Chapter 540: Battle of Fangtou
After crossing the Qishui River, the Tang army's next target was clear: Fangtou.

Taking over Fangtou means taking over the shipping channel that extends from Baigou to the interior of Hebei.

In addition to Fangtou, the Han army also built more than a dozen garrisons along the Qishui River. Although the Tang army did not need to remove all of them, it also needed to take down several garrisons near Fangtou before attacking Fangtou, which would be much more difficult than crossing the Qishui River.

This is also the reason why Liu Xuanji did not care much about the Tang army's attack on Qishui.

In the Battle of Qishui in the first year of Zhenguan, the Northern Han Dynasty focused on Bingzhou and fought the Tang army in the Battle of Pingyang. Although the Shenji Cannon greatly increased the siege capability, it still failed to break through Pingyang City. The crossbows on the top of Pingyuan City and the stone-throwing machines inside the city could also counter the Han army.

Therefore, although the defenders suffered heavy losses, they still held out until Li Xuanqing led the main force of the Tang army to rescue them.

This time the Tang army advanced in two, or three directions, but in fact the number of troops mobilized was not much more than the last time.

Even if the Northern Han wanted to withdraw its troops to engage in a two-pronged battle with the Tang army, it would be possible, but the mentality of both sides had undergone significant changes.

After taking over the two Wei states, the Tang army's momentum to unify the world became unstoppable.

In fact, the Northern Han Dynasty has also tried to attack southwards in recent years in an attempt to break the situation, but it encountered strong cities, whether along the Qi River or the Fen River, and once the battle started, it always made people feel that the heroes were short of breath.

Therefore, no matter how many elite troops and tens of thousands of enemies the Northern Han had, they were always short of the elite Tang army and the dangerous checkpoints.

And as the Tang Dynasty further digested the results of its rapid conquest of the two southern countries within two years, the gap in national strength between the two sides became increasingly larger.

When Qin unified the world, it had taken over Hebei but had not yet conquered the Southern Kingdom.

Even though Hebei still had elite soldiers and generals, their spirit was gone. Not long after Liu Daohe's death, Li Yuanzhong, who succeeded him as Shangshu Ling, also died of illness. This made Liu Xuanji sigh with regret, and many problems also appeared within the Northern Han.

Liu Daohe is Liu Xuanji's brother from the same clan. As the descendants of King Jing of Chengyang, they share the same goal. Moreover, his ability is comparable to Xiao He. He tied the entire state machinery of Northern Han to the chariot, which was the material support for Liu Xuanji to launch wars against the Tang Dynasty repeatedly during the Wude period. And because of his origin, he promoted a large number of children from poor families, which played a role in balancing the noble families.

After Liu Daohe's death, the use of the entire national operating system was no longer so reassuring, but it was still managed to be maintained.

Li Yuanzhong was born into the Zhaojun Li family of Hebei aristocratic family. He was also one of the first Hebei nobles to join Liu Xuanji's army. He was honest and upright, and served as an important bridge for communication between Liu Xuanji and the Hebei nobles.

After succeeding as the Minister of the Chancellery, he did not promote the children of Hebei nobles on a large scale. Instead, he promoted people based on their talents. Therefore, although his ability to govern was not as good as that of Liu Daohe, he maintained the operation of the state machinery and was able to support the Northern Han's large-scale foreign military operations.

During these three years, the Han army never achieved anything, and the treasury's money and grain became increasingly scarce. Last year, Li Yuanzhong died of illness.
It also caused Liu Xuanji to lose his biggest mediator in communicating with the Hebei nobles, and also lost an important helper in government affairs.

Having been emperor for many years, Liu Xuanji was naturally capable of handling government affairs and was not a reckless man. But after losing Liu Daohe and Li Yuanzhong, Liu Xuanji had to devote a lot of energy to government affairs.

The newly appointed Prime Minister Cui Tingbi, who was born in the Qinghe Cui family, was capable but extremely selfish. He promoted a large number of children from Hebei noble families, which led to great conflicts with the military groups of the Northern Han Dynasty. This also made Liu Xuanji wary.

Internal problems made Liu Xuanji powerless to continue to dispatch large-scale troops to the south, and the treasury did not have the money and grain to support it.

More importantly, the problems of land annexation and hidden households became increasingly serious, which even began to affect tax revenue. The Northern Han used the land of three states to support hundreds of thousands of soldiers, which was a warlike policy. The situation was not open to the outside world, which made it increasingly difficult to maintain the consumption of the war machine. And as a group of generals held high positions for a long time, the military group began to show corruption and depravity. Eating empty salaries and drinking the blood of soldiers also began to appear in the Northern Han army.

Liu Xuanji also knew these things, but he had no choice, after all, his base was the military group. This is why Liu Xuanji was very conservative in his use of troops this time, and things are different now. The Tang Dynasty was a different story. Li Yuanhui was once called "good at military affairs, but not good at making strange plans; he was better at governing the people than at military strategy."

He was never good at the kind of assault pioneers and decisive battles like Liu Xuanji and his second brother. Instead, he was good at system construction and making people use people.

The composition of Tang army generals was very complex, including Jianghuai warriors of humble origins, Wagang and former dynasty surrenders, Guanlong and Shandong clans, and former Korean nobles. This also ensured that Li Yuanhui could let them check and balance each other without having to look at the face of any party.

Whether it was the surrendered generals of the previous dynasty or the military merits of the current dynasty, they could all be used. The huge population base could provide enough soldiers and taxes to support the Northern Expedition.

Although there are disputes between the Chang'an court and the Luoyang overlord, the two brothers have reached a strategic consensus long ago and it is quite firm, so at present there is mostly healthy competition.

This brings us to the merits of the Golden Chamber Alliance. Although it may bring some hidden dangers to the unified Tang Dynasty, as far as the current situation is concerned, it also allows the two major groups in Chang'an and Luoyang to reach a certain balance and tacit understanding, and temporarily be able to focus on the outside world.

Therefore, in the great battle of the fourth year of Zhenguan, the fighting will and organization of the Tang army were actually higher than those of the Han army. This was naturally inseparable from the national situation.

Therefore, in the following battle, the Tang army became more and more courageous, and they also had a large number of equipment as support. In ten days, Zhu Deyu led his army to successively capture seven garrisons along the river. Li Yuanhui led the main force to confront the main force of the Han army on the periphery, and fought several large-scale battles.

Even though Liu Xuanji personally supervised the battle, he was unable to gain any advantage.

Of course, the Tang army was not having an easy time either, as the Han army still had a strong fighting capacity, far beyond the Western Wei and Eastern Wei armies. Both sides suffered heavy casualties.

After capturing the outer fortress of the Han army near Fangtou, Li Yuanhui did not continue to let Zhu Deyu eliminate the remaining Han army camps. Instead, he arranged a defense line based on the captured fortress and ordered Zhu Deyu to lead the left and right guards to attack Fangtou.

The Han general guarding Fangtou was also an old rival of the Tang army in Luoyang, Su Dingbian.

The more than 10,000 elite soldiers under his command were considered to be of high quality and powerful even among the Han army, but they were still unable to withstand the fierce attack from the left and right guards.

In particular, the Tang army's hundreds of crossbows and dozens of catapults caused great casualties to the Han army and dealt a heavy blow to morale.

The attack and defense of Fangtou lasted only a few days, and the Han army suffered more than a thousand casualties.

During this period, the elite soldiers of the Tang army's left and right guards only mobilized archers to cooperate with crossbow carts and catapults to suppress firepower, while driving laborers to carry soil to fill trenches and build siege passages.

Fangtou is more like a village than a city. The city wall is not high, and wooden fences are used instead of earth walls in many places.

Therefore, the Tang army quickly paved the trench and prepared the ladder, which was directly placed on the city wall. The left and right guards began to climb the city wall.

The two sides fought fiercely for several days. Under the influence of many factors, including various sophisticated long-range projection equipment and Tang army soldiers who were several times more numerous than his own and were fearless and brave, even his fellow villagers' elite soldiers seemed unable to withstand the repeated fierce attacks. The Tang army had already captured some of the camps.

On the periphery, in order to ensure the successful achievement of the strategic goal of besieging Fangtou, the Tang army set up the Lujiao Ten Encirclements. Liu Xuanji personally led the army to rescue, and fierce generals such as Fu Hongzhi and Xue Andu fought to the death with their personal troops, and finally opened a gap, allowing the Han army to pull out the remaining thousands of Su Dingfang's troops.

Fangtou fell into the hands of the Tang army again, and the Tang Dynasty completed its actual control over the Qishui and Baigou lines, only 200 miles away from the Han capital Yecheng.

(End of this chapter)