Wu Yi, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Army of the Han Dynasty, was ordered by Zhuge Liang to enter Sanguan from Qinzhou and was marching towards Huaili County with all his strength.
But in terms of the speed of the advance, Wu Yi has been urged by Zhuge Liang twice in a row.
Wu Yi also wanted to speed up his march, but he really couldn't do it.
It's not that Wu Yi is incompetent, but that the situation in Guanzhong has changed too quickly.
When Wu Yi set out from Qinzhou to reorganize his army, he received a military order to secretly dispatch troops to the pass to make preparations for the third Northern Expedition.
Therefore, after Wu Yi entered Sanguan, he crossed the Wei River directly and planned to enter Chang'an secretly from Zuofengyi area.
But less than a third of the way, Wu Yi received Zhuge Liang's first urging letter.
From Zhuge Liang's letter, Wu Yi learned that the Wei army suddenly attacked Guanzhong in a large scale. Zhang Xi, the governor of Yongzhou, had led troops to Zuofengyi to stop the main force of the Wei army. However, there was a serious shortage of troops in the right Fufeng area. Zhuge Liang was afraid that right Fufeng would be lost, so he quickly ordered Wu Yi to Yi, ask him to move to the Youfufeng area and be prepared to meet Youfufeng.
At that time, Guo Huai had not yet broken through You Fufeng's fortress group, so Zhuge Liang's tone in the letter was not particularly anxious. He just asked Wu Yi to change the direction of the advance and be ready to support You Fufeng.
This is just a precautionary military order.
But who knew that in just a few days, the situation in Guanzhong suddenly changed. First, Guo Huai of You Fufeng suddenly led 20,000 cavalry to attack, broke through the defense of the fortress group in one fell swoop, and penetrated deep into the hinterland of You Fufeng. He was blocked by Liu Yin with difficulty. In Huaili County.
Then Zhang Xi saw through Cao Zhen's trick, but did not have enough time to retreat. He was trapped in Chongquan and held on to the city.
Fortunately, Zhuge Liang made arrangements in advance out of caution. On the one hand, he allowed Zhao Yun's Liangzhou Army to enter the pass in advance. On the other hand, he wrote an urging letter to Wu Yi, asking him to march across the Wei River as soon as possible to support Huaili. , while ensuring the safety of Chang'an's flanks, it is best to choose opportunities to severely damage the right Fufeng Wei army.
In this letter, Zhuge Liang not only gave detailed information about the Wei army in Youfufeng, but his tone also became more severe, almost commanding, requiring Wu Yi to lead troops to support Huaili as soon as possible.
This order made Wu Yi suffer.
If he had known that his final destination was Huaili County, Wu Yi would not have led his army across the Weishui River and taken the route of Fengyi County on the left just after passing Sanguan. Instead, he would have chosen to go directly to Fufeng County on the right. Wouldn’t it be nice to go east to Mei County? !
It's better now. Wu Yi is at Zuo and Fengyi. It's convenient to go to Chang'an, but going to Huaili is not only a big circle, but also separated by the Wei River.
In this era, it is not easy to cross the river. You must choose a suitable ferry and have enough boats, so that you can complete the task of crossing the river in a short time.
You can't cross the river just anywhere.
There are actually two paths before Wu Yi.
One is to continue marching eastward, first reach Chang'an, use several Wei Bridges near Chang'an to cross the river, and then turn around and head southeast to support Huaili.
But if we do this, the distance in between will be too long. By the time Wu Yi leads the army to Huaili, there is a high probability that Huaili will have been lost.
The other is to find a suitable ferry nearby for Zuo Fengyi, collect nearby ships, ferry some soldiers over first, and then take this group of soldiers to support Huaili, while the army behind continues to cross the river and follow from behind.
This is the most time-saving method, but it also has a drawback. If there are too few troops, even if they can support the troops in Huaili, they may not be able to counterattack the Wei army.
However, Wu Yi had to make a choice.
Actually, there is no good choice. Zhuge Liang made it very clear in his second letter.
Supporting Huaili and guarding Chang'an's flanks are Wu Yi's current top priority.
As for whether he could launch a counterattack against the Wei army in You Fufeng, Zhuge Liang just mentioned that the prerequisite was to "choose the opportunity." In fact, Wu Yi didn't need to think too much at all.
After some careful consideration, Wu Yi decided to choose the second option, find a suitable ferry on the Wei River, collect ships, first ferry the 10,000 Northern troops across the Wei River, and then lead the 10,000 people to support them. Huaili.
The remaining 20,000 Northern troops, led by generals Feng Xi and Zhang Nan, crossed the river one after another, and finally regrouped in Huaili.
In order to grab time to support Huaili, Wu Yi had to make such a decision, but it still took a few days.
Nothing else, ships are hard to find.
Today's Youfufeng is already a war zone. Although the Wei army is temporarily blocked to the east of Huaili County, who can guarantee that the Wei army will not continue to advance straight into Sanguan and occupy the entire Youfufeng.
Therefore, at this time, there were not many merchants and ships willing to stay in the Youfufeng area, and it would indeed take several days to cross 10,000 people just by relying on the fishing boats of the coastal fishermen.
This was caused by objective factors, and there was nothing Wu Yi could do about it.
Actually, if you really want to talk about it, it is not that there is no navy in the Guanzhong area. The Han Dynasty has a navy here, which Huang Quan has built with great difficulty in Guanzhong over the years.
But the problem is that in recent years, Guanzhong has been full of places to spend money. All the financial allocations in Zhang Xi's hands have been used to improve people's livelihood, and he really doesn't care much about Huang Quan's formation of a navy army.
Therefore, Huang Quan struggled for several years and barely built more than 20 warships, with a total naval force of less than 2,000 men.
What's even more terrible is that the place Huang Quan chose to train his navy was the Jinghe River in Zuofengyi. It had nothing to do with the Weihe River.
Therefore, Wu Yi had no choice. If he wanted to cross the Wei River, he could only cross the river by collecting fishing boats.
When the Northern Army led by Wu Yi crossed the river and crossed about 8,000 people, Wu Yi received another disturbing news - the reconnaissance cavalry sent out reported that the Wei army's reconnaissance cavalry was found not far from the other side of the Wei River. .
In other words, Wu Yi had just led his troops across the river, and before he formally marched to Huaili, the Wei army had already grasped his whereabouts.
This forced Wu Yi to seize time. He could not wait until all the 10,000 people he estimated had crossed the river. He could only immediately lead the 8,000 people who had already crossed the river to assemble and gear up, and immediately marched towards Huaili.
As for the remaining soldiers of the Northern Army, they could only be entrusted to Zhang Nan and General Feng Xi, and let them lead the troops and follow them.
Wu Yi was rushing to rescue Huaili, and at this time, Guo Huai also received the intelligence sent back by the scouts.
Traces of the Shu bandit army were indeed found along the Wei River in the northeast of Huaili County, and this ferry crossing was only seventy or eighty miles away from Huaili County.
At this distance, a quick march would take about two days to reach Huaili City.
So is Guo Huai sure that he can conquer Huaili in two days? !
Maybe, maybe not.
Today's Huaili City, after seven or eight days of fierce attack, the outer city wall has been basically damaged, all the bed crossbows at the city head have been destroyed, the city gate has been almost destroyed, and the Shu thieves have set up a knife and chariot defense inside the city gate. , the number of defenders in the city also dropped from 5,000 to about 3,000.
Such a city may be destroyed in one attack tomorrow, or it may be able to hold on for another two or three days. It's all possible.
But from Guo Huai's perspective, even if he was sure that he could break Huaili early the next morning, he still had to consider whether he could hold Huaili in the face of the arrival of enemy reinforcements.
As for Huaili City's defense facilities, which have been almost destroyed, two days are not enough to repair much of the city's defenses, and there is no way to build enough defense equipment. Even if Guo Huai still has 10,000 soldiers and 5,000 Cavalry, but what is the difference between this and fighting the enemy in the field? !
Therefore, the first thing Guo Huai thought of was to call back Qin Lang's cavalry to withdraw from You Fufeng and retreat to Wuguan before the enemy army completely surrounded him, ensuring that Wuguan was not lost.
But, Guo Huai carefully checked the report of the scouts and found a problem.
Although the Northern Army of Shu thieves gathered on the south bank of the Wei River, their strength did not seem to be large, and no more than 10,000 people were killed.
Just ten thousand people? !
If there are only 10,000 people, field combat is not a big deal, haha.
Don't forget, Guo Huai has five thousand cavalry.
These five thousand cavalry alone are enough to fight against ten thousand infantry in the open areas of the plains, not to mention that Guo Huai still has more than ten thousand Wei infantry.
It seems that it’s not necessarily impossible to beat him.
If he chooses to retreat, not only will You Fufeng's current good situation be completely ruined, but his own reputation will also be greatly affected.
He was scared off by the enemy's mere 10,000 infantry. If word spread, how could Guo Huai have the nerve to continue leading troops in the future? !
So, Guo Huai thought about it again and again, and felt that it was not impossible to set up a besiege in Huaili County for reinforcements, and swallow up the tens of thousands of Shu thieves who came to help.
But, as a famous general, Guo Huai naturally has his reasons.
In order to prevent the intelligence from being incorrect and causing errors in the judgment of the battlefield situation, Guo Huai once again sent out scouts and reconnaissance cavalry. They must keep an eye on the Shu bandits coming to aid Huaili along the way to find out their specific number and whether they have enough troops. Backup.
Guo Huai had suffered enough from the misjudgment of intelligence during the last Battle of Guanzhong. In this regard, Guo Huai did not want to suffer a second loss.
But this time, Guo Huai finally got the accurate information he wanted.
The troops that the Shu thieves came to help were indeed less than 10,000 people, maybe even only 7,000 to 8,000 people.
However, the Shu thieves were still using fishing boats to carry troops across the river along the Wei River. The scouts did not dare to get too close to the number of follow-up reinforcements, so they could not get an accurate figure.
But one thing is certain, the number of troops is not less than 10,000.
At this time, Guo Huai was a little hesitant, should he continue to surround the spot and call for reinforcements? !
(End of chapter)
