Fang Shao's words were to force Liu Bei to a dead end, and to make the prospects clear to him, to see what he would choose.

And just as Liu Bei was at the critical juncture of his choice, Fa Zheng also followed, and said: "Actually, according to the right opinion, if you want to turn your face with Liu Zhang, you don't have to rush today." ”

Fang Shao and the others were all surprised, but Liu Bei was overjoyed, and hurriedly said, "Why did Xiaozhi say this?" ”

Fa Zheng said with a smile: "I just heard Liu Zhang say that he plans to live in Fucheng for a few more days, and he wants to talk about the friendship of the same clan with the lord, which means that we will have a chance to start in the future." Moreover, Liu Zhang also said that he would hand over the 20,000 soldiers and horses he brought to the lord, so that the lord could take advantage of this time to buy the hearts of the soldiers and take the 20,000 soldiers and horses for himself. When the time comes, after I meet Jingzhou, 30,000 horses and horses in my hands, and Liu Zhang, a hostage in my hand, will not be afraid of those stubborn and unrelenting people, and Yizhou will be able to obtain it steadily. ”

Although I don't know why Fa Zheng suddenly changed his mind, but his words are not unreasonable, although this Liu Zhang is the lord of Yiyi, but there are not a few people who disagree in Yizhou, such as the Brazilian Taishou Pang Xi is in a state of half-reading, and to deter such disobedient people, they must use force, before failing to reorganize and subdue the local army in Yizhou, only 10,000 horses brought by Jingzhou are obviously a bit insufficient. And Liu Zhang's generous delivery of 20,000 horses is naturally not in vain.

Liu Bei can be regarded as having found a reason now, and immediately said: "What Xiaozhi said is extremely true, we don't have enough soldiers and horses in our hands, so it's better to postpone our actions for the sake of safety." ”

Speaking of which, although Pang Tong and Fang Shao were displeased, they had nothing to say, so they had to follow Liu Bei's plan to suspend the kidnapping of Liu Zhang.

So Liu Bei returned to the tent first, Fang Shao and the others went in one after another, originally they were in and out like this, and anyone who was a little alert would feel that something was wrong, but Liu Zhang was only three minutes drunk at this time, and of course he would not notice it.

The banquet did not end until late at night, and Liu Zhang was so drunk that night that he even spent the night in the camp of his fellow sect, which shows how relieved Liu Zhang was to this brother who was more than 20 years older than him.

In the next nearly a month, the two big bosses invited me to invite you every day, during this period, Liu Zhang also went to the imperial court, pushed Liu Bei as the great Sima, and led the secretary to be the lieutenant, while Liu Bei was still courteous, and pushed Liu Zhang to be the general of Zhenxi, and led Yizhou Mu as before.

At this time, Liu Zhang really wanted to give his wife to Liu Bei, in addition to replenishing Liu Bei's army of 20,000 people, he also allocated 200,000 rice, 1,000 horses, 1,000 cars, and countless silk and satin.

You must know that Yizhou is located in a mountainous area, and war horses are scarce strategic resources for Yizhou, Liu Zhang has been running Yizhou for so many years, and he has made up less than 4,000 war horses, and this time he gave half of them to Liu Bei at once, which shows that he really invested in Liu Bei this time, and really regarded Liu Bei as an underworld brother who took people's money and eliminated disasters for others.

Liu Zhang's hospitality, Liu Bei's politeness, of course, was to accept all the orders, the war horses and chariots were all equipped with his own Jingzhou army, and the silk and silk were used to buy the newly compiled 20,000 Yizhou soldiers, so in less than a month's effort, the 20,000 Yizhou soldiers all praised Uncle Liu's benevolence and righteousness, and they all hated to work under Uncle Huang earlier.

While the two brothers surnamed Liu were enjoying themselves on the Chengdu Plain, on the flat road leading to Tongguan, a large army was also slowly marching westward.

This large army, led by Cao Ying himself, set out from Yecheng, first crossed the Yellow River south into Chenliu, and then marched all the way west into Luoyang, and it took a whole month to slowly reach the Tongguan line.

Whether it was the battle of Xuzhou to attack Liu Bei or the battle of Jingzhou a few years ago, it was a very fast mobile army to press the border and strike at the enemy by surprise.

And this time, the 100,000 Chinese army rebelled, and Cao Renjun, who was on the front line of Tongguan, struggled to support more than three months, and complained to Yecheng several times, and Cao Ying did not send troops from Yecheng until July, and it took a month to arrive at Tongguan on the road like a tour of the mountains and rivers.

The army finally arrived at Tongguan, and the army went down to the northeast of Tongguan, forming a north-south solidarity with Cao Renying, who arrived first in the south.

In the evening, the camp was completed, but Xun You, who was with the army, could no longer hold back the doubts in his heart, and came to see Cao Ying secretly overnight, and said straight to the point: "Prime Minister, you have been in doubt for a long time, I don't know whether to talk about it or not?" ”

Cao Ying, who was reading, put down the bamboo slip in his hand, leaned on the couch, stroked his beard and said with a smile: "Gongda wants to ask, why did Lone choose a long way to attack Tongguan, and he also walked for a whole month regardless of the tense situation in Tongguan." ”

Xun You's expression was shocked, and he exclaimed: "It turns out that the prime minister did this on purpose!" It is precisely because of this matter that you are puzzled, according to common sense, if you enter the pass from Yecheng to Guanzhong, and cross the Yellow River from the east of the river to the west of Pubanjin is the shortest way, but why the prime minister chose the big long road of crossing the Yellow River in the south and then entering Tongguan in the west, you are deeply puzzled. ”

Cao Ying's face showed a smug look and said: "Walking near Hedong Road, how can I not know Lonely." However, if the lone army goes to the east of the river, the thieves in the pass will hear it, and they will inevitably guard the ferry with heavy troops, and the lone army may not be able to get their wish if they want to cross the Yellow River west into the pass. Therefore, in order to deceive Ma and Han, Lone deliberately took a detour to Tongguan, so that the thieves thought that Lone wanted to attack Tongguan and despised Hedong. In this case, Lone only needs to take advantage of the thieves in the west of the river, and secretly send them north to the east of the river, and smuggle across the Yellow River from Pubanjin, and then the thieves will be numerous, but they will not be able to prevent our army from entering Guanzhong smoothly. ”

It turned out that Cao Ying was far-sighted and had already made a plan to attack the east and west long before he sent troops.

Xun You sincerely admires Cao Ying, the Prime Minister Cao Cheng in front of him has obviously woken up from the defeat of Chibi, changed his old eyes and saw no one in his eyes, and returned to the resourceful and thoughtful Cao Ying.

Xun Yousheng expressed his admiration, and couldn't help but ask: "Why did the prime minister deliberately slow down the march, so that my Tongguan army was in danger repeatedly. ”

Cao Ying said proudly: "The thief of Xiliang, there are countless warlords of all sizes, and now they are extinguished, and they are resurrected tomorrow, the reason why Lone has dragged on for so long is to give them enough time to gather in Tongguan, and then Lone can be destroyed in one fell swoop, so it saves a lot of effort." ”

Cao Ying's breath was not small, and he planned to eat the princes of Guanzhong in one go, but he was very confident in his demeanor and tone.

Xun You was afraid that he would commit the old disease of arrogance when he was in Chibi, so he hurriedly said: "Most of the thieves in Guanzhong are mediocre people, but Nama Chao is comparable to the hero of Lu Bu back then. ”

Cao Ying sneered and said, "It's been a long time since I've met an opponent like Lu Bu, and when Gongda mentioned it at this time, I'm missing the slave with the third surname a little." As for this Ma Chao, can you really make Lone fight with the spirit of dealing with Lu Bu, and wait for tomorrow to fight a battle before making a final judgment. ”

Cao Ying didn't plan to have a decisive battle with the Guanzhong army at Tongguan, but if he didn't fight a battle and couldn't go out, it would be easy to arouse the enemy's suspicions, so he planned to fight a few small-scale tentative battles, first, to distract the enemy's attention from Hedong, and secondly, to get a feel for the Guanzhong army's combat methods by the way.

However, to Cao Ying's surprise, on the second day of the arrival of his army, Ma Chao led more than 10,000 men and horses out of the customs to challenge, and issued a war letter to fight Cao Ying to the death.

This is a provocation to him, since the battle of Guandu, which prince is not afraid of him, and this legendary Xiliang savage dared to take such an arrogant initiative to challenge, Cao Ying decided to give him some color to see.

So, the next day, more than 20,000 Cao troops drove out of the camp, in front of the broad terrain in front of Tongguan to form a large array, the front array of halberds, the rear of the archers, the two wings are tiger and leopard iron cavalry, the standard Cao infantry cavalry formation.

Although Xiliang is famous for its cavalry, and Dong Zhuo's iron cavalry wreaked havoc on Guanluo back then, the Cao family's army, which had been tested by war for a long time, was no longer afraid. Cao Ying was confident that his elite infantry would be able to withstand the impact of the Xiliang cavalry, and then, his tiger and leopard cavalry, which was even more elite than the Xiliang cavalry, suddenly rushed out from both wings, and Ma Chao Xiaoer would inevitably flee back to Tongguan without an army, and a big victory ended so easily.

However, Cao Ren had sent someone to inform Cao Ying in advance, saying that this Xiliang Army was completely different from Dong Zhuo's army, and asked Cao Ying to be careful.

At that time, Cao Ying didn't pay much attention to it, but today, when he saw Ma Chao and his Xiliang army with his own eyes, he felt that the enemy did not seem to be as easy to deal with as he thought.

When the morning mist cleared, what caught Cao Ying's eyes was not the imaginary iron cavalry regiment, but a fish-scale shield formation formed by dozens of huge infantry. The shields held by these Xiliang foot soldiers were nearly more than a person high, and the layers were dense and impermeable, and dozens of shield arrays slowly advanced forward, like an iron wall pushing horizontally.

Such a military formation, Cao Jun from top to bottom was the first time to see it, and everyone was surprised and stunned, and even Cao Ying was shocked.

Seeing that the enemy's shield array was steadily pushing, it soon entered the range of bows and arrows, so Cao Ying hurriedly ordered the archers to release their arrows.

More than 2,000 elite archers bent their bows and arrows, and at the sound of drums, a dense rain of arrows crossed the arc, raining down on the enemy's formation.

However, the shield used by the Ma Chao Legion was not only tall, but also extremely thick, and such an ordinary bow and arrow could not penetrate it at all, and the rain of arrows that poured down hit the shield, and the clanging bells were bounced off one after another, almost causing any losses to the enemy.

This is the first time this kind of thing has happened, and even the elite Cao army soldiers began to waver when they saw such an indestructible enemy.

Seeing that the bow and arrow were ineffective and the enemy was approaching step by step, Cao Ying gave an order, and his infantry formation also began to move forward, he wanted to use the advantage of numbers to break the enemy's shield array with hand-to-hand combat.

Just when the two armies were less than fifty paces apart, the enemy's shield array suddenly split to both sides, and in the blink of an eye, thousands of cavalry rushed out from the rear, rushing towards Cao's army like the wind.

"Hmph, sure enough, the cavalry was hidden behind the shield array, Ma Chaoxiao'er, do you think that loneliness will be your favor."

Cao Ying had already expected it, and as soon as the sound of the drum order changed, the infantry formation stopped, and the halberd spear and other long weapons went to the front of the formation, ready to meet the impact of the Xiliang cavalry.

However, something unexpected happened, the Xiliang cavalry did not rely on the powerful impact force to attack like ordinary cavalry, when they were more than ten steps away from the Cao army's infantry formation, they suddenly turned their horses' hooves, swept in front of the Cao army's formation, and threw the weapons in their hands by the trend.

And instead of spears, they threw slender javelins.

(To be continued)