Vol 2 Chapter 2617: Captured Xicheng and besieged Nanzheng

Chapter 2617: Capture the West City and siege Nanzheng

Chapter 2613: Capture Xicheng and besiege Nanzheng

 “Great victory, great victory…”

 Hearing this, all the Yongliang generals, including Li Jing, looked happy. After all, the results of this battle were too great.

Although Zhang Ren burned all the warehouses in the pass before retreating, due to his haste, the fire was put out by the Qin army later.

However, since the Shu army's ordnance and supplies are shipped as much as they need, there are not many reserves in the warehouses inside the pass.

 Hence, the seizure of materials, food and grass was secondary, mainly the severe damage to the Shu army and the occupation of Yangping Pass, a strategic military location.

 After counting after the war, the Qin army suffered a total of 5,000 casualties in this battle, killed 8,000 Shu troops, and captured 12,000 prisoners.

Of the 35,000 Shu troops in Yangping Pass, only 15,000 fled back to Nanzheng. The rest were either killed in battle or captured.

In the previous fierce attack for more than a month, the Qin army suffered nearly 35,000 casualties, of which 13,000 were killed in battle alone, but it only killed nearly 20,000 Shu troops, and most of the Shu troops were injured. rather than dying in battle.

 But now with only 5,000 casualties, 20,000 Shu troops were defeated, and Yangping Pass was also captured.

 The results of this battle alone far exceeded those of the previous month.

At this point, although the Qin army successfully captured Yangping Pass, it suffered nearly 40,000 casualties in the siege alone, of which 15,000 were killed directly in battle, leaving only 60,000 capable troops.

On the other hand, the total casualties of the Shu army reached 40,000, of which 30,000 were killed or captured, 10,000 were injured and are being treated, and they will not be able to participate in the war in the short term. There are also 60,000 soldiers left who can fight.

However, there is still Li Siyuan's 30,000 troops in Hanzhong, so the Shu army's strength is only 90,000, but it has 30,000 more troops than Li Jing.

Li Jing was naturally aware of this, but he was not afraid at all. After all, he had already conquered Yangping Pass, the biggest problem in Hanzhong.

The 90,000 Shu army, which lacked food and grass and had low morale, did not pose much of a threat in Li Jing's eyes. Sooner or later, he would be defeated by him. It was only a matter of time before the Qin army completely occupied Hanzhong County.

However, in order to prevent Shu and Han from jumping over the wall, they would rather turn Hanzhong into a scorched earth than take advantage of Da Qin.

Therefore, Li Jing still cannot relax at all, even if the lion fights the rabbit, he will go all out, not to mention that the Shu Han who still has the advantage in military strength is not a rabbit.

In order to seize Hanzhong in the shortest possible time, Li Jing left 5,000 defenders at Yangping Pass the day after he captured Yangping Pass, and then led an army of 55,000 to continue southward, preparing to attack Nanzheng, the seat of Hanzhong.

However, before the Qin army attacked Xinzheng, they still had to eliminate the forts and camps built by the Shu Han on the Hanzhong ancient road one by one.

As mentioned earlier, the Shu Han Dynasty has built the entire Hanzhong into a fortress, building hundreds of forts and more than a dozen camps in Hanzhong to prevent mistakes on the northern and eastern fronts.

 After all, if anything goes wrong at Yangping Pass and Xicheng, these arrangements can also delay the fall of Hanzhong and buy time for the Shu army.

Now that Yangping Pass has been conquered by the Qin army, and the Qin army has successfully invaded Hanzhong, it is time for these Wubao camps to play their role.

I disagree with the fortifications built by the Shu Han outside Yangping Pass. The forts in Hanzhong County rarely have more than a hundred defenders, and no more than 200 at most, while the defenders in the camps do not exceed a thousand.

Before the Qin army attacked Yangping Pass, they had defeated more than 20 Wu forts and three camps. Now they have even defeated the rock-solid Yangping Pass. Naturally, they will not take the mere Wu forts and camps seriously. .

To put it bluntly, the Shu Han also knew that these camps and forts did not pose much of a threat to the Qin army, but they still built them vigorously for the purpose of delaying and warning, and buying time for the Shu army.

South of Yangpingguan, on the thirty-mile-long Hanzhong Ancient Road, there are twenty-five forts and three camps, with a total strength of about 4,000.

There were ten Wu forts and one large camp among them. When they were chasing the retreating Shu army, they were easily solved by Yang Jian and Wu Qi.

Wu Qi only had 5,000 troops in hand, and he had just experienced a big battle. The soldiers were already a little tired, so when they attacked the second camp and failed to persuade them to surrender, they did not want to pay too many casualties, so they decided to suspend the offensive and stay in place. Stationed for rest and recovery.

After resting for a day and night, Wu Qi also received Li Jing's order to continue marching, so he led an army of five thousand to launch a fierce attack on the Shu army camp where only the previous defenders were, and occupied the camp in just one stick of incense. , captured more than 400 Shu troops, and suffered less than 100 casualties.

Not long after Wu Qi agreed to occupy the second seat, Yang Jian arrived with 5,000 reinforcements. After the two sides merged, their troops were nearly 10,000. They acted as a vanguard to clear the way for the main force in the rear and clear all obstacles on the ancient Hanzhong Road.

With the joint efforts of Wu Qi and Yang Jian, it took less than three days to capture all the 15th Fort and one battalion. Seven of the Wu Forts voluntarily chose to surrender, with less than a thousand casualties.

 After clearing all the forts and camps, the vanguard armies of Wu Qi and Yang Jian also reached the last line of defense in northern Hanzhong, Anyang County. As long as the Qin army captured Anyang, they could enter the Hanzhong Basin.

But in such an important place, the Shu army not only did not leave heavy troops to defend it, but also withdrew all the defenders and moved away the food and grass, leaving only more than a hundred county soldiers and those who fled back from the front one after another. hundreds of defeated troops.

Yang Song, the magistrate of Anyang County, obviously knew that he could not stop the Qin army, so when the Qin army arrived at the city, he chose Kaicheng to surrender without saying a word.

Yang Jian saw that Yang Song was so flattering and did not look like a man with backbone, and Anyang County was indeed unable to resist the Qin army, so he prepared to lead his army into the city to rest, but was stopped by Wu Qi.

Yang Jian was a little confused, but Wu Qi explained: "Be careful and you will make no big mistake." Then he sent people into the city to check.

Not long after, only half of the soldiers who were sent to inspect the city escaped and brought them back to the city where there was an ambush and there were fire starters everywhere. The rest died at the hands of the ambushes in the city.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　…

Yang Jian suddenly took a breath of cold air and felt a chill in his heart. The Shu army was really cruel. They actually wanted to burn them to death together with the millions of people in the city.

Once the Qin army enters the city and is unprepared, Anyang City will turn into a city of fire and engulf all the Qin troops in the city. Unlike Yang Jian who was frightened, Wu Qi seemed not surprised. After all, Li Mu had used the technique of burning the city with fire on him during the Guanzhong War.

 Wu Qi didn't fall into the trap back then, and he certainly won't fall into it now.

Yang Jian hadn't spoken yet, but Yang Ren on the side couldn't bear it anymore. He grabbed Yang Song's collar and said angrily: "So you're pretending to surrender."

Yang Song's face turned pale for a while. Although he was the magistrate of Anyang County, he had only taken office not long ago. He really didn't know that Shen Shiqi had set a trap, so he explained tremblingly: "It's unfair, it's unfair. I really don't deserve it." Know."

 “Do you think we will believe it?”

After Yang Ren sneered, he drew his sword and stabbed Yang Song to death without giving Yang Song a chance to speak.

Wu Qi couldn't help but frown when he saw this. After all, although Yang Song's official position was not high, he was a member of the Yang family in Hanzhong and was of some use to the Qin army. He also thought about how to use Yang Song, but Yang Ren took Yang Song away. Killed.

But everyone was already dead, so Wu Qi couldn't blame Yang Ren, so he could only pretend he didn't see it.

Yang Ren was secretly relieved when he saw that Wu Qi did not pursue the case. He had some personal emotions in killing Yang Song.

Yang Ren is the fusion of the conferred **** Yang Ren and the Hanzhong Yang Ren. He is originally from Hanzhong. He knows how many evils Yang Song has done over the years, and the people of Hanzhong want to eat him alive.

 But because of the Yang family in Hanzhong, neither Li Tang nor Shu Han held him accountable.

Yang Ren didn't want this evil man to remain free and wanted to seek justice for his fathers in Hanzhong. However, if he didn't kill him now, it would be even harder to kill Yang Song after he surrendered to Qin, so he pretended to be angry. Killer.

Afterwards, Yang Jian and Yang Ren entered the city with only a few soldiers. Although they killed all the spies lurking in the city, they still failed to prevent the other party from lighting a fire.

However, because Yang Jian had been prepared in advance, the fire did not spread. However, it burned three streets and killed hundreds of people, but it also saved the lives of tens of thousands of people in the city.

Since then, Anyang, one of the ten counties in Hanzhong, has officially come under the rule of Da Qin.

 After Wu Qi occupied Anyang, he did not continue to march, but stationed where he was, waiting for the arrival of the large army.

After all, if he continues to go deeper, Wu Qi will face 90,000 Shu troops, and it is obviously not enough to have less than 10,000 of them.

Li Jing received Wu Qi's message and learned what happened in Anyang, so he immediately accelerated his march.

After all, the Shu and Han Dynasties were prepared to use the tens of thousands of people in Anyang as bait and burn the entire city to death together with the Qin army. They were ready to do such an unscrupulous thing. It can be seen that they were desperate and did not care about the people of Hanzhong at all.

 Hence, the longer the next war drags on, the greater the trauma will be to Hanzhong.

 Li Jing had to fight quickly, but he only had 60,000 troops in his hands, which was not as large as the Shu army. And it was difficult to mobilize troops from Yongliang. It was difficult to quench the thirst of the nearby troops. On the contrary, Han Xin's troops in Shangyong were closest to him.

Although Han Xin's troops were blocked by Xicheng, Li Jing had already broken through Yangping Pass and entered Pengdi, Hanzhong. The Shu Han's eastern defense line naturally lost its meaning.

The Qin army can completely detach a partial division, circle around from the north, penetrate directly behind the West City, and attack the West City from both sides with Han Xin, thus completing the rendezvous with the 40,000 Qin army in northern Jing Dynasty. By then, the Qin army will also regain its strength advantage.

 After Li Jing broke through Yangping Pass, it was only a matter of time before he completely captured Hanzhong. But if he wanted to make a quick decision and capture Hanzhong in a short period of time, he must cooperate with the superior Han Xin.

 Li Jing ordered Wang Jian to lead an army of 15,000 people directly to Xicheng, and he himself led an army of 40,000 people to attack Nanzheng. Two of the three counties along the way surrendered.

But when Li Jing took over the city, he found that all the food and grass in the hands of the people in the city had been confiscated, and all the strong men had been drafted away, leaving only an empty city short of food and a city full of old and weak people for the Qin army. Obviously, he wanted to This was used to consume the Qin army's food and grass.

In this regard, Li Jing knew it was a trick, but in order to win the hearts and minds of the people in Hanzhong, he had to take the initiative to step in.

Li Jing did not want the Shu army to stay in the city all the time. In order to lure the Shu army to fight, he divided the army into four and deliberately pretended to be arrogant. However, even after completing the rendezvous at the foot of Nanzheng City, he could not draw out a single enemy. Support the Shu army.

Just when Li Jing's troops were approaching Nanzheng, Wang Jian had already captured Xicheng.

Wang Jian led his army all the way east, turning a blind eye to Uburg along the way. He would only attack by force unless there was no way around it. In the end, it only took two days to reach the West City.

The Shu army also knew the importance of Xicheng, so they deployed 5,000 defenders in Xicheng and ordered the guard general Yang Ang to hold on for half a month.

But facing the two-sided attack of Han Xin's 40,000 Qin troops and Wang Jian's 15,000 Qin troops, a total of 55,000 Qin troops, even Bai Qi might not be able to defend the West City with 5,000 men, let alone Yang is proud.

It was only an hour after the battle started. The Qin army from Jingbei in the east, who was gathering strength and strength, took the lead in attacking the city, followed closely by Wang Jian's army in the west, who also climbed onto the tower.

Xicheng was officially defeated, but guard Yang Ang preferred to die rather than surrender, and resisted stubbornly in the city lord's palace, and was eventually killed by Jingzhou General Wenpin with three shots.

The Qin army captured Xicheng, which meant that the entire Xincheng County was occupied by the Qin Dynasty.

Hanzhong County was originally one county and nine counties. After many years of governance and development by Li Shimin, it became three counties and 20 counties: Hanzhong, Shangyong, and Xincheng.

At present, the six counties of Shangyong County and the four counties of Xincheng County have all been assigned to Da Qin.

As for the ten counties in Hanzhong County, three were occupied by the Qin Dynasty, and the two western counties were owned by Li Siyuan. In other words, only five counties, including Nanzheng, were left that truly belonged to the Shu army.

 (End of this chapter)