Northern Dynasties

Chapter 618 Murong throws water
As the capital of Huainan, Shouyang is the north-south hub. In addition to its own city defense, the gains and losses of its surrounding important gates are also crucial to the city's defense.Some ancient and modern battles around these strongholds are sometimes much more intense than the offensive and defensive battles of the city itself.

For example, the East and West Stones on both sides of the Huai River in the north of Shouyang City are waterway fortresses guarding the Huai River.The Matou Garrison in the west of Shouyang City is an important fortress on the west of Shouyang Land Road.Once these places are lost, Shouyang City will be directly exposed to the enemy's attack, and can only resist the enemy's offensive with the inner and outer walls.

Although Wang Xiangui did not go out of the city to meet Murong Shaozong, he still pointed out the location where the boats were moored.

Murong Shaozong was just displeased with Wang Xiangui's attitude, and did not have any doubts about it.In the eyes of Wang Xiangui, the Shouyang Golden City is his lair to live in the world, but in the eyes of Murong Shaozong, it is just a cage that binds his hands and feet.

Even if he enters the city, but loses control of the surrounding strongholds, he can only sit in a sad city, unable to fight back.In this way, even if the Shouyang Jincheng can be used to drag the army to the Western Wei Dynasty, it is a way of losing dignity for Murong Shaozong. Li Tai, a rising star in the Western Wei Dynasty, is not worthy of his conservativeness.

Although there are boats in Xia Shi, there are only a dozen dilapidated ships, which are difficult to use in water battles. Murong Shaozong did not intend to engage in water battles with the enemy, so he only arranged two hundred soldiers in the east and west Xia Shi. defense.

There were originally iron cables used to intercept the Hengjiang River and shooting rods used to directly hit warships between Xiashi and Shi, but the iron cables were chiseled off by Hou Jing's staff to cast armor, and the shooting rods were also damaged and unusable.

It was too late to repair these defenses now, so Murong Shaozong sent envoys to Hefei along the Feishui River to inform Li Bomu of his arrival, and asked Li Bomu to send a boat division north to cooperate with the defense.Although he had no right to order Li Bomu, Shouyang and Hefei had a bitter relationship. If Shouyang fell, Hefei would inevitably be shaken.

After crossing Xiashi, Murong Shaozong did not stay here for a long time, but led his troops to bypass Bagong Mountain and arrived at Shouyang City for inspection. He confirmed that Shouyang at this stage was not worth much to defend.

Although he was not in a hurry to enter the city, he still ordered Wang Xiangui in Jincheng to provide a batch of military rations.Wang Xiangui did not dare to show up to meet him, but he tried his best to meet this request and ordered his tribe to carry hundreds of stones of food from Jincheng to feed Murong Shaozong's tribe.

Seeing that Wang Xiangui was still cooperative, Murong Shaozong first ordered his troops to cook and eat here, and then left 500 troops to garrison here. And he also arrived at the horse's head and garrisoned him.

In fact, Murong Shaozong only has [-] troops coming from the south at the moment, and the strength of the army is not superior, so it is not appropriate to divide the troops.

However, since his troops did not have an organized boat force to resist the enemy's navy, the enemy could travel freely in the river and choose to land anytime and anywhere.

In order to prevent this, Murong Shaozong could only temporarily distribute his manpower along the banks of the Huai River to limit the enemy's landing.If Li Bomu can lead the Hefei boat division into the battlefield in time, even if it is just to contain the enemy's boat division, then he can concentrate his forces and focus on attacking the enemy's land forces.

Regarding the arrival of Murong Shaozong, the Western Wei Dynasty also reacted. It is difficult for the boat masters sailing in the Huaishui River to speed up suddenly, but the cavalry on land are not subject to this restriction. The cavalry team broke away from the main force, accelerated forward, and appeared outside the horse head garrison a few hours later.

"Beat the drum, attack!"

Faced with the enemy's prying and probing, Murong Shaozong was not polite, and directly ordered the entire army in the city to move out, and thousands of cavalry divided into several groups to attack the enemy cavalry.

Hou Zhi, who led his troops to observe the enemy's situation, did not expect the enemy's counterattack to be so swift and violent. Seeing that the enemy was outnumbered, he naturally did not dare to fight, so he rushed back with his troops.

When he returned to the camp of the Chinese army, Hou Zhi was still in shock. If he had reacted a little later, he might have been surrounded and wiped out by the enemy.After fleeing all the way back, there were more than 200 people scattered along the way alone.And when it came to the specific strength of the enemy army, he didn't have too accurate figures, but seeing the battle formation, he reckoned that the enemy might have tens of thousands of elite troops.

Li Tai never believed that Murong Shaozong could lead so many people to Ma Nan. The larger the army size, the lower the marching efficiency. Calculating the time, Murong Shaozong should have arrived in Shouyang in only five or six days. hundred miles.

Even if Murong Shaozong is proficient in the art of war and marching, horsepower alone is a hard indicator. It is impossible to march with such a high intensity without changing horses. Even if Murong Shaozong has so many war horses, he absolutely cannot afford them.

The so-called soldier never tires of deceit, and creating some illusions to mislead the enemy to make wrong judgments is also a basic skill of a general.It's just a pity that Murong Shaozong has fallen into a trap carefully prepared for him by Li Tai without knowing it, and any response is a futile struggle.

Next, apart from the regular dispatch of scouts, Li Tai did not send any more troops to challenge Murong Shaozong, but continued to move forward according to the established rhythm.

However, in the afternoon of the second day of the march, a strong east wind suddenly blew up, and because of the headwind, the speed of the fleet dropped sharply.In order to ensure timely arrival at the battlefield, Li Tai could only lead the land cavalry one step ahead.

During the Matou garrison, Murong Shaozong also knew the enemy's movements. He did not sit in the garrison, but wore light armor and led his troops in front of the garrison, making it clear that he would use offense instead of defense.

When the two groups of people saw each other in the wilderness, a chilling atmosphere suddenly permeated the world.With the sound of drums and horns, Murong Shaozong's men and horses, who arrived one step ahead and waited for work, took the lead in attacking. The soldiers rode their horses and charged straight at the enemy.

This time, Li Tai did not choose not to fight. He raised his hand and ordered the soldiers to blow the horn. The men and horses under his command were divided into three teams, and they rushed towards the enemy like three torrents of steel. He himself also held a horse and took the lead , personally led the left-wing cavalry into the front of the enemy.

The two cavalry formations running at high speed collided head-on. The scene can only be described as tragic.After a charge, each of them paid a lot of casualties.

"Gather to kill!"

Murong Shaozong's cavalry formation was even rougher. After a round of charge, the troops were exhausted for a short time, but there were still a considerable number of Western Wei soldiers who were distributed in the Eastern Wei battle and did not completely break away. Following Murong Shaozong's order, In the short sound of the horn of the soldiers, the army formation suddenly shrank and condensed with Murong Shaozong as the center, and those cavalrymen of the Western Wei Dynasty who had not completely separated were immediately strangled in the formation.

Li Tai didn't return to rescue at this moment, but raised the horse in his hand and shouted at the horse head garrison in front: "Keep moving forward and seize the city!"

Although there are banners flying around the top of the city and there are many people running around, Li Tai still believes that Murong Shaozong does not have that many troops capable of both defending the city and fighting in the field, so instead of entangled with the enemy in field battles, he goes straight to the seemingly defensive city. The tightly guarded city rushed forward.

Sure enough, after seeing this situation, Murong Shaozong gave up the army formation and gathered to surround and kill the enemy, and directly led his troops to the horse head garrison and rode their horses back to defend.The troops of the two sides were one in front and one behind, and the distance between them was only a few horses. Li Tai knew that once the city gate was blocked, he would be attacked and killed from the rear. .

Murong Shaozong did not continue to bluff to form an army under the city, but led his troops into the city.Although the previous fight was relatively short, each of them had suffered hundreds of casualties. When they looked at each other again, hatred suddenly arose in their hearts.

"Murong Shuigui, if you withdrew your army before, and now you are mobilizing troops to harass you, you will surely die in Huai Shui!"

Li Tai Lema was outside the city, and the staff came forward and shouted loudly towards the city.

Murong Shaozong was quite jealous of this, so he was furious when he heard the words, and he also made people shout: "The arrogant Qiang bandits have little power and big plans, they dare to offend me in Huainan, they will die in a foreign land!"

The two sides talked trash to each other for a while, and each was very angry.Seeing that the sky was getting late, suddenly a beacon smoke shot up from the horse's head garrison, and immediately there were beacon smoke echoes from the garrison points along the Huai River in the east, and the sound of galloping horses sounded one after another, and they all gathered in this direction.

These are of course Murong Shaozong's troops along the Huai River before, but Li Tai didn't know about these arrangements. Seeing such a battle, he couldn't help feeling suspicious in his heart. Could it be that he really misjudged the strength of Murong Shaozong's troops coming from the south?

Due to the limitation of distance, although Yang Zhong lurked into Shouyang City in advance, the communication between them was not very smooth.The last time Li Tai received a message was that Murong Shaozong had arrived in Huainan, and he lost contact after that. Obviously, Yang Zhong's communication ability was also limited to a certain extent.

Just as Li Tai was still in doubt, the gates of Matou Garrison opened wide again. After resting for more than an hour, the soldiers rode out of the city to line up again. Cavalry squads continued to join in from the east, making Murong Shaozong's army It's even stronger, and it's hard to judge whether it's true or false.

But after a little weighing, Li Tai decided not to withdraw his army, but bypassed the Eastern Wei troops formed in front of the city, and led his troops to Shouyang City, which is more than ten miles away to the east. go.

"The madman cast himself to death!"

When Murong Shaozong saw the unusual behavior of the Western Wei people, he immediately sneered.

He originally intended to bluff here, to startle the enemy troops on Li Tai's road and retreat, and continue to expand the disconnect between the land and water forces, so as to find another opportunity to fight, but he didn't expect the enemy general to be so stubborn. He ran straight to Shouyang City, probably hoping that his boat master would arrive in time and land to support him.

But Murong Shaozong would not give him such a chance, after seeing this, he led his troops to catch up, directly blocking the enemy's westward retreat, forcing them to go all the way forward.

The distance of more than ten miles passed by in a flash, and it was already night when Li Tai led his troops to the outside of Shouyang City, but the vision did not darken. It was the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, and a bright moon was like a silver plate. Hanging high in the sky, although the light is not as hot and dazzling as the sun, it can still clearly outline the outline of the characters.

Seeing that the enemy was finally pushed into a desperate situation, and his boat master did not appear on the river under the moon as far as he could see, Murong Shaozong ordered his troops to form an formation in Wuyi City, and immediately launched a final charge against the desperate enemy. .

"Murong Shaozong must die here!"

Hearing the trash talk that the enemy was yelling in vain, Murong Shaozong just sneered, and immediately waved his hand, and the sound of attacking drums and horns sounded immediately.

At this time, the gate of Shouyang Jincheng, which had been silent for a long time, also opened, and a group of soldiers walked out from the gap in the city wall through the ruins of Luocheng. When Murong Shaozong saw this, he laughed and said, "Wang Xiangui is as timid as a chicken. He even took the initiative to go out of the city to help in the battle, the battle is settled..."

However, as soon as he finished speaking, the so-called disciples of Wang Xiangui swung their butcher knives at the flanks of his army formation. It all became chaotic.

"Come on! Kill the enemy Jianxun, right now!"

Li Tai knew that the battle opportunity was fleeting, and seeing that Murong Shaozong was ordering to move the formation, separating the center from the right wing and the chaotic left wing, he gathered his remaining strength and led his troops directly to Murong Shaozong's central army. Where the flag is located, chase and kill.

Although Murong Shaozong was a little surprised and uncertain at this time, it did not affect his command team's thinking in combat. In order to avoid more variables, he cut the team first, and then moved to the direction of Xiashi after fighting and retreating. .

The open battlefield outside Shouyang City is not conducive to his reorganization of the somewhat scattered army. Kipshi is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Let the soldiers digest the sudden change for the time being and then plan later.

During the fight, Li Tai and Yang Zhong joined forces. Murong Shaozong didn't defend the city, so their latent strategy didn't have the maximum effect. Moreover, affected by his false and real arrangements, Li Tai advanced into Shouyang City prematurely. In addition, Yang Zhong had to lead his troops to respond, and the timing was not too good.

But no matter how delicate the plan is, there will inevitably be variables in its execution.At least for now, Murong Shaozong has been successfully lured to Huainan, and the situation on the battlefield has already taken advantage, so all he needs to do is to hunt down and kill him, hoping to achieve a good result.

Although the moonlight was bright and clear, it was not as bright as the day. Although Murong Shaozong was superior in military skills, he was still able to command his troops to fight without being defeated, but his troops would inevitably flee. There are only less than 2000 people left in the department.

Murong Shaozong was still waiting to defend the city, but his generals took him to persuade him: "Wang Xiangui, a thief, defected to the enemy and lured the lord to come to rescue him. I'm afraid there will be no turning point in today's battle. Xiashi City has its own final general to lead his troops to garrison, please My lord, let’s go north on a boat first, and then reorganize the army and then seize the city!”

Murong Shaozong saw the enemy's turbulence, and felt that it was not a good idea to defend Xiashi, so he suppressed the resistance in his heart, boarded a fast boat under the protection of his own soldiers, and ordered the rest of the people to enter Xiashi City to wait for him to lure The crowd came to help, so they ordered the soldiers to row the boat to the opposite bank.

However, most of Murong Shaozong's soldiers are from the north, and they don't know how to use skill to control the boat, so they just paddle with brute force in panic. Although the boat is also off the shore, it does not sail as expected Swift.

Just as the boat was spinning and reaching the middle of the river, two speedboats on the upper stream in the south were sailing fast through the waves. Standing on one of the speedboats was Liu Fanggui. Seeing the boats spinning in the river, he immediately guessed It should be the general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty who was defeated and fled. Dang even commanded the speedboat to approach the ship, and ordered to attack the enemy ship with the stick on the ship.

Violent blows landed continuously, and the hull of the ship was also on the verge of falling from the attack. The soldiers on board panicked and wanted to call out Murong Shaozong's identity in order to save their lives, but Murong Shaozong raised his hand to stop it.

Seeing that the two speedboats had protected him in the boat, and the hook ropes on the speedboat were constantly being thrown to hook the side of the boat. The enemy soldiers were all holding short knives and waiting for the battle. Murong Shaozong looked up at the bright moon and sighed: "Murong Shaozong Since you are a heroic husband in the world, since the water disaster is hard to get rid of, why do you need to beg for mercy from the enemy?"

After saying this, he threw himself into the Huai River.

(End of this chapter)