Li Dao's sudden turn of face was beyond Liu Xie's expectations, and the information sent before also showed that Li Dao was not dealing with Guo Yan, but in the blink of an eye, the two joined forces to attack Nan'an and Tianshui counties. Fortunately, Fa Yan and Zhao Yun of Tianshui have always maintained vigilance against Longxi, otherwise the cavalry-based Xiliang Army will drive straight in, and more counties will be affected by this, which will directly affect the results of the autumn harvest of the imperial court.

However, even if there is vigilance, because Li Dao Guo Yan is powerful, Fa Yan and Zhao Yun can only defend the city now, waiting for the reinforcements from the imperial court to arrive, and most of the entire Nan'an County and Tianshui County have now fallen into the hands of Li Dao Guo Yan.

Why did Li Dao suddenly turn his face, this question has been bothering Liu Xie, until Li Ru sent the latest information, which can be regarded as solving Liu Xie's doubts, and the problem lies with the witch Qu Shi next to Li Dao.

Li Wei firmly believes in the way of witch divination, and what the witch Qu clan says to the witch around him has almost reached the point of obeying his words. Before he would lead troops to Longxi, and then he didn't listen to Guo Yan's advice to attack Song Jian, which can be said to be the credit of the Qu family. But this time, Li Dao will suddenly turn his face with the court, and the reason is also because of this Qu family.

Things are a bit bloody to say, and in one sentence it can be summed up as a tragedy caused by a little white face. Li Dao doted on Qu so much that he made Qu proud and forgot who he was. During this time, Li Wei was busy fighting with Guo Yanming, and he was a little cold to Qu's family. And Qu was unwilling to be lonely, and fell in love with a relative next to Li Dao by chance.

Li Dao is not very old now, fifty out of thirty, but his appearance can only be described by Guo Yi. Saying that people are resolute is actually not a good word. Guo Yi is equivalent to ugly in describing people's appearance. And the retinue that Qu took a fancy to was three years younger than Qu's, with a pink and tender face, that is, Xiao Xianrou.

Qu took advantage of Li Dao's absence to steal a bite of fresh meat, but the more he tasted it, the more addicted he became, and he was hit by Li Dao, who came back from something temporarily, and was blocked in the bed. As the old saying goes, he can't touch the Lord's dry food. Li Dao, as the leader of the Xiliang Army, his own woman suddenly gave him a green hat, which ordinary people can't bear, let alone Li Dao, who doesn't take killing seriously.

In order to survive, Qu explained everything to Li Dao, but Li Dao still did not spare this woman. The knife resulted in this stupid woman, and then Li Wei sent someone to invite Guo Yan to make an appointment.

Before the matter came to light, Li Dao had been kept in the dark, but now that he has known the truth of the matter, Li Dao naturally wants to retaliate. Not just revenge, but also for self-preservation. Since Qu said that the imperial court has been secretly spying on him, it means that the imperial court has always had the intention of getting rid of itself.

I didn't do it, just because I had the Xiliang Army in my hands, and the imperial court was not sure that it could deal with the Xiliang Army at present. Once the imperial court has the confidence to deal with the Xiliang army, his death will not be far away. The matter is obvious, he has a lot of trust in the Qu family, as long as the court orders it, the Qu family, who is his pillow person, only needs to give himself a knife while he is asleep, and he doesn't even know how he died. Thanks to God's favor, I let myself know the truth of the matter in advance.

In line with the principle of striking first and suffering later, Li Dao Guo Yan, who had restored his friendship, decided to strike first, seize Chang'an, and control Liu Xie, the son of heaven, in his hands. Uniting Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, the 100,000 men and horses of the Xiliang Army attacked in two ways, and suddenly attacked the imperial court.

At the beginning, the Xiliang army did not encounter any effective obstacles, and the army ate Nan'an County, which is adjacent to Longxi, in a very short period of time, but when Li Dao Guo Yan led his troops to attack Tianshui County and Ji County, they encountered hard bones. The imperial court has long guarded against the Xiliang army, and Liu Xie rebuilt the eight schools of Xiyuan, two of which were placed in Tianshui, in order to prevent the Xiliang army from entering directly.

After Zhao Yun and Hao Zhao took office with the county law-abiding law, they did not waste any time and immediately started training. And the two have a clear division of labor, Zhao Yun is in charge of the cavalry, Hao Zhao leads the infantry, Zhao Yun specializes in attacking, and Hao Zhao specializes in defense. Although there were not many people in the two schools at the beginning, by preparing early, the terrain in various parts of Tianshui had already made Zhao Yun, who led the team to train from time to time, to figure out where to set up ambushes and where to hide soldiers, these things had already been engraved in Zhao Yun's mind.

The 70,000 horses led by Li Dao and Guo Yan entered Tianshui and surrounded Ji County, and Zhao Yun, who led his troops out of the city in advance, began to harass the Xiliang army endlessly. With Zhao Yun's current strength, it is far from enough to deal with the Xiliang Army head-on, but it is handy for Zhao Yun to cut off the grain route and attack and kill the scout team of the Xiliang Army.

At present, there are 3,000 cavalry led by Zhao Yun, that is, these 3,000 people, which makes Li Dao Guo Yan, who has 70,000 troops, a headache. It's not that Guo Yan didn't think about setting up an ambush to lure and annihilate this kind of "stragglers" who are quite a headache, but Zhao Yun is extremely slippery, and the plan that Guo Yan came up with to lure the enemy is either seen through or told people to plan and lose face.

Seeing that Zhao Yun outside the city had no choice, Li Dao Guo Yan set his sights on Ji County, as long as he could take Ji County before the arrival of imperial reinforcements, the Xiliang army would at least not need to face the situation of being attacked by the enemy. But the cavalry is not good at attacking cities, and Hao Zhao, who is now in charge of defending the city in Ji County, is a general who is good at defense. Although the current Hao Zhao is not the Hao Zhao in history who resisted Zhuge Liang alone for several months, causing the failure of the Northern Expedition of Shu Han, Li Dao Guo Yan is not Zhuge Liang.

The county Shou Fayan was very aware of the importance of Tianshui County to the imperial court, so he secretly hoarded a large amount of grain and grass in Ji County long before Li Dao Guo Yan made trouble, and now although he was besieged by Li Dao Guo Yan's army, he could rely on the grain and grass hoarded earlier to support the soldiers and civilians in the city for a year. And the reinforcements of the imperial court will definitely not wait until a year later.

Persistence is victory! As long as the imperial court reinforcements arrived, then Li Dao Guo Yan's Xiliang army would not have to worry. Fa Yan believed that even if Liu Xie, the son of heaven, did not expect that Jia Xu and Li Ru, the two poisoners, would not be able to think of the plan to directly smash Huanglong and draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle. At present, Ji County's task is to hold back the Xiliang Army, attract the attention of Li Dao Guo Yan, and buy time for the imperial court officials and soldiers who are responsible for quietly digging out the nest of the Xiliang Army.

Hao Zhao is indeed very good at defense, especially when he is fully prepared in advance, Li Dao Guo Yan's army has attacked Ji County no less than 100 times these days, but there are not a few times that they have attacked the city, and even if they are lucky enough to attack the city, they will be quickly driven down the city by the officials and troops in the city.

The Western Liang army is dominated by cavalry, and the field battle is unparalleled, but siege warfare is different from field warfare, and there are many places where equipment is needed. And what is missing in the Xiliang army is craftsmen. These bandits, who are used to robbery, usually run away after fighting, how can they think about those long-term things. Siege vehicles, wells, ladders and other sharp weapons needed for siege, in addition to ladders, no one in the Xiliang army can build, but with the shoddy ladders, how can they break through the well-prepared Ji County.

Facing the high city wall, the Xiliang army could only look at the wall and sigh. Guo Yan once thought of luring the enemy out of the city and giving full play to the advantages of his cavalry, but the problem was that Ji County was not fooled, no matter how your Xiliang army provoked and scolded outside the city, the officials and troops in the city ignored it, and fired arrows when they got close.

Guo Yan also thought about digging tunnels, but he didn't expect the officers and soldiers to be prepared, after discovering that the Xiliang army was digging tunnels secretly, the officials and soldiers in the city also dug up, and also collected feces and other dirt in the city, and when the tunnels were dug up in the city, they also dug up the manure tank above the tunnel entrance, and the five hundred Xiliang elite soldiers who were responsible for stealing the city were drowned in the dung water.

Li Dao Guo Yan wanted to ignore Ji County and continue to advance eastward, but the location of Ji County happened to be in the center of Tianshui County, no matter which way the Western Liang Army went, Ji County could cut off the return of the Western Liang Army at any time. The back road is unstable, Li Dao Guo Yan did not dare to wave the army to the east, but for a while, they took Ji County without a rut, they couldn't attack it, they couldn't persuade it to surrender, and they didn't turn back when they opened the bow.

Originally, the two of them also pinned their hopes on Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, hoping that these two could break the current deadlock, but it was disappointing that Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, who led 30,000 troops, stopped moving forward after taking Nan'an County and entering Guangwei County, not that they didn't want to continue to move forward, but not long after entering Guangwei County, these two brave guys received the news that the imperial court sent Lu Bu to lead the Bingzhou army, and Lu Bu's Bingzhou army made Zhang Ji and Fan Chou a little numb, and the Bingzhou army was 30,000, and Zhang Ji and Fan Chou's men only had 30,000 people. The two didn't think that they could take advantage of Lu Bu's hands when they had the same number of people, so they stopped and planned to retreat to Nan'an County to defend and protect Li Dao Guobian's flank.

After receiving the report from Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, Li Ji and Guo Yan were a little crying and laughing, they knew Zhang Ji and Fan Chou's thoughts, and they were afraid of Lu Bu, so they said that they were afraid of Lu Bu, what to do with such a high-sounding reason. At the moment, there is no time to find the trouble of Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, who are afraid of death, and Lu Bu led the state army to kill them, which is the top priority that Li Dao and Guo Yan need to solve.

Rather than letting the imperial court break each one, it is better to concentrate the scattered forces and fight to the death with the imperial court, as long as Lu Bu's annexed state army is defeated, Li Dao Guo Yan believes that even if it is the price of half of the Xiliang army, it will be worth it. Without Lu Bu's protection, the current imperial court will take what it wants.

couldn't take Ji County, and Li Dao Guo Yan didn't want to continue to spend in Ji County, so he sent someone to send a letter to ask Zhang Ji and Fan Chou to come and join him, while Li Dao Guo Yan led his troops to retreat to Weishui. Regarding the initiative of the Xiliang Army to retreat, Fa Yan of Jixian County only hesitated for a moment, and then understood the intention of the Xiliang Army. Immediately, someone sent someone to inform the imperial reinforcements who were coming. At this time, Liu Xie, who was in Chang'an, had already assembled a team and was preparing to send troops.

"Wenhe, after I leave with the troops, you go to Tongguan and take over the defense there."

“…… The lord doesn't take me with you? Jia Xu was a little surprised and asked puzzled.

"With Wen You following, coupled with Fa Jimou, it is enough to deal with the resourceful people of the Xiliang Army. And I didn't let you go to Tongguan to give you a holiday, Li Dao Guo Yan suddenly became difficult, except for the reason that the witch leaked, I always have an intuition to tell me that this matter should not be so simple. ”

"What is the lord worried about?"

"I'm not afraid of 10,000, I'm afraid of what if. I am the Son of Heaven, representing the orthodoxy of the Han family, and I am worried that someone will want to beat me for the orthodox idea of the Han family. If Xun Wenwen is in Hanzhong, there is no need to worry about Yizhou and Jingzhou, and Tongguan is too close to Chang'an, once Tongguan is broken, Chang'an is in danger. I have entrusted Wuguan to Zhu Gongwei, and Tongguan can only be handed over to you. Don't worry, I'll let Dian Wei go with you and be at your disposal. ”

"Lord, won't you take me there?" Dian Wei on the side exclaimed with some surprise.

"Wen He is just a scribe, with you with me, I don't have to worry. Lao Dian, you remember, if Tongguan can't be guarded, you must protect Wenhe no matter what you say. ”

“…… So what about the lord here? Dian Wei asked worriedly.

"Huh...... You don't have to worry about me here, with Wang Yue and Hu Che'er accompanying me to protect me, it is not easy for others to hurt me. Remember to follow Wenhe's orders, unless Tongguan is broken, you can disobey Wenhe and break through. ”

“…… Lord, did you decide to lead the troops out of Chang'an this time, in case of the kind of situation you were worried about? Jia Xu asked Liu Xiedao at this time.

Liu Xie didn't intend to hide it, nodded and admitted: "Well, there is indeed this consideration. My identity can be regarded as a strange commodity to live in today, Chang'an is just a dead thing, as long as I do not fall into the hands of those careerists, then the court will not become a puppet at the mercy of others. ”

"Don't worry, the lord will take precautions when he goes to Tongguan here, so that no one will succeed in his tricks." Jia Xu assured Liu Xie in a deep voice.

……

Saving lives is like fighting fire! In order to prevent the emergence of more counties and counties whose production was destroyed, Liu Xie led 25,000 people who gathered officials and troops from all over the country to quickly rush to Tianshui. Halfway through the road, Liu Xie received an urgent report from the law-abiding people of Tianshui County.

Knowing that Li Dao and Guo Yan took the initiative to retreat to Weishui, Li Ru, as an accompanying military division, immediately understood the intentions of the Xiliang army. He immediately suggested to Liu Xie that the army should slow down its march and not rush to Weishui to fight to the death with the Xiliang army. Liu Xie also thought so, not only agreed to Li Ru's suggestion, but also ordered someone to send a few drawings to Lu Bu under the stars.

At this time, Lü Bu had also led the Bingzhou army into Guangwei County, and when he received the drawings sent by Liu Xie's order, Lü Bu was discussing with Zhang Liao and others how to find an opportunity to find a decisive battle with the Xiliang army.

The Xiliang Army and the Bingzhou Army have always been not on good terms, and in the past, because of Dong Zhuo's face, it was not easy for the two armies to clash directly, but small frictions have been constant. Later, Dong Zhuo died, and the imperial court could only continue to endure for the long-term planning, and now it was finally time to settle the accounts with the Xiliang army, and everyone in the state army was gearing up, just waiting for an opportunity to clean up the guys who didn't like it in the past.

"What is this?" Lu Bu couldn't help but wonder after opening the pattern sent, Zhang Liao on the side stretched out his head to look at it when he saw this, and immediately understood the importance of the things sent to the cavalry.

The cavalry has three treasures, a saddle, stirrups, and a horseshoe, with these three things, not only can better protect the horse from damage, but also improve the personal combat power of the cavalry. Liu Xie originally planned to hide it and not tell Lu Bu, even if he wanted to tell him, he would have to wait until Lu Bu's attitude towards him was determined, but now that the enemy is now, he can't care about it so much, and the stronger the state army, the greater the chances of the imperial court winning.

"Is there a physical thing?" Zhang Liao, who had already understood the usefulness of these three things, immediately asked the messenger eagerly.

"The little one brought a few finished things, and put them on the horse that the little one was riding. It's just that this thing was thought up by the saint after he left Chang'an, so there are not many in his hands. The saint said that if the state army wants, it can only find craftsmen to build it by itself. The messenger said hurriedly.

"Wen Hou, how about trying it first?" Zhang Liao asked Lu Budao urgently.

"Wenyuan, is this thing useful?" Lu Bu asked puzzled.

"Wen Hou hasn't understood it yet?"

"This is a saddle, this is supposed to be a stirrup, it looks more delicate than what we use now, but where is this thing? I haven't seen it yet. Hearing this, Lu Bu pointed to the pattern and said to Zhang Liao.

"Wen Hou, this should be nailed to the horseshoe."

"Huh? Nailed on the horse's foot? Won't nail the horse's hooves? ”

"Probably not, let's find a horse first."

"Well, let's go find a horse together."

The saddle and stirrup are a set, which can be placed on the horse's back, and as for the horseshoes, you can only ask a blacksmith to help. Fortunately, the place where Lu Bu's army was located at this time was not harmed by the Xiliang army, and it was not difficult to find a blacksmith. The shape of the horseshoe is simple, and the use is not complicated, except for the first time to put shoes on the horse, other things are not a problem for a blacksmith.

The selected war horses are still a little unaccustomed to "wearing" new shoes, and always want to kick people with their hooves. But in the face of Lu Bu and Zhang Liao, who are masters of horseback riding, this war horse can only hold back no matter how much dissatisfaction there is. Zhang Liao couldn't wait to verify his previous guess, and when he saw that the horseshoe was nailed, he immediately flew on the horse, and after a brief adaptation, he immediately shouted to Lu Bu in surprise: "Wen Hou, let people take some ordinary blades and throw them on the ground, I'll try the use of this horseshoe." ”

Lu Bu immediately asked people to throw some blades on the ground, and saw Zhang Liao urging the horses to step on those blades, and the war horses were not affected at all. When Lu Bu asked people to lift the horse's hooves to take a look, except for a few white marks on the horseshoe, the horse's hooves were not damaged at all. At this time, Lu Bu also realized the importance of these seemingly simple four iron bars to the war horse.

A war horse, once the horse's hooves are damaged, the war horse is also useless. But now with the protection of this horseshoe, it means that a war horse will last longer than a war horse that is not protected by a horseshoe.

"Uncle Long, eat me!" Zhang Liao, who was riding on a horse, saw Cao Xing riding over in the distance, and immediately shouted and urged the horse to rush over.

Cao Xuan didn't know what was going on, but when he saw Zhang Liao waving his knife, he hurriedly took a gun to block it, and shouted in his mouth: "Wen Yuan, are you crazy?" ”

In normal times, this kind of competition between the two would be a draw, but this time Zhang Liao, who got the help of a new type of saddle stirrup, pushed Cao Xing off the horse with a knife. Cao Xing, who was sitting on the ground, looked at Zhang Liao in disbelief and asked, "Wenyuan, what medicine did you take?" Why is there so much effort? ”