Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

When Li Tai returned to Rangcheng, the anxious hearts of the people in Jingzhou relaxed a little.

The Wanluo barbarians who harassed Sanya Road were not terrible. Even Guo Xian himself stated in his letter that he would be able to hold on to Luyang Pass and prevent the control of Sanya Road from falling into the hands of the barbarians.

But Murong Shaozong behind these barbarians made the people of Jingzhou unable to calm down. In the past two years, the most famous person in the world is naturally none other than Hou Jing, and the closely followed person is probably Murong Shaozong.

When it comes to the display of personal talents, Murong Shaozong still ranks ahead of Hou Jing. After all, no matter how fierce Hou Jing was in Jiangnan, it could not change the fact that he was chased and beaten by Murong Shaozong and could not escape in a hurry. .

Being targeted by such a prestigious person, no matter how arrogant and confident you are, you will inevitably feel nervous.

However, although Murong Shaozong was very famous, Li Tai was still slightly behind him, but not by much. Not to mention his old achievements in the past few years, the people of Jingzhou were very excited just by the two good news he brought back to the town.

The first was naturally that he advanced with light troops and recaptured Hanzhong, which had been captured by Nanliang for more than ten years. The second was that after joining forces with Xiangyang, he defeated the famous Nanliang general Liu Zhongli, and Yang Zhong was still leading his troops to pursue Liu Zhongli. After a fierce attack, the land of Handong has become a treasure.

But now that a powerful enemy is at hand, it is naturally not the time to celebrate. Li Tai only briefly explained the development situation of all parties to the masses to encourage people's hearts, and then began to focus on the current critical situation.

After the fall of Yingchuan, Wang Sizheng's tribes in all directions were controlled by Li Tai. At that time, Li Tai focused on the Han River strategy and only ordered the troops to shrink to Mianbei. At present, he does not know much about the specific situation in Henan. .

Although Guo Xian reported that Murong Shaozong instigated the barbarians to invade, it was unclear where Murong Shaozong was now, what his power was, and his specific goals and intentions.

Before Li Tai returned, the people in Jingzhou had actually had an in-depth discussion based on this. They were all more inclined to believe that Murong Shaozong's intrusion by barbarians was actually a tactic to ask for directions, rather than a real attack from Sanya Road. .

The reason is also very simple. Compared with other passages from Henan into Mianbei, Sanya Road has no obvious advantages except being fast, so it is usually used as a channel for quick strikes.

But now that the barbarians are harassing him, the effectiveness of his surprise attack has long been lost. Unless Murong Shaozong likes the mountain scenery of Funiu Mountain, I can't imagine why he would attack Mianbei from Sanya Road.

Li Tai also agreed with this speculation, and based on this, he put forward a new speculation, that is, he believed that Murong Shaozong was not aiming to capture the city as his primary goal, but to loot supplies.

The reason is also very simple. If Murong Shaozong wanted to expand his territory and expand his territory, Mianbei would never be his primary target. It's not that Mianbei is unattractive to it, but that the Huainan area of ​​Nanliang is now more accessible. Even if Murong Shaozong takes control of Mianbei, he will face a steady stream of attacks from the south from the Western Wei Dynasty from Wuguan and other roads, and just now. Henan, which was seriously affected by the Huohuo, was definitely not enough to support Murong Shaozong's big march.

This guy also went against the unrestrained fighting style of the Eastern Wei Dynasty before. When he invaded Sanya Road, he had to use barbarians instead of dispatching Eastern Wei troops. It can be seen that the human resources at his disposal have been greatly reduced. They must be used carefully and not be willing to make more sacrifices. What's more, Not all of them will be devoted to Mianbei, a place of four battles.

Although Li Tai didn't know Murong Shaozong personally, he was very clear about the thoughts of those who wanted to separate themselves and stand on their own.

If you have a general understanding or guess of the enemy's behavioral logic, it will be much easier to discuss the countermeasures next.

Originally, before Li Tai returned, Dou Chi and other left-behind generals were discussing to defend important cities such as Rangcheng for the sake of prudence. As long as important cities could be preserved, even if Murong Shaozong invaded, the losses would be within an acceptable range. .

But now that it is believed that Murong Shaozong is here to fight against the autumn wind, such a conservative response method will only provide convenience for the enemy to plunder. After all, the current season is late July and early autumn, and the crops in the fields are about to mature, so even if you want to strengthen the walls and clear the fields, you can't. Things are booming in Mianbeitian, and the enemy can get supplies everywhere after entering.

Based on this speculation, Li Tai proposed to gather elite troops and go straight to Fangcheng and other Mianbei border towns. The best situation is to be able to defeat the enemy and save the Mibei mainland from looting and destruction. Even if it was too late to do this and Murong Shaozong led his troops to break in in advance, he could still hold on to the door and beat the dog behind closed doors.

Although the masses can discuss and put forward opinions on some important military and political affairs in Jingzhou, the final decision-making power rests only with Li Tai. Now that he has made such a decision, there is nothing more to say, and the people in the General Manager's Office began to implement it busily.

Although Li Tai has launched and participated in many military operations recently, Jingzhou's military strength is actually not too dispersed. The most direct increase in the Jingzhou Prefecture before the intersection and the current Jingzhou General Administration is the 7,000 troops brought by Li Tai from Guanzhong and the 10,000 troops brought by Zhao Gui on the spot.

When he disguised his army to go west and lured Liu Zhongli into taking the bait, Li Tai himself took away and subsequently added more than 10,000 troops, and then stationed 1,000 troops in Xingzhou and 2,000 troops in Xiangyang West. However, he brought more troops from Ankang. Li Qianzhe came to command nearly 3,000 troops, so when he returned to town, he still had more than 10,000 troops.

Cai Yang added 5,000 troops before and after, and Liyang City where Zhao Gang and others were stationed added 2,000 troops. These troops and Li Tai were all placed under Yang Zhong's control to maintain his strategy against the eastern Han Dynasty.

Therefore, there are still more than 20,000 troops in Jingzhou town today, not including the newly recruited state soldiers and barbarian armed forces. This part of the army has nearly 10,000 troops, but Li Tai does not plan to use these troops for the time being. In a battle with an old man like Murong Shaozong, who has been in troubled times for many years, a large number of soldiers does not necessarily mean he will be strong. If he does not have a large number of elite soldiers, he may only be able to deliver food.

With these troops in hand, Li Tai first led Dou Chi and led 3,000 troops to move to Xinye to ensure that no matter what unexpected situation happened here in Mianbei, it would not affect the progress of the Handong war.

At the same time, Li Tun led a thousand elite troops to the north to support Guo Xian who was stationed at Sanya Road. Although Li Tai made his own guess, who knows whether such old oilmen will do anything that goes against common sense? The operation is just like Liu Zhongli who attacked Xiangyang City from east to west, so Sanya Dao cannot relax here.

As for the remaining troops, Li Tai first led 5,000 infantry and cavalry directly to Fangcheng County on the eastern border of Mianbei to garrison.

This was based on his guess about Murong Shaozong's military strength and the upper limit of his flexible command in the event of a war. He determined a size of the establishment that would not be besieged and annihilated by Murong Shaozong in a short period of time, and ordered Cui Qian to stay in Rangcheng. , and a thousand more fine cavalry were sent to him every two days.

Facing Murong Shaozong, one of the most famous generals in the post-Three Kingdoms period, Li Tai also worked hard. Putting aside the influence of luck, he strived to do his best within his own abilities and marched and set up camp. In accordance with the rules, we set off in full force every morning, and in the afternoon we used scouts to search for campsite. The daily march was only between three and fifty miles.

With his formal and formal procedures like taking a driver's license test, he finally saw Murong Shaozong's troops who had already crossed the border on the fifth day of marching eastward, nearly sixty miles away from Fangcheng County. .

It was already late afternoon and almost evening. After two rounds of reinforcements, Li Tai's infantry and cavalry troops had reached more than 7,000 troops. However, the size of Murong Shaozong's troops seemed to be larger than that of his troops. Thousands more people.

Although the enemy was outnumbered, Li Tai did not panic. Seeing that the enemy's men and horses in front had stopped and began to put on armor and prepare, he also ordered his troops in an orderly manner to form a dense and orderly manner for the carriages carrying the baggage. The formation of chariots was filled with sword and shield sergeants. On the sides of the formation of swords and chariots, a vertical spear formation was formed. Two thousand elite cavalry broke away from the main formation, each hanging in the outer room for a long time. On the Pigang outside.

The two sides encountered each other in the wilderness and each prepared for battle. As the drums and horns sounded, it was Murong Shaozong's Qingqi who took the lead in launching the attack. The three groups of Qingqi rushed straight towards the beautiful knife-cart battle formation on the opposite side.

In the process of rushing in, these three groups of light cavalry gradually changed their routes. Halfway through the journey, two of them no longer aimed at the sword-carriage battle formation, but strangled the cavalry troops hanging outside on the left wing.

As for the rest of the light cavalry along the way, hundreds of powerful soldiers in the front tried to destroy the formation with horseback shooting, while the powerful soldiers holding horse spears in the rear rushed into the formation. However, under the interception of the frame formation, the effect of this charge was not very good. It only destroyed the two outermost trucks. On the contrary, several cavalry were unable to contain their momentum and were killed in the formation.

The Western Wei cavalry on the left also circled from the rear along the line to the rear of the formation. Two groups of Eastern Wei cavalry were chasing after them. However, hundreds of powerful arrows shot straight away from the formation. Even dozens of light cavalry were hit by arrows. Fall to the ground.

Murong Shaozong, who was in the rear formation, frowned when he saw this. When he waved his hand and ordered the troops to retreat, he waited for the light cavalry to return and rest for a while, then sent two groups of people and horses to advance in an attempt to shake up the front formation, but the results were similar. Couldn't defeat this formation.

"Who is the thief? The formation is so stubborn!"

Although Murong Shaozong was a famous general in the world and was good at creating and seizing fighting opportunities, the enemy only consolidated its formation and was slow to respond to all its various attack attempts, leaving him unable to take action for a while.

However, the situation between the enemy and ourselves did not remain at a stalemate. In the evening, the sound of galloping horses was heard again in the wilderness to the west.

After hearing this, Murong Shaozong's expression suddenly changed, and he immediately waved his troops to retreat towards the east direction. His troops marched very quickly. When the light cavalry arranged by Li Tai arrived, they had already retreated to the hills several miles away.

Taking advantage of the enemy's retreat, Li Tai ordered his troops to evacuate in batches to the west to find a suitable place to camp for the night on the way. He turned a blind eye to the invading enemy troops several miles away and did not care. Attack blindly.

When Murong Shaozong waited for a while and then led two thousand light cavalry to fight back, he saw that Li Tai's troops had retreated several miles and set up camp. He ordered his troops to come forward and shouted: "Mianbei rats, we are here!" If you don’t dare to fight, why not surrender quickly!”

When Li Tai heard this, he was not angry. Instead, he cheered and shouted in response: "Murong Shuigui, this is not the place where our disciples were buried, so we are temporarily holding back!"