Prairie, endless prairie.

The Jiangdong cavalry, who had never been to the northern grasslands, were deeply shocked by this vast world at this time.

Since leaving Lulongsai, the gate of eastern Liaodong, the scenery in front of me has basically never changed, and the endless grassland is like the sea.

Thundered~

Zhou Yu and Sun Ce led tens of thousands of cavalry to crisscross the grassland, and their hearts were arrogant. The war horses walked in neat steps, the queue was loose and unorganized, faintly showing a certain mysterious formation, like a long dragon speeding forward on the grassland.

"Gong Jin, the speed of our combined march is too slow, it is better for us to divide the troops first, and I will lead two thousand cavalry first."

It's been two days of marching, except for easily sweeping away the two small Wuhuan tribes, there have been basically no waves in the past two days, Sun Ce really couldn't help it, and said with a serious face.

Fighting in the northern steppes is very different from the way of fighting in the Central Plains, and there are many limitations.

First, there is the question of direction. In this era, not to mention GPS, even the maps are blurry, and it is too difficult to find the direction in this boundless grassland. At that time, Li Guang had always suffered this loss, and he was always lost in war, so he delayed the fighter plane, which led to the tragedy of Li Guang's difficulty and his suicide in shame.

Of course, Zhou Yu basically doesn't have to worry about this kind of problem. Under the guidance of Yuan Shu, Jiangdong's craftsmen had already invented the military portable compass and widely used it in the army. Moreover, Yuan Shu also asked some of his subordinates to compile a map of latitude and longitude, and drew a more accurate map of the Han Dynasty and the surrounding areas.

This map was drawn by Yuan Shu over the course of several years with the help of merchants and families, and it was very accurate and detailed. The manpower and material resources spent are difficult to measure, and the money is not exchanged. The map of the northern steppe region is naturally included, after all, Wuhuan is not isolated from the world, and always has to deal with merchants. While there may be some key points that are less detailed, they are sufficient for marching operations.

With these two sharp weapons, Yuan Shu's naval army and cavalry were able to be invincible in these places and crisscross at will.

The second difficulty in the expedition to the steppe was the logistical problem. Throughout the famous battles of ancient China against foreign races, most of them were won by less, and the enemy was strong and weak. It is said that with the war potential of the Central Plains and the number of soldiers, the frontier battles would not be fought so economically. This is due to logistical reasons.

There are no Han people living in the grasslands, and the foreign tribes are very loose and productive. To send a large army to it, the logistical issues are crucial. Just like Yang Guang's three expeditions to Goguryeo in history, eighty percent of the grain sent by the logistics personnel could be eaten on the way, and the number of people mobilized was four or five times that of the combatants. That's it, still on the basis of the alien race not harassing the logistics baggage team.

Therefore, for a long time, when the Han people took the initiative to attack in the battle with foreign races, they mostly led small groups of elite cavalry troops to go deep, carrying only a small amount of supplies, mainly relying on plundering foreign tribes and feeding the enemy.

Of course, at this point, Zhou Yu's army, which has only tens of thousands of people, does not have to worry too much. Moreover, Zhou Yu has been heading west after leaving Lulongsai, and the coast has been heading north. In this way, Ganning's sailors could also come to help from time to time, supplying supplies and taking away captured prisoners, cattle and sheep.

The role of the navy in logistics, transportation and support is indeed too perverted, and it is completely offensive and defensible. Otherwise, Yuan Shu would not have the intention of occupying Liaodong to contain Yuan Shao, he really couldn't beat it, and it was a big deal to return to Yingzhou to recuperate for a period of time and then fight back, what could Yuan Shao do? Do you have a botnet?

Just as it is difficult for the South to train truly powerful cavalry, it is even more difficult for the North to train a strong naval army, and the problem of naval generals and warships is also difficult to solve.

Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and others were also aware of these situations, so although they were secretly trying to train the navy army in order to protect themselves, they were all small-scale training. Because they know that if they practice it, it won't have much effect.

The above two problems are not problems for Zhou Yu, and at present, the biggest problem facing Zhou Yu is that there are not enough horses.

Gongsun Chan has a straightforward personality, but he is not a fuel-efficient lamp. In the horses that Yuan Shu traded with him before, Gongsun Chan gave most of them middle and low-grade horses, and there were few high-grade war horses, and those real good horses were all collected by Gongsun Chan himself, and none of them were given to Yuan Shu. Previously, Yuan Shu gave Gongsun Chan 3,000 horse armor, and Gongsun Chan was pleasantly surprised and gave 10,000 high-grade war horses.

Yuan Shu was also extremely willing to the two righteous sons of Zhou Yu and Sun Ce, and from the 10,000 high-grade war horses that were traded, plus the few high-grade war horses in the entire Jiangdong before, he was stunned to take out 6,000 and give Zhou Yu's army. Basically, nearly half of Jiangdong's high-grade war horses are here.

The conquest of Wuhuan, if there are not enough horses, is simply a fool's dream. The general Wuhuan cavalry is basically one person and three horses, and at least they are all medium or above war horses, and most of them are high-grade war horses, so that they can maintain a long period of extremely fast marching and running.

And Zhou Yu's army has a total of 20,000 war horses, on average, one person and two horses, excluding a large number of medium war horses, a total of 6,000 high-grade war horses, if you encounter a small group of Wuhuan cavalry, it is estimated that it will be difficult to catch up. Therefore, Sun Ce proposed to go first, the speed of the army was too slow, and in the eyes of the Wuhuan cavalry, it was simply a threatless old turtle.

Zhou Yu looked at the Wuhuan cavalry flashing in the distance, frowned slightly, nodded and said, "Okay, Bo Fu, you will go ahead first, and act when the opportunity arises." I will hand over all the six thousand high-grade war horses to you, and you must sweep away all the Wuhuan cavalry roaming around. If you encounter a large force of Wuhuan cavalry, don't be reckless, and retreat directly. ”

"No!" Sun Ce said excitedly: "Overlord Iron Rider, come with me!" ”

"Roar!" The two thousand cavalry behind Sun Ce roared together.

These veterans, who had been following Sun Ce from birth to death and skilled in archers and horses, marched while moving all the high-grade war horses in the generals to their side. Soon, two thousand cavalrymen who had been forming a single formation appeared on the side of Zhou Yu's army.

"Rush!" Sun Ce slapped the war horse under his crotch fiercely and roared angrily. The two thousand cavalry behind him also rushed over one by one with an excited roar, and quickly broke away from the large army.

This cavalry really followed Sun Ce all the way out. At the beginning of the battle with Guan Zhang, the 5,000 cavalry under Sun Ce fought until there were only more than 1,000 left, and some veterans who had been in a hundred battles were added, which was the overlord iron cavalry under Sun Ce.

In the past, Xiang Yu had 8,000 Jiangdong disciples, and now he Sun Ce has 2,000 overlord iron cavalry. Sun Ce is full of confidence in this team, and Yuan Shu is also full of high hopes for it.

Because in Sun Ce's body, he seemed to see the shadow of Hou Huo, the champion of the year, going to illness. He believed that on this northern grassland, Sun Ce would be able to reproduce the majestic posture of Huo Quai's wolf Juxu back then.