Wei Ni

Unlike Yunmengze, Juyeze and other places, Liaoze does not have a large area of ​​water. Instead, it is a low-lying swamp wetland formed by countless tributaries of the Liaoshui River and countless streams winding down from Yiwulü Mountain.

No one has given accurate data on the exact size of this swamp wetland.

But Gongsun Yi said that according to the claims of the miscellaneous Hu people whom he had asked before in the Baima Yicong, the width was about two hundred miles, and behind the Liaoze was the Big and Small Liaoshui.

Xiahou Hui left Gongsun Yi and the cavalry outside to guard, and he himself led a dozen people into Liaoze.

It was almost early winter, and the Liaoze Lake was already barren, with not a single trace of green to be seen.

It was the dry season, and many of the small streams flowing into the Liaoze Lake had dried up, leaving only shallow traces. In some high places, the topsoil was exposed. When one stepped on it, mud surged up all around, covering the entire instep. In the low-lying areas, there was still shallow water that was higher than the ankle. The water was a little turbid, mixed with dead leaves and grass fluff, and had a gray-green color. It was obvious at a glance that it was rotten water that had not flowed for at least two months.

Many lifeless aquatic plants lay prostrate in the shallow mud, half-rotten, mixed with the remains of dead fish and shrimp, emitting an unpleasant smell.

Xiahou Hui bent down and picked up a few of them, examining them carefully.

The short one is more than three feet long, while the longest one is about four or five feet long. From the different shades of water at the roots, it is easy to tell that during the flood season in midsummer, the water depth of this swamp is about knee-deep.

Moreover, the stems and leaves of these aquatic plants showed signs of being eaten by insects and had many hatched insect eggs attached to them.

Going straight ahead and gradually going deeper, the mud becomes deeper and deeper, covering your feet. There are more and more small holes of loaches, crabs or eels, and occasionally you can see the shed skin of worms and the feces of animals.

There are also patches of firm grass, but they are few and small.

After walking in Liaoze for about an hour, Xiahou Hui and his party encountered four grasslands. The largest one could only accommodate a hundred people.

There are so many small lakes that Xiahou Hui is too lazy to count them.

In particular, these small swamps are often accompanied by swampy mud pits of unknown depth. Xiahou Hui asked his followers to try it out. They inserted a spear nearly ten feet long into the water, but they still didn't feel any contact with the hard ground.

There are also many bushes.

They are not big, and their branches are thin. They are distributed in clusters here and there, which greatly hinders the passage and cannot provide much firewood.

After walking for about three hours, they only went a dozen miles deeper.

This made Xiahou Hui give up the idea of ​​continuing the investigation, and he turned around and returned with his followers.

There is no need to continue.

He already knew that his previous guess that Liaoze could not be crossed was proven true.

The areas with water in this swamp wetland are so shallow that "horses and vehicles cannot pass through, and so deep that boats cannot sail on them"; while the areas without water are barely enough to accommodate stoves for cooking.

If the army wanted to march through, all the baggage had to be carried by the soldiers in their hands and on their shoulders; and if the soldiers were not to be allowed to sleep in the mud, they had to carry a large number of wooden boards and felts to make beds.

But these difficulties are minor and can be overcome by using cloth to pave roads and leather and wood to build bridges.

The real factors that prevented the Wei army from crossing the Liaoze were two time periods.

The first time was when the State of Wei sent troops.

The winter in Liaodong is bitterly cold with heavy snow. Regardless of the morale of the soldiers or the need to keep warm, the Wei army cannot drag the war into the winter. In addition, the Banhai Road is impassable during the rainy season. If the Wei army wants to attack Gongsun of Liaodong, it has no choice but to complete the Banhai Road before midsummer.

In other words, it is necessary to cross Liaoze during the flood season.

At this time, the Liaoze Lake was overgrown with aquatic plants, mosquitoes were breeding, and the water was knee-deep, which would bring three difficulties to the army passing through.

One is disease.

Swampy land in midsummer is prone to breeding diseases. Coupled with the excretion of tens of thousands of people passing through, the use of local water for cooking and drinking, and the spread of diseases through mosquito bites, Xiahou Hui believed that during the half-month journey, a large-scale disease would definitely break out among the soldiers.

The second is the fighting spirit of the soldiers.

Behind Liaoze is Liaoshui, so they have to bring boats when crossing Liaoze.

The soldiers were already miserable enough carrying food and fodder and heavy supplies while trudging through the swamps and wetlands, and now they had to carry them on boats. How could their morale not be low?

You have to know that after crossing the Liaoshui River, you will be deep behind enemy lines and need to go directly to the battlefield, which does not allow the soldiers any time to rest.

Finally, there is the prestige of the general.

Neither Xiahou Hui nor Guanqiu Jian can be called a veteran general of the State of Wei.

Naturally, he did not have the prestige to command his soldiers to obey his orders.

Judging from the time when Xiahou Hui was in the central army and Guanqiu Jian came to Youzhou to take up office, the two of them would not be able to make the arrogant soldiers and generals obey orders without complaint and cross the Liaoze.

To understand this, just think about the criticism that Sima Yi was "afraid of Shu like a tiger".

Another time is that the time spent crossing Liaoze cannot be delayed too long.

Xiahou Hui initially proposed the idea of ​​crossing the Liaoze Lake, with the intention of attacking the enemy from behind by surprise, and also because if time was delayed too long, the Liaodong Army would notice it and fail to surprise them. However, it now seems that the Liaoze Lake, which is more than 200 miles long and has no roads to follow, is not something that can be crossed quickly with dry food, and it is also very easy for the Liaodong Army to notice it and deploy troops in advance to block it.

Therefore, Xiahou Hui turned around and walked out of Liaoze, and went directly upstream of Liaoshui with his white horse volunteers.

It was a fluke that we were able to cross the Liaoze River - it was not that the Liaoze River was impossible to cross, but the price was too high and there were too many disadvantages, which made the unexpected strategy become a loss-making one.

Of course, there are also routes that allow you to reach Liaoshui directly without passing through Liaoze.

There is no Liaoze in the lower reaches of the Liaoshui River, but there is a garrison where Gongsun Yuan stationed a large number of troops: Liaosui (located in Liaodui County) located between the Big and Small Liaoshui Rivers.

This was the last line of defense for Liaodong against enemies coming from the west, so the garrison was never neglected. For example, when Gongsun Du established himself in Liaodong in his early years, he specially divided this piece of land to set up the "Liaoxi Zhongliao County."

From this we can see that the cost of attacking Liao Sui by force was definitely not something the Wei State could afford after traveling thousands of miles to fight the enemy.

However, it is possible to pass through the area below Liaosui and at the mouth of Liaoshui River.

If sea vessels were used as support, it would not be difficult for the Wei army to cross the natural barrier of the Liao River. Moreover, from the east bank of the Liao River to the north of Xiangping, there are wide and flat plains along the way, and the Liaodong garrison would not be able to set up camps to block the route.

Another route is naturally to go around Liaoze.

Gongsun Yuan did not station many troops there.

It's not that he didn't know that the Wei army could also reach Xiangping via the upper reaches of the Liao River, but he thought it was impossible.

The reason is that supplies are too difficult.

Going out along the Banhai Road and looking straight towards the Liao River is the Liaosui, so the Wei army does not need to worry about their food supply being cut off.

However, if they took a detour to cross the river above Liaoze, they would need to travel hundreds of miles for supplies, which would greatly increase the logistical pressure on the Wei army; and this could not be concealed from Liao Sui's garrison for too long.

Once Liao Sui's garrison noticed this and led troops to block the sea route and cut off the food supply, the Wei army would face the result of self-destruction.

After all, from Yuguan to Liaosui, it’s all ruins!

There is no supply point for nearly a thousand miles!

If the Wei army took a detour to cross the Liao River above the Liaoze, how much food and fodder could they carry? And how long would it take for the army to attack the fortified city of Xiangping?
To put it another way, the Wei army, which had come thousands of miles to attack, would eventually have to fight a quick battle and win a quick victory.

If a quick victory is not possible, from a strategic perspective, it should be done in two steps. First, capture Liaosui as an outpost to ensure the convenience of transporting grain and fodder by sea and reduce the huge cost of transporting grain and fodder over a thousand miles by sea. After gaining a foothold in Liaodong, consider attacking Xiangping and seeking the possibility of taking over the counties in Liaodong.

Therefore, if Xiahou Hui did not want to return empty-handed from his expedition to Liaodong, he would eventually have to follow Sima Yi's historical plan of making a feint to the east and attacking in the west.

But is it possible to cross the upper reaches of the Liao River?

Five days later, after making a big detour, Xiahou Hui and his party arrived at the bank of the Liao River, and Liaoyang County was on the other side.

Liaoyang County is also sandwiched between the Great Liao River and the Small Liao River (Hunhe River), but belongs to Xuantu County and is located above Gongsun Yuan's old nest, Xiangping County.

The county's defenses are not very strong.

The main reason was that there was Liao Sui below, guarding against enemies from the west, and Wangping County above, guarding against invasions from nomadic tribes in the north. In addition, since Gongsun Du, there had been frequent foreign military operations, leaving almost no settlements within hundreds of miles to the west and north of Liaodong. Therefore, Gongsun Yuan would not waste his troops here.

In addition, the flow rate of this section of Liaoshui River is relatively slow.

Needless to say, the flow rate of the Daliao River is almost the same at other times except in the rainy season.

The Xiaoliao River further east has not yet merged with the Daliang River (Taizi River) here, so the flow is not large and can be crossed by a small boat.

In order to verify this, Xiahou Hui also asked people to cut wood and build rafts, and asked Gongsun Yi to divide more than ten volunteers who were good at water, and cross the Liao River separately. Although the dry season and the flood season of the Liao River are slightly different, as long as it is not the rainy season, it is almost the same.

Alas, I am still just talking on paper after all~
Looking at the Liao River winding southward and the barren Liaoze with some melancholy, Xiahou Hui recalled his boasting in the rear hall of Chonghua and could not help but sigh in his heart.

Emperor Cao Rui and Guanqiu Jian were thinking of conquering Liaodong next year. Did they realize that they were being too impatient for quick success?

Xiahou Hui knew the answer.

So he rushed back without stopping.

It was October, late winter, and there was not much time left to prepare for war.

Having conducted on-site surveys of the terrain in the Liaoze area, he was eager to have a face-to-face chat with Guanqiu Jian.

He had no hope of changing the opinions of Emperor Cao Rui and Guanqiu Jian and delaying the attack on Liaodong for another one or two years.

But he felt that he had to convince Guanqiu Jian about the tactics proposed by Liaoxi Governor Fu Rong.

Otherwise, he wouldn't see any chance of winning. (End of this chapter)