After being delayed by Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty for more than 20 days, when Tao Ying decided to continue to pursue and kill Xiao Yuan Sangong, Xiao Yuan Sangong's Huainan army had also seized the time to make adjustments, redeployed and arranged the southern defense line and defensive tactics of Yuan Shu's army, and was determined to exchange space for time to win the time for Yuan Sangong to mediate - it was a pity that Xiao Yuan Sangong did not know that he was also innocently shot in the incident of Emperor Han Xian, and Yuan Sangong had little interest in disciplining his son-in-law again.

The situation of the southern defense line redeployed by Xiao Yuan Sangong is probably as follows: due to the limitations of terrain and road traffic, Xiao Yuan Sangong no longer dares to disperse his forces, and to compete with the Xuzhou army, which has strong combat effectiveness and likes to break through one by one, to compete for every Huainan city, and in one fell swoop abandoned a number of inconsequential county towns in the north, and concentrated the main army in the three cities of Hefei, Liyang and Lujiang, which are horns with each other, and take the important town of Hefei as the first buffer defense line to cover the two most important cities of Liyang and Lujiang in Huainan at present. Xiao Yuan Sangong personally sat in Lujiang, and the generals Zhang Xun and Chen Fen guarded Liyang, all of them were determined to defend and drag the war into a war of attrition that was unfavorable to Xuzhou, which was fighting away.

At the same time, Xiao Yuan Sangong also waited for a long-awaited good news, that is, the old generals Sun Ben and Wu Jing stationed in Danyang finally agreed to send troops to rescue Huainan, and by the way to avenge their cousin and nephew Sun Ce, the two conditions for joining forces were not harsh, one was that the grain and grass were supplied by Xiao Yuan Sangong, and the other was to rehabilitate Sun Ce and restore his reputation, and by the way, he also canceled Sun Ben and Wu Jing's crime of being implicated by Sun Ce. At present, Sun Ben and Wu Jing have also raised more than 10,000 troops to arrive at the Chungu Ferry, and began to prepare for ships to cross the Yangtze River to the north, and may be put into the Huainan battlefield for reinforcements at any time.

By the way, a funny thing, among the more than 12,000 troops under Sun Ben and Wu Jing, a large part of the soldiers are none other than the Danyang soldiers, who happened to be the first ace of the Xuzhou army.

After a brief introduction to the situation around Huainan, after listening to the hard persuasion of the lord Bo Yanxiang, the arrogant little Yuan Sangong rarely put down the shelf once, and sent messengers to Jingzhou and Niu Zhu respectively to contact Liu Biao and Liu Xuan, Xu asked Liu Biao to send troops to rescue with money, grain and cloth, and also persuaded Liu Miao to withdraw from the army with the gift of death and coldness, not to destroy the northern barrier himself, and attract Tao Ying, the more dangerous Xuzhou plague god. It's a pity that the road in Jingzhou is far away, and there is no news about whether Liu Biao will send troops, and Liu Miao has opened a harsh condition for Xiao Yuan Sangong to cede all the land and cities south of the Yangtze River, and Xiao Yuan Sangong naturally can't accept such harsh conditions, so Liu Miao also unceremoniously continued to confront the Liyang Huainan army across the river in Niuzhu, and restrained Zhang Xun and Chen Fen for the Xuzhou army to lead the elite soldiers of Liyang Huainan.

The scouts and meticulous work of the Xuzhou army are quite effective, and the above information has been probed and summarized in front of Tao Ying, so that the decision-making level of the Xuzhou army can basically know themselves and the enemy, and formulate and adjust the plan for the southern invasion according to local conditions. However, there is basically nothing to adjust, if the Xuzhou army wants to continue to go south, the first target is Hefei City, an important town in Huainan anyway, if this nail is not removed, the Xuzhou army will not be able to go south to fight Liyang and Lujiang County Zhishu County, so Tao Ying soon decided to personally lead the army south to fight Hefei City, leaving Zang Ba, Song Xian and Xie Yan and others to sit in Shouchun and Quyang and other new occupations, and at the same time to take the northern city of Lujiang that has been abandoned by Xiao Yuan Sangong, and expand the control of Huainan, By the way, I also brushed up experience points for the recruits who were recruited in Huainan for future use.

Tao Ying personally led the army from Shouchun to the south for three days, 40,000 Xuzhou troops had approached Hefei City within a hundred miles, and the scouts in front sent a report, saying that the Hefei garrison appointed by Xiao Yuan Sangong Qiao Rui was desperately reinforcing the city defense, and the people outside the city were moved into the city to help defend it. And after hearing the news, Tao Ying was also very helpless, and sighed: "Qiao Rui, this leper dog is really a little strong who can't be killed, he hasn't been killed from Zhongli to Hefei, and he is still putting on a posture of sticking to it, and it looks like there will be another siege battle." ”

Lu Su also nodded with a wry smile, but Jia Xu, who had already taken up the post of sacrificial wine in the Xuzhou army, did not agree, but said slowly: "I don't know if the lord thinks that one of these things is different?" Xu these days all over the Huainan war records, found that this bridge since the Huainan war began, has been on the defensive and our army against the front, but also repeatedly broken by our army head-on, heavy casualties and did not succeed in holding a place, at present the main force of our army south to the blade pointed directly at Hefei City, Hefei City is already an inevitable momentum, why should Qiao Rui repeat the mistakes of the past? Continuing to hold on to a momentum that is doomed to fail? ”

"What does Mr. Wenhe mean by this?" Lu Su, whose official position is above Jia Xu, is humble, and he didn't dare to put on a show in front of the famous Jia Xu, nor did he dare to ask Jia Xu if he was suspicious, but said cautiously: "Yuan Shujun's field battle is not the opponent of our army, Qiao Rui gave up the field battle to stick to the city, and there is no mistake in the choice?" ”

Because he was accustomed to Qiao Rui would only hold on to the field battle, and was worried that Jia Xu would be eager to make meritorious contributions in the new army, Tao Ying was also very careful in his tone, reminding: "Mr. Wenhe, Qiao Rui has always been good at defending, as early as the Battle of Zhuyi, the Gaohuang Mountain Battalion established by Qiao Rui has caused countless troubles to our army, and now abandoning the field battle and only defending the city is also Qiao Rui's consistent tactics." ”

"The lord and the military advisor have misunderstood, and I'm not saying that Qiao Rui's tactics are wrong." Jia Xu shook his head and said: "Judging from the current comparison of the strength of the two armies, even if it is changed to Xu in Hefei City, he will agree with Qiaorui to defend it." The only thing that Xu is wondering about now is that since Qiao Rui has been defeated again and again in the battle of perseverance, and has done nothing, why does he continue to choose to stick to it without fighting? Does he think that he is sure to hold on until Yuan Shao intervenes? ”

"What does Mr. Wenhe mean? Is it possible that Qiao Rui will suddenly attack in the middle of the ten guards? Tao Ying, who had been thinking about conspiracy by himself before, carefully calculated and heard Jia Xu's voice.

"I can't rule it out." Jia Xu nodded and said: "Although I can't be sure that Qiao Rui will definitely do this, but one of the ten fakes suddenly came true, and it is also the right thing for the soldiers." Every time, Qiaorui has resolutely defended in front of our army, which has made the whole army full of feelings of contempt for Qiaorui, and it is necessary to prevent Qiaorui from highlighting strange soldiers and frustrating the spirit of our army. ”

Although Deputy Director Tao felt that it was unlikely that the shrunken turtle Qiao Rui would highlight the strange soldiers, he still felt that Jia Xu's words were very reasonable-if Qiao Rui used his mindset for him and suddenly did the opposite to give himself a ruthless blow, then he would have to go around without eating. So after a little calculation, Tao Ying still nodded and said: "Mr. Wenhe is reasonable, even if we can't be sure that Qiao Rui will definitely choose to highlight the surprise soldiers, we can't be careless." Fortunately, the terrain in this area of Hefei is flat, there is no geographical advantage that can be used, even if Qiaorui highlights the strange soldiers, there is only one option to rob the camp at night. ”

After talking to Jia Xu, Tao Ying sent Chen Zhi and Hou Cheng two generals, ordering the two to lead 3,000 troops into the night to ambush in the dark outside the camp, as soon as there is an enemy attack, immediately kill the flanking attack, and at the same time order the whole army to strengthen the night patrol, in case of a situation, just shoot it with a bow and crossbow, do not let the enemy close to the camp, after the arrangement is set, Tao Ying continued to lead the army south, and camped 70 miles north of Hefei that night. Seeing Tao Ying's arrangement, Lu Su inevitably smiled secretly in his heart, and said in his heart, Okay, my lord is already suspicious enough, and now there is a more suspicious Mr. Wenhe, and the future military intelligence meeting will be lively, I am afraid that if I don't finish analyzing all kinds of possible hidden dangers, the lord will not dare to make up his mind casually.

There was nothing to do that night, Chen Zhi and Hou Cheng's team also fed the mosquitoes outside the camp overnight, but considering the inconvenience of the Hefei Shangyuan Bridge Rui robbery camp, Deputy Director Tao, who was three points more slippery than the oiled loach, still did not take it lightly, and marched 50 miles the next day to set up camp outside the camp 20 miles north of Hefei, Tao Ying still made arrangements like the previous day, let Gao Shun and the second general surnamed Cao each lead 3,000 infantry to ambush outside the camp, and let the soldiers strengthen night patrols to prevent Qiao Rui from robbing the camp. As a result, the night was finally not in vain.

It was the second watch of the night, Huainan general Liu Kai led the army of 5,000 out of the city, all the people were tied to the horse ring, and rushed to the Xuzhou camp outside the night to sneak attack, but the result was not close to the camp gate has been found by the Xuzhou army sentry with the original binoculars, under the gong alarm, the Xuzhou Fengyu army that slept in clothes immediately poured out of the nest, rushed to the camp gate to entertain with a rain of arrows, although Liu Kai urged the sergeants to rush to kill, but they could not withstand the strong crossbow arrows of the wind feather arrows like a storm, and were shot back again and again, with heavy casualties, Gao Shun and the two generals surnamed Cao, who were ambushed outside the camp, also killed left and right, and attacked Liu Kai's team on both sides, Liu Kai was defeated and led the army to retreat, Gao Shun and Cao surnamed chased after each other, and led the army to chase and kill all the way. And what surprised the Xuzhou army was that after Liu Kai's army was defeated and walked seven or eight miles, he suddenly killed an army on the way, or the main force of the Hefei defenders led by Qiao Rui himself, and responded to Liu Kai's rush to the south, the sky was too dark and I didn't know how many soldiers and horses Qiao Rui had, and Gao Shun, who was cautious, was afraid that Qiao Rui still had an ambush, so he had to quickly pull the surname Cao, stop the pursuit and collect troops back to the camp, and let Qiao Rui and Liu Kai escape back to Hefei City.

Qiao Rui, who was used to being a shrunken turtle, was unprecedentedly majestic, and was blinded by Jia Xu's crow's mouth, and Lu Su, who was stationed in the rear camp to protect the grain and grass, admired it, and inevitably felt deeply ashamed of his secret smile. After the war stopped, Lu Su hurriedly rushed to the big tent of the Chinese army to express his admiration to Jia Xu, but when he entered the big tent, he saw that Tao Ying and Jia Xu, two foxes with the same smell, had already begun to interrogate the prisoners, and a wounded Huainan Qu general was still reporting to Tao Yingyu: "The villain heard that the army was robbed by Liu Ye of Lujiang County, and General Qiao did not agree, but General Liu and General Deng insisted on sending troops to rob the camp, and General Qiao couldn't stop it, so there was tonight's incident." But the villain just heard about it, and the villain doesn't know if it's true or not. ”

"Liu Ye, Liu Ziyang? He hasn't left Hefei to return to Shu County? Tao Ying asked quietly.

Naqu General shook his head and said: "No, I heard that the lord lost his temper, and the reinforcements of Liyang and Lujiang before him were not allowed to take a step back, whether it was Wen or Wu, they stayed in Hefei City to defend the city, the city was in the people, and the city was dead, so Liu Juncheng stayed in Hefei City, and the villain also came to Hefei with General Hui, and he was not able to withdraw to Liyang." ”

After finishing speaking, the song general kowtowed again and again, saying that his words were true, begging Tao Ying to see for the sake of his sixty-year-old mother and three children, and begged Tao Ying to spare his life with tears, Tao Ying smiled and said: "Don't worry, except for those prisoners who have really done a lot of evil, the other captives have never killed indiscriminately, and finally ask you a question, and you can go down to heal your wounds and eat after you have answered - there is a reinforcement behind your camp robbery team, did you know when you set off?" ”

"I don't know." The Qu general quickly shook his head again, and said quickly: "When the villain set off, it was not said that there was a team behind us to answer, if the villain knew, the villain would definitely follow ...... escape." ”

Speaking of this, General Huainanqu, who was captured near the gate of the Xuzhou Dayingzhai Gate, quickly shut up, only hated himself for his quick mouth, and explained his reluctance to surrender to the Xuzhou army. But fortunately, Tao Ying didn't care about such a trivial matter, just waved his hand and asked the soldiers to take all the prisoners down to treat their injuries and eat, and then smiled at Lu Su, who had just entered the account: "It seems that you and I didn't expect the shrinking turtle surname of Qiao Rui Pifu, but you and I are undercounted There is also Liu Ye and Liu Ziyang in Hefei City." Fortunately, Mr. Wenhe is here, otherwise we would have suffered a loss tonight. ”

"Mr. Wenhe is a god, and he sighs to himself." Lu Su, whose surname was humble, bowed to Jia Xu, sincerely admired, and began to think about when to give up his incompetent position as a military advisor to Jia Xu and show his strength to the position of commander of the naval division that he preferred.

"Mr. Zijing has won the award, this time it is really a mistake, and I inadvertently got it once." Jia Xu also didn't have the merit of greedy for heaven, and said honestly: "Xu really underestimated the ability of the lord and Mr. Zijing to recognize people, and overestimated Qiao Rui's courage in using soldiers, but he inadvertently fell into Liu Ye's plan to rob the camp - this time Xu should have been with Mr. Zhong Ming for a long time, and infected Mr. Zhong Ming with some good luck." ”

Lu Suhe, who already knew about Yang Changshi's good luck against the sky, laughed with Tao Ying, and said that it should be like this, the kind of luck on Yang Changshi is really not something that ordinary people can have. And after laughing, Tao Ying sighed and said: "It's a pity that our Mr. Ziyang is not the commander of the Hefei garrison, this time the camp was robbed again, and Qiao Rui will not easily listen to Liu Ye's advice in the future, otherwise it will ......, hum!" Although Mr. Ziyang is resourceful, our army is not afraid of battlefield tactics! ”

"What the lord said is very true." Lu Su echoed: "With the lord and Mr. Wenhe here, no matter how many conspiracies and tricks the enemy has, it will be in vain, on the contrary, it will give my generals the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the city." It's a pity that Hefei's defender is the bridge Rui, although the bridge Rui is conservative with soldiers, every time the war is not worried about victory before the defeat, do not seek merit but seek no fault, for our army who is good at winning by surprise, but it is the most difficult opponent. ”

Lu Su's words are to the point, before the large-scale equipment of hot weapons, the commanders of the cold weapon era all have a headache, and the deputy director of Tao, who is surnamed Jianqian and is good at opportunism, is even more so, the most hated is the hard-fought frontal battle, the favorite is to win by surprise and four or two thousand pounds, and the most feared is that the enemy uses a plan for himself, and he has the confidence to make the plan so that the enemy can steal chickens and rice! But there is no way, although Xiao Yuan Sangong does not have much ability to recognize people, but he prefers to use and trust this bridge that does not like to use tricks, is good at guarding, and is very self-aware, so every time he encounters a bridge on the battlefield, Deputy Director Tao is a headache and feels like a tiger gnawing on a hedgehog with nowhere to put his mouth, he can only fight with Qiao Rui to consume, fight morale and fight team combat effectiveness, although the first few times have won the battle, the Xuzhou army has also paid a considerable price, so that Deputy Director Tao gritted his teeth with hatred but was helpless.

A headache is a headache, Hefei happens to be stuck in the throat of the Xuzhou army going south to attack Liyang and Shu County, and if this hard nail is not removed, the heavy grain road of the Xuzhou army will be no safety at all. Therefore, in desperation, Tao Ying could only fight according to the rhythm arranged by Qiao Rui for the Xuzhou army, first pull the army to the village ten miles outside the city of Hefei, seize the time to build siege weapons, and then study the terrain and Hefei city defense, and start to arrange siege tactics, but also have to bear the soil to fill the trench and send Xiangyang artillery to bombard the city fortifications, which is not only slow and wasteful of time, but also wastes a lot of grain and grass that is as expensive as gold in the troubled times. At the same time, the ruthless Deputy Director Tao also had to make up his mind, and decided that this time he must kill Qiao Rui at any cost, even if he can't catch it, he will slaughter this kid, lest this disaster star flee to Liyang or Shu County to disgust himself!

……………………

Deputy Director Tao, Jia Xu, and Lu Su all hated Qiao Rui outside Hefei City, and there was nothing they could do about this haunting leprosy dog, but they didn't know that Qiao Rui was not having a good time in Hefei City. As mentioned earlier, after our deputy director Tao Wei Sanque broke through Yinling City, he was not happy enough to send Gao Shun to chase and kill the Qiao Rui team who was forced to abandon the city, and finally when Qiao Rui escaped back to Feicheng, there were less than 20 soldiers around him, and he was absolutely alone in Hefei City, where soldiers and horses from all walks of life gathered in Huainan, and he didn't even have much confidence to speak.

Later, although the little Yuan Sangong, who likes nepotism, finalized Qiao Rui as the chief general of the Hefei garrison, commanded the Hefei defenders, and sent 10,000 troops from Lujiang to Qiao Rui for reinforcement, but the composition of the army in Hefei City has not changed in the slightest, and it is still the most Lujiang soldiers, followed by the Liyang army, and the original Hefei defenders again, and finally the elite main force and cronies of the generals have lost all the Qiao Rui team! Each army has its own commander, each army has its own interests, almost the bare pole commander of the bridge and there is no cronies elite team can subdue the army, the strength in the Hefei army depends on the appointment of Xiao Yuan Sangong, commanding the chaotic Hefei army is naturally extremely difficult, often the order can not be done, the line can not be stopped.

Even more troublesome is the problem of Qiao Rui's personal prestige and tactical use, although Qiao Rui is also a famous general in Huainan and has a certain reputation in the Huainan army, but after being defeated all the way from Zhongli to Hefei, and finally fleeing to Hefei with less than 20 remnants of the army, Qiao Rui's prestige has basically fallen to the bottom - Huainan soldiers are not stupid, who wants to fight with such an incompetent commander? There is also Qiao Rui's resolute passive tactics, which was unanimously opposed by the generals of the Hefei defenders, including Liu Ye felt that Qiao Rui's tactics were too passive, and he should attack appropriately while holding on, and only by winning by surprise can he more effectively hold on to Hefei, and even turn the tide of the war!

It is precisely because of the above reasons that there is a war in which Liu Kai sent troops to rob the camp, Liu Ye felt that the Xuzhou army was tired from afar and its combat effectiveness would inevitably decline, so he strongly persuaded Qiao Rui to send troops to rob the camp, although Qiao Rui, who never took risks, resolutely refused, but Liu Kai, Deng Dang, Han Ding, Zhang Tan and Xu Gan and other Lujiang and Liyang generals resolutely supported Liu Ye's plan to rob the camp, almost forcing Qiao Rui to accept this plan. Everyone knows the final result, the cautious Deputy Director Tao was lucky to overturn Liu Kai, and Qiao Rui, who was more cautious than Deputy Director Tao, was not at ease and led the army to accompany him, and responded to Liu Kai's defeated army to flee back to fatten, avoiding greater losses and somewhat recovering some prestige.

Although the prestige has been saved, but the conservative tactics of Qiao Rui to defend the city are still difficult for the Huainan army to accept, and Liu Ye, who has never figured out where he has exposed his flaws, is also a little unconvinced, when the Xuzhou army began to fill the Hefei moat, Liu Ye put forward a suggestion to Qiao Rui in public, "General, this year's Huainan drought, the amount of water applied has declined, which has affected the water level of the moat in Hefei. Our army should appropriately send troops to raid the river reclamation team of the Xuzhou thief army, delay the speed of the thief army's river reclamation, and make the thief army dare not let go of the river reclamation. ”

Qiao Rui glanced at Liu Ye, then pointed to the Xuzhou guard team in the distance, and said coldly: "Out of the city? As soon as we leave the city, the thieves over there will be able to kill them immediately! ”

"It doesn't matter." Liu Ye also really wanted to help Qiao Rui defend Hefei, and kindly suggested: "Our team out of the city doesn't need to be too much, three or five hundred people are enough, properly charge and kill the river-filling infantry of the thief army, and then immediately retreat to the city, no matter how much you get, just frustrate the thief army." ”

Qiao Rui, who was older than Liu Ye in the battlefield, knew that Liu Ye's suggestion was not impossible, but Qiao Rui refused to take any risks, so even if the generals of Hefei rushed to him to ask for battle, Qiao Rui still shook his head resolutely and said: "Don't go out of the city, just suppress it with a bow and arrow!" Pass my order, and those who leave the city without permission will be killed! ”

Only a few old soldiers around Qiao Rui sang a promise to agree, Han Ding, Zhang Tan and Xu Gan and other Lujiang and Liyang generals but you look at me, I look at you, it took a long time to sing a promise weakly, Qiao Rui didn't care about the dissatisfaction of the generals, just secretly pondered in his heart, "There is also a stone machine!" When Tao Ying's stone machine came up, the morale of the army was probably more dangerous, and there would only be more people who asked to go out of the city to fight to the death. It seems that it is time to consider completely blocking the four gates of Hefei, the city wall of Hefei is much stronger than that of Yinling, and after my full reinforcement, it is not so easy to be bombarded by the stone machine of the thief army, maybe it can last until Yuan Shao, who said the lord, came forward to mediate. ”

"General! Exultation! Exultation! At this time, a herald hurriedly rushed up the city wall, handed a letter to Qiao Rui, and shouted excitedly with a smile on his face: "General, the general Sun Ben sent someone to send urgent documents, he and the Yangwu general Wu Jing were ordered by the lord to reinforce Hefei, and the reinforcements led by the army have arrived at the shore of Chaohu Lake after supplying grain and grass in Xiang'an, and the reinforcements can arrive in Hefei within three days!" ”

"Reinforcements are coming!" All the Huainan generals present cheered, and a certain general named Deng Dang was even more overjoyed, eager to look up to the sky and shout, "I finally want to see my relatives!" ”

Contrary to the Huainan generals who were happy, Qiao Rui, who was already alone in Hefei City, had a sinking face, and said secretly in his heart: "Oh no! Sun Ben and Wu Jing are coming, but they have a mortal enmity with Tao Ying's thief! After they come to Hefei, how can I control them? Could it be that the heavens are really going to kill me Huainan? ”

(To be continued)