Li Mi's death was not the end of the battle at Hulaoguan, but only the beginning. Disturbed by Li Mi's affairs, although Chen Sangliang and Dou Jiande, who had never met before, could not meet each other, after they withdrew to the camp, Dou Jiande still Immediately decreed to speed up the manufacture of siege weapons, and stipulated a time limit of three days to prepare the necessary siege weapons, determined to win Hulao Pass at any cost, and at the same time, strive to kill Hulao Pass on the battlefield of Hulao Pass. Chen Sangliang laid the foundation for world hegemony in one fell swoop.
In all fairness, the current situation of Dou Jiande's army is not hopeless to achieve this. The Dou army is a new force with more physical strength than the Sui army, and the injuries are not far less serious than the Sui army. There are fewer hidden dangers in the rear and more food and supplies; The main force of the Dou army confronting the Sui army in the Eastern Expedition was inferior to the main force of the Dou army in most aspects. The danger of pinching, and what is even more terrible is that the main force of the Sui army, the bronze artillery, is all on the Luoyang battlefield. So even Chen Sangliang himself admitted that the self-army can only exert at most 60% to 70% of its strength at its peak, while the main force of the Dou army is in the most ideal state of prosperity.
But fortunately, the Sui army had the huge advantage of a favorable location. I don’t need to introduce how difficult the Hulao Pass with its high city and deep moats was. Chen Sangliang was unable to take it for half a year. And attacking Hulao Pass from east to west is much more difficult than attacking from west to east—because the west of Hulao Pass is an open terrain, the siege army can go straight to the edge of the moat, and the east gate of Hulao Pass There is a natural river called Sishui for more than two miles. Although the flow of Sishui is not too large, infantry and cavalry soldiers can directly cross the river, but large siege weapons must pass through strong bridges to reach the opposite side of the moat. , greatly restricted the advance speed of the siege side and interfered with the formation of the siege army, and gave the defenders a huge advantage.
Chen Sangliang knew how to take advantage of this geographical advantage. Under the circumstances that he was not completely unable to fight, Chen Sangliang cunningly chose to only defend and not fight, to use his strengths and avoid weaknesses to avoid the enemy's edge, and deliberately provoked Dou Jiande to lure the enemy to attack, intending to use the defense City warfare consumes the enemy's strength and stamina before attempting to counterattack. Although Dou Jiande was indeed provoked by Chen Sangliang's success, he was not as impulsive as Yang Xuangan, who only took some simple flying ladders to attack the city to death, and ordered the army to rush to build a large number of trebuchets, trench bridge vehicles, ladder vehicles, and city crash vehicles. At the same time, Dou Jiande sent general Wang Xiaohu to lead an army of 8,000 to build ten strong bridges on the Sishui River the next day to facilitate the passage of large siege weapons.
The news of Dou Jun’s construction of the bridge was sent to Hulao Pass by the scouts. The generals of the Sui Army rushed to ask for orders to destroy Dou Jun’s bridge, but Chen Sangliang smiled and called Sun Cheng, the head of the Li Ke division, and ordered He led a thousand troops to attack the Sishui bridge and destroy the bridge that Dou Jun was building. The eldest Sun Cheng, who was favored by Chen Sangliang by accident, was overjoyed at first, and then his face immediately changed when he heard the strength Chen Sangliang gave him. He hesitated for a moment and did not dare to promise, and said cautiously: "Your Highness, it's not that the last general will not take the lead." The order is for the last general to lead one thousand troops to attack eight thousand enemies, and to destroy the bridge..., this..., the last general has no confidence?"
Before Chen Sangliang could open his mouth, Luo Shixin, who had long been accustomed to Chen Sangliang's wretched style, shouted, "Your Highness told you to destroy the bridge of the bandit army. He didn't say that you must win the battle, and he didn't ask you to do so." If you want to destroy the bridge of the bandit army, why don't you use your brain, if you can't beat the bandit army, can't you escape?"
"Haha, Shixin is indeed becoming more and more courageous and resourceful." Chen Sangliang laughed and said, "I just gave the order, and you can immediately guess my real intentions, yes, yes, more and more There is a wind of a general."
When Changsun Cheng was still a little puzzled, Luo Shixin smiled and said: "Fight with Your Highness, the general will not be able to learn some tricks. By the way, Your Highness, it is best to let General Changsun fight a few more battles, and he will fight every day." Remember to bring his flag with you every time? And after a few times, can you temporarily lend the flag of General Changsun to the last general?”
When Changsun Cheng finally woke up, generals such as Yuchi Jingde, Wang Fubao, and Xu Shiji had already asked him to borrow the banner of Changsun Cheng. Gongdao said: "Shi Xin spoke first, he had to borrow the banner of General Changsun first, and if he fails, he will lend it to you."
"Then we don't need to borrow, there is definitely no chance." Yuchi Jingde, Wang Fubao and other generals were all dejected, while Chen Sangliang smiled and waved to let Chang Sun Cheng take the order, and told Chang Sun Cheng to act decently and wake up. The Changsun Cheng who came also clasped his fists and sang promises, and then immediately went down to prepare for the battle—Changsun Cheng and his eldest grandson Xiao Luoli had a little relationship, for the sake of powerful and powerful distant relatives, the somewhat ambitious Changsun Cheng didn't mind accepting some Wronged.
In this way, Chang Sun Cheng, who knew he was bound to lose, bit his head and led his troops out of the city to prevent Dou Jun from building the bridge. For the battle, two thousand troops were directly divided to meet them. The two armies fought on the west bank of the Sishui River. Chang Sun Cheng, who had been told by Chen Sangliang to act out the show, also put out all his strength to fight. However, his troops were weak and he was a second-line army, so he couldn't do it at all. Dou Jun's front-line soldiers, who had a numerical advantage, were killed and fled in embarrassment in less than a moment, and were chased back to Hulao Pass by Dou Jun like a rabbit.
In the evening of the same day, Changsun Cheng attacked again, and was easily defeated by Dou Jun again. The morale of Dou Jun who had won two battles in a row rose, and the morale of the army gradually became more arrogant, but Chen Sangliang did not blame Changsun Cheng for his defeat at all. In the early morning of the next day, an army was sent east to attack the enemy's bridge. Once again, he secretly ordered the army to be defeated but not to win. He deliberately let the army lose three battles in a row in front of Wang Xiaohu, and waited patiently for the gradual completion of Dou Jun's bridge.
In the afternoon, Chen Sangliang finally came and ordered Luo Shixin to lead 1,000 elite soldiers to attack under the banner of Changsun Cheng. And when Luo Shixin appeared in front of Dou Jun under the banner of Changsun Cheng, Wang Xiaohu laughed at the defeat of his subordinates who came to die again. Annihilate this Sui army.
Of course, Wang Xiaohu quickly regretted his risk of leaving the protection of the fence and earth fortifications, because the soldiers of the Sui army who appeared in front of him suddenly turned into a group of lunatics, led by a young Sui general. , Before Dou Jun could set up his formation, he rushed forward, and plunged directly into Dou Jun's formation like a sharp knife, forcing the soldiers of Dou Jun to fight with them in close quarters. The astonishingly young Sui The general is the lunatic among the lunatics, carrying a pair of knives in his hand and rampaging in the formation, as if entering no man's land, he will kill the enemy as soon as he sees him, one knife is faster than one knife, and one knife is fiercer than one knife. There was hardly any enemy in front of him, and in less than a moment, more than a dozen soldiers of the Dou army were killed by his sword. Wang Xiaohu and countless soldiers of the Dou army were also frightened because of this, and they all screamed, "Who is this man? Why is he so powerful?"
What made Wang Xiaohu even more terrified was still behind. After successfully disturbing the ranks of Dou's army, when Dou's army divided up to see that the situation was not good and had returned to the main force, the young Sui general actually came directly to his banner. The soldiers of the Sui Army behind him also kept walking, hacking and advancing after him, not paying attention to the soldiers of the Dou Army coming from front, back, left, and right. The young Sui general who had already been killed was covered in blood Still laughing wildly in the shadow of swords and swords, "Happy! Happy! What a joy to kill!"
Among the Dou army, Wang Xiaohu is definitely a general who can fight with his head. He was vaguely aware of the trick and saw that the situation was very bad for him. Wang Xiaohu did not take the initiative to come to Luo Shixin like ordinary generals In front of death, he decisively chose to lead the army to retreat to the bridge, and at the same time immediately sent people to the camp to ask for help, so as not to be destroyed by the Sui army's solid bridge that was about to be completed. However, after Dou's army retreated, Luo Shixin not only chased him to the edge of the bridge without hesitation, Qiu Xinggong also immediately led the Sui army's rear army out of the city to help in the battle, and brought all kinds of fire starters to the bridgehead position to help Luo Shixin.
The battle at the bridgehead was extremely fierce. Although the generals and soldiers of the Dou army headed by Wang Xiaohu also made tenacious resistance, they were caught off guard and lost the opportunity. They could not effectively resist the Sui army's attack by relying on the bridgehead fortifications such as fences and earth barriers, and retreated hastily. The formation was messy, and there was no way to resist Luo Shixin and Qiu Xinggong's first-line elite soldiers of the Sui army. Ten newly built bridges were destroyed and eight of them were burned by the Sui army, and the casualties of soldiers were not small. When Dou Jiande hurriedly sent troops to help, Luo Shixin and Qiu Xinggong immediately retreated under Chen Sangliang's order, retreated to Hulao and closed the city for defense, and did not continue to fight against Dou's fresh troops.
After the fierce battle, the Sishui battlefield was devastated. Eight newly-built bridges were gradually reduced to ashes in the flames and smoke. Quickly cross the river and engage in siege operations. After Dou Jiande heard the news, he scolded Wang Xiaohu so badly that he had no choice but to give up the plan to launch a siege the next day. At the same time, he sent more troops to repair and rebuild bridges. It has also been affected a bit.
The Sui army was not easy in this aspect. According to statistics after the war, Luo Shixin's front-line elites suffered more than 120 casualties in the fierce battle, and Qiu Xinggong's main soldiers suffered close to 300 casualties. The loss is by no means small. The tame Luo Shixin also admitted that the combat effectiveness of Dou's soldiers was above his expectations, and the individual combat effectiveness was no less than that of the main soldiers of Li Yuan's army on the Taiyuan battlefield. Protection, I may not be sure that I can kill the enemy this time.
Because of this, Chen Sangliang resolutely gave up his plan to fight a few more tug-of-wars with Dou Jiande on the Sishui battlefield, allowing Dou Jiande to rebuild the bridge and step up his preparations for the defense of the city. At the same time, he let the Dou army captured by Qiu Xinggong Bring the letter back to Dou Jun's camp and hand it to Dou Jiande, and use the letter to mock the defeat of Dou Jiande's army in Sishui, so as to provoke and provoke Dou Jiande to launch a strong attack. And Dou Jiande was really furious after seeing the letter, and urged to speed up the bridge building, and once again vowed that after breaking the city, he would cut Chen Sangliang into pieces and execute him Lingchi.
The dark clouds of the Great War shrouded the sky above Hulao Pass. Judging from various signs, it is a foregone conclusion that Dou Jun will launch a large-scale attack on Hulao Pass. At the same time, the Luokoucang side will definitely send troops to help Dou Jiande. A two-front battle situation. Under such circumstances, Chen Sangliang, who had always been authoritarian, had no choice but to hold a military meeting to discuss the battle strategy with all the civil and military subordinates.
During the discussion, most of the civil and military personnel of the Sui army believed that the main force should be used to the east, and more than 60% of the force should be used to resist Dou Jiande's attack, and the rest of the force should be used to deal with the Luokoucang Zheng army. Only Wang Fubao and Yin Kaishan strongly advocated that Zheng should be first and then Xia should be used first, and that they should use most of their strength to kill Wang Xuanying first, and then turn around and concentrate on fighting Dou Jiande with all their strength.
The reason why Yin Kaishan advocated Zheng Zheng before Xia was Tian Ji's horse racing principle, and he talked in front of everyone: "It is risky to meet Dou Jiande's main force with 30% to 40% force, but we are also very sure, because the first siege battle In the middle of the war, the Dou thief army had to face the problems of moats, sheep and horse walls, and antlers to reject horses and other fortifications under the city. The advance was bound to be slow. It will inevitably have a huge intimidating effect on Dou's soldiers, and the Dou's army will have to spend a certain amount of time to get used to it. At the same time, our army has the advantages of the most complete fortifications and the most sufficient supplies for defending the city. great."
"In this way, as long as our main force seizes the opportunity to severely annihilate Wang Shichong's bandit army and fight out of the city, the next situation will be very beneficial to us." Yin Kaishan continued: "After severely injuring Wang Shichong's bandit army, we will be able to fight in the future." In the following battles, not only do we no longer have to worry about being attacked on both sides, but we can also take down the Luokou Warehouse with only a part of the army, completely solve our food and grass problem, obtain a large amount of military supplies, and completely clear our supply roads. With an absolute supply of military supplies, we will be invincible in the battle with Dou Jiande."
"However, if we put the main force in defending against Dou Jiande's attack first, then Hulaoguan can be secured. But as time goes on, we will use less bows, arrows, fire oil and ordnance to defend the city at a time. We were choked by Wang Shichong's bandit army again and could not be supplemented. The more the stalemate continues, the more unfavorable the situation will be for us. Therefore, I think that we must not just blindly ensure that the tiger prison is not lost, we must take some risks, first Only by pulling out the nail in Luokoucang can we completely reverse the unfavorable situation we are currently fighting on two fronts."
"The last general also thinks that Zheng should be first and then Xia." Wang Fubao's voice was still as serious as usual, and he said in a deep voice: "The reason is that Dou Jiande is not good at fighting tough battles. Back then, he personally supervised Hejian City and failed to siege the city for a year. Destroying the city, the siege tactics are the same, lacking much to mention, and easy to be manipulated by subordinates. They often miss good opportunities at the moment of attack. The Hulaoguan city is stronger than Hejian City, and only the east gate is attacked. The enemy's forces cannot be deployed. The pressure is much easier than that of the Hejian defenders back then. It would be a waste to use too much force to deal with him. Instead of wasting precious combat power, it is better to use it to deal with Wang Xuanying first, defeat Wang Xuanying's main force in the field, and solve us in one fell swoop. The problem of being attacked on two fronts."
"Yes, yes, priority should be given to dealing with Emperor Xuanying! We are not afraid of fighting him in the field, but we are afraid that this ordinary man will not come out after hiding in the city!"
Strong generals such as Luo Shixin and Guo Feng who like to fight in the field also nodded desperately, praising Yin Kaishan and Wang Fubao for their good words, but Feng Deyi, Shi Wanbao and others agreed that Yin Wang and his words were reasonable, but also reminded that The terrain at Hulao Pass is important, and there must be no mistakes. Dou Jiande's army is powerful, and there must be no slightest neglect. In addition, Feng Deyi and others have one thing in their hearts that they dare not say—Wang Fubao surrendered from Dou Jiande's side. Persuading Chen Sangliang to use the main force on the western front, there is some suspicion of diverting the tiger away from the mountain to help Dou Jiande.
The ball was finally kicked back in front of Chen Sangliang. Chen Sangliang, who used to talk nonsense at military meetings in the past, was uncharacteristically uncharacteristic this time. He hardly spoke. After all the accomplices had finished their opinions and waited for Chen Sangliang to make a final decision, Chen Sangliang was silent for a long time, then turned his gaze to Li Keshi's face, and asked, "Cousin, can I take the tiger?" The prison is entrusted to you, do you have the confidence to hold it?"
"Me?" Master Li was taken aback for a while, and then asked in surprise, "Your Highness, are you planning to fight the western front yourself?"
"That's right." Chen Sangliang nodded, and said, "Old General Yin is right. Only by pulling out the nail in the Luokou Warehouse and clearing up our supply roads can we be invincible against Dou Jiande. So, we have to take some risks, Zheng Zheng first, then Xia, I will take the main force to deal with Wang Xuanying first, and you take the partial division to deal with Dou Jiande, buy time for me."
Being entrusted with such an important task by Chen Sangliang, Li Keshi was so excited that his face blushed, and after a while he said tremblingly: "Your Highness, if the last general..., if the last general disappoints you, what should we do?"
"Then you can figure it out." Chen Sangliang replied very easily, and then said: "But we can't take risks. Yuan Shangshu and old general Qu Tu have been restrained by Wang Shichong. If we don't hurry up and seize If we seize the opportunity to kill Wang Xuanying and continue the stalemate, the situation will only become more unfavorable to us day by day, so I can only give priority to solving Wang Xuanying, and I can only entrust Hulao Pass to you."
After hesitating for a while, Master Li Ke left the table and kowtowed to Chen Sangliang, and said solemnly: "His Royal Highness Meng will not give up, entrusting the last general with such a heavy responsibility, the last general will definitely do his best to keep the tiger locked up. Please rest assured, Your Highness, after your Highness leaves Hulao Pass in the west, the city of Hulao Pass will be there, and the last general will be there, and if Hulao Pass is not there, the last general will fall to the ground!"
"Then I'll leave it to my cousin." Chen Sangliang's tone became calmer, and he added: "I will leave you with fifteen thousand troops, and I will also leave you with old general Yin, Qiu Xinggong and Xu Shiji. Rich, respectful and courageous, they will definitely be of great help to you."
Master Li Ke once again expressed his thanks respectfully. Yin Kaishan, Qiu Xinggong, Xu Shiji and other generals also left the table to salute and lead the order. The army is attacking from left to right, we will defend from east to west and attack from west, we will defeat Wang Xuanying first, and then destroy Dou Jiande!"