Han Dang is stronger

Chapter 531 you come and I go
Flatly rejecting the peace talks proposed by the Huns and wolves, Xiang Kang has only one purpose, which is to completely anger the Huns, and use economic blockade to force the Huns to send out the main force to fight the Han army at the border. However, Xiang Kang said a few hard words It's easy to say, but the soldiers and civilians in northern Xinjiang have suffered tremendously because of this, and they have also paid an extremely heavy price for Xiang Kang and Hanting's strategic plan.

From late April of that year to the first day of July, in just over two months, the Hun cavalry under the command of the Xiongnu Zuo Xianwang invaded and harassed the Han land more than [-] times, with an average of more than once a day. Burning, killing, looting, raping prostitutes, destroying farmland, burning villages, plundering people and livestock, attacking the beacon towers of the border checkpoints of the Han army, poisoning people and ghosts, and committing heinous crimes. The sheep, money, and food are countless, and many areas where the Han army's strength is relatively weak have been directly turned into no-man's land. The border is full of bones, corpses are everywhere, there are ruins everywhere, and villages and markets burned by the Huns are everywhere. The people in the frontier were miserable and mourned everywhere.

During this period, the strategy adopted by Li Zuoche's Northern Xinjiang Middle Road Han army was always to fortify the walls and clear the field. Once the beacon tower issued an alarm, they immediately gathered troops and people to stick to the camp and city, and the losses were relatively small; Gongsun Tong and Tao Xi commanded The Eastern Han Army chose to fight back bravely and fought resolutely. However, because the Huns cavalry were too powerful, even if the Eastern Han Army won the battle, the results were small, and it could not determine the overall situation. Once the battle failed, it would suffer heavy losses. Due to the long line of defense, the army was exhausted, and the soldiers worked extremely hard, and the Huns often seized the loopholes to attack the hinterland, causing even greater losses.

In the end, it was Xiang Kang who couldn't stand it anymore, and personally ordered Gongsun Tong and Tao Xi to follow Li Zuoche's strategy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness to deal with the Huns' Qingqi raids. The Huns cavalry were led by the nose, and the population and economic losses gradually began to decline.

Fortunately, although Gongsun Tong and Tao Xi are more impulsive, they are very effective in combating smuggling. They have always firmly blocked the border trade for the Han court, and did not let border smuggling rampant again. Li Zuoche is also here Even if the Xiongnu seized a lot of supplies by force, the daily necessities such as cloth, salt, and food have always been in short supply, and the ironware strictly managed by the Han army has hardly any harvest. It has a strong momentum, but it still suffers from a lack of supplies internally.

The Zuoxian King of the Huns was also extremely anxious because of this. On the one hand, there was a strong cry from the tribesmen for the necessities of life. The Han army gritted their teeth, preferring to live day and night without making any concessions. At the same time, money, food and supplies became more and more difficult to obtain. King Zuoxian was inevitably in a dilemma and the pressure doubled.

By mid-July, because the Han army had all adopted the strategy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness, and at the same time, the people on the frontier of the Han Dynasty had also learned their lessons, and had already hoarded supplies in various camps and cities, and immediately fled into the strongholds when they saw the Huns invading. For more than ten days, the Xiongnu cavalry did not grab anything decent, and Zuo Xianwang was completely impatient. After discussing with a few subordinates, he decided to gather [-] elite soldiers to besiege Dai Gaoliu City in the county intends to break through the city and do a big business.

The defenders of Gaoliu who were under siege of course asked Li Zuoche for help immediately, Xiang Kang personally arranged for Li Zuoche's two lieutenants, Xiang Zhuang and Xiang Guan, were also very excited because of this, and immediately asked Li Zuoche for orders to rescue Gaoliu. Take the opportunity to fight a decisive battle with Zuo Xianwang's main force.However, Li Zuoche categorically rejected Xiang's brother's suggestion, shaking his head and said: "You can't send troops. First, the mobile army we can use now is less than 3 people. We can't guarantee the chance of winning when we encounter the elites under Zuo Xianwang's command. Second, Even if we win this battle, we will only use His Majesty's strategic plan to prevent the Xiongnu from dispatching all their main forces to go south this winter."

"What about Gaoliu?" Xiang Zhuang said, "There are only more than 2000 defenders in Gaoliu City. How can they stop the [-] main force of the Xiongnu?"

Li Zuoche was silent, and after a while he slowly said: "Gaoliu is just a small town at the township level, we can afford to lose it."

Xiang Zhuang was stunned, and then asked: "Mr. Guangwu, from your tone, do you intend to deliberately sacrifice the lives of all the soldiers and civilians in Gaoliu City?"

"If we undermine His Majesty's strategic plan, the future losses will only be even greater." Li Zuoche replied blankly: "The current situation is that we are not afraid that the main force of the Huns will go south, but we are afraid that the Xiongnu will be like a few months ago." Similarly, it is absolutely worthwhile to sacrifice a small city of Gaoliu in order to give the main force of the Xiongnu the courage to go south with small groups of troops to harass our frontiers, hit and run, and lead us by the nose. I don’t mind the gains and losses of a city or a place.”

It was Xiangzhuang and Xiang Guan's turn to be silent together, and Li Zuoche said again: "Don't worry, we may not be unable to defend Gaoliu. The Huns have never been good at attacking fortifications. Although our Gaoliu defenders are small, it is not impossible to defend the city. lose."

The resourceful Li Zuoche finally made a miscalculation this time. More than half a month later, in the first ten days of August, there was a bad news from Gaoliu, saying that the Xiongnu had brought the siege weapon technology to the grassland with the help of the Zang Tu rebels. , Finally, the small city of Gaoliu was breached with ladder vehicles and city crash vehicles, and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city were slaughtered, and all supplies, money and food were looted.As a result, after hearing the news, Li Zuoche burst into tears and apologized again and again in the direction of Gao Liu. Xiang Zhuang, Xiang Guan and others also had gloomy faces and their hearts were twisted like a knife.

On the Xiongnu's side, after finally solving the difficult problem, the overjoyed Xiongnu army made progress and decisively continued to march towards the small town of Pingyi in the south. Fortunately, Li Zuoche was well prepared and sent six thousand reinforcements to Pingyi first. The guards of the city joined forces to defend the city, and finally blocked the attack of the Huns by themselves, and persisted until the Huns, who were alone in depth, retreated on their own.But this is enough, tasted the sweetness, and saw that the Han army did not have the courage to fight a decisive battle with our own army. After leading the army to retreat to the grassland, King Zuo Xian immediately sent someone to report the victory to Maodun, and by the way encouraged Maodun to fight in the winter. At this time, the main force was assembled and went south in a large scale.

Li Zuoche only managed to hide the truth from Zuoxian King. After the situation report came to Maodun in early September, he asked carefully about the history of Gaoliu's great victory. Thinking about this, don’t think that Ben Khan doesn’t know, your father, Li Zuoche barbarian, used this trick to trick our main force to go south, and made us suffer a lot, how could Ben Khan be fooled?”

The talented and bold Mao Dun would not be easily fooled, but what Mao Dun didn't know was that when he was still uncertain about the direction of his troops in winter, the frontier Han army had already started to fight back. As far as Jiuyuan County, on the border of more than 1000 miles, the Qingqi of the Han Army attacked in a team of 50 people, carrying various fire-igniting materials, rushed into the depths of the grassland and set fire to it, desperately destroying the Xiongnu's winter endurance. To subsist on the southern grasslands.

All of a sudden, the 1000-mile-long grassland was full of raging flames. The wind took advantage of the fire, and the fire boosted the wind. The raging fire turned countless grasslands that had gradually started to wither and turned to ashes, and devoured the pasture necessary for countless Xiongnu livestock to survive the winter.And because the Han army had never adopted such tactics before, King Zuoxian of the Huns was completely killed and caught off guard. When the Huns tribe responded and sent troops to prevent the Han army from setting fire, the southern grasslands were already full of people. When the fire broke out, there was fire and smoke everywhere, and there were wild beasts, cattle and sheep that were forced to run around by the fire, and the tribes of the Huns who were forced to flee with their families. To the bone, Zuo Xianwang himself was so angry that his eyes were red, and he led the army to look for the Han army who set fire everywhere, and sent envoys to Maodun one after another to ask Maodun to send troops to retaliate.

This situation was soon reported to Xiang Kang. Knowing that the arson was going well, Xiang Kang immediately went to the counties of the Han Dynasty and ordered the county guards to find excuses other than resisting the invasion of the Huns. Complete the assembly, arming and training before November, and prepare for the large-scale attack launched by the Huns in winter.At the same time, in order to prevent Wu Rui from misunderstanding, Xiang Kang also specially sent someone to Hengshan to explain the reason to Wu Rui, so as to avoid Wu Rui's misunderstanding and unpredictable consequences-although Wu Rui's strength is weak, but if he is really there When the Huns went south on a large scale and rebelled, Xiang Kang would definitely have a headache.

After Xiang Kang issued the order, Zhang Liangcai, who had rarely been involved in political affairs, said cautiously to Xiang Kang: "Your Majesty, is it a little too worrying? There is no news of the envoy we sent to contact the troops of King Youxian of the Huns. , I don’t know if it’s already succeeded, if the other side misses, there’s no way to further stimulate Maodun Shanyu, and we have assembled an army here, I’m afraid it will be a waste of people’s strength?”

"We have to take a gamble." Xiang Kang replied: "Regardless of whether we can succeed or not, we must plan ahead and make preparations in advance. Otherwise, if we succeed but fail to prepare in advance, we will not only be in a hurry , and may suffer a big loss.”

The resourceful Zhang Liang finally made a worry out of nothing this time. In fact, when the Han army started to burn the grassland of King Zuoxian of the Xiongnu, the secret envoy of the Han court who went north to contact the troops of King Youxian of the Huns had already made a breakthrough. Under the strong temptation of various necessities of life, more than a dozen Hun tribes affiliated to King Youxian reached an agreement with the Han court envoys, agreeing to exchange salt, grain, cloth and bronze with the secret Han army with horses, cattle and sheep behind Shan Yuting's back, Another thing is to live in peace with the Han army in Beidi, Longxi and other places without aggression against each other-of course, the daily necessities sold to them by the Han army are much cheaper than what they promised to sell to Modun.

After the Han army deliberately let go of this opening, a large amount of daily necessities of course quickly flowed through this opening into the grasslands that were in a state of extreme hunger for these things, and because the Huns were a semi-military society, this situation It was soon discovered by Youxian King of the Huns, but in order to satisfy his tribe's thirst for daily necessities and covet the huge profits contained in it, Youxian King not only did not come forward to stop these behaviors, but secretly encouraged these Huns tribes Increased trade with the Han army, and even openly mobilized cattle, sheep and horses from other tribes to sell to the Han army, and resold various daily necessities exchanged to other Hun tribes, earning huge profits from the middle.

Of course, the Youxian King of the Xiongnu seriously underestimated Maodu's ability. After the Han army secretly negotiated a good trade with his tribe, this situation was also quickly reported to Shan Yuting by Maodu's eyeliner planted on the western grassland.After hearing this news, Mao Dun couldn't bear it any longer, and shouted, "The barbarian of the Central Plains, while burning Ben Khan's grassland, while quietly wooing Ben Khan's Right Wise King, it's simply too much deception!"

"Khan, you must be careful about this matter." A Xiongnu nobleman next to him said: "Last time about the matter of the Yuezhi Kingdom, King Youxian was very suspicious, and now the people of the Central Plains are quietly doing business with King Youxian. Helping King Youxian grow stronger, if this continues, I'm afraid that King Youxian will be in danger."

"Big man, why don't you just change the Youxian King?" The Xiongnu Youguli King, who had long been coveting the Youxian King's throne, took the opportunity and said: "Change someone to be the Youxian King, which can eliminate the danger and strictly restrain him." The people of King Youxian forced them to cut off trade with the people of the Central Plains and start a war against the people of the Central Plains."

Mao Dun glanced at You Guli King, who was most qualified to succeed You Xian King, and said after a while, "Don't be in a hurry, replacing You Xian King for this kind of thing will definitely make his people unhappy, Maybe it is possible to force Youxian King to the side of the Central Plains people, and let Youxian Wang make some money, at least through him, we can solve our serious shortage of food and salt."

"But Da Khan, if things go on like this, not only will the tribesmen of King Youxian continue to seek refuge with the people of the Central Plains, but King Youxian will also become closer to the people of the Central Plains?" King Youguli refused to let go, and reminded Maodun road.

Mao Dun still didn't answer immediately, and after thinking about it for a while, Mao Dun suddenly asked again: "What's the situation with Zuo Xianwang?"

"Reporting profusely, it's very bad." King Zuo Guli hurriedly replied: "In the past, most of the grassland where King Zuo Xian spent his winter was burned. They ran away when they encountered our army, and when our army left, they turned around and continued to burn the grassland. Now that the wind is blowing on the grassland, the Central Plains people can immediately destroy one of our winter pastures as long as they light a fire. There is no way to prevent it at all. In a word, if we don't find a way quickly, this winter must be very difficult for King Zuoxian."

Mao Dun's face was extremely gloomy, and he said after a long while: "It seems that there is only one big fight with the people of the Central Plains, and the army of King Youxian is transferred to fight together, not only forcing him to make enemies with the people of the Central Plains, but also giving him a try. loyalty."

"In addition, we can also rob a few cities of the Central Plains people, so that we can spend the winter with peace of mind." A Xiongnu noble rushed to add: "We used to have no way to take the cities of the Central Plains people, but now it is different. With King Donghulu (Zang Hulu) Tu) brought us siege weapons, not to mention the small towns on the border, we are sure to take down the big cities such as Jicheng, Mayi and Taiyuan. If we take these cities, we don't have to worry about it next year People from the Central Plains stopped selling us grain, salt and cloth.”

"You can also snatch countless beauties from the Central Plains and come back to sleep with us!" Another Hun nobleman rushed to agree, and immediately provoked a lot of obscene laughter, and even made the present Hun nobles talk one after another, and tried their best to encourage Maodun to take advantage of the coming winter to invade the south. .

Only Maodun didn't smile at all, even though he knew that it was the best policy to kill the Yuezhi Kingdom first and then deal with the Han army with all his strength, but because of the shameless blockade of the Han army and the frantic destruction of the winter grasslands of the Huns tribe, in order to solve the livelihood problem of the tribesmen , Coupled with the instigation of the nobles and the temptation of materials from the Central Plains, as well as the use of military means to solve the hidden dangers of the Youxian King, after thinking about it for a while, he nodded slowly and said: "Then let's do this, This winter, go south to the Central Plains! Give Ben Khan all the border cities of the Central Plains people!"

(End of this chapter)