The 50,000-strong imperial army was divided into two routes in Tianshui City and set off for Jincheng respectively.
The 20,000-strong army on the south route was led by Yan Xing, who had Jia Xu as military advisor, and was assisted by generals such as Yang Ru, Du Kai, Gao Shun, and Zang Ba. north The 30,000 people on the road were personally led by Liu Cheng, with Zhang Xiu, Xu Huang and others under his command.
The two armies were not marching very fast.
They captured cities and territories along the way, regained the cities and villages along the way, and made the people and officials submit to the imperial court again.
Han Sui and others who were far away in Jincheng quickly received the news.
The counselor Fu Xing suggested leaving a small number of troops to garrison Jincheng, and the remaining large troops to raid Yan Xing's slightly weaker road to eliminate the effective strength of the imperial army, and then return.
To deal with Liu Cheng's way, this way, there is a high degree of certainty that the imperial army will be severely damaged.
However, this suggestion was strongly opposed by another counselor Cheng Wen.
Since the strategy of sneak attack on the imperial army's food route has been formulated, there should be no extraneous matters.
Once the imperial army's food route is messed up, no matter how many soldiers and horses the imperial army has, they will collapse. , why bother to attack the imperial army?
Fu Xing and Cheng Wen were arguing, but Han Sui adopted Cheng Wen's suggestion and wanted to use nearly 30,000 troops to attack one of the imperial armies.
How could the imperial court not get the news in advance for such a large military operation?
, is the imperial court really a blind man?
Sikong Liucheng is really a loser.
Han Sui did not create any extraneous problems, so he kept his soldiers and horses in Jincheng as usual, and only sent two cavalry out to attack the imperial army's food road.
Chengji, west bank of Huashui River.
A baggage team escorted hundreds of carts filled with grain and grass and slowly moved northwest along the river bank.
The flag at the front of the team was embroidered with a black word "Li", and a young captain under the flag was carrying a long gun.
Riding on a war horse, he turned around from time to time and shouted to the soldiers and civilians behind him: "Hurry up, speed up your pace!"
This man’s name is Li Jin, and he is Li Jue’s nephew.
Although Li Jue took the Marquis and two thousand acres of fertile land and went home to become a rich man, his nephew is still in the army, which can be regarded as appeasing the Xiliang army.
Old people, Li Jin now serves as a captain in the violent bear army, leading a thousand troops.
The regular army of this baggage team consisted of one thousand men from Li Jin and two thousand civilians.
Among the soldiers were cavalry and infantry.
The soldiers guarded the chariots and civilians on the outside of the team and in the middle.
The whole team was not marching very fast.
In fact, Can't get up quickly.
Marching is a very boring thing.
In order to relieve boredom and fatigue, the soldiers chatted and spanked from time to time.
A soldier asked Li Jin: "Sir, where do you think Lord Sikong's men are now?"
Li Jin said: "We should have passed Pingxiang County.
The imperial army must be marching much faster than our grain transport team.
Don't worry about it.
Just be alert.
Although the army in front is marching forward, it will destroy the surrounding cities and fortresses."
Recover them one by one, but there is no guarantee that Han Sui will not send people to intercept and kill our grain transport team."
"yes" As soon as he finished speaking, there was a faint sound of thunder from the west, and then the ground under his feet kept shaking.
Li Jin's expression changed, something was wrong, something was wrong.
He immediately reined in his horse and stopped, raised his hand to signal the army to stop, and then turned to look to the west.
Soon, billowing smoke and dust rose up in the distant sky, and a large number of black spots appeared on the horizon.
"It's Han Sui's cavalry," a sharp-eyed soldier in the team exclaimed.
The team began to panic, and Li Jin immediately shouted: "Don't panic, don't panic!"
The soldier next to him shouted: "Sir, what should I do?
Looking at this formation, I'm afraid there are thousands of cavalry.
Our few men and horses are not enough to fill people's teeth."
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Li Jin immediately shouted: "Come here, light a fire and burn all the food and grass.
Don't leave it to Han Sui and others.
Leave with me."
Another soldier loudly dissuaded him: "Sir, you can't do that.
If you throw away the food and grass and retreat, even if you can escape with your life, I'm afraid Master Sikong won't be able to pass the test, and you won't be able to save your head."
"Fart!"
Li Jin yelled, "No matter what you do, run away first, come with me."
After saying that, he turned around and galloped towards Tianshui City.
Other soldiers, you look at me, I look at you.
You all turned around and ran away.
The civilians ran faster.
They had no armor or swords on them, and their loads were much lighter than the soldiers.
They quickly fell behind the soldiers.
When the soldiers saw it, they all discarded their weapons, took off their armor and threw them on the ground.
"Rumble" Thousands of cavalry galloped over.
Yang Qiu, the general of Han Sui's army who was leading the army, rushed to the vicinity of the baggage vehicles and looked at the imperial soldiers who were throwing away their helmets and armors like they were having fun.
He laughed and said, "Hahaha, this is why the imperial soldiers are so cowardly as mice and want to attack my Liangzhou brothers.
Kill these."
Stop chasing after cowards, put out the fire on the grain and grass quickly, save as many as you can, these are thousands of stones of grain and grass, it would be a pity to burn them."
"Yes, general" Xiliang soldiers stopped one after another and began to put out the fire.
Li Jin, who had fled for more than ten miles in one breath, slowed down and stopped.
He turned around and saw that his soldiers were all running with foam at the mouth and out of breath.
When the soldiers and civilians saw Li Jin stop, they also stopped and fell to the ground to gasp, as if they had just been fished out of the water.
Li Jin calculated the time and looked back in the direction of Tianshui.
Just when most of his soldiers and civilians had fled back, a group of imperial cavalry appeared from the direction of Tianshui City.
The cavalry was marching at the same speed as the infantry.
When they saw Li Jin's men and horses just ahead, they suddenly sped up and rushed over.
Li Jin immediately went up to the leading general Xu Huang and said, "General Xu, I have been waiting for you for a long time."
Xu Rong asked: "How many people are there, where did you encounter them, and how much time has passed?"
"Back to the general, there are about two thousand of them.
They are under the banner of Yang.
They should be the troops of Han Sui's general Yang Qiu.
We encountered them by the river fifteen miles ahead.
It has been almost an hour."
Xu Huang nodded and asked, "Can you still march?"
Li Jin replied: "It's okay to march at normal speed.
If you want to speed up the march, I'm afraid you won't be able to do it."
"In this case, you can follow our army at normal marching speed.
If you get out of front of our army, follow the horse's hoof prints to find it.
You understand."
Li Jin clasped his fists: "I understand my humble position."
Xu Huang stopped talking nonsense and waved to the cavalry behind him: "Let's go" The marching speed of Xu Huang's army was not very fast.
It was almost the same as before.
Li Jin and his soldiers and civilians could keep up by hanging slowly behind.
A captain next to Xu Huang asked in confusion: "General, why are you marching at such a slow speed?
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How can you catch up with the enemy at this rate?"
Xu Huang smiled, pointed at Li Jin's men behind him and asked: "Look at them, they look in a miserable state.
Those soldiers even abandoned their helmets and armor, but they had almost no losses.
Why is it because of Yang Qiu?"
The men and horses didn’t chase them at all, why didn’t Yang Qiu chase them?”
The captain seemed to understand and patted his head: "Could it be that Yang Qiu only went to put out the fire and grab food instead of chasing Li Jin and the others?
If so, Yang Qiu is too greedy.
They are here to intercept the food road, aren't they?
You’re here to grab food.”
Xu Huang shook his head and said: "If it were me, I'm afraid I wouldn't give up those thousands of stones of food and grass.
Xiliang itself is a barren land with little output.
I'm afraid Han Sui's people will also live a miserable life.
These thousands of stones The amount of food and grass is not a small amount, it is enough to give them a meal."
The captain nodded, but when he thought about it, he still felt puzzled: "Even if they grab the food and grass and their marching speed slows down, it will be difficult to catch up with them at our speed."
Xu Huang stretched out his hand and slapped the captain on the helmet.
He said with a stern tone: "Why are you so stupid?
We are cavalry.
The faster the marching speed will inevitably cause a lot of noise.
Yang Qiu is not blind." and cage, he will not notice that there is an army chasing behind him."
The captain suddenly realized: "I understand my humble position.
I hang them up slowly, follow their marching traces, wait until they camp, and then do it at night."
Xu Huang finally smiled and said, "It's not too stupid."
Two hours later, there was a fork in the road ahead.
One road led to the west and the other led to the southwest.
Xu Huang raised his hand and reined in his horse.
He raised his hand to signal the soldiers and horses behind him to stop advancing.
The army slowly stopped.
Come down.
A school lieutenant jumped off his horse and walked to the fork in the road, bent down and surveyed carefully.
Then he squatted on the ground and looked at some horse hoof prints and piles of horse dung.
He turned around and came back to Xu Huang, clasping his fists and saying: "General, look at the ground.
In the direction of the horse hoof prints and horse dung, the enemy should have gone southwest, but the road heading due west There seemed to be traces of cleaning on the ground.
I suggested sending someone to search ten miles due west to see if they could find traces of the passage of the army.
If not, it would prove that the enemy was deliberately making a disparity and was indeed heading southwest.
"If found, it means that the enemy tried to erase the traces and headed due west."
Xu Huang raised his head and looked at the sky.
It was almost afternoon time.
He said: "No hurry, send the order, order the army to rest on the spot, eat, drink water, go to the toilet, and solve the problem quickly.
At the same time, two groups of detective sentries were sent to go respectively.
Explore twenty miles due west and southwest.”
"Yes, General"
An hour later, two groups of scouts sent people back to report that the horse hoof prints on the way to the southwest disappeared as far as five miles away, while a large number of horse hoof prints and horse dung appeared five miles due west.
After hearing the report, Xu Huang said: "It seems that Yang Qiu was also worried that it was a trap, and there were soldiers and horses following behind, so he set up this enchantment array, but it was not done carefully.
They didn't know that we were not in a hurry and had enough energy.
Time will accompany him to play messenger and move due west."
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"promise" During the break just now, the soldiers had solved their physical problems and were still marching unhurriedly due west.
The scouting horses in front were ordered to continue westward to detect traces of the enemy.
The army walked for another hour, and the sky darkened.
For safety reasons and fear of being ambushed, Xu Huang decided not to march until he found Yang Qiu's army camp, so he ordered the army to rest on the spot.
Neither tents nor camps were set up, and the soldiers were allowed to sit on the ground.
However, Xu Huang sent many warning posts around
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