My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 735: A cold light arrives first, heading straight for Gongsun Fuyu
In May of the 16th year of Jian'an, the capital of Liaodong County was Xiangping County.

Eight thousand iron cavalry and twenty thousand light cavalry completed the final pre-war assembly in the camp outside Xiangping City, on the banks of the Liaohe River.

As mentioned earlier, Zhao Yun discussed with Mi Zhu and Zhou Yu whether to launch an attack on Gongsun Kang and the Fuyu Kingdom in late March of that year.

That is, the Northeast has just warmed up, the Hokkaido rice has begun to sprout normally, and the rye that has been planted for a winter has successfully survived the cold winter.

After confirming that it was profitable to capture Fuyu and that large-scale farming could be carried out there, Zhao Yun and Zhou Yu spent another ten days on planning and making decisions. Zhou Yu then sent people to entertain the nobles of the Wuhuan and Xianbei tribes, selected them, set up a plan, exchanged false letters to deceive the enemy, and all the strategic tricks were ready, which took more than a month.

Considering the vastness of the grassland in the north of Youzhou and the inconvenience of communication between the various tribes, the preparation speed is already very fast.

While Zhou Yu was arranging various deceptions, Zhao Yun was also making final arrangements and preparations for the combat troops, sharpening their weapons and horses before the battle.

By early May, we could finally officially send out our troops.

Because the roads were long and dangerous, and the territory of Buyeo was more than a thousand miles from north to south, Zhao Yun had to leave enough room for the troops to continue fighting, considering that the enemy might still escape and engage in guerrilla warfare. He was mentally prepared to "fight with a large group of cavalry on the Northeast Plain, two thousand miles deep."

(Note: The Northeast Plain is very vast. From the southernmost to the northernmost tip, the Northeast is more than 1,600 kilometers long. If we use the geographical concept of the interior of the country as the basis, this distance is equivalent to the distance from Beijing to Guangdong.)
The battlefield was so vast that Zhao Yun had no way of leading infantry into the battle and could only use pure cavalry.

In addition, the cavalry must be equipped with multiple horses to carry supplies and take turns riding. In this way, the size of the cavalry cannot be too large.

After weighing the pros and cons, the number of "8,000 iron cavalry and 20,000 light cavalry" was finally determined. If there were more, the scale of Youzhou's horse resources would not be enough.

Moreover, Zhao Yun only planned to use these 8,000 cavalry in the decisive battle on the Songnen Plain. Once the enemy was defeated in the first battle and fled far away, these 8,000 cavalry could not be used for pursuit. The journey was too long and the heavy steel armor was too much to chase, and the loss was too terrible.

Therefore, in the pursuit battle after the decisive battle, Zhao Yun would only bring a small number of cavalry as the core general guard and assault force, and the rest of the combat tasks would be completed by light cavalry and archer cavalry.

On the sixth day of May, Zhao Yun held a pre-war oath-taking ceremony in Xiangping County, and then held a three-day banquet for his soldiers to boost morale, with plenty of wine and meat.

At the oath-taking ceremony, Zhao Yun personally went on stage and loudly enumerated the crimes of Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai, encouraging the soldiers to unite as one and fight for the Han Dynasty to drive out the barbarians.

"Soldiers! After Gongsun Kang was expelled to the Fuyu Kingdom, the Grand Commandant saw that his crimes were not serious and that Gongsun Du's death had absolved him of his crimes, so he did not attack him for many years!
Who would have thought that this thief, who had been living in seclusion for five or six years, was still unwilling to give up his evil intentions, and was planning to make a comeback day and night, colluding with the Dongyi to occupy our Han prefectures. Now, he has joined forces with the Liaoxi Xianbei Jueji tribe and the Goguryeo Kingdom, and secretly submitted a petition to Cao Cao, asking for support.

How can this be tolerated? Therefore, I am following the order of the Grand Commandant and the Minister of Justice to raise an army today to defeat this bandit. On the day when Fuyu is destroyed, every soldier who participates in the war will be given 300 acres of fertile black soil farmland! The opportunity to establish meritorious service and benefit future generations is now, so why hesitate? "

The 300 mu mentioned by Zhao Yun were of course Han mu, each Han mu was equivalent to about 0.3 mu in modern times. But even with this conversion, these fields were equivalent to more than 90 mu or nearly 100 mu in modern times, enough for a family to have a field to plant, and it was still very attractive to the poor people.

However, the hinterland of Northeast China is colder than Liaodong, and the government will need to provide more supporting facilities in the future so that the people who move to the land of Buyeo can truly live and work in peace and contentment.

After hearing this call, most of the soldiers were excited. They were touched by the treachery, greed and meanness of the barbarians, but also inspired by Zhao Yun's beautiful vision: "Fuyu has a fertile land of a thousand miles. Now that we have good seeds, everyone can get hundreds of acres of land for free when we get there." Everyone fantasized about a better life in the future.

For a moment, everyone shouted excitedly, and the calls for war resounded throughout the sky.

After fully mobilizing the morale, Zhao Yun personally led his troops to sail upstream along the Liao River from Xiangping on the morning of May 8. After several days of sailing, they finally reached the border between Fuyu State and Liaoxi Xianbei at Gaoxian County, the northernmost county of Liaodong County.

Gaoxian County is the Tieling City of later times, and is also located on the bank of the Liao River. From Gaoxian County to the north, there is a voyage of nearly 300 miles along the Liao River.

It was not until the Shuangliao and Siping areas in later generations that the road began to split into two routes, the western route leading to the grasslands of the Xianbei in western Liaoning, and the eastern route leading to the heartland of the Buyeo Kingdom.

At that time, the boundary between the Jueji tribe of the Xianbei in western Liao and the Buyeo Kingdom of Yu Choutai was the Liao River in the upper reaches of Tieling.

The east bank of the Liao River north of Tieling is the Fuyu Kingdom, the west bank of the Liao River north of Tieling is the Liaoxi Xianbei, and south of Tieling is the Liaodong County of the Han Dynasty. The three forces formed a tripartite situation in this area.

After Zhao Yun's army moved north from Gaoxian County, they were naturally immediately noticed by the Buyeo people and the Liaoxi Xianbei people.

However, because Zhao Yun was still in the river and had not landed deep into the hinterland, all parties maintained a terrifying balance. They were just on guard for the time being and no one dared to act rashly. After all, if Zhao Yun only established a stronghold in the river or by the river, it would be difficult for the Fuyu Kingdom and the Liaoxi Xianbei to judge who he was going to attack.

Only if Zhao Yun made clear his goal and went deep into the east bank after landing, could the Fuyu people confirm that they were coming to attack them. Similarly, if he went deep into the west bank, the Xianbei people could confirm that Zhao Yun was coming to attack them.

If we haven't confirmed this point, and we rashly counterattack Zhao Yun and intensify the conflict between the two sides, wouldn't that be asking for trouble?

Therefore, both sides only sent out troops for surveillance, but their respective garrisons were at least one or two hundred miles away from Zhao Yun's troops. They were afraid that an accidental shooting would provoke Zhao Yun, and they also hoped that the other side would provoke Zhao Yun first.

So Zhao Yun advanced along the Liao River and Anran to an area roughly equivalent to the later Shuangliao City. He set up camp on shore, strengthened defense facilities, and continuously transported supplies from the rear with grain fleets and stored them locally.

This place is nearly 300 miles further north than Gaoxian County (Tieling), but no one came to stop him.

……

In later generations, Zhao Yun set up camps in the Shuangliao area and along the Liaohe River to expand the camp and store grain. This series of actions naturally caused quite a stir.

After confirming the news, Fuyu King Wei Choutai immediately called his brother-in-law Gongsun Kang to discuss specific countermeasures.

"Zhao Yun suddenly marched forward to control the strategic point where the East and West Liao Rivers meet. Who did he want to attack? Could it be that he got news that we have already contacted Prime Minister Cao through the Yuyang Xianbei and Liaoxi Xianbei? So Zhao Yun wanted to strike first? Who leaked the news?"

Until this moment, Wei Choutai was still reflecting on whether his intelligence and diplomatic work were not thorough enough, which led to the information leak and thus Zhao Yun was summoned.

With his intelligence, how could he have imagined that the secret envoys who came with the fake letter to contact them were a trap set by Zhao Yun and Zhou Yu.

After all, Gongsun Kang and Zhao Yun had a "father-killing feud", so he didn't care much about this issue, but just encouraged his brother-in-law to make preparations as early as possible.

(Note: Gongsun Du was actually seriously ill when Zhao Yun attacked his camp, and was frightened to the point of worsening his condition, and died. He was not killed directly by Zhao Yun, similar to Sima Shi being frightened to death by Wen Yang. I mention this so that readers who read the book too long ago will not forget it.)
"When the time comes, why bother about who Zhao Yun came for? We have conspired with the Liaoxi Xianbei, and we all intend to rely on Prime Minister Cao and support each other. Sooner or later, we will have to fight Zhao Yun!

For now, we should try our best to organize our troops and go to Weiling to set up defenses, so as to prevent Zhao Yun from sneaking into the Sumo River and the fertile land of our country. Then let the Xianbei in Liaoxi join forces to send troops to Weiling to participate in the decisive battle. And invite the Goguryeo people to reinforce and explain to them the principle of lips and teeth being cold. "

The Weiling mentioned by Gongsun Kang is a vast plateau hundreds of miles long and more than 200 miles wide, roughly in the area of Gongzhuling in Jilin in later times, extending all the way south to between Shuangliao and Siping. It is the watershed between the Liaohe River system and the Songhua River system (called "Sumo River" in the late Han Dynasty), and the terrain is slightly higher than the river valley area, and is mostly formed by silt accumulated over millions of years.

The local land is fertile, but due to the high terrain, irrigation is inconvenient, and it was almost not cultivated during the Han Dynasty. If the Fuyu people wanted to farm, the low-lying valleys along the Songhua River were enough for them to farm. There was no need to develop the land a little further away from the valley, even if it was fertile, and it was left uncultivated.

However, because the wasteland is too fertile, reeds grow densely on the plateau, which never withers for many years and only dormant in winter. Hence the name Weiling. There are several relatively low valleys between the Weiling plateaus, which are suitable for marching.

These valleys were actually tributaries of the Liaohe River and the Songhua River in ancient times, but over time, they became abandoned valleys due to siltation and river diversion. Gongsun Kang had fled to Fuyu for many years and knew that the key to defending Fuyu was to block these valleys on Weiling.

Although Zhao Yun could choose another route from the plateau, it was not as safe and convenient as taking these abandoned river routes.

At that time, the upper reaches of the Liaohe River were full of swamps, which were historically known as the "Liaoze". In summer and autumn, the mud was particularly muddy, and it was easy for troops to get stuck in the swamps if they walked around randomly.

When Wei Choutai heard his brother-in-law being so anxious, he also knew that the method his brother-in-law suggested was indeed correct in military terms.

But he was still unwilling to give in, and could not help but argue: "Even if Zhao Yun is coming for us, this step cannot be avoided in the end, but if we can let the Xianbei Jueji lead the charge, our army will take advantage of their fatigue, and the chances of victory will be greater, and the losses will be smaller.

In my opinion, we should send an envoy to stabilize Zhao Yun and pretend to be humble to delay the time. Of course, our army must not stop gathering troops and calling for reinforcements. We must prepare for both ends. Gongsun Kang was under a low roof and it was not easy to directly accuse his brother-in-law of being cowardly, so he agreed to do so. He went to prepare the army himself and set up camp along the Weiling Mountain to block and monitor Zhao Yun.

Moreover, his brother-in-law was preparing for war and delaying at the same time, not just delaying, which was very different from Song Yi. Gongsun Kang also did not have the prestige and foundation of Xiang Yu in the Chu army, so the two could only continue to cooperate peacefully and in appearance.

……

Gongsun Kang assembled the 7,000 troops that the Gongsun family had brought from Liaodong, as well as the new troops that had been expanded in Buyeo over the past five years, and part of the troops of his brother-in-law Wei Choutai.
They quickly prepared for the battle and set out within a few days, advancing from the Sumu River basin to the Weiling Terrace, setting up camp on the road to block Zhao Yun's advance.

At the same time, the envoy sent by Wei Choutai to flatter Zhao Yun also arrived at Zhao Yun's camp near Shuangliao in later generations at almost the same time.

The envoy of Wei Choutai brought valuable gifts, intending to paralyze Zhao Yun and temporarily ease the relationship. He also seemed to be groveling and asking:
"I have long heard that General Zuo is a powerful figure in Hebei. For more than a hundred years, our Fuyu Kingdom has been obediently serving the Han Dynasty and has never dared to make any mistakes. I wonder what the General Zuo is doing in Liaoze? Does he need the cooperation of our Fuyu army?"

Zhao Yun was originally going to continue to induce the enemy to gather their forces and build up their courage to fight him. Zhao Yun was not afraid of the enemy being too strong, but was only afraid that the enemy would not be strong enough and would flee. Now that the messenger had come to him, Zhao Yun had saved himself a lot of trouble.

He hastily said to the envoy in a tough manner: "Our army has recently learned that since the Cao thief defeated the Xianbei in Dai and subdued Kebi Neng last winter, he has sent envoys to stir up trouble on the grassland and demanded that the Xianbei in the three counties also surrender to the Cao thief.

There are also scouts reporting that they have captured some of the Xianbei people who were sent by Cao through the three counties, and they are contacting Buyeo and Goguryeo to confer titles on the kings of the Dongyi tribe. They are counting on you to join forces with Cao! Therefore, I have come here to thoroughly investigate the disloyal people who have colluded with Cao!

If you have no other intentions, you can send 10,000 troops to follow our army to attack the Liaoxi Xianbei Jueji tribe to show your true intentions! I have found out that Jueji is colluding with Cao thief! I also tell you that Cao thief is at the end of his strength and will eventually be destroyed. Those who collude with him will not have a good end! "

After Zhao Yun finished his harsh words, he did not say anything more, but just asked the envoy of Wei Choutai to withdraw. However, he then arranged for the envoy to visit his cavalry unit to show the magnificence of the army.

However, Zhao Yun had removed all the sensitive equipment that could be easily discovered and hidden them in advance so that the envoys could not see them. When he demonstrated his military strength, he also pretended to be real and deliberately used some tricks.

For example, Zhao Yun ordered some cavalry to return to the camp during the day and quietly leave at night, and then more troops arrived the next day. Then he asked the envoy to watch the scene of "the army reinforcements entering the camp" again.

But his "acting skills" were worse than when Dong Zhuo entered Luoyang 20 years ago. Dong Zhuo used this trick to bluff, but he successfully deceived the Han Northern Army in Luoyang and made He Jin's generals surrender to Dong.

Zhao Yun deliberately let Wei Choutai's envoy see the flaw, and then let him go - this move was obviously a plan Zhou Yu had made for Zhao Yun in advance.

After Wei Choutai's envoy returned, he told Wei Choutai and Gongsun Kang about the situation. The two of them then came up with other ideas.

"Zhao Yun expects my country of Fuyu to send 10,000 troops to fight with him against those Xianbei people who accepted Cao Cao's canonization? Oh, does he really not know that we have also surrendered to Cao, or is he pretending not to know? It has come to this point, and he still hopes to trick us into dying first, and then he can reap the benefits?"

Gongsun Kang was firmly against Liu Bei and Zhao Yun, so he immediately sneered and mocked him.

Wei Choutai was not as radical as him, but after a little thought, he had to admit that his brother-in-law was right. This matter was indeed a matter of mutual dependence, and there was no way out of expecting to deceive himself.

Then, Gongsun Kang took the initiative to ask the envoy some other details, including what he saw and heard along the way.

The messenger also told the truth, especially the details before and after he saw Zhao Yun's trick of "clearly there were not many troops in the Shuangliao camp, but in order to scare the Buyeo Kingdom, he repeatedly sent cavalry to the camp by boat."

Zhao Yun actually brought 28,000 cavalry to the Shuang Liao camp, but the number of troops he displayed was much smaller than the actual number.

During the days when Wei Choutai's envoys went to investigate, Zhao Yun also specifically ordered the army to cook less and eat more pre-prepared cooked food and dry food for a few days. This can be said to be a complete show, which completely concealed the strength of the troops and deceived Wei Choutai thoroughly.

At this moment, Wei Choutai and Gongsun Kang both thought that Zhao Yun had brought at most more than 10,000 cavalrymen, and they underestimated Zhao Yun's military strength by about half.

Gongsun Kang thought about it for a moment and immediately felt that he had grasped the truth. He quickly urged Wei Choutai, "Brother-in-law! Zhao Yun was probably because the situation on the southern front of Youzhou was tense, and a considerable part of his troops were tied up by Zhang He along the Yishui River! He might also be tied up by Cao Zhang, Cao Zhen and Ke Bineng in Dai County!
In short, Zhao Yun is surrounded by enemies, and now he has few troops to deal with us and the Liaoxi Xianbei Jueji, so he is trying to coax us and deceive us! We must not miss this opportunity!
"We, Jueji, Suli and I all have to fight to the death and risk everything. We can't hide. When the reinforcements from Goguryeo arrive, the four of us will join forces and take the initiative to attack and annihilate Zhao Yun on this Weiling Mountain!"

After thinking it over, Wei Choutai felt that his brother-in-law's plan was completely logical and consistent, and all the signs matched.

"Then we should gather all the troops of the country and the troops of two divisions of a friendly country and neighboring country, agree on a date to arrive at the same time, and then we will do our best to encircle and annihilate Zhao Yun on the Weiling Highlands!"

Although Wei Choutai has always been more patient than his brother-in-law, as the leader of the Dongyi tribe, he will not hesitate when the specific battle plan is finally decided.

The entire country of Fuyu could mobilize 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers, basically one man for every four households. In addition to the 7,000 to 8,000 deserters brought back by Gongsun Kang, and some other reinforcements, Fuyu had mobilized as many as 50,000 people in a short period of time.

After all, they are fighting on the interior and on their homeland to defend their country. If they lose, their country will be destroyed immediately, so the mobilization efficiency is still very high.

The Xianbei Jueji tribe was also in danger of tribal extinction, so they also gave their all to recruit 20,000 people.

The danger of Goguryeo in the south was not so urgent, so only more than 10,000 people were brought - but the Goguryeo of today was not the Goguryeo of the Sui and Tang dynasties in the future. Its national strength was not strong. It was just a group of fishing and hunting tribes hiding in the Changbai Mountain area.

Therefore, being able to mobilize more than 10,000 people is already a very hard work. Once they are severely hit, it will definitely be a fundamental blow.

Zhao Yun on the opposite side seemed to have not noticed the conspiracy of Wei Choutai and Gongsun Kang, and did not make any timely response.

During the next half month, Zhao Yun sent an envoy to negotiate with Wei Choutai, trying to use both kindness and force.

Seeing that negotiations were ineffective, he sent out a small group of archers to conduct some scout battles and intimidate others.

The constant friction in the scout war between the two sides did cause some tempers to fray, and the atmosphere of a decisive battle finally reached a climax of tension.

By early June, the four anti-Han coalition forces had finally assembled on the Weiling Terrace.

The Xianbei Suli (an internal supporter), Jueji, Buyeo Wei Choutai, and the Goguryeo army surrounded them from the northwest, northeast, and southwest, leaving only the southeast direction from the Liao River unencircled.

Theoretically, the total strength of the four-party coalition forces is close to 110,000.

On Zhao Yun's side, there were only 28,000 elite cavalrymen, and only 8,000 of them were iron cavalry of the steel can type.

It seems that in terms of the total military strength in the decisive battle, the Hu people had an advantage of four to one.

But how could these Hu people accurately estimate the elite level of Zhao Yun's cavalry?

Moreover, among their 110,000 people, 10,000 to 20,000 were spies arranged by Zhao Yun.

When the real fighting breaks out, it will not be 110,000 against 28,000, but 90,000 against more than 40,000. The actual comparison of troop strength is not that exaggerated.

More importantly, Zhao Yun was stationed in the interior with his troops contracted, and his internal supporters were hiding in the dark, so they would not become a weakness as long as they were not exposed in advance.

The anti-Han coalition forces were surrounding them from three directions, and communication was already inconvenient for fighting on the outside. It was even more difficult to expect them to arrive at the battlefield at the same time.

After confirming the enemy situation, Zhao Yun quickly finalized the final battle plan: No matter if they come from four directions, I will only go one way, pick the enemy that rushes the fastest, and create a little time difference. By the way, I can also pull the remaining enemies and make them reveal bigger flaws.

(End of this chapter)