At the beginning, in order to cooperate with Fang Yuanheng's operations in Qinlan County, Zhao Zhihai set the main attack direction to Yinyangou, and ordered Wu Meng's army in the south of Qingshui to strictly prevent the generals from crossing Qingshui to the south.

As soon as Wu Meng, Lu Lihua and others came to the south of Qingshui, they immediately realized that there were still many difficulties in defending against the 40,000 soldiers and horses of the Rong people with their 20,000 troops.

First of all, the north of Qingshui belongs to the boundary of Qingyang County and Qingshui County in Lingzhou, although the east side of Qingyang County is blocked by Yushan, so there is no need to worry that the soldiers of Qinlan County will detour south from the east.

However, the border between the two counties and Yuanzhou is more than 100 miles long.

Among these more than 100 miles, only 30 miles are bounded by Qingshui, and the remaining 80 or 90 miles are located in countless hills and mountains.

How to defend and how to deploy troops to completely choke the throat of the Rong people going south, it made Wu Meng, who had just come to Qingshui, very sad.

After negating one thought after another in his heart, he thought that Zhu Lihua was deeply valued by Zhao Zhihai and would definitely have a good plan, so he passed on Lu Lihua to come to the Chinese army's big tent.

On the way to Wu Meng's place, Zhu Lihua thought of the reason why Wu Meng recruited him to go. Sure enough, after hearing what Wu Meng asked, he said to Wu Meng with confidence:

"General Wu, the number of our army is at a disadvantage compared to the number of Rong people, and the border distance of our army garrison is too wide and long, so it is not a good strategy to rely on the clear water moat to defend the Rong soldiers to the south, if the soldiers are gathered to defend, the Rong people can make a detour to the south, and if the soldiers are dispersed and garrisoned, they will not be able to resist the force of a blow after the Rong people concentrate their troops and horses.

According to the humble opinion of the last general, the army should be Chen Yurong heavily guarded place. ”

When Wu Meng heard this, he couldn't help frowning and said, "Do you want to cross the river to the north?" ”

Seeing that Lihua nodded, Wu Meng shook his head like a rattle, and said bluntly:

"It's not appropriate, one is that the general asked me to wait here, just to resist the southward movement of the Rong army, and there is no intention of the Northern Expedition, otherwise I would not have sent only 20,000 troops here.

Second, once we cross the river to the north, if the rear road is copied by the Rong soldiers, our army will not even be able to retreat, and besides, it will become difficult to transport the grain and grass of the army because of the need to cross the river and transport. That's not right. ”

After speaking, Wu Meng's eyes showed some disappointment.

And Zhu Lihua smiled and said, "General Wu, don't worry, listen to the last general's words first." The army of the soldiers was displayed in Qingshui County, but the number of soldiers in Qingyang County was not large, so our army only needed to take care of the enemy in Qingshui. ”

Wu Meng still shook his head and said, "The Marquis of Zhuli, will it be too child's play to pin your hopes on unknown speculations." How do you know that the Rong people will not transfer the main force to other places after seeing our army crossing north? ”

Zhu Lihua said with a smile: "General Wu, don't forget that Qingyang is only more than sixty miles away from Chaona, and there are nearly 5,000 soldiers and horses available in Chaona, although they are all new soldiers, but it can still be done if the attack is insufficient and garrisoned, and such a man and horse is enough to deter Qingyang Rong's troops."

And more importantly, yesterday Yuanzhou sent a military report, saying that General Zuo had already gone north to garrison Haolu County, and I think that Lingzhou Rong troops will definitely send at least half of their soldiers and horses north to garrison Bingyan, Fenggu, and Surabaya counties, in order to guard against General Zuo's soldiers and horses advancing west and cutting off their back road.

Compared with the only way out and return to the west that the Rong people currently have in their hands, we are not so important, perhaps, the Rong soldiers of Qingshui have the same mind as us, and guard against each other. ”

After listening to Zhu Lihua's words, Wu Meng nodded and said, "What you said is right, it is true that I didn't think of this." Do as you wish, but I've always felt a bit risky. ”

Zhu Lihua has a lot of respect for this general who is nearly twenty years older than him, and he also knows that this general with a strange accent has a calm temperament and is also approachable to himself, and Wu Meng always cares about details in his work, so the general will send him to lead the army alone instead of sending the more radical Yin Fanglai.

But in Zhu Lihua's view, Wu Meng also has his own shortcomings, that is, he is too hesitant and lacks decisiveness.

Seeing that Wu Meng was still hesitating, Zhu Lihua said again: "General Wu, rest assured, the last general does not mean to let the whole army cross the river and march north, just send about 3,000 people to go."

According to the observation of the last general in the past few days, there is a place name called Crow Xian in the south ten miles of Qingshui County, which is located on the north bank of Qingshui, and is a natural highland in the south of Qingshui County.

Our army can build several pontoon bridges on the river here at the same time, and the men and horses of the headquarters are stationed on the south bank of the pontoon bridges, and the 3,000 soldiers and horses who cross the river can set up camp on the high ground after going north.

In this way, the Beidu soldiers can clearly monitor the movement of the Rong soldiers in Qingshui County, and if they are attacked, they can retreat directly from the pontoon bridge or cross the pontoon bridge to engage the Rong soldiers. ”

After listening to what Li Hua said, Wu Meng's eyes suddenly lit up, and he patted his thigh and said with a smile: "If there is such a good place, take me to see it." ”

Seeing Wu Meng's rather rare excitement, Zhu Lihua was also a little excited, and was grabbed by Wu Meng and took his own soldiers to the place where Zhu Lihua talked about to observe carefully.

After confirming that the environment here was consistent with what Lu Lihua said, Wu Meng pondered which team to send north on the way back to the camp. The accompanying Zhu Lihua obviously saw Wu Meng's concerns, so he took the initiative to ask Ying Xiang to take his own soldiers to the north shore.

But Wu Meng did not agree to Zhu Lihua's request, in his eyes, although Zhu Lihua is a military candidate, but more often he is more like a strategist.

The reason why Wu Meng has such a feeling is not because Zhu Lihua does not wear armor on weekdays, but in Wu Meng's heart, Zhu Lihua is like those military advisors and strategists mentioned in the play, and he can strategize and win thousands of miles while talking and laughing, so he instinctively refused Zhu Lihua's request.

But under the repeated pleas of Lihua all the way, Wu Meng finally agreed to Lihua outside his camp. But in order to protect Lihua, he ignored Lihua's dissuasion and ordered to send a group of soldiers to the north with Lihua, and the leader of the soldiers and horses was Xie Yun, a captain who had just recovered from a serious injury.

Although Xie Yun has been promoted to lieutenant, he has been in a coma for a long time and has no time to recruit enough soldiers, and the men in Yuanzhou have already been conscripted and cannot find soldiers, so Xie Yun's headquarters only replenished more than 3,000 soldiers in addition to the original Yiqu soldiers.

Considering that he didn't need too many troops to cross Qingshui to the north, Wu Meng only ordered him to bring 3,000 men and horses to the north with Lihua.

After leading their troops north to cross Qingshui, they immediately set up camp in Crowxian.

If you want to talk about the strategy of the army, or the Zhu Lihua who has been taught by Jieyuan for many years is more outstanding, but when it comes to camping and marching defense, then Xie Yun has been in the army for many years after all, and in a few days, everything will be arranged properly.

Although one of the two is a military officer and the other is a captain, Xie Yun knew that this Lihua was the benefactor who rescued him at the beginning, and he was deeply respected by the general, so he obeyed Lihua's words and did not treat him as a subordinate, and Lihua acted alone.

In the following days, Zhu Lihua took Wei Mu's cavalry team north every day to observe the movements of the Rong troops.

And the Rong people naturally also found the soldiers and horses that crossed the river, but as expected by the Rong people, the Rong people never planned to go out of the city to attack this group of men and horses.

Moreover, Zhu Lihua also observed that there are about 20,000 Rong soldiers in Qingshui County, but there are less than 10,000 real Rong people, and the rest of the people are Qin people.

The sharp decline in the number of Rong soldiers made Lu Lihua more convinced of his judgment, and with Fang Yuanheng's northern expedition, the main force of the Rong people in Lingzhou was all attracted to the northern counties.

And the strength of the Rong people on the front line of Qingshui is only enough for self-protection.

Therefore, his move to the north is undoubtedly like inserting a knife in front of the Rong people, which makes them uncomfortable.

As soon as the battle on Wang Min's side ended, Zhao Zhihai shifted his attention to the north again.

Yinyangou still hasn't been captured, so it can't play the role of attracting the main force of the Rong people to come back to help.

Therefore, Zhao Zhihai wanted to distract the Rong people through the Northern Expedition in the direction of Lingzhou, so that they would be attacked on both sides, and they could not take care of each other.

However, if there are more people in the Northern Expedition, the direction of Xiaoguan may be counterattacked by the Rong people, and if there are fewer people in the Northern Expedition, it will not be able to play its due role, and it will just consume manpower and material resources.

Therefore, after receiving the news from Wu Meng that half of the Rong soldiers had gone north, Zhao Zhihai decided not to send troops and horses again, and asked Wu Meng to find fighters and contact with the Rong soldiers in Qingshui and Qingyang counties.

The purpose of this battle was not to capture the city, but to destroy the soldiers and attract their attention.

Zhao Zhihai guessed, I'm afraid Fang Yuanheng's attack is about to start again.

After receiving Zhao Zhihai's order, Wu Meng discussed with Zhu Lihua and others about finding fighters and engaging with the soldiers.

Lu Lihua immediately put forward the idea of letting his men go deep alone, attracting the Rong soldiers out of the city to pursue, and then fighting a decisive battle with the Rong army.

But this time, Wu Meng said that he didn't agree to let Lu Lihua do the thing of luring the enemy into the depths, so everyone discussed several sets of strategies to protect everything.

After everyone discussed everything, Lu Lihua and Xie Yun returned to the camp of Crows. Seeing Xie Yun hurriedly return to the camp to arrange the battle, Lu Lihua and Wei Lin led more than 100 cavalry out of the camp again and headed east.

Because of the task of being a scout, most of Wei Lin's 500 cavalry were arranged to observe the situation of the troops near Qingshui County, and at this moment, only 100 people gathered around Lihua and went to investigate in the direction of Qingyang County with Lihua.

The group did not choose to walk from the official road, because after all, Qingshui and Qingyang were under the control of the Rong people, so they marched eastward through the mountains and forests on the north bank of the Qinghe River, carefully observing the topography of the mountains and rivers along the way.

An hour after leaving the camp, when the group reached a mountainous area, Zhu Lihua ordered everyone to rest for a while and eat some food.

Because they couldn't make a fire, everyone took dry food, kettles, and other things from their horses, and ate them silently in a circle.

While eating, Wei Mu beside Zhu Lihua whispered to Zhu Lihua: "Why is the military marquis in a hurry to explore the path of Qingyang today, could it be that our army wants to set up an ambush here?" ”

Zhu Lihua looked at Wei Mu with some surprise, then nodded and said, "Brother Wei, this matter has not yet been decided, don't tell others about it." ”

Wei Mu nodded and said, "The military marquis doesn't blame Wei Mu for saying a lot, if the military marquis wants to fight here, then this is definitely not a good place for an ambush." ”