Chapter 1310: Troops Heading to Henan
As early as when the cavalry of the mixed Hu in Sheyan City left the city, Xu Huang had received the news from the Golden Eagle. Seeing that the enemy had only a few thousand people and dared to go out of the city to fight, Xu Huang couldn't help but feel happy. Although he was a newcomer, Huangfu Chaobo insisted on letting him serve as the commander of this expedition. In this regard, Xu Huang had no other thoughts except the feeling of dying for his confidant.
Originally, he was afraid that the foreign soldiers in Sheyan City would escape, so after the troops were sent out, he ordered the Yuanrong crossbow soldiers to be the vanguard, and the rest of the soldiers followed two miles behind them. Now seeing that the enemy not only did not escape, but took the initiative to go out of the city to fight, he immediately ordered Liu Bao and Hu Yandu's two cavalry to bypass the Yuanrong crossbow soldiers and outflanking them on both wings.
The battle lasted only two quarters of an hour. After a round of crossbow arrows from the Yuanrong crossbowmen, thousands of miscellaneous Hu cavalrymen had lost nearly a thousand people. After that, the 20,000 cavalrymen on both wings surrounded them. The remaining cavalrymen only held out for a moment before they were mostly wiped out by the army. With no hope of escape, the remaining less than 3,000 cavalrymen dismounted and surrendered.
Then, Xu Huang ordered the infantrymen to stay here to clean up the battlefield, and he personally led 30,000 cavalrymen to Sheyan City, which was ten miles away.
Faced with cavalrymen who were more numerous than themselves, the people in Sheyan City did not put up much resistance and were all captured. Then, Xu Huang ordered all the generals above the centurion in all the surrounding tribes to be selected and prepared to leave with the army and send them to Fushi City for custody.
He also ordered 2,000 combat infantrymen and 1,000 cavalrymen to guard the city. After the rest of the army rested in Sheyan City for a day, they set out again and headed for Qiuci City in the east.
Two days later, when Xu Huang led the remaining army and 3,000 captive Hu cavalrymen to Qiuci City, Huangfu Chaobo, who had already received the news, was already outside the city gate to greet him.
Seeing this, Xu Huang quickly turned over and dismounted, stepped forward quickly, knelt on one knee to Huangfu Chaobo, and bowed: "The last general Xu Huang greets my king!"
"General Xu, please stand up. I didn't expect the general to be so fast..." Huangfu Chaobo smiled and stepped forward, stretched out his hands to help Xu Huang up, and said;
"Your Majesty, you are too kind. Your Majesty is so powerful."
Then, Xu Huang reported his arrangements in Sheyan City to Huangfu Chaobo in detail, and then he entered Qiuci City with Huangfu Chaobo.
The army only rested in Qiuci City for one day. The next day, the army left Qiuci City early in the morning and set out to Baitu City in the northeast.
Baitu City is located on the east bank of the Circular Water. After passing Baitu City, you will enter the most prosperous place in the entire Hetao area, which is what was called "Henan" during the Qin and Han Dynasties. There were once dense cities here. Meiji City, the former royal court of the Southern Xiongnu, was located here. However, since the fifth year of Zhongping in the Eastern Han Dynasty (188 AD), the Southern Xiongnu broke away from the jurisdiction of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Henan was opened as a nomadic area by the northern Xiongnu, Wuhuan, Xianbei, Qiang and other ethnic minorities.
When the army crossed the Circular Water, Huangfu Chaobo thought there would be a war, but unexpectedly, no war took place. Perhaps because Qiuci and Yuanyin were both captured by Jiangshan, Baitu City was not occupied by a large tribe, but by several small and medium-sized tribes.
When they found that there was a large army in Qiuci City heading towards the Circular Water, several large and small tribes almost fled at the first time, allowing the Tang army to cross the Circular Water very smoothly and occupy Baitu City.
In the strategy set by Huangfu Chaobo and several military advisors, the location of Baitu City is very important. It will be an important logistical supply location for the army's expedition to Henan.
The west gate of Baitu is just outside the east bank of the Yuanshui River. So after the army occupied Baitu City, Huangfu Chaobo immediately ordered a floating bridge to be built outside the west gate that could pass baggage carts, and at the same time ordered the army to strengthen the walls and defenses of Baitu City. Although there are no tribes in Baitu City, Huangfu Chaobo knows that they have only left temporarily, because the surrounding area has been occupied by the Han army, and these tribes cannot disappear out of thin air.
Huangfu Chaobo was not wrong.
One hundred and fifty miles northeast of Baitu City, there are three ancient cities of the Han Dynasty. The three cities are not far apart, namely Guangyan, Zhenlin and Pingding.
Just when Huangfu Chaobo strengthened the defense of Baitu City, as many as 20,000 miscellaneous cavalrymen had gathered around these three cities, and more miscellaneous Hu cavalrymen were gathering towards these three cities.
These tribal cavalrymen were the cavalrymen of the tribes in Henan, and the leader was Liu Bao's uncle, the current Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, Huchuquan. A few years ago, Huchuquan succeeded Liu Bao's father Yufuluo as Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, and appointed Liu Bao, who had just come of age, as the Left Wise King.
Afterwards, Huchuquan tried his best to weaken Liu Bao's power, and then tried his best to send him away from the Southern Xiongnu royal court and arranged him to Qiuci. As a result, Liu Bao was defeated by Jiangshan with the help of Fa Zheng, and finally he was captured by Jiangshan and had to surrender to Jiangshan.
This time, Liu Bao suddenly appeared in Qiuci again, and continued to gather small Xiongnu tribes and reorganized 10,000 Xiongnu cavalry. The news was soon delivered to Huchuquan.
Although Huchuquan is now a phoenix with feathers shed, it is worse than a chicken, but there is still a saying that a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. Even though the Southern Xiongnu today are no longer comparable to the Xiongnu in the early Han Dynasty, Huochequan currently controls the two cities of Meiji and Guangyan, has a tribe of up to 40,000 to 50,000 people, and an army of about 15,000. He is undoubtedly the largest force in Henan.
However, even so, there are still dozens of different tribes in Henan, and their combined tribes and military forces are far more than Huochuquan, which is why Huochuquan, with 10,000 or 20,000 troops, still cannot control the entire Henan area.
After receiving the news that the Tang army had sent troops, Huyanquan immediately ordered all the tribal leaders in Henan to come to a city called Guluo in the east of Guangyan to discuss how to defeat the invading Tang army.
The people who occupied Guluo City were the descendants of the Qianren Qiang who occupied Xihe and Shangjun during the reign of Emperor Guang of the Han Dynasty. The battle of the Qianren Qiang against Guluo City took place here. In the first year of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty (AD 122), the Qianren Qiang living in Xihe and Shangjun joined the Xiongnu in a rebellion and attacked Guluo City (now southwest of Jungar Banner, Inner Mongolia). The Eastern Han Dynasty sent General Geng Kui of Du Liao to lead the troops of various counties and the Wuhuan cavalry to suppress and defeat them.
Several decades later, the descendants of the Qianren Qiang tribe, who fled westward in panic, took advantage of the fact that the Han court was once again unable to control Xihe and Shangjun, and moved east again, and then occupied the city that had made their ancestors so desperate. However, the Qianren Qiang at this time was no longer the large tribe that occupied the two counties and rebelled decades ago, but a medium-sized tribe with only more than 10,000 people.