"Brother Wuwu, why do Ji Run and the others want to retreat?"
On the way to follow the Dangshan army of Wei State to retreat to the east, Oona asked her brother Wu Wu with a worried look: "Is it because the Jiejiao tribe sent a lot of troops that Ji Run and others can't defeat them?"
Retreating without a fight...how is that possible!
Secretly laughing, Wuwu turned his face and looked at the Dangshan soldiers nearby. He saw that the Wei soldier had an indifferent expression on his face, as if he didn't care at all why they were retreating eastward. But what made Wuwu even more concerned was that
Their high-spirited eyes, and their calmness that didn't care whether the road ahead was life or death.
No matter how many times I watch it, it is still a terrifying army... the Dangshan Army.
Wuwu glanced at his goosebumps-ridden arm and calmly stroked it with his other hand.
"Brother Wuwu!"
"Huh?" Wu Wu came back to his senses, and then noticed that his younger sister Oona was looking at him with dissatisfaction.
Seeing this, Wu Wu smiled slightly and said with relief: "Don't worry, Wu Na, the Wei army did not retreat because they could not defeat the Jiejiao tribe."
"Eh, isn't it? Why is that?"
Why... is it to show weakness? To show weakness to the enemy, to show arrogance to the enemy, to attack the enemy unprepared... a military art widely circulated in the Central Plains countries.
Wuwu thought to himself.
Was it because the Dangshan Army took the initiative to withdraw its troops to lure the enemy?... To induce the tribal warriors of the Jiejiao Tribe to abandon the slave army and pursue the Dangshan Army lightly... Is this the plan of Ji Run and that General Sima An? Like Tatu.
If you really fall into the trap... you will be swallowed up, Bitatu. The tribal warriors you sent to chase will be swallowed up by this terrible Wei army!
Wu Wu raised his head and glanced at the clear sky in this land of three rivers.
He had a vague guess that he had not actually guessed all the intentions of the Wei people, but even if he only guessed one of them, it was enough to make Wuwu feel sorry for the Jiejiao tribe: If the Jie tribemen of Bitatu really died because of this,
If you underestimate the words of these Wei people, then the Jiejiao tribe will pay a heavy price for this.
It has to be said that Wuwu is indeed a Sheo man whose brain does not seem to match his simple and honest appearance.
His guess was correct. The Dangshan Army chose to retreat for three reasons.
First, join up with the Shang Shui Army.
Previously, due to the large difference in the daily speed between the Dangshan Army and the Shangshui Army, the Dangshan Army, even if they took another roundabout route, still surpassed the Shangshui Army and reached the sphere of influence of the Jiejiao Tribe ahead of time.
In other words, the Shang Shui Army is now heading towards the retreat route of the Dangshan Army, and it will take about ten days to half a month to reach the location where the Dangshan Army camped.
However, if the Dangshan Army takes the initiative to retreat eastward, then it will not take ten days or even half a month. According to the marching speed of the Dangshan Army, they can join the Shangshui Army within three or four days.
Once he joins the Shang Shui Army and uses the new serial crossbows developed by the Smelting Bureau carried by the Shang Shui Army, Sima An will not need to worry about the sacrifice of the Dangshan soldiers under his command to the more than 200,000 Yujiajiao tribe.
The slave army is fighting as cannon fodder.
Secondly, it is to cast the "bait".
Deliberately creating an unfavorable situation for the Wei army in combat, to test or test the Yi people and Yi tribes in Gong and Luo.
As the saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. If these tribes see that the Wei army is at a disadvantage in the battle and turn to the Jiejiao tribe, then it will be unfortunate. These tribes will also be included in the list of eradication and expulsion.
As for the third purpose, that is to lure the tribal warriors of the Jiejiao tribe.
According to Wu Wu, the tribal warriors and the slave army of the Jiejiao tribe are completely two armies with completely different capabilities.
The former is composed of brave warriors from the tribe, all of whom are skilled in bow and horse.
These people often have three horses per person, one horse carries baggage and rations, and the other two horses alternate riding, so they can travel hundreds of miles a day.
This is the standard configuration of nomadic cavalry.
As a farming country, the Wei State had far fewer cavalry than its opponent. Moreover, the cavalry in the army was not so luxurious as to equip one person with multiple war horses. It was for this reason that Wuwu reminded the Wei army not to attempt a sneak attack.
Jie tribe people. Because it is very difficult to sneak attack the nomadic cavalry. Once the sneak attack fails, the troops sent out will be dragged to death by the Jie tribe cavalry.
Even if they are also cavalry, they will be dragged to death by the Jie cavalry equipped with three horses.
But this is just the cavalry of the Jie people. As for the slave army, they don't get this kind of treatment at all.
The only equipment in the Jie tribe's slave army is a long spear. Sometimes, the slaves often rush to the battlefield with sharpened sticks. After all, they are just consumables as cannon fodder in the eyes of the Jie tribe.
There is no need to equip too many good weapons.
Therefore, when the Jie tribe's cavalry led the three war horses leisurely and leisurely forward, those slave soldiers had to rely on their legs to move forward. In fact, they might even use their legs to move forward in a half-starved and half-full state.
.
This means that there is a huge gap between the marching speed of the Jie cavalry and the slave army.
In normal times, those Jie tribe cavalry might follow the slave army at a distance, walking leisurely and slowly.
But now, with the Dangshan Army deliberately showing weakness and creating a situation of retreating without a fight, will the Jie tribe's cavalry abandon the slave army and speed up the pursuit in order to catch up with the Dangshan Army?
And this is exactly what Zhao Hongrun and Sima An hope for.
As long as there are no more than 200,000 slave troops to disrupt the situation, Sima An and the Dangshan Army under his command have no fear at all of the Jie tribe's cavalry, the so-called tribal warriors.
A few days passed like this, and in a blink of an eye it was August 4th.
Note: I misremembered the timetable in the previous chapter. The Jiejiao tribe sent troops should be "at the end of July" instead of "at the end of August". I'm really sorry.
On this day, the cavalry sent by the Dangshan Army to search for the Shang Shui Army successfully found the latter's location. At the same time, not only did the letter written by Zhao Hongrun be handed over to Wu Ji, the general in charge of the Shang Shui Army, Wu Ji also
He also asked a courier to bring back the oral message.
"General Wu Ji asked the villain to reply to His Highness. He said that he would obey the orders of His Highness King Su. I will be careful in the end."
The cavalryman of the Dangshan Army, acting as a messenger, clasped his fists and spoke.
Hearing this, Sima An frowned and asked: "General Wu Ji only asked you to send an oral message? No written reply?"
It wasn't that he didn't trust the cavalry under his command, he just thought it was strange. After all, logically speaking, Wu Ji should have written a reply in his own hand.
Reply? Then Wu Ji needs to be able to read...
Zhao Hongrun smiled bitterly to himself.
Yes. Wu Ji was a mighty general in charge of the Shang Navy. However, because he was born in a poor peasant family in Chu State, he was illiterate. He could hardly even recognize a few characters of Chu State, let alone those of Wei State.
Text.
By the way, Zhao Hongrun's letter to Wu Ji was actually written in Chu seal characters. After all, even if Wu Ji couldn't recognize all the Chu seal characters, the generals in his account and his bodyguards were always
There will be people who can read.
But having said that, if it were Wei Zhuan, Wu Ji and his gang would be dumbfounded.
"General Wu Ji, haven't you learned the seal characters of Wei Dynasty yet?" Sima An asked with a strange expression, perhaps seeing some clues.
"Well... I'm still trying to master it." Zhao Hongrun explained with nice words.
Speaking of which, generals who were born in the Chu Kingdom, unless they were from noble families, rarely had the opportunity to learn the writing of their own country.
But here in Wei State, as a general, you are not required to have any literary talent or what kind of articles you can write, but you must at least master the most basic common words, otherwise, wouldn’t you even understand the art of war?
Can't even understand the documents sent by the court?
It was with this in mind that Sima An smacked his lips and couldn't help but say: "I hope he can master it as soon as possible, otherwise...it would be really shameful."
"Haha." Zhao Hongrun smiled bitterly.
In fact, speaking of it, this is what Sima An, Baili Ba, Xu Yin and other generals from Zongwei are qualified to say. In fact, in the Kingdom of Wei, there are still many generals who are clearly in charge of the army but are illiterate.
.
After returning home, do you want to set up a private school for officers to teach those generals who are illiterate?
Zhao Hongrun thought to himself.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to implement this matter. After all, almost all generals are stationed at the border. If they are recalled to Daliang to run schools and teach writing together, then do we still need border defense?
After much deliberation, the safest way is to first recruit a group of literati with a strong literary foundation and teach them tactics that Zhao Hongrun thinks are quite effective, and then let these people teach the border defense generals alone. The premise is that the martial arts
There will be no conflicts if you get together with literati.
Forget it, let’s deal with the matter at hand first.
After regaining his composure, Zhao Hongrun turned to look at Sima An and said, "General, if we go further, we will reach Luodi."
"Hmm." Sima An responded, looking a little disappointed.
After all, up to now, the Yi and Yi people in Gong and Luo have not shown any signs of "betraying" Wei, and the cavalry sent out has not yet conveyed the news back to the Jiejiao tribe that they had sent an advance cavalry team.
As a result, his plan to kill three birds with one stone failed to achieve the other two goals except to join the Shang Shui Army.
And just when Sima An secretly regretted that the Jiejiao tribe had not been fooled, Ji Yan, one of the two generals of the Dangshan Army Cavalry Battalion, rode close to Zhao Hongrun and Sima An on the way.
"Your Highness, General, they are back... Just as the General estimated, the Jie tribe sent a large number of cavalry to chase our army."
Looking at each other with Zhao Hongrun, who also had a solemn look on his face, Sima An asked in a deep voice: "How long does it take to arrive?"
"About half a day."
"..." Zhao Hongrun and Sima An looked at each other.
They had no intention of blaming the cavalry who inquired about the news for sending the news back to the army so late. After all, finding out whether the Jie tribe had sent advance cavalry meant that the group of Wei army scouts were almost the same as the Jie tribe.
The advance cavalry set off at the same time.
The opponent had one man with three horses, but the Wei army's cavalry scout was riding alone. Under such circumstances, it was already very remarkable that the news could be conveyed back to the army about half a day in advance.
It is not difficult to guess that in order to distance themselves from the Jie tribe's advance cavalry, those scouts probably traveled day and night, without rest, and tried their best to pass this precious news back to the Dangshan army.
To fight? Or not to fight?
Sima An took out the map of Sanchuan and stared at the terrain on the map silently.