangzhou It is not a good thing for Han Sui himself if things are done too far.

At this time, Han Sui retreated most of the main force and logistics troops to the hinterland of Wuwei and Liangzhou, and led part of the main force to guard in Yunwu City. It is also relatively difficult, but in the case of only retaining the main combat troops without raising the logistics supply line, and at the same time hoarding a certain amount of food in the city, at least there is no problem at least to survive this winter. The troops can think of ways to do something again.

So in fact, although the absolute number of Han Sui's troops inside and outside Yunwu City is not large, they are basically the main combat troops. Sun Jian and Dong Zhuo's troops, that is, Zhang Wen's troops, are allocating a group of troops to Xiang Yu. After that, Sun Jian and Dong Zhuo had to divide their forces, and at the same time they had to ensure logistical supplies, which led to the fact that their attacking force on Yunwu City seemed somewhat insufficient.

On the other hand, the troops led by Xiang Yu Beishang are also mainly elite combat troops, and there are not many logistical supplies. Xiang Yu and the others try to bring as much food as possible before departure, and the subsequent logistical supplies will be relatively small. Therefore, Xiang Yu's This side is also very dangerous. If they can't take down Wuwei and get the corresponding food supplies, then in the large no-man's land south of Wushao Ridge behind him, and in the yellow sandy sky on the edge of the Hexi Corridor In this situation, they will be in a desperate situation and will not receive any supplies.

So when Xiang Yu proposed this kind of combat strategy at the beginning, several other people didn't quite agree. Even though Xiang Yu's strength in the previous battles was already very strong, but this kind of choice was too difficult. up.

It can be seen that Zhang Wen's troops were divided into Sun Jian's navy and Dong Zhuo's army to attack Yunwu City, while Xiang Yu's troops went north to attack Wuwei City. Each route can be said to be very difficult and the probability of success can be said to be very low.

(End of this chapter)