The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 284
Huangshui County, Xiping County, is located on the north bank of Huangshui River. This section of the river is relatively turbulent, and it is the natural moat of Huangshui County. The river flowing east has long disappeared, leaving only a pale river beach exposed in front of people.

After Liang Luoren returned to Hualong County, all the generals under Li Shimin's command asked to attack Huangshui County.

Li Shimin understands the thoughts of the generals. With Liang Luoren's surrender, the "Liang Shidu" with only one isolated city is actually in a desperate situation. Whether it is to capture or kill "Liang Shidu" is a great achievement.After some consideration, he gave the credit to his confidant and beloved general Hou Junji.

Hou Junji was overjoyed and happily led 280 Tang troops to Huangshui County. The journey from Hualong to Huangshui was about [-] miles away. It would take two days and one night for cavalry, but the Tang army could not form a large number without Ma Yuan. Li Shimin could gather only [-] cavalry, but even so, he distributed the precious [-] cavalry to Hou Junji.

Although Hou Junji was eager to make contributions, he had a good grasp of the speed of the march. At the end of Youshi, that is, around six o'clock in the afternoon, he had already arrived at Bayan Mountain, eighty miles away. If so, you can go for about an hour and a half.

But to lead troops in battle, the speed of marching is very critical.If you simply blindly seek speed, soldiers will fall behind and lose morale, and they will become lambs waiting to be slaughtered without the strength to fight when they arrive at the designated place.But if you only care about the physique of your soldiers, the day lily will be cold when you get to the front line.

Therefore, as an excellent general, one must have a comprehensive understanding of military affairs. How to rush to the battlefield as quickly as possible while preserving the soldiers' ability to fight is a profound knowledge.

At this moment, Hou Junji was extremely precise about the speed of the march, not only giving the soldiers enough rest time, but also arriving at the destination on time.

This is not something that ordinary generals can do.

But even though Hou Junji knew that what he did was right, he was extremely anxious, worried that the news of Hualong City's surrender would reach Huangshui and leave him an empty city.At this time, a school lieutenant stepped forward and said, "General, Bayan Forest is ahead, should we continue to advance or rest on the spot?"

"Ba Yanlin?" Hou Junji asked in a daze.

Seeing that Hou Junji didn't know, the captain explained: "To the northeast of Bayan Forest is a large forest that stretches for more than 200 miles. Opposite the forest is the boundary of Huangshui County. There are many villages scattered on both sides of Huangshui."

Hou Junji's heart moved, and he quickly asked: "Is there a shortcut to go straight through Bayan Forest?"

"There is a side road that is feasible, but it is a valley road formed by the erosion of a stream. It is now dry, but it is also more difficult to walk. Moreover, this road is long and difficult to penetrate the sun. It is surrounded by high mountains and jungles, which is most suitable for ambushes. If you go Wouldn't it be too risky here?" The captain looked at Hou Junji hesitantly.

"How can you not take risks in marching and fighting? If you don't take risks, there will be a chance to make contributions one day? Liang Shidu is almost finished now, with only six thousand troops at most, how dare he go out of the city to fight? If Liang Shidu finds out and escapes, How can I have the face to go back and face King Jin?"

Hou Junji's heart suddenly became enthusiastic. He was an outlier among the generals of the Tang Dynasty. He had a violent temper, high martial arts skills, and was good at fighting tough battles. He is one of the brainless generals, but he, Hou Junji, is resourceful, he is very good at leading troops in battle, and he is also quite good at making plans.He has made great achievements in both aspects, so he is highly valued by Li Shimin. The only shortcoming is that he is too arrogant and looks down on others. It is a bit similar to Wei Yan in the Three Kingdoms period. When he is with everyone, he is always out of place.

Li Shimin was kind to him, and now he gave him such a chance to make meritorious deeds against all opinions. If all the credits he got were lost, then what face would Hou Junji have to face Li Shimin?
Thinking of this, Hou Junji immediately gave orders to many generals around him: "The army immediately goes through the Bayan Forest to the north, and we will capture Huangshui tonight."

"Here!"

Hou Junji's orders were issued layer by layer, and the [-] Tang troops speeded up and rushed along the Bayan Forest to Huangshui County in the north.

In less than half an hour, the [-] Tang troops led by Hou Junji arrived at the bend in the valley, and they turned eastward, heading deep into the forest.

Hearing that it would take another two hours to cross the Bayan Forest and reach the opposite bank of Huangshui County around Zishi, Hou Junji became more excited and continued to lead [-] soldiers into a deep valley.

However, what he didn't know was that less than half an hour after he led the army into the valley, Xie Yingdeng led [-] Sui cavalry to chase after him to the mouth of the valley. The respondent here.

A school lieutenant urged him to come forward and salute: "General Xie, the Tang army has entered the valley for half an hour as expected by Dudu Li."

Xie Yingdeng nodded, turned around and shouted: "Half of the people go up the mountain, and half of them follow me!"

Speaking of this, Xie Yingdeng had infinite admiration for Li Jing's foresight.

The West Route Army headed by Li Jing entered Wuwei from Huining County and entered Xiping County. When Duan Decao introduced the terrain here, Li Jing immediately concluded: "Bayanlin River Valley is the fastest way to reach Huangshui from Hualong County. By the way, Li Shimin didn't know Liang Shi was dead, let alone that Xiping belonged to our Sui Dynasty. In addition, the troops supporting Hualong were defeated six times. On his mind, in order to quickly take down Huangshui City, which is under-defended, the generals he sent must take the Bayan Valley Road, and the Huangshui army gave Li Shimin the impression that there were only about [-] people, and with Liang Luoren's testimony, he must have thought it was An army with insufficient combat strength and low morale, so the troops he dispatched will not exceed [-]. Once this army enters the Bayen Valley, our army can wipe out this army and cut off [-]% of Li Shimin's combat strength."

Xie Yingdeng was dubious when he heard it, but when the facts were in front of him, Xie Yingdeng admired Li Jing's accurate deduction very much.

After the order was conveyed, the Sui army immediately divided into two groups. One group followed Xie Yingdeng into the valley, and the other group carried [-] barrels of kerosene and abandoned horses up the hillside, climbing along the edge of the valley to the top of the mountain.

The valley is about twenty miles long. Since the river is dry and the riverbed is fairly flat, it only takes more than an hour to get out of the valley. Thirty thousand Sui troops lined up in the valley, stretching directly for several miles. It was dark, and after the army had walked about ten miles away, the soldiers in front suddenly made a commotion and shouted loudly.

"What's the noise?" Hou Junji stepped forward and asked.

"General, it's not good, the road ahead is blocked by countless boulders, we can't get through at all!"

"What?" Hou Junji's expression changed drastically, and he urged his horse to run forward, only to see that the narrow place in front of him was tightly blocked by dozens of huge boulders, piled up to a height of more than two feet, sealing the way ahead tightly. Strictly speaking, people may be able to climb over it, but war horses can pass it no matter what.

A sense of ominous fear welled up in Hou Junji's heart, and he immediately shouted an order: "The rear army is the front army, retreat along the original road, retreat quickly!"

Before the words fell, there was a loud rumbling sound from above their heads. When Tang Jun looked up, he saw dense stones, firewood and oil tanks smashing down from the mountain to the top of their heads.Then there were rockets pouring down the sky.

"Abandon the horses and soldiers, and rush up the mountain with me." Hou Junji was so frightened that his heart trembled, he immediately dismounted from his horse, holding a mock knife, and led the guards to climb up the inclined city.

Under the ignition of the rocket, the fire burned rapidly, and the dry jungle due to lack of water was quickly ignited, and the raging flames engulfed the entire valley road.

In the valley, Tang Jun cried for his father and mother. In the raging fire, more than 1 frightened horses ran wildly, mercilessly hitting and trampling the huddled Tang Jun. In an instant, horse neighing and screams merged into a tragic song Elegy.Tang Jun was scurrying around like headless flies in the fire, and the air was filled with the smell of meat and burnt smell.

An hour later, the raging fire had engulfed the entire Bayan Valley, and the 400 Tang army, except for more than [-] elites who rushed to the mountains with Hou Junji and killed a bloody road, the rest were all reduced to coke and ashes.

"Know yourself and know the enemy, and win a hundred battles" said in the book of war seems simple, but it contains extremely profound philosophy.

A confidant is to let people have self-knowledge, and don't think about provoking powerful enemies that they can't afford, but the vast majority of people don't have self-knowledge, either for the sake of face or out of habit, they commit a military taboo.

It is difficult to know oneself, but even more difficult to know the enemy.

How much rations the enemy has, how many troops it has, what kind of equipment it is, how its morale is, and so on... These are the most basic and lowest common sense that a general needs to understand. This step can be known only by sending more scouts.

The higher level of "knowing the enemy" is to understand the background, experience, and combat style of the enemy general, while the middle level of "knowing the enemy" requires the general to do his homework in advance and the intelligence personnel to investigate clearly in advance , the difficulty is relatively large.

The higher level of "knowing the enemy" is to understand the thoughts of the opponent's general in the current situation, and judge the combat strategy he will adopt based on the situation and thoughts of the opponent's general. Of course, this level of "knowledge" He's very risky, and how to target it requires the courage of one's own leader to decide, but the risks and returns are very high, and it has the nature of a gamble with a [-]-[-] chance of winning.

This attack led by Li Jing is undoubtedly a high level of knowing himself and the enemy. He knows his own strength and knows that he has the advantage of surprise.

Under the premise of 'confidant'.He successfully grasped the opponent's biggest weakness: Tang Jun didn't know that Huangshui County had fallen into the hands of Sui, let alone that his enemy had changed from the weak Liang Shidu to the powerful Sui.

In such a situation where he didn't know the enemy at all, the general of the Tang army thought that there were only weak brigades in Huangshui with low morale, so he misjudged that the opponent would not leave the city for a decisive battle. Arrive at Huangshui City.The Bayan Valley Road is undoubtedly the opponent's first choice.

In contrast, Hou Junji didn't even know who his enemy was, so it was only natural that he suffered such a big loss. No, this cannot be said to be Hou Junji's mistake, and the responsibility should be borne by the intelligence of the Tang Dynasty, because Any general will make the same choice as him.

The pair of military gods, master and apprentice in history, came to a complete confrontation because of the arrival of Yang Tong. The first time the two met, Li Jing, as the "master", gave the "disciple" a hard lesson. , and the teaching fee charged by the master is the life of [-] Tang soldiers.

After this battle, the Sui army officially turned the darkness into the light, walked from behind the scenes to the front stage, and showed the Li and Tang Dynasty their sharp edge.

……

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(End of this chapter)