"Cao Army is here! Cao Army is here! We're finished! We're finished!"
The panic-like screams swept across the Yuncheng Basin in Hedong.
A lot of refugees, like panic beasts, began to escape instinctively.
These refugees, mixed with the elderly and weak, fled in a hurry, and there was no question of command and constraint. When they heard the wind and rain, some people were frightened or disturbed. Even if some people wanted to maintain order in it, they still could not stop these refugees and calm their minds.
Among the chaotic crowd, some docks were like small stones in the water.
It blocked some water, but was also shaking by the water.
This is a small dock.
The trench in the fort is not wide and deep, and the fort walls are not much higher. In the face of the crowd, it becomes smaller and smaller.
On the wall of the dock, the heads were shaking, and the pale-faced dock owner was as panicked as the servants.
The gate of the dock is closed and guarded strictly.
At the beginning, we tried to send some people to drive away the refugees near the fort, but more and more refugees came later, and people inside the fort dared not come out again.
There has been a long time since Hedong and there has not been so many refugees.
These people in Hedong seem to have forgotten what happened to the last large-scale refugee, and everything in front of them rolled up those painful memories in their minds again.
On the fort wall of the fort, everyone was staring blankly at the crowd in front of them.
In the place where you can see, groups of refugees seemed to gather together without teams, crowded and pushed.
The young, strong, old and weak are mixed, and there are also some women, girls and children, and everyone is worried.
Hunger is like yin fire. A gust of wind comes at any time, and perhaps as long as there is a little spark, it will turn into a mob at any time.
If the population of Hedong was originally not as good as Heluo, nor the area around Yuzhou and Jizhou. However, with the decline of Heluo, many people in other places gradually moved to relatively calm areas. Especially during the rise of Feiqian, the local gentry in Hedong also ate a large number of refugees, which brought the total population of Hedong to a higher level.
When Cao's army entered Hedong, because they were expecting the Hedong gentry to launch a back stab against Fei Qian at the beginning, they did not act very well towards the Hedong gentry, and their attitude was relatively gentle. However, with the increase in the pressure of Cao's army and the sway of Hedong gentry, Cao Cao finally lost his patience and revealed his minions.
It can be said that Cao Cao had experienced a relatively complete Yellow Turban Rebellion, so he knew that once these people were stirred up, it would be overwhelming. Men, women, young and old would become pure beasts of food and drink when the order of production and life was destroyed by war. In order to have a bite of food, these originally seemingly weak people will engulf more and more people into this huge vortex of hunger and thirst!
This became his first move to defeat Fei Qian...
Tactical, Cao Cao was right, but strategically, he had already lost.
The owner of the fort was wearing a piece of armor that was not very fit, his legs were trembling, looking at everything in front of him, and he showed a little despair. After standing for a long time, he finally couldn't help but shout, "Hurry! Send someone to ask for help again! Go to Anyi! Go to Pingyang! Go... Go! If this continues like this, we... can't stop it! This damn Cao army, damn... Why haven't the cavalry come yet? Why haven't the cavalry come yet! This damn world, damn! One is the cavalry and the other is the prime minister, what about us?! What are we? Do they still regard us as the people of the Han Dynasty?!"
The owner of the fort was screaming above the fort, but the voices filled with despair could not cause much storm in the refugee tide.
The Cao army vanguard who kept driving these people to the north was not necessarily so happy after these refugees.
The people responsible for this work were Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi, the generals in Cao's army.
Beside Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi, they were their own private soldiers.
Among the Cao army, for generals of the middle and low grades of different surnames like Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi, they would also have their own guards, but the number and quality of the people were much lower than the other Cao Xiahou troops. Of course, even so, they would be much better than ordinary Cao army soldiers, at least they were well equipped and had relatively good armor.
Among the Cao army, such situations are very common, with one level pressing another.
The advantage is that the soldiers of Cao's army know the benefits of promotion and can have strong goals. The disadvantage is that the area at the upper part of the pyramid is always small, and the transparent ceiling of ordinary foreign surnames always limits the channels for promotion.
Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi's escorts generally act as supervisors, just like these guards have cut down many ordinary soldiers who are unwilling to obey orders, malicious mobs, and piled up these heads together, bloody as a warning to other Cao's soldiers.
Many of the soldiers of Cao's army also joined the army during the war and struggled to survive.
When seeking to survive among the chaotic people, they inevitably experienced various tragic situations. After experiencing these tragic situations, not everyone was numb and became ruthless from then on. Therefore, after the order to expel and rob the people of Hedong was issued, some soldiers of the Cao army were reluctant to do this, or they agreed on it openly, but their hands were loose.
But what Cao Cao needed was "panic". If Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi did not do it, then they would be themselves.
When I got to the back, I became numb.
The evil in human nature gradually emerges.
Kill, robbery.
It is not easy to establish an order, but to destroy it, you only need to push it gently...
Liu Zhu stood on the hill, looking at the black smoke rising in the distance, the various traces left by the fleeing people in the wilderness, dead bodies, scattered items, and then looking at the gray weather, sighed.
Hu Zhi was on the side, no longer had the excitement and pleasure of being the first to be the governor. He looked around with some anxiety, and then asked his guard in a low voice, "Did the one behind... follow?"
The guard shook his head silently.
Hu Zhi found it difficult to understand why Cao Cao issued such an order, and he did not know what Cao Cao's purpose was, but he was not qualified to question Cao Cao, so he could only act obediently. For him, he also understood the dangers of his current position.
They are bait.
But they didn't know whether it would be a small fish, shrimp or a deep-sea shark.
Hu Zhi also sighed.
As generals, Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi couldn't say anything, but the guards behind them knew more or less some of the situation. Now they were just whispering in groups of three or three, muttering.
"Where are the Central Guards of the Central Leadership? What about the Xiahou of the Cao family? We were killed in front of us, why didn't they come up? Now we have to open our eyes when we sleep, otherwise we wouldn't know if anyone would stab to death in the middle of the night! This matter is short of life!"
"Shut up your beak! We just obey our orders! Don't come to us if you have any grudges!"
"If you don't look for us, who else can you find? Those Hedong barbarians are just north..."
"It's really annoying to shut up when you say it!"
There is nothing to do when struggling in troubled times, but now it is clear that it is time to cause chaos again, and not everyone is willing to accept it.
"We are just Yiqiu Ba! We can't care so much! You and I just act according to our fate, there is no need to think too much, nor do we have to think too much!"
There are people who doubt and think, and of course there are people who are unwilling to doubt and think.
"If you attract the troops of the cavalry team, what will you do?! Could it be that you and I will fight to the death here without any support or risk? What's the use of the chariot formation? They have the Five Elements Thunder!"
"What, are you afraid of death?"
"Haha, are afraid of death? Look at it yourself. How many people have died along the way? We are not afraid of death, but we are afraid of death in vain!"
"Prime Minister... The Prime Minister will not ignore us..."
"Ha, who knows?"
『…』
The voice of the soldiers and guards' discussion also reached Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi's ears.
If it were before, Liu Zhu and Hu Zhi would have been able to make a sound to stop these messy sounds, but for some reason, the actions that neither of them had stopped were as if they had not heard.
『I remember... The Prime Minister had a song before, "The armor was full of lice, and thousands of people died. The bones were exposed in the wild, and there was no rooster crowing for thousands of miles." Liu Zhu sighed quietly, "Now it seems that this is true..."
Upon hearing this, Hu Zhi suddenly turned his head and stared at Liu Zhu, staring at him with wide eyes, his lips slightly moved, but he didn't say anything.
Liu Zhu seemed to have not noticed Hu Zhi's expression at all, and he still said slowly: "In the past, when Dong thief was in trouble, the world was in chaos, and the heroes rose up. Yuan Shao looked at the four states and was invincible. The prime minister planned and fought in the north and south, supported the Han Dynasty, and welcomed the emperor to Xu. He admired him very much, so he dispersed all his family's wealth and recruited bravery to join him."
Hu Zhi took a breath and squirmed his lips, "You...
Liu Zhu smiled and looked up at the gray sky, "The world is... the world is... haha, haha..."
Hu Zhi had no choice but to respond, he just looked back and looked back.
The originally bright red-black and black-texted Han flag seemed to have dimmed.
...
...
To the north of the Yuncheng Basin, above Emei Ridge, a team of strong men were watching the changes in the Yuncheng Basin in the wind.
This team of strong horses were all dressed in elite cavalry outfits, with red robes and dark armor, like the fusion of iron and blood, and the collision of fire and thunder.
The flags are waving, and the three-color battle flags are flying high in the wind.
The war horses were neatly arranged on the earthen plateau, as if they could rush down at any time, trampling everything that stood in front of them under the horse's hooves.
A general was the first to look at the south on the horse's back.
This person has a tall figure, long hands and feet, holding a long spear, the cold light shines in the tip of the spear, and the red tassels sway in the wind, like the blooming flower on the other side.
This general is Zhang Xiu.
Behind Zhang Xiu, there is Xun Chen.
Zhang Xiu's current elite cavalry under his command is now the main defense location, which is on this Emei Ridge, which is isolated from the Pingyang Linfen Basin and Yuncheng Basin.
If there are unaware of Cao's scouts who want to cross Emei Ridge, they will often be discovered by condescending scouts from Zhang Xiu's side. Therefore, over time, there are gradually no Cao's scouts who dare to peek near this area.
But the situation has changed a little now.
Now the people who are gradually approaching Emei Ridge are not the scouts of Cao's army, but the increasing number of refugees in Yuncheng, Hedong.
As Cao's army was doing something wrong in the Yuncheng Basin, a large number of refugees gradually surged towards the Emei Ridge area...
Zhang Xiu did not expect his temporary "woman's kindness", which made Cao Cao even more and more aggressive.
In fact, the key reason is that it is really difficult to fight Cao Cao's land under Zhang Xiu's feet.
This is Emei Ridge, a huge narrow and long earth plateau.
Located in the east of the Great River Valley, west of Taiyue Mountain, south of the Linfen Valley, and north of the Yuncheng Basin. It is long from east to west and narrow from north to south, just like a giant loess brick that nature accidentally fell from Hedong.
On the south side of the Yuncheng Basin is relatively low, it is called the slope, while on the Emei Ridge, it is called the slope. The entire Emei Ridge has a flat surface, boundless, facing water on three sides and facing south.
It is precisely because of the erosion of this flowing water that steep loess cliffs and winding loess gullies are formed around the platform. The edges of the platform are mostly broken loess landforms with ravines.
If you look at Emei Ridge from the south direction of the Yuncheng Basin, this Emei Ridge is like a huge loess castle that suddenly rises from the plain. Its loess cliff runs across the east and west, stretching for nearly two hundred miles, comparable to the cliffs that isolate the frozen soil in the song of ice and fire.
On the west side of Emei Ridge, near the river, is the famous Longmen Ferry.
Of course, there are also some small ferry crossings, such as Fenyin Ferry.
In Emei Ridge, near the north, there are two high mountains, Gushan and Jiwang Mountain. The two mountains are not far apart, just like two eyes on a platform. The Fen River north of Emei Ridge is different from later generations. Because of its good soil and water conservation, its current flow is still very large in the Han Dynasty. Only in autumn and winter, the Fen River weakens a little, so it has become a natural moat to the north of Emei Ridge, which naturally has a certain defensive effect on the nomadic peoples in the north. Therefore, since ancient times, Emei Ridge has been an important line of defense for the Hedong area to defend against the nomadic peoples in the north, but now it has to face swords and guns from the Han Dynasty...
Zhang Xiu's logistics troops are now stationed in Zhangbi on Emei Ridge.
Zhang Bi is located at the northern end of Emei Ridge, near the Fen River. It was originally a military fortress used to defend against the Huns, but was later destroyed by the Xianbei hands, and was later restored by Fei Qian.
It is precisely because of this that when Fei dived to the northeast of the river, the entire area north of Emei Ridge was relatively desolate and sparsely populated. Even if everyone knew that the land of Linfen was surrounded by Fen River, if the canal water conservancy was repaired, it would be 10,000 mu of fertile land, but no one would come here to reclaim it. Compared with the Linfen Valley, Yuncheng Basin would be safer under the threat of the Hu people in the north.
It was not until Fei Qian defeated the Xianbei, educated the Huns, and expanded the entire border to the Yinshan area of the Yellow River and Hetao area that the Linfen Basin became a hot commodity again.
This has led to serious inconsistencies in the relationship between the north and south of Emei Ling...
Zhang Xiu looked down the slope of Emei Ridge and couldn't help but sigh: "Why do you have to come? Why do you have to come! I have always thought about taking advantage of it, but have you ever thought that this advantage is so easy to take advantage? Now it has become a means of Cao's thief!"
Behind Zhang Xiu, Xun Chen also wore a sleeved armor, but he did not wear a pussy, but was still wearing a Jinxian crown. After hearing Zhang Xiu's words, he smiled and said, "These are all caused by the people of Hedong, and they are not worth pitying."
Zhang Xiu shook his spear, "That's right. He just pity these innocent people. As for the people in Hedong...haha..."
Xun Chen said: "The Cao army was disturbed to cover up your and my eyes. Now there must be thieves in this round of refugees."
Zhang Xiu tskated, "If you kill him, it would be simple."
A few days ago, Zhang Xiu raided and defeated the Cao army who went to Yi County to build a camp, and led some Cao army and civilians back to Linfen. This made the Cao army unable to continue to promote the strategy of building a hard camp, and could only think about it another way.
"At some point, I was not very worried and caused trouble for my lord." Zhang Xiu gritted his teeth and said, "Cao Thief is extremely shameless, he actually used such a despicable method! He deserves to die!"
Xun Chen comforted: "General Zhang does not need to blame himself. Cao thieves have many tricks and their lords are good at being benevolent and virtuous, so they must have this test. One came this time, on the order of the lord, they brought some civil servants to help so that General Zhang can rest assured, and the other was to deal with these northbound refugees..."
That’s right, refugees cannot be allowed to pour into Linfen Valley directly.
After Fei Qian received the news that Cao Cao began to act, he immediately judged the intention of Cao's army. This time, he used the people and forced the young and old to break through the Emei Ridge defense line and create an opportunity to invade Linfen.
Fei Qian believed that Cao Cao must have known the strategic importance of Emei Ridge.
Whether it is for the Linfen Valley in the north or the Yuncheng Basin in the south, it is very important. This is not only a barrier for southern forces to defend northwards, but also a strategic fortress for raising energy and attacking northwards.
In the Yuncheng Basin south of Emei Ridge, although there are Yixian, Pi, Wenxi, Anyi, Puban and other counties, these counties and townships actually do not provide a better defense system, and even if they occupy it, there is no place to stick to it.
Even if this matter is not a military expert, he only needs to know some of the history of the Spring and Autumn Period. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Emei Ridge, Zijin Mountain, and Fen River were the dangers of mountains and rivers protecting the capital of Jin State and the last line of defense for the capital of Jin State. During the entire Spring and Autumn Period, except for the negligent defense in 550 BC, the army of Qi successfully attacked and entered the hinterland of Jin State, for hundreds of years, other vassal states were rarely able to break through Emei Ridge.
It was obviously a time-consuming and extremely difficult thing for Cao Cao to attack Emei Ridge in a conventional way.
The Emei Ridge is vast and flat, and the cavalry can go lateral and lateral, while the short legs of the Cao army's infantry obviously cannot keep up with the footsteps of the cavalry. Therefore, among these refugees, Cao Cao used the "resistance" or "traps" to block the Hussar cavalry to invisibly divide the battlefield into pieces to form a local advantage.
But this game of chess is not until the last moment, no one knows whether the method to arrange it first is a trick or a foolish person...