Entering the month of December. The weather is cold, and the Yellow River is gradually frozen, and it is getting thicker and thicker, and it will not take long for it to be hard and run over people. At that time, the hundreds of miles of the Yellow River in Xihe County has become a flat river, which can be marched through everywhere, and Zhao Xing's previous strategic deployment of confrontation with the river is meaningless, and greater difficulties will soon be placed in front of the Zhenbei Army.

Lu Zhi never launched a large-scale river crossing operation, waiting for the time when the Yellow River froze. After learning of the defeat of Xiahoudun, Lu Zhi immediately convened all walks of life to discuss the matter, preparing to adopt a compromise plan and launch a large-scale river-crossing operation to conquer the three cities of Lin County, Gaolang and Lishi on the east bank of the Yellow River in one fell swoop.

In the big tent, Lu Zhi carefully analyzed the current situation, focusing on explaining why he gave up attacking Fushi in the north, and instead crossed the Yellow River from the west of Lin County to the east, and attacked Lin County, Gaowolf and Lishi.

Lu Zhi believed that there was no danger to defend the city, and Zhao Xing placed the Flying Tiger Army and the Blue Wolf Army in the vast area south of the Fushi City and the Haoyan River, with the intention of relying on the advantage of high-speed cavalry maneuvering to consume the strength of the coalition army in the hundreds of miles between the Qiangma River and the Haoyan River. Therefore, Lu Zhi insisted on concentrating superior forces to conquer several cities on the east bank of the Yellow River in one fell swoop, and gained a foothold in Xihe County, so that Shangjun and Shangdang would cut off contact, and it would be difficult for Lü Bu and Guan Yu to do anything in Shangjun.

Lu Zhi's analysis was thorough and profound, and was unanimously approved by the coalition forces, so Lu Zhi made specific assignments to the various armies under him, mainly as follows: the 50,000 Imperial Forest Army and the Forbidden Army led by Huangfu Song were mainly responsible for conquering Lin County; Cao Cao and Sun Jian's allied forces totaled nearly 50,000 to jointly attack Gaowolf; Lu Zhi personally led the elite of the 70,000 Northern Army to attack the largest fortified city; Dong Zhuo led the Xiliang cavalry to contain and protect the security of the left flank of the coalition army, preventing the Guanlu army from cutting off the back route of the coalition army; the 10,000 horses of the Shu army and the 10,000 horses of the Xiliang Ma Teng were combined to protect the safety of the right rear of the coalition army and avoid being attacked by the Xiong Zhen army led by Xu Shu。

From the map, the four cities of Lin County, Gao Wolf, Lishi and Zhongyang are distributed in a bow shape, of which Lin County and Zhongyang are at both ends of the arc, while Gao Wolf and Lishi are in the bow back position. As long as the imperial court and the Zhaoxi Road coalition army take these four cities, they can smoothly open up the passage between Hedong County and Xihe County in the Sili area, and divide the entire state into two from the middle, and the Zhenbei Army will lose its advantage in terrain in the future.

Lu Zhi wanted to take the state like this, and Zhao Xing naturally couldn't sit idly by. Although after the Yellow River froze, Lu Zhi could choose the place to cross the river at will, but it was difficult to bypass the circular defense area from Lin County to Zhongyang. Since Lu Zhi was determined to cross the river for a decisive battle, Zhao Xing had no choice but to see the move, and deployed the troops that were not abundant at hand in the three cities of Lin County, Gaowolf and Lishi, respectively, and Zhongyang, where the base camp was located, had no troops available, so he had to temporarily and urgently transfer the 4,000 Crouching Tiger troops led by Wang Lusuo, who were stationed near Pingzhou, to come and guard.

Because Zhongyang was located at the lowest end of the arc-shaped defense area, far away from the Yellow River, and there was Xiong Zhen's army on the other side of the Yellow River to contain Lu Zhi, Zhao Xing dared to divide his troops in this way and reduce the strength of the base camp to a minimum. Zhao Xing's specific plan for dividing troops was as follows: Send Li Jinwu to lead 10,000 Xiongwu troops to defend Lin County; send Jia Xu to lead 10,000 Dingyuan troops to defend Gaowolf; Zhao Xing personally led 14,000 vanguard troops to defend the core city of Lishi; and Wang Lu, who was urgently transferred, led 4,000 Crouching Tiger troops to defend Zhongyang, a small city south of Lishi.

Zhao Xing originally thought that his subordinates were complete and had enough to fight on the Western Front, but now it seems that he is still overstretched, so he can only send the first strategist Jia Xu to Gao Wolf to defend a city alone, and the rest of the military divisions Tian Feng, Chen Gong, Guo Jia, and Xu Shu are not around, and the fierce generals Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Xu Huang, Zhang Liao, Zhao Yun, and Tai Shici are also leading their own troops, and they all have important tasks.

At this time, only nine of the available deputy generals under Zhao Xing were Pei Yuanshao, Liu He, Wei Xu, Li Feng, Wang He, Song Xian, Hao Meng, Cheng Lian and Han Wei. Even if it was these nine people, they had to be assigned to Li Jinwu, Jia Xu, Wang Lu and others, and in the end, Zhao Xing only left Pei Yuanshao, Cheng Lian and Wei Xu around. Liu He and Li Feng followed Li Jinwu, Wang He, Song Xian, and Hao Meng followed Jia Xu, and Han Wei followed Wang Lu.

If you only look at the comparison of the forces of the attacking and defending sides under a city, the Zhenbei Army on the defending side really can't be compared with the talented imperial court coalition army. Let's not mention that Cao Cao and Sun Jian's large number of fierce men went to attack Gao Wolf, fortunately, Jia Xu fought with them, and there should be no danger; just looking at Lu Zhi's generals who attacked Lishi along the way, it was enough to make people tremble. The fierce generals Gao Lan, Zhang Fei, Han Meng, and the young generals Sun Guan, Fu Wei, Zhu Ling, etc., are only a lot more than Zhao Xing's side.

Now that the situation has reached this point, it is no longer the time for Zhao Xing to pick and choose, so he can only barely make do with defending the city. Although he is obviously at a disadvantage, Zhao Xing also has his own plans. Until now, Lu Zhi didn't know that Hu Che'er had reinforced Guan Yu and Lu Bu with 20,000 people, and with 40,000 elite cavalry against the Xiliang cavalry under Dong Zhuo's command, which was already a little frightened, although it was four to seven in terms of numbers, it was still at a disadvantage, but Zhao Xing believed that with the courage of Lu Bu and Guan Yu, Dong Zhuo could definitely drink another big pot beautifully.

Similarly, although the number of 10,000 Xiong Zhen troops hanging alone seems a little shabby, this force not only has the best equipment, but also the latest commanders, once they find the right fighters, they can definitely disrupt the coalition forces all the way, and even the big break coalition forces are unknown.

The two sides were busy arranging their troops, only waiting for the Yellow River to freeze and launch a large-scale battle.

The all-pervasive Shadow Squad members quickly informed Zhao Xing's latest battle plan and troop deployment to Guan Yu and Lu Bu, who were cruising in the upper reaches of the Qiangma River. After discussion, the two decided to quickly intersperse with the left rear of the imperial court coalition army after Lu Zhi launched the battle of crossing the river, waiting for the opportunity to kill Dong Zhuo's cavalry corps behind the palace, and plan the defensive operations of the four cities in Xihe County, reduce the pressure on Zhao Xing and others, and finally crush Lu Zhi's strategic attempt to occupy Xihe County.

Xu Shu also received the secret report from the shadow, although he only had 10,000 troops in his hands, but the task given by Zhao Xing was very arduous, not only requiring Xu Shu to return to Zhongyang when necessary, but also to find an opportunity to annihilate the 20,000 cavalry alliance forces of Yan Yan of the Shu army and Xiliang Pang De.

Of course, Zhao Xing is not a battle for Xu Shu to fight a tough battle, it seems that among the 20,000 soldiers of Yan Yan and Pang De, who are superior in numbers, 10,000 are just decorations, and they will definitely be "defeated" at that time, and they will flee to Wuwei County, so as to make Yan Yan suffer a big loss.