The north wind blows and the white grass breaks on the ground, and the sky is full of snow in August.
Yingzhou is located at the border, and the climate is very similar to that of Hudi. Every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival, before and after the rice harvest, the weather turns cold quickly, and it is already possible to snow.
This year, Yingzhou's moral integrity is not very good.
Autumn has just entered, and there are continuous autumn rains, which will not bloom for ten days.
Due to insufficient sunshine, it has been nearly a month since autumn, and the rice in the fields is still green, obviously not yet filled with slurry.
In late July, the weather finally cleared up, and the rice seedlings began to wither and turn yellow little by little. If the weather continues, it will be ready for harvest in about ten days, and it looks like it may be another good harvest year.
At this moment, a sudden cold snap shattered the farmers' hopes for a good harvest.
Gein, along with the cold wave came the heavy snow that was nearly two feet thick!
As a result, all the half-green and half-yellow seedlings in the field were frozen in the field.
The bumper harvest turned into a near-absolute harvest. Although the half-green and half-yellow rice fields in the fields could barely harvest some ears of grain, the ears could not be broken down at all, so they could only cook and eat randomly to ensure that people would not starve to death.
That's all.
However, since Yang Guang came to the throne, he has built various projects wantonly. What followed was that local officials took the opportunity to set up various exorbitant taxes and labor, and the people were already miserable. Now they are suffering from such a situation again.
Natural disasters really make things worse! Many families have even begun to prepare to flee!
But, where in the world are there no exorbitant taxes and corvee military service?
And the worse is yet to come!
A heavy snowfall came too early, so the Khitan people outside the Pass had no time to store enough fodder for the whole winter. Gein, at this time, the pasture outside the Pass had not completely turned yellow, so it was impossible to harvest and store it, so it was covered by the heavy snow.
.
There was not enough fodder, and a large number of cattle and sheep were frozen to death. The Khitan people felt that this winter would not be easy. However, Dongtu, Goguryeo, and Shiwei around the Khitan seemed not to be easy to deal with. So, of course, the Khitan people turned their attention to
Turned to the Sui Dynasty in the south.
Great Sui Dynasty! Lots of money, food, and women!
More importantly, the Sui Dynasty was about etiquette!
We went on a robbery today, grabbed enough food and grass, a large amount of treasures, and women, and then returned to the outside of the pass. If the Sui Dynasty comes to ask for punishment, at most we can just apologize to him and be done with it! There is no need for that.
You don’t need to pay any compensation if you return the proceeds of robbery! This is a land of heaven and etiquette!
If the Sui Dynasty had been more arrogant, they wouldn't even have to apologize! Just tell them directly, come and bite me if you can! Come to think of it, the Sui Dynasty can't do anything to us Khitan!
With this mentality, the Khitan people went south brazenly, burning, killing and looting along the way. Wherever they passed, corpses were strewn across the fields and the earth was scorched.
They wreaked havoc on the land of Yingzhou for more than a month, plundering countless grains, grass and treasures, massacring tens of thousands of people, and plundering more than 10,000 women. They emptied most of the treasuries of most large and small counties in Yingzhou and burned them to the ground.
Only then did the people return to the grassland with some unfinished thoughts.
The reason why there are still some unfinished ideas is because the Khitans have never been able to attack Liucheng, the largest city and administrative center in Yingzhou!
It turns out that Yingzhou is located outside the Pass and adjacent to Khitan, Goguryeo and Turks. Therefore, although the place of Yingzhou is not very prosperous, the city of Liucheng where it is governed is extremely tall and strong.
The Khitan troops are all cavalry and are not good at attacking cities. The new governor of Yingzhou in Liucheng is an extremely calm person. He knows that fighting in the wild is far from the Khitan's enemy.
People were plundering and plundering outside the city, but the troops in Liucheng refused to leave the city...
After lingering outside the city for several days, they realized that they had no plan to break the city. In addition, they had already made a lot of money from looting. After a while, the Khitans lost their patience and turned back to the grassland.
A few days after the Khitans returned to the grassland, a large group of people came out of Shanhaiguan and drove into Liucheng in a hurry and dusty road.
The person who came was none other than Yuwen Xiaoma Gan'er who led the army to conquer the Khitan and his 50,000-strong army.
The total distance from Liucheng to Luoyang is more than 2,000 miles, and the distance from Luoyang to Yangzhou is also more than 1,000 miles. Therefore, the fast horses from Yingzhou delivered the news of the Khitan invasion all the way to Luoyang, and then transferred from Luoyang to Yangzhou and arrived at Yangzhou.
By the time I got it, nearly half a month had passed.
On that side, although Yang Guang reacted quickly and immediately made preparations to conquer the Khitans, the army's actions were complicated and the preparations took several days.
Later, Yuwen Xiaoma Gan'er led the army back to Luoyang to join the other prefectures of the Left Guard Army.
The 50,000-strong army was assembled, and after some preliminary reorganization, it was led by Yuwen Chengdu, the right-guard general, and marched to Pujing Pass in a mighty manner.
The army will cross the Yellow River at Pujin Pass, then enter Jizhou via Jingxing, then drive to Youzhou, then exit Shanhaiguan and march all the way to Liucheng, the seat of Yingzhou.
But Yuwen Xiaoma Gan'er himself did not accompany the army at this time.
In fact, Yuwen Xiaomagan'er didn't even enter Luoyang City, so he rushed directly to Chang'an City without stopping.
Yuwen Xiaomagan'er is going to meet with Yang Zhao, the nominal marshal, to finalize some specific matters. For example, does Yang Zhao have any special requirements for this expedition, whether to send a supervisory army, and who to send as a supervisor.
What rights do these supervisory troops have?
The journey from Luoyang to Chang'an is more than 700 miles. Even if you ride a fast horse and travel without sleep, it will take at least two days!
As for Yingzhou, rescuing people was like putting out fires, so Yuwen Xiao Ma Gan'er asked his second brother Youwei General Yuwen Chengdu to lead the army first, while Yu Wen Xiao Ma Gan'er himself took a few guards and headed to Chang'an City lightly.
Go.
Yuwen Xiao Ma Gan'er is not worried that Yuwen Chengdu will make any mistakes in leading the troops. First of all, under Yuwen Xiao Ma Gan'er's personal training over the years, Yuwen Chengdu has some attainments in the art of war.
The formation of troops can also be done in a orderly manner; secondly, there are two left guard generals, Zhang Xutuo and Li Jing, and right guard general Mai Tiezhang, helping from the side. In addition, Yuwen Xiao Ma Gan'er also
We purposely seconded Shi Wei Zheng, the governor of Wuhou Prefecture who was doing volunteer work in Yique, to temporarily serve as military advisor to Yu Wen in Chengdu. In this way, in a short period of time, no problems would arise.
In fact, this is also the case. Along the way, Yuwen Chengdu led the troops to Liucheng. There was indeed no problem, but there were a few surprises.
After arriving at Liucheng, the Khitan army had already retreated, and Yuwen's troops in Chengdu had been traveling for more than 20 days in a dusty way, and they were already exhausted. In addition, the weather in Yingzhou in September was freezing, which made the previous days very difficult.
The Sui soldiers who were still in Jiangdu were quite uncomfortable with it.
After discussing with the generals, Yuwen Chengdu did not rush to take any military action, but instead rested and reorganized the troops step by step, and at the same time ordered people to go around to collect intelligence on the Khitan.
Three days later, when Yuwen rushed to Liucheng in a hurry, surrounded by a group of personal guards, Yuwen's intelligence collection work in Chengdu had also been initially completed.
So, not caring about rest, Yuwen Xiaomagan'er immediately gathered his generals together and held a meeting to discuss the expedition.