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Chapter 236 The Battle of Willow City

In May, Li Chongjiu led an army across the Bashang grassland and arrived in Liaoxi County with high mountains and dense forests.Mohe in western Liaoning had already secretly opened a forest road in the direction of the Mulan grassland in the mountains that could accommodate three riders in parallel, so the [-] troops passed through the forest very quickly and arrived at Mohe's station in western Liaoning.

Here in Tudiji, Ugunai had already led five thousand Mohe soldiers to wait for a long time, and the Mohe people prepared the army's rations for [-] days.Mohe in western Liaoning is a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry, and the mountain people generally grow millet, wheat, rice and other crops.In the spring, the Mohe people set fire to the mountain first, and then pulled out the seeds and let them grow naturally. This kind of primitive slash-and-burn farming, extensive farming, the harvest is less than two buckets per mu.However, western Liaoning is vast and sparsely populated, so they can withstand such a toss, but most of the mountain people must supplement it with fishing and hunting in order to survive.

Therefore, the military rations for these ten days can be regarded as all the savings of Liaoxi Mohe, and they came from austerity.In other words, Li Chongjiu and his own food and fodder did not have to capture Liucheng within [-] days, otherwise the food would be exhausted.

When they first came to Yinghefu in Liaodong, Wang Mahan and others looked at these extremely sturdy Mohe mountain people wearing pigskin and holding iron forks, and they all showed expressions of appreciation. Born to be good fighters.Fighting in the mountains and forests, you can definitely block ten with one.

Unlike the ignorant mountain people, the shamans, the heads of the Mohe tribes, are quite polite.These headmen and shamans all own private property and are worshiped by the clansmen, so they have no worries about food and clothing.They have been in western Liaoning for some time, and the degree of Sinicization is relatively high. Most of the headman shamans can speak rough Chinese, and even the old Phuket shaman can understand a few Chinese characters.Rutu Diji led a group of Mohe people to serve in front of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty and dealt with the Han people for a long time.

Relatively speaking, the same is true for the Xi people, who have exchanged trade with the Han people for many years.Xi people have gradually gained the title of having the most dexterous hands on the grassland, and can provide the most exquisite blankets and sharp sabers. The tribal leaders are also highly Sinicized.And if Li Chongjiu meets Heishui Mohe, Shiwei, Khitan, these uncivilized peoples, let alone subdue them, it's like talking with a duck, and they can't even communicate with each other.

So I don't know which great man said that it is easy to defeat a nation, but if you really want to conquer a nation, you still have to conquer their culture first.In this regard, Han culture is definitely full of yearning and attraction for the backward barbarians.With the food supplies from Mohe in the west of Liaoxi, Li Chongjiu ordered his soldiers to rest here and set up camp secretly, but he didn't have much time left.

After that, Li Chongjiu discussed the next attack on Luo Yi, judging from the terrain of the entire western and eastern Liaoning.

The Luoyi forces in western Liaoning and the two counties in eastern Liaoning are distributed along the valley of the Daling River.In the past, there were only two passages to the northeast, one was the Daling River Valley, and the other was the Liaoxi Corridor.Both routes start from Yuguan, which is today’s Shanhaiguan Pass. One takes the Daling River Valley, passes through Liucheng, and arrives in Liaodong. The other takes the Liaoxi Corridor. At that time, this was called the Ningjin line of defense.But now the Liaoxi Corridor, from the north of Yuguan to Jinzhou, is not only sparsely populated, but the roads are difficult to pass.

Therefore, from the Central Plains to Liaodong, unless you go around the grassland for hundreds of miles, the only way is the Daling River Valley. When Cao Cao conquered Wuhuan and the Sui Dynasty conquered Goguryeo, they all took the Daling River Valley.
From the perspective of the distribution of the entire Daling River Valley, Liucheng in Liaoxi County is the key point, while Huaiyuan Town and Tongding Town in Liaodong County hang near the Liaohe River.Among them, Tongding Town was in the eighth year of Daye. Emperor Sui Yang conquered Goguryeo for the second time and built Wuli City, and set up a city here as the seat of Liaodong County, which is only separated from Goguryeo by the Liao River.Huaiyuan Town is located sixty miles west of Tongding Town. It used to be the military post of the Sui Army's conquest of Goguryeo and the place where the army hoarded grain.Therefore, in the battle against Luo Yi, Wen Yanbo and Li Chongjiu agreed to capture Liucheng and take the Daling River Valley into his pocket, thus completely cutting off the connection between Liaodong County and Beiping County where Luo Yi is located.

According to Tudiji, now Liucheng is guarded by Deng Hao. Deng Hao is Luo Yiqi's brother. When Luo Yi rebelled, it was Deng Hao who subdued Luo Yi in both Liaoxi and Liaodong counties.Now Luo Yi has named him the governor of Yingzhou.

In addition to Liucheng where Deng Hao is stationed, there are five Wubao and eleven Garrison Forts in Liaoxi County, all distributed along the Daling River Valley.Through Tudiji's secret investigation, it was found that each Wubao was guarded by one hundred Sui troops, and the fort had thirty Sui troops. In Liucheng, there were originally only one thousand guards. After the results, the army was strengthened to 500 people, including armored cavalry and equipped with strong bows and crossbows.The law of war states that five points attack it, and ten points encircle it. With the current strength of Li Chongjiu, if he wants to attack Liucheng by force, the casualties will definitely be huge.So we had to find another way.

Wangshan Station in Liaoxi County is one of the eleven forts outside Liucheng.

This garrison fort was built among the high mountains, overlooking the Liaodong Avenue. It was originally a post station in Liaoxi County. During the Daye period, the Khitan invaded, so the post station was strengthened into a garrison fort.The garrison fortress is five feet five high, and it was rebuilt with yellow rammed earth. It is divided into upper, middle and lower floors.

This day, there was a lot of noise in the fortress, waking up the garrison master who was sleeping with a naked woman in his arms.The garrison master sat up, pulled away the wooden board in the lookout hole, and stuck his head out.

Under the suspension bridge of the ditch, dozens of people in tattered leather clothes, carrying a big wild boar, huddled on the edge of the ditch, gesticulating with their own soldiers with their hands and feet.The garrison master couldn't help but roared unhappily: "Sun Er, what are you arguing about?"

"Report to the garrison master, these Ding Ling people have beaten wild boar game and said they will sell it to us!"

"Dingling people?" The lord rubbed his head. Dingling people in Liaoxi County have always been docile. In the past, they didn't make trouble when Khitan made trouble, and they didn't make trouble when Goguryeo made trouble. Now when Mohe people make trouble, they just It's even more impossible to make trouble.

If it were a Mohe man, the garrison master would have put more thought into it, but right now he was thinking about the woman on the bed. Although this local woman in western Liaoning was vulgar, she was far inferior to his serious Han wife in Liucheng, but she was still looking for something new. .So he waved his hand and said, "Just take some rough salt instead."

After finishing speaking, the Lord Shu closed the window, returned to the bed and turned upside down to the woman.The officers and soldiers under the garrison were signaled by the lord of the garrison, and ordered Dingling to throw bows, arrows, wooden forks and other weapons outside the trench, and then the suspension bridge outside the garrison was slowly lowered.

Dozens of Dingling men carried wild boars through the fortress. The leader of the team kicked the wild boar and said with a smile, "Are there still a few catties left? Let's have a good meal tonight."

The dozen or so Ding Lingmen laughed together, and at this moment, a Ding Lingman quietly took out a dagger from the belly of the wild boar, and his companion unknowingly surrounded the three Sui soldiers in the core, and In the woods outside, there are hundreds of Ding Ling people lying in ambush...

Deng Hao in Liucheng was puzzled by the sudden beacon smoke in the distance.Then he received reports of being attacked by Dingling people from several garrisons, and some Dingling people even made their minds on Wubao.More than 2000 Dingling men with short bows and sticks attacked Wubao for a day.The other four fortresses were all attacked by hundreds of Dingling people, and even one fortress was breached and looted by Dingling people.

These damned Dingling people are not always docile, how could they suddenly be different, there must be some conspiracy in it.Deng Hao immediately arrested several protons of the Dingling clan leaders in the city to inquire about the situation, and they were in the process of inquiring.The Wubao, which was besieged by Ding Ling, actually sent out urgent beacon smoke, indicating that it had reached a precarious situation.

Deng Hao was worried that this was a trick, so he didn't send troops immediately, but the flames of war were burning urgently.Deng Hao thought that it was impossible for the Khitans to go south at this time, so he ordered a general to lead [-] cavalry to support them, and asked to be careful along the way.At dawn the next day, news came from the general that he had successfully rescued the siege, which made Deng Hao relax a little from his nervousness all night.

But just after a while, there was another news that a fort was besieged by thousands of people.Deng Hao could only dispatch another [-] infantry troops to break the siege.

Within three days, Deng Hao was exhausted, and he defended the fort. Wubao was constantly attacked by Dingling people, and the other party was also surprised that they immediately retreated as soon as they saw the reinforcements of the Sui army.And the news came from Ding Lingren's proton that it turned out that several tribes had a famine during this lean period, so they attacked the Sui army in order to get food.Deng Hao finally figured out the reason. Now that Liucheng City is high and strong, the Ding Ling people must not dare to attack it. As for the Wubao, the garrison castle, it has become the target of the Ding Ling people's attack.

There is no food and grass in the fort, but Wubao is different. Wubao is the defense node of the Daling River Valley.

Feeling that he had found the problem, Deng Hao asked these protons to contact their father's leader and asked them to attack the rebellious Dingling people, and at the same time he sent troops from Liucheng to strengthen the defense in Wubao.The number of defenders in each dock increased from 100 to 200.After Deng Hao divided his forces, Dingling's men failed to attack Wubao several times, and the attack on the fort was flanked by Wubao's defenders, so Dingling's men calmed down.

Unexpectedly, only a few days later, Wubao, which is the farthest from Liucheng, was suddenly attacked by thousands of people.After Deng Hao heard about it, he was furious and dispatched [-] cavalry to reinforce him. However, after a day and a night, the flames of war in Wubao were still endless, but there was no news of the [-] cavalry he had sent.Deng Hao had a sleepless night, and when it was almost dawn, he arrested several Ding Lingbu protons, tortured them, and finally found out that the attack was ordered by Tudiji.

After dawn, the ground outside Liucheng trembled. Li Chongjiu personally led Xi, Mohe's 700 troops, arrived at Liucheng City, and surrounded Liucheng.But now there were less than [-] troops left in Liucheng from the original [-] garrisons.

(End of this chapter)