Putting aside Liu Jie's matter for the time being, Liu Hong sat down slightly, and said: "I tasted the military report hidden in the Shiqu Pavilion, and I was quite puzzled in one place. ”

Saying that, Liu Hong's face was a little confused: "The military reports on the battle situation presented in the border areas all say that the Huns either took a thousand or five hundred as a part, and swept the border wall at the turn of autumn and winter. ”

"Hu did not have more than 1,000 people, so that nearly 100 soldiers of the Han family were killed, but the border army almost did not gain anything, so the reporters were only a few heads?"

After that, Liu Hongsheng was afraid that Chai Wu would misunderstand his meaning and mistakenly think that he was blaming, so he gave up his hand slightly: "I am young, I have never looked at politics, I don't know much about military affairs, and I also ask the general to solve my doubts: Compared with the Huns, the strength of my Han family should be geometric?" ”

Liu Hong has been holding this matter in his heart for a long time.

Judging from the military records of the border recorded in Shiquge, the situation seems to be somewhat different from Liu Hong's original prediction: the Xiongnu attack on the Han border rarely had a large group of surprise attacks.

Instead, one month after the autumn harvest every year, 500 to 1,000 people were taken as a unit, bypassing the important border towns of the Han Dynasty, and in a pattern similar to a blitzkrieg, quickly capturing the villages exposed outside the walls, guarding weak forces, plundering grain and property, and then retreating to the grassland without any war.

And every late autumn, it is the familiar faces who attack the side wall - it is always the Aries tribe that attacks near the clouds; Those who attack the Northland will always be the Loufu tribe.

As for the Yan and Dai fronts, they are often visited by the Xiongnu, whose status is second only to Shan Yuting and the third tribe of Zuo Xian Wang - the headquarters of Right Xian Wang!

That is to say: no matter which part of the border wall is attacked, it is unlikely that it is actually a military operation planned in detail and strategically arranged by the Huns; It is an attack launched by the tribe in private in order to rob the winter supplies, and its nature is not so much war as looting!

This made Liu Hong very incomprehensible: the enemy had no strategic purpose, and only attacked with a small force with the goal of looting supplies, and he was able to turn the border wall with heavy troops upside down every time, and the border guards were killed and wounded more than 100, but the Huns only left a few corpses?

Even if the Xiongnu are called nomads on horseback, coming and going like the wind, this exaggerated battle loss ratio is very unscientific!

- Even if it is a little far away from the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the glorious days of the Han Dynasty and Wuhu, the combat effectiveness of the border troops should be so bad.

Seeing that Liu Hong really had doubts, rather than other deep meanings, Chai Wu secretly breathed a sigh of relief, pondered for a while, and organized the language before telling the story here.

"Thanks to Emperor Gao, he did not give up, and took the minister as the captain of the flying fox; For more than ten years, the ministers all used the Flying Fox Army to town the border wall to prepare for Hu. ”

"I have a little knowledge of what Your Majesty said, and if there is anything inappropriate in what you say, I hope Your Majesty will atone for your sins..."

Seeing Liu Hong nodding lightly, Chai Wucai said with a straight face: "According to the foolish opinion of the ministers, at this time, the Han family is compared to the Huns, and it should be the number of three sevens." ”

"One of them, Hu Lu has learned horses since he was a child, and he used cavalry as an army, whether he attacked the border wall of my Han family, or retreated into the grassland, he came and went like the wind."

"And the army of my Han family is mostly strong crossbow sword and shield soldiers; The Flying Fox Army, only with a hundred chariots, can try to fight outside the high walls. ”

Hearing this, Liu Hong nodded naturally on his face, but his heart was full of solemnity.

- Chariot, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the most intuitive symbol of a country's military strength.

It generally carries three warriors, the one in the middle riding a horse, one on either side holding a longbow, and one holding a sword and shield; On both sides of the wheel, sharp woods about five inches long spread out from the axles, which can trip people, horses, and cattle.

During the Warring States period, a country with 300 chariots was enough to be called a military power; The 'country of a thousand vehicles' has the capital to dominate the Central Plains!

If the standards of the Warring States period are brought to the present, the Han family will undoubtedly become an epic boss - one chariot, but three soldiers, two horses, and a two-wheeled carriage!

Even now, when the country is poor, Liu Hong can pat his chest and guarantee that tens of thousands of vehicles will be equipped within half a year!

However, the development of the times is often first reflected in war; The era when the chariot is king, it is approaching dusk...

In the seventh year of Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, Han Wangxin secretly conspired with the Xiongnu and intended to rebel; Emperor Taizu Gao Liu Bang was furious, drove the expedition in person, and personally led an army of 320,000, wanting to fight a decisive battle against the Huns!

At the beginning of the campaign, the Han army led by Liu Bang personally won successive battles from the Battle of Tongroller (now Qinxian County, Shanxi), and its morale became more and more high, but in the first month, the rebels led by Han Wangxin were defeated; Immediately sang and marched forward, approaching Lou Fu (now Ningwu, Shanxi).

The turning point of the battle also began: the vanguard led by Liu Bang was composed of a cluster of cumbersome Han chariots; After arriving at Loufu, Liu Bang did not listen to the dissuasion of Liu Jing, the outpost detective, and advanced lightly, chasing the 'fleeing' Xiongnu troops until Datong Pingcheng.

Then, it was the famous 'Siege of Baideng' - seeing that the vanguard led by Liu Bang was far away from the Han army, the Xiongnu who had fled and lured the enemy ordered Shan Maodun: Collect the net!

The flexible Hun cavalry cluster suddenly turned back, using its super mobility to pull repeatedly, and the kite of the Han chariot cluster was immortal to death; Liu Bang reluctantly ordered the troops to shrink strategically, retreat to Baishan Mountain, and sit back and watch the Hun cavalry cluster surround Baishan Mountain.

It was a cold winter, and it was located in the north, and Liu Bang's department lost contact with the army, and was hungry and cold on Baishan Mountain for seven days and seven nights; In these seven days, it directly led to the famous 'king against king' in the history of the Han-Hun campaign, which caused the Han army to lose nearly 15,000 fighters!

- The dead were only hundreds, and the rest were frozen to death and frostbite, so the disabled soldiers were left behind!

This is the most famous in the history of the Western Han Dynasty, the humiliating battle of Liu Che, Emperor Xiaowu of the Han Dynasty, who wanted to pay the Huns for blood and blood at all costs - the siege of Baideng.

As a result of the siege of Baideng, the army led by Fan Hao and Zhou Bo rushed to the battlefield, surrounded the Xiongnu Mao Dunshan alone, and the Xiongnu cavalry broke through and successfully retreated with the help of high mobility.

But the painful lessons of this battle are deeply rooted in the bones and blood of the Han people.

I don't know how many of the soldiers who survived that battle regretted that they could not see the Huns pay for their crimes in their lifetimes; I don't know how many people, when they are dying, holding the hands of their children tightly, and despairingly confessing: Wang Shi chased the Huns in the north, and the family sacrifice did not forget to tell Naiweng...

The siege of Baideng is an indelible pain in the hearts of several generations in the early Han Dynasty!

For the Han military, the biggest lesson brought by the siege of Baideng is that the chariot is already yesterday's yellow flower, and from then on, the cavalry is king!

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PS: According to historical records, the siege of Baideng ended with Chen Ping offering Liu Bang a heavy bribe to the favored yān clan (zhī), and let this woman persuade Mao Dun to withdraw his troops; But from the point of view of evidence, this argument is simply untenable.

One. Mao Dun Shan Yu, a man who once worked as a cow and a horse in the overlord of the grassland Donghu, his wife and children were dedicated to the king of Donghu, and finally he was able to kill his father for the throne for Shan Yu's throne, and then led the Xiongnu tribe to cut down the overlord Donghu and dominate the grassland.

Two. According to historical records, Chen Ping came up with this plan after seeing Shan Yu and his beloved wife walking down the mountain with the naked eye and feeling that they were very affectionate; Will Mao Dun really be so big that on the battlefield, at a distance visible to Chen Ping, an old man in his 50s, to date his beloved wife? The range of the big yellow crossbow is undoubtedly much farther than Chen Ping's effective visual acuity.

Three. Since it was a heavy bribe from the Han side, the conclusion of the war should be that the Han side sued for peace, and the Han family was the defeated side; but after the siege of Baideng in history, the Han family did not retreat, but took advantage of the victory to pursue and swept away the pro-Hungarian forces of the Yan and Zhao generations, such as Han Wangxin; Mao Dun Shan Yu escaped from the Great Wall in embarrassment, and then sent an envoy to Chang'an, saying the sentence 'Outside the Great Wall, Shan Yu governs; Within the Great Wall, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty ruled it'; does this strategic pattern contradict the identity of the defeated side of the Han Dynasty?

To sum up, this is fake news.

The general context of the siege of Baideng recorded in the historical records is accurate, but there are factors of Sima Qian's private YY in the details.