Hunu County has more than 20,000 households and more than 100,000 people, with more than 8,000 hectares of paddy fields and more than 5,000 hectares of dry fields. Nearly half of the food in Yuyang County is produced by Hunu.
It must be captured as soon as possible, and the fox slaves cannot be disturbed, otherwise they will starve next year.
Hunu County is only fifty miles away from Yuyang County, and the news of Liu Xiang's rebellion could not be blocked for more than a few days.
Fortunately, there were more than ten thousand refugees wrapped in yellow scarves outside Hunu City, which gave Liu Xiang an excuse to defraud the city.
Yuyang has been closed for three days.
In these three days, Liu Xiang recruited miners and prisoners, 5,700 young men in the city, and organized and trained the left and right armies with 3,000 men each.
Cui Yi roped in the 300 original armored cavalrymen in custody and merged them into the Xiaoqi camp.
There are still 800 patients and 70 detainees in the Yuyang Camp. The patients have basically recovered, but Liu Xiang is afraid that the typhoid fever will recur, so they still need to be isolated for a few days while guarding the camp.
There was no pressure from guards in the camp. The whole Yuyang knew that there were plague patients in the camp, so only fools would provoke them.
A shooting camp has been established, with 600 crossbowmen.
The guard camp was redeployed from all over the place and only 300 people were left.
The middle base camp was the worst, with only a hundred Liu Xiang's soldiers. They were divided into two teams, one was named Suwei, responsible for security; the other was named Tiqi, responsible for detecting intelligence and delivering news.
In the past three days, Liu Xiang focused on recruiting troops, and finally the reorganization was completed.
He didn't want to waste any more time. He couldn't let the refugees outside Hunu City continue to cause harm to Xiangting, and he couldn't wait for Hunu County to recruit young people into an army. He had to take advantage of Hunu's emptiness and the weakness of the refugees to quickly pacify them.
If the war is delayed and affects spring plowing, no harvest in autumn will cause serious trouble.
He ordered the guards to fire two battalions to defend the city, and Liu Xiang led 7,500 infantry and cavalry to attack the fox slaves.
Cui Yi was ordered to lead the Xiaoqi camp as the front army, and he took the token document from Yuyang Prefect, pretending to be reinforcements, and set off first.
Liu Xiang led the rest of the troops behind him and walked slowly. It's not that he didn't want to speed up. The left army and the right army were newly formed. If he walked faster, he would be afraid that they would be scattered.
I don't expect them to have any combat effectiveness. They just follow the strong momentum, and the main force is Xiaoqi.
That is to say, because there were no troops stationed by the Hu slaves and there were a bunch of refugees outside the city, no one on the two sides could fight, so Liu Xiang dared to drag these new soldiers onto the battlefield. It was like letting them see blood and fight with a smooth wind.
If you want to build a strong army, in addition to clear rewards and punishments and strict training, you still need to fight. It is best to win the battle. Only by moving from one victory to another can the confidence of the soldiers be improved and they dare to fight.
Only strong soldiers raised through winning battles can form a truly strong army.
The team was dragged along the road for several miles, walking slowly and lazily like a well-fed python.
Liu Xiang looked at the lazy recruits and felt anxious. Can he really win the battle with these guys?
Not to mention Liu Xiang's troops who were marching slowly, Cui Yi and his Xiaoqi marched all the way quickly and arrived near Fox Nu in less than two hours.
Looking at Hunu County in the distance, Cui Yi was going to let his men and horses rest for a while, then disperse the refugees and try to open the city gate in a false way.
The fox slave has been surrounded by refugees. The county magistrate is Zhang Yong, the nephew of the prefect Zhang Ju. He bought the fox slave order at the beginning of the year and was blocked in the city just a few days after taking office.
He was very anxious. He was very good at teasing the maidens of the flying eagle and so on. He was also good at amassing money in a name, but he was not good at leading troops to fight.
Besides, even if he wants to lead an army, he doesn't have any fox slaves. There are only one county captain, two thieves, and about 400 servants in the county. Is it enough to feed the refugees? I heard that the refugees eat everything.
The city had been besieged for four days. When he first discovered the refugees, he sent for help, but his uncle asked him to close the city and defend himself.
Then, he couldn't get out.
He wanted to ask each government in the city to provide some long-term guards, but those people only gave him a hundred old, weak, sick and disabled people, and they killed the embryos. My uncle was the prefect Zhang Ju.
He also organized Qingzhuang, but those untouchables looked just like refugees, and they always felt like they were trying to eat him.
Zhang Yong was very anxious.
County Lieutenant Zhao Yong was also very anxious. The county magistrate asked him to go to the city on duty and he did not go home for several days. His wife and concubines were all in the magistrate's house and they said it was safe there, but he always felt something was wrong with his head.
"Marquis Yuan, if Magistrate Zhang asks someone to leave the city, you have to protect him as your brother."
Zhang Zhao looked at the refugees outside the city. They were all skinny and skinny, sitting or lying in the open space outside the city. They might not be able to breathe in the next moment and die in the wild.
That's it, what's there to worry about? Just take a few carts of grain out and we'll be done with it?
"Don't worry, County Lieutenant, they are just refugees. Let me leave the city and we can disperse them."
"Brother Marquis Yuan, don't underestimate the Yellow Turban Moth Thieves. I heard that there is a fierce commotion in Guangyang, the governor is dead, and Governor Liu is trapped in the isolated city. I'm afraid it's not going to be good.
These thieves outside the city must be making plans to trick us out of the city. Someone has also read military books. How can we deceive someone with just a small plan? We must not leave the city, and we must not fall into the thieves' schemes."
Zhang Zhao had a short temper. He had long wanted to leave the city. It was not that he wanted to wipe out the Yellow Turbans, but that he was worried about his father Zhang Huai. His father lived in Lushui Pavilion not far from the county. What would happen if these Yellow Turban bandits wandered over?
He found a dozen rangers and equipped his hundreds of servants with bows, arrows and spears, just because he wanted to leave the city and visit his father at home.
But the damn county captain kept blocking him, and Zhang Zhao wanted to kill him with a knife.
Hearing the county captain nagging him again about not being able to leave the city or fall into the trap, he was so angry that he rolled his eyes and didn't bother to answer his questions. He stared at the location of Lushui Pavilion in the northwest without saying a word, his heart, liver, spleen and lungs burning like charcoal.
Cui Yi didn't know how many people in Hunu County were worried, but he was in a good mood now.
It has always been his dream to lead an army to conquer all directions. Now that his dream has come true, he feels extremely happy.
He didn't think it was a problem to capture Hu Nu. He could just attack it if he couldn't open the city gate. Hu Nu was not a fortified city or a dangerous pass, and there were no strong troops stationed inside.
He smiled and said to the people around him: "Brothers, have you built up your strength? The front is for meritorious deeds. Those who run slowly will eat dust behind, hahahaha!"
All the sergeants from the Xiaoqi Battalion also laughed and said, "That's right, that's right, let's just eat ashes if we don't have the strength, brothers are going to take the credit."
While laughing, each other adjusted their armor.
When Cui Yi saw that everyone had finished arranging, he waved his hand and shouted: "Get on your horse, disperse the refugees, and go straight for the fox slaves."
Nine Hundred Knights, led by Cui Yi, drove their horses, walked slowly, and slowly approached the fox slave.
They are all veterans, and they are just joking. They galloped from several miles away. That was not going to fight, that was going to die.
Slowly approach, form a formation, start trotting when you are four to five hundred steps away from the enemy's formation, increase your speed when you are within the range of the crossbow, and only start galloping when you are twenty or thirty steps away from the enemy's formation.
Only in this way can the horse power be maintained and the enemy's formation be broken through in one fell swoop. Only then can the war horses have the strength to carry them and fight across the enemy's formation.
Break the formation in, break the formation and come out.
They are all familiar with this matter.
Nine hundred armored cavalry approached slowly, and the sound of 3,600 horse hooves trampling on the ground was like a dull drum beating on the heart, making people breathless.
The refugees ran away early, and did not even dare to look back at them. They just kept running with their heads down, and kept running, as far as possible.
Xiaoqi ignored the fleeing refugees. That was not their goal. They maintained their formation and drove directly to the Fox Nu city.
Cui Yi looked up at the frightened defenders on the city wall and shouted:
"Yuyang Jiaqi has been ordered to come to our rescue. Please open the city gate as soon as possible."