Chinese New Year

Chapter 525: Capture and Selection

Yecheng has fallen into complete chaos.

Not long after, the seven gates of Yecheng were opened, and countless people rushed out, fleeing overnight. The Jin army that arrived after hearing the news couldn't stop them and could only shoot arrows to calm them down.

A large number of troops were also mobilized outside the city, trying to intercept the fleeing enemy forces.

Shi Le sent more than twenty personal soldiers to inform everyone.

The chaotic streets hampered their movement.

Tongtuo Street - the street in the center of Yecheng that leads directly to Zhongyang Gate, with the same name as Luoyang - was full of soldiers running around in a panic.

Most of the people threw down their equipment and went home. They were originally from Ye and were just temporarily recruited strong men. Why didn't they go home?
The county soldiers under Tao Bao also remained motionless.

Most of the cavalry had already run away one after another, and the rest were trapped in the city. They were so anxious that they cursed loudly, but they didn't know who to curse at, because they were confused and didn't know what was going on.

Indeed, everyone knows that the outer city will be broken sooner or later.

The only ones who could really fight were more than 10,000 infantrymen. They drove the more than 10,000 men who were temporarily conscripted, which was only enough to barely hold the city wall. However, there were not enough reserves - unless the cavalry dismounted to help defend the city - the city defense was very fragile.

But what can we do? We can still hold on for three to five days, right?
It's been less than a day and the outer city is gone. It's surprising, because just now someone saw Da Hu reorganizing the defeated soldiers and leading people to patrol the city.

It must have been the fault of those Wuhuan people who opened the gate and fled!

The leaders cursed loudly, secretly annoyed at why they didn't make up their minds earlier and run with the Wuhuan people. They didn't consider that it was their escape that further disintegrated the morale of the army.

After venting their anger, they did not hesitate and immediately set out from their base to join the escape.

Due to the special nature of cavalry, they require a relatively vast area, so some of them were stationed in Ye Palace and some in Tongjue Garden.

There are gardens in the Ye Palace, including the Wenchang Palace, the Tingzheng Palace, the Duanzheng Palace and other palaces. The Tongjue Garden is a large garden and grassland, so the area is quite large.

After the Hu cavalry came out of the Yanqiu Gate of the Ye Palace, they entered the Tongjue Garden again, then headed north and ran out of the stable gate towards the north.

But the road is not easy.

Tongjue Garden is located in the northwest of Yecheng. It can be said that as soon as you enter Jinming Gate, Tongjue Garden is on the left. Therefore, a large number of Jin troops gathered here, with a total of no less than two thousand, and they were still pouring in.

Those who entered the city in front have already rushed forward to the core areas such as the Da Nong Temple in the center of the city. The troops behind have divided into two groups, one heading south to enter Zhulifang, and the other heading north to enter Tongjue Garden. They searched repeatedly, defeated any defenders who were running around, and controlled various key points.

Therefore, escaping from here is not a good idea, because the number of Jin troops here is very large, but for the cavalry, this is their best escape route. The reason is simple, it is wide enough.

When Liu Hezhu and his son Liu Hedu led their army past Santai, they hesitated.

The so-called three platforms, namely Bingjing, Tongque and Jinhu, are arranged from north to south on the western section of the city wall.

In the winter of the 210th year of Jian'an ( AD), the Bronze Sparrow Tower was built first. It was based on the city wall, ten feet high, and had rooms. Cao Cao once hosted Cai Wenji here and listened to her singing "Eighteen Beats of the Hujia".

In the 213th year of Jian'an (), Jinhu Tower was built to the south of Tongque Tower. It was eight zhang high and had rooms.

In the 214th year of Jian'an ( AD), Bingjing Terrace was built to the north of Tongque Terrace. It was eight zhang high and had rooms.

There is an ice well in Taichung, also known as the ice room or the jade well, which is 15 meters deep and can be used to store ice, food, salt and other supplies in case of emergencies.

The three platforms are sixty steps apart from each other and connected by a gallery-style bridge in the middle.

In other words, the reason why Santai is so solid and has repeatedly become the last place of defense in history is that its terrain is relatively high. When Cao Cao was controlling floods in the west of Ye, all the excavated soil was used to pile up Santai. The existence of Santai also made the western section of Yecheng’s city wall irregular.

To get to Santai, you have to dismount first and then walk a long uphill road...

The Lius soon gave up because the Jin soldiers were approaching. After taking a last look at the three platforms, they whistled away and disappeared into the Tongjue Garden.

Not long after they left, the Jin army began to advance towards Santai, climbing the slope and attacking from above.

At this time, two messengers sent by Shi Le arrived hurriedly.

One of them staggered, bleeding, and the other was not injured, but had also lost his weapon. The two looked at Santai from a distance, sighed, and ran away.

There were more and more Jin soldiers in Tongjue Garden. They quickly closed the stable door, then moved eastward across the entire garden and arrived outside the west wall of Ye Palace. After breaking open the small door on the wall, they swarmed in, searching as they advanced, and finally met up with the Silver Spear Army that entered from Yingchun Gate in the east of the city in the "Five Gates and Three Courts" area of ​​Ye Palace.

On the way, we kept encountering fleeing soldiers, ranging in number from dozens to hundreds, and most of them surrendered after just a shout.

Only a few people are still resisting.

Wang Yang led more than a thousand people to guard the Prime Minister's Mansion in Ye Palace.

There were also hundreds of soldiers in the Prime Minister's Mansion (Prime Minister of Wei) who refused to surrender.

There were about five hundred people in the Mansion of the Grand Censor (Grand Censor of Wei State).

On the Qidou Tower on the north city wall, a general gathered nearly a thousand people and fought repeatedly with the Jin army entering the city.

Of course, the defenders of Santai have not surrendered yet.

There were also scattered resistances in the aristocratic residential area (Qili) in the northeast of the city, but they were insignificant.

Upon hearing the news, the troops entering the city rushed to these places and surrounded them.

From this perspective, the people who were truly willing to fight for Shi Le were actually only these four or five thousand people, of which less than one-third were core members, and the rest were mostly temporarily forced in.

This was probably also the core group of people that Shi Le had when he initially made the worst plan, gave up the outer city, and retreated to Santai - the generals' personal soldiers, servants, and his last remnants.

******
When daybreak came, Shao Xun climbed up to a high platform outside the city and overlooked the battlefield.

It was actually only one day since yesterday's battle.

The corpses on the battlefield had not yet been cleared away, and the outer city of Yecheng had basically been occupied. Now only a few areas were still resisting.

Three of them are probably the most difficult to attack.

It is more than 30 meters high, and the defenders are in a commanding position, which makes defense very convenient, so they could only surround the city without attacking.

At this time, good news came one after another.

"Bai Zangku and Cheng Huangju have captured the fake Zhonglei General Zhi Xiong." The personal general Cai Cheng reported softly.

Baizangku, located under the southwest city wall, has 174 rooms. It was originally a place to store money and grain. After Shi Le occupied Yecheng, it became an armory - in fact, there was nothing in it.

Chenghuang Stable is a huge stable used to store military horses. There is also a military camp nearby. During the Cao Wei period, the Huben, Yulin, and Wuying garrison soldiers were stationed here. The barracks here can accommodate more than 10,000 infantry and cavalry. "Xu Guang, a military officer in Shi Le's government, jumped over the wall and fell into the East Market outside the city, where he was captured by soldiers." Cai Cheng continued to report.

There is the East Market outside the southern section of the east city wall. During the Chengping period, shops were lined up around it and merchants from all over gathered there. The market was very prosperous with trade taking place in three places every morning, noon and evening.

There is a wall outside the East Market, which is very thin and low and has no military defense function. It only encloses the East Market. Its main function is to facilitate tax collection.

"The fake Ningshuo General Cheng Xia was captured on the locust tree in front of Wenchang Palace."

The Wenchang Hall in Ye Palace was the place where Cao and his son held court meetings, banquets and grand ceremonies.

Every summer day, Cao Cao would ring the bell in Wenchang Hall according to Han rituals at seven quarters before midnight to receive congratulations. Civil officials and generals would bring gifts into the court, go up to the hall and sing praises, then music would be played and a banquet would be held. The lights inside and outside the hall would be bright all night long.

There were many locust trees planted in front of the palace. Every year at the turn of spring and summer, the locust trees were fragrant, and Cao Pi often climbed up the trees and picked locust flowers for his brothers to eat.

"Guo Ao, a military officer in Shi Le's shogunate, fled to Tongjue Garden, but was discovered by soldiers. During the struggle, he was killed in Changminggou."

Cao Cao built the Zhangqu Weir ten miles west of Yecheng, which diverted water into Yecheng from under the city wall between the Tongque and Jinhu platforms. Because of the frequent sounds of water colliding with rocks, it was named "Changminggou".

Changminggou is divided into two branches, north and south, in the city. After flowing eastward, they converge near Changchun Gate (the east gate of Ye Palace), flow out to the east under Shidou Weir, and flow into the moat.

"The soldiers followed the map and found Zhang Bin's house in Changshou Village. They captured him and are keeping him at home. They also captured Tao Bao, the pseudo-prefect of Wei County, in Sizhong Village. Bao said that he had intended to surrender long ago, and he dismissed the soldiers in the house and surrendered. The soldiers did not make things difficult for him, but just kept him at home."

Yecheng adopted the lifang system, which was very different from Luoyang, and quite similar to Chang'an and Luoyang during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

Changshouli and Sizhongli are both "high-end residential areas" in Yecheng, home to many officials and dignitaries.

It seemed that Zhang Bin was blocked at home while he was resting.

Tao Bao did send someone to contact them in advance, but the matter of Jinmingmen's surrender had nothing to do with him.

The hundreds of soldiers guarding the gate were either ordinary soldiers under Shi Le or servants from wealthy families who were temporarily recruited. None of them were Tao Bao's Weijun soldiers.

But he did play a certain role and had a small contribution, so he was not made to feel embarrassed.

"Inside the Fujie Hall..."

Cai Cheng took a long time to report everything.

Shao Xun nodded and said, "I said before that only Da Hu will be convicted, and the rest will not be questioned. Those who have made contributions will be retained in their original positions. I will keep my word. The captured fake officials will be released home first, but they must be guarded by soldiers. I will meet them one by one after I enter the city."

The words were spoken, and they were unexpectedly magnanimous - only the main culprit would be executed, and the accomplices would not be questioned. It was really very generous and rarely seen.

He keeps his word and certainly will not break his promise and damage his political credibility - the better the credibility, the longer he can persist and the better the results will be in the future.

But anyway, at this stage, the supervision of these people will not be lifted. What if they run away? Will you arrest them or not?

He planned to spend some time meeting them one by one to see if he could get them to work for him.

These people still have some power in Hebei and can help him quickly stabilize the situation and further disintegrate the remnants of the Shi Le Group.

"Those who resist stubbornly are not subject to this restriction," Shao Xun added.

"Yes, sir." Cai Chengying said.

"Shunling, who do you think should be given the position of prefect of Weijun? Can Yang Pengzu be qualified for the job?" Shao Xun suddenly asked.

Yang Dan was the first to enter the city, so he deserved a reward as he was the first to do so.

Considering the special status of Wei County, a capable fighter was needed to stay behind, so he wanted to let Yang Dan be the prefect.

We don't expect him to be able to govern Wei County well, but he must be strong in military affairs.

As for the government affairs of Wei County, he would let the Inspector of the Imperial Capital Yu Chen be actually responsible for it.

"Yang Pengzu is brave and good at fighting, he may be able to do the job." Cai Cheng replied.

"Do you want to be the prefect?" Shao Xun looked at him and asked.

Cai Cheng's heart was pounding.

I had heard that Mr. Chen's personal military commander was a shortcut to promotion, and it really lived up to its reputation.

Of course he wanted to be the governor of Wei County, and being timid was not his character. As a warrior, if he wanted something, he should just say it directly. What's there to be embarrassed about?

Therefore, he immediately replied: "I am willing to guard Yecheng for you, sir."

Shao Xun laughed and did not comment, obviously wanting to weigh the pros and cons.

The governor of Wei County was actually the commander of Yecheng Town, and Cai Cheng understood it very well.

Shao Xun couldn't stay here for long, so he had to appoint a general to guard Yecheng. This person had to be trusted by him, because Yecheng's status was too high.

In addition, there must be someone to take charge of Hebei’s military affairs.

This is a talent for leadership, not generalship. It requires strategic capabilities and cannot be limited to the tactical level.

Difficult.

A general in charge of tens of thousands of troops can only be appointed by someone he trusts - to put it bluntly, ability comes second, but loyalty is a must.

His current situation is already very big, but he still does many things personally.

You could do this when there were a dozen people and seven or eight guns, but it definitely won’t work now.

He couldn't imagine that when something happened in Hebei, the generals would send people to report to Xuchang, and then he would issue orders in Xuchang, and the generals would carry them out - but it would be too late!
Many names popped up in his mind, but were quickly shot down.

In the end, he actually thought of Liang Laodeng!

This person is indeed suitable, but - who is he to me, why should I take care of him so much?
There is a shortage of talent. There are no promising brothers in the clan. They don't have this kind of vision and have never received training in this area since childhood.

If it really doesn't work, let the father-in-law take charge, or let Lu Zhi come over, do the united front work, and then assign them some qualified military generals.

This is all we can do.

(End of this chapter)