Chapter 352 Heyang Failure
An Lushan was also a man who understood military affairs. He knew that An Shouzhong was extremely confident in saying that there was a 40% chance of winning under such circumstances.

Therefore, An Lushan said without hesitation: "Since I have already employed you, I will trust you wholeheartedly. Let alone a 40% chance of winning, even if there is only a 10% chance of winning, I will let you lead the army in the front."

"Thank you, foster father." An Shouzhong bowed to An Lushan and said, "Foster father, although Yecheng is also a strong military town, it is not as important as Mingzhou. When Liu Heita started the uprising, he made Mingzhou his capital. Why don't you move to Mingzhou?"

An Lushan pondered for a long time and said, "It's as you say."

……

Li Guangbi stationed his troops in Weizhou and kept a close eye on An Lushan's movements. When he saw An Lushan's camp heading north to Mingzhou, he immediately sent troops to stop them.

But when Li Guangbi had just marched halfway, news of a battle came from Henan that An Shouzhong had led a large army to attack Yongqiu, seemingly intending to retake Jianghuai.

This confused Li Guangbi and made him wonder whether An Lushan was pretending to retreat north.

At the same time, Gao Xianzhi, who was stationed in Luoyang, also received the battle report.

Gao Xianzhi was in charge of the overall situation and knew that Li Guangbi would not have enough time to return to Jianghuai to provide assistance, so he sent troops to rescue him.

However, An Shouzhong's attack on Jianghuai was just a bluff. After fighting two battles in Yongqiu, he hurriedly marched to Heyang and launched a fierce attack on Heyang.

Li Chengguang, who was guarding Heyang, had only 8,000 soldiers and horses, and was completely unable to withstand the surprise attack of An's army, and Heyang fell.

In this battle, An Shouzhong first forced An Lushan to move north to attract Li Guangbi's attention, then pretended to attack Jianghuai to let Gao Xianzhi divide his troops, and finally took Heyang by surprise.

An Shouzhong used his superb mobile warfare skills to shuttle back and forth in the encirclement of the Tang army and won a victory.

This victory is crucial.

Because Heyang is to the north of Luoyang, occupying Heyang allows one to attack Luoyang or defend Yecheng, and also form a pincer attack with the rebels in Bianzhou.

Gao Xianzhi did not expect An Shouzhong to fight like this. After all, An Lushan had already given up Luoyang and prepared to retreat to the north. He never thought that An Shouzhong would actually intend to enter Luoyang again.

After being shocked, Gao Xianzhi wrote a letter to apologize while organizing an army to retake Heyang.

When An Lushan occupied Luoyang, An Shouzhong suggested that Hulao Pass had been eroded and was not suitable for defense, so he requested orders to renovate Heyang City.

An Lushan agreed, and An Shouzhong personally presided over the reconstruction.

After An Shouzhong's previous transformation, Heyang is now divided into two cities, north and south. The north city is on the north bank of the Yellow River, and the south city is on the south bank of the Yellow River. Between the south and north cities, a floating bridge is built relying on the two sandbars in the middle, crossing the Yellow River.

An Shouzhong stationed his main force in the north city and let Li Guiren station his detachment in the south city.

Gao Xianzhi and the generals of the government army made a plan to divide the troops into two routes. In one route, Ma Lin and Li Sheng would lead 30,000 troops out of Luoyang and head northeast to cut off the connection between the rebel Heyang North City and Bianzhou. In the other route, he would lead 50,000 troops to take Heyang South City first.

At the same time, Gao Xianzhi ordered his men to gather a large number of boats and prepare to launch a fire attack on the floating bridge on the Yellow River.

An Shouzhong held the city firmly, so Gao Xianzhi led his troops to the front line.

After Gao Xianzhi besieged the city, he first persuaded An Shouzhong to surrender and asked An Shouzhong to go to Beijing to apologize.

An Shouzhong did not respond.

Gao Xianzhi asked Li Siye to go to the South City Gate to provoke and challenge him to a duel.

Li Guiren, the rebel commander of Nancheng, did not dare to fight since his last defeat by Li Siye.

But Liu Longxian, a subordinate of Li Guiren, could not help but go out of the city to challenge Li Siye after seeing his harsh words.

Under the south city of Heyang.

Liu Longxian rode out of the city and shouted angrily, "Little thief, I know you are brave, but I am no less brave. I will kill you today and let the world know who is the best general!"

Li Siye laughed when he heard this and said, "I, Li Siye, do not kill nameless people. Who are you? Tell me your name!" Liu Longxian thought he was famous all over the world, but Li Siye seemed to have never heard of him. He became even more furious and shouted, "I am Liu Longxian. Remember my name. When the King of Hell asks you on your way to the underworld, you will know who killed you!"

After drinking, he waved Changshuo and rushed towards Li Siye.

Li Siye, holding a Mo Dao, rode his horse to meet him. When the two horses met, Liu Longxian's head rolled to the ground.

Li Siye pointed his sword at the rebel city and shouted, "Who else is going to come out of the city to fight?"

The rebels were horrified when they saw this, and Li Guiren immediately ordered the city gates to be closed tightly, and no one was allowed to leave the city.

Seeing that the rebels refused to come out of the city, Gao Xianzhi ordered his men to set fire to 500 boats in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, hoping that the boats would drift downstream and burn the pontoon bridge.

But An Shouzhong was well prepared. He had fixed countless long bamboo poles above the pontoon bridge. When the boats encountered the bamboo poles, they could not go down. At the same time, An Shouzhong also ordered catapults to throw stones to destroy the fire ships.

Gao Xianzhi's plan to burn the bridge failed.

When the first plan failed, Gao Xianzhi came up with another one. He asked Li Chengguang and Bai Xiaode to pretend to attack the south city, while he led the army across the river to attack the north city of Heyang.

However, An Shouzhong anticipated Gao Xianzhi's strategy and personally led his elite troops to resist Gao Xianzhi's main force.

Gao Xianzhi was an armed swimmer and suffered the same loss as Guo Ziyi. He was short of siege equipment and could not take the north city several times.

Gao Xianzhi had no choice but to retreat to the south bank of the Yellow River and lead the main force to attack Nancheng.

An Shouzhong had already left reserve troops on the sand dunes between the two cities. As soon as Gao Xianzhi attacked the South City, all the reserve troops rushed forward.

Upon seeing this, Gao Xianzhi immediately divided his troops to attack Shaqiu, trying to cut off the connection between the two cities in the north and south.

However, just as Gao Xianzhi's troops arrived at Shaqiu, An Shouzhong's troops stationed in the north city came forward, concentrated the troops in the north city, and repelled the government troops that were halfway across the river.

Gao Xianzhi had no choice but to lead his troops back to Luoyang.

The Battle of Heyang lasted for a month, during which the government troops lost more than 10,000 soldiers and were unable to advance a single step.

Gao Xianzhi looked at the river, sighed, and wrote a letter to apologize.

The government troops suffered defeats in Raoyang and Heyang, and their morale was low. The rebels won two consecutive victories, which greatly boosted their morale. Some counties in Hebei were once again on the fence.

……

Changan.

Memorials impeaching Guo Ziyi and Gao Xianzhi were sent to Li Heng's desk one after another.

Feng Changqing looked at the memorial on the dragon case with a worried look, but Li Heng had a calm expression.

Wei Jiansu, who was standing by, said, "Your Majesty, Guo Ziyi and Gao Xianzhi have been defeated in succession. Should we remove them from their posts?"

Li Heng put down the memorial and said, "Victory and defeat are common in the military. If we change generals just because of a temporary defeat, it will inevitably cause people's hearts to be shaken and the army's morale will be unstable."

"Your Majesty is right." Feng Changqing immediately agreed with Li Heng, "The rebels are also an elite force. At the beginning of the rebellion, they were able to capture Luoyang within a month of their rebellion. Now that Luoyang has been recovered, the situation in Hebei is very good. How can we withdraw our meritorious generals just because of a temporary defeat?"

It's not that Wei Jiansu didn't understand what Li Heng and Feng Changqing meant. He was just the leader of the civil officials and was quite afraid of the military generals, so whenever he got the chance, he would slander them.

As Feng Changqing was born into a military family, he was bound to protect the military generals.

Wei Jiansu continued, "The situation is not very good either. After the defeat of the government army, several counties in Hebei began to keep their troops inactive, and those with ulterior motives are also eyeing them covetously."

Feng Changqing said: "No matter how bad it is, it is better than losing Luoyang."

(End of this chapter)