Early in the morning of the second day, Ma Chao led 10,000 troops who had taken a little rest to set out on the road again, this time their destination was Wudu Xiajiao.

When the cavalry arrived in the Wangyuan area of Hanyang County, Tian Yu, the new military division of the Xiliang Army, was already waiting here. Ma Chao didn't pretend to be with Tian Yu, and directly dragged Tian Yu and continued to march, and arrived at Jieting Town in Wudu County within two days.

The street pavilion is only more than forty miles away from Xiabiancheng, and the cavalry can arrive in half a day's march. Ma Chao followed Tian Yu's suggestion, left his troops in Jieting, and sent a reconnaissance team of dozens of people to rush to the next division at night to see if he could get in touch with the heavy second division defending the city.

The reconnaissance team approached the castle at the third watch, and when it was still some distance from the city wall, the team noticed an anomaly and stopped moving forward. After repeated verification, the team members agreed that the city was besieged, and the troops outside the city were definitely not friendly forces. In order to avoid revealing their identities, these team members immediately returned along the same road, and reported to Ma Chao in the early hours of the morning that a large number of enemy troops had been found outside the city.

Ma Chao immediately asked people to wake up Tian Yu, Murong Ping, Duan Xuan, Tian Chou and others, and temporarily gathered to discuss the matter and inform everyone of the astonishing information discovered by the reconnaissance team.

"That's the case, I don't know what you think?" Ma Chao asked.

Military advisor Tian Yu said very calmly: "It is not appropriate for our army to immediately attack now, we should continue to send reconnaissance troops to grasp the specific number and movements of the enemy troops besieging the city, understand the situation of the troops defending the city, and then make a decision!"

Duan Xuan postscripted: "It is almost dawn, our army should immediately find a hiding place, block the road leading to Xiazhi in Jieting Town, and avoid exposing itself, as a result, it will not achieve the effect of raiding the enemy army." ”

Tian Chou carefully observed the march map, and then said in a deep voice: "Xiabian City is located between Hechi and Shanglu, since the enemy army dares to besiege the city, I am afraid that Hechi and Shanglu are already in danger, our army should quickly get in touch with Longxi and Hanyang behind them, so as to avoid the lone army going deep and being cut off from logistics supply by the enemy." ”

Murong Ping said very simply: "The last general asks to personally bring people to reconnoitre!"

After listening to the words of the military advisor and several division commanders, although the war was imminent, Ma Chao was secretly happy in his heart. Just now he asked each other, in fact, it was with the meaning of the people who studied it, and the result was that everyone's answer was not only very decisive, but also had merit, obviously all of them were experts who knew the soldiers and knew how to fight, and the Xiliang Army was led by these good generals, so he was not worried that he would not be able to achieve results in the future, so Ma Chao was secretly happy.

Ma Chao said: "The suggestions made by all the parties have merit. Murong Ping, I will send you to immediately lead a reconnaissance team to reconnoiter the enemy's situation; Tian Chou will order you to temporarily act as the quartermaster of the army's logistics supply, and immediately contact the friendly forces in Hanyang County and Longxi County to request logistical support; Duan Xuan, order you to immediately find a convenient place for the army to hide in the Jieting area......"

The three newly appointed division commanders were ordered to leave, and only he and Tian Yu were left in Ma Chao's account.

Ma Chao asked Tian Yu with some hesitation: "Brother Guorang, you said that I am now sending someone to urgently summon the 10,000 cavalry led by General Pang, can it play a role in turning the tide of the battle?"

Although Tian Yu has the word Yu in his name, he never hesitates to be a man and do things, and immediately shook his head and said: "Meng Qi is a little eager to win. I can understand your feelings, but it is not advisable to recruit General Pang who is in Jincheng now. There are three reasons: first, the 10,000 soldiers led by General Pang are now unstable because the general's father has passed away not long ago, and it may be difficult for them to take on important tasks; second, Jincheng is still three days away from Xiajiao, and if you wait for them to arrive, it is very likely that you will delay the warplane; third, although the Xiliang Army has an establishment of 20,000, the 10,000 soldiers led by General Pang are obviously different from the 10,000 elite soldiers you brought from Crouching Tiger. ”

Ma Chao felt that Tian Yu's analysis was reasonable, so he nodded and said: "Thank you Brother Guo for reminding me, then I will order General Pang to lead 10,000 horses from his headquarters to the training regiment in Gaoping City, and it is estimated that the 10,000 infantry led by General Gao Shun should be able to reach Gaoping in a few days, just let him help train him." ”

Tian Yu continued: "Meng Qi may feel that the current 10,000 troops are a bit small, and that's because you haven't really comprehended the terrifying combat power of the first-class troops of the Great Jin Protector Army. I can assert that as long as we make good use of the 10,000 elite cavalry in our hands, it is not necessarily difficult to defeat the enemy who comes to attack the Wudu, or to fight to Nanzheng in Hanzhong and capture Sima Yi alive. ”

"Okay, with the bold words of the country's brother, I will be bold!" Ma Chao was proud and said loudly.

Soon after Murong Ping led the reconnaissance team out of the street pavilion, he asked the team members to take off the uniforms of the Jin army, temporarily bought some clothes from the peasant families in the nearby villages and put them on, and dressed everyone as shepherds raising horses in the nearby area, and then they split up and moved closer to the city. Murong Ping himself was even more courageous, riding a horse and going around the city from a distance, carefully looking at the number of enemy troops surrounding the city.

It turned out that the army that came to besiege the city this time was not the 30,000 troops commanded by Sima Yi, but the 20,000 Yizhou soldiers who directly sent troops from Guanghan County in the south of Yizhou.

As for Sima Yi's troops, they naturally will not stay in Nanzheng, Hanzhong. Soon after Zhao Hu's assassination, they marched into Fu County, the easternmost part of Wudu County, and then took Hechi City in the northeast of Xiazhu in one fell swoop, and are now ambushing in an unknown place, waiting for reinforcements from Liangguo.

Murong Ping reconnoitred all the way and didn't see Sima Yi's troops, because Sima Yi didn't expect the reinforcements sent by the Liang State to march so fast, so he only had time to ambush the troops on the road from Shanglu City to Xiabiancheng, and did not arrange the main force in the direction of Jieting.

After completing the reconnaissance, Murong Ping immediately returned to Jieting with his team members, and adopted very covert means when retreating all the way, and people kept leaving the team and heading in other directions, so as to interfere with the local reconnaissance troops that might be following. Murong Ping himself left the reconnaissance team and headed west to Shanglu City to reconnoitre.

When Murong Ping passed by a canyon, he felt that this place was extremely steep, and there was a frightening and strange atmosphere in the valley, but he didn't know that he was passing under Sima Yi's nose.

The partial general Chen Shi asked Sima Yi: "Young master, do you want to shoot this probe horse down?"

Sima Yi shook his head and replied thoughtfully: "No need, let him go, I want to see who this probe horse will attract next." ”

Sima Yi only thought that Murong Ping had quietly slipped out of Xiafen City and went to Shanglu City for help, so he just planned it and simply let him pass. And what made Sima Yi so suspicious was that there was an army hidden in Shanglu City, but it was Zhao Hu and Han Wei, who had already woken up, who teamed up to act in a play, which temporarily blinded Sima Yi.

It turned out that Han Wei was supposed to lead 4,000 heavy infantry to garrison the fortress outside Xiaban City, but when Zhao Hu was assassinated, he gathered all his troops into Xiaban City and threw an empty fortress to Zhang Ren, who led his army north. After Zhang Ren and Sima Yi's two armies converged, they once tentatively attacked Xiafen City, but Han Wei's regiment commander only used 2,000 heavy infantry to beat them back, and now Zhang Ren and Sima Yi couldn't figure out how many troops were hidden in Xiafen City and where Han Wei was.

Sima Yi speculated that Han Wei took a part of his men and horses to Shanglu City, so he ambushed in the middle of the road, intending to let Zhang Ren continue to besiege Xiabiancheng next, and then lure Han Wei, who was stationed in Shanglu City, to lead the army to rescue, and ambush Han Wei halfway.

From the analysis of the intelligence obtained by the Yizhou army in the last battle with the Jin army, Sima Yi felt that the best way to deal with the heavy infantry of the Jin State was to annihilate them in the movement, and as for the heavy cavalry of the Jin State, the best way to deal with them was to rely on the terrain and cities to fight a war of attrition with them. I have to say that Sima Yi's countermeasures really grasped the weakness of the Jin army, and the Jin army does not know how much it will suffer in the future.

Murong Ping ran to the foot of Shanglu City in one breath, and found that this city had not yet been occupied by the Yizhou army, so he continued to go upstream along the Western Han River to Wudu Dao upstream, and did not turn back to pass through the valley ambushed by Sima Yi again, and happened to escape a catastrophe.

Sima Yi didn't know that Ma Chao was coming, Ma Chao didn't know where Sima Yi was hiding, a possible encounter turned into a "hide and seek" between each other, and I didn't know what the battle would happen next.