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Volume 1: Entry Chapter 112: The War Situation Deteriorates

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    At the same moment when Zhu Feng, Yang Ye, and Hao Shi successfully prevented the Liao cavalry from marching to Ci, Jiang, and Xizhou, the war situation in the world was also changing rapidly.  At the southernmost end of the battle, the Cham soldiers who continued to arrive were all war lunatics. They refused to retreat one by one, and continued to attack day and night. They successively broke through the two defense lines of Lu Rong (today's Hue, Vietnam) in the north and Nha Trang in the south.  Jia Yuhang's expeditionary force was completely compressed within Da Nang; at the same time, hundreds of Cham warships, large and small, completely blocked the port exit, trapping Jia Yuhang and the others from both land and water directions.  Jia Yuhang was also forced to show his ruthlessness. Before retreating, he robbed all the surrounding Cham people, their property, and food into the harbor, and forced them with knives to build a temporary defense line around the harbor. Anyone who disobeyed would be killed.  He immediately chopped them to death with a knife and built the body into the protective wall, suppressing the rebellious Cham people and temporarily stabilizing the defense lines. However, more and more Cham soldiers were arriving from the outside, and the situation was critical.  Going a little further north, Qiongzhou and Wan'an Prefecture, which actually declared independence, are also in trouble.  At first, Yi Wuhen's policies of no prosecution, sharing of money and food, and freedom to join the army were very attractive, and he quickly expanded his team to 6,000 men. However, as a month passed, the number of people who came to join the army continued to decrease, and there was news that  The trouble news continues to increase: The Han and Li people in the Datang Free Army have constant conflicts during training, and fights and conflicts between the two sides have become commonplace; Zhenzhou in the south is gathering troops, and the target is Wan'an Prefecture; Qiongzhou and Dan in the north  There are frequent exchanges between Zhouzhou and Yazhou. Soldiers from the Southern Han Dynasty have already gathered in Qiongzhou. Needless to say, the target must be Wan'an Prefecture.  In a word, Wan'an Prefecture will face a joint attack from the four surrounding states due to its internal instability.  According to investigations, the total military strength of the above-mentioned four states is about 12,000, which is exactly twice the existing military strength of Wan'an Prefecture. However, because the four states are all close to water and have many warships, they can mobilize more sailors to fight.  At least more than ten thousand people. Calculated in this way, the strength ratio of the two sides is about one to four.  Facing a war for the first time, Yi Wuhen did not dare to neglect. First, he accelerated the selection of masters from the army, mainly from the Li ethnic group, and quickly formed and trained his own special forces. Spying on the peripheral situation became one of their main training directions; second,  Three captains were selected from the original team and temporarily promoted to deputy generals. They led thousands of troops to garrison in the south, north, and west directions, and began to actively deploy defenses; third, they sent ships south and north to try to contact and attack.  It would be best if he could contact Shouzhou in the Jia Yuhang Department of the Tang Dynasty and Quanzhou in the Tang Dynasty. Although Yi Wuhen knew that distant water could not quench his thirst nearby, and the situation in those places was unknown, it would at least be a psychological comfort.  Going further north, the battle situation became even more chaotic. At the junction of Nanhan and Quanzhang, Chaozhou City, which had defended for eighteen days, fell.  At noon on October 18, after Deputy General Zhang Yunkai of the Southern Tang Dynasty led 6,000 Southern Tang soldiers to resist bravely for 18 days and nights, the east gate of Chaozhou was the first to be breached. Tens of thousands of Southern Han troops poured in, sweeping away only the remaining people in the city.  of two thousand guards.  The besieged Zhang Yunkai refused to retreat and died heroically. In the end, only dozens of Southern Tang soldiers escaped in the chaos of the broken city and sneaked into the surrounding mountains. More than 300 soldiers who surrendered before the battle were also killed by the out-of-control rebels.  Hacked to death, the six thousand defenders of Chaozhou in the Southern Tang Dynasty were completely annihilated.  Li Tuo, the deputy commander of the Southern Han Dynasty who led the army, quickly cleared away the remnants of the Southern Tang Dynasty in Chaozhou City, leaving only 3,000 soldiers to defend the city, and 10,000 soldiers swept across the surrounding area. He led the remaining 60,000-strong army back to the north.  At midnight on October 19, all the Southern Han army on the South Road rushed to Zhangzhou City. Nearly 100,000 Southern Han land and sea soldiers surrounded Chaozhou. Pan Chongche, the Southern Han Dynasty's eastern envoy and minister, personally carried Zhang Yunkai's head and drove away.  Arriving at the foot of the city, Zhang Hansi was persuaded to surrender on the spot.  Zhang Hansi was the only junior to Zhang Yunkai, and he usually regarded him as his own son. He burst into tears immediately on the city wall. However, in response to the Southern Han Dynasty's persuasion to surrender, the old general shot an arrow full of anger with tears in his eyes, declaring his determination never to surrender.  .  Pan Chongche stopped talking nonsense, turned his horse and left. The drums under the city were beating loudly, and the siege of Zhangzhou officially began.  At the same time, Pan Chongche detached 10,000 elite troops to rush to Xipu River. Facing a total of 18,000 elite troops of the Southern Han Dynasty, Chen Wenshan, the deputy commander of the Southern Tang Infantry with only 5,000 men, could only retreat on his own initiative and quickly retreated to Taohua Mountain.  The northernmost mountain range, holding on to the last line of defense in the mountains.  Chen Jie, the governor of Jianzhou and Zhangwu who led the war on the southern front in the Southern Tang Dynasty, naturally would not wait for the enemy to surround him. He gathered 100 warships and 200 merchant ships in Quanzhou, totaling 8,000 naval troops, on the evening of the 19th.  Assemble and move south, intending to sneak attack the Southern Han Navy on the outskirts of Zhangzhou.  "However, the Southern Han Navy has been on the alert since it went north. Quanzhou upstream is the top priority for defense. The small boats cruising around the outside discovered the sneak attack fleet in advance, and the sneak attack turned into a surprise attack.?Melee.  The battle lasted from the evening of the 19th to the noon of the 20th. The two sides fought in chaos outside Zhangzhou Bay for nearly seven hours, each losing nearly 30 ships. In the end, the slightly inferior Nanhan Navy retreated while fighting, and then retreated.  At the mouth of Zhangzhou Bay, a joint land infantry attack was launched. The Southern Tang Navy, exhausted after a long battle, had to take the initiative to withdraw north to Quanzhou. The plan to break through the waterway and rush to Zhangzhou's aid failed.  Zhangzhou officially fell into an isolated and helpless situation.  Going further north, Qian Hongchu, the envoy of Jinghai Festival in Wuyue, led an army of 100,000 and 50,000 surrounding people. They adopted methods such as building mountains of earth, blocking rivers, and building pontoons. They attacked the city for three consecutive days and set up several bridges on the rivers surrounding the city.  They crossed the pontoon bridge and built two climbing ramps. They rushed to the top of the city several times, but were repelled by the Southern Tang lieutenants Chen Decheng and Zheng Yanhua personally. However, 18,000 people had to deal with more than 100,000 people.  The attack was by no means easy, and the Fuzhou defenders felt a little stretched for a while.  And in Chuzhou, which is located in the hinterland of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Hou Zhang and Zhao Kuangyin, the military governors of the Great Zhou Dynasty outside the city, were not in a hurry. They launched a small night attack today and a targeted attack tomorrow, causing Chuzhou City to be shocked three times a day.  For a time, except for the temporary stalemate between Li Jingda, the king of Hubei, and his army under the city of Wuxi, and Qian Wenfeng, the envoy of Wu and Yue Zhongwu, all other battlefields were at a disadvantage, and the situation was extremely critical.  The news reached the Southern Tang Dynasty. Emperor Li Jing, Qi King Li Jingsui and a group of important ministers held emergency military meetings in the imperial study room every day, but no magic formula was discussed every time. The Tang Dynasty had to deal with three life-or-death enemies in three directions.  All the troops that can be mobilized have been mobilized, what else can be done.  At this time, someone suggested that we should follow Lin Feng¡¯s example and send troops from Chu.  This suggestion was immediately rejected. Chu Land had just been newly conquered. What if all the troops were mobilized and there were changes in the area? Moreover, Chu Land was too far away and water from far away could not quench the thirst of those nearby. If we redeployed all the troops, we could only mobilize barbarian troops.  What should I do if they are obedient and unfaithful?  A group of military generals argue around the map of the world every day, moving the flags that represent military strength. The result always makes them too frustrated, and now they realize that their own military strength is too small.  At this time, some civil servants jumped out and suggested that it would be better to suspend the troops with Wu Yue and the Southern Han Dynasty and fully deal with the northern Zhou Dynasty. This view was personally rejected by Li Jing. It was obvious that the Three Kingdoms were united and they would not defeat the Tang Dynasty.  How could it be possible for those who withdrew their troops to suddenly enlarge Tang Yima? Under the current circumstances, how much price would Datang have to pay to convince these two ambitious countries?  Finally, out of desperation, Li Jing followed Li Jingsui's suggestion and issued a territory-wide war order, recruiting all men between the ages of 15 and 55 in the Tang Dynasty to join the army for emergency training in preparation for the subsequent war.  This war began to develop on a larger scale.
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