Li Su's plan of "we will level the valley road between Yunnan County and Qiyu County, and wait for Ailaoyi to sit still and provoke" was not directly realized in the way of "detonating the war between the two sides".

He began to build roads in Qiyu County on the fifth day of the second month. However, as we all know, in the border areas of Yunnan and Yuyu, the places bordering counties are often the poorest and most remote places.

Therefore, it took seven or eight days for the two sides to get the news, and it took another four or five days to react and send people to the scene to obstruct it, so the conflict between the two sides was close to the end of February.

Whoever makes the county seat of these two counties and the county seat are 200 miles apart, and the border line to the county seat of Qiyu is also 140 miles (that is, the county seat of Yunnan County is 60 miles to the border).

The junction of the two counties is a mountain range, and now there is no name, but it is quite famous in later generations, called "Wuliang Mountain" - people who have read "Tianlong Babu" should be no stranger to this place name, because in Jin Yong's pen, there are Wuliang Sword School and "Langhuan Jade Cave" on Wuliang Mountain, which contains the statue of the fairy sister and the secret book of Ling Bo Weibu.

Wuliang Mountain runs north-south, and the ridge that crosses the remaining veins of the northern section of Wuliang Mountain is the Yu, and there is a small river on the eastern slope of the mountain, which eventually meanders along the valley and flows into the Erhai Lake, and the county seat of the Qiyu Lake is on the west bank of the Erhai Lake.

The soldiers and horses of the Zhurong clan went to the site on the morning of February 20 to stop the construction.

At that time, the Han army had already built the road for more than 30 miles on the west side of the ridge of Wuliang Mountain, and it was a simple dirt road that elephants stepped on and crushed and flattened by elephants. Calculating the mileage, if you build more than 100 miles further, you can get to the shore of Erhai Lake.

Because the section of the road near the ridge is relatively steep, in the future, you can only pass the unicycle, not the four-wheeled vehicle of the cow and horse, otherwise it is easy to stop the car when going downhill.

Li Su considered rebuilding the road into a winding mountain road with N consecutive hairpin bends to reduce the slope in the section of the road near the ridge, imitating the "Qinglong 24 turns". But in the end, because of the large amount of work and the construction habits of the craftsmen of the Han Dynasty, no one would design and survey specifically, so they had to give up.

At that time, the only way to do this is to use ox-and-horse carts to pull the goods to the foot of Wuliang Mountain, and then change to a wheelbarrow to cross Wuliang Mountain, and then change to ox-and-horse carts at the foot of the other side of the mountain. Although there are two more stevedores, it is a small and half of the freight cost compared to the whole wheelbarrow transportation.

The general sent by the Zhurong clan with troops, who was just a cave master of a small tribe, brought hundreds of people, first of all, to stop the construction, pushed and shoved to prevent the Han soldiers from continuing to advance, and shouted:

"This place is already Wuliang Shanxi, since ancient times it is the boundary of the Ailao Department, and you are waiting for Kunming thieves to quickly return to Wuliang Shandong! If you dare to take another step, you will be violating my Wailing Territory! ”

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In accordance with Li Su's prior orders, the Han army construction team did not kill people directly, but insisted on construction, verbally abusing each other and refuting each other:

"I'm only here to build roads and trade, not to transport troops, what a crime! We are going to Yongchang County to govern Buwei County for trade, Buwei County is still the land under the jurisdiction of the Han people, is it wrong for the Han court to transport goods to Buwei County! If you dare to obstruct it, you are trying to besiege Buwei County as an enclave, and you will regard it as an enemy of the Han Dynasty! ”

After beeping for a while, sure enough, the two sides couldn't help but start fighting each other with old fists, there were many people on the side of the Han army construction team, and it seemed to be prepared, there were many warriors who fought hand-to-hand, and after a while, the obstruction team of mourning was beaten all over the ground looking for teeth.

Annoyed and ashamed, he drew his sword and began to slash.

The Han army construction team hurriedly maintained great restraint and retreated one after another, and then rushed forward.

There was no need for a murderous weapon, but an elephant pushing a roller down the valley downhill, and a single charge killed seven or eight mourners under the elephant's legs and stone rollers.

When the mourning soldiers saw that the other party was really coming, and there were more people, they hurriedly ran back to report the news. The Han army chased the elephant and explained: "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding, we don't want to kill people, this is a construction accident, and the construction elephant is frightened!" ”

After chasing all the way for several miles, he finally controlled the frightened elephant and collected his troops back.

Five days later, the Cave Master I, who was completely enraged, sent a small tribe of Cave Masters, with 5,000 elite soldiers from his headquarters, to Wuliang Mountain to avenge the dead and wounded advance team.

Before sending troops, the cave lord I also asked other tribes of the same clan to ask for the same enemy, but the diplomatic propaganda of the Han army seems to be more powerful, and people have spread the news in advance, saying that the Wuliang Mountain incident is just a construction accident, so the other mourning departments were stabilized for a while, and they all wanted to wait and see, and refused to send troops together, so the cave master had to do it alone.

In addition, although the advance team of the Zhurong clan was trampled to death by the Han army's construction elephants, the cave master did not use their war elephant troops on a large scale to retaliate-

The main reason is that the terrain of the Wuliang Mountains is too rugged and steep, which is only suitable for large-scale combat of mountain light infantry, and elephants can only accommodate a dozen at most. They also knew that there were very few elephants in the Han army, and they were all sent for road construction, so they could not form a formation.

The cave owner considered that it was enough to "kill all the Han construction teams, destroy the construction facilities, and find this field", and he didn't want to annihilate all the Han troops with this little people.

Unfortunately, things turned out completely differently than he had imagined. When he thought that this was a "local conflict of road construction confrontation", the guard on the side of the Han army had also been changed.

On the way along the valley to climb the main ridge of Wuliang Mountain, the 5,000 Ailaoyi encountered 5,000 Kunmingyi barbarian soldiers led by Meng Xin ambushing on the slopes on both sides, while the front was blocked by the 2,000 Han soldiers led by Gao Shun to "trap the camp".

After a fight, the Ailao army was defeated, and the 5,000 people who came to annihilate the construction team not only did not touch a single hair of the Han army's construction team, but they were almost wiped out halfway. More than 1,000 were killed and wounded, more than 2,000 were captured, and only the last 1,000 escaped.

A provocation-ambush battle on the Boundless Mountain directly caused the Zhurong clan to lose nearly 4,000 young soldiers, and they were all relatively elite soldiers, and the quality was far from comparable to the subsequent temporary mobilization and drawing of strong men. This also greatly weakened the overall combat effectiveness of Ailaoyi in the follow-up battles.

However, with this heavy blow, the two sides can be regarded as completely torn their faces, and no longer consider the possibility of diplomatic compromise and hypocrisy, so they can only fight a real battle.

After bringing the cave lord to collect the defeated army, he once again asked the king of Mulu and the king of Ugo to help with all their might, and the two barbarian kings saw that they had brought the elite of the clan to join the alliance, while the other smaller tribes were all on the pretext of waiting and seeing, not wanting to wade into this troubled water.

The three major tribes have a total of 500,000 Ailao population and 140,000 strong men, and according to the five tribes, it should be 28,000 troops, and only 24,000 are left after the loss of 4,000. But because it was an internal defensive battle, the cave lord was forced to draw 6,000 more strong men from his tribe who had never fought, and gathered 30,000 troops to prepare to defend Qiyu County.

After the troops were gathered, the cave master and the two barbarian kings began to discuss how to fight this battle.

King Mulu is the most bottomless one in his heart, and he was also tied to the chariot of the Zhurong clan at the beginning, but now he has been slightly shaken, and he said worriedly: "The Han army and the Kunming thieves joined forces, although the troops are not many, but the Han soldiers are strong, unless the cage city is defended, or we give full play to our advantages to fight in the mountains and dangerous places, otherwise we may not be sure that we will kill one of the three in the field." ”

King Ugo was more confident than King Mulu, and said proudly: "Hmph, you will only increase the morale of the thief!" The Han thief has the strength of the iron armor, and the strength of the rattan armor in my Ugo department, even if it is slightly inferior to the iron armor, but the number is far from being comparable to the iron armor of the Han army! The Han army had one or two thousand iron armor to die, but our ten thousand people had five thousand pairs of rattan armor, which was invulnerable! What's the point of being upright in the field! ”

After all, this is the real world and not romance, so King Ugo is not so mysterious that he thinks that the vine armor is far superior to the iron armor.

It's just that the defensive effect of the two is not much different, but the rattan armor soldiers are better at cheap energy production, and they will not rust and can accumulate production for many years, so his tribe can take out five thousand rattan armor soldiers in one go, counting on the scale of piling up one or two thousand iron armor of the Han army to "quasi-trap camp".

After boasting about the rattan armor, King Ugo also encouraged his colleagues: "Although you don't have the benefits of the vine armor, are the two or three hundred war elephants of your various divisions added up to be vegetarians?" The reason why the Wuliang Mountain lost the small battle before was nothing more than the rugged terrain of the Wuliang Mountain, which was not suitable for large-scale trampling of war elephants.

In that case, how about we let the Han army in? Put Li Su and Guan Yu in the open land on the shore of the Erhai Sea to form a decisive battle, let's add vine armor soldiers and war elephants, and trample the Han army to death in a dignified manner! ”

King Mulu thought for a while: "However, the Han army has subdued the Kunming thieves, and there are more than 100 war elephants under the command of Meng Wei, and they will also use them if we use war elephants, and our number is close to twice that of him, but it cannot be said that this benefit is exclusive to our army."

In addition, if both the enemy and the enemy have dispatched war elephants, Brother Ugo, your vine armor soldiers will be of little use - the strong armor is most afraid of blunt weapons, and no matter how strong the armor is, all beings are equal if they are trampled by the elephant's legs. ”

King Ugo: "If the enemy and I really send out war elephants, then this first battle must not be on me, our Ugo warriors should be used as a reserve, and when the elephants on both sides of you rush to each other to divide the victory and defeat, and all the war elephants of the Meng taste dog thieves are suppressed and killed, I will personally lead the vine armor soldiers to charge and cover the kill, and I can win a complete victory." ”

The three of them discussed the details again, and felt that the operability was very strong, so they decided not to fortify in the Wuliang Mountains anymore, and directly retreated to the county town of Qiyu to show weakness, so they forced to give in and put the Han army and the Kunming Yi coalition army on the shore of the Erhai Sea for a decisive battle.

……

"Dudu, General Guan, since the defeat of Zhongfu the day before yesterday, the cave master has given up defending Wuliang Mountain, and has been retreating to the county seat of Yuyu, and has also contacted the main force of King Mulu and King Wugo to gather troops to assist in the defense of Yuyu County.

According to the investigation, the elite main forces of King Mulu and King Ugo are among the reinforcements, so a large number of elite warriors and war elephants wearing strange armor have been found in the enemy army. ”

The movement of tens of thousands of enemy troops must not be hidden, so the approximate movement of the assembled forces of the Ailaoyi troops was quickly intercepted by Li Su's scouts.

Li Su and Guan Yu, who had been stationed in Wuliang Mountain to look for fighters and waited for several days, finally felt that they could move forward with confidence.

"War elephants and rattan armor soldiers? Still all in one place? This is to save me from walking more to the poor places in the mountains and mountains to fight one by one, so gather and send it? The corners of Li Su's mouth couldn't help but smile and gradually became perverted.

He immediately ordered: "Tell Meng Xin that he only needs to bring 5,000 mountain foot soldiers to help our army in the battle, and I have good intentions to receive his dozens of war elephants, but I don't need to bring them." ”

The herald immediately went to pass the message, and Guan Yu next to him was stunned when he heard it: "The enemy army has a fierce beast like a war elephant, and it is already difficult to defeat, why does our army not even bring a war elephant?" ”

Li Su: "I'm afraid of scaring our own war elephants. But don't worry, I'll be prepared. We are not in a hurry to fight a decisive battle, but we are spending a few days preparing a few things. ”

Lewen