After occupying Nanjun and Jiangxia, with the resources of these two counties to form a new army, Liu Biao already had a certain strength and slightly resisted Yuan Shu in Nanyang.

Liu Biao's sudden rise naturally made Yuan Shu feel very unhappy. However, at this time, Yuan Shu was busy letting Sun Jian lead his troops to attack Dong Zhuo and conquer Luoyang, so as to overwhelm his brother Yuan Shao in terms of momentum, so as to attract the support of other Yuan family members and become the controller of the Yuan family.

Therefore, just when Liu Biao was trying to consolidate the foundation of Jingzhou and deliberately married Cai Mao's second sister as the main room, Sun Jian, the "Jiangdong Tiger", took his troops and horses, as the vanguard of Yuan Shu, and set out to Sili.

The reason why Sun Jian was willing to be driven by Yuan Shu was actually very unavoidable.

Due to his fierce temper, Sun Jian has always had a poor relationship with his colleagues. The reason why he forced to kill his predecessor Wang Rui, the assassin of Jingzhou, and Zhang Shi, the Taishou of Nanyang, was because of the old grudge left by the two when he was the Taishou of Changsha.

After forcing Wang Rui and Zhang Shi to kill, Sun Jian's killing impulse brought him a huge obstacle. The officials in Jingzhou were afraid of Sun Jian's violence and cut off contact with Sun Jian's army. And Sun Jian, as the Taishou of Changsha, cannot legally control the people of Nanyang, and he cannot convince the great clans of Nanyang.

Under the deliberate isolation of all Jingzhou officials and Haoqiang, Sun Jianjun could not get enough supplies, but also faced hostility everywhere, which can be described as a feeling of being in a quagmire. What makes Sun Jian most unhappy is that he can't solve this state by force - unless he wants to become the public enemy of the Han people.

Therefore, in the face of Yuan Shu, who stretched out his hand to solicit at this time, if Sun Jian didn't want to make trouble to the point that the whole army was broken up or became a thief, he could only accept it.

Fortunately, Yuan Shu is a person, although he is not a gentleman. I don't know the hardships of the world, but after all, I was born in a top family, the Yuan family. If he wants to deliberately entrap a person, he can easily use more than ten effective methods. Moreover, Yuan Shu has an impatient temperament, and on the surface, he looks like a rectum without twists and turns. This temperament. Just right for Sun Jian's temperament. With the joint efforts of Yuan Shu and Sun Jian, the two sides successfully formed a close alliance that was extremely rare at that time.

Of course, Yuan Shu is the master, and Sun Jian is the auxiliary. No one objects to this.

With Yuan Shu's backup, Sun Jian's soldiers and armaments were sufficient, and he was naturally high-spirited. And Yuan Shu has been defeated once since a few years ago under the still weak Zhang Qiang. I have a certain understanding of my battlefield command ability. Yuan Shu, who lacked interest in the arduous military career, was also happy to hand over the most arduous task of fighting in battle to Sun Jian.

In this way, with Sun Jian as the blade and Yuan Shu as the handle, this powerful war knife began to really slash at Dong Zhuo, who had been gathering momentum to fight back!

Dong Zhuo is not a fish breast to be slaughtered. As a veteran of the battlefield, his judgment of the battlefield situation is very predictable. Sun Jian's main force has not yet been dispatched. Based on Yuan Shu's action of allocating grain and grass to Luyang City, an important town on the front line, Dong Zhuo could tell. The combined forces of Yuan Shu and Sun Jian should be about to launch an attack on Si Li from here.

Being beaten passively is not Dong Zhuo's hobby. The Liangzhou army has always been known for being good at attacking, but it is not very good at defense. As the main force of the Liangzhou Army, the Liangzhou Iron Cavalry will not have any good performance in the defensive battle. Take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your own army. Dong Zhuo decided that his side should take the initiative to attack and stifle the enemy's attack in the preparation stage.

So, in the winter and December of the first year of Chuping [190]. Dong Zhuo's counterattack force forward, under the command of Zhonglang general Hu Zhen, launched an attack on Sun Jian's troops in Luyang.

Hu Zhenzi is a literary talent, born in Liangzhou, and is one of the most famous Liangzhou heroes under Dong Zhuo. This person is very familiar with the tactics of the Liangzhou rebels, and has made a lot of contributions when he crusaded against the Liangzhou rebels. Dong Zhuo relied on him a lot, just looking at the willingness to hand over the responsibility of attacking Sun Jian to Hu Zhen, it can be seen that he mixed well under Dong Zhuo.

Hu Zhen's army came with great momentum. However, Sun Jian, who was backed by Jiancheng, personally led his "Tiger Righteous Cong" to meet the head-on attack, breaking through Hu Zhen's thousand-man cavalry vanguard in one fell swoop, beheading more than 200 ranks, which greatly frustrated the spirit of the Liangzhou army. Hu Zhen saw that Sun Jian's soldiers and horses were neat, disciplined, and his fighting spirit was strong, so he did not dare to attack the city, so he had to withdraw his troops and leave.

After Hu Zhen withdrew his army, it was the most important festival of the Han Dynasty [New Year's Day in later generations].

Zhengdan is the beginning of the year, and it is known as the three beginnings, "the first day of the first month is the dynasty of the year, the dynasty of the month, and the dynasty of the day". For the Han people, the day of New Year's Day has a special significance, and there are many customs and habits accordingly. For example, in the folk, Zhengdan has the custom of not damaging utensils, and for officials, Zhengdan means that they can go home and have a good rest for a few days.

According to the Han system, Zhengdan has a three-day holiday. During the New Year's Day, even the soldiers in the army have to celebrate and make a noise, and no prince is willing to move troops at this time. As a result, the battle between Sun Jian and the Liangzhou army could only drag on for a month.

At the beginning of February, after a holiday break, the two sides finally began the second round of the battle.

The number of soldiers and horses brought by Sun Jian's headquarters from Changsha was only 5,000, although it was elite, it was impossible to deal with Dong Zhuo's army, which was calculated in tens of thousands. Therefore, after receiving Yuan Shu's support, Sun Jian recruited 5,000 recruits on his own on the one hand, and on the other hand, he also had the power to control the troops sent by Yuan Shu to participate in the war.

Yuan Shu is the sister-in-law of the Yuan clan in Runan, and as soon as he entered Nanyang, he was warmly welcomed by the local family. Even many Runan Haoqiang, who were close to the Yuan family, crossed the county boundary and took the initiative to take refuge under Yuan Shu's account. In just half a year, Yuan Shu's subordinates, like fermented dough, quickly swelled from a few hundred relatives to nearly 100,000!

If you don't look at the quality, just look at the quantity, Yuan Shu at this time is the second in the out-and-out strength of the Han Dynasty, second only to Dong Zhuo, far more than the direct army of his brother Yuan Shao.

However, although Dong Zhuo's number of troops was slightly superior to Yuan Shu, he was facing the dilemma of being surrounded by enemies on all sides. The combined forces of Han Sui and Ma Teng in the west, and the insolence of Bingzhou in the north, although they all reached an agreement with Dong Zhuo, they had to guard against it. Zhang Lu, the "rice thief" in the southwest, secretly supported by Liu Yan, the beneficial state pastor, and peeping into Chang'an from afar is also a trouble. And Yuan Shao of Hanoi County in the northeast, who has hoarded more than 20,000 soldiers and horses, has been threatening Luoyang City across the Yellow River, which is even more daring to relax.

Fortunately, the Kwantung princes who originally gathered in the sour jujube recently had an internal bar. With the killing of Qiao Mao, the county guards of Yanzhou can be said to be uneasy, and their vigilance against each other is far greater than that of the Liangzhou army, which can be regarded as temporarily relieving the pressure on Dong Zhuo. But even so, Dong Zhuo was still at a disadvantage in terms of total strength when facing Sun Jian. The only thing that Dong Zhuo's side can rely on is the kind of bravery that the Liangzhou Army has honed in the bloody battles over the years!

For this battle, Dong Zhuo specially left Chang'an, Xijing, and personally sat in the eastern capital of Luoyang, commanding the generals to fight. The Liangzhou army that participated in this battle included the various units under the jurisdiction of Zhonglang generals Hu Zhen, Xu Rong, and Lü Bu, as well as the Niu Fu Department transferred back from the vicinity of Baibo Valley, and the Huaxiong Department that had been confronting Yuan Shao in Hanoi. After these generals gathered, the total strength was as high as 40,000, which had reached the maximum number of mobile troops that Dong Zhuo could organize at this time.

The concentration of 40,000 troops was also a risky act for Dong Zhuo. Not to mention the daily supply of food and grass for the army, it will make Wang Yun, who is in charge of the logistics of the army, anxious. Secretly transferring Hua Xiong out of Hanoi is a risky move. In a short period of time, Yuan Shao may not be aware of the disappearance of Huaxiong. But after a long time, Yuan Shao will find out about this news sooner or later.

Prior to this, if Dong Zhuo could not achieve a large enough victory over Sun Jian's army, or if the Huaxiong army was sent back to the battlefield in Hanoi, the Liangzhou army in Hanoi would have to retreat to Luoyang City. Once retreating from Hanoi, it means that Yuan Shao's army can directly threaten the city of Luoyang, and it is possible to kill the Yellow River at any time, leaving the Liangzhou army vulnerable to the enemy.

There is also Niu Fu, if it weren't for the fact that the Bingzhou Army took the initiative to reduce the garrison in the Baibo Valley, Niu Fu's department would definitely not dare to go south to participate in the war. However, Dong Zhuo was a little confused about what the Yellow Turban remnants were arrogant and arrogant about. After this battle is over, Dong Zhuo must let Niu Fu return north as soon as possible and guard Hedong. Otherwise, Dong Zhuo is in Chang'an City, and I'm afraid he won't even be able to sleep well.

As for the situation in Chang'an City, Dong Zhuo is actually difficult to rest assured. Since the decision to move the capital to Chang'an, most of the courtiers began to separate from Dong Zhuo, except for Wang Yun, Shisun Rui, Huang Wan and a few others, who either resigned from their posts and returned to their hometowns due to illness, or just watched and did not work, and even secretly rebelled with Kanto to communicate information.

Although Dong Min, Dong Yue and others led troops to guard Chang'an, with the prestige and ability of Dong Zhuo's relatives, it was actually difficult to hold out in Chang'an City for too long. In case of a fire in the backyard, Dong Zhuoke will be homeless.

Therefore, Dong Zhuo did not intend to defend from the beginning. And, he wanted a quick fix. Once the war continues, for Dong Zhuo, it will be a failure.

In Dong Zhuo's layout, the 40,000 army could not be concentrated together, so it would be difficult to give full play to the army's mobility and combat effectiveness. The Liangzhou army has always been known for its strong cavalry and the Han Dynasty, and the infantry alone may not be stronger than the Danyang soldiers in the south. And the tactics of the cavalry lie in being erratic. Appear in unexpected places and launch unexpected attacks on the enemy at unexpected times. This is the true face of the cavalry "clutch soldiers".

Therefore, Dong Zhuo divided the army into three routes: Xu Rong led his headquarters to the north and moved south from Xingyang to threaten the flank of Sun Jian's army; Niu Fujun was the south road, out of the wheel clan, and forced Yuan Shu in Nanyang, threatening Sun Jian's grain road. The main force of nearly 20,000 people was handed over to Hu Zhen, who had been in charge of the defense of Henan, and he commanded Lu Bu, Huaxiong and other generals to resist the main force of Sun Jian's army head-on. Dong Zhuo himself took the Flying Bear Army to guard Luoyang City, providing food and grass for the three-way army, and also serving as a backup. (To be continued......)