It was already April 9 when Zhang Fei received Liu Bei's order, and his location at this time was at Jieqiao.
On April 6, Yuan Shao officially launched a three-way encirclement attack. Yuan Shang's troops moved south from Dongwu City to settle in Chengu, while Guo Tu moved from Ganling to Linxi.
At this time, Chen Mu asked Zhang Fei to go north to prepare for a surprise attack on Changle. At the same time, he sent Zhang Liao Dianwei to pretend to be the leader of the recruiting troops and march north to Chen Gu, with the intention of defeating them one by one and preparing to attack Chen Gu Township first.
On April 7, Guo Tu arrived in Linxi and heard that Chen Gu was attacked by Liu Bei's troops. Instead of providing support, he sent his generals to pretend to be the main force and pretend to go north to lure the enemy to reinforce.
Liu Bei was indeed "fooled" and added another 10,000 troops to Chen Gu. According to Guo Tu's calculation, Liu Bei's entire camp had only about 15,000 men at this time.
The actual situation is that there are still nearly 40,000 troops in Liu Bei's camp at this time, waiting for help.
On the morning of April 8th, the battle of Chen Guxiang started first. After receiving reinforcements from Xu Chu, Dian Wei and Zhang Liao sent their troops northward to defeat Yuan Shang's troops.
Guo Tu's troops attacked Liu Bei's rear camp and were defeated by Chen Mu's plan to set fire to it. Even Guo Tu himself went crazy and ran into the sea of fire and died there.
Immediately afterwards, Yuan Shao, who did not know the situation, thought that Guo Tu had succeeded, and immediately issued an order for the entire army to attack. On the evening of April 8, he was defeated by Liu Bei's army.
Because it was getting late, and the Yuan army burned down the boundary bridge, making it impossible to cross the bridge, the Qingzhou army stopped their pursuit.
Chen Mu immediately suggested to Liu Bei that he write a letter to his third brother Zhang Fei, ordering him to go south to pursue Yuan Shao.
Zhang Fei set out on the night of April 6th. Because he wanted to avoid the area controlled by Yuan Jun and avoid their sentry spies, he walked a day and a night for a distance of 170 miles. He waited until the night of April 7th to finally reach the end of his journey.
Arrive near Changle Township.
He did not take action immediately. The soldiers were very tired after traveling for a day, so they found a secluded and uninhabited wilderness and rested for the night near a mountain.
He waited until the next day, just when the war between Yuan Shao and Liu Bei started, to launch an attack on Changle. At this time, the battle between Yuan Shao and Liu Bei also entered a fever pitch.
The battle in Changle ended quickly, and the fire burned. By evening, the fire in Changle was already very strong.
After confirming that it was impossible to extinguish the fire manually, Zhang Fei prepared to go back.
However, Tian Feng, the military advisor accompanying the army, made suggestions, urging him to stay one more day and send scouts to investigate the situation on the front line first. If Yuan Shao sent people to rescue him, it would not be too late to leave.
It turned out that Honda Toyo's intention was to see if he could surround the area and mobilize reinforcements. If Yuan Shao came to rescue him, he would attack them if there were few people, and leave if there were many people.
Anyway, the cavalry came and went like the wind. Even if they didn't go through Jieqiao and went back from Changle to Guangchuan, it would only be a hundred and seventy miles away. When they came, they brought dry food for the men and horses for two days. If they stayed for another day, they would not cause any harm to the men and horses.
Zhang Fei listened to the persuasion and led his troops north into Jingxian County. While sending people around to check the situation, he was very happy to see the black smoke rising from Changle Township more than ten miles away.
It happened that Yuan Shao was defeated in the evening, and his troops retreated to the east of the boundary bridge. If Zhang Fei had led his troops straight to the boundary bridge at that time, he would definitely be able to capture Yuan Shao and others alive.
But he didn't know this at the time, so he just stopped and watched, missing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
By the time the scouts brought back the situation at the boundary bridge, it was already the morning of the third day.
At this time, Zhang Fei immediately began to attack eastward.
Although Changle takes a detour to Guangchuan and returns to Jieqiao, it takes more than 170 miles, but in fact Changle is right next to Guangzong, only twenty or thirty miles away from Guangzong. If you take Jieqiao, it is only 40 miles.
So it didn't take long for Zhang Fei to arrive to the west of Jieqiao and occupy Yuan Shao's original camp in Hexi. At the same time, he sent people to put out the fire and help the Qingzhou army cross the river.
Unfortunately, their attack was in vain. Except for some soldiers who continued to set fire after a break, Yuan Shao and the others had long since disappeared.
After a day and night of fighting, the fire on the boundary bridge was extinguished on April 10th. However, the stone bridge was burned so hot that it was unrealistic to cross the river. Therefore, as early as yesterday, Liu Bei ordered Zhang Fei to pursue it first.
Yuan Shao.
After receiving this order, Zhang Fei began to have difficulties, because he no longer had enough food and grass, not only food for humans, but also fine feed for horses.
Cavalry was very expensive in the Han Dynasty. If you only raised them, you could just feed them with grass. However, the horses would have to spend more than half of the day eating to gain weight, making it difficult to carry people.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, a qualified war horse must be fed with concentrated feed and fodder to maintain the operation of the cavalry.
Moreover, without horseshoes, the horses' hooves will wear out and become unable to carry out expeditions.
So many times, cavalry is not as versatile as we think.
Including the Five Hu Rebellion Period, when the Hu people marched southward in large numbers, most of them did not conquer with hundreds of thousands of cavalry, but relied on infantry to conquer.
Historically, it was not until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty that horseshoes appeared, allowing the Mongolian army to march far away and eventually reach Europe without fear of the wear and tear of horseshoes.
At this time, Chen Mu had already improved the stirrups and installed soles on the horseshoes in advance, which made the horseshoes appear more than a thousand years earlier and gave the cavalry the conditions for ultra-long-range strikes.
However, Zhang Fei traveled lightly and did not bring any large baggage, which meant that the cavalry did not carry much fine feed, making it very difficult to supply materials.
The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry later pursued Liu Bei from Xiangyang, and the three hundred miles in one day and night was the limit to reach Changbanpo. Zhang Fei's surprise attack on Changle had to go north through Dongwu City, then detour to Guangchuan, and then go south from Julu direction through Jingxian County to reach Changle.
.
Although the whole journey was only more than 170 miles, not as far as 300 miles, he still had to fight. Therefore, by the time he received Liu Bei's order, the cavalry were already exhausted.
After receiving the order, Zhang Fei knew that if the cavalry were to go south now, the soldiers and horses might not be able to hold on, so he had a headache. After hesitating for a while, he said to Tian Feng: "Military advisor..."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Yeah."
Tian Feng responded from the side.
Zhang Fei handed him the official document sent from the opposite side: "My eldest brother ordered me to go south to blockade Ping'enchuqiu and other places to intercept Yuan Shao. However, the cavalry rushed over a hundred miles to attack Changle. They were already tired from fighting all night, so I am afraid it will be difficult to go south again.
"
Tian Feng muttered: "We brought two days of food and grass with us when we came out. We can go back if we can. Ping'en is not far away. It should be no problem to go south. What Yide is afraid of is that we are in the enemy's territory alone. There is no food and grass to replenish the supplies and we can't feed them."
The horses will seriously damage the cavalry's combat effectiveness."
Zhang Fei nodded: "That's right. In the letter, the elder brother thought that we could solve the food and grass problem in this granary. Little did he know that I issued the order in a hurry. I had to burn all the tens of millions of stones of food and grass in one go. There was no food left to save.
I will support you until I reach peace."
Tian Feng rolled his eyes at him: "Yide, I told you a long time ago not to be so reckless. After defeating the Changle garrison, you should leave yourself some room to get some bean sprouts for the horses, but you said you don't need them.
The result is what it is now.”
Zhang Fei scratched his head: "I thought I should go back after burning Changle. How could I know that now I have to go south to pursue Yuan Shao? Now the boundary bridge is burning hot, and my eldest brother can't cross on the other side of the river. I'm afraid it will take two days for the anger to dissipate.
We can do it later, but our army has very little food and grass left, and we cannot pursue Yuan Shao."
"Let me think about it."
Tian Feng touched the goat's beard and fell into deep thought. Now that the army still has one day of food and grass, it would be no problem to save some food and insist on waiting for the Qingzhou Army to cross the river for two days.
But in that case, Yuan Shao would have run away long ago, so he had to take action.
If we can move, the physical strength of humans and horses will be exhausted very quickly. How can humans and horses march and fight if they don't eat?
This creates a paradox.
They stayed here, lived frugally, and let their horses go to the river to graze. They could wait until the Qingzhou army crossed the river to replenish their supplies, but that would drive Yuan Shao away.
If they pursue the enemy, they will not have enough food and grass. Obviously, they will not be able to continue fighting, and they will easily suffer from physical exhaustion.
Is it possible to conserve a certain amount of physical strength and still pursue the enemy?
Tian Feng thought about it.
"Military advisor, have you thought of it?"
Zhang Fei urged.
With no other choice, Yuan Shao ran even further.
"I got it."
Tian Feng nodded slowly: "But let the horse go to Nanshan, it's a bluff!"
"What does this mean?"
Zhang Fei was surprised.
Tian Feng said with a smile: "Horses don't have to eat soybean feed to survive. It's just that if you want to keep fat, you must eat grass all the time. We can save the bean feed and make soldiers' meals so that the horses can eat grass.
Going south is like grazing, so that people and horses can hold on for a few more days."
"But in that case, the horses may not be able to be driven."
Zhang Fei became worried. Without a large amount of beans to replenish their physical strength, the horses would have to eat grass constantly. In that case, they would have very little time to run.
Tian Feng said: "Yuan's army is already defeated and does not have much combat power. We only need to maintain the combat power of our own soldiers. There is no need to have cavalry. Horses are used to drive. When encountering the enemy, dismount and fight on foot. Walk for a while
Rest for a while, and as long as the horses don't rush into battle, there will be no worries about running out of energy."
Zhang Fei immediately understood what Tian Feng meant.
Let the horses eat grass and save the soybeans to make food for people. In this way, the men and horses can hold on for a few more days, chasing Yuan Shao while waiting for the baggage from the rear to be delivered to replenish them.
Although in this case, it would be difficult for the horses to fulfill their duties as war horses and they would not be able to lead the cavalry into the battle. But after the Battle of Jieqiao, Yuan Jun was already a group of defeated soldiers and could not charge into the battle. So, if they dismounted and fought on foot, could they be afraid that they would not be able to defeat Yuan Jun's remnants?
Not successful?
Thinking of this, Zhang Feihao said angrily: "The military advisor is still smart, so let's do this. I will immediately lead the soldiers south to pursue Yuan Shao."
"Um."
Tian Feng stood up and said, "Without further delay, let's leave now."
At that moment, Zhang Fei's cavalry dispatched and headed towards Ping'en.
At this moment, Yuan Shao was not at Ping'en to the south of the boundary bridge, but at Quzhou to the west.
Because they were afraid that Liu Bei would send cavalry south to pursue them, they did not choose the conventional route, but crossed the Zhang River to the west and entered Julu County.
Yuan Shao finally woke up after being in a coma for a day. His face was pale and bloodless, and his whole figure seemed to be ten years older.
"Ming Gong."
At the Quzhou County Government House, Liu Hui looked at him with a sad face.
Yuan Shao raised his head and glanced around, only to see Liu Hui and a few personal guards. When a close attendant saw that he was awake, he quickly came to help him and lifted his upper body up.
"Where is this?"
"Quzhou."
Liu Hui replied.
Yuan Shao said blankly: "Why am I here?"
Liu Hui said: "After yesterday's defeat at Jieqiao, we were worried that Liu Bei would send his cavalry south to pursue Duke Ming, so we did not go to Ping'en but came here."
Yuan Shao's vague memory because he had just woken up suddenly returned to its original state. Thinking of the defeat at Jieqiao, he couldn't help but feel angina. He coughed twice and his face became even paler. He managed to pull himself together and said: "How is the battle now? Where is my son Xianfu?
"
Liu Hui sighed: "We don't know the situation yet. General Jiang went to gather the soldiers. Xu Ziyuan led some people to find out about the young master. Xun Youruo went north to contact the Julu garrison. The situation is not good now."
"Julu, by the way, I still have tens of thousands of soldiers in Julu."
When Yuan Shao heard that Xun Chen had gone to Julu, he immediately thought that in order to deal with Xian Yufu from Youzhou, he had recruited a group of second-line troops to defend there. Because Julu had many water systems, it was not conducive for cavalry to gallop, so Xian Yufu temporarily used them
There is no way, the two sides are still in a stalemate.
If he immediately fled back to Yecheng at this time, he would probably surrender soon after the Qingzhou army crossed the river. Therefore, using his prestige to go to Julu first and transfer these people back south to defend Wei County at this time would at least be better than surrendering.
It is much better to give in.
Liu Hui said: "It is precisely based on these two points that we decided not to go south, but to go west."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Yuan Shao nodded slowly, agreeing with their opinions, but then frowned and said: "Then Liu Xuande is not terrible, but Chen Zigui is as cunning as a fox
, we can think of it, would he have thought of it a long time ago?"
"this......"
Liu Hui hesitated and said: "Our decision to go west was made on the spur of the moment. He probably wouldn't have reacted so quickly."
"No, cough cough."
Yuan Shaoqiang braced himself to stand up and said: "Quzhou is still too dangerous. We must leave here as soon as possible and go to Handan first."
Liu Hui quickly supported him and said: "My lord, you are not in good condition to move around. You should drive slowly in a carriage or horse."
Yuan Shao frowned and said, "I can just ride a horse. The chariot and horse are too slow and I'm afraid the enemy will catch up."
Liu Hui added: "Don't worry, Ming Gong. We have discussed that General Jiang gathered his soldiers and guarded the bridge on Quzhou side. If Liu Bei's pursuers have arrived, or Xu Ziyuan has inquired about the young master and found him, we will immediately cut off the situation."
The bridge can block the pursuers and delay the pursuit."
"If that's the case, that's fine."
Yuan Shao felt a little more relieved. There was also a stone bridge on the Zhang River, but because the two sides of the river were closer to Quzhou, it happened to be a wooden bridge. If the bridge was broken according to the water, it would indeed delay time.
At this moment, Jiang Yiqu came in. Before anyone arrived, the words had already arrived, and he said, "Is Mr. Ming awake?"
"Yiqu!"
Yuan Shao called softly.
Jiang Yiqu quickly walked to the bedside and said: "Ming Gong, the spies who went out to find out the news are back."
"how?"
Yuan Shao was eager to know what happened after the war.
Jiang Yiqu's face was quite ugly, but he still reported good news instead of bad news: "That Zhang Fei cavalry went south to Ping'en, Quzhou is still safe."
"That's good...ahem...where is my son Xianfu?"
Yuan Shao coughed twice more. In fact, he was always angry in his heart. He was angry at Guo Tu and his incompetent generals, but he felt dizzy when he was angry, so he resisted not asking Guo Tu, but asked Yuan Shang first.
Jiang Yiqu's face became even more ugly, and he hesitated for a long time. After seeing Yuan Shao's increasingly serious gaze, he wriggled his lips and slowly said a few words.
"Master, he..."
"How is he?"
"He and the Inquisition Army were captured by the Qingzhou Army together!"