At dawn, you can already see the drops of water on the tips of the green grass on the roadside, and a torrent of cyan water gathers on the avenue, moving quickly towards the west.

The guard of the lower hanging pass personally opened and closed the door, and Hong Jin, who was wearing a ghost-faced helmet, urged his horse to go outside the pass, and the officers and men of the Ninth Army lined up in a neat five-column column to follow.

This avenue outside the gate can lead directly to Huashan County, and now the smoke and dust are billowing, and the dust raised by the march of the Ninth Army is more than ten meters high, and it can be seen three or five miles away with good eyesight.

The battalion of the 13th Division on the ground.

Tu Frog supervised the handover of the 10th Brigade and the 1st Brigade to the camp defense, and just planned to go to the gang to get a breakfast, and after eating enough, he returned to the camp tent to squint for a while. Out of the corner of his eye, the corner of his eye swept to the east, and a faint gray veil rose over the eastern sky.

The division commander Fan Xiang's personal soldiers naturally knew the recent military situation and knew that the lower hanging pass in the east might launch an attack on their barracks. He did not lack experience and common sense, and could judge that a large group of men was coming from the east.

"Sentry tower, sentry tower, east, keep an eye on the enemy in the east! The frog ran in the barracks, shouting loudly as he ran.

"Soil frog, what are you doing shouting early in the morning?" Fan Xiang rarely got up early in the morning, and when he walked out of the big tent of the Chinese army, he saw the earth frog running at high speed.

"My lord, the enemy is coming, please put on your clothes, and I will wait. The earth frog did not rush to reply to Fan Xiang's words, but ran to Fan Xiang's ear and whispered.

Shouting early in the morning that the enemy is attacking can easily cause panic, and if the battalion officer can't suppress it, it may cause the battalion to roar.

"What? Drumming!" Fan Xiang was sober-minded, did not waste time in verifying and verifying, and decisively asked the earth frog to beat the drum and count the troops, "The scout team quickly went to find out the enemy's situation, and asked the baggage battalion to quickly concentrate all the fire oil in the middle camp." ”

Knock knock, the Shaodian Army battalion, which was responsible for blocking the lower pass, sounded a hurried drum.

Woo woo, the officers of each battalion had not yet counted the number of people, and a short enemy attack horn sounded on the sentry tower.

"Report, about 20,000 Meng troops in the direction of Xiahang Pass are moving quickly towards the camp. "The scout came back not long after he left the camp.

Fan Xiang was neatly draped, holding a pot of Lingqi and came to the camp under his flag, "Earth frog, have you released the letter eagle for help?"

"It's been released!" replied the frog with a fist clenched.

"Okay, now we only have one way, the main force of the Second Army Corps on the ground is only half a day's journey from here, and the 13th Division must fight to the death to defend the camp, and everyone will have a way to survive as long as they last more than half a day.

The 1st and 2nd Brigades were ordered to hold the front camp tightly, and they were not allowed to retreat half a step back without my orders.

Order the 3rd and 4th Battalions to defend the left battalion and retreat and slash!

The 5th and 6th Brigades were ordered to be responsible for the defense of the right battalion, and the men were in the battalion.

I ordered the 10th Brigade and the Baggage Battalion to hold the rear battalion, and the others followed me as the general reserve in the middle battalion.

If we allow the enemy to storm the middle camp," Fan Xiang said, pointing to the canisters of fire oil piled up in the clearing, "let the fire take us to the Eternal Sanctuary." ”

The main general has made up his mind to fight to the death, and the soldiers below did not dare to slack off, and quickly entered the defensive position, and those who remained in the middle camp were also silently wiping their weapons.

As soon as the Shaodian army entered the defensive position, the Meng army launched a fierce attack, charging directly towards the left, front, and right battalions.

Fan Xiang climbed the Zhongying watchtower and said in surprise: "The Ninth Legion, why did they come so fast? The lower hanging pass is at least twenty miles away from here, could it be that they marched overnight?"

"Impossible, my lord," said the captain of the scouts, "how can they march without a fire at night? ”

"Then why can't you see any movement in your secret whistle during the day?" Fan Xiang's nose was crooked.

"This, there is no way, as soon as dawn their scout brigade began to sweep, and the dark sentry had to be withdrawn. "The captain of the scout longed for a crack in the ground for him to get into.

"Get out!" Fan Xiang turned around and kicked the scout captain, "Before the enemy army surrounds the camp, you take the scout team to the retreat to Huashan County, and bring reinforcements to me as soon as possible." ”

"But there are outnumbered here, and with a few hundred of us gone, the battalion is even more empty. The Scout Captain hesitated.

"Get out, this is an order! As long as there is a wave of attacks, your hundreds of people will be gone, and staying here will not last a stick of incense, and it will be even more effective to bring reinforcements over quickly. Fan Xiangsai gave the scout captain a command flag.

When Hong Jin arrived with the main force of the Ninth Army, it was already dark, and the commanders of the 81st and 82nd Divisions hurriedly came to pay their respects.

"Why? haven't you taken it yet?" said Hong Jin lightly under the ghost's face.

"Lord Hui, the fighting spirit of this local army of Shaodian Country is very tenacious, and we have broken through the outer camp wall several times and have been driven out by their counter-charge. Their subordinates estimated that they would not give up their resistance until the casualties reached seventy percent. The commander of the 81st Division replied.

"The eighty-fifth, eighty-sixth, and eighty-seventh divisions, you go together, and you must break through the big camp for me within an hour. Hong Jin looked at the sky and decided that he couldn't delay it any longer.

"Yes!" the five division commanders clasped their fists together to receive the order.

The 13th Division was originally a local army, and there was a certain gap between its combat effectiveness and that of the regular army, but now it was fighting with five times its own strength, and soon they could not hold it.

Boom, with a loud bang, there was a big explosion in the Shaodian barracks, and the monstrous fire instantly swept through the entire middle camp, and a large group of Meng Jun who stormed it turned into ashes.

"A local army is also so strong? We occupied two and a half counties, and we didn't wantonly slaughter the captured officers and soldiers and local people, why didn't even a single one surrender?" Hong Jin frowned, and no one noticed because of the mask.

This question was not answered by Hong Jin, he didn't know that this local division was basically composed of the Fan family's private army, and the Fan family, as the top ten dukes of the Shaodian Kingdom, would not let their people become prisoners.

The disgraced commander of the 81st Division came back to hand over the order, and was just about to report the results to Hong Jin, but was stopped by Hong Jin raising his hand.

"No need to talk nonsense, the enemy's rescue force must be on the way here, and if I get entangled in them, I won't be able to do anything. Since Helian Yu gave me such a military order, if the Ninth Legion doesn't show how to do it, maybe we will be promoted to the elite legion at some point.

The 81st Division collected the wounded and the corpses of our troops, withdrew to Xiahang Pass before the arrival of enemy reinforcements, and assisted in guarding the pass; After saying that, Hong Jin urged the horse to run northwest.

The headquarters of the base camp of the Nannuma Prefecture Theater.

"What? The Ninth Army of Meng is attacking and guarding the camp at the pass?" Jiang Zhi was taken aback when he received the information.