As the capital of Huainan and the key to the north and south, Shouyang is not only in its own city defense, but also in the gains and losses of important surrounding gates and guards are also crucial to the city’s defense. The battles around these strongholds in ancient and modern times are sometimes much more intense than the offensive and defensive battles of the city itself.
For example, the east-west and west-west stones on both sides of the Huai River in the north of Shouyang City are waterways that guard the Huai River waterway. Matou Shu in the west of Shouyang City is an important fortress on the western border of Shouyang land. Once these places are lost, Shouyang City will be directly exposed to the enemy’s attack and can only rely on the internal and external city walls to resist the enemy’s offensive.
Although Wang Xiangui did not leave the city to welcome Murong Shaozong, he still pointed out the location where the boat was parked.
Murong Shaozong was just unhappy with Wang Xiangui’s attitude, so he did not have any doubts about it. In Wang Xiangui’s eyes, Shouyang Jincheng was his nest for living in the world, but in Murong Shaozong’s eyes, it was just a cage for his own hands and feet.
Even if he entered the city, he lost control of the surrounding strongholds, and could only sit in the city of distress and had no way to fight back. Even if he could drag the Western Wei army to retreat with Shouyang Jincheng, it would be a way of losing his dignity for Murong Shaozong. Li Tai, the rising star in the Western Wei Dynasty, is not worthy of his so conservativeness.
Although there are boats and ships in Hushi, there are only a dozen dilapidated ships, which are difficult to be used for water battles. Murong Shaozong did not intend to engage in water battles with the enemy, so he only arranged 200 strong soldiers to defend the East and West Hushi.
There were originally iron cables used for intercepting Hengjiang River and rods that directly attacked warships, but the iron cables had long been chiseled and cast armor and machine tools by Hou Jing, and the rods were damaged and difficult to use.
It was too late to repair these defenses, so Murong Shaozong sent an envoy south along the Feishui River to Hefei to inform Li Bomu of his arrival and asked Li Bomu to send a boat army north to coordinate the defense. Although he had no right to order Li Bomu, his lips and teeth were cold between Shouyang and Hefei. If Shouyang fell, Hefei would inevitably be in turmoil.
After crossing the Kanshi, Murong Shaozong did not stay here for a long time, but led his troops around Bagong Mountain to the Shouyang City to inspect and confirm that Shouyang does not have much value at this stage.
Although he was not in a hurry to enter the city, he still ordered Wang Xiangui in Jincheng to provide a batch of military rations. Wang Xiangui was afraid to show up, but he tried his best to meet this requirement and ordered his subordinates to transport hundreds of stones of food from Jincheng for food for Murong Shaozong’s troops to feed.
Seeing that Wang Xiangui was still cooperating, Murong Shaozong first sent his troops to cook here for food, and left 500 troops to garrison here. Then he led his troops to travel west along the Huai River, and on the way he dispatched troops to garrison along the Huai River, and he also arrived at Matou to garrison.
In fact, Murong Shaozong is currently leading the south to only 5,000 troops, and his troops are not at the top of his power, so it is not appropriate to divide the troops.
However, since his troops did not have the power of the established boat division to resist the enemyIn this way, the enemy can travel smoothly in the river and choose to land at any time and anywhere.
In order to prevent this, Murong Shaozong could only temporarily distribute manpower along the Huai River bank to restrict the enemy’s landing. If Li Bomu can lead the Hefei Boat Division to enter the battlefield in time, even if he only restrains the enemy Boat Division, he can concentrate his troops and focus on attacking the enemy’s land forces.
The Western Wei side also responded to the arrival of Murong Shaozong. It was difficult for the boat troops sailing in the Huai River to accelerate suddenly, but the cavalry on the land were not restricted by this. Soon a cavalry team of thousands of people left their large troops and accelerated their advance. After a few hours, they appeared outside the Matou Guard.
“Beat the drum, attack!”
Faced with the enemy’s peeping and temptation, Murong Shaozong was not polite and directly ordered the entire army in the city to emerge, and thousands of cavalry divided into several routes to attack the enemy cavalry.
Hou Zhi, who led his troops to observe the enemy situation, did not expect that the enemy’s counterattack was so rapid. He saw that the enemy was in large numbers and we were few, so he naturally did not dare to fight. He hurriedly led his troops to rush back to the road.
When he returned to the Central Army camp, Hou Zhi was still a little shocked. If he had reacted a little later, he would probably be surrounded and annihilated by the enemy. After fleeing all the way, there were more than 200 people dispersed along the way. When talking about the specific enemy forces, he did not have very accurate numbers. He just saw the battle, and guessed that the enemy would probably have tens of thousands of elites.
Li Tai did not believe that Murong Shaozong could lead so many people to come to the south. The larger the army, the lower the marching efficiency. It took Murong Shaozong only five or six days to arrive in Shouyang, and the marching distance of more than a hundred miles per day.
Even if Murong Shaozong is proficient in military tactics and marching skills, horsepower alone is a hard indicator. It is impossible to march with such high intensity without changing horses. Even if Murong Shaozong has so many war horses, he will definitely not be able to support them.
The so-called “unwilling to be deceitful” soldiers, and creating some illusions to mislead the enemy to make wrong judgments is also the basic skill of being a general. It’s just a pity that Murong Shaozong is now deeply trapped in a trap carefully compiled by Li Tai for him without knowing it, and any response is just a futile struggle.
Next, in addition to the regular scout dispatch, Li Tai did not send more troops to challenge Murong Shaozong, but continued to move forward at the established pace.
However, on the afternoon of the second day of the march, a strong east wind suddenly blew, and as he walked against the wind, the speed of the fleet’s marching dropped sharply. In order to ensure timely arrival at the battlefield, Li Tai could only lead the land cavalry to take the lead.
In the horse head guard, Murong Shaozong had known about the enemy’s movements. He did not sit in the guards of the fort, but instead led his troops to array in front of the fort, making it clear that he would attack instead of defending.
When two people and horses in the wilderness saw each other, the solemn atmosphere suddenly appeared in this worldIt spread all over the place. As the sound of drums and horns sounded, Murong Shaozong’s troops, who had come first and were waiting for work, launched the first attack. The soldiers rode their horses and drove their spears straight towards the enemy. For a moment, the killing sound was full of the wild and moving.
This time, Li Tai did not choose to stop fighting. He raised his hand and ordered the soldiers to blow the trumpet. His men and horses were divided into three teams, rushing towards the enemy like three torrents of steel. He himself also led the left-wing cavalry team to the front.
The two cavalry formations running at high speed collided head-on, and the picture could only be described as tragic. The soldiers on both sides could be divided into life and death as soon as they met. After one charge, each of them suffered a lot of casualties.
“Gather and kill!”
Murong Shaozong’s cavalry formation was more rough and sparse. After a round of charge, the people and horses were exhausted for a short time, but a considerable number of Western Wei soldiers were still distributed in the Eastern Wei formation and did not completely escape. With Murong Shaozong’s order, with the short horn sound of the soldiers, his army formation suddenly contracted and condensed with Murong Shaozong as the center. The Western Wei cavalry who had not yet completely escaped were immediately strangled into the formation.
Li Tai did not rescue him at this moment, but raised his horse spear in his hand and shouted loudly at the place where the horse head sect was in front of him, “Continue to move forward and seize the city!”
Although there were flags on the top of the city and there were many people running around, Li Tai still believed that Murong Shaozong did not have so many troops to guard the city and fight in the field, so he did not entangle with the enemy in the field, but rushed straight towards the city that seemed to be closely guarded.
Sure enough, after seeing this, Murong Shaozong gave up the military formation and gathered to siege and kill the enemy, and led his troops directly to the Matou Shou to return to defense. The troops of both sides were one in front and one behind, and there were only a few horses away from each other. Li Tai knew that once the city gate was blocked, he would be attacked by the rear, so he could only lead his troops to bypass the shucheng and re-form the formation from the suburbs south of the shucheng.
Murong Shaozong did not continue to form a formation under the city with bluffing momentum, but led his troops into the city with the momentum. Although the previous fight was relatively short, they each suffered hundreds of casualties. When they looked at each other again, they suddenly felt hatred.