Chapter 206 Let it go
Fifteen miles east of Wu County, near the hillside.

This is Black Bear’s command base, where a three-story wooden building stands.

After going out for reconnaissance and completing pre-war mission assignments, Black Bear returned here.

Looking from a high place, Lu Bu, who had been guarding him all the way, also took the time to ride forward on horseback.

Seeing Lu Bu in golden helmet, golden armor and white robe appear, the enemy scout teams within twenty miles all retreated.

The scout teams further out had not yet come into contact with or observed Lu Bu, but they were also kindly advised by the scouts on the front line and retreated one after another.

It was like a stone hitting glass, shattering in one place and everywhere.

The Black Bear Spider Web Taiyuan soldiers were stationed in Zhongdu County, which was about twenty-five miles away from him.

The outline of Zhongdu County could be vaguely seen, and he allowed Lu Bu to carry out guerrilla provocations.

Seeing no strong reaction from the Taiyuan soldiers, they got off the wooden platform and drove their horses towards Wu County.

He directed the digging of a simple trench between Mulou and Wu County, and built two earthen walls about twenty miles long.

The two earth walls run parallel to each other, about twenty meters apart.

Inside the second earth wall are densely packed tents and living areas.

Now, except for a small number of soldiers on duty, the vast majority of soldiers are reinforcing the two earth walls.

Accumulate ice and snow to build additional defense nodes.

We have been stationed here for such a long time and have done all the civil engineering work we can.

The black bear went straight into Wu County, and the one stationed in Wu County was Li Feng.

The streets in the city were also demolished and widened. When he arrived, the military medical team in the city were hanging up various bandages for dressing.

Li Feng was equipped with more than 2,000 young men, who were making simple sleds under the guidance of craftsmen.

After the war begins and their side gains control of the battlefield, they will use sleds to collect their own wounded.

With snow this deep, sleds can be shockingly rudimentary.

Black Bear soon arrived at the city wall on the north side of Wu County, where a three-story wooden building was also built, which would serve as his backup command point.

After confirming that the wooden building was stable and the spare flags were correct, Black Bear said to Li Feng who had followed him, "After this battle, you can stop killing and focus on teaching students and promoting medical skills."

"I heard similar words when he attacked Cai Mao, and I also heard them when he attacked Weinan and Weibei. Later, when I followed him to attack the three kings, he also comforted me in this way."

Li Feng smiled bitterly: "Now the commander said that it seems that the Taiyuan people are doomed to fail."

"Lend your auspicious words."

Black Bear placed his hands on the parapet and squinted his eyes towards the north. The Taiyuan soldiers' camps were in chaos, but they couldn't do anything about Lu Bu.

Long-range bow and crossbow shooting cannot penetrate Lu Bu's armor. As for close-range attacks, no warrior dares to leave the camp to fight.

"Taiyuan is a land of outstanding people and talents. How could there be a lack of brave warriors?"

Black Bear observed: "There is no movement now. Either he is enduring and trying to kill with one blow, or he is a true warrior and does not want to die in a place like this."

Li Feng also watched, and felt the white snow everywhere outside the city, which made his eyes sting, so he squinted and said, "General Qu, I thought the enemy would use fishing nets, ropes, and lassoes."

He knew Lu Bu's specific condition and had also thought of a way to crack it.

If you want to control Lu Bu, you must limit his mobility.

Black Bear smiled and said, "Then continue to play with them. You won't have time tomorrow."

Outside Zhongdu City, the remote-controlled Lu Bu dragged his Fang Tian Ji and rode his horse slowly around the city, actually blocking the traffic inside and outside the city.

Guo Huai climbed up the city wall, drew his crossbow, aimed at Lu Bu and shot accurately.

As a result, Lü Bu dodged the arrow by slightly turning his head. Guo Huai then shouted, "Taishi Wengong! You are also a hero of the time. Why do you have to be that boy's lackey?"

Lu Bu said nothing, but just dragged his Fang Tian Ji and passed by Guo Huai about twenty steps away.

Guo Huai saw that dozens of people were squatting on the battlements of the city wall, all of them were strong and good at archery.

He nodded slightly, and these people stood up together, got into position, drew their bows and shot.

Dozens of arrows hit Lu Bu's armor, some bounced off, some broke. Lu Bu did not react at all, still dragging his Fang Tian Ji, passing lazily under the city.

Some people refused to give up and drew their bows to shoot at the dry horse.

Two or three arrows pierced into the horse's armor, but quickly fell to the ground without penetrating.

He surrounded the city alone and the morale of the people in the city dropped visibly.

Before long, a thousand elite cavalrymen rushed out from the Hun camp dozens of miles to the north and headed straight for Lu Bu.

Almost at the same time, Lu Bu turned his horse around and ran, with no intention of colliding with the thousands of Hun cavalry.

The Xiongnu camp was close to Jingling County, which had become the residence of Chanyu Liu Bao.

Liu Bao was dressed in golden armor, with a snow leopard fur coat draped over his shoulders and a foot-long sable fur ornament hung on each side of his waist.

He looked at the thousand cavalrymen chasing Lu Bu, but their horses were too fast for him to catch up with.

The harder you chase, the faster your horsepower will run out, and you will be unable to catch up.

Liu Bao frowned when he thought of the decisive battle tomorrow.

If we cannot get rid of this 'Tai Shi Wen Gong', the enemy's overall morale will remain high, and when the battle gets entangled, the enemy's soldiers will suffer huge casualties.

The flanks and rear of the Taiyuan soldiers must be protected, so several thousand-man teams must be allocated to blockade the battlefield and jointly encircle and suppress Lu Bu.

But how many troops do you have?

There were no more than 60,000 men, including more than 30,000 reliable cavalry, and the rest were armed slaves, most of whom were infantry.

In order to stop Tai Shi Wen Gong, at least 10,000 cavalry forces must be allocated.

Otherwise, if the enemy engages in conflict, the coordination between the various formations of the Taiyuan soldiers, who are mainly infantry, will inevitably be disrupted.

The soldiers on the front line were always worried about being attacked from behind by Taishi Wengong. How could they fight the enemy in this state?

If there are no Taiyuan people to fight in the front line, it will be the turn of their own tribe to fight in the front line.

Therefore, protecting the safety of Taiyuan people's flanks is equivalent to saving one's own military force.

After observing for a while and seeing Lu Bu retreating far away, Liu Bao felt that there was no point and left the city wall.

After more than a thousand Hun knights relieved the siege, the gates of Zhongdu were opened and messengers resumed communication.

In the meeting hall, when Guo Huai came back, he saw Wang Ling fiddling with charcoal, so he asked Wang Ling: "Brother, have you seen the majesty of Taishi Wengong?"

Wang Ling shook his head: "I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it." For the people in the border counties, armored cavalry is not a strange thing.

The various Hu peoples are relatively poor now. During the confrontation between the Han and Hu peoples in the border counties, the armored cavalry are just toys of the Han border troops.

The current 'Tai Shi Wen Gong' is nothing more than an armored cavalryman in the most ideal state.

Almost completely immune to ranged attacks, and unstoppable until its horsepower runs out.

Wang Ling took out a new letter and handed it to Guo Huai: "Shentu Bei has passed Xinmen, and his army has more than 3,000 Han and Hu cavalry. But he keeps stopping and starting. I suspect he will wait for an opportunity to join forces with Qian Zhao."

After spending the night in Yuci, Qian Zhao was again driven out by the Wuhuan people sent by Wang Ling and disappeared from Wang Ling's reconnaissance range.

Wang Ling felt a little regretful, and said in a regretful tone: "There are more than 20,000 Wuhuan people, and it is difficult to control them now."

The size of the Hu vassal troops only needs to be around three to five thousand.

The number of people gathered this time was too large. Both the Wuhuan and the Xiongnu had their own ideas and abandoned the agreement before the war.

Guo Huai looked through the official documents sent from Jinyang. Shentu Bei was the prefect of Xudu appointed by the court, so he would not ally with Qian Zhao.

But it is hard to say. If the people of Hedong and Taiyuan were able to expel the previous officials, then it is not surprising that the people of Yanmen held Shentu Bei hostage.

Due to the abuses and cruelty of the Hu people, the people of Yanmen were almost wiped out.

How do those who have survived look upon black bears?

Therefore, even though the people of Yanmen had made money from doing business with the Hu people before, they have now lost almost all their money.

It is not surprising that a group of people emerged who supported Black Bear.

It is understandable if this group of people launched a mutiny and held Shentu Bei hostage to turn against them.

After reading the report from Jinyang, Guo Huai didn't want to talk much. He put the document on the table, still feeling a little indignant: "Brother, why would a man like Taishi Wengong work for the Black Bandits? Could it be that he is really the son of Lu Bu?"

According to Guo Huai's imagination, faced with all kinds of exaggerated rumors, he could only believe one relatively reasonable statement.

As for the rumor that Taishi Wengong was the reincarnation of Lu Bu, how could he possibly believe it?

It is said that they are the brave cavalrymen of Bingzhou, and they possess a divine horse that is hard to find in the world. Then everything that happened today can be explained.

Lu Bu's fellow villagers from Shuofang have already joined Black Bear, and Lu Bu's cousin is even leading the army alone.

Wang Ling was unable to answer this question, so he asked, "How is the strategy to counter Taishi Wengong?"

"I have already given instructions. In the afternoon, tripwires and horse traps will be set up. If Taishi Wengong dares to come here at night, he will never return."

Guo Huai added: "Each formation has also arranged three teams of powerful crossbows. If Taishi Wengong dares to invade, the powerful crossbows will take turns shooting at him. Even if we can't kill him on the spot, we can still injure him severely."

The contact during this period also allowed them to understand Lu Bu's activities and daily routines.

The time in the afternoon and before dark is all for rest.

As they concluded, Lu Bu retreated in the afternoon.

But he did not rest, but followed the black bear along the mountain path into the Han Xinling official road, and conducted reconnaissance along the official road.

After some reconnaissance, they returned to the camp before dark.

The sled troops in the camp, who would be responsible for the first wave of attack tomorrow, began to make preparations for the battle. After dark, the enemy's vision was obstructed and difficult to observe.

There is now more than a foot of snow, which will not affect the running of horses.

Black Bear returned and went straight to inspect the chariot troops. The horses that would participate in the battle tomorrow had already begun to wear cowhide horse armor.

They are all roughly tanned cowhide, not completely dried, and the horse armor sewn into them can at least block some stray arrows.

Each sled chariot was equipped with two horses and two drivers; there were more than 700 sled chariots, and at this moment, bundles of reeds were being fixed on the sleds.

These are the reeds collected from the edge of the lake during this period and woven into reed curtains.

At this moment, the reed curtains were bundled together, with half-dried horse manure, saltpeter powder produced in Hedong, butter, reed fluff and the like in the middle.

These reed bundles are tied individually, and after the bundles are piled on the skid, they are fixed to the vehicle with cowhide ropes.

Each sled has a driver and an assistant driver, and the assistant driver will carry the fire starter.

Once the leading sled gives the ignition signal, the following sleds will ignite the transported reeds, cut the ropes, and let the burning reed bundles fall to the ground, emitting fireworks to obscure the view.

After the deployment is completed, the sled troops can retreat southward.

As the battle approached, sled drivers generally had trouble sleeping.

In order to protect themselves, they would wear or wrap themselves in four or five layers of leather when riding a sled, so their bodies would be very bloated.

If the sled was damaged, it would be almost impossible for them to escape from the battlefield.

However, most of the selected chariot soldiers were disabled. After being captured, their leg bones had already been crushed due to fleeing, resisting and other reasons.

Some people even cut off their thumbs, making them unable to use bows and arrows.

There were other punishments such as cutting out the tongue and blinding one eye.

Seeing that the chariot troops were in high spirits, Black Bear made a quick inspection and arrived at Wu County City, where the young man who was guarding the night was feeding the horses.

Li Feng couldn't sleep. When the black bear came, Li Feng was writing a march record with a pen, something like a diary.

Seeing the black bear, Li Feng stopped writing and said, "General Qu, Linghu Shao and Jia Kui, who are detained in the city, have repeatedly called out, saying that they want to see you, General Qu."

"They didn't see any outsiders today, did they?"

"No, they haven't had any food or water today. They are all detained in the cellar and have no contact with outsiders. It was when we were distributing wheat cakes at night that these two people made the request."

"Then I'll go and take a look, and then I'll go back to the camp by myself."

"Yes, Mr. Qu, take care."

Li Feng got up and walked out of Hei Xiong's room. Hei Xiong came to the courtyard next door. The guards at the door pushed it open and dragged out Jia Kui and Linghu Shao, who were frozen numb in the cellar.

Black Bear looked at the two men and said, "Yesterday Yang Guang sent me a letter saying that the Hedong army would unite with the Taiyuan rebels to attack our army from the north of Han Xin Ridge. I was a little skeptical at first, but this afternoon I went out to scout Han Xin Ridge and indeed saw the Hedong vanguard troops."

Linghu Shao was speechless and deflated.

Jia Kui was supported and shivering from the cold: "General, you set up three passes and two cities to defend the Fenshui Road. Why didn't you deploy garrisons at a thoroughfare like Han Xinling?"

"I trusted Lord Cui and treated him with sincerity. Did I do something wrong?"

Black Bear said with a smile: "I am also very confused. The Yang brothers kept saying that they would send troops to help me, but why didn't they go through Han Xin Ridge, but had to go through Fenshui Road and Queshu Valley? They also exposed the rebellion of Hedong one step ahead of time. Do they really want to be good people?"

Seeing Jia Kui's expression changing back and forth, Black Bear restrained his smile and said, "Be patient for another night, and I will let you sleep in a warm tent tomorrow night."

(End of this chapter)