In the early morning of the second day of March, Liu Bei, who was very concerned about the battlefield situation on the northern front, confirmed that Li Jue and Guo Si's main forces had moved north and would no longer have the energy to break through the direction of Chen Cangwei Valley, he personally took the personal guards and cavalry, Li Su and other staff members to go north and rushed north along the Lishui River to Wei County to understand the situation and supervise the battle. He rode his horse for more than half a day and arrived in the afternoon.

He left Yan Yan and Zhong Yao to be responsible for the defense of the Chencang area, and the troops in the rear were sufficient to deal with emergencies.

As a result, when he arrived at the front line, Liu Bei found that Guan Yu, who had already assembled Qi troops in the early morning and began to attack Li Jue, was still staying in the Longshan Valley, which was fifty miles northwest of Feng County and seventy miles away from Jieting. He couldn't help but worry.

In a nutshell, it was not easy to meet with Zhang Ren. Li Jue used all his strength to stop him and attacked the northwest and defended the gate in the southeast direction.

Liu Bei couldn't help but ask: "Why is our army still staying in Fengxian County? Didn't Chief Yun arrive in the morning and start an attack? Why haven't he broken through Li Jue and advanced to Jieting? If it delays, Zhang Ren will be annihilated, and Li Jue and Guo Si will successfully meet, but what should we do? Now Guo Si should have arrived at Jieting and attacked Zhang Ren from behind, right?"

It seems that Li Jue's troops are not stupid either. When they are desperate, they have also exploded with amazing combat power and their potential has been fully tapped.

Guan Yu also had to explain: "The terrain is indeed quite dangerous here. Our army had occupied Fengxian County before. When Li Jue went from Huating to Jieting, he had no time to seize Fengxian County, which was already a lucky thing for our army. Otherwise, there would be a county town blocking on the Fengxi River, and it would take at least three or five days to break through, and it would be even worse.

But our army was not familiar with the terrain of Longshan, and it was not as good as the Xiliang army that we knew that we could defend dangerous places everywhere. Moreover, the roads in Longshan were narrow, and there were too many places suitable for building passes and checkpoints. If our army attacked for a strong force, it would not be impossible to capture it, but casualties would be tragic.

Li Jue also has 70,000 to 80,000 people. If we want to fight for a bloody path, there will definitely be more casualties than Zhang Ren, Jieting. Our army is also elite soldiers who have been trained for several years. It is a pity to consume this in the battle, so it takes time to build equipment."

While saying that, Guan Yu also pointed at Liu Bei and Li Su on the map. It turned out that the source part of the Weishui River Valley above Weishui County is indeed difficult to walk. After all, there is such a river valley between the east and west branches of Longshan. If Li Jie's army wants to delay Liu Bei's army, it is indeed possible to set up defenses everywhere.

For example, in the early Western Han Dynasty, a place called "Longguan" was actually set up in a place called "Longguan" 50 miles northwest of Lixian County, which cut off the source of Lixian water, but no earth and stone walls were built. This place is equivalent to Guguan Town, Longxian on Baidu map in later generations (Longxian is Fengxian County of the Han Dynasty)

In addition to Longguan, there are one or two disgusting places behind, which are narrow places in the mountains and valleys. After Li Jue's troops seized it, they could delay the walls by urgently ramming the earth and building them.

After all, this matter was the main force of Liu Bei's army in the previous stage, which would have to pay a price. The North Line's maneuver was definitely not as good as Li Jue's first. Moreover, it would be good if Liu Bei's army could protect Wen County when Li Jue was circling Jieting, and it would be impossible for him to set up defenses and disperse troops everywhere on the entire Longshan Valley Road, which would only lead to being defeated in vain.

Guan Yu was marching to reinforce, and he could not bring siege weapons like catapults. Even simple siege hammers had to take time to build them.

However, Liu Bei obviously did not settle the score like this. Liu Bei, who is only 35 years old now, has probably not been compared with that in history more than 20 years later. However, his old habit of "people-oriented" was already rooted in his youth.

Faced with the difficulties mentioned by Guan Yu, the first thing that Liu Bei thought of was "not to do anything to abandon his teammates directly. If he completely gave up his own troops and did not go to rescue, would it affect the morale of the entire army and the reputation of the camp?"

Speaking human language is a bit similar to the humanistic care of "Save Soldier Ryan". I also want to give up the unity of the camp and hope to establish a character of "not giving up on comrades".

So he did not blame Guan Yu for seeing other places:

"Chief Yun, this account cannot be calculated like this. If there is difficulty in rescuing Jieting quickly, I will not let you attack. But we cannot judge whether to save it by "there are three or four thousand remaining soldiers left there, and we may suffer more casualties if we want to rescue them." It must be a global consideration.

Moreover, Li Jue is also taking advantage of the fact that Li Jue and Guo Si have not met yet. If they meet, it will be more difficult to fight than now. It will be worse than the casualties."

Guan Yu also realized that he had said the wrong thing just now, and quickly expressed his opinion: "Brother, I don't mean this, this is not a moment of indifference..."

After listening to the argument between Liu Bei and Guan Yu, Li Su was inspired by it. He also studied the map and the situation again. He found that it might not be possible to adapt to the situation. So after Guan Yu finished speaking, he also helped persuade him:

"King, our army initially planned to defeat Li Jue and Guo Si, but the significance of the battle to this point is not great. No matter where the Longshan battlefield is, the terrain is narrow and long, easy to defend and difficult to attack, so whoever attacks will suffer a great loss.

Even if we only face half of the enemies, as long as we are forced to take the initiative to attack, the additional losses we will suffer may be able to offset the enemy's strength increase after the enemy's doubled.

On the other hand, I insisted on suggesting that the kings defeat each one at first, and hoped to use the Weishui Valley and Chen Cangcheng, which Yan Yan defended, as the main barrier between Li Ju and Guo Si. Jieting is only secondary. At that time, I only thought that Guo Si would attack Jieting from the west side, but I didn't expect that Jieting would be attacked by east and west.

The dangers of Jieting are obviously not as dangerous as Chen Cang and Longshan Weigu, and are not enough to withstand the attacks between the east and the west, and it is normal to eventually lose them. At this point in the war, it is not unacceptable to abandon Jieting with conditions and withdraw Zhang Ren's troops.

If Zhang Ren can escape unscathed, causing major damage to the enemy and destroying his spirit, it will be considered a phased goal. We can also design a better correction plan to eliminate Li Jue and Guo Si."

Liu Bei didn't think so far. He was still at the level of not betraying his comrades. He was very interested after hearing this. He didn't recommend listening to it at the same time, so he signaled Li Su to say in detail.

Li Su pointed to the map: "The reason why I didn't expect Li Jue to pick up Guo Si hundreds of miles north of the north was because of the relatively barren territory of Anding County, the people were poor, and the granaries of the government were not sufficient. The military rations that Linjing, Jingyang and other counties could support were not enough for more than 100,000 troops to eat for how long.

If Li Jue and Guo Si meet, if they only delay in Anding County for more than half a month, they will inevitably need to transport grain from Jingzhao area along the Jing River to reinforcements. Moreover, after arriving in Jingyang, they will have to transport more than a hundred miles by land to Huating, and then transport dozens of miles from Huating to Longguan and Jieting. In this way, the food transport will be extremely depleted and will not be enough to support its long-term battle.

In contrast, if our army eventually gave up Jieting, it would be Longguan if it would retreat seventy miles, and then it would be the Fengxian County where we are now. This is along the Wei River tributary of the Wei River, and it would be extremely convenient to transport grain by water, which would be almost the same as transporting it to Chencang.

Even if Li Jue and Guo Si meet, their food will not last as long as ours, so there will only be three choices. The stupidest thing is to stalemate us due to the loss, but in a month, the food will collapse.

The second is to be forced to fight and decide quickly with us, but then they will have to bear the disadvantage of taking the initiative - as mentioned earlier, in this Longshan Jiagu, whoever attacks will be unfavorable. Even if they combine 170,000 troops and attack 80,000 of us, the losses they cause to us may not be greater than that of our current attack of 80,000 Li Jue and 90,000 people.

The last thing is that when the enemy found that they were transporting grain by land, they could not bear it anymore, so they were preparing to retreat to Huating one after another to stalemate with us. At this time, we did not have to rush to Huating. We could continue to stay in Fengxian County and confront them fifty miles apart to ensure that the one-mile mountain grain transport food is not to bear, so they could not consume us.

Then they had to step back from Huating, retreating nearly a hundred miles, and retreat to the edge of Jinghe River to ensure that they could get food directly by water and ships, so that they could continue to fight. And in the process of retreating to Huating and then to Jingyang, there were 170,000 troops and 180,000 infantry and cavalry in the past two hundred miles, and they had to retreat neatly so that they could not reveal any flaws?

As long as there is a flaw, and after passing Huating, there is a flaw on the relatively open Jinghe Plateau, we have Zilong and Ma Chao's cavalry intercepted the roundabout way, taking the opportunity to bite off a few pieces and let Yun Chang rush to chase him. The losses caused to the enemy may not be less than that of forcing each one to break."

After hearing this, Liu Bei couldn't help but lit up his eyes. He suddenly felt that with the obvious changes in objective conditions, he did not have to insist on the iron dogma of "concentrating superior forces to defeat each one", so he could adapt to it a little flexibly.

But what Li Su said was incredible. In order to listen to both sides, Liu Bei asked Xun You next to him: "What do Gongda think?"

Xun You thought for a while and said, "Although what the Right General said has never been heard, it makes sense after careful calculations. And I heard that Li Jue was trying to force the men to strengthen his men this time, so the morale of the soldiers must be depressed. Who is the young and strong farmer who has just joined the army for several days, really worked for the dog thief thug?

Now they are blocked in Longshan Mountains and have no place to escape. They also feel that they have a lot of people and power, so they still have the will to fight to the death and can be supervised. If they really follow the right general's stalemate strategy of consuming grains and retreat to the Jinghe Plateau when they are out of food, they may have to fight for a moment and countless deserters will be left on the open ground.

However, there is still a difficulty in implementing the right general's law, which is how to protect the remnants of Zhang Ren. The king is a kind person, so he must not be able to "sit down and watch the robe be destroyed" and it happened like this nearby destruction dozens of miles away.

Unfortunately, the Banyan Man in our army was led by General Zhang and stayed on the battlefield in Mei County. You can count on the old soldiers or the vanguard of Kunming Heiyi soldiers, walk the mountain roads and provide some support and encourage Zhang Ren? I am not very familiar with Longshan geography, but just think about it casually, and it may not be feasible."

Liu Bei was also quite constructive when he heard Xun You's words, so he told Guan Yu not to be impatient, and to reduce casualties as the key, rescue Jieting at the established rhythm, and not to rush to attack Longguan before the siege weapons were built.

On the other hand, Liu Bei and Li Su and Xun You continued to discuss, and found the commander of the Sou Bing, the commander of the Yueli Army, E Shun, and asked him to act as a front-line commander to see if there was any way to command the Sou Bing to overturn the mountains to reinforce Zhang Ren.

But when Liu Bei and Li Su and the others discussed it late at night, a scout from a friendly army came from the front line. It was the mountain barbarians in Zhang Ren's army who brought a blood letter from Zhang Ren.

Zhang Ren said in his letter that he could not hold on anymore. He was attacked by Li Jue and Guo Si for a whole day today, hoping to allow him to adjust the deployment plan according to his own ideas, otherwise he would be defeated one day tomorrow and his five thousand men would be wiped out.

After seeing it, Liu Bei and Li Suxun You actually felt that they could be approved.

...

At the same time, it was already night at Jieting Pass, but the bloody battles were not relaxed at all. There were corpses everywhere on the position, and blood was drifting. Zhang Ren himself was injured by two arrows. Fortunately, the black armor on his body was of good quality and was not deep, so he insisted on commanding and defending.

There were two arrows that shot through the black armor. Others that were not pierced at all or caused only a little skin trauma after being shot through. Then there was no counting. There were more than a dozen arrows inserted into the armor. Zhang Ren was too lazy to pull out the arrow shaft, so he continued to patrol defense.

Li Jue's army seemed to have learned his lesson today and began to use a simple old-fashioned catapult that was swung by several manpower. The structure was similar to that of some catapults in the Warring States Period, not counterweight. In terms of throwing weight and range, it was at least half the difference between Liu Bei's army.

However, the ammunition used by Li Jue was also optimized like Liu Bei's army, from a single-headed bullet in the Warring States Period and the Qin Dynasty to many small stones and grape bullets that weigh half a pound and weigh one pound today.

The reason why this weapon was used to attack the camp was that on the one hand, it was discovered that among Zhang Ren's guards, there was an iron-armored soldier in a battalion, which was difficult to shoot with a crossbow, so the effect of hitting with a blunt stone weapon would be better.

On the other hand, it was also because it was discovered that Zhang Ren's Zhuge crossbow had a strong effect in close-range defense, and the crossbow structure was huge, which was equivalent to having a wooden shield. It was not easy to use crossbow arrows to kill and injure the crossbow, or it was useless to kill and injure the crossbow. As long as the Han army changed a crossbow to the top, the crossbow could continue to show its power.

So Li Jue used a stone-capping attack at Li Ru's suggestion, because the crossbow arrow could not destroy the Zhuge crossbow, and a small stone weighing a pound could indeed destroy the crossbow machine, making the weapon unable to be repaired.

Li Jue had just built these simple stone-towers this afternoon, and then he focused on the arrow tower where Zhuge crossbows were deployed. More than a dozen pieces had been smashed in an hour and a half. Zhang Ren's Zhuge crossbow stock was reduced from fifty pieces to more than thirty pieces.

This is also an important reason why Zhang Ren felt that his troops would definitely not be able to survive the next day. If most of the remaining Zhuge crossbows were smashed tomorrow morning, how could he defend the 170,000 and 80,000 troops from the front and back with the remaining two or three thousand men?

That's right, only two or three thousand of his 5,000 people are left with combat effectiveness, and there are still hundreds of seriously injured people who are breathing, but they are definitely unable to contribute to the war.

However, in order to cause the casualties of these two thousand people, Li Jue paid more than 10,000 people. Who made Li Jue attack the camp and fortifications? The exchange was definitely much worse than that. From this perspective, if Guan Yu wanted to save Zhang Ren and attack Longguan, although he would not have to pay five times the casualties to defeat the defenders, there would definitely be more casualties than the defense.

From the perspective of casualties, Zhang Ren felt that his task was done well. Even if Li Jue and Guo Si finally completed the meeting, it would be impossible for him to do it without a total of 20,000 people.

Of course, the quality of these 20,000 people may not be good, because more than half of them are innocent men who were temporarily recruited, which is also quite sad. They are cannon fodders that destroy the fortifications. If it weren't for the knife that Li Jue and Guo Si were forced to the team, these men might not have dared to attack.

Li Jue and Guo Si's direct troops knew whether they met or not was related to the fate of the entire army. They were so crazy that they dared to fight. Otherwise, if they had not been so urgent, they would have given up if they could not conquer them.

"Sima, we may not be able to defend the next wave. The remaining soldiers in the camp have been seriously overdrawn. After a while, they have lost their strength to fight in iron armor. Why haven't the king's reinforcements come yet?"

After panting and repelling another wave of night attacks, Zhang Ren's subordinates gathered together and already doubted his life.

Zhang Renyi thought that the letter he sent to the mountain barbarian scouts in the evening had not yet responded, and he didn't know if the messenger had been intercepted. Looking at the tragic situation of the brothers in front of him, he jumped and struggled for a long time, and said:

"Forget it, I'm responsible for disobeying military orders! Anyway, we didn't make a military order. Even if we were ordered to defend this place, the enemy came far beyond expectations. We can't blame us if we can't defend it! Everyone packed up and prepared to go up the mountain!"

Zhang Ren made a decision to preserve his strength - to move out of the way, and the entire army stood firm on the Nanshan Deputy Battalion on the south side of Jieting Road!

That’s right, it’s the Nanshan Mountain where Ma Su stationed his troops on the top of the mountain in history, and resisted danger and "being arrogant and unstoppable"!

However, Zhang Ren was in the Shoujiange and other places and had many years of practical experience in fortress defense combat. So the advantage he had over Ma Su was that from the first day he came, he attached great importance to logistics support and the sustainability of defensive materials.

So on the first day of establishing a deputy camp on the Nanshan Mountain, although he only left a few hundred soldiers on the mountain, he immediately discovered that this was a dead mountain without water. He strictly urged the soldiers to build fortifications, dug up floating soil and vegetation, found a location with exposed stones and fine sand, built a reservoir, and rushed up the mountain from the water source at the foot of the mountain. He also cut down trees and accumulated firewood to create a fire isolation belt...

Because Zhang Ren farmed and built fortifications in Jieting fortifications for 20 days before being attacked, so the security facilities were very sufficient. He would not encounter a funny thing like Ma Su who died of thirst after being cut off from the water source for two or three days.

Not only are there a reservoir, wooden barrels and other containers that can be used in the camp, they must also be filled with water, and they also manage how much each person uses every day in a planned manner, so they cannot be wasted.

At this moment, when I heard that Zhang Ren was willing to go up the mountain, several Qu Junhou breathed a sigh of relief:

It’s good to go up the mountain. After going up the mountain, Li Jue’s temporary simple stone casting tools were scrapped. The range of these counterfeit goods, once they encounter a relatively high height gap, they want to hit the top of the mountain from the mountainside, but they can’t even hit it.

Secondly, from the heart, the degree of defense on Nanshan is indeed better than camping at the road at the intersection.

And the last and most important point is that Li Jue and Guo Si attacked so fiercely this time, isn’t it for the purpose of meeting? Once Zhang Ren gave up the intersection, Guo Si’s entire army could pass. Who would have to fight to the death with an enemy army guarding on the top of a mountain? Wouldn’t it be better to just go around it?

However, there was also a Qu Junhou who was more responsible, who was responsible for the camp where Zhang Ren was. He thought for a while and asked worriedly: "But the king's military order was to prevent Li Jue and Guo Si from joining the army. We gave up the camping camp, but did it mean that Li Jue and Guo Si's goal of joining the army was achieved? Will you be questioned when you go back?"

Zhang Ren said angrily: "I just said it first, and there are military orders to punish me. Since that's the case, you will implement it now. What's the point of counting these worrying things?

I have seen that even if the whole army dies here, we will not be able to stop the sunset tomorrow. Isn’t it just for nothing? It’s better to take advantage of the darkness and move up the mountain quickly. If it’s dawn tomorrow, I can’t even leave!”

Several other Qu Junhou quickly agreed, saying that it was the military Sima who was righteous and did not take credit for his mistakes: "That's right, Wu Qu general, don't question Shangguan, just let Sima Zhang execute the order!"

Zhang Ren's troops quickly took advantage of the darkest midnight and the weakest harassment offensive, and began to go up the mountain in batches, first transferring the food and seriously injured people in the lower Daokou camp, then dismantling and transporting some of the crossbows, and finally the trap camp and a small number of mountain soldiers broke the rear.

Fortunately, Li Jue and Guo Si's troops had bad vision at night. In order to prevent themselves from trampling on each other, they dared not attack on a large scale. That offensive was just to prevent Zhang Ren from sleeping and his morale collapsed, so they gave Zhang Ren the opportunity to go up the mountain.

However, in the end, with too few people in the camp, there were still two or three hundred people in the last wave. There were also a group of wounded soldiers who were seriously injured and unable to quickly transfer. They were also killed by the brutal Guo Sijun after a tentative breakthrough, and all of them were killed to vent their anger.

After taking down the Daokou Camp, Guo Si's troops seemed very excited, and felt that venting their anger was not enough. They suddenly felt that they were OK again. The dragon spirit and tiger suddenly continued to attack the Nanshan deputy camp with one go.

But the Nanshan Deputy Camp was indeed much more dangerous than the main camp of Daokou. Zhang Ren led more than 2,000 people to guard the mountain, and soon taught Guo Sijun who had temporarily become full of confidence to be a human being.

Guo Sijun was not only shot by Zhuge's crossfire crossfire, which had been reset to set up his position, but was also hit by the rolling wooden stones that had never appeared in the flat-ground offensive and defense battle. He was bleeding and left more than a thousand corpses in the dark, and gave up his plan to attack the mountain with the flow.

After Guo Si received the reward, he was furious for a moment, but was persuaded by Jia Xu, who was with him: "Don't be angry! We attacked Jieting just to meet with Li Cheqi. Now the intersection is opened and we just meet directly. Why waste our lives and fight to the death with the guards?

I have looked at it carefully day and day. This mountain is a dead land. There is no water source on the mountain. It surrounds the woodcutter and picks water to cut off the way to draw water. It will make it thirsty in a few days. At that time, long crossbows are set up at the foot of the mountain. When they are too thirsty, they will rush down to break into the encirclement and seek death, they will shoot them one by one. Wouldn't that be nice?"
To be continued...