The next day, Lu Bu reported the war plan to the emperor. He planned to use Cao Xing, Li Su and others to guard Chang'an; Ma Teng led his troops to Fufeng to meet the follow-up Liangzhou army going to Long; Han Sui and Song Jian led their troops to the east to take over Hongnong and rescue Dong Cheng; Then with Gao Shun, Gao Ya, and Zhang Liao as minions, Liu Hei, Chen Wei and others transferred the baggage, and led thousands of horses to the north to take advantage of the victory to seize the land east of the river.
After the emperor's approval, Beijing began to prepare for this matter intensively. The rewarded gold and silver were distributed the next day, and the three towns in Longyou were relieved when they learned that they had no heavy responsibility and had no objections.
At least from this point of view, Liangzhou is still in harmony. Only at this time, the heavy snow continued, and the dispatch of troops was inevitably delayed. It was not until the 13th day of the winter lunar month that the ice and snow subsided, and Lu Bu resumed his journey.
Before setting off, Jia Xu specifically asked Lu Bu: "It is extremely difficult to attack the city in winter. I wonder if the general can be sure?" Lu Bu replied directly: "There are many bandits in the east of the river, and their fighting spirit is low. What are you worried about? It is normal for ants to attack the city. , it's enough to attack." Jia Xu shook his head and said: "If you attack the city like this, the general will undoubtedly sacrifice his own shortcomings and attack the enemy's strong points, and I'm afraid it will be difficult to achieve anything." Lu Bu asked in return: "Then according to Wenhe's opinion , is there a way to destroy the city?" Jia Xu laughed and said: "There is actually no way to destroy the city, but there is a way to capture the city without fighting." He then said: "If the enemy of Puban cannot hold on, , the general could ignore it and continue walking north. He looted the countryside and brought food to Anyi, Linfen and other places. All the villages he encountered were burned down, and all the soldiers and civilians who fled for their lives were killed. There were many places everywhere. Raise the flag so that the enemy does not know whether we are real or not. Then let out the news. Anyone who dares to hold on and refuse to surrender will be punished by massacre of the city. When the rebel army hears the news, their morale will inevitably be shattered. They will either leave the city to fight decisively, or abandon the city and flee. Then the east of the river is the enemy. It's a hit." After hearing this, Lu Bu couldn't help but smile and said: "Wen He is right, but in my opinion, it doesn't have to be so troublesome. If I can't attack the city, it won't be too late to use this strategy again." After that, Without further delay, Lu Bu immediately led his troops across the Wei Bridge, planning to pass through Gaoling and Wannian to Linjin.
When he passed Gaoling, he saw the battlefield where he fought with the Liang army. He sighed in his heart. Pointing to the frozen Weishui River, he said to Zhang Liao: "It is a pity that the brothers who followed me into Luoyang from Shangdang are now less than a thousand. Most of them are buried here. Even if you are rich now, who can you talk to?" Zhang Liao said: "As long as the general can start well and end well, and help your majesty achieve great things, then my reputation as a Shangdang warrior will be as good as that of Yuyang. Let your reputation as a sudden knight last forever." Lu Bu nodded slightly and said, "Although you are here, you can't just pass by. Back then, the champion defeated the Huns and rewarded the soldiers in Hexi. He poured the wine into the spring water and drank with the three armies. Today I remember Pao Ze, and this is how I should do it." After saying that, he took out two jars of Xiangyang yellow wine given by the emperor, and asked people to break the river ice and sprinkle the wine into the Wei River.
He muttered silently in his heart: "Gentlemen, you were buried in the water in the past because I, Lu Bu, was incompetent. But if you have souls after death and can taste the rice wine brewed by this river, please bless me and help me achieve unparalleled achievements and become famous. Eternal!" That night, they built a camp by the Wei River to rest, and called five local pavilion chiefs.
He said he wanted to find out what the people in Guanzhong were saying after Liang Jun entered Beijing, as well as the recent situation around him. These pavilion chiefs heard the new general's order and did not dare to neglect, so they all knelt down and sat in the middle of Lu Bu's tent. When Lu Bu asked him, they would just answer without daring to look up.
But in the final analysis, Lu Bu just wanted to hear some compliments. The chiefs of the pavilion were all very sensible. When Lü Bu asked what the public opinion was, they said something about how the two thieves were unjust and the general obeyed his orders at the right time. The people heard these words as if it were cold rain. Lü Bu was very happy when he heard this, but he didn't. Wanting to show off, he kept stroking his chin to hide his smile.
It was when Gao Shun asked them if there had been any unusual movement around them recently. One person said that he had heard the news that there seemed to be horse bandits running around in the Pinyang area in the past two days, but they did not hurt anyone, which was very strange.
After hearing this, Gao Shun paid great attention to it and discussed with Lu Bu whether it was the cavalry from Jinyang. Lu Bu disagreed, saying that it was natural for horse bandits to appear in winter. Now that Chang'an has only been in the city for ten days, how can Jinyang get reinforcements?
Don't worry so much. He asked the man again, "Do you know how many horse bandits there are?" The man replied that he didn't know, and Lu Bu became less and less concerned about it.
So on the second day, Lu Bu led his army from Gaoling, arrived at Lianshao after ten thousand years, rode directly through the frozen Luoshui River, and then arrived at the foot of Linjin City.
At this time, the news that he led his army to fight had been known to Hedong, and the police training quickly rushed to Jinyang and Luoyang at the same time.
However, Lu Bu was not afraid of being discovered at this time. After all, he wanted not only to march quickly, but also to pacify the counties in Guanzhong, which was also one of his purposes.
Therefore, although he was riding a horse to attack, he made a big show of it along the way, hung up the general's banner, and ordered his troops to go down the mountain to call for the thieves. Everyone along the road trembled and feared when they heard about it. .
By the time they crossed the west bank of the river, it was already the morning of the seventeenth day of the winter lunar month. The clouds in the sky were very light, the wind was very light, the sun was shining brightly, but there was no temperature. As everyone walked in the snow, they felt that the sky and the earth were whiter and more brilliant, but also more indifferent.
Lu Bu walked ten miles east from the river, and all he saw on the road was a scene of all the vegetation and trees, and no villages left in the wild.
When he arrived at the foot of Puban City, he looked up at the top of the city and saw that the walls were covered with crimson flags. Everyone under the banner is wearing armor, bows and guns, and they are ready.
He watched for a while and saw that the enemy's morale was high and they were not easy to fight with. He couldn't help but feel evil in his heart and said sarcastically: "Unexpectedly, the mangy dog has lost his master, but he still has the courage to dare to fight with the tiger! "Although he knew it was disadvantageous, Lu Bu still wanted to attack.
On that day, he ordered his sergeants to raise mountains of earth from the south, north and west of the city to carry out a siege.
At the same time, the drums of war continued all night long, and there was never a moment of peace in the city. Only at the beginning of the siege, Lu Bu encountered great difficulties.
In winter, the soil is hard and hard. Not only is filling and excavation time-consuming, but the excavated soil is also hard and brittle. Without sending people to crush it, it will be difficult to fill the mountain.
Under such circumstances, Lu Bu raised the earth mountain twice on the first day, but both collapsed. However, under the rain of arrows from the bows on the city, although the cold soldiers were wearing armor and stomach, they were not seriously injured. However, under the premise that they could not fight back and only suffered more casualties, their morale was helplessly depressed.
Seeing this, Lu Bu captured more than a thousand local people that night and spent two days supervising the construction of ladders to rush the chariot. Afterwards, he had more than a hundred ladders. Lu Bu then sent the people ahead to build ladders towards Puban to attack the city.
The people were extremely frightened, but they were forced by swords and had no choice but to carry the ladders forward. To the people on the city, they looked like ants carrying the ladders that were much larger than themselves.
Some of them were soldiers from the local county soldiers. The defenders couldn't bear to kill them, so Chen Deng sternly scolded them before throwing the prepared stones at the wall.
It was just a little slow in the end, and several aerial ladders were mounted one after another. The Liang soldiers climbed up with iron pockets and arrows in their iron armor.
In their opinion, as long as they could climb the city wall and fight hand-to-hand with the defenders, these wealthy children from the east of the river would definitely be unable to resist, and it would only take them an instant to capture the city.
But what they didn't expect was that as soon as they climbed to the top of the wall and reached out to grab the ladder with both hands, they were covered with slippery ice and there was no way to use any force. The defenders took advantage of them when they were at a loss to use the prepared weapons in advance. The big sticks kept beating the Liang army, and the Liang army was unable to resist. They were either knocked down from the city by the big sticks, or they had no choice but to retreat on their own.
As for the rush of cars under the city, the defenders also repeatedly poured water on them, causing a thick layer of ice to form in front of the city gate.
The ice layer was a steep slope. The Liang soldiers pushed the cart forward, but found that they could not push it up at all. They had to ask the villagers to cut the ice in front of the city gate. However, in this way, the ice layer was completely cut. The car cannot be pushed forward.
After another two days of this, Lu Bu had no choice but to stop the siege. He called all the generals from the left together and continued to discuss how to break the city.
But after discussing it for half a day, we still couldn't agree. Zhang Liao advised Lu Bu: "In the past few days of attacking the city, it can be seen that there are not many defenders in Puban, and there is not enough danger. Why waste time here? Since the general wants to capture the whole of Hedong, he should not stick to one corner, but should look at the overall situation. That's right. Why not abandon this city temporarily and go straight to Pingyang. The walls of Pingyang are short and our army is caught by surprise, so we will be able to defeat them in one battle!" After Lu Bu heard this, he immediately remembered Jia Xu's plan before leaving.
He also knew that the war was no joke. After thinking for a moment, he nodded and said, "There is no need to go to Pingyang. As long as we capture Linfen, we won't be afraid of Jinyang's reinforcements." After that, Lu Bu immediately rectified his soldiers and abandoned Puban. Ignore it and continue east.
That night, they arrived at the salt pond and stopped to rest by the pond. At this time, suddenly there was a fire in the distance to the north.
The cavalrymen had all dismounted, but they quickly got on again. Some people asked, is the enemy scout coming?
Others said that they could not be scouts. There must be many people marching with fire at night.
In the midst of suspicion, gradually, there were more and more fires ahead, and they slowly spread until they were completely connected to the north, like a fire dragon.
Someone stood on the horse and looked towards the shining light of the fire. Except for streams of snow and dust rising from the trees like mist, nothing else could be seen.
People commented: "How many people are here? It seems like a lot." After a while, the noisy sounds of drums and sergeants came over.
The sound grew louder and louder, like the waves of the Yellow River rushing against the rocks on the shore. Some people panicked and said, "Are you surrounded? Let's rush out quickly!" However, Lu Bu forced them to be silent. He looked at the hesitating fire dragon opposite and said with a smile: "These little thieves don't dare to act rashly yet. Why should we retreat?" He listened carefully for a while, analyzing the enemy's accent, and finally said with a smile: "It seems that the cavalry of the Huns is coming, not worth mentioning! This is the time for me to establish my authority!" He was right. The more than 10,000 knights coming from the opposite side were the Xiongnu reinforcements that Chen Qun invited from Meiji.
