Qinglong Three Kingdoms

Chapter 650
"In August 198 AD, Zhang Lu in Hanzhong surrendered to Zhu Wei and led Zhu Wei's army into Shu, so Zhu Wei sent [-] troops to attack Liu Zhang in Yizhou."

Just as Wang Yuyan suggested, Zhu Wei finally decided to send troops to Yizhou. For this battle, Zhu Wei mobilized [-] sailors from the Ganning Jiangjiao Camp stationed in Jiangling, and sent troops from the Zulang Yueshan Camp from Jingnan. [-], of which [-] mercenaries composed of young and strong barbarians, coupled with [-] auxiliary soldiers, is a so-called [-] army that marched from Fuling County to Berkshire.

Zhu Wei took Gan Ning as the commander, Zu Lang as the deputy commander, Pang Tong as the military adviser, and Dong Xi, Zu Shan, Bunu Liya, Lajia Kamai and other original barbarian warriors as assistant generals. Only Su Fei was left to guard the Jiangling water camp. The servant guards the camp of the Yueshan Army in Jingnan.

Speaking of which, Berkshire, the first target of Zhu Wei's planned battle of Yizhou this time, can be regarded as Gan Ning's hometown.

Gan Ning was from Linjiang in Ba County, and after that he gathered young knight-errants in Shu to do Jinfan bandits, so Gan Ning was very familiar with Shu.

Prior to this, under the instigation of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, Gan Ning participated in the rebellion against Liu Zhang when Liu Zhang had just succeeded to the throne. As a result, Zhao Wei, who was appointed by Liu Zhang as Zheng Shu Zhonglang, led his troops to wipe out Gan Ning and had to escape from Shu. Go to Liu Biao.

Now that Gan Ning is returning to Shu with his army, it can be regarded as his return for revenge. With his familiarity with Ba and Shu, he can adapt to the combat mode of Shu very well.

At the same time, the Yueshan Battalion participating in this battle is mostly composed of elite soldiers from the mountains and barbarians from the mountains, but they are also very good at marching and fighting among the mountains of the Shu region, so it can also resolve the geographical advantage of the mountains in the Shu region.

Zhu Wei believed that sending Gan Ning and Zu Lang this time would be enough to make a splash in Yizhou, but Zhu Wei did not interfere with the attack on Yizhou and Shu, everything was handed over to Gan Ning , Zu Lang, and Pang Tong made their own decisions.

In this way, after Gan Ning brought the Jiangling water army to the Zulang Yueshan camp, he quickly marched on both water and land to go straight to Jiangzhou in Bajun, as if he was preparing to defeat Jiangzhou in a battle.

At the moment, Zhu Wei didn't know what the outcome of Gan Ning's battle would be. But at the same time that Zhu Wei decided to send troops to Gan Ning, Liu Bei joined forces with Zang Ba to send troops in Xuzhou, and finally arrived in Pengcheng.

In Pengcheng, Zhang Liao and Lu Lingqi were already prepared. Lu Lingqi led more than [-] Xuzhou new troops and young and strong troops to station in Pengcheng, while Zhang Liao led [-] Bingzhou elites and [-] Xuzhou new troops to the north of Pengcheng. , and set up a battalion next to the Sishui River.

In this way, the two armies also formed a confrontational situation, responding to the attacks of Liu Bei and Zang Ba.

This Pengcheng is located in the southeastern part of the North China Plain, and the surrounding terrain is mainly plains, so Pengcheng seems to be a high city standing on the flat ground, and there are not many special terrains around it that can be used for attack and defense.

Therefore, this battle can only be directly aimed at the siege of Pengcheng.

However, Pengcheng is the seat of Xuzhou Prefecture, and it can also be regarded as the largest city in Xuzhou. Historically, it was the capital city of Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu during the conflict between Chu and Han, so it can also be regarded as a place in the Central Plains. big city.

When Tao Qian was the shepherd of Xuzhou, Pengcheng, as the core city of Xuzhou, was rich in population, and it was an important place for money and food in Xuzhou. However, after Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou, Xuzhou was weakened.

In particular, Cao Cao once caused a massacre in Xuzhou, so although Pengcheng is still a big city, its population is less than one-tenth of the original, at most only [-] to [-] households.

In fact, after Lu Bu took control of Xuzhou, he also relocated people from surrounding counties to fill Pengcheng's population. Most of the people from Donghai County and Xiapi County were relocated to Pengcheng.

That's why there are only so many Xuzhou new troops and young men in Lu Bu's army, but this has almost taken away the young and strong men in Xuzhou, and this is also one of the reasons why Lu Bu is short of food.

As a result, although the population of Pengcheng has increased a lot, most of the plain fields that were reclaimed around Pengcheng have become barren land, because there are not enough young and strong men to reclaim the fields.

But Lu Bu had to do the same, because after he took control of Xuzhou, he didn't have much time to develop the place. On the one hand, he often fought with Liu Bei, and on the other hand, he fought with Yuan Shu, and also had a few small battles with Cao Cao.

The threat from the outside forced Lu Bu to focus on the military, so naturally he could only conscript young and strong as soldiers.

In fact, future wars in the Central Plains will often involve two armies fighting on a wide plain, and siege battles are much easier than those in the south. Therefore, the battles in the Central Plains and the North are often fought by the two armies. A battlefield confrontation.

Just like the Battle of Guandu between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, they used the Guandu Yellow River Basin as the battlefield and faced each other across the river. It is difficult to find a suitable terrain environment, which has a defensive advantage.

At most, only a few big cities have a certain degree of defense, just like when Lu Bu invaded Cao Cao's lair in Dagon Prefecture before, Cheng Yu and others who stayed in Dagon Prefecture could only defend two or three large cities, and the rest of the counties were left to Lu Bu. Raided.

However, on the battlefields of the Central Plains and the North, it is difficult to defend if you think about relying on the city to defend against the enemy's attack.

There are many ways to break down the city, such as Zhu Wei's previous digging tactics. In these years, the city with the rammed earth as the wall can basically be dug down.

Well, let’s just say that in the face of Liu Bei and Zang Ba’s attacks, Lu Lingqi and Zhang Liao have already moved all the people from the counties and villages around Pengcheng to the city, or sent them to other places.

In this way, Liu Bei and Zang Ba could not forage for food on the spot, and they could not coerce and drive the people to help attack the city, and they could not find any civil servants to help them build siege equipment.

In fact, in terms of military strength, the number of soldiers controlled by Lu Qiling and Zhang Liao is no less than that of Liu Bei and Zang Ba's coalition forces.

It's just that most of the soldiers on Lu Lingqi's side are new recruits, young and strong, and seriously lack of training, let alone have any combat effectiveness. Only the three thousand soldiers from Bingzhou and the five or six thousand Xuzhou soldiers brought by Zhang Liao have some combat effectiveness.

That's why Lu Lingqi led a large number of young and strong recruits to hide in Pengcheng to defend the city, while Zhang Liao led troops to set up camp outside. This was already considering the combat effectiveness of the soldiers.

However, the soldiers controlled by Liu Bei and Zang Ba can be regarded as elite soldiers relatively speaking, and their combat effectiveness is definitely higher than that of Pengcheng's soldiers.

In addition, Liu Bei had just won the Battle of Shouchun, and the morale of the army was strong. They all supported Liu Bei to take back Xuzhou. Qiang Bing is now also thinking of looting Xuzhou.

It seems that the result of the battle of Pengcheng is really difficult to judge before the arrival of Zhu Wei's reinforcements...

(End of this chapter)