However, the "misunderstanding" that happened in Yanmen was finally cleared up, and the Xianbei army continued to move south, still with ten thousand people as the vanguard, but this time the commander had been replaced by Murong Xiong.

This time, he did not allow the Xianbei people to enter Taiyuan City, but let them camp outside the city. **Inevitably, I will send someone to lead the sheep and carry the wine, and treat it again. Those Xianbei people drank fine wine, nibbled on roast lamb legs, were still dissatisfied, and clamored to ask for a woman from **. **There was no way, so I had to send people to collect 3,000 young women in Taiyuan City and send them to the Xianbei military camp outside the city.

With the arrival of the follow-up Xianbei army one after another, 3,000 women seemed to be "more monks and less porridge", and these Xianbei people in Taiyuan City could not enter, so they plagued those villages on the outskirts of the city, many women, from the old man who was more than half a hundred years old, down to the little girl under the age of ten all rushed into the barracks, and the sound of women crying could be heard for miles.

At dusk, more than a dozen white doves rose from a courtyard in Taiyuan City, circled for a while, and flew south. Outside the city, a group of Xianbei knights rode by, carrying the stolen gold and silver cloth and weeping women. Suddenly, there was a ** shout: "Look, pigeon!" ”

These Xianbei people were excellent marksmen, and they took off their bows, and there was a "whoosh" sound, and many pigeons fell, most of them had two or three arrows stuck in them, and a few even had nearly ten arrows in them, but there were still two or three pigeons that escaped the catastrophe and flapped their wings and went south.

The Xianbei people like to eat beef and mutton, the pigeons are too small to meet their appetite, they shoot this group of pigeons, but it is just a game, by the way, show off their archery skills.

At dusk, when the tired birds were returning to their nests, the pigeons came strangely, and a curious Xianbei cavalryman stepped forward and picked up a dead pigeon, and saw a reed pipe tied to the pigeon's leg. The Xianbei soldier untied the reed pipe in confusion, and was surprised to find that there was a small note hidden in the reed pipe, and some strange symbols were drawn on it. In fact, they were just a few sets of Arabic numerals, but these Xianbei people didn't know them.

The Xianbei cavalry passed the strange note to each other, and no one understood what the symbols meant, and after looking around, they threw the little note into the dust. Unbeknownst to them, this small piece of paper contained important information. These Arabic numerals correspond to a character in the Analects, and as long as there is a copy of the Analects published by the Great Han Printing Company, you can find the corresponding page numbers, rows, and columns, and you can translate the information on the small slip of paper.

In the evening of the next day, the information recorded on this small note was placed on Liu Xin's dragon case. Liu Xinlongyan was furious, took the case, and shouted: "Quickly spread Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, Tian Feng, Guo Jia, and Cheng Yu to see you!" ”

The frustrated man who was standing opposite arched his hand and said: "Your Majesty is angry, Weichen thinks that Yuan Shao and Cao Cao have signs of joining forces." If these Xianbei cavalry were participating in the battle of Yuan Cao, after passing the Yanmen, they should have turned east and entered Jizhou, instead of appearing in Taiyuan! Now, these Xianbei cavalry appeared in Taiyuan, and there was only one goal, that is, to continue to go south and invade the east of the river! ”

Liu Xin said hatefully: "I don't care what their goal is, as long as they dare to harm my Han people, I will make them pay!" ”

At this time, Zhang Liao and the others had already hurried over, and when they heard the news, Cheng Yu arched his hand and said: "The Xianbei army is all cavalry, from Taiyuan to the border of Hedong, the morning and the evening are coming, Weichen thinks that the defense of Puzi, Yong'an, Xiangling, and Huize counties should be strengthened, and Hanoi County should not be taken lightly. Therefore, Weichen suggested that the plan to send troops to Yecheng be postponed and these Xianbei cavalry should be dealt with first. ”

Guo Jia shook his head and said, "Zhongde's words are bad! Wei Chen thought that the plan to send troops to Yecheng should not only not be suspended, but should also be done as soon as possible! ”

Tian Feng bowed his head and said: "It's just that in this way, the burden on the shoulders of the two generals Zhang and Gao will be heavy. If Hedong is lost, the Xianbei people will let Ma Luoyang City go. Feng Xiao's words are a bit too risky. ”

Zhang Liao and Gao Shun bowed their hands together and said: "A certain person has received the great favor of His Majesty, and has been unable to repay it, and I am willing to swear to defend the two counties of Hedong and Hanoi to the death, and never let Luoyang lose!" ”

Liu Xin stood up, turned his head to look at the map of the territory of the Han Dynasty hanging behind him, and suddenly said in a deep voice: "No! You don't have to defend it, you should take the initiative! ”

"Take the initiative?!" Everyone was amazed. Most of the Han cavalry had participated in the battle against the Xiongnu, and they were still somewhat sure of dealing with these nomadic cavalry. However, the Fourth Legion had only 10,000 cavalry, while the Xianbei cavalry on the opposite side reached nearly 200,000 people. Even if the cavalry of the Han army were valiant and fought against 10,000 against 200,000, they would definitely have no chance of victory. Although the Han infantry has been conducting research and training on tactics against cavalry for a long time, it may not be much of a problem for them to deal with the cavalry under Cao Cao or Yuan Shao, but when it comes to dealing with nomadic cavalry, everyone has no bottom in their hearts.

Liu Xin pointed his hand to the map and said, "Look here." The city here is densely packed, there are Jiexiu, Wu County, Zhongdu, Jingling, Qi County, Daling, Pingtao of Taiyuan County, as well as Zishi and Pingzhou of Xihe County, and Zhaoyuze in the middle. The Xianbei cavalry is good at field warfare, but it is not good at attacking fortifications, as long as you take this area, build a defensive position based on these cities, and make good use of it, you can completely drag the Xianbei cavalry to death here, and then find an opportunity to annihilate! ”

Everyone looked in the direction of Liu Xin's finger, and sure enough, they saw that there were seven or eight county towns of all sizes around Zhaoyuze on the map. With so many county towns to support, even if they can't annihilate the Xianbei army, they can slow down their southward movement and buy enough time for the big battle in the east.

Looking at this map, Cheng Yu, who has always sought stability, also said happily: "Your Majesty is really as wise as a torch, and it is indeed better to deploy defenses here than to fortify them in Hedong." You see, behind this line of defense are Tongtian Mountain, Boundary Mountain, and Sheep's Head Mountain, and a second line of defense can also be set up on this line to prevent the Xianbei army from entering the territory of Hedong. ”

Liu Xin clapped his hands, and several attendants had already struggled to carry something. Liu Xin pointed to the thing and said, "This is the geographical sand table of the four counties of Hedong, Xihe, Taiyuan, and Shangdang, you can see it at a glance." I only set the general direction, as for how to arrange the troops, it depends on you. ”

When everyone saw this sand table, their eyes lit up. This sand table is too realistic, the cities, plains, mountains, and lakes in this area are all clear at a glance, and even the deployment of Yuan's troops is indicated. In order to make this sand table, the research institute provided craftsmen, and the Phantom Spy provided map information, and the production was made day and night, and it was just completed yesterday. Of course, this idea was proposed by Ma Yun.

Zhang Liao and Gao Shun suddenly had countless ideas for deploying troops, patted their chests and said: "Please rest assured, Your Majesty, you will never let the Xianbei people step into Hedong for half a step!" ”

Liu Xin waved his hand and said, "Time is pressing, you should hurry up and prepare." Within three days, all these counties must be taken down! In addition, I will send you another 20,000 men from the Engineer Corps, and make sure to build a defensive position there before the Xianbei cavalry arrives! ”

Capturing nine county towns in three days was not a difficult task for the well-trained Han army, but now they had to face not only Yuan Shao's army, but also the murderous Xianbei cavalry. However, the military orders are like mountains, and Zhang Liao and Gao Shun will only think about how to complete the task, without thinking about how many dangers they will face.

In fact, in these three days, the Xianbei cavalry had enough time to advance to the border east of the river, but the head suddenly stopped and did not leave. Because Yuan Shao originally said that he would ask the Xianbei cavalry to assist him in attacking Cao Cao, but now he suddenly asked them to attack Liu Xin instead. It's just that this change, and the boss doesn't have much opinion. The purpose of his promise to send troops was not only to establish his own prestige, but also to find out the path in and out of the Central Plains and learn the siege skills of the Han people, so no matter which target he was asked to attack, it did not make much difference to him. However, Yuan Shao told the leader that he could not send troops to assist him, and that the attack on Hedong had to be completed by themselves.

The Xianbei tribe has to harass the border of the Han Dynasty almost every year, but they can only raid some small villages on the border of Bingzhou and Youzhou, and they can only stare at the city when they encounter it. Of course, this is the reason why they are all small groups, but the lack of siege equipment and skills is the most important factor.

Kui's original idea was for his Xianbei cavalry to sweep away the Han army outside the city, while Yuan Shao's men and horses would attack the city. Now Yuan Shao does not send troops to assist them, and the leader directly arrests the blind. However, the leader is not in a hurry, what he has is time to negotiate slowly with Yuan Shao, anyway, everything he eats and drinks is provided by Yuan Shao, it is really not good, he can also send troops to loot everywhere. As a result, the 180,000 Xianbei cavalry stopped outside the city of Taiyuan. And these days, there are still a lot of Xianbei cavalry driving from Danhan Mountain one after another every day.

The three days that the Xianbei cavalry stagnated under the city of Taiyuan were too precious for Liu Xin. Zhang Liao, Gao Shun and others carried the sand table back to the camp, conducted research overnight, and soon drew up a battle plan.

Of the 100,000 horses of the Fourth Army, except for 30,000 men who were still staying in Sili and Liangzhou counties, the rest of the horses had already received orders to march from their respective garrisons to Yong'an County, Hedong County. The 30,000 engineers who had been assigned to the Fourth Army were also distributed with knives, guns, bows and arrows and took over their defensive areas.

Throughout the three counties of Hedong, Hanoi, and Yingchuan, you can see troops deployed overnight everywhere. At nightfall, the torches held by the soldiers reflected half of the sky, and the long dragons swam in the same direction.

At dawn, all the 70,000 people of the Fourth Army Corps participating in this combat mission had already gathered in Yong'an County, and even Zhang Liao and Gao Shun had arrived from the Chang'an Constellation.