Chapter 12 10. "Youhou" Zhang Bin

Since the ruling center of the Jin Dynasty had not yet completely shifted to the south, Shi Le's offensive to the south of the Yangtze River was considered a good opportunity to attack the forces of the Jin Dynasty in the south of the Yangtze River in one fell swoop.However, as happened in many Civil Wars in history, the soldiers in the north encountered the problem of acclimatization. In addition, after February of this year, the heavy rain continued, and the soldiers in the Shile army fell ill one after another, and nearly half of them died.Morale was hit hard, and Shi Le's generals also had their own ambitions, and the morale of the army fluctuated.

When the Jin army heard the news, they concentrated their troops in the Shouchun area, preparing to attack Shile's army.The Shile generals were divided into three factions: the peace-talking faction, the evasion faction and the quick-war faction: Shi Diaoying, the right leader, believed that Sima Rui should be paid money first, and asked to surrender to Jin, and waited for the Jin army to retreat, and then slowly plan After hearing this, Shi Le looked up to the sky and screamed; the core general Kui'an asked to choose a high place to shelter from the rain first, Shi Le said dismissively: "How cowardly the general is!" In Xiashouchun, he made another effort to pacify Jiangnan in the same year. When Shi Le heard this request, he laughed and said, "It's the strategy of a brave general!" and gave each of these generals an armored horse.

Facing the views of the three factions, Shi Le has not yet expressed his own views. Of course, he must first ask the opinions of Zhang Bin, whom he trusts very much.Of course Zhang Bin understood what Shi Le asked him, and he replied: "The general captured the capital of the Jin Dynasty, captured the emperor, and killed so many princes of the Jin family with his own hands. The crimes committed by the Jin Dynasty have long been beyond count. How could it be possible to descend to Jin as a subject! Last year, he killed his nemesis Wang Mi, so he should not have come here. The heavy rain today clearly shows that the general should not stay here for a long time. Yecheng is an important military location in the north. There, Hebei can be managed in the future. As long as Hebei is determined, there will be no one on the right of the general in the world! The Jin army guards Shouchun, but it is only afraid that the general will attack. If the general retreats, the Jin army will definitely attack itself. We are very happy to be saved. How can we have the time to attack our rear? The general can transport the baggage carts and horses to the north first, and then lead the army to Shouchun. When the baggage is far away, the army will return slowly. There is no place to advance or retreat. ?”

Shi Le said happily: "Mr. Zhang is right!" At that time, he reprimanded Diao Ying for being timid, demoted him to the rank of general, and promoted Zhang Bin to You Changshi, titled "Youhou".From then on, Shi Le regarded Zhang Bin as his right-hand man, and exchanged opinions with Zhang Bin more or less on everything. (After Shi Le became king, he still respected Zhang Bin very much. Even when he was in the court, he never called him by his first name. He always called him "Youhou". status, it is really not easy.) When it comes to Zhang Bin's strategy, or should be said to be a plan, we have to admire Zhang Bin's correct judgment of the situation.You and Bing areas had already become the center of Shile's influence at that time, and Jizhou, Qingzhou and other places were also within the sphere of influence he could control. As long as he took time to concentrate on management, Shile would form his own powerful forces in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. What Bin can clearly see is also confirmed by the development of later history.On the other hand, Liu Cong's power, since the capture of Luoyang, its main force, such as Liu Yao's army, is sweeping along the western front, and the situation does not appear to be favorable. Liu Yao was demoted by Liu Cong because of his failure to attack Chang'an.At the same time, due to the complexity of the internal composition of the Han army, the various ministries were suspicious of each other, and the combat effectiveness was far inferior to what it was before. Has lost control of the Shile Department.At the same time, although the Jin army in the south of the Yangtze River was weak, but the rear was not stable, and the morale was not high. It will inevitably cause the front to be stretched and the whole army will be defeated.On the basis of a clear analysis of these facts, Zhang Bin directly pointed out the problems of the three viewpoints, gave Shi Le's next step (or even the entire subsequent action), and basically laid the foundation for the future. The overall situation in China for more than ten years.Zhang Bin is a Han, and his plan actually enabled the preservation of the Han regime, and the withdrawal of troops would be beneficial to both sides.The south gained stability, while the north, despite the continuation of the war, turned to the direction of stability due to the determination of the center of gravity of the Shile army.

Shi Le led his troops back from Gebei to the north, and all the places they passed were fortified and cleared, and there was no spoils to snatch.Soldiers suffered from hunger and sickness, and there was an incident of "soldiers eating each other". When they reached the Yellow River, they met Jin general Xiang Bing.Shi Le was about to cross the river, worried that Xiang Bing would attack halfway, so he adopted Zhang Bin's strategy and used light cavalry to attack Xiang Bing by taking a trail. At this time, Liu Yan, a Jin general near Yecheng, was guarding the three platforms (that is, the Jinfeng Terrace, Tongque Terrace, and Bingjing Terrace built by Cao Cao in the past, all of which are strategically important places, located in the southwest of Linzhang County, Hebei today). There will be proposals to attack three units.

Zhang Bin said disapprovingly: "Although Liu Yan is weak, he still has thousands of soldiers. Sandai is easy to defend and difficult to attack. It is not easy to take a hard attack. It is better to abandon it. After a long time, their soldiers will be defeated." If the supply cannot keep up, it will naturally collapse. What's more, our army has been marching for a long time, and our fighting spirit is not high. The two powerful enemies, Wang Jun and Liu Kun, have been ignoring us all the time. Now is definitely not a good time to fight. I don't think it is better Choose a cheap place as the capital, and gather food and grass widely, so that you can become a king. Handan and Xiangguo (now Xingtai, Hebei) are the old capitals of Zhao State. Choose one."

Upon hearing this, Shi Le praised: "Youhou's plan is really reasonable!" So he ordered to slow down the plan for Yecheng, and transport the grain and grass to Xiangguo to accumulate strength.In order to appease Shi Le, Liu Cong also had to add Shi Le as Jizhou Mu and Shangdang Gong, and he had mastered the military affairs of the four prefectures of Ji, You, Bing, and Ying. Sure enough, Wang Jun, the governor of Youzhou, arrived in Xiangguo on Shi Le, but his foothold was not stable, so he sent the governor Wang Chang, Duan Jiuliu and his brothers Duan Moteng and Duan Pidun to attack.Shile's city wall has not yet been repaired, and the defense has not yet been put in place, so we had to temporarily set up fences and obstacles to resist the invading enemy.However, the Xianbei cavalry had a strong impact, and Shi Le's army was no match for several battles. At this time, the Xianbei people stepped up to build siege equipment.

The situation was tight, Shi Le convened a discussion with all the generals, and proposed: "Now the enemy is outnumbered, the besieging army is constantly attacking, and we can't get favorable foreign aid for a while. If we sit and wait for death, even Sun Wu Wu Qi will be difficult to save the defeat. My In my opinion, it is better to go out of the city with elite soldiers and fight to the death with the opponent in order to survive, what do you think?" Most of the generals were a little afraid of the battle, and only said: "Our army can't hold on, the enemy retreats when exhausted, and then pursue it again, and we are not afraid of not winning."

Shi Le was slightly disappointed, and asked Zhang Bin's opinion again.Zhang Bin replied: "The Duan family's army has come from afar. They have been fighting our army for days and have won consecutive battles. It must be believed that our army is weak and weak. They dare not fight. They must have slacked off. According to my observations these days The Xianbei cavalry are strong and brave, especially Duan Moting. Almost all the elite soldiers are under Duan Moting's subordinates. We can not fight for a while and continue to show weakness. Then we quickly dug more than 20 secret doors in the Beicheng area where we can ambush, waiting for the enemy When the army lined up without a fixed time, they rushed straight to Duan Mo's camp by surprise, and the enemy was bound to be terrified and had no time to resist. gone."

After Shi Le heard Zhang Bin's ingenious plan, he was very happy in his heart. He ordered General Kong Chang to follow the plan and build a secret door to prepare for the battle.Sure enough, the Xianbei cavalry came to set up camp near the northern city. Shi Le took advantage of the opportunity to set up the formation, personally climbed to the top of the city, and beat the drums to give orders. , Thirty miles away, thousands of armored horses were lost. The defeated troops of Duan Jiu's six relatives retreated to Zhuyang (northeast of Xingtai City today), and he had a little respite. He sent envoys to send gold and silver horses, and took his third brother as a hostage to ask Shi Le for peace.Shi Le wanted to make friends with Xianbei, the Duan family, and ignored the generals' request to kill Duan Moting to defeat Xianbei's bravery. Dependents, and become brothers with them.For a period of time since then, Shi Le and Duan have lived in peace with each other, and Wang Jun can no longer call the Xianbei coalition forces that he once made very easy.

In the second year, Shi Le finally defeated Liu Yan's army, captured Yecheng, accepted a large number of refugees from Sandai, and let Shihu guard Yecheng.In this way, Shile formed his own base with Xiangguo as the center.The next target of his attack is the remnant forces of the Jin Dynasty in the Kanto-Wang Jun of Youzhou and Liu Kun of Bingzhou. In this year (AD 313), Liu Cong finally killed Emperor Huai of Jin together with a group of ministers after torturing him in every possible way.Sima Ye in Chang'an hastily ascended the throne, this is Emperor Jin Min.The death knell of the Western Jin Dynasty seems to be ringing.