Chapter 624: Battle for the Hetao

Chapter 624 Battle for the Hetao

Chapter 622: Battle for the Hetao

Just when Qin Hao and Xiang Yu were getting married, the ongoing war in the Hetao land finally officially ended.

In August of the third year of Zhongping, Qin and Wen united with the four major princes of Bingzhou to form a 90,000-strong Bingzhou coalition army, while others falsely claimed that they were 150,000. The troops were divided into three groups and invaded the Hetao area where the Xiongnu troops were empty.

To this day, this battle has been going on for six full months, and finally ended with the victory of the Jin army.

Of course, the victory of the Jin army was not easy. After all, most of the previous battles were defensive counterattacks, but this time they took the initiative. The two are not the same concept.

At the beginning of the war, the Jin army used all its strength, as if they would not give up until they captured the Hetao.

The Xiongnu obviously did not expect that the Jin army would take the initiative to attack. Naturally, they were defeated repeatedly due to lack of preparation.

The three armies of the Jin army fought and won consecutively, which can be said to be a great morale.

With the arrival of reinforcements led by Wo Kuotai and Zhebie, the situation in Hetao gradually began to tilt, and eventually returned to a stalemate.

 The Hetao is a flat plain after all, and cavalry combat is the mainstream.

The Jin army's cavalry was slightly inferior to the Huns' cavalry in terms of quantity and training, so it gradually fell into a disadvantage in frontal confrontation, and the progress of the attack was naturally not as good as before.

The stalemate lasted for more than a month, until the Jin army was equipped with new cavalry equipment, stirrups, saddles and horseshoes, and the situation in Hetao once again tilted towards the Jin army.

Horse equipment is very easy to copy, and the strength of the grassland cavalry is stronger than that of the Han cavalry. If these two pieces of equipment are obtained, it will be a disaster for the entire northern Xinjiang.

Qin Hao was originally not prepared to take out the harness and equipment so early, but later he figured it out.

There are so many grassland experts that have been balanced, and low-level equipment such as horse gear will definitely not be difficult for them. It is uncertain when horse gear will be thought of by Temujin and others.

 So, it is better to use the horse gear to win a big battle to strengthen yourself while they still have it.

Qin Hao expected that Bingzhou and the Xiongnu would fight around the Hetao, so before he took office as the governor of Nanyang, he sent the drawings of harnesses back to Bingzhou and secretly ordered craftsmen to build 50,000 sets of new harnesses just in case.

Qin Wen leads the army to conquer Hetao. If everything goes well, there will naturally be no need for these harnesses. However, if there is any obstacle, these harnesses will perform great feats.

As Qin Hao expected, the Huns guarding the Hetao were far more tenacious than expected, and the Huns also sent reinforcements as expected.

Qin Wen also took out the horse gear stored in the warehouse and began to fight for the Hetao with the Xiongnu with all his strength.

The 40,000 Jin cavalry equipped with new horse equipment are no less inferior to the Xiongnu in terms of riding skills and mounted combat, and relying on the superior equipment, they even vaguely surpass them.

The disadvantage of the cavalry has been completely made up. Coupled with the superiority in military strength, the Jin army finally regained the initiative in the battle and began to encroach on the Hetao Xiongnu bit by bit.

 After losing all its advantages, Wokuotai was finally forced to a dead end and had no choice but to engage in a decisive battle with the Jin army in advance.

This is a helpless move. If we don't fight at this time, as time continues to go by, the Xiongnu's strength in Hetao will become weaker and weaker. By then, even if Wokuotai wants to fight, it will be a big deal.

This decisive battle finally started at the foot of Yinshan Mountain, known as the Battle of Yinshan Mountain in history.

Qin Wen personally led 40,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, a total of 80,000 infantry and cavalry coalition forces, against the 50,000 cavalry coalition forces of the Xiongnu and Hetao tribes.

In the decisive battle of the 130,000-strong army, 90,000 people were cavalry, and the Jin army invested 90% of its cavalry.

 If they win, the Jin army can take advantage of the situation to rise up and become a warlord that is no less inferior to the Liang army;

But once they lose, the Jin army will have to train for several years before they can have enough energy to compete with the Xiongnu for the Hetao again. Risks and opportunities coexist, but Qin Wen chose to face the difficulties.

The Jin army did not have the strength to crush the Xiongnu, so the decisive battle was very difficult. After suffering huge casualties of nearly 15,000, they finally defeated the grassland coalition forces and achieved the goal of killing 20,000 enemies and capturing 10,000 prisoners. Brilliant results.

After Wokuotai led the 15,000 remnant troops to retreat, he continued to use cavalry guerrilla methods. He wanted to wait until Temujin completely eliminated Wuhuan, and then lead the army to a showdown with the Jin army.

Wokuotai had a beautiful idea, but Qin Wen would not give him this opportunity. He directly used a thunderous offensive to completely drive the Xiongnu forces out of Hetao without leaving any future troubles.

From August of the third year of Zhongping to February of the fourth year of Zhongping, the battle for the Hetao lasted for a full six months and lasted for half a year.

 In the first four months, the Bingzhou coalition forces had been fighting against the Huns.

 As for the next two months, the Jin army was clearing out the resistance forces of various ethnic groups in the Hetao, and also paid a heavy price.

　　After the resistance forces of all ethnic groups in the Hetao were completely eliminated, the iconic battle for the Hetao was finally ended.

 Although the battle for the Hetao was ultimately won, it was only a miserable victory for the Jin army.

Post-war statistics show that the Jin army suffered nearly 30,000 casualties, and 20,000 were killed in direct combat. Most of them were cavalry. This was second only to the casualties in the Yellow Turban War.

In addition, the third son of General Yang Ye, Yang Sanlang, whose basic force was as high as 94, was shot to death by Zhebie with a hidden arrow in the field battle, becoming the only super-first-class general to die in this battle.

Yang Qilang lost his mind due to the death of his third brother and rode alone to chase Zhebie, but was shot with three arrows. Of course, none of them were critical, so he was only seriously injured.

Zhebie was also shot to pieces by his old rival Zhao Yun, and his breastplate was shattered. He was seriously injured and escaped.

 Although the losses were great, the results were even greater.

 First of all, it’s the territory.

 The land of the Hetao is thousands of miles of fertile land, much larger than the eight hundred miles of Guanzhong, and is the combined land of the four counties in the north.

The Jin army originally owned the five counties in the northern part of Bingzhou, but after taking Hetao, its territory nearly doubled.

More land means that it can accommodate more people, not to mention that the soil in the Hetao is extremely fertile and very suitable for planting.

If the Jin army can immigrate one million people, it will be able to support tens of millions of people after three to five years of development, and the war potential is extremely huge.

  The second is population.

In addition to the Huns, Hetao also has several medium-sized tribes and dozens of small nomadic tribes.

 In addition to those who were killed in the battle and those who were purged to death, the total population of these dozens of tribes was nearly 150,000.

The population of 150,000 may be nothing to the Central Plains, but for the sparsely populated Bingzhou, it is the population of a large county.

Non-my family, its heart must be different.

It is not easy to completely recover these hundreds of thousands of aliens. The Jin army must move to the Hetao, which is more than four times the population of the native aliens in the Hetao. In addition, it must take more than ten years of governance to completely assimilate these 150,000 aliens.

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 (End of this chapter)