Wuguan, the throat of Qin Chu, the lock and key of Guanzhong, and Hangu Pass, Xiao Pass, Dasan Pass and called Qin's four stops, known as Shaoxi Pass in ancient times, was renamed Wuguan during the Warring States Period.

The Guancheng of Wuguan is built on a relatively flat high ground between the canyons, the north is based on the lofty Shaoxi Mountain, the south is dangerous, the terrain of Guanxi is relatively flat, the road out of the east of the Guanguan is the waist of the mountain winds and crosses, the cliff is high and the valley is deep, narrow and difficult to walk, it has always been the place where the ancient soldiers must fight, and it is also the most easy to defend and difficult to attack.

This is not counted, Wuguan also has a similarly difficult to attack the outer Guo, that is the suspension bridge ridge five miles east of Wuguan, the suspension bridge ridge is not only high and steep, there is a long Qin-Chu boundary wall of about seven miles on the ridge, the wall is made of stones, it is the border line of Qin-Chu during the Warring States period, and it is an ideal fortification, the boundary wall opens the gate, there is a city tower built on the door, there is a deep trench dug outside the door, all rely on the suspension bridge traffic, the defenders only need to pull the suspension bridge up, it is difficult to touch the gate when attacking.

It is not bad for the young marshal army who is ready to enter the military pass, thanks to the blessing of Qin Shi Huang, after the unification of the six countries, countless manpower and material resources were used to build a gallop road that can be reached from Wancheng to Xianyang, and now it is much easier to enter the Suspension Bridge Ridge than before, if it is replaced by the era when there is no gallop road, just by virtue of the mountain road that the Suspension Bridge Ridge is said to be unable to ride together, it is enough to make people daunted, and dare not think of non-points.

However, even so, after the gallop road with a width of tens of meters reached the Suspension Bridge Ridge, it was still forced to narrow to only three zhang wide, and it had to zigzag upward, and it was also difficult to put offensive troops into the first line, and it was also very easy to deal a heavy blow to the defenders.

If you insist on saying that Wuguan has any weaknesses, it is two small flaws, one is that the gate of Wuguan is too small, the circumference is only three miles, and there are still some people living in the city, and it can only garrison an army of four or five thousand people; The second is that the mountain of Suspension Bridge Ridge is too high, the water source is scarce, it is very difficult to get water, it is difficult to station too many troops, and at the same time, the boundary wall on Suspension Bridge Ridge is only less than two zhang, far less towering and difficult to climb than the ordinary city wall, which can make the attacking side see a little hope of successful attack.

Regarding the situation of these Wuguan, as early as before setting off from Wancheng to the west, Xiang Kang already had a very detailed understanding, and he also knew very well that wanting to forcibly break through Wuguan was definitely not something that could be done, but there was no way, if he couldn't break through Wuguan, he couldn't enter Guanzhong, so Xiang Kang couldn't help it, he still swore westward in Wancheng on the twenty-fifth day of the first month of the third year of Qin II, and wanted to open Wuguan with the main force of the young marshal army with a force of about 26,000.

The troops marched along the gallop road very quickly, even if they carried two months' worth of grain and grass and a large number of military supplies, the main force of the young marshal's army still only took more than six days to rush to Xixian County, and the young marshal's army from Danshui to the north to attack the county Zhou Shu and Li Shang's department had already taken the county, and also incorporated another anti-Qin Yi division in Nanyang Wang Ling's department of about 3,000 people, and after meeting with the main force of the young marshal army, the total strength of the young marshal army was expanded to more than 37,000 people.

After meeting with Uncle Zhou, Li Shang and others, Xiang Kang first praised Liu Laosan's fellow villager Wang Ling, who took the initiative to accept the incorporation of the army, gave him a miscellaneous general, rewarded him with some money, and promised to give him the title of marquis in the future, and then after Wang Ling thanked him repeatedly, Xiang Kang turned to Uncle Zhou and asked, "How is it?" Has the enemy situation on the Wuguan side been detected? ”

"It's almost done." Uncle Zhou replied: "There were about 5,000 defenders before Wuguan, and the guard was called Wang Bang, and later the Tyrannical Qin court sent 6,000 reinforcements to Wuguan, and the leader of the troops will be Li Cai, the second son of the famous general Li Xin of the Tyrannical Qin, but the Guancheng of Wuguan is too small, and there is no suitable place for the troops to set up camp in the east, so the Tyrannical Qin reinforcements are stationed seven or eight miles away from the west of Wuguan to serve as a backup for the Tyrannical Qin army in Wuguan. ”

"What is the deployment of the Tyrannical Qin army in Wuguan?" Xiang Kang asked again.

"There are 1,500 tyrannical Qin troops on the Drawbridge Ridge, and the defender is Wang Bang's deputy Ning Zhi, and Wang Bang himself leads 3,500 troops to be stationed in Wuguan City." Uncle Zhou replied truthfully, and said: "Also, Song Yang, the lieutenant of the Tyrannical Nanyang County who escaped from Wancheng before, has confirmed that he fled to Wuguan to return to the tyrannical Qin army, and was left under the tent by Wang Bang to listen to it, and is currently stationed in Wuguan City with Wang Bang. ”

Xiang Kang nodded, too lazy to care about Song Yang, who left a book and scolded him, but asked Uncle Zhou again: "What do you think of General Zhou's attack on our attack on Wuguan?" ”

"I'm afraid it's hard to be opportunistic." Uncle Zhou replied very directly, and said: "The geographical advantage of the Tyrannical Qin army is too great, and it will definitely not be easy to go into battle, and it is almost impossible for us to design to lure the enemy into battle, so we can only rely on force to attack." Fortunately, the tyrannical Qin army in Wuguan and their reinforcements did not have decent actual combat experience, and their combat effectiveness was not very strong. ”

Xiang Kang didn't dare to be as optimistic as Uncle Zhou, because Xiang Kang was very aware of the situation of the young marshal's army, and knew that the young marshal's soldiers were indeed experienced in a hundred battles and had rich combat experience, but because Xiang Kang was too opportunistic before, the young marshal's soldiers had never fought a particularly difficult battle, especially the long and protracted battle, and the geographical advantage of the Wuguan Qin army was too great, and no one dared to guarantee whether the young marshal army could adapt to such an absolute headwind battle, so Xiang Kang never dared to underestimate the enemy, just said: " How to fight, let's talk about it when we get to Wuguan. ”

Uncle Zhou nodded in agreement, and then the young marshal's army just paused and rested outside the city of Xixian County, and quickly completed the reorganization of the main force and the partial division, leaving two thousand absolutely reliable troops to guard the county to protect the retreat, and continued to advance westward in the early morning of the next day, and crossed the border of Nanyang County more than two days later, and officially set foot in the territory of the internal history of the Qin Dynasty.

The more the main force of the young marshal army went west, the narrower the road became, and when Xiang Kang could see the towering suspension bridge ridge with the naked eye, the gallop road that could reach a width of nearly seventy meters on the plain had been narrowed to only more than ten meters, and the main force of the young marshal army was forced to become a long snake formation during the march, and the distance between the front team and the rear team reached several miles away.

After finally arriving at the foot of the Suspension Bridge Ridge Mountain, looking at the mountaineering road, Xiang Kang couldn't help but curse a dirty word, "Who the hell said that the Shu Road is difficult, and it is difficult to go to the blue sky?" In my opinion, this Qin Road is definitely more difficult to walk than the Shu Road! ”

I really can't blame Xiang Kang for scolding, after Qin Shihuang repaired the road to the foot of the Suspension Bridge Ridge Mountain, he actually had to turn on the nine bends to reach the top of the mountain, the mountain of the Suspension Bridge Ridge is still very steep, just push a stone down from the mountain, and smash it directly to the foot of the mountain, that is absolutely no problem, if the young marshal wants to rush from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, how much price Xiang Kang doesn't even dare to think about.

Fortunately, the morale of the young marshal soldiers is not bad, although they have all seen the bad terrain and dangerous march routes, Long Ji, Zhong Liwu, Ding Ji and Li Shang and other young marshal generals still took the initiative to ask for help, volunteering to lead the army to attack the Suspension Bridge Ridge and seize control of the high ground on the top of the mountain. Xiang Kang refused to risk the lives of his soldiers, and decisively ordered the army to camp at the foot of the mountain, and at the same time sent Shusun Tong to carry Jin Yu up the mountain to persuade the Qin general Ning Zhi, who led the army to guard the Drawbridge Ridge, to surrender, and arranged two scouts who were familiar with geography to disguise themselves as Shusun Tong's entourage and take the opportunity to explore the current situation on the Drawbridge Ridge.

When it was slightly dark, Shusun Tong returned to Xiang Kang dejectedly and pleaded guilty, saying that although he had persuaded Ning Zhi for a long time, Ning Zhi was stubborn, not only refused to surrender, but also took the opportunity to swallow the gold and jade that Shusun Tong had bought and bought. Fortunately, Shusun Tong was not without gain this time, and the young marshal army scouts who pretended to be his entourage and went up the mountain took advantage of the lack of experience of the Qin army on the mountain, not only figured out the basic deployment of the Qin army, secretly drew the terrain on the mountain, but also found a very important situation - that is, because the Qin army on the mountain had a long road down the mountain to get water, they installed some reels on the cliff south of the suspension bridge south, tied the wooden barrel to the cliff with a rope, and directly took water from the Danshui south of the suspension bridge south.

Hearing this, Xiang Kang was of course overjoyed, and said: "The tyrannical Qin army on the Suspension Bridge Ridge is so lazy, for the sake of convenience, they don't send people down the mountain to get water, and even use a rope to get water directly from the mountain?" Aren't they afraid that we will do something down the hill and suddenly cut off their water supply? ”

"The tyrannical Qin army should be inexperienced, that's why they are so lazy." Uncle Zhou analyzed it and said: "But as long as they suffer a loss once, they will definitely correct it immediately, and send someone down the mountain from the west to get water directly." ”

"With such a good opportunity, can we still make up for them?" Xiang Kang sneered, and immediately asked Uncle Zhou: "General Zhou, hurry up and study it, and see how we can forcibly attack the mountain while cutting off the water, not giving the violent Qin army a chance to correct their mistakes, and also take advantage of the temporary water cut off on the Suspension Bridge Ridge to take the Suspension Bridge Ridge at the lowest cost." ”

"I'm afraid this is difficult, right?" Uncle Zhou frowned and said: "No matter how lazy and inexperienced the Tyrannical Qin army is, there must be a certain amount of drinking water storage in the camp, even if we temporarily cut off their water source from the bottom of the mountain, as long as they hold on for a while, they can send someone to directly fetch water from the bottom of the mountain to go uphill, even if we win this opportunity, the time will definitely be very short, I'm afraid it will be difficult to let the Tyrant Qin soldiers cut off the water and mess up." ”

"Do you remember when we ambushed Yang Xiong in Lixian County?" Xiang Kang smiled and said, "What I regret the most that time is that there is too little fire oil in the army, and there are no things like saltpeter and sulfur that ignite the fire, so there is no way to burn Yang Xiong's army to death in that forest." This time, I learned my lesson and brought all the oil and saltpeter sulfur that Wancheng could get. ”

Uncle Zhou applauded and laughed, and said, "Fire oil and fire-starting things are enough, and we know the camp layout of the Tyrant Qin army, then there is no problem!" ”

…………

It's time to take a look at the situation on the Qin army side of Suspension Bridge Ridge, as analyzed by Uncle Zhou, the Qin army team on Suspension Bridge Ridge is indeed inexperienced, so they are lazy and choose to use ropes and wooden barrels to draw water directly from the top of the mountain. However, the terrain of Drawbridge Ridge is too favorable to the Qin army, so the morale of the Qin army is still quite high, not only did not panic and fear when seeing the arrival of the main force of the young marshal army, but also looked forward to the young marshal army to launch an attack as soon as possible, so that the self-army could show its strength, use the terrain advantage to meet the young marshal army, and win the opportunity to be rewarded for meritorious service.

But it's a pity that after arriving at the foot of the Suspension Bridge Ridge Mountain, the whole day of the next day, the young marshal's army did not move, which made many high-spirited Qin army soldiers quite disappointed, and the guard general Ning Zhi was quite proud, thinking that it was his strict arrangement that frightened the young marshal army, so he didn't dare to move. Fortunately, Ning Zhi was also quite calm, and did not take it lightly because of the young marshal's incompleteness, and when it was dark, Ning Zhi still carefully made night precautions, and then went back to sleep with confidence.

Facts proved that Ning Zhi's cautious arrangement was very correct, and when the second watch was approaching that night, the Qin army's secret whistle lurking on the mountainside to monitor the road suddenly sounded a gong alarm, and the Qin army, which was quite strictly trained, also reacted quickly, sending troops to rush to the edge of the flat land on the mountain, smashing the well-prepared rolling stone and sassal wood down the mountain, successfully repelling the shameless sneak attack of the young marshal's army, and achieving the first victory in the defense of Drawbridge Ridge.

But the matter is not over, when it comes to the third watch, there is a gong alarm sound at the bottom of the mountain, and there are many war drums and horns, the Qin army of Suspension Bridge Ridge does not dare to slack off, Ning Zhi also personally led the army out of the camp, and took the Qin army soldiers to continue to fall down the mountain and roll wood, and it took a lot of effort to repel the second attack of the young marshal army.

During the fourth watch, when the young marshal's army launched a sneak attack on Drawbridge Ridge for the third time in one night, Ning Zhi finally found that the situation was not right - the original number of rolling stones and fallen trees had been consumed in large quantities unconsciously, and Ning Zhi also vaguely came back to his senses and ordered: "Stop falling stones!" It seems that the thief army is deliberately feintting, tricking us into using up the rolling stones and trees, so that they can go up the mountain with confidence! ”

Finally stopped the soldiers of the Qin army from continuing to fall into the wood, and tried to look down for a long time, something happened that made Ning Zhi stunned, a group of black shadows had already touched the top of the mountain, and there were only two bends left from the top of the suspension bridge ridge, Ning Zhi was shocked, and quickly ordered the soldiers of the Qin army to continue to fall from the rocks and trees, and stopped the young marshal's army from rushing to the top of the mountain.

The distance is too close, at this time the falling rocks and trees have little effect, although there are many young marshal soldiers who were unlucky to be hit by wood and stones, and died on the way up the mountain without seeing the shadow of the enemy, but more young marshal soldiers still rushed to the top of the mountain near the top of the mountain, Ning Zhi saw that the situation was not good, so he could only quickly withdraw to the camp with the army to guard the boundary wall. At the same time, after seeing that the rocks and trees on the mountain had stopped, more young marshals and soldiers also seized the time to climb the mountain with torches to reinforce the battlefield on the top of the mountain.

At this time, because the army fought at night three times in a row, the water storage in the Qin army's camp had been unconsciously consumed, and what was worse was that the inexperienced Ning Zhi not only did not perceive this danger, but also ordered the Qin soldiers to hurry up and make fires and make rice in order to meet the next attack launched by the young marshal soldiers, which caused a large consumption of the Qin army's water storage - if you want to steam the wheat rice that the Qin soldiers like to eat, you need more than ordinary water.

The early spring night was still very long, until the fifth was about halfway through, the sky was just dawn, and Ning Zhi also took a team of personal soldiers to climb the tower of the boundary wall, looking at the situation of the young marshal army outside the boundary wall, but Ning Zhi just saw that the young marshal army had formed many temporary fortifications near the boundary wall with a long shield, and countless fire points had risen behind the long shield of the young marshal's army, and it was like having eyes, roaring and falling into the Qin army camp behind the boundary wall, which immediately ignited many Qin army tents, and some rockets shot directly at the boundary wall tower, It was nailed to the wooden castle tower and burned.

"Strange thing, how can the thief army know so well where our military tent is concentrated?"

When Ning Zhi was confused and hurriedly ordered the soldiers to extinguish the fire, the Qin soldiers in the camp were also hurriedly extinguishing the rockets fired by the young marshal's army, but the rockets of the young marshal's army continued one after another, forcing the Qin soldiers to quickly carry water to extinguish the fire, and at the same time, some Qin soldiers also rushed to the cliff in the south, and put down the wooden barrel with a rope to get water, but soon, these Qin soldiers found that something was wrong, after the wooden barrel was put down at the bottom of the mountain, it was all gone without looking back, disappeared without a trace, and was twisted on the rope. It also clearly bears the marks of being severed......

At this time, with the passage of time, many Qin soldiers were already thirsty and began to look for water to drink, but what stunned these Qin soldiers was that they basically couldn't find drinking water in their camp, and the Qin soldiers who went to fetch water also returned empty-handed, saying that all the ropes for fetching water had been cut at the bottom of the mountain. And when these situations were finally reported to Ning Zhi, Ning Zhi was stunned at first, and then immediately scolded, "The thief raised by the son of a bitch is simply shameless and shameless to cut off our water source while storming the top of the mountain!" ”

The Qin army still had a chance to make amends, in order to prevent the army from running out of water and causing chaos, Ning Zhi also immediately ordered to send two hundred soldiers carrying wooden barrels and vehicles down the mountain from the west, directly to the bank of Danshui to carry water uphill, but before the Qin army's water soldiers left the camp, the well-prepared young marshal soldiers had already launched a strong attack on the boundary wall.

The tactics of the young marshal's army attacking the wall are very simple, that is, to build a temporary bridge with the trench bridge car brought by the army, and use the flying ladder to directly impact the boundary wall, but fortunately, the height of the Qinchu boundary wall is only less than two zhang, and it is far easier to rush to the top of the boundary wall than to rush to the city wall.

Although the lack of experience allowed the young marshal army to rush to the top of the boundary wall in the first attack, relying on the local strength advantage, the Qin army still quickly surrounded these young marshal warriors or directly forced the lower boundary wall, and did not give the young marshal soldiers the opportunity to quickly occupy the position at the top of the wall. At the same time, after seeing the battle on the side of Suspension Bridge Ridge, Wuguan City, which was five miles away, quickly sent a thousand reinforcements and hurried to reinforce the defenders of Suspension Bridge Ridge.

Because of this, Ning Zhi, who was accidentally temporarily cut off from the water source by the young marshal's army, was not too panicked, and while calmly commanding the soldiers of the Qin army to resist stubbornly, Ning Zhi also gritted his teeth and said in his heart: "Come on, see if you have the ability to take the suspension bridge ridge!" ”