At the foot of Songshan Shaomu Mountain, the wind in early spring and February is still cold. Who made this place high, the snow has not yet melted.

And this wind blew on Hua Xiong, who was forced to take the initiative to fight, and he felt even colder.

In this battle, Dong Zhuo's army actually did not have an advantage in terms of the total number of troops, because Dong Zhuo's Niu Fu, Li Dao, Guo Yan, Zhang Ji and other troops had already moved westward for the defense of the Sanfu land, and the ones who remained on the southeast front were not the absolute main force.

If that part of Liang County had not been annihilated, the total strength of Dong Zhuo's army on the front line would have been estimated to be 30,000, and Liang County had lost 2,000 people, and at most there would have been only 28,000 left.

Although Guan Yu and Zhao Yun on the opposite side only had 8,000 people, the scale of Sun Jian's troops was really not small.

When Sun Jian set out from Changsha last year, he had "nearly 10,000 troops", and later expanded his army all the way north, and with the support of Yuan Shu, "compared to Nanyang, the number of people reached tens of thousands", in fact, it was about 30,000 people, and this was still a combat unit, and if you count the grain transport auxiliaries, the total number may be close to 50,000.

However, last year, Sun Jian faced more and stronger enemies, after the defeat of Liangdong last autumn, he lost a small half of the army, and now he came back to Nanyang to replenish, and there were still close to 30,000 troops again, and the capture of Liang County was slightly lost, but with the addition of Guan Yu and Zhao Yun, the total strength of the Dong coalition army was at least 35,000 people.

Thirty-five thousand to twenty-eight thousand, the number of Dong troops has an advantage of two or three percent. However, the quality of the troops in Sun Jian's troops was slightly worse.

There were only 5,000 people in it, and they were veterans of a hundred battles who had followed Sun Jian for at least five years and followed him all the way from Changsha County to defeat Quxing. There are also 5,000 soldiers, who were recruited in Nanyang and Nanjun only after the banner of fighting Dong was raised last year, and they only have a small amount of actual combat experience. The last 10,000 people, who were recruited just after the autumn harvest last year, served as soldiers for less than three months on average and never fought a single battle.

In contrast, Dong Zhuojun's 28,000 men were all veterans of the Xiliang Army and the Bingzhou Army.

With such a comparison of strengths, if there is no need to consider political pressure, Hua Xiong is still very confident that he will be looking for flaws in the enemy army? Win with one more blow. But to show the court's quick victory? It's more difficult.

After being forced by the military order for a day or two, Hua Xiong finally came up with a solution that seemed relatively feasible? discussed the specific strategy with Hu Zhen, Lu Bu, and Fan Chou.

On this day's military meeting? Hua Xiong advised:

"General Hu, I bring 8,000 soldiers and horses from my headquarters? Tonight, I will detour dozens of miles upstream on the mountain road, and cross the most upstream of Yingchuan overnight? Set up camp on the south bank before dawn? Fight with you.

In this way, the military order to cross the river within three days as required by Xiangguo can be completed, and the enemy will not be attacked by the frontal enemy. In order to cooperate with me to cross the river by detour, please continue to set up false flags and smoke in my old camp? And put on a posture of going directly across the river? Attract the forces of Sun Jian and Guan Yu. ”

Hu Zhen had the best relationship with him among the generals, and after listening to this suggestion, he thought about it for a while and confirmed: "Let's put on a posture of strength to attract enemy troops?" That's fine. But after you crossed the river, you couldn't meet each other with our army? What else are you talking about'?

Aren't you afraid that Sun Jian and Guan Yu will concentrate their forces and annihilate them first? Why don't you wait for you to set up camp and then take us across the river? The whole army went to the south bank and fought again with Sun Resolute. ”

Hua Xiong obviously thought it out a long time ago: "I'm just afraid that the camp will be unstable? Can't hold the enemy attack with all its might for too long? I don't dare to meet you directly—if the 20,000 rear army will continue to cross the river from the place where I crossed? There were still a large number of foot soldiers in the army, and the wading was very slow, and I might have to set up a raft, and half a day might not be finished, but I was entangled hand and foot.

It's better for you to cross the river slowly, and I only lead the cavalry to cross the river, although Sun Lian's army has more than 30,000 people, but the cavalry is only a few thousand, they come to rush my new camp, I abandon the camp and retreat. Isn't it foolproof that the main force of the enemy's infantry army can't catch up with me, and that thousands of cavalry will pursue me and annihilate me? ”

Even if it is the main force of the Xiliang Army and the Bingzhou Army, it is impossible for 28,000 people to be cavalry, and there are not so many war horses. Therefore, in Dong Zhuojun's army, the total number of cavalry is only a small half, about 12,000 to 13,000.

There are 8,000 people under Hua Xiong's command, and the cavalry is less than 5,000.

Hu Zhen still wanted to help with this, but he couldn't help but glance at Lu Bu, who still had three thousand elite and state cavalry under his command. It's a pity that Lu Bu is not as harmonious with the generals of the Liangzhou Army as in Romance, he pretends not to see it at all, and Hu Zhen can't help it.

After the last discussion, Hu Zhen replaced the 3,000 cavalry under his command with the temporary commander of Huaxiong, and it was easy to say that he got 1,000 people from Li Meng, and finally made Huaxiong all cavalry.

However, Li Meng's assistance was also conditional, and he said that he would personally take his 1,000 cavalry across the river to supervise the battle against Huaxiong.

And the reason why Hu Zhen didn't look for Fan Chou was because he knew that Fan Chou had a bad temper and was short-sighted-otherwise Fan Chou would not have been disliked and excluded by Li Wei and Guo Yan later.

"Fetch the wine, let's drink three bowls together, for General Hua's roundabout crossing the river tonight!" Hu Zhen made a round of peace, and let the five generals present drink a few bowls together, which can be regarded as a smile and enmity, and he does not care about internal factional contradictions for the time being.

That night, Hua Xiong took 8,000 people to take a small road from the western foot of Shaomu Mountain and successfully crossed Yingchuan.

Who let the Yingchuan River originally originate from Songshan Shaomu Mountain, so the water flow in the first few dozen miles near the source is not large, and you can just find a section where you can ride a horse and cross it without worrying about washing it away.

Huaxiong Hu Zhen has been stationed in several surrounding counties for a year, and the geography has long been understood.

……

It is not to blame Sun, Guan, Zhao and other generals for being negligent and not seizing the fighter plane that attacked Huaxiong halfway - mainly because they didn't expect Dong Zhuo to settle political accounts at all, forcing Huaxiong to take the initiative to cross the river to fight.

Sun Jian and Guan Yu all calculated according to military accounts, and naturally thought that the enemy army would hold on across the river, so all he was thinking about in the past few days was how to take the initiative to force the Yingchuan River and go to the north bank to attack Dong Zhuo's army.

Early the next morning, after Zhao Yunsa's scouts discovered the traces of Huaxiong's department, they immediately flew back with Pegasus.

"Report! Hua Xiong had crossed the river last night in a shallow place twenty miles upstream, with nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses, almost all of whom were cavalry! ”

After hearing the report, Sun Jian suddenly rose: "Huaxiong took the initiative to cross the river? How could I see that on the other side of the river last night, his camp was still brightly lit, full of flags, and there was a lot of smoke from dinner. ”

Guan Yu stroked his hair and groaned: "The smoke flags and lights are easy to fake, since you have come to the south bank, you are obviously prepared to attack." Our army can first assemble the soldiers, sound the drums and horns in the front, send all the strong crossbows, do not spare the crossbow arrows, and fire several rounds of arrows at the enemy camp on the other side of the river to see how the enemy reacts.

In this way, we can find out how many soldiers and horses, Hu Zhen, Lu Bu and others are still in the camp in the enemy camp. If they are still there, it means that the enemy army does not plan to cross the river with tens of thousands of troops, only Huaxiong is coming. ”

Sun Jian was right when he thought about it, and immediately ordered the troops to beat the drum and blow the trumpet, and put on a posture of attacking the whole army to cross the river.

Sun Jian's elite troops are also very good in weapons and equipment, and they can take out a thousand crossbows - these are all given by Yuan Shu, because when Yuan Shu, the rear general, was driven out of the capital by Dong Zhuo, Dong Zhuo also acquiesced to him to loot part of the arsenal of the Beijing division in order to let Yuan Shu get out quickly.

Therefore, the number and quality of the weapons looted by the elite of the Northern Army of Luoyang brought out by Yuan Shuyan were similar to those when Li Su, Wu Kuang, and Gao Shun left Beijing. Now Sun Jian wants to attack mainly, and Yuan Shu also generously borrowed some from him, but the "ownership" still belongs to Yuan Shu, Sun Jian is Yuan Shu's general, and he has to pay it back after the battle.

And Guan Yu's army also has thousands of crossbows, which were also scavenged by Li Su, and the two armies combined, and two thousand crossbows and arrows rained together, which suddenly made the camp on the north bank a little flustered. The width of the river in the upper reaches of Yingchuan is less than 100 paces, and it is no problem to shoot a crossbow of 200 paces to the periphery of the opposing camp.

Looking at the panicked dispatch on the other side, Guan Yu ascended to the heights and observed carefully, and soon estimated that the main forces of Hu Zhen and Lu Bu had not moved their nests.

After wasting more than 10,000 crossbow arrows, although only dozens of enemies were killed and less than 100 people were wounded, it was still very cost-effective to find out the enemy's false and real information.

"Since only Huaxiong crosses the river, it is better for us to go west with all our strength and concentrate our forces to annihilate Huaxiong first." Sun Jian suggested logically.

He and Guan Yu immediately gathered the main force and maneuvered upstream along Yingchuan. However, Sun Jian also knew that someone in the camp must be left behind, lest Hu Zhen and Lu Bu in front of him find that this place was empty and suddenly cross the river to attack.

So he left Huang Gai and Han Dang and gathered in a main camp to defend it. If Lü Bu crossed the river, he was instructed to abandon the deputy battalion on the right and stick to the strongest main battalion, the purpose of which was to prevent Lü Bu from outflanking the rear of the army after completely breaking the camp.

Guan Yu also made a similar deployment before leaving: "Youping, you leave a thousand soldiers, move to Tun and join forces with Huang and Han, and watch out as a corner." Gongming, you led the main force of our army's 4,000 foot soldiers to walk with General Sun. Xingba, you and I follow Zilong's cavalry first.

That Huaxiong's strength is far inferior to our army, and if he sees the tens of thousands of main forces of our army coming, he may take advantage of the swiftness of the cavalry to flee in a cowardly battle. Only by letting Zilong lead the cavalry forward first can we lure the enemy into a decisive battle with me. ”

Zhou Tai, Gan Ning, and Xu Huang all expressed their obedience and had no objections, but Zhao Yun was a little unwilling and suggested: "The matter of luring the enemy to defeat has always been handed over to me by the lord, so why fight?" Yun Changgui is the main general, and when the counterattack comes, wouldn't it be beautiful to lead the troops to attack? ”

Guan Yu smiled proudly: "I personally supervised the battle, just when I saw the opportunity, although our cavalry is only 3,000 people, it may not be that there is no opportunity to take advantage of Huaxiong's carelessness and contempt to fight with one." If it's really a rare fighter, there's no need to cheat - Zilong doesn't think I'm not good at horse warfare? ”

Zhao Yun smiled: "How dare you." ”

Wheel led a large cavalry army to fight, Zhao Yun thought that his tactical command was still much stronger than Guan Yu, but he didn't dare to be arrogant when it came to supervising the army to fight and fight in person.

So it was decided, Guan Yu Zhao Yun Ganning took 3,000 cavalry, separated from the main force of infantry, and went out to meet the enemy first, luring Huaxiong to light the enemy to fight.

……

Twenty miles of travel was not long, and after about a quarter of an hour, Hua Xiong got the enemy's situation.

"Captain, on the opposite side of Guan Yu and Zhao Yunqi, leading three thousand cavalry, has rushed to kill several miles away!" The scout reported the situation to Huaxiong.

Hua Xiong immediately slashed: "Only three thousand cavalry? How far away is the enemy's main infantry? ”

Scout: "It has not been discovered, but it is at least seven or eight miles away from the cavalry of the former army." ”

Hua Xiong patted the horse's neck: "This is a godsend!" Just take advantage of the disconnection between the enemy's vanguard and the main force, first cut Guan Yu Zhao Yun and broke the 3,000 cavalry. The cavalry of the southern army is scarce, as long as the enemy cavalry is destroyed, Sun Jian will not want to catch up with our army again! The whole army is in formation! ”

Three thousand riders dare to rush eight thousand riders? Let's make you suffer a little first!