Author: Our special guest author Nine Fish Pavilion
When mentioning the famous generals of the Western Han Dynasty, the first thing that comes to mind is Wei Qing and Huo Zhiyi, who led the strongest Han Wu era, and there is also one person who can also be called the Western Han Dynasty General, he is Li Guang's grandson, Li Ling.
Li Ling's martial arts and feats were not even lost to Li Guang, but he still could not escape the applause of fate in the end, Li Ling's ending was just as unfortunate, if Li Ling died on the battlefield at that time, could he also become a hero who shook the ancient world and the present?
First, please order to fight
Li Ling was Li Guang's grandson, and he was also considered to be the queen of the gate. At a young age, he served in the army and served as the jianzhang supervisor of the shizhong, because Li Ling was good at riding and shooting, and he was also good to soldiers, and he also had a certain prestige in the army. From the perspective of personality and style, Li Ling and Grandpa Li Guang are still very similar, they are both masters of archery, they can sympathize with their subordinates and treat the soldiers well.
Emperor Wu of Han considered Li Ling to be a talent, so he promoted him to the rank of knight lieutenant and defended against the Xiongnu in Zhangye and other places. In the second year of the Tianhan Dynasty (99 BC), Li Guangli was ordered to march north against the Xiongnu, Li Guangli was a foreign relative, and Emperor Wu of Han took special care of him, and Emperor Wudi of Han wanted Li Ling to be responsible for logistics.
Some people are born to charge the material, some people are suitable for logistics, Li Ling is obviously a forward, you let him play defender, Li Ling of course is not happy. Li Ling buckled his head to play Emperor Wu of Han: "The generals of the tunbian of the subjects are all Jingchu warriors and swordsmen of strange materials, who are strong enough to strangle the tiger and shoot the hits, and are willing to be a team of their own, and go to the south of Langan Mountain to divide the single soldiers, and do not order the special township to divide the army." ”
Emperor Wudi of Han said playfully, "Then I don't have any horses for you!" "At that time, the Han army may have been very nervous about horses, because of the perennial conquest, the horses were still consumables, naturally there would not be too many, but it was enough to divide thousands of horses." Li Lingyi was excited and boasted about Haikou: "The subject does not need horses, Your Majesty only needs to give me five thousand infantry to directly attack the court of the Xiongnu king!" ”
Wei Qing, Huo Fuyi, and Li Guangzhi were able to stand proudly, that is because of the strong cavalry troops, this had no horses, just like a tiger had few wings and could not fly at all, and on the desert, with only two legs, how could it run to win the Xiongnu war horses?
Although Li Ling boasted about Haikou, he knew in his heart, if he did not have a certain degree of certainty, he did not dare to say nonsense to the emperor, which could be described as the boldness of the artist.
Second, fight to the death
The reason why Li Guang dared to rush to kill was because of his superb shooting skills, and Li Guang's advantage was that if the situation was unfavorable, he could withdraw and leave, which was the name of General Fei. It is difficult to win more with less, and it is even more difficult to ride with steps.
Li Ling led 5,000 elite infantry from Juyan and marched north for thirty days to camp at Junji Mountain. Soon Li Ling encountered the main force of the Xiongnu, it was 30,000 cavalry under Shan Yu,000, and he wanted to come to Li Ling, who had carefully studied the map, and he was looking for the main force of the Xiongnu, and the Xiongnu were embarrassed in the first battle.
The Han army set up a camp with a large cart and formed a formation outside the camp, with the soldiers in the front with shields and battle axes, and the crossbows in the rear to meet the enemy. Even if the Han army is elite, but after all, it is infantry, the Huns are light enemies, they are eager to swallow this piece of fat, and take the lead in attacking.
At Li Ling's order, thousands of crossbow arrows flew towards the enemy camp, instantly causing heavy losses to the Xiongnu cavalry. War drums sounded in the sky, and the Han army pounced on the enemy without a life, and these thousands of infantry drove the Xiongnu cavalry back and killed thousands of enemy troops.
This first battle made a good start, and it can also be seen from this that the han army's combat strength at that time was strong, of course, which was also inseparable from Li Ling's training and training.
The Xiongnu finally understood what kind of fat this was, a hot soldering iron. The Huns, who had lost the first battle, regrouped again, and this time they gathered a total of 80,000 cavalry of the Left And Right Kings, and they rushed to kill them with great momentum.
The difference in the numbers of the two armies was too great, so Li Ling had to retreat and fight, looking for fighters, and a few days later, the Han army was trapped in a valley. It is conceivable that after several days of bitter fighting, the Han generals won more with less, which was a great test of physical strength and willpower, and morale was gradually declining.
Li Ling planned well, three wounded people took a car, two wounded people drove, and one wounded person continued to fight. In order to improve morale, Li Ling simply killed the women accompanying the army, who may have been innocent, but had to die at that time. At the time of the dispatch, many daughters and wives of border bandits fled to the army, and in order to save their lives and marry these soldiers, most of them were hidden in cars.
Killing the woman also cut off the soldier's thoughts. The next day, the battle was fought again, and sure enough, the morale was greatly boosted, and the Han army once again killed more than three thousand Xiongnu soldiers, and at this point, the number of enemies killed by the Han army had exceeded their total number, which could be described as extremely strong.
In fact, the Xiongnu Shan Yu was also very depressed, his enemies were so small, they were still infantry, but they could not take it down, and they lost thousands of soldiers in many days. So Shan Yu sent his son and led an army to attack the Han army. At this time, the Han army had withdrawn into the jungle, and the Xiongnu cavalry was not able to play an advantage, while the crossbow arrows of the Han army were very powerful.
Historical records record that "go south to the bottom of the mountain, alone on the south mountain, so that his son will ride the tomb." The Ling army fought among the trees, killing thousands of people, because of the crossbow shooting single Yu, single Yu walked down. ”
Under the threat of the bow and crossbow, the Han army once again killed thousands of Xiongnu cavalry, and to a large extent, Li Ling was able to win more with less, mainly because of its strong bow and crossbow. At that time, Li Ling's men should carry at least two kinds of crossbows, a yellow-shouldered crossbow, which Li Guang had used before, and it must be a strong arm to pull it open, the bow was strong, and the killing of the enemy was very heavy.
The other is the repeater, which can be fired continuously, which can be said to be the machine gun of the time, so the Hun cavalry suffered such a serious loss.
Third, forced to surrender
At this point, the Han army had killed nearly 10,000 enemies, and the Xiongnu Shan Yu was also close to the limit. If the strength is equal, such casualties are still reasonable, but the Han army is only five thousand people, which in any case makes Shan Yu unable to hang on to his face, so the Xiongnu began to consider withdrawing their troops.
If the Xiongnu withdraw their troops, then this battle will forever go down in history, and Li Ling will become a hero of a generation, but the Han army has produced a traitor and disrupted the whole plan. The reason why the Xiongnu wanted to withdraw was on the one hand because of the large number of casualties, and on the other hand, they were afraid of being led into the encirclement, after all, they did not know that there were no other troops in Li Ling's rear.
The traitor, named Guan Gan, defected to the Xiongnu because he was bullied by the general, and explained the truth to Shan Yu: "Li Ling's troops have no backup, and now that their arrows have been used up, if they continue to attack, they can break the enemy." This move really hurt Li Ling.
Fewer people to more people, this is a hard wound, even if the soldiers are strong, it can not withstand wave after wave of attacks, Li Ling brought hundreds of thousands of arrows this time, but basically used up, so that only a short army can be connected, it is bound to lose, and the Han army only has more than three thousand people left. So Li Ling ordered a breakout of the siege, and under the onslaught of the Xiongnu cavalry, only more than 400 people escaped, and Li Ling was forced to surrender.
Not afraid of no good, afraid of no good people, Li Ling's surrender gave the Han court civil officials a pretext, that is, the reason for impeaching Li Ling, And Emperor Wu of Han was very angry when he learned of Li Ling's surrender, and immediately ordered the killing of Li Ling's entire family.
We have reason to believe that Li Ling's forced surrender was only a temporary measure, he killed so many Xiongnu, how could he easily surrender, moreover, he was behind the gate, and he also knew the character of his grandfather Li Guang, so Li Ling could only surrender at that time. Emperor Wu of Han did not understand the situation, so he killed Li Ling's entire family, which made Li Ling feel cold, so the false surrender became a real surrender.
No matter what, Li Ling is still worthy of a generation of fierce generals, with 5,000 infantry, fighting and killing nearly 100,000 Xiongnu cavalry, killing more than 10,000 people, this unprecedented record will also be recorded in the annals of history and respected by future generations.
Reference: Book of Han, Vol. 54
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