Friends who are familiar with the Three Kingdoms, for the name of Gongsun Zhan, must be no stranger, the impression of this brother is also a Haojie, once a good brother of Liu Big Ear.
However, his ending was not good, and he was finally beheaded by Yuan Shao, completely losing his position as the overlord of the north. The Battle of the Boundary Bridge was the first big battle between the two sides.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > the Yuan brothers pinched first</h1>
Speaking of which, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan were both officials of the Han Dynasty, both of whom were raised by the head of the official family, and the relationship between the two was good, but in 191 AD, they suddenly fell in love and became a pair of undead enemies.
What's going on?
In fact, this is all the trouble of the territory!
In 190 AD, in order to kill the national thief Dong Zhuo, the princes of Shandong joined forces to attack Luoyang, nominally to restore the Han Dynasty, but most of the princes could not contribute, and although Dong Zhuo was driven away, almost no one wanted to completely kill Dong Guo's thief, because everyone was generally more interested in the territory that had lost its substantial control!
Therefore, starting in 191 AD, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, who were nominally the "leading big brothers" of the princes, first began the action of "cutting cakes":
In the winter of 191 AD, Yuan Shu appointed Sun Jian as the Assassin of Yuzhou and sent an army to Yangcheng. However, the problem was that long before Sun Jian's arrival, Yuan Shao had already appointed Zhou Ang as the Assassin of Yuzhou and sent troops to attack Yangcheng.
It is reasonable to say that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu are brothers, "Yours is from the Yuan family, mine is also from the Yuan family, and we are all from the Yuan family", since there are already people in the history of the Yuzhou Assassination, Yuan Shu should not send Sun Jian to fight again. But the problem is that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu are half-siblings, especially the eldest Yuan Shao is Shu out, the second Yuan Shu is Out, Yuan Lao'er has never looked up to Yuan Boss, so in the matter of grabbing turf - other people's territory can not be disputed, but Yuan Boss must be robbed!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="114" > the hatred of Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan</h1>
In order to ensure that the land grab operation was more smooth, Yuan Shu also specially asked Gongsun Zhan, who was not very powerful, to help, and Gongsun Zhan was not polite, sending his brother Gongsun Yue to lead a thousand cavalry to help the army.
This Zhou Ang, in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", is not well known, but there are really two brushes in the city, and under the joint attack of Sun Jian and Gongsun Yue, he successfully saved Yangcheng, not only repelled Sun Jian, but also shot Gongsun Yue.
When the news came, Gongsun Zhan, who was suppressing the Yellow Turban Army in Qingzhou, was furious: "Good you Yuan Shao, dare to kill my brother!"
Speaking of this, we have to say that Gongsun Zhan's anger is a bit inexplicable: First of all, on the battlefield, the sword has no eyes, when you send your brother out on the battlefield, you have to consider the risk of "the general died in a hundred battles", why can others die in battle, and your Brother Gongsun Zhan can't die in battle? Secondly, Gongsun Yue is not a brother, but from the brother, the relationship between the two people has not been seen much better in ordinary days.
In fact, the hatred between Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan had long been pulled down: in early 191 AD, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan joined forces to give a chain set to his predecessor Jizhou Mu Hanfu, and the two sides originally agreed to divide Jizhou equally after the matter was completed, but after getting Jizhou, Yuan Shao turned Gongsun Zhan away.
Yuan Shao's move, Gongsun Zhan was naturally angry and itchy, but he and Yuan Shao joined hands to do this kind of thing, and he couldn't get on the table to say, he hated Yuan Shao, and he could only endure!
However, now that his younger brother Gongsun Yue is dead, gongsun Zhan naturally has a justifiable reason to send troops!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="115" > the gongsun zan who took revenge on snow</h1>
The enraged Gongsun Zhan didn't care about the Yellow Turban rebels, turned around and began to beat Yuan Shao violently. It should be known that Gongsun Zhan's deployment is a battle-hardened white horse Yicong, who has been playing horse racing with ethnic minorities on the border for many years, and his combat effectiveness is not generally strong; on the other hand, Yuan Shao, although known as the "Fourth Dynasty and Three Dukes", at this time he is just a battlefield rookie, and most of his men are infantry. Compared with the two, Yuan Shao was beaten to the ground as soon as he came up. The counties and counties of Jizhou, which are deemed to be "chaotic and have no masters," have all looked forward to the return of the wind.
What can Yuan Shao do about this situation? He came up with a good idea: a problem that the military cannot solve, a political solution! In order to ease the relationship with Gongsun Zhan, he sent someone to apologize to Gongsun Zhan on the one hand, and on the other hand appointed Gongsun Zhan's younger brother Gongsun Fan as the Bohai Taishou, so that Gongsun Zhan's face and Lizi were all there, and he would not be embarrassed by himself anymore without hitting the smiley face, right?
Eh, Yuan Shao thought well, but Gongsun Zan was never a fuel-saving lamp, and he wanted to calculate the old and new accounts together: As soon as Gongsun Fan arrived in the Bohai Sea, he immediately turned his face. In addition, Gongsun Zhan also appointed Tian Kai as The Pastor of Qingzhou and Shan Jing as the Pastor of Yanzhou. You must know that Qingzhou and Yanzhou are now nominally Yuan Shao's territory, and Gongsun Zhan's approach is to completely overthrow Yuan Shao!
Subsequently, Gongsun Zhan marched south with his troops, and the army entered Jieqiao (in present-day Wei County, Hebei), and bingfeng pointed directly at Yuan Shao's base camp!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="116" > who can block the pass? </h1>
Since "kneeling" is useless, Yuan Shao decided to save himself: clay people also have three points of earthiness, since you Gongsun Zhan did things so desperately, then blame old Yuan for biting people in a hurry!
However, the problem is that Old Yuan is now surrounded by many famous people: Xun Chen, Tian Feng, Frustrated Zhi, Trial Match, Xu You, Feng Ji and others are already in place, but there are almost no famous generals who have charged into the battlefield (Yan Liang, Wen Ugly, Zhang Gao, and Gao Lan, these famous generals, at this time, are either still unknown pawns, or have not yet arrived at Old Yuan's side). This is embarrassing!
In a moment of crisis, he thought of a man—Yi Yi!
This brother was stabbed to death by Zhao Yun in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which made the background board for Zhao Yun's appearance, but in the main history, he was definitely a talent - he once took a clear stand against the former boss Han Fu, and repeatedly defeated the counterinsurgency army sent by Han Fu with few victories and many victories.
With this kind of performance, old Yuan took a look, this Yiyi is a talent! Later, Han Fu was overthrown by Yuan Shao, and Qi Yi naturally entered the hands of Old Yuan.
So can Qi Yi stop the world-shaking White Horse Yicong?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="117" > boundary bridge battle</h1>
Old Yuan was afraid that Qi Yi would not be fully competent, and personally went into battle to supervise the battle. The two sides were twenty miles south of the boundary bridge and formally clashed.
Briefly speaking of the strength of the two sides: Gongsun Zhan's side has about 40,000 people, including 30,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. This proportion of foot and horse riding in the Eastern Han Dynasty and even the Three Kingdoms period, can be called a luxurious lineup! On Yuan Shao's side, it was basically infantry, and the number of cavalry was basically negligible.
Gongsun Zhan sneered: "This lineup, my cavalry pushed flat, can solve the battle!" As soon as he gave the order, more than 10,000 cavalry began to charge.
Just when the cavalry was about to rush to the front of The Yuan Army's position, a bunch of large wooden shields suddenly came out in front of the Yuan Army's team! Behind the big wooden shield were eight hundred carefully selected elite soldiers! Only to see them stubbornly resist the wooden shield, and they had to resist the impact of Gongsun Zhan's cavalry!
What if the cavalry charge is blocked? Of course it's a roundabout punch.
However, Qi Yi did not give Gongsun Zhan this opportunity at all, and at his command, a group of spearmen suddenly appeared behind the wooden shield, and it was a random stab at the cavalry, at the same time, the strong crossbowmen also began to shoot at close range.
Wooden shields, spears, and crossbows, under the triple blow, the world-famous white horse Yicong fell one after another, and the whole army was in chaos.
Gongsun Zhan was also stunned, he had been living on the border for a long time, he was accustomed to cavalry hedging, and he had also seen more of the unilateral slaughter of infantry by cavalry, and he had never seen a case of infantry killing cavalry. At the critical moment, the white horse general's brain was blank, and he did not issue any effective response orders. In this way, Hakuba Yicong was even more deadly and injured! Even The Jizhou Assassin Shi Yangang, who had just been appointed by Gongsun Zhan, was beheaded by Qi Yi in the rebel army.
Note: In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it was Zhao Zilong who came forward to save the scene at this time, but in reality, no one saved Gongsun Zhan.
Finally, Gongsun Zhan's army could not move, he chose to withdraw, and at this time, the white horse Yicong he brought out this time had already lost most of it.
On the way back, there was another vignette that almost changed the tide of the war:
Seeing the front-line fighters rising, Yuan Shao, who was full of hormones, also "old man talking about juvenile madness", also drew a knife and rushed forward to kill, but this brother rushed over his head without paying attention, and directly broke away from the large army and rushed to the front line.
At this moment, a cavalry of two thousand men spotted them: Someone was chasing them so tightly? Hit him!
Only to see the whistle, this cavalry unit surrounded Yuan Shao and dozens of others.
At the moment of crisis, the strategist Tian Feng advised Yuan Shao: Boss, shall we hide? You see the low wall in the back is good, or are you aggrieved?
Speaking of this, we have to say: If Yuan Shao listened to Tian Feng's advice and hid himself, then dozens of people under him did not want to live, think about it, your boss is hiding, why did your little brother sell your life?
But at this critical moment, Yuan Shao was suddenly so fierce that he slammed his helmet on the ground and said, "The eldest husband would rather rush forward and die and hide behind the wall, can he survive?" After saying this, he calmly commanded his subordinates to shoot the opposing cavalry with crossbows. I have to say that this strong crossbow is really the nemesis of the cavalry, and under several rounds of shooting, many cavalry actually fell off their horses.
Seeing that these dozens of people are also hard stubble and not easy to provoke, and then look at the back of the big army led by Qi Yi to come, this group of cavalry is not fond of fighting, and actually withdrew. The fatal opportunity that could have changed the entire war situation was easily missed. There was no way, but everyone didn't know what Yuan Shao looked like.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="118" > postscript</h1>
The Battle of Jieqiao ended, which was the first big battle between Gongsun Zhan and Yuan Shao, and it was also a crucial one.
After the defeat of this battle, Gongsun Zhan, who was already unpopular in Youzhou, was even more unable to suppress the opposition forces of the people; and the calm and self-assured old Yuan performed very well, and he built up the confidence to kill Gongsun Zhan because of this battle.
Of course, the most outstanding performance of this battle is Yi Yi, whose tactics and tactics can be called a classic case of infantry countering cavalry, and his body exudes the potential of a famous general. It was this little-known "little man" who completely changed the victory or defeat of the Battle of the Boundary Bridge, and also changed the historical trend of the struggle for supremacy. Without him, the first to dominate the north would most likely be Gongsun Zhan, not Yuan Shao, then the story of the Three Kingdoms would be a completely different picture. Unfortunately, Qi Yi had a high IQ and low emotional intelligence, and he was killed soon after because he was proud of his achievements.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zizhi Tongjian
Author: Our special guest author Qian Qiuyuan