In view of the difficulty of capturing Taoyi and the joy of capturing Taoyi, Li Dui, the Fengyang lord of Zhao State, led the Qi and Zhao coalition forces to repel the Song army and occupied Taoyi, rewarded the three armies and invited the generals of the Qi and Zhao army.

This time, the Fengyang Jun Li Dui led his army to attack the Song State, bringing a total of 100,000 Zhao troops, and there were four generals under the tent, namely Zhao Xi, Dong Shu, Xu Jun and Lian Po.

The State of Qi sent 50,000 troops, led by Tian Che and Gao Zheng, so the total force of the Qi and Zhao coalition forces was about 150,000.

After the reward of Qi and Zhao coalition forces in Taoyi was completed, Fengyang Jun Li Dui continued to attack Song State under the urging of Qi general Tian Che and Gao Zheng.

Speaking of which, Meng Hu was right. The one who had previously stationed troops in Taoyi to resist the Qi and Zhao coalition forces in Taoyi was the Sima Jingzhen of the Song State. This old man led 20,000 to 30,000 troops to resist the Qi and Zhao coalition forces in Jishui for more than a month, but in the end, Zhao Xi, Lian Po and others were inevitably captured by the Jishui River. Considering the huge gap in the army between the enemy and us, Jing had to retreat and retreated to Cao County in the south, Jing Jing and other reinforcements from the allied countries.

On the other hand, Li Du, the king of Fengyang, discussed the next countermeasures with the generals of the Qi and Zhao army.

It was not to discuss how to attack Cao County. After all, Cao County is not as good as Taoyi, and it has no danger to defend. As long as he 150,000 Qi and Zhao coalition forces surrounded the city, it would only be a matter of time before it could break through.

What Li Dui really was concerned about was the attitude of Wei.

Wei was an ally of Song and was salivating towards the rich Taoyi of Song. How could it tolerate Zhao occupying Taoyi?

Speaking of which, since Zhao Zhufu ascended the throne, the forms of Zhao and Wei have gradually changed.

Before this, Wei State was a lean camel larger than a horse. Even though Zhao State's national strength was already thriving during the reign of Zhao Suhou, it was still somewhat inferior to Wei State. In addition, Qi and Wei State had previously concluded an alliance with Hui Shi, so in general, Zhao State still could not replace Wei State as the leader of the Three Jins.

Until Zhao's father ascended the throne, he worked hard to govern and prepare for war, Zhao's strength quickly rose and had already faintly surpassed Wei.

But in general, the strength of Wei and Zhao is still roughly equal. The biggest advantage of Zhao State is that the Qi-Zhao Alliance is stronger than that of Qi-Qi-Wei Alliance. It is no wonder that Wei State let Xue Gongtian Wen, who had a grudge against King Tiandi of Qi, become the prime minister, and also concluded an alliance with Song State, which Qi was determined to annex? It is no exaggeration to say that the current alliance between Qi and Wei can be said to have been in name only.

Will Wei send troops to rescue Song?

Fengyang Jun Li Dui thinks it will!

Even though Zhao State sent Li Ji, Han and Xu, led 50,000 troops to station troops in Zhongmu, threatening Zhucheng, Hebei, Li Dui still believed that Wei State would send reinforcements to prevent him from attacking Song State.

The reason is very simple. Once Qi annexed the State of Song, the territory of Qi would border a large area with Wei. At that time, Qi and Zhao could form a more fierce attack on Wei. As long as the King of Wei was not stupid, he would never allow Qi to annexed the State of Song.

Therefore, when Qi general Tian Che and Gao Zheng repeatedly urged Li Dui to lead the army to continue attacking Song State, Li Dui blocked the two of them with such words: "It is not clear that Wei State's intentions are yet to be clear. If our army rashly penetrates the hinterland of Song State, it is difficult to guarantee that the rear route will not be intercepted by the Wei State's army. Once the rear route is intercepted, the consequences will be unimaginable."

For this reason, the Qi and Zhao coalition under the command of the King of Fengyang Li Dui was divided into two teams. Zhao Xi led generals such as Lian Po, Tian Che, Gao Zheng to attack Cao County, while he and Shu Dong and Xu Jun were stationed in Taoyi to prevent the Wei team from tracing his retreat.

On this day, just as Fengyang Jun Li Dui played chess with Uncle Dong in the Taoyi government, while waiting for the good news that Zhao Xi, Lian Po and others had captured Cao County, soldiers suddenly came in to report: "Report to Li Gao, a scout found the traces of the Wei army outside Taoyi city."

"What should come must come..."

Fengyang Jun Li Dui nodded, not feeling any surprise. He picked up a piece from the chess bowl and asked casually: "It must be the army sent by Wei to support Song... Have you ever sent someone to inquire about the facts of the Wei army?"

"This..." The soldiers who came to report the news hesitated for a moment, lowered their heads and said, "The vanguard of the Wei army is a cavalry of unknown number of people. Our cavalry dare not act rashly..."

“…”

Li Dui, who was twisting the chess piece, was stunned when he heard this, turned his head in surprise and looked over: "Caval?"

At this time, the Zhao literati and official from the State of Zhao who sat opposite him also asked in surprise: "Li Xiang, does Wei have cavalry? I thought that only I, Zhao, had cavalry."

Li Dui shook his head inexplicably, frowned and asked the soldiers, "What flag is that cavalry...?"

"Fangcheng!" the soldier replied seriously: "In addition to the Wei banner, the cavalry attacked the banner of "Fangcheng"."

"Fangcheng..."

Li Dui put the chess piece in his hand back into the chess bowl, stroked his beard as if he was thinking. At this moment, the face of a young man flashed through his mind, the face of an extremely young guard Sima who had once stood beside Master Zhao's father with a sword.

"It's him!" Li Dui's face showed a bit of solemn expression.

Uncle Dong was puzzled by this and asked, "Who is it?"

"Meng Zhong!" Li Dui said in a deep voice: "He is now in Wei State. He defeated the Qin general Bai Qi in the Battle of Yique the year before yesterday, so he was named Fangcheng Order by the King of Wei. It is not surprising that cavalry appeared under his command..."

"Meng Zhong?" Uncle Dong thought for a while, frowned and said, "Is this name... Could it be Sima, the guard of the previous king, and Meng Zhong, the guard of Xinwei?"

"Well." Li Dui nodded and said in a deep voice: "When Meng Zhong and his group of envoys from Song State came to our Zhao State. They were attracted by the previous kings and promoted them to guards. They personally taught them riding skills... I think after Meng Zhong later defected to Wei State, they followed the cavalry of our Zhao State, and formed a cavalry..."

Speaking of this, he immediately ordered the soldier: "Sent to Zhang Ji, asking Zhang Ji to immediately send cavalry to inquire about the truth of the Wei army and see how many troops the Wei army has."

"Here!" The soldier left with his fists.

Looking at the solemn expression on Li Dui's face, Uncle Dong asked in confusion: "When I look at Li Xiang's expression, it seems that Li is quite afraid of Meng Zhong?"

“…”

Li Dui glanced at Uncle Dong and said nothing.

What can he say?

Thinking about the traitor Zhang, who led the royal army to fight against rebellion, was beaten to death by Pang Qian, Meng Zhong and others. If he hadn't instigated Niu Jian at the critical moment, he might have conquered Handan and become the monarch of Zhao State?

A moment later, Zhang Ji received Li Dui's order.

He immediately summoned a thousand cavalry and led his troops to leave Taoyi and headed straight to the place that the Zhao cavalry had mentioned earlier.

Do Wei State have cavalry?

Zhang Ji was also quite surprised by this.

However, after a moment, he believed in this fact when he saw the Fangcheng cavalry led by Meng Hu and Hua Hu with the banner of Wei.

At this time, Meng Hu and Hua Hu also noticed the thousand Zhao cavalry led by Zhang Ji in the distance.

Of course, what they are most concerned about is the harness of the Zhao cavalry, or more directly, the stirrups of the Zhao cavalry.

Like Meng Hu and Hua Hu, the two people remembered that the Zhao cavalry were still using unilateral stirrups, which means that this group of Zhao cavalry would definitely not be the opponent of the other Fangcheng cavalry in the head-on confrontation. Fangcheng cavalry has been confirmed from the Qin cavalry.

However, the cavalry of Zhao State is much more sophisticated than that of Qin State cavalry, and it may not be impossible to make up for the gap caused by some of the bilateral stirrups.

Licking his lips, Meng Hu smiled, and then lowered his voice and said to Hua Hu: "Do you want to play with these Zhao cavalry?"

Hua Hu said lightly: "A Zhong just asked me to check the current situation in Taoyi. It is not the time to fight with the Zhao cavalry..."

"Hey, you're just having fun." Meng Hu shrugged and said, "Don't you want to know whether it is the powerful cavalry of Zhao State or the powerful cavalry of our Fangcheng City?"

After hearing this, Hua Hu was a little shaken. After all, the way they trained cavalry was to learn from Zhao State. Now that they met a teacher, he of course wanted to verify it and see how much money did the cavalry in Fangcheng have learned from Zhao State, or whether they already had the ability to defeat the old teachers.

Seeing that Hua Hu was silent, Meng Hu immediately knew it. After chuckling, he shouted to the distance: "Hey, the cavalry general of Zhao State opposite, has not advanced but does not advance, but why? If you have the courage, you will fight with our knights..."

Hearing Meng Hu's provocation from afar, Zhang Ji from Zhao Qi was slightly stunned.

"This sound...is a bit familiar."

After thinking about it, he shouted tentatively: "The Wei General on the opposite side is Meng Hu?"

“Eh?”

Meng Hu was stunned when he heard this, and then laughed and said to Hua Hu: "Did you see, our courage has already been passed on to Zhao State!"

"No?"

Hua Hu was simply unacceptable. Just as he was about to speak, he saw a general among the thousands of Zhao cavalry opposite him slowly rode out, clasping his fists at them from afar and shouting: "I am Zhang Ji, brother Meng Hu, don't be fine."

"Zhang Ji?"

Meng Hu and Hua Hu looked at each other, and immediately gave up the idea of ​​giving the Zhao cavalry a warning to each other.

The reason is very simple, because when Meng Zhong and others were in Zhao State, they had a brief cooperation with Zhang Ji and had a harmonious relationship with each other. Later, when they protected Zhao Zhufu and tried to escape from Zhao State, Zhang Ji, who was ordered by Niu Jian to lead the cavalry to chase them, had privately let them go.

Meng Zhong and others have not yet paid back this great favor.

At this time, Cai Cheng smiled and said, "Are they the two Sima's old acquaintances?"

Hua Hu did not deny it, nodded and said, "When we were in Zhao State, we once owe this man a huge favor." After that, he said to Meng Hu, "Let's go and say hello."

So Meng Hu and Hua Hu asked their cavalry to stand by on the spot, and they rode forward.

Seeing this, Zhang Jiyi stood alone and both sides stopped a few feet away.

At this time, Zhang Ji looked at Meng Hu and Hua Hu, nodded and said with a smile: "Meng Hu, Hua Hu, they are indeed two brothers... Are Meng Sima and the other brothers also here?"

The Meng Sima he mentioned refers to Meng Zhong.

Hearing this, Hua Hu shook his head and said, "A Zhong is not here, he is behind..."

As he said that, he nodded at Zhang Ji and asked, "Zhang Ji, why are you in Li Dui's army?"

Zhang Ji shook his head with a wry smile, looked back at his cavalry, and then lowered his voice to Meng Hu, Hua Hu and others, "After the death of the general, our cavalry was incorporated by Anping Jun. Later, Anping Jun died, and Fengyang Jun took charge of Zhao State... Where else can I be?" After a pause, he smiled and said, "No more, the two brothers now hold military power. I look at the cavalry under the two brothers, sitting upright and stable, and you will know that these cavalry are superb..."

"Hehe." Meng Hu smirked twice and said, "Even if you are Zhang Ji, the secret cannot be revealed to you, unless you join us... How about Zhang Ji, if you stayed under Li Dui's hands, what if you join us?"

He and Hua Hu both knew very well that in terms of cavalry, the cavalry of other Fangcheng would never be the opponent of the cavalry of Zhao, but who made them have the artifact of bilateral stirrups?

When Zhang Ji heard Meng Hu's words, he was also amused and crying.

Of course he knew that Meng Hu and Hua Hu had hatred for Anping Jun Zhao Cheng, Fengyang Jun Li Dui and others because of the death of Zhao Zhufu, but personally, he was actually quite good at Fengyang Jun Li Dui.

So he politely refused, "If you are desperate in the future, please join you again. At that time, please don't turn your back."

Meng Hu and Hua Hu looked at each other and stopped forcing them.

At this time, Zhang Ji tentatively said: "Today, the two brothers led the cavalry to this point, is there something important?"

Hearing this, Meng Hu laughed strangely and said, "You guy, you are turning around and trying to spy on our military situation... Well, it's okay to tell you. This time, Li Dui joined forces with Qi to attack Song, which made both Qin and Wei very unhappy. Therefore, Qin and Wei sent coalition forces to attack you..."

"Ahu!" Hua Hu frowned and looked at Meng Hu.

"It's okay." Meng Hu waved his hand and immediately said to Zhang Ji seriously: "Because you have great kindness for us that day, I will tell you the truth. Li Dui will definitely be defeated in this war. You'd better think about the way out..."

Zhang Ji frowned, but looking at Meng Hu's sincere expression, he also understood that this might not be Meng Hu's intimidation.

Nodding, he asked again: "How many troops do you have?"
To be continued...