On 15 May, on the mountain road at the junction of Xinyang County, Suizhou County, and Tongbai County, 9,000 officers and troops marched forward in a steady and steady manner.

The generals under the command of Shen Shuren also changed the looseness of the previous days when they marched separately and occupied the counties of Suizhou Capital first, and reunited into an iron fist and advanced forward as a whole.

In front of the official army, the activity space of the thief troops has been compressed to an extreme. It's as if one more spark can explode completely.

Scouts searched and galloped back and forth, which more and more set off a solemn atmosphere.

"Report! The scouts of the front army had already detected that He Yilong's turtle had retreated into Pingjing Pass, and did not move forward, and the enemy situation in the distance ahead was unknown, but he could faintly hear shouts and kill and see smoke and dust. ”

With the latest military information being sent back, the generals are gearing up, and Zuo Zixiong is the first to ask for battle:

"My lord, it must be that He Yilong's road out of Tongbai Mountain was blocked by Liu Guoneng, and he couldn't break through for a long time! Let our army hurry up, and we can fight Liu Guoneng back and forth as soon as possible. ”

Shen Shuren raised his hand and calmly ordered: "Explore again!" The rear army camped, the front army slowly advanced, from now on, every five miles to stop to dig a ditch, ram the earth wall to cut the valley, and then advance, step by step! ”

Although Zuo Zixiong didn't fully understand, he had been following Shen Shuren for so long, and he had long been accustomed to obeying his words, and he knew that there must be some truth in it, so he didn't say more.

However, Zhang Mingzhen is still more assertive, and Jin Shenghuan is a guest general who has just come to support, so he has a sense of substitution for Liu Guoneng's situation. The two men joined forces and persuaded:

"My lord, the art of war pays attention to concentrating troops to break through, Liu Guo can come from afar to reinforce, if we advance slowly, let him bear He Yilong's attack for many days alone, and fight a tough battle alone, I am afraid it is not the way to treat the guest army."

"Yes, the last general doesn't matter, I'm afraid that the news of this battle will spread in the future, and the friendly generals who don't know the reason outside will be like Zuo Liangyu in the future, and they will not want to reinforce the adults."

Shen Shuren smiled and shook his head: "You can be regarded as those who have fought for many years and led soldiers for a few years, and you should know the common sense of the art of war." I don't blame you for saying this this time.

After all, you have never fought in Suizhou and Xinyang, and you don't know the geography around Tongbai Mountain. Especially a few of you who were originally from the sea bandits, I'm afraid you haven't fought mountain warfare.

This Xinyang Road is extremely narrow and difficult to travel, we block the two ends, there is no exit elsewhere, He Yilong dared to venture and chose to take this road, it was nothing more than that he despised Liu Guoneng and felt that Pingjing was in his hands.

Even if Liu Guoneng wants to block the exit of this valley, there is no danger to defend, the two sides are just fighting a fair battle at the bottom of this valley, and he can break through in the field with several times the troops.

But in my opinion, Liu Guoneng can be like us, high bases and deep ditches, even if there are no passes available, this kind of mountain road can just cut down some trees and dig some soil to block the road.

With such terrain, the army can't be used. Although there are many soldiers, there are only 100 people lined up in front. It's too advantageous for the stubborn side. That being the case, of course, who is in a hurry and who suffers. ”

Shen Shuren told the story, although he had not seen the battle with his own eyes, he was able to depict the situation so clearly, which made the generals more and more confident.

Fighting with such a coach with Zhizhu in his hands, he is not anxious at all, and he is really very comfortable.

"The last will obey! This is going on step by step! Don't give the thieves a chance to fight back! ”

After all kinds of step-by-step affairs were arranged, Shen Shuren was also a poet, and he had a bit of a bad taste for tracing the ancients.

Taking advantage of the slow advance of the troops, he took Zuo Zixiong and others to find a gentle slope nearby, climbed the mountain under the protection and support of the guards, and overlooked the overall terrain from a high distance.

He also brought binoculars, which was rare to have a bit of the momentum of the emperor.

After hard work to get to the top, he took a telescope to look around the Tongbai Mountain node in a herringbone shape, and Shen Shuren pointed to the distance beyond his eyesight, and told a morale-boosting paragraph to the generals:

It can be seen that 1,800 years ago, when Lü Buwei ordered people to compose "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period", he summarized the world's mountains and rivers, and recorded in the chapter "There is a Beginning":

What are the Nine Stops in the World? Dafen, Mingwan, Jingruan, Fangcheng, Kun, Jingcheng, Lingzhi, Juzhu (Yanmen), Juyong.

Among these nine stops, the last three are now the Great Wall dangerous passes; Jing Cheng is between Jin and Hebei; There is Hangu Pass, and the east and west divide the world; And the first four are all on this Tongbai Mountain.

Among them, between our Suizhou Mansion and Xinyang Mansion, we occupy the first three stops, Dafen, Ming'an, Jingruan, and the fourth square city is between Tongbai and Funiu Mountain, and is located at the junction of Nanyang Mansion and Henan next door.

At present, we are blocking this road of He Yilong, which is the dangerous road called 'Hades' in ancient times in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Lu family, more than 2,000 years ago, Sun Wuzi led the Wu army to break through Chu, and he originally walked here.

There are three key points in this underworld, from north to south, it was called the Great Tunnel, Zhiyuan, and Hades. The big tunnel is the northernmost mouth of the valley, which is now blocked by Liu Guineng, the Pingjing Pass in the middle is the 'straight yuan', and the southernmost Hades is where we are now, which has blocked all the possibilities for He Yilong to turn back to the south.

At that time, Sun Wuzi lured the enemy here, and after encountering the pursuit of the Chu army, he finally did not dare to return to Tongbai Mountain by the same way, but abandoned the waterway baggage, retreated to the east with light equipment, and put on a posture of going to Baiju by taking a small road, which is now Macheng County in Huangzhou.

The Art of War. The chapter "Nine Lands" says "Cast into the place of death and then survive, fall into the place of death and then live", which is derived from Sun Wuzi's move, and is his summary of his experience in using the army.

It's a pity that He Yilong doesn't study, as a warlord, he doesn't even know Sun Wuzi's deeds, and he has to take the road that Sun Wuzi doesn't dare to take, isn't this a godsend for us to break the enemy!

It is estimated that he is illiterate, even if he knows the phrase 'put to death and then live', he only heard the story of Han Xin's 'last battle'. ”

Shen Shuren talked in a vertical and horizontal manner, but in fact, he didn't say too much, and even sacrificed the authenticity of history in some places for the sake of brevity.

Otherwise, these big bosses under him will definitely not have the patience to listen to him drop his bookbag.

However, the morale-boosting effect of these words has clearly been achieved.

Many of the generals also read little, and they don't know historical allusions, but now they are broken, and they learn that He Yilong has committed so many "taboos".

learned that in this land back then, Sun Wuzi and Chu Jun also fought, but Sun Wuzi chose the correct option He Yilong didn't choose any of them, so didn't he look for death!

Shen Shuren is a civil official, and when it comes to the final real knife and real gun, he can't help.

Only before the start of the fight, when planning the layout of the article, do your best to increase the morale buff to the limit.

If morale can be digitized, it is estimated that Zuo Zixiong and others are now on the top of their heads, just like the "Three Kingdoms" game of Dark Rong in later generations, with a blood bar of "morale 120".

"He Yilong has repeatedly violated the taboo of soldiers, and he has been stubbornly resisting since he was in a desperate situation, and our army will be killed!" Zuo Zixiong rubbed his fists, raised his arms and shouted.

Among the generals, there are also those with a slightly higher level of education, such as Zhang Mingzhen, who thoughtfully asked after listening to the encouragement of the military masters:

"My lord, but you also said that if you put it to death and live later, didn't Han Xin also fall into a desperate situation back then, arousing the hearts of the soldiers to fight to the death?

When He Yilong arrived here, his subordinates must have thought that only by breaking through the siege can they survive, otherwise it will be the end of the entire army. Shouldn't we be wary of them jumping over the wall and erupting into a fierce fight? ”

Shen Shuren Zhizhu laughed loudly on the ground: "You read more military books than Zuo Guerrilla, but unfortunately you also read half of the book, and in the end, you were drummed." Sun Wuzi and Han Xin's death and resurrection, did they win by fighting alone and fighting against the water?

Of course not, this is just a means for them to lure the enemy, in order to make the enemy lightly attack, and they have to cooperate with other key tricks to win. In the battle of Jingcheng, Han Xin won by luring Chen Yu out and stealing his family.

That being the case, we forced He Yilong into a Jedi today, as long as we don't rush in, don't seek war, and let He Yilong go in a hurry, we will be invincible-

"The Sword Comes"

That's why I asked you to fight steadily, dig a ditch at any time as soon as you enter five miles, and immediately hold on when you encounter an enemy U-turn. In this kind of dangerous place, whoever attacks will suffer, and we will win if we are not in a hurry! ”

Zhang Mingzhen was stunned for a while, his original reading experience of the art of war, compared with the exquisite analysis of the military masters, was simply superficial.

"The soldiers are prepared, and the last general is beyond the reach of the dust!" Zhang Mingzhen and Yang Jinjue sincerely admired in unison.

And Zuo Zixiong and Jin Shenghuan also wanted to applaud, but their vocabulary was expensive, and they didn't know how to describe the praise of other people's intelligence.

……

On the other side of the battlefield, sixty miles to the north, is the valley mouth of the 'Great Tunnel'.

He Yilong's men and horses have actually arrived here for two days and one night. So far, He Yilong still hasn't felt that his original plan was wrong-

His own strength is at least three times that of any side in the official army, as long as he has a mobility advantage and can break through each of them, even if he can't destroy the official army, he can always break through, right?

Liu Guoneng is a thief like him, how could he fight to the end like this for something that has no interests?

But now, the impossible has really happened, Liu Guoneng is not working hard this time, but is working hard to resist the damage and fight hard to block him!

The first day of the two armies was only a small battle, and the two sides fought for more than an hour when the quality and type of weapons and equipment were similar, and the casualty rate of the Heyi Dragon side was several times that of the enemy.

Liu Guoneng relied on the advantage of defense, and before He Yilong arrived, he had been operating at the mouth of the 'Great Tunnel' for four or five days, digging a relatively deep trench, piling up the excavated soil behind the ditch into a rammed earth wall, and deploying some sharpened wooden thorn bamboo sticks traps and obstacles.

These have won Liu Guoneng a frontal tactical advantage, coupled with the narrow valley, the more people on the side can not open the formation, in the front of the battle the number of people can always be the same on both sides, the large number of people can only be kept as a reserve. Under the advantages of this and the other, it is normal for He Yilong to be defeated in the first battle.

He Yilong summed up the reason for the initial defeat as "he was tired from afar", so he hurriedly ended the first day of fighting, let the troops rest well, and at the same time think about countermeasures.

After one night, he really thought of some ideas for improvement: Isn't the terrain too narrow, and the side with more troops can't spread? Then let's play wheel wars!

He Yilong deployed the troops into multiple batches in advance, and only brought two batches of men and horses to the front line each time to fight with Liu Guoneng in a bloody battle. In the future, most of the people stayed near Pingjing Pass to rest, so as not to maintain combat readiness for a long time and their physical strength would decline too quickly.

Once the front line is weak and shaken, then withdraw the tired troops and replace them with fresh forces to continue fighting.

And the number of people on Liu Guoneng's side is only one-third of his, in this situation of mountain rotation battle, Liu Guoneng will not be able to rest, and he will definitely be physically exhausted when he hits the back, that is the moment of victory in the breakthrough battle!

Once the idea was made, the pitched battle on the second day was much bloodier than the first.

Although each group of troops, after a certain percentage of casualties, is prone to demoralization and rout. But it can't stand He Yilong dividing the troops into so many batches, and the soldiers in the rear who are ready for battle and recuperating will not be affected by the low morale of the previous batch of soldiers.

As a result, the bloody battle on the second day was a five-wheel battle, and each wave of troops withdrew after more than an hour, almost from dawn to sunset.

The corpses in the Great Tunnel Valley were all over the field, and the die-hard old battalion under He Yilong suffered heavy casualties, but they still couldn't break through Liu Guoneng's defense.

In desperation, He Yilong began to doubt his life.

He wrote a letter to Liu Guoneng, in which he stated the conditions he was willing to give, and hoped to move him with affection, so that he would not be so cruel to the thieves, and sincerely asked Liu Guoneng about his motives for fighting to the death to see if there was any possibility of negotiation.

On the other side, He Yilong had no choice but to see if it was possible to go back. If Liu Guoneng didn't give way if his mind was too axis, he would have to prepare for the sinking of the tree.

But after two days of bloody fighting, the state of the troops has collapsed more and more, like a mouse in a piston cylinder, and there is obviously no chance of winning when they turn back.