Warrior in Turbulent Han Dynasty

Guo Shao's troops crossed the Hutuo River and saw that the barracks fences, watchtowers, latrines, and trenches had been built, and a large amount of firewood and coal (coal) were stored outside each camp. Immediately, he rewarded the governor of Qizhou, not to mention not being able to enter the city.

After entering October, the weather became colder when the north wind blew, but luckily there was enough fuel. The generals provided firewood, grass and charcoal to the various ministries, and charcoal was burned day and night in the felt tents, and no one wanted to go out. Before going to sleep, Guo Shao filled the iron cup he ate with water and put it outside the tent. When he woke up the next morning, he found that it had been covered with a thick layer of ice overnight.

Hebei is so cold, but the imperial court transferred the army here for the winter. Within two days, Guo Shao summoned several generals to discuss: "The purpose of the Privy Council's deployment of troops may be, firstly, to start deploying troops in advance, and secondly, to allow us to prepare for attacking the city early. We must send some scouts to Waqiaoguan to investigate the fortifications and facts."

The left wing is stationed at the current place, and it is mainly infantry. Guo Shao thought that maybe the first battle would be to fight against the Waqiao Pass in the north, and immediately thought of using gunpowder to smash the wall. He first asked the generals how to prepare, and wanted to hear their opinions first.

"There is no need to tackle key problems." Unexpectedly, Li Chuyun said directly.

Guo Shao hurriedly asked why.

Li Chuyun looked around and said, "Zhou Duan is not here today. A few days ago when he talked about the Liao Kingdom, I noticed that his words were fierce, so he didn't open his mouth to argue, but he really disagreed with him in his heart."

When all the generals heard it, they agreed and cursed again. Looking at it like this, Zhou Duan was really unpleasant, and it's normal for generals to dislike him. Zhou Duan's words are often exaggerated and unreliable. For example, if he wants to say that the color of a thing is white, he will try his best to say it is whiter than snow. But Guo Shao didn't care about it. Zhou Duan said that he just picked up and listened to it by himself, just like the ancient saying "If you listen to it, you will be bright and if you believe it, you will be dark".

Li Chuyun continued: "In my opinion, the Liao Kingdom has so many tribes united together, and the ruler is unpopular. The weak point is that it is scattered inside. Especially in the land of Youyun, most of them are Han children. Persuading them to surrender is easier than besieging the city. It didn't take long for Youzhou to be cut off. The Khitan people don't trust the Han children.

"It makes sense." Guo Shao nodded, "But we still have to prepare with both hands. We need to write a letter to get some raw materials to store up; if the enemy doesn't surrender, we will use gunpowder to blow up the city. Even if Dawaqiao Pass and other places are not needed, if we can come to the city of Youzhou at that time and use gunpowder to blow up the city wall and attack the city, we will do our best to regain Youyun."

Li Chuyun said: "My lord's words are very true, preparations are indeed possible. But I'm telling the brothers here. Once the imperial army arrives, there will be no fierce battles when they reach Youzhou. Just recruit and surrender along the way; the victory of the Northern Expedition depends on the reinforcements of the Liao Kingdom. The current situation of the Liao Kingdom depends on whether they can send a large army to rescue them, and whether the reinforcements can work together to protect Youzhou... Otherwise, most of the Youyun land will be Han children, and it will be easy for Wang Shi to recover as soon as he arrives. palm.

Li Chuyun looked back to the left and right and said: "Come and see tomorrow in spring. If I'm not right, you can laugh at me face to face, and I'll be able to bear the ridicule!"

At this time Zuo You said, "I also agree with General Li's words. Let me add another word, if my lord accepts the surrender, I should treat the Han sons of Youzhou equally and kindly. I have heard that the people in this place are tough and there are many tragic and heroic people in Yanzhao since ancient times. If my lord wins the hearts of the people of Youzhou, I will have a long-term merit."

... Guo Shao turned over the previous idea of ​​the command system again. In Tokyo, he was tied up and couldn't do anything. Now that he led the troops out, as long as he didn't leave the station too far, why didn't he just say a word?

Regardless of the cold weather at the moment, I can't wait to start putting it into practice.

(In the left wing, there are a total of six armies and thirty-nine commanders (including the cavalry directly under Dong Zunxun's department). Guo Shao ordered the six armies and thirty-nine commanders to envoy a total of forty-five generals. Each general selected six familiar soldiers to form a commanding order of about 270 people. Under the command, there were three capital heads, twelve ten generals, and forty-five fire chiefs.

Luo Mengzi also led the commander of the messengers, and transferred 15 soldiers from the personal guard to serve as more than ten generals|generals. In this way, Luo Mengzi and the generals could gradually get acquainted with these messengers. In the future, there will not be so many procedures for issuing orders, just identifying people; general simple military orders will be dictated, and important military orders will be in written form.

The two hundred and seventy people were divided into two after entering the battlefield. Half of them stayed in the central army, and the other half were scattered around their respective commanders to communicate with each other.

Guo Shao added another measure to this system. He, Zuo You, and Zhou Duan signed and handwritten the three to each general. A written military order must be signed by one of the three to count. There are also multiple anti-counterfeiting protections such as command flags and seals of the chief general. These things only need to be stamped, and it is not complicated. )

Zuo You and Zhou Duan are not as leisurely as before. The two of them set up a staff office and selected some literate soldiers from the army as assistants. First set up a staff shelf similar to the staff department.

After Guo Shao formed the staff office and messenger organization, he couldn't wait to start the drill.

He felt that the operation of the confrontation exercise was too complicated and the conditions were insufficient, so all ministries were only allowed to conduct simulated mobilization and marching. It was agreed to start the drill around November 1, and he and the generals made some military adjustments and preparations beforehand.

Then Zhao Kuangyin implemented an elimination system in the selection of soldiers in front of the palace, and Guo Shao was also working on it, but he did not eliminate soldiers, but only conducted organizational drills.

On November 1st, it snowed heavily, but on the 2nd, it was fine and windy. According to the order, the various ministries assembled some troops in the open space by the river.

The sky and the earth are white, and the river has frozen. When Guo Shao came out of the tent, he breathed out white steam, and the weather was very cold. A group of people rushed forward and rushed to the front of the formation, and saw that nearly 20,000 people had already gathered in formation. The vast white snow field made people look like a dark patch, and the left and right wings were more than a mile apart, and the formation was relatively dense.

All the ministries ordered their own soldiers, and then the generals came up to report, just like usual. Then Guo Shao only said: "Follow the order."

At the moment when the drums were beating in the Chinese army camp, Guo Shao took out a messy booklet and ordered: "Order the cavalry of Dong Zunxun's Department of the Third Army to approach the north. The straw man's target is the enemy. Search for the enemy and fight!"

The messenger quickly took the military order and rode up with the order flag. Not long after, I saw the horse army in the middle of the left wing start to move, and thousands of horsemen were dispatched by the roar of horseshoes. Guo Shao was very happy when he saw this, and soon ordered Yang Biao's five commanders to follow up with "reinforcement" cavalry;

After the ministries arrived at the battlefield, they sent messengers back to report the situation.

Guo Shao then began to issue one or two fake military orders. The ones sent out were not messengers, and they were not stamped with the seal and signature of the Chinese army.

Later, the orders became more and more complicated; the military orders expounded a lot on the "intent" of the Chinese army, and ordered the various ministries to temporarily judge the situation and move on their own... However, the situation was not optimistic.

But the overall effect is still good, the messenger system is very fast, but everyone is not very used to it.

Next, Guo Shao gathered the army for drills every now and then, and often called the fifty or sixty generals to discuss and summarize the "combat intentions." For each false battle, the familiar battle process was selected, such as the several battles to attack Shu and the battles in Huainan, for simulated deployment.

When the Chinese army convened the generals, Guo Shao said: "The future military orders may only describe the intention, because the situation on the battlefield is ever-changing, and the Chinese military shogunate cannot understand the situation in time... For example, if we want to ambush the enemy somewhere, I told you, Luo Yanhuan, to go to the road to ambush; but when you find that the enemy does not go that way, do you still have to lie there and wait?"

All the generals should have understood when they heard it, and burst into laughter.

Guo Shaodao: "So I will only send people to send orders, Luo Yanhuan, you send people to set up an ambush somewhere. Our intention is to ambush, and how to ambush has to be decided by General Luo according to the form and ad hoc. Then you send scouts to find out the enemy's movements. As long as you find a way to achieve the intention of the ambush, it will be considered a meritorious service in compliance with the military order."

Guo Shao said again: "From now on, our left wing will reward and reward the officers and men. Apart from winning, it will mainly depend on whether the combat intention is fulfilled. The purpose of all the troops is to win a battle; otherwise, no matter how much a certain army gains, the whole army is defeated. What's the use?"

Hu Jie's army was stationed outside Qizhou City. In a short period of time, Guo Shao did a lot of things, and changed the military laws and regulations of the left wing.

He extended the original rules in some small circles to the six armies. After the war, he received the court rewards, divided the benefits and money to cover the dead and wounded soldiers, and calculated a part of the army's military rewards to provide pensions to the family members... The original rules of the Imperial Army, the horse leather shroud died.

Guo Shao's approach dilutes the benefits that everyone can get, but no one objects. After all, if you work hard, everyone may die. He feels that doing so can be humanized and strengthen the centripetal force of the organization. Everything is groping and discussing changes with everyone, Guo Shao thinks that there is no need to stick to the rules, if there is a better way, just change the rules.

There was also Zan Jurun, an envoy from the Hakka Province in the army, who presumably reported the situation, but the court ignored Guo Shao... Guo Shao wrote again to ask for raw materials, saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, for preparation.

In fact, he really didn't want to attack a city, especially a city like Youzhou, but if he couldn't attack for a long time, he probably wouldn't be able to escape; besides, if he could regain Youzhou, he would also like to help Chai Rong do his best.

Guo Shao wrote letters to Fu Ermei when he was free, and wrote three letters in a row, telling her about the situation in Qizhou, the cold weather, the heavy military affairs, etc., and then he had to describe some thoughts; he said some private words, no woman in the army would occasionally dream of being with her and so on. Anyway, it was just a personal letter, so Guo Shao didn't pay much attention to it.