Three Kingdoms

The white foam sprayed by the war horse flew through the air, and then mixed with the flying dust, covering Xia Houyuan's head and face.

Shrubs and weeds retreated beneath the horses' hooves.

War horses are generally not easily frightened, but once frightened they are difficult to control.

I don't know when, Xia Houyuan's helmet had fallen off, and his originally tied hair was scattered, just like Xia Houyuan's mood at the moment, chaotic.

The horses galloped wildly, panicking and losing their way.

Xia Houyuan could only hold on to the neck of the war horse, trying his best not to be jolted off by the horse. I don’t know how much time passed, and I don’t know how many miles I ran. Finally, the horse was exhausted and slowly stopped. When it fell to the ground with a thud, Xia Houyuan also rolled off the horse.

Xia Houyuan almost hit a rock. Even though he was exempted from instant death damage, when he fell off the horse, it rubbed firmly with the ground. There were several cuts on his arms and head and face, and they were dripping with blood. Embarrassed.

The war horse had lost its strength and had lost too much blood. It had fallen to the ground. It was foaming at the mouth. There was less air coming in and more air coming out. It was no longer possible. However, it still tried to raise its head and looked at Xia Houyuan aside. In order to appease Xia Houyuan, or to seek help from Xia Houyuan.

Xia Houyuan's horse was injured and fled. The soldiers were scattered. Even Xia Houyuan's guards were caught off guard. They could not care about this one but not the other. They could only choose to chase Xia Houyuan all the way back. After running for most of the day, they waited for Xia Houyuan's horse was exhausted and finally stopped, but when several guards looked around, no one knew where they were running...

There is no GPS positioning these days. It can only be manually observed. The guards looked at each other and separated a few people to go to the surrounding area to look at the terrain. Others started to be on guard. Others came to the dazed Xia Houyuan and lowered their heads. He shouted: "General, general!" 』

As if he heard the call, Xia Houyuan's eyes finally regained focus. He once again focused his gaze on the face of the guard in front of him, and asked rather eagerly: "Why?" 』

The guard responded confusedly, "Why?" 』

The guards and others are a little worried. After all, these guards are basically connected to Xia Houyuan himself. If Xia Houyuan has a high status, these guards will naturally rise. If Xia Houyuan fails, these guards will naturally have no future...

Moreover, these guards are often not one person, and they also involve the families, wives, children, and children of the subsequent guards. Therefore, we cannot look at Xia Houyuan like this and boldly say: "General, let's go back to Yanzhou?" 』

Xia Houyuan was obviously lost in thought again, his eyes were once again distracted, and he did not respond.

The guards looked at each other.

Normally, it would not be the guard's turn to comment on this kind of thing, but Xia Houyuan is obviously mentally ill at the moment. It is obviously unrealistic to expect him to come up with an idea immediately, but having no idea is still a problem after all.

"Don't panic!" Have you eaten? You guys, why don't you go search around and see what you can find? The general is just thinking about some questions. It will be great if he understands them! Work first, don't just stand around! "An older man who looked like a guard leader stood up and gave orders loudly.

With the order, people felt a little more at ease. These guards also silently assigned tasks and did the corresponding things. There were some busy things at hand, so I didn't think randomly. Not long after, someone raised a bonfire, then used a helmet to fetch water from a nearby water source, and then hung it on the bonfire to serve as a temporary pot and cauldron. , add some picked wild vegetables and dry food that I brought with me, and cook it like this.

After all, it happened so suddenly, who could run around with a pot?

What?

Dander, oil, dirt and lice inside the helmet?

Used to it. It's like the cafeteria of later generations of schools. If you see cockroaches or flies during your freshman year, you'll probably start yelling in a fuss. It's much better during your sophomore and junior years because you know it's useless to scream. Your senior year may even think it's the cafeteria master. Extra meals were given...

Humans are very strange creatures. After eating something, their hearts don't seem to be so flustered.

The guards gradually settled down and began to keep watch spontaneously.

Xia Houyuan is still thinking, and his mind is still on the previous battlefield. There are still arrows flying in the air like locusts, war horses and soldiers are still roaring and fighting for their lives, bloody swords and spears are flying, and the small iron halberd thrown by Zhao Yun is whistling and circling...

Why?

Why were his soldiers defeated so quickly?

Why is there such a big gap even though they are both cavalry?

Why didn’t I realize it at the time, or even think I could win?

why why……

Countless question marks swirled and collided in Xia Houyuan's mind.

Darkness slowly fell.

The guards guarded Xia Houyuan, their eyes full of worry. Victory or defeat is a common thing for military strategists, but if Xia Houyuan cannot get out, then not only Xia Houyuan, but also these guards will be finished!

But these guards couldn't say that they would pull Xia Houyuan's head open and help him straighten it out. They could only wait quietly for Xia Houyuan to recover...

In this battle, for Xia Houyuan, the injuries on his body are secondary. What is more important is the trauma in his heart. When self-confidence is completely destroyed, no matter who it is, it will be quite uncomfortable. , especially someone like Xia Houyuan who is somewhat arrogant on weekdays.

In the wilderness, the night is dark, and from time to time I think of the howls of wild beasts, showing a world where the jungle is strong and the strong eat the strong.

Xia Houyuan opened his eyes. Although he was lying down, he was not sleepy.

After a night of silence, when the sun rose again the next day, these guards were happy that Xia Houyuan finally returned to normal, of course, at least on the surface it looked like that. Xia Houyuan ordered some meat to be cut off from his dead horse, cooked and eaten, and then he went back again.

Although Xia Houyuan himself seemed to be fine, this time the so-called "fire reconnaissance" directly "reconnaissed" and killed at least seven or eight hundred cavalrymen of Cao Jun's army, causing Cao Jun's cavalry, which was already relatively weak, to suffer a heavy blow again. One blow, coupled with the blow to the confidence of Cao's cavalry, this loss is no wonder that Cao Cao almost vomited blood and cursed Xia Houyuan, the main person in charge of this operation, as General Baidi.

Fortunately, Cao Chun was relatively calm and did not continue to fight with Zhao Yun. Zhao Yun also considered the endurance of the war horse and did not continue to fight Cao Chun regardless. After the two people met, they retreated. It can be said that most of Cao's cavalry were saved to some extent.

Cao Cao ordered to seize Xia Houyuan's general position and demote Dai Zui's service. At the same time, Cao Cao ordered Cao Chun to take charge of reorganizing the cavalry and strengthen alert and training. However, no matter what adjustments Cao Cao made later, the morale of the entire Chen Liu cavalry force collapsed. The fact of the change caused a huge loophole to suddenly appear in Cao Cao's originally arranged front, which forced Cao Cao to start to change the plan in a targeted manner. When changing the plan, he received a report from Le Jin in Shanyang and discovered that The soldiers and horses of "Tai Shi" were killed, which made Cao Cao feel like adding insult to injury and gave him a headache.

Cao Cao regretted a little. If we really knew that the current situation would happen, it would be better to have all the troops attack from the beginning and face the hussar general face to face...

In fact, in terms of overall strategic deployment, Cao Cao's original plan was not wrong, and was even somewhat clever. If the hussar generals attack on horseback, no matter which side they go to, they can flank the hussar generals' rear. If the hussar generals go south, Le Jin and others from the north will advance. If the hussar troops go north, Xiahou Dun from the south will advance, and then Cutting off the return of the Hussars General's horses, using the city to press forward step by step, risking a year's harvest to be ruined, and trapping the Hussars General's men and horses to death!

But the hussars general stood still abnormally, making Cao Cao confused about what Fei Qian wanted to do...

Could it be that Fei Qian sensed Cao Cao's intentions and wanted to fight a protracted war?

Or maybe Fei Qian didn't want to welcome the emperor, but just pretended to be Luoyang?

Or some other reason...

Cao Cao thought a lot, but what he didn't expect was that the hussar general Fei Qian could actually send a partial army to march into Hanoi!

What is Fei Qian doing?

In this era, the cost of information transmission is extremely high. Even if Hanoi and Jizhou are neighbors, it normally takes three days to transmit the message from Shanyang to Cao Cao. Even if it is urgent, it will take two days. From Xu The same is true for the news delivered by the county. There is a considerable lag. Cao Cao must consider what new changes have occurred during the period of time when the news is delivered, and make corresponding deductions based on such changes...

Could it be that he wanted to contact Yecheng to rescue Yuan Shang? When did Yuan Shang get involved with Fei Qian?

But just when Cao Cao was about to send troops to take action, he received news from Yue Jin that he had dispatched urgently, saying that the hussars led by "Tai Shi" were missing...

What's missing?

If Cao Cao hadn't known that Le Jin had a calm personality, he might have suspected that Le Jin was crazy now? After passing through three batches, there were more than 2,000 and nearly 3,000 people. How could such people just disappear without saying they were there?

Could it be that he turned around and went back to the south? Or into the mountains?

Cao Cao couldn't understand, and Le Jin, who was in the Shanyang area, was even more confused. He didn't even dare to leave Shanyang, so he could only send scouts everywhere to search desperately.

It is not that there are no traces. After all, so many people have passed by, and there are some traces after all. But these traces are very strange. On the one hand, they are very confusing, and on the other hand, there are some differences in numbers. This is why Le Jin finally reported to Cao Cao that the Qiao cavalry was a horse. One of the important reasons for missing.

After repeated confirmations by the scouts, it was found that only about six or seven hundred men and horses were heading southwest, while the rest of the hussars passing through Wen County seemed to have evaporated, leaving no trace at all.

Could it be that there were no such people in the first place?

Just like when Dong Zhuo used 3,000 people to pretend to be 30,000?

But Le Jin didn't dare to confirm. After all, if his judgment was wrong, the consequences would be very serious, so he could only report the situation to Cao Cao urgently and let Cao Cao make the decision.

Cao Cao supported his increasingly headache, unable to make a decision.

Is that really all we can do?

The candles in Cao Cao's main tent were not extinguished all night long...

…(◎_◎;)? …

When Cao Cao was unable to judge for a moment, Zhang Chen had already led his men on the journey back to Heluo.

"Captain, do you think it's useful for us to run around like this?" ” asked the personal guard beside Zhang Chen.

Yes, Fei Qianqiu sent troops northward, but it was not Taishi Ci. Taishi Ci was still at Hangu Pass. It was just Zhang Chen who led 700 people back and forth in the name of Taishi Ci. Wenxian circled around several times, creating the illusion that several groups of people were heading north, and even deceived Sima Fang. After all, Sima Fang had never been on the battlefield in person. The talk on paper may be good, but the actual experience may not be as strong as that of his son Sima Yi.

"You don't understand this. This is called the policy of virtual reality..." Zhang Chen chuckled twice, as if he understood it very well, "As the saying goes, it confuses his will, shakes his fighting spirit, and puts him in a dilemma... 』

In fact, Zhang Chen may not understand everything, but according to the lessons he remembered from the martial arts hall, half a bucket of water was sloshed around for a while, and he also received quite a lot of admiring looks from his subordinates.

"Study hard, you know?" ” Zhang Chen said, “Don’t read a word all day long, as if you were stabbed with a knife. Oops, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ooh, ooh – ooh – ooh, ooh – ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you know?” Only after learning these can you understand what strategy is in the future! Okay, let's get to work. Go and check with a few people to see if the traces have been cleaned up...Also, let the sentry out. If someone touches him under his nose, I can't afford to lose this person! 』

The hussars replied and got busy.

In fact, Zhang Chen only understood a small part of it. It was indeed a false and true strategy, but its effect was not just to confuse people's hearts...

Cao Cao was guarding Fei Qian, and Fei Qian was also guarding Cao Cao.

Fei Qian does not have the Eye of God, so of course he needs to activate Cao Cao's hidden soldiers in order to predict the direction of Cao Cao's next move. The main purpose of Zhang Chen and his team is to put pressure on Cao Cao's flanks and pass Cao Cao through Correspondence to judge Cao Cao's specific arrangements.

To put it simply, when Zhang Chen and others passed through Wen County, the soldiers of Cao's army in Wen County were so frightened that they did not even dare to leave the city. This means that the defense power in Wen County is actually very poor, and in the mountains Yang, it's different. Le Jin dared to send a large number of scouts for reconnaissance, which also shows that there is a certain amount of troops in Shanyang...

After two or three days of subsequent fermentation, there will be movement in Jizhou, which will even affect Cao Jun who is stalemate with Fei Qian, and will also produce corresponding changes. After all, different reactions contain different meanings, and observing these Cao Jun's behavior will become the basis for Fei Qian's next stage of judgment.

Jizhou was originally a very unstable area, and within this area, there were many complex relationships, including between Cao Jun's soldiers and Yuan Jun's surrender, between the Yuzhou gentry and Jizhou gentry, and between Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi. It is extremely unstable, and Fei Qian's action is like adding some catalysts to these unstable factors, and then making the next stage of strategic deployment based on the subsequent reactions.

However, what Fei Qian did not expect was that Cao Cao was not the first to change...