Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 91 Price
"More than just cavalry?!"

"How could the infantry arrive so quickly?"

"Didn't the Wei invaders arrive in Huaili yesterday?"

Under several wooden pavilions outside the emperor's camp, the courtiers were panic-stricken and talked a lot.

Minister Chen Zhi stood at the emperor's side, looking at the countless torches in the hazy morning light, thousands or tens of thousands, with a look of astonishment:

"Yang Anding...didn't you escort Su Xiaolian back to Wugongwu yesterday with two hundred cavalrymen? Didn't you spot any Wei invaders along the way?"

Everyone under the pavilion looked over.

Chen Zhi asked the questions that most people were wondering.

The place where Sima Yi’s army appeared yesterday was more than a hundred miles away from Wuzhangyuan!
No matter how fast his infantry marched, it was impossible for them to cover more than a hundred miles a day and still have enough energy to launch a surprise attack!
After all, the distance is there. It will take at least two days for a large group of infantry to reach Wuzhangyuan, right?
Therefore, the only ones who could launch a surprise attack in such a short time and across such a long distance were the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry of the Wei Army.

However, elite troops like the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry are difficult to train, and common sense would make it impossible for them to be used in offensive battles.

At most, they would be sent here to test the waters a bit to see if Wuzhangyuan was completely defenseless.

If the Wei invaders really wanted to test us, they should have charged forward without hesitation yesterday.

As soon as the news from the Han scouts reached Wuzhangyuan, his Tiger and Leopard Cavalry should have arrived right after him.

Only in this way can we truly catch the enemy by surprise and achieve speed.

But he didn't come at all yesterday.

So most people were very relaxed last night, thinking that the Wei invaders would not attack for at least three or two days.

As expected, an accident happened.

Yang Tiao's expression was slightly gloomy. "Your Majesty, the two hundred cavalrymen we sent out yesterday were probably ambushed by the Wei invaders' Tiger and Leopard Cavalry."

Before discovering that Sima Yi had advanced deep into the enemy's territory alone, most of Yang Tiao's 2,000 Qiang cavalry and the Han Tiger Cavalry were sent to the north bank of the Wei River to escort food and fodder.

The remaining nearly one hundred scouts only covered an area of ​​fifty miles around Wuzhangyuan.

It was not until yesterday when Sima Yi was discovered that Yang Tiao sent two hundred cavalrymen to Mangshui where Sima Yi's army was located to scout the enemy situation, and escorted Su Chao and five hundred armored soldiers to Su's Wugongwu.

But now Sima Yi's army has appeared in sight, and not a single one of the two hundred cavalry has returned.

There is only one explanation.

Sima Yi's Tiger and Leopard Cavalry had entered Wugong County a few days earlier and hid in the hills and mountains at the foot of the Qinling Mountains. Finally, he intercepted and killed the two hundred cavalrymen.

They were all warriors of the tribe who knew each other well. It would be an honor for them to die on the battlefield, but it would be too unfair if they were ambushed and killed by the Wei invaders.

Liu Chan sighed inwardly, speechless for a moment, and lowered his head to look at the other side of the water.

Judging from the scale of the torches, there were probably about 12,000 to 13,000 of them, but torches are torches, so it is difficult to know how many people actually came.

In night battles, torches are one of the best means to confuse the enemy and create panic and chaos.

There were even people who tied torches to the horns of cattle and sheep and drove them to run, using them to disguise themselves as large-scale cavalry.

To be honest, when he saw that the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry did not come yesterday, he subconsciously felt that Sima Yi probably would not come.

But the moon was full last night, which was suitable for a night battle, so he and Deng Zhi, Dong Yun and others increased the number of people guarding at night.

Liu Chan didn't calm down and go to bed until the moon set and there was still no sign of him coming. However, he had slept for less than two hours when the alarm of enemy attack sounded.

Suddenly he thought of something and said:
“They must have already entered the Wugong Mountains and ambushed them when we discovered Sima Yi’s army appeared near Huaili.

"Yesterday, Su Chao and his 500 armored soldiers and over 200 cavalrymen were escorting baggage along the Wei River Road, about 10 to 20 miles away from the Wugong Mountains where they could hide.

"Even if we were ambushed, we shouldn't be completely wiped out without a single person reporting the situation.

"Nine out of ten cases, the Wei invaders are in the south, and our army is in the north, so the two sides are staggered.

"After all, even if two hundred cavalrymen and five hundred armored soldiers are ambushed by two or three thousand cavalrymen, there will always be a few who can escape.

"The Wei invaders probably didn't want to alert the enemy, so they let Su Cho and the others continue eastward."

Yang Tiao paused, and after thinking for a moment, he felt that there seemed to be some truth in it. His expression relaxed a little, and he turned to bow his head and apologize to Liu Chan.

Liu Chan shook his head and said: "The Qiang King's 200 cavalrymen are to escort 500 armored soldiers back to Sushiwu.

"As for scouting the enemy, Wugong County is so vast, and without the advance deployment of outposts along the Luogu River, it's impossible for a mere 200 cavalrymen to cover it."

After all, scouts are not radars. Spreading two hundred people across such a large county is like adding a few grains of salt to a bowl of water.

Fortunately, there were scouts everywhere around Wuzhangyuan, and the Han soldiers were well prepared and had made psychological preparations in advance.

So although Sima Yi's plan was good, it obviously didn't work.

A surprise attack is meant to take the enemy by surprise and catch them off guard. It doesn't mean that the enemy will suddenly appear under your nose.

Rather, it means that if you are not prepared in advance and discover the enemy attack from more than ten miles away, it will be too late to prepare.

The lack of time to deploy troops, the difficulty in building defensive fortifications, and the fear in the hearts of soldiers and even the commanders were all factors that contributed to the success of the surprise attack.

The reason why Sima Yi did this was probably to play a trick, and to bet that Wuzhangyuan was not prepared.

I didn't send the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry to attack you during the day, and your two hundred scouts were deployed in the east for reconnaissance, but no news was sent back.

Then your scouts near Wuzhangyuan must have been careless, or maybe you, Liu Chan, didn't even deploy any scouts near Wuzhangyuan, right?

If someone who looked down on Sima Yi came instead, he might really fall into the trap.

"Your Majesty, a large group of Wei's cavalry is charging towards the entrance of Xie Valley!" A scout stationed on the west bank of Xieshui reported.

After hearing the information, Liu Chan subconsciously turned his head to look towards the entrance of the valley.

Of course I can't see anything.

At a distance of twenty miles, it was still dark and misty, just like the day when Zhang He launched a surprise attack on Wuzhangyuan.

Even though the attacking Tiger and Leopard Cavalry were all carrying torches, they could not be seen with the naked eye.

This was the biggest destabilizing factor, so he was vaguely worried that the soldiers on Deng Zhi's side might desert and something might go wrong after seeing that no one had attacked all night.

The mouth of the inclined valley.

The screams of knights falling from their horses and the neighing of war horses could be heard from time to time.

After being discovered by the Han army's scouts, Wen Qin led the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry and galloped for more than 20 miles. He frowned when he heard the man howling and the horse neighing.

The deer horns deployed by the Han army at the entrance of the Xie Valley were just a mile away.

Behind the deer horns is a one-meter-high wall of loess, extending from the foot of the Qinling Mountains to the banks of the Xieshui River.

It was only about half a mile long, but it completely blocked the narrow road at the entrance of the valley, leaving only a gap of more than ten steps.

There were no Han troops in sight, most likely they were all hiding behind the fortifications.

There is also a gently sloping platform in front, which was leveled out as a general's platform during the first battle between the Han and Wei armies at Xieshui.

If you can climb up, you can look down from above and see what is behind the barrier, and even shoot arrows directly down.

But there is no doubt that there are also antlers and barriers there, and no human figures can be seen.

Wen Qin became a little apprehensive and called over a cavalry officer of the mixed Hu cavalry:

"Lead your hundred cavalry to dismount and go to that hillside to take a look at the situation.

"By the way, don't just rush in. Shoot a round of arrows in there first and see if there's any reaction."

The mixed Hu cavalry commander had no choice but to obey the order. He no longer had more than a hundred cavalrymen, and he had just stepped into a horse trap and lost two war horses.

Although he wasn't dead, he was already lame. Even if he was taken back, he would still die within a few days. When the Dubo led nearly a hundred barbarians to approach the slope, Wen Qin dismounted and bent down to search for the horse trap ahead.

It wasn't long before they found one. The pit was covered with hay and fine dust, so it was difficult to tell there was a trap even during the day.

After removing the disguise, we saw that the pit was about five feet long, one foot wide, and nearly three feet deep.

There were thorns of deer antlers and caltrops buried inside.

Wen Qin picked up the caltrop again, but it felt wrong and he found out that it was made of wood, which made him laugh.

The country was small and poor, and even the caltrops to restrain cavalry had to be made of wood. It was amazing that the Great Wei was repeatedly defeated by such a small country.

"Sima, there seems to be no one inside!"

The voice of the Du Bo who went to explore the way came from halfway up the mountain.

Wenqin looked up at the hillside.

I saw that Du Bo and nearly a hundred of his subordinates were holding horse bows and pressing up the hillside along the trail leveled by the Han army.

He shot an arrow every few steps.

Arrows were thrown into the fortress, but no enemy cried out in pain from being hit by the arrows.

Seeing this, the leader of the hundred barbarians became bolder, climbed the mountain faster, and lengthened the intervals between his arrows shot from behind the earth wall.

Listening more carefully, there was no sound of arrows hitting shields.

"rush!"

That Zahu Dubo simply led his troops and rushed forward with all their strength.

Wen Qin squinted his eyes and observed hard at the foot of the mountain, but saw that the group of people actually rushed to the front of the deer horns, and he was suspicious for a moment.

"Kill the bandits!" At this moment, a shout suddenly broke out from the distant hillside, followed by the sound of drums on the mountain!

Although Wen Qin had anticipated this, his scalp still tightened, and then he heard continuous screams from the hillside.

A row of the barbarians who came forward to explore the way fell down in an instant, and many people in the back row also fell down, obviously hit by a wave of arrows.

The survivors quickly turned around and ran down the mountain to escape.

Wenqin watched quietly.

After a while, many Shu bandits finally appeared behind the deer horns and the barrier, and chased down the hillside, shouting.

He chased the enemy all the way to the foot of the hill without stopping and continued to chase him forward.

Until they had already run twenty or thirty steps away from the hillside and shot down nearly a hundred miscellaneous Hu cavalrymen who had come up the mountain to explore the way, only forty or fifty of them were left.

Wen Qin finally saw clearly that there were only about four or five hundred Shu bandits chasing after him, and most of them were holding crossbows.

He frowned immediately and sighed.

The light cavalry that went up the mountain to explore the way were not the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, so we would not feel sad if they died.

But I didn't expect that the Shu invaders were actually well prepared, with strict defenses and high morale.

After giving a few instructions, he ordered two other teams of mixed Hu cavalry and one team of Tiger and Leopard cavalry to surround him from the left and right sides.

The two sides engaged in battle, raining arrows at each other one after another.

Finally, after leaving behind twenty or thirty corpses each, both sides slowly retreated.

Both sides are testing each other's quality.

It was still dark at this moment and the vision was not very clear. The Shu army used the empty city plan again, which created considerable psychological pressure on the Wei army.

If it was a weaker opponent, they might have lost their composure after hearing the loud drums and shouts from the mountain.

In particular, a group of infantrymen of the Shu army dared to come down the mountain and chase and kill a group of cavalry on the plain.

Once the cavalry general cannot judge how many people are coming from the enemy and whether there are other ambushes, he will easily retreat out of cowardice and become chaotic due to the retreat.

Once the cavalry becomes disordered and squeezes each other, the horses will not be able to speed up and they will become sitting ducks for crossbowmen.

Two quarters of an hour later, Wen Qin led more than a thousand cavalry to join forces with the infantry led by Zhou Tai, Wei Ping, Zhou Dang, Linghu Yu and Xiahou Ru.

Zhou Tai frowned and asked, "Sir Wen, what's the situation at the entrance of Xiegu?"

Wen Qin curled his lips and shook his head:
“The Shu invaders were well-defended and their morale was high; they showed no signs of panic.

"It seems that General Huoqi's strategy of advancing alone deep into the enemy's territory, and our surprise attack tonight, will not scare the Shu invaders."

This time, Wen Qin was ordered to lead a thousand miscellaneous Hu cavalry and a thousand tiger and leopard cavalry to attack, just to see if he could find a loophole at the entrance of Xiegu Valley.

Zhou Tai, Wei Ping and others led their infantry troops with torches just to create panic among the Shu army.

It seems to start strong but end weakly, but in fact it is a gamble that the elite troops of the Han army are all in Chang'an, that the defense of Wuzhangyuan is empty, and that Liu Chan will be at a loss.

Deng Ai in another time and space also took the risk of advancing deep into the country with the mentality of picking up leaks. He suddenly appeared on the Chengdu Plain with thousands of beggar soldiers, which turned out to be the last straw that broke the camel's back in Shuzhong.

Linghu Yu grimaced and hesitated, "What should we do next? The Shu invaders are already well prepared. Should we continue to attack them regardless of the cost?"

General Sima Yi of the Cavalry Commandery issued an order, asking them to launch several rounds of attacks at all costs to test the strength of the Shu invaders.

Unfortunately, this was the price paid for the 3,000 Qu soldiers from Hedong brought by Linghu Yu, the 3,000 defeated soldiers from Chang'an brought by Xiahou Bao, and several thousand civilian laborers as auxiliary soldiers.

And once it is found that Wuzhangyuan really has no elite troops and can be attacked by force, then more costs will come from the rear.

Sima Yi came with an imperial seal, and it was not the turn of Linghu Yu, the captain of Hedong, to say no.

Xiahou Bao also disdained to treat the soldiers as human beings and wholeheartedly supported Sima Yi's plan. After all, that was how Meng Da was defeated.

It doesn’t matter to him if a few soldiers die. If he wins, it will be a huge achievement.

Zhou Tai, the military officer of the Cavalry House, looked at Linghu Yu and said sternly:

"Sima Gong said that it is impossible to judge whether it is real or fake by just a brief battle.

"Only by having a real, hard fight with him can we test his true qualities.

"The Shu invaders may appear heavily guarded, but they may actually be weak. Let's rest for a while and then launch a powerful attack in the afternoon."

No matter how strong the fortifications at the entrance of the Xiegu Valley are, they are not a dangerous pass in the city after all.

As long as there are enough lives, arrows, armor and soldiers, and if you are willing to launch a fierce attack at all costs, you will definitely be able to take it down.

And if the Shu army was really strong on the outside but weak on the inside at Wuzhangyuan, with only one or two thousand elite soldiers left behind, then it would probably take less than four or five thousand lives to test whether he was real or fake.

This is how Shangyong was tested.

After all, human strength is limited.

Elite troops will also get tired after fighting for a long time.

Once they get tired, they have to send out weaker troops to take over.

The weak troops couldn't even draw a crossbow, and the arrows they shot were soft and weak. They ran out of energy after a few steps to draw the crossbow. Anyone with a discerning eye could tell the difference between them and the strong soldiers.

In this way, one only needs to see how long his strongest soldiers can hold out and when his weaker troops will come to the fore, and one can roughly judge how many elite soldiers he has and how many are just there to make up the numbers.

We can also roughly judge how many lives will be lost, how much it will cost, and how many days it will take to capture it.

Maybe he was frightened after a few rounds of fierce attacks.

(End of this chapter)