Zhu Gai sat on his horse and pondered for a while, then he looked up at the sun, which was slightly to the west in the afternoon. He then asked: "How did you lose all fifty of your cavalry? Tell me in detail."
Song Wei knew things were not good, but still tried to gather himself and replied, "General, when I led the five hundred cavalry through the valley between the two low mountains to the west of Guanche, just as we entered, about a hundred cavalrymen were shot at from the woods on both sides of the low mountains by Wu soldiers."
"The subordinate knew they had been trapped and quickly ordered a retreat. They only managed to gather their forces on a mound of soil about three miles away and form an array."
Zhu Gai asked again, "Did you see how many Wu soldiers there were?"
Song Wei lowered his head, "At the time of the retreat, it was urgent, and with the dense woods, I didn't get a clear count of the number of Wu soldiers."
Zhu Gai had already grasped the reins of his horse with his right hand. "Did any Wu soldiers come to pursue your retreating unit?"
"Before the subordinate came to find General, there were no enemy troops chasing," Song Wei continued.
Zhu Gai squinted at his loyal follower in front of him and whipped Song Wei's shoulder with the horsewhip.
Zhu Gai immediately said, "Your five hundred cavalry only advanced one hundred, and Wu soldiers couldn't resist shooting arrows at you. This must be a small detachment of Wu troops used for scouting. If it were a large army, how could you be here seeking me now?"
"Quickly go back, take your troops to the place where you were ambushed earlier. If Wu soldiers are still there, wait here at half a li away and form an array."
"If the Wu soldiers have already left, charge west ahead of them immediately and make sure to hold them back."
Song Wei suddenly realized, and quickly saluted his own general on horseback. He then rode at full speed towards the carriage.
In accordance with the arrangement of General Zhu Gai this morning, Song Wei's thousand cavalry were only responsible for finding a campground and clearing the way. If they encountered a small detachment of Wu soldiers on flat ground, Song Wei would naturally lead the cavalry to split and charge them.
But the Wu soldiers were hidden in the woods, and all Song Wei could do was retreat and form an array to report to his general. Whether it was dismounting for hand-to-hand combat or advancing forward while enduring arrows, Song Wei did not yet have the authority to bear the potential losses.
By the time Zhu Gai, leading the remaining 9,000 cavalry, arrived at the carriage, an envoy who had been waiting there informed Zhu Gai that Wu soldiers stationed at this location had already fled westward and Song Wei had led his troops to follow and pursue them.
Zhu Gai nodded. Since the Wu soldiers had already fled, taking advantage of the high sun, Zhu Gai climbed a high place near the carriage to observe the terrain. He then selected a suitable location to order the camp to be set up.
Tonight, the troops under Right General Zhu Gai will stay at the carriage.
In fact, whether it's foot soldiers or cavalry, the actual time used for marching each day is only about half a day from dawn to noon. The remaining nearly half a day is usually used for setting up camp. Camping in the wild is of utmost importance.
The small-scale encounter battle on the first day of January in the Yuan dynasty, the vanguard of Wei's troops suffered a loss of fifty cavalry. Later, while chasing the retreating Wu troops, they killed another 100 Wu soldiers. The result of this battle was quickly sent to both commanders.
The commander of the Wei army was actually Emperor Cao Rui himself. By the afternoon of January 5th, Emperor Cao Rui was still on his way to Wuqiangkou. He would not arrive until two hours later, at nightfall.
While the commander of the Wu army, Lu Xun, also known as Lu Bingyan, was at the Wu army's large camp to the east of Wanquan City on the opposite side of the Wu River.
As early as January 1st, when the Wei state changed the year from "Huangchu" to "Taipinghe" on the Chinese calendar, Wu state had already started the year as "Huangwu Wushu" and progressed to "Huangwu Liushu."
Since Emperor Cao Pi of the Wei state launched a three-pronged attack on the Wu state in the third year of the Huangchu era, Sun Quan had ceased to follow the Wei's era names and instead used "Huangwu" as the era name within Wu territory. Calculating from then until now, it would have been the sixth year.
On the first day of January in the year of Taiping, Huangwu Liushu, Wu state was just as bustling as Wei state. Human beings are inherently ruled by laws and will naturally look for times with 'meaning' to carry out tasks.
Sun Quan offered sacrifices to the heaven at Wanquan mouth, and made Lu Xun his Generalissimo in command of the 100,000 troops.
On that day, Sun Quan had exhausted all his efforts to express his trust in Lu Xun. As Lu Xun was about to lead his troops northward, Sun Quan even personally led the horse and whipped it to clear the path for Lu Xun. He also ordered all the officers to kneel and pay homage to Lu Xun.
This is truly an honor to the extreme.
At that time, Lu Xun was seated on his horse, watching Sun Quan who was to the side of him leading the horse and holding the whip, feeling no sorrow or joy in his heart.
Since King Wu has entrusted state affairs to me, I, Lu Bingyan, will give my all. As for other matters, like Zhang Wen's words and the various things King Wu had done before, Lu Xun no longer thinks about them.
Since the situation has come to this point, it is better to accept fate calmly.
Carefully calculated, Wu's troops this time were also about 100,000 in number.
In addition to the 8,000 troops of the navy led by He Qi, who patrolled between the Yangtze River and Wan River, and the 2,000 central troops under Song Qian guarding Sun Quan at Wankou, the remaining 90,000 troops had been handed over to Lu Xun to lead north.
In addition to appointing Lu Xun as the commander, Sun Quan also appointed Zhu Huan as the commander of the left wing and Quan Cong as the commander of the right wing.
Sun Quan also lived up to his promise on the city wall that day, ordering both Zhu Huan and Quan Cong to each lead a route and command 30,000 troops respectively. With the 30,000 troops led by Lu Xun himself, it was exactly 90,000.
The route from Wankou to Wancheng is much shorter than the one from Shouchun to Wancheng used by the Cao Wei.
The distance from Shouchun to Wuqiangkou is 355 miles, and the distance from Wuqiangkou to Wancheng is 180 miles, for a total of 535 miles.
And the Wu troops, starting from Wankou, would find it much easier than the Wei troops.
Although there is less water in winter, the large ships can still proceed westward along the Wan River for about eighty miles. After that, they disembark and travel by land for another fifty-five miles to reach Wancheng. This takes advantage of the naval power and the benefits of the river systems.
Wancheng is located in a plain at the foot of Tianzhushan mountain, surrounded by nearly parallel rivers - the east side is the Wanquan River and the west side is the Qianquan River. However, the distance between Wanquan River and Qianquan River is only about ten miles.
Therefore, if someone can control the Wanquan River and Qianquan River, and also lock up the north and south of Wancheng, Wancheng will truly be trapped in a square.
Even a divine general relies on geographical advantages, and so does Lu Xun near Wancheng.
On the evening of January 1st, Lu Xun led his troops to the Qianquankou, eighty li west of Wancheng.
On the morning of the second day, Lu Xun gave all two thousand cavalrymen collected from various Wu troops to Pan Jiang. He ordered Pan Jiang to quickly head north from Qianquankou along the Wan River.
By the morning of the second day, Pan Jiang had successfully blocked the road from Wancheng to Wuqiangkou with his troops.
Meanwhile, Lu Xun led his troops to lock the city from both north and south sides of Wancheng and established three large camps that stretched twenty miles across the east bank of the Wan River opposite Wancheng.
And the small-scale encounter battle at Guacher was exactly the first battle between the scouting troops sent by Lu Xun in the direction of Wuqiangkou and the vanguard of General Zhu Gai's right troops.
The Wu troops numbered only five hundred, and upon their arrival at Guacher, they encountered the forces of Song Wei, the detachment marshal under Zhu Gai. As the vanguard of the Wu troops retreated, they were ambushed by Cao's cavalry and suffered a loss of one hundred men before escaping into the hills on both sides of the road.
Fifty cavalry versus one hundred infantry - calculatedly, Wei was at a slight disadvantage. However, the loss of just dozens of men in such a large battle of over 200,000 troops on both sides is truly insignificant.
Guacher is ninety miles away from the Wu army's large camp in Wancheng. The news of the small-scale encounter battle at Guacher had been transmitted to the Wancheng camp by both Wei and Wu factions in the late night.
However, the main tent of Lu Xun's troops was still brightly lit.
This is the second time that Lu Xun has been appointed by King Wu to lead all the generals and be entrusted with the whole nation's troops.
During the Battle of Yiling, Lu Xun's reputation and authority had not yet been thoroughly established to the point where he could sufficiently intimidate the other generals. Therefore, there were often those who disagreed with Lu Xun, and Lu Xun had to persuade them politely and often invoke King Sun Quan's orders to get them to follow orders.
But this time, with the great victory at Yiling and multiple preparations by King Wu in Wuchang and Wankou before this, Lu Xun's command orders were carried out without hesitation, and almost no one dared to act up.
The leading troops sent to Guacher were from Liu Shao, the general who had been stationed at Wankou on the north bank of the river for several years. And Liu Shao was under the command of Zhu Huan, the commander of the left wing.
Even if the East Wu had fewer horses, the vanguard would still be equipped with ten riders for dispatch purposes. At this time, all the generals of the East Wu were in Lu Xun's main tent discussing matters. The dispatch riders had first arrived at Zhu Huan's camp, and learned that Zhu Huan was at the main tent of the middle army as the commander of the left wing. Therefore, they galloped quickly to search for him.
Upon receiving the front-line news, Zhu Huan rose and bowed in the tent and said, "Generalissimo, the general of my troops, Liu Shao, reported from Guacher that when our scouting troops of one hundred fifty men arrived at Guacher in the afternoon, they shot arrows to drive off a detachment of Wei cavalry. Wei lost about fifty cavalry. "
"And during their retreat along the way, they were killed by returning Wei cavalry, resulting in approximately a hundred casualties," Zhu Huan said after a moment's thought. "Generalissimo, since the Wei army's vanguard has camped at Guacher and the strategic importance of Guacher cannot be ignored," Zhu Huan continued.
"Should I send troops to intercept the Wei army at Guacher?"
Sitting at the main seat of the tent, Lu Xun spoke in a calm and emotionless manner, "Guacher is about ninety li away from here. Our troops are not good at fighting on foot against cavalry. We should wait until they arrive tired."
"General Zhu, your troops should not move for the time being. I will have my own arrangements later."
"Liu Shao is under the command of Zhu Huan, and since Liu Shao's forces, who are under Zhu Huan's command, have suffered losses in front of Guacher, and the Generalissimo does not allow me to move my forces, Zhu Huan naturally has some doubts in his heart."
Zhu Huan asked with a bow: "Generalissimo, will we just wait here?"
Seeing Zhu Huan's persistent questioning, Lu Xun explained seriously to Zhu Huan, "General Zhu, before we left from Wankou, the Supreme has made it very clear to us."
"This time, we don't seek to capture cities or loot territories. We only want to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy. The victory does not depend on ourselves, but on the enemy."
"Our large camp in Wancheng is only ninety li away from Guacher. If we send troops to intercept the Wei army at Guacher at this time, there is a risk that our troops may be broken by Wei's cavalry."
Zhu Huan had some reservations in his heart, and immediately said, "Generalissimo, even if we don't go to Guacher, we can't just sit here and wait for the Wei army to come. With only ninety miles without defense here?"
Lu Xun shook his head: "Of course not. General Zhu, you have always been good at attacking. I have made other arrangements for your troops. Please sit down first. We will wait for Liu Shao's forces to return before letting your troops advance."
Zhu Huan bowed slightly and then sat down directly.
(This chapter is completed.)
