In fact, when Ding Yuan of Taiyuan learned that the Taishan Army went south to the Yuanping area, he already knew that Yuanping could not be defended.
Yuanping has no wealthy families and no military equipment, so how can they stop it?
Therefore, Ding Yuan simply cleared the Yuanping area, burned down all the houses and fields along the Hutuo River, and moved all the supplies to the Yangqu area to hold on.
This also aroused the resistance of the local tyrants in Yuanping. For them, the one who robbed them was not the Tiger Wolf Taishan Army mentioned above, but the Han Army itself.
Therefore, the original civilians rebelled, and their leader Yang Feng surrendered to the Taishan Army in the north after conquering Yuanping.
However, at this time, Ding Yuan did not attach much importance to this result. What he focused on now was Yangqu, especially Yikou.
After Yangqu is the most elite basin area in Bingzhou, 80% of Bingzhou's Dingkou and grain crops come from here. Therefore, Ding Yuan attaches great importance to the defense of Yangqu.
He handed over the newly organized five thousand battalion troops to Guo Lin.
The reason why Guo Lin was chosen was not only because she was from the Guo family in Yangqu, but also because she had a bloody feud with the Taishan Army.
Guo Lin's elder brother was Guo Yun, who died in the Yingyang battlefield and was beheaded by Zhang Chong himself.
Therefore, by choosing Guo Lin, you can not only get help from the Guo family of the Yangquguan clan, but also don't have to worry about his death.
In addition, Guo Lin is also very capable.
In the old Bingzhou Army, there is a saying that the Five Tiger Generals are all veteran generals in the frontier army. They have made special achievements in the Battle of Weihan. Because this saying is popular among the army, different battalion commanders have five tiger generals.
There are also many different personnel. But no matter which version or who reviews it, Lu Bu and Guo Lin are the indispensable pillars of it.
Some people even call Guo Lin the chief general of the Bingzhou Army.
Some of these people include Ding Yuan.
In Ding Yuan's opinion, Guo Lin is undoubtedly much better than Lu Bu. Not only does she come from a proud family, but she also looks honest and honest.
This and Lu Bu's flamboyant and carefree appearance made Ding Yuan feel at ease and comfortable.
In fact, Ding Yuan only came from the bottom of the class, and he was shot from the bottom of the class. Logically speaking, he should appreciate Lu Bu, who was from a similar background to himself, more.
But it turned out not to be the case. It was precisely because of their similar origins that Ding Yuan believed that people like Lu Bu had despicable morals, were eager for quick success, and were far less loyal than the children of aristocratic families who cherished feathers.
It is not so much that Ding Yuan understood Lu Bu thoroughly as he understood himself thoroughly.
Compared with Lu Bu, Guo Lin has a particularly good relationship with her colleagues in private. She often says:
"The world is getting more and more difficult. If you want people to live well, you have to give them a way in life. You must not rely on the strong to bully the weak or avenge private vengeance."
Guo Lin said so and did so, so his prestige in the Laobingzhou Army was very high.
In addition, Guo Lin was not only kind-hearted, but also had profound family knowledge. She was knowledgeable in classics, art of war, and tactics, and even commented on "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.
One year, after the Bingzhou Army won the battle, Guo Lin went to Kyoto to report her victory, and she made the then emperor Liu Hong stunned.
Liu Hong once asked:
"When will Xianbei be destroyed?"
Guo Lin said this:
"Wen is not greedy for talent, and martial arts is not afraid of death. If you can do these eight words, who is invincible?"
It is said that when Guo Lin returned to the frontier army, Liu Hong often sighed:
"If all the ministers and ministers in the world could be like Guo Qing, why would I have to worry so much about it?"
Not to mention, Guo Lin has very good personal ethics. She is never greedy for a penny, and she can share joys and sorrows in running the army.
It is precisely because of this that when Ding Yuan was appointed as the governor of Bingzhou, he did not take anyone with him but Guo Lin. He really regarded Guo Lin as a humeral court pillar.
So when he sent Guo Lin to the front line of Yangqu, it showed how seriously he took this war.
In addition, in order to defend Yangqu, Ding Yuan also carefully reflected on why he was always defeated. He asked some veterans who had participated in the chaotic wars in Hebei in the past and concluded that the Taishan Army's victory lies in three points.
One is that the armor is excellent, the second is that the top and bottom are of the same mind, and the third is that they are good at mobile warfare.
His favorite general Guo Lin even used a phrase from "Sun Tzu's Art of War" to describe the Taishan Army's tactical style:
"Those who are good at attacking move above the Nine Heavens; those who are good at defending are hiding under the Nine Earths."
For example, the recent Battle of Yanmen Pass and the previous Battle of Pingcheng. The Taishan Army gave full play to its tactical style of maneuvering, interspersing, and long-distance attacks.
On the surface, there seemed to be only a few thousand enemy troops outside Yanmen Pass. At that time, Gai Xun could not find the main force of the enemy army no matter how he sent out his sentries. It was under this situation that he went out and planned to annihilate the front of the enemy army first.
.
Who would have thought that the Taishan Army would make a large circle in order to avoid the eyes and ears in the direction of Yanmen Pass?
Once he discovered the secret of Taishan Army's success, Ding Yuan excitedly took precautions.
Since your Taishan army is as fast as a rabbit, I won't move as fast as a mountain. After all, no matter where you go, you will end up defeating the pass city.
So why don't I just stick to the pass, no matter how you mobilize me, I don't seek merit, but no fault, I just set up a camp and fight stupidly, isn't that enough?
In this case, Ding Yuan thought he had found a way to fight against the Taishan Army, and decided to take advantage of the geographical situation of Bingzhou to resist along the Fenshui River.
And the first line of resistance he planned was Yikou.
After that, along the river communication line going down from Yikou, Ding Yuan divided his troops to guard the walls of the village along the way and control each dangerous road.
However, Ding Yuan also understood that if left unaided for a long time, any pass or barrier would be unable to withstand the despair of the people and collapse. Therefore, he organized the main force of the Bingzhou Army under his command and the reinforcements from the Southern Xiongnu ministries into a mobile army.
Their overall tactical plan was to rely on the barriers on the Fenshui communication line to frustrate the Taishan Army, and then use their mobile corps as a hammer to hammer the Taishan Army to death among these barrier groups.
It can be said that Ding Yuan had really good ideas, and his war literacy also reflected that he was a qualified frontier general.
No wonder he said passionately when seeing Guo Lin off:
"Look, sir, with my strategy, there is nothing wrong with annexing the state."
Guo Lin also deeply agreed and cried in public:
"My lord, you have worked so hard for me and the people of Bingzhou. Lin dares to die if you don't serve."
Afterwards, the two of them performed a show of mutual respect in front of a group of Taiyuan wealthy people. Their original intention was to show the Taiyuan wealthy people their determination to defend Taiyuan.
That is to say, they don’t know how the wealthy families in Taiyuan will appreciate their determination.
The reason for this is also because Ding and Guo are leaving a way out for themselves.
What is their way out? That is, if the barrier battle fails, the last option is to defend Taiyuan. Taiyuan has three years of grain accumulation and a strong city. As long as these powerful families stand with him, Ding Yuan is determined to defend him.
Three years.
By then, will the Taishan Army really be able to survive for three years?
On the roadside, Ding Yuan watched Guo Lin's army go away, feeling reluctant to give up. Watching his humerus step onto the front line, Ding Yuan's heart was filled with loneliness and uneasiness.
Loneliness is because he has to face those Taiyuan tycoons alone, and uneasiness is because he is confused about the future.
To be honest, that's how people are. No matter how good his planning was, Ding Yuan had never actually used such a tactic.
If you have no experience, you will naturally have no confidence. If you have experience, but the final result is not successful, you will also have no confidence.
Why are people always obsessed with past successful experiences? It’s because this is an illusion of safety. Since I could succeed in the past, I can still do it now. And with this kind of confidence, it is really possible to succeed once or twice.
Ding Yuan is like this now, he has no idea.
If someone else tries something new, no matter how bad the result is, it won't be much worse, but he will lose his life.
At this time, after the humerus left, Ding Yuan was eager for someone who could give him psychological comfort. This person he had in mind was Wang Yun, who had previously entered the camp on a bicycle.
No, you still have to write a letter to the old Dong. Since you won’t give him soldiers and horses, and you won’t give him any powerful generals, then Wang Yun has to let him go, right?
So, a group of Taiyuan wealthy families saw that their governor Ding Yuan had just shed tears to bid farewell to the army. In the next moment, they saw him shed tears and return to the city without stopping.
For a time, wealthy families such as the Linghu family, the Wen family, the Qixian Wang family, and the Jinyang Wang family were talking about it.
The patriarchs of these big families are naturally cautious and must show the family's demeanor in public. But some juniors don't have to be so scrupulous.
Among them was a very young member of the Linghu clan named Linghu Shao. He couldn't help but ask the man next to him from the Qixian Wang clan named Wang Ling:
"Baotou, do you think our governor is scared out of his wits? I think we can't save Taiyuan."
At this time, Wang Ling had not yet reached the crown, so he had not been given a nickname, so people close to him called Wang Ling by his nickname.
The name Wang Ling came from his appearance when he was born, with his head wrapped around his head.
Hearing these depressing words from his friend, Wang Ling couldn't help it:
"Okay, I don't know you yet? Don't you just want to get something out of me? I won't hide it from you. I'll just tell you one thing. The person we went to Chang'an to lobby for is back."
At this time, Linghu Shao couldn't help it anymore and asked eagerly:
"What's going on? Reinforcements are coming?"
When he saw Wang Ling nodding proudly, Linghu Shao couldn't help but hammer his palm.
After suppressing his excitement for a while, he couldn't help but be curious and asked:
"Although I know that your Wang family has extensive connections in Chang'an, I still want to ask what means you used to get Master Dong to agree to send troops?"
Seeing that Wang Ling was still proud of himself but didn't say a word, Linghu Shao said bitterly:
"Yes, it must have cost a lot."
Wang Ling laughed heartily, but still didn't say anything.
The Linghu family was one of the overlords of Taiyuan hundreds of years ago, but now it only has this vision and structure.
Even Linghu Shao, the most prominent person in the clan, thought that this matter would be expensive, but in fact they had no idea how an upper-class family like theirs, the Wang family, operated.
In fact, this is what Wang Ling heard, but the person who did this was his father Wang Hong, so he and Yourong Yan were even more serious.
Among the Wang family in Qixian County, Wang Yun showed extraordinary ability in Confucian classics very early, so the family quickly tilted its upper-level resources to Wang Yun, and invited Guo Tai, a famous scholar in the county, to make him famous very early.
He was evaluated as "Wang Zuo's Talent".
Originally this was just an ordinary resource exchange.
But no one knew that Guo Tai later joined the party and became one of the Eight Gus. Naturally, Wang Yun, who had benefited from Guo Tai's criticism, had to join this group.
This is an unspoken rule among scholar-bureaucrats.
But the Wang family at that time was actually not very strong, so in his early years, in order to gain access to his position, Wang Yun became the group's charge general, and successively eliminated many peripheral backbones of the eunuch group.
As a result, Wang Yun suffered heavy revenge from the eunuchs. In the end, if Yuan had not saved him, he would have died long ago.
It was precisely because the Yuan family was kind to Wang Yun that in the early days of the separation of the two capitals, he joined the Kanto camp and became one of the few Kansai people in the court.
At that time, Bingzhou was naturally assigned to Kansai.
But later the Yuan family was purged by He Jin and the young emperor. Wang Yun was lucky and happened to be on the front line to support the army. After learning about the Blood Palace in Kyoto, he did not hesitate to ride a bay red horse west to Hangu Pass.
But at the beginning, Wang Yun was not trusted by Liu Hong. Although Liu Hong thought that this person was a talented person and did well when he was in Runan. But after all, he came from the rebellious party, so his loyalty would be greatly compromised.
And what about Wang Yun? This man was very good at seizing opportunities. He did something and was immediately appreciated by Liu Hong.
It turned out that when Wang Yun was on the front line, he heard that Ding Yuan's Bingzhou Army was stranded in Hedong, and then he never participated in the previous Battle of Weihan.
In this way, he realized that there was a problem here. After all, since Liu Hong had withdrawn the Bingzhou Army from the border areas, he would not use it, let alone hand it over to Dong Zhuo who was sitting on the wall.
So Wang Yun and Liu Hong took the initiative to invite him, saying that he and Ding Yuan had an irreproachable relationship and that he could persuade Ding Yuan to go south.
Liu Hong was good at everything. If he succeeded, he would have a Bingzhou legion that was good at fighting. If he made a mistake, he would lose an uneasy minister, which is not a loss.
So, Wang Yun rode his bicycle across the Pu Ban, holding the Emperor's Jiedu in his hand, and directly entered the Bingzhou camp.
During the communication with Ding Yuan, he realized that the information was not connected.
On Liu Hong's side, he saw that the Bingzhou Army arrived in Hedong and stopped leaving. He also thought that these border warriors were like Dong Zhuo, and they started to fight against each other.
Ding Yuan stayed in Hedong because Dong Zhuo dared to pretend that the emperor kept Ding Yuan in Hedong to be controlled by him, so he stayed.
In fact, the problem lies with Liu Hong. In fact, as long as he finds someone to give the order, all suspicions will be overturned. But the Qingjun of the Henan family and the panic running behind made Liu Hong doubt everything, and even doubt himself.
of imperial power.
Things went smoothly afterwards. With the new edict, Ding Yuan mobilized all his border troops to cross Puban and go south to join the battle. Dong Zhuo did not intercept them either.
As for Dong Zhuo's subsequent edicts, Liu Hong pretended not to have seen them, as he did not want to force him to rebel against Dong Zhuo.
With this skill, Wang Yun quickly established a firm foothold in Chang'an and gradually gathered a group of Bingzhou-based officials in Beijing.
This time, when Taishan's army marched south to the Yanmen Pass area, the powerful Wang family of Taiyuan were actually more alert than Ding Yuan.
The wealthy families who have used Yanmen Pass for smuggling all year round know very well that the Yanmen Pass defense at this time is like a sieve. There are countless mountain roads created by logging in Hengshan Mountain, and the people of Hengshan Mountain are not loyal people. Anyone who gives a little money can lead the way.
In the past, the Xianbei people were able to enter the pass several times, so there is no reason why the Taishan Army couldn't do it.
Therefore, these local snakes had no illusions about the loss of Yanmen Pass, and they all tried their best to make up for it later. No one foolishly took the initiative to tell Ding Yuan, after all, the defense loopholes in Yanmen Pass were caused by these wealthy families.
They would not expose the family's underwater business to Ding Yuan.
After all, Taishan's army is a tiger and Dingyuan is also a wolf. No one is better than the other.
At this time, they set their sights on Dong Zhuo, and they understood that if anyone could still have a chance with the Taishan Army, it would be Dong Zhuo, the former governor of Bingzhou.
So how to persuade Dong Zhuo to send troops?
They decided to let the Wang family come forward. The Wang family chose Wang Yun’s elder brother Wang Hong.
If Wang Yun represents the Wang family's face, then Wang Hong represents the face. Face must be kept clean, so Wang Hong needs to step forward in some matters.
With the support of Taiyuan's wealthy family, Wang Hong immediately headed south to Chang'an before Ding Yuan's letter of appeal was sent out.
After arriving in Chang'an, Wang Hong did not go to Wang Yun or Dong Zhuo, but gathered with his fellow villagers in Chang'an.
These people were very familiar with Wang Hong, so they knew everything about the political trends in the Kansai court. When Wang Hong confirmed from these people that Dong Zhuo was now the leader of Kansai, he started to take action.
He went to find one person first, and that was Li Ru.
Li Ru had been Dong Zhuo's aide when he was the governor of Bingzhou, and the two were very familiar with each other. No one knows what Wang Hong and Li Ru talked about, but it was just an exchange of interests.
But it is definitely not as simple as sending money as Linghu Shao thought.
Later, Li Ru thought about it and told Wang Hong to just talk to him about the matter and not to go to anyone else. Moreover, Wang Hong didn't ask what he did. Even he would not admit it later.
Such a thing.
He told Wang Hong clearly that if he couldn't do something, no one else could do it either.
It doesn't matter whether this is a threat or reality, Wang Hong only needs to make sure that Li Ru wants to do this.
Therefore, after receiving the promise, Wang Hong did not go home, but stayed at a friend's mansion.
Time passed little by little, and Ding Yuan sent letters asking for help one after another, but there was still no sign of troops in Kansai.
Wang Hong was not in a hurry, he didn't go anywhere else, he just waited.
Finally one day, 50,000 soldiers and horses left Chang'an and headed east in a steady stream.
Wang Hongyan smiled and it was done.
The above are all what Wang Hong said to his two sons, as a way of teaching them through words and deeds.
However, the young Wang Ling could not tell the difference between true and false, so he thought that a high official should be like this, cool and elegant, and a pure and clean person.
So when he behaves like this to his friends, he is imitating his father.
Linghu Shao didn't know that his friend was thinking so much. He just wanted to go back and tell his father.
Soon, word spread among the powerful people in Taiyuan that Grand Master Dong had sent an army of 50,000 to rescue Taiyuan. For a time, the powerful people celebrated together, thinking that a great disaster had been avoided.
The nerves that were still tense were relieved.
At this time, Ding Yuan was still writing his letter asking for help, but he didn't know that the Taiyuan soldiers were heartbroken at this time.
It was against this background that the first battle to defend Taiyuan began.