Jin Zheng's voice resounded throughout the battlefield. Cao Zhen, wearing a black Wei army armor, looked solemnly at the Han army retreating like a tide.
It has been nearly twenty days since the Han army launched a sudden attack in early February, almost March.
On the western front, the Han army and the Wei army had similar strength, both around 100,000. But this time the Han army was obviously well prepared and adopted a standard Tian Ji horse racing offensive.
The Wei army's military deployment in Hedong and Tongguan is as follows. Cao Zhen's main force in Tongguan is about 50,000, Xu Huang's force in Puban is about 30,000, and Zhu Ling's force in Pishi is less than 10,000.
There are thousands of others scattered in Hedong and Hebei County, Dayang County and other places south of Zhongtiao Mountain. As a result, Cao's army in Hedong is at a disadvantage as a whole.
There is no way, Tongguan leads directly to Luoyang. If Tongguan cannot be defended, Luoyang is in danger of being attacked.
Therefore, Cao Zhen could only guard at Tongguan.
The Han army took the initiative to attack this time. Zhao Yun led about 10,000 cavalry from Huayin and fought with Cao's army at the junction of the Wei River and the Yellow River, which was later known as Qindong Town, Tongguan County, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province.
Shen Chen's main force of about 60,000 people crossed the Yellow River and went straight to Puban. Pang De's 20,000 people crossed the river from Longmen and attacked Pishi where Zhu Ling was.
For a time, Cao's army in Hedong was under great pressure, especially Xu Huang's tribe.
After the grain and grass were burned, he immediately sent his cavalry to cross the river from Zhongtiao Mountain to join Cao Zhen. He himself led less than 20,000 people to defend Pu Ban, waiting for the arrival of his reinforcements.
I have to say that Xu Huang's response has been excellent.
With a large group of cavalry, Cao Zhen was able to pursue Zhao Yun, who was constantly harassing him with cavalry, and finally repelled Zhao Yun in Weinan Township, east of Huayin, and even annihilated a group of Han cavalry on a small scale.
"call."
It was not until the Han army retreated back to Huayin that Cao Zhen let out a long breath.
He is under a lot of pressure now.
Zhu Ling also sent a messenger to ask for help. Pound raided Pishi. Almost all of Pishi's outer fortresses were captured by the Han army, leaving only Zhu Ling struggling to support himself in Pishi city.
The situation in Hedong was not good, and he was frequently harassed by Zhao Yun. The main reason was that although Tongguan was on the edge of the Yellow River, it was still dozens of miles away from the Yellow River.
Tongguan in the Han Dynasty was located in the area of Yangjia Village, Gangkang Town, Tongguan County in later generations, while Tongguan in the Ming Dynasty was located in Qindong Town in the north, so Tongguan in the Han Dynasty was far away from the Yellow River, and there was a vast plain area on the south bank of the Yellow River.
If Cao Zhen came out of Tongguan and crossed the river in Tongting, which was later Qindong Town in Tongguan County, he would be attacked by Zhao Yun's cavalry.
Zhao Yun's cavalry came and went like the wind. He was crossing the river and waiting for him to cross the river halfway. If the Han cavalry raided his rear camp, it would be impossible to take care of both the head and tail, leaving the entire army in an extremely chaotic situation.
Therefore, there was a stalemate for more than half a month, and it was not until Xu Shang's cavalry came over that they repelled Zhao Yun's harassment.
This ambush on Cao Zhen still showed the momentum he deserved as a famous general in history. Zhao Yun relied on his cavalry to be superior to Cao Wei, and attacked Cao Zhen for dozens of miles from time to time, so that Cao Zhen did not dare to cross the river to support him.
Before Xu Shang arrived, Cao Zhen took advantage of this and pretended that the situation at Xu Huang was critical and that he had to cross the river by force, so he arrived at Tongting and began to march.
After Zhao Yun came, he wanted to use a cavalry attack to defeat Cao Zhen on the banks of the Yellow River, just like Ma Chao defeated Cao Cao in history.
However, Cao Zhen commanded the situation appropriately. When two-thirds of the army had crossed the river, he used the remaining infantry to form a formation and entangled Zhao Yun's army. Then the Xu Shang cavalry ambushing in the rear made a surprise attack and repelled Zhao Yun, killing nearly 100 people.
Thousands of Han troops.
But then Zhao Yun stabilized his position and slowly retreated. He also commanded many battles with Cao Wei's cavalry, killed Xu Shang, and retreated to Weinan Township east of Huayin. The fighting between the two sides forced Zhao Yun to retreat to Huayin.
Negative.
Seeing the retreat of the Han cavalry in the distance, Cao Zhen breathed a sigh of relief. At least Zhao Yun had lost a lot of men and horses now. It was probably impossible to continue to harass him. He could cross the river calmly.
"Report!"
A war supervisor responsible for inventorying the battlefield came over with a Han army horse and reported to Cao Zhen: "General, we have captured a Han army horse."
"Um."
Cao Zhen didn't care, waved his hand and said: "Use the obtained horses for cavalry."
But the war supervisor continued: "General, their horses have some new equipment, you can still take a look."
"New equipment?"
Cao Zhen wondered: "Besides stirrups and saddles, what else do they have?"
Because Liu Bei's group had no source of horses in the early days, if the cavalry was equipped with stirrups, saddles and horseshoes, it would be basically the same as capitalizing on the enemy.
Therefore, Shen Chen only started to form a large-scale cavalry after arriving in Liangzhou and having a stable source of horses.
They even organized a force of 5,000 heavy armored cavalry.
In the following wars, Cao Wei suffered repeated defeats and never captured the Han army's horses. However, they observed the Han army's stirrups and high-bridge saddles from a distance through battles, and imitated them, which are now being slowly promoted throughout the army.
The war supervisor pulled up the hooves of the war horse, pointed at the hooves and said: "General, please look at this."
Cao Zhen knelt down and looked.
I saw that the hoof of the horse's hoof had been shaved off, and a thin iron piece was installed on it, just like a person putting shoes on his feet.
"This is?"
Cao Zhen was quite puzzled.
The war supervisor said: "The Han army installed iron plates on the horses' hooves. It must have a purpose." Bei thought of the wear and tear on the horses' hooves due to continuous fighting. Often, a surprise attack may cause many horses' hooves to crack and become useless.
Keep fighting, this may be why the Han army has been able to attack us every day for nearly a month."
"Well."
Cao Zhen touched his chin and nodded slightly.
It is generally accepted that the endurance of horses is not as good as that of humans. However, before horseshoes were introduced in the Yuan Dynasty, there was another reason why horses had lower endurance than humans. Without the protection of horseshoes, running long distances would cause excessive wear and tear on the horseshoes, thereby wearing out the nails of the horseshoes.
Light can cause inflammation and injury to the horse's hoof.
This is the same as if humans dig the ground with their hands, their fingernails will be worn out, which will lead to hand injuries.
Horses in the wild do not have to run continuously like war horses. They rest when they are full, and protect their hooves from wearing out for a long time. Even if the hooves are too long, they will find stones to grind them off, so wild horses do not have the troubles of war horses.
But war horses are not good enough. Not only do they have to undergo various trainings on a daily basis, but they also have to run faster when encountering emergencies, which will cause a lot of wear and tear on the horses' hoof nails.
Therefore, before the Yuan Dynasty, dynasties with cavalry would have such troubles.
Now seeing this scene, Cao Zhen understood why Zhao Yun's cavalry could always come and go like the wind, without fear of the loss of horses.
It turns out there is such equipment.
He said to the war supervisor: "Send the captured war horses to Luoyang and report them to His Majesty, and then let the general be the prisoner to take a look."
"only!"
The war supervisor took the order and left.
Cao Zhen looked at the battlefield from a distance. Cao's army's sweepers had escorted back the enemy's corpses and prisoners of war. This time, for Cao Wei, it was already a small victory.
In the seven or eight years since the Battle of Guanzhong and the Battle of Xiangfan until now, Cao Wei has not had such a victory, which is always a good thing.
It was not until the afternoon that Cao Zhen sent people to clear the battlefield, and then retreated back to Tongting to prepare to cross the river.
On February 27, Cao Jun successfully crossed the Yellow River and arrived at Fenglingdu.
At the same time, Zhao Yun withdrew his troops and returned to Huayin.
In Huayin City, Ma Dai escorted Zhao Yun back to the city. When the two arrived at the top of the city, he bowed his hands to Zhao Yun and said, "Former general."
Zhao Yun was previously a general of the left, but after Huang Zhong's death, he was promoted to a former general.
Currently, Guan Yu of the Southern Han Group is the marshal of the world's soldiers and horses and also serves as the general, Shen Chen is the hussar general, and Zhang Fei is the cavalry general. After Liu Bei's death, Ma Chao was not allowed to be reused by Zhuge Liang and was temporarily serving as the general of Wei.
Fortunately, Zhao Yun has always been strong and strong. Now he is over sixty years old, and he is still agile and active on the battlefield. He even killed the enemy general Xu Shang before, and he was a great general of the Han Dynasty.
Zhao Yun stood at the top of the city and looked to the east. Seeing that Cao Jun was not pursuing him, he said to Ma Dai with a serious face: "Cao Jun suddenly appeared in large numbers. These cavalry were supposed to be deployed in Hedong County to prevent us from raiding across the river, but now they are Appeared in Tongguan."
Ma Dai said solemnly: "Tongguan is mainly for defense, and the terrain is relatively narrow. There are many mountainous areas, which is not suitable for Cao Wei to deploy too many cavalry, so the cavalry are all in Hedong County. Now appearing here means that Xu Huang has mobilized all the cavalry. .”
"Exactly."
Zhao Yun nodded and said: "It seems that the Governor's guess is correct. Cao Zhen is planning to cross the river with the main force, and then take our army in Puban from Lei Shou Mountain. If he cooperates with Xu Huang to outflank the Governor, I'm afraid there may be some danger on the Governor's side. .”
Next to him, Zhao Yun's general Zhang Yi wondered: "General, I don't understand. I heard that Cao's army has a lot of cavalry. Why must the ones appearing here be Cao's cavalry from Hedong?"
Ma Dai smiled and said: "You don't know that in several battles, Cao Wei lost troops and generals. Even the cavalry responsible for guarding the border at the Youyan border in the north were transferred over. Cao Wei no longer has that many cavalry."
"Those Youyan cavalry?"
"If they were the ones dispatched, wouldn't the Prime Minister be laughing to death?"
"Um, I'm just confused."
Zhang Yi scratched his head. He actually came from a famous family. His grandfather had been a prefect, so he was from a scholarly family.
However, the current internal actions of Cao Wei were only carefully investigated by Shen Chen, and only some senior officials knew about it. Even Ma Dai only knew about it after he often followed Shen Chen.
Therefore, it is normal for Zhang Yi not to understand Cao Wei's current predicament.
Now Cao Wei's total military strength is no longer comparable to that of the southern Han Dynasty. It is at a disadvantage and the number of cavalry has also dropped sharply. It is difficult to have excess cavalry to assist the Western Front.
Zhao Yun said to Ma Dai: "Then according to the governor's plan, you will command the Huayin cavalry, and I will immediately cross the river and head to Hedong."
"only!"
Ma Dai accepted the order with his hands in hand.
At that moment, Zhao Yun handed over his general seal to Ma Dai.
Ma Dai is currently the general of Anxi, and his position is not too high, so he needs his general to lead the army and suppress the situation.
Here Zhao Yun secretly crossed the Weishui River according to the original plan, and then crossed the Yellow River from Puban to Hedong County.
Cao Zhen's main force there also crossed the Yellow River and marched towards Fenglingdu towards Leishou Mountain.
On March 6, at ten o'clock in the afternoon, the main force of Cao's army headed north along the official road. Cao Zhen was riding on horseback, looking solemnly into the distance.
On the right side of the road are endless mountains. The mountains are undulating and majestic. It is late spring, the birds are singing and the flowers are fragrant, and the scenery is beautiful.
The warm sunshine is shining down, the valley is fresh, the trees are green, the dendrobium, daylily, mulberry, rose and flower shadows on the roadside are sparse and colorful, and the dappled sunlight shines in the forest, which makes people feel relaxed and happy.
On the left side of the road is a plain grassland, close to the Yellow River. From a distance, you can see the vast rolling waves of the Yellow River. The water surface is a bit turbid, but it is not as exaggerated as muddy and yellow as in later generations.
There are some forests and trees growing on both sides of the bank. Their branches hang down and are intercepted by weeds and basil on the road. The scouts in front need to constantly clear the weeds before they can move forward.
"ah!"
At this moment, a shrill scream pierced the entire sky.
Cao Zhen suddenly became nervous.
Naturally, it was impossible for him not to send scouts, so there were scouts all over the forest on the left bank and the mountains on the right to clear the way.
The sound seemed to come from the scouts in the forest on the right. Could there be an ambush?
He quickly ordered the former army to be placed under martial law.
However, it was later discovered that it was a false alarm. The forest was full of snakes, insects, rats, and ants. When the scout was dealing with thorn bushes in the forest, he stepped on a poisonous snake and was bitten.
The injured scout was carried to the back for treatment. Occasionally, the roar of tigers could be heard in the forest, which made subsequent scouts much more cautious.
At noon, the weather was getting hotter and hotter. Cao Zhen wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked around. After a while, he finally ordered the three armies to rest where they were and go to the river to let the horses drink some water.
Cao Jun's army stretched for more than ten miles along the way, and the plains on the left were still several miles away. They could only see the bank of the Yellow River in the distance. The soldiers crossed the plains and went to the drinking water river on the edge of the Yellow River.
One by one, the war horses entered the water in an orderly manner, and then boarded the opposite river beach in an orderly manner. Cao's soldiers also went to the river in batches to fetch water and boil it.
Everyone has been hungry since we set off in the morning, so it would be nice to boil some water in a cauldron, put some sauce in it and eat it with the cakes.
Soon, the shouts of the riders and the neighing of the horses mixed with the sound of gravel rolling under the horses' hooves. For a moment, they overcame the soothing sound of the water and echoed back and forth in the rolling waves of the river.
Cao Zhen's front army had a slightly harder time and had to stand guard for the middle army and rear army. At this time, Cao Zhen's general Dai Ling, who was at the front of the team, slowly moved forward and continued to clear the way for the army.
As a vanguard, he must fulfill this responsibility.
But after walking for about a mile, Dai Ling suddenly felt something was wrong. The chirping of birds in the mountains seemed to have a special rhythm.
Then the ground in front of him began to shake at some point.
A pebble shook slightly.
The sound of horse hooves!
The sound of rolling thunder suddenly appeared, causing Dai Ling's heart to clench violently, and then he let out a shrill cry.