Battle of Wu Meng

When Jiangdong basically unified the south, the Shiqi League in the north made a comeback and occupied the Huaishui area. But at this time, Mongolian nomads developed on the Mongolian Plateau. This strong force soon defeated Xia Liang and Shi Qimeng, the two northern alliances, and after that, they expanded their territory westward, and defeated the main forces of the Huns and the Roman Empire in one fell swoop, with a territory of 8 million square kilometers.

In May 204, after the Mongolian army defeated the Japanese expeditionary army again, they began to launch a large-scale offensive against the Huaishui area of ​​the Yellow River, aiming directly at Wuhan.

At this time, Zhu Queqing was attacking Dayue Kingdom in Southeast Asia. Hearing that after the Huaishui crisis, he hurriedly implemented a strategic defense against the Great Yue Kingdom, and he led his army north to defend Huaishui.

At this time, due to the change of hands of the Great Wall, the Mongolian cavalry easily captured Shuozhou, Shijiazhuang, and Dezhou, and further sent troops to attack Xingtai, Liaocheng, Xinzhou, and the soldiers pointed directly at Taiyuan, Handan, and Licheng.

In July, Liaocheng and Xingtai changed hands, and Handan was in critical condition. Zhu Queqing had also arrived at the front line of the battlefield at this time. After analyzing the comparison of forces, they immediately ordered some troops to cross the Yellow River in the north to support Handan, while another part of the troops crossed the Yellow River in the west and went to Binzhou for support. He himself led 30,000 people to Taiyuan.

Although Zhu Queqing came in a hurry and hurriedly put out the fire, the Mongolian army still repeatedly defeated the Jiangdong defenders with the advantage of fast movement. On September 3, Yangquan fell. On September 15, although Zhu Queqing sent troops to Changzhi, the Mongolian cavalry still arrived one step ahead of schedule, so Changzhi fell on the 16th.

At this time, the northern troops were initially divided, and Wu Qigui, the general responsible for defending the Handan area, saw that the Mongolian army had occupied Changzhi and cut off contact with Zhu Queqing. , and recovered with the 28th.. Licheng general Bu Li also defeated Dezhou in Leling City, part of the main force of the Mongolian army in Liaocheng area, and took advantage of the situation to regain Liaocheng.

On October 21, due to the internal rebellion in Mongolia, he had to turn the offensive against Jiangdong, but Zhu Queqing did not dare to attack the weak Mongolian army at this time. But at this time Wu Qigui had already seen the weakness of the Mongolian army, so he immediately led his troops north to recover Yangquan and Xingtai. Bu Li also took advantage of the situation to regain Dezhou, and reconciled with Wu Qigui in Hengshui, ready to continue northward to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, and the situation was very good.

But at this time, a large-scale rebellion occurred in Chuanshu, and Zhu Queqing had to take back most of the troops of the two generals to go to Chuanshu to quell the rebellion. In order to temporarily form a strong line of defense, the two generals gathered all the mobilizable forces, including the militia, to attack Cangzhou and Shijiazhuang in two routes with a total of 140,000 troops.

On November 21, the Mongolian army in the two cities ran out of ammunition and food and had to surrender. At this point, the situation between Mongolia and Jiangdong temporarily returned to pre-war.

On December 21, Zhu Queqing was at a standoff with Chuanshu and had to admit the independence of Chuanshu. At this time, Sun Qi persuaded: "King Zhu has occupied so much land, which is really exciting, but the alliance is not enough to rule such a large area."

"What advice does Aiqing have?"

"I think that the king should go to the alliance for the country, establish the capital and build the industry, and establish the country's name as Wu, so as to stabilize the hearts of the people."

So on January 12, 205, Zhu Queqing proclaimed the emperor in Jianye (now Nanjing), established the country as Wu, and entrusted today's Guangdong, most of Guangxi, Fujian and Hainan Island to Jiangzuo League for management.

However, because Zhu Queqing wasted a lot of time when he declared himself emperor, the Mongolian army took the opportunity to rectify its military affairs and once again gathered 270,000 troops for the southern expedition.

At this time, Zhu Queqing was still sober. After proclaiming himself emperor, he immediately led his army to cross the Yellow River to the north, designated Handan as the city of warlords, and went to the front line to boost morale.

On February 2, the number of the Mongolian army increased to 400,000, and the Wu army was only 280,000. The Mongolian army once again used the speedy cavalry strategy, hoping to destroy the depth of the Wu army with the rapid impact of the 40,000 light cavalry army. But Zhu Queqing immediately sent a gun battalion to fight against the elite cavalry of the Mongolian army.

On the 19th, the Mongolian cavalry was ambushed by the Licheng gun battalion in the Xinji area, killing nearly 30,000 people. Although the ambush had dealt a heavy blow to the cavalry, but because the Licheng gun battalion was the first battle, its own experience was not enough, and it also lost nearly 20,000 people.

On the 25th, due to Qin Hai's betrayal, Hengshui fell, followed by Xinji on the 29th, Julu fell. Seeing that the defenders of Shijiazhuang were in a double-team situation, they had no time to retreat. The Mongolian army occupied Gaoyi and Lincheng, cutting off the route of the defenders of Shijiazhuang to retreat south. At the same time, in addition to retreating to Taiyuan, the Shijiazhuang Army also became a lonely army in the Central Plains.

On the 28th, the Mongolian general Qi Daorong personally led his troops to attack Zanhuang. Seeing Emperor Zan being attacked, Wu Qigui realized that if Emperor Zan was attacked, he really had no way to retreat, so he left 5,000 elite soldiers who were not afraid of death to guard Shijiazhuang, and immediately retreated the remaining 60,000 living forces quickly. To Zanhuang.

On March 5, Wu Qigui and the Zanhuang defenders defeated Qi Daorong and made contact with Wu Jun in Taiyuan. At this time, Wu Qigui found that the Mongolian army was very sparse in both defense and attack on Taiyuan, so Wu Qigui faked Zhu Queqing's order and took over the position of the general of Taiyuan, and secretly transferred most of the living force, a total of 80,000 people to Yuanping, to prepare Northern Expedition.

At this time, Zhu Queqing was very angry when he heard that Wu Qigui gave up Shijiazhuang, but he did not have time to remove Wu Qigui's post, because the 200,000-strong Mongolian army was still pressed in the Hebei area, and Zhu Queqing could not breathe. In this case, Wu Jun loses more and wins less. After seeing the current situation, Bu Ce realized that the northern part of the Central Plains is a thousand miles of plains, and the main force of Mongolia is the cavalry, which is fast and the infantry is restrained by it, but the main force of the Wu army is the infantry. After thinking for a while, Bu Ce ordered the army to withdraw to the former Qi Great Wall for repairs to resist the Mongolian cavalry. He also dispatched some troops to cross the Yellow River east of the people from Dezhou and Liaocheng to the east of Licheng, relying on the Yellow River to defend against the cavalry of the Mongolian army.

Soon Bu Ce's draft decision passed to Zhu Queqing in Handan. Zhu Queqing was very angry at first, calling Bu Ce a coward. But after calming down and thinking about it carefully, he felt that Bu Ce's behavior was the most appropriate, so he had to let him do it.

On March 23, Wu Jun was defeated all the way, and Xingtai fell. The ministers all persuaded Zhu Queqing to evacuate from Handan, but Zhu Queqing refused: "Since Gu has made Handan the war capital, he has no intention of retreating. Unless Handan is completely occupied, Gu will not withdraw."

Zhu Queqing turned around, looked at the map, and said to Sun Qi, "The soldiers from Hebei (north of the Yellow River) who can be mobilized are all coming to Handan to gather, and they want to fight the grass people to the death."

As a result, as soldiers from various cities began to move to Handan, the three-month defense battle of Handan kicked off. The Mongolian army probably won't realize that a nightmare will follow...

Zhu Queqing changed his strategy of defending and began to use ambush tactics to gradually weaken the Mongolian army. And after discovering that the Mongolian army was poor in logistical supplies, they began to send troops to intercept food. This combat method greatly limited the speed of the Mongolian army's attack, and also cooperated with Bu Ce's defensive battle on the Great Wall of Qi, allowing the people in Liaocheng and Dezhou to withdraw to the east of Qilu.

However, due to the Wanli Pingchuan in the Central Plains, although the strength of the Mongolian army was weakened, it continued to attack the Handan-Dezhou area by virtue of its superb mobility.

On April 1, the Mongolian army gathered 190,000 troops in order to defeat Handan, the location of the Wu army's commanding army in one fell swoop. The attack is shown in the figure.

Due to Shijiazhuang's lessons, Zhu Queqing let Kaifeng, Zhengzhou and other vital forces be transferred to Anyang, and Puyang was stationed to prevent the Mongolian army from roundabout and outflanking, and cut off the retreat from Handan to Henan.

On April 7, 70,000 Mongolian troops attacked the Great Wall of Qi where Bu Ce was stationed in three repressive routes, while the remaining 120,000 troops gathered to attack Handan. To attack Handan, we must attack Shahe City. Shahe City is the gateway to Handan City, and its geographical location is extremely important. After Zhu Queqing learned about it, despite Sun Qi's dissuasion, he changed his guerrilla strategy and gathered 90,000 troops in Shahe, intending to fight against him.

When the Mongolian scouts saw that the Wu army was defending in an orderly manner, they hurriedly told Qi Daorong. After Qi Daorong heard this, he planned to go around and outflank, leaving Handan alone and helpless.

At the beginning, the Mongolian army attacked very smoothly, and took Guanxian County with lightning speed, followed by Wei County and Nanle County on April 23.

Kehanda, the Mongolian general, saw that Handan was half-encircled and heard rumors that Zhu Queqing was about to withdraw to Henan, so he immediately ordered a rapid attack on Hebi in an attempt to complete the encirclement of Zhu Queqing. But Kohanda did not expect that one of his feet was about to step into hell.

During the attack on Hebi, Wu's Hebi changed hands several times, but they were all attacked by Henan reinforcements. Seeing that the Henan army was so brave, the Mongolian army had to carry out long-range siege vehicle bombardment. However, most of the siege vehicles were destroyed in one fell swoop after the night attack by the Henan Army, and they lost their combat effectiveness. The Hebi battlefield was once in a stalemate, and there was no major battle between Wu and Meng. The Mongolian army only left a small part to confuse the Henan army, and the remaining 80,000 were ready to withdraw from Nanle County to Guan County.

However, the Henan Army soon found signs of the Mongolian army's retreat, and immediately asked Suqi to tell the Puyang defenders, intending to annihilate the main Mongolian army in one fell swoop.

On June 12, the Henan Army and Anyang reinforcements immediately chased the main Mongolian army after defeating the Mongolian army standing in front of Hebi City.

On June 18, after the Mongolian army arrived in Nanle, they found that it had been reoccupied by the Wu army. In order to be able to retreat to the north, he ordered his men to attack Nanle at all costs. The city's equipment was completely lost. On July 8, the Henan Army and the Puyang defenders attacked the Mongolian army's camp at the foot of the mountain at night.

On June 20, the Mongolian army surrendered and captured tens of thousands of people. In this battle, the Wu army annihilated 120,000 elite Mongolian troops at the cost of more than 140,000 casualties. After this battle, the situation in the Central Plains was instantly clear to Wu, but the Mongolian army began to switch from offensive to defensive regionally.

After 120,000 people in Kehanda were annihilated, Qi Daorong, who was entangled with Zhu Queqing in Shahe, had to lead more than 100,000 people to organize a line of defense in Xingtai in order not to be surrounded.

On July 4, Wu Qigui saw that the main force of the Mongolian army had been wiped out in the Central Plains, and the morale of the Wu army was strong, so he led the Yuanping 80,000 Wu army to carry out the northern expedition, which was approaching Shuozhou.

On July 18, Wu Jun occupied Shuozhou. After that, the troops were divided into two routes, with 30,000 people heading north to Hohhot and 50,000 people heading to Datong on the other way. (The situation is as follows)

Seeing that his hometown was about to be taken out, Qi Daorong quickly withdrew. At this time, Bu Ce, Zhu Queqing and other troops all took advantage of the situation to launch a counter-offensive. The Mongolian army was defeated like a mountain, a thousand miles away, Shijiazhuang, Cangzhou, and Baoding were victorious one after another.

On September 21, Zhu Queqing captured Zhuo County and pressed Beijing. Bu Ce's troops approached Tianjin. Wu Qigui captured Hequ, Hohhot and Ulanchabu, cutting off Mongolia's connection with the Mongolian army in the Western Regions. Although the Mongolian army launched an offensive in the Wutai area and even approached Taiyuan, it was still annihilated by the Wu army and Yangquan.

At this time, Mongolia had to ask for help from Goguryeo, and at the same time mobilized the Mongolian army in the northeast to come to support and prepare to resist the offensive of the Wu army.

However, in order to speed up the battle, Wu Jun continued the Northern Expedition after only 3 days of rest. But by the time Wu's army arrived under the city of Beijing, reinforcements from the northeast had already arrived. In order to speed up the battle, Zhu Queqing directly placed more than 900 catapults in front of the city and bombarded Beijing city at night. In an instant, the fire in Beijing was soaring into the sky, the smoke billowing, and the towering city walls were shattered one by one. Seeing that the time had come, Zhu Queqing took advantage of the situation and ordered a siege.

Qi Daorong ordered the Mongolian army in the north of the city to come to defend the city, but the Mongolian army in the north of the city was stunned when they saw this battle, and they themselves disagreed with Qi Daorong, so they fled to Tianjin in the dark.

In this way, Beijing was occupied by Wu troops under the attack of 130,000 Wu troops. At this time, the Mongolian army in the northeast has also reached Tangshan. What kind of battle will break out between them?

(To be continued)