Li En, who was full of anger, couldn't understand the mentality of Wei Duan's department, but fortunately, Wei Duan's department was about to set off from camp.

It's just that before that, Wei Duan still has to wait for the last batch of baggage to arrive.

On the afternoon of 6 August, this force, which was close to 3,000 men, began to leave Tang County and began to move south along the Guangyang Road.

It's just that Li En found that the team didn't leave when they walked to a hillside in the Zhongren Pavilion. Not only that, Wei Duan also ordered the construction of moats and fortifications on this slope, as if he was going to garrison here.

Li En hurriedly went to find Wei Duan, but was told that this was what was written in the military newspaper.

Lu Zhi asked Wei Duan to lead his army to the area around Zhongrenting, find a favorable position to station, and wait for follow-up orders.

Li En was puzzled, shouldn't Wei Duanbu continue to go south to the Dingting area to support? What is the use of the tun army here?

It wasn't until later that he overheard two local folk chatting and knew that this slope was called "Lusheng Slope".

Due to the slope of this place, there are nine turns and eighteen turns, and the local mountain people often chase and lose them here when they catch deer.

Therefore, people in the vicinity also call this place "Lushengpo".

When Li En heard this, he thought thoughtfully. It seems that Lu Shi is planning to fight a decisive battle here.

……

A gentleman like Li En was only one member of the commanding cavalry, and different instructions like this were sent to the various armies along with the officials of the gentleman's battalion.

Some of them were ordered to gather in Lunu, and some were ordered to go south to Dingting to support Liu Zhen. Others are like Wei Duan, who went to the Zhongren Pavilion and stationed there.

After receiving the military order, these troops all set out with food and supplies. A cartload full of vegetables, fruits, soybean paste, and corn was pulled south by the recruited apprentices.

The officers at the head of the elite battalion of the Zhenbei Army all carried swords and bows, wore new crimson military uniforms, and wore decorative feathers on their helmets, and marched in high spirits.

The officials who showed off their strength provoked the cheers of the homeless people nearby, and they rushed to the hillside to find the officials of the Zhenbei Army and wanted to join the army.

And these officials did not refuse, and arranged these people into a battalion, and without training, directly led the recruits south.

In addition to the elite battalion leaders of the Zhenbei Army, some local powerful battalion leaders of the Zhongshan Kingdom also received a transfer order, asking them to lead the army south to defend the township.

These local tribesmen don't know much, and when the lord above comes to the order, they naturally obey it.

But these local tribesmen are all native-born, and many have families. This will be an expedition, and I can only be separated from my wife and children at home. Tears wet his breasts, leaving others and breaking his bowels.

Along the way, there are constant recruitments. Officials from the shogunate of the Jinbei Army ran along the military road to urge them to speed up their march.

They got the news that the front of the Tarzan thieves had left the new city. Obviously, the battle of Dingting was about to start.

At this time, none of the troops of the Zhenbei Army had been able to reach Dingting.

The closest unit to Dingting was Han Hengbu.

Han Heng is a strong Han man in Daidi, with 600 people from the tribe and thousands of people from the clan entering the customs with Lu Zhi, and he is one of the leaders of the heroes of Daidi this time.

Han Heng's department has 1,000 sharp soldiers and 200 cavalry. Before, his troops ate in the southern Lishe far away from Lu Nu, so they actually received Lu Zhi's military order relatively late.

However, because its troops were clan armed and assembled quickly, they were not slow to set out.

Originally, his troops should have been the first to arrive at Dingting, but because they were far away from Guangyang Road, they took a shortcut. The road passes through a dense mountain forest, so time is delayed.

Walking through the mountains and forests, Han Hengbu didn't go to Bali Road for a day.

The situation was similar in other units, and many troops were already at night after receiving the military order from the Junzi Battalion. It is certainly not possible to march at night, and if you want to go, you can only go the next day.

And the next day, during the day, the army began to pack up and set off, and the time was noon again. In this way, the troops did not go for more than two hours, and it was dark again.

Therefore, Lu Zhi thought that he could let the troops arrive at Dingting at the scheduled time, but in fact, on the day of August 6, not a single soldier could arrive.

And on this day, the contact battle before the decisive battle in Hebei, the Battle of Dingting broke out on this day.

……

August 6th, morning.

The Han soldiers in Dingting had already gone to the nearby mountains and forests early to pick wood. And the men in the baggage camp also began to set up cauldrons one after another, preparing to bury the stove for cooking.

It's quiet and peaceful.

Dingting is a typical military-style pavilion, which has been used as a defense station for anti-theft and card setting in the past, so it has a certain defensive function.

Later, after Liu Zhen led 3,000 troops to Dingting, he added moats and antlers on the basis of the original pavilion barriers.

Actually, looking at Dingting alone is really not very suitable for defense, because there is nothing dangerous here.

But the reason why Liu Zhen wants to defend this place is because this is a crossroads, whether it is the Taishan army going north to Lunu or Gai Tong coming to the aid with Hejian and Anping soldiers, they have to pass through here.

Therefore, at this time, Dingting has such a prominent strategic advantage.

Judging from the lookout post where Liu Zhen is located, a straight Sanhe dirt road is running through the north and south, extending to both sides. Then to the southeast, there is a dirt road, which is uneven but can be walked by horses.

Looking down from him again, there is a dense forest to the west of him, and it is also relying on the forest resources of this forest that Liu Qianbu established the defense of Dingting.

Liu Zhen arranged the 500 Hejian cavalry who arrived and lurked there, keeping them as his own followers.

At this time, Liu Zhen was still surveying the defense of the position on the watchtower, and there were soldiers below shouting:

"Lang Jun, the brothers have finished the meal, are you ready to eat?"

Liu Zhen nodded and went down the ladder.

As he walked, he said to his companion on the side:

"To the east, dig a little deeper in the trenches, and although it is unlikely that the enemy will be the main attack, there is nothing wrong with being careful."

When the companion on the side remembered this, he answered the sentence and prepared to go after eating.

But after walking a few steps, Liu Zhen looked at his companion with a puzzled expression:

"Why are you here, didn't you ask you to go to the east to supervise?"

Bandang didn't dare to refute, and ran towards the east with his head down.

Later, Liu Zhen pointed out a few omissions in defense, and asked someone to solve them, before he walked to the brothers' stove and sat down.

The main body of Liu Zhijun is all the children and apprentices of the Liu family in Zhongshan, and almost all of them are their own people.

And unlike Haoqiang in other places, the Liu family does not live in the city, but gathers people to live in the countryside. Because they worked together with the apprentices, their relationship with the tribes was very close.

It's not family, but it's better than father and son. It's just that this father has only power and no obligation to fulfill it.

But even so, the cohesion of the Liu clan is not comparable to the ordinary heroes, and even the regular army cannot be compared.

After Liu Zhen ate a big pot of millet with ordinary soldiers, he continued to patrol with his companions.

He always had a feeling that the Tarzan army had moved to the vicinity.

But now, the reinforcements that Lu Zhi originally promised have not yet arrived, which makes Liu Zhi's heart have a shadow.

After thinking about it, Liu Zhen asked his companions to make more flags and bluff.

At noon, the reinforcements arrived, but it was not the Zhenbei Army, but the local tyrants in the Hanchang area, I don't know how to know that Zhongshan Siliu Hebing was in Dingting, so he brought the townsmen to mix up the military merits.

At this time, the number of troops in the Dingting area had reached nearly 5,000.

In order not to be crowded, Liu Zhi placed about 1,000 troops in a manor to the south, which was an abandoned dock wall that was used as an outpost.

Little did he know that the worst afternoon of his life was coming.

Everyone was enjoying the quiet moments at a leisurely pace.

……

In fact, the Taishan army should have arrived at this crossroads at Dingting on August 6.

But Zhang Chong in the rear changed the original plan.

Originally, Zhang Chong's plan was to intercept the return route of the Youzhou Tucai first, and then the whole army went straight north to Lunu to fight a decisive battle with the Zhenbei army.

Originally, the plan was executed smoothly, but with the combined efforts of Dong Wan and Zhang Dan, the Youzhou Raiders were defeated.

But there were two consequences of this war.

One is that the core general of the Youzhou Raiders broke through the siege, and did not go north to return, but ran east to the Shenze area.

Under the speculation of Xun You and others, there is a high probability that this Youzhou assault cavalry is converging there between the rivers and Anping soldiers, and after the Taishan army goes out to Lunu in the hinterland of Zhongshan, its troops will run to threaten the flank and rear.

And the second consequence is that because of the rain, there has been a great attrition in the Dong Visit Department. Many of the officials have fallen ill and can only recuperate in the area of Xinshi.

In view of this, Zhang Chong decided to change the original battle plan.

He ordered Yang Mao, who was temporarily organized into an army, to go to the Dingting area first and annihilate the Han army there.

The Sentinels had already detected the intelligence, and a force of up to three thousand men was stationed there. Even if the main force of the provisional army is the local garrison, it is still not a problem to destroy this thief.

As for Zhang Dan's right army, Zhang Chong decided to let them attack Wuji, and then attack Hanchang, Anxi and other cities, and establish a defensive barrier on the right side of the army.

In this case, Zhang Dan's pressure is not small. Because intelligence shows that the number of Hejian and Anping soldiers gathered in the Anguo area is not large.

In particular, Hejian, as a large county in Jizhou, has no war, and the number of troops that can be mobilized can reach 20,000. It is only because of the beggar-thy-neighbor mind that these counties have stationed troops in Anguo.

But Zhang Chong must have to guard against this strong Han army.

After such adjustments, Yang Mao set off with 12,000 soldiers first.

But two hours after Yang Mao's departure, Zhang Chong received a sentinel from the east.

When they saw the Hejian Legion that had been stationed in Anguo departing, they headed for Hanchang in the west.

At this time, Zhang Chong decided to change his plan, he planned to let Yang Mao defeat the enemy in Dingting first, and then lead the army south to join Zhang Dan to encircle and annihilate the Han army's Hejian Corps.

So, Zhang Chong's soldiers rushed to Yang Mao's department, which had already set off, with this military report.

The military newspaper reads:

"The situation changed, and the Legion of the River suddenly moved westward. Order your troops to quickly annihilate the thieves of Dingting, and then go south to join Zhang Dan's army and encircle and annihilate the Hejian army. ”

The order was precise and unquestionable.

So after Zhang Chong confirmed it, he let the soldiers set off.

An hour later, Yang Mao received this military report, and after repeatedly confirming that it was correct, he asked the soldiers to send back a message.

That is, he found that judging from the number of flags, the Han army troops stationed in Dingting were not 3,000 as the intelligence said, but about 20,000, which was obviously the main force of the Han army.

So Yang Mao asked the soldiers to pass the news back, and then said that he would wait for further news from the king.

Obviously, Yang Mao was coaxed by Liu Zhen's strategy, and really regarded the enemy on the opposite side as the main force.

In this way, after the soldiers got the news, they did not dare to delay, and after changing horses, they galloped to the base camp.

An hour later, Yang Mao received the military order again:

"Ordered the troops to continue the attack. The Central Protector Cai Qu Department has been ordered to support your department. ”

Knowing that reinforcements were already on the way, Yang Mao was relieved to order an attack on Dingting.

Yang Mao's 12,000 men rushed into the battlefield in a long snake column.

Among them, the first to arrive outside the southern outpost of Dingting were the three battalions of Han Hao, Yang Chou and Zhang Sheng in Hanoi Town; These three battalions are all fancy troops of about 1,000 people, with infantry, cavalry, and shooting, but the armor rate is not high, only less than 30%.

After these three battalions were deployed in front of the outpost dock wall, Li Fu's Tianxiong Army and Yan Gang's Tianwei Army were driven behind. The two armies, with a total of 1,000 cavalry, marched out in a mighty manner, and then stopped beyond the dense forest.

Obviously, Li Fu and Yan Gang's second generals felt that there might be ambushes hidden in this dense forest, so they took the lead in blocking here.

After the cavalry drove out, three more towns, Zhaojun Town, Wei Guo Town, and Dongjun Town, drove to the battlefield. In the end, Yang Mao took 3,000 elite soldiers to stay behind.

At this time, Yang Mao was sweating on his forehead, he took a sip of water, looked at the position of the Han army in Dingting on the opposite side, and couldn't help but say to Changshi on the side:

"Can this ghost place really lurk 20,000 Han troops?"

Yang Mao's long history is the old man of Taishan, and he is a little uncertain at the moment, and he is not sure:

"This is really strange, this is not a strategic place, there is no need for the Han army to garrison troops here. But when we think of a famous marshal like Lu Zhi on the other side, there may really be something we don't know. ”

When Yang Mao heard this, he suddenly remembered the military order sent from the base camp an hour ago.

The king said that the Han army in the east of the river had sent out an army, and he wanted me to annihilate the enemy in Dingting as soon as possible. Does that mean that Lu Zhi just wants to block the passage of our troops to the east, so the Liutun soldiers are here?

The more Yang Mao thought about it, the more he felt that this was quite possible.

So, he decided to launch a tentative attack first, trying the color of the opposite side first.

Soon, flags were waved and snare drums were flying.

After the three generals Han Hao, Yang Chou, and Zhang Sheng of Hanoi Town received the order from the Chinese army, they responded to the flag one after another and expressed their order.

On the afternoon of August 6, it was very hot.

As if to make up for the lack of heat from the heavy rain a few days ago, this day was much hotter than before.

Just standing in the sun for a while, the guards of Hanoi Town were soaking wet.

And those armorers who had already changed into armor were even more uncomfortable, and the whole person seemed to be stuffed in a jar and suffocated.

And damn it, there was no wind at all today. I really envy those cavalry, who can gallop horses, at least they can be comfortable.

While these townsmen were thinking wildly, the war drums finally sounded in anticipation.

With the rumbling drums of war and the military song, the three thousand soldiers of Hanoi launched an attack.

"Raise the sword soldiers, change the peace, and call the world back to Qingming!"

The low, oppressive clouds of the sky were broken through by this battle cry, as if there was light.

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(End of chapter)