Xiangyang and Fancheng are two important towns across the river, and Fan Zhuoyuan has seen its strong defense and complete system when he was small in the last world.

If the defenders are intent on holding out, the attackers will have to face not only the defense system of the twin cities, but also the dangers of the Han River.

If the defenders have a strong naval division and can completely control the Han River system, the surrounding water area is in a triangle, and the defenders can appear in any area of the battlefield in a warship at any time and take the initiative to attack the attacker in a surprising way.

In the previous life, Meng Yuan had to raise 100,000 troops every time to barely lock up the two cities and then attack, even so, he paid a great price and repeatedly failed to attack, and his morale was greatly damaged.

In the end, relying on the old age and faintness of the guard general Lu Wende, regardless of the dissuasion of Guo Jing and others, he allowed the Mongols to set up a field in the southeast outside Xiangyang City, but in fact secretly established a bridgehead.

In addition, Meng Yuan transferred a large number of alien elites and engineers to concentrate in the Asian region, and built giant trebuchets to bombard the city one after another, so that Fancheng was taken, causing Xiangyang to have to surrender.

In this era, the Song Dynasty also mastered the technology of artillery gunpowder, and if it was used in Xiangyang, Fan Zhuoyuan would definitely have to pay a great price to get it.

However, the opponent in the early Northern Song Dynasty was Dajin, and the main defense line was in the north, and the Jianghuai region was the rear, so there was no effective layout of the river defense at all.

Therefore, in the original history, Zhao Gooneng was repeatedly chased by the Jin people across the Jianghuai River all the way to Taizhou and fell to the sea, and it was also because of this.

Otherwise, if the river defense is perfected, I am afraid that the Golden Vulture will not be able to return to the north.

At this time, although the location of Xiangyang Fancheng had extremely important military and strategic significance, it did not attract the attention of many scholars and doctors in the Song Dynasty due to the limitations of the times.

Even Jinghu is not like the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has been greatly developed, and now it is still the contempt of exiled officials, such as Li Gang was exiled to Tanzhou, which is the Hunan of later generations.

When Fan Zhuoyuan led the army to Fancheng, the defenders of Fancheng were only 3,000, and they were basically local van troops.

The artillery bombarded several corners of the arrow tower, and the defenders, who had never seen artillery, were immediately frightened and demoralized, and the city surrendered.

After settling in Fancheng, Fan Zhuoyuan persuaded Xiangyang on the opposite side of the Han River to surrender, and there were slightly more defenders in Xiangyang, but the civilian officials who stayed behind refused to surrender, and shouted and scolded the defenders of Fancheng.

Fan Zhuoyuan did not have much patience, and he wanted to control the river defense as much as possible in his own hands before the Song court failed to establish a perfect Jianghuai defense system, so as to prepare for the future seizure of the world.

So he put heavy artillery on the head of the city and aimed at Xiangyang across the river.

The width of the river between the two cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng is less than two miles, and it is completely within the range of heavy artillery.

After the heavy artillery entered the city, it bombarded for several days, bombarding the defense system of Xiangyang City to the ground, and the soldiers and civilians in the city were in turmoil.

Coupled with the psychological offensive of the Xiaojie army to distribute leaflets, soon the generals of the Xiang army expressed their willingness to make an internal response to assist the Xiaojie army to open the city gate, so that Xiangyang, one of the most important strategic nodes in the Jianghuai defense line, was also taken!

Fan Zhuoyuan left 20,000 standing elite soldiers here, and ordered Gu Huaizhen to be the governor of Xiangyang and stay here to supervise the construction of warships and sailors.

Then the main force returned to the north, the strategic goal of this battle has been achieved, the momentum of the Xiaojie army in the north of the river has been achieved, and as long as Guanzhong Shaanzhou is taken, there will be no worries.

However, there was good news on the Shaanzhou side, and the commander of the Western Route Army, Zhang Jin, only wanted to follow Fan Zhuoyuan's order to maintain the deterrence of the Western Army in Shaanzhou, and garrisoned Fenyang to point at Chang'an, so that the Western Army did not dare to go east out of Tongguan to attack and disturb the hinterland of the Xiaojie Army.

The commander of the Western Army, Qu Duan, was unruly, but he didn't believe in this evil, and even took the initiative to attack Zhang Jin's headquarters stationed in Fenyang.

Zhang Jin naturally didn't give politeness to the 30,000 western troops, 10,000 soldiers and horses took the initiative to attack out of the city, and the cavalry rushed into battle seven times in a row, breaking through the Quduan Chinese army!

Han Shizhong once again exerted his heroic martial arts, led hundreds of his own soldiers to break into the enemy formation, captured Qu Duansheng, and surrendered all the Western troops.

In recent years, the Western Army has gone through many battles in the Central Plains, and its vitality has been greatly damaged, and there is not one veteran left.

Qu Duan's department was already the last elite veteran who stayed in Shaanzhou to fight against Western Xia, and now it was easily defeated by the Xiaojie army, and the generals were captured alive.

Immediately, the entire Western Army on Yanyan Road, Qingyuan Road, and Fengxiang Road was shocked.

Zhang Jin did not know that the Western Army had this psychological change, and after defeating Quduan's troops, he returned to Fenyang, but Han Shizhong said that as long as he lent him 50,000 elite soldiers, he could recover the entire northwest to Fan Zhuoyuan.

Zhang Jin didn't believe it at first, but then under the analysis of Han Shizhong, a veteran of the Western Army, he gradually felt that there was some truth.

Although there are a lot of 5,000 elites, he still has tens of thousands of soldiers in his hands, which is enough to ensure the achievement of the strategic goal, so he gave Han Shizhong 5,000 soldiers and horses, which should be regarded as a luck.

And Zhang Jin also believes in Han Shizhong's ability, this person is bold and careful, knows when to be reckless, and knows when to be reckless, not the kind of bastard who treats the lives of his subordinates like a mustard.

And Han Shizhong was indeed not disappointed, and went all the way with offensive tactics, preaching various new policies and measures of the Xiaojie army, starting from his hometown of Yan'an, and recruiting a large number of Western troops along the way.

Unexpectedly, after Fan Zhuoyuan took Xiangyang and went north, he had subdued the entire northwest!

Fan Zhuoyuan's next step was originally to use troops in the northwest, but he didn't expect Han Shizhong to give himself such a big surprise, and since then he has been appointed as the commander of one side, in charge of dealing with the war in Western Xia.

At the same time, it began to carry out new policy reforms in the occupied areas to stabilize the foundation, which was more important than fighting the world and seizing land.

After many things were arranged, Fan Zhuoyuan was awarded the title of Duke of Yan with the power of domination, and the southerners looked sideways, while the north, from the people to the ruling class, all celebrated.

Fan Zhuoyuan also took advantage of this leisure opportunity, and under Yunlong's repeated urging, he married Fei Yue with the gift of a prince.

Since Fan Zhuoyuan has always been alone, this wedding is of great significance, representing that the core of the Northern Group has finally begun to form a family, and it is presumably that there will be bloodlines born soon.

And Fan Zhuoyuan is still young, and his physique has always been strong, it is not a big problem to live for a few decades, but it is just right for the heir to succeed to the throne at that time.

The wife he married this time is from the rivers and lakes, and she is neither a noble family nor a scholar family, and her identity is inevitably despised.

At the wedding banquet, there was the unscrupulous and drunk Beidi Doctor, who asked Fan Zhuoyuan in a joking tone, "Duke Yan Guo, in the imperial city, there are many emperors of the Great Song Dynasty, and since they have married a wife today, why not accept her as a concubine?" ”

As soon as Fan Zhuoyuan could react to these words, Prime Minister Xiao Zhonggong slapped the other party on the back of the head, and then a group of scholars drove the person out with half hugs and half pushes.

A few months later, the scholar fell ill and died violently at home, and the Jinyi Wei found out that the Yin Sect had been haunted by the neighborhood, and since then the court has known that this Duchess is not just beautiful.

Newly married Yan'er, Fan Zhuoyuan came to the palace cave room with a bit of wine.

The beautiful woman was already sitting at the table, not at all as charming and lively as before, but seemed to be a little cramped and nervous.

Fan Zhuoyuan was slightly drunk, stepped forward and took off the red hijab, the woman in front of him was incredibly beautiful, which made people feel excited.

No man would pretend to be a gentleman on a night like this, unless he can't.

Fan Zhuoyuan laughed, picked up Fei Yue's chin, and said, "What kind of exercises did you use in the secret path of Fayuan Temple that day?" The Dafa of the Maiden? Why don't you show it to me today? ”