Ma Chao led his troops from Wudu, detoured to the territory of the Qiang people, and prepared to go out of Di Dao and attack Guo Huai of Tianshui County. This is the strategy formulated by Liu Bei, and Ma Chao has no intention of disobeying.

But after Ma Chao entered the territory of the Qiang people, he suddenly found that the number of Qiang people in this place seemed to be a little small.

To be precise, the number of adult males in the Qiang tribes is quite small.

If it is close to the territory of the Qiang people in Wudu County, this is understandable, after all, the adult men of these Qiang tribes have participated in the Qiang Hu Yicong called for by themselves, and it is very normal for adult men to be scarce.

But when Ma Chao led the Qiang Hu Yi into the territory of Longxi County, close to Di Dao, the number of Qiang adult men, or more accurately, the entire northwestern Liangzhou was very scarce.

Whether it is the Qiang, the Di, or the Xianbei who have migrated recently, the number of adult males in the tribe is very small.

Ma Chao immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Even though Ma Chao was praised by the Hu people as "General Shenweitian", Ma Chao has been dealing with these Hu people for a long time, and he will not be naïve to think that he can deter all the Hu tribes in Liangzhou just by relying on his own name.

Therefore, the reason why these Hu tribes far away from Wudu County have few adult men is definitely not because they were recruited by him to participate in his Qianghu Yicong.

Ma Chao was surprised, and immediately sent his own messenger to negotiate with these tribes, and learned a not very good news.

Since Ma Chao left Liangzhou, Liangzhou has another Han general who can fight, and that general has cleaned up all the Hu tribes in the west of Liangzhou, and has been respected as a "god" by the Qiang people, Di people, and Xianbei people.

Now the "Heavenly Gods" have recruited these warriors of the Hu tribe to fight the rebellion, so all the adult men in the tribe have set off to respond to the call of the "Heavenly Gods".

Ma Chao listened, and his teeth itched a little angrily.

Although, I know that these Hu people are people who are "afraid of power but not virtuous", and whoever is strong will listen to whomever he says. But I've only been away from Liangzhou for a few years, so someone doesn't know the name of "General Shenweitian"?!

Ma Chao immediately led the troops, walked around the Hu tribes near Longxi County and Nan'an County, declared his sense of existence, and forced these Hu tribes to choose sides.

What kind of bullshit "Tenjin" do you choose, or do you choose yourself as "Shenwei Heavenly General"?!

If you choose that bullshit "god", then there is no need for you Hu tribes to exist.

But if you choose yourself. Shouldn't the remaining men in your tribe respond to their call and go with them?!

This group of Hu tribes is also unlucky.

How else can this be chosen?!

Most of the adult men in the tribe went out to fight, and although there were still some adult men left, the number was really scarce, and it was impossible to compete with the Qiang Hu Yicong brought by Ma Chao.

And between these tribes, I wish that someone was unlucky, so that they could annex the people as slaves, you expect everyone to unite to fight against Ma Chao, that is really blind.

Therefore, as soon as Ma Chao threatened, most of the tribes immediately expressed their willingness to surrender to the "Shenwei Tian General" and sent the last group of warriors in the tribe to follow the "Shen Wei Tian General" to fight.

And Ma Chao kept leading troops to various tribes to coerce and lure along the way, tying these Hu tribes to his chariot.

In this, of course, Ma Chao has the meaning of declaring his majesty, but in fact, Ma Chao also has his own considerations in doing this.

You must know that Ma Chao only brought more than 10,000 Qiang Hu Yi Cong, and judging from the tribes that Ma Chao passed by, almost half of the tribes in the western part of Liangzhou accepted Guo Huai's call. That means that in terms of the number of Qiang Hu Yicong alone, Guo Huai has more than himself.

What's more, Guo Huai must still have Liangzhou cavalry directly under him to dispatch, and the combat effectiveness of these cavalry is not comparable to that of Qiang Hu Yicong.

Therefore, Ma Chao felt that if he wanted to realize the strategy formulated by Pang Tong and Fa Zheng and break Guo Huai's main army from the flank, it would be absolutely not enough to rely on the more than 10,000 Qiang Hu Yicong led by himself.

Even if there is that Zhang Xi helping him to attract the attention of the Liangzhou Legion in the front, he is just a sneak attack, but in terms of the combat effectiveness of the Qianghu cavalry, if he really wants to face the same number of Liangzhou cavalry, it is also a share of food.

Not to mention that Guo Huai still has so many Qiang Hu Yicong.

Therefore, Ma Chao felt that it was necessary for him to increase his Qiang Hu Yi subordinate forces and force these Hu people to respond to him in cavalry, so that he could have a chance of winning.

As for whether these Hu tribes will not survive this winter after losing all the tribe men. This Ma Chao doesn't care.

Don't look at Ma Chao's blood, but Ma Chao thinks that he is a Han person, and he is a descendant of Ma Yuan, the general of the Han Dynasty, after generations of famous families. The life or death of the Hu people, what does it matter to my Han general?!

In this way, Ma Chao walked around the Hu people's territory near Di Dao along the way, just to recruit some more Qiang Hu cavalry.

Let's do this, the clan brother Ma Dai and the subordinate general Pang De have persuaded Ma Chao, don't forget, we have to quickly march into Tianshui and join Zhang Xi, who is fighting in Tianshui County.

But Ma Chao didn't care.

Don't forget, our buddies are cavalrymen, and you don't know how fast the cavalry is.

And that Zhang Xi led the infantry, the two little short legs were desperately upside down, their speed was not as fast as ours, we had time.

Ma Chao said this, Ma Dai and Pang De couldn't say anything, after all, the speed of the cavalry, they knew it best.

Even so far, Ma Chao has not made any mistakes.

And what really makes the horse super numb is there. Ma Chao forgot the time.

Ma Chao is a brave and terrifying person, and his ability to command cavalry battles is also very strong, but he is not a qualified commander after all.

In Zhuge Liang's words, for the handsome, when he knows the sky, knows the land, understands the people, and does not occupy any of these three.

And Ma Dai and Pang De are also the kind of people who are more suitable to be pioneers and fail to be commanders.

None of these three people realized that it was already October, and Longxi County was located in the north of Saibei, which was further north than Tianshui County. A sudden heavy snowfall made Ma Chao suddenly realize that he was in big trouble.

The heavy snow covered almost all the roads, and even the grassland was white.

Ma Chao wanted to lead the cavalry to a quick assault in such extreme road conditions, but he also wanted to be blind.

But Ma Chao can't help but attack, according to Ma Chao's understanding of the grassland climate, once the first snow has fallen, the next heavy snow will come at any time, and each will be bigger than the other.

Ma Chao must attack, otherwise he may really not be able to catch up with the battle in Tianshui County, and his Liangzhou assassin history will fly away, not to mention, even revenge will not be avenged.

Therefore, although the road in this case will greatly damage the horses, Ma Chao can no longer take care of it, so he can only take the risk and turn south, exit Di Road, and head in the direction of Nan'an County.

But in the end, it was the road conditions that affected the speed of the march, Ma Chao was in a hurry to death along the way, but the speed of the cavalry could not be raised at all on the snow-covered road, and he had been marching so slowly, until he left Di Dao and entered Nan'an County, Ma Chao was slightly relieved.

Fortunately, there is no snow here in Nan'an County, or maybe it is also snowing in Nan'an County, but the snow is not big, and it has melted now. Except that the road was a little muddy, it did not delay the cavalry to speed up.

At this time, Ma Chao immediately ordered the whole army to speed up and quickly rush to Tianshui County.

The previous heavy snowfall finally made Ma Chao realize the problem of timing.

The whole Liangzhou has now entered winter, and heavy snow may fall at any time, and once the heavy snow paves the way, the power of the cavalry will be greatly reduced, and it will become very difficult to march quickly and attack the flank of Guo Huai's army.

Therefore, Ma Chao asked Ma Dai to lead a part of the men and horses as scouts to find Liu Bei's location, while he hurried to Tianshui County according to the original plan to find Guo Huai's Liangzhou Army and conduct a surprise operation.

And soon, the scouts led by Ma Dai finally brought back the current battle situation in Tianshui County. There is really no need to go to Tianshui County, and Ma Dai in Nan'an County has found out the specific situation.

The reason is because of Guo Huai.

After Guo Huai learned that Liu Bei was in Xixian, he immediately ordered his Qiang Huyi servants to bypass Ji County and go to Xi County to contain Liu Bei's army, and the 30,000 Qiang Huyi went to the south of Ji County.

But how many of these Qianghu servants are honest and obedient?!

In the eyes of these Hu people, whatever containment of Liu Beijun is nonsense, and the most important thing is to make a detour to the south of Ji County, rob houses and houses, and seize the spoils of war.

Even some people have already robbed their homes and landed on the territory of Nan'an County.

As a result, he happened to meet the vanguard scouts led by Ma Dai, and after a battle, Ma Dai captured the leader of a small tribe, and learned from his mouth about the current battle situation in Tianshui County.

After learning that Liu Bei had been stationed in Xixian County, and Zhang Xi had conquered Ji County and was confronting Guo Huai, Ma Chao was a little difficult.

Now in this situation, Ma Chao is a little hesitant, whether he should go directly to Ji County to attack Guo Huai, or should he go to Xi County to meet Liu Bei first, and then go to Ji County after meeting Liu Bei.

Ma Chao is not a fool, and Ma Chao actually knows very well in his heart about his own treatment behind Liu.

Except for some things that Liu Bei will think of himself when he needs to support the scene, other military and political affairs, in fact, Ma Chao has no rights at all, Liu Bei just let himself guard Di Dao to prevent the invasion of the Qiang people.

This time to return to Liangzhou, if Ma Chao wants to seek the position of Liangzhou assassin, he must show his value, but at the same time, he must also show enough surrender to Liu Bei, otherwise Liu Bei will not be willing to hand over Liangzhou to himself.

Therefore, after learning that Liu Bei was in Xixian County, Ma Chao almost immediately felt that he should go to Xixian County to meet Liu Bei first, and then enter Ji County.

But in this way, it may delay the matter of pinching Guo Huai.

Ma Chao hesitated back and forth for a long time and finally decided. Go see Liu Bei first.

As for Zhang Xi. Wait, it's only two or three days away, and I'm not in a hurry to do it.

But as soon as Liu Bei received the news, he heard that Ma Chao did not directly lead troops to attack Guo Huai, but wanted to see him first, and he was so angry that he almost scolded his mother directly.

After all, the battle situation in Ji County at this time has undergone a lot of changes.

(End of chapter)