Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 59: Make great achievements today!
Zhang He ran out of the tent with a look of surprise on his face.

But I saw flames rising into the sky about twenty or thirty miles away in the east, outlining the contours of the hills and mountains that were still in darkness.

In the light of the fire, although it was dark in the early morning, one could still see the billowing smoke filling the sky and earth.

"What's going on?" Zhang He was confused and sniffed.

Since the entire area of ​​Wudu is a basin with high mountains on all sides and meadows and hills in the middle, and it is mid-spring with an easterly wind, the air is already filled with a faint burnt smell.

It's the smell of burning grass.

Although it is not pungent, it makes breathing difficult.

Since he could smell the odor, then the nearly 30,000 soldiers and civilians in this large village must be able to do so as well.

However, since a death order had been issued that anyone making noise at night or leaving the tent without permission would be beheaded, no one dared to make any noise for a while.

But not long after, as the smell of smoke in the air became thicker and thicker, slight coughing sounds began to come from the darkness.

"Right General, this is probably a small group of Shu bandits using fire attacks to bluff and disturb the central baggage camp led by the brothers Niu Jin and Niu Gai, and they want to use civilians and auxiliary soldiers to create chaos, right?" Zhang Yu, the commander of Zhang He's personal guards, asked.

The brothers Niu Jin and Niu Gai had followed Cao Ren and Cao Zhen in their campaigns for more than ten years. They were veterans of the battlefield and had been given instructions by the Right General in recent days. It was impossible for their camp to be attacked and set on fire because it was unstable.

It is more likely that the Shu invaders used fire to cut off their retreat or front route, thereby disturbing them.

Zhang He looked at the firelight and thought again and again, then nodded slightly to show his agreement.

The Wudu Basin is surrounded by towering mountains, but this mountain basin is different from the Hanzhong Basin. It is not a plain, but consists of undulating meadows and hills with thousands of gullies and ravines.

This is also the reason why there were more than 50,000 Qiang people living here ten years ago. This place is really suitable for grazing horses.

But this time when withdrawing troops, Zhang He didn't care about whether to release the horses or not. He was only worried that the undulating meadows and hills with thousands of ravines and gullies would block his vision too much and provide space for small groups of troops to march. So he had been carefully guarding against possible ambushes and night attacks launched by the Shu army in the past few days.

First, the scouts went out twenty miles ahead, then they gave instructions to the generals, and then they selected three to four thousand young men with good eyesight from the entire army to patrol the camp in shifts at night.

Finally, they spared no expense in slaughtering more than a hundred cattle, sheep, and horses, and took their livers and blood to make porridge for more than two thousand elite soldiers to eat, so as to allocate resources so that the elite soldiers would have better combat power at night.

Night attacks are low-probability events. After all, no matter how elite the troops are, their vision is limited at night. Once the battle begins, they cannot command with flags, and are destined to be launched only by a small number of elite troops.

The attack of four or five hundred elite Shu bandits last night was a clear proof of this, but because they were well prepared, they were easily driven away.

"Right General, should we organize troops to intercept them?" asked Zhang Yu, the commander of the personal guards.

"The Shu invaders' army is in the west and north, and this place is surrounded by mountains. If they want to join the Shu invaders, they can only go west, or run north through the few river valleys between the high mountains in the north!
"Looking at the location of the fire, we should quickly organize our troops and head northeast. We will definitely be able to intercept these elite Shu bandits in front of several river valleys!"

Zhang He hesitated for a moment and shook his head in denial:
"Forget it, there are only a few hundred people at most. It's not worth it to start a war and waste time. The most important thing is to get through Chencang and return to Guanzhong."

Previously, the 5,000 troops led by Guo Huai passed through the river valley gap between the high mountains and dangerous peaks north of the Wudu Basin and headed north to Tianshui.

However, what his personal guard commander had just said about heading northeast to intercept them was not necessarily true.

The area is full of gullies and ravines, providing numerous shelters. It is not difficult for hundreds of elite soldiers to secretly retreat through the crevices of the hills in the middle of the basin.

Zhang He stared at the flames rising from the distance for a while, and then ordered his elite soldiers to patrol one mile ahead with torches to prevent any sneak attack by the Shu bandits in this area.

Darkness still enveloped the camp, which was three miles long and one mile wide. Fortunately, there was no other noise except the occasional slight coughing.

Zhang He, who had not slept much the night before, calmed down and returned to the camp to sleep.

The burning smell in the air made it difficult for him to breathe.

However, just as he was about to fall asleep, the sound of hurried and crisp footsteps came into his ears, waking him up again.

He quickly stood up and dressed, and saw that the person entering the tent was Zhang Yu, the commander of the personal guards.

"What's wrong?" Zhang He narrowed his eyes, a little surprised.

Zhang Yu, the commander of the personal guards, had a look of panic and anxiety on his face. His lips moved up and down, but he could hardly speak. After several breaths, he finally spoke:

"Right General... Niu Jin has come on horseback to report that a large number of Shu invaders have appeared in the central supply camp. I wonder how many there are!

"The soldiers patrolling the camp and guarding the stronghold were first lured to the north by a feint to the east and then attacked from the west. Then the Shu invaders unexpectedly attacked from the south, the most unlikely direction!
"Niu Jin only had 300-odd men guarding the south. Facing several thousand Shu invaders, even relying on the fortifications in the camp was completely unable to resist!
"It is said that after the Shu invaders broke into the camp, they split into dozens or even hundreds of groups. They first burned the baggage and food, then began to burn the camp tents, expelling the civilians and soldiers, and causing chaos in the camp!
"The civilians and auxiliary soldiers fled in all directions. Generals Niu Jin and Niu Gai were unable to maintain order in the camp. In the end, they had no choice but to lead their elite troops outside the camp to form a battle array and fight!"

Zhang He struggled to digest the news.

"Thousands of people...are you sure it's thousands of people?"

"General, my General Niu says there are at least four or five thousand!" The messenger behind Zhang Yu, his face blackened, panted. "General, please send troops to intercept them!"

Zhang He was puzzled at first, but after a moment he said in a daze, "Four or five thousand men for a night attack? Even if all the elite troops of the Shu invaders were deployed, it wouldn't be enough, right?"

However, as soon as the words fell, the man's hair and beard stood on end, and he was furious:

"I have fifty thousand soldiers, and only then have I selected five to six thousand strong and elite soldiers to guard the night!
"How dare the Shu invaders take such a gamble, sending all their elite troops to a place fifty or sixty miles away from the main force to launch a night attack?!
"Aren't you afraid you won't be able to go back?!"

This Right General had never imagined that Zhuge Liang would risk his life in such a way with his elite troops!
"Hmph! How dare Ge the thief act so arrogantly? What do you think of me, Zhang He?! I will make sure he never returns!!!"
"Quickly gather 8,000 elite soldiers and make sure to intercept and kill these elite Shu bandits in Wudu!"

"Yes!" Zhang Yu took the order and left quickly.

Zhang He, his eyes bloodshot, quickly put on armor and picked up his bow, his heart beating wildly.

It was still dark. If there really were several thousand men launching a night attack, and they were planning to escape safely after the attack, how could they succeed?!

Niu Jin also asked him to send troops to intercept, and he would definitely chase after them with torches to guide his army!
In less than a quarter of an hour, eight thousand soldiers were fully armed, and a hundred cavalrymen were leading the way.

After walking less than two miles, he reined in his horse and climbed a high slope. Looking towards the wilderness to the east, Zhang He quickly saw a faint fire of medium length appearing in the darkness about ten miles away, slowly extending to the north!
"Send the order to march quickly! The Shu invaders are still twenty miles away from the river valley! We are also twenty miles away!
"They must be exhausted after attacking at night. It's impossible for them to reach the valley entrance faster than us!"

At Zhang He's command, more than a dozen elite cavalrymen of his personal guards quickly reined in their horses and rushed down the hill towards the captains and Sima of each unit.

Eight thousand soldiers, carrying more than ten thousand torches, passed through the gaps between the hillside meadows, and rushed towards the northern river valley mouth at a speed of almost thirty miles per hour, regardless of fatigue.

In fact, Zhang He knew that he was more than twenty miles away from the valley, but he was also sure that as long as he maintained this speed, his eight thousand elite troops would reach the valley faster than the torch.

Half an hour passed.

Ten miles south of the valley mouth.

Jiang Wei, lying on the slope of the hill, completely buried in the grass, looked down quietly, with the Yuanrong crossbow in his hand drawn but not firing.

The road extending from the river valley runs north-south, is thirty miles long and more than one mile wide, extending all the way to the high mountain cliffs on the south side of the basin.

The rear part of Zhang He's army was on the west side of the avenue, and the central grain and fodder camp was on the east side of the avenue.

If the Wei invaders wanted to kill the more than 4,000 elite raiding troops led by Wu Yi and Chen Shi, they would have to pass through this road.

Or deploy troops along the highway and block the entrance to the valley.

Or they could continue to attack the hilly meadows east of the road and start the killing directly on the hilly meadows. The hillside where Jiang Wei was lying at the moment was on the west side of the road, but it was not close to the road. He faced east with his back to the west, and his eyes were on the slope facing the road.

Instead, it is a hillside more than half a mile away from the main road, running east-west, which cannot be climbed on horseback, and faces south with its back to the north.

Just a quarter of an hour ago, dozens of riders holding torches slowly passed by on the road, and carefully searched the foot of the mountain on both sides of the road, as if to see if there were any traces left by anyone.

of course not!

Their 1,800 ambush troops followed the mountain ridge all the way to this hillside that deviated from the main road, and no one had ever been to that main road!
The only thing to worry about is that Wei Kou is cautious and reins in his horse to run to the hillside far away from the main road and climb up to investigate.

But then again, if they wanted to quickly lead the army to block the river valley, how could they possibly have the time to survey every hillside across more than twenty miles and hundreds or even thousands of mountains?
"Bo Yue, aren't you afraid?" Yin Shang, who returned to Han with him, had a trembling voice.

They had been ambushing here with eight hundred crossbowmen in the middle of the night. It was mid-spring now and the chill had not yet dissipated. The early morning dew soaked their clothes and armor, making them shiver uncontrollably.

Judging from the torches rushing towards this place from afar, there were probably more than 10,000 people.

The double torture of body and mind made the Tianshui chief clerk, who returned to Han with Jiang Wei, feel a little worried.

If anything were to go wrong, these thousand or so people would never be able to return!
"Hush—" Jiang Wei glared at Yin Shang fiercely and cursed in a low voice, "Today is the day to achieve great things. What is there to be afraid of?"

Upon hearing this, Yin Shang, the former chief clerk of Tianshui, remained silent for a moment and nodded heavily.

His good friend's father was the Gongcao of Tianshui more than ten years ago. When Ma Chao led his troops to attack, he was killed by Ma Chao after the city was broken because of his tenacious defense of the city.

Later, the Wei Dynasty rewarded his good friend for his merits and appointed him as General of the Central Army.

As a result, the Jiang family, which obtained the first Thousand Stone official title, directly sat firmly on the position of the most powerful family in Tianshui, and had the momentum to develop into a noble family.

And since his good friend became a General of the Central Army, he no longer accumulated any personal property, but spent all his wealth to secretly support heroes.

Although the four words "spent all the family wealth" seem easy and simple to write, how can it be so easy to actually do it?

So everyone could see that this General wanted to accomplish something great, something greater than what his father Jiang Jiong had done, something that would even go down in history.

However, because he came from a wealthy family and his family background was too poor, even though he was promoted to the rank of General of the Central Army, his ambitions were still difficult to realize.

Ma Zun, the prefect of Tianshui who came from Guandong, didn't even need to look at him straight in the eye, and even mocked his family background in his words and deeds.

And I don’t know if he didn’t bribe the county’s Zhongzheng official, but when the Zhongzheng official evaluated Jiang Wei, he directly gave him a lower-middle rating.

The second to last one, the turbid stream among the turbid streams, the reason why he was not ranked lower is probably because he has the rank of General of the Central Army.

This was considered good, as he and the brothers Liang Xu, Gongcao of Tianshui, and Liang Qian, Zhuji, were not even qualified to be evaluated by the Zhongzheng official.

This time, Jiang Wei brought them back to Han, and was immediately valued by the Prime Minister and appointed as the warehouse clerk in the Prime Minister's office.

Now he has been directly entrusted with an important task, and was asked to lead his troops to follow General Meng Yan of Fu Han to set up an ambush here.

Yin Shang, Liang Xu, and Liang Qian, the three younger brothers who followed Jiang Wei back to the Han Dynasty, even began to suspect that their elder brother Jiang, who was obsessed with fame and fortune, might have been exchanging letters with the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty for a long time?
"Boyue, here he comes!" Liang Xu said in a low voice.

Jiang Wei remained silent, his eyes sharp.

It was already dawn and his vision was much better than before.

There were probably more than a hundred Wei invaders holding torches, appearing on the road a mile away, heading towards the river valley at the north end of the road.

Subsequent Wei invaders continued to follow.

But in less than half a quarter of an hour, more than a thousand torches appeared in sight, moving very slowly.

How could they not be slow? Armored and bladed, they had covered over ten miles in just half an hour. Even the most elite of soldiers would have been exhausted.

"Boyue, they didn't continue eastward to block Wu Guojiu and General Chen. I guess they wanted to rest at the mouth of the river valley and wait for the enemy to tire themselves out."

Liang Xu spoke again in a low voice. This place was more than half a mile away from the main road in a straight line, so he was not afraid of being heard.

Looking further east, the torches that appeared and disappeared on the meadow hills should be five or six miles away from the main road.

Without their ambush support, it would be difficult to break out from the valley mouth.

"What should we do with Bo Yue?" Yin Shang asked again.

"The Wei invaders have already numbered four or five thousand, why hasn't General Fu Han taken action yet?"

General Meng Yan, who assisted the Han Dynasty, was the cousin of Meng Huo, a great man in Nanzhong. This time, he brought a thousand "Wu Dang Flying Army" composed of brave men from Nanzhong, and ambushed them on the hillside east of the highway. It is said that they are best at mountain warfare and are known as mountain cavalry.

Not only that, among the 800 ambush troops on their side of the hill, 400 were Wu Dang Flying Troops, but they were not under Jiang Wei's command.

All Jiang Wei could command were the four hundred elite soldiers temporarily assigned to him by the Prime Minister.

Even though there were only four hundred of them, everyone could see that the Prime Minister was giving Jiang Wei a chance to perform.

Once such an important task is accomplished, Jiang Wei will be able to quickly gain the trust of the Han army.

"I never expected that we could attract so many Wei invaders. There must be five or six thousand of them on this road alone, right?" Liang Xu muttered again in Jiang Wei's ear, and it could be heard that he seemed a little frightened.

"Okay, don't make any more noise." Jiang Wei finally spoke again, holding his breath and concentrating.

According to the plan, they had to wait for General Meng Yan, the auxiliary Han general, to attack first, draw the attention of the Wei army to the east, and then attack from the west using the sound of elephant horns as a signal.

In the middle of the avenue.

The Wei army soldiers were panting and marching north.

Zhang He led a dozen elite cavalrymen and rode off the main road, galloped up a small hill on the east side of the road, and squinted at the fire five or six miles away.

It was clearly the morning hour, but if it were in Luoyang it would already be bright.

But the sky in Guanxi was still very dark, and I could only barely make out the human figures under the torches.

But it was obvious that the flames, which came from either the Shu invaders or the Niu Jin troops, were moving very slowly towards the north.

He rode his horse forward a few dozen steps and looked down at the low hills around him.

I could vaguely see lush vegetation, but the light was dim and I couldn't see anything unusual.

He originally wanted to take some men on horseback to investigate, but after thinking about it, he finally reined in his horses and went down the mountain.

A moment later, on the eastern hillside half a mile away, General Meng Yan of Fu Han finally stood up from the half-man-high grass and waved back.

A thousand Wudang flying soldiers, wearing light rattan armor specially designed to protect against arrows and carrying big swords on their backs, crouched down and moved forward.

The Yuanrong crossbow in his hand was drawn but not fired, and the twenty arrows in the crossbow box were all coated with poison.

(End of this chapter)