In the autumn of 24 AD, Liu Xiu officially began the war to clear the peasant rebel army and local armed forces in Hebei, and the first target was the Tongma Army.

However, it didn't start well.

According to Liu Xiu's deployment, Gai Yan led the leading troops from Qingyang (now Qinghedong, Hebei) and confronted the bronze horse head-on. He didn't succeed, so he had to

retreated to Qingyang, but instead let the copper horse come to a counter-encirclement.

(Wait for the first arrival, the battle is unfavorable, and the city will be protected and surrounded by thieves.) ）

You may still remember Gai Yan, not long ago, as the Yuyang Protector, he led his troops to obey Liu Xiu with Wu Han and Wang Liang, and his loyalty to Liu Xiu is nothing to say.

And his personal physical condition, courage and wit are also famous.

Such a professional officer was beaten away as soon as he saw his face, which shows that the combat effectiveness of the copper horse cannot be underestimated.

At the critical juncture, fortunately, Deng Yu led reinforcements to arrive.

Deng Yu is not only Liu Xiu's chief think tank, with excellent strategy, but also often combines theory with practice, and also has wonderful performances from time to time in actual combat.

He gave the copper horse a counter-encirclement, a fierce battle, defeated the copper horse, and captured its general by the way.

(Yu then advanced and fought, broke it, and won its general.) ）

Not only did the pioneers win hard, but Liu Xiu's other general, the three armies of Yongguan, fought even harder.

In this battle against the Bronze Horse, Choshi's task was to transport and protect the military baggage.

In the area of Qingyang and Boping (in present-day Chiping, Shandong), he encountered hundreds of thousands of troops of Tongma.

The bronze horse originally had the force of death when it started fighting, but now it has a numerical advantage, and the morale is very high.

Although the soldiers of Choshi also sacrificed their lives and forgot to die, they still suffered defeats in a row.

(The period and the generals will meet it, and the battle will be unfavorable.) ）

At this critical moment, Choshi showed a strong style.

He led the people to fight against the water, and his soldiers were killed one by one, killing countless enemies.

However, the copper horse just couldn't be killed, and it couldn't be defeated, and a batch of people had just been cut down by Choshi, and countless people came immediately.

What kind of scene is this, whether the corpses are piled up like a mountain, whether the river is turning red, everyone can imagine!

Fortunately, just when the Cho period was about to be overwhelmed, Liu Xiu personally led troops to rescue, not only killing the people and horses who retreated from the bronze horse with three strikes and five divisions, but also beating them

They. Choshi period only turned the corner.

In this battle to clear the copper horse, because the opponent occupied an absolute advantage in numbers and had extremely strong combat effectiveness, Liu Xiu thought that he could not come by force.

He constantly adjusted his combat thinking, quickly unleashed new combinations, reversed the unfavorable situation, and received good results.

First of all, he focused on the needs of actual combat, reorganized the troops, and vigorously enhanced the combat effectiveness of the troops.

This work was carried out before the start of the war against the Bronze Horse, and it has been going on ever since.

According to the needs of work, he changed the old system of generals and soldiers shouting and talking about piles of people, and "all generals are in the same camp", and adjusted the division of labor among the generals

The pawns and other personnel were assigned to the commanders and commanders.

(Divide the officers and subordinate generals.) ）

This work is of course very inconspicuous today, but in the hands of Liu Xiu at that time, it marked the beginning of the regularization of his troops.

When Liu Xiu was stationed in Qingyang, Wu Han led the elite soldiers from the 10 counties requisitioned from Youzhou to report to the station.

This group of troops is strong and strong, with neat flags, and it is clear at a glance that they are very combative.

When Wu Han came to Qingyang, he couldn't take a break, so he immediately asked to see Liu Xiu, presented the books of people, weapons, and baggage, and handed them all over to Liu Xiu for arrangement.

Liu Xiu was very happy and made reasonable arrangements according to the needs of the work.

At the same time, in order to stabilize the hard-won base area of Youzhou, Liu Xiu appointed his secretary Zhu Fu as the general and Youzhou pastor, and went north to garrison Jicheng.

Zhu Fu's virtue and talent are not very good among Liu Xiu's subordinates, and his personality is proud and reserved, and his relationship with his colleagues is also very tense. But he followed Liu Xiu very early

, won Liu Xiu's trust, when he first came to Hebei, he was Liu Xiu's secretary, and when he fought Handan, he was promoted to a partial general, and now he has been promoted to a feudal territory with military and political power

Government official.

Liu Xiu was praised by a great contemporary man as the most proficient in employing people, and the use of Zhu Fu is an extremely rare example of him looking away.

Regarding Zhu Fu, he will create some incidents for us in the future, and we will talk about it then.

However, to be honest, when Zhu Fu first arrived in Youzhou, he managed the government and the people, developed production, and cracked down on rebellion, but he managed the local area in a good manner

Organized, the start is still good.

(The north side was then decided.) ）

Third, in the battle under his personal command, Liu Xiu adopted a very distinctive strategy and tactics against the copper horse, which convinced the copper horse.

Liu Xiu concentrated his superior forces and surrounded the main force of Tongma in Xicheng (now Xinjidong, Hebei).

However, in the face of an impatient opponent, Liu Xiuwei did not fight.

Liu Xiu carefully analyzed the situation and the characteristics of the comparison between the forces of the enemy and us, and believed that the bronze horses were large in number and had a fierce style, but they were good at fighting fiercely and were not good at strategy.

To put it bluntly, this group of people and horses relied on their pockets to fight fiercely for a while.

If you avoid this period of fierceness, there are many ways for anyone who wants to take it down.

In this way, Liu Xiuguang did not fight, and the copper horse couldn't hold his breath.

The bronze horse relied on the advantage of troops and wanted to fight quickly. Moreover, there are many people and a lot of food consumption, and they are trapped in a lonely city, and after a long time, they will inevitably be supplied

become a problem.

Also, most of us are croppers, and we like to go straight, just fight, and don't fight. That Liu Xiu has a lot of ideas, and he has been playing with him for too long

Dangerous.

As a result, the bronze horse challenged many times and took the initiative to find a battle.

Liu Xiu strictly ordered his subordinates:

Build strong fortifications, strengthen defenses, recuperate, and ignore them.

The bronze horses in the city gradually felt uncomfortable and nervous, and had to send a small team out to grab food and property.

However, as soon as he found that the small force of Tongma was armed, Liu Xiu immediately sent troops to rob and kill them, and annihilated them on the spot without hesitation and mercilessly, completely

Cut the supply line of the copper horse.

(The number of thieves is challenged, and the light and martial arts are self-defending; There are plunderers who take it from it, and cut off their grain routes. ）

In this way, just over 1 month later, the copper horse really can't stand it!

When they ran out of food, Liu Xiu ignored them when they wanted to fight, and wanted to go out of the city to find food, but how many people and horses they sent out were destroyed by Liu Xiu.

If you continue like this, anyone can be driven crazy!

I can't hold on anymore!

One night, the hungry and panicked Bronze Horse had no choice but to abandon the city and flee.

They spotted a gap in Liu Xiu's encirclement and fled from the city as if they were dead.

Liu Xiu left a gap in the encirclement, this is what he wanted!

He immediately waved his army in pursuit.

Liu Xiu is Liu Xiu, he didn't let his soldiers fight on the copper horse, it was too tiring.

According to Liu Xiu's arrangement, the soldiers drove for a while, and when the bronze horse was exhausted, they slashed again.

When these energetic soldiers were tired of chopping, they let go of the living bronze horse soldiers and let them continue to run.

After the bronze horse ran for a short time, the soldiers caught up with a little effort, and there was another fierce slash.

When they arrived at Guantao (now Hebei), Liu Xiu's soldiers suddenly exerted their strength, and a fierce battle ate most of the main force of the copper horse.

(Chased to the pavilion pottery, broken.) ）

At this time, most of the main force of the copper horse died or surrendered, and the rest fled in all directions.

Who knows, Liu Xiu was cleaning up the battlefield and accepting the surrender, and the other two local armed forces Gao Hu and Chong Company came from the southeast to support the rest of Tongma.

They quickly rendezvoused with the remnants of the Bronze Horse, did not dare to fight, and quickly moved north.

Liu Xiu naturally would not give up this mouthful of fat, and immediately followed in pursuit.

Tongma, Gaohu, and Chonglian are good at guerrilla warfare, and they want to get rid of Liu Xiu as soon as possible and wait for an opportunity to fight again.

However, at this time, Liu Xiu no longer played chic, and immediately personally led the Youzhou Assault Cavalry to pursue.

Compared with the bronze horses and their allies, the Youzhou Raiders under Liu Xiu's personal command were better at long-distance raids.

After hundreds of miles of pursuit, in Puyang (now Shunping, Hebei), the two armies engaged in a fierce battle.

In the end, Liu Xiu won a complete victory.

Seeing that he couldn't fight Liu Xiu anymore, Tongma, Gao Hu, and Chonglian were also convinced, and hurriedly surrendered to Liu Xiu.

(Guangwu Fu and the Great War in Puyang, all broke and surrendered.) ）

This is really a big victory for Liu Xiu:

In addition to the dead, Bronze Horse and hundreds of thousands of its allies demanded surrender!

Because there are indeed too many descenders, and there is really too much need for this force to expand his strength, Liu Xiu decided to be lenient and treat them with sincerity:

Seal all the generals who come to surrender as princes.

Of course, I was still chopping just now, and now I want to become a buddy, after all, it takes a process.

Although the generals who were entitled were happy, they knew that Liu Xiu was far-reaching and unpredictable, and they were afraid that they would be fooled by him, and they were all uneasy.

Liu Xiu's henchmen were also wary of the opponent who was still playing with him just now.

In this way, there was a situation in front of Liu Xiu that his henchmen did not believe in the descender, and the descendant was also full of doubts.

He was keenly aware of this situation and immediately carried out patient and meticulous ideological and political work.

He immediately ordered the newly surrendered princes to return to their original barracks, and also brought their original soldiers.

Then, he rode lightly, from military camp to military camp to visit everyone.

(The edict ordered each battalion to return to the battalion and restrain the troops, but to ride a light horse according to the line Chen.) ）

Here, Liu Xiu showed absolute sincerity and self-confidence.

Everywhere he went, he asked about the cold and warmth, sincerely asked about everyone's joys and sorrows, and was as affectionate as a good friend who had been reunited after a long absence.

Most of the generals were temperamental, and they were all moved by Liu Xiu, and they talked to each other:

"King Xiao treats us like this, how can we not repay us with death?!"

(King Xiao pushes his heart to put his heart in the belly of people, and he will not die!) ）

The idiom "putting the heart in the belly" comes from here, and the earliest practitioner clearly recorded in historical materials is Liu Xiu.

As a result, everyone was convinced and admired Liu Xiu.

At the same time, Liu Xiu's henchmen were also lifted.

(All are served.) ）

Seeing that the heat was almost over, Liu Xiu divided these surrendered soldiers into pieces, reorganized them, and assigned them to his original commanders.

(The generals will be assigned to the generals.) ）

In this way, the troops in Liu Xiu's hands grew rapidly, and the scale reached hundreds of thousands.

Because of the original subordinates and the bronze horse soldiers who were incorporated this time, they later became the basic force for Liu Xiu to level the heroes and dominate the world, plus the conquest of the copper horse

It is his proud work, so people and historians call him "Bronze Horse Emperor".

Even today, many historians call it so.

However, the surrender of Tongma was only the beginning of Liu Xiuqing's suppression of many peasant rebels and local armed forces in Hebei.

He was not satisfied, he wanted to strike while the iron was hot and expand the results.

At this time, Liu Xiu reconnoitred and learned that in the area of Shooting Dog (now Wuzhi, Henan), a part of the Red Mei Army, and Qingli, Shangjiang, Dawei and other armed more than 100,000 people

is gathering, discussing how to jointly deal with Liu Xiu.

Liu Xiu believed that this was not only a good opportunity to gather and annihilate them, but also to take the opportunity to expand his influence in the Hanoi area.

So, he dispatched his troops and waved his army south.

He was full of ambition and determined to win.

There are only a few people in my hands who can deal with Wang Lang, and now that I have hundreds of thousands of troops, it is time to be free to wield them on the battlefield!

By this time, Liu Xiu almost thought that he could already play war.

However, the battle of shooting dogs is not easy to fight.

Liu Xiu's army set out from Puyang, with the former general Geng Chun as the vanguard.

Geng Chun is an outstanding talent in military administration and administration, and his outstanding characteristic is that he is witty and prudent.

He took the lead and went straight to the shooting dogs. A few miles away from the shooting dogs, it was getting late, so he set up camp.

That night, Geng Chun's troops were closing the camp to rest, when suddenly, the enemy took advantage of the night to sneak attack.

The enemy was also very smart, knowing that Liu Xiu was planning far-reaching with his military tactics, and he was afraid that there would be deception, so he did not rush to the front of him to fight in close quarters, but shot from a distance with a bow and arrow.

Geng Chun's soldiers were still in their dreams, and they were suddenly hit by arrows like rain, and many people were soon killed and injured.

(The thieves attacked Chun at night, and in the rain shooting camp, there were many dead and wounded.) ）

At this critical juncture, Geng Chun showed the demeanor of a general and excellent psychological quality.

On the one hand, he quickly deployed and restrained his troops, strengthened his defenses, and held the barracks and did not go into battle; On the one hand, 2,000 people from the death squad were selected and quietly left the camp from behind

Attack the enemy.

This death squad is full of strong men who can fight and run. They were dressed in civilian clothes, with stiff bows in their hands, each armed with only three arrows, and mounted on their horses

Yes.

They made a detour behind the enemy, suddenly beating drums and shouting in unison, while shooting the enemy with arrows!

The enemy was alarmed and hastily withdrew.

Geng Chun's trick is a bit classy.

Although the armed forces such as Red Mei and Shangjiang are brave and ruthless, they like to do hard work, and they are very unsuitable for Geng Chun's somewhat technical actions.

At the moment, they didn't know which trick Liu Xiu and Geng Chun used, and they didn't know if they had been ambushed, so they had to retreat in a hurry.

As soon as Geng Chun saw that the enemy was about to run, he hurriedly took the opportunity to wave his troops in pursuit, and finally repelled the enemy's night attack.

As soon as the war ended, Geng Chun immediately sent light cavalry to report the military situation to Liu Xiu.

The next morning, Liu Xiu led the generals to Geng Chun's military camp to comfort the soldiers.

He said to Geng Chun cordially:

"Was it hard last night?"

(Sleepy last night?) ）

Geng Chun humbly replied:

"It's all thanks to your lordship, we are lucky to win."

(Lai Minggong Weide, fortunately got it all.) ）

Liu Xiu explained:

"The large army can't move easily at night, so we can't come to everyone's rescue."

He also said to Geng Chun with further concern:

"The military camp is unpredictable, the battlefield situation is changing, for the sake of safety, your family members should not all live in the army."

He immediately issued a personnel appointment, arranging for Geng Chun's clansman Geng Ling to be the county magistrate of Puwu (now southwest of Lingshou, Hebei), and let Geng Chun's family stay in Puwu.

In the years of war and chaos, Liu Xiu arranged the life and safety of Geng Chun's family in his busy schedule, reflecting his special concern for him.

Liu Xiu's frontal attack on the battle of shooting dogs was also very hard.

The main attack was the general Jia Fu.

This is a fierce man, and everyone is no stranger to it.

He was resolute, brave and good at fighting, crisscrossing the battlefield and fighting at all costs.

At the same time, he is very individual, angular, often domineering, and does not handle interpersonal relationships very well, so he was once suffered in Liu Xiujun

to crowd out.

However, Liu Xiuhui knows people and uses his strengths to trust him very much.

Now, Jia Fu waved his army to attack the shooting dog, and he was determined to win.

The shooting dog guarding the enemy had just learned the power of Liu Xiu's subordinates and resisted desperately.

The battle began in the morning and continued into the afternoon, and the shooting dogs remained strong and indestructible.

Liu Xiu knew that the soldiers were hungry until now, and they didn't even care about eating, so he summoned Jia Fu and said:

"Everyone's hungry, let's have breakfast and then fight."

(The officials are hungry, but they can eat.) ）

Jia Fuzheng was holding back a fighting spirit, worried that as soon as everyone ate, their morale would be difficult to muster up again in a short time, so he replied to Liu Xiu firmly:

"Break the enemy army first, and then eat!"

(Break it first, then eat your ears!) ）

After saying that, he stepped forward and rushed to the front, braved the arrows of the enemy, climbed the wall of the shooting dog, slashed bravely, and was invincible.

Under his inspiration, all the soldiers rushed to kill the enemy first.

Everyone fought fiercely, and soon broke through the defense line of the shooting dog to defend the enemy, took down the shooting dog, and won the victory.

After this battle, Liu Xiu's generals were impressed by Jia Fu.

Everyone thinks that although Lao Jia has a bad temper, it is a small section. Lao Jia doesn't want to die when he fights, he has a way, it's really enough for buddies, and there is nothing to do with work

Said!

(The generals are brave.) ）

In this dog shooting battle, Liu Xiu not only severely damaged the Red Eyebrows, Qingcalf and other troops, but also hit a combination punch by the way, and sent Xie to monitor and control him

Bow also cleaned up.