The battle of Yaowuling lasted for 12 days, and the elite soldiers of Luzhou, who had surrendered to Mengwu, left 3,000 corpses in front of the valley in front of Yaowuling, and watched more and more soldiers and horses of the Liang army crossing the river on ice.

Even if he could temporarily seize one or two positions, kill the Liang army back two or three hundred steps, and then be taken away in an instant, except for sending people to Taiyuan Mansion to ask for reinforcements, Tian Weiye had no good way to think of.

At this time, between the mountains of Jindi, there is a vast snowfall.

In particular, the northern slopes of Wangwu Mountain and Lishan Mountain were covered with heavy snow of more than two feet, which greatly slowed down the gathering of reinforcements and the speed of moving south.

Although the Mashou village is dangerous, but the space in the village is narrow, and there are many wooden buildings, the defenders are blocked in the village and can not come out to attack, seven or eight cyclone cannons and more spring arm scorpion crossbows, constantly throw stone bullets and oil cans into the village, ignite and collapse the buildings in the village, so that the defenders in the village can not hide.

Ten days later, the guard general Gu Yanling saw that the reinforcements had never been able to kill Yaowuling to reinforce him, especially after the granary in the village was unfortunately smashed through the roof by stone bullets in the first two days, and was ignited by the fire oil can, and after the little surplus grain was eaten, he opened the gate of the village from the inside and surrendered.

The attack on Mashou Village was the first step in the Northern Expedition, and it was also the first step in the follow-up war to be carried out smoothly.

The special geographical location of the south entrance of the Mashou Village determines that the first battle must be fought in the first battle.

In addition, the ice period of the Yu River is only more than two months, but there are many walled cities along the road of Yiguan, and there are many dangers, and the army even needs to fight for a year or two to go north, in order to finally occupy a foothold on the east bank of the Fenshui River.

During this period, it was necessary to ensure the establishment of a stable supply channel for supplies on the north and south banks, which would not be disturbed by the enemy's naval divisions upstream and downstream.

Even if the Luoyang Navy occupies an absolute advantage on the Yu River, the enemy army builds more large ships in the upper reaches of the Yu River, and with the help of the turbulent current, it quickly rushes downstream.

Last year, the Mongol army built boats in the Wei River, Yanzhou, and Jinzhou, and it must have thought that it would be able to use this tactic to control their control of the middle reaches of the Yu River, and in the future, it would inevitably use this means to interfere with their shipping on the north and south banks.

After capturing Mashou Village, the next step is to pull up the iron cable and block the river between Mashou Village and Lingshang Village on the south bank.

With the smelting and casting technology and scale of the girder at this time, there is no problem with how long the iron cable is, but to stabilize the iron cable on the Yu River, and even consider further building the iron cable pontoon bridge in the future, the weight of the iron cable and the water impact after the bridge is built, are all problems that need to be overcome.

The actual length of the cable and the pontoon bridge should be as short as possible.

Mashou Village and Lingshang Village are built on the prominent position of the north and south banks respectively, the river channel of this place is the narrowest, forming a canyon, only less than 1,300 steps, the river channel narrows at the mouth of the gorge, and the impact of the water flow on the west side of the gorge mouth is still slightly smaller than that on the east side.

All things considered, this is also the most suitable place to build a pontoon bridge.

Li Mo and Lin Sheng's two infantry brigades had also arrived at the mausoleum at this time, and after capturing Mashou Village, they led their troops to meet Su Lie and Huo Li, Wen Bo personally rushed over to command, followed closely behind the Mongolian army who retreated to the queen of Yuanqucheng, and directly pursued Benyuan Qucheng.

Although there were still six enemy villages south of Yuanqu City, the scale and number of garrisons were quite limited.

If you conquer the six enemy villages in the south one by one, you will definitely waste a lot of time south of Yuanqu.

At that time, Tian Weiye must have mobilized a large number of reinforcements from the northern front to enter Yuanqu City and defend the key places near Yuanqu City, and if they want to capture Yuanqu City at that time, it will be a protracted tug-of-war, and it is even very likely that they will return in vain.

Wen Bo ignored the six enemy villages in the south of Yuanqu at this time, in addition to ordering Chen Yuanchen to lead his troops and horses out of Lishan and Wangwushan to contain the defenders in these villages, he was not worried that the grain route might be cut off, he directly led Su Lie, Lin Sheng, Wen Yuan, Huo Li, Li Qi and other elite infantry brigades, followed Tian Weiye to desert and then approached the city of Yuanqu.

In the face of the elite of the Liang army, Tian Weiye could not give up Yuanqu City, and knew how passive it would be to be trapped in Yuanqu City, so Chen Bingcheng fought in front of the city.

Under Wen Bo, Su Lie, Wen Yuan, Li Yuan, Huo Li, and Lin Sheng were all brave generals, and when they entered the Yuanqu Basin, the soldiers and horses were rampant, and Tian Weiye could not resist and was forced to retreat into the city.

In front of the Wenbo Array City, he did not rush to attack the city, but first divided his troops into two passes in the northeast and northwest of Yuanqu City.

These two passes are also the main passages for the northern enemy to aid Yuanqu in the south, as long as these two passages are blocked, they can slowly and methodically besiege more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under Tian Weiye in Yuanqu City, and slowly solve them.

And the six enemy villages in the south, after He Liufeng and Han Bao's two infantry brigades came over, they will be captured one by one, and the grain route with Luoyang on the south bank will be restored, and it will be completely time.

Zhao Mengji's soldiers and horses in Mengzhou, although they advanced westward through the riverside area on the southern slope of Wangwu Mountain, could reach the south entrance of Yiguan, but at this time the Yu River was frozen, and Han Donghu could directly send troops into the north bank in Xingyang and Hujiaoguan, cutting off the westward advance of Mengzhou's reinforcements.

In addition, they only needed to establish a defense in the riverfront area on the southern slope of Wangwu Mountain before the Yu River froze.

This is the responsibility of Han Donghu to lead the Xingyang army, and Wen Bo does not need to worry too much about it.

Daliang had been preparing for this battle for two years, and all factors were extremely well considered, and the minimum goal of this battle was to capture Yuanqu City, which occupied the key points in the middle of Yiguan.

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Yuanqu Castle was built in the Yuanqu Basin, which is about 123 miles deep in the core area between Lishan and Wangwu Mountain, and its city only occupies a corner of the basin.

Yuanqu City is also in the belly of Lishan and Wangwu Mountain, and it is the first important town in the middle of Yiguan.

During the thirty or forty years of the Liang and Jin dynasties, the Jin army had repeatedly occupied the city of Yuanqu and killed the Liang army that had entered the Yiguan Dynasty.

The terrain of the periphery of Yuanqu City is flat and rugged, generally speaking, the three sides of the south and northeast are relatively flat, and the west side is close to the mountain cliff of the eastern foot of Lishan to build the city, and the terrain is rugged.

Yuanqu Castle also has only three gates, southeast and north.

Except for Su Lie and Huo

Li led his troops to the north side of Yuanqu City and blocked the passes that could be used for reinforcements to go south in both directions, while Wen Bo led Wen Yuan, Li Mo, and Lin Sheng to camp in the south and west of the city.

When Yao Xishui and Lu Qingxia climbed over the treacherous mountain path from a cottage guarded by the Mongolian army at the northern foot of Lishan, climbed a mountain peak on the west side of Yuanqu City, and had a full view of the internal situation of the Yuanqu Basin, which was only ten miles in a radius of more than ten miles, their hearts were half cold.

More than 20,000 reinforcements from Jiangxian, Anyi, Quwo and other places were blocked by the Liang army with thousands of elite soldiers and horses plus a large number of bed crossbows, scorpion crossbows, chariots and other sophisticated weapons in the deep long gorge in the north of Yuanqu, unable to go south to reinforce Yuanqu, and Yuanqu City has been surrounded by nearly 30,000 Liang soldiers and horses on the other three sides except for the side of the cliff in the east.

Yao Xishui also couldn't imagine how the Mongolian army could break through the blockade of the deep gorge and narrow valley with a range of 400 paces?

Even if they were in front with a big shield and a fine iron chariot, regardless of casualties, they rushed to the front of the Liang army's formation, and fought hand-to-hand combat with the Liang army generals wearing strong armor, and fought hand-to-hand between the narrow battlefields, and the Mongolian army suffered mostly.

Although there are still six fortifications in the ditch of forty miles south of Yuanqu City, it seems that they have not been lost, but the total number of defenders is less than 3,000, and they are surrounded by tens of thousands of Liang troops, and it is only a matter of time before they are eaten one by one.

The Liang army also established a defense on the southern slope of Wangwu Mountain, near the north bank of the Yu River, and intercepted Zhao Mengji's attack on the southern entrance of Yiguan from Mengzhou.

In the direction of Lingshang Gorge and the upper reaches, at this time, a total of twelve iron cables with the thickness of arms have been crossed on the Yu River.

Tian Weiye's elite with only more than 12,000 troops may be able to defend Yuanqu City for a long time, but the problem is that the passage for the Mongolian army to reinforce Yuanqu City has been blocked.

In order to relieve the siege of Yuanqu, only Wang Yuankui and Wang Xiaoxian led their troops and horses to counterattack Huazhou, Tongguan and Lantian Pass, which was defended by Kong Xirong, regardless of casualties, and exerted military pressure on the Liang army from these two directions, forcing it to finally withdraw from outside Yuanqu City.

This strategy was not thought up by Lu Qingxia, but suggested by Tian Weiye himself when he sent messengers from Yuanqucheng to cross the peaks and ridges at the northeast foot of Lishan and rushed to Anyi to meet Xiao Siqing.

In order to promote this, Xiao Yiqing did not go to Anyi to supervise the battle, but rushed directly to Yongzhou to see Wang Yuankui.

On the one hand, Yan, Lin and other places gathered reinforcements to the south to strengthen the attack on Huazhou and Tongguan from the western flank, and on the other hand, Xiao Yiqing came forward to urge Wang Yuankui and Wang Xiaoxian to send troops from Qizhou and Yongzhou as soon as possible.

At this time, it was already the end of the first month of the sixth year of Taihe, and the Hehuai region was about to be completely thawed, and it was temporarily impossible to expect the Eastern Liang Army and Mengzhou soldiers and horses to cooperate with the attack on the eastern flank of the Liang State.

At the beginning, digging the embankment of the Yu River and discharging the flood into the Yingying was a clever strategy, but who would have thought that the floodplain formed on both sides of the Yingxing vortex would become a barrier on the eastern wing of the Liang State at this time?

Yao Xishui couldn't help but wonder, did Wu Su Dashi and Xiao Yiqing have remorse in their hearts, but they didn't expect that Zhu Yu's dying position Zen Han Qian would make the most critical two wrong steps, causing them to fall into passivity at this time?

At this time, Yao Xishui couldn't help but think of the eldest brother who was far away in Longyou, and his wife also sent people to Chengzhou last year, but the two envoys were beheaded as soon as they arrived in Chengzhou, which made them feel bitter in their hearts......