In order to deal with the war elephants and rattan armor soldiers that appeared in the intelligence, Li Su had to postpone the final attack on Qiyu County, but spent nearly ten extra days to make the final preparations, so that the final decisive battle date was postponed to the end of February.

Regarding the delay of the Han army, the Wailaoyi camp is not without suspicions.

But the intelligence value of the barbarian is also at this level, and Li Su has been deliberately leaking some of his weakness information during the preparation period, so it has the appetite of the various departments of Ailaoyi.

To speak in good conscience, the "intelligence showing weakness" leaked by Li Su is true, mainly including negative news such as "because of the postponement of the southern expedition, we had to rely on the grain and cargo fleet to rotate a group of soldiers again, and transport away some sick soldiers to reduce the size of the garrison in Nanzhong."

These news are not easy to understand at first glance, but combined with the original plan for the southern expedition and the weather conditions in Nanzhong, it is easy to understand: when he first set out after the autumn harvest last year, Li Su and Liu Bei negotiated a plan to withdraw before the spring ploughing in February to avoid the "peach blossom miasma" in the spring in Yongchang, Jianning and other places.

And now, because it took more than two months to envelop Kunmingyi, help Kunmingyi farm, renovate roads, and improve the logistics to Yongchang, and slowly forge ahead, Li Su has overspent on time.

Now, if we don't take advantage of the fact that the weather in February has not completely warmed up and spring is blooming, and a part of the garrison in Nanzhong is reduced, it means that it will not be possible to withdraw from mid-spring to mid-summer.

Because the climate in the south and central is the warmest and most pleasant, there is no miasma, and it is suitable for the northern Han people to live, and there are only two refreshing areas, the Dianchi Basin and the Erhai Basin.

On the contrary, along the waterway from the Dianchi Basin to the north, the miasma is countless times more poisonous than the Dianchi Basin. After the early spring withdrawal window, these two areas with a pleasant climate will have to be blocked until the end of the autumn harvest.

Who made the biggest enemy of the Han army in Nanzhong always be the weather and tropical diseases.

Based on this consideration, after discussing with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, Li Su decided to reduce the size of the Han soldiers in the Nanzhong region from 12,000 at the beginning to 8,000 (in fact, because of the battle damage, the initial 12,000 was not enough)

In this way, the logistical pressure of the Han army in Nanzhong has also eased a lot, at least one-third of the food that needs to be eaten is less, and the Meng clan and other Kunmingyi tribes will not be unable to afford to raise - saving food is very important, because Guan Yu can't eat from the warning line of the autumn harvest, and he also has to save some extra food for attacking Gao Yi, the barbarian king of Yuewang, from behind after the autumn harvest this year, if they are all eaten, the autumn offensive will be delayed.

Zhang Fei withdrew with these thousands of people and returned to Yandao and Jiangyang in Qianwei County, where he continued to train troops, cooperate with local construction, and garrison places. Zhou Tai under Zhang Fei stayed in Dianchi County, Huang Quan guarded Wei County, and Wang Ping, because he was familiar with mountain warfare, stayed on the front line to follow Guan Yu and provide some advice on mountain warfare.

In addition, Zhang Fei can also cooperate with Guan Yu in the Yandao acting, if Guan Yu really wants to sneak attack Yuewang from the southern line along the Yalong River in the autumn of this year, Zhang Fei will first bluff along the Dadu River on the northern line and pretend to attack, so as to attract Gao Yi's main force to the side that prevents the Han army from attacking Yuewang from Shu County and Qianwei crossing the Dadu River.

For the overall deployment of all this, the front-line combat strength of the Han army also paid some sacrifices: the front-line generals were reduced to only Guan Yu, Gao Shun, and Wang Ping, who were responsible for the decisive battle with the upcoming barbarian kings of Ailaoyi, and both sides only had three generals, which was very fair.

Moreover, Wang Ping is still a young man who is not yet a champion, and he is half of the experience, and the situation of the generals is very favorable to the Wailaoyi camp. (Dian Wei is not counted, Dian Wei is Li Su's personal bodyguard and captain of the guard)

……

On February 24, the cave master, who was waiting a little anxiously in Qiyu County, finally got the report that the Han army had once again crossed the Wuliang Mountain on a large scale and launched a full-line attack on Qiyu County.

The cave master was overjoyed when he heard the news, and hurriedly reported the situation to the other two barbarian kings.

King Mulu was still a little worried when he heard this: "Since the Han army first opened its formation to meet the attack, it has taken advantage of the danger of Wuliang Mountain to patrol and avoid the battle for more than ten days, and now it is suddenly willing to attack again, there will be no conspiracy, right?"

Could it be that he is pondering a poisonous plan to crack the strength of our army? In order to prevent fraud, we might as well change the field battle into a cage city, and guard the county town of Yuyu for a while, so as to frustrate the enemy's spirit. ”

King Ugo is still so confident: "Our rattan armor soldiers and your war elephants have been sharp weapons for many generations, can they come up with a way to crack it in ten days?" If it can be cracked, the 'kind prison' of the king of mourning 90 years ago has been used, why can't the current Han generals crack it? ”

The cave master waved his hand, stopped the suspicions of the two, and comforted: "Don't guess, I know why the Han army has been delayed - I have found out about the details, it is because the weather has warmed in the beginning of spring, and the Han army is all northerners, not accustomed to heat, and there are many epidemics."

Moreover, before the Han army set out, they had said that they had planned to march south for half a year, and now that the time has come, their generals will not let the soldiers return to the north, so there is a tendency to mutiny. The Han army rotated a considerable number of soldiers, and I sent them to Muma County, Jianning County, and saw with my own eyes that dozens of ships were carrying people back and forth every day on the docks, rotating new recruits.

Now there are only seven or eight thousand soldiers left under Guan Yu's command, and they can't all be sent to the front line, and there are at most five thousand soldiers on the front line. Zhang Fei, another member of the Han army, was also transferred. So, don't mention what cage city is stubbornly defending to thwart the enemy's sharpness, the best way to thwart the enemy's sharpness is to annihilate it with one blow! If you miss this opportunity, when the Han army understands and asks the Kunming thieves to increase the levy, this battle will not be easy to fight-

Have you forgotten that 90 years ago, the Ailao King was not defeated by the Han generals, so that our Ailao Kingdom perished and fled to the west of the Nu River to change its name to Shan. He was defeated at the hands of Kunming thieves who kept following the Han army as dogs! We must take advantage of their light enemies and destroy the Han army before the Kunming thieves are further deployed! It also lets the Kunming clan know that our Ailao clan is the largest clan in Nanzhong! ”

In the end, this reason was very crucial, so that King Mulu and King Ugo completely unified their understanding, and decided to ignore the bad news that "the Han army avoided the battle and prepared for more than ten days after hearing that the Ailao Coalition Army had war elephants and vine armor soldiers", and still fought a decisive battle!

After the ideological unity, the follow-up is a logical thing.

The road of the Han army was originally built to the last hundred miles away from Qiyu County, and it took three days to march over the mountains. On the evening of February 26, the Han army cautiously camped in the dangerous place of the Wuliang Mountains for the last time to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the night to rob the camp, and the Ailao coalition army did not move at all, and the next day, the Han army was put into the Erhai Basin.

On the morning of the 27th, more than 30,000 people of the Ailao coalition army went out of the city, and more than 200 war elephants were assembled, opened the southern gate of Qiyu County, went south out of the city, walked more than 20 miles, and then collided with the Han army on the narrow plain south of the west bank of Erhai Lake.

The two sides immediately began to line up on the spot. The location here is basically near the Dali Ancient City Scenic Area in the later generations, bordering Erhai Lake in the east and Cangshan Mountain in the west.

Cangshan and Erhai are both north-south, from the mountains to the lake, is a long and narrow plain with a width of 12 miles, so the terrain is enough to spread tens of thousands of troops.

There were 30,000 men in the Wailao coalition army, and the front of the front line was five or six miles wide, with about thirty rows in front and back, nearly 1,000 people in each row, and a large section of war elephants was vacated in the middle.

The frontal width of the Han-Kunming coalition was much narrower, only two miles wide, and the depth was slightly thinner.

Meng Xin's 5,000 Kunyi was on the left side, because these troops were all mountain soldiers, so they lined up on the slopes of Cangshan Mountain, using the rugged terrain to prevent being charged by war elephants, Guan Yu asked Wang Ping to take hundreds of personal soldiers as Meng Xin's supervisors.

Guan Yu coordinated the Han army and Kunming Yi in the center, and let Gao Shun lead 2,000 ironclad soldiers to the right, and Gao Shun followed 2,000 Han light infantry crossbowmen with leather armor on both flanks and rear, and 1,000 Han cavalry.

Li Su himself also brought Dian Wei and hundreds of escort cavalry to the battlefield to supervise the formation, or when he encountered an unexpected situation that Guan Yu had never seen, it was convenient to mention it - although, before the battle, Li Su had already explained all the weapon arrangements he had made to deal with the rattan armor soldiers and war elephants, but Guan Yu had never tried it, and he was still a little suspicious.

"Drive the Han army and the Kunming thieves out of Yuze! Kill the boys! ”

Yuze is the ancient name of Erhai Lake, bringing the cave master to simply boost morale, he ordered the war elephants to launch a cluster charge first, and the infantry to delay the war elephants for more than 100 steps before starting the charge, and it was the vine armor soldiers who rushed to the top shield to resist the crossbow formation of the Han army.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest disadvantage of the Southwest Yi in positional warfare is the lack of strong bows and crossbows. They had almost no crossbows, and their bows were light and soft, and they relied on quenching poison to ensure lethality. In mountain warfare, you can also use complex terrain to engage the enemy and shoot at close range, giving full play to the power of poison. However, no matter how strong the poisoned arrows are in the field, the range is insufficient, and they will suffer a great loss, and they will have to withstand the huge casualties of being shot by the crossbow array to within 50 paces before they can start firing.

Therefore, the war elephant and the rattan armor soldiers are the two trump cards to attract firepower and crack the crossbow array of the Han army, otherwise relying only on the 30,000 barbarian soldiers to charge in formation on the plain will not be able to withstand the continuous strong crossbow shooting of the Han army, and the prestige of the positional war "one Han top five Hu" is not in vain.

Two hundred steps, one hundred and fifty steps, seeing that the surging war elephants had approached the effective killing range of the Han army's crossbows, many light infantry crossbowmen were already frightened by this battle, and they almost pulled the trigger in advance to release their arrows.

It's also a shame that they use crossbows, and it doesn't take extra effort to maintain the tension of the crossbow string, so the probability of a misfire is lower, if it's an archer, the bow is full and the arrow is not released, and within a few seconds, the arm strength is exhausted and the hand trembles and shoots out.

Li Su personally took Dian Wei to patrol back and forth behind the crossbow array, and he also realized the nervousness of the crossbowman, and hurriedly asked the herald and the military judge to warn him repeatedly:

"Don't panic! Don't shoot arrows in advance! Trust your weapons, shoot the elephants and they will flee! But because the crossbow bolt is tied to the cartridge, it can't shoot far, so you must hold it steady! And it is necessary to form a batch of arrows and continue to frighten, otherwise it will be useless to stop after scaring a wave! ”

Under the repeated pressure of bullets, these crossbowmen deserved to have fought with Liu Bei for several years, and those who had gained psychological quality experience in the two-year battle of Yizhou survived.

"First row ignition! After igniting, aim within 2 breaths and quickly release the arrow! ”