Thief Emperor

Chapter 779 Blocking the door!

It was only at this point that Li Yun finally understood the Shuofang Army, or rather, understood what Wei Quanzhong was thinking.

There are not so many fools in this world. At least those who can sit in General Wei's current position are unlikely to be fools. Even in their perspective, the main force of the Jiangdong Army has advanced nearly halfway to the east, and the troops near Luoyang are empty at this time, the Shuofang Army is still unwilling to fight to the death with the Jiangdong Army directly.

Or rather, they don't really believe it in their hearts.

Therefore, although they were forced to leave Guanzhong, General Wei's strategy for this trip out of the pass was to take the lower three routes. They did not hope to decide the outcome of a battle with the Jiangdong Army in the Central Plains, nor did they expect to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to severely damage the Jiangdong Army, or to regain some of the lost Central Plains from Li Yun.

These Shuofang troops now simply want to mess up the Central Plains again, or in other words, mess up the Central Plains under Li Yun's rule again, and delay the process of great peace in the Central Plains. In fact, they want to delay the process of Li Yun's future occupation of the world and conquest of all directions.

Li Yun had originally retreated to the vicinity of Luoyang, preparing to overlook the overall situation on the battlefield and fight a real battle with the Shuofang Army. However, this was no longer necessary at this time.

He greatly overestimated the Shuofang Army and Wei Quanzhong.

The Shuofang Army might still be strong in combat, and Wei Quanzhong might still be one of the most powerful princes in the world, but in Li Yun's heart, the evaluation of this army, including Wei Quanzhong himself, has plummeted.

When Li Yun and Li Zheng arrived at Shanzhou City, it was still firmly in the hands of the Jiangdong Army. When Yu Ye knew that Li Yun had arrived, he hurried over, half-knelt in front of Li Yun, bowed his head and saluted: "Greetings, my Lord!"

Li Yun raised his hand: "Stand up and talk."

After Yu Ye stood up, Li Zheng beside him smiled and said, "Ye Wa, do you still recognize me or not?"

Yu Ye then noticed Li Zheng, and was immediately surprised and delighted. He immediately clasped his fists and said, "General Li, you are here too!"

When the anti-theft team was formed, Zhou Liang was the leader, but at that time, Li Zheng had already followed Li Yun and helped Li Yun manage the anti-theft team.

The generals who came from the anti-theft team basically recognized Li Zheng.

This is also one of the reasons why Li Zheng now has a very high status in Jiangdong. The reason why he can have his current status is not just because he has the same surname as Li Yun.

There are reasons for every aspect.

Li Zheng patted Yu Ye on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Good boy, I have heard a lot about you along the way. You really give honor to our anti-theft captain."

At this point, Li Zheng looked at Li Yun, then smiled at Yu Ye and said, "Work hard, the superior said that you will be promoted after the New Year."

Yu Ye scratched his head, then looked up at Li Yun, then lowered his head and said, "Sir, there are now about 20,000 to 30,000 Shuofang troops in Shanzhou, and the number is still increasing. They don't attack the state capital, but only the county town and some villages and towns, and they are quite scattered."

"At this time, the Shuofang army's forces are not only in Shanzhou, but also in Guozhou in the south and Jiangzhou in the north."

"I don't have enough troops, so I have to take care of the surrounding areas of Shanzhou first. At the same time, I ordered the people of Shanzhou to move east to avoid the war."

"As for Guozhou, I don't have the energy to take care of it."

"And Jiangzhou in the north is already Hedong Road..."

Li Yun nodded, and after a "hmm" sound, he said, "Along the way, the Nine Divisions and the scout camp have already told me the general news. This time, I misjudged the enemy."

At this point, Li looked up towards the west towards Tongguan and said slowly: "Our main force is already moving towards Shanzhou. What we need to do now is to retain as many of them as possible."

"Twenty to thirty thousand people."

Mr. Li lowered his head and thought for a while, then said softly, "It's almost enough to make Wei Quanzhong suffer for a while. It's boring to fight with such a Shuofang army."

Li Yun's current military force, or strength, near Luoyang is actually better than when he just occupied Luoyang, and by a lot.

After all, Zhao Cheng actually only took away a small part of his main forces.

During this period, Shannan East Road and the Central Plains prefectures and counties continued to provide Li Yun with new soldiers, and his strength was further enhanced.

At this moment, at least on the Western Front, he could use his troops without restraint.

Hearing Li Yun say that it was boring, Li Zheng on the side quickly said: "I have read a lot of military books over the years. In fact, fighting a war is like this."

"You go back and forth, and sometimes both sides see through each other's tricks, and often there will be no fight for several months or even a year or two."

He laughed softly and said, "Although Second Brother is very capable, he won't trick the other party into falling for a trick. If that were the case, we would have unified the world long ago. Second Brother, don't worry about this kind of thing."

"I don't take it seriously." Li Yun looked back at him and said unhappily, "The military book you read was selected by me and sent to you. You have read it, but haven't I?"

Li Zheng shrank his head and dared not speak.

Li Yun didn't say anything else, but put his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky.

Fighting is, most of the time, pretty boring.

In books and picture books, enemy generals were killed in battle and the enemy was routed thousands of miles away.

Set up the Tianmen formation to prevent the enemy from advancing.

These are just books and picture books.

The true art of command on the battlefield is to crush the enemy in the local battlefield through mobilizing troops.

The seven victories in seven battles in Central Jiangsu are typical examples in this regard.

However, in this era, there were no hot weapons, or they were not widely popularized. Once the two sides engaged in a war, the duration was usually not too short, and it was impossible to shoot and run away. Therefore, there was not much room for short-term operations on the battlefield.

In the end, it all comes down to a test of hard power.

The day after Li Yun arrived in Shanzhou, Gongsun Hao led more than 10,000 Lingnan troops to Shanzhou.
At the same time, the main force of the Jiangdong Army near Luoyang, more than 20,000 people, rushed to Shanzhou.

Li personally led the troops, and the army slowly advanced westward from Xianshan in Shanzhou.

Gongsun Hao and Li Zheng led their troops from the northern part of Shanzhou to Jie County to fight against the Shuofang army in Jiangzhou.

Here, Li Yun's army had only traveled twenty or thirty miles west from Xian Mountain when they were already close to the capital of Guozhou.

Yu Ye ran all the way, entered the central army, and reported to Li Yun with his head down.

"Sir, go 20 or 30 miles south and you will reach the capital of Guozhou."

Guozhou originally belonged to Hedong Road, not to Duji Road, nor to Henan Road.

However, this place borders Duji Road, and it is a very long border line. At this time, the large number of Shuofang troops did not directly advance into Shanzhou, but stationed in Guozhou, and harassed Yinyang County and Changshui County in Duji Road from Guozhou.

Mr. Li lowered his head and thought for a moment, then said silently: "The capital of Guozhou is... Hongnong, right?"

"It's Hongnong."

Yu Ye said quickly: "The scout camp has reported that there are many Shuofang troops stationed in Hongnong..."

"Sir, are we going to march our troops into Hongnong?"

Li Yun looked down at the map, thought for a moment, and shook his head slightly: "Their range is too wide. It would be too passive for us to surround them now."

"It's easy to be led by them by the nose."

After saying this, Li Yun's eyes fell on the map, and then he pointed at a location, his eyes became firm: "Let's go here."

"If we block this place, we can immediately split the Shuofang Army into two."

Yu Ye looked in the direction where Li Yun pointed. He was stunned for a moment, and then he froze in place, feeling a chill down his spine: "Master, you...you..."

He looked up at Li Yun and said in a lost voice: "You want to block Tongguan?!"

Li Yun looked at him calmly: "What's the problem?"

Mr. Li had a blank expression on his face: "They came out from Tongguan, we blocked Tongguan."

“They can’t go back to Guanzhong.”

(End of this chapter)