Guo Huai regrets it now.
Why did I have to be so mean-mouthed yesterday? I had already known that Liu Bei was in Xixian County when I agreed to the agreement with Zhang Xi. Why would I have been around Jixian County? It was only right to go directly to Xixian County.
But now, Guo Huai is a bit stuck.
Yesterday, in order to show his general magnanimity, Guo Huai had people build a high platform in front of the two armies' formations specifically to store the women's clothing. The purpose was to show his soldiers and the barbarians that he was determined to win. Now there is no way out.
You can't admit defeat now and lead the troops in women's clothing to attack Xi County. That's a slap in the face. The morale of the army is completely gone, and it will no longer be a deterrent to those barbarians. What can you do for others to do it for you? Go and work hard.
Now Guo Huai is particularly angry with his scouts. If you had sent the news one day in advance, would he still be so hard to get off? !
So, even if Guo Huai knew that Liu Bei was in Xixian now, for the sake of his reputation and face, he could not leave Jixian easily.
Yes, from a rational point of view, defeating Liu Bei should be the first choice now. From a strategic point of view, Ji County is no longer important at this time, and the real focus is on West County.
As a military commander, Guo Huai should not care about face and reputation issues from a purely military perspective. As long as he defeated Liu Bei and solved the siege of Yongliang, he would be a great hero.
But these days, the importance of reputation to a person sometimes transcends life and death.
If he really ignores Ji County and goes to besiege Xixian County, even if he wins, Guo Huai will change from a famous general in the northwest to a cunning villain who doesn't keep his promises, even Cao Pi. You may reward yourself on the surface, but alienate yourself in reality.
This is not a question of whether society will die, but a choice that will ruin your reputation and future, and even affect your family's reputation.
Guo Huai was born in the Guo family of Taiyuan. The ancestor of the Guo family was the king of the Guo Kingdom during the Spring and Autumn Period. He was a noble for generations. This kind of family is the most important about reputation.
If Guo Huai really dares to ignore Ji County and attack Xi County, maybe Guo Huai will be expelled from the Guo family after the war. The Guo family, which has been a noble family for generations, cannot afford to lose this person.
Therefore, Guo Huai really couldn't just leave Ji County and leave.
Moreover, although Guo Huai is now riding a tiger, he has not lost his calm after all. He is also analyzing the impact Liu Bei's appearance in Xixian will have on the entire Yongliang war situation.
Since Liu Bei himself appeared in Xixian, it means that Cao Hong and himself misjudged the strategic purpose of the Shu army's Northern Expedition at the beginning.
Liu Bei did not want to attack Chang'an, but to occupy Liangzhou. Liu Bei's army on the other side of Baoxie Road was the suspected army. Liu Bei's real main force came out via Qishan Road.
In other words, Cao Hong, the current governor of Yongliang, was completely treated like a monkey by Liu Bei.
And on my own side, it's actually quite dangerous.
Yes, he has more than 50,000 soldiers, and they have been gathered in advance and sorted out. On the surface, he does have the strength to defend Liangzhou.
But the problem is that once Liangzhou is Liu Bei's target, there will definitely be many soldiers led by Liu Bei himself this time.
There are more than 20,000 people in the front army, so Liu Bei's own troops will definitely not be less than 50,000.
Fifty thousand cavalry, against Liu Bei's army of more than 70,000, seems to have a good chance of winning. Guo Huai can completely rely on the high mobility of the cavalry and the superiority of the arms to win.
But if you do this, the entire Liangzhou will definitely be completely destroyed in this back and forth.
Even if Liu Bei retreats and leaves a dilapidated Liangzhou stall, what good will it do to Cao Wei? !
Finally, to be honest, Guo Huai may not be able to beat him.
Guo Huai knew very well the composition of his fifty thousand people.
If he had brought Cao Wei's 50,000 elite cavalry, then Guo Huai would still have the confidence to go head-to-head with Liu Bei's army.
But now Guo Huai knows very well that the Liangzhou soldiers he can actually control are only 17,000 or 8,000. Among them, there are more cavalry, more than 10,000, and four to five thousand infantry. Half of them are responsible for camp guards and necessary Used by infantry to siege cities.
The remaining more than 30,000 cavalry were actually Qiang and Hu Yicong recruited by Guo Huai to grab benefits.
When these barbarians are good for you, you can rely on your prestige to drive them. When they are not good for you, or when you are going to be unlucky, these barbarians with some conscience will flee from the battlefield, and those without any conscience will directly turn against you.
After all, the fighting ability of the barbarians these days is really that bad. After hundreds of years of fighting, they were all maimed by the big men.
Guo Huai really didn't dare to use the rabble he led to go head-to-head with the elite Shu army.
After figuring out the main force and strategic purpose of Liu Bei's army, Guo Huai immediately wrote to Cao Hong, asking the governor to stop competing with others at Baoxie Road and quickly allocate part of his troops to quickly support Liangzhou.
But it would take at least twenty days to a month for this kind of letter to reach Cao Hong and wait for Cao Hong to divide his troops to rescue him. During this period, Guo Huai had to find a way to rely on what he had on hand. The troops held back the main force of Liu Bei's army.
But for the sake of reputation and face, Guo Huai couldn't leave the city of Ji County. Guo Huai's head was about to explode.
After much thought, Guo Huai decided to send the Yi Cong cavalry under his tent to take a detour and attack Xixian.
I really didn’t expect these people to capture Xi County.
Despite the large number of these Hu people, there are more than 30,000 people, but they belong to more than a dozen different tribes. Many Hu people have quite a lot of conflicts with each other. The reason why they can gather together this time is all thanks to Guo The prestige Huai has established in Liangzhou over the years.
As for the fighting power of the Hu people, Guo Huai also knew very well that he could not count on it at all. If the fighting power of the Hu people was strong enough, they would not be beaten to the point of crying by his newly recruited Han soldiers.
During the Han Dynasty, the Hu people were pressed to the ground and rubbed back and forth for nearly four hundred years. The Qiang people still had some confidence, but this confidence was really limited. When facing the Han people, whether they were Han infantry or Han cavalry, they would be defeated before a fight started. The weak three points first.
Guo Huai's idea was purely to use the advantage of the Hu's cavalry to temporarily contain Liu Bei. He never considered the possibility of these Hu's defeating Liu Bei's army.
Although it is said that the Shu army definitely lacks cavalry and is at a disadvantage in terms of arms type, hundreds of years of war history have proven that the Han people, even if they are infantry, can still grind the Hu cavalry to the ground.
It's just that it's not as easy and trouble-free as the cavalry.
Guo Huai's tactic was to temporarily hold back Liu Bei with the lives of the Hu people, so that Liu Bei could not easily leave Xi County or easily rescue Ji County, while he led his Liangzhou elite to strive to quickly break through Ji County, and then attack again. Send troops south to fight Liu Bei.
Guo Huai is sure of this because he has twenty Pili Chariots in his hands.
Although Guo Huai also knew that Zhang Xi was an expert in using catapults, the problem was that Zhang Xi also just occupied Jixian County and only arrived a day or two earlier than Guo Huai.
Guo Huai didn't believe that Zhang Xi could build a catapult in just one day and that it could compete with his own thunderbolt chariot.
Now that Ji County has been completely surrounded by his own cavalry troops, Zhang Xi can no longer cut down trees outside the city and build a catapult on site. So for this one, I am the only one who has a thunderbolt cart.
Zhang Xi, a guy who is good at using catapults, is just waiting to be smashed.
In fact, Guo Huai's prediction was indeed correct. Zhang Xi never expected that in Liangzhou, a place that relies on cavalry duels, there would be people who would prepare thunderbolt vehicles for siege in advance.
The situation in Liangzhou is actually completely different from that in the hinterland of the Central Plains.
Except for some important big cities and fortresses, Liangzhou rarely uses brick and stone city walls. Most of the city walls here are earth walls. They only need to be higher than the height of cavalry jumping. After all, Liangzhou soldiers are not good at it. Siege operations.
As a large city and the home of many aristocratic families in Tianshui, Jixian County uses masonry structure. However, the masonry structure city walls in Jixian County are not the same concept as the masonry structure city walls in the Central Plains.
To give a simple example, even if a catapult hits the city wall of Xiangyang City hard, it will take half a month to a month to destroy a small section of the wall. But in Liangzhou, even in a big city like Ji County , if the catapult hits it hard, it may not be able to hold up for five days.
There is another very important reason, that is, Zhang Xi really cannot use local materials to demolish the houses in the city to build a catapult.
Most of the houses in the Central Plains are made of wooden materials. It can be done by demolishing the houses and rebuilding catapults. However, the houses in Liangzhou are basically mud houses. The only places where large amounts of wooden materials can be used are those of various powerful families. Zhang Xi has just been in the city for one day and is about to demolish the home of a powerful man in Ji County. God knows what chain reaction it will cause.
Therefore, even though Guo Huai only had twenty Pili cars, Zhang Xi really looked serious and worried.
Although Cao Jun's thunderbolt chariots were not as powerful as the heavy-duty catapults built by Zhang Xi, in the territory of Liangzhou, they were weapons for siege.
Moreover, the thunderbolt vehicle has a very long range, and Zhang Xi does not have a heavy catapult at hand. He cannot conduct an "artillery battle" like he did during the Fancheng defense battle. The only way to solve the threat of the thunderbolt vehicle is to send troops out of the city to fight in the field and burn these vehicles. Thunderbolt car.
But once Zhang Xi was about to leave the city to fight in the field, he saw the Liangzhou cavalry waiting in full formation on one side of the battlefield.
Obviously, as long as Zhang Xi dares to send troops out of the city to fight in the field, he will immediately be charged by the Liangzhou cavalry group. It is really hard to say how many soldiers will come back by then.
This group of cavalry is not the disorganized Qiang and Hu cavalry who only charge in a swarm in battle, but the truly well-trained Liangzhou cavalry. They can not only perform horseback slashing, but also are good at mounted shooting. They are simply a genius for infantry. gram.
Under such circumstances, the offensive and defensive battle in Hebei County officially began.
(End of chapter)
