Yiyang is located between the northern foot of Dabie Mountain and the upper reaches of Huaishui, geographically the southwest can enter the Jianghan River, and the northeast can plot the Hehuai, which is a very important military place.

Since the former Beisizhou Thorn Shi Yang Yaren led his troops south to put down the rebellion of King Qin, there was no strong person in the important town of Yiyang, although Yang Yaren was appointed to stay, but it was only in the city, and there was little play in military and political affairs.

It was not until Liu Zhongli sent his troops to Xiahou Qiang that Yiyang City could rely on the defense and management of the city.

Xiahou clan also inherits a long history of the world's famous family, although the time has passed, Qingwang gradually lost, but before there were Xiahou Kang, Xiahou Kui brothers for the Southern Liang to sit in Huainan of the famous generals, Xiahou Qiang is his relatives. Therefore, the Xiahou clan has a lot of influence between Suilu and Huainan, and it is only because of this hope that Xiahou Qiang can take charge of Yiyang affairs.

Although Xiahou Qiang was sent by Liu Zhongli, Liu Zhongli himself did not have many troops to allocate to him, so he could only organize the Yiyang armed forces with his own ability.

He led nearly 1,000 clan tribes to the north through the three passes of Yiyang, and on the way he recruited some barbarian armies, entered the city of Yiyang with 3,000 Han barbarian soldiers, expelled the guards appointed by Yang Yaren before, and received more than 2,000 defenders in the city by the way, and then sent a message to the counties around Yiyang that still belonged to Nanliang, announced his arrival to them, and obtained some personnel and materials from these cities, so he had the capital based on Yiyang.

Xiahou Qiang's business here has achieved initial results, but he doesn't want his old boss Liu Zhongli to overturn the cart again, he is still hesitant to go south to Yiyang Sanguan to rescue Liu Zhongli, but the people who stayed behind with Lu have already surrendered to Western Wei, which suddenly made Xiahou Qiang's department a lonely army.

However, the good news is that after the Western Wei Dynasty gained the entire territory of Handong, it did not continue to expand the results of the war, and it should be that the expansion was weak, and even the land areas occupied were all based on the sincerity of the local defenders.

Although both Wei were split from the Northern Wei regime, the Western Wei Dynasty gave the impression of being poor and barbaric for a long time. Although the northern part of the province has been quite successful in recent years, it has still not been able to reverse this long-established image.

Xiahou Qiang was quite disgusted with the practice of defecting to the Western Wei Dynasty with his colleagues, and he also understood in his heart that these people were just selfish, and felt that the Western Wei Dynasty was not strong enough and had to rely on them to control the place, and then change the court when the enemy entered the country.

Xiahou Qiang naturally did not need to surrender to the Western Wei, in his opinion, the Western Wei did not have the strength to enter Yiyang at all, in this case, wouldn't it be better for him to continue to grow his own power with peace of mind?

Of course, he also knew that his current strength alone was not enough to deter the Western Wei and surrounding forces, and he still needed to find a bigger backer for himself. And Murong Shaozong, the general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, heard that he is now sitting in Runan Hanging Gourd City, recruiting and accepting the forces of all parties to surrender, which is naturally a very good object of refuge.

Therefore, while instigating the Anlu people to raise troops to seize the city, in order to grasp greater power and territory, Xiahou Qiang sent an envoy to meet Murong Shaozong in Xuanlu, expressing his willingness to surrender to the Eastern Wei Dynasty with the land of Sizhou in the north and south.

While waiting for news from the two parties, Xiahou Qiang also strengthened the oppression and expropriation around Yiyang. This township is originally an important area of communication, and because of the wars in the surrounding areas, the flow of personnel is more frequent, and there are almost dozens of hundreds of people crossing the border every day.

When Hou Jingqian was based in Shouyang, he also exempted the people of Huainan from land rent and city tax to attract the people of Huainan, and now this influence has not faded, and there are still many personnel and materials to Shouyang. They only knew that Hou Jing had become a great prime minister in Jiankang and had higher power, but they didn't know that Wang Xiangui, who Hou Jing had arranged for him to stay behind, had surrendered to the Eastern Wei Dynasty again.

Among them, there are even many barbarians, who actually escort some valuable goods in a vain attempt to sell them to Shouyang to make a fortune. Xiahou Qiang was naturally not polite to this, and all the transit passengers and merchants were detained, the personnel were incorporated into the battalion, and the materials were filled into the warehouse.

After such an operation, Xiahou's strong power expanded faster. Hou Jingshouyang only had more than 8,000 people when he raised his army, but Xiahou Qiang now has nearly 10,000 soldiers, such a strong force, in his opinion, even if he can't go south to Jiankang, it is more than enough to sit on the Yiyang side.

However, he is diligently relieving the rise of power

At that time, bad news came from the south, because Ma Xiu, an old horseman, led the fierce resistance of the city's people, so that his clan's plan to seize the city failed, and they had to retreat in defeat.

Xiahou Qiang was furious when he heard the news, but because he still did not get a reply from the Eastern Wei side, although his strength skyrocketed, he did not dare to act without authorization, and went south to attack with the land, but retreated to the second place, and ordered the defeated people to retreat to the three passes of Yiyang. In this way, as long as he gets the reply and assistance from the Eastern Wei side, he can directly lead his troops to fight through the three levels and recapture Anlu!

But the disaster is not a single line, he has just arranged for the soldiers to be stationed in the three passes of Yiyang, and the Western Wei people, who were originally unable to expand in his opinion, actually bypassed Tongbai Mountain and appeared directly on the north bank of Huaishui, posing as if they were going to ship a ship to cross the river.

Xiahou Qiang was shocked when he learned about this, although he looked down on Western Wei in his heart, but compared with Eastern Wei, he didn't think that he could easily defeat the Western Wei people, after all, Western Wei was not only poor and weak, but also poor!

Now fortunately, there is still Huaishui to block the advance of the Western Wei people, Xiahou Qiang had previously requisitioned a lot around Yiyang, and also requisitioned many boats and boats in the upper reaches of the Huaishui to the naval wharf in the Huaishui tributary here in Yiyang, so that the Western Wei people and horses did not have enough boats to cross the river, which can be regarded as a witty response to anticipate the enemy's first opportunity.

Although it was difficult for the Western Wei people and horses to cross the Huaishui in the short term, Xiahou Qiang did not dare to relax, and he had to patrol every day to strengthen the water and river defense.

Under the current enemy, in order to expand his own forces, many of the barbarian tribes that had been seized by him were originally worthy of being camp slaves, but now they were also released by him, and promised that as long as he could defeat the invading Western Wei army, he would take these barbarians as his own generals, and reward them with mountains and land around Yiyang.

In the face of Xiahou Qiang's promise, the barbarians reacted quite enthusiastically, after all, who doesn't yearn for the living environment of the fertile plains? Therefore, they also conscientiously carried out Xiahou Qiang's orders, so that Xiahou Qiang relied on them more and handed them more city defense figures.

However, on this day, Xiahou Qiang went to the waterside to patrol the camp, and when he was about to lead his own soldiers back to the city, he arrived at the city gate but was turned away by the barbarians defending the city and did not allow him to enter.

"I don't know whether I live or die, open my eyes wide and see who I am! Open the gates quickly!"

As a dignified city lord, he was turned away from the city by his subordinates, Xiahou Qiang was naturally furious, raised his hand and pointed at the barbarians standing in the horse rejection array, and scolded.

At this time, he had not yet noticed the abnormality, but it was caused by the stupidity and clumsiness of these barbarian soldiers, who had recently been transferred here, and did not know him.

However, when the scolded barbarians picked up their bows and crossbows and shot at him, Xiahou Qiang felt bad in his heart, fortunately, the soldiers around him were quick and pulled him directly into the team, and under the cover of the guard's body, Xiahou Qiang was not directly shot on the spot.

"Dogfoot City Lord! Take my goods, kill my children, and take your city now, and take revenge."

The barbarian chieftains guarding the city gate here pointed to Xiahou who was surrounded by his own soldiers and scolded loudly, his expression can be described as exhaling and raising his eyebrows. They were poorly armoured and did not dare to go out to attack and kill, but they were able to guard the city gate and did not allow Xiahou Qiang and others to enter the city.

"A daring thief, how dare you turn against me! When I bring back the elites, they will be wiped out!"

Xiahou Qiang was already extremely angry at this time, and did not dare to stay here longer, while ordering his subordinates to go around the city gate elsewhere and notify the other garrisons in the city to attack and kill the rebels here, he himself rode his horse and galloped towards the water camp, where more than 3,000 people were stationed day and night to block the water surface and prevent the Western Wei men and horses from crossing the river to the south. But now he can't care so much, it's better to gather his troops to kill all the barbarians who rebelled against him, and recapture the city is the right plan!

At the same time that Xiahou Qiang was rejected from the city, Zhao Gang, who had sneaked into the city to contact and persuade the barbarians to raise their righteousness, had already ordered people to light the beacon smoke in the city, and sent a signal to the men and horses who had been waiting outside the city for a long time.

After seeing the signal, the thousands of elite soldiers who had come over the mountains and dispersed into the periphery of the city immediately dressed in light armor and armed with short soldiers to kill the city gate marked by the beacon fire.

At this time, the Yiyang City had already been shocked and at a loss because of these changes, and the soldiers gathered by Xiahou Qiang in a short period of time did not have the ability and experience to deal with these changes

There are enemies outside, and they are already in chaos, and they don't know how to deal with it.

When the internal and external armies gathered in the city, Zhao Gang also appeared to preside over the situation.

Among the defenders in the city, barbarians accounted for a large proportion, and Zhao Gang had been in close contact with these barbarians in Liyang City at the western foot of Tongbai Mountain during this time. Although some barbarian chieftains didn't know about this at first, after seeing Zhao Gang appear to control the situation, they immediately gathered their troops.

At this time, Xiahou Qiang had also recruited troops from the water camp to kill again, and Zhao Gang was also difficult to integrate the chaotic troops here for a while and assign complex military orders, so he simply destroyed a warehouse in the city that hoarded the wealth and goods that Xiahou Qiang had recently gathered, and let the Han barbarians present share it, and told these people that if they were willing to stay, they would follow them to defend the golden city in the city, and if they were unwilling, they would take their property and flee for their lives.

In the end, there were only more than 2,000 people who followed Zhao Gang into Jincheng, and in addition to his headquarters, only more than 1,000 defenders in the original city joined in.

However, these horses are enough, because the other defenders fled separately, greatly divided and hindered Xiahou Qiang's counteroffensive action, when he finally found the enemy's main force, Zhao Gang had already led the army in Jincheng to arrange according to local conditions, anti-guest to meet the enemy.

Xiahou Qiang knew that there were still Western Wei men and horses on the north bank of Huaishui who were preparing to cross the water and go south, and he urged his troops to launch several attacks on Jincheng, but they were all repulsed by the enemy troops defending the inner position.

Seeing that it was difficult to recapture the city in a short period of time, Xiahou Qiang did not dare to fight, so he could only take another look at Yiyang City, which held his dream of hegemony, and then led the rest of the troops to flee southward with hatred, fantasizing about arriving at the three passes of Yiyang to meet with the clansmen stationed on the other side and then fight back.

In troubled times, whether people can achieve hegemony or not, ability and vision are important, but more important is luck.

If Xiahou Qiang knew that just two days after his defeat from Yiyang, the Eastern Wei Dynasty appointed him as the assassin of Nansizhou and the reinforcements sent by Murong Shaozong would arrive in Yiyang, he was afraid that he would be even more annoyed and wanted to die.