A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 968: Yang Di defends against four generals and saves himself at the end of the battle

July 23, the fifth year of Tang Tianyou

The 70,000 troops of Baijian gathered in Yangdi.

The Liang army's Yangdi garrison commander was Zhu Wen's seventh son, and was led by Prince Jun Zhu Youzhen.

Originally, Zhu Wen only supported Zhu Youzhen with 5,000 imperial troops, but he gave him the authority to recruit soldiers.

Therefore, for more than two months, relying on the abundant money and food from the Luoyang court, Zhu Youzhen worked hard to recruit 20,000 soldiers from the local area and near Luoyang and Ruzhou.

However, most of them were conscripted soldiers and were of no use except for defending the city.

Fortunately, Zhu Wen knew that it would be difficult to defeat the Song army with the few men he had, so he signaled the Daliang court to grant Zhu Youzhen all the supplies he requested.

In the end, Zhu Youzhen observed the terrain of Yangdi and continued to speed up the strengthening of Yangdi city defense.

He also built a military camp on Xingshan Mountain to the north and Xinfeng Mountain to the south as separate camps, each garrisoning 3,000 elite soldiers.

A Yangdi defense system was formed with Yangdi City as the vanguard, Yingshui River as the support, and Xingshan Village and Xinfeng Village as the wings.

Looking at this makeshift defense system, Bai Jian couldn't help but sigh: "As dragons give birth to dragons, so phoenixes give birth to phoenixes. Zhu Wen gave birth to a good son."

Looking at the military flag fluttering in the wind at the military camp on the top of Xinfeng Mountain not far away, he continued, "It looks like we have to fight hard."

When the generals behind him heard this, they all asked for battle.

Seeing that the army was ready, Bai Jian did not hesitate and immediately began to select his generals:
"Kang Huaizhen."

"The end will be here."

"I order you to lead 10,000 soldiers to attack Xinfeng Mountain. Remember, you need to make a big noise, but this is just a feint, so don't suffer too heavy a loss."

"Order."

Although Kang Huaizheng's brother Kang Huaiying is now surrounded by the Liang army in Mingzhou City, the Kang family also came to Zhu Jin for surrender.

However, after years of hard work and dedication, the Bai family completely regarded the Kang family as their own.

"Bai Liuan."

"The end will be here."

"I order you to lead 10,000 men to attack Xingshan. Remember, your troops are the main force, so you must be attentive."

"Order."

Bai Liuan is a new generation military general from the Bai family. He is only 28 or 29 years old this year.

"Li Cunqian."

"The end will be here."

"Order your troops to roam the north bank of the Yingshui River, cut off all information exchanges between Xingshan and Yangdi City, and advance to the Jinshanling area. Be sure to be vigilant against the enemy's main force coming to support."

"Order."

The cavalry has always been the trump card of the Song army and has been invincible in previous battles against the enemy.

And this army was mostly controlled by Li Kerang's faction.

Li Cunqian is the son of Li Kerang. Today, when Li Kerang is semi-retired, he, Bai Xingjian, Luo Hongxin and Gu Jiping are the second generation of veteran generals in the Song army and are known as the "Four Generals of Bai Song".

During this Western Expedition, Li, Bai and Luo all followed by his side, while Gu Jiping was arranged by Bai Jian to go to Suzhou to assist Li Kerang in defending Huainan.

Twenty-five thousand troops were transferred away, and another 5,000 were left to guard the grain road. Bai Jian led the remaining 40,000 troops in a semicircle and stationed in the south of Yangdi City, showing off his military power.

Zhu Youzhen had only 15,000 men to defend the city at this time. Looking at the blue and white uniforms outside the city with white stripes in the middle, they were the blue-white uniforms of the Song army.

Even the armor is mostly bordered with white ribbons, with a blue cloth as the base color, and the matte black of the iron armor plates, which looks quite dazzling.

This is the military uniform reform that Baijian has been promoting in the past two years. The red and yellow colors commonly used in the Tang Dynasty were abandoned, and replaced with a mixture of blue, white and black.

The blue color represents that the Bai family is descended from Dayu and are the remnants of the Xia Dynasty. Xia belongs to the wood virtue, which is dominated by blue.

The white color represents the Duke of Song in Baijian. The name Song refers to the remnants of the Shang Dynasty. Shang belongs to the metal virtue, and the main color is white.

The black color represents that the Bai family has lived in the north for a long time. The north belongs to the water virtue, which is dominated by black.

Therefore, the military uniforms of the Song Dynasty were blue in color with white borders and inlaid with black armor plates.

Of course, this is the color of the soldiers' uniform.

In the Song army, soldiers were divided into full armor, half armor, and no armor, which also corresponded to the degree of eliteness. Compared with other princes, the Bian Song had a higher armor rate, with a total army of more than 200,000 people, and an armor rate of up to 70%.

Among them, there are more than 10,000 fully armored soldiers, all of whom are elite soldiers, mostly concentrated in the Xuanwu Army's Personal Guard, and very few are in the personal armies of various generals.

Full armor, standard armor from head to toe, including head, neck, shoulder guards, hand guards, chest, back, crotch, and leg guards.

There were tens of thousands of half-armored soldiers, most of whom were concentrated in the central troops such as Xuande and Xuanyi, and a very small number were in the local troops.

Half armor only protects certain parts of the body, such as the head, chest, back, and crotch.

The largest number of people were of course without armor, but in the Song army, being without armor did not mean they had no protection at all. They only had a vest to protect their chest and back, and the helmet was turned into a headscarf.

In the Song army, there were more than 100,000 unarmored soldiers, most of whom were local troops who half farmed and half fought. Their combat effectiveness was not much different from that of ordinary soldiers of other princes.

As for other factors such as weapons, training, organization, morale, etc., after decades of training by the Bai family, the Song army is slightly better than other armies, but does not have an overwhelming advantage.

After all, many of the elite troops in the other princes' armies, their grassroots soldiers and officers, mostly came from the vassal troops on the border of the Tang Dynasty, and were professional soldiers recruited by the Tang Dynasty.

Although their discipline is not high, their fighting ability is indeed very strong, and they should be regarded as the best soldiers in the world.

Therefore, when Zhu Youzhen first saw the neatly-arrayed Song army formation not far outside the city, he knew that this battle would be disastrous.

I watched with my own eyes the fierce attack on Xinfeng Mountain not far away, and heard faint sounds of fighting from the direction of Xingshan in the north through the Yingshui River.

He didn't dare to send troops rashly.

You have to know that the only elite troops he had who could fight against the enemy were the 5,000 imperial guards he brought from Luoyang.

If we lose these 5,000 imperial guards, it would be a daydream to defend Yangdi City with only the remaining 10,000 soldiers.

The only thing he could do at this time was to pray that Xinfeng Mountain and Xingshan could hold on for a few more days.

Perhaps it won’t be long before there will be a result in Hebei. After the army returns, the enemy will retreat without a fight.

August

After more than ten days and nights of arduous attacks, Bai Liuan, who was in charge of Xingshan, finally planted the flag of the Song army on Xingshan at the cost of losing more than 3,000 people.

As the sounds of fighting in the north subsided, Zhu Youzhen knew that the Battle of Yangdi was not far away.

Sure enough, the next day, news came from the water fort in the north city that the Song army had blocked the Yingshui River and the support from Luoyang could not reach the city.

August 13

Bai Jian ordered his three generals, Wang Cheng, Bai Shijin and Yuan Ziang, to lead 10,000 men each and start an attack on Yangdi.

At the same time, he sent orders to Kang Huaizheng at the foot of Xinfeng Mountain to tie down the Liang army on the mountain.

September
After twenty-one days of siege, the walls of Yangdi city were in ruins, and the wasteland outside the city was littered with abandoned siege equipment and stinking corpses.

On the top of the city wall, the exhausted Zhu Youzhen was leaning on a broken sword, with a few strands of hair disheveled, staring at the sunset in the distance in a daze.

"My lord, the ship is ready and can depart at any time."

Zhu Youzhen heard the reminder behind him, nodded slightly, and then went down the city wall without looking back.

That's right, he's running away.

After twenty-one days of fighting, there were only about ten thousand Liang soldiers left in the city, and ninety percent of them were injured.

In particular, the imperial guards on which he relied had only about 2,000 people left because they were busy putting out fires everywhere.

He knew that without the suppression and support of the imperial guards, Yangdi City would not be able to survive tomorrow's siege.

In this case, he could not die with this city. You have to know that he was Zhu Wen's son and had the right to inherit the throne, although his right was very young.

But how could he die in a place like this?

So he left, taking advantage of the cover of night, and sneaked away from the water fort along the Ying River.

It was not until the next day that the soldiers in the city realized that they had lost their commander, and even the fierce and ferocious imperial guards were missing.

They knew that they were abandoned, so they opened the already shaky city gates with peace of mind.

This first gateway from Guandong to Luoyang area opened its arms to Baijian without any concealment.

September 6
The Song army captured Yangdi City, and Luoyang was shocked.

(End of this chapter)