Liu Bei was walking around Jiangyang and returned to Chengdu with Li Su and others. It was already half past October.

Within a few days, they received two reports from the generals from Duzhen, one from Zhao Yun in Jingnan and the other from Lusu in Hanzhong.

Don't wonder why their report arrived almost at the same time - because Liu Bei took care of their arrangements for the Northern Expedition in advance, Lu Su and Zhao Yun both knew that the defense would be changed this winter. So everyone knew very well that the work they had at hand must be done before the time.

Lu Su and Zhao Yun were also very cautious and did not tell the people below about what the king had told him, so their subordinates only knew some local information until the moment before the defense was changed.

What Zhao Yun sent was of course the report on the war report in Jingnan area and the report on local governance.

What Lu Su sent was about the logistics preparations for the Northern Expedition and the last enemy situation in Guanzhong that he found before heavy snow covered the Qinling Mountains this winter.

Liu Bei was very satisfied with his subordinates' efficiency and time control ability.

...

The conversation was divided into two ends, and the timeline went back to Liu Bei, Li Su, Liu Ba and others, and they were still attacking the local tyrants to promote reform in August.

On August 15, Yingpu County, Lingling County, Jingnan.

After the most heat of the sixth and seventh month of the lunar calendar, the hardest to bear, and the most poisonous and miasma of mosquitoes and miasma, Zhao Yun knew very well that the burden on his shoulders could no longer be delayed.

We must send troops immediately to take down the last counties in Chongling and Bao Long's hands, and to repel Zhang Jin, the governor of Jiaozhou who had already shown a trend of sending troops to reinforce Liu Du. Ensure that there was no unstable factor in the southern line of Jingzhou before the king transferred him away.

Originally, if it were just dealing with Liu Du and Bao Long, it would be fine if it took half a month to go, but with the harassment of Zhang Jin in Jiaozhou, the situation became complicated.

Because Liu Du obtained a huge strategic depth of mountainous areas, they operated in the local area for many years, and there were grain storage in every place. Insider combat did not have to consider transportation and supplies, and they could eat wherever they fled. In contrast, because the mountainous areas were easy to hide, the grain storage in settlements was also easy to hide and transfer.

The counties in the southern part of Lingling occupied by Liu Du are equivalent to the territory of Ningyuan and Jianghua counties in Yongzhou, Hunan in later generations, and Hezhou City in Guangxi. If you look closely at the map, you will find that the mountainous areas are still very large.

Because the boundary between Lingling County, Guiyang County and Jiaozhou is not the boundary between Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi in later generations. Lingling County is just the county seat Quanling is equivalent to Yongzhou, Hunan, but the area around Shi'an County in the southwest is equivalent to Guilin City in Guangxi, and the area around Linhe County is equivalent to Hezhou City in Guangxi.

Similarly, the area around Qujiang County in the southern part of Guiyang County is also equivalent to Shaoguan City, Guangdong. Therefore, if the entire territory is achieved, the total territory will penetrate into the area of ​​about three prefecture-level cities in Guangxi and Guangdong.

With such a large depth, if Liu Du is determined to strengthen the wall and clear the country, Zhao Yun will run away wherever he kills, and even the county town can give up and give up for the time being. In this way, once he falls into the jungle guerrilla war in tropical mountainous areas, it will be endless.

Zhao Yun was the side that took the initiative to attack. He had to carry military rations with him, otherwise he would starve to death when he went to the mountain jungle. The soldiers from Changsha, central Jingzhou, were not used to survival in the wild in tropical jungles, and were not good at finding enough fruits and beasts that were not poisonous and edible.

If burning, killing, looting and looting are due to food, this problem can be solved, but it does not conform to Liu Bei's consistent image. After being bound by morality, Zhao Yun felt a little uncomfortable.

On August 16, he led the Changsha soldiers who had undergone "summer vacation renovation" and tentatively entered the Jiuyi Mountains from Yingpu east. He steadily burned the forest to open the way, and everyone applied flower dew water, took snake medicine, and eliminated poison and avoided miasma.

After three days of marching, they finally divided their troops to arrive at Chongling and Lingdao counties at the same time on the 18th.

Because Zhao Yun came suddenly and even divided his troops, Liu Du was indeed not prepared - after all, Zhao Yun had been scattering smoke bombs that "because he went deep into the dense forests of the mountains during the summer heat, and was infected with poisonous insects and miasma, and he was seriously ill." And he was really in quit for more than two months, so Liu Du was also paralyzed.

When Zhao Yun's five thousand troops arrived, Liu Du asked Bao Long to lead the main force to guard Chongling County on the front. He himself brought only a small number of troops to guard Lingdao County on the second line, in order to have a buffer even if there was a sneak attack, or if the front line reported that Bao Long could no longer hold it, he would have a time difference to run away and run away.

There are more than 10,000 soldiers in Lingling County so far, and in terms of the number of soldiers, more than twice the number of troops than Zhao Yun. However, they have not been able to fight for a long time, and the generals are incompetent, and the soldiers are not familiar with military discipline, so they are so cowardly on the battlefield.

When Zhao Yun appeared, Liu Du was so scared that he asked his subordinates: "How many people did Zhao Yun come? How could he not take the right path of the valley and climb over from the dangerous place of Jiuyi Mountain? There should be not many soldiers, right?"

The Sima of the army beside him who was not worthy of leaving his name replied: "Zhao Yun's entire army is only 5,000, and the Duwei Bao can block most of it. There will be no more than 2,000 people who go around Lingdao! Master, are we fighting or defending?"

Liu Du was also a little angry when he heard this. He had a temper after being cowardly for a long time, especially when he heard that Zhao Yun had less than 2,000 people who had successfully crossed the mountains, he rarely gained courage.

In later generations, Deng Airao had more soldiers than him!

Liu Du said angrily: "Zhao Yun bullies people too much! Our army has repeatedly tolerated and avoided the war, but he doesn't want to increase casualties. He just hopes that the heat, poisonous and miasma will kill Zhao Yun! He is fine, really think we can't beat him, and he is as afraid as a tiger? Bao Duwei has nearly 10,000 troops in Chongling, and there are still 4,000 people around our mansion. In this way, he dares to bring two thousand people over the mountains and without food to cut between our mansion and Bao Duwei's mansion?

He thought this was surrounding and cutting off our army, so that our army could not take care of each other? I am afraid that he was ill and stupid! Could it be that our army had 14,000 surrounding his two thousand people! He was surrounded by a heavy siege himself!"

The Sima of the army was shocked when he heard the prefect scolding Zhao Yun so hard, and was confused for a moment: "What the Du Gong is saying... Is it not that Mo Zheng left the city to fight? Mo Zheng thought it would be better to defend the city..."

"Of course I can't go to the battle! I'll starve Zhao Yun for three or five days first, and wait until he finishes his food with him, and then let Wei Bao act according to the opportunity!" Liu Du immediately dispelled his subordinates' fear.

No matter how much you scold, no matter how much you are angry, no matter how much you are angry, you should avoid the battle after you are angry, and you must never fall into Zhao Yun's plan to lure the enemy.

Unfortunately, although Liu Du was afraid to escape the disaster.

Moreover, Zhao Yun came over the mountains and could not bring heavy siege equipment, and he did not have any materials to build it on the spot and could not directly attack Lingdao.

But Zhao Yunka's position still made Liu Du feel uncomfortable because he did not dare to lead the four thousand people to escape directly, for fear of being chased by Zhao Yun on the way.

Bao Long was also on the front line and wanted to defend the city for a long time, and he would not be able to leave the city to fight sooner or later. Otherwise, the prefect Liu Du was destroyed, and what would he do if he, a captain, continues to resist? He could not suppress the people's hearts in the counties in the southern part of Lingling. When the morale and the people's hearts collapsed, it would not be the end of the surrender of the entire army.

Zhao Yun used the same thing as "Mingpai tells you that I will take two thousand people around and cut off the important road between you two strongholds" in exchange for 14,000 enemy troops who had to fight him in a field.

During the days when Zhao Yun was waiting for him to eat all the food with him, Liu Du stayed in Lingdao County, praying every day that "the poisonous insects and mosquitoes in the jungle areas outside the city are more powerful, so that Zhao Yun can't afford to get sick again, and Zhao Yun's soldiers will have another plague."

Unfortunately, God did not hear Liu Du's prayer, but instead led more than 3,000 people to besiege Bao Long in Chongling County in the west, Li Yan, Wei Yan, Huo Jun and others, who had been besieged Bao Long, took out a long-lost catapult cart, preparing to give Bao Long a ruthless one.

After all, Li Yan came to Chongling from Yingpu County, a tributary of the Xiangjiang River, on the banks of the deep-shui River, and took the Shangu Road to Chongling (the main road is also relative, and it is also a mountain road), so he could transport the parts of the catapult cart.

The small mountain counties in the southernmost part of Lingling where the Shanyue people live in the city are not good at city defense. Chongling has at least one foot of earth mound with wooden stakes inserted on it. The worse-than-grand Xie Mu and Feng Cheng, the camp road is even worse. It can only be regarded as a county town built by "burying the wooden stake walls with mounds". It is no different from the garrison camps in the north.

So Bao Long immediately knew that he could not withstand the coverage of siege weapons. If the enemy made preparations for a long time and built fortifications in the siege, his city wall might not be as strong as the enemy's camp fortifications.

In this case, Liu Du asked for help several times to urge him to join forces and unplug Zhao Yun, who had cut off the two counties behind him, could only execute him.

I can only hope that more than 10,000 people will submerge Zhao Yun’s two thousand people.

Of course, Chongling County cannot give up completely.

First of all, the food was stored and the enemy could not be given to the enemy. Secondly, when Bao Long did not want to send troops to the east to help, he was immediately breached by Li Yan to the west and chased him. After all, there are still fifty or sixty miles of mountain roads from Chongling to Lingdao, and being hit on the tail halfway is not a joke.

So Bao Long left two thousand people to defend the city, and took eight thousand people to Zhao Yun, who was surrounded by Liu Du.

Before leaving, he ordered his subordinates to hold on for at least five days. If the time comes, Li Yan is indeed too urgent to attack the city and is broken and difficult to defend, so he can surrender. But before surrender, he must open a warehouse to distribute all the grains in the county's granary to soldiers and the people, and do not keep a grain of rice in the official warehouse to avoid investing in the enemy.

The Sima of the army heard that he was allowed to surrender after he had enough time and could divide the grain from the city warehouse, so of course he was willing to accept this dangerous task.

On August 22, Bao Long opened the east gate of Chongling, and the main force went out of the city to meet Zhao Yun east.

Because of his small force, Li Yan only besieged the west side of Chongling County. The other three sides were given up, so of course he could not pursue him. Not to mention Li Yan, Zhao Yun, including Zhao Yun, surrounded Lingdao himself, only one side, that is, the other three sides were given up.

Otherwise, Liu Du's messenger would not be so easy to contact Bao Long. This is clearly not afraid of the enemy's reinforcements, just waiting for you to reinforce each other.

Bao Long is a native of Lingling and a hunter. He is still very familiar with the main geographical profiles of the counties in the Jiuyi Mountains. Seeing Zhao Yun so arrogantly seeking field battles, he would of course be on guard during the march to prevent him from ambushing halfway by Zhao Yun.

He knew that the most dangerous place between Chongling County and Lingdao County was the mountain pass between Yunwuling and Niuzhaling. This place was about 30 miles east of Chongling County and more than 20 miles west of Lingdao County.

So when the march walked thirty miles in the middle of the night, when approaching Yunwu Ridge, Bao Long ordered the troops to slow down, eat some dry food first, and divide the troops to search the mountain pass, so as not to ambush in the dense forests on both sides.

However, he was too careful because Zhao Yun did not ambush at all. Bao Long's search team had just touched the mountain pass and was shot and killed by a bunch of arrows. Then a group of people turned out from the mountain pass valley road. The leader was the silver spear and white horse. He stood up on the road and blocked the way. It was Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun put the spear on the saddle button, and he was ready to hold a bow in his hand. The bowstring still swayed slightly. It was obvious that he had shot and killed several sentries of Bao Long just now.

"No more ambushing? Is this a battle with our army in Mingdao and Mingqin?" Bao Long narrowed his eyes, not sure.

Zhao Yun was already shouting loudly: "Bao Long! I have been waiting for you here for a long time. Listen, your lieutenant has fallen into our trap and is about to be defeated by our army! Liu Du in Lingdao County will not come to save you, and it is impossible for him to know that you are fighting with our army at this moment. When Liu Du knows, lieutenant Bao, I am afraid that your corpse will be completely cold."

Bao Long was also afraid of Zhao Yun's reputation and never wanted to fight Zhao Yun alone, but he couldn't stand being angry with such arrogance. What's more, he wanted to boost morale:

"Don't want to make a fool of yourself! This commander has never fallen into your trap! The so-called trap is to let eight thousand soldiers fight with you two thousand people in a field. Even if you fall into the trap, brothers, kill me! There are only two thousand enemies, and even if Zhao Yun is brave, he will definitely die under our sword today!"

Bao Long relied on repeated shouts to emphasize that Zhao Yun was a small number of people, and he barely relied on the mentality of "bullying the weak and afraid of the strong". The morale of the county soldiers was aroused. Everyone did not really want to fight, but just rushed towards Zhao Yunjun in a mess with the idea of ​​"standing on the side of the crowded people".

Zhao Yun sneered: I have always envied Zhang Fei in Langzhong and the Dangqu battle three years ago. He used the steep mountains to annihilate Zhang Lu's last remnants with a small number of troops. Today, he finally got such an opportunity to perform.

These officers of the Jingnan Army did not have any practical experience in major battles, and they did not know the basic truth that "fighting on mountain roads is expensive, but not the most important soldiers."

In such a narrow place, you can't invest in the first place and you can't expand it at the first time in such a narrow place. The advantage of the width of the front is gone by if there are too many people.

Moreover, Zhao Yun was stationed here in advance today to wait for labor. Bao Long rushed over for more than 30 miles of mountain pass. The troops were all marching on foot and consumed a lot of physical energy. You can see the results after a little drag.

The two armies quickly entered the range of the crossbows. Zhao Yunjun, who was waiting in line, immediately fired the crossbows at the same time, took turns to shoot arrows and reload. Because the archery frequency was fast, the archers were only divided into two groups of ejected shots. The crossbowmen were slow to load, so they were divided into three or four groups, and the order was orderly.

Zhao Yun dared to bring two thousand people to the mountain and cross the mountain. Of course, the quality of these soldiers was the best. Among them, the sergeant commander and the grassroots non-commissioned officers were all veterans of Danyang soldiers recruited by Guan Yu from Jiujiang and Guangling. After five years of conquest, they all survived with Liu Bei's army.

Even ordinary soldiers were later Banyan or local Wuling soldiers in Jingzhou. They had very good mountain warfare skills and were much better than those of other warlords. At least they were caltrop bones or battle axes made of fine iron, and they were also equipped with large leather armor shields, so the amount of plastered bows and crossbows was sufficient.

Among them, the Banyan barbarian soldiers were recruited by Liu Bei to join the army when Zhang Lu was killed, and had more than three years of professional experience in joining the army. The Wuling Man was the one who recruited the army after Guan Yu pacified Yiling. After Wuling, he immediately recruited the army and served as soldiers for at least two years.

Bao Long's charge troops were blocked at the pass with Niuzha Ridge on the left and Yunwu Ridge on the right. After several rounds of arrows, they were shot into blood and flowed down the valley. They were all determined to see the small size of the troops behind Zhao Yun, and they were forced to break down.

Unfortunately, even after rushing to Zhao Yun, Zhao Yun retreated a little and continued to shoot. He used axe and shield soldiers to hammer the shield soldiers in the front row, and the line still remained motionless.

Zhao Yun himself rushed back and forth along the mountain pass, and the soldiers of the Yue tribe of Lingling who used swords and shields to short-soldiers were unable to get close to him.

The power of these long-range weapons of the Shanyue barbarians is not good. Like the Nanzhong barbarians and Wuling barbarians, they also rely on poisoning to improve the lethality of long-range weapons, because the local soft bow made of bamboo and ropes is not good at all, and they can only be "not enough physical damage to the magic damage."

But the problem is that Zhao Yun has the most exquisite Mingguang Armor, even wearing gloves and ghost faces. The poison-tempered arrows do not break the armor and even cannot even pierce their skin. What's the use? You can't expect the archer to shoot Zhao Yun's eyes, right? Even with such an archer, it would be easy to shoot the arrows that shoot him with Zhao Yun's martial arts.

After Zhao Yun strolled around in the courtyard to harvest more than a dozen rows of melee soldiers in the front row, the morale of the Lingling County soldiers finally shook. Zhao Yun seized the opportunity and summoned the spear, asking the crossbowmen to give in and put the subsequent Wuling barbarians into the counter-charge.

Several mountain soldiers formed by local heroes and barbarians from Wuling flocked along the hillsides on both sides and rushed forward, walking along the dense forests of the hillsides as if walking on flat ground, cutting Bao Long's front army into several sections, just like the battle between Zhang Fei and Zhang He in Langzhong in history.

"How come these Wuling barbarians are so well equipped? Did Zhao Yun allocate such good weapons to the barbarians? Isn't that only the elite Han soldiers can use it?" Bao Long narrowed his eyes and realized the danger.

Just when he was distracted, the front army was in chaos. Zhao Yun killed several layers of cover and approached more than ten feet in front of Bao Long. Bao Long was so scared that he abandoned his horse and ran to the dense forest of Yunwu Ridge on the right, hoping that the hillside and woods would block Zhao Yun who was riding a horse and chasing him.

Hunters can survive as long as they enter the forest!

When Zhao Yun reached Bao Long's position just now, Bao Long had already abandoned his army and entered the mountain far. Zhao Yun shot two arrows in a row, but was blocked by the branches and leaves of the trees. It was even harder than sniping people through the crown in a chicken.

Many Banyan and Wuling barbarian soldiers were unwilling to let the enemy go, and they chased Bao Long and others to kill him. However, because they got rid of Zhao Yun's pursuit, Bao Long still stood up very hard and led his personal soldiers to fight to the death. He killed dozens of Banyan and Wuling barbarians in succession, half of which were killed by Bao Long himself, including a Qujunhou of the Han army and two garrison commanders. It can be seen that this hunter captain who "shoots two tigers and kills giant pythons" has good martial arts skills in the mountains and forests.

But more than a dozen of Bao Long's personal soldiers died, and soon there were only a few left, so he had to continue running.

"Bao Long's dog thief is here to take his life! Do you want to run away if you kill my tribe?" A young barbarian general who looked at most fifteen or sixteen years old behind him was holding a handful of terrestrial bones made of steel, and a steel hand axe in the other hand. He was wearing double leather armor of a rhinoceros, without holding a shield, and biting Bao Long to chase after him.

"Why don't you care about your life?" Bao Long had already accumulated a lot of anger. It would be fine if Zhao Yun chased him and abandoned his army and horses over the mountains, but he was even chased by a Wuling barbarian boy? Do we want face to be a lieutenant?

So he stopped running away and turned around to kill the barbarian to establish his authority, scaring the people he wanted to pursue later, and asking them to consider whether to cherish their lives.
To be continued...