Chapter 2250: The three armies join forces and encircle Chang'an
Chapter 2250: The three armies join forces and surround Chang'an
Just two days before Li Shimin returned to Chang'an, the decisive battle between Li Jing and Yang Jian officially broke out.
Not long after Yang Jian left Lantian, Huang Zhong led his army to take over Lantian.
As Li Jing expected, Sima Yi indeed had a backup plan in Lantian, and there were more than one underhanded move.
As soon as Huang Zhong's army entered Lantian, a fire broke out in the grain depot, and then the whole city caught fire, which clearly shows Sima Yi's ruthlessness.
In order to destroy Huang Zhong's army, he even burned Lantian and sacrificed the lives of more than 100,000 people. It was simply crazy.
Fortunately, during the fight with Sima Yi, Li Jing had already understood Sima Yi's character and guessed that he would come to such an extent, so he gave Huang Zhong instructions in advance, saving more than 10,000 troops from the sea of fire and saving the entire city.
's people.
Sima Yi's fire did not burn the Qin army, but burned the people of Lantian. Half of the buildings were destroyed by the fire, which completely angered the people of Lantian.
Later, under the propaganda and recruitment of the Qin army, the people of Lantian enthusiastically signed up to join the army and joined the fight against the Tang state. The number of soldiers joining the army was the highest among all counties in Guanzhong.
In other words, Sima Yi's poisonous plan this time not only failed, but actually helped the Qin army.
At the same time, Yang Jian also received news that his lord Li Shimin had withdrawn his troops from Wuzhangyuan, and asked him to hold off Li Jing until the army withdrew into Chang'an.
Yang Jian's army only had 30,000 troops. Facing Li Jing's 80,000 elite troops, there was only a dead end in a head-on confrontation, so he chose to attack sideways to delay Li Jing's advance.
Yang Jian wanted to delay, but Li Jing was naturally not going to let him get his way. He deployed 80,000 troops directly, divided into three groups, and directly surrounded Yang Jian's troops.
At this time, Lantian behind Yang Jian had been occupied by Huang Zhong, and Li Jing's 80,000 troops in front roared from three directions. They obviously wanted to fight directly and were not prepared to give him any chance to delay.
Now there are only two ways in front of Yang Jian:
1. With an outnumbered enemy, he faces Li Jing in a decisive battle, but the chance of winning is very slim, almost equal to death.
2. Withdraw troops to the north. As long as they flee to other counties and rely on the city for defense, they will not be afraid of the siege of 80,000 troops.
Of course, it is impossible for the Qin army to besiege a small county. After all, if they have the time, they might as well attack Chang'an directly.
In addition, there is a big risk in retreating, that is, it is likely to be overtaken by the Qin Army halfway. After all, the Qin Army's marching speed is notoriously fast.
Just when Yang Jian was in a dilemma, Sima Yi proposed to withdraw his troops to the north, which could not only lure the Qin army away, but also delay the Qin army's advance on Chang'an.
Yang Jian adopted Sima Yi's suggestion. After all, there would be no chance of death in a direct decisive battle. However, if the Qin army was withdrawn to the north, there would be a glimmer of hope.
Just in case, Sima Yi came up with a plan to use half of the army as abandoned sons to attract the attention of Li Jing's army and ensure that the other half of the army could successfully escape into Baling City.
Yang Jian didn't want to use this tactic, but there was a huge gap between the enemy and ourselves, so he had to sacrifice the small to protect the big. He reluctantly adopted Sima Yi's poisonous plan and gave Li Jing a golden cicada to escape from his shell.
Yang Jian personally led 15,000 abandoned troops, under the banner of a 30,000-strong army, and evacuated to Xinfeng City openly, but the hidden 15,000 troops retreated to Baling City.
While Sima Yi was plotting, Li Jing also received messages from Huo Qubing and Lu Bu. Knowing that Li Shimin had withdrawn from Wuzhangyuan, he began to struggle with whether to kill Yang Jian's 30,000 men first, or to surround Chang'an and prevent Li Shimin from returning to the city.
.
After Li Yuanba broke his arm, Yang Jian became the most powerful general in the Tang Dynasty. Unlike Li Yuanba's recklessness, Yang Jian was a Confucian general with both wisdom and courage. His difficulty was not even worse than that of Li Shimin.
Li Jing prefers to kill Yang Jian first. After all, Yang Jian is right in front of him. If Yang Jian escapes with such a good opportunity now, he doesn't know when he will get the chance next time.
So Li Jing ordered Lu Bu's 5,000 cavalry to use guerrilla methods to delay Li Shimin's advance, while he personally led an 80,000-strong army to pursue Yang Jian.
It has to be said that Li Jing's use of troops was flawless and he considered all aspects. However, it was because he was too thorough that he inevitably made mistakes.
For example, this time, he did not expect that Lu Bu would not continue guerrilla tactics because Li Shimin personally participated in the war, but chose to fight the Tang army. He was ultimately defeated and Li Shimin fled back to Chang'an.
Lu Bu was careless, and so was Li Jing, and fell into Sima Yi's golden cicada's plan to escape.
Li Jing's vision was so sharp. He realized something was wrong when he was halfway through the pursuit. Although the Tang army's flags and stoves were equipped with 30,000 people, the marching traces clearly did not reach 30,000 people.
What does this mean? It means that we have fallen into a trap. The Tang army in front does not have 30,000 soldiers at all.
After Li Jing came to his senses, he immediately realized that he had fallen into Sima Yi's golden cicada escape plan, and quickly ordered Zhao Yun to lead an army of 40,000 to pursue the attack in the direction of Baling.
Li Jing's response could not have been faster, but unfortunately it was still a step too late.
When Zhao Yun arrived at Baling City, Sima Yi had already led his troops into the city, so Chen Bing showed off his power outside the city and raised troops to challenge. However, Sima Yi ignored him and had no choice but to temporarily lay siege to the city and at the same time sent people to report to Li Jing.
Li Jing's side went much smoother than Zhao Yun's. Yang Jian's 15,000-strong army was defeated by Li Jing's 40,000 Qin army with almost no resistance, and the total casualties of the Qin army were less than 1,000.
After the war, statistics showed that the Qin army suffered 700 casualties, killed 3,000 enemies in total, and captured 10,000 prisoners. Only 2,000 remnant troops fled back to Xinfeng City, while Yang Jian of the Tang army broke through alone and his whereabouts are unknown.
After receiving the summons from Zhao Yun, Li Jing couldn't help but fall into reflection. He found that with the successive great victories, even he had become careless and underestimated the enemy, and even underestimated Sima Yi. This was really inappropriate.
After reflection, Li Jing readjusted his mentality and immediately led an army of 80,000 to Chang'an. When he arrived in Chang'an, Huo Qubing's cavalry had already arrived before him.
On the other side, Zhang Liao entered Guanzhong from Fenglingdu. After defeating Yuwentai and Yin Kaishan, he powerfully occupied Xiayang City, the nearest city to Fenglingdu, and completely established a foothold in Guanzhong.
As for Yuwen Tai and Yin Kaishan, who had suffered heavy losses, they joined forces and retreated to Linjin City, unable to stop Zhang Liao from marching towards Chang'an.
Zhang Liao captured Xiayang City, but did not take advantage of the situation to attack the city of Jiayang due south. Instead, he chose to take a detour and led his army directly to Chang'an, and successfully arrived in Chang'an five days later.
Since then, Li Jing's 80,000 troops, Huo Qubing's 40,000 troops, Zhang Liao's 30,000 troops, and the three Qin armies, totaling 150,000 troops, officially joined forces at the foot of Chang'an City.