A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 933: The Battle of Xuzhou and Guandong is Slightly Peaceful

August
Zhu Quanzhong, commander-in-chief of the four-sided military camps in Caizhou, defense envoy of the Eastern Capital, and Prince of Liang, wrote a letter to the court, impeaching the Recruiting Envoy Bai Yi and the Deputy Commander-in-Chief Shi Bo for disregarding the emperor's orders and starting the war without authorization, and requested that they be stripped of their posts.

The imperial court did not agree at first, but only issued an edict to reprimand the two men for their behavior and ordered them to stop fighting.

At this time, the Xuanwu Army had already taken the lead in Xiaoxian and defeated Shi Bo's troops including Shang Rang's 40,000 men, putting them at a disadvantage.

Seeing that the court was willing to mediate, he immediately wrote a letter to the emperor crying and blaming Bai Yi.

Bai Yi also wrote a letter to argue, saying that it was Shi Bo who first refused to allow him to send troops to attack the rebel army in Yangzhou, and it was clear that the other party was colluding with the rebel army.

He also talked about how Shi Bo had taken in the remnants of Huang Chao with the intention of rebelling, and how he wanted to eradicate all evil.

As a result, the tribute envoys from both sides in Chang'an came back and forth in the court, scolding each other, and then a fight broke out.

This greatly broadened Li Ye's horizons while he was sitting on the throne.

Finally, under the persuasion of Privy Councilor Yang Fugong, the two envoys stopped.

Seeing this situation, the imperial court was unwilling to get involved in the affairs between the two vassal states.

Then, in accordance with what Zhu Quanzhong said in his memorial, they dismissed all their duties of recruiting the rebel troops in Caizhou and no longer managed them.

September 21

The Xuanwu Army defeated the enemy at Dinggong Mountain, beheaded thousands of them, and advanced to Qiliting, which was only seven miles away from Pengcheng.

September 25
The Xuanwu Army attacked Pengcheng with great force, suffered heavy casualties and achieved no results.

October rd
At that time, General Kong Yongzhang of Bo's army led 100,000 soldiers from Haozhou and Sizhou to come to the rescue. Guo Huilong left a small part of the troops and auxiliary troops to continue the siege, and led the Xuanren and Xuanyi armies to fight back.

The two sides fought a fierce battle at the foot of Ren Mountain. Shi Bo, who was in the city, seized the opportunity to leave the city and personally led the elite troops of the Wuning Army to defeat the 10,000-strong auxiliary troops of the Xuanwu Army in the south of the city and attacked Guo Huilong from behind.

Just when the situation was critical, General Chen Daniu came with 3,000 men from his own army to provide assistance, and the army began to retreat, suffering a minor defeat.

The Xuanwu Army retreated to Xiaoxian and set up camp, and the two armies confronted each other twenty miles east of Xiaoxian.

November

The Xuanwu Army of 150,000 and the Wuning Army of 200,000 confronted each other, and neither side could do anything to the other.

November 10

Bai Yi sent Li Kerang's cavalry to reinforce the front line.

With the help of the cavalry, Guo Huilong could do much more.

On the 13th, Guo Huilong ordered Yuan Qing and Li Kerang to lead 5,000 Xuande soldiers, 3,000 cavalry, and 30,000 auxiliary troops to attack Suzhou in the south.

December

Yuan Qing pretended to be defeated by the reinforcements sent by Shi Bo and retreated, which lured Shi Bing, the defender of Suzhou City, out of the city to pursue him.

Li Kerang, who had been hiding for a month, led his cavalry to attack the city, and Suzhou fell.

Yuan Qing turned around and attacked, and Shi Bing was defeated. He led the remaining troops to flee to Pengcheng.

End of December
Li Kerang rushed to Sizhou along the canal, and the city of Sizhou was broken. The defending general Zhen Zhong surrendered.

The first month of the first year of the Longji era (the second year of Wende)
Yuan Qing and Li Kerang captured the city of Haozhou and took in 6,000 surrendered soldiers.

Bai Yi ordered Yuan Qing to be the governor of Sizhou and lead auxiliary troops to garrison Suzhou, Sizhou and Haozhou. Li Kerang led his 3,000 cavalry back to Xuzhou to assist in the battle.

When the generals under Shi Bo learned that Suzhou, Sizhou and Haozhou had all been conquered by the enemy, the soldiers from the three states were all worried about the future, and many even deserted.

"I heard that the Xuanwu Army has a system called the Weibao system, which is to divide villages into Weibao, collect land through land measurement, and hand it over to ordinary soldiers, and let the landless people cultivate it. That's why there are no large and wealthy families in the Bian Song area."

"I just wonder if they will measure the land and set up guards to equalize the rich and the poor after they take over Xuzhou?"

The generals who came from prominent families in Xuzhou changed their minds upon hearing this, and immediately spoke out in support of Shi Bo, insisting that the Xuanwu Army would pay a price.

With the support of local powerful families in Xuzhou, Shi Bo also enforced strict military discipline, beheaded all captured deserters and hung them at the camp gate, which led to a great truce among the troops. However, the morale of the Wuning Army, which had lost the three states of Su, Si and Hao, was greatly shaken.

Guo Huilong took the opportunity to send troops to attack, and the Wuning army was defeated. Shi Bo retreated to Pengcheng.

When Shi Bo retreated into Pengcheng, he had only 30,000 men under his command, while the other side had hundreds of thousands, so the Xuanwu Army besieged the city again.

The war once again reached a stalemate.

February
News came from Caizhou that Qin Zongquan's subordinate Shen Cong defected and imprisoned Qin Zongquan and surrendered to Zhu Quanzhong.

Zhu Quanzhong accepted Shen Cong's surrender that day, appointed him as the governor of Huaixi, and ordered him to prepare to enter the city.

Unexpectedly, the next day, Shen Cong was killed by his subordinate Guo Fan, and the matter of surrendering the city came to nothing.

February 21st

Guo Fan escorted Qin Zongquan to present him to Zhu Quanzhong.

Zhu Quanzhong pardoned Guo Fan's crime and ordered Qin Zongquan to be taken to Chang'an in a prison cart. Caizhou was thus pacified.

Zhu Quanzhong's reputation thus greatly increased.

March 1

When the prison car carrying Qin Zongquan arrived in Chang'an, Li Ye personally went to Yanxi Tower to accept the prisoner, and immediately beheaded Qin Zongquan under a solitary willow tree and sent the head to all parties.

Therefore, Li Ye issued an imperial decree to increase Zhu Quanzhong's fief by 100 households, and granted him a manor and a house.

Soon after, Zhu Quanzhong was promoted to the position of Inspecting Grand Marshal and concurrently the Minister of the Central Secretariat, and was further granted the title of King of Ruyang to reward him for his contribution in pacifying Caizhou.

He also transferred the five states of Ruzhou, Xuzhou, Chenzhou, Caizhou and others to Zhu Quanzhong for garrison.

The original Luoyang and Heyang were merged into Zhongwu Army, and Zhu Quanzhong was appointed as the governor of Zhongwu Army.

Seeing that Zhu Quanzhong had ended the battle of Caizhou and had freed up his hands, in order to avoid further complications, Bai Yi had to order Guo Huilong to step up the offensive and end the war by the end of this month.

After receiving Bai Yi's death order, Guo Huilong sent people to contact the Wuning Army generals in the city who were willing to surrender, while at the same time attacking Pengcheng.

March 25
With Guo Huilong's efforts at all costs and the Xuanwu soldiers being already elite, Pengcheng was finally captured.

After the city was broken, Shi Pu and his wife and children burned themselves to death.

The Xuanwu Army fought this battle for half a year, suffering tens of thousands of casualties, especially the elite regular troops, who lost more than 5,000.

However, the results of the battle were quite fruitful. Not only did they occupy the four states of Xu, Su, Hao and Si, but they also obtained more than 20,000 surrendered soldiers from the Wuning Army.

These are veterans with combat experience, and they only need a little training before they can go to the battlefield.

However, Bai Yi did not plan to set up a special army. The Xuanwu Army was composed of four armies: Xuanwu, Xuanyi, Xuande, and Xuanren. As the absolute main force, it was already very strong.

So Bai Yi added these soldiers to the fourth army with military numbers, and except for the 20,000 men in Xuanwu, the other three armies had 15,000 men each, for a total of 65,000 men.

These 65,000 men are all veteran soldiers who have experienced hundreds of battles and elite soldiers. They are the first-class army under Xuanwu Town.

There were also state-named armies, such as the Bianzhou Army, Songzhou Army, Haozhou Army, Huazhou Army, etc.

These troops had a strength ranging from 10,000 to 5,000 men, and were converted from the original fort soldiers. They were formed to fill the gap in the lack of military strength in Xuanwu Town and were classified as Class B troops.

Although they have a high level of training and organization and are fully equipped with weapons and armor, their combat effectiveness is still inferior to that of a top-class army.

Finally, there are the soldiers in the garrisons of various places. They are half farmers and half soldiers, and their combat effectiveness is only slightly better than that of the peasant army who have just put down their hoes.

According to statistics from the Xuanwu Military Office, there are currently 65,000 first-class special-title troops in Xuanwu Town, 55,000 second-class state-title troops, and 150,000 fort soldiers.

Among them, the Shuhao Army was stationed in Bian, Zheng, Song and Hua, and the rest were scattered in prefectures, counties and borders.

Therefore, some people call the special-numbered army the central army, and the state-numbered army and the fort troops the external army.

(End of this chapter)