Chapter 201: Recapture
Li Qinglian was not the only one who came back. The chief secretary Guo Fenghe also returned to the central army tent.

"General, are you worried that the bow will be put away after the birds are gone?"

This was also very straightforward, and Li Yuanhui responded with silence. After a while, he said, "If the Central Army recaptures Jingzhou, it will not be a blessing for my father and me."

Guo Fenghe said: "Guo believes that the outcome of this battle may be decided by the general. Moreover, the general and Tang Gong and his son occupy three states and have 200,000 soldiers. Why worry?"

Li Qinglian also nodded in agreement.

Li Yuanhui finally figured out the key. His previous idea was to wait and see the outcome of the battle in the north before making a decision.

But if you think about it carefully, the Jianghuai side can completely dominate the course of this war and even play a more decisive role.

Wancheng is a fortified city, and even if Murong Deyu led a large army, he might not be able to capture it.

The Yuzhou army would probably go through the three passes of Yiyang, or cross Fangcheng Mountain to attack Biyang.

It doesn't seem so easy to win, but these two armies are enough to tie down most of the Western Wei's forces.

At this time, if Li Yuan sent troops from the upper reaches of Yizhou and went up the river with Li Yuanhui in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it would be easy to defeat the Western Wei.

At least, that's the situation.

Once the father and son of the Li family were able to capture Jiangxia and Nanjun, they would not only occupy the granary of the Jianghan Plain, but would also be able to open up the Yangtze River waterway.

Of course, this is a more ideal result.

In addition, Li Yuanhui also realized that the Li family’s current position had no way out.

Even if he was willing to return to Luoyang and become a rich man, he would be killed when his father and second brother rebelled against Yan.

Now we have soldiers, generals, territories, and some popularity in the Jianghuai area. In troubled times, these are all our capital. What is there to be afraid of?

The ones who should be worried are not the Li family, but those people in Luoyang.

I should be considered a warlord now, right?

Thinking of this, the mental exhaustion has basically been resolved.

Without internal energy consumption, the goal will be much clearer. We will first attack Xunyang and Xinchun and take back the lands of these two counties.

Then attack Chaisang and Pengze.

Taking control of these four cities along the river basically means controlling the middle section of the Yangtze River.

Just after Li Yuanhui led his 50,000-man army westward, the Western Wei regime in Jingzhou unexpectedly sent an envoy, expressing their willingness to hand over the four counties of Xinchun, Xunyang, Chaisang, and Pengze to Li Yuanhui, and that they had already begun to withdraw their troops. They asked Li Yangzhou to send someone to take over as soon as possible.

After the messenger left, all the generals were very excited. They won without fighting and gained four counties for free.

Li Yuanhui immediately dispatched navy to take over Chaisang and Pengze, and cavalry to take over Xunyang and Xinchun.

He knew that this was a trap set for him by Jingzhou. Chaisang and Pengze, important locations along the river, were seized by Western Wei from Eastern Wei. Now that they fell into Li Yuanhui's hands, Eastern Wei would certainly not let it go with Jianghuai.

But Li Yuanhui knew clearly that this was a trap, but he was determined to take the four counties.

Just like during the Warring States Period, Han ceded Shangdang to Qin, but the governor of Shangdang in Han offered the place to Zhao. After Zhao accepted the land, could Qin let it go? Of course not.

This led to the protracted Battle of Changping.

But was Zhao’s choice to accept the land wrong?
This question is difficult to answer, as Shangdang's geographical location is very important to Zhao State. And for some things, the right or wrong of the initial choice cannot be inferred from the result.

Because in the process of development of things, there are often many uncontrollable variables.

So, worry about whether it is a trap or not first. If you don’t take what heaven gives you, you will suffer the consequences.

As for the Eastern Wei, they were not allies to begin with, so it's okay to fight them.

Li Yuanhui recovered the four counties without bloodshed. The 70,000-strong army led by Murong Deyu successively conquered Bowang, Duyang, Zhixian, Xi'e and other cities north of Wancheng, and made rapid progress in the early stages of the war.

Then they pushed all the way to Wancheng, the capital of Nanyang County.

Wancheng is a big city and a must-pass place when going north from Jingxiang to Luoyang and Guanzhong.

The Longzhong Plan stated that if there was any change in the world, a general would be ordered to lead the army of Jingzhou to Wan and Luoyang. This meant that Wancheng was actually the first major gate in the south of Luoyang. After passing Wancheng and heading north to Luoyang, there was a plain area of ​​hundreds of miles with no strategic location to defend. But why did the Luoyang court wait until such an important Wancheng was captured before sending troops?

Because in the first half of last year, the traitor Murong Zhan entered Guanzhong and proclaimed himself emperor, and in the second half of the year, the Turks invaded Hebei again.

It's just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

Now that the Turks have been driven out, they are temporarily unable to open up the Xiaohan Pass to enter Guanzhong.

Then solve the problems that can be solved first.

Retaking Jingzhou would be a threat to Li Yuanhui in Jianghuai, Li Yuan in Shuzhong, and Murong Zan in Guanzhong.

Many people are aware of this.

Therefore, after receiving the news that Luoyang was sending troops, Cao Xuan immediately sent an envoy to Guanzhong to ask for a meeting with Murong Zan to explain the pros and cons and explain the situation where both sides were in a desperate situation.

Although Murong Zan did not make a comment, Cao Xuan knew that Western Yan would definitely send troops.

The result was just as he expected. When Murong Deyu was attacking Wancheng, Yuwen Xiao, the Central Guard General of Western Yan, led 20,000 elite troops out of Wuguan Road.

Met the Eastern Yan army in Li County.

After the defeat, the Eastern Yan army slowly retreated and immediately informed Murong Deyu of the situation.

Upon hearing this, Murong Deyu immediately stopped attacking the city and led his troops to retreat to Ye County.

Huang Niujiao and Xu Tianzuo, who had been suppressed before, also led their troops out of the city, trying to get back at the Eastern Yan army.

However, they were driven back into the city by a counterattack from the Yan army's cavalry.

Yuwen Xiao led 20,000 infantry and cavalry to defeat the Eastern Yan army's 10,000-man force at Baihe River north of Wancheng, beheading 3,000 of them and capturing more than 5,000 enemies. Only more than 1,000 Eastern Yan soldiers successfully crossed the river to join the main force.

The Northern Army's attack was declared a failure.

As for the central army, more than 20,000 Yuzhou troops led by Yuzhou Governor Qu Tushi'an and 25,000 central troops led by Zhongdu Protector Murong Hui, totaling 40,000 troops, attacked the three passes of Yiyang.

After more than a month of continuous attack, there was no progress and the city was not conquered. Instead, Ding Jingzhen sent elite troops to launch a surprise attack and burned a large number of siege equipment.

Only the southern army achieved results and recovered four counties. Although it was the Western Wei side that gave up voluntarily, Li Yuanhui directly wrote "fought hard to recapture" in the battle report to Luoyang.

The situation on the battlefield has changed dramatically.

The battle plan of dividing hundreds of thousands of troops into three routes to recapture Jingzhou was basically declared a failure.

Actually, Murong Deyu was not without the ability to fight, but Yuwen Xiao behind him was too brave and directly defeated his small army. Fearing that he would be attacked from both sides, Murong Deyu had to retreat to Ye County to regroup.

On the one hand, he reported the situation here to Luoyang, and on the other hand, he built a solid camp with Ye County as his base, intending to confront Yuwen Xiao and Huang Niu Jiao.

Upon seeing this, Yuwen Xiao led his troops back to Xi County at the entrance of Wuguan Road, with an attitude of "If you don't come, I won't go over there. If you dare to come over, I will go out and beat you up."

Although Murong Deyu had superior military strength, he was unable to take into account the needs of both defending against Western Yan and attacking Wancheng.

The two sides fought for three months. Then, Runan County in Yuzhou rebelled.

To be precise, large-scale uprisings broke out simultaneously in Runan County and Chen County, and even spread to Yingchuan.

The people of Yuzhou had already had a hard time living because of wars, heavy corvee labor and taxes. In this battle to pacify Jingzhou, although the imperial court was responsible for the food and grass of the northern army, the 40,000 troops in the middle needed food and grass from Yuzhou.

The result was that after three months of fighting, Yuzhou had basically emptied its coffers and needed a large number of civilians to help transport food and supplies.

Under the heavy taxation and extortion, the people of Runan and Chenjun who were not forced to become refugees finally could not bear it anymore.

Sun Bai, Xu Junsheng, Zang Tong, Yuan Chong and others from Runan gathered together and rebelled. They first killed the magistrate and other officials of Shangcai County, gathered thousands of people, and then in just over ten days, the team expanded to tens of thousands of people.

Afterwards, people in more than ten counties, including Yangcheng, Yingyin, Ruyang, Ruyin, Pingyu, and Ancheng, killed their county officials and rebelled.

In this situation, not to mention the Luoyang court, even Li Yuanhui found it outrageous.

Just attack Jingzhou and destroy Yuzhou in the rear?

(End of this chapter)