Chapter 720: Pursuit

Xu Rong, who had calmed down, had returned to his usual shrewdness. After thinking about it carefully, he turned to the soldier next to him and said, "Here comes! Send someone up the river to check the situation in Wenxi County on the other side, and send someone Go to the direction of Lengkou and ask if you have found out anything about the Sizhou Army. The rest of the army is well prepared to cross the river and pursue it!"

After hearing this, the soldiers nearby took the order and left.

At this moment, the Sizhou soldiers on the other side of the river shouted in unison: "Listen up, the old thief Jiang Pei across the way. My general has said that he will definitely come back to ask for your dog's head for one hundred thousand soldiers. The general said you I’ll leave the dog’s head with you for now.”

Repeatedly, the Sizhou Army officers and soldiers shouted five times, then got on their horses and ran away.

Everyone then turned to look at Jiang Pei, and saw that he was pale and trembling all over. Seeing that he was swaying and about to fall off his horse, Jiang Shan next to him saw this and immediately supported him, and then said to Xu Rong. : "General Xu has noticed that my uncle suddenly feels unwell. I will send my uncle back to the city first, and I will leave this to the general."

With that said, without waiting for Xu Rong to answer, Jiang Shan turned to the generals of the Hedong Army beside him and said: "Generals Jiang Jian and Jiang Jian, the troops and horses of the Hedong Army are handed over to the two commanders, and everything will be obeyed by General Xu's orders. "As he said that, he blinked at the two of them.

After Jiang Jian and the two agreed with understanding, they led the soldiers of the guard battalion to escort Jiang Pei back to Anyi City.

At this time, Xu Rong no longer cared about Jiang Pei's life and death. He just felt that he had spent all his efforts and did not expect that in the end, Huangfu Chaobo would play a golden cicada and escape.

However, Xu Rong felt that he still had hope. It was not that he had not considered Huangfu Chaobo's escape. It was just a few directions. One of them was Chi Dao, which had now been blocked by his own arrangement.

The second is to go north to Bingzhou, but the distance is too far, and Huangfu Chaobo also knows that he has 20,000 cavalry, so this route should be eliminated.

The other two roads are not feasible, so there is only the third way, which is to return to Luoyang by the river waterway.

However, although Xu Rong has noticed it, he has no good way to solve this problem. Because Dong Zhuojun did not have a strong naval force, facing tens of thousands of naval forces in Sizhou and Jizhou, Dong Zhuojun's navy could only play in the Wei River and did not dare to run onto the river at all.

Once the naval forces are caught by Sizhou in the river, they will probably be wiped out. At that time, Chang'an and the cities along the Wei River will be within the attack range of Sizhou's army. Therefore, Dong Zhuojun's navy only dared to stick to Tongguan Ferry next to Tongguan, and together with Tongguan, it became a barrier to enter the pass.

Of course, he has another way to control all the ferries east of the river. However, in the east of the river, only Shaanjin, Xijin, Fenglingdu, Pubanjin and Hejin are suitable for most soldiers and horses to cross. The other places are not bad, but Hejin is the only place where Jiang Peili is weak.

Therefore, after seeing the situation of the camp and the pontoon, Xu Rong concluded that the Sizhou Army had withdrawn to Pishi. Although they had left for one night, Xu Rong believed that they had tens of thousands of wounded soldiers and the speed must be unpleasant. , so if you only need your own cavalry to entangle it, the Sizhou army will be doomed.

Xu Rong believed that the loss of nearly 200,000 soldiers and horses was enough to make Huangfu Chaobo unable to breathe for a few years. It would be better if he could kill several of his generals.

Thinking of this, he didn't care to look at the burning pontoon bridge and the soldiers anymore. He turned around and headed towards the place where the Hedong Army craftsmen built the pontoon bridge.

Dong Zhuojun's generals must have followed closely behind. Jiang Jian and Jiang Jian looked at each other and followed suit.

However, Jiang Jian slowed down a few steps, pulled one of his confidants to explain a few words, and then followed him.

When the group of people arrived at the place where the pontoon bridge was to be set up, craftsmen were already preparing various materials. Several ferries rowed towards the other side of the river holding the iron ropes that had been prepared. But when they were about to reach the other side of the river,

Suddenly two hundred Sizhou assault cavalry rushed out from the trees on the shore, bent their bows and shot arrows at the boats in the river. Before the people on the boat could react, they had been shot into hedgehogs.

Seeing this situation, the expressions of everyone by the river changed, but Xu Rong did not react at all. He had already expected that the Sizhou Army must be prepared. With an order, other prepared boats and soldiers boarded the ferry and rowed towards the other side of the river.

After spending half a day, killing and wounding hundreds of soldiers and losing more than a dozen boats, the Hedong Army finally landed on the other side of Suishui. With the escort of hundreds of soldiers, they were finally able to build the bridge with peace of mind.

After spending an hour, a pontoon bridge was finally erected over the Sushui River. The Xiliang Iron Cavalry, which had been well prepared, ran towards the other side of the river at Fan Chou's order.

The Sizhou Army cavalry on the other side had long since pulled out their horses and left when they had nothing to do.

After arriving on the other side of the river, Fan Chou did not stop for much, and directly led his Xiliang Iron Cavalry and the Hedong Army's 5,000 cavalry to run wildly in the direction where the Sizhou Army left.

Their thoughts were the same as Xu Rong's, that is, the Sizhou Army had tens of thousands of wounded soldiers. Even if they ran wildly through the night, they had only traveled dozens of miles. It would only take a few hours for their own cavalry to catch up with them. When the time comes, I must kill everyone and vent my anger for the past few days.

As for the Sizhou army, it is strong if it only needs a few thousand cavalry, but can you still protect tens of thousands of infantry?

But as time went by, Fan Chou's heart gradually began to beat a little. It had been three hours now, and it would be dark in another hour, but he still hadn't seen the shadow of most of the Sizhou army. Could it be that they really couldn't fly, considering that they could have tens of thousands of wounded soldiers.

If the elite infantry could travel a hundred miles in one day and one night, Fan Chou would not find it strange, but if they could walk nearly a hundred miles with tens of thousands of wounded soldiers, anyone would find it a little incredible.

However, the direction was definitely correct, because the one tracking was an old scout who had been in the army for several years, and the Sizhou army did not hide the traces, and the Hedong army had also confirmed with the territories along the way that there was indeed a group of soldiers passing through here. But their speed was indeed somewhat amazing.

Fan Chou called Jiang Jian over again, and after repeated confirmation, he knew that they were now less than twenty miles away from the Fen River, and he became even more suspicious. When he was about to stop, suddenly smoke and dust rose in front of him, and dozens of scouts of the army rushed over.