Shi Meng stood beside Luo Cheng, staring at the smoke and dust with a serious expression.

It is said that clever generals have the ability to cut off soldiers and horses by looking at smoke and dust, and the number of soldiers and horses can be judged just by smoke and dust. Shi Meng is obviously a master, he looked at it for a while, and told Luo Cheng in a cold voice, "At least three thousand, and they are all light horses, we are in trouble." ”

They had been away from Huaiyuan Town for ten days, and although they were walking slowly every day, they had traveled two hundred miles in ten days.

The town of Huaiyuan was already two hundred miles away, but the Goguryeo-controlled city of Wuli Luo was only a hundred miles away.

In fact, Luo Cheng was psychologically prepared for the appearance of the Goguryeo people. The day before yesterday, Zhao Gui's scout camp reported that the shadow of a Goguryeo light horse appeared nearby.

And yesterday, Zhao Gui and the others found more young men Goguryeo light cavalry, and a battle broke out between the scout cavalry on both sides.

So yesterday, Luo Cheng stopped marching ahead of schedule and began to set up camp.

He did not pull out the camp today, but strengthened the defense of the camp, while sending more light cavalry to reconnoiter in all directions, and on the other hand, he sent messengers back to Huaiyuan to report the news.

Originally, I hoped to meet only some Goguryeo tanma, but it was a little surprising that the Goguryeo people killed them so quickly.

"General Loya said that he would meet us in ten days, but now ten days have passed, and no one has been seen." Luo Cheng's fingers tapped on the railing of the arrow tower, feeling a little nervous.

To say not to be nervous is false.

Three thousand Goguryeo light horses.

No one will despise the combat effectiveness of the Goguryeo people, these barbarians of the bitter cold Liaodong are not completely barbarians, Goguryeo has been established for 700 years, and has embezzled the foundation of the four counties of Liaodong in the Han Dynasty, and has developed for many years, and it is also a country that is half farming and half hunting, and it can even be regarded as a feudal country based on farming, so it was regarded as a henchman by Emperor Sui, and he wanted to destroy it.

The terrible thing about an agrarian state lies in the potential for war. They have strong walls, a steady grain output, and can give birth to more people and raise more soldiers and horses. The abundance of food allowed them to spare time to develop other aspects, such as iron smelting, weapon casting, etc., and the Goguryeo people did not abandon their ability to fish, hunt, ride and shoot.

The most uneasy thing about Goguryeo was their territory and population, and the nomadic tribes on the steppe, such as the Xiongnu and Turks, ruled the steppe when they were strong, but their population was always limited.

However, the population of Goguryeo is extremely large, according to intelligence, Goguryeo has 176 cities and 697,000 households.

How many households are there in Dasui? 8.9 million households, with a population of more than 40 million. There were 697,000 households in Goguryeo, and the population was at least nearly 4 million, almost one-tenth of the population of the Sui Dynasty.

Although there were many hidden fugitives in the Sui Dynasty, after the strengthening of household registration management during the Kaihuang period, the number of fugitives was actually small. However, Goguryeo was a feudal tribal country that was not civilized, with a large number of slaves, which were not registered in the household register, so the Great Sui court judged that the actual population of Goguryeo was at least 5 million.

In addition, some of the Ya tribes attached to Goguryeo actually strengthened Goguryeo a lot.

Goguryeo with 300,000 armor.

Although the Turks were at their strongest, there were 400,000 people who controlled the strings.

But the Turks are nomadic people, and they are warriors when they ride horses, and 400,000 people who control the strings are almost all of their dingkou. But Goguryeo's 300,000 armoured soldiers were actually only the number of their soldiers.

In fact, if all the people were soldiers, it would be much higher than this number.

Goguryeo only stationed 150,000 troops on the Liao River, and there is a fertile Liao River Plain on the Liao River, so there are many cities and a large population in this area, and the Great Sui estimates that there are 150,000 troops stationed here, with a population of one million.

Therefore, on the west bank of the Liao River, it is really not uncommon for three thousand Goguryeo light horsemen to suddenly appear.

On the front line of the Liao River, 150,000 Goguryeo troops, although they are scattered in dozens of cities such as Liaodong City, the Goguryeo people of Wuli Luo City on the west bank of the Liao River have never given up, so there is still a large number of troops on the west bank.

"Back then, Goguryeo was just one of the subordinate departments of Wei's Korea built by Yanren Weiman, and when Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty destroyed Korea, Goguryeo was the county and belonged to Xuansu County. At that time, Xuanju County had three counties, with a total of 45,000 households and a population of more than 220,000. Later, the Goguryeo people founded the country, and for more than 600 years, there were more than 6 million people. ”

"In fact, of the more than 6 million people in Goguryeo, it is estimated that more than half of them are Chinese Han Chinese."

Not to mention the successive invasions and seizures of the land and population of the Han people after the founding of the Goguryeo people, even after the Central Plains was in the chaos, there were also constantly losers and people who escaped the war fled into Liaodong.

"Stop talking that nonsense, just talk about what to do now, right?"

After getting off the arrow tower, Luo Chengju will watch the formation.

The fourth child is the one who has a temper, and he is not interested in listening to the ins and outs of these Goguryeo people, and just wants to know how to fight this battle.

"Wei Ji Room, do you have any suggestions?" Luo Cheng asked Wei Zheng.

"This is a hundred miles away from Wuli Luo City, and two hundred miles away from Huaiyuan Town, and the enemy is close to me. But fortunately, our Tanma had already noticed the movement of the Goguryeo people, so the general had already made preventive arrangements, and we had strengthened the camp day and night, and now this camp is quite strong, so even if the Goguryeo light cavalry is 3,000, as long as we can't hold out, we can stick to it and wait for help. ”

Wei Zheng was not in a hurry, "Most of my First Army led by General Luo Ya is just behind, even if it has not left Huaiyuan Town, the credible envoy has already been dispatched, and General Luo Ya will lead the army to come, and it will only take ten days at the latest." But the two-hundred-mile road, if you come to the aid by light horse, you can reach it in two or three days at most. ”

The fourth child was not satisfied with this method.

"Ox-nosed Wei Lao Dao, do you mean to let us be shrunken turtles here?"

"Stick to help, how can you be called a turtle." Wei Zheng didn't pay much attention to the rudeness of the fourth child, and still said with a smile.

Qi Guoyuan agreed with Wei Zheng's plan.

"Three thousand Goguryeo light horses, well-equipped, at first glance it is a hard bone, not easy to gnaw. If we fight him, we won't win. What I'm most afraid of is that the reinforcements have not arrived, but Goguryeo has a rear army that arrives first, and we will be really passive at that time. He thought for a moment and said, "Even if we really defeat these three thousand horsemen, we will have to pay a lot of price. ”

Two thousand foot soldiers against three thousand light horsemen, the probability of winning is very small.

In any case, it is the safest way to stay in the camp.

"Guard the hair, rush out and them." The fourth shouted.

But few people paid attention to him.

Luo Cheng looked up at the Goguryeo light cavalry outside the camp, they had slowed down and slowly approached in formation.

The three thousand light horsemen slowly approached, bringing a boundless sense of oppression.

Luo Cheng had to sigh that the Goguryeo light cavalry was indeed not comparable to the bandits of the Central Plains, and the pressure on him from these 3,000 cavalry was something he had never had before.

"Defend the camp!" Luo Cheng looked at the Goguryeo cavalry that was getting closer and closer, and only spit out two words.