Lord of the House

(Updated with 6,000 words, I want to have a drink in the evening, there will be no more updates today, please vote for red)

The main city of Xiangyang faces mountains and rivers, the north city wall is close to the cliffs on the south bank of the Han River, and the south city wall is almost close to the northern **** of Xian Mountain at the northern foot of Lumen Mountain.

After entering mid-November, Moqi Mountain, Hutoushan Island, Nian Mountain and other key points in the periphery of Xiangyang City were seized by the Huaidong Army one by one, and nearly 70,000 enemy troops were completely blocked in Xiangyang City.

The generals and soldiers of the Huaidong Army, the soldiers and the civilians who accompanied the army braved the severe cold weather to dig two trenches from Moqi Mountain to Nianshan Mountain, completely besieging the enemy in Xiangyang City; From Qishan Mountain to Nianshan Mountain, to Hutoushan Island, and then to Wanjian Mountain, Yingpanzhai and Qiao Auchong, the Huaidong Army's camps are interlinked. Dense fish scale-like patterns surround Xiangyang City from the southwest sides.

From Bianshan to the northern **** of Nianshan, thousands of people, regardless of the wind and snow, blew their hands and faces to freeze and cracked, and in just six days, they opened up a ten-mile long corridor, so that they could throw heavy catapults. Directly erected to the cliff head on the north **** of Xianshan, it can directly attack the southern city wall of Xiangyang, which is 400 steps away.

From the period of Luo Xiancheng's occupation of Suizhou, the second city of Xiangfan was empty. Luo Xiancheng occupied it to fight against Jinghu and Nanyang. The She family took over Xiangfan from Luo Xiancheng and waited for the troops of Beiyan to go south. They were purely military fortresses. Outside of the soldiers, there were only thousands of family members who had surrendered to the rebels and lived with the army in the city.

Whether it was betraying Zhou Fan or Han Li, Pu Jieshi or Tong Ruilin, they all understood that Ye Jiluorong and Chen Zhihu had retreated to Guanzhong at this time, and they had already been abandoned in Xiangyang.

The food and grass in Xichuan, Wuguan and Shangzhou are all seriously insufficient; without food and grass, no matter how many troops and horses there is no way to confront the Huaidong Army according to the danger of Qinling Mountains - everyone understands this truth, but Ye Jiluorong and Chen Zhihu led the way. Eighty-nine thousand soldiers and horses retreated to the Guanzhong area. Before the troops and horses in Xiangyang were spread out, there was a hopeless road. Even if they wanted to break through, they would not know where to go. Stained with blood, there is no way to survive.

The negative effects of the battle of Miaotanling's throat lock in early November can be understood even by the lowest level generals. The troops and horses were isolated from Xiangyang, and Ye Jiluorong and Chen Zhihu had to retreat to the north because of food and grass. The Huaidong army had no threat to the flank, so they advanced to the city of Xiangyang in an orderly manner. It took almost half a month. Only forced to the periphery of Xiangyang City. For the enemy soldiers in Xiangyang, this process means that the space for struggle is getting narrower and narrower.

When any level of breakout was severely attacked by the Huaidong Army, there was no way to find the direction or exit. In fact, before the encirclement of Xiangyang City, the tens of thousands of enemy soldiers who were forced to retreat to Xiangyang City were filled with despair. .

Even if it is said that the trapped beast is still fighting, but the trapped beast who cannot see the hope of life and escape, it is impossible to have the will to continue to struggle. Even if it is said that they are struggling to the death, the dying people who see no hope of life and escape will only sit in vain and hopeless waiting to die.

In late November, the Huaidong Army formed a siege of Xiangyang. From the 22nd, heavy catapults were erected on the north **** of Xianshan to bombard Xiangyang City, except for stone bombs, mud balls, and kerosene bombs. In addition, there are clay pots filled with leaflets.

The clay pots were smashed on the city wall or the eaves of the city, and leaflets like snowflakes flew in the sky. Although the vast majority of the enemy soldiers were illiterate, as long as a lot of people were literate, the contents of the flyers quickly spread in the city.

The surrendered troops who participated in the massacres at Nanyang and Pengwanling, from Tian Chang, Han Li and below, and the battalion general and above, the traitorous generals, and the ginseng general and above, Pu Jieshi, Tong Ruilin and other captive generals, totaled 123. Listed as first-class war criminals; other captured generals, officers above the centurion of the surrendered army, and civil servants above the county magistrate appointed by the puppet Yan are listed as second-class war criminals, and other officers and ordinary civil servants of the surrendered army are third-class war criminals.

The leaflet did not mention Huaidong's treatment of the first-class war criminals, but Xu Er and the following war criminals who surrendered before 30 days were exempted from the death penalty, but they would be sentenced to five to 20 years of hard labor. Waiting for the following war criminals to assassinate the first-class war criminals will be punished for the crime; ordinary soldiers will be sentenced to three to ten years of hard labor; A general who kills a first-class war criminal and leaves the city can be considered a surrender...

The opinions of Song Fu, Gao Zongting and others were originally to lure the enemy to surrender and then settle the matter, but Lin Fu did not accept it.

The trick of booby-trapping can never be repeated.

This time, with the booby-trapping strategy, when the northern expedition is to be carried out, the trap-and-kill strategy will be ineffective, instead blocking the southern retreat of those who were forced to surrender to Yan but did not commit the great evil. The traitorous and captive generals who slaughtered the civilians had no chance of pardoning their sins.

Some radical generals in the Huaidong Army even wanted to slaughter all the enemy soldiers trapped in Xiangyang.

However, without booby-trapping, all the enemies in Xiangyang would be slaughtered, and the resistance would be too great, which would add many unnecessary casualties to the Huaidong Army itself. And this liquidation will set a precedent for the future Northern Expedition, and Lin Fu also asked Song Fu and Gao Zongting to consider it carefully.

The final conclusion of the collegiate deliberation was to divide the guilt and sentence, and to convict the generals of the surrendered army, the generals of the captive army, and some civil servants in three categories. Due to the clear flags of the enemy forces trapped in Xiangyang, it was confirmed that Tian Chang and Han Li had participated in the massacres in Nanyang and Pengwanling. A total of 123 enemy generals who participated in the slaughter in the repeated wars of Yanhu's southern invasion were listed as first-class war criminals that must be executed. Other rebels attached to the captive generals and were listed as second- and third-class war criminals.

Yang Xiong’s subordinates are listed separately. One is that Yang Xiong’s subordinates have not participated in the slaughter since they surrendered to the Yanhu family and Suisha’s family; Divide the enemy forces in Xiangyang to ease the resistance to attacking Xiangyang after thirty days.

After Yang Xiong's warships were completely destroyed by the Huaidong Navy, there were still nearly 4,000 soldiers who retreated to Xiangyang City. strength.

However, Lin Fu intends to kill 123 first-class war criminals, all of whom are high-ranking generals in Xiangyang City. Under the control of these enemy generals, even the low-level military attachés and ordinary soldiers in the enemy army are willing to surrender. It is also difficult to get out of the city - that Yang Xiong's department is also a back door for these low-level military attachés and soldiers of the enemy who are about to die.

Although most of Xiangyang Guandong is a purely military fortress, which makes it impossible for Huaidong scouts and secret agents to penetrate into Xiangyang City, but the fortification of Yang Xiong is in the northwest corner of Xiangyang City. From the 24th, the Huaidong Army, which landed on Hutoushan Island and entered Wanjian Mountain, was responsible for blocking the northwest direction of Xiangyang City. At the same time, they began to project arrows at the remnant of Yang Xiong through the city wall to persuade him to surrender. The lower-level military attaches and soldiers of the army and the captive army who are willing to surrender and beg for their lives.

Yang Xiong and his generals never responded. The Huaidong Army was not anxious on the periphery, and calmly prepared for the siege, gradually advancing the trenches and front fortresses to the foot of Xiangyang City, and placing more heavy-duty stone-throwing crossbows on the outside. After the moat, set it within the range that can directly smash the city wall of Xiangyang...

From the beginning of November, the enemy troops in Xiangyang began to run out of food. It was said that they could slaughter mules and horses to feed their hunger. However, when Ye Jiluorong led the troops and horses on the west bank to retreat, they stayed in the city of Xiangyang when the Xianggu channel was cut off at the Battle of Guanyinjian. There are only more than 2,000 mules and horses, and it can only support more than 70,000 people for half a month. By the end of November, the food will be completely cut off.

Of course, there are nearly 10,000 war horses in the hands of Pu Jieshi and Tong Ruilin, but the Hu generals would rather starve to death than eat war horses. How could they have given war horses to the Xinfu Han army for food? ? Not only did they not hand over the war horses to share their food, but they also used the extremely precious bark and forage in the city to feed the war horses, so that the war horses would still have leg strength when breaking through the siege. Opposition and contradiction.

At the end of the trouble, Pu Jieshi, Tong Ruilin and other captive generals reluctantly agreed to hand over the sick and dead warhorses to feed the newly attached Han army to feed their hunger-compared to hunger, the greatest threat to the besieged enemy soldiers was the one that came with the heavy snow in the past few days. Frigid weather.

It was the turn of spring and summer when Ye Jiluorong led the troops and horses on the western front to attack Guanzhong, and it was the turn of summer and autumn when the troops from Guanzhong marched into Nanyang. After resting, the Yuehan River went south without stopping, and there was no time to prepare cold clothes and bedding to keep out the cold.

In order to reduce the logistical pressure, Yan Hu even took off the clothes from the slaughtered Nanyang soldiers and civilians and gave them to the soldiers as autumn clothes. However, the thin clothes might be able to withstand the autumn cold, but they could not stop the dripping water from freezing, like scraping bones and cutting meat. In the usual severe cold, especially during the few days when the city was closed by heavy snow, thousands of people died in the camp almost every day.

This year is also a cold winter. In addition to the turbulent Han River and Huai River, which are not frozen, the Naoshui River and Beiru River in the north are frozen solid. On the southwest sides of Xiangyang City, it reaches the moat connecting the Dongcheng Bund with the Han River. It is also due to the fact that the source of the Han River from the upper reaches of Hutoushan Island is blocked by the Huaidong Army shipwreck. Since the water flow is no longer turbulent, after entering the second half of November It also froze a solid, saving the Huaidong Army's time to fill the moat.

The land of Henan entered the season of ice and snow, and the Huaixi army also stopped in Ruzhou. Regardless of whether Dong Yuan is sincere or fake, there is no way to truly march north this season.

After the Yellow River was frozen, in the open Huanghuai Plain, Yanhu's cavalry was able to exert the greatest advantage, and Lin Fu also clearly passed the order of the Privy Council to make Dong Yuan and Yue Lengqiu rest in Ruzhou and Guoyang. Troops and horses, rectify the defense, from Shouzhou, Haozhou, Dongyang and other governments, responsible for the supply of Huaixi and Henan armies.

After the 25th, although the snow stopped in Xiangfan area, the wind did not stop. The snowmelt weather made the city of Xiangyang freezing cold. Zhou Tong also ordered more than 80 heavy throwers to be deployed as early as the afternoon of the 24th. The stone crossbows smashed the city wall of Xiangyang day and night from the west and south sides, in order to open a gap for the Huaidong army to storm into the city of Xiangyang before the deadline of 30 days.

Going back to the late Han Dynasty, when Liu Biao led Jingzhou Shepherd to build Xiangyang, Xiangyang has always been a Xiongguan Pass of the Han River in all dynasties, with water on three sides and mountains on the other. There are six gates in Xiangyang City. The shortest city wall is the place facing the water on the north side and the beach on the east side, which is not easy to be attacked by the enemy directly, but it is also more than two zhang high; while the southwest and south facing the high places are more than three zhang, the highest. Even up to four feet, the rammed earth must be covered with masonry, which can be described as strong and unusual, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

But in front of all kinds of heavy slingshots, the towering city walls actually greatly increased the bombing area.

For a city wall that is 20 feet high, the ejection accuracy at a distance of 400 paces may be 1-2 out of 10; while for a city wall 40 feet high, the ejection accuracy will be doubled to 3-4 in 10 shots—and the taller the city wall is. , the easier it is to collapse under the smashing of stone bombs weighing more than 100 catties.

When Lin Fu built a new city in Huaidong, the height of the city wall was generally not more than 20 feet; in fact, in the later period, Lin Fu asked all places to strengthen defenses, but he no longer required new or additional cities, but increased protection against dangerous terrain. And the construction requirements of small fortresses at traffic fortresses.

Jiangning City was severely damaged by the Jiangning war, and Lin Fu had no plans to build it. He even considered opening more gaps in the Jiangning city wall to facilitate transportation, and handing over Jiangning's defense to the outer military defenses, the scale was much smaller. more, cheaper, and more defensive.

When all the armies have lost the courage to fight in the field, no matter how high or dangerous the city is built, it is of no use; as long as an army has the courage to fight in blood, even the small terrain advantage will be brought into full play-except for the catapult to attack the city Due to the large-scale application in the war, Lin Fu wanted to push the whole society towards a primary industrial civilization. Saltpeter and sulfur will not always be scarce, and in the face of the weapons of war in the industrial age, the wall that surrounds a city is really limited in strengthening defenses.

A large number of cast iron parts are used on the heavy catapult, which improves the structural strength, prolongs the service life of the weapon and the ability to continuously fire, and the heavier base frame improves the projection and accuracy accordingly; for the supply of catapults With enough stone bullets, the Huaidong Army initially dispatched 4,000 civilians to enter Moqi Mountain for quarrying.

From the 24th to the 29th, the number of heavy catapults participating in the siege increased from the initial 80 to 130, throwing more than 10,000 stone bombs at Xiangyang City. , The city wall more than six miles long on the south side was directly bombed by more than 2,000 bullets. From the 26th day when the city wall in the southwest corner of Xiangyang collapsed, to the 29th day when the west and south sides of Xiangyang City were nearly seven miles long. There are eleven gaps in the city wall...

The Huaidong Army was not in a hurry to storm in through these gaps. It was more like giving the low-ranking generals and soldiers in the city a chance to leave the city. In the five days from the start of the bombardment of Xiangyang, more than 3,000 surrendered troops took advantage of Huai. In the gap of the attack, the Eastern Army came out from the gap in the city wall and surrendered to the Huaidong Army's position.

For General Zhou Tong, who was in command of the battle at the front base of Moqi Mountain, or Lin Fu, who was in charge of the battle at Fancheng on the north bank, he didn't care about the number of enemy soldiers who left the city to surrender before the 30-day deadline. Use this to estimate the will of resistance of the enemy soldiers defending the city... If the will of the enemy soldiers to resist is still tenacious, the time to send generals to seize the city will continue to be delayed - time is completely on the side of the Huaidong Army .

Although there were two consecutive wars within a year, Huaidong was also under the pressure of lack of financial resources and unsustainable pressure, but after the battle of Miaotanling's throat lock, the pressure of the war on the central logistics stabilized. At present, the troops and horses in Dengzhou, Xichuan, and Hanjin, Shicheng, and Suizhou have actually entered the period of rest and reorganization of defense. After the Han River is opened, the transportation of materials to Jingxiang will be faster than that of the Huaishan plank road in the early days. Chaishan reserves materials, at least in terms of transportation costs.

Yang Xiong, who had been silent for several days, sent his cronies among the other enemy soldiers who had surrendered from the city on the 27th and entered the outer Huaidong Army positions, and made a request to the Huaidong Army to surrender.

Surrender is completely different from surrender. Surrender must be included as a prisoner of war, while Luo Wenhu’s surrender to Huaidong in Lishan is considered surrender. After surrender, Huaidong can be used or not. Xu Qi was disarmed and returned to the field, and he could not be held accountable for his former crimes, let alone treated as a prisoner of war.

Lin Fu considered it again and again, and decided to accept Yang Xiong's surrender. On the 28th, he sent people into the city secretly, and made an agreement with Yang Xiong that on the 29th, before the Huaidong Army officially attacked the city, his troops would attack Tong Ruilin's troops who were defending the west city. Zhang Gou's troops invaded Xiangyang from Xicheng to create conditions...

At noon on the 29th, a day earlier than the previously mentioned deadline, Yang Xiong attacked Tong Ruilin's captives as promised, causing chaos in the enemy forces in Xicheng. The gap in the city wall took the opportunity to break into the city of Xiangyang——

The enemy army in Xiangyang City was on the verge of collapse in the past month due to starvation and severe cold, as well as being in a desperate situation with no hope of escape. Except for the main traitor generals and captive generals who were included in the first-class war criminals, and a few of their heirs. In addition, lower-ranking officers and, more generally, military pawns have almost lost their morale.

He was previously suppressed by the senior generals and his direct guards and was unable to leave the city and surrender. At this time, the Huaidong Army stormed in, and he could save his life by laying down his weapons, and he no longer had the heart to resist.

Before night fell on the 29th, Zhang Gou led his troops to capture the west city of Xiangyang, and pushed the battle line in the city to the center of the city near the Xiangyang Mansion. Tang Fuguan also launched a fierce attack on the south of Xiangyang on the 29th. There were more than 10,000 people who abandoned their weapons and surrendered; by the early morning of the 30th, the enemy general Tong Ruilin was beheaded.

By the evening of the 30th, only Zhou Fan, Han Li, Pu Jieshi and other enemy generals led the last stubborn enemy to retreat to the northeast corner of Xiangyang to defend. There is neither hope of breaking through nor the possibility of surrender, just a last-ditch effort in vain.

On the 30th and on the 1st of December, Tang Fuguan transferred a large number of scorpion crossbows from outside the city and deployed them on the periphery of the northeast Jiaocheng where the ruthless enemy was stubbornly defending. In the night of December 2nd, Tang Fuguan ordered the kerosene that was almost overflowing from the northeast corner to be ignited.

On December 3, Xiangyang was completely captured, and more than 17,000 enemy soldiers were killed. At this time, more than 6,000 enemy soldiers died of starvation or freezing before the siege, and more than 39,000 enemy soldiers were captured.

In addition, Yang Xiong led his troops to surrender, and less than 5,000 soldiers and children survived from Xiangyang City, but they were all disarmed after the war. Lin Fu ordered Yang Xiong and other defecting generals to return to their hometowns and return their fields, hand over the goods they looted in the war, and each piece was promised 30 Huaidong silver dollars and 30 mu of land was granted by the local government to support the family. And servants and servants, who need to work in farming and weaving, and appoint local officials to supervise them for three years. After three years, they can move to other places to live or choose other jobs. He was exempted from service and placed on the spot - even if Yang Xiong, who surrendered at the end of the war, had certain achievements in the Battle of Xiangyang, the treatment he received was naturally not comparable to that of Luo Wenhu, who surrendered at the beginning of the war, let alone the Huaihuai who surrendered before the war. Compared with the king of the east.

If there is no difference, it will only call more speculators to wait and watch until the last moment.

But in any case, the fate of Yang Xiong and other generals who survived the first battle in Xiangyang was much better than that of other captured generals and generals who surrendered. They received 30 silver dollars and granted 30 acres of land. It is also a middle-class family, and raising a family is not a problem.

For ordinary soldiers who surrendered, they surrendered just to survive. Even if they were scattered to various prefectures and counties in Jingxiang, they would be better than other prisoners who did not know what disease they would be exiled to, where the heat or cold would breed, and their life and death were difficult to predict. The soldiers are much better, and there are still quite a few of them who are accompanied by their families, and there is even hope of being resettled in the place three years later.

Among the more than 39,000 prisoners who surrendered, there were 21 first-class war criminals, and the remaining 102 first-class war criminals were killed on the spot without surrendering during the battle of seizing the city; the other second- and third-class war criminals counted 1,000. Of the six hundred and twenty-nine people, three hundred and sixty-seven were captured after the 30-day deadline~www.wuxiaspot.com~, along with the same class of war criminals, were all screened out for supervision as death row prisoners, ready to be escorted to Jiangning for execution.

Other war criminals and prisoners, including other prisoners of war in Miaotanling and Xinye, totaling more than 45,000 people, were also escorted to Shicheng, Huangpi, and Jingzhou in early December.

That is, in the first ten days of December, the five-month-long Nanyang-Jingxiang battle came to an end.

In addition to the more than 1,000 people of Chen Han's three remnants who fled to the deep mountains at the southern foot of Huaishan to continue to besieged and annihilated, the traitor Sun Jichang, Ma Dekui, Mo Jiben, etc. were either besieged and killed by the Huaidong Army on the battlefield, or they were in charge of the Ministry. They will be captured and cut to atone for their crimes, or they will be captured in the later period of the Huaidong Army's cleanup.

During the entire Nanyang-Jingxiang battle, in the early stage of the Nanyang Army, including Liang Chengyi's subordinates of the Hezhong Army, 180,000 soldiers and civilians were slaughtered.

In the later stage of the war, the Huaidong Army, together with the Chizhou Army and the Jinghu Army, invested a total of nearly 300,000 troops, and nearly 160,000 soldiers and civilians. 2,000), Chizhou army 12,000 casualties (6,000 killed), Jinghu army 30,000 casualties (24,000 killed), and civilian casualties 8,000. 110,000 enemy troops were killed (including 30,000 soldiers who died in Jingzhou city and 30,000 soldiers from the newly annexed Han army); more than 200,000 enemies were captured (including Zhong Rong, Luo Jian, Wang Xian'er, Huo, who surrendered to Huaixi) Tong et al army 60,000 horses), Luo Wenhu, Yang Xiong and other ministries who surrendered to Huaidong during the war counted 12,000 people. In this campaign, more than 320,000 troops and horses were wiped out on the western front of Yanhu, including the elites of the Yanhu tribe. With 45,000 cavalry, less than 90,000 soldiers and horses from Chen Zhihu and Ye Jiluo Rong's headquarters escaped into the customs... My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter