Xu Shu led an army of 10,000 bears. It's been three days since I left the base camp Zhongyang. During these three days, Xu Shu did not wander around along the banks of the Yellow River like a headless fly. On the contrary, after carefully analyzing the topography of Xihe and Shangjun, he very decisively led his team south along the banks of the Yellow River, preparing to arrive at the confluence of the Haoyan River and the Yellow River first, and stationed the team at the junction of Xihe County, Hedong County and Shangjun County.

The name of the garrison chosen by Xu Shu was Xiliuzhuang, which was adjacent to the Yellow River to the west, the Tongtian Mountains to the east, and Zhongyang County to the north.

The reason why I took a fancy to Xiliuzhuang is not only because of the complex topography here, which is convenient for the army to hide their traces, but also because it guards the gateway of Zhongyang, which can prevent surprise attacks from Hedong and Shangjun, and provide effective warning and buffer for the base camp.

Xu Shu seemed to understand Lu Zhi's thoughts, and he bet that Lu Zhi would not lead his army to the north to attack Fushi, but would turn back, cross the Yellow River in the north section of the Yellow River, and kill Zhongyang or Pingzhou City from Hedong County. Xu Shu knew that there were 4,000 Crouching Tiger troops led by Wang Lu in Pingzhou City, so he focused on the direction of the realm in Xiliuzhuang in the west.

When Xiong Zhen's army had not yet arrived at Xiliuzhuang, Bian Xi, who had gone out to investigate, returned to report that a team of more than 10,000 people was found in the lower reaches of the Haoyan River on the west bank of the Yellow River, cutting wood to make pontoon bridges, which looked like Cao Cao in the coalition army.

Hearing that it was Cao Cao's subordinates who were cutting wood and building a bridge across the river, Xu Shu couldn't help frowning and thinking for a long time, and then decisively ordered Xiong Zhen's army to settle in Xiliuzhuang. Even if he knew that the Cao army on the opposite side was a suspicious soldier deliberately planted by Lu Zhi, Xu Shu would still unswervingly garrison the army in Xiliuzhuang according to the original analysis.

In the art of war, it is often said that there is no constant situation between the virtual and the real, and what looks like a virtual thing may eventually evolve into reality. Xu Shu was not led by some superficial phenomena, but relied on his judgment of the battlefield situation to form an independent judgment, which is precisely an important quality that a top strategist should have. To paraphrase military terms: you hit yours, I hit mine. Resolutely not allow your deployment and troop movements to interfere with and influence my judgment.

After setting up camp in Xiliuzhuang, Xu Shu immediately gathered the commanders above the Xiong Zhen regiment together for a briefing meeting, and according to his own understanding and analysis, he told his generals unabashedly about the heavy responsibilities they were shouldering and the situation they might face. Xu Shu did this, and there was a bit of a taste of fighting against the water and breaking the boat.

In Xu Shu's words, there was no false encouragement and comfort, only a cold and cruel reality, but the effect of this was surprisingly good! All the officers who participated in the meeting could not see the slightest cringe and fear in their eyes, on the contrary, these people all looked excited and excited, and felt that the time had come to become famous in the first battle. A strong sense of honor and mission motivates everyone, so that there are no words such as retreat and fear in their creed, and the words that appear most often are words such as fighting to the death and not retreating, and moving forward bravely.

Xiong Zhenjun evolved from the Crouching Tiger New Army of that year, and after experiencing the test and soul shaping of the Qingniwa War, it has formed a unique troop characteristics and combat traditions, which can be summed up as having an optimistic spirit of never worrying about failure, and this spirit naturally comes from the influence and forging of the first army commander Zhang Liao.

The more difficult and difficult the environment, the more vigorous and blazing the fighting spirit and fighting spirit of the Xiong Zhen army will be, which is what people often say when they are strong, the stronger they are. In the face of pressure and challenges, many second-rate troops will eventually collapse, while first-class troops will be more tenacious and belligerent, and the Xiong Zhen army brought out by Zhang Liao naturally belongs to the latter.

Zhao Xing deliberately asked Xu Shu to take Xiong Zhenjun to battle, naturally it was not just that Xiong Zhenjun was a first-class army. Including the Xiongwu Army and the Dingyuan Army that joined later, the eight armies to which the Zhenbei Army belonged, none of them were first-class troops.

The most important characteristic of Xiong's army is that it is a multi-service unit with the most comprehensive and optimized coordination. From the beginning of its establishment, this unit included two categories: infantry and cavalry, heavy armored position defense troops, long-range attack troops, and light armored mobile units.

Although the number of Xiong's army has been reduced from 20,000 to 10,000 now, the ability to fight independently has been much improved compared to the past. This is also a concrete attempt by Zhao Xing to spare no effort to follow the line of elite troops, and if Xiong Zhen's army performs well on the battlefield, then in the future, the disposition of all armies will tend to be comprehensive, and the line of not taking the extreme line of a large corps of a single arm will not be followed.

After the meeting, Xu Shu immediately ordered 1,000 soldiers of the light cavalry regiment under his command to go up the Yellow River and reconnoiter until they reached the Yuanyang area before turning around and returning, and the general who led the team was the veteran general Hou Cheng; he also ordered 300 men of the special operations brigade under his command to cross the Yellow River west and go deep behind enemy lines to reconnoiter the specific movements of Cao Ying's soldiers, and the general who led the team was Bian Xi. He also ordered Xue Lan to lead the remaining 200 people of the special operations team to infiltrate the area of Tongtian Mountain and conduct reconnaissance of the valleys and hidden passages in Tongtian Mountain.

Xu Shu himself took the remaining soldiers to build fortifications near Xiliuzhuang, including placing deer firewood to resist horses, digging trenches, traps, hiding soldiers' holes, and laying thunderbolts in advance. It seems that Xu Shu intends to turn the area around Xiliuzhuang into a protruding nail, wedged deep into the intersection of the two roads where Lu Zhi is most likely to raid Xihe County.

The systematic military study of Crouching Tiger's martial arts hall is really of great help to Xu Shu's cultivation and improvement. Different from Jia Xu and Guo Jia and others, Xu Shu grew from a new student who didn't know anything in the Crouching Tiger Martial Arts Hall to a commander, and this experience has one of the biggest advantages: just like a piece of jade with good texture, it has not been polished and carved by any second- or third-rate craftsmen, and is directly sent to the hands of the jade master, and this piece of jade can definitely show the most perfect form in front of the world in the future.

In the process of accepting Zhao Xing's new and strange ideas and proposals, Xu Shu was one of the few students who could accept them all. Because he was not influenced by the art of war and tactics handed down from ancient times, he was significantly faster than other students in terms of acceptance and speed when he learned the art of war, battle formation, march, logistics and other contents that Zhao Xing had secretly improved. This can be fully confirmed from the fact that as soon as Xu Shu arrived in Xiliuzhuang, he began to carefully arrange a battlefield environment that was conducive to the performance of his own soldiers' combat strength.

Xu Shu was deeply impressed by Zhao Xing's many remarks about the war. For example: "sweat more in peacetime and shed less blood in wartime," "fight only when you win, and run away if you can't win," "if you have one soldier, you will be left in a nest," "the first factor affecting the outcome of a war is an accurate grasp of intelligence," and so on. Xu Shu felt that although Zhao Xing's words were simple and easy to understand, they had been repeatedly refined and practiced, and it was easy for the middle and lower-level commanding officers with low knowledge to understand and accept them, and the middle- and lower-level officers had a dominant position in the development of a specific battle.

In fact, these words that Zhao Xing said were just vernacular words that he had been exposed to in the army in his previous life, and his ears could grow calluses every day.