(Updated with 6,000 words, I’m going to have a drink tonight, there will be no more updates today, please vote red)
The main city of Xiangyang faces mountains and rivers. The north city wall is close to the cliffs on the south bank of the Han River, and the south city wall is almost close to the northern slope of Xian Mountain at the northern foot of Lumen Mountain.
After entering mid-November, the Huaidong Army seized key points such as Moqi Mountain, Hutoushan Island, and Xian Mountain outside Xiangyang City one by one. Nearly 70,000 enemy troops were completely blocked in Xiangyang City.
The generals of the Huaidong Army, the supply troops, and the civilians accompanying the army braved the severe cold weather to dig two trenches from Moqi Mountain to Xian Mountain, completely encircling the enemy in Xiangyang City; after the trenches, at Moqi Mountain,
From Qishan Mountain to Xian Mountain, to Hutoushan Island, and then to Wanjianshan Mountain, Yingpanzhai and Qiao'ao Chong, all the Huaidong Army's fortresses are linked together. Standing at a height of ten thousand feet and looking down, you may be able to see a picture.
Dense fish scale-like patterns surround Xiangyang City from the southwest sides.
From Bianshan to the northern slope of Xianshan, thousands of people, regardless of the wind and snow, their hands and faces cracked by frostbite, managed to open a ten-mile tunnel in just six days so that they could carry heavy catapult crossbows.
Erecting it directly to the cliff head on the northern slope of Xian Mountain, it can directly attack the south city wall of Xiangyang 400 steps away.
When Luo Xiancheng occupied Suizhou, the two cities of Xiangfan and Xiangfan were completely empty. Luo Xiancheng occupied them to fight against Jinghu and Nanyang. The She family took over Xiangfan from Luo Xiancheng to wait for the Northern Yan troops to move south. They were all pure military fortresses, except for the garrison.
Outside the army, there were only a few thousand soldiers living in the city who had surrendered to the rebels.
Whether they surrendered to Zhou Fan or Han Li, Pu Jieshi or Tong Ruilin, they all understood that Ye Jiluorong and Chen Zhihu had retreated to Guanzhong at this time, and they had been abandoned in Xiangyang.
In Xichuan, Wuguan and Shangzhou are seriously short of food and grass; without food and grass, no matter how many soldiers and horses there are, there is no way to fight against the Huaidong Army according to the dangers of the Qinling Mountains - everyone knows this truth, but Ye Jiluo Rong and Chen Zhihu led the army
Eighty or ninety thousand soldiers and horses retreated to Guanzhong. Before the Xiangyang soldiers and horses were spread out, there was a dead end with no hope of survival. Even if they wanted to break out, they didn't know where to go. Even if they wanted to surrender, they knew they were full of hands.
Stained with blood, there is no way to survive if surrendered.
The negative effects of the chokehold battle at Miaotan Ridge in early November were obvious even to the lowest level generals. They were isolated from Xiangyang soldiers and horses, and the troops of Ye Ji, Luo Rong and Chen Zhihu had to go north because of food and grass.
After withdrawing from Guanzhong, there was no threat on the flanks of the Huaidong Army, so they advanced to the foot of Xiangyang City in an orderly manner. It took almost half a month to force them to the outskirts of Xiangyang City. This process meant that the space for the enemy soldiers in Xiangyang to struggle became increasingly narrow.
.
When any degree of breakthrough was severely attacked by the Huaidong Army, they could not find the direction and exit of the breakthrough. In fact, before the siege of Xiangyang City was solidified, the tens of thousands of enemy soldiers who were forced to retreat to Xiangyang City were filled with despair.
.
Even if there is a saying that a trapped animal is still fighting, a trapped animal that cannot see the hope of life or escape cannot have the will to continue struggling. Even if it is called a dying struggle, a dying person who cannot see the hope of life or escape cannot
They will just sit there and wait for death in futility and despair.
In late November, the Huaidong Army formed an encirclement on Xiangyang. From the 22nd, they set up heavy catapult crossbows on the north slope of Xian Mountain and bombarded Xiangyang City with only stone bullets, mud pellets, and kerosene bullets.
In addition, there are clay pots filled with leaflets.
The clay pots were smashed on the city wall or on the eaves of the city, and leaflets like snowflakes flew all over the sky. Although the vast majority of the enemy soldiers were illiterate, as long as a few people were literate, the contents of the leaflets would soon spread throughout the city.
spread.
The surrender troops who participated in the Nanyang and Pengwanling massacres included 123 people in total, ranging from Tian Chang and Han Li to the rebel generals above the battalion generals and generals such as Pu Jieshi and Tong Ruilin.
are classified as first-class war criminals; other generals, officers above the centurion of the surrendered army, and civil servants above the county magistrate appointed by the puppet Yan are classified as second-class war criminals; other officers of the surrendered army and ordinary civil servants are classified as third-class war criminals.
The leaflet did not mention Huaidong's treatment of first-class war criminals, but it promised that war criminals below second-class surrendered before the 30th to escape the death penalty, but would be sentenced to five to twenty years of hard labor as a refugee.
When the following war criminals assassinate first-class war criminals, their merits will be redeemed; ordinary soldiers will be sentenced to three to ten years of hard labor as a fugitive;
A general who kills a first-class war criminal and leaves the city can be considered a surrender...
The opinions of Song Fu, Gao Zongting and others were to lure the enemy to surrender first and then liquidate the enemy, but Lin Fu did not adopt it.
The booby-trapped tactics can never be repeated again.
This time, the booby trap will be used during the Northern Expedition. The booby trap will be ineffective. Instead, it will block the southward retreat of those who were forced to surrender to Yan but did not commit any great evil. However, for those who have committed great evil, especially those who participated in the
There is absolutely no possibility of pardoning the traitor generals and captive generals who massacred civilians.
Some radical generals in the Huaidong Army even wanted to massacre all the enemy soldiers trapped in Xiangyang.
However, there is no need to use traps to kill all the enemies in Xiangyang. If the resistance is too great, it will cause many unnecessary casualties to the Huaidong Army itself. This liquidation will set a precedent for the future Northern Expedition, and Lin Fu will also want to
Song Fu, Gao Zongting and others considered the matter carefully.
The final conclusion of the collegial discussion was to classify the crimes and sentences, and convict the generals of the surrendered army, the generals of the captive army, and some civil servants in three grades. Since the enemy troops trapped in Xiangyang had clear flags, it was confirmed that Tian Chang and Han Li's troops participated in the Nanyang and
For the massacre at Pengwanling, it took more than ten days to interrogate from the existing prisoners of war a total of 123 enemy generals who participated in the massacre in Nanyang and Pengwanling, as well as in Yanhu's repeated invasions to the south.
They are first-class war criminals who must be punished. Others who rebelled and joined the captive generals are classified as second- and third-class war criminals.
Yang Xiong's troops are listed separately. First, Yang Xiong's troops have not participated in the massacre since they surrendered to the She family and followed the She family to Yanhu. Second, due to the actual needs of siege, Yang Xiong's remnant troops must be listed separately for further investigation.
Divide the enemy forces in Xiangyang to reduce the resistance to attacking Xiangyang thirty days later.
After Yang Xiong's warships were completely destroyed by the Huaidong navy, nearly 4,000 soldiers still retreated to Xiangyang City and entrenched themselves in the northwest corner of Xiangyang. Among the enemy forces trapped in Xiangyang City, they were not particularly powerful.
strength.
However, Lin Fu intended to kill 123 first-class war criminals, all of whom were senior generals in Xiangyang City. Under the control of these enemy generals, even if the low-level military attachés and ordinary soldiers in the enemy army wanted to surrender,
It was also difficult to get out of the city - Yang Xiong's army also opened a back door for these low-level enemy military attachés and soldiers who wanted to surrender.
Although Xiangyang Guandong is mostly a purely military fortress, which prevents Huaidong scouts and spies from penetrating into Xiangyang City, Yang Xiong's garrison is in the northwest corner of Xiangyang City. Starting from the 24th, people will land on Hutoushan Island to enter.
At Wanjianshan, the Huaidong Army, which was responsible for blocking the northwest direction of Xiangyang City, simultaneously began to project arrows across the city wall at Yang Xiong's remnants to persuade them to surrender. They also explicitly asked Yang Xiong to accommodate other lower-level military attachés and soldiers who surrendered and begged for their lives.
.
Yang Xiong and his generals never responded. The Huaidong Army was not anxious on the periphery and made preparations for the siege calmly. They gradually advanced the trenches and front fortresses to the bottom of Xiangyang City and set up more heavy catapult crossbows.
After the trench, it was set up within the range that could directly hit the Xiangyang city wall...
From the beginning of November, the enemy troops in Xiangyang began to run out of food. It had been said that they could slaughter mules and horses to satisfy their hunger. However, when Ye Jiluorong led the troops on the west bank to retreat, and the Xianggu Passage was cut off at the Battle of Guanyinjian, he stayed in Xiangyang City.
There were only more than 2,000 mules and horses, and the food was distributed to more than 70,000 people, which could only last for half a month. By the end of November, they would be completely out of food.
Of course, the Hulu generals such as Pu Jieshi and Tong Ruilin still have nearly 10,000 war horses in their hands, but the Hulu generals would rather starve to death than eat their war horses. How could they give the war horses to the newly attached Han army for consumption?
? Instead of handing over the war horses to share the food, they also used the extremely precious bark fodder in the city to feed the war horses so that the horses would still have strength when they broke through. This further triggered a conflict between the newly attached Han troops and the captive soldiers.
of opposition and contradiction.
At the end of the quarrel, Pu Jieshi, Tong Ruilin and other generals reluctantly agreed to hand over the dead war horses for the newly attached Han troops to eat and satisfy their hunger. Compared with hunger, the biggest threat to the trapped enemy soldiers was the heavy snow that came with them in consecutive days.
Extremely cold weather.
It was the turn of spring and summer when Ye Jiluorong led the troops on the western front to attack Guanzhong, and it was the turn of summer and autumn when he conquered Guanzhong and marched to Nanyang. Almost all the soldiers did not prepare cold clothes. In order to capture Jingxiang quickly, almost all the troops on the western front did not
After resting, we crossed the Han River and headed south without stopping, and we didn't have time to prepare cold clothes and bedding to keep out the cold.
In order to reduce the pressure on logistics, Yan Hu even stripped off the clothes from the Nanyang soldiers and civilians who were slaughtered and gave them to the soldiers to use as autumn clothes. However, the thin clothes may barely be able to withstand the autumn cold, but they cannot stop the dripping water from freezing, just like scraping bones and cutting flesh.
Due to the severe cold, especially during the few days when the city was closed due to heavy snow, hundreds of people froze to death in the camps almost every day.
This year is also a cold winter. Except for the turbulent Han River and the Huai River, which are not frozen, the Yu River and the Bei Ru River in the north are frozen solid. The southwest sides of Xiangyang City all the way to the moat connecting the Dongcheng Bund and the Han River
, it was also because after the source of the Han River leading to Hutoushan Island from the upper reaches was blocked by the Huaidong Army's shipwreck, the water no longer flowed rapidly and froze solidly in late November, saving the Huaidong Army's time to fill in the moat.
.
The land of Henan has entered the season of ice and snow, and the Huaixi Army has also stopped at Ruzhou. Regardless of Dong Yuan's true intentions or false intentions, there is no way to really march north in this season.
After the Yellow River froze, Yanhu's cavalry was able to exert its greatest advantage in the open Huanghuai Plain. Lin Fu also clearly sent an order from the Privy Council to have Dong Yuan and Yue Lengqiu rest in Ruzhou and Guoyang.
The troops and horses were reorganized for defense, and Shouzhou, Haozhou, Dongyang and other prefectures were responsible for the supply of the armies in Huaixi and Henan.
After the 25th, although the snow stopped in the Xiangfan area, the wind did not stop. The melting snow weather made it even colder in Xiangyang City. Zhou Tong also ordered the deployment of more than 80 heavy-duty missiles as early as the afternoon of the 24th.
Stone crossbows pounded the Xiangyang city wall from the west and south sides day and night, in order to open a gap for the Huaidong Army generals to storm into Xiangyang City before the deadline of 30 days.
Dating back to the construction of Xiangyang at the end of the Han Dynasty when Liu Biao led the herdsman of Jingzhou, Xiangyang has always been a pass on the Han River, with water on three sides and a mountain on one side. Xiangyang City has six gates. The shortest city wall is on the north side facing the water, and on the east side facing the beach.
The places that are directly attacked by the enemy must be more than two feet high; while the city walls facing high places in the southwest and south must be more than three feet high, and the highest can even reach four feet. They must be built with rammed earth and covered with bricks and stones, which can be said to be extremely strong and easy to defend.
Difficult to attack.
However, in the face of various heavy slinging weapons, the too-high city wall actually greatly increased the area affected by bombs.
For a two-foot-high city wall, the ejection accuracy may be one or two out of ten shots at a distance of four hundred steps; and for a four-foot-high city wall, the ejection accuracy will double to three or four out of ten shots - and the taller the city wall
, the easier it is to collapse when hit by stone bullets weighing more than a hundred kilograms.
When Lin Fu built a new city in Huaidong, he generally required the height of the city wall to be no more than two feet. In fact, in the later period, Lin Fu required various places to strengthen defense, but he no longer required new or additional cities, but increased protection of dangerous terrain.
and construction requirements for small fortresses at traffic fortresses.
Jiangning City was severely damaged by the Jiangning War, and Lin Fu had no plans to build it. He even considered opening more gaps in the Jiangning City Wall to facilitate transportation, and leaving Jiangning's defense to the outer military fortifications, which were much smaller in scale.
More, cheaper and more defensive.
When all armies lose the courage to fight in the field, no matter how high or dangerous the city is built, it will have no effect; as long as an army has the courage to fight bloody battles, even the smallest terrain advantage will be maximized - except for the stone-throwing crossbows in siege.
With large-scale application in warfare, Lin Fu wanted to push the entire society towards primary industrial civilization. Saltpeter and sulfur will not always be scarce, and in the face of the weapons of war in the industrial age, a city wall that surrounds a city is very important for defense.
The strengthening effect is really very limited.
A large number of iron cast parts are used in heavy trebuchet crossbows, which improves the structural strength and extends the service life of the war weapon and the ability to continue firing. At the same time, the heavier base frame enables the projection and accuracy to be improved accordingly; for the supply of trebuchet crossbows
With enough stone bombs, the Huaidong Army initially assigned four thousand civilians to go into Moqi Mountain to quarry stones.
From the 24th to the 29th, the number of heavy catapult crossbows participating in the siege increased from the initial 80 to 130, and a total of more than 10,000 stone bombs were thrown at Xiangyang City.
, the city wall more than six miles long on the south side was directly hit by more than 2,000 bullets. From the 26th, the city wall in the southwest corner of Xiangyang collapsed completely, and on the 29th, the total length of the city wall on the west and south sides of Xiangyang City was nearly seven miles.
A total of eleven gaps were formed in the city wall...
The Huaidong Army was not in a hurry to attack through these gaps. It was more like giving the low-level generals and soldiers in the city a chance to get out of the city. In the five days since they started bombarding Xiangyang, more than 3,000 vassal troops surrendered to Huaihe.
During the break in the attack, the Eastern Army walked out of the gap in the city wall and surrendered to the Huaidong Army's position.
For General Zhou Tong who was commanding the battle at the front base of Moqi Mountain, or Lin Fu who was supervising the battle at Fancheng on the north bank, they did not care whether the number of enemy soldiers who surrendered before the thirty-day deadline was greater or less. What mattered more was that
Use this to estimate the resistance will of the enemy soldiers defending the city... If the enemy soldiers' will to resist is still tenacious, the time to actually send generals to seize the city will continue to be delayed - time is completely on the side of the Huaidong Army.
.
Although there were two consecutive wars within a year, Huaidong was also under financial constraints and unsustainable pressure. However, after the Battle of Miaotanling, the pressure on the central logistics of the war had stabilized. At present, in Dengzhou, Xichuan and Fenzhou,
The soldiers and horses guarding Hanjin, Shicheng, and Suizhou have actually entered a period of rest and defense reorganization. After the Han River is opened, transporting materials into Jingxiang will be much more difficult than going to Chaishan via the Huaishan Plank Road to reserve materials in the early days, at least in terms of transportation costs.
Save a lot.
Yang Xiong, who had been silent for several days, sent his cronies on the night of the 27th to enter the outer Huaidong Army positions among other enemy soldiers who had surrendered out of the city, and made a request for surrender to the Huaidong Army.
Surrender is completely different from capitulation. Surrender must be included as a prisoner of war, while Luo Wenhu's attachment to Huaidong in Lishan is considered surrender. After the surrender, it is not necessary to use Huaidong or not, but logically speaking, Huaidong should be able to use it even if it is not used.
He was allowed to be discharged and returned to his field, but he could not be held accountable for his previous crimes afterwards, let alone treated as a prisoner of war.
After careful consideration, Lin Fu decided to accept Yang Xiong's surrender, and secretly sent people into the city on the night of the 28th. He agreed with Yang Xiong that on the 29th, before the Huaidong Army officially attacked the city, his troops would attack Tong Ruilin's troops who were guarding the west city.
Zhang Gou's troops invaded Xiangyang from Xicheng to create conditions...
At noon on the 29th, one day earlier than the previously stated deadline, Yang Xiong attacked Tong Ruilin's troops as scheduled, causing chaos to the enemy troops in the West City.
The gap in the city wall took the opportunity to invade Xiangyang City——
The enemy forces in Xiangyang City were on the verge of collapse in the past month due to multiple oppressions such as hunger, severe cold, and being in a desperate situation with no hope of escape. Except for the main rebel generals and captive generals who were listed as first-class war criminals, and a few of their direct relatives,
In addition, the lower-level officers and more generally the soldiers have almost lost their fighting spirit.
Previously, they were suppressed by the senior generals and their direct guards and could not leave the city to surrender. At this time, the Huaidong Army stormed in and put down their weapons to save their lives. They no longer had any intention of resisting.
Before nightfall on the 29th, Zhang Gou led his troops to capture the west city of Xiangyang and pushed the battle line in the city to the center of the city near the Xiangyang Mansion Office. Tang Fuguan also launched a fierce attack on the south of Xiangyang on the night of the 29th. That night in the city
More than 10,000 people abandoned their weapons and surrendered; in the early morning of the 30th, the enemy general Tong Ruilin was killed in front of the battle line.
By the dusk of the 30th, only Zhou Fan, Han Li, Pu Jieshi and other enemy generals led the last stubborn enemy, about 5,000 direct soldiers and horses, to retreat to the northeast corner of Xiangyang and defend it. There was no hope of breaking out, and there was no chance of surrender.
Maybe, it's just a last ditch effort in vain.
On the 30th and December 1st, Tang Fuguan transferred a large number of scorpion crossbows from outside the city, deployed them outside the northeast corner of the city where the remaining enemies were stubbornly defending, and threw thousands of kerosene cans into the corner city where the remaining enemies were stubbornly defending.
At nightfall on December 2, Tang Fuguan ordered to ignite the fire oil that was almost overflowing from the northeast corner, and then took advantage of the fire to subside for a while to break in and annihilate the remaining enemies...
Xiangyang was completely captured on December 3, killing more than 17,000 enemy soldiers. At this time, more than 6,000 enemy soldiers died of starvation or freezing before the attack, and more than 39,000 enemy soldiers were captured.
In addition, Yang Xiong led his troops to surrender. A total of less than 5,000 soldiers and family members survived from Xiangyang City, but they were all disarmed after the war. Lin Fu ordered Yang Xiong and other surrendered generals to return home and return their fields, handing them over for the war plunder.
Each person was allowed to receive thirty Huaidong silver dollars and thirty acres of land granted by the local government to support his family. He was not allowed to hire tenants or servants when he returned home. He had to work on farming and weaving. He was appointed to the local government to supervise him for three years.
Xu moved to another place to live or choose another career; after the soldiers were separated, they took their children with them to various prefectures and counties in Jingxiang to serve as servants. They were allowed to be exempted from service for three years and settled on the spot. Yang Xiong, who surrendered at the end of the war, even fought in the Battle of Xiangyang.
He had made some achievements, but the treatment he received could not be compared with Luo Wenhu, who surrendered in the early stages of the war, let alone Wang Xiang, who defected to Huaidong before the war.
If there is no difference, it will only encourage more speculators to wait and see until the last moment.
But no matter what, the fate of Yang Xiong and other generals who survived the battle in Xiangyang was much better than that of other captured rebel generals and captive generals. They received thirty silver coins and thirty acres of land, and returned to their places at least
It is also a middle-class family, and it is not a problem to support the family.
For ordinary soldiers who surrendered, they surrendered just because they wanted to survive. Even if they were scattered to various prefectures and counties in Jingxiang to serve as laborers, it would be better than other captives who would be exiled to unknown places where diseases breed, scorching heat or bitter cold, where life and death are uncertain.
The soldiers are much better, and quite a few of them have their families accompanying them, and there is even hope of being resettled in local places after three years.
Of the more than 39,000 prisoners who surrendered, there were 21 first-class war criminals. The remaining 102 first-class war criminals were killed on the spot because they refused to surrender during the battle to seize the city; there were another 1,000 second- and third-class war criminals.
Six hundred and twenty-nine people, including 367 who were captured after the thirty-day deadline, were screened out together with first-class war criminals and supervised as death row prisoners, preparing to be taken to Jiangning for execution.
Other war criminals, together with prisoners of war, including other prisoners of war at Miaotan Ridge and the recapture of Xinye, totaling more than 45,000 people, were also escorted to Shicheng, Huangpi, Jingzhou and other places in early December.
That is to say, in early December, the five-month-long Nanyang-Jingxiang Battle came to an end.
In addition to the remnants of Chen Hansan, about a thousand people fled to the mountains at the southern foot of Huaishan Mountain to continue the encirclement and annihilation, the rebel generals Sun Jichang, Ma Dekui, Mo Jiben and others were either surrounded and killed by the Huaidong Army on the battlefield, or they were surrendered to their troops during the incident.
They would be captured and beheaded to atone for their sins, or they would be captured in the later campaigns of the Huaidong Army.
During the entire Nanyang-Jingxiang battle, a total of 180,000 soldiers and civilians of the Nanyang Army, including the Hezhong Army Liang Chengyi, were massacred in the early stage. After the war, only the Yuan Dynasty returned to power, and less than 20,000 soldiers and civilians led by Liang Chengdong survived.
When the war developed into the later stage, the Huaidong Army joined forces with the Chizhou Army and the Jinghu Army invested a total of nearly 300,000 troops, and nearly 160,000 troops and accompanying civilians. The Huaidong Army suffered 46,000 casualties (including 10,000 killed in battle).
Two thousand), the Chizhou army suffered 12,000 casualties (6,000 died in battle), the Jinghu army suffered 30,000 casualties (24,000 died in battle), and the civilians suffered 8,000 casualties. There were dozens of battles before and after, a total of
A total of 110,000 enemy troops were killed (including 30,000 soldiers who died in Jingzhou City and 30,000 newly attached Han troops); more than 200,000 enemy troops were captured (including Zhong Rong, Luo Jian, Wang Xian'er, and Huo Huo who surrendered to Huaixi).
Tong and other troops (60,000 troops), Luo Wenhu, Yang Xiong and other troops who surrendered to Huaidong during the war totaled 12,000 troops. In this battle, a total of more than 320,000 Yanhu troops on the western front were annihilated, including elite Yanhu tribesmen.
With 45,000 cavalry, only less than 90,000 troops from Chen Zhihu and Ye Ji Luorong's headquarters fled into Guanzhong...