Chapter 312 The General Attack Begins

In the eighth year of Jiayou, at the end of March, Lin Zhaoyuan successfully recovered Tangyi.

Within half a month, two city gates heavily guarded by the Liao army were captured in succession, allowing many generals to see the strength of Lin Zhaoyuan's leadership.

Although the casualties were not small, about 15,000 people died in the 200,000-man army, but the result was good, which was enough.

If Wei Yuan led the troops, there might be fewer casualties.

But he was the commander-in-chief of the three armies, and he needed to train his own team.

In some battles, if Lin Zhaoyuan and others were not allowed to command them personally, they would never grow.

Although, the price of doing so was the loss of soldiers and generals.

As the saying goes, a general's success is the sacrifice of thousands of bones. The growth of a general is often accompanied by mountains of corpses and seas of blood. This is unavoidable.

In the camp of Tangyin County.

The 300,000 troops from Damingfu have arrived here.

In order to quickly form a unified combat power with the Danglu Army, Jiangnan Army and other military branches, training before the war is a necessary means.

At this time, Xiao Yuming was following behind Wei Yuan, talking about Qin Zhen.

"General Wei ordered Qin Zhen to withdraw troops from Daming Prefecture to Tangyin, but he was against it."

"He believed that Yelu Xinxian was facing a situation where there was no defense. If he poured his troops into fighting in Daming Prefecture, there might be unexpected results."

"But if he insisted on attacking Xiangzhou, both the enemy and us would suffer heavy losses."

Wei Yuan walked in front of the soldiers who were training, suddenly stopped, turned around, looked at Xiao Yuming, and smiled:

"Isn't this just Qin Zhen's idea?"

Xiao Yuming shook his head and smiled, "It turns out that nothing can be hidden from General Wei. Now many generals in the army have this idea."

Yelu Renxian was stationed in Xiangzhou, and Yelu Xinxian only built a camp on the mountain. From a geographical point of view, launching a general attack on Yelu Xinxian is more in line with the current situation.

Wei Yuan asked, "Do you have this doubt, too?"

Xiao Yuming nodded without hesitation and said, "Yes, but I know that General Wei must have a reason for doing this."

Wei Yuan smiled and said nothing, and went straight to the main tent.

Xiao Yuming followed closely behind him.

The two stood in front of the sand table.

Wei Yuan said earnestly, "Yelu Xinxian is stationed outside Damingfu. His goal from beginning to end was not to conquer Damingfu, but to use the battle of Damingfu to delay the main force of our army and buy time for Yelu Renxian to attack Bianjing."

"During the Battle of Bianjing, Yelu Xinxian devoted all his efforts in Damingfu to block the reinforcements of Damingfu. From this point of view, the real main force of the Liao army has always been Yelu Renxian."

Hearing his long speech, Xiao Yuming gradually understood.

Xiangzhou's geographical location is particularly special, and Yelu Renxian will not easily choose to withdraw his troops.

But Yelu Xinxian is different.

His real purpose was to stop the army of Damingfu from coming back to support him at all costs after the battle of Bianjing started.

At that time, Qin Zhen was determined to annihilate Yelu Xinxian in Damingfu, so he only sent a small number of reinforcements to Bianjing.

Because Qin Zhen didn't believe that Yelu Renxian was really capable of conquering Bianjing in a very short time, and Wei Yuan also led his army from Jiangnan to Bianjing.

This gave him enough confidence not to worry too much about the safety of Bianjing.

Who knew that the city of Bianjing was almost conquered by Yelu Renxian.

Whenever Qin Zhen thought of this, he couldn't help but feel scared.

"So, in the battle of Xiangzhou, did General Wei want to annihilate the real main force of the Liao army?"

Xiao Yuming asked curiously.

Wei Yuan smiled and said, "Whether they are the main force or not, let's not talk about it for now, but it's not realistic to want to annihilate most of the enemy forces with one battle."

"Besides, our goal is not necessarily Xiangzhou."

Not necessarily Xiangzhou?

Xiao Yuming was confused again.

But this time, Wei Yuan did not explain it to him again.

Xiao Yuming was praised as a Confucian general, partly because of praise, and partly because he was suitable to be a military advisor and staff, rather than leading the army in battle.

But Wei Yuan wanted to train him into a Confucian general.

So, he told him some things.

But the most critical factor requires him to guess it himself.

This will be conducive to his growth.

Wei Yuan likes to read the life of Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty.

He found that as a knight-errant, Liu Bang did the most in the first half of his life, which was to travel around and gain knowledge.

Later, during the period of competition among the heroes, Liu Bang, who was good at using people, took the initiative to discover the shining points of the soldiers around him and trained them, so that they all became talented generals who could stand on their own.

Later, there were rumors among the people that the talent of a county was enough to govern the world.

In fact, it was because those who followed Liu Bang had experienced enough growth, honed themselves in continuous learning and progress, and then governed their country, which was a natural thing.

And being able to survive this growth process, half of the factors were due to Liu Bang, and the other half was due to themselves.

Now, Wei Yuan's cultivation of talents around him is actually no different from Liu Bang's approach.

In the eighth year of Jiayou, on April 1, according to the original plan, Yang Huairen led an army of 100,000 to attack Handan.

Yelu Renxian deployed a full 30,000 troops in Handan. It stands to reason that even if 30,000 people defended the city, even if they couldn't, they could support it for a long time if they were rich in food and supplies.

But Yelu Renxian overlooked a problem. The warriors of the Liao army have lived on horseback since childhood. They are good at field battles and can be said to be invincible in the world.

But if it was a city defense battle, without a general who was good at defending the city, facing Yang Huairen who was good at attacking the city, it was somewhat inferior.

Despite this, the Liao army also showed extremely strong combat effectiveness. Facing Yang Huairen's three consecutive days of siege, they did not let a Zhou army soldier climb the city wall.

At this time, Yang Huairen's army had suffered nearly 10,000 casualties.

In order to preserve the living force, he had to ask Wei Yuan for help, hoping to take Handan at the lowest cost.

At this time, in the Tangyin camp, Wei Yuan summoned all the generals to discuss matters.

After discussing for half a day, everyone agreed that they should send more troops to Handan.

After careful consideration, Wei Yuan believed that once more troops were sent to Handan, it would mean that the decisive battle would come early.

Now, the most critical deployment is not in place-Wu'an.

If a decisive battle is fought now, it will be easy for the Liao army to tear open the gap and retreat.

"Once we increase our troops, Yelu Renxian will definitely choose to fight a decisive battle in Handan."

"If we don't increase our troops, Yelu Renxian will not dare to act rashly."

"Tell Yang Huairen to take Handan at all costs. I don't want casualties, I just want Handan!"

When he said this, Wei Yuan's face was extremely serious.

Three days later.

Outside Handan City.

In the Zhou army camp.

After days of fighting, the Zhou army soldiers, who were a little dusty, were standing in front of Yang Huairen at this moment.

In his hand, he held a top-secret letter from Wei Yuan.

Yang Huairen looked at the generals and said solemnly:

"Everyone, General Wei said that we should take Handan at all costs!"

The soldiers who could stay here were all Yang Huairen's confidants, and his confidants were also Wei Yuan's confidants.

They all had an almost crazy trust in Wei Yuan, as if Wei Yuan was their military soul and their belief in winning every battle.

But this time, they really didn't understand Wei Yuan's decision.

"General Wei has 600,000 troops. We only need to send 100,000 soldiers, and our army can recapture Handan at the lowest cost!"

"100,000 soldiers is not a big deal for General Wei, right?"

"."

From Wei Yuan's perspective.

Once more troops are sent to Handan, Xiangzhou will definitely move.

At that time, Handan will become a huge meat grinder.

Both the enemy and us can only keep sending more troops to Handan, which goes against the deployment made by Wei Yuan from the beginning.

Fighting a war in Handan is a losing business for the Zhou army.

Because the focus that Wei Yuan really wants to target may not be Xiangzhou.

Yang Huairen can probably understand Wei Yuan's thoughts, but only roughly.

As a general, obeying military orders is his duty.

"Enough!"

"How can we question and refute the decision of the commander-in-chief?"

"Order the whole army to rest for one day. Tomorrow, all the soldiers will take turns to attack the city and recapture Handan in the shortest possible time!"

Yang Huairen spoke slowly.

In the eighth year of Jiayou, on April 7, 100,000 soldiers from Daizhou arrived in Wu'an and began to attack the city.

There were only 10,000 defenders in Wu'an, which was not a problem for the soldiers who came from Daizhou.

Therefore, the battle between Wu'an and Handan was the most tragic and the most tragic.

It is recorded in later history books that 'Duke Hu Yang Huairen led his army to fight Handan, but failed for half a month, and more than half of the soldiers were injured. Later, he took advantage of the rainy night to attack the city and recaptured Handan'.

After a full half-month siege, 100,000 people were killed and wounded, and Handan was successfully recaptured and the Liao army guarding Handan was completely wiped out.

It was said to be a complete annihilation, but in fact, none of the Liao army guarding Handan surrendered!

When Yang Huairen recalled this battle in his later years, everything seemed to be vivid in his mind, and he told future generations about this extremely cruel siege battle.

That night.

The pouring rain washed away the walls, the corpses and bloodstains outside the city.

The whole ground was like a blood lake.

When they attacked Handan, every Zhou army soldier was covered with bloodstains.

Even the footprints were bloody.

Some bloodstains seemed to have stuck to the city wall.

Even the pouring rain could not wash away the bloodstains.

The city gates and the tops of the city were full of corpses.

Every step they took, they had to step on the corpses.

There were lightning and thunder in the sky.

And the whole Handan was like purgatory, impacting the hearts of every living person.

Even the soldiers who had experienced hundreds of battles could not help but feel upset when they saw this extremely tragic scene.

The smell of blood and the stench of rotting corpses were completely mixed together after being washed by the rain.

The whole Handan was turned into a ghost town.

After the Liao army soldiers were completely wiped out, Yang Huairen and others, as the victors, did not have the kind of happy expression on their faces.

This battle was really too cruel and tragic!

On the top of Handan City.

Yang Huairen stood with several Zhou army generals, watching the soldiers carrying corpses to the city, and their hearts trembled at the same time.

"To be honest, I have never seen such a tragic offensive and defensive battle in all my years in the army."

"In just half a month, nearly 100,000 people were killed and wounded on both sides, plus the bodies of the people in the city. It is fortunate that our army can win this battle."

"General Wei said that after Handan is recovered, 30,000 troops will be sent from Wu'an to help us defend the city."

"."

In the Battle of Handan, they paid such a heavy price just because of a military order from Wei Yuan.

After everyone discussed, Yang Huairen slowly said:

"Send someone to inform General Wei, and say that Handan has been recovered."

In the eighth year of Jiayou, on April 10, 100,000 soldiers from Daizhou recovered Wu'an City.

On April 15.

Tangyin.

Xiao Yuming was reporting the situation in Handan to Wei Yuan,

"Although it took half a month, no matter what, General Yang did not disappoint General Wei's expectations."

At this point, he made a look of wanting to say something but stopping.

Seeing this, Wei Yuan asked curiously: "Anything else?"

Xiao Yuming said solemnly: "The specific number of casualties in the Battle of Handan has been announced."

Wei Yuan asked again: "How many?"

Xiao Yuming said: "More than 63,200 people."

Sixty thousand?

When Wei Yuan heard this number, he was also stunned.

More than half of the troops were lost, which was equivalent to being completely wiped out in a sense.

But even though most of the troops were lost, Yang Huairen still managed to take down Handan.

It can be seen that he has a strong talent for using troops.

After a while, Wei Yuan sighed, "In a war, there will always be casualties."

After that, he returned to normal and said to Xiao Yuming and others, "Order Wu'an to secretly send 40,000 troops to Handan."

"Have all the troops arrived at the designated positions?"

Shen Qing bowed and said, "They have all arrived at the positions previously deployed by General Wei."

Wei Yuan nodded, "Order."

He just said the word "order" first.

All the generals stood up from their seats.

Wei Yuan looked at everyone, revealing an unprecedented serious expression, and said word by word:

"Wu'an, Handan, keep your troops in place."

"Yong'an, Tangyi, be careful to prevent Yelu Xinxian from returning for help."

At this point, he took a deep breath and made another decision,

"In the eighth year of Jiayou, on April 20th, at the first hour of the morning, launch a general attack on Xiangzhou!"

"Gentlemen, whether we can avenge our previous shame depends on this battle!"

Chen Daniu and others spoke in unison, "Yes!"

The Battle of Xiangzhou was the first battle of the Great Zhou to launch a counterattack, and it was also a battle destined to go down in history.

The total number of troops deployed by both sides has exceeded one million.

In the era of cold weapons, wars with a scale of more than one million people are all battles of luck and battles to determine the fate.

If this battle is won, Wei Yuan will be able to regain lost territory with full confidence, and even lay the groundwork for annihilating the main force of the Liao army in the Central Plains, and then fight all the way to the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.

If this battle is lost, Yelu Renxian can lay the foundation for unifying the north of the Great Zhou.

It was like the Battle of Guandu.

Yuan and Cao deployed a total of nearly 300,000 troops.

Both sides deployed a total of more than 200,000 troops, which is equivalent to a war involving millions of people today!

And this war was planned, initiated and organized by Wei Yuan.

It was also the first large-scale battle he launched since he led a large-scale army, which was of great significance.