Chapter 918: Luoyang, once again stained with blood (1)
Chapter 918: Luoyang is stained with blood again (Part 1)
The Kwantung Allied Forces had already suffered losses of 210,000 troops. After paying such a huge price, they had only conquered four great passes, and even the old capital Luoyang had not yet been conquered.
If you want to invade Chang'an and rescue the Han Emperor, you must break through Luoyang, Yewang, Yiyang and other strong cities, and also break through the ancient Hangu Pass before you can enter Guanzhong and march to Chang'an.
But according to this casualty trend, even if all the coalition forces are exhausted, they may not be able to attack Hangu Pass, let alone Chang'an City.
This shows how difficult it is to take Sizhou away from Dong Zhuo, and the price is simply unbearable for Qin Hao.
If the Qin and Jin armies only relied on the strength of the Qin and Jin armies, even if they could capture Sizhou, Qin Hao would definitely be severely damaged and end up adding more wedding clothes to others.
Forming a coalition of princes and leveraging the power of all princes to seize Sizhou was the least expensive way for Qin Hao.
After Yang Su's 40,000-strong army withdrew, Luoyang's military strength also reached 80,000. However, it is obviously unrealistic to try to compete with the 330,000-strong coalition army based on this.
So immediately after, Li Shimin ordered another 40,000 troops to be transferred back from Mengjinguan.
After Hulao was breached, although Yique Pass, as the southern gate, lost the value of continuing to defend it, Mengjin, as the northern gate, still had its important responsibilities.
The other princes were not bordering the Liang army, so even if they captured Sizhou, it would still be an enclave, and they would not be able to occupy it for a long time.
The princes only sent troops to attack Dong Zhuo for the sake of justice and reputation, but the Qin family father and son were different.
Qin Wen and Qin Hao, one in the north and the other in the south, once they capture Sizhou, they can connect Bingzhou and Jingbei, and they came specifically to capture Sizhou.
Mengjing Pass can block the threat from Qin and Wen in the north, but once Mengjing Pass is lost, Qin and Wen can continuously send troops southward, which will not be helpful to the Liang army and add fuel to the fire, so Li Shimin did not send Yang Lin
All 50,000 troops were brought back.
However, due to the shortage of troops in Luoyang, Li Shimin had to transfer most of Meng Jin's troops, but he also kept Yang Lin, a general.
If the Jin army invades, although Meng Jin's 10,000 troops are not many, in the hands of Yang Lin, they can play the role of 20,000 troops, which is enough to support Li Shimin for a month to send reinforcements.
Although Li Shimin currently has no reinforcements to send, he has already requested reinforcements from Dong Zhuo and believes that he will receive a response soon.
Now there are only 130,000 troops left in the entire Sizhou. Li Shimin placed 10,000 in Mengjin and 120,000 in Luoyang, obviously preparing to defend Luoyang to the death.
As the former capital of the Han Dynasty, Luoyang is naturally one of the strongest fortified cities in the world.
During the Yellow Turban Rebellion, because Xiang Yu defeated Mengjin and forced the court to abandon Luoyang and move the capital to Chang'an, Qin Wen had to abandon Hulao Pass and defend Luoyang.
Qin Wen originally wanted to rely on Luoyang to consume the Yellow Turbans' troops, but due to Zhu Yuanzhang's plan to attack the cities in Sizhou, Luoyang was left in an uncomfortable situation as an isolated city, and the court unexpectedly made the foolish decision to abandon Luoyang.
Although Qin Wen was unwilling to abandon the strong city of Luoyang, he could not disobey the imperial edict. However, Yang Ye's father, Yang Gun, would rather die than evacuate. Instead, he led 30,000 lone troops to defend the old capital of Luoyang.
Yang Gun's 30,000-strong army blocked Zhang Jiao's 700,000-strong army. They violently attacked for ten days, which clearly shows how strong Luoyang is.
There are still 330,000 coalition forces. It is not impossible for Li Shimin to defend Luoyang with an army of 120,000.
Facing nearly three times the number of enemies and relying on a fortified city, judging from the low offensive and defensive capabilities, it is actually not difficult to hold on.
But you must know that defending the city is not guarding the gate.
There are no residents in the checkpoint, and in addition to the common people, there are also aristocratic families in the city. The aristocratic families have their own clan soldiers, and these are external forces that are difficult for the defender to control, which also adds some surprises to the defense of the city.
Of course, most aristocratic families would not easily participate in feudal feuds, because failure would mean annihilation of the clan.
The price is too high. If there is no absolute certainty, the family will never dare to participate in the struggle between princes.
Dong Zhuo violated the interests of the aristocratic family in order to implement the New Deal, so he was hated and despised by the aristocratic families all over the world. The aristocratic family played the biggest role in Dong Zhuo's reputation.
Dong Zhuo's methods towards the families who resisted him can be described as cruel. He has massacred countless members of the family in Guanzhong.
Dong Zhuo relied on this bloody method of fighting violence with violence to completely frighten all the families under his command. Even if the thirty-six princes jointly attacked, the territory under his command was still not in chaos.
No matter how much the aristocratic family hated and despised Dong Zhuo, they still didn't dare to make the slightest move, at least not on the surface, they didn't dare.
But in the confrontation with the Kwantung Allied Forces, if Dong Zhuo was defeated, the first one to add insult to injury would be the wealthy families in his territory.
The Luoyang family was naturally dissatisfied with Dong Zhuo. In the past, Dong Zhuo was so powerful that the Luoyang family did not dare to resist. Now the Kwantung Allied Forces are leading Luoyang City. What are they afraid of?
The Tianxia family has been relocated three times so far. The first time was the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the second time was the Han-Ming War, and the third time was the War to Destroy the Ming Dynasty.
No matter which migration wave happens, the destination of the family migration is from Luoyang to Guanzhong.
Most of the local aristocratic families in Luoyang had moved to Guanzhong during the second wave of migration. Those who had not moved to Chang'an basically died under the Yellow Turban purge.
Therefore, there are basically only two types of aristocratic families in Luoyang City at present:
One is that they are reluctant to part with their ancestral property, or they cannot compete with other families, so they return from Guanzhong and settle down again in Luoyang;
The second is that during the Ming Dynasty, in order to avoid the war in the Central Plains, they migrated from the Central Plains to settle down.
No matter which one it is, after several years of cultivation, the strength of the aristocratic family has been restored to a certain extent, and Luoyang Chang'an, a place where aristocratic families are concentrated, is naturally no exception.
If the aristocratic families were divided by region and a list was made based on their strength, the strength of the Luoyang aristocratic family would definitely be second only to the Chang'an aristocratic family.
If this force could be concentrated, it would be a dangerous force that could shake Dong Zhuo's rule. Qin Nongyu, who was sent to Luoyang by Qin Hao, wanted to gather this force to help Qin Hao capture the city of Luoyang.
Fortified city.
When Qin Hao was blocked outside the Hulao Pass, many aristocratic families did not dare to participate, no matter how much Nong Yu tried to coerce him. But when Qin Hao led his troops to Luoyang, all these aristocratic families came to visit him.
This is of course not because Qin Hao is liked by many aristocratic families, but because Dong Zhuo is so hated by the aristocratic families that almost all the aristocratic families want to kill him.