Chapter 237 Fire
Xiang County is located in the north of Runan County at the border with Chen County.

Xiang County was only a small county town, not very large in scale. A few years ago, when the world was not yet in chaos, it had only a few tens of thousands of households under its jurisdiction.

Although the city is not big, because Xiang County is located where Cai River merges into Ying River, water transportation is actually very developed.

The Ying River was an important waterway between the Huai River Basin and the Yellow River Basin in the north. The Yan army wanted to use the Ying River to transport troops and grain, which could greatly reduce the number of conscriptions.

This was not because the officials were merciful, but because there was not much labor left in Yuzhou. Most of the common people either ran away, or rebelled, and most of them became refugees.

Among them, Jingzhou in the west and Yangzhou in the south, that is, Jianghuai under the rule of the Western Wei Dynasty and Li Yuanhui, absorbed a large number of refugees from Yuzhou.
Although it was the coldest time of the year, the water surface had already frozen.

But in the Former Wei Dynasty, the horse-drawn sleigh as a means of transportation already existed. As for who created and promoted this thing, it is self-evident.

Even though ships could not sail in the cold winter, using sleds on the ice to transport food could greatly save manpower and animal power. Therefore, Xiang County still became a place for food transportation and military gathering.

Murong Deyu led more than 50,000 foreign troops and Xu Maogong of the Wagang Army led more than 30,000 troops, all of which gathered along the coast of Xiang County one after another.

General Lou Jushi was still on his way back to Yuzhou from Luoyang, and the Chinese and foreign troops under his command, totaling more than 50,000 people, were now under the command of General Zhennan Murong Deyu.

That is, around Xiang County, along the banks of Yingshui River and Caihe River, a total of more than 140,000 troops were assembled, as well as nearly 100,000 auxiliary soldiers and laborers.

Even though the goods were transported by horse-drawn sleds across the frozen Cai River, supplying such a large army still made the entire Yuzhou and Luoyang behind them feel tight.

After two days and one night of rapid march, on the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year in the third year of Guangping, Li Yuanhui personally led more than 6,000 cavalrymen to Xiang County at the junction of Runan County and Chen County.

As the vanguard, Ma Deyi personally led a dozen scouts to the military camps outside Xiang County and conducted close reconnaissance.

On the way back, they happened to meet a group of cavalry, numbering several hundred.

The men were a little panicked, but Ma Deyi suddenly had an idea and said, "We are all elite soldiers in the central army. When we see them later, we should ask them which part they are in."

Sure enough, when the two sides met, at Ma Deyi's signal, the soldiers from Guanzhong asked which unit the other party belonged to.

"We are under the command of Lord Zhai, the governor of Qingzhou."

"It's the Wagang Army."

"you"

Because there were too many troops around Xiang County, as many as hundreds of thousands, and their composition was very complicated. In addition, Wang Tong and others spoke with Guanzhong accents, so Qin Bogui, who led the troops, did not notice anything wrong with this group of people.

The central army was mainly composed of Xianbei and Han people from Sili, Guanzhong and other places. Therefore, just the accent made Qin Bogui, who had been to Chang'an and Luoyang, feel that there was nothing wrong with this group of people. After all, it was the Guanzhong accent.

Although there was some dissatisfaction with the arrogance shown by this group of more than a dozen cavalrymen, this kind of contempt was actually widely present in the interactions between the Chinese and foreign armies and the Wagang Army.

As a result, after Ma Deyi and others arrived at the reconnaissance, they quickly figured out the general defense situation. After all, no one expected that there would be more than a dozen Jianghuai scouts in this gathering place of more than 100,000 people.

Afterwards, they came face to face with the Wagang Army.

Ma Deyi and others walked leisurely for several miles, and then more than a dozen people burst into laughter.

Afterwards, he galloped all the way and quickly joined up with the army led by Li Yuanhui. He told Li Yuanhui and a group of generals in detail what he had learned from the reconnaissance.

Li Yuanhui quickly made arrangements and formulated a relatively complete night attack plan. The target of the attack was only one, the grain storage not far from Xiangxian Ferry, the ancient city of Nandun. This was also the place where Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu ordered Xiaogui to build a city overnight.

For such a large-scale army, it would be fatal if it ran out of food.

Li Yuanhui led a total of more than 6,000 cavalry, including light cavalry from the Huaishang, Huaiyuan, Yueqi and Xiaoqi battalions, and 500 elite cavalry led by Luo Shixiang from the Wuwei battalion. Because of the long-distance raid, the heavy cavalry from the Tuqi battalion did not accompany them, but remained in Shouchun.

The time of the raid was set at the early morning of the second day of the lunar year, when people slept the deepest and the sky was already a little light, so even the soldiers on night duty were the most tired. Chang Yanheng's Huaiyuan Battalion was responsible for the first raid, Ma Deyi's Cavalry Battalion was responsible for the support and burning the grain storage, while Liu Juhuai's Upper Battalion and Wang Tong's Yueqi Battalion were responsible for blocking the reinforcements.

As for Li Yuanhui's more than one hundred personal guards and Luo Shixiang's five hundred cavalry, they served as reserve troops.

Stationed around the old city of Nandun was a part of the Yuzhou Army, a foreign army led by Murong Deyu. There were more than 6,000 people, who were responsible for guarding the important grain storage area.

Chang Yanheng divided his Huaiyuan Camp into two parts, and ordered his deputy general Wang Bixian to lead 300 brave warriors to dismount and walk outside the camp. After moving the deer horns at the camp gate, they sneaked in quietly, then chopped them down with axes and pulled them with war horses to several fences.

At this time, the soldiers of the Yan army also discovered that someone had sneaked in, and they hurriedly sounded the alarm. However, because it was a festival, many of them had been drinking until late at night and were still sleeping, snoring loudly, and they had no time to react.

Wang Bi, holding two swords, led 300 men as the vanguard and broke into the camp first. They hacked anyone they saw and set fire to the tents one by one.

The remaining 1,200 cavalrymen, seeing the gap opened by the vanguard, immediately followed their commander and rushed in one after another.

Commanding general Chang Yanheng took the lead, drew his bow and shot seven arrows in succession, all of which hit the target. Then he put away the bow, replaced it with a spear, and rode his horse deep into the camp, killing everyone who stood in his way. The guards in the camp were immediately in chaos, and the army was routed in panic.

Seeing that the guard camp was in chaos and heading straight for the Yan army's grain storage, Ma De saw the situation and immediately led the cavalry battalion to follow Chang Yanheng into the camp and headed straight for the grain storage.

Then they set fire along the way.

Chang Yanheng led the cavalry to roam in the enemy camp, constantly charging and killing the large groups of Yan troops who intended to gather, making it impossible for the Yan army to organize an effective defense or counterattack.

Although Wang Bi was fighting on foot, he swung his two swords and broke all the attacks that came his way.

Because the Yan army guards were dispersed by Chang Yanheng's Huaiyuan Camp, Ma Deyi was able to rush into the grain storage area, then took out something to start a fire and set it on fire.

At this time, in the camps around the ancient city of Nandun, the various units of the Yan army finally responded and immediately began to assemble in order to prepare to rescue the ancient city of Nandun.

However, due to the lack of unified command and dispatch, some units hesitated to move forward, wanting to preserve their strength, while others were eager for rescue but were outnumbered and defeated by the blocking troops from the Jianghuai side before they reached the ancient city of Nandun.

Murong Deyu in Xiang County finally heard the alarm. When he heard that the ancient city of Nandun was attacked, he hurried to the city to check. When he saw flames rising from the direction of Nandun, he was shocked. In panic, he hurriedly ordered the messenger to notify the right general Pu Gusu, the hubei general Chen Cai, and the Wagang army commander Xu Maogong who were stationed outside the city, to send troops immediately to rescue the ancient city of Nandun.

Among them, Chen Cai, the Huben Langjiang, was an old subordinate of Murong Deyu. He was born in the Jingzhou Zhenrong Army and had conquered the Shanyue tribes many times. He was extremely brave.

However, Chen Cai had drunk a lot of wine the night before, and it took a lot of effort for his personal soldiers to wake him up.

Upon hearing that the old city of Nandun had been burned, Chen Cai sobered up seven-tenths of his drunkenness. By the time Murong Deyu's military order came down, he was completely sober.

Seeing the flames rising from Nanton, I felt the biting cold on this winter morning.

"Put on my armor quickly."

On the other hand, in the Wagang military camp, after learning that the enemy had attacked the ancient city of Nandun, generals Xu Maogong, Jia Xiong and others began to quickly assemble their troops and prepare to attack and rescue the grain storage areas before Murong Deyu's military order arrived.

As soon as Li Yuanhui made his move, he saw flames rising into the sky from the ancient city of Nandun not far away, and he felt that this gamble was right.

But whether you can win the bet depends on how things develop next.

First, there were more than 100,000 Chinese and foreign troops on the west bank of the Ying River, and some foreign troops were stationed on the east bank. The Jianghuai side had less than 7,000 troops in total, and the comparison of the military strength between the two sides was very exaggerated.

Moreover, the Yan army was not like the Eastern and Western Wei, and had a large number of elite cavalry, tens of thousands of cavalry. If we could not burn most of the food before the Yan army came to support us, it would be very difficult to go back.

Once they were entangled by the elite cavalry of the Yan army, these thousands of people would most likely die in the Runan area.

However, Li Yuanhui still decided to take a risk because he suddenly felt that he was lucky.

(End of this chapter)