Hearing this news, Liao Chuan no longer stayed, and when he rode out to track the traces of the southbound Yan army, especially the team where Murong Chui was. In order to pursue the Yan army retreating south, he left all the foot soldiers behind, responsible for clearing the remnants of the Yan army around him, and at the same time, it was also to take the rest of the county seats. As for himself, he concentrated the existing cavalry in his hands and pursued it to the south.

The land of the Central Plains, north of the Yellow River and east of Taihang, is basically a land of endless plains. Therefore, such a place is simply not too convenient for cavalry.

In Murong Trai's ranks, cavalry accounted for only a small part. There were more than 70,000 troops on the entire defense line, and the total cavalry was only a little more than 10,000.

The reason why it is so miserable is entirely because they have now lost the passage of the Taihang Mountain Army, the Flying Fox and other passages out of the fortress, so that they have not been able to obtain a steady stream of war horses from the grassland in the past few years.

In the past, whether it was to attack the Hu tribe such as Eile in the north, to rob their horses, cattle and sheep, or to obtain them from Daiguo and other places by means of trade, it was their most important source of war horses.

But with the loss of Yanmen and other counties, especially after Daiguo became Daizhou, this road was completely broken. In addition, there are many places where horses are used in the Yan Kingdom, and the big war in the south also occupies a large part of the horses.

As a result, in the entire territory of Yan State, privately owned horses have basically been expropriated. There are really a lot of war horses, I'm afraid only those princes and nobles and families are left.

Also, from the area of Pingzhou in eastern Liaodong, some of the war horses can be supplied back through the Yanshan Mountain Range. But for the entire Yan army, this point of war horses is not only a drop in the bucket in terms of quantity, but also uneven in quality.

On the contrary, because it has already achieved a decisive victory in Saibei, coupled with Longxi and other places, and its own planning is early. Therefore, the number of Datang war horses today is very sufficient, not only in quantity, but also in quality.

Not to mention, Li Xin specially prepared a lot of war horses in order to fight against Yan State. After all, everyone knows that when fighting on the land of the Central Plains, the best and most effective thing to use is cavalry.

Liao Chuan led the army to chase all the way south, and soon caught up with many backward Yan soldiers. Most of these people are physically exhausted foot soldiers, and there is really no way to run, so they will be caught up. Faced with the cavalry of the Tang Army catching up, they had no choice, so they surrendered one after another.

And from their mouths, Liao Chuan got the direction of Murong Chui's south, and their group had a total of more than 2,000 horses, and they had already run far away. Following the direction of these surrendered troops, Liao Chuan led the army to chase all the way.

But after chasing for a few hours, he realized that he should have fallen for Murong Chui.

Because of the chase along the way, although they encountered a lot of Yan soldiers, the cavalry did not encounter a single one. Moreover, following the direction of the surrendered soldiers, it was indeed possible to find the traces of the southward movement of the cavalry at the beginning.

But it didn't take long for the cavalry to turn around.

Obviously, Murong Chui was using these backward foot soldiers to provide a cover for himself. He told them to watch him run south, but he was actually out of sight of them, and after running farther, he immediately adjusted his direction.

In this way, what Liao Chuan has been chasing is just a wrong direction. If it goes on like this, it's strange that he can catch up with Murong Chui. In addition, the situation at night was difficult to understand, and it was not until the morning of the next day that Liao Chuan discovered this.

However, at this time, Murong Chui and the others had already run far away.

Liao Chuan had no choice but to continue to chase south, so he had to send someone to inform Peng Lin and the others, so that they could go south to join him as soon as possible.

Peng Lin, Shi Yue, Yao Chang and others originally attacked the county seat of Fan Yangguo, but after receiving Liao Chuan's notice halfway, they immediately began to adjust their deployment. Just like Liao Chuan's arrangement, they also used foot soldiers and cavalry.

In the end, in addition to the 7,000 cavalry in Shao Zisong's hands, the remaining nearly 20,000 cavalry south of Taihang Mountain were all gathered together. Led by Penlin, they pursued them towards the south.

Shi Yue and Yao Chang stayed behind to lead the rest of the footmen, slowly advancing eastward from the foot of Taihang Mountain, and capturing all the counties along the way.

On the 8th day of the first month of June, except for Lunu County in Zhongshan State, the rest of the counties north of Lishui were captured by the Tang army. At this point, the Tang army, which went south from the north of Taihang Mountain, with a total of 70,000 troops, advanced the battle line to the line of Lushui, and surrounded Lunu County.

Murong Chui led some of the remnants of the defeated army, and after a great pursuit, he finally managed to escape to the south bank of the water. In addition, it successfully merged with the Yang Lu army that went north to support.

At this time, counting the soldiers and horses retreating from the north, plus the 100,000 troops of Yanglu, and counting the scattered soldiers who were originally arranged in these counties, he had a total of nearly 180,000 troops in his hands on the south bank of the water.

This force is not abundant, but his defensive task is also very heavy.

First, it is because the line of the water starts from the coast of the sea in the east and reaches the eastern foot of Wutai Mountain in the west, with a distance of nearly 800 miles. At such a long distance, it was obviously impossible to defend everywhere, unless he had a million troops in his hands.

Second, it is the area of Taihang Mountain, where the upper reaches of the water are located, which flows through the northern part of Changshan County. In the south of Changshan County, Zhending County is the west of Shijiazhuang in later generations, which happens to be the location of the well of Taihang in Leping County.

In this way, Murong Chui not only had to block Liao Chuan and Peng Lin in the north and they crossed the water to the south, but also had to prevent Liu Xiaohai from sending troops out of the mountain from Jingcheng to attack the south of Changshan County.

Once the Tang army successfully got out of Jingcheng, it also meant that the Tang army in the area of Shangdang in Leping, Taiyuan, could appear directly on the south bank of the water without going through the obstruction of the water. In that way, Murong Chui's defense was basically broken directly.

Fortunately, the two passes of Tumen Pass and Shiyan Pass at the east entrance of Jingcheng are still under the control of the Yan Army. Moreover, in the past, it was already heavily guarded. If the Tang army wanted to go out of the mountains from there, to Changshan County and other places, it was basically very difficult.

Rao was like this, Murong Chui was still not very at ease over there, so he asked Yang Lu to go to Zhending County, Changshan County, to sit in town, specifically responsible for resisting the attack from the west.

What I want to say is that not far from the north of Zhending County is the wide Shutuo Water, which is at least not too worried that the Tang army will kill from the north for the Yan army guarding the areas of Zhending, Jingcheng, Shiyi and other counties.

After all, if Shao Zisong in the north wants to kill in the area of Zhending County, they must first cross the water, and then pass the water of Yutuo. And between these two rivers, there are already a lot of soldiers and horses guarded, and it is impossible for the Tang army to come over easily.

To the south of the water, on both sides of the Tuoshui River, it was the place where Murong Chui was heavily defended. Among them, the place where he stationed heavy troops was mainly in Changshan County, which was close to the south bank of the water, which was the westernmost county of the defensive line.

Further east is Zhongshan County, the southernmost county of Zhongshan Kingdom, which is not far from the south bank of the water. After that, we will go to Anping County in Boling County, which is the seat of Boling County.

Further east along the river course is Wuyuan County, which has the country between the rivers, and after this place, the water suddenly turns northward, almost vertically.

From here to the north, it is the county of the Hejian country that is heavily guarded, and after the county is to the east, it is to Wen'an County of Zhangwu County. And from here, it is only less than a hundred miles to the sea.

Basically, Murong Chui used this city on the south bank not far from the water as a stronghold, forming the first line of defense against the southward movement of the Tang army. It looks like a string of beads, and the entire line of defense is strung together by these cities.

Most of the 180,000 troops in his hands were placed in this place, especially almost all the cavalry in his hands, which were arranged between the cities and were responsible for mobile patrols.

Wolf smoke warning facilities were widely set up between the cities, and once any signs of the Tang army crossing the river were found, other places would immediately launch support.

But this line of defense was not safe for him, so he arranged a second line of defense. And this second line of defense is to rely on the water that is wider and deeper than the water. The direction of the two lines of defense is almost the same, but the second line of defense has a relatively small number of troops.

After all, if the Tang army can be blocked with a line of defense, this second line of defense will not be needed. Of course, if the second line of defense did not stop the Tang army's southward offensive, it would be almost impossible to stop it further south to the edge of the Yellow River, because it was all a flat land.

Because almost all of Liao Chuan's troops who went south first were cavalry, they couldn't directly cross the river at all. In this way, after the soldiers and horses in the back have arrived one after another, the confrontation between the two sides has basically become a reality.

Seeing that the war had reached this point, Liao Chuan and Peng Lin discussed it and decided to simply rest on the spot for two days. At the same time, concentrate part of the forces and go to Lunu County, the last county seat in the north of Lushui, with Shao Zisong.

Those Yan State officials and generals in Lunu County never knew that the situation outside had changed dramatically. It wasn't until a large number of Tang troops were killed outside the city and surrounded the entire county layer by layer that they knew that Murong Chui had actually given up his people.

Although there are still nearly 10,000 troops in the city, this is just a lonely city, and in the face of the Tang army outside the city, the Yan army in the city panicked.

After thinking about it again and again, the governor of Zhongshan led Murong, the king of Zhongshan, to rush out of Zhongshan and surrendered to the Tang army.

At this point, there was no more fighting north of the water, and Liao Chuan, Peng Lin and other generals jointly signed a letter to Li Xin, requesting that officials be sent to take over immediately.