Wu Yingying saw it in his eyes, and laughed secretly in his heart, this group of arrogant soldiers, if there is no battle, they will be placed in this corner of Lanzhou all day long, and there may be some chaos, but now that they have a clear enemy, it can be regarded as leading out some unstable undercurrents, and the men's fame and wealth will be taken immediately.

In the early morning of the next day, Xiao Jiu led the Lanzhou caravan out of the fortress with great fanfare, this time claiming to have brought millions of goods, in fact, there were only 500,000 pieces of tea, silk and some fine porcelain, and the rest of the cargo boxes were filled with arrows, antlers, fire oil, firecrackers and other military weapons, in order to reward the hussar battalion detachment that roamed the grassland all year round, and also carried some grain and grass, of course, the rest could not be delivered to them until after the war.

That night, Xingu led 300 cavalry of the hussar battalion to sneak out of Lanzhou, and according to the guidance of the guides sent by the Amur and other cavalry detachments, they separately strengthened the strength of the various cavalry detachments, and at the same time closely linked these dozen or so loose tribes according to the structure of the hussar battalion, forming a large network of reconnaissance and cavalry. Now there are more than 500 formal sergeants in the hussar battalion, but there are more than 2,000 shepherds under its jurisdiction.

In the next two days, Wu Yingying sent rangers in advance to conduct a search and cleaning of the road to the north of Lanzhou in the name of guarding against the Song army, and was sure that there were no spies and scouts lurking near Lanzhou. In fact, he was also too worried, Cai Jifeng didn't regard Lanzhou as an opponent at all. Xiazhou's equal opponents were Fuzhou Zheshi, Taiyuan Liu, and the Great Song Dynasty. The little Lanzhou, in Cai Jifeng's eyes, how dare he embarrass the century-old Tuoba clan, and of course he will not send spies to find out the movements of Lanzhou.

On the night two days after Xingu's departure, Wu Yingying personally led 3,000 cavalry, with a number of men and horses, and secretly went north under the guidance of the hussar battalion. In the city of Lanzhou, only Chase led 2,000 foot soldiers remained, the four gates were closed, and no one was allowed to leave the city.

And Cai Jifeng's army was marching in the Yin Valley Road at this time, wanting to choose a place to camp and wait for the news of the grassland tribe returning to the Lanzhou caravan. Cai Jifeng is not as fond of messing with all kinds of tribes as Cai Jiqian, most of his roots are tribes that have surrendered to the Tuoba clan for a hundred years in the land and Jinze, and Cai Jiqian also has a lot of friendship with many tribes outside the Saiwai. Therefore, Cai Jifeng's minions and ears outside the plug are not as many as Cai Jiqian, but there are always one or two tribes who can ventilate for him.

The valley where Cai Jifeng's camp is stationed here is a valley road that runs through the north and south of Yin Mountain, and there is the old site of the stone city at the south end of the canyon, which is said to be built by King Wuling of Zhao, called Jilusai. After entering the canyon, I saw that the mountains on both sides were as high as walls, and the cavalry who were accustomed to galloping across the grassland were passing through the valley road, and they all felt a little panicked, even if Cai Jifeng had already sent someone to check that there were no ambushes on both sides, he couldn't help but feel uneasy.

On the different heights of the east and west slopes, the ruins of the Han Dynasty stone-built beacons are found from time to time, whenever there are twists and turns in the valley, there must be beacons, and at the forks with expenditures, the beacons are more dense, and these beacons monitor every fork in the Yingu valley road. It's just that now the north and south of Yinshan are the land of Hu people grazing horses, and the beacons built by the Han people have been abandoned, and there is no trace of soldiers. Cai Jifeng was familiar with the historical facts, sat on his horse and sighed: "The Central Plains Imperial Court only needs to clamp down on the key passes of the northern mountain ranges and valleys, and it can stop the desert cavalry from entering the fortress and plundering. ”

Just as Cai Jifeng was thinking about the ancient times, a scout was carefully hiding behind the Han Dynasty Fengsui Ruins, and he cautiously followed behind the army. After Cai Jifeng and the others found a suitable campsite and began to send out sentinels again to occupy the commanding heights of the mountain walls on both sides, the scout turned around, crossed the mountains and mountains, and traveled through the peaks and valleys for a long time before coming to another valley road. A team of more than 100 people was camping, and the scout walked up to Cai Jiqian and said: "Son, the team from Xiazhou has passed through Jilu Village and is now camping in the valley road, probably waiting for the news from the grassland tribe." ”

"Hehe, these guys finally can't help but make a move. Cai Jiqian was bald, wearing a leather jacket, and his relatives around him were also dressed like this. He already knew that the Lanzhou caravan was going to go out of the fortress, but last time Wu Yingying suddenly swept away more than a dozen tribes that had followed him to plunder the Lanzhou caravan with the power of thunder, so that Cai Jiqian was extremely jealous of Lanzhou, although Xiazhou was deep-rooted, but there was strong Liao suppression, Great Song persecution, and there were uncles and nephews fighting for the throne, and there was no need for him to form a mortal enmity with Lanzhou.

Cai Jiqian is particularly disdainful of the benefits of commerce, he thinks that whether it is a Xianbei person or a party member, the way of life has always been to live by water and grass, and accept foreign luxury things such as silk and porcelain, but it is just to get a temporary comfort, but it will make any Xianbei person in the party lose himself, and finally become a vassal of large countries such as Song and Liao, so Cai Jiqian is indifferent to Lanzhou's competition for the benefits of Xiazhou's trade, but secretly happy that Cai Jifeng, Cai Kexian and others can not get all kinds of comfortable and hedonistic things in the Han land and the Western Regions.

He expected that Cai Jifeng and Cai Kexian would not be able to tolerate Lanzhou's repeated dispatch of caravans to trade with the Western Regions, and they would definitely send troops to plunder, so they sent scouts to monitor as early as possible. lest they should always be jealous of their own fame, and stumbling upon themselves openly and secretly. Blood relatives, Cai Jiqian shook his head, throwing this boring idea out of his head, the royal blood of the Tuoba clan, from ancient times to the present, the emperor's family, can it tolerate sibling affection? The two sides of a war are like two deaf men armed with swords looking for each other in the fog, and victory or defeat often depends on chance. Wu Yingying muttered to himself, helplessly looking at the dense fog that shrouded him. On the afternoon of the first day after leaving the fortress, the Mobei grassland suddenly fell into heavy fog, the visibility in the fog was extremely low, four columns of cavalry columns, the sergeant on the left could not see the right, only saw the horse's nose spraying white gas backwards, and only saw the horse's buttocks swaying left and right in the forward.

According to the experience of Yu Furen, who has been out of the jam for many years, such fog often lasts for several days and finally ends with the arrival of a storm. Mobei finally showed a mysterious and moody side to the Lanzhou army that came out of the fortress for the fourth time. The sudden dense fog is the weather that often occurs in Mobei, and the 300,000 troops of Han Gaozu were besieged by the Xiongnu Shan Yu in Baishan Mountain, which is to break through with the opportunity of the dense fog, otherwise the history of the Central Plains will be rewritten.

The speed of the army in the fog was slow, and Wu Yingying now faintly regretted the seemingly seamless plan to lure the enemy. The division of troops is the fatal flaw of this plan. At present, the Lanzhou army is divided into three parts: 3,000 cavalry led by himself, 2,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 people led by Xiao Jiu, and more than a dozen cavalry detachments of the hussar battalion led by Xin Gu. The worst case scenario is that the Dang Xiang Qiang people, who have concentrated their forces, take advantage of the bad weather to break the Lanzhou army, which is difficult to communicate. Just like Napoleon encountered at the Battle of Waterloo, the 30,000 elite French troops did not arrive at Waterloo until after the battle, which kept the French in their hearts.

The dense fog did not disperse for a long time, which made Wu Yingying's heart very angry, but there was no way, Xiao Jiu's detective cavalry, who should have contacted him once before dark, had not been seen until now, and he must have lost his way in the fog. The most famous one was in the decisive battle between Wei Qing and the Xiongnu Shan Yu in the hundreds of thousands of cavalry groups launched in Mobei, the former general Cai Guang lost his way and lost his time, causing a generation of famous generals Cai Guang to commit suicide in prison.

At the same time, Cai Jifeng was also very angry, compared with the strict Lanzhou army, the Dingyan army, which was hastily composed of Xia, Yin, Sui and dozens of tribal cavalry, as well as the elite of the temporarily concentrated Iron Harriers, was in a mess in the thick fog. Cai Ji couldn't stop praying that the Lanzhou caravan must stop and not lose its trace when the Dingyan army was trapped by the fog. Finally, when the sky was getting late and the fog was gradually thinning, the Dingyan army chose a high ground to camp, counted the number of people, and there were nearly 2,000 horsemen who did not know where to go, Cai Jifeng had to send men and horses to search in all directions with torches, and tossed all night, until noon the next day, before they gathered the lost troops one after another.