Chapter 1104: Fire Breaks Out in Gongsun Zan’s Backyard
Huangfu Chaobo was not very worried about the defense of Tangtougou Pass. With more than 10,000 troops, plus the solidity of the pass and Huang Xu's ability, it was enough to stop the Xianbei at the pass for three to five months without any effort, even if they were facing the Xianbei army that had learned how to attack the city.
And what they had to do was to delay the Xianbei army here for no more than a month, or even less than a month, and nearly 100,000 reinforcements would arrive. By then, it would be the time when the Xianbei army was destroyed. Even if the Suli army could not be completely destroyed outside Longhua City, at least half of the Xianbei people would have to stay in Yanbei.
The reason why it took so long was that it would take 10 to 20 days for the reinforcements to arrive. According to Guo Jia's strategy, he planned to let the reinforcements quietly enter Longhua City by water. In this way, relying on the naval transport capacity of Yanbei County, it would take a lot of time.
60,000 reinforcements from Qingzhou have arrived at Leting. In addition to the 10,000 troops led by Zhang An who will go to attack the Wuhuan in Liaoxi with the troops of Leting, 10,000 of the remaining 50,000 troops will be stationed in Chengde, led by Zhao Yu to defend Chengde. In this way, there are 20,000 troops in Chengde City, including one school of combat soldiers and three schools of guard soldiers. Their role is to prevent the Xianbei army from besieging Longhua without attacking it, and then continue to attack southward. Another role is to prevent the Xianbei from going south, but this one is to prevent the Xianbei army from escaping southward.
In Guo Jia's strategy, after all the troops are in place, he will use Zhao Yun to lead tens of thousands of cavalry from Hutougou to the north of the grassland, sneak attack the rear camp of the Suli tribe, destroy it, and then continue to go south, and together with the troops of Longhua, encircle and annihilate it in the long valley of Yanbei County.
After the 40,000 Qingzhou reinforcements arrived in Longhua, Longhua's defense could be said to be impregnable, and Zhao Yun led the nearly 10,000 cavalry that the White Horse Volunteers and Yanbei County could gather, plus the 17,000 troops of Huangfu Chaobo's guards, a total of nearly 30,000 cavalry to the grassland to attack the rear camp of Suli's army.
Of course, all this is based on the premise that the cavalry sent out can successfully find the barracks of Suli's army. If they can't find it, or Suli simply puts the barracks together with the army, then they can only think of another strategy. However, Guo Jia is not unprepared. If Suli really puts the rear camp together with the army, then Zhao Yun and the 30,000 cavalry will still go around behind them, and wait for the Suli army to be beaten and bloodied at Tangtougou Pass or even under Longhua City, and then wait for an opportunity to attack from both inside and outside, there is also a great probability that the Suli army will be defeated, but in this way, the loss of the Tang army will be much greater.
However, after hearing the news that Wuhuan in Liaoxi had sent troops to Lulong, Gongsun Zan repeatedly urged Leting to send troops to Liucheng and Yangle, forcing Huangfu Chaobo to withdraw 10,000 troops to accompany Leting to Liaodong, which made the already limited troops even more tense. However, sending troops to Liaodong was inevitable, because on the fifth day after Jianping City was captured by the Wuhuan army, Lingyuan City in the southwest of Jianping City was also captured by the Wuhuan.
Once Lingyuan City was lost, Pingquan City and Xiaosigou Town in Gongsun Zan's Lulong County were both under the attack of the Wuhuan army. Once these two places were lost, Gongsun Zan's Lulong County was basically finished. Once Lulong was lost, Yanbei County would face the threat of 400,000 to 500,000 Xianbei troops alone. In this way, it was only a matter of time before Yanbei County was lost.
Therefore, no matter from which aspect, it is imperative for Huangfu Chaobo to send troops to Liucheng and Yangle. At least it can contain the Wuhuan people's forces, so that Gongsun Zan's Lulong County can hold out for a longer time, so that his layout can be implemented smoothly.
At this time, Gongsun Zan was already a little overwhelmed, because the four western counties of Youzhou were already full of smoke. The five western counties of Youzhou were originally under the jurisdiction of Liu Yu. There were a large number of small tribes of foreign races in the five counties. Under the rule of Liu Yu, they lived quite well. Now Gongsun Zan killed Liu Yu and took the four counties. At the same time, Gongsun Zan was quite tough in dealing with foreign races and aristocratic families. In addition, he was instigated by the joint letter of the seven major Xianbei tribes.
Then Gongsun Zan forced the relocation of rich households. Under this system of perverse practice, while Gongsun Zan's main force was sending troops to Lulong, the four western counties of Youzhou were full of smoke.
The neighboring Dai County was also in trouble. The foreign riots in the four counties of Yuyang also made the foreign tribes in Dai County ready to move. Fortunately, Dai County Governor Li Feng and Duwei Hou Cheng were not easy to deal with. After leading the troops to slaughter several small tribes with more than a thousand people, the nearly 20,000 foreign tribes were directly frightened. Then the two gathered all the young and strong men of these tribes with thunder and formed a cavalry of 2,000 people and sent them to Lu Bu in Yanmen County to listen to orders. In this way, the situation in Dai County quickly stabilized.
However, the situation in Yuyang counties was different. Most of Gongsun Zan's troops had been withdrawn. Now there were only a few thousand newly recruited soldiers in various counties to defend the city. These soldiers could barely defend the city, but if they were asked to go out of the city to quell the riot, they would be powerless. However, these rebellious tribal soldiers did not think of attacking the county, but only set their sights on the territory outside the city.
Within a few days, dozens of player territories and NPC territories in Zhuo, Guangyang and Shanggu counties were captured. The situation in Yuyang was relatively better. The new governor Gongsun Fan had about 5,000 newly recruited White Horse Volunteers. These new soldiers might not be able to deal with the Xianbei army in Lulong, but they were more than enough to deal with the rebellious small tribes.
As a last resort, Gongsun Zan had to stop his northward march to support Chifeng, and stopped the army in Pingquan City, defending this vital city with all his strength. Then, he dispatched 10,000 white horse volunteers to return to Youbeiping and handed them over to his second brother Gongsun Fan, asking him to quell the rebellion in the four counties of Youzhou first, while he urged Huangfu Chaobo and Leting to send troops to Liaodong as soon as possible, hoping that they could delay the Wuhuan people's attack and reduce the pressure on Chifeng as much as possible.
At this time, the Xianbei army attacking Chifeng finally broke through the outer city of Chifeng after nearly 20 days of fighting and entered the city of Chifeng. Fortunately, Wangmen had already made sufficient preparations. When the outer city was broken, the main force of the army and most of the people in the city had withdrawn to the inner city, using the inner city to continue to resist the attack of the Xianbei army.
The inner city of Chifeng is a small city about five miles long and wide. After retreating to the inner city, although Wang Men's army had only 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, plus about 30,000 civilians, after the reduction of the troops, Wang Men's defense was tens of thousands stronger than the outer city. Therefore, even if the Xianbei army attacked the outer city of Chifeng, they could not make any progress in the attack on the inner city. After suffering heavy casualties, the Xianbei people changed their tactics, leaving tens of thousands of soldiers to besiege the inner city of Chifeng, while their main force bypassed Chifeng and turned to attack Louzidian Town and Ningcheng, preparing to capture all these outer cities first, and then come back to deal with the thorn in the inner city of Chifeng. In this regard, Wang Men could only defend the city tightly and allow the Xianbei cavalry to attack other places.