Chapter 251: Two Battles to Fame
Experienced, thorough, and cunning.

These are Li Yuanhui's evaluations of Mr. Lou.

Since the fourteenth year, wars have been fought for five or six years, and he has been in charge of Yangzhou for more than three years. The veteran general Lou Jushi is the most tough opponent Li Yuanhui has encountered so far.

Regardless of whether it is Zhai Rang, Cao Xuan, or Cao Yuanjing, these people are not easy to deal with. They can be called outstanding people of the time and heroes of the time.

But Li Yuanhui was always at ease when facing them and basically took the initiative on the battlefield.

On the way of retreat, Li Yuanhui truly witnessed how difficult it was to deal with those who were good at using troops, especially those generals who were good at using cavalry.

Even with the strong man Chang Yanheng leading the troops in person to cover the rear, the Jianghuai Army still moved cautiously, with a daily marching speed of no more than thirty miles.

Mr. Lou was also quite interested in Jianghuai's cavalry. In his opinion, Jianghuai was naturally good at naval forces, but when it came to cavalry, one had to look to the northerners.

But Chang Yanheng, a southerner, made him look at him with new eyes.

After seeing Chang Yanheng galloping on his horse and wielding his spear in the middle of the army, and being invincible, Mr. Lou specifically asked, "Who is this man?"

He thought that the cavalry general in front of him was a northerner who followed Li Yuanhui southward. Later, after inquiring, he learned about Chang Yanheng's background and couldn't help but sigh: "A general with the strength of a bear and a tiger, he is truly a match for ten thousand men."

This level of cavalry general was not the first time that Mr. Lou had seen one, but this level of southerner cavalry general was the only one he had ever seen in his life.

According to experience, a few hundred northern cavalrymen would often dare to attack tens of thousands of southern infantrymen.

For example, Zhang Liao's brilliant performance in Hefei City and Cao Ren's extraordinary bravery under Jiangling City were both attempts to bully the opponent's unorganized cavalry.

Mr. Lou had experienced a series of battles when the Xianbei Murong invaded the Central Plains. He was accustomed to such scenes at that time. But now he could only watch Chang Yanheng, a southern cavalry general, command the Northern Army cavalry with ease. He felt quite humiliated.

The reason why Huainan could produce such a cavalry general was because of the influence of Dayan's entry into the Central Plains. From a geographical point of view, although Chang Yanheng was considered a southerner, Huainan was different from Jiangnan.

As an important outpost during the unification of Southern Wei, the Yan army stationed a large cavalry in Huainan at that time, and therefore established horse farms in places suitable for horse breeding, such as Lujiang. Although most of them were abandoned later, it was not uncommon for Huainan people to be able to ride horses and know how to shoot.

It was precisely because of Chang Yanheng's bravery that the morale of the cavalry led by him in the rear was also boosted. Seeing that he would not gain any advantage if he continued like this, Mr. Lou withdrew his troops and gave up the idea of ​​engaging with the Jianghuai Army.

Li Yuanhui led his troops back to the Huai River bank quickly, and then took the Huai River waterway, which was fast and difficult to travel. By the time his big banner appeared on Ruxu Mountain, it was almost July.

June and July of the fourth year of Guangping saw the first performance of another military god named Li on the big stage of this troubled times.

At this time, Zhai Rang personally led the Wagang army of 100,000 people to besiege Suiyang, the capital of Liang County.

He never expected that the Yan army behind him would take the initiative to attack. After all, the Yan army in Yuzhou not only had to deal with Li Yuanhui, but also had to support the Nanyang area of ​​Jingzhou.

In this way, no one should be able to interfere with their attack on Chenliu and Liangjun, as well as Shanyang, Jiyin and Dongjun east of the abandoned Yellow River channel.

But if nothing unexpected happens, there will always be something unexpected.

Li Yaoshi, the governor of Runan, the commander-in-chief of the Western Expedition, and the acting guard general, led 20,000 troops and horses. He did not hold his ground in Chenjun and Xuchang as expected, but marched all the way to Liangjun.

He suddenly appeared behind the Wagang army that was besieging Sui Yang City and immediately launched an attack.

Upon seeing this, the governor of Liang County, who had already prepared to surrender, hurriedly ordered the county chancellor to lead his troops to attack. Under the pincer attack, the Wagang troops that were attacking the city were thrown into chaos and were defeated by the 20,000 Yan troops.

Qingzhou governor Zhai Rangde fought desperately with his personal guards before escaping to the east bank of the canal.

The 100,000 Wagang troops on the west bank fled in all directions, and many fell into the water and died. All the camps on the west bank of the canal were destroyed by the Yan army.

In this battle, the Yan army beheaded more than 8,000 people, captured more than 20,000 enemies, and many of them fled. Of Zhai Rang's 3,000 personal guards, less than 1,500 remained.

After the battle, the defeated troops were gathered together, with less than 50,000 men, and their morale was at rock bottom, unable to fight again. Upon hearing this, Xu Maogong, who was besieging Chenliu, immediately led his troops south to support, intending to attack Li Yaoshi's troops with Zhai Rang.

Li Yaoshi set up camp by the water and first held it for more than ten days, letting the soldiers take turns to rest. Then, taking advantage of the fact that Xu Maogong's troops were tired from marching for days and attacking the camp continuously, he sent out 3,000 elite soldiers who had been recuperating for more than ten days as the vanguard. He defeated the enemy in one battle and then led other troops to kill them. Xu Maogong also became a defeated general under Li Yaoshi's hands, and his troops of more than 30,000 were also defeated and fled in panic. In this battle, the Yan army beheaded more than 4,000 enemies and captured more than 6,800 enemies.

Later, Li Yaoshi released all the surrendered soldiers on the grounds of insufficient food and fodder.

When Zhai Rang heard that the surrendered soldiers were released, he was still hesitant whether to welcome them back. However, Xu Maogong and Yang Sui both began to persuade him to withdraw.

Because they are surrendered soldiers, you have to take them back, even if there may be traitors from the Yan army among them, you still have to accept them.

Refusal would mean the disintegration of the Wagang Army, a righteous army once known for its benevolence and righteousness.

However, if the Yan army took advantage of the situation to cause trouble after they took it back, they would be attacked from both sides and it would be a disaster.

The only way is to accept the surrendered soldiers and then withdraw to Qingzhou to slowly identify them. Otherwise, if you continue to confront the Yan army, you may end up with internal and external cooperation.

Zhai Rang followed the advice of the two men and withdrew his troops, leaving only Xu Maogong with 10,000 men to meet the surrendering soldiers.

After the battle of Liang County, Li Yaoshi became completely famous, but his troops were exhausted from continuous marches and battles, so they had no intention of continuing the attack.

In fact, Pharmacist Li knew very well that there would not be a second chance to show weakness to the enemy.

The war on the Eastern Front ended in an unexpected way.

Wagang retreated, but took over the three counties of Jiyin, Dongjun and Shanyang. Although they suffered two consecutive defeats, they had gained the territories of three counties, so it was not a complete loss.

However, the losses in the Battle of Liang County were indeed heavy. More than 10,000 elite soldiers were killed in the battle, not to mention those who escaped. The surrendered soldiers still needed to be identified in a short period of time and could not fight.

In the short term, Wagang will not be able to continue its offensive against Luoyang.

Li Yaoshi's troops are old and tired and need time to recuperate. Moreover, his troops currently number less than 20,000. With such a force, they can gain the upper hand in a battle, but from the perspective of a long-term confrontation, they are still in a weak defensive position.

The battle report that Li Yuanhui received was sent by Liu Yuanqing's troops from Pei County, which was adjacent to Liang County. As a third party not far away from the battle between the two sides, he must have been extremely concerned about the events before and after the battle.

This also allowed Li Yuanhui to obtain first-hand information on the battle situation.

Regarding this, Li Yuanhui felt that Li Yaoshi was truly a military god. He had mastered strategy, tactics, and psychological warfare to perfection.

This group of brave men in Wagang have famous generals, strategists and brave generals. Even with such a complete configuration, they have never been defeated. They are truly military gods.

Of course, there was also the factor that Zhai Rang and the Wagang decision-makers were careless about Yuzhou, but they were able to lead a mixed force of infantry and cavalry and maintain strong combat effectiveness after a rapid march, and win the battle. Then, they judged the situation and used defensive fortifications to consume the morale of Xu Maogong's troops, and then used the elite troops to decide the outcome. All these operations showed that Li Yaoshi was very good at using troops and managing the army. At least in this era, he was one of the top few people.

He can be compared with the second brother and is one level higher than the current Lao Zhu, Xu and Chang.

Logically speaking, this tough guy should have been taken into his father's fold as soon as he entered Chang'an. How come he has already started to stand out in Luoyang?

Does this mean that this tough guy has now become a stumbling block for our Li family? That's a really big stone.

There is no need to worry about the God of War for the time being. When you come back to your senses and look at the Wei army camps at the foot of Ruxu Mountain, you can see that they are endless.

Li Si couldn't help but sigh, "Here we go again."

Let’s send this Emperor Cao away first.

(End of this chapter)