Vol 2 Chapter 2524: Han Xin attacked Shangyong County for the second time

Chapter 2524 Han Xin attacks Shangyong County for the second time

Chapter 2520: Han Xin’s Second Attack on Shangyong County

As the deputy governor of Jingzhou, the 50,000 troops led by Han Xin naturally belonged to the Qin army in Jingzhou.

Since the disarmament of the Qin Dynasty, the total number of troops deployed in Jingzhou has only been one hundred thousand.

Jingbei borders the four kingdoms of Wei, Song, Chu and Wu. A hundred thousand troops are more than enough to guard Jingbei, but once they open up to the outside world, they will have more than enough ambition but not enough power.

Han Xin naturally knew this. He was also afraid that the 50,000-strong army would leave Jingzhou for too long, which would cause the Chu army to move north on a large scale. At that time, the pressure on Xue Rengui, the governor of Xiangyang, would be great, so he had to make a quick decision this time when sending troops. But it's obviously not that easy.

This is not the first time that Han Xin has attacked Shangyong. During the first Guanzhong War, he had already led his army to attack Shangyong once.

At that time, Shangyong was personally guarded by Li Xiaogong. Relying on the geographical advantages of Hanzhong, the defense was watertight.

  The overall terrain of the three counties in Hanzhong is dominated by mountains, which account for 75.2% of the total land area (of which low mountains account for 18.2% and high and high mountains account for 57.0%).

The two counties of Shangyong and Xincheng in the east are blocked by the Qinling Mountains, Bashan, Wudang Mountain, and Wushan. The territory is connected by the Han River, the Nan River, the Duhe River, and the Qianqian River connect the Han River, radiating in a network, and is a standard place with four fortresses. .

It is precisely because of this that Mengda, during the period of the Three Kingdoms' great power, was able to establish a long-term separatist regime here.

The six counties of Shangyong and the four counties of Xincheng are all located in dangerous places and built on the mountains. This is also destined to make the two counties easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Although Han Xin's military ability is much stronger than that of Li Xiaogong, if the opponent occupies a favorable location, he will definitely suffer heavy casualties if he attacks by force.

Considering that our side is just a partial division, whether we fight or not, it will have little impact on the overall situation. After all, the main battlefield is in Guanzhong.

 So, when Han Xin attacked Shangyong for the first time, he only adopted the strategy of encircling but not attacking, and just dragged Li Xiaogong's army with him.

After the First Battle of Guanzhong, Li Tang was defeated miserably and ceded territory to the Qin Dynasty to seek peace. Naturally, Han Xin withdrew his troops and returned to Nanyang.

This is Han Xin's second time to attack Shangyong, and with the experience from the last time, he is naturally well prepared this time.

Even before the war started, Han Xin had already sent spies to clearly explore the terrain and troop distribution of the three counties of Hanzhong. After many simulations on the sand table, he finally found the loopholes in Hanzhong's defense.

Even though Hanzhong is rooted in the Hanzhong Basin and is surrounded by mountains, its defense is still not flawless. It is impossible for Li Tang to guard all the mountain roads.

Li Shimin naturally knew this. In order to complete the square line in the eastern part of Hanzhong, he specially built three lines of defense for Hanzhong.

 The first line of defense is the two outermost gates. As long as these two gates are not lost, the enemy will not be able to attack Hanzhong. These two gates are the two newly established counties of Shangyong and Xincheng.

 Shangyong is the southeast gate, and Xincheng is the northeast gate. The two counties look north and south and are horns to each other. If one side is in danger, the other side can immediately support it.

 Even if the two counties of Shangyong New City are in danger at the same time, Hanzhong County in the rear can provide relief.

 Hence, it is almost strategically impossible to completely trap the two counties.

 The second and third lines of defense are: Fangling City and Xicheng.

Fangling City is located behind the two counties of Shangyong New City, and is in the horns with the two counties.

 Xicheng is located behind Fangling, and they are at the horns of each other.

 Originally, Li Shimin planned to use Xicheng as the foundation, and after building several new cities, he would incorporate Fangling and establish Xicheng County.

Unfortunately, before this plan could be implemented, Li Shimin died in the battle in Guanzhong.

Although Li Shimin died, the defense system he built for Hanzhong was fully preserved and inherited by Liu Yu.

With such a sophisticated defense system, although the eastern front line in central Hanzhong did not have a grand pass like Yangping Pass, its overall defense was not much weaker than that of the northern line.

It is precisely because of this that Han Xin, the soldier immortal, returned home defeated.

For Han Xin, the first failure is nothing. Yue Fei attacked Jiangling three times, but Jiangling City still does not belong to Da Qin. What does it matter if he fails once because he is mediocre?

However, Han Xin could endure one failure, but he could not endure the second time.

Han Xin was fully prepared for this attack on Shangyong. He clearly concentrated his troops, 50,000 troops stormed Shangyong County, and surrendered Weiyang County, but the real main direction of attack was Xincheng County.

Han Xin's move of attacking the new city openly and secretly would have been impossible if it weren't for a top-notch general.

Although the four county guards in Xincheng are all very talented, they are still far behind the famous generals. Before they could react, two cities were already attacked by Han Xin.

 When the defender of the third city learned that two fortified cities had fallen in one day, he was immediately frightened and did not dare to resist, so he took the initiative to open the city and surrender.

After Han Xin accepted the surrender, he immediately led his army straight to the new city where he was governed.

Although Xincheng guard Li Kan wanted to surrender to Qin, he did not dare to surrender because his family was in Xinzheng, so he refused Han Xin's persuasion to surrender.

 After failing to persuade him to surrender, Han Xin was not discouraged and launched an siege.

The Qin army attacked three cities in two days, and their morale was at its strongest. After launching the attack, they continued day and night. After a day of continuous attack, they finally broke through Xincheng, the county seat of Xincheng.

 After Han Xin captured the four cities of Xincheng County, he led his army straight to Fangling without any pause.

Liu Yu was shocked when he learned that the four cities of Xincheng County had been lost and Han Xin's army was approaching Fangling.

Fangling, Shangyong and Xincheng form a triangle and are also the last line of defense in the eastern part of Hanzhong.

Once Fangling is captured, the connection between Shangyong County and Hanzhong County will be cut off, and the Qin army will be able to completely trap the Shangyong defenders to death.

 In other words, losing one city of Fangling is equivalent to losing six cities of Shangyong.

If only the four counties of Xincheng County fell, it would still be within Liu Yu's ability to bear it, but if the six counties of Shangyong County were also lost, wouldn't one-third of Hanzhong be taken away by the Qin army?

If this is the case, although Hanzhong County, the richest of the three Hanzhong counties, is still in the hands of the Shu Han, the defense system on the eastern front will no longer be perfect.

 So, no matter what, Liu Yu must save Fanlingcheng.

Liu Yu convened all the generals for discussion overnight, and finally appointed Zhang Ren as the chief general and Shen Shi as the military advisor. He led an army of 30,000 people and four generals Yan Yan, Meng Da, Zhang Fei, and Shi Jingtang, and rushed to support Fangling City at starry night. "My lord, Han Xin's army is attacking so fiercely, and the troops deployed must be quite large. If so, Jingbei must be empty."

As he spoke, a smile flashed across Su Qin's lips, and he said confidently: "My lord, you can fly a pigeon to send a letter to the envoy in Chu, asking him to tell the King of Chu about the emptiness in Jingbei.

If Liu Xiu knew that Jingbei was empty, he would definitely send troops to Xiangyang, which could be used to resolve the danger of Shangyong. "

Hearing this, Liu Yu's eyes suddenly lit up and he said with great joy: "Great idea, just do what the military advisor said."

Immediately, Liu Yu Feige sent a letter to Zhang Su, the envoy stationed in Chu, and ordered him to lobby Chu King Liu Xiu to send troops to attack Jingbei to share the pressure of Shu.

As for Liu Yu himself, he personally led an army of 80,000, as well as generals such as Su Qin, Liu Er, Xing Tian, ​​Kong Peng, Li Siyuan, Li Keyong, Lei Tong, Guan Yu, Xu Shu, etc., and personally sat at Yangping Pass.

After Zhang Ren led the army to set off, he did not dare to slack off at all. In order to reach Fangling as soon as possible, he marched all night, but this mountain road was really difficult to walk.

Li Tang did not have the financial resources of Da Qin to build Chidao to connect counties.

 So the most difficult mountain road between Hanzhong and Fangling is still the most difficult one.

The road is not easy to walk, so the marching speed will naturally not be fast.

Han Xin also knew that reinforcements from the Shu army would definitely arrive soon, so after leading his army to Fangling, he took a short rest and immediately launched an attack on the city, and it was a deadly attack regardless of casualties.

 In addition to Chen Qi, Zheng Lun, Gao Ming, Gao Jue, and Gao Lan, Han Xin also had two god-of-war generals, Jin Tai and Mi Houwang.

In order to capture Fangling City as soon as possible, Han Xin not only personally commanded the army to attack the city, but also sent out the most elite 10,000 troops under his command, and ordered Jin Tai, Mi Houwang, Chen Qi, Zheng Lun and other generals to lead the attack in turn. .

Fangling City’s defense was built by Li Shimin himself. The terrain was extremely dangerous, but it was easy to defend but difficult to attack.

No matter how strong the city is, if the garrison and garrison are not strong enough, they still cannot defend the city.

 Under Han Xin's fierce attack, Fangling City persisted for a day, and the defender Li Hua was beheaded by Jintai who climbed up the city tower.

 The deputy general and the defenders saw that their general had died in battle, and their morale dropped sharply. Their resistance became weaker and weaker, and Jintai soon forcibly breached the city.

 After Han Xin captured Fangling City, he immediately cleaned up the battlefield and ordered Gao Lan to guard Fangling, while he himself prepared to continue to attack Xicheng and completely disintegrate Hanzhong's defense system.

Before Han Xin's army was dispatched, he received news from Heibingtai that Zhang Ren's reinforcements had passed through the west city.

After learning about this, Han Xin quickly changed his battle plan. He ordered Jintai and Gao Lan to each lead 4,000 soldiers to set up an ambush on the road leading to Fangling.

 The reason why more people were not sent was naturally because they were afraid that too many people would expose the whereabouts of the army.

At this time, Zhang Ren did not know the news that Fangling had fallen, so he still rushed towards Fangling City at full speed.

In Zhang Ren's view, although the number of Fangling garrison is not large, only 3,000, the city is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Fangling garrison Li Hua is quite capable. How can he persist for two or three days? .

Zhang Ren probably never expected that Han Xin could conquer a fortified city like Fangling that was easy to defend but difficult to attack in just one day.

Although Zhang Ren didn't know the news about Fangling or that Han Xin had set up an ambush for him, he still instinctively felt a sense of crisis when he led his army to the border of Zhushan.

Zhang Ren is best at fighting ambushes. In the novel, he set up an ambush at Luofengpo and shot Fengchu Pang Tong to death alongside Zhuge Liang, thus thwarting Liu Bei's army's offensive.

In this life, Zhang Ren first loyal to Liu Yan and then to Liu Yu. As Liu Yu's most trusted general, Zhang Ren's record was actually very poor. Overall, he lost more battles than he won.

Of course, Zhang Ren cannot be blamed for this. After all, before Liu Ji was completely defeated, Liu Yu himself also lost consecutive battles.

But even after so many defeats, Zhang Ren's confidence and fighting spirit were still not destroyed, and he still fought against repeated defeats, and thus grew greatly.

 Today's Zhang Ren: Commander 98 (+3), Force 103 (+7), Intelligence 89 (+2), Politics 60 (+2), Charisma 88 (+2);

 Among the famous local generals in the late Han Dynasty, Zhang Ren's growth rate was the largest, if not the largest.

 After all, in addition to Peng Yue, Cao Shen, Zhou Bo and many other famous generals in the early Han Dynasty, there are also Chi You, Gong Gong and others. After you sing, I will appear on the stage and take turns fighting Zhang Ren to provide him with experience.

 If he had not grown up, Zhang Ren would not be alive until now.

 Being able to survive defeats one after another and grow to where he is now, Zhang Ren can be regarded as a rare flower among local famous generals.

Zhang Ren is best at ambushing, so he is naturally cautious when facing terrain where ambushes are possible.

Although he could not wait to go to Fangling, he could not bring his 30,000 reinforcements into danger.

Seeing that Zhang Ren's army did not enter Zhushan, but cautiously explored the surrounding areas, Jintai and Gao Lan also realized that they were afraid that they would be exposed, so they fought out together with a tacit understanding.

Jintai and Gaolan each led 4,000 Qin soldiers, totaling 8,000 Qin troops, and launched a battle with the Shu army at Zhushan.

After the two sides fought fiercely for two hours, the Qin army lost 3,000 troops, while the Shu army lost 4,000.

 Jintai and Gao Lan saw that the Shu army had not retreated after four battles and was still tenacious in fighting. Considering that the enemy was outnumbered, they took the initiative to withdraw.

 The Qin army had only withdrawn more than ten miles when Zhang Ren personally led his elite troops to catch up and severely wounded Gao Lan.

Had Jintai not rescued him in time, Gao Lan would have been killed by Zhang Ren.

After Jintai rescued Gao Lan, he asked him to lead a large army forward, while he himself led more than a thousand dead men to stay behind.

The two sides fought fiercely for an hour. Jintai's army was reduced to only 300 people, but it killed 1,500 of the Shu army.

As for Jintai, Shi Jingtang was defeated first, and then Zhang Fei and Zhang Ren were singled out. Although they did not win, they did not lose again.

Seeing that the army had run far away and would not be overtaken again, Jintai began to lead his army to break out.

 When he returned to Fangling, there were only 233 people left with him.

 (End of this chapter)