Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 79: West of Chang'an, all within reach

March 28th.

In the evening, Chencang.

As the more than one hundred soldiers who had gone out of the city to harass the enemy retreated back into Chencang, the city gate slowly closed.

Fu Qian stepped onto the tower, looked at Zhao Yun's back with a sharp gaze, and spoke loudly:

"General Zhao, the Wei invaders under the city have lost their fighting spirit. Tomorrow morning, we can try to break out!"

For the past two days, Fu Qian opened the city gates from time to time and pretended to break out with hundreds of soldiers.

At the beginning, the morale of the Wei army was high, thinking that the Han army was really coming to die.

As a result, after doing it more than ten times a day, they found that they were all feints, and gradually lost their patience. Morale was visibly declining.

This kind of harassment is an open conspiracy. The commander knows that this is a tactic to tire out the enemy, but with thousands of soldiers lacking tactical acumen gathered together, underestimating the enemy and becoming exhausted are inevitable.

They also tried to take the city by charging forward with their army while the city gates were wide open.

As a result, they were beaten several times by arrows, gold juice, rolling logs and other city defense weapons, and after leaving behind hundreds of corpses, they never dared to be stubborn again.

Even so, it was still not easy for the defenders on the city to break out.

The soil on both sides of the Wei River is soft, and a two-zhang-wide trench has been dug under the city of Chencang, and fortifications such as Lujiao are also complete.

Although sandbags had been prepared in the city to fill the trenches, in this situation, if they wanted to successfully break the siege, many soldiers would inevitably have to be sacrificed.

Fortunately, the Wei army is not without weaknesses.

Their camp had previously housed 40,000 to 50,000 troops and tens of thousands of civilians, and it had not yet been dismantled.

This was obviously too much for the remaining tens of thousands of soldiers.

If a small group of desperate people find an opportunity to break into the area and create chaos, it is indeed possible to defeat the enemy.

Fu Qian has already planned the route, and tomorrow he will personally leave the city and lead the death-defying attack on the camp.

If they could successfully defeat the enemy and break the siege, they would gain the same reputation as Wu general Gan Ning who led a hundred cavalrymen to raid the camp.

However, just as he was feeling excited and nervous, Fu Qian's eyelids suddenly twitched, and he suddenly turned his head to the right, frowned and stared for a moment before speaking in a daze:

"General Zhao, why do the Wei invaders seem to be fleeing in the west?!"

Thirty miles to the west is the narrow path along the Wei River that Zhang He used to climb Mount Long. However, the view is blocked and one can only see areas more than ten miles away from the city.

On the other side, Zhao Yun actually saw it earlier than Fu Qian. After a moment's thought, he was both surprised and delighted. He clapped his hands:

"The soldiers guarding the narrow pass along the Wei River must have learned that Zhang He's army was about to attack Your Majesty, so they rushed down the mountain to attack him!"

Fu Qian was also surprised when he heard this, but after a moment he became confused:

"But General Zhao, Zhang He has only been on the move for two days. Even if the soldiers on the mountain discovered us, they couldn't have arrived so quickly, right?"

Zhao Yun's expression froze for a moment before he reacted.

If there were indeed Han soldiers fighting the enemy in the west, it is impossible that they came down the mountain only after hearing the news of Zhang He's attack.

"So, the Prime Minister must have received my message warning him to be wary of the narrow road, and he immediately sent his men down the narrow road, attacking instead of defending, catching the enemy by surprise!"

Even as the two were talking, they could see nearly a thousand defeated Wei soldiers wearing black and yellow armor running madly eastward.

After a while, the two finally saw a group of black and red figures. Needless to say, it was the Han army soldiers chasing the Wei army!
"Could it be a plan to make me suspicious? To lure me out of the city and break out?" After his instinctive excitement, Zhao Yun calmed down a little.

However, he shook his head again:

"Never mind all that. First, order all the soldiers to put on their armor and prepare for the enemy. When the time comes, follow me out of the city and break the enemy's formation!"

The personal soldiers on the city wall quickly ran over to deliver the message, while Zhao Yun and Fu Qian continued to wait and watch.

Just as the soldiers were getting ready and the two of them were concentrating on the pursuit to the west, a soldier guarding the city suddenly spoke:
"General Zhao, Fu Daolu, many cavalrymen are coming from the east... from the east!"

"What?" Zhao Yun turned his head immediately after hearing the voice.

Sure enough, I saw more than two thousand cavalrymen galloping on the road more than ten miles away.

"There are so many of them, and they come so quickly?" After judging the scale of the cavalry, Zhao Yun frowned for a moment.

Fu Qian's expression was also stern:
"An Guo and the Qiang King's 1,000 cavalrymen have all been tied up. How many Xiongnu cavalrymen did they actually have?"

Zhao Yun stared at the group of cavalrymen who were galloping towards him for a long time, then looked towards Wuzhangyuan. After a long silence, he finally sighed:

"These two thousand cavalry are probably Zhang He's backup. Even if you and I successfully lead our army to break out, with so many light cavalry, you can easily cut off my retreat.

"If they hadn't seen our Han soldiers charging out from the narrow path along the Wei River, they would probably have continued to hide."

I thought that Guan Xing and the Qiang King's thousand-plus cavalry could tie up most of them. There should be only a few hundred cavalry around for reconnaissance and patrol, so it wouldn't be too difficult to deal with them.

But there were more than two thousand cavalrymen coming at once, which really gave people a headache.

In the Wei army camp under Chencang City, many Wei soldiers were running westward to support the defeated soldiers.

On the other side, a distance of more than ten miles was covered in an instant for the light cavalry. The group of cavalry that suddenly appeared quickly rushed to the east of the Wei camp and then passed through the camp.

Zhao Yun was suddenly stunned, squinting his eyes, and pointed into the distance uncertainly, "Gongquan, look to the east, is there a fire?"

After all, it was four or five miles away, and Chencang was not located at a very high position, so the view was not very clear. We could only see what seemed to be fireworks rising.

Beside him, Fu Qian could no longer hear the old general's questions and was so surprised that he almost forgot to breathe.

His eyesight was much better than the old general's. Not only did he see the fireworks rising, he also saw the large group of cavalry constantly weaving through the Wei army camps, setting fire and killing people!
"General Zhao, it seems that this large group of cavalry are not Wei invaders, but our own people!" Fu Qian's heart was beating wildly uncontrollably.

"What...what?" Zhao Yun thought he had misheard. After noticing that Fu Qian's expression was drastically different, he turned his head and looked into the distance. After a moment, his face was full of disbelief, just like Fu Qian.

The fire there grew bigger and bigger, and thick smoke rose. The chaotic crowd was chased by the cavalry and ran wildly in all directions in the camp.

In a daze, Zhao Yun looked down at the city again.

Behind the trench, the two or three thousand Wei soldiers, regardless of size, were all looking east, each of them seemed confused and their formation was in disarray.

"It doesn't seem to be fake! I'm leaving the city! You stay in the city to cover my rear!" Seeing this situation, although Zhao Yun didn't understand why the Han Dynasty had such a large group of cavalry coming to support, he was finally overjoyed and no longer hesitated.

Already fully armed, he went straight back to the corner tower to take off his lance, and then strode towards the city.

Fu Qian looked at General Zhao's back, then looked at the cavalry galloping under the city, and his head became dizzy.

It was obviously his responsibility to bravely lead a hundred men to raid the camp and perform well in front of His Majesty. Whether he lived or died, he would not bring disgrace to his family. Who knows, if he was lucky, he might even be remembered in history!

How come it all of a sudden, first the Prime Minister sent thousands of people to attack Longshan, then the Han Dynasty inexplicably had thousands more cavalry, and now General Zhao asked him to stay and defend the city without any explanation?

The city gates are wide open.

At the same time, thousands of Wei troops who were hiding behind the antlers in the trench and besieging Chencang began to retreat in fear.

In the open space behind them, hundreds of light cavalry were coming at full speed, trying to block their retreat.

The sound of horse hooves rumbled and a huge cloud of dust rose up.

The leaders all held a large banner with red characters on a black background waving in the wind.

Fu Qian took a closer look and saw a huge Chinese character "Han"!

But when he looked again, his expression was confused again.

He had seen Yang Tiao's Qiang cavalry in Jieting, but the cavalry under the city were clearly not dressed like Qiang people, nor were they the Han Tiger Cavalry.

"Huns?" The man was stunned for a long time before he suddenly thought of something and finally spoke in surprise.

At this time, the thousands of Wei troops blocking the road outside the city had all lost their order and retreated wildly.

The three thousand defenders in the city rushed out of the city gate carrying sandbags. Because no one stopped them, they filled the trench with a passage several dozen steps wide in a short while.

Zhao Yun, holding a long spear, took the lead and led only twenty personal cavalrymen to attack the fleeing Cao Wei soldiers.

Looking towards the narrow passage of the Wei River, the Wei army, which had originally formed a battle formation to the west to support the defeated soldiers, had hundreds of light cavalry appear behind them, causing chaos for a while.

In less than half a quarter of an hour, the battle outside the city turned into a one-sided defeat.

"Captain, should we still defend the city?" Fu Qian's personal soldiers were already itching to do so.

Upon hearing the sound, the soldiers guarding the city all cast fiery glances at Fu Qian.

At this moment, the Wei army fleeing outside the city was almost as attractive to them as a naked girl.

Fu Qian looked around and saw that the soldiers who stayed behind all looked anxious, and it was obvious that they all wanted to go to the city to compete for military merit.

These were the elite troops who came down the mountain from Jieting with him. Most of the people General Zhao brought out were new and strong recruits.

"Alright, General Zhao ordered us to stay behind, so we'll do it. Do you think we're going to disobey General Zhao's orders?!"

"Captain! The Wei invaders have been defeated, so why do they need us to cover their rear?" A city guard shouted loudly in the distance.

"That's right, Captain. The soldiers General Zhao is bringing are all new recruits. If we go down to help, we can save a few lives!"

For a while, there were all kinds of requests for battle, in short, they all wanted to go down to the city and reap the benefits.

The crowd was so excited that everyone wanted to fight.

Fu Qian turned proudly, raised his armor and held his sword, then walked past the soldiers, glancing them up and down as if inspecting them:

"Alright! I know you all don't want to let go of the victory you've achieved.

"But we are the elite troops of the Han Dynasty, ordered to stay behind. What's the point of trying to seize such an easy victory?!

"When the mission of charging into battle, slaying generals, and capturing flags for His Majesty is placed before you one day, if you can still ask me to fight you like you do now, then you will be a truly elite force!

"Will His Majesty be short of our rewards then?!"

Seeing that the soldiers' discussions had quieted down a bit, Fu Qiancai continued:

"Don't worry, once the Wei invaders are defeated at the gate of the city, we will march into Weinan tomorrow!
"That must be Zhang He's main force. General Zhao can't let the new recruits lead the way. You guys will have plenty of credit by then!"

After hearing this, the soldiers finally fell silent and continued to watch with envy as the Han soldiers under the city beheaded and captured the fleeing Wei invaders.

In less than an hour, before night fell, the battle here was over. It was so fast that it was unbelievable.

The spoils were incalculable. Half of the food and supplies that Zhang He brought down from Longshan were found here.

It is roughly estimated that there were more than 10,000 laborers and auxiliary soldiers, nearly 1,000 heads were beheaded, over 10,000 prisoners were taken, and there were several thousand more draft animals such as horses, oxen, and donkeys.

The 4,000 defenders of Chencang and the 5,000 reinforcements from Longyou were too busy collecting weapons, supplies, and maintaining order to bother with a thorough count. Zhao Yun and Fu Qian, handing over the task to their subordinate officers, finally reunited with Wang Ping, who had descended from the mountains of Longyou, and Yang Tiao, who had rushed a hundred miles from the Xiongnu camp.

Zhao Yun first looked at the horrific scar on Yang Tiao's arm that had not yet healed, and then praised his noble character, and finally called him his dear brother.

Yang Tiao looked indifferent and immediately brought the news that the emperor had repelled Zhang He's main force at Wuzhangyuan to Zhao Yun, Wang Ping, Fu Qian and others.

After hearing this, the tense nerves of several people relaxed, and they all praised it.

It’s a pity that Yang Tiao could only see it from afar and didn’t know the details of the battle on the south bank of the Wei River.

Everyone could only keep their curiosity and wait to hear the whole story when they met the emperor.

As for when Yang Tiao talked about Guan Xing leading only dozens of soldiers to rob the Xiongnu camp and capture the Xiongnu king, everyone was shocked and sighed.

Zhao Yun was so excited that his face almost turned red. He kept saying that he was worthy of being the son of Guan Yu who beheaded Yan Liang amidst thousands of soldiers. He really lived up to his father's reputation.

Fu Qian was also amazed, but his amazement was mixed with envy.

He was horrified and said to himself that this was what a good man should be like, and that with such great achievements, he would have no regrets even if he died.

"Zijun, how about you? How come you came so quickly?" Zhao Yun asked in a friendly voice.

Zhao Yun had high hopes for this "young man" who had performed brilliantly at Jieting, beheaded 3,000 people with Wei Yan at Qishan, and now resolutely went to Long because he was eager to rescue the emperor.

This is another newly rising general of the Han Dynasty, and we must take good care of him.

Wang Ping, who was usually taciturn, had long admired General Zhao. He could hear the protective tone in General Zhao's voice and hurriedly bowed respectfully:

"General Zhao, the Prime Minister originally wanted to attack Tianshui with all his strength, but after receiving your letter, he learned that you were worried about defending Chencang alone, so he sent me with 5,000 men to the narrow pass of the Wei River to wait and see.

"It can prevent Zhang He from going up to Long from here, and if Chencang is in trouble, I can rush to help.

“Since there was no one to scout the Wei invaders, I led my troops all the way down the mountain. The day before yesterday, I saw the pseudo-Wei scouts forty miles from the mountain pass.

"So they sent the brave men from the south to sneak along the small roads, and that night they discovered that Zhang He had actually marched out of Weinan and was heading towards Wuzhangyuan.

"I received the news and was worried that Your Majesty was in trouble, so I led my troops down the mountain in a hurry.

“The mountain road was difficult to travel and we only reached the pass at noon.

"Three thousand Wei invaders set up a guard post. I personally led the troops to charge in the front, and sent two hundred Wudang flying soldiers up the mountains and down the hills to follow them. Only then did the invaders retreat in fear."

Hearing this, Zhao Yun nodded in approval.

The art of deploying troops is to combine the normal and the strange. It sounds simple, but in reality it requires careful consideration of the situation. How can it be so easy?
Anyone who can advance in every battle and be accurate in every action can be considered a famous general of the time.

For example, with only two hundred Wudang flying soldiers, how can we be sure that they can scare off the enemy?

Furthermore, the positive and the odd are combined, the positive is in front and the odd is behind.

Wang Ping said it lightly, as if the two hundred Wudang flying soldiers came later and achieved the miraculous feat.

But who knows how much courage and decisiveness it took for him to personally lead the troops to charge into battle, and how much sacrifice he made?

If Wang Ping and Yang Tiao had not come to break the siege of Chencang, Zhao Yun and Fu Qian would have been prepared to break out of the encirclement, one using the regular tactics and the other using the unconventional tactics.

But objectively speaking, even Zhao Yun himself could not say that he was not at all nervous, so he admired Wang Ping's wisdom and courage even more.

However, I still feel puzzled:

"Since Zhang He dared to lead his main force to launch a surprise attack from Weinan, why did he only send troops to scout the 40-50 li mountain road?
"He entered Long from this point and defeated Meng Qi. He shouldn't be so careless."

Wang Ping first shook his head to indicate that he didn't know, but then he thought of something:
"General Zhao, before Zhang He went down to Long, he was ambushed by the Prime Minister in Wudu and severely defeated, resulting in the loss of five to six thousand elite soldiers."

"Is this really true?" Zhao Yun finally understood.

"No wonder the morale of the soldiers guarding the city declined so quickly!"

Wang Ping went on to say that a young general who had returned to Han from Tianshui risked his life to shoot an arrow at Zhang He, but it was unknown whether he hit the target or not.

Everyone discussed this for a while, but in the end they couldn't come to a conclusion. They asked a captain who had surrendered, but he didn't know either.

Zhang He's army was divided into three groups after Xia Long, the front, middle and rear. The captains who stayed here were all from the front and middle groups. They had not seen the right general since they withdrew their camp.

Because of the previous defeat in Wudu, all the captains were ordered to guard their camps carefully. Anyone who left without permission would be executed. All military orders were conveyed through personal soldiers.

It sounds normal.

Finally, everyone was too lazy to guess, and Yang Tiao said:

"General Zhao, regardless of whether he's dead or alive, the 10,000 or 20,000 men on the south bank of the Wei River have nowhere to escape. Should we cross the Wei River and defeat him, or wait here for him to collapse?"

Zhao Yun said without hesitation:
"Those who were taken to Weinan by Zhang He must be elite troops from his own army.

“As the saying goes, don’t push a desperate enemy; a bite from a mad dog is no small feat.

"We only need to cut off their route of retreat, avoid engaging in a fight, and wait for them to collapse on their own."

The next day.

Wuzhangyuan.

Liu Chan was awakened by Zhao Guang and heard an incredible but reasonable news from him, so he reined in his horse and left the plateau.

When he reached the foot of the plateau, he saw dozens of naked men carrying thorns on their backs crawling towards him on their knees, and finally all of them fell to the ground.

Liu Chan saw this scene for the first time and couldn't help but take a deep breath.

The ministers around him also looked a little agitated, but they were also trying to remain calm.

"Lu Pan, the surrendered man waiting to die, greets His Majesty!"

"Wei Kuan, the surrendered man waiting to die, greets His Majesty!"

"Li Zhong, the surrendered man awaiting death, greets His Majesty!"

"Wait for death and surrender..."

After the surrendered generals finished speaking, Liu Chan looked at one of them and asked slowly, "Your name is Lu Pan? What's in the wooden box in your hand?"

The deer pan paused, then said in a trembling voice:
"Your Majesty... It's Zhang He's head!"

Liu Chan already had some guesses, and when he heard this he slowly nodded, but for some reason he still felt a sense of unreality.

The north bank of the Wei River.

Cao Jun's camp.

Guanqiu Jian, Niu Jin, Xiahou Ru, Lu Zhao, Du Xi and others stared blankly at the south bank.

The Wei soldiers who were slowly returning west yesterday, today all took off their armor and marched slowly towards Wuzhangyuan, apparently surrendering.

"Now...what should we do now?" Xiahou Ru, who lost more than a thousand Chang'an soldiers yesterday, looked as pale as a walking corpse.

This morning, some soldiers from Chencang who had managed to escape came to report that an unknown number of Han troops suddenly rushed out from the narrow path of Wei River and, together with the rebellious cavalry, lifted the siege of Chencang.

No one dared to say whether Zhuge Liang had already seized Longyou from Guo Huai.

Lü Zhao looked at Guanqiu Jian and said, "Zhonggong, are we going back to Meiwu now? Or... back to Chang'an?"

Guanqiu Jian was bewildered. How could he know?!
Logically speaking, Meiwu is the only fortress west of Chang'an and is close to the Wei River.

Only 10,000 people are needed to defend Meiwu, which will block the Han army's food supply route and prevent them from advancing eastward easily.

Unless 30,000 to 40,000 troops were deployed to tightly surround Meiwu, and several thousand elite troops were deployed to protect the grain route, there would be a risk of grain being robbed.

In Guanzhong, losing tens of thousands of shi of grain is a small matter, but once the grain ships are destroyed, it is not easy to recover.

But the problem now is that the Han army seems to have more than a thousand cavalrymen heading eastward towards Chang'an, and no one knows what they are going to do.

None of the scouts sent out returned.

Du Xi's face turned pale, and he said helplessly:

"I suspect that the Shu cavalry that fled east yesterday might be heading east of Chang'an to seize the city."

Lü Zhao paused when he heard this. "East of Chang'an? How dare the Shu invaders go east of Chang'an?"

He thought that the more than a thousand cavalrymen might take the opportunity to rob food or seize the city, but he only thought that they would at most seize Huaili, west of Chang'an.

Guanqiu Jian had thought of this possibility yesterday and nodded slightly:

"Anding has already been taken by the Shu invaders. If Longyou is taken by them again, Zhuge Liang can send troops from Anding.

“Although the Jing River is shallow in spring and winter, summer is coming soon, and when the water level rises, grain can be transported for three to five months.

“Although the losses were great, we were able to bypass Meiwu and reach Chang’an.

"If those thousand cavalrymen gather now to pacify the rebellious people and seize any city east of Chang'an, and Zhuge Liang and Liu Chan send a large army to guard it, then the grain from Guandong will never be able to be transported to Chang'an.

“Our Great Wei can only transport grain from Wuguan Pass, but Wuguan Pass can only be entered by carrying grain.

"How can we gather so much food and fodder and recruit so many laborers to carry it in such a short time?
“By then, even if Sima Gong came to rescue Guanzhong, it would be unknown who would run out of food and retreat first.

“So we must seize the opportunity before Liu Chan and Zhuge Liang can reinforce the thousand cavalrymen and quickly force them back and recapture the city.

"But there are only a little over ten thousand soldiers left in Chang'an. How dare we send them out of the city? We have no choice but to return.

"In addition, our Great Wei has suffered a series of defeats, and morale has been severely damaged. Meiwu... is no longer defensible."

"But Meiwu is as important as Jieting in Longyou! It's even more solid.

"If we abandon this defense, won't the Shu invaders be able to march directly from the Wei River to Chang'an? Wouldn't that be even more disadvantageous to our Great Wei?"

Lu Zhao never expected that the more than a thousand cavalrymen who rushed eastward yesterday while no one was reacting could stir up the waters so muddy.

Du Xi shook his head:

"Zizhan, if the food supply is cut off, with the current morale, how many soldiers are willing to defend Meiwu?

"Once surrounded, wouldn't they just mutiny and surrender to the Shu invaders? Wouldn't that be futile?

"For now, we should take advantage of the fact that the Shu invaders from Chencang haven't caught up with us yet. We can still leave now. If we leave any later, we won't be able to leave.

“Just take away the food you can take away, and burn all the food you can’t take away.

"While the Anding army has not yet arrived, quickly return to Chang'an to repel the Shu invaders and protect the grain route. We will make plans after Sima Gong enters Guanzhong."

(End of this chapter)