"It is undeniable that the battle of the Southern Tang Dynasty to capture the source of Fuzhou because of its grand layout and exquisite design, let the people of the world remember the dazzling military genius Lin Feng, but it is even more undeniable that the military gods who emerged in the entire 'Scarlet March' are far more than Lin Feng!"

——Excerpt from "The Theory of Generals" written by Shi Yan, a historian of the Southern Tang Dynasty, in the offensive and defensive battle of Jinju, two young rising stars appeared at the same time in late March, making the war more tragic and dramatic.

After Wang Yan commanded, when the Zhou soldiers could not attack the city wall day and night, Han Lingkun, a young man from Wu'an, Cizhou, Hebei Province (now Wu'an City, Hebei Province), broke the stalemate in one fell swoop.

Han Lingkun has just turned 23 years old this year, and he has been promoted to the deputy general of the Cizhou Army, not only because of his own martial arts, but also because of his famous father.

Although his father Han Duan only became the deputy envoy of Cizhou, he had been in the army all his life and was very popular, and followed Guo Wei into Kaifeng, the capital division. Lao Han Duan and the father of the big bureaucrat Wang Pu, Wang Yan, Wang Yanchao and others were headed by Chai Shouli, and became the first to become the first to run rampant in Beijing, and no one dared to provoke them. Without him, Chai Shouli's son is too awesome, and Chai Rong, the adopted son of the emperor Guo Wei and the de facto crown prince, is also!

After Han Lingkun followed the Cizhou army to Jinzhou City, he had been thinking about how to break the golden body of this stubborn fortress, and he and a group of friends were tinkering in the camp day and night, and finally made an unusually large siege vehicle in late March.

The siege vehicle is actually a hybrid of a siege tower and a ramming vehicle. With rough wood as the frame, the front tip is like a cone and the back is as wide as a house, the total length of the front and back is nearly ten meters, and the base is six meters wide; There are huge rollers underneath, and it takes a hundred soldiers to push them at the same time.

On March 23, this huge siege vehicle was put into use for the first time, and it broke through the two most rearmost trenches under Jinju City in one fell swoop, and the defenders still hit fiercely, but they were helpless against this siege monster, the bow and arrow could not penetrate the thick and dense wooden guard, and it was the most powerful catapult, because the front end of the siege vehicle was thin and pointed, it was difficult to smash it directly, and once it was smashed on it, the stone would often bounce back along the siege vehicle, and it could not be smashed at all.

The defenders of the Northern Han Dynasty had no choice but to watch the siege vehicle cross the trench, from point to surface, and continuously pierce the two earthen walls at the back, and the Houzhou soldiers under its cover filled the trench little by little, and restored a large piece of the front of the city wall to a smooth and unobstructed passage.

At this point, the eight "talisman golden bell jars" of Jinju City have been completely destroyed.

Just as the besieging soldiers cheered, they were surprised to find that the city head had changed in an instant, and the simple thick wooden spears and conical planks stretched out of the battlements and pheasants, like a hedgehog suddenly exploding the thorns all over the body. Moreover, it was completely impossible to understand whether the wooden spikes were fixed or alive, and for a moment the wind was blowing wildly, and at the next you could see the native soldiers standing on them and looking out.

These wooden thorns originated from the inspiration of an eighteen-year-old young man named Liu Jiye.

Liu Jiye's original name was Yang Chonggui, and these two names are not prominent. However, when Liu Jiye later surrendered to the Northern Song Dynasty, he changed back to the surname Yang, with a single name and a business character, that is, the famous "Yang family general" Yang Ye Yang Lao Linggong who was praised by later generations!

Yang Chonggui, his father Yang Xin was a local tyrant in Linzhou (now Shenmu County, Shaanxi), during the chaotic period of the Five Dynasties, he organized his own army to occupy Linzhou, and called himself the Assassin Shi, who was previously attached to the Later Han Dynasty as a minister. In order to make friends with Liu Chong, who was the envoy of the Hedong Festival at that time, Yang Xin sent the young Yang Chonggui to Taiyuan as a proton.

Yang Chonggui, who was young and heroic and intelligent, was very popular with Liu Chong, adopted him as his adopted grandson, and changed his name to Liu Jiye. In the years that followed, Liu Jiye served as a defense commander in the Northern Han Dynasty, known for his bravery, and was promoted to the Jianxiong Army (now Linfen, Shanxi) Jiedu envoy with his military exploits. Because of Liu Jiye's outstanding military achievements and invincibility, the Northern Han people called him "invincible."

But the paradox is that there are very few records of Liu Jiye's achievements in the history books, especially in the "History of the Song Dynasty", I don't know if it is deliberately belittling Liu Jiye, who competed with the Great Song Dynasty, saying that the Great Song Dynasty and Liu Jiye clashed several times, and Liu Jiye was defeated, which is not at all the invincible image of the Yang family generals in later generations. In the "History of Liao", the Liao general Yelu slanted and asked Yang Ye and said: "You have won more than 30 years with our country, where do you see each other today?" Based on this, it can be speculated that Liu Jiye was only afraid that the main task in the Northern Han Dynasty was to defend the Liao State, which was often bordered by Koubian in the north, and his record was commendable.

Yang Ye stubbornly stubbornly grinded Liu Chong's promise, and entered Jinju City in mid-March with the supply fleet down the Fen River. After he came, he observed the city for a long time, and then suggested to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Liu Chengjun, the envoy of the court: The walls and ditches will inevitably not be able to hold on to the back, and more articles should be done at the head of the city as soon as possible.

Liu Chengjun, who had long been determined to defend to the death, listened to Yang Ye's opinions, removed the door panels and window lattices of the households in the city, sharpened them all, tied them together in a group of eight, crossed and tied together, and erected them on the battlements and pheasants, and fell with stones and bricks below, and forced the entire city wall to add a circle of thorns that pierced people. At the same time, in order to prevent fire attack in the future, all wood is soaked in water, and water is poured on the wood from time to time to maintain humidity.

The Later Zhou soldiers tried to storm the city, and immediately found that these thorns were really not easy to provoke. With these spikes protruding from the wall, not to mention taking ladders and siege vehicles, it is impossible to get close to the city, even if they are placed there, the Northern Han soldiers do not defend, and it is not easy for the siege soldiers to turn over some spikes. What's even more hateful is that when the soldiers of the Northern Han Dynasty see that the soldiers want to climb over the spikes, they will swing their knives to cut the rope of the falling stone, and the bundles of wooden thorns will fall down the city with the Hou Zhou soldiers.

After only a quarter of an hour, five hundred soldiers had fallen under the city, Han Lingkun led people to push the self-made siege vehicle and rushed once, the city head had already been prepared, poured the boiling oil of the cauldron on the siege vehicle, and then threw a few torches up, the siege vehicle was ignited, and Han Lingkun had to retreat quickly with the soldiers. At this time, Wang Yan had to withdraw his troops again, and he couldn't fight again!

In the Guiguan area, the general who was out of the limelight was Ma Jiwei, the envoy of the Jingjiang Festival, who led the 7,000 Tang army not to completely defend the city of Hezhou, but adopted an offensive and defensive rhythm of "the enemy advances and I retreat, and the enemy retreats and I disturb", which dragged down the invading Southern Han army. When the Southern Han army attacked fiercely, it loosened up, let the enemy attack the city, attack the city, and then use the tactics of crowds to drown the enemy soldiers entering the city. When the enemy is slack, he will send the elite of the army out of the city to raid, take advantage of the advantage and leave, and never love to fight.

As early as when the number of Yiren tribesmen gathered in Hezhou City exceeded 3,000, Ma Jiwei promulgated two new policies: all Yiren tribes participated in the large queue of Hezhou defense, and the spoils of war were distributed according to the number of people, and the position and right to speak of the Yihan Alliance would also be finally distributed according to the number of enemies killed by each tribe; At the same time, all the Yi people can attack the enemy army at will, and all the booty and prisoners will be disposed of by themselves, and the Tang army will never ask!

When the patriarchs of the various clans heard about this policy, they were like hungry cats that smelled fishy, and everyone invariably divided their men into two parts, most of the soldiers followed Ma Jiwei, and the most elite of the clan were scattered and sent out, and the target was the Southern Han battalion.

As a result, the entire Hezhou area became a large hunting ground, and the object of hunting was naturally the soldiers of the Southern Han Dynasty: from the hills on the south side, from the Li River in the north, and from the passage in the rear, it was possible that a cunning and vicious enemy might suddenly appear at any time and place, using poisoned arrows and traps, without hurting people's lives, and leaving when they were knocked down, which can be said to be doing everything. At this moment, even the most elite scouts of the Southern Han Dynasty did not dare to go out of the camp again. Xie Guan, deputy marshal of the Southern Han Army, looked at the increasing number of poisoned soldiers in the barracks, shouting pain day and night, one head was as big as two heads.

When the Southern Han army was about to finish the grain stored in the army, the follow-up baggage became the most vulnerable to attack, and each time, the Southern Han army had to dispatch at least more than 3,000 men and horses before they dared to go back to meet the baggage.

At this time, the Yi people, who had already been fattened with courage, began a new type of harassment: the clan gathered into a small group, and even began to take advantage of the night to break into the camp tent of the Southern Han Dynasty and kidnap people! Several more tribesmen joined forces and built a stone wall at the narrow and narrow part of the road to block the baggage team. These frenzied attacks forced the tents of the Southern Han army camp to shrink again and again, and a large fire was lit in the camp every night, and the soldiers lined up in a sparse circle of people and stood guard in shifts facing outward, panicking all day long.

Xie Guan, who was exhausted, had the idea of withdrawing the army.

At this time, on the main battlefield of Wuyue, the north and south ends brought the battle situation between the two places to the climax because of the magical performance of the two fierce men.