Late Tang

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At this time, the emperor Li Xuan was like the drowning man, and the news of the great victory in Hebei appeared like a life-saving straw, which made him extremely excited.

It's a pity that Zhang Tai had just heard the news of the great victory in Hebei, and what he knew was only simple news, and he didn't know the specific details at all. The emperor held his hand and asked for a long time, but he couldn't answer.

"Your Majesty, the news of the great victory in Hebei was reported by the Northeast Daxing Director An Jinzuoyuan, and I haven't figured out the specific situation yet." Zhang Tai replied.

Li Xuan quickly opened the letter box, and inside was a good news letter written by Li Jing himself. It said that Li Jing led his troops to two battles in Guiyi in Zhuozhou and Hejian in Yingzhou, and defeated the Hebei rebels. Achieved the great victory of destroying [-] enemies and capturing the five states of Mo, Ying, Cang, De, and Di.

However, how the Hebei victory was won this time has not been elaborated.Seeing this, Li Xuan's face flushed with excitement, but his heart felt empty.

It was Zhang Tai who was at the side and said: "Zhang Hong, who entered the Zouyuan, must be clear about this matter. Your Majesty might as well invite him into the palace to inquire."

Li Xuan clapped his hands in excitement, "Aiqing is right, hurry up and pass the decree to announce that Zhang Hong, the head of the Northeast Road Daxing Station, will enter the palace to have an audience!"

When Zhang Hong was brought into the palace by the palace envoys, Tian Lingzi, Yang Fugong and others in the palace, as well as Lu Xie, Cui Hang, Dou Luzhen and other ministers in the court all knew the news, and they all came to the palace to ask for confirmation. .

Li Xuan nodded excitedly to the ministers, and then waited for Zhang Hong with them in the Hall of Yanying.

Hebei is indeed a great victory!

It can be said that this is one of only two victories of the current imperial court against the rebellion.

Another victory should have been Li Keyong's consecutive defeat of the Lulong rebels and the capture of the four prefectures of Wu, Xin, Confucianism, and Gui. .If it weren't for the bravery of the remaining Tibetan soldiers in Datong, who had survived until the five towns came back to help, I am afraid that Lianyun and Shuozhou would be lost at this time, and even Taiyuan might be lost.

Although the imperial court has just decreed to cut off Weizhou in Datong Town, Dai and Xinzhou in Hedong Township, and assign them to Li Keyong as Yanmen Town.

But in fact, that is what the imperial court has to do now.

On the contrary, the soldiers and horses of Daxingtai in the Northeast Road, the imperial court issued eighteen imperial decrees to urge Li Jing to send troops, and granted Li Jing three titles as king, and finally he was granted the king of Qin and Li Jing refused to accept it. The second time is determined to sit on the wall and watch.

But he didn't expect that Li Jing led [-] troops to the south at this time, and won such a big victory all at once, annihilating [-] enemies.Even if the number of reported victories is reduced by half, it is still [-] heads.

At this time, the eunuchs and prime ministers of the Northern and Southern Yamen surrounded Zhang Hong together with the emperor, listening to him detailing the details of the great victory in Hebei in a show-off tone.

Zhang Hong declared to the emperor and his ministers that the king of Qin led an army to raid the rebels in Guiyi, Zhuozhou, and wiped out 20 enemies.Then he entered Mo Ying and fought Wang Jingchong in Hejian. The two sides fought in Hejian with [-] soldiers and horses. In the end, King Qin won a great victory, wiped out [-] enemies, and defeated the Hebei rebels.

But in fact, in Li Jing's battle of Guiyi, the Hebei rebels had only [-] soldiers, and the remaining [-] were auxiliary troops.And Li Jing didn't kill so many. In that battle, less than [-] were killed, and the rest captured [-] soldiers and [-] auxiliary soldiers.

That day when Li Jing captured Guiyi and defeated the rebels, he quickly divided his troops to capture the three passes, and at the same time sent out cavalry to chase down the defeated troops.

Afterwards, Li Jing took all the food, grass and supplies in Guiyi City and transferred them to the third pass of Mozhou.

After arriving at the third pass, Li Jing stationed nearly [-] infantry from the six armies in the third pass, and at the same time left [-] cavalry from the two armies in Mozhou to take over the counties of Mozhou and stay in Mozhou at any time. Prepare to support the three passes, defend the two troops of Li Quanzhong and Liu Yue who are going south, and prevent them from going south.

Li Jing, on the other hand, entered Yingzhou directly with [-] cavalry, but did not immediately attack the counties of Yingzhou, and even the important town of Hejian City. Let him go to Cangzhou to fetch reinforcements.

Li Jing's [-] cavalry marched south from Shucheng in the northeast of Yingzhou, secretly arrived between Lucheng and Jingcheng in Cangzhou, which had already been captured, and lurked down.

At that time, Wang Jingchong, Liu Rengong, Li Kuangwei, and Le Xingda assembled troops from various ministries in Cangzhou. There were 11 soldiers and horses, including 11 Chengde troops and [-] Wei Bo troops. Twenty thousand young and strong auxiliary soldiers were recruited, a total of more than [-] people.Among them, there are nearly [-] cavalry, [-] infantry soldiers, and [-] auxiliary troops.

Wang Jingchong abandoned Cangzhou, and the whole army went to Hejian.

They chose the shortest route, passing directly out of Cangzhou, crossing Changlu, crossing the canal and Zhangshui, passing through Jingcheng, which had been captured by Li Jing, and rushing to Hejian.

Wang Jingchong has 11 soldiers and horses, although less than half of them are elite.But in his opinion, although Jingcheng was occupied by Li Jing, the truth here had been found out. Jingcheng, located between Cangzhou and Hejian, was actually just Li Jing's [-] cavalry.Li Jing's army, which is closest to Jingcheng, is still far away in the northeast of Lucheng and Shucheng, both tens of miles away.

As for Li Jing's main force, according to the news they controlled at this time, they had just entered Yingzhou from Mozhou.Especially from the battle reports at that time, Li Jing should have stationed his infantry at Sanguan, and then dispersed his cavalry to attack the counties. Judging from the fact that Yingzhou only lost the second county, Li Jing moved quickly, but he had to reach the river It will take a few days, and it will take more time to transfer the troops to the Jingcheng area in the southeast.

It was based on this judgment that Wang Jingchong did not detour back to Hejian from the south, but planned to pass through Hejian directly under Jingcheng.He didn't intend to attack Jingcheng, but he also thought that Jingcheng's thousands of soldiers and horses were no threat to his [-] troops.

Wang Jingchong and others never thought that Yingzhou had not fallen yet, not because Li Jing was too late to act, but because Li Jing did it deliberately, the purpose was to lure snakes out of the hole and trick Wang Jingchong's army out of Cangzhou City.

At this time, it was only the [-] cavalry left by Li Jing who captured Mozhou, and the [-] cavalry from Lucheng had already left the city and quietly entered Jingcheng by night.The remaining [-] cavalry were taken by Li Jing to the west bank of Zhangshui, where they waited quietly.

Li Jing's battle plan this time is a battle to break the army.The purpose of the entire battle is to annihilate the main force of the German army as the starting point.

Under the mopping up of the military intelligence departments of the military intelligence bureau, until the time when Wang Jingchong's army began to cross the Zhangshui, they didn't notice anything unusual, and they didn't even know that Li Jing had been waiting for him.

At noon on the day of the decisive battle, Wang Jingchong's 11 soldiers and horses passed through Changlu County and crossed the Yongji Channel on the ice on the canal. when.

A huge accident happened. Zhangshui River, which was covered with a thick layer of ice, suddenly shattered the twenty-mile-long ice surface after bursts of loud noises.

Li Jing concentrated a large amount of gunpowder on the Zhangshui River ice layer, and blasted it here, directly shattering the ice.

As soon as Zhangshui's side burst, the horn of the decisive battle had already sounded, and on the north and south sides of Zhangshui's ice-breaking river, a cavalry soldier from the Northeast Army rushed out.At the same time, another cavalry had already circled behind Wang Jingchong, and crossed the Yongji Canal to kill all over the sky.

The cavalry of the Northeast Army came to Wang Jingchong's army like three arrows, and finally formed a y.

Facing the overwhelming cavalry charge, Wang Jingchong and others were caught off guard.Because Li Jing deliberately let go of the [-]-mile-long Zhangshui River that had been broken by ice, it only hit from the left, right, and rear sides.

As a result, although Wang Jingchong wanted to form a defensive formation, after Li Jing ordered to throw the last thunderbolt from the cavalry, the huge army formation collapsed before dusk.Countless people were driven towards the Zhangshui by the cavalry. Under the threat of iron hoofs and sword horses, although most of the ice on the river surface had been broken, countless people crowded forward and stepped onto the glacier.

Except for a few people who were lucky enough to step on the broken ice to cross the river, more people fell directly into the river in the broken ice.

The tactic of Li Jing's [-] cavalry is very simple, just repeatedly attacking, like a pack of wolves, driving, driving, driving, and then biting off a piece from time to time among the soldiers and swallowing it.

Wang Jingchong's coalition forces of about [-] cavalry once organized a counterattack, but the cavalry equipment in each town was far from the Liao army's cavalry, and the cavalry belonged to various ministries, and the coordination was far worse.Coupled with Li Jing's intentional opening of the Zhangshui gap in the west, Wang Jingchong's army was demoralized, and in the end the cavalry could not reverse the defeat.

One by one Hebei soldiers were finally driven into the water, and the entire Zhangshui was blocked.

In this battle, of the last 11 soldiers and horses, Wang Jingchong and others left one-third of the soldiers and horses surrounded by Li Jing on the east bank of Zhangshui, and nearly 4 people were divided and surrounded by Li Jing.At dusk during the war, these completely surrounded soldiers and horses surrendered in despair, and as many as [-] captives abandoned their weapons and surrendered.

At the same time, nearly [-] people of the Hebei Army who broke through the siege eventually drowned and froze to death in the icy Zhang River.

The soldiers and horses who had escaped across the Zhangshui River did not escape there. Not long after landing, the [-] cavalry who had been stationed in Jingcheng and Lucheng suddenly rushed out under the leadership of Gao Jichang and Dong Zhang.

Ten thousand cavalry against sixty thousand cavalry.

No matter how you look at it, Wang Jingchong should have a great chance of winning.But at this time, Wang Jingchong and others, who were still in shock, had no intention of fighting again. When they saw a large number of cavalry fighting ahead, they immediately turned their heads and walked south.

The two generals Gao Jichang and Dong Zhang led the cavalry to chase and kill them all the way.

After dark, Li Jing left more than [-] cavalry to clean the battlefield, take care of the prisoners, and went to collect the deserted cities such as Cangzhou and Changlu, while he personally led nearly [-] cavalry all the way south along the Zhangshui River.

After Li Jing joined the pursuit, Wang Jingchong was completely defeated.

The chase continued until dawn the next day, and reached Wuqiang County in Yizhou, where Wei Bojie Commander Han Jianshuai was stationed with [-] troops.

With Han Jian's support, Wang Jingchong and other talents avoided the possibility of annihilation of the entire army.

But even so, after the last count, of the 11 soldiers and horses who left Cangzhou this time, there were only more than [-] cavalry in the end, and more than [-] infantry fled into Wuqiang.Nearly [-] cavalrymen and more than [-] infantry soldiers were lost in the First World War. In addition, Wei Bo, Chengde, and the [-] auxiliary troops recruited in Cangzhou were all gone.

With the loss of [-] soldiers and [-] auxiliary soldiers, not only the German army was seriously injured in this battle, but also the Wei Bo army who came to the south to help suffered a big loss.On the same day, Wang Jingchong hurriedly sent people to Dedi Erzhou, and asked the two brothers to bring the [-] soldiers back to Yizhou.Without the three states of Mo Yingcang, the two states of Dedi are no longer defendable.

The results of this battle also far exceeded Li Jing's expectations. Li Jing thought that with 11 cavalry fighting on the plains, against Wang Jingchong's [-] soldiers and horses, he would be able to eat one-third of the opponent's soldiers and horses and become a German army. A broken bone.But he didn't expect that Wang Jingchong had [-] cavalry and [-] infantry soldiers, and he was defeated so badly in the end.

Wang Jingchong was supported by Han Jian and retreated into Yizhou, but Li Jing did not go any further.Slowly gathered the soldiers and horses, captured the defeated soldiers scattered on the front of more than 100 miles one by one, and took them back.

When Li Jing returned, Cangzhou had already been captured.

Afterwards, Li Jing left some cavalry to defend Cangzhou, while he led his troops back to take Hejian.Although He Jian said that he had assembled more than ten thousand soldiers, Li Jing had just kept this piece of fat on purpose before. Now that Wang Jingchong was defeated and Li Jing came back, the cities of Yingzhou almost fell down in one go.

At this time, Li Quanzhong and Liu Yue led [-] soldiers and horses to storm the three passes of Waqiao Pass, but the three passes of Waqiao Pass are natural dangers. In addition, there are [-] infantry and [-] cavalry stationed. In a short period of time, where can the two fight? down.

When Wang Jingchong was defeated and news of Mo Yingcang's fall spread to Zhuozhou, Li Quanzhong and Liu Yue immediately led their troops back to the town.

Wang Jingchong in the south also led his troops back to defend Yi, Zhao, Shen and Zhen.

Han Jian also led his troops back to Weibo.

The four towns suffered such a big loss this time, and they no longer dared to strangle Li Jing, but started to go back to their respective houses to lick their wounds.

In this battle, the four towns suffered heavy losses.

Lulong Town lost Mozhou, plus Guiyi County.Almost [-] soldiers and horses were lost, but the rest of the loss was attributed to Liu Rengong, the governor of Mozhou. Liu Yue only lost one Guiyi and more than [-] soldiers and horses.But in the northwest of Liu Yue, the four states of Xinwu Confucianism and Guizhou were taken away by Li Keyong, which can be said to have suffered heavy losses.For Liu Yue right now, only Zhuo and Youzhou are left.

The loss of Chengde Town was even greater this time. At the beginning, they quickly captured the three towns of Yichang, but who would have thought that not only did they spit out all the food they ate, but they also lost more than [-] cavalry and nearly [-] infantry. .Not to mention the loss of soldiers and generals, the most important thing is that the morale of the German army has dropped severely after this battle.

Li Quanzhong also suffered heavy losses. Not to mention the loss of Yingzhou, which he started from, he also lost almost 2 horses.This is an extremely fatal blow to Xinfan Town, which only has three towns.Now to the west of Li Quanzhong is Shatuo Li Keyong, who has just seized the land of Qizhou and formed his own town, and to the east is Li Jing, who has entered Hebei forcefully. The day can be described as sad.

Weibo Town also didn't benefit at all, but it also lost tens of thousands of troops.

But this time Li Jing's [-] troops went south, fought two battles in a row, wiped out more than [-] soldiers and horses in four towns, and captured more than [-] prisoners.However, the losses of the Northeast Army were not large, and the total did not exceed [-].The reason for such a disparity in casualty ratio is that these two battles were almost not tough battles, and were almost all pursuit battles.

After these two battles, each of the four towns defended the city without leaving the city. Although Li Jing won a big victory, it was actually a very pleasant surprise to capture the three states of Moyingcang this time. Li Jing originally planned to fight in the field It's not bad to severely damage Chengde, but he didn't think about attacking cities and lands.

Now that Xiangzi has seized more than [-] counties in the three prefectures, Li Jing's military strength is already tight, so he dare not attack the territory of the four towns again.After all, cavalry field combat is an advantage, but going to attack a city is a disadvantage.

On the one hand, he sent troops to garrison the key passes in the three prefectures of Moying and Cang, and on the other hand, Li Jing sent the captives back to the northeast. On the other hand, he recruited Minzhuang to strengthen the city in Hejian, and took Hejian City and the three passes of Mozhou as Li Jing's strongholds in the northeast. , the central town.

At the same time, [-] cavalry were sent all the way south to take the two states of Dedi.

At this time, the Chengde army who had just been defeated could only watch Li Jing's soldiers swaggeringly go straight to the two states of Dedi, but they could only hide in the city and dare not move.

Immediately afterwards, Li Jing finally dispatched a group of soldiers and horses from the northeast and Shandong, and transported them from the melting sea to Cangzhou for landing.Newly transferred are [-] infantry troops from the six armies and [-] rural soldiers.

Li Jing divided the 9 new soldiers and horses into the original [-] infantry, plus [-] cavalry from the two armies. A total of [-] horses were stationed in the five states of Mo, Ying, Cang, De, and Di. Ten thousand cavalry stationed in Hejian and maneuvered.

The newly seized five prefectures were set as Hebei Province, and the provincial government was set up in Hejian. Pei You was also appointed as the governor of Hebei to temporarily take charge of Hebei military affairs.

Li Jing led [-] cavalry across the Yellow River and arrived in Henan. (To be continued.)