"Dingding, dingding!"

Jin Zheng's voice resounded throughout the battlefield, and Cao Zhen was wearing a black Wei army armor and looked solemnly at the Han army that was receding like a tide.

From the sudden attack of the Han army in early February, nearly 20 days have passed now, close to March.

On the Western Front, the strength of the Han army and the Wei army was about the same, both around 100,000. But this time, the Han army was obviously prepared, and adopted the standard Tianji horse racing offensive.

The Wei army's forces in Hedong and Tongguan were deployed as follows: Cao Zhen's main force in Tongguan was about 50,000 people, Xu Huang's troops in Puban were about 30,000, and Zhu Ling's troops in Pishi were less than 10,000.

The rest were scattered in Hedong and in Hebei County, Dayang County and other places south of Zhongtiao Mountain, so that Cao's army was at a disadvantage as a whole in Hedong.

There is no way, Tongguan leads directly to Luoyang, if Tongguan can't be defended, Luoyang is in danger of being attacked.

So Cao Zhen can only guard in Tongguan.

The Han army took the initiative to attack this time, and Zhao Yunbu led about 10,000 cavalry from Huayin to fight with Cao's army at the junction of the Wei River and the Yellow River, that is, in the area of Qindong Town, Tongguan County, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province.

Shen Chen's main force of about 60,000 crossed the Yellow River and took Pusaka directly, and Pang De had 20,000 men cross the river from Longmen and attacked Zhu Ling's Pishi.

For a time, the pressure on Cao Jun in Hedong was huge, especially Xu Huang's department.

After the grain and grass were burned, he immediately sent his cavalry to cross the river from Nakajo Mountain to join Cao Zhen, while he himself led less than 20,000 men to defend Pusaka and wait for his reinforcements to arrive.

I have to say that Xu Huang's response has been excellent.

With a large group of cavalry, Cao Zhen also had the ability to pursue Zhao Yun, who was constantly harassed by cavalry, and finally repelled Zhao Yun in Weinan Township, east of Huayin, and even annihilated a group of Han cavalry on a small scale.

"Whew."

It wasn't until the Han army retreated back to Huayin that Cao Zhen let out a long breath.

He's under a lot of pressure right now.

Zhu Ling also sent messengers to ask for help, Pang De raided Pi's, and almost all of Pi's outer camps were captured by the Han army, leaving only Zhu Ling to support in Pi's city.

The situation in Hedong was not good, and he was frequently harassed by Zhao Yun, mainly because although Tongguan was on the edge of the Yellow River, it was still dozens of miles away from the Yellow River.

Tongguan in the Han Dynasty was located in the area of Yangjia Village, a port town in Tongguan County, and Tongguan in the Ming Dynasty was located in Qindong Town in the north, so Tongguan in the Han Dynasty was far away from the Yellow River, and there was a vast plain area on the south bank of the Yellow River.

If Cao Zhen came out of Tongguan and crossed the river at Tongting, that is, Qindong Town in Tongguan County, he would be attacked by Zhao Yun's cavalry.

Zhao Yun's cavalry came and went like the wind, he crossed the river there, and when he was halfway through, in case the Han cavalry raided his rear camp, it would cause the beginning and tail to be unable to take care of the whole thing, and the entire army would be in an extremely chaotic scene.

Therefore, the stalemate lasted for more than half a month, and it was not until Xu Shang's cavalry came over that Zhao Yun's harassment was repulsed.

This ambush of Cao Zhen still showed the momentum of a famous general in history, Zhao Yun relied on the cavalry to be superior to Cao Wei, and attacked dozens of miles from time to time, so that Cao Zhen did not dare to cross the river to support.

Before Xu Shang came, Cao Zhen took advantage of this and pretended that the situation on Xu Huang's side was critical and that he had to force his way across the river, so he arrived at Tongting and began to march.

After Zhao Yunlai came, just like Ma Chao beat Cao Cao in history, he wanted to defeat Cao Zhen on the bank of the Yellow River through cavalry attacks.

However, Cao Zhen commanded the battle to a certain extent, and when two-thirds of the army had already crossed the river, he used the remaining infantry to form a formation and entangled with Zhao Yun's army, and then the Xu Shang cavalry in ambush in the rear raided, repelled Zhao Yun, killing and wounding nearly a thousand Han troops.

But then Zhao Yun still stabilized his position, slowly retreated, and also commanded many battles with Cao Wei's cavalry, beheaded Xu Shang, and retreated to Weinan Township east of Huayin, and the two sides fought before Zhao Yun retreated to Huayin.

Seeing the retreat of the Han cavalry in the distance, Cao Zhen breathed a sigh of relief, at least Zhao Yun had lost a lot of men and horses now, and there was probably no way to continue harassing him, he could cross the river calmly.

"Report!"

A war supervisor in charge of counting the battlefield walked over with a Han army war horse and reported to Cao Zhen: "General, we have captured the Han army's war horse. ”

"Hmm."

Cao Zhen didn't care, waved his hand and said, "Use the obtained war horses for cavalry." ”

The Warlord continued, "General, their horses have some new equipment, you can still take a look. ”

"New gear?"

Cao Zhen wondered, "What else do they have besides stirrups and saddles?" ”

Because Liu Bei's group had no source of horses in the early days, if the cavalry was equipped with stirrups, saddles and horseshoes, it was basically no different from the enemy.

Therefore, Shen Chen began to form a large-scale cavalry after arriving in Liangzhou and having a stable source of horses.

It even formed a 5,000-strong armored iron cavalry.

In the subsequent wars, Cao Wei was defeated repeatedly, and he did not capture the war horses of the Han army, but they observed the stirrups and saddles of the Han army from a distance through the battle, and imitated them, which are now slowly being promoted throughout the army.

The warlord pulled up the horse's hooves, pointed to the hooves, and said, "General, please look." ”

Cao Zhen squatted down to watch.

Then he saw that the hoof of the horse's hoof had been shaved off, and a thin piece of iron was attached to it, as if a man had put shoes on his own feet.

"What is this?"

Cao Zhen was puzzled.

The warlord said: "The Han army installed iron plates on the horses' hooves, and it must have its intentions. Remembering the wear and tear of horses' hooves due to continuous fighting, often a surprise attack may cause many horses' hooves to crack and unable to continue fighting, which may be the reason why the Han army has been able to send out surprise attacks on us every day for nearly a month. ”

"Hmm."

Cao Zhen touched his chin and nodded slightly.

It is recognized that the endurance of horses is not as good as that of humans, but before there were horseshoes in the Yuan Dynasty, there was another reason why horses were not as endurance as humans, that is, without the protection of horseshoes, long-distance running would lead to excessive wear and tear of horseshoe, which would deplete the horseshoe nails, resulting in inflammation and injury to the horse's hooves.

This is the same reason that if humans plow the ground by hand, they will cause hand injuries after losing their nails.

Horses in the wild do not have to run continuously like war horses, they rest when they are full, protect their hooves from wearing out for a long time, and even if the hooves are too long, they will find stones to grind them off, so wild horses do not have the trouble of war horses.

But the war horse is not good, not only do you have to carry out various trainings in ordinary times, but you also have to run urgently in case of emergencies, which will lead to a very large loss of horseshoe nails.

Therefore, before the Yuan Dynasty, dynasties with cavalry would have such troubles.

Now seeing this scene, Cao Zhen also understands why Zhao Yun's cavalry can always come and go like the wind, and he is not afraid of the loss of horses at all.

It turned out that there was such equipment.

He said to the war overseer: "Send the captured war horses to Luoyang, play them to Your Majesty, and then let the general be the prisoner to take a look." ”

"Yui!"

The Warlord took the order and departed.

Cao Zhen looked at the battlefield from afar, and the cleaning personnel of the Cao army had already escorted back the corpses of the enemy and the prisoners of war, and this time it was already a great victory for Cao Wei.

From the Battle of Guanzhong and the Battle of Xiangfan to the present seven or eight years, Cao Wei has not had such a victory, which is always a good thing.

It was not until the afternoon that Cao Zhen sent people to clean up the battlefield, and then retreated back to Tongting to prepare to cross the river.

On 27 February, Cao's army successfully crossed the Yellow River and arrived at Fenglingdu.

At the same time, Zhao Yun retreated back to Huayin.

In Huayin City, Ma Dai took Zhao Yun back to the city, and when the two arrived at the city, he bowed his hand to Zhao Yun and said, "Former general." ”

Previously, Zhao Yun was a general of Zuo, but after Huang Zhong's death, he was promoted to a former general.

At present, Guan Yu of the Southern Han Group is the generalissimo of the world's soldiers and horses and concurrently serves as the general, Shen Chen is the hussar general, Zhang Fei is the general of the chariot cavalry, and Ma Chao is not allowed to be reused by Zhuge Liang after Liu Bei's death, and temporarily provides for General Wei's retirement.

Fortunately, Zhao Yun is old and strong, and now he is over sixty years old, he is still agile and active on the battlefield, and even killed the enemy general Xu Shang before, which is a heavy general of the Han Dynasty.

Zhao Yun stood at the head of the city and looked to the east, and saw that Cao Jun did not chase after him, so he said to Ma Dai with a serious face: "A large number of cavalry suddenly appeared in Cao Jun, these cavalry should have been deployed in Hedong County to prevent us from raiding across the river, but now they have appeared in Tongguan. ”

Ma Dai said in a deep voice: "Tongguan is mainly defensive, and the terrain is relatively narrow, and there are many mountainous areas, which is not suitable for Cao Wei to deploy too many cavalry, so the cavalry is in Hedong County. Now that it appears here, it means that Xu Huang has transferred all the cavalry. ”

"Exactly."

Zhao Yun nodded and said: "It seems that the Metropolitan Governor guessed well, Cao Zhen is planning to cross the river with the main force, and then take our army in Pusaka directly from Leishou Mountain, if he is allowed to cooperate with Xu Huang to outflank, I am afraid that the Metropolitan Governor's side is a little dangerous." ”

Zhang Yi, the general of Zhao Yunbu next to him, wondered: "General, the last general doesn't understand, I heard that there are a lot of cavalry in the Cao army, why must it be the cavalry of the Cao army in Hedong who appears here?" ”

Ma Dai said with a smile: "You don't know, in several battles in a row, Cao Wei lost his troops, and even the cavalry responsible for guarding the frontier on the northern Youyan border was transferred, and the Cao army no longer had so many cavalry. ”

"Those Ghost Swallow cavalry?"

"If it's them, wouldn't the prime minister's side be laughing to death?"

"The last general is confused."

Zhang Yi scratched his head, he was actually from a famous family, his grandfather was a guard, and he was also a scholar.

However, at present, the internal movements of Cao Wei's side are also carefully investigated by Shen Chen, and only some high-level officials know about it when it is passed back, and even Ma Dai often follows Shen Chen to know about it.

Therefore, it is normal for Zhang Yi not to understand Cao Wei's current predicament.

Now Cao Wei is no longer comparable with the southern Han in terms of total strength, and is in a disadvantageous situation, and the number of cavalry has also dropped sharply, and it is difficult to have extra cavalry to assist the Western Front.

Zhao Yun said to Ma Dai: "Then according to the plan of the governor, you will lead the Huayin cavalry, and I will immediately cross the river to the east of the river." ”

"Yui!"

Ma Dai gave up his command.

At that moment, Zhao Yun handed over his seal to Ma Dai.

Ma Dai is currently the general of Anxi, and his position is not too high, so his general Yin is needed to lead the army and suppress the scene.

Here, Zhao Yun secretly crossed Weishui according to the original plan, and then crossed the Yellow River from Puban to Hedong County.

Over there, Cao Zhen's main force also crossed the Yellow River and marched to Fenglingdu in the direction of Leishou Mountain.

On March 6, it was ten o'clock in the afternoon, and the main force of Cao's army went all the way north along the official road, and Cao Zhen rode on horseback, his eyes solemn, looking into the distance.

On the right side of the road is the endless mountains, the mountains are undulating, majestic and vast, it is the twilight of spring, the birds are singing and the flowers are fragrant, and the scenery is beautiful.

The warm sunshine sprinkles down, the valley is fresh, the forest is dripping green, the dendrobium, daylily, mulberry, rose on the roadside, the flower shadow is sparse, the competition is gorgeous, the dappled sunlight is sprinkled in the forest, which makes people feel refreshed and happy.

On the left side of the road is a plain meadow, close to the Yellow River, and you can see the vast Yellow River rolling in the distance, and the water surface is a little muddy, but it is not as exaggerated as in later generations.

There are some forests and trees growing on both sides, and the branches are hanging down, blocking the road with wild grass basil, and it is necessary for the scouts in front to constantly clear the weeds before they can move forward.

"Ahh

At this moment, a terrible scream pierced the entire sky.

Cao Zhen suddenly became nervous.

Naturally, he couldn't have sent scouts, so the forests on the left bank and the mountains on the right were all spread out to open the way.

Listening to the sound, it seems to be coming from the scouts in the mountains and forests on the right, could it be that there are ambush soldiers?

He soon ordered martial law for the former army.

However, after a while, I realized that it was a false alarm, and the mountain forest was full of snakes, insects, rats and ants, and when the scout was dealing with the thorny bushes in the forest, he stepped on a poisonous snake and was bitten back.

The injured scouts were carried to the back for treatment, and the occasional sound of a tiger roaring could be heard in the forest, making the scouts much more careful in the future.

At noon, the weather was getting hotter, Cao Zhen wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked around, and after a while, finally ordered the three armies to rest in place for a while, and go to the river to let the horses drink some water.

Cao's army stretched for more than ten miles along the way, and there were still several miles of plains on the left-hand side, and they could only overlook the banks of the Yellow River.

The horses entered the water in an orderly manner, and then landed on the opposite river beach in an orderly manner, and the soldiers of the Cao army also went to the river in batches to fetch water and boil it.

Since we started in the morning, everyone is hungry, so it's a good thing to boil some water in a kettle and put some sauce in it and eat it with bread.

Soon the shouts of the riders and the neighing of the horses mingled with the sound of the rubble rolling under the hooves of the river, and for a moment overpowered the soothing sound of the water, echoing back and forth in the rolling bay.

Cao Zhen's front army was a little harder, and he had to stand guard for the middle army and the rear army, and at this time, Cao Zhen's general Dai Ling, who was at the forefront of the team, slowly moved forward and continued to open the way for the army.

As a vanguard, he must fulfill this responsibility.

But after walking for about a mile, Dai Ling suddenly felt that something was wrong, and the birdsong in the mountains seemed to be particularly rhythmic.

Immediately after that, the ground in front of him began to shake at some point.

A pebble shook a little.

The sound of horses' hooves!

The sound of rolling thunder appeared in an instant, causing Dai Ling's heart to pound violently, and then let out a terrible cry.

"Enemy attack!"

(End of chapter)