Liu He recognized Xu Huang's practice of not fighting with Hao Zhao on the east bank of Fenshui, and felt that Xu Huang really had the potential to grow into a general, and knew how to make trade-offs and advance and retreat. Although Hao Zhao made Liu He very greedy, now was obviously not the time to arrest people, so Liu He forgot about it after hearing about it, and did not focus on this person.

Although he did not interfere with Xu Huang's actions in the past few days, Liu He has been paying attention to Xu Huang's progress, secretly asking Tian Chou to report Xu Huang's actions to him every day, and analyzing with Guo Jia, Zhao Yun and others what kind of motives and intentions Xu Huang has for every step of deployment.

At the beginning, Xu Huang asked the soldiers to go up the mountain to cut down pine branches to make simple torches, and immediately aroused everyone's curiosity. Liu He's order to Xu Huang was to find and annihilate the Yuan army on the shore of the Fen River, but Xu Huang went the opposite way and ordered the soldiers to go up the mountain to cut down trees, which was really beyond everyone's expectations.

Later, Xu Huang increased his troops one by one, and went to Jinyang City at night to disturb the Yuan army defending the city, Liu He pondered Xu Huang's intention to do this alone, and came to the conclusion that Xu Huang had not found the trace of Yuan Jun outside the city, so he wanted to lure the ambush army outside the city through this method of scaring the snake.

However, Guo Jia disagreed with Liu He's view, believing that Xu Huang was doing this to paralyze Yuan's army, and convinced them that the Youzhou cavalry would inevitably choose to cross the river from the west bank of Fenshui.

Afterwards, according to Xu Huang's own explanation, at that time, he harassed the enemy outside Jinyang City for two consecutive nights, and he really wanted Gao Gan to notify the ambush soldiers outside the city, so that the ambush soldiers hidden outside the city could prepare for the ambush, but in fact, it was a way to paralyze the enemy army.

Liu He was bored with himself, so he asked Xu Huang how he knew that the Yuan army had set up an ambush on the east bank of Fenshui, because the sentinels sent by Xu Huang did not seem to have crossed the river to reconnoitre.

Xu Huang told Liu He very truthfully that he didn't know the specific ambush location of Yuan's army outside Ludao City, so he did not hesitate to go around to the place where Fenshui was very upstream, and then searched it inch by inch. In Xu Huang's view, although this kind of carpet search is more laborious, it can ensure the greatest possible detection of enemy traces. so as not to have negligence and mistakes.

After Liu He listened, he sincerely felt that not everyone could be a famous general, just looking at Xu Huang's brains for this mission, ordinary people had already been confused by him.

Xu Huang just joined Liu He, and he made a lot of contributions, which impressed many of Liu He's subordinates in one fell swoop. On the other hand, Gao Gan's side was frightened and gloomy.

The 5,000 infantry who went out of the city to set up an ambush were killed and wounded by Xu Huang in a sneak attack, and more than 2,000 people were killed and wounded by Xu Huang, except for the bow and crossbow battalion, which basically returned to Jinyang City in a hurry, and the other battalions suffered heavy losses. Complete scrapping. What made everyone in the city even more angry was that Gao Ping was cut off half of his neck by an axe thrown by Xu Huang, and he died on the bank of Fenshui on the spot.

If it weren't for the fact that the young general Hao Zhao was not afraid of danger and commanded, the 5,000 Yuan troops who went out of the city to ambush Liu He this time were only afraid of even heavier losses, and whether Li Fu could come back alive or not is two words.

However, to the surprise of Yuan Jun in the city, Liu He still had no intention of leaving Jinyang after winning this anti-ambush, and seemed to have been trying to supply Jinyang City with sufficient logistics.

If you are not afraid of thieves stealing, you are afraid of thieves. Liu He stationed nearly 10,000 Youzhou cavalry who came and went like the wind to the west of Longshan. This made Gao Gan feel like a man on his back, and now he has learned of the tragic fate of the Southern Huns in the Jiexiu area, so he has a full understanding of Liu He's ruthlessness.

Gao Gan estimated that the fast horse that went to Gaoliu to report the news should have arrived by now, if Yan Liang and Wen Chou listened to the greeting. It is time to quickly lead the army back to Bingzhou, strive to besiege Liu He to death in Bingzhou, and then solve this great scourge in one fell swoop.

Compared to taking the cities of Gao Liu and Ban Shi, there is no doubt about Liu He and the most elite cavalry under his command. is the biggest credit.

Although Gao Gan's plan to ambush Liu He on the east bank of Fenshui was bankrupt, Liu He didn't know whether he wanted to hit Jinyang City alive or dead, and didn't take advantage of this spare time to run away. It also saved the need for senior cadres to continue to send troops out of the city to delay Liu He's march.

So, in the next few days, Gao Gan hid in Jinyang City as a shrinking turtle, turning a blind eye to Xu Huang and Li Meng and others who were fighting outside the city for days, and let them humiliate and scold their mothers outside, but they couldn't defend the city.

Five days later, Gao Gan received an urgent report from Yan Liang and Wen Chou, and learned that the main force besieging Gaoliu had quickly withdrawn to the state, and now the army had rushed to Yangqu, and it would arrive at the city of Jinyang in three days.

When Gao Gan learned of this information, Liu He's dispatch of the fine work also sent back the information, not only reporting the approximate location of Yan Liang and Wen Chou's army, but also reporting to Liu He the good news that the three cities of Gaoliu, Beipingyi and Banshi had not been broken through by Yuan's army.

As long as Yuan's army did not invade Daijun, then the logistics equipment base that Liu He had built with great difficulty would still be safe, which made him greatly relieved, and he was even more confident in thwarting Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zhan and Gongsun Du to join forces to attack Youzhou.

Since Yan Liang and Wen Chou had been successfully "led" back to Bingzhou, Liu He no longer stayed in Longshan, and immediately ordered the whole army to move to Xihe County at full speed in accordance with the established marching route that night. The 500 cavalry who had escorted hundreds of Southern Xiongnu captives to Xiangling City from Jiexiu had already completed their task and rushed to Longshan three days earlier to join the main force, so Liu He's forces were not scattered.

In order to confuse Gao Gan, Liu He left behind a large number of large pieces of rags plundered from the Southern Huns, so that the entire camp could not see any change after the army quietly withdrew. Liu He also asked Murong Ping to lead 500 light horsemen to hide in the camp and start a fire in the stove pit on time, creating the illusion that the army had not been reduced and suddenly lit a fire for cooking.

By the time Yan Liang and Wen Chou finally led their troops back to Jinyang City three days later, Liu He had already run more than 400 miles in one go and entered the territory of Dingxiang County. If it weren't for taking care of Cai Yong's father and daughter and a group of scribes accompanying them, with the speed of the Youzhou cavalry, I am afraid that they would have to run to Yunzhong County.

On the second day after Yan Liang and Wen Chou returned to Jinyang, they led 20,000 elite infantry out of the city to fight Liu He, only to find that there was only an empty camp left at the foot of Longshan, and the Youzhou cavalry had long since disappeared.

Murong Ping had led the five hundred cavalry to evacuate safely the night before, and now he was chasing the main force according to the codes and markings left by Tian Chou along the way, even if he encountered a small group of Xianbei people, he could not stop them.

In fact, Murong Ping did not encounter any threat at all on the way to catch up with the large army, because all the bull ghosts and snake gods along the road had already been killed by the hunting team led by Zhao Yun, Zhang He, Xu Huang, Li Meng, Zhao Zhao and Tian Chou and other generals, and these chaotic nomadic tribes either fled to the north without their lives, or crossed the Yellow River to the territory of the Qiang people in Hexi, in short, they did not dare to return and withdrew from Dingxiang and Yunzhong County.

After Yan Liang and Wen Chou pounced, they were naturally very annoyed and puzzled, so they hurriedly sent a large number of scouts to frantically search for Liu He's whereabouts, but found nothing.

Some in Yuan's army speculated that Liu He might have been afraid of Yan Liang and Wen Chou, so he led the army to retreat to Hedong along the road he had come; Some people also speculate that Liu He may have led his subordinates to hide in the area of Jieshan now, and when Yan Liang and Wen Chou led their troops north again, they would rush out to attack Jinyang. Others speculate that Liu He may have taken advantage of the West River to go to the northern desert, preparing to cross the vast grasslands of the southern desert and return to Youzhou.

No matter how you guess, anyway, Yan Liang and Wen Chou were really busy this time, even if they immediately led their troops north to attack Gaoliu again, it would also leave a rare respite for the Gaoliu defenders to replenish their troops and logistical supplies.

The military advisor Feng Ji suggested that Yan Liang and Wen Chou simply not care about Liu He's whereabouts, and when Liu He had not yet returned to Youzhou, he hurriedly led the army to attack Jingcheng Pass, and went straight to the back of Jizhou from Bingzhou, and first assisted Yuan Shao to capture the three counties controlled by Lu Zhi in Jizhou in one fell swoop.

Yan Liang, who had been besieging Gaoliu for a long time, had already been frightened by Xu Rong, and he really didn't want to grind and chirp with Xu Rong under Gaoliu City, so he adopted Feng Ji's advice and led 10,000 elite infantry to take the mountain path and go straight to Jingcheng Pass.

Wen Chou led the remaining more than 15,000 soldiers to Baideng City, which is close to Gaoliu in Yanmen County, to prevent a counterattack from Youzhou.

After five days of rapid travel, Murong Ping caught up with the main force led by Liu He at the southern foot of Danhan Mountain. After a short rest, the army immediately marched eastward along the water of revenge, and after another day, they finally saw the towering and hard walls of Macheng, an important town in the border fortress.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers looked at the city wall of Macheng in the distance, cheering and jumping, and the momentum of beating horses and galloping was even stronger.

The soldiers in charge of lookout and vigilance above Macheng suddenly saw a piece of yellow dust rolling in the northwest, and hurriedly reported to Liu Hui, the supreme governor in the city. Liu Hui was shocked when he heard the news, and hurriedly climbed to the top of the city to look. Now Youzhou is attacked by the enemy on three roads, the soldiers defending Gaoliu have suffered serious casualties, and Macheng has just squeezed out 2,000 men and horses to rush to the aid of Gaoliu, if the evil neighbors in the north attack again at this time, the already precarious northwest defense line is likely to completely collapse, and how serious the consequences will be, Liu Hui dare not imagine.

"Pass my order, and all the defenders of each gate will enter a combat state and fight against the incoming enemy at any time!" Liu Hui gave the order decisively, with no fear on his face.

It's no wonder that Liu Hui can't see clearly whether the army in the distance is friend or foe, there is no high-end observation tool like a telescope in this era, so when more than ten miles away, what the naked eye sees is only a large area of galloping knights in a dense turn, and it is impossible to distinguish between friend and foe.

When the cavalry with the banner beat the big banner embroidered with the word "Liu" to a place still one mile away from Macheng, the defenders at the head of the city suddenly fell to the ground, and they looked at each other, really unable to understand that this huge cavalry actually played a big banner with the character Liu.

By the time the nearly 10,000 troops finally converged a mile outside the city, the defenders at the head of the city had already rushed down the city with cheers, and opened the city gate to greet the eldest prince who led the army back to help.

Under the banner of the Chinese army, Liu He looked at Liu Hui and the officials in the city who went out of the city to greet him, and shouted in high spirits: "Youzhou, I, Liu Shiren, are back!" (To be continued......)

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