The next morning, heavy snow covered the wilderness, and the world was covered with gray. Although the amount of snow was slightly smaller than at night, it still did not stop. In the howling north wind, it was rolling and flying like a tick.

The arrival of heavy snow brought joy to the Han army, but it made the Hun army feel like it was in a desperate situation. In the tent, Liu Bao paced back and forth with his hands, feeling extremely upset. He had just received a quick letter from his eldest son Liu Luo from Bingzhou. Cao Cao had personally led a 100,000 army to send troops from Taiyuan, and the troops were divided into two groups. His second son Cao Zhang led 30,000 troops to attack Xihe County, while Cao Cao personally led 70,000 troops to attack Yanmen County.

At present, Liu Bao still leaves 30,000 troops in Bingzhou, mainly concentrated in Yanmen County, and a small number are also in Xihe County and Dingxiang County, with 30,000 to 100,000, which is more unlucky.

Liu Bao hoped that Cao Cao would just act like a show, not really attacking, but reason told him that the Huns' army was not good inside the pass, and Cao Cao would probably take the opportunity to annihilate the Xiongnu in Bingzhou.

Thinking that this quick letter was sent five days ago and that there were countless things happening in the past five days, Liu Bao was anxious and wanted to withdraw his troops back to Bingzhou immediately. However, the Han army was eyeing him, making him dare not move. When he thought of the powerful iron crossbow arrows of the Han army, he felt a sense of fear. If the Han army fired two rounds of crossbow arrows when he crossed the river, all the sheepskin rafts would sink.

The withdrawal of troops was not enough and he was worried. Liu Bao gradually hated Hu Chuquan. If he hadn't written a letter to deceive himself and asked him to participate in the encirclement and suppression of the main force of the Han army, how could he easily cross the river and advance westward? If he knew the truth in advance, he wouldn't have crossed the river to drill into this trap.

The more Liu Bao thought about it, the more hated it became. The shame of being deceived and his concern for Bingzhou made him feel angry. He drew his sword and slashed it hard at the table, "Crack!" and chopped the table into two sections.

Looking at the broken table, Liu Bao's anger was vented slightly, and his mind was restored to a little rationality. Now he still has a glimmer of hope, that is, when the Yellow River freezes, the Yellow River will begin to freeze in a few days. Once the ice is frozen, they can quickly retreat from the ice surface to Bingzhou, hoping that their son can do his best, guard the pass and not leave, and buy time for themselves.

At this moment, a soldier reported outside the tent: "Your Majesty, the Han army has challenged about a thousand cavalry outside the camp and demanded a decisive battle with us."

Liu Bao was angry and annoyed. The other party sent only more than a thousand cavalry to challenge him, clearly to humiliate himself. There must be a large army hidden behind him. Thinking of the sharp iron crossbow arrows of the Han army, he lost the desire to fight. Liu Bao had to hold back this breath and waved his hand and said, "If they get close, shoot me with arrows!"

Outside the Hun camp, Ma Dai led a thousand cavalry to curse, "The Huns without eggs have a vegetation to fight. I only have a thousand people, and I want to kill you all!"

"You are not a grassland eagle, but a grassland gopher. You only dare to hide in the hole and lick your asshole. I can drown you if I urinate."

More than a hundred soldiers simply jumped off their horses, urinated at the Hun camp, laughed wildly, and humiliated the Huns. If the soldiers in Huchuquan were the ones, they might not understand what they were scolding, but the Huns in Bingzhou lived in the Central Plains for a long time, and most of them understood Chinese language.

Thousands of Hun soldiers were so angry that they screamed, but they didn't dare to resist the order and rushed out. They just shot arrows desperately, and they wanted to shoot the Han soldiers who humiliated them to death, but they were more than two hundred steps apart, so where could they shoot?

The Han cavalry yelled and scolded for more than an hour, but the Huns never came out to fight. Ma Dai knew that they were unwilling to fight with the Han army and wanted to withdraw their troops. When he saw that his brothers were tired of scolding, he smiled and said, "These Xiongs have no eggs and dare not respond. Let's go back!"

A thousand Han cavalry beat the victorious drum and returned proudly to the camp three miles away. At this time, the snow was getting heavier and heavier, and the world became vast

Cao Cao finally waited for the opportunity to send troops. When Liu Bao's army crossed the Yellow River, Cao Cao, who had already been impatient, immediately ordered the entire army to fight against the north and announced the "Edict to the Huns" to the world.

Over the past month, Cao Cao has indeed been under great pressure. The war between Liu Jing and the Huns has been fighting from August to November, but he has been slow to hold his troops, which has caused great criticism in the court discussion. After all, the emperor issued an edict that Cao Cao was the head coach and Liu Jing was the deputy commander. But in the end, the head coach did not do anything, but the deputy commander was fighting against the Huns.

This has led many people to secretly scold Cao Cao for fame and rob the Han King of his contributions, especially those aristocrats who hated Cao Cao, spared no effort to promote it everywhere, accusing Cao Cao of only seeking fame and personal gain and disregarding national justice.

The huge political pressure made Cao Cao feel uncomfortable, but it was impossible for him to send troops to fight Liu Bao immediately. Liu Bao had 80,000 elite cavalry, but he only prepared a 100,000 army. His troops were similar in strength, but his strength was not as good as the Hun cavalry. If he was angry and sent troops to fight, he would undoubtedly be defeated.

But Cao Cao finally waited for the moment when Liu Bao sent troops. When the scout heard that Liu Bao had crossed the river, Cao Cao immediately ordered the army to go north.

The Xiongnu in Bingzhou first supported Yuan Shao. When Yuan Shao was defeated, Liu Bao quickly reached a compromise with Cao Cao and defined the default dividing line between the two sides. Xihe County west of Luliang Mountain is bounded by the Qiu River, south of the Qiu River belongs to Cao Cao, north of the Xiongnu control, east of Luliang Mountain, Taiyuan as the boundary, north of Taiyuan is the territory of the Xiongnu, and south of the area including Taiyuan City is the territory of the Cao army.

Cao Cao's troops were divided into two groups, one of which was led by his second son Cao Zhang, crossed the Luliang Mountains, advanced to Xihe County, and went north from Xihe County to Yanmen County. Cao Cao led 70,000 main forces to send troops north from Taiyuan City to recover the entire county of Taiyuan. Then he attacked Yanmen County, which was occupied by the Huns, and joined the army of his son Cao Zhang there.

The Cao army marched northward and successively recovered Yun County, Jingle County and Yangqu County. Three days later, the army entered Yanmen County and arrived directly at Loufan County. Loufan County was the location of Liu Bao's tent, and it was actually one of Liu Bao's two nests.

The terrain of Loufan County is high in the west and low in the east, with towering mountains to the northwest and continuous hilly areas to the east, with large areas of alpine pastures distributed.

As the Cao army marched northward, the Huns also moved northward. However, since Loufan County is the gateway to Yanmen County and its geographical location is extremely important. Once Loufan County is captured, Yanmen County will follow, and Cao's army can march straight in.

To this end, the Xiongnu left 8,000 troops to garrison in Loufan County, stationed in Loufan County and Yunding Pass respectively, and guarded them in danger. The two counties were less than twenty miles apart, and the Xiongnu troops could echo each other.

Cao Cao's army set up a camp ten miles away from the county town. Cao Cao also made full preparations to recover Bingzhou. He secretly sent scouts to draw a topographic map of the northern part of Bingzhou and made a simple sand table based on the topographic map. Although it was not very accurate, it was almost impossible to use.

Cao Cao stood in front of the sand table with the strategists, and the general discussed the strategy of advancing. He pointed at Loufan City with a wooden pole and said to everyone: "Compared with Yunding Pass, Loufan is much easier to attack. From the sand table, it can be seen that Loufan's city wall is not high, at most only three meters. Moreover, the scout said that there was no catapult on the city, and about 4,000 people guarded it. We only need to send 10,000 troops to capture the city. The key is how to capture the Genting Pass. The road is dangerous and the pass is high. Even if we seize it, we will suffer heavy losses."

At this time, military advisor Cheng Yu stroked his beard and smiled: "The Yunding Pass is suitable for using a plan. Maybe I have a plan, and the Yunding Pass is within reach."

Cao Cao was overjoyed, "Will Zhongde plan come out?"

The general who was ordered to seize Loufan County was Xu Huang. Cao Cao gave him 30,000 troops and ordered him to seize Loufan County within an hour. Xu Huang resolutely issued a military order. If he seized the county town one quarter of an hour later, he would bring the heads to see him.

"Dong!Dong!Dong!"

The sound of war drums was ringing heavily, and the 30,000 troops shouted and killed the sky, surrounding Loufan County. Twenty heavy catapults rumbling to two hundred steps away from the county town. This was the most powerful catapult of Cao's army, three meters high and five meters long. A hundred people must pull their hair, and they can throw a hundred kilograms of huge rocks three hundred steps away.

Cao Jun learned the Han army's advanced tincture oil weapons, soaked linen in tincture oil and dried it to make fire cloth, and then wrapped it into a mass of fire cloth, resulting in large cloth balls with a diameter of five feet, which were coated with tincture oil and fired.

At Xu Huang's order, twenty heavy trenchers were fired at the same time. Twenty huge fireballs rose into the air, roaring into the city with black smoke and flames, and quickly triggered a fire in the city. Thousands of Hun herders gathered in the city. They all fled from all over the place. They had no time to retreat north, so they hid in the city to take refuge. At this time, under the attack of the fireballs, the women, children and the elderly were so scared that they cried and ran away in all directions.

Fireballs are mainly used to attract fire, especially when dealing with camps with dense tents. Fireballs can achieve miraculous effects, but in siege battles, their actual combat effect is not obvious and their lethality is extremely weak to the defenders.

The reason why Cao Cao decided to use fireballs was mainly because it had a great psychological intimidation to the Huns. He imagined that huge fireballs passed by overhead, which would have a major psychological impact on the Huns who had never seen tinder oil, causing strong fear, and thus completely defeating the morale of the Huns soldiers.

Cao's army only fired two rounds of fireballs, which caused panic among the Huns' army. Soldiers began to throw away their armor and escape down to the city to protect their families.

At this time, Xu Huang coldly issued an order to attack the city: "Send order to attack the city!"

Thirty thousand Cao troops shouted and rushed to Loufan County from all directions like a tide. They carried huge siege ladders and raised their shields when running to resist the dense arrows shot from their heads. Although people were constantly shot down, they could not stop Cao's army's full attack.

There is no moat in Loufan County, but there is a deep ditch, which is filled with sharp spears. However, Cao's army used wooden boards to build the deep ditch, and thousands of Cao's army arrived at the southern city first, and dozens of siege ladders were installed. Teams of Cao's soldiers attacked the city step by step, leaping wooden stones that were smashed like hail on their heads, step by step.

In less than half an hour, the Cao army soldiers in the south took the lead in attacking the city. The two sides fought the final fierce battle on the city. Xu Huang was riding on the war horse and looked at the Cao army's siege from afar. He breathed a sigh of relief. The military order required him to capture the city within one hour. Now it seems that it takes less than half an hour to seize the city.

At this time, a soldier shouted at the city gate: "General, the south city gate is open!"

The south city gate opened and the suspension bridge slowly lowered. Xu Huang was overjoyed and turned around and shouted to the five thousand reserve soldiers, "Brothers, follow me to attack the city."
Chapter completed!