Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 10: Blood Filled Sleeves
Longshan Mountain is steep and easy to defend but difficult to attack, in fact, relative to the Guanzhong Plain.

Once you enter Longyou, you will find that the mountains here are not high walls and deep cliffs, but low hills that gradually increase in height.

The distance from the river valley where people live to the tops of the two hills that sandwich the valley is about three or four kilometers, and the change in altitude is only two or three hundred meters.

If you climb to the top of a high hill and look around, you can see one small hill after another with the same gently undulating slopes.

The Qinling Mountains isolate the moisture from the southeast, resulting in sparse vegetation here and almost no tall trees on the mountains. Therefore, this place is extremely suitable for raising sheep and horses, or it can be said that it is only suitable for raising sheep and horses.

And there is no doubt that within one or two kilometers of towns and roads, the low hills that have been turned into bald hills by the people for firewood cutting or by sheep and horses are suitable for horse racing.

When the prime minister led more than 10,000 troops and horses to Lueyang in a hurry, traveling day and night, and was only four or five miles away from Jieting, Ma Su had already been defeated.

The Prime Minister reined in his horse and climbed a high hill.

Thus, a hill, a person, and a horse form a still picture.

A spring breeze came from east to west, swept across Chang'an with its layers of flying eaves and gables, spread across the endless plains of fertile fields for thousands of miles, and finally struggled over the Long Mountains. It blew a few strands of hair on the man who was reining in his horse on a high hill, but did not bring any vitality to the whole picture.

lifeless.

If you enlarge the picture frame, you can see a man and a horse on a high hill as the center, and Han soldiers all over the low hills around him.

Like stars in the sky, they are scattered on the bare, gray hills, fleeing for their lives.

Looking down, you can see a narrow valley about two miles wide, running east-west, sandwiched between two mountains in the north and south.

There were also scattered Han troops on the paths, roads, wheat fields, and embankments in the valley, but they seemed to be far less numerous than on the hills.

Only a troop of about a thousand men maintained the military formation and slowly moved westward.

A mile or two to the east of this army was the vast and dark Wei army, which seemed to have no end in sight.

Their armies were intertwined and stopped their pursuit in a disorderly manner. Not long after, they began to retreat again, rushing towards the Jieting City in the southeast of the valley.

It was not known whether they were afraid of the army formation slowly returning from the valley, or whether they had been on the attack for thousands of miles and were now at the end of their strength.

The prime minister went down the mountain and formed a battle formation in the valley. At the same time, he ordered his men to raise flags and blow horns on the mountain to gather the scattered Han soldiers.

When the army formation that was slowly returning westwards met the Prime Minister's army formation of 10,000 people, the Prime Minister passed through the formation and found the deputy general Wang Ping at the back of the formation, his head covered in blood and his body covered in mud.

When this Wei general who surrendered in the Battle of Hanzhong heard that the prime minister had arrived, he rushed over clumsily with his heavy armor swinging, knelt down in front of the prime minister, lowered his head and began to cry bitterly.

No one blamed him for crying out loud; it wasn't manly at all.

The Han Prime Minister, whose body became increasingly hunched and whose movements became increasingly weak, trembled as he used all his strength to grasp the arms of the surrendered Wei general and helped him up.

Then the blood-soaked armor and clothes of the surrendered Wei general oozed out a lot of blood, which made the Prime Minister's palms and eyes red.

Three days later.

The army returned to Shanggui.

Ma Su led more than 10,000 troops to garrison Jieting, but only more than 4,000 people returned to Shanggui, including Wang Ping's 1,000 troops.

However, General Ma, who disobeyed orders and abandoned the city and went up the mountain, disappeared completely after the defeat.

No one knows whether he is dead or alive.

If dead, why did he die? If alive, where did he escape from and where did he escape to?

Another day.

The army broke camp.

Wei Yan led the vanguard army, while the prime minister and Wang Ping, who had just been appointed as a military officer to fight the invaders, led the rear guard.

The Prime Minister took one last look at Shanggui, then headed west without looking back.

In the evening, the army arrived at Mumen Road.

Wu Yi, who was originally responsible for the siege of You Chu in Longxi, and his more than 10,000 troops had been waiting here for a day.

Originally, he had more than 20,000 troops when he besieged the city, but after hearing that Cao's army was coming up Long, the more than 10,000 Han and Qiang nobles who had come to join him scattered and disappeared without a trace.

Wu Yi even worried these days that these Han and Qiang tyrants would attack them in turn in order to seek credit and reward from Cao Wei and pretend that they had never surrendered to the Han Dynasty.

late at night.

After Wei Yan settled his troops, he rushed into the general's tent and found the prime minister.

"Prime Minister Zhuge, are we just going to leave like this without gaining anything?!"

Wei Yan's attitude towards the prime minister had obviously changed a lot. In the eyes of the entire army, this defeat was all the fault of the Han prime minister's insistence on using Ma Su.

It is impossible for everyone to have no complaints.

Wei Yan was promoted by the late emperor himself. When he was appointed as the prefect of Hanzhong, even Zhang Fei had to stand aside, which shocked the entire army.

Therefore, in terms of seniority, Wei Yan, the former emperor's old general, can compete with the prime minister.

When the hope of victory is magnified by the Prime Minister, Wei Yan's good impression of the Prime Minister will be magnified, and when the hope of victory is shattered by the Prime Minister, his bad impression will also be magnified.

If the Prime Minister had not been ordered to command the three armies, Wei Yan would have disobeyed orders long ago.

But when it comes to the word "moderation", the missing Ma Youchang becomes even more hateful.

Even Wei Yan, the Han Dynasty's most madman who always looked down on others and made everyone bow their heads to him, did not dare to disobey the Prime Minister's control.

But Ma Su dared to do so.

"What do you think, Wenchang?"

The Prime Minister knelt on the straw mat without raising his head and continued to write furiously.

His upper back was hunched at an exaggerated angle, and his head was only two fists' distance from the low table.

The bamboo slips on the table were piled half a person's height, and many of them fell to the ground without anyone bothering to pick them up.

However, just as Wei Yan was about to express his opinion, the good-natured Fei Yi once again rushed into the general's tent with a panicked look on his face.

"Prime Minister, Minister Dong and the Chief Secretary have sent a letter!"

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(End of this chapter)