Chapter 1182 Famous General of the Southern Kingdom

Chapter 1182 Famous General of the Southern Kingdom

The Northern Expedition Camp of the Southern Chen Dynasty was located outside the city of Guangling. In addition to the main general Hou Andu, there were also generals such as Du Ling, Hu Ying, Cheng Lingxi and Wu Mingche who led troops to defend each area. In terms of lineup, it was relatively strong, but the number of troops invested was limited, with only more than 20,000 people.

The Southern Chen Dynasty had a lot of troops as a whole, more than 200,000, but a large part of them were local tyrants who took advantage of the Hou Jing Rebellion and privately armed themselves. The troops that were truly controlled by the court were only a little over 100,000, and they had to defend the local areas separately, so that the total number of troops that could be dispatched in Jiankang City was only about 50,000 to 60,000.

In the early days of crossing the river to attack Huainan, Chen Baxian also had great expectations for this military operation and directly invested 50,000 troops, which could almost be called a full-scale attack.

However, due to the subsequent unrest in Lingnan and other places, and the fact that the war was not going smoothly, after Chen Baxian returned to Jiankang, the Northern Expedition Army no longer maintained such a large scale and gradually withdrew to the country.

Of the more than 20,000 people who remained outside Guangling City, only more than 5,000 were directly led by the commander Hou Andu, and the rest were mostly Huainan Yishi and other generals. Among them, the more special one was the 5,000 Qinjun Division led by Wu Mingche.

Wu Mingche originally brought 3,000 troops from Chang'an, including the children of Guanzhong and Shannan, as well as the original Liang army elites from Jiangling and other places. Both the level of armed forces and combat effectiveness were very outstanding.

After returning to his hometown Qin County, the young men in the village all rushed to serve under him, and Wu Mingche himself could obtain certain supplies from Liyang, Hefei and other areas controlled by the Western Wei Dynasty, which also provided great convenience for him to expand his troops, so that some Huainan righteous divisions who were unwilling to accept the rule of the Northern Qi Dynasty also came to rely on him. Therefore, during the period of his return, the size of his troops had expanded to tens of thousands of people, which can be said to be very strong.

Wu Mingche was also one of the few generals who gained positive benefits in this Northern Expedition, while other generals suffered a certain degree of loss, at least in terms of money and food consumption. Since there was no truly valuable target such as Guangling, there was not enough income to distribute.

The Southern Chen Dynasty was relatively lenient on the issue of generals' private songs and basically did not control it. First, the ability to centralize power was insufficient, and second, there was not enough financial income to support the army.

These generals led their own private armed forces and obeyed the orders of the court. They did not need the court to provide for their own military expenses. They could only participate in the distribution of spoils and the court's rewards after winning.

Unlike Wu Mingche, these generals did not have the support of a big money lord like the Western Wei. After participating in the siege for several months, the pure consumption made them feel overwhelmed.

They searched and plundered every place where they could find a little bit of supplies, so that the villagers in Huainan would flee to the lakes and marshes with their families when they saw the Chen army appearing. Even the fish and turtles in the water were fished out countless times.

Although Hou Andu, the commander of the Chen army, was known for his bravery, he was a stern and fierce person and did not sympathize with the soldiers. In the face of the complaints of the generals, he not only did not appease them and find a way to solve them, but also blamed them for the fact that the generals were too selfish, which led to the delay of major breakthroughs in the war.

As a result, the generals were less willing to get close to Hou Andu and turned to Wu Mingche. Although Wu Mingche's temper was not necessarily very good, he was not as aggressive as Hou Andu, and if they got to know each other well, they could get some support from Wu Mingche. After all, as a Huainan native, Wu Mingche certainly hoped to drive the Qi forces out of Huainan as soon as possible.

Compared with other generals of the Southern Chen Dynasty, Wu Mingche had another characteristic that others did not have, that is, he had seen real big scenes and big battles.

When he served the Western Wei Dynasty, he not only participated in the war between the Western Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty in Heluo, but also followed the Wei army to the north to fight against the Turks, and made a great contribution to capturing the Turkic Khan alive!

This alone made Wu Mingche a great hero in the minds of many Southern Dynasty soldiers. They had also heard of the great feat of Huo Qubing in the prosperous Han Dynasty, but even during the Southern Liang Dynasty, when the situation in the Southern Dynasty was the most stable, it was difficult to push its power and influence to the south of the desert, let alone attack the Hu tribe outside the Great Wall.

Today's Southern Chen is a small country with few people and barely protects itself. These Southern Chen soldiers may not be able to fight against the Hu tribe outside the Great Wall for their entire lives. They are naturally full of admiration for Wu Mingche, who captured the Turkic Khan, the overlord of the northern desert.

Especially in the minds of some martial young men, Wu Mingche is even more respected as the top general of the current Southern Chen. No matter how famous other generals are, they are far behind Wu Mingche in their eyes.

The closeness and admiration of Wu Mingche by the generals in the army naturally caused dissatisfaction among the main general Hou Andu.

Hou Andu was among the founding heroes of the Southern Chen Dynasty. Although he was relatively young, he had made outstanding contributions. Not only did he make great achievements in all the wars, but he also played an irreplaceable and key role at some important moments. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was the chief of the heroes.

Although he was young, he had made great contributions. In addition, he was also in a high position. Naturally, Hou Andu was arrogant because of this. He did not take the exiles of the world seriously. He was already resistant to Wu Mingche who returned to the country with force and posed a certain threat to their positions. In addition, the war was not going well, so he was naturally more dissatisfied.

"Wu Mingche is willing to be a slave, but he has hidden sinister intentions when he returns home. Such a scoundrel is still sought after by many, which shows that most people are stupid!"

Not only did Hou An make a lot of complaints when facing his confidants, but Hou An also showed no pretense when facing Wu Mingche. In many ways, he wanted to outdo Wu Mingche. He was holding a breath in his heart and wanted to find an opportunity to do it again. Achieve great achievements to overwhelm Wu Mingche's limelight.

With such a mood in mind, when Chen Baxian's order reached the Guangling camp, Hou Andu immediately saw the opportunity.

"The Qi thieves are like jackals. They are hurt by the fight between the two captives and are desperate to leave. If we allow them to leave calmly, will my sons from the Southern Kingdom be at peace?"

Of course Hou Andu also knew Chen Baxian's intention to authorize him to act expediently, but he had a different view on this in his heart.

Back then, the Northern Qi Dynasty took advantage of the civil strife in the Southern Liang Dynasty to annex the territory of Huainan, and invaded repeatedly. They even once attacked outside Jiankang City, causing huge damage and losses to the Southern Dynasties. It can be said that there was a bloody feud between them.

Although the two countries may need to cooperate to a certain extent to guard against the increasingly powerful threat of the Western Wei Dynasty, it does not mean that the deep hatred between each other does not exist.

Moreover, in Hou Andu's view, Northern Qi was a wolf ready to devour anyone at any time. Now it wants to conspire with Nan Chen, not because he has changed his gender, but because the oppression imposed on him by the Western Wei Dynasty is too strong.

Under such circumstances, it is necessary to seize the opportunity to weaken Northern Qi and make it weaker, so that the harm of a backlash in the future will be less. As for whether doing so will affect our cooperation? As long as the threat and oppression of the Western Wei Dynasty still existed, the Northern Qi Dynasty would still choose to cooperate with Nan Chen in order to protect itself.

Therefore, Hou Andu's expedient act deviated from Chen Baxian's original intention from the beginning, which was something he had not expected.

Since the two sides had already established contact, Hou Andu, the leader of the Northern Expedition, was naturally able to contact the Qi people. He immediately arranged for personnel to send a message to Northern Qi to express his agreement with the plan proposed by Northern Qi, and to receive it before the Western Wei Dynasty entered. Guangling and other places, and asked the Qi people about their evacuation plan in order to arrange responses.

This move by the Northern Qi Dynasty was to drive a wedge between Nan Chen and the Western Wei Dynasty. As long as Nan Chen took action, it would have an effect. After learning that Nan Chen was really interested, the person in charge of Northern Qi breathed a sigh of relief, which meant that giving up on Huainan was not a waste after all.

The person who guarded Guangling in the Northern Qi Dynasty was named Lu Qian. Since he had already received an order from the imperial court to prepare to evacuate, and now that Nanchen was willing to take over the city in advance, he naturally did not doubt his presence. After receiving the notice from Hou Andu, he replied that as long as he accepted the order When the troops arrive, he will lead the city's officers and soldiers and the officials and people who are willing to follow to evacuate Guangling City, allowing Chen's army to enter the city.

After learning about Qi Ren's evacuation plan, Hou Andu also began to actively plan and prepare.

In the Northern Qi Dynasty, personnel from Zhongli, Xuyi and other counties close to the Huai River have been withdrawn one after another. However, Guangling's location is too important and too close to Nanchen's territory, and it is still under siege by Chen's army, so The retreat arrangements were also relatively cautious. Feng Zihui, the governor of East Xuzhou, led thousands of people, Ma Nan, to greet them.

The group of people also knew the mission of this trip, but they were not in a happy mood after all, and most of the soldiers looked depressed. Since there were no specific and important combat missions on this trip, and he had secretly reached a tacit understanding with Nan Chen, Feng Zihui did not take strict precautions during the march, and even the scouts who were on guard for the march did not have much arrangement.

When the team was about to arrive in Guangling, they met a Nanchen army that came to meet them. The general who led the team came forward and greeted him warmly: "The last general has been ordered by the Duke Kaifu of Xijiang in our country to wait here. I have been envoying you for a long time. Now that the war between the two countries has been resolved and people and land returned to each other, I am really happy. Hou Kaifu has specially prepared some military materials as a gift to the Qi army. I hope you will accept it. "

Feng Zihui did not doubt that he was responsible for this. Seeing that the materials sent by Chen Jun were relatively abundant and impressive, he ordered them to temporarily stay on the spot today and take a short rest before heading to Guangling tomorrow.

Just when the Qi army found a suitable place to set up camp, Hou Andu also led a strong force of elite troops to leave the camp outside Guangling City in batches and headed straight for the Qi army's camp.