On the sixth day of the march, I received news again, this time it was an urgent military situation, an unknown number of barbarian troops appeared three hundred miles southwest of Xiaochi City, counting the time of the news transmission, the barbarian army should have arrived in Xiaochi now, and began to attack the city.

A hint of foreboding came to everyone's hearts at this moment.

The decisive battle under the city, if you don't win, you will lose, the loser is small, and the loss of the city is big, it has been a big taboo for soldiers since ancient times, and the situation has become urgent.

Cao Chi was urgently convening a military opportunity to discuss the deployment of the decisive battle under the city. It is obvious that 200,000 cavalry cannot enter the city, and entering the city is a dead end. The decisive battle under the city, how to form a formation tests the commanders of various armies.

Because the coalition front is too long, no matter how many troops there are, it is impossible to concentrate superior forces in a city in a short period of time, and at the same time, the strength of the city is thin, and the barbarian army has traveled thousands of miles from afar, without the pressure of losing the city and land, and can concentrate superior forces to attack any city of the coalition army without any scruples.

Jin Xuedi's siege of the city is often unusual, unlike the alliance of the vassal states besieging the city on all sides, divided into main attacks and assists, and attacking the city on all sides at the same time.

Jin Xuedi's siege varies from city to city, attacking Xiaochi, the main city with a wall length of more than 60 miles and a width of more than five zhang at the top of the city wall, Jin Xuedi has never besieged the city on all sides, but besieged the city on all sides, only attacking one side, or attacking on the opposite side.

Obviously, the defenders of Xiaochi are only 100,000, but the circumference is forty or fifty miles, even if the defenders are concentrated on a city wall, it is difficult to hold the city wall more than ten miles long, and on average, at least one group of three, one cover group, and one reserve group are needed within one step. Under the strong attack, a city wall of more than ten miles will contain forty or fifty thousand people, not to mention the other three city walls.

For example, when attacking the east gate, the barbarian army often concentrates all the weapons of the legion, the flying eagle beast, and the mammoth to bombard a city wall, creating great pressure and fear, but will not attack the south gate and the north gate at the same time, but suddenly attack the west gate when the east gate is too desperate to kill.

Because the west gate is opposite the east gate, whether it is cavalry or infantry, even if it is a straight line reinforcement, it has to go more than ten miles, and the reinforcement is extremely slow.

It only takes a few reciprocating movements of the coalition forces every day to travel across a large span, and after a few days, the physical strength and will be broken.

Therefore, although the huge city wall is magnificent, if the defenders are not enough, it will become their own death hole.

Of course, the coalition army is not useless, due to the extreme lack of wood in the south, as long as the use of fire, a large number of destruction of the barbarian siege equipment, so that it can not climb the city wall, to attack the city from the city wall, it is almost impossible, the biggest weakness is still the city gate, this is the most fatal wound of the barbarian army, but also an important reason for the barbarian army to concentrate high-quality resources to attack a door.

No matter how much animal power there is, it is impossible to transport siege equipment and timber all the way without limit, and the coalition forces often only need to withstand the strong attack of the first ten days, and the fire attack destroys and damages their landing weapons, and the siege quickly turns into a stage of encirclement and stalemate.

After the military had dispersed, Bai Liyan returned to the army, and the generals came forward, and Lu Gao asked first:

"General, what does the marshal say, how to prepare to break the enemy."

"Concentrate your forces to break through the besieging forces on the south and west flanks of the barbarian army, and drive them north or east."

"This is to trap the barbarian army in the hinterland of our army."

In Sikong Nan's words, Bai Liyan nodded:

"The barbarian army bypassed Xutu from the south to the north, and its supply routes were far from its rear, so long as it could drive it north and east, and cut off its grain routes, the battle would be a great victory."

"In this way, there must be no small number of barbarian troops." South Sikong Road.

"Well, the marshal is also worried that the barbarian army will have too many troops, and it will be difficult for our army to inflict heavy damage or annihilate it, so he will drive it to the hinterland of the coalition army, which can trap the barbarian army to death. But the general always felt that this matter was strange, the barbarian army had traveled thousands of miles to bypass Xutu City, if they could not capture Xiaochi City, they would be in a dilemma, if they captured it, it was necessary to divide troops to besiege Xutu from behind, and there was no way to continue to stretch the front to attack Mingzhou. In this way, if I rush to the aid from Mingzhou, Yuecheng, and Tiannan, the chances of the barbarian army winning are not great. ”

"Will it be a siege point to send reinforcements!"

Su Hong guessed, Lu Gao touched the big beard and shook his head:

"Not really, the road is closed by heavy snow at the moment, and it is extremely difficult to mobilize the infantry army, so our army can only be cavalry galloping to help, and it must attack with all its might. The barbarian army estimates that the strength of our army will not be less than 100,000 horses, or even overestimated.

In this way, the barbarian army must mobilize at least 100,000 cavalry to ambush our army halfway, and there is no chance of winning a heavy blow to our army. If this is the case, the barbarian army must not only hold on to Xiaochi to prevent the Mingzhou cavalry from going south, but also divide it to attack Xutu, and also come to rob and kill our army, its combat strength is at least 150,000 elite cavalry, and 200,000 infantry troops are enough.

In this way, the number of unicorn horses and pack horses required by the barbarian army on this trip is probably not less than 500,000, which is so huge, not counting the animal power required by the enemies in front of Xutu, Tiannan, and Duhui, what an astonishing amount of money, so it is difficult for the barbarian army to encircle and send reinforcements. ”

"What Lu Gao said is right, that's right," Bai Liyan affirmed Lu Gao, and then said: "But what the general is worried about is precisely the strength of the barbarian army besieging Xiaochi this time. 350,000 people is already the limit of what can be supplied by the labor expedition, even if it is the vassal states of the Central Plains, the expedition of 350,000 troops on one front is already 10,000 difficulties, and the cost of spending is up to one million people, and tens of thousands of donkeys and horses.

But after all, the barbarian army has a unicorn, and Ben will be worried that the estimated strength of the marshal in his heart is probably 500,000. ”

"What, half a million!"

Lu Gao was taken aback, and Sikong Nan's reaction was the same:

"General, there is no barbarian army in the three thousand miles south of Tianshu City, they have come all the way, no matter how much animal power they have, the grain and grass they can carry are not endless. If 500,000 horses were to make a roundabout, the amount of animal power required would be staggering. ”

"The general knows, but if it were not for the absolute certainty of penetrating our army's defenses, the barbarian army would definitely not have advanced so rashly. Ordered all battalions to prepare for a decisive battle, and at the same time ......" Bai Liyan paused, was silent for a moment and said: "At the same time, prepare to break through, this matter is only known to military attachés above the rank of commander. ”

Bailiyan faintly had an ominous premonition that the upcoming decisive battle would be more auspicious.

The next day, the army continued to move westward, and the weather cleared day after day, and the snow along the way was deep and shallow, and it was half a meter shallower than in the previous days.

In the afternoon, the time to come finally came, and the beacon tower from the direction of Xiaochi was lit all the way, which meant that the barbarian army was besieging.

At present, the beacon tower implements a three-class system. There are three colors of red, yellow and black, each color can express a variety of information, in addition to red, yellow and black are the main beacons that transmit information.

There is a special bronze furnace on the top of each beacon, and there is a cylindrical cigarette barrel on the top of the furnace, and the smoke only needs to be blocked when the smoke is raised, and the smoke is isolated from rising, so as to artificially create a break to achieve the purpose of distinguishing information. It's like the Indians used blankets to change the size of smoke and convey different messages.

On the ninth day of leaving Tiannan City, the 50,000 cavalry of Mingzhou arrived at the foot of the Jade Girl Mountain before Cao Chizheng, and at the same time arrived at the same time the 30,000 cavalry of Boyang City, with a total of more than 200,000 horses and horses of the three armies.

Any distance from the Jade Girl Mountain to Mingzhou, Bo Yang and Yuecheng is roughly equal, standing on the snow line, towering into the clouds, because of the shape of a graceful and graceful girl, so it is named the Jade Girl Mountain.

"General, something is wrong." Sikong Nan was nervous, and the white breath he exhaled quickly froze into fog and frost.

"Well, there's something wrong, the reinforcements from Mingzhou came too smoothly, and the scouts in the direction of the state should have a reply. The marshal has not sent an order so far, so something must have happened to the scout. ”

After the two armies of Mingzhou and Boyang met, the army was on alert on the spot, and it had been more than half an hour in a row.

The two armies of Xian and Qi opened the way in front, and the returning armies of the scouts who went would meet, and now that four days have passed, no scouts have returned, which is obviously a good sign.

Baili Yan ordered Lu Cheng to send ten groups of scouts to the west, five degrees to the north of the west, and five degrees to the south of the west, and then searched westward within this fan angle, but no one came back, and the other princes and armies had scouts sent, but still no scouts returned.

There was only one explanation for the delay in hearing from such a high density of scouts, and the barbarian army had laid a net of heaven and earth within a radius of a hundred miles from north to south to the west, waiting for the coalition army to get into their pockets.

It is impossible for scouts from all countries to follow the same path, it is bound to be the accident of random scattered activities, it is normal to be captured, killed, and frozen to death sporadically, and now there are dozens of scouts who have not returned, such a high disappearance rate, obviously it cannot be an accident, it can only mean that all the scouts hit a military wall on the way to the west, and they were killed before they had time to escape.

"General, or the general will personally bring someone to investigate." Lu Cheng proposed.

"No, our army's reconnaissance skills are far above the princes' armies, and now none of them have returned to the team, most of them are more than lucky, and now they are more or less trapped, and they have lost their lives. Let the heralds give orders to the battalions, strengthen the alert, and the decisive battle may break out in advance. Releasing scouts on both flanks of our army, and distributing telescopes as much as possible, have been watched by me for the past two days, and we must not relax. ”

"No, the last general will give an order immediately."

The Lu Cheng Scout Battalion was equipped with an additional five binoculars for reconnaissance with the army.

As soon as Lu Cheng left, Ji Yao came with an escort:

"General Wei, have you received an order from the imperial marshal?"

"I haven't received it."

"Then General Wei's scouts have returned?"

"Why, General Ji's scouts haven't come back either?"

"Yes, it's evil, the scouts of Zhao, Yan, Chen, Zhi, and Jin haven't come, and the scouts sent by the state army haven't come back."

"This is a bad omen, it is better to be careful."

"All armies are now suspicious that the barbarians have set a trap in front of them, waiting for our army to get in. But please know the situation, I don't know how the marshal is going to decide. General Wei can have a good plan. ”

"There is no good strategy, there is only one way to fight to the death, and General Ji must make the Qi army prepare for a fierce battle."

"General Wei, it's not so sinister." Gu Yao disagreed.

"I hope so......"

As he spoke, a royal guest came on horseback:

"General Wei, General Ji, the marshal has an order, camp on the spot tonight, and all the troops will quickly go to the baggage camp to get the Feiming Jar, and guard against the night attack of fierce beasts!"

"Beast Attack!" Bai Liyan was taken aback, and said busily: "It's a fierce wolf and a toothed tiger!" ”

"Exactly, all armies must have enough torches at night and be ready for battle at any time!"