Chapter 1058 Battle of Changping

Amid the cheers of the soldiers from all the camps, Li Tai arrived at the foot of Pingyang City. Looking at the city that had been surrounded by long siege fortifications, he couldn't help but become excited.

"My Lord, there are still about 20,000 defenders in the city. Since the day when I and my division arrived, the defenders have not attacked..."

Liang Shiyan followed behind and told Li Tai about the various situations of the defenders in the city.

"More than 20,000 people are not a small number. They just watched the vanguard division go north? They just watched our army build a long siege outside?"

Li Tai was surprised when he heard this, and asked in disbelief. He knew that Wei Can, the governor of Jinzhou, was a talentless general in the evaluation of Wei Xiaokuan and others, but when he heard that the other party was in such a critical position and did nothing when facing the invasion of the enemy, he couldn't understand what this guy was thinking for a while.

Liang Shiyan shook his head and said with a smile after hearing this: "I am also quite surprised by this. When we first entered the city, the army was less than 10,000, far inferior to the defenders in the city, and we could not form a siege at all. We only built fortifications on the plateau to defend ourselves and guarded day and night. It was not until two days later that the successor army of Jianzhong arrived that I breathed a sigh of relief..."

When Li Tai heard this, he couldn't help but sigh that it was really a general who was incompetent and exhausted the whole army, especially the position of generals in such a border town, which really was not something that everyone could take.

In the past few years, Wei Xiaokuan has been stationed in Yubi City. In addition to resisting the army of Gao Huan of the Eastern Wei many years ago, he also carried out a lot of personnel management on the border. For example, he built a city north of Fenshui and on the southern foot of Luliang Mountain, and transported personnel and materials to Fenbei at the right time, and completed the construction of the city before the enemy reinforcements arrived within ten days.

Similar operations were repeated many times, and this was still in a weak position. Thanks to Wei Xiaokuan's business foundation in this border area, when Li Tai added personnel investment in Hedong before, everything went smoothly.

Of course, the top border guards like Wei Xiaokuan are scarce talents, and it is difficult for ordinary people to reach them. But Wei Can, who was guarding Pingyang and had 20,000 divisions, did nothing and did not cause any obstruction or trouble to the vanguard divisions. This determination is also something that ordinary people cannot catch up with.

Putting aside these situations, Li Tai, accompanied by Liang Shiyan and others, toured around the city and took a look at the surrounding geographical conditions.

Although Pingyang's geographical location is important, the scale of Baima City, where the state capital is located, is not large. It is only a medium-sized city, about the same as Jinyong City in the Heluo area.

Generally, such a city is not large in size alone, but it must form a complete strategic defense line together with the surrounding city garrisons. However, now that the enemy's city garrisons around Pingyang have been eliminated, the significance of this defense center has been greatly reduced.

When the group returned to the camp, Wei Xiaokuan, who had gone to Hongdong and other places in the north to inspect the situation, also returned, so the generals followed Lord Tang into the big tent to discuss the next battle plan.

"I have been patrolling Hongdong and other places before. From Gaobi to here, all the enemy fortifications have been removed. As long as we hold two important roads, it will be difficult for the enemy in Jinyang to fly south, unless they take the Tongjunchuan route."

Wei Xiaokuan first briefly described the situation in the northern border, and then pointed to the marked location on the map and continued: "Tongjunchuan is the flow of Fenshui River on the south side of Hongdong City. The cities of Yining and Wusu that pass through here and go east are all important garrisons for the bandits, which are connected to Fukou and enter Hebei. The so-called Wusu Road in the old days is this. If the two roads in the north are difficult to pass, the army in Jinyang may cross the mountains and join the people in Hebei in Wusu Road, and then attack..."

"But it is also possible to hold Jinyang!"

When Li Tai heard this, he also added a possible situation, and then he pointed to the map and said to everyone in the tent: "A few days ago, we used Northern Yuzhou as bait to induce the enemy to split up. Now the bandits The places where the bandits gather are Jinyang, Yecheng and Heyang. If the bandits want to rescue their lost territory, they must come through these three roads.

Although Jinyang's military strength is weak at the moment, it has always been the bandits' ancestral nest. Its soldiers and horses must gather quickly, and it will also be the place with the strongest military strength. Don't fight here for the time being, take the easy way first, and then overcome the difficult. When their other roads are frustrated, Jinyang's strong momentum will not last long. "

Speaking of this, Li Tai looked at Wei Xiaokuan again and said: "Although the two roads in the north are in a state of holding, good generals are still needed to lead cautiously. Please ask Jianzhonggong to go there and choose a place to build a city as a long-term barrier. Now the bandits are not exhausted, and we need to plan for a long-term confrontation. "

He did not expect to completely defeat Northern Qi with this battle, and if he wanted to maintain a relatively long-term initiative in his hands, it was naturally the most reliable to build a city for defense. Naturally, this matter still needed to be handed over to Wei Xiaokuan to feel at ease.

Wei Xiaokuan had anticipated and prepared for this, and nodded after hearing this, saying, "I will go to the northern border tomorrow and choose a place to build defenses. I will definitely block the Jinyang bandits from going outside. Please rest assured, my lord."

Li Tai then pointed to the Heyang area and said, "The area between Heyang and Luoyang has long been a place for military operations, and many bandits are stationed there. This time, they miscalculated the military situation, and they must be upset and eager to recall their troops. But we must also guard against the bandits getting angry and taking advantage of their strength to attack us in western Henan or in Henei. Therefore, the army did not all go north this time, and Anlu Gong and others still need to stay behind to wait for the enemy."

This time, the total number of troops deployed by the Bafu reached 160,000, not including the garrison forces in some places. For example, Wei Xiaokuan and others sent 50,000 troops first, but the actual Bafu envoys only sent more than 30,000 people. The remaining nearly 20,000 divisions and brigades were all local in Hedong, including the garrisons in Yubi City and Baibi City.

The 20,000 troops of the Eastern Vanguard led by Yang Zhong before arrived in Hongnong and crossed the river to the north to Shaozhou to meet Yang Yu and then entered the carriage of Jianzhou.

The main force led by Li Tai had 100,000 troops, and 80,000 people actually followed him north to this place, and 20,000 stayed in the upper reaches of the Sushui River.

Since we want to surround the point and attack the reinforcements, we must first find out where the reinforcements are. With the passage from Jinyang to the south being controlled, the only troops from Heyang and Yecheng that can actually reach the battlefield quickly and in time in Northern Qi.

The route for Yecheng troops to come to the rescue is relatively simple. The only route is to enter Fukou via Wusu Road, which is the Tongjunchuan mentioned by Wei Xiaokuan just now.

As for the choice and variables of the troops in Heyang, there are more opportunities for the development of the next war.

At present, Heyang has gathered the largest number of troops, and it is conservatively estimated that there are more than 100,000. If these troops want to reinforce the battlefield in Jinzhou, they can either return to Yecheng and enter Fukou with the troops in Yecheng, or go north from Heyang to Jianzhou, and then follow the Qinshui River to the north to Yining, and then join forces with the troops in Yecheng before going west.

But in addition to these two conventional choices, the troops in Heyang actually have two risky moves. One is to besiege Wei to save Zhao, and launch an attack on western Henan from the Heluo side. If they can break through the defense lines in western Henan such as Xin'an and Yiyang, they can directly march to Hongnong and Tongguan.

The second is to go west from Henei to Qiziling, and then go north through Guzhong Road after entering Shaozhou, and directly arrive at the north of Yanchi in the heart of Hedong. Go forward to cut off the Sushui River, and directly cut off the retreat of the Western Wei army!

For the Western Wei army, the most dangerous situation is naturally the last one. Once the retreat is cut off and the flank is attacked by the Wusu Road troops, it will not be a siege, but surrounded by enemies.

However, the possibility of the Northern Qi Heyang adopting the last strategy is also the smallest, because it requires too high a quality of the army and the courage and spirit of the commander. To accomplish this feat, the difficulty is no less than Li Tai's sneak attack on Jinyang City when Gao Huan attacked Yubi City.

Although it may be small, he, the sixth brother, still arranged nearly 50,000 troops from Yang Zhong's troops and the upper reaches of the Sushui River. The reason is also very simple. On the one hand, he is used to stealing chickens, so of course he has to focus on protection. On the other hand, if you don't come, then I will go!

In fact, in addition to the neglect of the border town of Pingyang in Jinzhou, the Northern Qi also paid less attention to another place. Or it was originally taken seriously, but it was ignored after the war started. And this place is still within the reach of the Western Wei army, that is Jianzhou.

Jianzhou is located in the Jincheng Basin on the west side of the southern Taihang Mountains. It is connected to Henei to reach Heyang, adjacent to Shangdang area to the north, and can enter Hebei from Fukou. It can reach the west side of Pingyang along the Qinshui River to the northwest. It is also an important geographical hub and one of the goals of Li Tai's military operation this time!

Before the war began, the Northern Qi subconsciously regarded the Heluo area as the main combat area and invested a lot of manpower and material resources in Heyang. As the Western Wei army marched into Jinzhou and pointed at Jinyang, the entire Northern Qi military resources must be adjusted around the encirclement of Jinyang and the rescue of Jinzhou.

But in fact, Jinyang was not in the target sequence of Li Tai's military action this time. His primary goal was naturally to occupy Pingyang and then engulf the entire Linfen Basin, putting the blade directly under the eyes of Jinyang.

The second goal was Jianzhou. By occupying Jianzhou, the interaction and communication between different regions of the Northern Qi regime could be further cut off. Moreover, after mastering Jianzhou, it could attack Henei and Heyang in the south and harass Shangdang and Yecheng in the north, increasing the pressure on the border defense of Northern Qi to the greatest extent.

Therefore, if Yang Zhong and other troops in the rear could wait and repel the enemy from Heyang, it would be a pleasant surprise. If not, there is no need to be disappointed. They can cooperate with the military actions of the northern army and cross Zhongtiao Mountain to the east at the right time. When the main force of the enemy is attracted to the northern border, they can capture Jianzhou in one fell swoop.

If you want to make a more vivid summary, it is that Li Tai did not launch the Battle of Taiyuan this time, but the Battle of Changping. The real focus of this battle is to meet and defeat the reinforcements of Northern Qi from Fukou West.

Of course, to achieve such a tactical concept, we still have to proceed step by step. The main task facing the Wei army at the moment is to attack Pingyang.

So after a meeting, Li Tai ordered: "At 1:00 a.m. tomorrow, all camps will have a meal and prepare to attack Jinzhou City!"