Riding and cutting the imperial pirates of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 644 The Neglected Rivalry
While the officials in Jingzhou were discussing, there was already a fierce battle on the other side of the border.

Outside Jianchang City, Ganning's siege has been going on for the third day. In the past three days, he has been attacking the city in no hurry. He divided the [-] main force into three parts, almost non-stop, day and night.

But the development of the situation is beyond his expectation.

On the one hand, the unexpectedly stubborn resistance of the Jianchang defenders made Gan Ning, who was full of confidence and wanted to decide on a battle, almost gave up this delusion after the first day of the siege of the city.

On the other hand, the two sides were attacking and defending, and the battle was so fierce that the movement was not insignificant. As a result, there was no movement in Changsha County, a hundred miles away. I didn't see the figure of the sentinel and the horse!
what's going on.
Is Changsha County's response too slow, or is it completely ignorant of the importance of Jianchang?Otherwise, there is really no way to explain this strange phenomenon.Jianchang was besieged here, and the siege army was fighting in full swing, but Changsha County not far away was motionless and as quiet as a chicken.

So on the fourth day, Gan Ning immediately ordered Jin to withdraw his troops, suspended the offensive, and gathered with Tai Shici and other generals in the command tent to discuss countermeasures.

"First of all, what is certain is that although no sentry cavalry from the Jingzhou Army has been found, in the past few days since the siege of the city, there have been small groups of cavalry breaking through the city one after another. I will also follow the general's order and ask my brothers to deliberately let them go. , These people will definitely send envoys for Hua Xin to ask for help, and by now, the news of our army's siege of Jianchang must have spread to Changsha."

Lieutenant General Zhu Ju spoke first: "Obviously knowing about this, Changsha County seems to have no intention of rescue at all. It's really weird."

"It's really tricky."

Gan Ning also frowned slightly: "In the prefecture's plan to attack Jianchang, it would be the best if it can be decided in a single battle with lightning speed. The attack turned into a trap, and the reinforcements were encircled to lure out some of the defenders in Changsha in advance, weakening their defensive strength. As a result, not only did they startle the snake, but the reaction of the Jingzhou army was also unexpected, and they turned a blind eye to it. Righteousness, the plan will be released?"

As a general in the Eastern Wu forces in the original history, Gan Ning is indeed a first-class figure among the heroes of the late Han Dynasty. It is no problem to charge into the battle, but after all, the battle is different from the field battle. But it is difficult to control the overall situation. More importantly, Gan Ning is not the director of strategizing, and there are certain limitations in the formation of troops. According to Han Xin's statement, "the general should not exceed ten thousand."

This is also one of the reasons why Wang Zheng only sent 6000 troops to Jianchang since it was the first battle of the Southern Expedition. The other reason is that Jianchang is a mountain city, which is not suitable for large-scale army operations. terrain.

"Although Linxiang is more than two hundred miles away from Jianchang, there are several Wubao on the border between the two states, and the closest one to Jianchang is here."

After pondering for a moment, Tai Shici drew the maps on the table with a pen, looked around, and said in a deep voice: "This place is only about forty miles away from Jianchang. In the past few days, our army has spared no effort in attacking the city, and acting can be regarded as achievable." Very good. When the battle is at its most intense, the sound of stone cannons from trebuchets may even be transmitted to Wubao!"

"Since they know about this battle, Linxiang must also know about it, but they can sit so peacefully, there must be something inside."

Gan Ning took it for granted, and hurriedly asked: "What's the inside story?"

Although Tai Shici has not been in the army for a long time, he was born in a noble family and once served as a military governor in Beihai. He is not only proficient in bow and horse, but also has far less attainments in military formation than Gan Ning, a water thief. He analyzed carefully : "Either our army's intelligence made a mistake, and there are not many troops stationed in Linxiang, so we dare not come to rescue Jianchang easily, or."

Facing everyone's questioning eyes, Tai Shici paused and said: "It can only be our army's strategy to lure snakes out of the cave, and the Jingzhou army has seen through it!"

If the former is fine, if the latter.
Gan Ning's expression turned cold, and he sneered and said, "The implication is that we have been busy here, but we have become monkeys playing tricks, and let the people of Jingzhou see the joke?"

Tai Shici was silent for a moment, then cupped his hands and said, "This is just the humble opinion of the general, it may not be true."

"Hey"

Gan Ning suddenly got up and turned around the tent a few times, "The Benming Division has already investigated how many troops there are in Linxiang. Since Liu Biao's death, Cai Mao has been in power alone, and has carried out frequent mobilization of troops and horses at the border. Do a good job. In order to prepare for the great war, a capital like Linxiang has also mobilized a lot of defenders from various counties, and there are at least ten thousand people in the city right now."

"My lord went to the front line to supervise the battle. If Mi Fang hadn't thought his life was too long, he would never dare to make mistakes in such matters. Therefore, the information must be reliable, and even if there are deviations, it will not be serious."

"Nearly [-] people, how could there be not enough troops to come to aid Jianchang? Ziyi, your second guess is somewhat reasonable, maybe we are really fucking monkeys playing tricks this time!"

"Soldiers are tricky," Tai Shici persuaded: "The so-called victory or defeat is a common thing in the military. In fact, it is not that it is common for the enemy and us to fight wits, whether to deceive or be tricked. mind"

"Ziyi, how can I not mind?"

Gan Ning scolded angrily: "You know that I have not been under the lord's command for a long time, if I hadn't made some contributions in Nanchang before, how could I win this time from the hands of Huang Zhong and Wei Yan? Came to the position of vanguard officer? I planned to make another contribution, but unexpectedly, I failed!"

"It's fine if the Jingzhou army doesn't come to rescue, Jianchang is so hard to fight!"

It's no wonder that he was suffocating in his heart. He really should treat each other with admiration for three days. Not only is Hua Xin no longer as immature as before, Yuzhang's Shanyue is also quite fierce. After three consecutive days of attacking the city, this time as the vanguard The [-] soldiers already had nearly [-] casualties. If the defenders in Linxiang cannot be attracted, and Jianchang cannot be captured in a short period of time, then the nearly [-] soldiers will be killed and injured in vain.

The key point is that many of the people brought here this time are from Gan Ning's headquarters. Thinking of this, Gan Ning became more and more annoyed. Punched!
There was only a "bang", the power of this punch was astonishing, and it directly smashed the case completely.

How can a general lose his composure like this, expressing his emotions and anger through words.
Tai Shici raised his eyebrows, and shook his head secretly, but the other generals didn't have such energy-raising skills as him, they were all startled for a while, they glanced at each other, and didn't dare to vent their breath, the tent was suddenly caught in the sound of needles dropping. In silence.

After a while, Gan Ning managed to suppress his anger, and then asked again: "Is there a letter from Nanchang? And from Yichun, is there any military report from General Xu?"

Jianchang did not have Suke, and Linxiang's defenders reacted so unexpectedly, it is naturally impossible for Gan Ning not to report to Wang Zheng.

"Return to the general," Zhu Ju hurriedly said, "there is no military report in Yichun, but there is a report in Nanchang in the morning, and Zhou Mu wrote a reply in his own hand. He didn't say much, but just wanted us to continue to attack the city."

"Did the lord say that he will send reinforcements?"

"Never."

Gan Ning was deeply puzzled by this, and murmured to himself: "Ziyi, the Jingzhou army in Linxiang has never moved. My lord must have noticed that our army's strategy has been seen through by the enemy. Judging from the current situation , if we want to take down Jianchang with the current troops, it will take at least ten months or more, the lord ordered us to continue to attack the city without sending more troops, why?"

Tai Shici pondered for a moment, then shook his head: "My lord's intention of doing this, the general can't even guess."

In fact, he thought of a possibility. Perhaps from the beginning, Wang Zheng never expected Gan Ning to capture Jianchang quickly. Perhaps from the beginning, Wang Zheng asked Gan Ning to attack Jianchang with only one purpose, that is, to Lead the snake out of the hole.

It would be best for Jianchang to win, but wouldn't it be more ideal if Linxiang's defensive strength could be weakened in advance in the process of winning Jianchang?

For the siege side, these two cities are actually equally difficult to attack, but the reasons for the difficulty are different. Jianchang is a mountainous city, which makes it difficult to besiege and mobilize troops on a large scale. As for Linxiang, as the capital, It not only has a strong city and sufficient food and grass, but the most important point is that Linxiang has an extremely wide moat!
Tai Shici, who is familiar with military books, knows how difficult it is to conquer a city with a moat.

Leaving aside, let’s take Wangzheng and Xuzhou Army, which have attacked the most cities and opened up the most territory in recent years, as an example. The first battle that really became famous in the world was the capture of Linzi, the five capitals of the Han Dynasty, but many people overlooked one thing. One thing is that Linzi is also the city where Wangzheng has spent the most time so far, and it has been close to two months.
Why Linzi is so difficult to chew, in fact, the main one is that it has a moat!

In contrast, all other cities, even capitals like Xiongguan like Pengcheng, Xiapi, and Shouchun, can be resolved within a month at most.

With such lessons learned, Tai Shici believed that Wang Zheng had made up his mind a long time ago, and made up his mind from the beginning, hoping to transfer the defenders in the city and change the siege battle to a field battle, so that he could have a chance to win Linxiang in a short time.

"Does my lord still want to continue to lure snakes out of the cave?" Gan Ning was very puzzled: "It has been three days of fighting. If Linxiang's defenders wanted to come to help, they would have come already. They just insisted on not doing so. What can we do?"

"If the fight continues like this, I am afraid that Xiangyang in Nanjun will know that our army wants to surprise Changsha. When Cai Mao knows about it, he will be fully prepared to turn the surprise attack into an open attack. The opportunity is fleeting. Our army will How to deal with it?"

Gan Ning really couldn't guess what Wang Zheng's intention was.But since the military order is like this, he still has to strictly abide by it.Worried, he passed down the military order: "Since there is no more military report, our army will implement it! Send this general order, and attack the city again in an hour."

Lieutenant General Zhu Ju asked, "Which army and horse should we use to attack the city?"

"Which one?"

Gan Ning glared at him, then looked around at the generals and said viciously, "This time I will lead the team myself!"

After the general order was issued, all the generals stood up together, clasped their fists in front of their chests, and during the military salute, the armor clattered: "Promise!"

As Tai Shici expected, the Xuzhou army's attempt to lure snakes out of the cave to attack Jianchang with the intention of Linxiang was indeed seen through by the highest official in Linxiang, Zhang Xian, the prefect of Changsha.

Zhang Xian, a native of Nanyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, was the prefect of Lingling in Jingzhou before Liu Biao rode into Jingzhou. Interestingly, even though he was at odds with Liu Biao, he was still the prefect of Guiyang and the current prefect of Changsha. From this point, it can be deduced that its local influence in Jingzhou is great and its qualifications are deep.

And like Cai Mao, Zhang Xian is also a hard-core "voting Cao" faction.

Later generations did not think highly of Liu Biao, and regarded him as a gatekeeper. The big reason was that at the critical moment of the battle between Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, Liu Biao did nothing, sat on the sidelines, and missed the last chance.

But in fact, this does not mean that Liu Biao does not have a vision of the overall situation. He may not know that the result of this "sitting and watching success or failure" may be that no matter who becomes the final winner, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao will attack him in Jingzhou in the next step. He may not want to send troops north. Hunting the Central Plains, but at this time he is powerless and has no ability to send troops at all.

In other words, Liu Biao also sent troops at this time, but the direction was south instead of north. The opponent was precisely Wang Zheng's immediate target, Zhang Xian, the prefect of Changsha stationed in Linxiang!

"Book of Later Han·Liu Biao Biography" contains: In the third year of Jian'an, Zhang Xian, the prefect of Changsha, led the three counties of Lingling and Guiyang to rebel against Biao, and Biao sent troops to attack the siege, break Xian, and pacify him.

Just looking at this limited text, it seems that Liu Biao’s process of suppressing the rebellion was quite smooth. The six words at the end are "siege, break, and peace". Well, why don't you have the ability to send troops?

actually not.

Because there is also a record in "Three Kingdoms: Biography of Liu Biao": Zhang Xian, the prefect of Changsha, rebelled against Biao, and the Biao was surrounded for years.Xian died of illness, Changsha re-established his son Yi, and then attacked and merged, taking Ling and Gui in the south, and occupying Hanchuan in the north, covering thousands of miles, with more than [-] soldiers.

The four words "continuous years" can actually tell the seriousness of Zhang Xian's rebellion.

Liannian cannot be a year. It will take at least two years or nearly two years, or even longer, to use such words. Moreover, after the "continuous years", Liu Biao has not really defeated Zhang Xian. After the other party died of illness, Liu Biao finally had a chance to defeat the rebels and regained Changsha, Lingling, Guiyang and other counties after his son succeeded him and continued to lead the army.

It can be speculated that Zhang Xian's rebellion caused Liu Biao to devote most of his energy and troops to Jingnan for at least two to three years. Under such circumstances, how could he participate in the Battle of Guandu?
From this point of view, just like Xu Gong's disciple who assassinated Sun Ce, Zhang Xian can also be regarded as the behind-the-scenes hero behind Cao Cao's victory in the Battle of Guandu.

Being able to serve as the shepherd of Jingzhou in Liu Biao for many years, with a stable foundation, set off a rebellion in the three counties. Zhang Xian is no ordinary person, and may even be one of the heroes ignored by history. He is definitely a strong enemy!
It's just that not only Tai Shici and Gan Ning are completely unaware of this point, but even Wang Zheng, who is a time traveler, is also not aware of it.

(End of this chapter)