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

Chapter 996: Jiange is majestic and towering, infantry and cavalry swept Chengdu

The poet Li Bai once said: "Jiangge is majestic and towering. One man can hold the pass against ten thousand men."

On this day, Han Yong, the captain of the right team of the left second front camp of the Jianmen Pass garrison under the Xichuan Army, led ten soldiers of his group in a team of two to walk on the city wall of the pass to keep alert as usual.

Suddenly, Han Yong's ears moved and he heard something. He raised his right hand and the queue stopped immediately.

The two sergeants in the lead looked at him in confusion.

He shook his head, put his left hand on the hilt of the knife, walked to the wall, squatted down, and listened quietly.

The ten men on the side didn't dare to move at all. They just stood there with guns in hand, looking at their leader.

"Crack~" A slight friction sound rang in Han Yong's ears.

His spirits immediately tensed up and he made a series of gestures to his men.

The soldiers reacted quickly, walked quickly to the wall, and squatted down with weapons in hand.

Suddenly, the crisp sound beside Han Yong's ears stopped. After thinking it over again and again, he made up his mind and decided to stick his head out to wait and see.

Slowly, he stuck his head out of the wall, and suddenly his eyes widened in horror.

I saw that a strange soldier had already arrived at the foot of the wall, and on the mountain road ahead, there were several archers aiming their bows at me.

"enemy..."

Before Han Yong could finish his words, an arrow shot straight into his forehead and pierced him through.

Han Yong's men were stunned. One of the sergeants reacted quickly and shouted at the top of his voice: "Enemy attack!!!"

The others also shouted.

After a while, the sound of golden gongs rang out urgently, but the Xia army's hooks had already hooked onto the city wall.

The defending soldiers wanted to cut the hook rope with knives, but were instead pointed out one by one by the Xia army's sharpshooters under the wall.

After a lot of effort, someone finally cut the hook rope with a knife, and it made a crisp sound.

"Damn it, it's a chain." This was the soldier's final thought.

The commander guarding Jianmen Pass was Chen Junchuan, who was originally a general under Dong Zhang.

Later, Dong Zhang died in Zizhou and surrendered to Meng Zhixiang. He had a thousand defenders under his command, but half of them were resting under the city at this time.

When he and his personal guards hurriedly climbed up the city wall, he saw more than thirty Xia army soldiers chasing and killing his soldiers on the city wall like cutting melons and vegetables.

At this moment, Chen Junchuan looked up at the small flag carried on the back of a Xia soldier, with "Xuanhu Du" written on it, which was obviously the elite force of the Xia army.

He sent out his personal guards to give it a try, and sure enough, they could only hold out a little longer than ordinary soldiers, but were still forced to retreat by the enemy.

Although there are only a hundred people on the opposite side, each of them is a veteran soldier and it is impossible to push them off the city wall without spending a lot of time.

"Kill!"

Just when Chen Junchuan was at a loss, shouts of killing were heard again from under the city wall.

He looked up and saw a large group of Xia troops appearing at the foot of the mountain, obviously reinforcements from Xuanhu Du.

He dropped the knife in his hand dejectedly and said to his personal soldiers: "We are defeated, go and open the gate."

The second year of Changxing in the Later Tang Dynasty, the ninth year of Xia Chengqian
August 27
Meng Zhixiang's letter for help arrived in Chang'an.

Li Siyuan picked up Meng Zhixiang's letter for help and listened to the messenger's pleading words, but he seemed very hesitant.

At this time, the Privy Councilor Fan Yanguang said: "Your Majesty, although Meng Zhixiang occupies the two Sichuans, his soldiers are all from Guanzhong. He needs to borrow the power of the court to deter them. This is why he is willing to surrender to the court."

"That's why our two families can live in peace."

"Now that the Xia people are invading Shu, if Meng Zhixiang cannot stop them and hands over Shu to them, we will not only have to resist the pressure from the Xia Kingdom in the east, but also from the south."

"This is the Xia Kingdom's strategy of boiling a frog in warm water. We must be on guard." "Therefore, I think that even if Shu is taken by Meng Zhixiang, it is far better than being occupied by the Xia people. This is not in the interests of the court."

Li Siyuan nodded: "What the Privy Councilor said makes a lot of sense."

The Shu envoy was very excited when he heard this and thanked Fan Yanguang repeatedly.

Just when everything was about to be settled and Li Siyuan was about to send people to Sichuan for rescue, Shi Jingtang, the governor of Tianxiong Army, the prefect of Fengxiang, and the son-in-law of the emperor, wrote a letter saying:

"The Shu army lost Jianmen Pass and is now occupied by the Xia army."

This made Li Siyuan change his attitude again. You know, if there is no gateway, how much he will lose before he can enter Shu, which is not worth the loss.

Thinking of this, Li Siyuan said to the Shu envoy: "Originally, I was willing to help Meng Zhixiang. After all, he is an old friend of mine, and he was alienated by others and ended up in this situation."

"But you also know that the Khitan, Tuhun, and Turkic people in the north have been invading our borders every year, and the Dingnan Army is like a thorn in our side. I need to send most of my troops to guard against them."

"Now that you have lost Jianmen, I really cannot mobilize too many troops to seize land that does not belong to you."

The envoy was about to speak, but was interrupted by Li Siyuan, who said, "However, I can still accept Meng Zhixiang's surrender. I will send an envoy to Kaifeng to inform Lord Xia of Meng Zhixiang's surrender to the Tang Dynasty."

"I'm sure Lord Xia will withdraw his troops soon after he finds out."

The Shu envoy glanced at Fan Yanguang anxiously, as if to say, "If the Xia Kingdom really listened to you, Nanping would not have been destroyed."

Fan Yanguang had to speak up at this moment: "Emissary, please be at ease. Our Tang Dynasty can promise that if you can take back Jianmen Pass, our Tang Dynasty will immediately send troops to Sichuan. Is that okay?"

The Shu envoy had no choice but to do so, and took Li Siyuan to confer the title of Emperor Meng Zhixiang:
He received an imperial edict that said, "Acting Grand Marshal and Minister of the Central Secretariat, Acting Prefect of Chengdu, Jiedushi of Jiannan, East and West Sichuan, In charge of observing and disciplining the areas within the jurisdiction, in charge of supervising the barbarians near the border, and concurrently Envoy for Pacifying and Controlling the Eight Kingdoms of the Western Mountains and Yunnan, and Conferred the Title of King of Shu." He took a shortcut back to Chengdu.

He also appointed five generals under Meng Zhixiang, including Zhao Jiliang and Li Renhan, as Jiedushi.

The actual land of Shu was granted to Meng Zhixiang.

But all of this depends on Meng Zhixiang himself being able to keep it.

September 6
The follow-up army of Xia, led by Zhao Lianglong and Lou Xiu, crossed mountains and rivers and finally arrived in Hezhou.

The troops they brought this time included the 20,000 men allocated by Kaifeng, the 5,000 men allocated by King Liang of Nanzheng, and the 15,000 men under Kang Yanxiao, totaling 40,000 men.

This is also the maximum power that Daxia can mobilize.

After all, it is impossible to transport it directly from their own territory, but they need to cross the wide Daba Mountains to connect to the waterway of Tongzhou.

This mobilized more than 100,000 laborers, more than 10,000 livestock of all sizes, and thousands of ships.

This resulted in a constant flow of laborers on the mountain roads of Daba Mountain, long queues of ships on the waterways of Bashui River, and the sounds of mules and horses on the official roads without waterways.

In order to ensure the safety of the grain route, the Xia army had to eliminate the Shu army cities along the Jialing River and cities such as Bazhou upstream of Quzhou.

Although the Shu troops in these places were all local county troops, they still posed a threat to the food supply route.

They only needed to go downstream to cut off the food supply of the Xia army in Quzhou and Hezhou at the Bashui River.

After discussion, Liu Louxiu was appointed to lead the 5,000 men originally left by Kang Yanxiao to garrison Hezhou, coordinate food and fodder, and guard against the Wutai Army in Qianzhou in the south.

He also sent Commander-in-Chief Jie Chi to lead 5,000 troops to attack Langzhou, and Commander-in-Chief Bai Hengtao to lead 5,000 troops to attack Bazhou, in order to wipe out the Shu army in Dongchuan.

Zhao Lianglong personally led the remaining 10,000 people to support the commander-in-chief Kang Yanxiao.

After Jie Chi and Bai Hengtao cleared Dongchuan, they only needed to leave two thousand men to guard Jiameng Pass, and the rest would immediately come to Chengdu to join the main army.

Especially Jiameng Pass north of Langzhou, we must take it.

As for the Zhenjiang Army in Kuizhou, it had been firmly restrained by Tong Ce, the governor of Jiangling of Daxia.

If there was any unusual movement, Tong Ce could trace the source upstream and directly take Xia and Gui states and capture Kuizhou.

By then, with the food route along the Yangtze River, it would no longer be 40,000 or 60,000 Xia troops, but 100,000 infantry, cavalry and naval forces led by Xia generals, who would continuously enter Shu from the Three Gorges.

(End of this chapter)