(This chapter deals with the aftermath of the Battle of Gaoping, the famous Battle of Jinyang.) ）

Under the night in the second half of the night, the starlight was dim, the moonlight was deep, and in Jinyang City, there were several houses, low, and an extremely inconspicuous place.

Suddenly, a white figure popped out of the branch next to the house, hehe, it turned out to be a pigeon, and then flew into the half-hidden window, the sound was not loud, but it alarmed the people inside. At this time, a thin figure suddenly popped out of the house, the person was dressed in ordinary clothes, and he couldn't see clearly, and then picked up the pigeon walking around on the ground, bent down and took off the letter on the pigeon's leg, and read it carefully, and then he had a wry smile on his face, this person was the eighth child in Yang Meng's mouth.

Lao Ba shook his head, looked at Kaifeng City in the south, and said in his heart that the Han army had been defeated by the Zhou State, and at this moment, the Zhou State army had already moved north to take Jinyang. It seems that the Lord wants me to wait for the opportunity in Jinyang and keep an eye on the slightest movement in the city. But now he is at a loss, and tomorrow he will convene a council of the brothers of Changchun Hall to discuss, and in the past few years, Changchun Hall has gained a foothold in the Han Kingdom.

……

On March 11, the battle of Gaoping in Bagongyuan, after the victory of the Zhou ** team, Guo Rong kept chasing the fleeing army of the Han lord Liu Min, and at the same time ordered Wang Yanchao to lead the army to Fenzhou (Fenyang, Shanxi), after a bloody battle, the Han guard will surrender. Taking advantage of the victory, the Zhou army ordered the four-way army to attack the periphery of Jinyang and respond to the main battle. Among them, the right-wing Laizhou defense made Kang Yannuma attack Liaozhou (Shanxi Zuoquan), Qinzhou (Shanxi Qinyuan), Han Liaozhou Assassin Shi was persuaded by Zhou to surrender, all the way to the withering, like a bamboo, all the way to occupy a number of cities in the Han State, the Zhou army front advanced to the north, and the guards of the Han State all over the country looked at the wind and surrendered, and pressed the Jinyang City of the Han State step by step.

Later this month, after Guo Rong's army won several victories, he continued to lead the 100,000 troops of the Zhou State to continue to move north, and had reached a radius of dozens of miles from Jinyang City. At the beginning of April, Guo Rong personally led a large army, and at this moment, he saw a city and a lonely city appear in the sight of the north.

This city is Jinyang City, at this moment it is located in the north, it is a strong city, Jinshui and Fenshui go around the city, this Jinyang City is not Taiyuan City in later generations. Under the scorching sun, time has destroyed its vicissitudes, but it still stands majestically, like an angry-eyed King Kong, how much desolation it has experienced, as well as the prosperity of the wind and snow, and the sadness of some people. Moss is a sign of the passage of time, and the ancient walls hold back the enemy to make the city impregnable, and its owners have cherished it very much, and it can be seen that a lot of thought has been put into it.

Guo Rong sat on the horse, looking at the sky in the distance, and with that touch of the sun, some episodes about Jinyang in history appeared in his mind, and then chanted:

Qin Shi Mingyue Han Shi Guan,

The Long March has not yet been returned.

But to make the dragon city fly in,

It's not called Humadu Yin Mountain.

At this time, Guo Rong smiled and asked Zhao Kuangyin beside him: "Second brother, what do you think of the Han Kingdom City?" ”

Zhao Kuangyin, who followed Guo Rong's side, clapped his hands and said: "Official, Jinyang, good, what a majestic city, but unfortunately the Han lord is a wreck, I'm afraid I will lose the city." ”

Guo Rong listened to it and felt very happy in his heart, and then thought that in history, Jinyang was once famous as the early capital of the Zhao Kingdom, the Gancheng of the Han and Jin Dynasties, the Bafu of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, the capital of the Northern Qi Dynasty, and the Beijing of the Tang Dynasty. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhiyao excavated Jinshui and Fenshui, and the water irrigated Jinyang. The city of Longxing of the Li Tang Dynasty originated here, so Jinyang was called the "Dragon City" again.

During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Li Keyong, Shi Jingjiao, Liu Zhiyuan, Liu Min (Liu Chong) and others took turns to entrench in Jinyang City, separating one side and forming a long-term battle for hegemony with the Central Plains. The Later Tang Dynasty, the Later Jin Dynasty, and the Later Han Dynasty all relied on Jinyang to dominate the world.

Just imagine, if the Zhou ** team takes Jinyang City, they can rely on the geographical location of Jinyang to confront each other with the Liao State, Jinyang is in the hands of the Han State, which will cause some damage to the Zhou State, and only by pulling out this nail can the household reduce a point of resistance, then it will definitely be able to play a great deterrent role in the north. Jinyang, or Jinyang is deeply hit, the north can be at peace for a while, which is very necessary for the recuperation of the newly born Great Zhou Kingdom.

Guo Rong thought so in his heart, and the spirit of the whole person began to rise, so he said to the soldiers around him: "The soldiers of my Great Zhou Kingdom are now a great opportunity to make meritorious contributions, as long as they take Jinyang City, after returning to the dynasty, they will be promoted to one level." ”

"Hooray!" The soldiers shouted.

If Zhao Dezhao is here, he must have to sigh again, this Jinyang City is destroyed in the hands of Zhao Kuangyi (Zhao Guangyi), at this moment Zhao Dezhao in Kaifeng is still meditating, from the first year to the sixth year, if he is in Kaifeng, but the action is very blocked, it is better to jump out of the barrier of Kaifeng, and go to another place, and seek development, this matter has also become a very tangled problem for him, and now there is a long time from 954 AD to the Chenqiao Mutiny, The development of his father is very bright, but whether the existence of his own prophet will break this balance is still a question, a question! What Zhao Dezhao didn't know was that Guo Wei ordered Wu Desi to monitor his every move, and Guo Rong was the same, and there was a Changchun Hall behind him who was also staring at him, and other forces in the dark didn't know if there were any. If you think about it like this, I'm afraid Zhao Dezhao will have to fidget, even if he leaves the capital, I'm afraid he will have to be cautious in the future.

……

On the same day, Guo Rong ordered his army to be stationed outside Jinyang City.

As soon as the army arrived outside the city, some generals and soldiers in the Zhou ** camp plundered the people's wealth and food, and the people dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, so they avoided and hid in the valley. Soon after, Guo Rong saw that the people of Han could not avoid it, and did not welcome the Zhou army, so he disguised himself and mixed in with the fleeing people, and asked those fleeing people, and they all said: "The Zhou ** team is brutal, so I have to avoid it and enter its valley to save the lives of my family." ”

After Guo Rong heard it, he sighed for a long time, and suddenly remembered what his father said before his death, the people are like water, and the king is like a boat. This series of measures, agreed on military discipline, the autumn did not commit any crimes, if there is a violation, they will be killed, and all the soldiers listened to it.

The Zhou army's front advanced too quickly, and there was a problem of insufficient logistical supplies, and then Guo Rong sent Ze, Lu, Jin, Jiang, Ci, Xi and Shandong envoys to Zhuzhou to transport grain to feed the army. On the main road, I saw an endless stream of grain convoys, like a long dragon, swinging open, mighty and mighty, and there was no head and tail in front of the front.

Soon after, Guo Rong's policy of "not infringing on the people" was warmly welcomed by the people of the Han Kingdom, and Han Xianzhou (Jingle South, Shanxi), Lanzhou (north of Lanxian County, Shanxi), Shizhou (Lishi, Shanxi), Qinzhou, Xinzhou (Xin County, Shanxi), and Daizhou (Dai County, Shanxi) returned to Zhou successively.

When Guo Rong heard that several states of the Han State were included in the territory of the Zhou State, he was very happy and ordered the army to step up the siege of the city.

In May, the Zhou army was under the city of Jinyang, and the banner surrounded the city for forty miles.

In Jinyang City, in the palace, at this time Liu Min was in a hurry, he had not eaten well and slept well in the past few months, since the last battle of Gaoping, although there was a small victory, but now the army of Zhou has besieged Jinyang City for more than a month. In the past few days, he has fallen ill at the head of the bed, and now he is exhausted, the news of the defeat of the Han army is like gossip throughout Jinyang City, and the people in the city are very frightened when they hear it, Jinyang has risen a lot of food prices these days, and the Han Kingdom will die if it goes on like this. Liu Min is now unable to fight again, Yelu Enemy Lu did not make a move in the Battle of Gaoping, but sat back and watched the defeat of the Han army, and then the Liao ** team withdrew and returned to the north.

At this time, it is necessary to replace the Han army to fight the first line, otherwise the Han State will be completely destroyed, the Han Lord has a sad face, and it seems that he has to personally ask for help from the Liao State.

Since March 11, the battle of Gaoping, the Khitan retreated, and the men and horses were stranded on the periphery of Liaozhou, unable to be trapped. The Zhou army controlled the line from Jinyang to Taihang Mountain in the north, and the east of Taihang Mountain was also the Hebei towns under the rule of the Zhou Dynasty. The upper echelons of the Liao State informed that the remnants of the army were strictly ordered to move south along the straight line of Liaozhou to attack the grain route of the Zhou Dynasty.

At the same time, thick smoke billowed over Jinyang City, and outside the city, the Zhou army surrounded on all sides, and the sound of killing shook the sky. The soldiers of the Zhou State ran in the battle of the corpse mountain and the sea of blood, and blood and fire were intertwined. The two countries are at war, and there are charging soldiers everywhere. At the beginning of the battle, the Zhou army transferred several siege stone throwing machines, and smashed hundreds of pounds of stone bullets to the city, and each boulder fell down, raising a thick cloud of yellow smoke, and the smoke was heavy, and Jinyang City was bombarded with holes, but Jinyang City still stood tall.

Jinyang Jiancheng is an important town in the north, and it is the capital of the Han Dynasty, this city is made of local materials, rammed with very viscous loess, this kind of viscous loess is really as strong as cement after ramming, and has a little more toughness than cement, and now it has become a better battle than the city built by stones. If it is made of bricks, I am afraid that at this moment, under the bombardment of the boulder, there will be eggs, and the wall will collapse and the city will collapse, and at that time, only the soldiers of the Zhou army can enter the outer city of Jinyang of the Han Kingdom along the collapsed city wall. Although the city wall is not reached, but how can the mortal fetus be compared with King Kong is not bad, those soldiers who defend the city can't avoid the invasion of stone bullets, the boulder rolls over, and is smashed into a ball of flesh and mud, all the way to flesh and blood. Blood splattered...... It looked horrifying and disgusting.

After some time, the stone bullets on the stone throwing machine of the Zhou army were insufficient, and the archers were transferred to shoot towards the city wall. The rows of crossbow arrows under the city, the rockets in the sky like flying locusts, pouring towards the city, and the fierce blows like a storm, did not stop all the time, and the Han soldiers on the city wall had to set up shields to deal with the rain of arrows and resist the attack of the enemy army under the city.

This is a battlefield of blood and fire, full of soldiers who charge into battle, shouting to kill the heavens, everywhere are lying in pools of blood, and there are dead corpses that will never get up again, the corpses are piled up on the battlefield, built into piles, and there are also Han soldiers falling down on the city wall, that scene is really shocking.

The Zhou army saw that Jinyang City could not be attacked, so it pushed a few cloud ladders from a distance, and the soldiers went up the cloud ladder to attack the city, only to see that the high city wall was crawling everywhere with people, watching this battle, the Zhou army was using the most conventional siege tactics: ant attachment. The soldiers set up ladders and climbed the city walls with the help of ladders. The soldiers of the Han Kingdom on the city wall picked up the wood and tried their best to push the ladder outward, the ladder was full of people, and the whole ladder leaned back, and the people on the ladder were either dead or disabled.

"Ahh On the city wall, the soldiers of the Han army hurriedly brought boiling hot oil, bricks, stones, as long as it was a hard object, they were all poured down, smashed down, and thrown down. In an instant, the rolling wood and stones fell one after another, and the soldiers of the Zhou State continued to fall from the cloud ladder, and those soldiers who were doused with fire oil fell before they had time to undress, and the sound of crackling fire sounded, and the sound of hissing and cracking shouts disappeared from the city wall.

On the city wall, the Han army was also stubbornly fighting back, and rows of sharp arrows were pulled up above the city head, rushing towards the upward flow of Zhou soldiers.

"Whoosh-" Stubble after stubble, like a burst of soul-hooking strings, the locusts are raging, and the arrow of death, either you die or I die, reap the lives of the soldiers of the Zhou army under the city. The hot arrows above the city head are no less than the huge stone bullet rain curtain that was thrown into a round of Zhou **.

The battlefield is like purgatory, and death is everywhere.

On the battlefield, black smoke rose everywhere, and thick smoke billowed out. Under the city gate, the soldiers of the Zhou army approached the city gate with a cowhide rush cart and hit the city gate with iron-clad sandalwood, but the city gate did not move at all, except for a few pieces of earth falling from above the city gate.

What's more, there are stone caves on both sides of the city gate, there are soldiers of the Han Kingdom pouring oil inside, the northern climate is dry, it is the dry season, and the car becomes a pile of blazing firewood in an instant, like a firework tube explodes, the rocket is like a dense spark that splashes, the fire flashes above and below the city, and the black smoke rises.

One by one, living men died in the midst of thousands of troops. But the Zhou army was still tenacious, and the soldiers went forward one after another, and there were constantly casualties, which was extremely tragic. There are more than 10,000 people and horses on the battlefield, boundless, and there are more than 10,000 military horses under the city at this time.

The Zhou army saw that the siege of Jinyang City was fruitless, and the city was still immovable, so they camped outside the city and besieged Jinyang City.

In the next few days, the main force of the Zhou army was still under the city of Jinyang, staging scenes of siege battles.

The two sides have been at a stalemate under the city for a long time. In the past half a month, the losses on both sides have been extremely heavy, and in comparison, the Han army in the city has suffered greater losses than the Zhou army under the city.

The two armies began to tug of war and confronted each other.

……

On the battlefield dozens of kilometers away from Jinyang City, after the battle of Gaoping of the Liao State, a cavalry wandered between Xin and Dai at the moment, and the upper echelons of the Liao State issued an announcement, and the king of the Southern Courtyard, Yelu Tzulie, then led the army to help, and sent this cavalry to aid the Han State, and then this cavalry went south, encountered Fu Yanqing's 20,000 cavalry, Fu Yanqing led the troops, and then reinforced 2,000, Zhou Luzhou Jiedu made Li Yun lead the troops to help the war. The morale of the soldiers of the Liao State was low, and at this time, how could the enemy fight the Zhou army, which was strong, and the Zhou army won a small victory.

The Zhou army was victorious and victorious, and at this moment it had been carried away by the victory, and the Zhou general vanguard Shi Yanchao led about 2,000 cavalry to outflank the Liao army, but he was excited, and the pursuit was too fast, and he broke away from the main force, and only took more than 20 horsemen to rush into the depths of the Liao army, and Shi Yanchao was killed. Here, the Liao army saw that the opponent's Zhengyin vanguard was killed, and the morale was restored, and Yelu Enemy Lu and Yelu Tart Lie regrouped their troops to counterattack the Zhou army, and they won a complete victory.

There are unpredictable storms and clouds, and the summer rain comes and goes, intermittently, sometimes big and sometimes small, and the rain shows no sign of stopping for three days. The Zhou army was still stationed outside the city of Jinyang. The Zhou army poured Henan troops to attack Jinyang, but it was not overcome for a long time.

In the barracks, Guo Rong looked at Jinyang City from afar, and the city walls seemed to be shrouded in deep smoke clouds. The heavy rain extinguished the smoke, but also washed away the blood stains left by the casualties on the city wall, his heart was very restless, yesterday Fu Yanqing's army came to Jinyang outside the city to meet the division, Guo Rong heard the report from the rear, and knew that the Zhou army suffered many casualties, Shi Yanchao and other generals died in battle, and Fu Yanqing retired to Xinzhou. At this moment, the rain did not stop, the siege battle was put on hold, and a fence and fortifications were built outside the city to besiege the city, and the soldiers on their side were very tired and complained in their hearts. The Zhou army was stationed outside the city, and there was indeed not much grain and grass in the barracks, and there were many discussions in the army, and the generals were arguing and contradictions, and this situation was really not good for Guo Rong to continue to besiege Jinyang...... However, he has achieved a series of victories, but the regret is that he failed to capture the city of Jinyang, which is indeed a thousand calculations and undercalculations of the enemy, Guo Rong held a meeting in the army to gather the generals' intentions, and finally agreed to lift the siege of Jinyang.

Guo Rong withdrew from Jinyang, but some of the grain and grass could not be taken away, since he could not take it away, he also wanted the Han army to get, so he burned tens of millions of grain and grass under the city, and the army of Zhou withdrew from the territory of Han, and the newly opened up land of Han had to station troops, but Zhou ** was not strong enough, so he had no choice but to abandon the occupied land, and Zhou Yu got the thorn history set up in Hanzhou County abandoned the city and fled, and the land obtained by Zhou returned to the embrace of Han.

The army of the Zhou State was mighty, and it was better to return to Kaifeng City all the way back to the division.

After the Battle of Jinyang, the national strength of the Han State was greatly damaged, and the Liao State saw that the power of the Han State was no longer the opponent of the Zhou State, and it was unable to invade the south, so it temporarily gave up the southern invasion, and the northern border of Zhou temporarily settled down.

……

The news of Zhou Jun's retreat from Jinyang was transmitted back to an extremely inconspicuous place, and Lao Ba and the others already knew about it and discussed the detailed plans for the future.

The flying pigeon entered Kaifeng again. Yang Meng and Lao Jiu in Kaifeng learned about a series of things such as the siege of Jinyang by the Zhou State, and they were already on the way back to the court, but they only had some inexplicable feelings in their hearts, and it seemed that the Han State still stayed.

In the seventh year of Han Qianyou (954) and November of the first year of Zhou Xiande, Liu Min, the lord of the Han Dynasty, was seriously ill and imprisoned by his son Liu Chengjun. Soon Liu Min died, mourning in Liao, and Liao ordered Liu Chengjun to be the emperor and changed his name to Jun. It was for the Han filial piety and the emperor.

The new emperor of the Han State presented to the Liao State, and the Liao Emperor heard the news of the death of the Han lord Liu Min, so he gave him an edict and called him the "child emperor".

In the same year, Shu took advantage of the death of Guo Wei of Zhou and the accession of Guo Rong to the throne, and quietly sent troops to annex Qinzhou, Chengzhou, Fengzhou, and Jiezhou. Guo Rong was busy dealing with the military threat of the Han-Liao coalition army, and he couldn't muster the strength to fight back for a while, and he could only acquiesce to the Shu State's occupation of these four states.

After returning to the capital, Zhao Kuangyin was appointed as the palace capital and led the history of Yanzhou.