Guo Huai is almost furious now.
But at the same time, Guo Huai finally discovered what a bad move he had made.
Fortunately, Zhang Hu warned Guo Huai in time, letting Guo Huai know that Wei Yan had appeared in Ji County instead of going to Neihuang. Otherwise, Guo Huai would have gone all the way to support Ji County so foolishly, instead of going to support Ji County. He was going to die.
But there is one thing. Guo Huai still can't figure out which god he offended in his previous life. How come he can catch up with all his teammates in this life? !
The pig teammates I met in the past were at best incompetent in combat, or a little greedy for life, but this time, there were cases where they lied about military intelligence to trick the coach.
Is the Neihuang County Magistrate afraid of death or not? How dare he publish such a deceptive military report? !
But no matter what, Guo Huai was more willing to believe the military report of Zhang Hu, the son of the general, than the magistrate of Neihuang County. Now that he knew that Wei Yan had arrived in Ji County, he definitely could not go any further.
If the Shu thieves learn that they are out in force and that their rear is extremely empty, then with the military capabilities of Zhang Xi and Wei Yan, they will definitely send troops to attack Liyang. The top priority now is to return to defend Liyang immediately.
Even if Ji County is lost, Li Yang cannot be lost. Once Li Yang is lost, the 70,000 soldiers in Guo Huai's hands may become turtles in the urn.
Guo Huai immediately ordered that the advancing army should become the rear army, the rear army should become the front army, and the entire army should be withdrawn.
In this way, Guo Huai withdrew his troops when he was only thirty miles away from Ji County.
However, it is still a bit late to withdraw troops at this time.
Liyang is about eighty miles away from Ji County. The position where Guo Huai withdrew his troops was already very close to Ji County. Wen Qin caught up very quickly.
Guo Huai withdrew his troops temporarily, and his strength was as many as 30,000. It would also take time to withdraw suddenly while ensuring a stable march.
After all, the soldiers these days are not very organized. They were originally moving forward, but suddenly received an order to withdraw. It is impossible to say that the soldiers did not complain or dilly-dally.
On Wen Qin's side, there were only 10,000 people, and they had a clear goal. They were rushing all the way, just to get back and forth with Guo Huai. Due to time delays, Guo Huai retreated to a place thirty miles away from Liyang, letting Guo Huai retreat. Wen Qin caught up with the rear army.
Guo Huai made a prompt decision at that time and sent Xu Gai with 5,000 men to break up the rear. The others marched quickly with him and retreated to Liyang as soon as possible to set up defenses.
This decision can be said to be quite timely and in place.
When Wen Qin led his troops to appear on Guo Huai's rear wing, Guo Huai actually judged that this was an army specially used to delay his return. If he entangled with this Shu bandit here, the Shu bandit would definitely return. An army will take a detour to attack Li Yang.
Analyzing from the time point of view, the Shu thieves' two troops, one to sneak attack Liyang and the other to delay themselves, must have set off at the same time. The pursuing troops had already caught up with their main army, so the sneak attack troops must have also left. Not too far.
I can't tangle with the Shu thieves here. I must rush back to Liyang as soon as possible so that I can deploy my defenses in time.
Therefore, it is the best choice to allocate troops to Xu Gai, let him break up the retreat, and retreat to Liyang first.
It can be said that Guo Huai's thinking is very careful and there is no problem with his judgment. It's just that his teammates are really not good enough.
Guo Huai left Xu Gai behind, but Xu Gai didn't even get an hour for Guo Huai.
The pursuers led by Wen Qin pursued him all the way. After encountering Xu Gai's obstruction, they directly defeated Xu Gai and pursued him again.
It's not that Wen Qin is so good in this matter, it's Xu Gai who is not only incomparable to his father, but also incomparable to his peer Zhang Hu.
After all, Zhang Hu has been following Zhang Liao into battle to kill enemies since he was a teenager. Even if his talent is not good, he at least has enough experience and knows how to deal with any situation.
But Xu Huang's education to Xu Gai was really not very good, and he didn't take Xu Gai with him to teach him through words and deeds. He was just an ordinary second-generation official with Xu Huang's name.
In fact, Xu Gai had never even been on the battlefield.
Originally, Wen Qin's rapid march and pursuit should have consumed a lot of physical energy and put him at a disadvantage. At this time, a general with a little experience could take over the rear. He only had to set up a defensive circle and retreat while fighting to block Wen Qin's pursuit. That's it.
As for the pursuers, once they lose the target of pursuit and their energy is worn away by the circular defense, then the rest is nothing to worry about.
But Xu Gai didn't. As Xu Huang's son, Xu Gai chose the sharp arrow formation to attack Wen Qin's troops.
Isn’t this going to cost my life?
What is fought in the front-arrow formation confrontation is the morale of both sides, the on-the-battle command of the generals of both sides, and the individual combat power of the soldiers of both sides.
In none of these three items, the soldiers of the Wei Dynasty were superior.
In terms of morale, the Han army was in pursuit and was holding its breath to kill the enemy and make meritorious deeds. However, the Wei army's attack turned into a retreat, and its morale was not high to begin with.
Let alone commanding on the battlefield, Wen Qin's talents and abilities were far superior to Xu Gai's. One was a feudal official with a name in history, and the other was the son of an unknown prince. They were not at the same level at all.
As for the individual combat power of the soldiers, the 10,000 soldiers led by Wen Qin were the elite Hannan army, while those led by Xu Gai were just ordinary county soldiers.
How can we fight this battle? !
After a fierce battle, Wen Qin only took about half an hour to kill through Xu Gai's sharp arrow array, and then left the Wei army that was no longer in formation, and continued to lead the remaining elite Han Nan army to resume their attack. Caught up.
As for Xu Gai, he was very lucky. He was not killed in the rebellion.
However, after being penetrated by Wen Qin, this fellow lacked experience in dealing with the enemy and was too slow to gather the soldiers. By the time he had gathered the defeated Wei soldiers, Wen Qin had already chased him for nearly ten miles.
Xu Gai thought about it, and there seemed to be no point in pursuing him at this time. Therefore, Xu Gai chose to retreat through other paths, intending to return to Liyang.
With this, Guo Huai was unlucky again.
As long as Xu Gai can lead his troops to pursue him again, even if Wen Qin really catches up with Guo Huai and Guo Huai resists for a while, if Xu Gai catches up again, no matter how powerful Wen Qin is, he will be attacked from two sides.
At this time, as long as Guo Huai leaves some soldiers behind, he will still have time to withdraw to defend Li Yang.
But Xu Gai didn't chase him.
Xu Gai did not catch up, but Wen Qin did, and there was no trace of the Wei army behind Wen Qin. What do you want Guo Huai to think, and what do you want the remaining 25,000 Wei troops to think? !
In this situation, everyone would think that the entire army of Duanhou soldiers led by Xu Gai had been wiped out.
What Guo Huai was thinking was that the number of Shu thieves pursuing this time was probably not just the 10,000 he saw, but maybe 20,000 or 30,000. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain how Xu Gai could be defeated in such a short period of time, or even The whole army was wiped out, not even a single person could escape.
If this is the case, then the Shu thieves may not even be chasing him on a temporary basis, but ambushing him with a premeditated plan.
Under this situation, if he rashly divides his troops and retreats to Liyang first, he may be facing another annihilation of the entire army waiting for him.
Moreover, if the Shu thieves really planned to ambush themselves, it is hard to say whether Liyang is still in their hands now. They can arrange troops to ambush themselves in advance. Why can't they attack Liyang in advance? !
Now, he and the 20,000 soldiers under his command are probably in despair.
But what ordinary soldiers think about is that the 5,000-strong rear-cutting force was completely wiped out in less than an hour. This shows how powerful the Shu thieves are. Do we really want to fight with such an army? ! Can you really fight it? !
Guo Huai began to be misled into thinking too much, and the morale of his soldiers began to waver. After thinking about it, Guo Huai decided to form a formation on the spot to defend against the enemy.
We cannot divide our troops easily. If we divide our troops again, we may fall into the trap of the Shu thieves again.
Li Yang may not be able to go back. The only way out now is to quickly defeat the pursuers, then seize the opportunity to retreat to Wei County in the northeast and secure it.
At that moment, Guo Huai made his own decision and ordered the entire army to defend in a circular formation to block the pursuers.
Doing this can temporarily stabilize the morale of the army, and at the same time, it can also effectively block Wen Qin's pursuit.
And when Wen Qin faced a veteran like Guo Huai, he couldn't succeed as easily as he did against Xu Gai.
Of course, Guo Huai didn't feel very good. After all, Wen Qin led the Han Dynasty's southern army.
Although after a fierce battle before, Wen Qin's troops also lost more than a thousand troops, and now there are still more than 8,000 troops left.
But the comparison in strength between the two sides was not too great, not even three to one.
Moreover, Wen Qin had been victorious for a while, but Guo Huai's troops were still a bit unsettled at the beginning of the battle. Therefore, the fight between the two sides was quite fierce, and it seemed to be evenly matched.
However, as the war gradually progressed, Guo Huai, who had sophisticated tactics and more experience in battle, still gained the upper hand in the end.
Guo Huai caught Wen Qin's untimely command adjustment and took the lead in making changes. Using himself and his own guards as arrows, he personally attacked, disrupting Wen Qin's offensive rhythm and tearing apart Wen Qin's Offensive formation.
Then, Guo Huai keenly followed the pauses in the rhythm and the gaps in the formation, and immediately led his troops to break through.
Wen Qin was unable to stop him for a while, and due to lack of troops, he had to watch helplessly as Guo Huai led his troops to break through.
After Guo Huai broke through this time, Wen Qin needed to gather the scattered troops to continue the pursuit. Since this place was not far from Liyang, Wen Qin had no chance to pursue and delay again.
Therefore, Wen Qin was very upset. After finishing cleaning up the defeated army, he continued to march to Liyang City, preparing to join Wei Yan's troops to besiege Liyang City.
Wen Qin is much better than Xu Gai. He knows what he should do most now.
But when Wen Qin arrived at Liyang City, what he saw was the banner of the Han Dynasty.
Wei Yan had already made a sneak attack and captured Liyang City.
And Guo Huai didn't return to Liyang at all! ! !
(End of chapter)
