Liu Bei and Zhang Lu were very sad during this time.

Liu Bei has a lot of soldiers and horses, but the grain and grass are not enough, although his subordinates do not worry about food and grass, but they have spent a lot of grain and grass in the previous battle with the army of the Xiliang Army, although it is not a problem to survive this winter.

However, in order to attack Zhang Lu, Liu Bei prepared a lot of grain and grass, but in the end he was unsuccessful.

For a time, there was no meritorious service, but a large amount of grain and grass was lost, and a temporary truce was needed to recover.

And Zhang Lu is located in the middle of the two overlords Liu Bei and Liu Zheng, trying to survive in the cracks.

Zhang Lu may not need to worry about it before, because Zhang Lu at that time was not worried that Liu Zheng or Liu Bei would do something to him, but now, Liu Zheng has captured Shangyong, and Liu Bei has already stationed troops in Hanzhong.

No matter how you look at it, it's all on the side of the couch, and there are two tigers sleeping.

This winter, Zhang Lu couldn't sleep well, and in desperation, he could only go to Liu Yan in Yizhou for help.

Compared with these two people, Liu Zheng is more leisurely.

Liu Zheng's territory is relatively large, it can be regarded as a vast and sparsely populated land, and there are many fields under his hands, and there is no shortage of food at all.

Not only is he not short of grain and grass, but he even has a lot of grain and grass, which he can take out to the north to buy war horses.

So compared to Liu Bei, Liu Zheng is too cool.

He is happy that in the first two months, Zhang Shiping came to talk to him about the war horse trading issue, during this time, it has successively achieved results.

Zhang Shiping took the initiative to come to Jianye, the purpose was to go to the north to buy horses, after getting Liu Zheng's consent, people have money, what they want, they sent to the Xianbei tribe in the north to buy horses.

So after everything was ready, Zhang Shiping personally led the team and went directly to the territory of the Xianbei tribe.

This came and went, and it took a month.

Although it is not far from the territory of the Xianbei people to Jizhou, Zhang Shiping started from Jianye, and there will be some delay on the way, after all, it is winter, and when the snow is falling, there is no way to hurry.

In terms of time, it took a few more days, but even so, Liu Zheng could understand.

For the first time, Zhang Shiping transported back 5,000 war horses from the territory of the Xianbei tribe.

5,000 horses, you know, Liu Zheng only had a few thousand cavalry under him.

Originally, there were 20,000 cavalry, but after years of continuous attrition, there were only 7,000 or 8,000 cavalry left.

Later, although the Mi family and the Zhen family successively collected some war horses for Liu Zheng, they could only barely maintain the loss of horses, and could not increase the manpower of the cavalry.

Therefore, the number of cavalry under Liu Zheng has not exceeded 10,000 recently.

And the war horses that Zhang Shiping brought back to him this time can greatly alleviate Liu Zheng's demand for war horses.

Although he had thousands of horses, Liu Zheng had no plans to expand the cavalry.

After fighting for so many days, Liu Zheng deeply realized the importance of cavalry, but the importance of cavalry does not depend on quantity. 、

Soldiers are more valuable than fine, not many.

Liu Zheng wants to take the elite route, and it is naturally impossible to win by quantity.

He was to gradually perfect his cavalry, with two horses for each man, a pair of armor, bows and arrows, short swords, and spears.

This kind of soldier pulling out is the real majesty.

In fact, Liu Zheng is comforting himself, if he can win by quantity, who wants to engage in quality.

It was precisely because Liu Zheng couldn't get more horses that he could only take the elite route.

Instead of having a few thousand more cavalry, it is better to train more of these cavalry that you have now to improve the ability of the cavalry.

After all, now Liu Zheng's cavalry is no longer capable of being more powerful than others, and the stirrup was used to be Liu Zheng's exclusive thing, but later, with these days, the cavalry under Liu Zheng's command gradually engaged these enemy troops.

The stirrup has been spread from here, not only Liu Beijun, but even several sons under Yuan Shao's command already know about the stirrup.

Although it is not yet fully equipped in its own army, with the passage of time, the improvement of forging technology in the north, the stirrup will most likely be gradually armed to the cavalry.

At that time, the cavalry under Liu Zheng will not only have no advantage, but may also be even more inferior than the other party.

Therefore, Liu Zheng must improve the cavalry ability of his subordinates as soon as possible, fortunately, Liu Zheng is not completely without advantages now.

At least over the years, he has worked hard to improve the skills of his craftsmen, but the skills of the blacksmiths have improved a lot, and now the forging ability, the weapons and armor created are much more beneficial than those in the north.

Unless it is a powerful general, using a sharp blade, it can completely penetrate the armor, otherwise, it is an ordinary soldier, and he can't see through the armor of Liu Zheng's generals with a knife.

These armors can bring extremely high protection effects to the soldiers under Liu Zheng, but unfortunately, the forging of the armor is relatively difficult and cannot form mass production.

At present, the armor under Liu Zheng can only meet the equipment of military generals and the equipment of some elite soldiers and horses.

For example, the equipment of a few soldiers and horses such as the trap camp, Jin Guoying, and Jinyiwei.

For three consecutive months, Zhang Shiping went back and forth to the Xianbei gathering place three times, and directly helped Liu Zheng to buy more than 20,000 war horses from the hands of the Xianbei tribe.

With more than 20,000 horses, Liu Zheng re-asked Xu Huang to expand the cavalry under his command to 20,000 people, and at the same time equipped these cavalry with the standard of one person and two horsemen, and gradually increased the strength of the cavalry.

However, many cavalry were killed in battle before, and Xu Huang's subordinates did not have so many soldiers for a while, and the newly recruited soldiers and horses were all reserve soldiers drawn from all over the country, and most of them did not know how to ride.

Therefore, these cavalry newly cultivated by Xu Huang still need some time to shoulder the heavy burden.

However, anyway, Liu Zheng won't need these cavalry for a while, they only need to be in the north, defend Jizhou, and prevent Yuan Xi's attack in Youzhou.

Liu Zheng's side, now his eyes have completely gathered on this place in Hanzhong.

In the past two months, the information in the Hanzhong area has been transmitted to Liu Zheng.

In the big battle last winter, Liu Bei did not defeat Hanzhong, but Liu Bei did not give up, no, as soon as the spring began, he gathered his troops again and began to deploy troops in Hanzhong again.

made Zhang Lu very anxious.

Hanzhong County governs the south of Zhengcheng.

Zhang Lu was anxiously pacing back and forth, as if waiting for someone.

After waiting for a while, a few people appeared outside.