Chapter 1251: Battle at Huchi

Chapter 1251: Battle at Huchi

The Hutuo River originates from Sizhou at the western foot of Taihang Mountain, flows eastward through Taihang Mountain and enters the North China Plain, lying across the land of Hebei. It is a very important river in Hebei.

As the season turns into late autumn, the flow of the Hutuo River has also decreased. Some sections of the river have become blocked and dried up due to the random digging of channels and pools, which has also made the entire Hutuo River silted up and unstable, not as beneficial to both sides as in previous years.

Hebei has unique geographical conditions. Since ancient times, it has been a region with developed farming and prosperous people's livelihood. Because of its possession of Hebei, the Northern Qi Dynasty once became the most powerful country in the Three Kingdoms period.

Compared with Guanzhong, which still needs to work hard to encourage farming and weaving and build water conservancy, the Hebei region does not need any detailed governance to obtain considerable returns. This has always been a deep material foundation for the Northern Qi Dynasty to be stronger than other regimes.

In the same period, the Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties only had a certain ability to compete in terms of material foundation after they successively annexed Shuzhong and Jiangling and other regions, but it took a long time to develop military suppression.

Of course, that was in the time and space when Li Tai had never participated. The current Western Wei regime has greatly improved the rhythm of converting the results of development into war potential, and has now demonstrated the strength of all-round suppression.

Dingzhou was originally an important farming area in Hebei, but due to the influx of a large number of garrison troops, the farming production environment here was greatly damaged.

The garrison troops were originally Xianbei-ized armed groups. Both their lifestyle and social organization were very different from the Han people in the farming society. The Northern Qi did not produce a garrison organization based on the garrison troops. Therefore, Dingzhou degenerated from a traditional farming area to an agricultural and pastoral area to a certain extent under the rule of the Northern Qi. Large tracts of farmland were abandoned and then became pastures, and various water conservancy facilities supporting agriculture were also abandoned.

Although there is still a certain amount of farming and weaving production in the area, it is no longer the same as before. The expansion of pastures made many equal-land households become landless refugees, and these refugees were absorbed by the town soldiers and became slaves.

The Xianbei-style social organization has caused a rather peculiar phenomenon in traditional farming areas such as Hebei, that is, a high degree of urbanization. This is not the urbanization of later generations. In the current era, cities and towns are military units, and city people are basically equivalent to soldiers engaged in military operations.

Most of the town people are engaged in the military industry, and the Han slaves under their control do not have enough farmland for production, so handicrafts have developed, resulting in Dingzhou being an important handicraft production base in Hebei until the Sui and Tang Dynasties and even the Song and Liao Dynasties.

Putting aside the development of regional social customs, Dingzhou is now shrouded in a cloud of war. Whether it is Zhongshan County where Dingzhou City is located or Changshan County where the Hutuo River flows, they are all in a solemn and murderous scene.

Duan Shao knew Li Tai quite well. Although the main force of the Wei army had already advanced to the city of Dingzhou to attack the city, in order to lure the Qi army in Jingxing to fight, Li Tai still deployed a large number of troops in the south, mainly elite cavalry that were not very useful in siege warfare, wandering in an area on the north bank of the Hutuo River.

It was not easy for the Wei army to establish the initiative in the wilderness when fighting away from home. However, due to the highly urbanized social form of Dingzhou itself, the Qi people themselves did not have a high degree of control over the wilderness. Most of the people lived in fixed towns. After the young and strong forces were withdrawn, most of the people left in the towns were the elderly, weak, women and children. It was a blessing not to be attacked by the Wei army, and they dared not take the initiative to leave the city to interfere with the actions of the Wei army.

The Wei army itself has convenient and easy-to-carry military rations, and it is also convenient to obtain hay, soybean meal and other feeds for war horses in this farming and pastoral area. When the Qi army in Jingxing was hiding, the Wei army soldiers moved freely in the area, as if they had returned to their home court.

However, in order to show the enemy weakness, most of the Wei army knights were lurking and recuperating in the north of Hutuo River. They did not have too high-profile activities, but maintained the interaction of scouts and chases with the Qi army, but in fact, their control over the area was far greater than that of the Qi army. After all, Tumen Pass was like a solid hitching post, which greatly restricted the movement of the Qi army.

After leaving the camp for a distance, the Qi army team in the Tumen camp fell into the eyes of the Wei army scouts, but they just kept tracking and watching from a distance, and did not launch any tentative attacks.

This team has about 700 people. Although it is not a large team compared to tens of thousands of troops, it is already a more eye-catching target in the wilderness. Perhaps because they had endured too much humiliation in the military camp before, after leaving the camp, many soldiers in the team kept making provocative gestures and shouting insults at the Wei army scouts in the distance.

This team rode their horses quickly and arrived at the south bank of the Hutuo River in less than half an hour. They did not patrol along the river bank, but sent a dozen soldiers to cross the river from the shallows, and the rest of the soldiers dismounted and rested on the south bank. The Qi soldiers who crossed the river did not wander around, but rode towards a direction with a clear goal.

It seems that this should be a team living in the town on the north bank of the Hutuo River. They left the camp to see if their homes had been harassed or destroyed by the Wei army.

The dozen soldiers soon arrived at their destination, a small fortress built on a hillside. Seeing that the fortress was still intact and the villagers who stayed behind were still standing on the top of the city wall, the soldiers who rode on horseback were greatly relieved. They quickly stepped forward to communicate in Xianbei language and prepared to take the families of the soldiers who stayed behind to the place near the camp in the south of Hutuo River.

People are not plants, who can be heartless? These soldiers were summoned to leave the village before, but their relatives stayed in the village, exposed to the iron hoofs and blades of the Wei army, and their lives were uncertain, which made these soldiers uneasy every day. Now they finally have the courage to return home to visit their relatives, and naturally want to take this opportunity to take their relatives to a safe place.

Several riders returned to the bank of the Hutuo River to inform the news, and the soldiers of the team resting in the south crossed the river and mounted their horses and headed straight for the castle. Although there were scouts of the Wei army watching in the distance, they did not dare to get too close because of their small number.

Soon the team arrived outside the castle, and the people left behind in the castle had already packed up, and then they left the castle together and headed south of Hutuo River.

At this time, not only the scouts of the Wei army, but also the Qi army noticed this team that was acting privately. When they saw the carriages and horses loaded with belongings and the women and children in the team, the scouts of the Qi army naturally understood what these people were thinking.

There are many people with similar ideas, but not many who dare to take action. When they saw someone dare to take direct action, the Qi army soldiers patrolling outside the camp did not scold them, but many people took the initiative to step forward to support them, and this team was able to return to the vicinity of the Tumen camp smoothly.

The families of the soldiers who were brought here naturally could not enter the camp, but they also brought felt tents and other things, and built a simple camp directly next to the camp. Although the living conditions were relatively poor, compared with the previous restless and anxious days, they naturally felt much more at ease.

Those soldiers who left the camp without permission must be punished. If they violated military orders and left the camp without permission, they would be beheaded in public if they were investigated according to military law!

However, legal principles are nothing more than human feelings. These soldiers did not leave the camp to do anything evil. They just wanted to guide the people on the north bank of the river to the south to settle them, so that they would not be massacred by the Wei army. Moreover, they did not cause any serious consequences. What was wrong with this?

After Duan Shao left the camp, he assigned military affairs to several generals to execute, and did not assign any one person to handle the matter in full. Therefore, when it came to the punishment of these people, several generals needed to discuss and execute, and inevitably there were disagreements.

"Military orders are like mountains, and they cannot be neglected! This group of people openly disobeyed orders, and they must be severely punished to serve as a warning to others!"

Although Gao Changgong wanted to attack the Wei army, he was negative about this matter and believed that severe punishment was needed to maintain the majesty of military orders.

However, several other generals had different opinions on this. They believed that if these people were really severely punished, the morale of the army would be depressed and the people would be resentful. Neither side could convince the other, so they could only decide to temporarily detain these soldiers who left the camp privately and wait for King Pingyuan to return to the camp before dealing with them.

The other soldiers were not aware of the inside story. They only saw these people leave the camp to the north and successfully take their families to a safe place, and they were naturally ready to move. Ordinary soldiers could not leave the camp, and the information they received was relatively limited, but those generals wandered around the camps and began to connect privately.

At dawn the next day after this incident, another team quietly left the Tumen camp. The number of people in the team was several times larger than before, reaching more than 3,000 people.

When Gao Changgong learned about this, his face suddenly turned pale. He naturally knew that if the situation continued to ferment, the consequences would be unimaginable. So he ignored the persuasion of several other generals, and ordered his men to leave the camp to chase those soldiers and return to the camp immediately. At the same time, he severely punished those soldiers who had not been dealt with yesterday. The leader was beheaded and sent to the army, and the rest of the followers were tortured.

Although his behavior of mending the fence after the sheep were lost temporarily shocked the crowd, it also aroused great resentment and dissatisfaction in the hearts of the soldiers. The most serious thing is that those soldiers who left the camp did not pay attention to his orders at all, and continued to go north and directly crossed the Hutuo River.

Since there are more soldiers participating in the action this time, and they are not from the same place, if you want to gather all the soldiers' families, you must expand the scope of the activity and extend the time, which naturally greatly increases the danger.

However, it is said that the main force of the Wei army has been stationed under the city of Dingzhou, one or two hundred miles away from here. It will be difficult to transfer most of them and fight back in a short time. Moreover, with the successful example of yesterday, they are also quite confident. The more than 3,000 people who participated in the operation this time, even if they were intercepted by the Wei army, if the number was not too large, there was no need to be afraid.

Therefore, after crossing the river, some people stayed in the river bend to build a fast-passing ferry, and the other part quickly rushed to the destination to gather the relatives left in this area and lead them here.

This series of actions of the Qi army naturally could not be hidden from the eyes and ears of the Wei army. In fact, the team of soldiers and civilians yesterday were able to return to the Tumen camp smoothly because they deliberately let them go. The purpose was naturally to attract more Qi troops to go out. Now it seems that the effect is indeed good.

"Lord, there is a team of Qi troops coming to Zhending City. Do you want to intercept them?"

In a valley near Zhending City on the north bank of the Hutuo River, there is a camp of the Wei army. About two thousand elite cavalry of the Wei army moved here last night. The leader was Liya.

When her subordinates came forward to ask for instructions, Li Ya slowly shook her head and said, "Let them contact the people of Zhucheng first, and then attack and kill them after their soldiers and civilians have gathered!"

This war was defined by the King of Tang as a battle to destroy Qi. Therefore, Li Ya and other rising stars in the Wei army were each able to command an army and perform some combat tasks relatively independently.

Nowadays, in addition to Liya's army, there are several other powerful armies on the north bank of the Hutuo River, with nearly 10,000 elite cavalrymen. They were originally mainly distributed dozens of miles south of Dingzhou City in order to intercept and block Jingxing. Reinforcements were sent northward, but the Qi army did not advance northward for a long time. Instead, they increased their activities near the Hutuo River, so the armies sneaked down again.

These Qi army soldiers who came from the north moved relatively quickly. After all, they still had the home field advantage of being familiar with the route. After crossing the river, they quickly gathered people from several target towns, and then quickly evacuated towards the Hutuo River ferry.

However, several Wei cavalry teams within the territory had already approached the front line of the Hutuo River, so how could they be allowed to evacuate. The reason why we didn't start a battle before was because we were worried that they would disperse in a rush. After all, it was very difficult to intercept those light cavalry troops who had no intention of fighting in the wilderness.

But now that the people who stayed behind have joined in, the Qi army's movement speed has naturally been greatly restricted. At this time, when the Wei army soldiers rush out, they will naturally have greater confidence in intercepting them.

"The Wei army is coming, the Wei army is coming...Run away, run away!"

When they saw the fine cavalry of the Wei army rushing out in the wilderness, the already frightened Qi army and civilians suddenly changed their expressions and sped up to run towards the Hutuo River. However, no matter how fast they accelerated, they still couldn't compare to the Wei army running at full speed. War horses and the knights of the Qi army did not dare to gallop away because they wanted to protect their family members.

Fortunately, not all the fine cavalry of the Wei army lurking in the dark were killed. They only dispatched two teams of thousands of people to attack the Qi army and civilians in the wilderness more than ten miles away from the Hutuo River. And these two teams did not rush directly into the team, but went around the two sides of the team to intimidate, driving the originally loose team into a more solid one.

There are about five thousand people in this team, most of them are the family members of the townspeople who have just been led out of the town, and they have almost no fighting power. The more than two thousand Qi army Qingqi were distributed on both sides of the team. They kept firing bows and arrows to push back the Wei troops who were trying to get closer. While blocking the enemy, they led the team to continue southward, but the speed was as slow as a turtle crawling. , the distance of more than ten miles seems to be out of reach.

"No, the Wei army is really ambushing Hutuo Hebei, preparing to stop and kill our soldiers and civilians!"

When the soldiers staying at the ferry saw the fighting in the distance, their expressions changed for a moment, and hundreds more soldiers mounted their horses and galloped away, preparing to pick up the blocked soldiers and civilians. At the same time, some people were worried that the Wei army's ambush would not stop here, so they hurried south to the Tumen camp to ask for help.

At this time, the atmosphere in the Tumen camp was extremely depressed due to the torture and punishment of King Lanling. When they heard that the soldiers who were out were ambushed by the Wei army, the soldiers all looked worried.

"A certain class of people left the camp privately, knowing that they deserved death. Because their family members stayed in Hutuo Hebei, they really couldn't bear to abandon their family. Now they are ambushed by the Wei army in the wild. If we don't rescue them, I'm afraid that neither the soldiers nor the people will survive... I beg your Majesty, I beg the king to take pity on the strangers and send them to the north to respond!"

After returning to camp, these sergeants did not deny their crimes of violating military orders. They plopped down at Gao Changgong's feet, and immediately kowtowed and begged with such sorrow and fear that those who heard him couldn't help but shed tears.

"We will discuss your crimes later. What is the situation of the enemy in Hutuo Hebei? Please tell us in detail as soon as possible!"

Gao Changgong's previous severe punishment of the officers was just for the sake of serious military orders rather than fear of the Wei army. When he heard that the Wei army was ambushing north of the Hutuo River, his expression changed and he asked in a deep voice what the enemy situation and the battle situation were in the north.

When he learned that thousands of soldiers and civilians on the north bank of the Hutuo River were intercepted and blocked by the Wei army and were not allowed to return south, Gao Changgong immediately frowned. At this time, another general next to him said in a deep voice: "The King of Pingyuan has given orders before leaving. Please do not It’s easy to attack. But these soldiers are audacious and are not bound by military orders. Now they are ambushed by the enemy and are seeking their own death!”

Gao Changgong was still hesitant in his heart, but after hearing this, he raised his eyebrows and said in a deep voice: "These soldiers have violated military orders and have their own military laws to deal with them. How can they be thrown into the dead by the sword of thieves!"

Although he deeply hated these soldiers who went out against orders, he could not abandon these people and let them be slaughtered by the Wei army. Therefore, he immediately ordered to summon 5,000 soldiers and prepared to personally lead them to the north bank of the Hutuo River for rescue and rescue. These soldiers will be severely punished after they come back. Of course, what should be done specifically needs to be analyzed in detail at the scene. If it is really difficult to rescue, he will not put himself in danger.

Tumen Camp is more than fifty miles away from Hutuo River. If the horse is running at full speed, it can be reached in less than half an hour. When Gao Changgong arrived here with his army, the battle on the north bank had actually been going on for more than an hour.

Both sides of the Hutuo River are flat, and now it is the late autumn season when the vegetation is withering. Although it is still more than ten miles away from the battlefield, as long as you stand slightly higher, you can have a clear view of the battlefield to the north.