Chapter 103 Recover Jianghuai
Cao Wei was destroyed, but Lu Bu was not the only beneficiary. Sun Quan took advantage of Lu Bu's attempt to destroy Cao and expanded greatly between the Jianghuai River and Huai River, almost occupying part of the entire Jianghuai River, including Yangzhou and Xuzhou.
After Lu Bu destroyed Wei, he did not stop and expelled Sun Wu, who invaded Jianghuai. He believed that it was a danger to let Sun Quan's troops stay in Jiangbei for a long time. After pacifying the counties and counties in Qingzhou, Gao Shun immediately advanced to Xuzhou under the orders of Lu Bu. Li Su and Wei Yan launched an attack on Huainan based on Huainan and Runan respectively. The three divisions of the Tiger Cavalry were all transferred to the Jianghuai Plain.
In addition, in order to prevent the Wu army from invading north along the Han River again, the troops of the defenders of Fancheng in Xiangyang were once again strengthened, and even the defenders of the counties and counties in the Bashu Xiajiang also increased by 10,000.
Gao Shun of the East Road quickly expelled the Eastern Wu forces from Xuzhou. Because Sun Quan did not have the courage to place the main force of the Wu army in Jiangbei and Lu Bu's Han army, under the high military pressure of Li Su and Wei Yan, Yangzhou counties that were not directly controlled by the Eastern Wu rebelled against Wu and surrendered to Han.
In the late summer, the Han army besieged Shou County, which had been besieged for many days, was captured, and all the three thousand Wu troops stationed in this county were annihilated, and all the magistrates appointed by the Eastern Wu were beheaded by the Han army. Sun Quan did not want Shou County to happen again, and he was unwilling to place the main force of the Wu army in Jiangbei, so he had to order the garrisons of Yangzhou, which were still under his control, to retreat to the county towns near the Yangtze River, and rely on the Jiangdong Navy to defend.
However, this still failed to stop the Han army from conquering each county in Yangzhou one by one. By the early autumn of this year, all the Wu army in Jiangbei had shrunk to Guangling and Shouchun. A few days later, Wei Yan's army drove to Shouchun City, and Li Su also came to Guangling City. Both cities were closed for four gates and could not escape from the battle.
In late autumn, Li Su began to attack Guangling. In the more than a month, Li Su used the Huai River system and the long ship to mobilize a large number of siege equipment. In addition, he recruited local folk craftsmen and military craftsmen to create some.
At this time, five hundred giant counterweight catapults and two hundred crossbows were violently projected at Guangling City. The huge rocks thrown by the catapults only concentrated on shooting at the northern wall of Guangling City, and the explosive bombs fired by the crossbows were thrown towards the center of the city. There were no stones produced near Guangling City, and the large stones fired were pulled from other places by ships along the Huaihe River system.
After many days of tremor, the northern city wall finally collapsed completely, and the city was filled with dust and ruins. However, the Wu army's living forces were not completely destroyed during the bombardment, which was entirely dependent on the support of the Jiangdong Navy to Guangling City. The wounded soldiers were constantly transported away by ships, and reinforcements were constantly replenished into the city.
The Han army began to attack the collapsed north wall. Rows of sword and shield heavy infantry climbed through the ruins and entered the city. Mo Dao Hand also dropped the knife rod on Mo Dao, holding the sword shield and ordinary sword cards, followed them behind them and rushed into the city. The tiger archer and ordinary Han army crossbowmen were following them.
As soon as they entered Guangling City, they found that things were not that simple. There were horse-rejecting bunkers everywhere on the streets in the city, and arrows attacked them from every possible corner from all directions. The heavy infantry soldiers of the sword and shield immediately formed a tight turtle shell shield formation based on their troops, and rushed to the depths of the city along the streets and alleys, clearing out various blocks one by one. They followed Mo Daozhe, Daozhe, and Bowbowman.
A turtle shell formation composed of four corpses, a team of 100 people, advanced towards the mansion along the main street of Guangling City. When they cleared a turtle horse, a large number of Wu soldiers suddenly emerged from the buildings on both sides of the street behind the turtle horse. They had spearmen and crossbowmen. The Han army tiger archers and crossbowmen behind the turtle shell formation immediately shot them in a round of shooting, and then squatted down and shot an arrow up and down.
When the spearmen gathered together and approached the rebels to stab the heavy infantry of the sword and shield, the sword and shield soldiers threw out rows of javelins. The heavy javelin pierced the body of the spearmen and fell one after another. Then the Han crossbowmen stood up and shot the second round of arrows. The Wu army was injured and fell to the ground, but the Wu army's crossbowmen also began to shoot arrows and counterattack.
A Wu army spearman who survived the javelin pierced the spear into the gap in the shield. As soon as the spear head touched the shield, a white feathered arrow shot through his head. He whipped twice, his body shook and fell straight to the ground.
Under the cover of the shield, the heavy infantry quickly pushed away the horse and continued to line up to charge forward. The sword soldiers and Mo Daozhe rushed forward from behind, killing the scattered Wu army soldiers on the street or rushing into the buildings on both sides to search for the Wu army's crossbowmen.
The Turtle Shell Formation was responsible for advancing in the front, killing large groups of enemies who dared to block the Han army head-on, clearing obstacles such as resisting horses, and the infantry in the rear entered various buildings on both sides of the street to search and kill. In this way, the Han army gradually controlled the entire city, including the east and west gates.
Soon, the Han army's iron cavalry rushed into Guangling from the east and west city gates. At this time, the horses on the street were removed and cleared. Thousands of iron cavalry galloped back and forth on the street to guard. If there were still Wu army who dared to show their heads on the street, they would have to be killed on the spot.
When the sun was about to set, there was no trace of the living Wu army in the city. When the head level was counted, there were only nearly 2,000 Wu army corpses. I believe that most of the Wu army soldiers retreated from the water to Jiangdong when the city was broken.
Shortly after Guangling City was captured by the Han army, Shouchun was also captured. At this point, there were no Wu troops in the area north of the Yangtze River from Lujiang to the East China Sea. However, the Wu army's navy still crisscrossed the Yangtze River, causing a lot of trouble to the Han army stationed in Jianghuai. They relied on controlling the Yangtze River waterway and launched sneak attacks on cities north of the Yangtze River from time to time. When the Han army's cavalry arrived, the sneak attacks had already withdrawn to the ship.
Lu Bu began to use the massive points obtained in the mission of destroying Wei to generate a large number of sailing warships, hoping to build a powerful navy based on this, but relying on system generation alone would not be enough even if the population balance was used up. In the end, the sailing warship sailors had to train indigenous sailors. But these all took a time process.
Therefore, Lu Bu moved in the Jianghuai imperial order, and the civilians who originally lived in the Jianghuai River moved to the north of the Huai River as compensation and cut their grain tax in half. Except for a few big cities along the river, the rest of the cities along the river were transformed into military strongholds of the Han army. In this way, the Wu army would gain nothing when attacking again, and they could only steal chickens and lose rice.
Sure enough, after the internal relocation order was completed, there was basically no incident of the Wu army crossing the river and attacking each other. Only once, a small group of Wu army ventured deep into the area north of the Huai River, but was chased by the Hu Ben Iron Cavalry's kidnapped horse and annihilated only twenty miles from the bank of the Yangtze River.
Chapter completed!