An hour later, after tidying up the affairs in the city, a regiment commander ran in and reported: "Marshal, Zhang Yang is not in the city, he has disappeared, please make a decision." ”

"You go and tell Commander Lu Bu to immediately set off from the south gate to pursue Zhang Yang." Guan Yu also guessed that Zhang Yang should have run back to the lair.

"Yes." , the regiment commander agreed, and then quickly left the herald.

Then Guan Yu turned his head to Guo Jia and said: "Guo Junshi, I will go back to write a battle report to the lord first, then Liu Bei should soon go to Bingzhou to take over, and here you will be fully responsible for all affairs of Bingzhou." ”

At this time, Guo Jia said helplessly, "Marshal Guan, go, I will deal with this little matter!" ”

Guan Yu nodded, and then said to the rest of the generals: "You wait for a good student to assist Guo Junshi, and you must not disobey the order!" ”

"Yes, Marshal." , the people will agree together.

Here, Lu Bu received the order, and immediately led 50,000 heavenly wolf horses to gallop out of the south gate, and pursued Zhang Yang in the direction of Shangdang.

Due to the difficulty of the road and the unfamiliarity with the terrain, it was impossible to chase after him, so Chen Gong also suggested that Lu Bu first camp in place, notify Guan Yu, and wait for support.

Shangdang is there, he can't run, he can attack at any time, he can't beat it once, and there is a second time, and Chen Gong is not in a hurry to attack Shangdang.

In the Shangdang area, there are several routes to attack from the direction of Bingzhou, but almost every one of them is full of mountain peaks and has many dangerous mountain passes. Moreover. The further you advance into the Shangdang area, the steeper the mountain becomes. This country in the mountains, surrounded by dangerous terrain, really lives up to its name.

Guan Yu received Lü Bu's letter, and when Liu Bei arrived with the newly recruited 100,000 infantry from Youzhou, he let Liu Bei take over the annexation, and Guan Yu went to Shangdang with nearly 200,000 troops to join Lü Bu. Because Youzhou implements the policy of all soldiers and because Youzhou soldiers are well treated, recruitment is very fast.

After the army converged, Guan Yu immediately sent a large number of sergeants to conduct a comprehensive reconnaissance of the mountain passage in the entire Shangdang area.

From north to south. On the mountainous outskirts of the Shangdang region, that is, in the territory of Bingzhou, from north to south, its defensive line spanned several towns in total.

Taigu County, Qi County, Pingyao, Longfeng County, Lingshi, Fenxi, Hongtong, Guxian, Fushan and so on. In total, it is five or six hundred miles long, such a long line of defense. It stands to reason that it is necessary to attack the party. There are many local routes to choose from. It should be easy to attack.

However, in reality, this is not the case.

In some towns, there are no roads to enter the mountains. Not to mention the present, even in the future, there are few easy routes to pass.

Thereinto. From the boundaries of Fenxi County, there is no reason to enter the mountains, several other counties and towns, every county. There is almost only one route into the mountains and to the Shangdang area. In addition, there are many roads that no one seems to have walked at all.

The Shangdang area is like an isolated area, and the people who live in it will not leave Shangdang for no reason to go hundreds of miles away. And people outside the party will not go to the party if they have nothing to do. So, as a result, there are some roads that no one has walked at all.

Those who usually have contacts and will enter and leave the Shangdang area are probably some people from the government or some businessmen. Ordinary people, they really don't have the need to go in and out of the Shangdang area, it can be said that the Shangdang area is a completely closed area.

Besides, it is still an ancient era, and the population is far less than that of later generations, and people today are not worried about having no place to settle down, but they are just worried about not being able to survive. Therefore, no one will move into the Shangdang area to live, and the people in the Shangdang area will not leave the Shangdang even more if they can barely survive in the Shangdang.

Well, let's not talk about the situation of these people. Not to mention the line of attacking the party, there are about ten. But the 10 lines that can attack the party are far apart from each other, at least dozens of miles apart from each other.

This is the situation of the offensive line.

Don't forget, the Heavenly Wolf Army decided to attack the party, and Zhang Yang had already gone back to prepare.

In this way, if Zhang Yang is not ready to surrender, or is unwilling to leave Shangdang, and wants to continue to stay in Shangdang to be a soil emperor, then he will definitely be fully prepared and will definitely not be able to stand still.

Now, the Sky Wolf Army is strong, and the Sky Wolf is prestigious, and it stands to reason that Zhang Yang would not dare to take the initiative to attack the Sky Wolf Army. However, it is a matter of time whether people attack or not, but it is not ruled out that he will take the initiative to attack the Sky Wolf Army. Don't forget, his Zhang family is a scholar here, the emperor of the soil, the terrain is very familiar, naturally, it is unlikely that Zhang Yang is looking forward to defeating the Sky Wolf Army, but don't forget that Zhang Xiang is a thief, he can't defeat the Sky Wolf Army, and he can't rule out the possibility that they will come out from the Shangdang region to attack any place in the state. Anyway, now that the Sky Wolf Army has turned against him, he will no longer restrain himself, and it is very likely that he will send troops to plunder some cities. Therefore, before Guan Yu prepared to attack Shangdang, he was prepared to guard against Shangdang Zhang Yang would send troops to attack his current city.

100,000 infantry troops, 140,000 Heavenly Wolf cavalry cavalry, plus some local guard troops, Guan Yu's total strength is by no means less than 250,000 horses.

And the Shangdang defense line that is hundreds of miles long, more than ten towns and cities, and it is also the defense line of the Heavenly Wolf Army, and every town and each road leading to the Shangdang area must leave enough troops to defend, so that Guan Yu can use the strength to attack Shangdang, which is really not much.

If each town has a few thousand men and horses, then it will be reduced by tens of thousands of horses.

Therefore, calculated down, the number of troops that Guan Yu can use to attack the Shangdang area is about 150,000.

According to estimates, the strength of Shangdang Zhang Yang was between 50,000 and 60,000, and Guan Yu divided the 150,000 army into three divisions and attacked Shangdang in three ways.

This division of troops is also out of helplessness, the defense line is too long, and Zhang Yang may lead the army into the state at any time to make trouble, so dividing the troops into three ways can effectively put pressure on Zhang Yang and make him dare not leave the Shangdang area. Because, once he leaves the Shangdang area, from which direction he marches to Bingzhou, the closest soldiers and horses can turn around and attack him. Once Shangdang really falls into the hands of the Heavenly Wolf Army, then he will leave the Shangdang army and become a rogue army, without a place to recuperate, they will be wiped out sooner or later.

Therefore, after discussing with Guo Jia and Chen Gong, Guan Yu decided to implement such a plan to directly suppress Zhang Yang in the Shangdang area, and did not dare to act rashly, so he could only defend passively step by step.

Facts have proved that Guan Yu's deployment is correct.

Zhang Yang: He is indeed not such an easy person to deal with. This is mainly because after he was unwilling to lose the state, the Youzhou army even wanted his old nest. He has been operating in Shangdang for many years, and the terrain of Shangdang is dangerous, so he can defend dangerous places, so he can also fight. Maybe there is also a chance to stay in your own place and be the emperor of the soil.

Zhang Yang hoarded a lot of strategic materials in the party. Bows and arrows, fine swords, and so on, and large quantities of grain, rolling stones, and sassal wood, and gold juice.

In addition, his subordinate Wei Xu also offered advice to Zhang Yang.

Wei Xu's strategy for Zhang Yang was similar to what Guan Yu was worried about. That is, when the Heavenly Wolf Army attacked him, Zhang Yang could use the existing large number of weapons and food to step up the recruitment of troops and horses in Shangdang, and expand a large number of troops in the shortest possible time.

The soldiers and horses that have just been recruited may not have the strength to fight against the Sky Wolf Army, but they can use these people to build fortifications, as long as he has more soldiers and horses. Regardless of whether he has combat strength or not, he will have enough manpower at his disposal. When the time comes, you may also be able to use these newly recruited soldiers and horses to drive some of the people to build fortifications for them.

And what kind of fortifications should be built? In fact, it is very simple, from the direction of merging the state, to attack the party, there are only so dozen routes, and these routes, no matter which route and passage, are all winding through the mountains. Passing through countless dangerous terrains. The actual strength of the show is really about 60,000 people. These are flamboyant elite soldiers. The other 10,000 or so men are some reserve troops, which are equivalent to the militia groups of later generations.

Zhang Yang drew 20,000 horses from his elite soldiers, plus 10,000 to reserve troops. These 30,000 people. It can be divided into a thousand or two thousand people in one piece, and then. Let these centaurs. With the newly recruited soldiers, they drove the people to the various routes into the Shangdang area to build the Guanzhai. In some dangerous places, repair the walls that block the road.

Moreover, this is not a question of repairing one or two walls, but taking it step by step, no matter how far apart the walls are. Whenever it was dangerous, they built a wall to block the way, and then, leaving one or two thousand of his elite sergeants to defend the front line.

And defensively. It's not that they are forced to defend it, but to use bows and arrows to shoot and kill the Sky Wolf Army that comes to attack the wall, and consume the strength of the Sky Wolf Army as much as possible. In addition to this, those newly recruited sergeants can send some elite sergeants to take them to ambush on the mountains that have entered the Shangdang area, and it doesn't matter if there is a place to pass the village, as long as the Heavenly Wolf Army walks through the mountain road below, they will throw things down the mountain, any stone, sassal wood, or something. It is only required that they can kill and injure a large number of the troops of the Sky Wolf Army, and harass the march of the Sky Wolf Army step by step, to let them do it, every time the Sky Wolf Army walks, they must walk carefully, and they will never dare to march to the party in great strides, so that the march time of the Sky Wolf Army can also be greatly delayed.

And when the sergeants who were harassing the Celestial Wolf Army saw that the Celestial Wolf Army was about to attack them, they could quickly withdraw from the other side of the mountain. They are all Shangdang people, and they are naturally much more familiar with the type of Shangdang than the sergeants of the Sky Wolf Army, and there is naturally no problem if they want to withdraw and not let the Sky Wolf Army catch up.

In the same way, those sergeants guarding the dangerous pass, they attacked the wolf army with bows and arrows in the pass, and when the wolf army came forward, they had no way to hold the pass, so they could retreat, and then retreat to the next pass to resist the wolf army.