My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 700: Defeat Runan, Zhang Fei Establishes His Authority

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

Guan Yu and Huang Zhong spent more than forty days attacking cities in the direction of Nanyang, and successively conquered Xinye, Yuyang, Jiyang, and approached Wancheng.

In addition, troops were divided on the western flank to capture Rangcheng, Danshui and the other three counties in the western part of Nanyang. The battle line was pushed all the way to Wuguan, completely solidifying the sphere of influence of Cao and Liu on the west side of the Nanyang Basin.

While Guan Yu was doing all this, as mentioned earlier, Zhang Fei, who was part of Liu Bei's Eastern Army in the Northern Expedition, would certainly not be idle.

Zhang Fei set out five days earlier than Guan Yu, but it took about half a month to rush from Xiangyang to the Ru'nan battlefield and make preparations before the attack. Therefore, Zhang Fei's actual attack date would be about ten days later than his second brother.

Basically, when Guan Yu was about to capture Xinye, Zhang Fei crossed the Huai River to the north in the direction of Runan County and entered the Ru River.

From then on, until Guan Yu conquered the western half of Nanyang, Zhang Fei still had more than twenty days to achieve his own results and establish his own achievements.

More than twenty days were enough for Zhang Fei, who had sufficient troops, to do some considerable things.

……

The timeline goes back more than 20 days, to the middle of April in the 14th year of Jian'an.

Let’s temporarily turn our attention to Xincai County in Runan County.

As mentioned earlier, Runan County has a vast territory and was once one of the few super-large counties in the Han Dynasty with a population of over two million.

A few years ago, when Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang were fighting, Liu Bei's camp took advantage of Cao Cao's main force to deal a final blow to Yuan Shang in the north, and launched a wave of offensives against Runan controlled by Cao Cao from the direction of Lujiang and Huainan, occupying quite a bit of land.

That was six or seven years ago. At that time, the total military strength of the two sides was obviously stronger than that of Cao, so Liu Bei's army was unable to occupy all of Runan. They could only use the Huai River as the boundary and occupy the southern half of Runan County, relying on the dangerous terrain to maintain the front line.

But now the situation is obviously different. In terms of the comparison of the two sides' field combat forces, Liu Bei has slightly surpassed Cao Cao.

Therefore, Liu Bei's camp could fully afford to cross the Huai River to the north and fight a limited war of attrition and tug-of-war with Cao Cao in the plains north of Runan County to support strategic goals in other directions.

Zhang Fei's troop deployment was rather sudden. On April 16, he turned into the Ru River from Huaibei, marched rapidly upstream, and on the next day he surrounded Yuanlu, a small border county on the north bank.

The local garrison was not strong enough, with only one military commander and one county lieutenant leading the troops. Seeing Zhang Fei's army was so strong, it seemed that there were tens of thousands of people. These people quickly judged that they were no match for him, so they broke through before Zhang Fei could encircle them.

Zhang Fei didn't bother with these small fish and shrimps. He knew that Cao's army had no intention of strictly guarding the northern bank of the Huai River for thousands of miles. If that happened, how many troops would Cao's army have to keep and how much money and food would it cost in the long run? Cao Cao would definitely not be able to hold on.

Over the years, Cao's army has always adopted a strategy of defense in depth in Huaibei, that is, stationing troops to guard some support points at the forks of the main tributaries on the north bank.

The small counties along the Huai River had few people left, and even the farmland was rarely cultivated, and they had completely become semi-uninhabited borderlands. Their greatest value was that if Liu Bei's army invaded, they could get the enemy's information in the first place and send warnings to the rear.

To put it bluntly, this is just a string of beacon towers located in a remote border area.

Therefore, after Zhang Fei easily captured Yuanlu, he continued to advance at a fast speed. On the 19th, he captured Baoxin again. On the 20th, he arrived at Xincai, the first important town in Runan that required him to attack.

In fact, six years ago, after occupying the Huainan part of Runan County, Liu Bei's army also crossed the border to launch a feint attack on Xincai, but they failed to capture it at that time.

At that time, the main general in charge of attacking the enemy in Liu Bei's camp was Gan Ning, and his deputy general was Wei Yan. On the other side, those defending Xincai and Ancheng were Zhao Yan, and Yu Jin, who was urgently transferred from Nanyang by Xiahou Dun.

Now more than six years have passed. Although this is Zhang Fei's first visit to Xincai, his deputy Wei Yan is an old friend who came here more than six years ago. After the Battle of Runan, Wei Yan was promoted to the commander of Runan County for his merits. Before that, Wei Yan was only a military commander because he was too young and inexperienced.

Therefore, Runan was an important place for Wei Yan to make his fortune. His achievements stopped here and he was unable to go further to Huaibei. Now, after six or seven years, he revisited the place and could not help but feel that things and people had changed.

After the army arrived in Xincai and set up camp near the city wall on the east side of the city, Zhang Fei took Wei Yan and hundreds of cavalrymen to circle the city to observe the enemy situation and defense.

While sightseeing, Wei Yan vaguely recalled the old scenes several times, and pointed at the city walls and the horse-faced soldiers to explain them to Zhang Fei.

Didn't it say "This place is different from a few years ago. Cao's army has built new battle arrays to strengthen the defense, so it may be difficult to attack from this side."

It means that "the soil color of the northeast corner of the city is different between the old and the new. It is probably due to disrepair over the years and should be more easily destroyed by the wooden donkey used to dig the city than it was before."

After talking about these details, Wei Yan couldn't help but sigh: "The former pseudo-Ru'nan governor Li Tong was killed by General Gan in Yiyang. After that, our army's prestige was greatly shaken, and all the counties in Ru'nan located in Huainan were taken.

Cao Cao quickly appointed Zhao Yan, the county magistrate, to take over as the governor of Runan in Huaibei and guard Xincai and Ancheng. Zhao Yan was not a big deal and could not stop our army at all.

But at that time, Xiahou Dun urgently transferred Yu Jin from Nanyang. Yu Jin was strict in military discipline and good at holding on. General Gan and I were unable to break through for a while, so we had to withdraw our troops quickly to avoid being surrounded by the enemy reinforcements.

Now, six or seven years have passed, and Yu Jin has been captured in Xiangyang. Cao Cao actually thought that Yu Jin was willing to die for him. Without Yu Jin, we only have to deal with Zhao Yan. With General Zhang's power, Xincai and Ancheng will be quickly captured!"

Zhang Fei also knew roughly about these past events, but he had not cared about the details before. Now, after listening to Wei Yan, the person involved, give a detailed account of the whole cause and effect, he was quite moved and became more and more competitive.

Gan Ning is also an old acquaintance of his. Four years ago, when Liu Bei's army entered Sichuan, it was the two generals Zhang Fei and Gan Ning who assisted Liu Bei, one in charge of land attack and the other in charge of water attack.

In the Battle of Sichuan, Zhang Fei and Gan Ning's achievements were comparable, but in the battle against Cao's army in Hanzhong, Zhang Fei's achievements were clearly superior.

Now I heard that Zhao Yan and Yu Jin blocked Gan Ning and Wei Yan. Now it's his turn, and there's only Zhao Yan left on the other side without Yu Jin. If he can't break through quickly, wouldn't it seem that he's not as good as Gan Ning?
Zhang Fei himself was not so competitive, but he could not bring shame to his elder brother.

His elder brother trusted him so much that he appointed him as the Right General, which was far above Gan Ning and Taishi Ci. Only Zilong was comparable to him. He also had to prove that his elder brother's vision was correct.

Thinking of this, Zhang Fei made up his mind and decided to attack Xincai quickly to establish his prestige.

Moreover, since he was indeed "eager to prove himself by making achievements", why not use this mentality to let the enemy know his determination and make them dare not resist?
Zhang Fei was rough but smart. He quickly figured out how to use his reckless image to gain more advantages on the battlefield.

"Since Wenchang has also discovered that the defense of Xincai County is a little flawed, then our army should just attack it. The soil in the northeast corner of the city is a mixture of old and new, which is suitable for digging wooden donkeys to destroy. So we should deploy more wooden donkeys and use catapults to smash the corners of the city in advance to suppress the archers and crossbows on the city."

Zhang Fei immediately ordered his soldiers to build siege weapons overnight, prepare the bulldozers needed to fill a corner of the moat, and temporarily cut down trees to build dozens of wooden donkeys for digging the city.

It would take at least three days to complete these preliminary preparations. If you wanted to use ladders and buses, the preparation time would be even longer.

In Xincai, Cao's army was very concerned about the usual work of clearing the countryside and cutting down almost all the trees around the city in advance, which also prevented the enemy from cutting down trees on the spot when they attacked.

But these basic operations were not difficult for Zhang Fei. Zhang Fei turned from the Huai River to the Ru River and went north directly by ship. Liu Bei's army had very developed shipping on the Huai River and a large transport fleet.

Therefore, a large number of wooden planks can be shipped in by ship and unloaded and assembled directly in Xincai, without being strangled by the defender's wood supply at all.

During the three days of preparing siege weapons, Zhang Fei had nothing to do, so he did two other small things.

On the one hand, they continued to move forward and set up camp radically, trying to block the gates of Xincai County.

On the other hand, Zhang Fei also sent envoys into the city to persuade the enemy to surrender and show off his military power to intimidate the enemy.

The envoy was not a person of status, but a vulgar and loud voice suitable for scolding and intimidation. Before Zhang Fei sent out the envoy, he didn't even know who he was facing, and he thought that the opponent was at most the Xincai County Magistrate and a captain in charge of defending the city.

Therefore, the messenger sent by Zhang Fei was very arrogant. As soon as he arrived at the county government, he put pressure on the civil and military officials of Cao's army who were meeting him:
"You are the traitors who helped Cao Cao to commit atrocities! My Right General has been entrusted by the Grand Marshal to lead a northern expedition to capture Xudu! Together with the General Wei, we will drive out Cao Cao! How dare you, a small county like Xincai, resist a 100,000-strong army of tigers and wolves who are here to fight the king and suppress the rebellion!

Back then, Zhao Yan relied on Yu Jin's help to barely withstand the attack of our Wei general. But now Cao thieves don't have much strength left! Yu Jin has been annihilated by our army in Xiangyang! Who is Zhao Yan? He still expects to defend Runan?
If you surrender early, you will be spared. My right general said that he only needs Zhao Yan's head to establish his authority and let the world see the consequences of not knowing the current situation. "

The threatening words that Zhang Fei asked the messenger to bring were also taught by the military officer Xu Shu. The purpose was to divide and disintegrate the morale of Cao's army as much as possible and to deter and coerce them.

(Note: The chapter from the day before yesterday was wrong and has been corrected. Xu Shu followed Zhang Fei along the way, not Huang Zhong. I remembered it wrong earlier.)
Under normal circumstances, Zhang Fei would not casually express his determination to kill someone, as that would easily arouse the other party's determination to fight to the death. However, under special circumstances, it is not impossible to pick out a negative example who is known for not knowing the current situation, which may have a miraculous effect.

Zhao Yan had defended Runan together with Yu Jin back then, and he mainly relied on Yu Jin.

Now that Yu Jin has surrendered, Cao Cao will interpret this as him refusing to surrender after being captured. But no matter how to say it, Zhao Yan's former support is gone, and the enemy has Zhang Fei in addition to Wei Yan. If you still don't surrender, you will be ignorant of the current situation.

It's like Guan Yu's capture of Yu Jin and beheading of Pang De in history. He may not have to behead Pang De under any circumstances, but in the special situation at that time, in order to highlight the contrast, especially since Yu Jin surrendered, wouldn't it be cowardly not to kill Pang De?
This is a psychological warfare requirement similar to the isolation and torture of prisoners. It is agreed that whoever speaks first will be treated leniently, while the other must resist and be treated severely in order to establish authority.

As long as Zhao Yan did not surrender immediately and dared to resist, he should be used as a reference for Yu Jin and become a case of "strict punishment for resistance."

Zhang Fei and Xu Shu both thought there was nothing wrong with this attitude.

Unexpectedly, the envoy sent by Zhang Fei was captured by the other side after he made the harsh remarks.

In the county government, an official of Cao's army directly ordered the messenger to be tied up. The messenger was shocked and shouted: "When two armies are fighting, messengers are not killed! I am only here to persuade you to surrender and give you a chance to live!"

The Cao army official's face turned pale, and he snatched a horse whip from the hand of the attendant next to him, and whipped the messenger twice in the face:

"Isn't Zhang Fei trying to use me to establish his authority? I am Zhao Yan, the governor of Runan! I am the governor of the imperial court. Life and death are nothing to worry about! Zhang Fei and Liu Bei are just traitors. What qualifications do they have to persuade us? Take them out and behead them! Give the heads to your followers to bring back! Um... wait, that's not necessary. Behead the followers too. Just throw their heads off the city wall!"

Cao's soldiers immediately carried out the order and killed the messenger and several soldiers who were escorting him, only four or five people in total, and threw their heads off the city wall. ...

Zhang Fei, who was outside the city, heard what happened just a quarter of an hour later.

It was not until this time that he learned that Zhao Yan had actually come to the front line in Xincai in person to supervise the battle and help with the defense - you know, after the loss of the Huainan part of Runan County, Runan County under Cao Cao's rule had moved its seat to Ancheng in the rear.

As the prefect of Runan, Zhao Yan should have waited until Liu Bei's camp captured Xincai, then Langling, and then besieged Ancheng before it was his turn to defend the city personally.

I didn't expect Zhao Yan to be so tough. Two days ago, when he heard that Yuanlu and Baoxin in Yanhuai were lost, he rushed to Xincai in a hurry, wanting to stop the enemy at the front line.

Moreover, he dared to intensify the conflict and tried to tie all the defenders of Xincai to his chariot and fight to the death with him.

"Zhao Yan is such a stubborn bastard. He has to be used as a contrast and foil for Yu Jin. Fine! Since he dares to do such a treacherous thing as beheading the envoy who persuaded him to surrender, I will kill his entire family!

When everyone in the world knows that Yu Jin actually surrendered to my brother, I will use Zhao Yan as a comparison to let everyone in the world know the difference between those who obey the will and those who stubbornly insist on being a traitor! "

Zhang Fei was completely determined to kill Zhao Yan, and he was determined to use Zhao Yan's entire family as a negative example for comparison and reference.

On that day, he ordered Wei Yan to lead several thousand cavalrymen to patrol the north gate and the west gate respectively. Especially outside the north gate, they blocked the gate and set up a camp.

Although they had not yet set up camp outside the west gate, Zhang Fei required Wei Yan's cavalry patrol to leave no window of opportunity in the west of the city. The cavalry patrolled in three shifts, and even if there were any enemies breaking out in the future, they would be completely intercepted and no one would be left alive.

After deploying all this, Zhang Fei was almost ready for the siege.

Because of the tight schedule, there were no large ladders or Gegong vehicles, only four small simple ladders and hundreds of flying ladders. In addition, there were enough bulldozers and wooden donkeys for digging the city.

At Zhang Fei's command, some bulldozers were deployed outside the east gate, pretending to fill the moat, and crossbowmen with rattan shields pressed forward to shoot at the defenders, attracting the defenders' manpower and firepower. Dozens of flying ladders were also placed here as decoys, as if "once the canal is filled, the flying ladders will rush in from here and climb the city like ants."

In addition, a few people were deployed outside the north gate to make noises and shout and shoot arrows, and a bunch of flying ladders were placed to make it look like a feint attack, which also served to share the garrison's strength.

Zhang Fei's real main attack force was placed in the northeast corner of the city, using bulldozers to continuously push dirt and fill the river. However, there were no ladders or donkeys for digging the city walls, and there were only dozens of flying ladders, which made it difficult to tell the real direction of Zhang Fei's attack.

As Zhang Fei began to attack the city, Zhao Yan also personally supervised the battle. He did not dare to slack off and worked without sleep for two days.

He knew that he had shown enough of himself. This time, as long as he could hold out until reinforcements arrived, or survive and break out of the siege, and continue to resist, the prime minister would definitely reward him handsomely with a promotion and a title for his loyalty.

Of course, if you want to get all of this, the most important thing is to survive first, everything else is out of the question.

Zhao Yan knew very well that Zhang Fei was furious and wanted to take his head.

Faced with Zhang Fei's impatient quick attack, the frantic destruction of the moat, the shooting at the top of the city wall, and the flying ladders waiting there, these scenes did not make Zhao Yan panic immediately. Instead, he felt that the situation was still under control for the time being.

"Zhang Fei was indeed impatient. After I killed the messenger, he was furious and rushed to attack quickly. Little did he know that with such inadequate preparations, how could he break the city with only flying ladders?
When Liu Bei's troops attacked the city, they had nothing to fear but the Ge Gong cart and other things. Zhang Fei had to race against time and had no time to build the Ge Gong cart. Relying on these simple weapons that could not withstand crossbows and rolling logs and stones to attack, it was nothing but a waste of lives!

When he wakes up in the future because of the heavy casualties of the vanguard, his morale will be extremely low. In this way, our army can hold Xincai for a long time until the imperial reinforcements arrive. "

Zhao Yan thought to himself, and was secretly proud of himself for temporarily controlling the situation.

It is true that wealth and honor are sought in danger.

He thought he had the situation under control for the time being, so he wasn't too worried about the progress of the battle.

From April 20th to 22nd, Zhao Yan supervised the battle closely every day. Later, when he found that Zhang Fei's progress was not fast, he relaxed.

It is easy to collapse if you continue to have poor sleep, so starting from the 23rd, Zhao Yan had to spend more time catching up on sleep.

However, at midnight on April 23, the situation changed.

Xu Shu, Zhang Fei's military advisor, observed the situation for two days and offered advice to Zhang Fei in the evening:

"Right General, the enemy had been defending tightly and had been shooting at us for two days. But I see that the enemy's morale has slackened today and their defenses are not that tight. They have to wait until our bulldozers approach the moat before they start shooting. The day before yesterday, they shot as soon as they entered the range.

I guess Zhao Yan must think that you, General, are too impulsive, and you want to rush to attack before the ladders are ready. You are not to be feared for the time being. In this case, I think now is a good time to speed up.

Our army can concentrate all bulldozers after nightfall, prioritize filling up the river in the northeast corner, and then immediately push the wooden donkeys to dig the city in the dark to destroy the city. At that time, we can concentrate catapults to suppress the enemies on the top of the city, and provide cover for the wooden donkeys to speed up the construction. In this way, there will be hope of breaking the city tomorrow!"

Zhang Fei had his own judgment in his mind, and his estimate was not much different from Xu Shu's, so the two of them hit it off and immediately started to do it according to this pace.

That night, taking advantage of the fact that the defenders on the city walls had a poor vision as night fell, Zhang Fei adjusted the deployment overnight and changed the construction priority of each position.

Although the enemy patrolling on the top of the city wall also noticed something unusual, they were completely unable to correctly estimate how serious the situation was. In addition, the defenders were insufficient in number and could not go out of the city to counterattack, so they could only shoot arrows in the dark in the direction of the noise.

By the late night, Zhang Fei had already used bulldozers to fill in a large gap in the northeast corner of the moat that was passable.

Then dozens of wooden donkeys were pushed directly to the base of the city wall, and countless soldiers wielded shovels and spades to dig hard.

The city wall at the northeast corner of Xincai was originally a mixture of old and new soil, and was not well maintained. The digging tools used by Zhang Fei's soldiers were made of high-quality cast steel, which was relatively sharp and easy to dig. In just a quarter of an hour, they dug many places at the base of the wall and collapsed.

The defenders realized that something was wrong and began to mobilize troops to reinforce and block the entrance. The captain guarding the city even sent someone to notify the sleeping prefect Zhao Yan.

But these attempts were ineffective. Zhang Fei's catapults soon began to show their power, repeatedly throwing a rain of gravel at the corners of the city, hitting the archers on the city walls with bloody heads and howling in pain.

Countless auxiliary soldiers who were responsible for throwing rolling logs and rocks were also severely killed and wounded by the rain of rubble, and could only retreat temporarily to find cover to catch their breath.

The two sides fought fiercely for half an hour, and Zhang Fei had people push ladders up to help in the battle. The city wall had been dug and collapsed, leaving several low gaps.

The two sides fought bloody battles. Zhang Fei's soldiers, wearing steel breastplates, were able to fight ten people at a time. They swung their swords wildly and charged savagely, killing all the Cao army soldiers who were blocking the entrance.

Cao's army originally relied on the advantage of long spears to win the battle in formation. But after this section of the city wall was dug and collapsed in several places, the top of the wall became uneven, with many places full of potholes and sinking.

It was difficult to see clearly underfoot in the dark, and many of Cao's spearmen often missed their steps and fell all over the place, disrupting their formation. Once they lost the advantage of their formation, how could these spearmen be a match for the more flexible sword and shield soldiers and horse-chopping swordsmen?

The bloody hand-to-hand fighting lasted until dawn. Zhang Fei's troops had already climbed up the city wall and gained a firm foothold. They then marched along the top of the wall towards the east and north gate towers.

At this point in the battle, although the city had not been completely captured and no city gates had been opened by Zhang Fei, everyone knew that the Xincai defenders were doomed.

Zhao Yan urged the reserve team to block the gap but failed. He was extremely anxious, but there was nothing he could do.

A captain beside him advised: "My Lord! I'd better take the cavalry to protect you from breaking out from the west gate! You ordered the execution of Zhang Fei's envoy who persuaded him to surrender! If he falls into Zhang Fei's hands, he will definitely...must not..."

The captain was still a little hesitant and didn't dare to say directly "will not die well" or "will not have a good end", but Zhao Yan could certainly understand what the other party meant.

He could only sigh, mount his horse decisively, hastily gather a group of cavalrymen, and follow them to break out.

However, just out of the west gate, they ran upstream along the Ru River for only a dozen miles.

At a corner of the Ru River, there is a small hill with dense trees on the north bank. It is obvious that the Ru River has to turn here because this hill blocks the direction of its original flow. Zhao Yan is also familiar with the nearby terrain and does not take it seriously.

However, just as he was riding his horse past the river below the hill, there was a sudden loud shout from among the trees on the hill, and hidden crossbows were fired.

"Zhao Yan, you bastard, don't even think about surviving! Wei Yan has been waiting here for a long time! Shoot!"

Wei Yan waved his hand, and thousands of crossbows fired arrows indiscriminately at the people below, immediately shooting the Cao army cavalry at the bottom of the slope by the river, causing them to fall off their horses and scream in agony.

After several rounds of arrow rain, seeing that the enemies below were in chaos and the leading ones were about to break out of the encirclement, Wei Yan waved his hand to stop them, then rode his horse and led the cavalry down the hillside to collect the heads.

"Zhao Yan will die!"

Zhao Yan was wearing good armor, so he was not shot to death, but his horse was killed. He had to snatch his men's horses in the chaos and ride away.

But these attempts were doomed to be futile in front of Wei Yan.

Wei Yan rode his horse after them, but he couldn't tell which one was Zhao Yan. Anyway, when he saw the one with bright clothes and armor and a good horse, he chased after him from behind and chopped him to death.

After killing a lot of people, they asked the captives who surrendered to identify the bodies. After identification, they confirmed that one of the bodies that was cut into two pieces was Zhao Yan.

Wei Yan immediately had one of the bodies with the head wrapped up and took it back to Zhang Fei to ask for credit.

(End of this chapter)