This is the exit of Tangwuguan Road, and is known as "the gateway that guards Funiu for eight hundred miles, and is the key link between Qin and Chu".
Shi Tianze withdrew to Neixiang County and was not frustrated by today's small defeat.
He quickly rectified his morale and even sent out scouting horses to observe the Song army's movements...
"Report, Marshal, we found signs of the Song Army near Mount Ashan."
"How many men and horses?"
"As soon as we approached, the Song army came out of the forest. But looking at the birds in the forest, it seemed that there was a large army inside, with big flags and banners, and the sound and flames were loud..."
After hearing this, Shi Tianze said nothing, but there was some doubt in his eyes.
Dong Wenyong and Shi Ge looked at each other and were very happy.
"Shi Shuai's information is correct." Dong Wenyong cupped his hands and said: "As Shi Shuai said, Zhang Jue quietly sneaked around and intended to attack our army."
"With more than 10,000 troops, they cover it up too well, right?" Shi Ge pondered: "Can it be done?"
"Every time Li Xia has an incredible victory, it must be because he is so cunning."
"If so, it's really weird." Shi Ge nodded.
For the time being, we have only detected signs, but we may not be able to confirm it. We can only send detective horses to find out more.
However, it was already dark, so it was probably difficult to find out much about the military situation.
Dong Wenyong had already begun to praise Shi Tianze.
"Shi Shuai is unique in using troops. He has a clear eye for fire. He noticed Li Xia's tricks and retreated bravely. I admire him..."
He has roughly counted the casualties in the army and has a more intuitive understanding of the results of the war.
From early morning to dusk in today's battle, the Song Army's casualties were always higher than those of the Mongolian Army. However, the Song Army was still waiting for Zhang Jue to lead 10,000 people around, and it was never defeated.
That is to say, in the end, Shi Tianze ordered the gold to withdraw, but the two thousand infantrymen who were engaged in the battle were not able to withdraw. However, after coordinating the entire battle, the total number of casualties was only more than a thousand more than the Song army.
Not considered a defeat.
If Zhang Jue is really given an opportunity to take advantage of it, then he will be called a failure.
"Speaking of it, what Song Jun learned today was Shi Shuai's tactics that he quietly used in the battle of Xi Mu Tu Nao'er. He is a master of tricks. No wonder he was exposed by Shi Shuai at a glance..."
Shi Tianze couldn't stand listening to the flattery, and waved his hand.
"Whether it's false or real." Shi Tianze sighed, "I underestimated Li Xia. I wanted to annihilate Li Xia first before going to Shandong to suppress the rebellion. As a result, two thousand cavalry chased him all the way, but they encountered
Twenty thousand people.”
"Yes, I was lured by Li Xia, which delayed my time."
"Since he has such strength, he cannot be destroyed easily." Shi Tianze said: "After I put down Li Fen's rebellion first, please inform your majesty to mobilize all the armies to attack Guanzhong together."
Dong Wenyong said: "Yes, Shi Shuai's words are correct."
This is the reason why Shi Tianze retreated. When Li Xia showed his strength, he seemed difficult enough to fight. Then it was not his side who was responsible for destroying Li Xia.
In the eyes of others, he was defeated, but the fact was that he just decided to retreat and find a safer way to deal with Li Xia.
"I can't delay any longer. Now the King Zong has been waiting for me in Jinan for nearly a month. We must send troops to Jinan as soon as possible. I think Li Xia doesn't have much army rations, so he will withdraw to Wuguan soon."
Dong Wenyong asked again: "But... once Shi Shuai leads his troops to leave, and Li Xia sends troops to attack again, I may not be able to stop him."
Shi Tianze shook his head.
"On the one hand, Li Xia is short of food and grass, and I have held him down for a few days, which is enough to force him to retreat; on the other hand, there are soldiers and horses from A Shu, Liu Zheng, Yang Dayuan and other groups who are threatening Guanzhong one after another, and Li Xia will no longer have any spare strength.
Going out of the country to harass.”
At this point, Shi Tianze felt a little emotional, and then said: "You can see it? What Li Xia grasped is the little time before our army attacks. This guy grasps the timing very carefully."
"Let's put it this way...it was indeed less than a month's gap between Shi Shuai's expedition and the time when all the forces were forced to enter Guanzhong. Li Xia took advantage of this to cause a big fuss."
"I have no choice but to block Li Xia for this month." Shi Tianze clapped his knees and sighed.
What he meant was that the reason why he came to pursue Li Xia before setting off to Shandong was because Li Xia was running around in Henan like a mouse with two thousand cavalry.
He led his troops to give chase. At least he drove the rat away, and he could attack Shandong with peace of mind.
Dong Wen responded with a cupped hand, secretly saying that Shi Tianze was still safe.
~~
The next day, the scouting horse reported back. As expected, Li Xia led his troops up Danshui and slowly retreated to Wuguan.
As expected, Shi Tianze couldn't wait any longer and immediately sent troops to march eastward.
Dong Wenyong began to contact Dong Wenzhong and Dong Wenwei to prepare to attack Dengzhou.
Dengzhou has been guarded by the nephew of the Shi family in the past few years. When Shi Tianze came this time, he only wanted to get rid of Li Xia, and he also wanted to prevent Dengzhou from falling into the hands of other princes.
But He Bichi was so anxious that he finally gave it to the Dong family.
The relationship between the two families is actually very good. When Shi Tianze lost his true love, it was Dong Jun, the father of the Dong brothers, who lent his bodyguards to Shi Tianze. Over the decades, the two families have been constantly getting married.
The Dong family's attack on Dengzhou was a result that Shi Tianze had to accept.
This battle is not difficult for the Dong brothers.
Lu Wenhuan's determination to defend Dengzhou was not firm.
Dengzhou is located in the Nanyang Basin. The terrain is flat and not easy to defend.
Xiangyang is much easier to defend. It is located to the south of the Han River and has Fancheng to the north of the Han River as a corner. The navy lies across the Han River and can effectively annihilate the enemy.
This time he sent troops to recapture Dengzhou and beheaded Shi Quan, which was a great achievement.
More importantly, he strategically contained the Mongolian army for a whole month and effectively cooperated with Li Fen. The military order assigned by the imperial court was completed.
This is just a reason for not being firm. From a personal perspective, Lu Wenhuan wanted to defend Dengzhou, but gradually he realized that money and food could not support him in defending Dengzhou...
Because the Song army and Mongolia are different.
Why did the Mongolian army always have money and food to support them when they attacked cities and plundered territory?
Three words, no seal.
The Mongolian army did not defend the city. They massacred everything they passed. While they had money and food, there was no defensive pressure at all.
Today, the Mongolian army will be the main attack. They will capture Fancheng first and massacre the city. Then they can immediately continue to attack Xiangyang.
Transport baggage? Stay behind soldiers and horses? Build city defenses? Appease the people?
None.
Of course, Kublai Khan now talks about Chinese law and benevolence and righteousness, but rarely does this because Mongolia was founded sixty years ago when its national power was at its strongest.
Lu Wenhuan does not have this strength.
It can be said that every time the Mongolian army attacks a city, it is absorbed, while every time the Song army attacks a city, it is dispersed.
Originally, 10% of the force was used to defend Xiangyang, but with the addition of Dengzhou, 30% of the 10% of force had to be allocated to Dengzhou, and the remaining 20% had to be placed on the logistics line.
The difficulty of the Northern Expedition, which had only been more than 150 miles north of the national border, was deeply felt.
After just a few days of guarding the city, Lu Wenhuan already understood that he was destined to be unable to defend Dengzhou.
It was as if there was some force that pushed the Song Dynasty's defense line to Xiangyang again.
It was more like there was a stronger force behind him that wanted to "pull" the Song Dynasty's defense line back to Xiangyang.
When Li Zengbo wanted to build a defense line in Xiangyang, Jia Sidao strongly opposed it.
Because the Song Dynasty really could not benefit from the expansion.
…
"Get ready to evacuate Dengzhou tonight."
On May 20th, when the battle to defend the city continued until the eighth day, Lu Wenhuan finally gave the order.
He was helpless and unwilling.
But there is no way...
What he didn't expect was that on that afternoon, he actually saw a Song flag waving further north...
~~
On this day, brothers Dong Wenyong and Dong Wenzhong looked at each other, also a little surprised.
"As soon as Shi Shuai left, this guy came back again?"
"Do you really think he won?"
"But...we have indeed never defeated Li Xia. Therefore, we made him advance when he wanted to and retreat when he wanted to."
Dong Wenyong said: "Commander Shi's intention is that all roads are approaching Guanzhong, and Li Xia should not have any spare strength to attack again."
"It must be that those troops were too lax and did not put any pressure on Li Xia..."
"Send a fast horse to Luoyang and let my elder brother supervise..."
~~
Li Xia actually felt a lot of pressure.
When he returned to Wuguan, news from all over the place came pouring in.
Li Zengbo, who was based in Longxi, had obviously deeply felt the threat of A Shu, and kept writing to Hanzhong to request reinforcements. Hanzhong felt that the situation was serious, so he forwarded the letter to Wuguan;
Yan'an Prefecture urgently reports that it is being besieged by the Mongolian army...
If these are just general battles, during the battle, the news came from Heyang, which meant that Liu Zheng had captured the Heyang camp.
Under such circumstances, Liu Zheng did not move the main force of the navy to Xiayangdu. He only sent a small number of troops and horses into the pass first, scattered out to explore the horses, plundered the people, and built strongholds.
This is based on the tactics used by Cao Cao and Ma Chao in the Tongguan battle. He first crossed the Yellow River, then built a stronghold on the banks of the Yellow River, fought the battle in vain, and advanced step by step.
It was like Zhang Jue had set up a trap and dropped a piece of fat. Liu Zheng cautiously poked his head out, as if he was about to step into the trap, but started to test little by little to destroy the trap.
In this way, it would be difficult for Zhang Jue to eat Liu Zheng's navy.
Obviously, he did not expect Liu Zheng, who was brave enough to conquer Xinyang, to be so cautious in fighting.
"Zhang Shuai means that if he does not defend Heyang County, he will continue to let Liu Zheng's main force enter Guanzhong. But all the generals are very worried. Looking at the situation in Yan'an Prefecture and Longxi, if Liu Zheng is allowed to gain a foothold in Guanzhong, he will not be able to drive him away.
…”
Listening to this, Li Xia also considered for a moment whether he should really choose to attack Liu Zheng first if he wanted to defeat them one by one.
But in the end, he supported Zhang Jue's decision.
"Zhang Jue will be under full command. Tell him again that I will try my best to put pressure on Nanyang and force Liu Zheng into a trap..."
~~
On the second day of June, a letter from Dong Wenbing was delivered to Liu Zheng again.
"The military situation is on fire. We can't do anything without fighting. Li Xia and Zhang Jue have used all their main forces. Nanyang is in danger!"
"No." Liu Zheng waved his hand, really not believing that Nanyang was in danger...
"Liu Shuai! Li Xia's main force is not in Guanzhong. If we hesitate now, if Nanyang is defeated again, we will not be able to afford the crime of delaying the opportunity to fight."
"this……"
"Your Majesty has arranged all the routes to prevent Li Xia from sending troops when we are quelling Li Fen's rebellion. Now that Li Xia has sent troops, it is the time for Liu Shuai to use force!"
"Now Commander-in-Chief Shi is going to Shandong to quell the rebellion. The only one who can relieve Nanyang's urgent situation is Commander-in-Chief Liu. He should lead the land and sea troops into the pass and go straight to Chang'an."
"Not bad! Go straight to Chang'an!"
"..."
Liu Zheng was not unwilling to send troops at all. He also wanted to fight, but he was just fighting slowly. Heyang Camp had already been captured. How could he not send troops?
However, it turns out that what everyone meant was that the army was heading towards Chang'an before sending out troops...
~~
"We will soon be surrounded by enemies on three or even four sides. If we can't annihilate Liu Zheng now, what's the point of bringing him into Guanzhong?"
In Zhang Jue's tent, an aide named Jiang Kai gave some advice and said: "Shuai Zhang, why don't you take back Fuyang Camp and Xia Yangdu, set up a defense line on the Yellow River, and go north to rescue Yan'an Prefecture as soon as possible?"
"Guard against the Yellow River? The Yellow River is so long and there are so many ferries. How many troops will be dragged down... It is precisely because we are surrounded by enemies on all sides that we should attack all the way first."
"That's true, but Liu Zheng can't be fooled. He is the world-famous 'Sai Cunxiao'."
Afterwards, someone hurriedly entered the account and reported to Zhang Jue.
Zhang Jue breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Finally... Sai Cunxiao's ability seems to be almost the same. It's my turn to meet him..."