Guan Yu and Pang Tong returned to Xinye, while Xu Shu appeased the 20,000 miscellaneous soldiers and registered their identities, places of origin and other information in the name of sending entanglements.

Guan Yu decided to let everyone go back, but Xu Shu was still prepared to forcibly recruit and transfer when the Wei army attacked in the future, and the battle situation was urgent and there was no time to replenish the troops.

Zhang Fei led nearly 10,000 cavalry to the north, and Cao Ren also sent Cao Xiu to lead the cavalry to meet him, the Wei army had more cavalry than the Han army, but it was not overwhelming, so the two armies were mostly wandering and shooting at each other, and there was no real fierce battle.

On the whole, the Wei army had an advantage, and sent infantry to be stationed in sub-stations, and cooperated with the cavalry to constantly compress the range of the Han cavalry's cruise, so that the Han army could not penetrate deeply.

Cao Ren ordered Man Chong, Hu Zhao and others to lead their troops to cooperate with the county soldiers and Tuntian soldiers to search for the left Han army to encircle, chase and kill.

Zhang Fei's response effect was limited, but how much the Wei cavalry could not be freed, and the previously scattered soldiers and horses came out day and night, interspersed with gaps and returned to Jingzhou, and successively received a lot (mostly five thousand foot soldiers of the Lingbao Department who rushed to the cavalry), and there were seven or eight hundred people after rectification, although the number was small, fortunately, they were all elite.

Zhang Fei held on to the Wei army for several days, considering that the Wei army was under tight oppression, and wanted to return to Xinye by deception, so as to slow down the vigilance of the Wei army, and find an opportunity to bypass the Wei army to attack from behind, so as to better respond to the generals.

While he was planning, Lei Tong hurriedly came to report: "Third general, there is smoke in the direction of thirty miles, it seems that someone has set fire!" ”

Zhang Feiqi said: "Set fire? Check it out! "Stand up and climb high and look out with all the generals!

Lei Tong pointed to the distance and said, "Look, where is it?" I don't know if it will be Wei Jun's tricks! ”

Zhang Fei said suddenly: "That may be our people, the soldiers will follow me to pick them up!" After saying that, Fei got on the horse, and the soldiers were not ambiguous, and followed Zhang Fei to the direction of the smoke.

Lei Tongjin, who was on the side of the march of the army, said: "Three generals, could this be a deception by the Wei army!" ”

Zhang Fei said: "No, I know the geography of this direction, there is nowhere to ambush." On the contrary, the smoke is more likely to be the smoke of our army in the south, and the horses learned that our army was releasing smoke nearby, even if it was released by the Wei army, I am not afraid, the field of vision here can be known at a glance, enough to judge as soon as possible and retreat! ”

Lei Tong said again: "In order to ensure everything, please go first to identify the general!" ”

Zhang Fei said: "It's okay! ”

Turned his head and said: "Zhang Da, Liu Cun, you and I have been by my side for a long time, the generals of Jingzhou, go with General Lei to identify it!" The two of them took the order.

Lei Tong urged the war horse to lead hundreds of elite horsemen to fly out, and Zhang Fei said to the two generals Huo and Gao next to him: "General Huo, General Gao, the Wei army is stationed nearby, I am afraid that I will come to participate in the battle, you two will each lead a hundred people to the west of the two Wei army residences to check the situation, the Wei army does not move, you two don't provoke them."

The Wei army dispatched, and the two of you tied branches to the tail of the horse, raising smoke and dust from afar, pretending that there were soldiers and horses so that the Wei army did not dare to move forward, delaying time, and remember not to fight hard! The two of them left the team as promised.

Lei Tong explored the road first, and saw from a distance that the Wei cavalry was besieging a miscellaneous army of thousands of soldiers and horses, saying that it was because this army had both Han army clothes and armor, and also mixed with a lot of Wei army armor, and the flags were scarce but they were all Han army flags.

Lei Tong was getting closer and closer, and the Han army was overjoyed when they saw the Han army rushing over, and shouted together: "Deng Ai Deng Shizai is here!" ”

Lei Tong heard it from afar, and said to Zhang Da and Liu Cun: "You have two people to take care of it carefully, and see if the leader is the soldier of our Han army!" Lei Tong carefully watched the battle between the two armies to judge the truth or falsehood.

The Han army saw Lei Tong, and the Wei army naturally saw it, and the general Cao Xiu personally led his troops to intercept it. Lei Tong shouted: "Don't be afraid, rush to kill, the three generals are behind!" The crowd agreed in unison.

Lei Tong shouted: "Wei thief, take your life!" "With horsepower. Fiercely slashed at Cao Xiu, who was the leader.

The besieged Han army reacted at the same time, suddenly accelerated in unison, and the arrows in their hands were concentrated in one direction and kept firing, so that the Wei army was forced to retreat slightly, and dozens of horsemen in the formation were killed violently, and the young general led by a knife flew up and down, and the Wei army was not enough to resist.

Zhang Da, who was far away, suddenly shouted: "General Lei, look at that person like General Guan!" ”

After hearing this, Lei Tong knocked away Cao Xiu's blade, took the opportunity to look at his heart and said: "It looks like this soldier and horse are really fighting with Wei Thief, and there is no doubt that it is our soldier and horse." ”

shouted: "Quick, report to the three generals, and cooperate with the Wei thief!" ”

Zhang Fei Pegasus killed, stared at Cao Xiu at a glance, and captured the thief and the king.

Zhang Fei roared like thunder and pounced on Cao Xiu, Cao Xiu saw this and made a series of moves to force Lei Tong to retreat, turned around and returned to the cavalry, and was surrounded by the Han army without sparing arrows, round after round.

Cao Xiu was afraid of the Han army's infantry and cavalry, and temporarily withdrew from the encirclement of the Han army's foot soldiers. Zhang Fei and the Han army rendezvous, led by Guan Ping and Deng Ai, Zhang Fei was overjoyed and relieved, too late to be too happy, Deng Ai reminded: "Three generals, there are foot soldiers near the Wei army, we can't drag it!" ”

Zhang Fei nodded and said: "After Ping'er broke off with my horse, the soldiers withdrew first!" ”

Everyone immediately took action, Deng Ai adjusted the team, Yuan Long was the leader, Wu Tang was in the center, and after he broke off, the whole army kept the formation as much as possible and retreated urgently.

Cao Xiu divided the cavalry into two teams, fought with Zhang Fei all the way, attacked Deng Ai all the way, and at the same time hurried to urge the Wei soldiers everywhere to speed up to support, and the Han army did not love to fight, and retreated while fighting.

Deng Ai commanded the Han army to block the cavalry's resistance with arrows, and at the same time kept accelerating the retreat, Zhang Fei and Deng Ai deliberately kept their distance, and the two armies could support each other.

Cao Xiu was jealous of Zhang Fei's bravery, no one could resist Zhang Fei when the two armies really fought, and what was even more surprising was that Deng Ai's remnants of the army had exceptionally sufficient arrows, and the Han army's infantry and cavalry fought with each other to fight and the losses were bound to be not small.

Cao Xiu scolded in his heart for encircling the soldiers and horses, how to block a remnant army, the two armies were consumed until it was getting late, and the Cao army reinforcements arrived, and the Han army was already more than 30 miles closer to Xinye.

Cao Xiu thought that it was getting late, and Xinye Guan Yu would inevitably report that he had no intention of fighting again, so he left the battle first.

Zhang Fei and Deng Ai didn't dare to stay, they retreated in the dark, Guan Yu learned the accurate news and responded in person, everyone withdrew to Xinye to settle down, Guan Yu, Pang Tong and others comforted the soldiers and gave them food and rest.

Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Pang Tong held a banquet to entertain Guan Ping and Deng Ai, and during the banquet, Deng Ai told the retreat to the south:

Guan Ping and Deng Ai blocked the enemy after the break, unfortunately the army was defeated, and with the help of the night to break through, the Wei army did not have time to react, and ran wild for a day and a night before resting.

Guan Ping and Deng Ai discussed, the Wei army had many soldiers, and it was inevitable to be surrounded by many parties, and it was difficult to escape the annihilation of the whole army in the south, so the two of them sent fine people to explore the road first, and bribed the people to lead the way, and learned that the recent favorable terrain was to retreat to Tancun in the southeast direction, and there were hills in the north of the village.

The major general led a hundred horsemen to march a little farther up the mountain road first, leaving traces, and entered Tan Village to buy grain, and sat down for a while to go south.

Deng Ai led most of them to hide in the back of several overlapping ridges more than ten miles away from the village, and there were many trees, the trees in midwinter had no branches and leaves, fortunately, there were more trees, it was better than nothing, and the narrow trunks could block the horses, so that the Wei army scouts were lazy to investigate carefully, and all of them were covered with gray cloth to avoid the reflection and hiding of the armor.

The Wei army did not expect that our army would dare to be nearby, and it was already close to dusk when they arrived, so they sent scouts but did not search in detail.

The Wei army sent thousands of soldiers and horses with thousands of cavalry to follow the major general south, leaving thousands of soldiers and horses to rest in the village, which was a godsend. That night, there was a strong wind all night, just to hide the sound of the Han army's movements, Deng Ai led his troops to raid the Wei army in the village, killing thousands of people, and capturing most of the Wei troops who could not react.

Deng Ai interrogated the captured Wei military captain Fang Zhi that Hu Zhao, the commander of the Wei army, was actually suspicious of the southward retreat of more than 100 cavalry men who had been discovered, and believed that the Han army was retreating under the cover of one light and one cover, and the foot soldiers were slow to move, so it was not difficult to catch up.

The soldiers and horses left in the village were ready to cooperate with the county soldiers and Tuntian soldiers who were dispatched from all over the country to cooperate with the search tomorrow, because the major general Guan Ping was here, Hu Zhao thought that the status of the major general was noble, and if it could be captured, it would be extremely advantageous, and he would not give up, so he selected 1,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry elite soldiers not to stop and pursue.

Time was pressing, Deng Ai ordered to change into the Wei army's armor, put away the Han army's banner, and ordered to collect all the arrows that could be used, and try to recover the shots.

Guan Ping attracted the Wei army and did not go far, hiding in the duck pond twenty miles away, the horses were not conducive to hiding, and more than ten people from Guan Ping's personal guards took the initiative to stand up and continue to drive the horses to attract the Wei army and protect Guan Ping.

After Deng Ai and Guan Ping's thrilling rendezvous, they traveled lightly and hurriedly, marching day and night. In order to confuse and create trouble for the Wei army, Deng Ai not only plundered the villages along the way, but also sent cavalry to plunder the nearby villages, which caused the people to dislike the Wei army and caused the Wei army to miscalculate.

The soldiers and horses of the Han army galloped wildly, and several times along the way some people suggested a little rest, Deng Ai refused, the troops were not tired and never stopped in their breath, the process was difficult, but they successfully jumped out of the encirclement of the Wei army.

And unexpectedly caught up with the Wei army that had chased Guan Ping before, fortunately, the spies and scouts sent out first, and were able to find a good hiding place to rest first, but the Wei army found the Han army and had no choice but to prepare for a battle.

Fortunately, the Wei army did not expect that we were behind them, and in the future, we had time to call back the cavalry, the major general had outstanding martial arts, killed several generals and colonels of the Wei army, and dispersed the Wei army, and we continued to retreat.

Most of the Yuzhou Manchu Pet Department was wandering around Xinye at that time, and the two encountered a small group of Tuntian soldiers who were all killed, and Deng Ai deliberately collected arrows along the way, and strictly ordered that the blades, bows, crossbows, and arrows must not be discarded, regardless of the rest.

The biggest threat was Hu Zhao led a thousand cavalry, Deng Ai had already considered, tried to march in a place that was not conducive to the cavalry, kept cutting down trees to block the road, rested and sent troops and horses to dig wide trenches, the Wei cavalry was really limited, could not constitute a real threat, and finally evacuated to Xinye 100 miles away.

At this time, the main force of the Han army had withdrawn to Jingzhou, and the Wei army was free to deal with the small Han army still trapped in the north.

Guan Ping and Deng Ai had just learned of the defeat of General Gan Ning, considering that the slower the Wei army stabilized, the more unfavorable it was, Guan Ping and Deng Ai no longer cared about anything else after finding out the news that there were Han cavalry.

Take advantage of the night to retreat south, after dawn according to the prior agreement to divide the Wei army and the Han army, pretending to be the Wei army to escort and capture the Han army, indeed deceived part of the Wei army, and was able to travel more than ten miles south, and was finally recognized by Cao Xiu's cavalry, and a fierce battle occurred, Deng Ai had already prepared, and the arrows were extraordinarily sufficient.

The so-called return to the master is not stopped, Deng Ai took advantage of the fact that everyone wanted to return to Jingzhou, which was close at hand, to inspire the three armies to fight, set fire to the news, and thanks to Zhang Fei's judgment, he finally succeeded in returning smoothly under Zhang Fei's response.

Guan Ping, Deng Ai, Yuan Long, Wu Dang and other soldiers were particularly happy with the return of the soldiers, and they rewarded the returning soldiers and moved to Fancheng for repairs the next day.