After Emperor Zhou Tian and Zhou Chi left, Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, began to dispatch troops in the four counties and nineteen prefectures under his jurisdiction. In less than a month, King Qiulu had assembled an army of 200,000.

King Qiulu personally took command, and the second son Zheng Tu led the first army of 40,000 people to fight the front.

After the preparation of the king of Qiulu was completed, he ordered Zheng Tu to lead the first army from Luyang Mansion and advance to the Nine Desolate Mountains, and he led two armies to follow up, and two armies followed behind.

The king of Qiulu is an undeclared war against the Nine Desolation Mountains.

Jiuhuangling was adjacent to Luyang Mansion, which was under the jurisdiction of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, and Zheng Tu's first army soon reached Daling Mountain outside Jiuhuangling.

Jiuhuangling is just between the three mountains of Daling Mountain, Cen Lai Mountain and Qionghang Mountain, and the terrain of Daling Mountain is low.

There is a pass on Daling Mountain, which is the throat road connecting Jiuhuangling and Luyang Mansion.

Zheng Tu chose a night and came to the pass of Daling Mountain.

Zheng Tu ordered 200 soldiers to quietly climb up to the pass, and then ordered 200 archers to follow.

The soldiers quickly went to the pass, which was unguarded.

Zheng Tu rejoiced in his heart: Such an important position, the people of the Nine Desolate Mountains actually didn't send people to guard it? I can enter the Nine Desolate Mountains without a single soldier.

Zheng Tu thought about it, the people of the Nine Desolation Mountains didn't know about our extermination of them, so they didn't defend it. It seems that the strategy of his father, King Qiulu, to fight without declaring a war is wise.

After occupying the pass of Daling Mountain, 40,000 troops entered the territory of Jiuhuangling.

Zheng Tu left 3,000 soldiers to defend the pass, and with this strategic place that could be attacked and retreated, he could be invincible.

Zheng Tu led the remaining 30,000 troops of the First Army and marched forward for another forty miles, encamping on a flat and wide plateau.

Before leaving, his father, King Qiulu, warned Zheng Tu that the battle effectiveness of the Jiuhuangling was very strong, and he should not act rashly, and his task was to first gain a foothold in the Jiuhuangling and find a base for the follow-up army.

After dawn, after breakfast, Zheng Tu led the four division commanders and several strategists and deputy generals to carefully inspect the surrounding terrain.

The guide said: "The Nine Desolate Mountains are divided into the South Ridge, the Middle Ridge and the North Ridge, and the Middle Ridge and the North Ridge are the areas with a large population, and the three major leaders of the Nine Desolation Mountains all live there. This is the South Ridge of the Nine Desolation Mountains, which belongs to the relatively desolate marginal area. ”

Zheng Tu said after soliciting the opinions of several people around him: "There will be no large-scale formation of the Nine Desolation Mountains here, and we will continue to advance forward. Before the arrival of the Qiulu King's brigade, take advantage of the lack of preparation of the people of the Nine Desolation Mountains, and be sure to eliminate some small groups of soldiers. ”

Zheng Tu led the army all the way unimpeded, and did not meet a single soldier, but the rugged mountain road was very uncomfortable to walk.

After gradually moving away from Daling Mountain, it went deep into the Nanling area, and the terrain gradually lowered.

One of the strategists beside Zheng Tu suddenly said, "Marshal, I think the situation is a little wrong!"

Zheng Tu said, "What's wrong?"

The strategist said, "We have left Daling Mountain for dozens of miles, why haven't we seen a single figure?"

Zheng Tu said: "This is Nanling, desolate!"

The adviser said: "I hope so, but now we are on a section of the road in which the terrain is declining, and if an enemy attack comes from behind, we will not be able to stand on our feet, and it will be difficult for us to organize an effective counterattack." ”

Zheng Tu heard that the strategist was very reasonable, so he hurriedly asked the guide: "What kind of place is this area, is it all this kind of terrain?"

The guide said: "The terrain in this area is low, and if you go more than 20 miles further, you will be the first ridge of the Nine Desolate Mountains. ”

Hearing that there was a mountain range ahead, Zheng Tu ordered: "Pass my order, one column will become two columns, speed up the march! Occupy the mountain in front and set up camp." ”

With the natural barrier of the mountains, there is no fear of a sneak attack by the enemy.

After walking for half a day, the tired soldiers set up camp and rested when they heard that they had reached the mountain range in front of them, and they all ran vigorously.

When more than 30,000 soldiers ran down the hill, some of them laid down their weapons, unbuckled their caps and armor, and sat down on the ground panting.

Seeing this, Zheng Tu hurriedly said to the herald beside him: "Pass my order, the first division occupies the mountains, the second division is responsible for guarding, the third division is camped, and the fourth division is on standby. ”

Before Zheng Tu's order could be conveyed, there was a sudden ambush on the opposite mountain, and the black-pressed soldiers looked boundless.

The soldiers in ambush were none other than the soldiers of the two armies led by Shi Dewa and the soldier lord Daran.

The soldiers rushed down the hill and stopped when they were a few dozen meters away from Zheng Tu's army.

The crossbowmen in the formation fired ten thousand crossbows in unison, and Zheng Tu's soldiers fell one by one, without the power to resist.

In the blink of an eye, Zheng Tu's army was killed or wounded. Without hearing the order to retreat, the soldier who had not been hit turned around and ran back.

The soldiers, who were already exhausted, ran uphill again, and collided with each other in a panic, they ran very slowly.

The dexterous daggers of the array followed the retreating army.

......

Without a single soldier killed, the soldiers of Jiuhuangling defeated more than 20,000 troops of the king of Qiulu. The battle was fought flawlessly.

When he learned that King Qiulu had mobilized 200,000 troops and sent Zheng Tu to lead the first army as the vanguard to attack Jiuhuangling, Jiuhuangling had already assembled 120,000 soldiers. They abandoned the pass of Daling Mountain, and lured Zheng Tu's army, which had gone deep alone, to a place on the low slope below the mountain that was not conducive to fighting. Then the commanders of the army, Daran and Shi Dewa, led the formation of one of their own armies, a total of 80,000 people, and laid an ambush on the mountain ridge in advance.

......

Zheng Tu led more than 20,000 remnants of the army to defeat the generals and retreated to Daling Mountain in one go.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, led 80,000 troops of the Chinese army to the pass of Daling Mountain, and after learning the news that the second son Zheng Tu led the first army to rush into the Jiuhuangling and returned from a fiasco, he was furious and slapped Zheng Tu twice.

The 250,000 army was the capital of his Qiulu King to establish himself as the king of the dynasty, and he lost 20,000 in one day, and he still did not get any benefits.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, who suffered a big loss, did not dare to attack rashly, he deployed 80,000 troops in Daling Mountain, and then waited for the arrival of 80,000 troops behind.

The king of Qiulu wanted to gather an army of nearly 180,000 troops, and with the superior force—the total number of soldiers in the Nine Desolate Mountains was only 120,000—he would take the battalion step by step, and eliminate the troops in the Nine Desolate Mountains little by little.

A day later, Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, led an army of 170,000 troops to the mountain ridge where the soldiers were ambushed.

In view of the huge power of the crossbowmen of the Nine Desolation Ridge formation, Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, adjusted the formation of the army.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, gathered the 3,000 crossbowmen seconded from Feng Rui, the king of Nanling, and Xu Zheng, the king of Xiang'e, his own 2,000 crossbowmen, and 10,000 archers to form a crossbow camp and arrange them in front of the army.

Behind the bow and crossbow camp is a thousand-strong team of drillers.

The brazing knife is a kind of long knife unique to the Xurui Dynasty, the handle is fifty centimeters long, the blade is one meter five long, and weighs twenty-five pounds. Drill knives are expensive to build due to the complexity of the manufacturing process, and the number of drill knives possessed by each army is strictly controlled. The extraordinary weight of the drill knife required the soldiers who used it to be physically strong. The Blades were invincible in the battle of the Xurui Dynasty army to pacify the world, terrifying the enemy army, and the Blades became a lingering shadow in their nightmares.

The third faction is the very lethal hoplite faction. The camp after that was a large number of light infantry.

The boundless army flowed like a muddy Yangtze River into the depths of the Nine Desolate Mountains.

The king of Qiulu led an army of 180,000 neatly formed to cross the first mountain range of the Nine Desolation Mountains, and then crossed the second mountain range, but he still did not encounter a single soldier, and he did not even see a single person in the houses on the hillside.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, wondered as he walked: Jiuhuangling already knew our attack plan, otherwise they would not have almost annihilated Zheng Tu's first army; their formation was extremely combative, and they could use this complicated terrain to sneak attack us and eliminate some of our living forces, which would be very beneficial to the whole battle, but why didn't they do it?

The terrain of the Nine Barren Mountains is undulating, and the landform is suddenly high mountains, sometimes low mountains, sometimes jungles, and sometimes rivers; the karst terrain is all over the place, and the ground is broken vertically and horizontally.

For several days, the army of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, marched in such terrain conditions, and the soldiers were exhausted.

Zheng Kai, the battle-hardened king of Qiulu, watched the combat effectiveness of his army decline little by little, and slowly realized that the soldiers of the Nine Desolation Mountains wanted to drag them down and waited for an opportunity to move. However, he couldn't withdraw from the Nine Desolation Mountains like this, not to mention the loss of more than 20,000 soldiers, and the emperor's task of letting him eliminate the formation of the Nine Desolation Mountains could not be completed.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, firmly believed that the overall combat effectiveness of his army was stronger than that of the army in the Nine Desolation Mountains. As long as his army maintains a good formation, it is not afraid of a sneak attack by the enemy. As the army continued to penetrate and get closer and closer to the densely populated areas, the enemy army was bound to come out to fight.

Just as Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, had predicted, the formations of the Nine Desolation Mountains appeared as his army penetrated deep into the heart of the South Ridge, but the formations unexpectedly appeared behind his army.

After receiving the news of the espionage, Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, ordered the formation to be adjusted, and the bow and crossbow camp and the sword camp were quickly mobilized to the rear.

The contact battle between the two armies was a bow and crossbow battle, and due to the large number of shield bearers in the Nine Desolation Ridge formation, the soldiers were not injured much, while the army of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, had some casualties.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, was unmoved, and he ordered the bow and crossbow camp to continue firing bows and arrows. When he waited for the crossbow arrows of the Nine Desolation Ridge Formation to be shot, then his sword camp would exert great power, and the heavy soldiers who had the advantage in numbers behind him would attack again, and this battle would definitely be a complete victory.

The crossbow arrows of the soldiers of the Nine Desolation Mountains gradually thinned out, and soon the formations began to retreat. Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, probably because he had waited too long, and the bow and crossbow had no lethality against the soldiers, he did not observe the virtual and real situation of the soldiers again, so he hurriedly ordered the army to pursue with all his might.

The rear camp of the retreating Nine Desolation Ridge soldiers is the shield bearer, which can protect the soldiers in front, but the shield player runs a little slower.

The distance between the two armies was constantly shortening, and when the distance was shortened to twenty meters, Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, ordered the sword team to attack.

The Blades rushed out of the group, exposed behind the soldiers.

At this time, the crossbowmen of the formation received the order of the soldier master Da Ran to turn back and shoot, and several rows of shield bearers who were responsible for protecting the soldiers behind the formation fell to the ground one after another, and rows of crossbowmen shot crossbow arrows one after another.

All 1,000 people of the drill team died in the dense rain of crossbow arrows.

The army of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, was suppressed by the rain of crossbow arrows, and the group leader in the formation quickly ran forward, picked up the brazing knives that the chisel team had thrown to the ground, and ran back to the team.

The formations began to retreat again.

This was another ploy by the chieftain, the warlord Daran and Shidewa, who pretended to retreat without fighting the powerful enemy head-on and aimed at destroying the enemy's living force, and when the pursuing enemy army was extremely close and neglected to defend, the crossbowmen fired again, and the lethality of the crossbow bolts was greatly increased.

From his grandfather, who had been in the army for nearly 30 years in the Xurui Dynasty, Da Ran, the soldier master who was familiar with the situation of the dynasty's army, recognized the sword team at a glance, so he ordered the soldiers to grab the sword.

Seeing that this rain of crossbow arrows had killed and injured many enemy soldiers, and the enemy troops who had woken up had already taken precautions, he ordered the troops to retreat.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, was furious, the sword team was the soul and courage of his army, but they were wiped out before they could kill a single soldier of the enemy army.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, lost his mind for a while and ordered to pursue with all his might.

The formation, who was familiar with the terrain, brought the army of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, little by little, to a small river, and the formation quickly crossed the river and ran to the mountain range in front.

Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu, who refused to give up, ordered to cross the river in pursuit.

The soldiers went up the ridge and, instead of taking advantage of the favorable terrain to stop the enemy, continued to run deep into the mountains far from the inhabitants.

By dusk, the army had already thrown off the army of Zheng Kai, the king of Qiulu.

The warlords, Daran and Shidewa, led the soldiers to a cave where they had prepared cooking utensils and food.

After dinner, the soldiers rested peacefully for the night.