After calming the hearts of the Huns, it was also necessary to appease the hearts of the soldiers and civilians who stayed in Xihe.

Before leaving, Yan Xing took Pei Juan, who was going to stay, and summoned Xu Kun, Meng Tu and other generals again.

In recent years, although in order to tie the hearts of the Xihe garrison, Yan Xing not only allowed them to migrate their families to Meiji, but also helped those soldiers in the army who did not have families to match Hu and Han women of appropriate age, so that they could start a family, marry a wife and have children.

For the Han refugees recruited from the grassland, Yan Xing also negotiated with Huchuquan to set aside farming areas for them in many places in Xihe County to help them rebuild a new home.

However, these are all macro arrangements, and once it comes to micro and specific operations, it is inseparable from Xu Kun, Meng Tu and other generals and military officials stationed there.

To a certain extent, only when they are stable, the soldiers under their command and the people under their rule can also settle down.

"Ziyu, it seems that in the past few years, not only have your riding skills become more and more exquisite, but your martial arts have not fallen behind!"

Yan Xing rode his horse through the pasture, and Gan Ling, Xu Kun, Meng Tu and other generals also rode horses to follow on both sides.

"On this grassland, apart from galloping horses and hunting, drilling nests and giving birth to babies, there is nothing to do."

Xu Kun, who had a lot of vicissitudes on the grassland, smiled self-deprecatingly and said indifferently.

At the beginning, in order to take charge of the army as soon as possible and avenge his father, he was the main battle faction that strongly insisted on crusading against Yufuluo, and even did not hesitate to offend the conservative Yan Zhi side.

As a result, although he was in charge of the army, he also stayed in Meiji Shan Yuting by mistake, and missed the opportunity to slash the enemy.

Guo Yan was defeated and died in Hedong, he did not participate, Li Dao died of self-immolation in Huangbaicheng, and he was able to hear about it after a long time.

Now, the wind and sand on the grassland have made his revenge fade, his face has become vicissitudes, and his heart has become more resolute.

But Yan Xing still heard a little silence from his voice, although this was different from Meng Tu's mood that had been yelling at him these days to be transferred back to Han to fight, he couldn't ignore it.

Although Xu Ziyu, who broke the white wave with himself back then and was young and vigorous, was no longer young, Yan Xing believed that the furrows in his chest and the hot blood in his body should not have been smoothed and cooled by the wind.

"Ziyu, it is of great use to keep you and Ziqi on the grassland."

Yan Xing slowed down and said:

"The Huns would have been a hound, but they could also be a vicious wolf. So Lone needs a wise and brave general to help Lone contain this hound, and in the past few years, you and Ziqi have been doing well. ”

"Although the battle of Yanmen was defeated, but Lone knows, that can't be blamed on you, Tu Ge and the state of the high cadres have always maintained contacts, after the loss of the Xiongnu Shan Yu this help, the Gao cadres have turned to support the rise of Tu various departments on the grassland, in order to fight against the Xiongnu Shan Yu who was raised by Lone hand."

Now, Yuan Shao of Hebei has launched a large army, preparing to complete his work in one battle and completely solve Yijing's Gongsun Zhan, with Gongsun Zhan's current strength, he will not be able to resist Yuan Shao's long-term attack. After the beginning of spring of the following year, in order to rescue Yijing's Gongsun Zhan, the Sanhe region was bound to attack the enemy's place, and attacked the high cadres of the state, forcing Yuan Shao to relieve the siege of Yijing and send troops to rescue his nephew. ”

"At that time, it's your chance to show off your skills."

Hearing Yan Xing's encouraging words, Xu Kun's heart couldn't help but ripple, he thought about it for a while, and asked:

"Do the Huns know?"

Yan Xing smiled, "Defeating Tu Golgahu is beneficial to their tribe in both the short and long term, so they should continue to move closer to us, and naturally they won't have a chance to sit idly by." Of course, we ourselves must be very prepared, even if we don't rely on them, we can still solve the problem of Tu Gehu and the high-ranking cadres of the prefecture. ”

"Hmm." Xu Kun nodded, as if because of the stimulation of the upcoming war, his emotions also became high, he looked up at the cavalry not far away, his eyes locked on Ma Chao, who was in white robe and silver armor, and asked out loud:

"I heard that Li Dao was attacked and killed by him?"

"Hmm." Yan Xing nodded, "He is Ma Teng's eldest son, Li Wei, who was cornered in Huangbai City, set himself on fire, joined the army to fight, became famous at a young age, and is a famous athlete in Liangdi!" ”

"No wonder, on that day, even the Xianbei people were praising his martial bravery. By the way, those Xianbei people, can they be trusted? ”

"It shouldn't be a ruse, even their tribesmen have taken the risk of sneaking to Meiji, which is enough to show that those Xianbei people attach great importance to the alliance with us, at least for this covenant, they need it more than we do."

Xu Kun listened and nodded, thinking of the Xianbei Lord he saw that day, he added:

"That Xianbei tribe lord, dare to pretend to be a messenger to come to Meiji, with this courage and bearing, he is a character, it is not good, Xianbei will appear in the future, there will be a grassland hero."

Yan Xing didn't answer this time, he looked at the cavalry not far away, holding the reins in his hand, and silently said:

"His hero, my enemy."

···

The battle of Zhuhu on the grassland did not break out unexpectedly, and the Han army and the Hu army also coincidentally left Xihe and Yanmen before the arrival of the snow season on the grassland, and withdrew their troops to return to their own territories.

And because he withdrew from the battle on the grassland in time, the main force led by Yan Xing also rushed back to Sanhe, and then he led his troops to cross the river into the Guanzhong area, and finally rushed before the harsh winter came, so that his soldiers and horses could have a good rest.

On the other hand, Yuan Shao in Hebei and Cao Cao in the Central Plains, after their military operations were successful in the first battle, the follow-up military affairs did not seem so smooth.

Gongsun Zhan was confused by Yuan Shao's persuasion to surrender before, thinking that the hinterland of Hebei was affected by the rebellion of Lu Yi, and the directions of Wei County and Bingzhou were increasingly threatened by the powerful Yan marching army.

Gongsun Zhan turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the envoys from Yan Xing, the Black Mountain Army and other parties, as if he had different aspirations, ready to sit and watch Yuan Shao and the others fight, so as to profit from them next.

It wasn't until the overwhelming Yuan army and horses attacked the city and sent troops to Yijing that Gongsun Zhan realized that something was wrong, and while hurriedly reorganizing the army for battle, he urgently sent messengers to Zhang Yan and Sanhe Yanxing in Montenegro to ask for help.

It's just because of the previous incident, the contact and relationship between the three parties is not as good as before, but I am afraid that even if Montenegro and Yan Xing's soldiers and horses can complete the contact and come to the rescue in a big way, it will have to wait for the spring of the next year.

And this is exactly what Yuan Shao's side intended, first to capture the old and confuse the temporarily united enemy, so that it is difficult for the enemy to maintain the same purpose within the enemy, and to produce more discord out of thin air, and then the army of Yuan Shao's side will swarm again, and destroy Yi Jing's Gongsun Zan in one fell swoop before the rescue of the Black Mountain Army and Yan Marching Army.

The implementation of this strategy was very successful, and in the early days, Yuan Shao's army was almost all the way to the ground, defeating all the forces of Gongsun Chan around Yijing, and the Hebei army led by Yuan Shao directly surrounded Yijing, where Gongsun Chan was located.

It's just that in the process of storming Yijing, the casualties of the Hebei soldiers were also very heavy, and the trapped beasts of Gongsun Zhan made Yuan Shaojun pay a huge price. In the face of the heavy defense line composed of many camps and towers outside Yijing City, Yuan Shaojun, who was bleeding head-on, also had to stop camping angrily, and adopted the siege and attrition tactics that had been used to deal with Yijing but had little effect.

Cao Cao's army also had a dilemma of fortifying the city under Xiapi City.

Because of the failure of the previous plan, he was not able to use Liu Bei to lead out Lü Bu's main force to be eliminated in the field battle, so although Cao Cao personally led the army to conquer Lü Bu in Xuzhou in October, he captured the Pengcheng State Prime Minister Hou Harmoni, captured Lü Bu's general Cheng Lian, and attacked the city again and again, defeating Lü Bu's soldiers and horses, but still let Lü Bu's main force hide in Xiapi City to defend to the death, and make a battle of trapped beasts.

Xiapi City was strong, and the die-hard elements Gao Shun, Chen Gong and others under Lu Bu were strictly defended, so although Cao's army fought bravely, it was still unable to capture Xiapi City.

For this reason, Cao Cao led his army to dig trenches to besiege and deplete the morale of the enemy, and at the same time, he and his strategists were also thinking about ways to deal with Xiapicheng.

Finally, after inspecting the topography and river direction around Xiapi, Guo Jia, a strategist beside Cao Cao, proposed the strategy of "replacing soldiers with water" and diverting Yishui and Sizhishui to irrigate the city.

There is no doubt that this method is more likely to succeed than the tactics of long-term siege and attrition, but it also requires a lot of manpower and material resources to be invested in the huge project of digging channels and diverting river water.

And once the extreme situation of the river freezing occurs in the cold winter of this year, it may make all the achievements that Cao Jun has invested in before fall short.

After thinking about it again, Cao Cao resolutely decided to adopt the advice of Guo Jia, a strategist around him.

So, under the sky where the snowflakes began to flutter, such a rare scene appeared under the city of Xiapi:

Countless people and soldiers braved the severe cold weather, pushed small carts, carried hoes, nail rakes and bamboo baskets, and under the strict command of the military officials, began the huge project of diverting water from Yi and Si to pour water into Picheng.

They will start work from many places at the same time, dig channels, and lead the water of Yi and Si to the trenches they dug under the siege of Xia Picheng, and then communicate the trenches under Xia Pi City, completely realizing the plan of flooding Xia Pi City.

At that time, the river water will flood into the city from many gaps such as the city gate, so that the city of Xiapi will be turned into a country, and the rammed earth city wall will also loosen and fall off in a large area under the long-term immersion of the river, so that the overall fortifications of the outer city will gradually collapse.

With the completion of the water diversion channel, the three years of Jian'an have gradually come to an end, but whether it is for the bullying Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, or the precarious Gongsun Zan and Lu Bu, this will be destined to be an extremely difficult winter.