The battle raged.

The cavalry of the Julu Army, which had won consecutive battles, faced increasing pressure after the enemy reacted and reduced its strength.

The battlefield is opaque to both sides. The enemy doesn't know how many people there are in the Julu Army, and the Julu Army doesn't know how many people there are in the enemy. Guan Yu and the other five cavalrymen don't know which way the enemy will come from, and the enemy doesn't know how many people the Julu Army has.

How about the marching route of the deer army? Both sides were like a pair of headless flies, bumping into each other.

The advantage undoubtedly lies with the enemy, who can take any route, but Guan Yu and others have to block the enemy's front and protect the people, and are exhausted.

For many days in a row, countless contact battles broke out between the enemy and ourselves. The Julu Army's cavalry suffered increasing casualties, and their rations were exhausted, so they had to retreat temporarily.

Guan Yu rushed back first, followed by Zhang Fei, Chi Zhi'er and others.

When the cavalry from all directions came back, they counted the number of people and found that Zhang Fei's troops suffered the most casualties.

Asked why Zhang Fei suffered so many casualties, Zhang Fei immediately became furious.

"We are faced with a strong enemy, so we have to divide our troops, and we have to divide them one by one!

Can the casualties be small?"

"According to what I said, we don't care about the people. We are not from Julu, so why should we die for them?"

Zhang Fei was very puzzled by the so-called practice of protecting the environment and rescuing the people.

Li Mengxi enlightened, "Third General, we are here to beg thieves. Why are we begging for thieves? Isn't it to save the people?"

Kill one thief, and ten people will be safe.

On the contrary, protect the people with ten people and wait in a formation to kill one enemy.

The enemy army is killing and looting endlessly, and the people have no way to ask for help. We don't need to give more help. When we see a village is in trouble, we only need to ride around and scare the enemy army away, and save the whole village.

There are at least three to two hundred people in a village. To save a village of three to two hundred people is to kill thirty or twenty thieves."

Li Mengxi solemnly said to Zhang Fei, "The three generals, together, protect a radius of more than ten miles, and protect more than a hundred villages? More than thousands of people?"

This meritorious deed is enough to kill hundreds of enemy cavalry in a formation!

The common people and the soldiers don’t know about this tremendous feat, but it will definitely be remembered by the conscience of heaven and earth!”

Li Mengxi's eloquence was good, but Zhang Fei, who had resentment in his heart, was stunned for a moment by what Li Mengxi said.

This is why we had to divide our troops into five groups even though we knew it was not good to divide them at the beginning, because we wanted to rescue the people as much as possible.

Now the situation has changed. The cavalry of the Julu Army moved forward with a net to clear out a section. While driving back the enemy's front, it also deterred the enemy from daring to disperse and plunder unscrupulously. By this time,

With the Julu Army attracting firepower, the people were much safer.

Everyone discussed the next plan together. Generally speaking, the plan was to attack Nanpi City with troops and prepare to take out Nanpi, an important city occupied by the enemy.

In terms of small strategic details, the army marches straight towards Nanpi along the road. It will inevitably be harassed by the enemy's cavalry during the march. At this time, is it better for the cavalry to stay and guard the army, or to go out and attack instead of defending? Everyone's opinion

Not the same.

After careful consideration, Li Mengxi felt that he could have both. First of all, the Zi major brigade was very important and there was absolutely no room for loss. He did not dare to leave cavalry behind for defense.

Secondly, it would be too passive to just defend without attacking. The cavalry must also maintain a deterrent effect on the enemy, so that the enemy is helpless and dare not attack with all its strength.

The strategy was finalized, leaving one-third of the cavalry to guard, and the remaining cavalry to form two groups on the left and right to attack forward. When encountering strong enemies, they would harass and confront them, maintaining strategic deterrence against them, and when encountering weak enemies, they would attack and destroy them.

After Zhang Fei, Guan Yu and others rested for a while and replenished their rations and lost arrows, they each led four to five hundred cavalry and marched east and west.

The march continued, and now there were still more than thirty miles to Nanpi City.

As I walked ahead, I saw a village that had been burned into ruins by fire.

Li Mengxi and Liu Bei brought people into the village to check. The village looked dead and there was no life at all.

A cavalryman came over to report that they had discovered the situation. Li Mengxi followed him to a completely burned house. He saw several black bodies that had been burned to death in the house.

Judging from the weapons in the hands of the corpse, the ash piled outside the wall, and the traces of burning on the wall, the situation may have been that the villagers in the house resisted with soldiers, and then the rebels brought firewood and burned them to death in the house.

The person who was burned to death must be a brave man, otherwise Li Mengxi couldn't figure out what kind of person could make the massive and well-equipped rebels have to spend a lot of time carrying firewood to attack.

Li Mengxi stared at the black marks on the wall thoughtfully. Smoke and fire were a very useful method.

Liu Bei stared at the burned-to-death people in the room without saying a word for a long time. He suddenly frowned and reached out for a spear from the soldiers beside him. Liu Bei walked over and used his gun to pull apart the two corpses that were hugging each other.

, a dead child burned to charcoal suddenly appeared among the corpses.

Liu Bei was stunned for a moment, and then couldn't help but curse.

Li Mengxi's eyelids jumped. He felt uncomfortable and quickly moved his eyes away.

When leaving the unknown village, Li Mengxi was very silent and Liu Bei was also in a bad mood.

Going forward, we see more and more dilapidated villages along the way. You don't even need to go into the village to know what is happening in the village.

Liu Bei also wanted to send people to bury the victims in the villages, but the war was approaching and he had no time to do so, so he had to give up.

After marching for one day, the army was harassed repeatedly by the enemy's cavalry. The Julu Army's cavalry repelled every attempt by the enemy with powerful counterattacks. The entire army moved closer and closer to Nanpi City with a slow but unstoppable momentum.

close.

It was dark again and they did not dare to march at night, so the army had to stop early and set up camp.

When night fell and they were having dinner, Liu Bei talked to Li Mengxi.

"Hey, Xi'er," Liu Bei sighed, "what do you think the situation is like elsewhere?"

Li Mengxi stopped his kuaizi and looked up at Liu Bei in confusion, "Where?"

Liu Bei turned over the bonfire to make it more prosperous. He said since ancient times, "If I were that Zhang Ju, and if I raised an army to rebel, my troops would point to the Central Plains, and I would never focus on just one county east of the Bohai Sea."

Before Li Mengxi understood what he heard, Liu Bei continued, "Our Julu army is strong. With our Julu army, the people of Bohai will be able to live in peace."

Raising his head, Liu Bei looked at Li Mengxi, "But what about elsewhere? The imperial army is weak, and the local people are unable to unite and fight together, so they cannot be the sharpest force in the rebel army. According to some information, at this time, Guangyang Zhangwu Shanggu County,

The people are in dire straits, alas!"

Li Mengxi had also speculated about Liu Bei's worries before. There is no doubt that the Julu Army is the strongest army in the North. The Julu Army can stop the front wherever it goes, but there are no such strong troops elsewhere.

Li Mengxi nodded and said, "It is indeed true. The imperial army is depleted and the people have no organizational ability, so military disaster is bound to happen."

Liu Bei saw that Li Mengxi understood what he meant. Liu Bei thought for a moment and suddenly said something astonishing, "Xi'er, tell me, if we send troops and horses to the counties, can we stop the bandit army from invading?"

Li Mengxi looked at Liu Bei in astonishment, "...we only have more than 7,000 people, how can we care about others?

We can't control it, there are too few soldiers, not to mention 7000, even 70000 can't control it."

Liu Bei hesitated to speak, "Oh, can we just sit back and watch the people live and die without caring about them?"

Li Mengxi was indifferent, "This is the only way."

The atmosphere was silent. After a while, Liu Bei hesitated and said, "I still think that if we disperse our troops to various counties..."

Li Mengxi was speechless. He looked at Liu Bei in disbelief. He wanted to ask Liu Bei, is it the Holy Mother you are talking about?

With these 7,000 troops, it was not enough to defeat the enemy in the Bohai Sea. We had to divide our troops into several divisions. The battle was about to begin, so we had to divide our troops. We were going to distribute our troops to several counties. Anyone who dared to do this would be immediately defeated and killed.

Li Mengxi knew that the rebel Zhang Chun would not only plunder one Bohai county, but also other counties. Moreover, other counties did not have strong troops, and the people must be in dire straits. But there was no other way. Troubled times are like this, and wars are in chaos.

Everywhere, human lives are like grass and grass. There is nothing we can do to save them.

Liu Bei wanted to send troops to rescue everywhere. He discussed it nicely with Li Mengxi, but Li Mengxi decided not to do so.

Li Mengxi was tired of hearing this, "We don't have enough troops! We say we can't save it, but we just can't save it. Besides, even if we mobilize more troops from Julu, by the time we send them out, the rebel army will have already gone somewhere and they won't be able to catch up."

Liu Bei also fell silent for a moment.

Zhang Chun was not a Yellow Turban, and there were not many Yellow Turban cavalry. Zhang Chun was cooperating with tens of thousands of Wuhuan soldiers to rebel, and the Hu cavalry were extremely fast and could not react in time.

Liu Bei also knew it was difficult, but he couldn't bear to ignore the people.

Liu Bei frowned. He was thinking, is there really no other way?

The problem now is that one is time and the other is troop strength.

Julu may still be able to mobilize tens of thousands of fighting men, but the tens of thousands of infantry march slowly and cannot save the situation.

The only ones who could arrive in time to support the counties were the cavalry, and only the giant deer cavalry could keep up with the speed of the Hu cavalry's invasion.

But as Li Mengxi said, several counties are so large that even tens of thousands of soldiers cannot defend them completely. Even if a mere thousand cavalry are mobilized, what can they do even if they can block the front of Hu's cavalry?

As he was thinking about it, Liu Bei suddenly remembered a war incident.

In the Battle of the Yellow Turban, Dong Zhuo took more than a thousand Xiliang elite cavalry and went deep into the army. Then he was caught in Zhang Jue's ambush formation, and more than a thousand Xiliang elite cavalry were wiped out.

Liu Bei suddenly had an idea. The Xiliang soldiers were cavalry, and the Hu cavalry were also cavalry.

The Yellow Turbans were incapable of fighting in formations, and they did not have enough generals to command the army. The people of Youji and Hebei Provinces, who were being ravaged by bandits, were also incapable of fighting in formations, and there were not enough generals in the countryside to command the battles.

At the beginning, Zhang Jiao's method of ordering the Yellow Turban refugees who had no fighting power and no command was——

"Use the method of ambush from ten sides!" Liu Bei suddenly said excitedly, "Xi'er, use the method of ambush from ten sides, we can save him with the method of ambush from ten sides!"

Li Mengxi was at a loss for a moment. Such a powerful word as "House of Flying Daggers" came out of Liu Bei's mouth, which was a bit inconsistent.

"...What?" Li Mengxi looked at Liu Bei blankly.

Liu Bei already had a plan in mind. He thought for a moment and asked Li Mengxi with a smile, "Xi'er, if I have three thousand soldiers with you, how will you capture the fortified city of Luoyang?"

Li Mengxi was stunned for a moment and then answered casually, "Three thousand soldiers are not enough to capture Luoyang. We can only have the power to capture Luoyang by sweeping three thousand soldiers into a large army and hundreds of thousands of people."
To be continued...