Many people may not know about Xuantu City. This city has not left many traces and stories in history.
But here, a city that will rise from the ground in the future, Shenyang, must be more familiar.
Yes, Xuantu is roughly where Shenyang is now.
Xuantu is the center of the Liaohe Plain. Because it is located in the far north, it is named Xuantu, which means tiger of the north.
As an important town that strangles the Liaohe River Plain and radiates the entire forest, sea and snowfield, it not only has to guard against the miscellaneous beasts in the north, but also the mountainous ethnic groups in the Changbai Mountains in the east.
Therefore, the Han Dynasty built the city built by Xuantu with a high pool and a deep pool. There was a Chinese-shaped pit outside the city, with sharp stakes inserted in it, covered with platycodon and covered with earth.
There are trenches on the inside of the tunnel, with bars and spikes erected. It can be said that such city defense is already very tight in this land of Liaodong.
You must know that whether it is Sushen, Buyeo, or Goguryeo, it is true that they have elite soldiers and warriors, but it is really difficult for these tribes and clans to let them attack the city.
On this day, this city faced its first real test since its establishment.
…
In the second year of Taiwu, August 23rd.
Taishan's army of 12,000 infantry and cavalry arrived at Xuantu. At this time, comparing the situation inside and outside the city, the situation was very favorable to the Han army.
The first is that the Han army has a fortified city for defense; the second is that the Han army is waiting for work; the third is that the Han army is stationary; and the fourth is that the Han army has sufficient food and fodder.
But even so, the Taishan Army still launched an attack on Xuantu under this situation.
On the first day of the first battle, the Taishan Army took the lead in launching a tentative attack on Xuantu's west gate with wooden planks, ladders, shields, and chariots.
Although the Taishan Army openly attacked the city with great fanfare, its actual plan was to avoid city battles, lure the enemy into battle, and then annihilate them.
Therefore, when attacking the city, Zhang Chong ordered all his troops to feint attack and expose weaknesses to lure the enemies inside the city.
But Zhang Chong didn't know that because his light cavalry went east too fast, he didn't know how much chaos and fear it brought to the Han army in the city.
When King Zhang led his main force of 12,000 people to cross the Liao River, Xuantu's sentinel cavalry had already discovered it, but at that time Xuantu believed that it would take at least four or five days for the Taishan Army to reach Xuantu.
But no one expected that the Taishan Army would have arrived at the west gate of Xuantu on August 23.
Fortunately, the prefect Ji Gao had sent sentry cavalry thirty miles outside the city. These people came back with all their might and sent the message back, which gave Xuan Tu a little buffering time.
After receiving the news, Ji Gao immediately ordered Captain Li Man to lead 400 Han troops to defend the west gate, and then sent the Sushen Battalion to organize the second round of defense.
At that time, there were a large number of tribes from various clans outside the city, and they all followed Jigao's order to go out of the city to clear the countryside.
But originally Ji Gao's order was to let them burn food.
But seeing that the millet fields outside the city were about to mature, who would be so foolish as to burn them? After leaving the city, one after another, all of them were busy cutting millet and transporting it back to their warehouses.
So, when Ji Gao ordered them to return to the city quickly, two evil consequences occurred.
One is that most of the Sutian who were originally scheduled to clear the country were left outside, and the other is that some powerful tribes who were relatively far away were intercepted by Zhao Yun with the Feilong Army on their way back to the city, and they were all wiped out. As a result, the forces in the city were weakened.
Finally, the powerful troops who really returned to the city had eight hundred brave men and thousands of captives.
In addition, Jigao's own core armaments in the city were two hundred armored soldiers, and thousands of county soldiers affiliated with the county government. This was the total force in Xuantu City at this time.
As soon as Taishan's army arrived at the west gate, they launched an attack in an attempt to seize the city gate.
Li Man, who was in charge of the defense of Xicheng, came from the Li family in Liaodong and was a member of the clan of Li Min who died in Zhongrenting.
At this time, I encountered Taishan's army in front, and the hatred of the country and family was all over the place, so I went to the stone in person, commanded and dispatched, and finally succeeded in repelling the enemy army.
But they didn't know that the Taishan Army was just feigning an attack.
On the opposite side, after the Taishan Army's strategy of feigning an attack to lure the Han Army out of the city failed, they decided to set up their general camp on Qipan Mountain in the northeast outside the city.
During this process, the Han troops in the city still did not choose to leave the city to attack, and there was no night attack that night.
In this way, Zhang Chong understood that the Han army in the city chose to maintain a strong wall and clear the field, without any plans to go out of the city to fight in the field.
But at this moment, Xuantu City was in chaos.
Because various wealthy families lost a lot of troops when they went out of the city to clear the country, on the one hand to replenish their strength, and on the other hand to express their dissatisfaction with Jigao, these people began to draw troops inside the city.
The so-called drawing of troops means drawing men from each household and forcibly recruiting the Lu People's Association in the city to defend the city.
This crude method naturally caused chaos in the city. In the end, Ji Gao sent out armored soldiers and killed a group of Guizhou residents to stabilize the situation.
That's right, he killed the people of Lu, not the wealthy tribe.
At this time, Ji Gao knew very well that he could only rely on these powerful troops to defend the city, and then he would have to suffer for these people.
But what Ji Gao didn't understand was that many of the powerful tribesmen who killed people were barbarian warriors from Sushen, Goguryeo, and Fuyu, but almost all the people who were killed were Han Chinese.
This turns the problem of suppression into a Hu-Han problem.
Ji Gao's move caused him to lose all prestige among the Han people in the city.
But it's not that Ji Gao didn't have good news. That was that his reinforcements were also arriving one after another.
As the news of Xuantu's siege spread throughout the county, first the nearest Houcheng and Gaoguli cities received the Xuantu beacon fire warning, each leading 500 troops to come to the rescue and successfully camped at the west gate of Xuantu County.
Similarly, Zhao Jing, the captain of Liaoyang County in the lower reaches of Xiaoliao River, also set out with 500 battalions and 500 county soldiers. They set off north along the south bank of Xiaoliao River, and finally set up camp at the south gate of Xuantu County.
It looks across the Xiaoliao River from the city.
Originally Ji Gao was very happy to see Zhao Jing leading more than a thousand troops and horses to come to the rescue, but at last he saw that the grandson opposite was actually camped on the south bank of the Xiaoliao River, separated from him by a river, not to mention that he could withstand the Taishan Army outside the city.
Already.
In this regard, Ji Gao could only call him a rat and say nothing.
However, unlike Zhao Jing who was timid, the reinforcements from the upper reaches of the Xiaoliao River were much more bold and enterprising.
They are reinforcements from Sigeima (Fushun).
Xigeima is located in the upper reaches of Xiaoliao River. The county captain Wangfu in the city led 20 long boats, went south along the Xiaoliao River, and finally camped outside the east gate of the county.
In this way, as reinforcements from the other four cities in Xuantu County arrived one after another, a pattern of three thousand soldiers inside the city and three thousand reinforcements outside the city was finally formed in Xuantu City.
During this process, except for ordering the assault cavalry to defeat and annihilate a reinforcement force coming from Gaoxian (Tieling), Zhang Chong did nothing and watched the Han reinforcements arrive one after another.
The reason for Zhang Chong's move is not complicated. In fact, he used Xuantu City as a magnet to attract all the troops in Xuantu County here.
In order to prevent these reinforcements from being frightened, Zhang Chong even refused the request of his subordinates to gather around for reinforcements.
The reason why Zhang Chong did this was to avoid city battles and defeat Xuan Tu in a field battle.
Through such tactics of mobilizing enemy troops, Zhang Chong also unexpectedly discovered an opportunity, that is, this process fully exposed the weakness of the four northeastern counties' lack of unified command and lack of coordination among the counties.
The reason is very simple. Xiangping (Liaoyang), the county seat of Liaodong County, is actually not far from Xuantu County. The news of the siege here should have been known to Gongsundu for a long time, but until now, no one from Liaodong County has known about it.
Soldiers were sent.
Zhang Chong's insight was very keen. In fact, the problems in the four northeastern counties at this time were even more serious than this.
Gongsundu had a certain foundation in Liaodong. On the one hand, his family was deeply entrenched in this area, and on the other hand, his adoptive father was the governor of Liaodong and had deep political resources in the county.
But even so, Gongsundu was not the only one in Liaodong, and the Li family in Liaodong alone could stabilize him.
However, after the Zhongrenting War, not only the situation in northern China was profoundly affected, but also the remote Liaodong Province was profoundly affected.
Following the humiliating death of the head of the Li family, Li Min, in the Zhongren Pavilion, the Li family's reputation plummeted. Those Liaodong children who fled back to their hometown all said that Li Min drank and made mistakes, which led to the tragic deaths of three thousand children in his hometown.
You must know that during the battle of Zhongrenting, every family in Liaodong hung white flags on every family. These children who died in the battle were all the heirs of the small wealthy families in the local area.
When such news came, the Li family, let alone being the leader in Liaodong, could only rely on Gongsun Du if they wanted to survive.
As for the idea, Gongsun Du successfully returned to Liaodong with 800 white horses and became a powerful faction.
He even brought back the golden sword of Lu Zhi, the former Zhenbei general, and thus became the leader of the remaining military remnants of the Zhenbei army.
Even Li Min's son Li Xin attached himself to Gongsun Du's tent and became a halberd-bearing man honestly.
But Gongsundu's fame and power only amounted to this.
Others like Xuantu, the two counties of Lelang actually didn't care about this Caotou prefect, especially the Wang family of Lelang, who humiliated Gongsun Du several times and called him a usurping servant.
That is to say, the vassal state of Liaodong was weak, and the Gongsun family within the territory also followed the lead of Gongsun Du, who was of the same clan, which made Gongsun Du become the leader of the four counties.
But this leadership is very fragile.
Perhaps as time goes by, Gongsundu can integrate the four northeastern counties, and also the Wuhuan, Sushen, and Fuyu people in the territory, and establish a real political power in Northeast Asia.
But unfortunately, Zhang Chong came too quickly, and history did not give Gongsundu this opportunity.
Zhang Chong outside the city discovered this problem, why couldn't Ji Gao inside the city discover it?
In fact, he was panicking at this moment.
He didn't expect that Gongsun Du of Liaodong really didn't care about him at all. Was he really not worried about him surrendering in Kaicheng?
But does Ji Gao dare? He doesn't dare, because the remnants of the Han army in the city and the princes and nobles who escaped from Youzhou are forcing Ji Gao to fight to the death with the Taishan army.
Otherwise, do you, Ji Gao, really think that you can protect yourself with just your two hundred armored soldiers?
If you can't win the shot, it's even more impossible to fight.
Ji Gao knew exactly what the strength of the troops outside the city was. No one believed that these people could survive the attack of the Taishan Army.
At this stage, the Han army had no illusions about the combat power of the Taishan Army.
How about that?
We can only grovel and beg Gongsun Du for mercy and reinforcements!