Guo Huai regrets it now.

Why did I have to be cheap yesterday, and I promised Zhang Xi's agreement that I knew that Liu Bei was in Xi County, so what are you doing around Ji County, and it is only right to go directly to Xi County.

But now, Guo Huai is a little difficult to ride a tiger.

Yesterday, in order to show the general's bearing, Guo Huai asked people to build a high platform in front of the two armies, which was specially used to store the women's clothes, the purpose was to show his soldiers and those Hu people that he believed in victory and there was no way to retreat.

I can't admit defeat now, and lead the troops to fight Xixian in women's clothes. That's still a fart, the morale of the army is gone, and there will be no deterrent to those Hu people anymore, what can you do to let the family die for you.

Now Guo Huai is particularly angry with his own scouts, if you send the news a day in advance, will you still be so difficult to ride a tiger?!

Therefore, even if Guo Huai knows that Liu Bei is in Xixian County now, for the sake of his reputation and face, he can't easily leave Ji County.

Yes, from a rational point of view, breaking Liu Beicai should be the first choice now, from a strategic point of view, Ji County at this time is no longer important, the real focus is on West County.

Guo Huai, as a military commander, thinks from a purely military level, he shouldn't care about the problem of face and reputation, as long as he breaks Liu Bei and solves the siege of Yongliang, then he will be a great hero.

But. In these days, reputation is sometimes more important to a person than life and death.

If he really ignores Ji County and runs to besiege Xixian, even if he wins, Guo Huai will change from a generation of famous generals in the northwest to a sinister and cunning villain who does not keep his promises, and even Cao Pi may reward himself on the surface, but in fact he is alienated.

This is not a question of social death, but a choice that will ruin the future of the reputation and even affect the reputation of the family.

Guo Huai was born in Taiyuan Guo family, the ancestor of Guo family, in the Spring and Autumn Period, he was the monarch of the Kingdom of Qiu, a proper generation of nobles, this kind of family is the most famous family.

Guo Huai really dared to attack Xixian regardless of Ji County, maybe Guo Huai would be removed by the Guo family after the war, and the Guo family, a generation of nobles, could not afford to lose this person.

Therefore, Guo Huai really can't just leave Ji County and leave.

Moreover, although Guo Huai is difficult to ride a tiger now, he has not lost his calm after all, and he is also analyzing the impact of Liu Bei's appearance in Xixian on the entire Yongliang battle situation.

Since Liu Bei himself appeared in Xixian, it means that Cao Hong and his strategic purpose of the Northern Expedition of the Shu Army were misjudged at the beginning.

Liu Bei did not want to attack Chang'an, but to occupy Liangzhou, Liu Beijun on the other side of the Baochuan Road was the suspicious soldier, and Liu Bei's real main force was to take the Qishan Road.

In other words, Cao Hong, the current governor of Yongliang, was completely treated as a monkey by Liu Bei.

And on my side, it's actually quite dangerous.

Yes, he has more than 50,000 soldiers, and he has been sorted out after being called in advance, and on the surface, he does have the strength to defend Liangzhou.

But the problem is that once Liangzhou is Liu Bei's target, then this time Liu Bei personally led the soldiers, there will definitely be no less.

There are more than 20,000 people in a front army, so Liu Bei will definitely not lead less than 50,000 troops by himself.

50,000 cavalry, against Liu Bei's army of more than 70,000, on the surface it seems that there is no lack of chances of victory, Guo Huai can rely on the cavalry's high mobility and troop advantages to win.

But in doing so, the entire Liangzhou will definitely be completely destroyed in this kind of back and forth.

At that time, even if Liu Bei retreats and leaves behind a tattered Liangzhou stall, what good will it do to Cao Wei?!

At last. To tell the truth, Guo Huai may not be able to fight.

What is the composition of his own 50,000 people, Guo Huai knows too well.

If he was carrying Cao Wei's 50,000 elite horsemen, then Guo Huai still had the confidence to fight Liu Bei's army.

But now Guo Huai knows very well that the Liangzhou soldiers he can actually control are only 17,800 people, of which there are more cavalry, more than 10,000 people, and 4,500 infantry, half of which are used to guard the camp and the necessary infantry to attack the city.

The remaining more than 30,000 cavalry were actually recruited by Guo Huai to grab the benefits.

These Hu people, when there is a benefit, you can use your prestige to drive them, if there is no benefit, or when you are going to be unlucky, these Hu people will flee on the battlefield if they have a little conscience, and they will directly turn against you if they have no conscience.

After all, the Hu people in these years, their combat effectiveness is really like that, and after hundreds of years of fighting, they have all been crippled by the Han Dynasty.

Guo Huai really didn't dare to use the rabble he led to fight the elite Shu army.

After figuring out the main force and strategic purpose of Liu Bei's army, Guo Huai wrote a letter to Cao Hong as soon as possible, asking the governor to stop competing with others at the Baochuan crossing, and quickly divide part of his troops to quickly support Liangzhou.

But this kind of letter was conveyed to Cao Hong, and then Cao Hong divided his troops to rescue, at least twenty days to a month, during this time, Guo Huai had to find a way to rely on the little strength he had at hand to drag Liu Beijun's main force.

But for the sake of fame and face, Guo Huai can't leave Jixian County. Guo Huai's head is about to explode.

After thinking about it, Guo Huai decided to send the Yicong cavalry under his tent and let them make a detour to attack Xixian.

I really didn't expect these people to capture Xixian.

Don't look at the number of these Hu people, there are more than 30,000 people, but these people belong to more than a dozen different tribes, and many Hu people have a lot of contradictions with each other.

And Guo Huai is also very clear about the combat effectiveness of the Hu people, and he can't count on it at all. If the Hu people's combat effectiveness is strong enough, they will not be beaten by their newly recruited Han soldiers.

The Hu people in the Han Dynasty were pressed on the ground by the Han Dynasty and rubbed back and forth for nearly 400 years, and the Qiang people still have a little confidence, but this confidence is really limited.

Guo Huai's idea was purely to temporarily contain Liu Bei with the cavalry advantage of the Hu people, and he did not consider the possibility of these Hu people defeating Liu Bei's army.

Although it is said that the Shu army must be short of cavalry, and it occupies a disadvantage in terms of troops. But hundreds of years of combat history have proven that the Han people, even if they are infantry, can still press the Hu cavalry to the ground and rub it.

It's just that it's not as easy and trouble-free as the cavalry.

Guo Huai's tactic was to use the life of the Hu people to temporarily drag Liu Bei, so that Liu Bei could not easily leave from Xixian or easily rescue Ji County, while he led his elite of Liangzhou to quickly break through Ji County, and then waved his troops south to fight a decisive battle with Liu Bei.

Guo Huai was sure of this, because he had twenty thunderbolts in his hands.

Although Guo Huai also knew that Zhang Xi was an expert in using catapults, the problem was that Zhang Xi was also the Ji County he had just occupied, and he only arrived a day or two earlier than Guo Huai.

Guo Huai didn't believe that Zhang Xi could build a catapult in this day's time, and he could fight against his thunderbolt.

Now that Ji County has been completely surrounded by its own cavalry troops, Zhang Xi has no way to cut down trees and build catapults on the spot when he goes out of the city. So this one, only I have a thunderbolt.

Zhang Xi, a guy who is good at using catapults, is just waiting to be smashed.

In fact, Guo Huai's prediction was indeed correct, Zhang Xi really didn't expect that in Liangzhou, a place where cavalry was dueling, there were still people who would prepare thunderbolt chariots for siege in advance.

The situation in Liangzhou is actually completely different from the situation in the hinterland of the Central Plains.

Except for some important large cities and fortresses in Liangzhou, the city walls of this place are mostly earthen walls, which only need to be higher than the height of the cavalry jump, after all, the Liangzhou soldiers are not good at siege warfare.

As a big city, Ji County is also the nest of many families in Tianshui, but the brick and stone structure is adopted, but the brick and stone city wall of Ji County is not the same concept as the brick and stone city wall of the Central Plains.

To give a simple example, the city wall of Xiangyang City, even if the catapult smashes it hard, it will take half a month to a month to smash it before it is possible to smash a small section of the city wall, but in Liangzhou, even if it is a big city like Ji County, if the catapult is smashed hard, it is estimated that it will not be able to hold it for five days.

There is another very important reason, that is, Zhang Xi really can't use local materials to demolish the houses in the city to build catapults.

Most of the houses in the Central Plains are made of wooden materials, and it is possible to demolish the house and renovate the catapult, but the houses in Liangzhou are basically earthen houses, and the only place where a large number of wooden materials can be used is only the mansions of various Haoqiang families Zhang Xi has just entered the city for a day, and he will demolish the Haoqiang's house in Ji County, God knows what chain reaction will be caused.

Therefore, even though Guo Huai only had twenty thunderbolts, Zhang Xi's face was really solemn and very worried.

Although Cao Jun's thunderbolts were not as powerful as the heavy catapults built by Zhang Xi, they were a weapon for siege in the territory of Liangzhou.

Moreover, the range of the thunderbolt is very long, and Zhang Xi does not have a heavy catapult at hand, so he cannot carry out "artillery warfare" like when he was defending Fancheng, and the only way to solve the threat of the thunderbolt is probably to send troops out of the city to fight in the field and burn these thunderbolts.

But once he was about to go out of the city to fight, Zhang Xi saw the Liangzhou cavalry on the side of the battlefield, who were waiting for battle.

Obviously, as long as Zhang Xi dares to send troops out of the city to fight, he will immediately be charged by the Liangzhou cavalry group, and it is really difficult to say how many soldiers will come back at that time.

This group of cavalry is not those Qianghu miscellaneous cavalry who will only swarm in battle, and have no rules, but a truly well-trained Liangzhou iron cavalry, which can not only play horseback and slash, but also be good at riding and shooting, which is simply the Tianke of infantry.

Under such circumstances, the offensive and defensive battle of Ji County officially began.

(End of chapter)