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

Chapter 995: The family turned against each other and the whole family was wiped out. The Kaifeng soldiers came to help quickly.

The second year of Changxing in the Later Tang Dynasty, the ninth year of Xia Chengqian
March
Meng Zhixiang sent someone to deliver a letter to Dong Zhang, inviting him to write a letter to the court to apologize and seek substantive independence, such as Ma Yin of Southern Chu, to fight against the Xia army in Tongzhou.

Dong Zhang refused, saying, "Mr. Meng's family is safe, but my descendants were killed. Why should I apologize?"

And let the messenger bring the word.

Meng Zhixiang sent envoys to persuade him three more times, but was rejected every time. He then asked the observing judge Li Hao to explain the pros and cons to him.

After Meng Zhixiang sent envoys to persuade him to surrender again and again, Dong Zhang believed that the other party had betrayed him. He contacted Chang'an alone and insulted Li Hao in anger.

After Li Hao returned, he urged Meng Zhixiang to attack Dong Zhang.

At this time, Dong Zhang had already launched an attack on Meng Zhixiang and captured Hanzhou.

Meng Zhixiang sighed after hearing this: "What can we do? Why did it come to this?"

He then personally led Zhao Tingyin and others to fight against Dong Zhang at Jiju Bridge, and ordered the surrendered generals of Dongchuan to persuade Dong Zhang to surrender.

Dong Zhangle stood on the other side of the bridge and shouted to Meng Zhixiang: "Things have come to this point, we can't regret it. Let's see what's going on."

After saying this, he returned to his own army and led his troops into battle under the encouragement of his soldiers.

As a result, as soon as the two armies started fighting, Dong Zhang's deputy general Zhang Shoujin surrendered to the Xichuan army, turned against them, and launched a fierce attack on the flank of Dong Zhang's army.

Dong Zhang was immediately defeated.

After retreating from the battlefield, Dong Zhang wanted his son Dong Guangsi to surrender to Meng Zhixiang in order to preserve the family. After all, the two families were in a marriage relationship.

Dong Guangsi cried, "Since ancient times, no one has ever killed his father to save his life. I would rather die with you."

Dong Zhang no longer insisted after hearing this, and the father and son fled together.

Meng Zhixiang ordered Zhao Tingyin to pursue, but he failed to catch up.

Soon, the father and son fled to Zizhou, hoping to regroup their troops.

As a result, the governor of Zizhou had already surrendered to Meng Zhixiang, who led his troops to attack, and Dong Zhang died in the chaos.

Dong Guangsi continued to move south crying, wanting to return to Hezhou via Suizhou.

April 21st

Dong Guangsi finally returned to Hezhou alone, with disheveled hair and dirty face.

The governor of Hezhou was Dong Guangsi's uncle, Liu Yan, Dong Zhang's brother-in-law.

Because Liu Yan's sister was executed by the imperial court in Chang'an, he, like Dong Zhang, deeply hated the Later Tang Dynasty and was a staunch anti-Tang faction.

When Dong Guangsi saw his uncle Liu Yan, he burst into tears and told him about the hardships he had experienced in those days and how Dong Zhang had been killed in a rebellion by Lu Yanting, the governor of Zizhou.

Liu Yan was also very angry, but now they only had more than a thousand people from Hezhou. How could they fight against Meng Zhixiang who had tens of thousands of soldiers?

Dong Guangsi suddenly had a fierce look in his eyes and said to Liu Yan: "Since Chang'an and Chengdu won't give us a way out, then we might as well surrender to Daxia."

"When my father was alive, he told me that Xia State had long coveted Chengdu, but had not taken any action due to the relationship with Chang'an."

"Now that Meng Zhixiang has the intention to rebel against the Later Tang Dynasty, the Xia Kingdom will definitely not just sit there and watch. If I go there, I will definitely be able to bring Xia's troops with me."

After much deliberation, Liu Yan agreed to his suggestion and immediately sent dozens of people to escort Dong Guangsi north to Tongzhou.

May 20

The memorial from Kang Yanxiao of Tongzhou came to Bai Jian's desk. After reading the text, he handed it to Crown Prince Bai Xi and asked him to express his opinion.

After reading it, Bai Xi said without hesitation: "We must send troops, otherwise, when Meng Zhixiang and Chang'an join forces, it will take who knows how long it will take to conquer Shu."

"And it just so happens that Shu has just ended a chaotic battle, and the soldiers are exhausted. Our Great Xia will use its elite troops to attack the enemy's exhausted troops, which is a great advantage."

Bai Jian was very satisfied and nodded repeatedly. Then he heard Bai Xi say, "Father, perhaps we can contact the King of Qian and have his troops march out of Shimen Pass and attack Chengdu from the south with our army. Wouldn't that be great?"

The King of Qian that Bai Xi mentioned was the former Duke of Qian, Bai Yu.

After Bai proclaimed himself emperor, he sent envoys to travel through mountains and rivers, and after several months' journey, they finally arrived in the territory of Qian. He conferred titles on Bai Yu as the Marshal of the Southwestern Army of Daxia, the Inspecting Grand Marshal, the Governor-General of 28 states including Kunlipu, the Supervisor of the Southwestern Han Vassal Envoys, and the King of Qian.

Bai Jian did not reply directly, but took out a memorial and handed it to Bai Xi, asking him to read it himself.

Looking through the memorials, the first one was Yu Zhengjiang, the inspector sent by Daxia, who was also the envoy going to Qian State to announce the imperial edict.

The memorial describes in detail the difficulties that Qian State is currently facing.

First, for decades, the warlords in Shu joined hands to blockade Qian State and cut it off from the Central Plains, causing many Han and barbarian tribes in the vast southern part of Qian State to no longer recognize the central government's orders and only obey the Qian State royal family. Second, more than a decade ago, a country named Dachanghe rose to the south of Qian State. It fought against Qian State many times and received assistance from Southeast Asian countries.

The Guizhou Army was running out of steam and was losing ground. Now the battle line has retreated to near Kunzhou.

If the Bai family of Qian had not taken root here for hundreds of years and had not had a high prestige, Kunzhou would have been conquered by the Great Changhe Kingdom long ago, and thousands of miles of land in the southwest would have been lost to the barbarians.

Third, decades of isolation from the Central Plains had caused the Qian Kingdom's finances to be seriously overdrawn, so that 80% of the Qiannan Army that originally suppressed the southwest could not put together a complete set of armor. They could only use rattan armor instead.

But the shortcomings of the rattan armor were too obvious, which is why the Guizhou Army suffered continuous casualties in the battles of the past few years.

After reading the memorial from Yu Zhengjiang, the Southwest Observer, Bai Xi also understood why Bai Jian was not included in the Qianguo Army at all.

It is really difficult for people to protect themselves, let alone other things.

June
Emperor Daxia summoned Dong Guangsi in Kaifeng and received his complaint.

Bai Jian felt sympathetic about this and condemned the Chang'an court's practice of exterminating an entire family.

Adhering to the principle of putting morality first, Bai Jian appointed Dong Guangsi as the military commander and governor of Zizhou.

He also appointed Kang Yanxiao as the Chengdu Recruiting Envoy, and General Zhao Lianglong and Yangzhou Governor Lou Xiu as deputy recruiting envoys to summon Meng Zhixiang.

June
Before the news of Daxia's military expedition reached Meng Zhixiang's ears, Kang Yanxiao brazenly dispatched troops, led 15,000 elite soldiers from Tongzhou, and attacked Quzhou.

June 8
Upon learning that Xia's army had launched an offensive, Meng Zhixiang urgently sent Li Renhan to lead the Suizhou Wuxin Army to provide support.

He also continued to mobilize troops from other places and gathered them in Chengdu, ready to lead the army at any time.

June 13

Before the Wuxin Army left Suizhou, Liu Yan, the governor of Hezhou, rebelled against Meng Zhixiang and led troops to attack Shi'an County of Quzhou.

Although Quzhou City is strong, it is indeed incomparable to other big cities and is far from being able to withstand the fierce attack of Xia Army.

When the Quzhou defenders saw the enemy appearing in the rear, their morale plummeted. The Xia army took the opportunity to attack the city. The defending general Hou Hongshi tried to escape but was killed by the Xia general Chu Yunkang.

June 16

The Wuxin Army arrived in Hezhou and prepared to rescue Quzhou along the Bashui River.

Unexpectedly, they were ambushed by the Xia army near Taihe, and the Wuxin army was defeated, and the Xia army took advantage of the situation to seize Suizhou.

Kang Yanxiao left the commander Yu Jiyuan with 5,000 men to guard Hezhou and wait for the arrival of the follow-up army. He personally led 10,000 men and continued northward along the Fu River to attack Zizhou.

Then he entered Hanzhou from Zizhou and followed Dong Zhang's route to attack Chengdu.

July 21

Without the Wuxin Army guarding it, Zizhou was easily captured, and the Zizhou governor Lu Yanting opened the city and surrendered.

He was beheaded by Kang Yanxiao on the grounds of being fickle.

August
The Xia army conquered Hanzhou.

Meng Zhixiang gathered tens of thousands of troops gathered around Chengdu and went to Xindu to confront the Xia army.

Although Meng Zhixiang had a large number of soldiers, he knew that this battle would not be easy when he saw that the enemy's 10,000 soldiers were well-organized and had such a high armor rate.

August 19

The two sides fought a field battle in Xindu.

No matter how fiercely the Shu army attacked, the Xia army's formation remained unshakable. Even when surrounded by the Shu army, it did not waver in the slightest.

Finally, Kang Yanxiao seized a gap in the Shu army's command error and sent out one thousand cavalrymen under his command to attack one place fiercely.

The attacked Shu army was immediately defeated, and Kang Yanxiao took advantage of the situation to counterattack, and tens of thousands of Shu troops were defeated.

Meng Zhixiang and his generals fled to Chengdu and closed the gates to defend it.

After arriving at the city of Chengdu, Kang Yanxiao knew that he could not capture this fortified city with just his few troops, so he ordered his troops to set up camp and wait for the arrival of the army.

But before that, he needed to send out a detachment of troops to capture Jianzhou in order to block possible reinforcements from the Later Tang army.

It only took Kang Yanxiao two months to travel thousands of miles from Tongzhou to Chengdu.

During the journey, they won victory after victory and captured five large states. Their military might was so great that the officers and soldiers of the Shu army were terrified.

(End of this chapter)