In October of the first year of Wuyi, Li Chengsi led 40,000 Wu troops from Jiangxi and launched an attack on Tanzhou, the seat of Ma Yin, the king of Chu. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

This time the attack was also divided into two fronts, north and south, and marched at the same time.

Among them, the northern line was personally led by Li Chengsi, who attacked Liuyang from above; The southern front was in charge of Liu Xin, who attacked Liling from Pingxiang, which had just been recovered.

Whether it is Liling or Liuyang, it is the county seat to which Tanzhou belongs, and it is the forefront of the junction between Hunan and Jiangxi.

According to Ma Yin's deployment, many troops were stationed in these two counties on weekdays to guard against possible attacks by the Wu army from here; If the Wu army comes to attack, it can quickly send troops from Tanzhou to rescue these two counties.

However, this time, because of the previous large-scale attack of the Wu army on the Yuezhou side, Ma Yin transferred many troops stationed in Tanzhou to Yuezhou, and the follow-up reinforcements have not yet arrived.

In this way, in the face of the attack of the Wu army, Liuyang and Liling fell into a situation where there were no reinforcements; Tanzhou is also facing the dilemma of empty troops.

When the news came, Tanzhou was shaken, and the civil and military officials from Ma Yin and below were all panicked, and the people's hearts were turbulent for a while, and the people in the city were even more shocked three times a day.

At the critical moment, Ma Yin ordered the Yuezhou side, asking the 40,000 troops who had previously reinforced Yuezhou to immediately withdraw to rescue Tanzhou; At the same time, they kept sending envoys to ask for help from all sides.

Whether it is Zhu Wen's side, or Liu Yin, the king of Dapeng in the south, or even Chenzhouman, who has always been at odds with Ma Yin, is the target of Ma Yin's help, it can be said that under the panic, Ma Yin is already a little sick and rushed to the hospital.

It was not until the arrival of more than 10,000 troops reinforced from Shaozhou, Langzhou and other places before the start of the war that the hearts of the people in Tanzhou City settled down a little and began to seriously consider the choice of holding on to Tanzhou or abandoning Tanzhou.

However, at this time, due to the lack of reinforcements, Liling has been broken by the Wu army, and Liuyang is also in a critical situation, and there is a possibility of breaking the city at any time.

In the face of such a crisis, it is already certain that Wu Jun's troops will come to the city of Tanzhou, which can be said to be the biggest crisis faced by Liu Jianfeng after leading the remnants of the Caizhou army to gain a foothold in Hunan.

"Now that Tanzhou is in danger, please give the king an order to start making preparations, and once the situation is not good, give up Tanzhou and retreat to Shaozhou."

At this time, in the palace of the king of Chu, which had just been built, many civil and military officials were asking Ma Yin for help.

Abandoning Tanzhou and avoiding the edge of Wu's army is the view of many people.

Many people feel that the strength of the Wu army this time, far exceeding the Chu army, coupled with the wrong prediction of the enemy's strength and deployment before the war, so that a large number of Tanzhou garrisons were transferred to Yuezhou, and now under the containment of the Wu army, unless the risk of being attacked by the enemy force to withdraw the troops, it is difficult to return to Tanzhou in a short period of time.

Therefore, Tanzhou's troops are too empty now, so it is better to temporarily give up Tanzhou and retire to Shaozhou and other places.

However, once Tanzhou is abandoned, this will not only cause a huge shock to the Chu State politically, make the already shaken people's hearts even more flustered, but also cause a huge disaster militarily.

Today, the main forces of the Chu State are basically concentrated in Tanzhou and Yuezhou.

If Tanzhou is abandoned, then Yuezhou and the three prefectures of Langzhou and Lizhou to the west of Yuezhou may be cut off by the Wu army, making it difficult to hold on.

In that case, the state of Chu would lose four states at once, and it was also the four states with the highest degree of development, how could this be accepted by Ma Yin?

So in the face of everyone's requests, Ma Yin was silent, but his eyes were on his two most trusted strategists: Zhang Ji and Gao Yu.

"King, the current situation depends on whether the king intends to survive or is willing to fight!" Zhang Ji stroked his beard, which was already a little gray, and said with a serious expression: "If the king is ready to survive, then he might as well give up Tanzhou." ”

"Presumptuous!"

"Hugh is talking nonsense!"

As soon as Zhang Ji's words fell, he attracted everyone's loud reprimands, but Ma Yin waved his hand indifferently, stopped everyone's scolding and asked: "Please also ask Zhang Sima to make it clear, why is giving up Tanzhou just a dog's eye?" ”

In fact, Ma Yin himself has long known the truth of this, and the reason why he asked Zhang Ji at such a time was actually to let Zhang Ji persuade those civil and military officials under him.

Zhang Ji looked at everyone and sneered: "If you give up Tanzhou, it is equivalent to giving up Yuezhou." Even Tanzhou and Yuezhou can be abandoned, so when the Wu army pursues Shaozhou, will Shaozhou also be abandoned, and then retreat to Yongzhou and Daozhou? If you follow your method, you are ready to abandon the city and retreat as soon as you see that the enemy army is strong, then it will make the enemy army stronger and stronger, and our army will become weaker and weaker. ”

"If you want to retreat, retreat yourself! My old man is old and doesn't want to move. I will stay in Tanzhou to resist the Wu army, and I will die in the city of Tanzhou! ”

"Well said, Gao is also willing to stay and stick to Tanzhou, even if he dies, he will die in Tanzhou City!" Gao Yu also said loudly.

The generals couldn't help but feel ashamed when they heard this, and everyone vaguely understood this truth in their hearts, but they didn't stick to Tanzhou's confidence at this time, and they were timid in their hearts, so they had the idea of retreating.

But now that the two elderly scribes have the determination and courage to defend Tanzhou, how can these generals who once killed people be embarrassed to continue to say that they will give up Tanzhou?

In the end, Ma Yin made up his mind to mobilize troops to defend Tanzhou, while Yuezhou on the northern front could defend it, and if it couldn't hold it, he would give up for the time being, and return his troops to Tanzhou, and then hold Tanzhou first.

As for Yuezhou, he can only wait for a way to recover it later.

Although the Wu army was menacing this time, Ma Yin felt that Zhu Wen would definitely not sit idly by and watch the Wu state destroy Chu, so he thought that as long as he could hold out for a while, he would definitely be able to wait until the day when the Liang army sent troops to relieve the siege.

However, in the case that the Yuezhou army was difficult to return to help in a short time, in order to hold on as much as possible before the arrival of the Liang army, and to ensure that Tanzhou and Yuezhou were not lost as much as possible, Ma Yin decided to issue a new conscription order.

"The people in Fantan Prefecture, men over the age of 15 and under the age of 70, all bring their own military rations to the camp, and three days after the military order is issued, if one person is in the township, they will be killed immediately, and there will be no mercy!"

This murderous conscription order immediately caused an uproar, and many people raised objections.

As a veteran general of the Caizhou Army, Ma Yin has not forgotten the "tradition" of the Caizhou Army in essence.

The reason why he was more lenient with the people in the past few years was simply because he knew that if he continued to be as brutal as the Caizhou Army in the past, he would definitely be unpopular, and even if it could run rampant for a short time, it would be difficult to maintain it for a long time, and it would eventually perish.

But now that the situation in Tanzhou is critical, where can Ma Yin still take care of the people's hearts and the like, he is now eager to turn men, women and children into soldiers, and burst out with the greatest strength in a short period of time, so he will naturally issue such a cruel conscription order without scruples.

However, some people advised: "If all the old and weak in Tanzhou are really sent to the barracks, the remaining women are afraid that they will not be able to undertake the task of transporting food and wages; Moreover, if this order is really carried out, there will be too many people to kill indiscriminately; Even if he succeeds in defending Tanzhou this time, he will completely lose the support of the people in the future because of too many indiscriminate killings, which is also the way to self-destruction. ”

Ma Yin listened to the advice, and then changed the order to all men over the age of fifteen and under the age of fifty in Tanzhou, and those who were capable of holding weapons were all conscripted into soldiers and defended on the city wall.

And in order to prevent them from escaping, like the Liang army, the face of these recruited soldiers will be tattooed with the words "Zi Badu", and if they are scholars, they will tattoo the words "Yixin Minister" on their wrists or arms.

In this way, the people living in Tanzhou, except for babies and a small number of old people, there are almost no people who do not tattoo.

And Ma Yin also succeeded in obtaining more than 40,000 new troops in a short period of time, although it was not enough to attack the Wu army, but it was barely enough to defend Tanzhou City.

In mid-October, Li Chengsi broke through Liuyang, captured more than 3,000 enemy troops, and took advantage of the victory to enter Tanzhou, and joined the Youzhen Wu army led by Liu Xin under the city of Tanzhou.

In the city, the Chu army closed the city gate and guarded it, and did not engage the Wu army.

Seeing this situation, Li Chengding had no good way for the time being, so he had to build a camp and guard the main road; On the one hand, he sent troops to capture the surrounding small cities and prepared for the next attack on Tanzhou.

On the Yuezhou side, Wang Maozhang changed his previous sluggish style and led the army to enter the city of Yuezhou to contain the Chu army on the Yuezhou side and delay their return to Tanzhou.

In today's situation, the two sides have begun to fall into a brief stalemate.

The Chu army on the Yuezhou side was as many as 50,000, while the Wu army only had 40,000 forbidden troops, but its combat power was above the Chu army, so it was the Wu army that had the advantage.

On the Tanzhou side, the strength of the Chu army is as many as 60,000, but 40,000 of them are temporarily recruited rabble, and most of the remaining 20,000 troops are temporarily mobilized from other states, and their training level is naturally not as good as that of the previous garrison in Tanzhou, but now they have been transferred to Yuezhou to go to the elite of the Chu army.

Judging from this comparison of troops, it is natural that the Wu army on the Tanzhou side has a greater advantage; For Ma Yin, the same Tanzhou is more important than Yuezhou.

Therefore, if the Wu army wanted to break the stalemate before the possible intervention of the Liang army, it could only launch a fierce siege battle in Tanzhou, and force Ma Yin to retreat the Yuezhou defenders to Tanzhou with strong pressure.

In that case, whether the Wu army took advantage of the enemy's withdrawal to pursue and kill, or waited until the enemy's main force withdrew from Yuezhou and seized Yuezhou, the Wu army would have the initiative.

"The current situation depends on when the Liang army will be able to come to the rescue, and how long our army can hold out under the attack of the Wu army!" In the city of Tanzhou, Ma Yin, who had nothing to do, sighed in a low voice.