After flooding the Seventh Army, Guan Yu's intelligence exposed its weaknesses, and Xu Huang dealt a fatal blow and was about to be destroyed
After Yu Ban's 30,000-strong army was wiped out, Fancheng was pushed into the abyss and could fall at any time.
It was his turn to appear, and Xu Huang, who was far away in Wancheng, couldn't sit still.
However, since Yu Ban was overwhelmed by veterans, and his subordinates were all recruits from Nanyang, such a rapid offensive was tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg.
Knowing that the enemy is strong and I am weak, Xu Huang still has to go. As for the reason, let's sell it first, and then talk about it later.
But Xu Huang was still rational after all, he obviously didn't have the strength to deal with Guan Yu at this time, so he didn't go directly to the front line of Fancheng, but went to Yangling Peitun.
At that time, one of Guan Yu's subordinates was stationed in Yancheng, and the two sides were not far apart.
According to records, Yancheng is located in the north of Anyang County, the Sui and Tang dynasties that are Bai Qi broke Chu to set up Deng County, the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, this place is still called Deng County, and Yang Lingpei is located in the northwest of Yancheng ten miles.
Yang Lingpi, ten miles northwest of Yancheng. Yancheng, in the north of Anyang County.
Pei, as the name suggests, is similar to the peony pei in the south of Shouchun Chengnan that we introduced in the book "Three Rebellions of Huainan". In other words, Xu Huang should have been stationed at a pond ten miles northwest of Yancheng.
Today, it is located near the Putuo Dam, which may be where Xu Huang lived at the time.
On the other hand, on the map, there is a low hill in the area. When Xu Huang first arrived, the water had not yet dissipated, and he could only deploy troops on the high ground.
Now the siege is strong, and the flood is still raging. (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms - Book of Wei - The Biography of Changyang Du Zhaopei, Chapter 23).
Xu Huang temporarily suppressed his troops, but his generals were too stubborn, and they all wanted to fight, and they accused him of not actively saving Fancheng. Maybe it was because they saw that Xu Huang was just a fake beard that they dared to be so unscrupulous. If Xu Huang was a fake axe like Yu Ban, he would be taken away and beheaded on the spot.
Before Xu Huang could speak, Zhao Yan, the accompanying consultant, left to solve the problem.
Now Guan Yu has surrounded Fancheng like an iron bucket, the water has not receded, our army is lone and deep, Cao Ren is besieged again, unable to go out of the city to help the battle, hastened to advance the army, and it is difficult to win. All we need to do is send the vanguard close to the encirclement and find an opportunity to inform Cao Ren that reinforcements have arrived, so as to motivate our army. I expect the next batch of reinforcements to arrive in less than ten days, and then Cao Ren will be able to hold out and then flank the enemy from inside and outside. If something goes wrong, I'm solely responsible. "
Zhao Yan said it so well that everyone was convinced and decided to follow his method.
The Wei army began to dig tunnels to sneak attack Guan Yu's encirclement, and when they arrived at the city, they took the opportunity to launch the Divine Cultivation Arrow into the city.
In this way, there were frequent exchanges inside and outside the city, and Cao Ren learned of the arrival of reinforcements, which strengthened his determination to defend Fancheng.
Soon, as Zhao Yan expected, the second batch of reinforcements arrived under the leadership of Xu Huang and Lu Jian. Although the number of supporters was not large, they brought Cao Cao's order: there would be more reinforcements, and they would wait for the next reinforcement to arrive, and then attack together after gathering.
This is good news for Xu Huang, but it also shows that he is currently short of troops.
But Xu Huang's troops are insufficient, and they are all new soldiers, why didn't Guan Yu defeat them in one fell swoop after his victory? This is a good opportunity to surround but not break.
Guan Yu didn't actually want to put pressure on Xu Huang, but he couldn't catch Xu Huang.
From the report on the struggle with Sun Quan for the three southern counties of Jingzhou a few years ago, we can learn that Guan Yu's mobile force is only more than 30,000 people, which seems to be a lot, but in fact it is very few.
You see, how much work does Guan Yu have to do with these more than 30,000 people?
First of all, it was necessary to divide troops to surround Xiangyang and Fancheng; Secondly, a part of the troops must be transferred to block Xu Huang, who is stationed in Yancheng.
In the end, Guan Yu escorted Yu Ban's 30,000 troops down to Jiangling.
Although these more than 30,000 people are unarmed prisoners, after all, they are not imprisoned in a cell, and they have traveled hundreds of kilometers with them, and in order not to make mistakes, the troops to protect them must be indispensable, at least a few thousand people are indispensable.
Such an arrangement caused Guan Yu to lose a large number of new forces that could be used on the battlefield, which can be said to be the last straw.
Guan Yu, who had the upper hand in Xiangyang, fell into a dilemma, and even had to withdraw to the rear army to reinforce the first line, knowing that Xu Huang's troops were weak, but he couldn't beat Xu Huang.
Xu Huang knew Guan Yu's personality very well, so he dared to bring a small number of recruits to show off.
Guan Yu did not have enough troops to fight the reinforcements while besieging the city, he could only achieve one of the two objectives, and if he went to attack Xu Huang, he could even lift the siege of Fancheng.
When Xu Huang learned that the next batch of reinforcements was about to arrive, he strengthened his confidence and decided to strike first.
Eventually, the waters began to recede, and although it was impossible to break the siege of Fancheng with the current strength, it was still possible to put a nail in the coffin of the enemy army in Yancheng.
Xu Huang ordered his troops to take a shortcut from the south of Yancheng and dig a trench to create the illusion of cutting off the return route. The soldiers of Yancheng feared being surrounded and were forced to burn their camps and retreat. Xu Huang's soldiers captured Yancheng bloodlessly and obtained the forward base for the attack.
Although Cao Cao ordered to wait for the army to assemble before attacking, but the general order could not be done, at this time Xu Huang was extremely brave, knowing that it was impossible for Guan Yu to fight back, why not take the initiative to attack?
So, he ordered Yan Cheng to take the starting point and advance in unison from both directions, until it reached three meters in front of Guan Yu's encirclement, and the two sides were already in chaos. Guan Yu was under a lot of pressure.
But Xu Huang only did this, he built a strong fortress and fought tenaciously, but never took the initiative to attack, lest we think he was disobeying orders.
In October 219, Cao Cao left Chang'an for Luoyang to take over as commander-in-chief, while sending Xu Huang his next reinforcement regiment, consisting of twelve battalions, led by Yin Quan and Zhu Gai.
Under the Han Dynasty military system, a battalion consisted of about seven or eight hundred to one thousand men, so the strength of this support force should be at least 10,000.
Guan Yu's forces were scattered, and the advantage shifted to Xu Huang's side.
In fact, at this time, Guan Yu's chances of capturing Fancheng were already very small, and withdrawing his troops back was the best choice, after all, he had a big ship, as long as he wanted to leave, Xu Huang would definitely have nothing to do with him.
However, after such a long period of hard work, coupled with an excellent and unparalleled combat record, Guan Yu really didn't want to give up this opportunity when he was only one step away from his goal. If he can successfully eliminate Xu Huang, the final victory will still be his.
The successive victories made Guan Yu a little overconfident.
It's a pity that Guan Yu is only a famous general, not a famous coach, and he is far from being in terms of global strategy.
Now, we are underarmed, we are short of supplies, and we have been in fortified positions for almost two months, and our division is old and tired. If we do not withdraw our troops during this period and count on another miracle, this is a gambler's mentality and is highly undesirable.
This truth is easy to understand and difficult to understand, and how many generals have suffered a lot for it!
Timely stop loss in unfavorable situations is a quality that a good commander must have, not to mention that Guan Yu has never been defeated. Even if he failed to defeat Fancheng, getting 30,000 soldiers and horses was a big victory, and this result was completely acceptable.
On the other hand, if Guan Yu is ruthless and beheads all the 30,000 Wei soldiers who surrendered, he can get out of the predicament; In this way, the group of soldiers who were in charge of escorting them would be relieved, and of course their troops would not be dragged to the border, and the pressure on rations would be reduced.
Guan Yu has always treated his soldiers well, even if they are enemy soldiers, he cannot commit such atrocities. After all, he is not Cao Cao.
After the Wei frontline troops were assembled, it was time to launch a general attack on Guan Yu's encirclement.
But before that, Xu Huang had to divide the two camps of Guan Yu's garrison - Sizuntun and Weitoutun - or else they would threaten the rear of the Wei army after the outbreak of war.
The exact location of Siqiu and Wei Shou is now impossible to confirm. However, there are several tombs from the Han and Three Kingdoms periods to the north of Fancheng, namely Jiuqiu and Shuangqiu, and I believe that Siqiu is also nearby.
In addition, in the north of Caiyue Community, Fancheng Town, Fancheng County, archaeology discovered an ancient tomb of the Han Dynasty and unearthed a beautifully made large bronze horse, which then caused a great sensation. According to the analysis of archaeological experts, this horse may be the tomb of Zhang Xiu's uncle Zhang Ji.
These are all husband-and-wife graves, four in all, and the other three were destroyed during the town's infrastructure construction, so it is estimated that there may be four graves on the site.
This conclusion may not be correct, but judging from the later course of the war, these four mounds are very close to Fancheng, so the basic logic of the four mounds found in Fancheng is still in line with the theory that the internal boundary is crossed.
I really didn't find any clues about the besieging leader in various historical sources, so let's assume that it was a military camp near Jingzuntun.
Xu Huang decided to take"Listen to the east and hit the west"launched a simulated attack on Weitoutun, and the real target was Jingzukatun.
Do you feel unfamiliar with this situation? Yes, when Xiahou Yuan was defeated on Dingjun Mountain, it was the Achilles' heel of a plate of loose sand, and in the face of the other end of the Dongfang waves, Xi Shi's plan was vulnerable.
At this moment, Guan Yu was in a dilemma: if he united to withdraw from the siege of Fancheng, Xu Huang and Cao Ren would unite, and Fancheng would not be able to be recaptured.
If the siege is not lifted, the situation will be limited.
It didn't take long for Xu Huang's main target to attack, Jingjiatun, to run out of troops. Guan Yu didn't have time to hesitate, he decided to take a risk and personally lead 5,000 people to the rescue, which was the largest force he could muster. If it weren't for the reinforcements from Gangneung, I'm afraid he wouldn't have been able to even draw out these 5,000 people.
In front of Jingxiangtun, Guan Yu and Xu Huang met in front of the army. They are fellow villagers of Hedong County, Guan Yu is from Xie County, and Xu Huang is from Yangxian County. When Guan Yu was under Cao Cao, he had a very good personal relationship with Xu Huang, and greeted him when he met. They don't talk about swords, they only talk about the past, so they talk happily.
Xu Huang saw that Guan Yu was obviously out of control, and suddenly his expression changed, and he ordered in a loud voice:"Kill the cloud elders, reward ** thousand taels! "
Guan Yu was shocked when he heard this:"Why did Brother Gongming say this? "
Xu Huang replied"We are now discussing a private matter, but killing people on the battlefield is a state matter. "The whole army waved their flags and shouted, killing Si Kotun.
The result of this battle was obvious: Guan Yu was outnumbered and was not Xu Huang's opponent, so he had to abandon the four mountains and retreat to the camp.
At that time, Xu Huang seized the precious fighter plane and pursued Guan Yu while thousands of people were camping.
Guan Yu had arranged many horns on the periphery of the camp before to prevent the enemy from sneaking up, but he didn't expect it to be wasted. Under Xu Huang's sneak attack, Guan Yu's troops scattered and fled, and many of them did not have time to retreat to the boats, and were eventually drowned in the flood by the Wei army. In this battle, Xu Huang also killed Fu Fang, the Taishou of Nanxiang, who had surrendered to Guan Yu, and Hu Xiu, the assassin of Jingzhou.
This great victory was the most glorious moment of Xu Huang's life, because it completely lifted the siege of Fancheng and Cao Wei survived the greatest crisis.
Prior to this, Guan Yu was shocked in the Central Plains, and Cao Cao's morale was greatly boosted. Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty was worried that Xuchang would not be protected and wanted to move the capital, but was stopped by Sima Yi and Jiang Ji.
But then he was still restless, he wanted to send troops to support, but there was no one to send, he wanted to give Cao Zhi a chance, this kid was really not angry, and finally he decided to go alone.
At this time, the vast majority of his subordinates expressed sympathy, after all, Cao Cao would go to put out the fire. But there is one person who opposes it, and that is Huan Jie.
He believed that Xu Huang and Cao Ren were capable of solving this problem, so there was no need for Cao Cao to go alone; If he goes, it will make them attached to him so that he can be distracted remotely in the army.
Huan Jie was Cao Pi's loyal minister, now that the crown prince has been established, Cao Cao is old, he thinks that Huan Jie will become one of the pillars of the country in the future, so Cao Cao followed his advice and went to Mo Pei in the southeast of Jiaxian. The soldiers are also to protect Xuchang.
Soon, the good news came from the front line that Xu Huang had turned the tide. In recent years, Cao Cao's fortunes have deteriorated, and he has not received such good news for a long time.
Cao Cao felt uneasy before, and specially summoned Xiahoudun and Zhang Liao, who were stationed on the eastern front, but before they arrived, the siege of Fancheng had been lifted.
Xu Huang returned triumphantly, and Cao Cao greeted him seven miles away and set up a banquet to entertain him. Cao Cao also praised Xu Huang's victory, believing that he had contributed a lot to saving Xiang and Fan.
Cao Cao looked at Xu Huang's carefully organized camp and regular army again, and exclaimed"General Xu really has the demeanor of Zhou Yafu when he led the troops.
At the same time, Cao Cao had other problems that had not been resolved, as his home base of Yecheng was also in trouble.