Smelting and Exploding the Heavens

Chapter 257
Xiangyang and Fancheng are two important towns facing each other across the river. Fan Zhuoyuan had seen with his own eyes the city's strong defense and complete system when he was young in the last world.

If the defenders intend to stick to it, then the attacker will not only have to face the defense system of two cities relying on each other, but also face the natural danger of the Han River.

If the defenders have a strong navy, they can completely control the water system of the Han River. With the surrounding triangular waters, the defenders can appear in any area of ​​the battlefield on a warship at any time, and actively attack the attacker in an unexpected way.

In the previous life, Meng Yuan had to raise an army of [-] each time to barely lock up the two cities and then attack. Even so, he paid a huge price and was unable to attack repeatedly, and his morale was greatly damaged.

In the end, relying on the old guard Lu Wende, who disregarded the dissuasion of Guo Jing and others, he allowed the Mongols to set up a dispute field in the southeast of Xiangyang City, and in fact established a bridgehead secretly.

In addition, Meng Yuan mobilized a large number of foreign elites and engineers from the Central Asian region to build giant catapults and blast the city one after another before taking Fancheng, which forced Xiangyang to surrender.

In this era, Song Ting also mastered the gunpowder technology of artillery. If it was used in Xiangyang, Fan Zhuoyuan would definitely have to pay a huge price to get it.

However, the opponent in the early Northern Song Dynasty was Dajin, and the main line of defense was in the north. The Jianghuai area was the rear area, and there was no effective Jianghuai defense layout at all.

Therefore, in the original history, Zhao Gouneng was repeatedly chased by the Jin people across the Jianghuai River and all the way to Taizhou to live on the sea, which is also because of this.

Otherwise, if Jiang Fang is perfect, I am afraid that Jin Wushu will not be able to return to the north.

Although the location of Fancheng in Xiangyang at this time has extremely important military and strategic significance, due to the limitation of the times, it did not attract the attention of many scholars and bureaucrats in the Song court.

Even Jinghu is not like the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has been greatly developed, and now it is still a despicable place to exile criminal officials. For example, Li Gang was exiled to Tanzhou, which is the Hunan of later generations.

When Fan Zhuoyuan led the army to fight under Fancheng, the defenders in Fancheng were only three thousand, and they were basically local Xiang troops.

The cannons knocked down the corners of several archery towers, and the defenders, who had never seen artillery before, immediately lost their morale and surrendered in Kaesong.

After entering Fancheng, Fan Zhuoyuan sent people on the Han River to persuade Xiangyang on the opposite side to surrender. There were a little more defenders in Xiangyang, but the civilian officials who stayed behind refused to surrender and even shouted at the defenders of Fancheng.

Fan Zhuoyuan didn't have much patience. He wanted to control the river defense in his own hands as much as possible before Song Ting failed to establish a complete Jianghuai defense system, so as to prepare for capturing the world in the future.

So people put heavy artillery on the top of the city and aimed at Xiangyang on the other side of the river.

The width of the river between the two cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng is less than two miles, which is completely within the attack range of heavy artillery.

After the heavy artillery went to the city, they bombarded for several days in succession, smashing the defense system of Xiangyang City into a mess, and the soldiers and civilians in the city were in turmoil.

Coupled with the psychological offensive of the Xiaojie Army distributing leaflets, soon some generals of the Xiang Army expressed their willingness to respond internally and assist the Xiaojie Army to open the city gate. As a result, Xiangyang, one of the most important strategic nodes in the Jianghuai defense line, was also captured. !
Fan Zhuoyuan left [-] standing soldiers here, and ordered Gu Huaizhen to be the governor of Xiangyang, staying here to supervise the construction of warships and navy.

Then the main force returned to the north, and the strategic goal of this battle had been achieved, and the victory of the Xiaojie army in the north of the river was complete. Next, as long as the Shanzhou in Guanzhong was taken, there would be no more worries.

However, good news spread frequently in Shanzhou. Originally, Zhang Jin, the commander-in-chief of the West Route Army, only wanted to follow Fan Zhuoyuan's order to maintain a deterrent to the Western Army in Shanzhou. The hinterland of the Xiaojie Army.

Qu Duan, the commander of the Western Army, was rebellious and rebellious. He just didn't believe in this evil, so he took the initiative to attack Zhang Jin's troops stationed in Fenyang.

Naturally, Zhang Jin didn't show any courtesy to the [-] western troops, and [-] soldiers and horses went out of the city to take the initiative to attack. The cavalry charged seven times in a row and broke through the Quduan Chinese army!
Han Shizhong once again displayed his brave and unparalleled martial arts skills, leading hundreds of soldiers into the enemy's formation, captured Qu Duan alive, and all the Western troops surrendered.

Over the years, the Western Army has gone through many battles in the Central Plains, and its vitality has been severely damaged, and there are not even one veteran in ten.

Qu Duan's troops were the last elite veterans who stayed in Shanzhou to fight against Xixia, and now they were easily defeated by Xiao Jie's army, and the general was even captured alive.

Immediately, the entire Western Army on Fuyan Road, Qingyuan Road, and Fengxiang Road were shocked.

Zhang Jin didn't know that the Western Army had this psychological change. After defeating Qu Duan's troops, he returned to Fenyang. At this time, Han Shizhong said that as long as he borrowed [-] elite soldiers, he could regain the entire Northwest to Fan Zhuoyuan.

Zhang Jin didn't believe it at the beginning, but under the analysis of Han Shizhong, a veteran of the Western Army, he gradually felt that it made sense.

Although [-] soldiers are quite a lot, he still has tens of thousands of soldiers in his hands, which is enough to ensure the achievement of the strategic goal, so he gave Han Shizhong [-] soldiers and horses as a chance.

And Zhang Jin also believed in Han Shizhong's ability. He was bold and careful, knew when to be reckless, and knew when to be aggressive. He was not the kind of bastard who regarded the lives of his subordinates as nothing.

And Han Shizhong was indeed not disappointed, he went all the way with offensive tactics, advocating various new policy measures of the Xiaojie Army, starting from his hometown Yan'an Mansion, recruiting and surrendering a large number of Western troops along the way.

After Fan Zhuoyuan took Xiangyang and went north, he had conquered the entire Northwest!

Fan Zhuoyuan's next step was to send troops to the Northwest. He never expected Han Shizhong to give him such a big surprise. Since then, he has been named the commander of one side, in charge of dealing with the Xixia war.

At the same time, it began to carry out new policies and reforms in the captured areas to stabilize the foundation, which is more important than conquering the world to seize land.

After many arrangements were made, Fan Zhuoyuan was granted the title of Duke of Yan with the right of governor, and the southerners looked at him, while the northerners, from the people to the ruling class, all celebrated together.

Fan Zhuoyuan also took advantage of this leisure time, under Yunlong's repeated urging, to marry Feiyue with a princely gift.

Since Fan Zhuoyuan has always been a loner, this wedding is of great significance. It represents that the core of the Northern Group has finally started to form a family, and presumably a bloodline will be born in the near future.

But Fan Zhuoyuan is still young, and his physique has always been domineering. It is not a big problem to live for decades, but it will be just right for his heir to succeed to the throne.

This time, the wife she married came from Jianghu, neither a noble family nor a noble family, so her status would inevitably be despised.

At the wedding banquet, there was the unscrupulous and drunken scholar-bureaucrat from the north, who asked Fan Zhuoyuan in a joking tone, "Duke Yan, there are many concubines of the Great Song Dynasty in the imperial city, and since they have married wives today, why not accept her?" For a concubine?"

As soon as Fan Zhuoyuan said this, before Fan Zhuoyuan could respond, the Prime Minister Xiao Zhonggong slapped the opponent on the back of the head, and then a group of scholar-bureaucrats laughed and drove him out half surrounded and half shoved.

A few months later, the scholar-bureaucrat fell ill and died violently at home. Jin Yiwei found out that people from the Yin Gui sect had been haunting the vicinity.

As a newlywed, Fan Zhuoyuan came to the bridal chamber of the palace with a bit of drunkenness.

The beautiful woman was already seated at the table, she was not at all as charming and lively as before, but seemed a bit cramped and nervous.

Fan Zhuoyuan was slightly drunk, and stepped forward to take off the red hijab. The woman in front of him was so beautiful that it made people's heart skip a beat.

No man would pretend to be a gentleman on a night like this, unless he couldn't.

Fan Zhuoyuan laughed, raised Feiyue's chin, and said, "What kind of exercise did you use in the secret path of Fayuan Temple that day? Maiden Dafa? Why don't you show me how to perform it today."

(End of this chapter)