The Rise of History’s Most Powerful Empire

Chapter 129: The beginning of the Northern Expedition

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In April 240 BC, the Yu Kingdom in Northeast China went through more than a month of preparations. At this moment, a large army of 100,000 people has gathered.

After a surprise attack in the previous winter, the Donghu people in the north of Yu Kingdom were seized by Zhong Yu of nearly 1/3 of their territory. If you look at it from the map, the territory of the Donghu people that was originally like a crescent moon has now taken a bite out of the full moon in the middle. It became an embarrassing situation of being heavy at both ends and thin in the middle.

If the Donghu people don't think about themselves, they may face the unfavorable situation of being intercepted and cut in half by the enemy at any time.

Then they must send troops to regain their lost territory through war. Even if you win, you have to take the initiative when you have the energy to spare.

Let those who dare to offend the great prairie wolf clan and Xiao Xiao of the Donghu people understand that the Donghu people are not something they can afford to offend.

And for the Donghu people, it doesn’t matter if they lose their territory. As long as there are people around, with the characteristics of the Donghu nomadic tribe, you can go to other places anytime and anywhere to fight a war with the natives of your place. Conquer and drive them away, and at any time a powerful Donghu tribal alliance will rise again.

Therefore, for Zhong Yu, he was about to face a war in which the remaining Donghu people concentrated all their strength and came desperately for revenge.

And those Donghu people are all cavalry, and they are very mobile. This Qin Dynasty Mingyue world is not the time and space of my previous earth, but a special alien plane.

At this time, there were stirrups and bow and arrow technology that were not originally available on Earth. Among today's nomadic tribes, it has become popular and quite complete.

This means that what he is facing is not the mounted infantry of Qin Shihuang's Northern Expedition to the Huns in another time and space. At that time, the prairie soldiers and cavalry did not actually have saddles or stirrups. They relied entirely on their legs to clamp the horse's belly and their hands to hold on to the horse's reins to keep from falling off.

Their method of combat is often to use the speed of their horses to quickly rush to the enemy's rear, and then transport troops and harass the place.

The so-called mounted shooting means riding a horse, stopping the horse dozens of meters away from a group of infantry, then sitting on the horse, taking out the prepared bow and arrow and starting shooting.

So they encountered the Qin Dynasty's crossbow formation, which had a longer range than them, and the Qin Dynasty's mounted infantry who also had cavalry troops.

They were attacked by the crossbowmen with a longer range, and then the whole army was defeated. And they were not as lucky as the nomadic cavalry in the north during the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty infantry who defeated them had no cavalry to pursue them and expand their victory.

The Qin Dynasty also had cavalry. If they could not escape, the fate they were waiting for next was a massacre. Therefore, the territory and population of the Xiongnu tribe that was driven out of Hetao by the Qin Dynasty dropped sharply.

They had to cede territory to the Yuezhi and Donghu tribes, which began a period of extreme humiliation for them. It was not until the emergence of Maodun, the first generation of Xiongnu heroes, that they began to rise again and reach their peak.

But now the Donghu tribe is equipped with complete bows, arrows and saddles. You can ride a horse, shoot arrows and escape at the same time, and engage in Genghis Khan's specialty, kite flying tactics.

This makes it extremely difficult to engage in a decisive battle with them and effectively annihilate their war potential with the living population.

It is even possible to fall into a war vortex. They were subjected to continuous and continuous small-scale harassment by the Donghu people. In the end, they were dragged so hard that all the national power and energy were involved, making it difficult to distract from the expansion to the south.

Don't be like this. Your so-called strategy of dominating the world and destroying the six countries to unify China will become a joke.

However, if there are disadvantages, there will be advantages. My own side has such shortcomings in dealing with Dong Hu. The Donghu people also have their disadvantages when dealing with their own side.

Previously, due to heavy snow, roads were blocked and news was blocked. Taking advantage of this God-given opportunity, he annexed nearly 1/3 of their place and 1/4 of their population.

As a result, Donghu's original population of more than one million has dropped sharply to more than 800,000 now. Even if all of them are soldiers, they can only find more than 200,000 people to serve as soldiers to fight the war.

Moreover, winter has just ended at this moment, and the food reserves of the Donghu people must have been almost exhausted.

In this case, I can completely follow the example in the Three Kingdoms world and rely on my own sufficient material reserves. Directly consume them to death, let them slowly starve to death due to food shortages, and collapse without a fight.

The only drawback is that he cannot directly send batches of cannon fodder to consume the number of soldiers of the Donghu people like the Three Kingdoms World.

Now that we are short of population, the whole country is added up, including the Donghu people who have just been conquered by ourselves, and the natives of Jizi North Korea. The total population is only 3.4 million, of which the male population is only 500,000.

The reason why there are so few is because many of the people in the Three Kingdoms world are the family members of the previous armies. A man in the family had joined the army, and after all those men died.

The remaining young men and women are not all good, so they can only work in the rear and transport supplies. If it's used for fighting, I can only say don't think too hard.

Therefore, the entire imperial kingdom had a total of 200,000 troops, 50,000 of which were taken by Cao Cao to attack Jizi North Korea. As for the entire imperial territory that was newly occupied, in order to consolidate its rule, 50,000 people must be left to defend everywhere.

Then we can only spare 100,000 of them for the Northern Expedition.

Such a small number can only reach half of the Donghu people in the north, and they want to gain a strategic advantage. And to achieve certain results, it is necessary to take surprise and make dangerous moves.

Therefore, Zhong Yu sent troops in advance to catch the barbarians off guard before their horses were fattened and their strength had not yet recovered from the severe cold.

Try to achieve enough results before they react and gather enough troops to reduce the number of their soldiers to the same level as your own.

As long as these goals are accomplished, the rest of the war will be just a matter of procrastination.

The Donghu people couldn't bear it anymore, because their cattle and sheep had no time to graze, so they starved to death in large numbers. The war horse did not have enough time to regain body fat by eating plump water plants, and became extremely thin. By consuming their material reserves and war potential, they will slowly be exhausted.

As for myself, and nothing else, I definitely have enough war supplies. With the support of the Three Kingdoms world, and all the civilians in the empire, there is a steady stream of luck points. Compared to consumption, who is he really not afraid of

The same cannot be said for the Donghu people. With their backward system, the nomadic tribes are at a disadvantage. If he can support his war for half a year at most, he will definitely be defeated on a large scale.

The only thing I worry about is that those Donghu people who have been forced into a dead end will desperately run to my rear to destroy the settlement I just established.

So his main goal now is to supervise the people in various counties. Build a city as soon as possible so that you can have a stronghold to defend against the attack of Donghu's cavalry.

Everyone knows that cavalry cannot be used to attack a city.

(End of chapter)