Guanqiu Jian brought three thousand cavalry with the purpose of finding the main force of the Shu army's partial division led by Wu Ban.
But to be honest, Guanqiu Jian was also worried. He didn't know where the Wu Ban leader had arrived. If the Shu army marched fast enough, the waste of two days would be enough for the main force of the Shu army and the front army in Mei County. The soldiers have joined forces.
Although Guanqiu Jian proposed a plan to counterattack Mei County, Guan Qiu Jian also knew that whether he could find and intercept the main force of the Shu army in time to create time for Guo Huai to return to Mei County was the most important thing in the entire plan. One ring.
In this regard, Guanqiu Jian didn't have much confidence, so he could only do his best.
However, the reinforcements sent by Sun Li accidentally collided and delayed Wu Ban's journey for half a day, and finally Guan Qiu Jian was found.
However, Guanqiu Jian didn't know that Sun Li had also sent reinforcements. All he saw was that more than 10,000 Shu troops were besieging the 3,000-strong Wei army. Guan Qiu Jian finally chose, wanting to kill the Shu troops and support them. Out of your own people.
Guanqiu Jian also had his own considerations.
Yes, he was leading cavalry. Although cavalry has a natural restraint advantage over infantry, he led few soldiers after all, and he did not know the combat effectiveness of the Shu army in front of him. In the first battle, Guanqiu Jian chose to seek stability. .
In addition, our own people who were besieged were all infantry.
Once the infantry is dispatched, Guanqiu Jian is sure to completely defeat the Shu army, let alone stop the more than 10,000 Shu army, and then lead a cavalry assault.
Based on these considerations, Guan Qiujian suddenly appeared on the battlefield with his cavalry. He did not immediately launch an attack on the Chinese army where Wu Ban was located. Instead, he took a detour and found a weak point in the encirclement. He cut into the battlefield in one fell swoop and tore open the encirclement. , took over Zhu Zan and the more than 3,000 central imperial guards remaining after the deadly battle.
This made Wu Ban heave a big sigh of relief, and at the same time he quickly gathered his soldiers, combined with Wang Ping's remaining more than 1,500 useless troops, and set up a defensive posture.
When he saw the Wei cavalry appear just now, Wu Ban was really panicked.
At that time, the Wu Ban was focused on how to encircle and suppress the infantry of the Wei army led by Zhu Zan. Wu Ban was not prepared for Guanqiu Jian's sudden appearance.
On the plain terrain of Guanzhong, once the three thousand cavalry picked up speed and directly attacked their own formation, Wu Ban was absolutely unable to resist it.
Even if the commander of this cavalry has stronger control over the battlefield and is more proficient in commanding the cavalry, he can completely defeat the more than 10,000 soldiers of Wu Ban with roundabout attacks.
When cavalry versus infantry, the advantage of arms restraint is too great.
But after all, Guanqiu Jian is still young. He may have outstanding strategies, but he does not have much battlefield experience. At the same time, he is not a professional cavalry commander. Therefore, the choice he made was just to support Zhu Zan, but he also gave Wu Ban a lot of money. Sufficient reaction time.
After Guanqiu Jian relieved Zhu Zan and reorganized the army, Wu Ban had gathered his soldiers and formed a defensive formation.
The entire Wu Ban army was attacking Zhu Zan just now, and there were insufficient external defense measures. If Guan Qiujian attacked at that time, Wu Ban would really not be able to adjust the defense line in time. After all, the cavalry was too fast.
But now, Wu Ban regrouped his soldiers and set up a round formation for defense. The two armies faced each other again. Only then did Guan Qiujian realize belatedly that he seemed to have missed a good opportunity.
This is the result of lack of battlefield experience, but... things are already like this, and there is no use thinking about it.
Besides, now Guanqiu Jian not only has 3,000 cavalry, but also 3,300 central imperial guards.
After Guanqiu Jian talked with Zhu Zan and learned that they were the elite soldiers sent by Sanguan to rescue Mei County, he immediately felt confident.
Six thousand three hundred men faced the more than eleven thousand people on the opposite side, and still had a military advantage. Guan Qiujian was confident that he could completely defeat this enemy army in the front, let alone just delay these people and prevent them from killing them. County.
Here, Wu Ban finally met with Wang Ping and asked him clearly about Wang Ping's origin and purpose, and what to do now? !
Strictly speaking, both Wu Ban and Wang Ping failed in their missions.
Although Wang Ping dragged Zhu Zan's imperial troops all the way, he did not allow Zhu Zan's troops to successfully rescue Mei County. But now that Zhu Zan and Guan Qiujian have joined forces, this is equivalent to falling short.
As for Wu Ban, his military order was to quickly go to Mei County to join Wei Yan. Now he was only about fifty miles away from Mei County, but he encountered an interception by the Wei army here.
Neither Wang Ping nor Wu Ban had a God's perspective. They could not have known that Guanqiu Jian's purpose of coming here was to prevent them from going to Mei County to join forces with Wei Yan. From a conventional battlefield perspective, the current situation was not suitable for them to rush to Mei County regardless of the situation. Go to the county.
If everyone is infantry, then Wang Ping and Wu Ban can still lead the army to fight and retreat. After all, they are not far from Demei County. If they retreat another thirty miles, Wei Yan will definitely send troops to respond. With these more than 10,000 soldiers, At least 90% of them can safely evacuate to Mei County.
But the problem now is that the Wei army has three thousand cavalry.
The cavalry is fast and has strong impact. If the infantry wants to fight against the cavalry, there is actually no good way except to rely on the superiority of troops to form a defensive formation on the spot.
Once Wu Ban led the army to retreat, it would not be able to ensure adequate defense during the retreat. Once the Wei cavalry made several attacks back and forth, fifty miles would be enough to completely overwhelm their own marching team.
At that time, these 10,000 infantrymen may become defeated at any time.
Therefore, Wu Ban and Wang Ping discussed for a long time, and finally decided to hold on where they were, and at the same time sent scouts and messengers to inform General Wei Yan, who would decide whether to fight or retreat.
It only took two days to get from this battlefield to Mei County. From a time perspective, this decision was not a mistake.
But after all, Wang Ping was a little worried that although there were thousands of people under General Wei's command, he was also leading infantry, and he was also at a disadvantage when facing cavalry.
If the enemy general ignores his own men and uses the mobility of the cavalry to sneak attack General Wei's supporting troops, the consequences will be disastrous.
Wu Ban is not too worried about this.
Although General Wei is not very popular among his colleagues, everyone still recognizes his ability to lead troops in battle. It is impossible for General Wei not to think of anything we can think of.
If General Wei really led his troops to meet everyone, he would definitely be fully prepared and would never give the enemy general a chance to make such a surprise attack.
In fact, after Wei Yan received the military intelligence information from Wu Ban, he did seriously consider it.
Wu Ban is still very reliable. He wrote very detailed military reports to Wei Yan and did not hide anything about the current difficulties he encountered. This allowed Wei Yan to have first-hand information.
Now Wei Yan knew that there were more than 6,000 Wei troops intercepting Wu Ban on the way, of which 3,000 were cavalry and 3,000 were Cao Wei's Central Forbidden Army.
These were not two troops that had planned to join forces. Although Wu Ban did not know where the Wei army's three thousand cavalry came from, through communication with Wang Ping, Wu Ban still knew that the more than three thousand central imperial guards were dispersed. Guan Sunli sent to meet Mei County.
As for the information about the cavalry, Wu Ban only knew the word "Guanqiu" written on the flag of the cavalry commander. As for who it was, Wu Ban didn't know.
In fact, Wei Yan didn't know either, but Wei Yan was a general who was good at using his brain.
Guan Qiu Jian's reputation was not well known at this time, and he was promoted to the army by Guo Huai, so the Han Dynasty did not collect much information about Guan Qiu Jian.
But Wei Yan can make a rough judgment by briefly analyzing the current situation.
There are only a few places in Guanzhong where Cao's troops are stationed. Wang Ping's testimony can rule out that this cavalry came from Sanguan, and Wei Yan himself entered Guanzhong from Ziwu Valley and had never seen this cavalry. This shows that, This cavalry either came from Chang'an or returned from Wuzhangyuan for reinforcements.
If they were coming from Chang'an, they would have to bypass Mei County. Wei Yan couldn't possibly know nothing about it. Therefore, Wei Yan judged that it was very possible that this cavalry had returned from Wuzhangyuan and was preparing to rescue Mei County.
This judgment is very critical for Wei Yan's next decision-making.
Wei Yan always thought that his march was very fast. Up to now, the Wei army in Wuzhangyuan might not have reacted. But it turned out that the Wei army in Wuzhangyuan had sent a cavalry team of 3,000 people back to Mei County to aid. It was not I know nothing about the situation in Mei County.
Now that Mei County has been lost, Wei Jun must have known about it, and judging from the purpose of this cavalry team's march, Wei Jun obviously wanted to prevent his rear army from joining him in Mei County as much as possible. The purpose is already obvious.
Just as Zhuge Liang and others expected before the war, the Wei army was going to counterattack Mei County and regain the grain and grass.
When things developed to this point, Wei Yan had nothing to express but regret. If Wu Ban could have arrived in Mei County two days earlier, Wei Yan would have burned the food and grass in Mei County and led his troops to sneak attack Chang'an.
But now, Wei Yan can only give up his strange plan and choose to stick to Mei County.
Under this situation, it is meaningless to discuss the strange plan to attack Chang'an. It is better to use the food and grass in Mei County to attract the Wei army to gather under the Mei County city and create conditions for the main force of the Han Dynasty in Wuzhangyuan to encircle the Wei army.
After all, even if the entire Wei army returns to Wuzhangyuan City, their food and grass will not last for a few days, right? !
This is an army of nearly 50,000 people.
As for Wu Ban's troops, this is indeed a trouble. We must find a way to bring Wu Ban and others back before the main force of the Wei army reaches Mei County.
Otherwise, once the main force of the Wei army arrives at the foot of Mei County, Wu Ban's troops will become a lone army and will be swallowed up by the Wei army at any time.
But how to cope with this is a technical job.
(End of chapter)
