Anhui Capital is Hefei
Huijing, on the other hand, is Nanjing
There are nearly 300 prefecture-level cities in China today, and they all have some differences in terms of cultural traditions, customs and geographical environment, but they also have one thing in common, that is, they will have some disagreement with the provincial capital.
For example, Hefei's "badu" name, somewhat unworthy of the name, Hefei as the provincial capital on the historical stage, in fact, after the founding of new China, and before that, Anhui Jiangsu is even a family (Jiangnan Province), even after the division of Jiangnan, Anhui's administrative center is also in Anqing, Bengbu and other places around, secondly as the provincial capital of Anhui, Hefei in the late Qing Dynasty since the opening of the port, indeed rarely heard of the outbreak of any major battles or historical events, Especially in the case of the surrounding provincial capitals (Nanjing, where all sides are competing, Wuhan, which is catching up with Shanghai and Tianjin, and even the provincial capital of Akalin Province has fired the first shot of the revolution), it is even more infamous.
However, in the history of ancient China, Hefei, located on the north shore of Chao Lake, was not as obscure as it is now.
For example, from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, the Cao Wei and Sun Wu regimes fought five battles for control of Hefei. After all, for Sun Wu's regime, whether it can successfully take Hefei has become a major matter of life and death.
People who are familiar with Chinese history must know that shoujiang must keep Huaihuai, the reason for saying this is mainly because the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River plain, affected by the terrain, are divided into three pieces, namely around Taihu Lake, around Poyang Lake and Jianghan Plain, before the development of science and technology is enough to break the physical barrier brought about by the mountains, in order to connect the above three regions together, the Jiangdong regime relies on only the Yangtze River (although there are many water systems in the south, it may meet the strategic needs of the state, just a few, And even fewer without dry periods).
Huai River Front
Please eat horizontally▼
When the Jiangdong regime has Nanyang and Huainan, the Yangtze River can be used as a military dispatch and logistics line to concentrate resources, using favorable terrain and defensive system to hold on to change, on the contrary, once the northern military strength reaches the Yangtze River line, then the three core areas of the Jiangdong regime will be cut off at any time, so that the generals stationed in the south have to fight for each other, even if it is difficult to conquer, they can also use the advantage of poor communication to provoke disputes and even rebels, even if they cannot get land. It could also weaken the overall power of the South (india does just that).
In fact, the Seemingly Dangerous Yangtze River is actually full of loopholes, so most of the heroes who intend to take the north and south of Pingnan do not think much of the role of the Yangtze River Graben, just as Xun Yu in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" made a plan for Cao Chengxiang: "First destroy Yuan Shao, then destroy Liu Bei, and Jiang Han can be swept away and flattened"!
All the metropolises of the Jiangnan regime are basically on the river or within easy reach of the Yangtze River and have no natural dangers to defend, the former such as Nanjing, the latter such as Hangzhou. Once the long line is broken by the Northern Army, the Jiangnan regime will lack a buffer, and the center of the regime will soon collapse under the army - from the Southern Tang to the Southern Song Dynasty to the Southern Ming.
Since ancient times, whenever the northern regime wants to expand southward, in the general direction there are nothing more than three roads, the western line starts from Guanzhong and Longyou, passes through the Daba Mountains and the Bashu Mountains to the south, the central line crosses the Nanyang Basin and the Hanshui, and reaches Jingxiang to cut off the southern regime, while the eastern line starts from northern Anhui and Xuzhou to the south of Hefei, and occupies the southern Anhui across the river to complete the reunification.
Of the above three routes, the western front was too far away and could only be used as an auxiliary route or a secondary choice of last resort (the Mongols attacked the Southern Song Dynasty), while the central line plan was adopted, not to mention that the Jing (Xiang) Xiang (Fan) defense line was very strong, and in the absence of significant progress on the eastern and western fronts by the northern regime, Jingxiang was very easy to obtain support from Bashu and Jiangdong. As for why the eastern front is Hefei and not other regions, the reason is actually very simple, because half of Jiangsu was soaked in the sea at that time.
Assemble in the middle of the road for group battles
Strive to capture Xuchang
In addition, the Eastern Wu regime attacked Hefei, but also can use the many water systems in the south to enhance the combat strength of Eastern Wu to the extreme, on the surface, Eastern Wu is the side that occupies the geographical advantage, but in fact, Cao Wei has a greater geographical advantage in the hefei offensive and defensive war.
Before Eastern Wu captured Jingzhou from Shu Han, if it attacked north, there were two strategic directions to choose: crossing the river in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to compete with Cao Wei for the Northern Jiangsu Plain, thus threatening Shandong (Qingzhou); crossing the river at the junction of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, controlling the Huaixi region, and thus competing for the Central Plains. When Baiyi crossed the river to Eastern Wu and obtained Jingzhou, he could start from Jingzhou and follow the Han River, and then try to force Cao Wei to move the capital in the Central Plains (on the contrary, Cao Wei could only go south).
As for why there is no other choice, it is mainly due to the barrier between the mountains between Hubei and Anhui. However, there are some problems with all three routes. As for The Eastern Wu in the early days of the choice of the eastern line, the main reason is that compared with the other two, crossing the Yangtze River to take Hefei is the best choice, even if Qi itself has many problems, such as the Ancient Hangou waterway is often silted, Cao Pi along the Ancient Hangou waterway to the south, it was stranded in this waterway and eventually defeated. As for the other two, in addition to being far away from the core area of Eastern Wu, it also has a lot to do with the fact that Eastern Wu is not good at land warfare.
Then, the most beneficial to Eastern Wu is the Eastern Front, as long as the large roadblock of Hefei is successfully unplugged. Moreover, whether or not hefei can be successfully taken is of great significance to the survival of the country for the Eastern Wu regime.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Eastern Wu seemed to have a huge land area (Yangzhou Jiajing Prefecture and Jiajiao Prefecture), but there were very few places of real value. Due to the existence of a large number of mountainous areas along the Yangtze River, the truly valuable essence of the Wu Kingdom was basically distributed along the Yangtze River, like a ribbon running through the wu state territory, and the dense mountainous areas further restricted the development and development of the Wu state, in addition to the dangerous terrain, which increased the difficulty of the Wu state to conquer the barbarian tribes, causing the Wu state to have to send a large number of troops to be stationed in various parts of the south.
In fact, if we spread out the map of the Three Kingdoms period, we can easily find that the reason why the State of Wu was so keen to capture Hefei was entirely to avoid the territory being penetrated by Cao Wei, after all, relying on the Yangtze River along the barely supported Eastern Wu, the most feared thing is that the first (Jiangdong) tail (Jingzhou) can not take care of each other, and this most deadly place is the Hefei area.
According to the Notes on the Water Classic, Hefei was named after shishui (present-day Nanmihe) and Feishui (present-day Dongshui River), which met during the summer when the river swelled. The existence of these two rivers gave Cao Wei a reason to occupy them.
Eastern Wu Water Division
By water, it goes straight to Xuchang▼
During the Three Kingdoms period, the most famous river in Anhui was the Shuishu River, and the Shuishu Water was one of the rivers connecting ChaoHu Lake and the Yangtze River, and the northwest of ChaoHu Lake was the Nanmi River, if it went further northwest, it could even be realized by boat from the Yangtze River and directly into the Central Plains Woye (and even directly by boat soldiers to Xuchang City), and vice versa, the Cao Wei army could also take a boat straight down to Jiangdong.
However, compared with the Nanmi River, the Dongmi River is more deadly to Eastern Wu. Don't look at the current flow of the Dongmi River is already very small, but in the Three Kingdoms period 1,800 years ago, the channel of the Dongmi River was so deep that it could even pass large and medium-sized building ships and warships.
At that time, if the State of Wei wanted to go south to attack Wu, the army could have assembled in Xuchang by boat into the Huai River, along the Dongmi River could reach Hefei, and after rest, it would take the Nanmi River along the west bank of Chao Lake to enter the Shuishui River, and if the war went well, it could directly land on Quarry Rock and threaten the capital of the State of Wu, Jianye.
In the period when the diversion of the Yellow River had not yet harmed the Huai River Valley, once the southern separatist forces occupied Hefei and used the advantages of the water army to enter the Huai River, they could reach all parts of the Central Plains along the five large tributaries of Ying, Cai, Vortex, Bian and Si. In this way, as long as Sun Wu can maintain this situation and successfully persist until the inevitable large-scale turmoil of Cao Wei occurs, Sun Wu's regime will make a greater voice in the Central Plains, not just as a local government in the southeast of An' an.
From a strategic point of view, Hefei obviously had to be controlled by The Long-Suppressed Eastern Wu. From this point of view, it is completely understandable that Later Wu Guo tried to take Hefei five times, until Sun Quan was basically dead-hearted, and only then did he come to Jingzhou, but even so, Zhuge Ke still tried to take Hefei.
Eastern Wu Eastern Front Attack▼
Since Wu Guo had a reason to take Hefei, and since Wu Guo's water division was stronger than that of Wei Guo, why could Wu Guo still not attack Hefei?
The Huai River valley north of Hefei was the core area under Cao Wei's control, and as long as Hefei was not quickly captured by Eastern Wu, then Hefei could receive a steady stream of support from Cao Wei's rear through dense waterways.
The southwest side of Hefei is the protrusion of the Dabie Mountains, coupled with the dense Jianghuai hills in the east of Hefei, so that the north, east, west and southwest sides of Hefei have a certain barrier, so that Hefei can only try to attack Hefei from the south.
In this situation, the State of Wu could only attack Hefei from one direction, and as long as the north of Hefei still belonged to the same regime, then Hefei only needed to ensure that there was no problem in the south. At the same time, the situation on the water was similar, no matter where the Eastern Wu army attacked, the final landing point could only be in the south of Hefei.
Such a simple defensive direction gave Hefei the advantage of laying out a perimeter defense line outside the city--as long as all the resources were poured into the south to consume the enemy.
Eastern Wu went north.▼
In the process of the first two attacks on Hefei, Sun Quan also suffered the loss of attacking less, especially the second time, the reason why Wei Zhen Xiaoyaojin would happen was because Zhang Liao was sure that he did not have to worry about retreating, and he dared to give it a go.
Sun Quan, who had suffered the first two blows, was completely defeated, and he was so afraid that he hid in ChaoHu Lake and did not dare to go ashore (ready to retreat at any time), so that the third and fourth invasions of Hefei by Eastern Wu naturally failed. Eastern Wu was also forced to do so, and could only retreat to the second place to deploy defenses at the mouth of the beard.
As for Zhuge Ke's last Northern Expedition to Hefei, it was completely forced by Zhuge Ke to satisfy his ambitions. Of course, the reason why Cao Wei was able to hold the important town of Hefei for a long time was also inseparable from Deng Ai, after Deng Ai's governance, the originally barren middle reaches of the Huai River completed a gorgeous upgrade, and with the increasing abundance of products in the area occupied by Cao Wei, Eastern Wu finally lost the soil of existence.
As long as the State of Wei defended Wu at several key points
Internal revision of political management and development of production
Wu Guo was absolutely unaffordable, for Sun Quan
Taking Hefei is just a dream until death
As for why Hefei will eventually decline, it also has a very big relationship with the development of the times and the transfer of passages across the country, with the advent of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the era of shipping and the rapid development of the railway, Hefei has gradually lost its status as the hub of the north and south of east China in the past, and finally forced today's Hefei to rely only on the Yangtze River Economic Belt to develop.