At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, politics was corrupt, economy was depressed, people were in dire straits, and crises were everywhere. Wang Mang, a consort, took advantage of this situation, played politics, seized power and established a new dynasty. However, after Wang Mang came to power, the practice of "asking the ancients for reform" not only did not improve the situation, but led to the intensification of class contradictions. Fed up, the broad masses of the people rose up in succession to resist the new stubborn rule by force. For a time, the fire of peasant uprising spread all over the Yellow River and Jianghan area, and the Xin Mang Dynasty was in a state of betrayal and turmoil. Among the many peasant uprising troops at that time, the green forest and the red eyebrow were the most powerful. Militarily, we constantly attacked the forces of the new Mang and gradually advanced to the hinterland of Wang Mang's rule. The Xin Mang regime was unwilling to quit the historical stage, pieced together its forces for dying, and the peasant uprising entered the final offensive stage. The battle of Kunyang is the product of this historical background.
At the beginning of the twenty-third year (the fourth year of Emperor Xin Mang), outlaws attacked the Red Eyebrow Rebels in the east with follwed as their main force. The Central Plains was empty, and he quickly invaded the north, destroying Zhen Fu and Chen Mao of Wang Mang in Bishui (now Biyang, Henan), and his power rapidly developed to hundreds of thousands of people. In the triumphant March, the outlaw rebels began to demand the establishment of political power, so in February of this year, they elected Liu Xuan, a descendant of the Han family, as emperor, and restored the Han system, with the title "Start a new stove". The establishment of the regime of starting a new stove marked a new stage of peasant uprising, and Wang Mang became increasingly passive politically and militarily. After the establishment of the new stove regime, the main force went north and besieged the strategic location of Wancheng (now Nanyang, Henan Province). In order to prevent the follwed army from going south and ensure the expansion of the main force, the resurgent regime sent Feng Wang, Wang Chang, Liu Xiu and others to command some troops. The enemy Yan You and Chen Maojun were stranded in Yingchuan County, and quickly captured Kunyang (now Ye County, Henan Province), Dingling (now Wuyang North, Henan Province), Yan County (now Yancheng South, Henan Province) and other places, forming a union with the main force besieging Wancheng.
Wang Mang was very uneasy about the strategic direction of the peasant uprising army in the restart, so he quickly changed the military deployment and shifted his main force from dealing with the Red Eyebrow Army to dealing with the restart army. In the 23rd year of AD (the fourth year of Emperor Xin Mang), in March, Wang Mang sent generals Wang Yi and Wang Situ to Luoyang, recruited 420,000 elite soldiers from various counties, claiming to be millions, and went south to attack the rebel army in an attempt to fight a decisive battle with the peasant army with superior forces and win it at one fell swoop, so as to protect Wancheng, stabilize Jingzhou and ensure the safety of Chang 'an and Luoyang. In May of that year, Wang Yi and Wang Xun led his troops out of Luoyang in the west and into Yingchuan in the south, and joined forces with Yan You and Chen Mao, forcing Liu Xiu, a rebel who had advanced to Yangguan (now northwest of Yuxian County, Henan Province), to withdraw from Kunyang. Then, move on and approach Kunyang.
When Wang Mang's 420,000 troops approached Kunyang, Kunyang had only 89,000 troops to start again. At first, the opinions of the new army were not unified on how to deal with the strong enemy. Some generals think that it is difficult to win because of the disparity between the enemy and us, and advocate avoiding decisive battle and breaking it into parts, and returning to the base area first before making plans. However, Liu Xiuze opposed this negative approach, and advocated concentrating forces, sticking to Kunyang, delaying and consuming Wang Yi's military strength, covering the main force to capture Wancheng, and then waiting for an opportunity to break the enemy. At this point, the vanguard of Wang Yi has approached the north of Kunyang. At this critical moment, the generals agreed to Liu Xiu's suggestion. Decided by Wang Feng, Wang Chang led the troops to hold the city, sent Liu Xiu, Yi Li rate 13 night ride out of the city, hurry to yanxian, dingling to mobilize reinforcements.
Wang Yi, Wang Xun and others commanded Xin Mang's army to reach the gates of Kunyang, and completely besieged Kunyang. At this time, Yan You, who had fought against the outlaw hero, suggested to Wang Yi that Kunyang City was easy to defend but difficult to attack, and the main force of the peasant army that started a new stove was in Wancheng area. Our army should bypass Kunyang and rush to Wancheng quickly, first defeating the main force of regrouping there, and then Kunyang City can surrender without a fight. Wang Yi and others, relying on their great strength, didn't listen to this suggestion at all, and insisted on capturing Kunyang first, and then attacking the main force of the peasant army. Wang Yi and others used all their forces to set up camp 100, and stormed Kunyang. And arrogantly threatened: "Millions of teachers, too much, should be eliminated. When they slaughter the city, they will rush in with blood and dance in front of the song! "
Wang Yi commanded his 400,000-strong army to attack Kunyang City in turn, digging tunnels and building cloud cars in an attempt to storm and win. The defenders in Kunyang had no choice but to rely on the support of the people in the city, resist together, stick to Chengwei, and repel Wang Yijun's attacks many times, which caused great consumption and frustration to the enemy. Seeing that Kunyang City could not be attacked repeatedly, Yan You once again suggested to Wang Yi: "The besieged city must be lenient, so that some defenders in the city can flee to the gate of Wanyang City to spread terror, so as to shake the morale of the enemy and disintegrate the morale of the enemy." But the wayward king still refused to adopt it.
After Liu Xiu and others arrived in Dingling and Yan County, they persuaded the defenders who were unwilling to send troops. In June 1 day of AD 23 (the fourth year of Emperor Xin Man), they led more than 10,000 people to rescue Kunyang. Liu Xiu personally led more than 1,000 reinforcements to ride as a striker and lined up at a distance of two or three kilometers from Wang Yijun to prepare for the battle. Wang Yi, Wang Xun and others, relying on their own powerful forces, were arrogant and only sent thousands of people to fight. At this time, Wang Yi's army was exhausted from a long battle, and its spirit had long been exhausted, which provided a favorable opportunity for its army to break it. Liu Xiu led the troops to attack bravely, dashed many times, killed dozens of people in Wang Yijun on the spot, and won the first battle, which greatly boosted morale.
At this time, the main force of the regrouped insurgents has captured Wancheng for three days, but the good news has not yet reached Kunyang. In order to boost the morale of the whole army and shake the morale of the enemy, Liu Xiu made a battle report to conquer Wancheng and shot an arrow into Kunyang City. And deliberately lost the battle report: let Wang Yijun pick it up and spread it. Once the news spread, the morale of the defenders in Kunyang City was even higher and the defenders were more determined. And Wang Yijun because long entrenched Kunyang, and heard that the fall of Wancheng, morale is even lower. The balance of victory began to tilt to the rebel side.
After winning the first battle, Liu Xiu was good at catching fighters. Taking advantage of the enemy's low morale and the commander's arrogance and underestimation, he selected 3,000 soldiers, made a surprise detour behind enemy lines, secretly waded through the Kunshui River (now the Hui River in Yexian County, Henan Province), and launched a fierce attack on Wang Yi's stronghold. At this point, Wang Yi and others still despise the Han army and ignore Liu Xiu. At the same time, they were worried that the state and county soldiers were out of control, and ordered the battalions to rein in the pawns and not to go into battle without authorization. They and Wang Xun led ten thousand people to fight against Liu Xiu's attack. However, this practice in Wang Yi has caused serious consequences; Under the fierce attack of Liu Xiu's elite soldiers, Wang Yi's tens of thousands of troops soon fell into the predicament of passive beating, and the battle was in chaos. However, due to Wang Yi's prior orders, no one went to the rescue, which led to the crushing defeat of Wang Yi's army, and Wang Xun became a ghost under the sword. When the defenders of Kunyang City saw that the enemy commander had left the army, the enemy's position was in chaos, and they took advantage of the situation and attacked inside and outside, and the whole army was wiped out. Seeing that the tide was gone, Wang Yijun soldiers fled for their lives, trampling on each other, and corpses were everywhere. At this time, it happened that the wind was flying, and the rainstorm was like a note. Countless people drowned when Wang Yi's army waded away, which stopped the flow of water. Only a few people, such as Wang Yi and Yan You, fled back to Luoyang. At this point, the battle of Kunyang ended with the brilliant victory of the insurgents annihilating the main force of Wang Mang's army and seizing all its equipment and trench.
In the battle of Kunyang, Wang Mang's army had 420,000 people, while the total strength of the rebels guarding the city and foreign aid was only 20,000 people. However, under such a disparity in strength, it is no accident that the insurgents can win a brilliant victory in destroying the enemy. To sum up its essence, there are several points: politically, resisting Wang Mang's tyranny is in line with the wishes and demands of the broad masses of the people, so it has won the support and support of the people. Militarily, the insurgents carried out the correct measures of sticking to Kunyang, containing the enemy, mobilizing troops and actively counterattacking, which seriously delayed Wang Yijun's action, consumed troops and firmly grasped the offensive and defensive initiative on the battlefield. In the specific application of operational guidance, the insurgents dare to fight, have high morale, are good at taking advantage of the enemy's weaknesses, attack the army, destroy the enemy's fighting will, and accumulate small victories into great victories; And can grasp the fighter, choose the enemy headquarters as the primary target, and destroy it in one fell swoop. This is because the enemy has no leader and is doomed to failure in the end.
The Battle of Kunyang was a decisive battle against Wang Mang's regime in the Greenwood Uprising and Chi Mei Uprising. This war, because it destroyed the main force of the army that Wang Mang relied on to maintain his rule, created favorable conditions for the insurgents to March smoothly into Luoyang and Chang 'an and eventually overthrow the rule of Xin Mang, and played an extremely important role in the development history of the Eastern Han Dynasty.