My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 384: Kill you while you are sick
"Today's battle was really exciting. After three consecutive battles, I'm afraid we have killed more than 10,000 enemies. General Zhao is so brave and always victorious, which is rare in ancient and modern times!"

As the sun set, the fighting stopped and Zhao Yun's troops captured several thousand prisoners and brought them back to the camp. The entire army sang songs of victory and was in high spirits.

The generals Zhao Yun brought with him, such as Zhang Shuo, Deng Long and others, were also excited. As soon as they saw Zhao Yun, they praised him for his ever-victoriousness.

Looking at these people's flattery, Zhao Yun's expression remained calm, like a still pond, and he was not happy at all.

When Zhao Yun's troops were stationed in Shouchun and Hefei a few years ago, Liu Bei did not assign many generals to him. After all, the main attack direction of Liu Bei's army last year was still towards Guan Yu in Xuzhou. Zhao Yun was just a fill-in and did not need many generals.

This year, Zhao Yun's side also needs to lead the attack, but it is not a good idea to withdraw troops from Guan Yu, as that would easily lead to the general not knowing his soldiers and the soldiers not knowing their commander. So Liu Bei pulled some soldiers from the garrisons in Jingnan and Jiangxia under his control to reinforce Zhao Yun.

The generals of the Jingnan faction mainly include Wei Yan. Wei Yan followed Zhang Fei in the southern expedition to Jiaozhi last year and made some contributions. Now he has just been promoted to the rank of military commander. Although the rank of military commander is low, it is mainly because Wei Yan has little experience and has only fought in Jingnan and Nanhai. He has not had many opportunities to make contributions. It is good for him to be a military commander at such a young age. He is just in his early twenties.

This time, Zhao Yun did not want to take Wei Yan with him to carry out the mission of luring the enemy, so he left him in Xiacai to lead the reserve team. He wanted to wait until the second phase of the battle and let Wei Yan be the vanguard to attack Runan to the west as soon as possible. This was also a kind of reuse.

Therefore, when Zhao Yun went north to Fuli this time, the generals around him were mainly from the Jiangxia faction, that is, those former generals of the Jingzhou army who surrendered with Su Fei, such as Chen Jiu, Deng Long, and Zhang Shuo.

At this moment, Zhao Yun was sitting in the central army tent. He waited until the celebrating generals had finished shouting, then he raised his hand and tapped, saying:

"Don't be happy too soon. It's just that we defeated 10,000 enemies. This achievement is nothing to be proud of. Kong Ming worked hard to trick Cao Ren into thinking that Yun Chang would be late, and lured him out first to 'defeat me one by one'. He spent so much energy on this plan, hoping to annihilate more of Cao's army.

If Cao Ren heard that Yunchang was chasing us, and chose to fight hard and then force the whole army to retreat northward, that would be exactly what our army wanted. With more than 40,000 of his people, I can at least kill half of them in the pursuit! If Yunchang was quicker and led the cavalry first, maybe we could achieve more results!

Unfortunately, Cao Ren did not retreat without hesitation. He actually retreated directly to Qi County and did not return to Fuli. Our army lost the opportunity to attack along the way for 60 miles, and could only achieve such a small result. It was a bit of a waste of time. "

Zhao Yun sighed and touched his triangular beard. He felt quite unwilling inside and his face looked a little haggard.

Yesterday and today, we fought two or three consecutive battles, and the total number of enemies killed and captured was no more than 10,000.

Yesterday's harassment and fighting only killed and wounded more than a thousand enemy soldiers, which was just an appetizer. Last night, Cao Ren's two raids on the camp cost him four or five hundred lives.

The real big deal was the battle this morning, which killed and wounded about three to four thousand Cao's troops. Later, when Cao Ren got the news, he wanted to retreat, but the remaining troops were hit hard by Zhao Yun, and another two to three thousand were killed. Finally, a large number of people crowded into the city gate and were crushed by Zhao Yun from behind, and the statistics showed that more than two thousand people were killed.

The total number of these five groups was almost 10,000. If it were another general, it would have been worthy of joy if he could inflict a small loss on Cao Ren, causing him to lose a quarter of his troops and two unknown generals to die.

But it is a bit regrettable that Zhao Yun led the troops and used Zhuge Liang's strategy, but only killed such a small number of people.

Chen Jiu and Deng Long were relatively rough men and could not figure out the strategy. They were just leading troops in battle, so they could not give any advice after hearing what Zhao Yun said.

Zhang Shuo was a bit smarter. He thought about it for a moment and then continued to comfort him, "General, don't worry too much. I don't think Cao Ren would dare to stay in Qi County forever.

Qi County is just a small plain county in Huaibei that can be bypassed at will. It is not a place that must be fought for by military strategists. Cao Ren left a large number of troops here, isn't he waiting for us to bypass it? By then, it will be a dead vine and dead fruit, nothing to worry about.

Fuli and Zhuyi are different. They are the key points where the Sui River is blocked by the Jiahe River. They are the places that must be fought for by military strategists. Cao Ren cannot help but go back to defend Fuli."

Zhao Yun nodded: "Of course I know that - I guess, since he insisted on retreating to Qi County first, he must have known that the slow-moving heavy infantry would have difficulty retreating to Fuli. Even if he retreated, I would kill more than half of them on the way, so he didn't retreat.

However, the cavalry in Cao Ren's army will definitely find a chance to withdraw. They might leave tonight, so our army must be prepared. Send more scouts tonight to fire rockets as soon as there is a situation. I will lead the main force to attack them. As for the follow-up matters, we will talk about it after we have dealt with this battle."

Zhao Yun knew very well that since Cao Ren had withdrawn his army to Qi County, it was absolutely impossible for him to return to Fuli with his heavy infantry.

Because going in and out of the city would waste time and give the enemy more opportunities to hunt him down.

If the heavy infantry wanted to withdraw, they would have just withdrawn without a care in the world. Entering the city first and then leaving it, wouldn't that mean they would suffer twice? Only a fool would do such a thing. Cao Ren was not a fool, so this option was definitely the first one he ruled out.

Therefore, Zhao Yun only needed to be on guard against Cao Ren settling the infantry, leaving a general to guard Qi County, and then retreating with the cavalry.

……

Zhao Yun's judgment was indeed correct. That night, around 2:00 a.m., Cao Ren arranged all the defenses of Qi County, left 20,000 infantrymen to guard the city, and then opened the north gate of Qi County, letting the cavalry wrap their horses' hooves and quietly and quickly leave the city.

And don't wait for assembly outside the city gate. Once you are out of the city, run directly and move north in the dark in a long snake formation.

It is dangerous to stay outside the city gate for any longer.

In this way, about half an incense stick of time after the vanguard troops left the city, signs of Cao Ren's escape were discovered by the cavalry scouts sent by Zhao Yun to patrol the city. Then, Zhao Yun's cavalry scouts used a method of reporting that Cao Ren had never expected and had never seen before to inform Zhao Yun.

The cavalry scouts of Zhao Yun actually shot a bunch of gunpowder-filled arrows into the sky - although the gunpowder of this era was still very primitive, and the Zhuge brothers started to tinker with it three or four years ago, and the explosive power is still not good, it can only be described as "explosion". But it can still be used as firecrackers and fireworks.

Therefore, before Liu Bei's Northern Expedition, the army was also equipped with this kind of whistling arrows tied with gunpowder barrels as a means of long-distance communication at night.

In order to enhance the brightness of the flames, Zhuge Jin also added a handful of salt to the gunpowder based on the common knowledge of "flame color reaction" in junior high school chemistry in later generations. He used the flame color reaction of sodium ions to emit yellow light to make the light brighter.

On a dark moonless night, the flames could be seen shooting up into the sky from five or six miles away. Even in a moonlit environment, they could be seen from two or three miles away.

Cao Ren had never thought that there would be such a thing in the world. It saved the time for Zhao Yun's scouts to go back and report the enemy situation. Naturally, he was shocked.

"Not good! This must be another mysterious thing that the little thief Zhuge has figured out! Zhao Yun must have seen the flames shooting up to the sky and immediately led his cavalry to attack! All troops, follow me and retreat quickly! Don't get stuck with Zhao Yun!"

Cao Ren was quite talented. Although he had never seen it before, he was able to guess the use of this thing based on common sense. He immediately rode away at full speed.

Of course, he was not afraid of Zhao Yun's cavalry. What he was afraid of was that after Zhao Yun's cavalry held him back, in just an incense stick of time, Zhao Yun's infantry would come to reinforce him, and it would be even more difficult to escape at that time.

In this case, it would be better for them to flee separately. After all, it was agreed before leaving the city that each unit would retreat to Fuli County in the dark. It was dark, and Zhao Yun could not stop everyone.

Sure enough, not long after Cao Ren galloped away on his horse, Zhao Yun arrived with his cavalry.

In the darkness, many of Cao's soldiers were still riding two people on one horse. In order to reduce the weight, most of them were lightly equipped, so their combat effectiveness was definitely not good. The only hope was to flee separately in the dark, leaving Zhao Yun unsure who to chase.

Shouts and screams soon resounded across the land north of Qi County. Zhao Yun's troops were in high spirits and pursued with torches in order to distinguish between friend and foe. They killed any enemy they saw.

Cao Ren's troops implemented a strict "blackout" and fled in the opposite direction when they saw no light. It was not resistance at all, they were just trying to escape.

Zhao Yun continued to fight for a distance of thirty miles until the third watch.

In the end, he withdrew his troops because the enemy had fled too far and too scattered to be pursued. He was also afraid that if he got too close to Fuli County, Lü Qian in Fuli City would send people to ambush them in the dark.

After returning to count the results of the battle, they found that they had hunted down and annihilated more than 2,000 Cao troops that night, seized hundreds of war horses, and killed and wounded hundreds more.

Although judging from the number of people killed, the number of casualties in this night battle was much less than that in the daytime battle.

But since a high proportion of enemy cavalry were killed, it was considered a fruitful result.

What's more crucial is that Cao Ren simply tried to escape in different ways without organizing an effective resistance. Basically, the enemies who were caught up fought on their own and turned back to resist, so Zhao Yun's casualties were quite low.

More than two thousand enemies were wiped out, but only dozens of our own men were killed, and including the injured, there were just over a hundred, which is almost a ten-fold exchange ratio.

In the end, the Battle of Qi County came to an end with Cao Ren paying the price of a total loss of 13,000 troops, including about 2,000 cavalry and more than 11,000 infantry.

After Cao Ren fled back to Fuli City and defended it tightly, Guan Yu broke through Gaixia and slowly advanced westward with the cavalry vanguard to meet Zhao Yun the next day.

As for the main infantry force of Guan Yu's army, they will arrive later.

"Zilong! Did we win a great victory? Where is Cao Ren?" As soon as Guan Yu saw Zhao Yun, he laughed heartily and asked about the results of the battle. He was also thinking about whether he could take advantage of the remaining enemies to expand the results of the battle.

Zhao Yun smiled bitterly. "Cao Ren was indeed decisive. He was able to take responsibility and let go. He even dared to delegate power. He left all his heavy infantry in Qi County, leaving us no chance to intercept him halfway. We could only intercept his cavalry. I fought five or six battles and killed more than 10,000 enemies, but he still managed to escape."

When Guan Yu heard that he had rushed to the battlefield but failed to make it, he was immediately disappointed. Fortunately, he knew that it was not Zhao Yun's fault and he recovered quickly.

Guan Yu stroked his beard and said regretfully: "It seems that the situation has changed. Why don't we go to Ziyu to discuss it and see if there is any way to improvise and create another miracle."

Zhao Yun's eyes lit up: "Zi Yu actually followed you to join the army? If I had known, I would have asked A Liang to join the army. I think this is a feint attack, so I asked A Liang to stay in Xia Cai and show his skills when we are ready to attack Runan."

Guan Yu narrowed his eyes and smiled, "At first, Ziyu was also sitting in Suiling City and had no intention of making any rash moves. It was because I heard that my army was blocking Guo Jia's hidden reef and river method in the battle that I immediately invited Ziyu to find a solution. Otherwise, Guo Jia's accident would have really held me back."

Zhao Yun nodded: "I see, that's not surprising. With Ziyu's personal help, Guo Jia's tricks can be easily broken."

(End of this chapter)