In the winter of the first year of Yanxing in the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei ordered Duan Yan, the partial general of the Han Dynasty and Marquis of Changpingting Pavilion, to lead ten thousand horses across the chasm to attack the Gengcang army. All the generals were satisfied with this plan, but the only dissatisfaction was with the choice of the general. Many people privately went to Liu Bei and said, "Duan Zhongming is a Liang man who betrays his master and relies on the general. His actions and morals are not reliable. Do you want to choose someone else?"
Liu Bei laughed at these remarks. He first said: "We work for the imperial court, and the land has no distinction between north and south. According to what you said, is it possible for Bei to abandon Liangzhou?" When the other party was speechless, he comforted and said: "Zhongming is not disabled under Dong Zhuo's command. The actions of the people, after Dong Zhuo's death, were just to calm the situation, so they just followed me. If he really had two intentions and rebelled in Jinyang, why wait until today?"
So he still retained Duan Yan's position as the commander-in-chief. Just to reassure everyone, he appointed two deputy generals to let Cao Cao and Zhang Fei go together to supervise Duan Yan's affairs. Needless to say, the reason for appointing Zhang Fei was because Cao Cao was eager to fight. He said that restoring the land was the state pastor's duty. Liu Bei couldn't resist him, so he agreed.
Even with this arrangement, everyone still had doubts, but Duan Xuan himself was at ease. Since the plan was made, Duan Yan has been training soldiers day and night in the Mangshan area. He has also convened officers at all levels to give lectures on martial arts and teach the Liang people cavalry tactics on the frontier. After two months, everyone found that he spoke sincerely and had nothing to hide. He slept and slept with the soldiers, and his food and clothing expenses were the same as ordinary uncles. They all admired him and no longer questioned him.
In November, after three months of feeding the horses with wheat and beans, each horse looked fat and strong. Running on the plain, it was like a rolling stone rolling on the ground, bringing up a gust of wind. When thousands of war horses gallop on the ground, even if no one else is allowed to enter for miles around Mang Mountain, pedestrians passing by can faintly feel the vibrations of the ground. They all speculated that tens of thousands of reinforcements came from Kansai?
Gradually, the temperature dropped. The winters in the past few years have been almost always cold. Liu Bei and others are still worried about whether this year will be a warm winter, causing the river to freeze too late. But this year, the cold wind came earlier. In early November, the strong wind blew away all the autumn mood, turning the world into a desolate color.
The chasm soon became frozen, and it was visibly solid to the naked eye. With the strong walls on both sides facing each other, the vegetation along the river was cut down and burned, and not even an animal could be seen. This desolate scene made people hesitate, so much so that some people asked: "Can a raid really be successful on such a cold day?"
But this was a plan to break the camp after a stalemate for more than half a year. Liu Bei must take this risk. After the snow stopped, Xu Shu sent people to see how thick the ice was in the chasm. The ice in the river was already three feet deep, enough for war horses to gallop on it.
The time has come. Liu Bei first sent someone to notify Duan Yan and asked him to go to the front line to prepare for the war. At the same time, he moved his troops to Hanoi and pretended to start from Hanoi to clear out the enemy camp in Jixian County and then rescue Baima.
After Duan Yan received the order, he asked everyone to wrap the horses' hooves with cowhide first, and then form a column to sneak slowly along the mountain road in Mang Mountain. After passing through Chenggao, the terrain gradually became flat, and some mountain rocks were still exposed in layers on the surface. However, the mountains facing us became stronger and stronger. In the end, all the military flags were rolled up and tied to the horses. The horse leads the way.
The cavalry formed a straight line, or rather a winding line, with the leading and following horses connected by ropes. Not only was the wind strong, it was also extremely cold. The soldiers covered the horses with a layer of white sheepskin, covered their heads with riding caps, covered their faces with cotton towels, tied the reins to their wrists, put their hands inside the sleeves of their robes, held them on their abdomens, and lowered their heads. Riding the horse against the wind.
Between the sky and the wilderness, there is a vast expanse, and the people and horses walking through it are just like meandering earthworms.
When they reached Xingyang, the mountain was almost flat, with only some faint hills. When Xu Shu learned of their arrival, he quickly sent a batch of supplies and said to them: "The general has already started fighting over there in Hanoi. , and the enemy troops on the other side of the chasm have been greatly reduced. Whether this battle can be successful or not depends on you!"
Duan Xuan responded, and then summoned his generals and staff to discuss the matter of entering the war. At this time, due to the erosion of the cold wind, Cao Cao had another headache. He covered his head all day long and gritted his teeth to endure the pain. Even when he was sitting in the tent warming himself by the fire, he would often wake up suddenly from pain in his sleep. Duan Xuan saw that his cheeks were getting thinner and thinner, and couldn't bear it, so he comforted him and said: "If Meng De is really unbearable, I will send someone to send you to Xingyang to recuperate first, and I will meet you when I break the camp."
Cao Cao shook his head and said: "The general has good intentions, and I accept it with care. But since I took the initiative to ask for the battle, there is no reason to leave lightly. And if I leave my post without authorization, and the army advances and retreats out of order, I will not be able to escape the blame even if I die! I Cao Cao has always been very lucky, and he will definitely not die here, and he will definitely be able to avenge my father."
Duan Xuan and others also sighed after hearing this. At this moment, I heard a thin rustling on the top of the tent, as if many leaves were flying down and hitting it. When people opened the curtain and took a look, they were shocked. I saw a heavy snowfall, suddenly falling from the sky overwhelmingly!
The white-grey sky and earth suddenly changed color to silvery white. The snow fell continuously for two days and two nights with no sign of letting up. The mountains, rivers and plains were covered in snow, and as far as the eye could see, it was dazzling white. In the sky and on the earth, front, back, left and right, everything is white except white. People boil snow into water, and the water tastes astringent and strange.
On the night of the third day, the cavalry marched to the west bank of Honggou. Cao Cao said to Duan Yan: "We don't want to meet with the enemy. If the weather was normal, the rebels would have discovered us long ago. Now it is covered with heavy snow and the sky is obscured. This is when both my eyes and ears are blocked. Isn’t it a good opportunity given by God? I watched the night scene two nights ago, and it was hard to distinguish the night scene. It must be the same tonight. This is the opportunity the general wants to break the camp!"
Duan Xuan nodded and said: "That's exactly what I meant, and I don't want to coincide with Meng De."
He immediately called Zhang Fei, and the three assigned tasks. Duan Xuan led 3,000 knights in front, Cao Cao led 3,000 knights to respond later, and Zhang Fei led the remaining 4,000 knights to wait on the west bank and make a decision after seeing the attack situation on the other bank. . Before the attack, Duan Yan sent an order to all his troops: "Don't worry about rewards during the battle. The general has promised me that as long as the camp is broken, everyone will be rewarded with ten levels of beheading, regardless of life or death!"
Under the generous reward, all the generals in the army were more courageous, and then Duan Xuan led the front troops forward in the snow. The soldiers rode their horses through the knee-deep snow, and the passing snowflakes hit their eyes extremely painfully. They could not walk through the book. The man and the horse were all white from head to toe, and even their eyebrows and beards could not be distinguished clearly. There were so many people moving forward, but they couldn't hear any other sounds at all. They could only hear the snowflakes falling rustlingly in the wind, just like thousands of leaves falling down. In this way, we walked quietly all the way to the northwest side of Yuanwu's winter camp.
The surrounding fields were vastly white. Although there was no moonlight and no fire was raised, they could still see the continuous tents and a few fires in the distance, and the Cang army was quietly immersed in sleep.
The snow was so heavy at night that Duan Yan himself didn't know where he touched, but he knew that he had a lot of luck. Although there were fences and trenches on the opposite side, part of the fence had collapsed under the heavy snow. No one was repairing it at that time, and the trench had long been filled with snow, leaving a smooth road between them and the Gengcang Army.
Some soldiers were impatient and were about to attack inside, but Duan Xuan stopped him and whispered: "Wait a little longer. When Cao Shijun and his troops are close, we will go in again. Today is about a year." To succeed or fail, you must succeed in one fell swoop without making any mistakes!"
So they waited in the snow for another half an hour. The weather was very cold, and many people felt their hands and feet were hot from the cold, but they endured it in the end. After Cao Cao's three thousand knights also caught up, Duan Xuan ordered his men to cover the horses' hooves with cowhide and tie them with ropes to increase friction to prevent them from slipping in the snow. They took off all the extra weapons and accessories and raised them on the ground. They even threw down their armor, leaving only their military uniforms so that they could move faster.
They carried a quiver on their backs and slung their bows over their shoulders; their knives lay horizontally and their scabbards were tightly tied behind the saddles. Then one by one, they slowly stepped in through the collapse of the fence. The surroundings were so quiet, and they wanted to be even quieter, so much so that they felt their breathing was a little rough.
Because the entry speed was very slow, those who entered first quietly hid in the snow, waiting for more people to come in. They waited for almost two quarters of an hour. The people who entered were so densely packed and crowded together that they should There are thousands of riders. Duan Yan estimated that no more people could come in, so he waved his hand and whispered the order, "Kill!"
For a moment, the people in front got on their horses and rushed into the Geng Cang Army's camp. Soon, the fire started burning between the big camps. These were all accidents, and it was not that Duan Xuan deliberately set the fire. After all, there was no big fire in the heavy snow, but this gave a signal to later people that Duan Xuan's troops had successfully entered.
So they stopped pretending and shouted loudly to kill across the chasm. There were vague shouts of killing everywhere in the heavy snow. They seemed to be everywhere, but they were not loud. All you could see was blood gradually flowing out between the tents, white steam emitting on the white snow, and then solidifying quickly.
Zhang Fei's troops also saw it on the west bank, and immediately rushed over, followed closely by the rest of the infantry on the west bank. However, by the time the infantry arrived at Yuan Wu, the fighting had slowly subsided. A knight handed over several bloody and steaming human heads, saying they belonged to the generals who led the thieves. These people woke up from their dreams, and before they even put on their clothes, they were already victims of the sword.
In this battle, Duan Yan led his army to break through the chasm, beheading more than 10,000 people and capturing more than 30,000 people. He pursued the victory and captured Yuanwu. Gengcang's army saw that the defense line had been broken and could no longer hold on to the chasm, so they decisively withdrew to Puyang, Yuanju, and Kaocheng. On the front line, the entire Chenliu County was returned to the Han army.
Liu Bei also wanted to take advantage of the victory and lead his troops to attack Puyang, but found that Geng Cang's army had built a fortified city in Puyang. After a few days, the Han army lost thousands of people, but it was still difficult to conquer.
At this point, Liu Bei judged that the morale of the entire army had declined and the good opportunity for war had passed. He handed over Chenliu County to Cao Cao and returned to Henan to rest and recuperate. He planned to stop the war this year. In mid-December, he would lead 20,000 troops back to Chang'an.
