Chapter 928: Continue the Southern Expedition
Huangfu Chaobo has not yet thought clearly about who the county seat of Xianyang will be given to, so he did not say it on the spot. What he had in mind was to give it to one of Lao Du and the others, or to give the city to one person, and to give some of the population, troops, and horses to the other person. After all, they were the first players to follow him, and they knew everything about them, so they could still be trusted.
Also, Huangfu Chaobo still doesn’t want Zhao Zilong to be too strong from the bottom of his heart. If he really falls out with him for some reason, Huangfu Chaobo doesn’t want to see it, so he wants to Let Lao Du and Xiao Jiejie be able to contain him to some extent.
In fact, for Xi Anyang, Huangfu Chaobo had long wanted to get rid of this burden. It was a helpless move to occupy Xi Anyang at the beginning. Now he just took this opportunity to get rid of it and transferred Ma Xuan and Hao Jian to Longhua. Today's Longhua plate is no longer small, but there has always been a shortage of generals and officials, which has restricted his development. With the current situation, it is estimated that Gongsun Zan may not be able to last for a few more years. If preparations are not made early, the territory that has taken so many years to develop will have to be handed over to Yuan Shao.
After basically settling the matter in Xianyang, Huangfu Chaobo breathed a sigh of relief, and now he could finally focus on the war in Huainan.
After several days of reorganizing the army, General Huang Zhong had already arranged all his troops. Anfeng City and Yulou City each deployed one school of under-strength combat soldiers and one school of garrison troops to garrison, while the rest of the troops began to prepare for the expedition to Lu'an.
On June 15, the Anton Army began to send troops from Yulou. Nearly 130,000 troops were guarding 20,000 civilian craftsmen. The army crossed Jueshui and left for Lu'an County, which is more than 100 miles east.
Three days later, the army arrived at the west bank of the Xiang River. After crossing the Xiang River, they set up camp five miles southwest of Lu'an and close to the Xiang River.
At this time, the gates of Lu'an City have long been closed, and there are many flags on the top of the city.
At Huangfu Chaobo's position, the casualties of soldiers were just a number seen in battle reports, so he no longer cared about specific battle arrangements. In addition, Yuzhou has always had a vast territory, a large population, and abundant supplies. However, although the number of soldiers was large, their combat power was weak. Therefore, Huangfu Chaobo had two purposes. One was to occupy the territory, and the other was to train troops.
After handing over the war to Huang Zhong, Huangfu Chaobo only confessed that in addition to training troops, he also needed to train generals. After that, he never said another word.
Liu'an is adjacent to the Xianshui River in the west, and there are plain terrains in the north, south, east, and south, so Huang Zhong arranged for the army to attack from the east and south at the same time. As for the north, there was no army arranged, which was deliberately left as a way for the defenders to escape.
The attack on the southern city wall was personally directed by Huang Zhong, while the attack on the eastern wall was handed over to Zhang He. Each side arranged five schools of fighting troops and 20,000 garrison troops. The remaining troops and horses were left in the main camp to prevent possible reinforcements from Zhu County in the south. Huangfu Chaobo's Guards were in the center to support the two siege armies.
Lu'an serves as the barrier to the north of the Lujiang Administrative Office, so when the troops and horses were mobilized for the last time, Lujiang Prefect Yuan Huan and Guardsman Qiao Rui not only did not mobilize troops and horses to leave, but instead added 7,000 guards and 2,000 soldiers to Lu'an. Soldiers, plus the original 6,000 defenders in Lu'an City, there were a total of 15,000 troops. The person responsible for the defense was Qiao Ge, a general under Qiao Rui.
As early as when General Ji Ling was fighting the allied forces in the Yulou area, Qiaoge had already led troops to station in Lu'an, and then continued to lead troops to strengthen the city's defense. When the Andong Army arrived in Lu'an, Lu'an The city's defense has been greatly improved.
After the Antong Army arrived in Lu'an, they did not take much rest. They launched an attack on Lu'an City the next day, because Huangfu Chaobo had received the news. After Cao Cao's army and Sun Quan's army received the news that both sides were harmed on the Lujiang battlefield, they The attack against Yuan Shu's army soon began, so Huangfu Chaobo must capture Lujiang as soon as possible, or at least Shu County, the seat of Lujiang.
Five days later, Anton's army finally captured Lu'an. Yuan Shu's 15,000-strong army suffered more than 8,000 casualties.
Five thousand were captured, and only less than 2,000 remaining soldiers escorted Qiaoge to escape from the north gate. The Anton Army suffered casualties of 20,000 soldiers, of which more than 12,000 were killed, 2,000 were seriously injured, and 6,000 were slightly injured.
Subsequently, Huangfu Chaobo ordered Huang Wudie to stay behind with an army of 10,000, and all 8,000 wounded soldiers stayed in Lu'an. The remaining army of more than 100,000 broke camp and went south to attack Shu County. Along with the army, there were more than 4,000 captured and uninjured soldiers in Yuan Shu's army.
The army marched along the remaining mountains of the Dabie Mountains and easily captured the two county towns of Zhu County and Longshu, which were defended by only 5,000 people. After each defending the city with 3,000 guards and injured soldiers, the army continued to march towards Shu County.
In early July, the army finally arrived six miles north of Shu County. At this time, the army had only 100,000 soldiers and horses, plus more than 10,000 civilian craftsmen and nearly 10,000 prisoners of Yuan Shu's army captured in several cities. Since Lu'an captured thousands of Yuan Shu's troops, dangerous tasks such as filling trenches before the war were no longer left to the civilians who accompanied the army, but became the work of Yuan Shu's prisoners.
There is no way, Yuan Shu's power has not yet been destroyed, and most of these prisoners cannot be surrendered, so the work of these cannon fodder can only be left to them. You know, Huangfu Chaobo still has tens of thousands of prisoners of Yuan Shu's army detained there in Yuzhou. Not only the Anton Army operates this way, but now all the princes in the world operate this way during war.
As expected by Huangfu Chaobo and others, on the third day after the battle of Lu'an began, Sun Ce led 80,000 troops to Tangyi and began to attack Yuan Si and Liu Xun's troops stationed in Tangyi. Tangyi had a total of 10,000 soldiers and 5,000 soldiers stationed. It took Sun Ce's 80,000 troops five days to capture it.
Liu Xun was injured and captured, and Yuan Si broke out under the escort of more than 3,000 soldiers and joined Chen Lan's troops in Dongcheng.
Afterwards, after two days of rest in Tangyi, Sun Ce's army went out again and entered Fuling in Jiujiang, and began to attack Fuling and Quanjiao. Among the 80,000 troops, there were only 40,000 soldiers from Jiangdong, and the remaining 40,000 were selected from the captives after Sun Ce occupied Guangling, and then recruited from various cities.
The two counties of Xuzhou are not as good as the two counties of Yangzhou. Yuan Shu controlled them for too short a time, and they were taken advantage of the fire, so both Sun Ce's army and Cao Cao's army were much smoother in recruiting captives than the Andong army. However, the two counties were too close to each other, and Sun Ce's attack was unsuccessful for two consecutive days.
He wanted to lure the enemy out of the city, but Yuan Yao and Li Ling refused to be fooled. In desperation, Sun Ce finally followed Zhou Yu's suggestion and left 40,000 troops to guard against Yuan Shu's army, and led 40,000 troops to attack Liyang via Fuling. After taking Liyang, he wanted to directly transfer troops from Jianye to cross the river via Niuzhu to reinforce.