In the first year of Jianwen (1399), after Zhu Di raised an army to conquer Jing, he first captured Peiping, and then eliminated the capital Governor Song Zhong's forces in Huailai, increasing his strength.
The news of Song Zhong's downfall reached Jingshi, and Zhu Yunjiao, who was still immersed in the ancient text, finally reacted, and he sent Geng Bingwen.
Geng Bingwen was not so prominent among the famous generals of the early Ming Dynasty, but he was by no means a simple person.
Geng Bingwen, a native of Haozhou, this place of origin meant glory in the early Ming Dynasty. Yes, Geng Bingwen's father, Geng Junyong, was one of zhu Yuanzhang's twenty-four generals in Huaixi. Geng Jun was killed in Yixing in the Battle of Western Zhejiang between Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhang Shicheng, and his troops were led by his son Geng Bingwen. Zhu Yuanzhang arranged for him to guard Changxing and continue to defend Zhang Shicheng.
Under Zhu Yuanzhang, there were generals who were good at attacking, such as Chang Yuchun, Lan Yu, and Feng Sheng; there were also generals who were good at defense, such as Geng Bingwen, Wu Liang, Tang He, and Zhu Wenzheng.
Geng Bingwen + Wu Liang are the defensive Gemini stars under Zhu Yuanzhang. Geng Bingwen's title was "Marquis of Changxing", and Wu Liang's title was "Jiangyin Hou", which they earned by virtue of their achievements. One of the two guards Changxing and the other guarded Jiangyin, defending against Zhang Shicheng's attack. Zhang Shicheng has always wanted to bully Zhu Yuanzhang, and for more than ten years, he has tirelessly launched dozens of attacks on Changxing, large and small, and the battle record is totally defeated. ——(Geng Bingwen) With a widow, dozens of battles of size, invincible.
Zhang Shicheng also caused Zhu Yuanzhang a lot of trouble, he could kill Geng Junyong, and when his opponent was replaced by Xiao Geng, Zhang Shicheng could no longer get any advantage. When he went out to attack Chen Youyu, considering Zhang Shicheng's threat, Zhu Yuanzhang did not take Geng Bingwen and Wu Liang with him. In the case of Xu Da, Geng Bingwen, and Wu Liang, who were all nemesis, zhang Shicheng would find it difficult to gain benefits even if he came to attack.
The reason why Geng Bingwen appears to be relatively low-key is the explosion of talents during the Hongwu period, and the second is that his areas of expertise and direction of responsibility have not appeared in the most fierce battlefield for a long time.
This by no means means that his merits are not great, when Ming Taizu ranked the meritorious men, he listed Geng Bingwen and the great general Xu Da as the first class, which shows that he was heavily valued.
In the first year of Jianwen, Wu Liang had died of illness, and Geng Bingwen was 65 years old at the time, and his body was still quite strong. At this time, the founding fathers who were still alive were only Geng Bingwen and Guo Ying, and Guo Ying was old and frail, so it could only be Geng Bingwen.
The super player Zhu Yunjue finally came back to his senses and used his resource advantage to try to crush Zhu Di. He appointed Geng Bingwen as a general in the conquest of the army, commanding the deputy generals Li Jian and Ning Zhong, and in order to gain a reputation, he studied from Emperor Yuanshun and was known as a million troops.
The million-strong army was terrible, in fact, half of them were not, geng Bingwen himself led the way claimed to be 300,000, the actual number was 130,000, even if this was strong enough, his road alone was enough to crush Zhu Di.
Zhu Yunjiao wanted to solve Zhu Di too well, and in addition to Geng Bingwen, he also transferred Wu Jie, Wu Gao, Sheng Yong, Pan Zhong, Yang Song, Ping An and other troops and horses to march north separately.
The strength of these people was more or less, and they were not stationed with Geng Bingwen's main force. Geng Bingwen entered Zhending on August 12, and the other two elite southern troops, the governor Xu Kai, were stationed in Hejian and Pan Zhong and Yang Song were stationed in Mozhou, and their 9,000 elites went forward to Xiong County.
In this way, Xiongxian County, which was close to Beiping, became an outstretched fist, and the original intention of the Southern Army was to rely on the elite cavalry of Xiongxian County to restrain Zhu Di and make him dare not go out of the city casually. However, in Zhu Di's eyes, it became another interpretation: Xiongxian did not have many troops and were so close, why didn't he eat them?
This situation was also under consideration by the generals of the Southern Army, Mozhou to XiongXian was only more than forty miles, and beating The Horse Yang Whip was also a matter of more than an hour, if Zhu Di dared to come, it was just inside and outside that he should be annihilated on the spot, so that he would have no return.
However, the premise of all this is that Xiongxian can hold out until reinforcements arrive.
On August 15 of the first year of Jianwen, the moon still had one day to reach its fullest, which did not prevent the defenders of XiongXian from singing to the moon and singing to the wine. Bitter, blame the damn Yan King, let's still have a labor expedition on this reunion day, wait for tonight, let's take Peiping as soon as possible, and end this boring war.
Everyone drank and admired the moon, and did not notice that the crowds under the city wall were crowded, and the Yan army had already surrounded XiongXian by night.
Even if the Mid-Autumn Festival still came to besiege the city, the generals of the Southern Army were extremely angry, and they "went to the city and scolded" the Yan army for not talking about martial virtue. When the Yan army began to attack the city, many people were still drunk and fell to the ground, and the rest of the people could only rush to fight.
Xiongxian was quickly breached, and a small part of the 9,000 elite soldiers surrendered, most of them were killed, and it should be said that they deserved the title of elite in temperament.
Conquering Xiongxian was only the first step in Zhu Di's plan, and in his mind, breaking the main force of the Southern Army in world war was the real goal.
The second line of defense, Mozhou, was very close to Xiong County, and at normal speed, when Xiong County was attacked, the Mozhou defenders had time to rush to support. However, due to Zhu Di's sudden action, Xiongxian had already been breached by the time the Tang soldiers (chuanling soldiers) who had rushed out with great difficulty were still on the road.
Of course, Pan Zhong and Yang Song of Mozhou did not know that the information they received was that XiongXian had received an attack and requested immediate support.
There is an ancient tactic called "encirclement point reinforcement", which has been carried forward in modern times and became famous for a while. As a leading figure in the military circles of Daming, Zhu Di's tactics went further than "encircling points to fight for help", which was "gram points to fight for help".
It is not surprising to capture Xiong County, it is the key to quickly capture Xiong County, when the Mozhou reinforcements are still on the road, the point has been breached, and Zhu Di can use all his troops to help.
Now, Xiongxian is already Zhu Di's, he climbed the city tower, the smoke and dust billowed in the distance, and the rescuers of Xiongxian came. In order to ensure suddenness, he even creatively used special operations tactics, arranging for his general Tan Yuan to lurk in the water with more than a thousand soldiers, breathing on the grass, and after hearing the sound of cannons, he emerged from the water, occupied the bridge, and cut off the retreat of the reinforcements.
Zhang Yu, a general of the Northern Army, took the lead and led his army to counterattack. The gunners who were ambushed in the grass on the side of the road opened fire and bombarded the waist of the reinforcements, and the special operations soldiers lurking in the water jumped up, and Tan Yuan led them to cover from behind to front. The Mozhou soldiers and horses were attacked in the front, middle, and rear directions at the same time, and the formation was already defeated before it could be unfolded, and Pan Zhong and Yang Song were captured.
In order to win the opportunity to fight Geng Bingwen, Zhu Di's purpose was to take Mozhou, but the military situation in Mozhou was still unclear, and he needed a person with detailed information about Mozhou to provide. Governor Pan Zhong played this role, and it seems that on the side of Emperor Jianwen, the people with the word "Zhong" in their names are not very auspicious. Song Zhong was still loyal, and as soon as Pan Zhong was captured, he became a leader party, and he told Zhu Di that there were still more than 10,000 soldiers and more than 9,000 warhorses in Mozhou City.
In order to make meritorious achievements, he further suggested to Zhu Di that there were no senior generals in Mozhou City, and the defenders heard that we had all failed, and the army must have no fighting spirit. If you enter the army immediately, you will definitely be able to take Mozhou.
Sure enough, as Pan Zhong said, when Zhu Di rushed to the city with more than 100 cavalry and announced to the defenders that Xiongxian had been lost and your governor had also been captured, the southern soldiers of Mozhou had no intention of resisting, and they surrendered on the spot, and Zhu Di suddenly got a batch of fresh troops, plus a large number of warhorses to supplement.
From Xiongxian to Mozhou, tens of thousands of elite southern soldiers were thus digested, and Zhu Di showed the ability of an excellent commander, compared with the slightly clumsy political means he showed when fighting with Zhu Yunjiao, the military ability of the Yan King was the real strength. Zhu Yuanzhang's son grew into the way his father hoped, brave and good at war, cruel and decisive, and it was right to put him to the north to defend the Mongols—if it were not for Zhu Yunjiao's desperate slashing of the domain.
After blitzing Xiong County and Mozhou, Zhu Di got the opportunity to face Geng Bingwen face to face, as the leader of the second generation of soldiers, Zhu Di, and the only surviving generation of Yuanxun Geng Bingwen, which is stronger?
True determination will be the place where they will fight.
【Battle of Zhending】
Zhending is the ancient name of Zhengding in Hebei Province, and a little earlier, Zhending is not called Zhending, it is also called Changshan, Changshan Zhao Zilong's Changshan. In addition to Zhao Yun, Zhending has also produced celebrities such as Zhao Tuo, Fan Zhongyan, Li Gao, and Su Tianjue.
Before the rise of contemporary Shijiazhuang, Zhendingfu had been the richest and most prosperous metropolis in the central Part of the Great Plain of North China for thousands of years. Zhending and Taiyuan are in a parallel line, which is the starting point and end of the road between Shanxi and the North China Great Plain, so people are accustomed to combining "Splendid Taiyuan City" and "Huahua Zhendingfu".
After taking Zhending, Zhu Di would open the avenue leading to Shanxi and get a huge strategic turnaround; holding Zhending, Geng Bingwen would choke Zhu Di's throat and make him cramped to get out of the Beiping area.
Zhu Di could not afford to wait, and after a short rest, on August 25, the Former Yan king Zhu Di, now the anti-thief, led his main force to reach 20 miles from Zhending. He once again showed the cunning of a brilliant commander and conducted patient and meticulous pre-war reconnaissance, and learned from a firewood-chopping population that Geng Bingwen was now deploying the main force in the northwest direction of Zhending, and the defense in the southeast direction was quite weak.
This news made Zhu Di overjoyed, Geng Bingwen's reputation was really loud, and what he was most afraid of was that Lao Geng would shrink the main force in the city, so that he would have to attack the city with weak troops, which violated the common sense of the art of war, and there was little hope of success.
In order to confirm the intelligence, Zhu Di personally led several cavalry to the East Gate to reconnoiter, and they even captured two soldiers of the Southern Army escorting grain and grass for questioning, and the information they received proved that the woodcutters did not lie.
To ask what factors are most important on the battlefield, the answer is not intelligence, but combat. The combat ability of an army is the foundation, and if you only have 1,000 old, weak, sick and disabled in your hands, even if you know on the first of this month that the enemy will send 100,000 elites to arrive at the west gate of your house on the thirtieth to block you, this information will not play a decisive role. Otherwise, everyone will not have to really fight, and an intelligence war will be able to distinguish between victory and defeat.
But observing the military establishment of modern countries, we can find an interesting common point, in the various departments, one is often the war department, the second is often the intelligence department, which shows that intelligence is second only to combat, the second most important department.
Under the condition that the army has the ability to fight a war, intelligence often becomes a decisive factor in the battlefield. This truth is applicable to both ancient and modern Chinese and foreign countries.
Zhu Di's use of soldiers has one of the biggest characteristics: fast. Because of his long time in the north, he was good at leading cavalry to and fought like a long wind, closer to the Mongol fighting style, which made the Generals of the Southern Army, who were accustomed to relying on infantry as the main force, suffer repeatedly. In XiongXian and Mozhou, Geng Bingwen lost tens of thousands of his elite cavalry, which greatly reduced his reconnaissance and field combat ability.
Zhu Di received information, geng Bingwen was unaware, at that time he was still in the city to receive envoys sent by the imperial court, and the scouts sent by the southern army did not even notice the movement of the northern army in time.
There was no better chance than this, and Zhu Di found the weakest link of his opponent. His goal was not only to defeat the Confederate army, but also to eliminate Geng Bingwen outside the city, in case the defensive master ran back to the city to reorganize the resistance. Judging from his previous defensive record, it will be very difficult to attack strongly.
According to the information he had, Zhu Di tailored his tactics for Lao Geng. He sent Zhang Yu and Zhu Neng to lead the main force to launch an attack on the Southern Army, while he himself led a group of elite cavalry to quietly circle behind the Southern Army.
When Geng Bingwen saw the roaring Northern Army cavalry, he just snorted. Good shou is his label, but it does not mean that Lao Geng will not attack. It should be known that after the fall of his old rival Zhang Shicheng, he followed Xu Da, Fu Youde, Lan Yu and others on his southern expedition to the north, and fought against different enemies in Shandong, Shaanxi, Saiwai, Yunnan, and Liaodong, and he also did not taste defeat.
What roles can Zhang Yu and Zhu count? The unknown people who are not in the flow. Hundreds of thousands of people faced with the attack of tens of thousands of people, Lao Geng was not yet instigated to the point of shrinking into the city, Geng Bingwen ordered to go out of the city to meet the battle, to defeat the Northern Army with a grand array, and to avenge the revenge of Xiong County and Mozhou.
Afterwards, some people believed that Geng Bingwen should play his strengths and should not take the initiative to attack. But Geng Bingwen was not Song Zhong, he had more than 100,000 men and horses under his command, pinning his hopes on the imperial court to put down the rebellion. If he shrinks in the true determination, there will be rumors in the DPRK, saying that Lao Geng is passive and avoids war, and there must be two hearts.
Faced with the battlefield situation at that time, I am afraid that no one will be a turtle with a shrunken head.
When the attention of the Southern Army was attracted by Zhang Yu and Zhu Neng, there was a commotion behind them, and the iron horse led by Zhu Di personally inserted itself into the back of the Southern Army with a thunderous momentum, they did not love to fight, but only relied on suddenness and mobility to cross the enemy position over and over again, cutting and destroying the Formation of the Southern Army.
This move, called the "Rolling Bead Curtain", is said to have been created during the Sui Dynasty by the great general Yang Shuang, and the iron horse commanded by Yang Shuang repeatedly defeated the enemy with fewer victories and more victories when the Turks attacked.
The key is to "block the strong with the weak, hit the weak with the strong, drive the attacking master, block the blocker, all rout", drive the enemy to attack the main force of the enemy army, and transmit the fear to the whole army, in the end, the defeat is like an avalanche, and the gods and immortals are difficult to save!
When an infantry-dominated army cannot form a formation against the cavalry, it will be very fragile. Seeing that the enemy formation was scattered, Zhu Neng began his performance, and there were only more than 30 horsemen who followed Zhu Neng, but under the encouragement of Zhu Neng's Prancing Horse Shout, they were stronger than 300 people.
The two arrows of Zhu Di and Zhu Neng crisscrossed the enemy line, so that Geng Bingwen's attempt to reorganize the formation failed, and the effect of "rolling the bead curtain upside down" appeared, the Southern army was in chaos, trampling on each other, and the dead were invincible.
The Southern Army was in chaos, but Zhu Di had one more important target, Geng Bingwen. Others can let go, but they can't miss Geng Bingwen and let Lao Geng run away, which means tactical victory and strategic defeat for Zhu Di.
Zhu Neng launched a charge again, he was still riding more than 30 horses at his side, and he only had Geng Bingwen's flag in his eyes. As long as he catches up with Geng Bingwen, it doesn't matter if he captures or kills, as long as he doesn't let him run into the city, it is a victory.
When Zhu Neng was about to be killed, Geng Bingwen had already retreated into the city gate, and he hurriedly ordered his subordinates to pull up the suspension bridge. Zhu was able to catch up with the previous knife and cut the bridge rope, but the probability of taking the first rank of the enemy general in the thousands of armies on the battlefield was too small, and Geng Bingwen's men were also protected by dead soldiers. The guards resisted desperately at the head of the bridge, Zhu Neng was after all few people, and seeing Geng Bingwen's figure disappear into the doorway, he could not continue to pursue. Tens of thousands of Southern troops poured in behind him, and Zhu Neng lost all his achievements and could only choose to retreat.
Outside zhending city, Zhu Di won a great victory, according to the "Fengtian Jing Difficulty" recorded by him that the emperor had cultivated, this battle "beheaded more than 30,000 ranks, and captured tens of thousands", according to this battle result, Lao Geng's main force has been tossed. However, I doubt this statement, and the fact that geng bingwen recorded in other history books is more credible than 100,000 people.
Because, the battle of Zhending is not over.
Geng Bingwen, who luckily returned to the city, regained his senses, Zhu Di was different from any opponent he had ever encountered, Zhang Shicheng had never had so many cavalry, and the Yuan army was not so able to fight, and would he "roll the bead curtain upside down"? Simply unheard of!
When the field battle is defeated, defense becomes an inevitable choice. Defending the city does not require cavalry, siege cavalry is useless, when the advantages of the two are reversed, Geng Bingwen's best defensive battle is still unbreakable.
Geng Bingwen found the correct posture to fight Against Zhu Di, it must be his base camp, the city stored a large amount of grain and grass, he still had 100,000 people, Geng Bingwen put the war into his familiar track. Now, he was still the invincible defensive star, and Zhu Di was not much stronger than Zhang Shicheng in terms of siege.
The Northern Army was mainly cavalry, and it was not their specialty to ask the cavalry to dismount and attack the city. A cavalryman can defeat 10 infantry in the field; if he dismounts on foot, he may not be able to beat an infantryman; once he starts to attack the city, then 10 cavalrymen may not be exchanged for the first infantry in the city.
This truth was verified in Zhending, and the Northern Army besieged Zhending for three days without any progress, and he realized that there would be no result in attacking any more, so he had to break the siege and leave.
Zhu Di's worst fear occurred, the Southern Army lost more than 30,000 people outside the city, which seemed to be a great victory for the Northern Army. But as we have said repeatedly, the loss point people are nothing to The Jianwen Emperor. Depending on the nature of the war, the purpose of the war is different. Sometimes, exchanging space for time, causing damage to the enemy's living forces, accumulating small victories into big victories, can achieve the final victory; sometimes, space is not the main thing, time is, the purpose of war is not to kill the enemy, but to seize the target as soon as possible, you can get the final victory.
Zhu Di needed the latter, and failing to take zhending was a failure, he could only retreat to Beiping, waiting for the opportunity to move again, and the initiative of the battlefield returned to Geng Bingwen's hands.
#明朝果然很有料 #