Chapter 299: The Defeat of Han Baling
Yuan Shen, the Grand Commander of the Northern Expedition, stood on the Baidao City and looked at the densely packed rebels from the Six Garrisons below the city.
Su Zeli's Jingguan had been destroyed in the city defense operation long ago, and the temporary stopover station set up by the merchant caravan outside Baidao City was also destroyed.
In order to prevent the rebels from using local materials to manufacture siege equipment, Yuan Shen ordered all the trees around Baidao City to be cut down.
The setting sun is as red as blood; this is the scene of the battlefield at doomsday.
Yuan Shen constantly encouraged his soldiers, and thus Baidao City was defended.
Today's offensive and defensive operations are over, and I don't know when they will end.
After dark, Yuan Shen inspected the city wall and ordered the craftsmen to repair the damaged wall. It was already midnight when he returned to the city defense mansion.
But Yuan Shen couldn't rest yet. As the commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition, he still had a lot of official documents to deal with.
The first thing his clerk brought was the imperial edict urging him to do so.
Yuan Shen rubbed his temples. He remembered when he was in Luoyang. At this time, he should be lying on the soft couch of the Princess of Chengyang King, right?
What a delicate woman she is.
But Yuan Shen soon regretted it. There were so many women in the world, and he didn't know why he was so obsessed with getting involved with a married woman like Princess Chengyang.
The key person who was provoked was the concubine of Prince Chengyang Yuanrong.
Yuan Rong, who was cuckolded, has been constantly trying to please Empress Dowager Hu and writing letters to impeach Yuan Shen since Yuan Shen left Luoyang.
What is "Prince Guangyang has a long-standing foundation in Hengzhou, and he has a large army outside, so his situation is unpredictable."
What is "Prince Guangyang is an old party member of Yuan Yi, has evil intentions, and wants to depose the emperor and empress."
After Empress Dowager Hu came back to power, she changed her previous attitude of letting the court officials do what they wanted, became extremely power-hungry, and was very distrustful of her ministers.
The reason why Empress Dowager Hu appointed Yuan Shen was not because she trusted him, but because there was no one else available in the court and she had no choice but to appoint Yuan Shen.
If there was someone available to replace her, Empress Dowager Hu would definitely not use him as a member of Yuan Yi's old party.
Yuan Shen also knew that he was not trusted, and that Yuan Rong, whom he had cheated on, kept stabbing him in the back, so he could only write a memorial a day to express his loyalty, and report his future strategic ideas to Empress Dowager Hu. Any military decision had to be submitted to the court for approval.
Yuan Shen sighed, but apart from asking for instructions and reporting, he could only defend Baidao City to the death.
Judging from the time, the Rouran army should be heading south.
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Yuan Shen's calculation was correct. The Rouran army had already marched south, and the commander-in-chief was the Rouran's regent king Yujiulü Brahmin.
After Princess Shouyang took charge of the Rouran royal court, she also conferred titles on the kings in accordance with the Han system.
She also established four regents and used royal titles to appease the contenders for the Khan's throne.
However, although Yujiulü Brahmin was the commander-in-chief, the most elite army in the entire Rouran army was the Khan cavalry led by General Su Jing under Kehadun.
Su Jing (【Calm Armored Cavalryman】) was the captain of the 100-cavalry guard that Su Ze left for Princess Shouyang.
After Princess Shouyang secured the position of Kehadun, she used various means to win over a group of soldiers and handed them all over to Su Jing for training.
Later, when the white disaster struck the north this year, Princess Shouyang gathered the victims from the grassland and the six towns, selected elite soldiers from them, and organized them into an army under the training of Su Jing.
The number of this army has reached 3,000, and they are all elite cavalrymen equipped with complete armor.
Even Yujiulu Brahmin envied this, but the trading rights were in the hands of Princess Shouyang, who also had a large number of craftsmen under her control. Only Princess Shouyang could gather these weapons and armor.
These three thousand cavalrymen are the lifeblood of Princess Shouyang, and are also an important force for the Khan and his mother to secure their position on the Khan throne.
But this time, Princess Shouyang sent them all to the army.
However, Yujiulü Brahmin also knew that he could not control Su Jing and his army. It was even more likely that this army would take on the task of supervising the army.
This time when they went south, Yuan Shen's envoy Pei Yan promised huge benefits, and the Rouran and Gaoche tribes responded one after another. It is roughly estimated that the number of troops going south has reached 100,000.
Of course, among these 100,000 people, there are only 20,000 to 30,000 professional cavalrymen who are really good at fighting. The rest are herdsmen who followed their cavalry south to fight, and many of them do not even have complete weapons.
But that's how robbery works on the grassland. In order to bring back more loot, the whole family, young and old, often goes together.
If they won, they would naturally return to the grassland with a lot of spoils. If they lost, they would be captured by the enemy and taken back to the Central Plains.
Whenever the emperors of the Northern Wei Dynasty attacked the grasslands, they brought back a large number of people and settled them in important border towns in the north. This is how the Six Towns came about.
In fact, the people of the Six Garrisons were no different from the Rouran and Gaoche people.
The Rouran people were bluffing when they claimed to have 100,000 men, while Po Liu Han Baling said that they had 200,000 men, but in fact their number was still increasing.
The crossing of refugees is like the zombie infection in zombie movies. After the refugees have robbed everything, ordinary people also join them and become new refugees.
The Six Towns have now reached a point where no one can rob them.
To make matters worse, after the white disaster last winter, the disordered climate led to little rain in this summer and autumn. The severe drought even caused the water level of the Yellow River to become shallower.
The pastures are not growing and the herders have no time to care about the future. They can only slaughter all their livestock and live one day at a time.
Anyway, if they don't eat today, they may be snatched away by other refugee troops tomorrow. All the food in Woye, Huaishuo, and Wuchuan has been robbed, and the people who can't survive all gather towards Poliu Han Baling, and more than 200,000 refugees quickly gather in Wuchuan.
Including Po Liu Han Kongque, the generals under Po Liu Han Baling also persuaded Po Liu Han Baling to leave the precious food for the elite soldiers and not distribute it to the old, weak and sick who joined the army in order to survive.
However, all these suggestions were rejected by Po Liu Han Baling. He even slaughtered the old horse that had accompanied him for many years and followed him everywhere, and distributed it to the surrounding people to eat.
Po Liu Han Baling is now more anxious for a decisive battle than the Rouran people.
Due to insufficient food rations, the army of the Six Garrisons has already begun slaughtering their war horses. If the Rouran people do not come, the refugee army will probably be too hungry to have the strength to fight.
As long as we can defeat these Rouran people, we can grab some supplies. As long as we persist in attacking Baidao City and allow the refugee army to enter Hengzhou, we can continue to rob.
This was the only way that Po Liu Han Baling could think of to turn the situation around.
Amid everyone's anticipation, on the eighth day of the ninth month in the first year of Xiaochang, the Rouran people finally arrived!
"Hey."
Su Ze sat up with his clothes on, walked to the desk, picked up a pen, and wrote on the bamboo paper:
"On the eighth day of the ninth month in the first year of Xiaochang, Liu Han Baling was defeated in Wuchuan."
This was the information sent by the followers on the front line. Just like the historical timeline before the time travel, Po Liu Han Baling was still defeated.
The rebels could never avoid the fate of being "pioneers for the king". They used their lives to sound the final death knell of the old dynasty, and they would also be buried with the old dynasty.
There is no way. Even if a centipede dies, it is still alive. When Shu Han was destroyed, there was still Jiang Boyao, and now Northern Wei still has Prince Guangyang Yuan Shen to support it.
But this victory was already the afterglow of the empire.
Princess Chenliu was awakened by the candlelight of Su Ze. She looked at Su Ze with sleepy eyes, thinking that there was urgent military information, so she also sat up and put on her clothes.
"My dear, has something big happened?"
Su Ze shook his head first, then nodded.
Princess Chenliu immediately understood what Su Ze meant. She held Su Ze's hand and said:
"A man should do great things, so leave the house to me."
Su Ze hugged his wife and finally waited for the final chapter of the First Six Prefectures Uprising. He had been planning in the northwest for so long, and now it was finally time to reap the rewards.
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On the eighth day of September, Po Liu Han Baling was defeated by the Rouran people in Wuchuan, and he retreated westward to Wuyuan.
On September 13, Po Liu Han Baling fought with the Rouran cavalry again in Wuyuan, but was broken through by the elite cavalry of the Rouran king's tent led by Su Jing (the Calm Armored Cavalry). The army was defeated again, and Po Liu Han Baling's general Po Liu Han Kong Que was killed in the battle.
On September 15th, Han Baling, the general of the Six Garrisons, led the defeated soldiers and civilians to the bank of the Yellow River.
Looking at the rolling water of the Yellow River, Po Liu Han Baling thought of how he once defeated a government army in Wuyuan. That government army was also forced to the bank of the Yellow River and finally jumped into the river to escape.
Today, Po Liu Han Baling also knows that his ideals have been shattered.
Looking at these believers who followed him, Po Liu Han Baling shed tears.
"True King! If there is an afterlife, we will still follow you!"
Sitting by the Yellow River, several close followers of Po Liu Han Baling took out their swords and committed suicide together. Their bodies rolled from the river bank into the Yellow River and were quickly swept away by the waves.
Po Liu Han Baling looked at the blood on the riverbank in confusion. He also saw a group of defeated soldiers holding hands and marching towards the Yellow River.
Po Liu Han Baling used his crane staff to support his body, came to the group of soldiers and asked:
"What are you going to do?"
The soldiers said:
"True King, we are the veterans of Gaoqueshu. Do you still remember us?"
Po Liu Han Baling was stunned for a moment. He started his uprising from Gaoqueshu, and these were the first rebels to follow him.
However, Po Liu Han Baling firmly believed that everyone had his or her own place, and after starting the rebellion, he did not give these veterans preferential treatment, but allowed them to continue serving in the army.
These veterans who were the first to follow Po Liu Han Baling were also the most devout. They worked hard and followed Po Liu Han Baling all the way to the Yellow River.
One of the veterans said:
"True King, we have guarded Gaoque Fort for generations and have refused to surrender to the Rouran people. If we die today, can we go to the heaven you mentioned?"
Po Liu Han Baling hesitated.
In the past, he would have started preaching:
"As long as you do what you are supposed to do, you will have your place in the kingdom of heaven."
But now, he began to waver in his theory.
The veterans did not ask any more questions, but walked hand in hand towards the Yellow River, shouting:
"If there is an afterlife, I hope I won't be a person from the Six Towns."
Watching this group of veterans jumping into the river and dying, Po Liu Han Baling finally regained his spirits.
He looked at the Yellow River water level which had dropped by half, and personally summoned craftsmen to prepare to build a floating bridge across the river.
(End of this chapter)