In mid-February of the fifth year of King Wei, the weather gradually warmed after the cold winter. Both the Qin army and the Wei army were actively preparing for the war after the spring, and the first to start the action was Meng Hu, Hua Hu, Mu Wu and others who were stationed in Yancheng.

To be precise, as early as the late lunar month, Meng Hu and Hua Hu could no longer help but find trouble for the two thousand Qin cavalry. Mu Wu tried to persuade them, so they delayed the date of the battle by half a month.

On February 15th, when he learned that Meng Hu, Hua Hu and Mu Wu were about to lead the cavalry to attack and find the Qin cavalry. Yancheng ordered Du Su and the garrison Sima to set a banquet for the three of them in advance. After eating and drinking, Meng Hu, Hua Hu and Mu Wu led a total of 3,000 cavalry under his command and left Yancheng in a mighty manner.

At this time, there was still enough snow to sink into the horse's hooves in the wilderness outside the city, but the cold weather had been greatly improved. As long as you pay attention to the horse's horse and do not make the horse lose its hooves due to the slippery ice and snow, the cavalry did not fail to act in such weather.

"According to the scout's report, someone once saw the traces of cavalry in the mountains southeast of Yeyi... I guess the cavalry was hiding there, so why not go and see what happened."

While rushing on the way, Mu Wu said to Meng Hu and Hua Hu.

Hearing this, Meng Hu blinked and thought for a long time before he thought about what the mountains southeast of Yeyi were called. Instead, Hua Hu took out the marching map and guessed the approximate hiding location of the Qin cavalry with a serious expression.

On the east side of Yeyi, namely Yancheng, and on the northeast side is Xu County. Since Xu County has not received any news about the Qin cavalry so far, the Qin cavalry should be in the area surrounded by Yeyi, Yancheng and Shangcai. Considering the hiddenness, it is indeed very likely to be hidden among the mountains southeast of Yeyi.

Thinking of this, Hua Hu and others immediately led their troops to the place.

In fact, as Mu Wu and Hua Hu judged, Qin general Hu Yu and his two thousand cavalrymen, after plundering enough food and winter clothes in Yancheng last year, they quietly hid in the mountains southeast of Yeyi, waiting for the weather to warm up to harass and attack Yeyi.

Waiting until mid-February this year, Hu Yu pretended to be an ordinary civilian and hiked to Yeyi for a peek.

How to say about Ye Yi's initial impression, Hu Yu felt that it was a bit similar to Xianyang, the capital of Qin, and Ye Yi had no city walls.

In fact, strictly speaking, Xianyang, the capital of Qin, has a city wall, but the area of ​​land enclosure is not large, and it is almost the same as that of Yangdi in South Korea. But why do some people say that Xianyang has no city wall?

The reason is that too many refugees defected to Xianyang, and Xianyang City could not accommodate the citizens who could easily reach more than 100,000, so they had to gradually expand outward.

During the period of expansion, Qin State actually planned to build the city wall several times, but before they were ready, a large number of refugees defected to Xianyang to build houses in Xianyang, which forced Qin State to expand the scope of the city wall again.

After repeated this several times, the construction date for building the city wall was greatly delayed, and the cost required was astronomical. Considering that almost no one in the Central Plains countries could attack Xianyang in recent years, they were always blocked at Hangu Pass, so Qin was simply too lazy to expand the city wall.

As a result, Xianyang became a city without a wall.

The situation in Yeyi is similar to that in Xianyang, Qin State. This city built by Ye Gongchen, a former important official of Chu State, has a city wall. However, because it accepted more than 100,000 refugees from Chu State last year, Yeyi could only expand to the outside world and resettled a large number of Chu people who defected to him in several newly built towns outside the city.

During this period, Ye Yiyi, Xiang Liao, the chief of the city wall, also thought about building the city wall, but when he and Qu Yuan calculated the cost of building the city, both him and Qu Yuan were a little scared.

Because they found that not only would the construction time take decades to re-expand a city that could accommodate more than 100,000 or even 200,000 people, the cost would be enough to support at least 200,000 troops.

It is no exaggeration to say that this scale of project is no longer affordable by Ye Yi, so Xiang Liao gave up building the city and turned to the second best, asking Yi Sima Lexu to expand the guards responsible for public security and robbery, and use manpower to maintain Ye Yi's public security.

On this day, after Qin general Hu Yu spyed on Ye Yi's situation from afar, he couldn't help but feel happy.

When he led his army to invade Yan County last year, although he once looted several villages and killed about 3,000 Wei people, he never led his army to attack the county town of Yan County. The reason is very simple. The cavalry is not good at siegeing the city. In front of the towering city walls of Yan City, even the cavalry must sigh at the city.

Now, Ye Yi has no exterior walls as much as Xianyang, the capital of Qin. Isn’t this a good opportunity given by God?

As long as he led his army to Yeyi, although he could not attack Yeyi's city walls, the towns outside the city were almost unprepared for his cavalry.

As long as he is willing, he can make Ye Yi suffer heavy losses at any time.

It seems that this is why Bai Shuai sent me to attack Ye Yi.

Hu Yu thought to himself.

But after thinking about it, he did not dare to act rashly at the moment because Ye Yi was different from other Wei cities. This city was a fief of Meng Zhong, Fangchengling Meng Zhong, and Meng Zhong also had cavalry under his command, and the number was more than that of his command, reaching nearly 3,000 people. This was Hu Yu's estimate, and he felt that the number was almost the same.

Considering that the other party also has cavalry who are good at long-range harassing and sneak attacks, Hu Yu felt that he should be more cautious.

At least, let’s find out where the cavalry is now.

Thinking of this, after bringing back the valley of the garrison, Hu Yu sent cavalry to Yancheng to monitor the actions of the three thousand Fangcheng cavalry.

Unexpectedly, these cavalry sent out returned to the garrison halfway and told Hu Yu that the three thousand Fangcheng cavalry garrisons in Yancheng were heading straight towards the place where he was stationed.

Discovered?

Hu Yu frowned when he learned about this. While immediately ordering his cavalry to be prepared to evacuate at any time, he continued to send scouts to see if the Fangcheng cavalry was heading to Yeyi or whether they were really coming for him.

In just half a day, Hu Yu learned the news that the Fangcheng cavalry was indeed coming for them.

war?

Or withdraw?

Hu Yu frowned and thought.

If the opponent had only three thousand infantrymen, he would have ordered his cavalry to attack without hesitation and eat the tactics used by the cavalry under Meng Zhong of the Wei army in the Battle of Yique in one bite. The Yiqu people had already started using it more than a hundred years ago, and it was nothing at all.

But the opponent was three thousand cavalrymen. Hu Yu thought he was not sure if he wanted to fight.

After all, the other side was not a weak brigade, and 30% of them were veteran cavalry soldiers who participated in the Battle of Yique. Compared with the cavalry soldiers under his command who had not encountered a real fierce battle so far, I don’t know how strong they would be, let alone the number of the other side was above them.

But the question is, although he doesn't want to fight, he can't get away. When the cavalry chases the cavalry, where can the escape party eventually escape?

After thinking about it, Hu Yu felt that it was necessary to take the initiative and ambush the Fangcheng cavalry.

Thinking of this, he discussed with his several generals and asked them to lead the cavalry to ambush the valley. He personally led a hundred cavalry to lure the cavalry in the Fangcheng first. When the cavalry in the Fangcheng chased him, he led them into the ambush. At that time, his cavalry under him attacked from both sides, which would definitely cause severe damage to the cavalry.

So, after the arrangement was made, Hu Yu led a hundred cavalry to attack and wandered among the valleys of the hills.

Sure enough, after only an hour, he heard movements like trembling. Immediately, when he looked far away, he saw a line of cavalry appearing on the far side. Then, countless cavalry continued to appear from that side, in a mighty way.

Sure enough, there were nearly three thousand cavalrymen...

After squinting his eyes and estimating from a distance, Hu Yu felt secretly surprised.

You should know that as far as he knows, the Wei State has not yet formed a cavalry, and the Wei State's army is still composed mainly of chariots, infantry, and crossbowmen. However, a Fangcheng Order of the Wei State had three thousand cavalry in his hand. It is said that these three thousand cavalry were all crossbow cavalry with crossbow tools. This made Hu Yu feel a little curious about Meng Zhong's origin: This Central Plains man actually understands the power of cavalry?

However, this is not the time to think about this kind of problem. Seeing the oncoming Fangcheng cavalry approaching, Hu Yu immediately asked his cavalry to pretend to be panic and flee, turning around and running along the valley between the hills on both sides.

Seeing this scene from afar, Meng Hu, Hua Hu and Mu Wu issued an order to stop moving forward almost at the same time.

A moment later, the three of them brought Cao Chun, Cai Cheng and Lu Wen to discuss.

During this period, Hua Hu whined to the other side of the valley and said contemptuously: "Speaking of this, who is the general who led this Qin cavalry? He is using such a shallow trick to lure the enemy. Is he underestimating us?"

Hearing this, Cao Chun, Cai Cheng and Lu Wen couldn't help laughing. After all, the Qin cavalry opposite was too crude.

Even if it was them, it could be seen that the other party must have set up an ambush behind the valley, let alone the masters of Hua Hu and Mu Wu, the two Zhuang Masters?

"After that..."

As if he had thought of something, Cai Cheng asked Meng Hu in surprise: "By the way, Meng Sima had ordered the stop to move forward at the same time. Could it be that Meng Sima also concluded that the other party had set up an ambush?"

After hearing this, Meng Hu's deputy general Cao Chun interrupted with some displeasure: "Cai Cheng, what do you mean by your kid?"

"Hahaha." Cai Cheng waved his hand and explained: "Just curious..."

Meng Hu didn't care about this and boasted carelessly: "That's natural. As Fangcheng's number one general, how could a small ambush make me fall into a trap? I could tell at a glance..."

Hearing this, Hua Hu asked coldly: "How did you see it?"

"Uh... they ran away when they saw me waiting. Can't they see that?"

"Hmph! There are only more than a hundred cavalry on the other side, and we have three thousand cavalry. If you were the ones, you wouldn't run away?"

"This...what do you say the judgment?"

"Wu...Awu, tell him." Hua Hu turned around and pushed this matter to Mu Wu.

He shook his head helplessly, and Mu Wu said in a deep voice: "We have met several teams of Qin cavalry who were peeping at our army's actions in a distance. Calculate the time, the chief general of this Qin cavalry must have learned that our army is coming, but he did not gather his cavalry immediately, but still asked more than a hundred cavalry to wander here. This is unreasonable. Moreover, this 100-man cavalry did not rush to leave when we saw us. Instead, they stayed for a while until our army approached, and then turned around and fled... From this, it can be seen that this 100-man cavalry was just bait."

Upon hearing this, Cao Chun, Cai Cheng and Lu Wen all praised him.

Although they had thought of what Mu Wu said, their ideas were indeed not as clear as Mu Wu and they were well organized.

"Musma is a talented general."

Cai Cheng said to Lu Wen with emotion.

Hearing this, Lu Wen forced a smile.

It is undeniable that he also thinks that his chief general Mu Wu is a talented general. In terms of grasping the situation of the war, he even has to be better than Meng Hu and Hua Hu. But sometimes, Mu Wu giggles in private, making people unable to connect him with the talented general no matter how he looks at it.

Shaking his head, Lu Wen changed the subject and said, "What should we do next?"

After hearing this, Cao Chun and Cai Cheng looked at Mu Wu one after another. Although they also knew some of Mu Wu’s problems, they still felt that Mu Wu was the most reliable compared to Meng Hu and Hua Hu.

Seeing this, Mu Wu touched his jaw and thought, "You can use the trick and lure this cavalry in turn... In this way, Ah Hu, you will mock them later, just say that we have seen through his tricks, and as for the rest of the people, just get off the horse and rest. The cavalry on the opposite side saw that our army was lazy and might take the opportunity to attack. Jie Shi, we suddenly attacked..." Speaking of this, he waved his right hand and made a fist stance: "Take it severely in one fell swoop!"

Upon hearing this, Cao Chun, Cai Cheng and Lu Wen nodded secretly.

Looking at the other person's strategy of seducing the enemy, he was silent at all. Could the Qin general on the opposite side be just a fool?

After everyone finished discussing, Meng Hu and Cao Chun led the cavalry slowly towards the direction of the valley.

During this period, Cao Chun asked Meng Hu out of curiosity, "Sima, have you really decided that there must be an ambush after the valley?"

Meng Hu was annoyed when he heard this and said angrily: "Why? You don't even believe me?"

Cao Chun quickly explained: "It's not that I don't believe it, but I also saw it with my own eyes. The opportunity for Sima to order the cavalry under his command to stop advancing is almost the same as that of Hua Hu and Mu Wu, the two Simas. It can be seen that Sima has indeed noticed something wrong, but Sima can't explain the reason, which is really puzzling..."

"Well..."

Meng Hu hummed for a while before he said embarrassedly: "Actually, I just feel that there is danger behind the mountain, and there may be an enemy ambush or something..."

Hearing this, Cao Chun opened his eyes wide in shock: "That's it?"

"Well, that's it."

“…”

After opening his mouth, Cao Chun simply didn't know what to say.
To be continued...