Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

Yiyang is located between the northern foothills of the Dabie Mountains and the upper reaches of the Huai River. Geographically, it can explore Jianghan from the southwest and plot the rivers and Huaihe River from the northeast. It is a very important strategic location for military strategists.

Ever since the former governor of Beisi Prefecture, Yang Yaren, led his troops to the south to quell the rebellion of King Qin, the important town of Yiyang had no powerful figures in charge. Although Yang Yaren was appointed to stay, he was only in charge of the city and did not play much role in military and political affairs.

It was not until Liu Zhongli dispatched his general Xia Houqiang here that Yiyang City had something to rely on for city defense and management.

The Xiahou family in Qiao County also has a long history of being a famous family. Although times have changed and the clear hope has gradually been lost, there were brothers Xiahou Dan and Xiahou Kui who were famous ministers and generals in Nanliang in Huainan before. Xiahou Qiang was a relative of his same clan. Therefore, the Xiahou family had considerable influence between Suilu and Huainan. Relying on this popularity, Xiahou Qiang was able to take charge of Yiyang affairs.

Although Xia Houqiang was sent by Liu Zhongli, Liu Zhongli himself did not have many troops to allocate to him, so he could only rely on his own ability to organize the Yiyang armed forces.

He led nearly a thousand tribesmen and went north through the three passes of Yiyang. On the way, he recruited some barbarian armed forces and entered Yiyang City with 3,000 Han barbarian troops. He expelled the garrison appointed by Yang Yaren before. He received more than 2,000 defenders in the city, and then notified the counties around Yiyang that still belonged to Nanliang, announcing his arrival to them, and obtained some personnel and materials from these cities, so he had a foothold. Yu Yiyang's capital.

Xia Houqiang's business here has initially achieved results, but he doesn't want his old boss Liu Zhongli to overturn the situation again. He is still hesitant to go south to Yiyang Sanguan to rescue Liu Zhongli, but the people who stayed behind have already surrendered to the Western Wei Dynasty. Suddenly Xia Houqiang's troops became a lonely army.

However, the good news is that after the Western Wei Dynasty captured the entire territory of Handong, it did not continue to expand its results. It should be unable to expand. Even the Suilu area it occupied was entirely dependent on the surrender of the local defenders.

Although both Wei Dynasties split from the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty has long given people the impression of being poor, weak and barbaric. Although the Miobei area has been quite well managed in recent years, it has still not been able to reverse this long-standing image.

Xia Houqiang was quite disdainful of his colleagues who followed Lu and defected to the Western Wei Dynasty. He also knew in his heart that these people were just acting selfishly. He felt that the Western Wei Dynasty was not powerful enough and had to rely on surrendered people like them to control the place. No matter how powerful the enemy was, Just change the door after entering the country.

Xia Houqiang naturally did not need to surrender to the Western Wei Dynasty. In his opinion, the Western Wei Dynasty simply did not have the strength to invade Yiyang. In this case, wouldn't it be better for him to separatist forces and continue to grow his own power?

Of course, he also knew that his current strength alone was not enough to deter the Western Wei Dynasty and surrounding forces, and he still needed to find a bigger backer for himself. It is said that Murong Shaozong, the general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, is now stationed in Xuanhu City in Runan to recruit and accept surrender forces from all sides. Naturally, he is a very good candidate for refuge.

Therefore, while Xia Houqiang mobilized the Anlu people to seize the city with troops in order to gain greater power and territory, he also sent envoys to Xuanhu to meet with Murong Shaozong and expressed his willingness to surrender to the Eastern Wei Dynasty with the land of northern and southern Sizhou.

While waiting for news from both parties, Xia Houqiang also stepped up his squeeze and expropriation around Yiyang. This town was originally an important area that communicated with a large area. In addition, due to the wars in the surrounding areas, the flow of people became more frequent, with dozens and hundreds of people passing through almost every day.

When Hou Jingqian occupied Shouyang, he also tried to attract the people of Huainan by exempting land rent and city tax. Today, this influence has not faded, and many people and materials have left to Shouyang. They only knew that Hou Jing became the prime minister in Jiankang and had greater power, but they did not know that Wang Xiangui, who Hou Jing arranged to stay behind, had surrendered to the Eastern Wei Dynasty again.

This even included many barbarians, who actually escorted some valuable goods to Shouyang in an attempt to sell them and make a fortune. Xia Houqiang was naturally rude to this. All travelers and merchants who were passing through the border were detained, the personnel were organized into battalions, and the materials were packed into warehouses.

After such operations, Xiahou Qiang's power expanded faster. When Hou Jing Shouyang raised his army, he only had more than 8,000 soldiers, but Xia Houqiang now has nearly 10,000 soldiers. With such a strong force, in his opinion, even if he cannot go south to Jiankang, it is more than enough to sit on one side of the Yiyang separatist regime.

However, just when he was enjoying the surge in power, bad news came from the south. Because Ma Xiu, an old man, led the city people to resist fiercely, his tribe's plan to seize the city failed, and they had to flee in defeat.

Xia Houqiang was furious after hearing the news, but because he still had not received a reply from the Eastern Wei Dynasty, even though his strength increased sharply, he did not dare to act without authorization and attack south to follow the mainland. Instead, he retreated to the next best thing and ordered the fleeing tribes to defeat People retreated to the three passes of Yiyang. In this way, as long as he gets answers and assistance from the Eastern Wei Dynasty, he can directly lead his troops to break through the three passes and recapture Anlu!

But misfortunes never come singly. He had just arranged soldiers to garrison the three passes of Yiyang. The troops of the Western Wei Dynasty, who he thought were already unable to expand, actually bypassed Tongbai Mountain and appeared directly on the north bank of the Huai River, posing as if they were about to build a ship to cross the river.

Xia Houqiang was shocked when he learned about this. Although he looked down on the Western Wei in his heart, compared with the Eastern Wei, he did not feel that he could easily defeat the Western Wei troops. After all, in addition to being poor and weak, the Western Wei also had a poor man. !

Fortunately, there is still the Huai River to block the advance of the Western Wei people. Xia Houqiang had been recruiting people around Yiyang, and he also recruited many boats in the upper reaches of the Huai River to the navy wharf in the tributary of the Huai River in Yiyang, leaving the Western Wei people with no troops. Having enough boats and equipment to cross the river can be regarded as a smart response to anticipate the enemy's opportunity.

Although it was difficult for the troops of the Western Wei Dynasty to cross the Huaihe River in the short term, Xia Houqiang did not dare to relax. He inspected and strengthened the river defenses on the water every day.

Under the current situation of a powerful enemy, in order to expand his own military strength, many of the barbarian tribes who had been captured by him and whose goods were originally used as camp slaves were now released by him, and he promised that as long as he could defeat the invading Western Wei army, he would These barbarians collected them as their own generals and rewarded them with mountains and swampy land around Yiyang.

Faced with Xia Houqiang's promise, the barbarians reacted enthusiastically. After all, who doesn't yearn for the living environment of the fertile plains? Therefore, they also carried out Xia Houqiang's orders seriously, allowing Xia Houqiang to rely more on them and give them more city defense figures.

However, on this day, Xia Houqiang went to the waterside to patrol the camp and was waiting to lead his soldiers back to the city. When he arrived at the city gate, he was turned away by the barbarian soldiers guarding the city and was not allowed to enter.

"You ignorant barbarian slave, open your eyes wide and see who I am! Open the city gate quickly!"

As a dignified city lord, Xia Houqiang was turned away from the city by his soldiers. Naturally, Xia Houqiang was furious. He raised his finger and pointed at the barbarian soldiers standing in the horse-rejecting formation and cursed loudly.

At this time, he didn't notice anything unusual. He just thought that these barbarian soldiers were dull and had recently been transferred here, so they didn't recognize him.

However, when the scolded barbarians raised their crossbows and fired at him, Xia Houqiang suddenly felt something bad. Fortunately, the soldiers around him had quick eyesight and quick hands, and directly pulled him into the team, shielding him from the body of the guard. However, Xia Hou Qiangcai was not directly shot on the spot.

"Lord of Dogfoot City! Steal my property and kill my children. Taking your city now is revenge!"

The barbarian chiefs guarding the city gate here pointed at Xiahou Qiang who was surrounded by soldiers and shouted curses, their expressions could be described as exhaling and raising their eyebrows. Their armor was crude and they did not dare to go out to attack, but they were able to guard the city gate and prevent Xia Houqiang and others from entering the city.

"How dare you rebel against me! How dare you rebel against me! When I bring back the elites, I will drive them all out and kill them all!"

Xia Houqiang was extremely angry at this moment and did not dare to stay here any longer. While ordering his men to go around to other city gates and informing other garrison troops in the city to attack and kill the rebels here, he himself galloped towards Shuiying, where More than 3,000 soldiers were also stationed to block the water day and night to prevent the Western Wei people from crossing the river to the south. But now he doesn't care about that much anymore. It's better to gather his troops to kill all the barbarians who rebelled against him and take back the city.

The reason why the barbarians here dared to rebel was naturally because they had something to rely on. While Xia Houqiang was being refused entry to the city, Zhao Gang, who had sneaked into the city first to contact and persuade the barbarians to uphold justice, had already ordered people to light beacon smoke in the city. The troops who had been waiting for a long time gave the signal to attack.

Thousands of elite soldiers who came over the mountains and scattered around the city saw the signal. They immediately wore light armor and held short soldiers and charged towards the city gate marked by the beacon.

At this time, the city of Yiyang had long been alarmed and at a loss because of these changes. The soldiers Xia Houqiang gathered in a short period of time did not have the ability and experience to deal with these changes. Seeing enemies emerging from both inside and outside, they were already at a loss. Confused, not knowing how to respond.

When the internal and external troops gathered in the city, Zhao Gang also appeared to take charge of the situation.

Among the defenders in the city, barbarians accounted for a large proportion, and Zhao Gang had been in close contact with these barbarians in Liyang City at the western foot of Tongbai Mountain. Although some barbarian chiefs did not know about this at first, when they saw Zhao Gang showing up to control the situation, they immediately gathered their troops.

At this time, Xia Houqiang had also recruited his troops from the water camp to fight back again. It was difficult for Zhao Gang to integrate the chaotic troops here and distribute complex military orders, so he simply sent his troops to destroy a warehouse in the city where Xia Houqiang's wealth had been accumulated recently. Let the Han barbarian soldiers present take their portions, and tell these people that if they are willing to stay, let them guard the golden city in the city. If they are not willing, they can take the belongings and run out of the city for their lives.

In the end, only more than two thousand people followed Zhao Gang into Jincheng. In addition to his own troops, only more than a thousand original defenders of the city joined.

However, these troops were enough. The other defenders fled, which greatly divided and hindered Xia Houqiang's counterattack. When he finally found the location of the enemy's main force, Zhao Gang had already led his troops to deploy in Jincheng according to local conditions. After a while, he turned against the enemy and faced the enemy.

Xia Houqiang knew that there were troops from the Western Wei Dynasty on the north bank of the Huaihe River preparing to cross the water and go south. Here he urged his troops to launch several attacks on Jincheng, but they were all repelled by the enemy troops defending inside.

Seeing that it was difficult to recapture the city in a short period of time, Xia Houqiang did not dare to fight. He could only take another look at Yiyang City, where his dream of hegemony was entrusted, and then led the rest of his troops to hatefully flee south, dreaming of reaching Yiyang City. Yang Sanguan gathered the tribesmen stationed on the other side and fought back.

In troubled times, ability and vision are important to whether a person can achieve hegemony, but luck is more important.

If Xia Houqiang knew that just two days after his defeat from Yiyang, the Eastern Wei Dynasty appointed him as the governor of Nansi Prefecture and that reinforcements sent by Murong Shaozong would arrive in Yiyang, he would be even more upset.