Dong Zhuo then said to the messenger: "Where have they been, Li Dao?" ”

The messenger hurriedly said: "Back to Xiangye, the villain doesn't know, after breaking through Guzang that day, General Li ordered the villain to return to Beijing to report, so the villain did not accompany the army, so he did not know the whereabouts of Lord Li." ”

Li Ru closed his eyes and thought for a while, and said: "Xiangye, based on the day of Lord Li's departure and the speed of the march, the cavalry will probably travel to the vicinity of Ayang, and the infantry should be in the area of Zuli, with the speed of the cavalry, it should be possible to reach Weishui North in five to eight days, and the infantry may be able to arrive on the eleventh or twelfth day!" ”

"I have an army of 50,000 in the Weishui defense line, although Liu Zhang is several times larger than me, but crossing the water to attack, it is very inconvenient, and it will be difficult to overcome quickly, even if he breaks through the Weishui defense line, he can also make the army retreat into the martial arts to defend, and it is not difficult to hold on until Li Dao and Guo Yan arrive. Wenyou, do you think so? ”

"Xiang Ye Zhizhu is in his hand, Confucianism admires, in Confucianism's opinion, Xiang Ye should immediately send an envoy to contact Li Dao and Guo Yan to find out their specific arrival time, then Xiang Ye can order the Weishui army to take the initiative to retreat, lure Liu Zhang deep into the Guanzhong Plain, and then order the Weishui defenders to cooperate with Li Dao and Guo Yan to launch a surprise attack on Liu Zhang's army with the elite iron cavalry in the hands of Li Dao and Guo Yan, and annihilate them in one fell swoop!"

"Well, this plan is wonderful, when you get to the plain, the infantry will only have to wait to be killed when they encounter the cavalry, haha, okay, just do it, Wen You, you immediately repair a letter on behalf of Benxiang, and order someone to hand it over to Li Dao and Guo Yan, and make an appointment with them to annihilate Liu Zhang's army in one fell swoop. In addition, immediately ordered someone to rush to the general, the general of the chariot cavalry of the letter and the marquis, and brought them together, all the soldiers who conquered Ma Teng and Han Sui were paid for three months, and those who were officials were all promoted to one level, and Ma Teng was worried about the remnants of the place in Wuwei, and he must prevent his death from recurring, and give that Duan Xuan a Pingxi general, so that he can do his best! ”

"Yes!" Li Ru saluted and led the messenger down to prepare.

Less than an hour after Dong Zhuo received the news of Wuwei's victory, Liu Zhang also received the same news.

Liu Zhang understood that the most critical point of this Northern Expedition was how to face the more than 100,000 troops led by Li Dao and Guo Yan, because it was a huge force that could affect the direction of the entire war, and if you wanted to win the Northern Expedition, you must always grasp the movements of this army and respond in a timely manner, so a long time ago, Liu Zhang sent spies to Wuwei to monitor Li Dao and Guo Yan's army. This time, Li Dao and Guo Yan annihilated Ma Teng and Han Sui, the stakes were very high, and the Yizhou spies did not dare to delay, and immediately Pegasus rushed back to report.

Liu Zhang's heart shook slightly, originally he thought that Ma Teng and Han Sui could support it for a while, in that case, even if Dong Zhuo was forced by his pressure to transfer troops from Wuwei, he would need to leave a large number of troops to continue to suppress Ma Teng and Han Sui, even if Dong Zhuo and Ma Teng and Han Sui negotiated peace, they also needed an appropriate amount of troops to guard against Ma Teng and Han Sui's rebellion (Ma Teng and Han Sui did not do this kind of thing), in this way, Dong Zhuo could transfer a maximum of 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers and horses to Qinling, and he was fully confident that he would eat away at Dong Zhuo's troops little by little after gaining a foothold in Guanzhong, However, the current situation has taken a turn for the worse, Li Dao and Guo Yan have completely annihilated Ma Teng and Han Sui, and pacified Wuwei in one fell swoop, and there will be no major war in the northwest, only a small number of troops are needed to stabilize public order and eliminate the remnants of the enemy, and Li Dao and Guo Bi can at least lead more than 100,000 troops to come back to help, and the situation in Guanzhong has suddenly become blurred again.

In order to deal with this sudden situation, Liu Zhang immediately summoned a group of civil and military personnel to discuss.

Although the unexpected demise of Ma Teng and Han Sui was beyond everyone's expectations, Liu Zhang and his group of civil and military officers had previously conceived and prepared in advance for Li Dao and Guo Yan to lead an army of 110,000 to return to Qinling, so when the news came, everyone was surprised, but they were not very worried. Now Dong Zhuojun's attention is completely attracted to the Weishui side, all the soldiers and horses are rushing here, which naturally weakens the garrison in other places, as long as Wei Yanzheng can overcome the Sanguan, the advantage is still on his side, now it depends on whether he can put major pressure on the Weishui defense line, so that Dong Zhuo can throw all the available troops here.

Xi Zhicai said: "Dong Zhuo is very suspicious, the lord's plan to divide will definitely work, as long as Dong Zhuo has doubts about Zhang Ji, there will be turmoil in the enemy army in Weibei, and then our army can attack with all its strength to conquer Weishui in one fell swoop, adding some pressure to Dong Zhuo." After conquering Weishui, the army besieged Wugong and attacked day and night, but it was necessary to be dangerous but not broken, so that Dong Zhuo had illusions, and the cavalry could go deep into the hinterland of Guanzhong to gallop openly, so that the hinterland of Guanzhong was full of smoke and further forced Dong Zhuo. ”

"Are our troops sure that the river crossing will be successful?" Liu Zhang asked.

Gao Shun bowed and said: "My lord, after these days of collection and control, the army has hoarded a large number of boats, which can send 15,000 fully equipped soldiers to the opposite shore at one time, and the second batch of 10,000 people can be sent to land after two hours, with the combat effectiveness of our army, the first batch of troops can gain a foothold on the other side, and expand the position area with the assistance of the second batch of troops, and after the third and fourth groups land, the enemy on the opposite shore will fall into a desperate end, either flee back to the martial arts trap, or be completely annihilated by our army!" ”

"Compared with the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, Weishui can only be regarded as a small river ditch, the boats traveling on the Weishui River are limited by the waterway, the size is very small, and there are many trebuchets arranged on the opposite bank, these big guys have a great threat to our army's small boats, how should this problem be solved?" Liu Zhang said.

"Your Lord!" Chen Gong said: "After deliberation, the subordinates and others thought that they could launch an attack in the early morning in two days, and the army of Jieshi boarded the ship at night, completed all preparations before the first ray of sunlight came, and launched an attack as soon as the first ray of sunlight appeared. The water width of the place pre-selected by our army is less than 60 zhang, and the nimble boats and bamboo rafts can reach the opposite bank in a few moments, even if they are discovered by the enemy outpost, in this short period of time, it is a question whether the enemy can get up from the bed, let alone block our army, and the subordinates are confident that they can overcome the enemy's defense line within one day! ”

The two days passed quickly, and the time limit stipulated by Liu Zhang had arrived, not to mention that Dong Zhuo did not come, he didn't even bother to send someone over to delay, and the communication between the two armies of Weishui was cut off.

Everyone understands that war is inevitable!

In the evening, Liu Zhang ordered the gang to slaughter a large number of pigs and sheep, and carefully prepared a sumptuous dinner for the soldiers of the whole army.

Liu Zhang did not participate in this gluttonous feast, and he and a group of civil and military classics entered into the final arrangement, discussing possible unexpected situations and countermeasures.

Just this afternoon, Li Le, who thought he had obtained the "Shang Fang Sword", seized Zhang Ji's uncle and nephew......

It turned out that since he was seized of command by Zhang Ji, Li Le has always been resentful in his heart, and it is no wonder that Yang Feng, the top boss who has always been on the front line, does not pay attention to him, not to mention Zhang Ji, an outdated person who has been neglected for several years? Even if Zhang Ji is in the Xiliang Army, no matter how high his rank is? He Li Le is not a humble gentleman who respects the old and loves the young, but Zhang Ji is designated by the lord of Chang'an, he has no courage to oppose the arrangement of the lord, so he can only submit to Zhang Ji with displeasure. Fortunately, for him, the turning point soon appeared, Wu Qiong asked him to spy on Zhang Ji when he left, and if he found out that Zhang Ji had dealings with Liu Zhang, he would immediately report to Chang'an for disposal, and Wu Qiong even hinted that he could use any means to ensure the safety of the north bank of Weishui at a critical juncture.

Wu Qiong understands that this is an excellent opportunity to overthrow Zhang Ji and replace him, according to common sense, Zhang Ji fell, and it should be Yang Fengcai who is on top, but everyone knows that Yang Feng is not trusted by Dong Zhuo, and he reluctantly sat on the post of commander-in-chief of the Qinling defense line by relying on Li Dao's recommendation, when Liu Zhang's army broke through the Luoyu Pass, Dong Zhuo's distrust of Yang Feng made him immediately replace him with Zhang Ji, not that he trusted Zhang Ji more, but hoped that these two people could monitor each other and check and balance. Now that Zhang Ji's disloyalty has been confirmed, will Dong Zhuo still trust Yang Feng, the remnant of the Yellow Turban? Of course not! In this way, who else can Dong Zhuo use besides him Li Le?

So Li Le immediately arranged for his henchmen to monitor Zhang Ji day and night, and he had already made up his mind that even if the matter between Zhang Ji and Liu Zhang was absolutely non-existent, he would arrange "evidence" to make Zhang Ji a "traitor" to the Xiliang Army, paving the way for him to ascend to the throne.

However, Li Le didn't have to be busy arranging the "evidence", because the day after he sent someone to spy on Zhang Ji, he got the news that a person from the south bank had sneaked into Zhang Ji's tent. This person was indeed sent by Liu Zhang, all along, Liu Zhang had kept Zhang Ren in touch with Zhang Xiu, and when he learned that Zhang Ji had been appointed commander-in-chief of the enemy army on the north bank of Weishui, he immediately sent someone to say surrender, of course, this was not successful. Seeing that he couldn't say that he would surrender Zhang Ji, Liu Zhang immediately changed his mind and took advantage of Wu Qiong's arrival to arrange an opportunity for discord. He knew that no matter whether Wu Qiong was tricked or not, he would inevitably report to Dong Zhuo, and Dong Zhuo was too suspicious, and after learning the news, he would definitely take precautions against Zhang Ji, and maybe someone had been arranged to monitor Zhang Ji. So he sent someone to contact Zhang Ji again, and this time Zhang Ji still refused Liu Zhang's offer, but Zhang Ji didn't know that this time Liu Zhang was a drunkard and didn't mean to drink. Sure enough, the person sent by Liu Zhang was discovered, if it wasn't for the cleverness of the person who jumped into the water and escaped, maybe he would have left his life on the north shore. When Liu Zhang got the man's return, he understood in his heart that the discord plan was effective, and now it depends on how effective it is!

After getting the news, Li Lexi was overwhelmed, he believed that Zhang Ji's life was over just by virtue of his secret correspondence with Liu Zhang, but he would dispose of Zhang Ji on this basis alone, unless he was Dong Zhuo, who had the power of life and death in every Xiliang Army, but Zhang Ji was not Dong Zhuo, there was no substantial evidence, and it was not enough to dispose of Zhang Ji on this basis alone, after all, Zhang Ji could refute that he was the person he sent to spy on the enemy on the south bank, and even directly denied that there was such a person! If he wants to deal with Zhang Ji, unless he catches the thief and gets dirty, he will not be right at all, so he immediately ordered someone to arrest him, as long as he catches that person, it is ironclad evidence, then no matter what he does, it is reasonable and legal. However, the people sent by Li Le finally disappointed him, and hundreds of people arrested one person in the heavily guarded military camp, and finally let the visitor from the south bank escape by water.