After a night's rest, the soldiers of the Dai Army had recovered from their fatigue, and the next morning, when the rain had stopped, the soldiers of the Dai Army began their daily routine. And Gao Cheng led several major generals such as Jiang Huanwu and Ling Feng, accompanied by Lu Renjie and Su Hu, to inspect the city defense facilities and terrain around Xingkou City.

Last night, the plateau saw that the city wall of Xingkou was not high, and today I looked carefully, and the city wall of Xingkou was basically an adobe structure, and there were some broken gaps in some places. This is clearly not a fortified city, and it will definitely not withstand a fierce attack.

Subsequently, the plateau circled around Xingkou again, and Julu Renjie and Su Hu introduced that Xingkou City is not big, with a unilateral length of only 120 zhang, which is about the size of an ordinary stadium, and there are about 1,500 households and more than 7,000 people in the city.

On the east side is a chasm as a moat, and the other three walls face a flat wilderness, and there is no moat, except for a few hills that occasionally rise and fall in the distance. However, the location of Xingkou Castle is on a relatively high ground, and with its back against the chasm, it is not afraid that the enemy will besiege it. Overall, although the topography of Xingkou Castle is not good, it is by no means bad.

After a turn, Gao Yuan and the others returned to the city, the morning training of the army of this era has ended, and they are assembling in the open space in front of the city, because now with the addition of the representative army, there are now about 20,000 troops in Xingkou City, which has exceeded the limit of the garrison in the city, and yesterday in order to place the representative army in the city to rest, Lu Renjie and Su Hu vacated more than 500 houses and half of the military camp for the soldiers of the representative army to live. Therefore, Gao Yuan ordered early in the morning to order the Dai army to camp outside the city, and just now Gao Yuan was patrolling outside the city, also looking for a suitable place to camp.

The Wei soldiers who defended the city also got up and went out of the barracks, some were stationed on the city wall, and some were patrolling outside the city, but the plateau saw very clearly that the soldiers of the Wei army were all in low spirits and listless, and they looked demoralized. It is in stark contrast to the energetic and high-spirited appearance of the Dai Army.

Gao Yuan also secretly felt bad in his heart, if all the Wei troops were such morale, how could they resist the Qin army.

Gao Yuan asked, "How much grain is there in Xingkou City now?" ”

Lu Renjie said: "Back to Wu Anjun, it turned out that there was about a month's worth of grain in Xingkou City, but now it can still support about ten days. ”

Gao Yuan asked again: "How many weapons are there in Xingkou City to defend the city, such as bed crossbows, trebuchets and other things?" ”

Lu Renjie was a little embarrassed, shook his head, and said, "There are no bed crossbows and trebuchets in Xingkou City now. ”

Su Hu hurriedly continued: "Back to Wu Anjun, the establishment of Xingkou City was originally to facilitate the dredging of the river channel of the chasm, not for military fortresses, so the city defense facilities are very simple, and there are no bed crossbows and trebuchets stored in the city, in fact, there are bed crossbows and trebuchets, and they can't be put on the city wall." ”

Gao Yuan nodded, strictly speaking, Xingkou is not very useful in strategy, and it cannot be regarded as the acropolis of Daliang City, only because it guards the source of the chasm, which highlights the importance of Xingkou, and it is reasonable that Wei did not pay attention to Xingkou's city defense before, so it is not intentionally slack. However, now he must defend Xingkou, so he must make some arrangements for the defense of Xingkou.

Gao Yuan said: "The Qin army will come to attack Xingkou soon, and now the defense of Xingkou is very weak, so we must hurry up and establish an effective fortification in Xingkou." First of all, the place in the city of Xingkou is limited, and the city wall is not strong, so it is obviously impossible to defend the city. Secondly, in a short period of time, it is impossible to strengthen the city wall of Xingkou, and it must be fortified layer by layer outside the city in order to block the Qin army. The width of the city wall in Xingkou is too small to fit bed crossbows and trebuchets, so I need to build some platforms along the city wall where bed crossbows and trebuchets can be placed, and in a few days I will transport a batch of bed crossbows and trebuchets from Wei and arrange them on the city wall. ”

Lu Renjie and Su Hu listened to the plateau, but the more they listened, the more confused they became, Lu Renjie and Su Hu fled to Xingkou after the defeat, and it was also because of these more avoidance, the two thought that the Qin army was unlikely to attack Xingkou, so neither of them understood why the plateau would value Xingkou so much, according to the plateau's plan, it seemed that Xingkou would be built into a fortress, which was more important than Daliang City, and it was so certain that the Qin army would definitely come to attack Xingkou.

At this moment, I saw a fast horse galloping over, and the knight on horseback was dressed in civilian clothes, and came to the front of the plateau, the knight jumped off the horse, nodded on one knee, and said: "Lord, the Qin army has reached a distance of less than ten miles from Xingkou." ”

When Lu Renjie and Su Hu heard this, they were also taken aback, the Qin army was really killed, and what Gao Yuan said was not wrong at all.

Gao Yuan asked, "How many people are in the Qin army?" ”

The knight said, "About twenty thousand." ”

Gao Yuan nodded and said, "Okay, I already know, you go down." ”

After the knight left, Lu Renjie immediately said: "Wu Anjun, quickly collect troops and enter the city, the Qin army has already been killed, we are still defending the city in the city, the Qin army is coming so fast, we will definitely not bring large siege equipment, we will retreat to the city, we will definitely be able to block the attack of the Qin army, and after the Qin army has retreated, it is not too late to go out of the city and set up camp." ”

Gao Yuan shook his head and said with a smile: "If we retreat into the city, it will be in the hands of the Qin army, because the Qin army is determined to win Xingkou City, even if there is no large-scale siege equipment, it will not attack the city rashly, but it will camp outside the city and will never withdraw the army, so how can we camp outside the city and build fortifications?" It's just 20,000 Qin troops, what's so terrible, so we must take the initiative to attack and give the Qin army a head-on blow in order to force the Qin army to retreat. After a pause, he said: "I know that the Wei army was defeated by the Qin army, and now the morale is low and the fear of Qin is like a tiger, so there is no need for the Wei army to fight in this battle, and we will replace the army to resist the enemy Qin army." ”

Lu Renjie and Su Hu listened to it, and they were also relieved, the two of them were very clear in their hearts, now the Wei army has no will to fight at all, and it is estimated that as long as this order is given, the Wei army will immediately disperse, so this decision of the plateau can be regarded as speaking to the bottom of the hearts of the two.

At this time, Gao Yuan said: "But you don't have one thing to do. ”

Lu Renjie hurriedly said: "Wu Anjun, please say, what are your orders?" ”

Gao Yuan said: "You immediately gather all the Wei troops, wait a while for us to fight with the Qin army, if our Dai army wins, you will lead the Wei army to attack, pursue and kill the Qin army, eliminate the Wei army's fear of the Qin army, if our Dai army is defeated, then you can flee as soon as possible." ”

When the two of them heard this, they couldn't help but feel embarrassed, and they really had such thoughts in their hearts, to see how the combat effectiveness of the Dai Army was, whether they could beat the Qin Army, if the Dai Army could defeat the Qin Army, then they would be desperate to take refuge in the plateau, if the Dai Army was not the opponent of the Qin Army, then it was better to slip away as soon as possible.

After Gao Yuan gave his order, he immediately ordered the army to line up on his back and prepare to meet the Qin army.

――――――――Dividing Line――――――――― Dividing Line―――――――― "Report to the general, in front of Xingkou City, there is an army array, the number is about 15,000, look at the banner is the people of the army? ”

Before Han Teng could speak, the flaming sun on the side said, "It's so fast, I can't imagine that Gao Yuan has arrived in Xingkou so quickly." ”

Han Teng said: "What I said is not wrong, it seems that the plateau also realized that if he wants to break through the beam, he can only attack it with water, so he rushed to fight for Xingkou and control the source of the chasm, and he was one step ahead of him." But this is also good, the Qin army can't destroy the Wei State so lightly, in this way, there will be a good show staged in the Wei State. ”

They were surrounded by soldiers from the Nanyang Army, so they could also speak without scruples, not afraid of being heard by the other Qin troops.

Cao Wuxian, on the other side, said: "The news we got before we sent the troops, aren't the people and horses on the plateau stationed in Taoyi?" Why did it suddenly arrive at Xingkou. ”

Han Teng said: "Daijun's army is mainly cavalry, so even if it is a rush of three or four hundred miles overnight, it is not so strange, our garrison in Linzi was destroyed, so that our intelligence in Qi State was greatly affected, and the movement of the Dai army could not be detected in time, and reported to me, this is the biggest trouble." ”

Cao Wushu said: "Lord, since the Dai army has occupied Xingkou first, what should we do now?" ”

Han Teng said: "Since the plateau has been in front of the city, it is clear that it is going to fight with us with real swords and guns." If we don't dare to fight, aren't we afraid of the army? I also want to see if his representative army is powerful, or our Nanyang army is powerful. The order went down, the whole army lined up to attack, and went to Xingkou City to fight a battle with the Dai army, and there were no injuries, and this battle was under your command. ”

Cao Wushu also nodded, and said: "Please rest assured, our Nanyang army is invincible in the world, in the past two years, the Dai army has won several victories in a row, and the limelight is not small, almost overshadowing the Qin army, today I want to let them suffer a defeat and see the strength of our Nanyang army." ”

This time, Han Teng brought a total of 20,000 Qin troops, including 3,000 people from the Nanyang army, as well as 3,000 cavalry troops and 300 chariots. At that moment, Cao Wuxian immediately ordered the cavalry and chariots to be lined up on two wings, with five phalanxes composed of 3,000 infantry in the middle, arranged in a staggered arrangement between the front three and the back, the nine thousand soldiers in the front were infantry, and the two phalanxes in the back were crossbowmen. The Qin army has always been known for its good use of bows and crossbows, so in the Qin army, the proportion of crossbowmen is very large, and among the 20,000 Qin troops, the number of crossbowmen has reached 6,000.