Fan Chou and Zhang Xiuxian continued to pursue south with the main force, while Jia Xu waited until dawn slowly, carefully inspecting the territory abandoned by Lu Su near Sanguan.

After passing through Sanguan, it is only two or three miles away, which is a relatively open monk plain, and it is also where Liu Bei's newly established Sanguan County is located. It's just that because it is located in the Qinling Valley, the county town does not have an additional city wall, and it is defended by the wall of the scattered pass in front of it.

The size of the county town does not seem to exceed 1,000 households, and even the houses are built on the side of the hillside, and the flat land is vacated for farming. The house was not burned down, but almost empty.

After leaving the county seat, on both sides of the mountain road, you can still see a few narrow terraced fields, stretching for several miles, but the width is only a dozen zhang to dozens of zhang, and it seems that there is not much land planted. The wheat straw in the field was cut deeply, and it seemed that Lu Su didn't even want to leave more fodder for the horses when he withdrew his troops.

After Jia Xu finished analyzing, he secretly thought in his heart: "The strong wall is very thorough, but I also know why Lu Su can't continue to defend - this mountain basin called Monk Yuan can only grow so little food, and there are definitely not many soldiers who can supply it."

Lu Su couldn't bear to walk more than 100 miles or even 300 miles of mountain roads to supply and disperse the pass, so he retreated in great strides as soon as he finished clearing the wilderness, throwing the pressure of logistical difficulty on our army, hoping to use the 300-mile mountain road from Chencang Road to Yangping Pass to supply and drag down our army.

In this way, Yangping Pass should still be relatively empty now, and the remaining defenders of Lusu may have marched lightly to Yangping Pass overnight, or they may have rested in Hechi County halfway, but the probability is not large.

Lu Su was afraid that we would sneak attack Yangping Pass after catching up, so he must try to concentrate all his forces to defend Yangping, plus Liu Bei withdrew more than 1,000 remnants of Hanzhong from the plank road at that time, as well as the people who had just been requisitioned recently. Break the Yangping Pass, and the entire Hanzhong will be ours. ”

There's one last battle left! If you win, you're all there! A large isolated base area!

Of course, there is also the risk that the enemy will deliberately show weakness, reinforcements will be imminent, or even outflanked.

But Jia Xu has seen the map, and there are several forks in the Chencang Road Canyon, so he should pay attention to the road and set up camp, so as not to be copied by the enemy. Pay attention to these matters, at most, the bloody battle will not break through the Yangping Pass, and survive until the enemy reinforcements come and have to retreat, but there will be no danger of annihilation. So the fight is definitely going to fight.

Thinking about this, Jia Xu ordered the escort troops around him to speed up immediately and try to catch up with Fan Chou and Zhang Xiu, who left first.

……

"Captain Jia, have you seen the situation in the county seat that Lu Su gave up? What do you think? Zhang Xiu still respects Jia Xu, and asks about tactics as soon as he receives him.

Jia Xu: "There are no flaws, it is indeed a pure fortification to clear the wilderness, shorten the supply grain route and lengthen our army's grain route, so the enemy's reinforcements should not arrive in a short time." Now the most important thing is to hurry up the pursuit, if you can catch up with Lusu halfway and annihilate it in the field, then Yangping Pass will only be left with weaker people than Sanguan to defend the city.

If you can't catch up, then there is a more tragic battle under Yangping Pass than Sanguan, you must be mentally prepared, willing to pay sacrifices, don't be stingy, as long as you break Yangping Pass, Hanzhong, Wudu, Yinping, Shangyong, the land of the four counties are ours. One pass determines four counties, and it is cost-effective to kill as many people as possible. Even if Liu Bei Xichuan's reinforcements arrived, he could only look at the pass outside Yangping Pass and sigh at that time. ”

Zhang Xiu gritted his teeth, knowing that he couldn't hide from it, but he was still a little unbearable, and asked his back hand: "If there are too many casualties, what if our strength is greatly damaged?" ”

Jia Xu: "If the initial battle is unfavorable, I will immediately revise a letter, report the good news and not the bad news, tell Dong Zhonglang about the prospects, and let Dong Zhonglang personally bring reinforcements to serve as the main attack of this war of attrition." Anyway, there are still tens of thousands of people in Chencang City who haven't moved. ”

Zhang Xiu didn't say anything, and Jia Xu also told him not to beep with Fan Chou, at that moment, he had another way to persuade Fan Chou to cooperate and pit Dong Yue as cannon fodder.

The group chased frantically for more than 100 miles, and broke through the three Han army's sluggish walled walls, wood and stone blocking the road, and a small group of ambush soldiers hiding on the mountain to wave their flags and shout sluggishly, and finally failed to catch up with Lu Su.

Although the majority of Lusu's infantry and the vanguard of the Xiliang Army had a lot of cavalry, the poor distance caused by running away most of the night in advance, and the lack of obvious speed difference between the horses and infantry on the mountain road, Fan Chouzhang Xiu turned over the last mountain beam before arriving in Hechi County, and looked high, and actually saw that less than ten miles away, Lusu's banner and the last two thousand people were flocking into Hechi County.

"Rush!" The Xiliang army flocked to take advantage of the chaos to seize the city gate, but in the end, when the cavalry rushed outside the city gate, Lu Su had already entered the city with the whole army and closed the city gate. The cavalry could not attack the city, and some of the impulsive soldiers rushed too close to lose their foothold, and were rained down by the bows and crossbows at the head of the city, killing and wounding dozens of people, before retreating again and again.

"It's a pity! Failed to kill Lu Su in the field! Fan Chou angrily threw his helmet to the ground.

Jia Xu and Zhang Xiuce stepped forward immediately, and Jia Xu said: "It's also acceptable, at least Lu Su because we chased too quickly and knew that we couldn't run Yangping Pass, so we hid in Hechi County halfway, so the Yangping Pass guards must be even more empty, and his thousands of people can't support the frontal battlefield of Yangping Pass."

I looked at the map, there is a fork on this side of the river, along the upper reaches of the Western Han River to the west, you can go to Wudu County to distinguish. Therefore, it is best that Hechi can be captured, and it can also replenish the military supplies of our army, so that the troops who will attack Yangping Pass in the future do not need to transport grain from Chencang, so that they can stay for a long time.

If we can't attack it for a while, as long as we refuse to defend the east bank of the Western Han River, and don't let the enemy soldiers at that point in Hechi cross the river to the east and cut off the back road of Chencang, it will be no hindrance. You can continue to divide your troops and go south to Yangping Pass. After taking Yangping Pass, Hechi County is a dead vine and dead fruit, and there is no need to gnaw hard. ”

Fan Chou's eyes rolled: "Then who went south to attack Yangping Pass?" Who will divide the troops here to guard the main road and prevent the enemy from cutting off our rear route? ”

Jia Xu: "There will be many casualties in tackling key problems, but those who succeed will also benefit greatly, and from now on they can be the emperor of the land of Hanzhong and be isolated from the world." Captain Fan has never been afraid of casualties for the lives of his soldiers, doesn't he want this opportunity? ”

Fan Chou snorted angrily and said, "I don't feel at ease to hand over the back road to someone like you who is unreliable!" ”

Jia Xu sighed: "Why does Captain Fan doubt the sincerity of my alliance? I'm obviously giving you a fortune. Besides, if Captain Fan is frustrated, will I be in any interest? In this case, I will guarantee you with my head to ensure that you will have no worries in ten days.

Moreover, I will write to tell Dong Zhonglang that Hanzhong is about to be pacified, and let him personally lead the army to come. At that time, Captain Fan felt that there were too many casualties to be drawn, so he could let Dong Zhonglang lead his family to make this great contribution in person. Although you have lost your first merit, you may not be able to actually guard the right Fufeng and Wudu - after Dong Zhonglang took over Hanzhong, the right Fufeng was not guarded, and you still can't take his place? ”

Jia Xu said very sincerely, and planned an arrangement for Fan Chou that would not lose his status no matter what, and the greedy and reckless Fan Chou agreed.

However, he still refused to go south to attack Yangping Pass in person as soon as possible, but asked his subordinate Sima to take thousands of people to explore the road first. And Fan Chou himself decided to take the cavalry to supervise the battle, and together with Zhang Xiu and Jia Xu, he tentatively stormed Hechi County for one day - Fan Chou was always unwilling not to see the reality that Hechi County was "difficult to capture in a short time".

Fortunately, only one day after his wish, he was completely killed by Lu Su.

Because Lu Su defended Hechi County with the remnants of the troops withdrawn from Dasanguan, the defense was only orderly, and the Xiliang army did not break through it at all within a day. What made the Xiliang army feel even more in crisis was that in the evening of the second day after they began to attack Hechi, they came from Wudu in the west to identify the direction, and some reinforcements from Liu Bei's camp actually came.

After Jia Xu looked at the banner, he found that it was actually the Southern Xiongnu Shan Yu Fuluo! It is known as the elite cavalry of 10,000 personal guards of the Southern Huns!

Of course, in fact, Yu Fuluo was seriously ill at this time, and it was his younger brother Hu Chuquan who took 50 million money and goods from the envoy sent by Li Su, and promised to bring troops from the army to fight for a month or two, and earn extra money as a temporary worker.

After the arrival of the Southern Xiongnu cavalry, they camped along the Western Han River in the west of Hechi County, blocking the valley to the west, and forming a corner with Hechi County in the distance, and could raid the Xiliang army attacking the county seat at any time.

As a result, the Western Liang army could only completely give up attacking Hechi, and instead set up defenses on the east bank of the Western Han River, and camped on the road to avoid the Southern Hun cavalry cutting off its rear road. Fan Chou didn't believe in evil at first, he felt that he was outnumbered, after all, there were tens of thousands of fresh troops, and he wanted to fight with Hu Chuquan in the field.

But I have to say that although the Southern Xiongnu have declined, these 10,000 "Shan Yu Guards" are the most elite troops after all, and they actually repelled the more numerous Xiliang Army in the field. If it weren't for the fact that Hu Chuquan didn't want to die more, he wanted to make money to stand on the field, otherwise the casualties on both sides would only be more tragic.

After Fan Chou's first contact with Hu Chuquan and the death of hundreds of cavalry, Jia Xu persuaded him again and again: "Don't make more enemies, the Huns will not really work for Liu Bei." I know that Li Su likes to spend money to buy Hu people, this is an old trick I learned from Liu Yu. As long as we keep enough troops to deter these Hu people, they will have an excuse to hold on to us, and they won't fight too hard. Yangpingguan is important! ”

Fan Chou figured out this truth, and then personally took all the remaining people in the headquarters to Yangping Pass.

Unfortunately, the danger of Yangping Pass was obviously worse than that of Dasanguan, and the defenders were more closely guarded. Even if Lu Su's thousands of soldiers who had just come out of the war and had accumulated a little experience in guarding the pass could not return to defense, they relied on Liu Bei's 1,000 and 5 zhang original remnants and newly recruited militia on Yangping Pass to temporarily hold the pass.

Fan Chou also knew that this was a decisive battle related to the overall situation, and he worked very hard, raising the intensity of the attack to the extent that he would take turns to attack for twelve hours a day, and at least 2,000 people would die in a day without stopping. After three days of fierce attack, 5,000 people were killed and not taken, and morale was quite frustrated.

Fortunately, the battle came to this point, and Fan Chou did not send elite soldiers to carry out a war of attrition, and completely used knives to force the recruits who had just been enlisted to consume cannon fodder and attack. Therefore, the loss of the elite of the descendant line is not too big, just like that, because of too many casualties of cannon fodder, the troops have mutinied several times, but they have been suppressed by the slashing and killing bullets of the supervision team composed of the elite soldiers of the Xiliang descendant line behind.

Fortunately, Zuo Zhonglang's general Dong Yue also received the report that Jia Xu had painted a flatbread, and brought 20,000 fresh troops and more temporarily captured cannon fodder people from Chencang, plus a batch of supplies, and rushed to Yangping Pass to attack with Fan Chou in the starry night.

From the fourth day of the attack on Yangpingguan, Dong Yue's troops took over the role of the main attack.

……

Seeing tens of thousands of Xiliang reinforcements driving along the valley road east of Hechi County in the direction of Yangping Pass, Lu Su, who was blocked in the county seat, was also a little worried, and he didn't know how many times he scolded Hu Chuquan, a guy who didn't work hard.

It was still Fa Zheng who was more open-minded, and comforted him: "Brother Zijing, dissipate your anger, and believe that the lord and the right general can hold Yangping Pass." People call Chuquan also to use money as a deterrent, not really take money and don't want to die.

He can at least hold back the enemy's rear army of 20,000 to confront us, and dare not press the whole army to reinforce the front line, which is his greatest value. Otherwise, do you really think that if you take tens of millions of copper coins, you will die for thousands of Huns and the cavalry of the personal guards? You get what you pay for. At most, four or five days Gan Ning arrived, and ten days later General Zhang also arrived. ”

Lewen