Volume 5: Whose Great Cause, Chapter 56, Robbery of Grain
Groups of Baekje captives were escorted out of the camps in Goguryeo and Silla and stumbled towards Beishui, and some of the captives had already guessed their fate and began to struggle, but only slightly changed, and the armor soldiers holding weapons in the back slashed directly with the back of their swords, forcing them to continue advancing.
As soon as they arrived at the edge of Beishui, all the captives were ordered to kneel down facing the river, and all the captives knew their fate at this time, and struggled desperately, but they were tied up all over their bodies, and they were hungry for more than a day, and they were weak, how could they break free, except for a little delay, it was useless. had to wait for Silla behind him, and the Goguryeo warriors raised their butcher knives.
"Kill!"
The snow-white knife light slashed, the captive's head fell directly into the water, the executioner behind only needed to kick with his foot, and the headless body that was killed was also planted into the water, as the river floated down, not long after, the whole river was red, because there were too many prisoners, and later, the execution of Silla, the Goguryeo soldiers had weak hands, and finally they couldn't even hold the knife, so they had to directly drive the tightly tied Baekje captives into the river and drown alive.
After the execution, the corpses of the Baekje people even occupied more than half of the entire river, so that the Sui army had to be careful in the next few days, otherwise the channel would be blocked by the corpses, and it was not until a few days later that most of the corpses were washed into the sea and the river was cleared.
"Newspaper, the Great General, Goguryeo and Silla are executing prisoners."
"Execute the captives." Yu Zhongwen didn't care when he heard it, anyway, these were all Baekje people, but when he saw the black tooth Xinfu's face turned pale, he comforted: "General Black Tooth, Silla, Goguryeo is so cruel, please also ask the general to mourn on the day." ”
The corners of Hei Tooth Xinfu's mouth moved, he really wanted Yu Zhongwen to send troops to rescue, but he knew that this matter was unlikely. In the end, I had to whisper: "Thank you general, it's the general who is incompetent, and it affects them......"
"Okay, good news." Li Hun burst out laughing.
Everyone in the tent looked at Li Hun in surprise, Shen Guogong has always been calm, how could he shout in front of the Black Tooth Xinfu for the Baekje prisoner to be killed, isn't this obviously a slap in the face of the Black Tooth Xinfu, even if the Black Tooth Xinfu is now just a down-and-out general of the defeated army of another country, at least the face must be left to others.
looked at the eyes of everyone looking at him, and then looked at the black-toothed Xinfu who was so angry that he almost trembled. Li Hun realized that he was out of shape, and hurriedly put away his laughter: "Ladies and gentlemen, my father's laughter just now was not because the Baekje prisoners were executed, but because he thought of something that our army might win quickly. General Blacktooth, don't get me wrong. ”
"Don't dare, the general is polite."
"I don't know what Shen Guogong thought of to make our army win?" Yu Zhongwen asked.
"Generals, generals. Think about it, Silla, Goguryeo, why did they massacre prisoners on such a large scale? Li Hun asked confidently.
What causes coalition forces to kill prisoners? Everyone was stunned. The Central Plains has always regarded the killing of prisoners as ominous. However, it is inevitable to kill prisoners often when fighting, and there are 400,000 Zhao troops in a pit, and the Hu people regard the Han people as two-legged sheep, not only killing prisoners, but also killing the people under their rule. Almost exterminated the Han people in the north. Thanks to Ran Min's Jedi counterattack, he issued an order to kill Hu. Millions of Hu people died in retaliation by the Han people, but since the founding of the Great Sui Dynasty, there has been basically no large-scale killing of prisoners, and even the Eastern Turkic Khan has built a canal in the south of the Yangtze River.
Does it take a reason to kill a prisoner? Said that it was needed and needed, and said that it was not needed and that it was not needed, the Great Sui did not kill prisoners because it took a lot of manpower to repair the canal, but without the canal, there was no need for manpower, manpower was needed for land reclamation, mining, city repair, road repair, etc., Silla and Goguryeo also needed manpower, and everyone was eyed and thought of this possibility, unless the military rations of the coalition army were insufficient.
"Okay, yes, but it's unconfirmed."
Yu Zhongwen's original plan was only to rely on the advantage of cavalry to harass the allied forces of the two countries day and night, and finally launched a strong attack after dragging down the coalition army, which also had the intention of attacking the grain route of the coalition army, but the Goguryeo army had been stationed on the south bank for several months, thinking that there would not be too much shortage of food, and he did not pay much attention to the grain route of the people of Goguryeo.
"General, it is not difficult to confirm this matter, and it is enough to attack the Goguryeo grain road once." Xue Shixiong proposed.
Yu Zhongwen nodded, and the matter was decided.
If you want to attack Goguryeo's grain route, the army must bypass the coalition camp, after Goguryeo and Silla formed an alliance, the two sides joined forces for twenty miles, basically plugging the original front vacancy, and the Sui army could not casually go around the plain behind the coalition army to attack Goguryeo's grain route, however, the Sui army mastered the waterway, and if you want to attack Goguryeo's grain route, you don't necessarily need to pass by land.
On the same day, Yu Zhongwen selected 5,000 soldiers, let the deputy general Zhang Shou lead the team, quietly set off from the back camp, boarded the big boat, took advantage of the darkness of the sky, and then went upstream, the water of the shellfish is gentle, the channel is clean and there is no need to worry about the reef, in addition to seeing clearly at night, beware of touching the river bank, there is no inconvenience, but during the day, the coalition forces have just finished disposing of the prisoners, and the big boat collides with the corpses from time to time, making a crackling sound, making the people on the boat feel chills, and 20,000 corpses were discarded in the river in one day.
Finally, when they reached the upper reaches of the river, there was no longer the sound of the corpse touching the boat, and the people felt that they had returned to normal, and at the same time felt that the speed of the ship had also increased, and after about twenty miles, the ship leaned towards the south bank, and five thousand soldiers descended in turn, and marched all night, until it was more than thirty miles away from the main camp of the coalition army, and then they were ambushed in the dense forest.
The daily food consumption of 90,000 troops requires more than 1,500 stones, plus horse feed, adding up to nearly 2,000 stone of grain, but no matter how Goguryeo loots in the rear, the daily grain that can be transported to the barracks has just reached about 1,000 stones, and the number of people who need to transport this thousand stone grain is only a few hundred, and at the end of the afternoon every day, the convoy of hundreds of people will pass through the dense forest ambushed by the Sui army to transport the grain to the Goguryeo camp.
At the same time, the Sui army had been waiting in the dense forest and was drowsy, until the end of the day, when they heard the sound of mules and the sound of carts turning axles, and knew that the Goguryeo grain transport team was coming, and everyone immediately cheered up and prepared for a hard battle.
Because the Sui army had never been robbed of grain, and now that the Silla coalition army had blocked the frontal road, the grain transportation team seemed extremely relaxed, and the grain transportation team of hundreds of people stepped into the ambush circle of the Sui army without the slightest vigilance.
"Kill!" Thousands of people of the Sui army got up from the dense forest, straddled the horse to the poor Goguryeo grain transport team, in a blink of an eye surrounded the transport team of hundreds of people, saw that there were suddenly thousands of Sui cavalry around, poor Goguryeo people were frightened, most of them immediately jumped down from the grain truck and surrendered, a few people wanted to pull the knife to resist, just looked at the Sui army around them was more than 20 times their hand, the hand holding the knife couldn't help but tremble, after the Sui army killed a few people with crossbow arrows, the person with the knife also hurriedly dropped his weapon and surrendered.
"Kill chickens with a knife." This sentence surged in the hearts of all the Sui cavalry.
After the Goguryeo people who transported grain were driven aside, a Sui soldier stabbed the sack on the ground with a spear, and the grain flowed out in an uproar, but it was some miscellaneous grains, mostly black beans and millet, only a small part of flour and rice, in addition to grain, there were dozens of carts of weapons and armor, these weapons and armor were of poor quality compared to those used by the Sui army, and it was obvious that they were also rushed out of the rear.
"Report to the general, a total of 311 Goguryeo people were captured, 19 were killed, 160 carts of grain and 32 carts of weapons and armor were captured."
"So little?" Zhang Shou frowned, such a little food was undoubtedly not enough for the army to eat for a day, and said to the pro-soldier: "Ask them, how many food teams are there every day?" ”
After a while, the pro-soldiers got the answer and came to Zhang Shou's side: "Back to the general, there is only one food team every day." ”
Zhang Shou nodded, with a plain face, and said, "Withdraw." ”
Monitored by the cavalry, these Goguryeo people were directly ordered to drive the grain carts to the river, and the big boats, together with the prisoners and grain carts, and the weapons were quickly transported away, and the scene was cleaned up, and the Sui army found a place to lurk again, and the Goguryeo grain transport team seemed to be gone.
That night, the Goguryeo military camp left and right and so on did not arrive the grain transport team, and so on to report to the hands of Yuan Taizuo, it was already midnight, Yuan Taizuo had no choice, had to send scouts to inquire the next day, but nothing was found, in the afternoon, the Sui army appeared in another place, the Goguryeo grain transport team also robbed a positive, but this time did not do it silently, the grain robbery was found by the Goguryeo scouts, although Zhang Shou immediately sent soldiers and horses to chase and kill, or escaped a Goguryeo scout.
"What, the military rations have been robbed." Yuan Taizuo heard the scout's report, his eyes darkened, and he almost fell to the ground. Several pro-soldiers hurriedly supported Yuan Taizuo's body: "Don't leave the branch, don't take care of your body." ”
"Quick, immediately gather the troops and set off." Yuan Taizuo settled down and gave an order, at this time it was almost dark, and several generals had to desperately admonish, and finally dispelled Yuan Taizuo's idea of sending troops overnight.
As soon as it was dawn the next day, Yuan Taizuo immediately sent cavalry to search, and in the absence of finding the Sui cavalry, he had to send a large army to escort grain and grass, but there were only 15,000 Goguryeo cavalry left, and there were really not too many cavalry, and the scout fled too fast, and he didn't know how many people there were in the Sui army, and Yuan Taizuo's so-called army was only 3,000 cavalry.