I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 382 Huang Zhong is a bear, Lü Bu is a tiger

After dealing with this matter, Yuan Shu's emotions calmed down a bit.

What happened next was mostly good.

Just one day after he dealt with the last remnants of Tan Shihuai's army, on September 25th, Zang Min arrived in Qiangyin County with two thousand cavalrymen to support Yuan Shu.

As a result, it was learned that Yuan Shu had defeated the main force of the Xianbei army, and even the arrogant Tan Shihuai had been captured, which can be described as a great victory.

Yuan Shu then learned that Lu Zhi and Zang Min had joined forces to completely defeat and kill Tan Shihuai's son, He Lian.

The one who killed He Lian was Huang Zhong, a fierce general who came with Zang Min to support Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu was overjoyed and personally received the strong and powerful Huang Zhong. He then bestowed his own sword upon Huang Zhong, much to Huang Zhong's delight.

In fact, when Huang Zhong first joined Yuan Shu's army, Yuan Shu was unaware of his existence, since the Tianxiong Army initially numbered over 30,000.

Huang Zhong missed the group that Yuan Shu personally interviewed, but later, through his personal bravery and knowledge, he successfully took on the position of military commander and gradually distinguished himself during the subsequent training.

Yuan Shu only learned three months after the army was formed that a man from Nanyang named Huang Zhong was serving as a military commander under his command. He then learned that a young man named Xu Huang had also been appointed as a military commander because he was literate and skilled in martial arts.

Yuan Shu was pleased, but he didn't give them any special treatment. He believed that if they were truly capable and talented, they would make a name for themselves if given a platform and opportunities, without needing Yuan Shu's special intervention or promotion.

As expected, in their first encounter with the Xianbei, Huang Zhong killed 69 Xianbei cavalrymen and beheaded 17. He also led his cavalry to kill a Xianbei chieftain, making a great contribution.

Therefore, Yuan Shu naturally promoted him to the rank of captain.

As for Xu Huang, he also made great contributions in that battle, but not as great as Huang Zhong. Yuan Shu was not stingy and simply arranged for Xu Huang to serve as a military commander in the army led by Huang Zhong, becoming Huang Zhong's deputy.

As expected, the two joined forces and the cavalry battalion they led performed exceptionally well in daily training and bandit suppression missions over the next three years, second only to Lü Bu.

Yuan Shu later recalled an interesting topic he had encountered in his previous life: Huang Zhong was still able to kill Xiahou Yuan in battle at the age of seventy and was active on the battlefield. This shows how brave and valiant he must have been when he was young. As a result, some people speculated that Huang Zhong should have been able to compete with Lü Bu when he was young and strong.

During a large-scale cavalry training exercise, Yuan Shu arranged a martial arts competition for all officers, pitting Huang Zhong and Lü Bu against each other in four areas: mounted combat, foot combat, mounted archery, and foot archery.

In the end, Huang Zhong was defeated by Lü Bu at a slight disadvantage in mounted combat, but he overpowered Lü Bu in foot combat. As for mounted archery and foot archery, the two fought to a draw, both possessing the ability to hit a target from a hundred paces away and being extremely skilled in mounted archery.

The two men competed in archery on moving targets while on horseback, each hitting ten targets. Both of them hit all ten targets, shocking the entire army. From then on, the reputation of Lu and Huang as the two archers spread throughout the Tianxiong Army.

Lü Bu is easy to understand; he was born in a border region, which gave him a natural advantage.

Huang Zhong was born in Nanyang, so theoretically he didn't have the natural advantages to train in horsemanship and archery.

Curious, Yuan Shu asked him a question and learned that Huang Zhong came from the Huang family of Nanyang and was related to the Huang family of Jiangxia. He was from a powerful family with a tradition of martial arts, so he practiced horseback riding, fighting, archery and other skills from a young age. This skill was actually a skill he acquired as a child.

Of course, innate superhuman strength is also an extremely important prerequisite.

Like Lü Bu, he was an extremely talented person.

Now that they have made contributions and proven their abilities, Yuan Shu is naturally more willing to appoint them and let them give full play to their skills.

Huang Zhong repeatedly served as the vanguard, killing Tan Shihuai's son He Lian with a single arrow, thus making a great contribution to Lu Zhi's defeat of He Lian.

Lü Bu decisively broke through the Xianbei army's defenses amidst a sea of ​​soldiers, successfully capturing the Xianbei Chanyu Tanshihuai, thus achieving an unparalleled feat.

After this battle, Lü Bu and Huang Zhong gradually earned the reputation of being the two fierce generals of the Tianxiong Army, with Huang Zhong being the bear and Lü Bu the tiger. Many people also began to regard the two of them as the strongest henchmen under Yuan Shu.

After receiving news from Lu Zhi, Yuan Shu spent three days reorganizing and resting his troops. During this time, he received news from Lian Da and Shao Yuan, learning that they had also achieved victories and defeated the Xianbei armies that had invaded Shuofang and Wuyuan counties. He was very pleased.

Yuan Shu quickly sent messengers to Lu Zhi, Shao Yuan, and Lian Da with the news of the victory, instructing them to lead their respective armies in a northern expedition to the grasslands according to the previous plan, to pursue the victory and strive for a complete triumph!

Just as Emperor Wu of Han said, "If the enemy can go, so can I!"

Northern Expedition to the Grasslands!

Suppress the remaining enemy forces!

Strive to decide the overall situation in one battle!

After conveying the order, Yuan Shu mustered his troops and officially launched the Northern Expedition. Before the Xianbei invaded the south, Yuan Shu had already planned to launch a northern expedition if he won the battle.

The construction and storage in Bingzhou over the past three years have allowed him to accumulate enough grain and supplies to support a northern expedition with an army of 50,000.

To defeat the Xianbei, victory is inevitable as long as we win their invasion campaign.

Tan Shihuai's entire army that marched south had been defeated, with more than 70,000 men wiped out. Apart from those who were captured, the Xianbei tribe could probably only mobilize less than 30,000 able-bodied men.

It was still 30,000 people scattered and without unified command.

It would not be difficult for the Han army to defeat this size of Xianbei cavalry piecemeal. As long as the Han army does not suffer any epic weakening, Yuan Shu is confident that he can end this campaign to conquer the grasslands before November.

Guides, provisions, and logistics teams are all ready and waiting for a major victory at the front so they can immediately begin their work.

Furthermore, based on the Han army's understanding of the Xianbei people, if the Xianbei were to launch a large-scale invasion southward, their tribal population would inevitably follow the army southward. They might not necessarily enter Han territory, but they would certainly remain in the vicinity of Han territory, not too far away.

In this way, the Han army would no longer need to search everywhere in the vast grasslands for its northern expedition. Instead, it could launch a rapid raid on the Xianbei tribe's territory, unleashing all the hatred accumulated over nearly twenty years and completing its revenge.

Therefore, Yuan Shu's mobilization speech for the Northern Expedition was centered on this.

"All the property losses, the deaths of all our relatives and friends, all the shame, pain, and tears we have suffered over the past twenty years will come to an end today! Gentlemen! Follow me on the Northern Expedition!"

Yuan Shu raised his arm and shouted, and the soldiers of the Tianxiong Army immediately shouted "Northern Expedition" in unison, their voices so loud that they resounded throughout the heavens and the earth.

On the third day of the tenth month of the first year of Yande, Yuan Shu led a large army north out of Qiangyin County, quickly raiding the grasslands, with his troops aimed directly at the core of the Xianbei tribal alliance—the royal court of Tanhan Mountain.

The royal court of Tanhan Mountain was only four hundred li away from Qiangyin County. Yuan Shu personally led his cavalry at a speed of sixty li per day and arrived at the royal court of Tanhan Mountain in less than seven days.

At that time, the Xianbei tribesmen who remained at the Danhan Mountain royal court had no idea that their Great Chanyu had been defeated and become a prisoner.

Therefore, one can imagine the fear and confusion these people felt when the Han cavalry appeared at the royal court of Danhan Mountain.

Tan Shihuai did leave behind some defensive forces; he left about 5,000 men to guard the Danhanshan royal court. However, he did not organize any other defensive troops. Therefore, when Yuan Shu led 25,000 cavalry to charge in, the Xianbei army had little power to resist.

The battle ended in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn. The Han army stormed into the royal court of Tanhan Mountain and carried out large-scale destruction and slaughter.

Yuan Shu was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of Xianbei tribes gathered at Tanhan Mountain. He wondered if all the Xianbei tribes in the central and eastern regions had gathered here. In any case, after breaking through the defenses of the 5,000-strong army, the Han army was facing a slaughterhouse.

Yuan Shu finally understood what Chu Yunfei had said back then—even if there were 30,000 pigs, Li Yunlong wouldn't be able to catch them all in three days!

However, there are still differences between pigs and humans.

For example, pigs don't surrender as a unit; instead, they will fight back and run away until they exhaust their last bit of strength. Moreover, the force with which pigs charge forward is indeed very strong, incomparable to that of ordinary people.

People can surrender in organized groups, abandoning and giving up, and victory can be achieved without expending too much physical strength.

Therefore, the Han army did not expend too much effort to dominate the slaughterhouse.

Interestingly, there were quite a few able-bodied men gathered here. As Yuan Shu led his troops on their assault, they discovered many able-bodied men attempting to resist or protecting their families as they fled.

It seems that this place is not entirely populated by the elderly, women, and children, but rather that the able-bodied men have not been organized and have not formed a reliable fighting force.

Come to think of it, the Xianbei people had been in an aggressor position ever since Tan Shihuai rose to power. For nearly twenty years, the Han army had not launched even one large-scale northern expedition, at most only launching counterattacks.

Some of them must have lost family members or had their relatives killed by the Han army, but their dominant position over a generation was enough to give them a strange stereotype of the Han people as "never taking the initiative to attack".

So when Yuan Shu led the Han army's iron cavalry to charge in, many of them were surprised, or rather, incredulous, completely unable to imagine that their great Danhan Mountain royal court had become a slaughterhouse for the Han army.

The roles of the two sides seem to have been reversed; they have become the prey, while the Han army has become the hunter.

But not long ago, their roles were reversed.

All of this changed so quickly that the Xianbei people were caught completely off guard, so their wailing and howling were to be expected.

(End of this chapter)