Chapter 905: Making a Plan

Outside the camp, seeing the flames soaring into the sky, Lei Bo couldn't help but secretly wiped his hands with cold sweat. Nima, luckily Laozi had an extra thought and mobilized the five thousand troops behind him and entered the camp first, but he didn't. Lead 10,000 elites and prepare to go in at the end, otherwise he will be the only one who will become a roasted whole sheep now. It seems that what Mr. Shu said is correct. The Anton Army must have a back-up plan.

Thinking of this, Lei Bo was shocked. He was still in the camp, and thousands of the ten thousand soldiers had already entered the camp. Lei Bo was so frightened that his whole body shivered, "Quickly... Retreat immediately, leave the camp, and get out..." Lei Bo shouted and led 10,000 soldiers to evacuate from the camp quickly, for fear that there would be other ambushes in the camp.

Fortunately, nothing unusual happened while waiting for them to evacuate safely. Lei Bo waited outside the camp for a while, until no more soldiers were evacuated, and then he led the more than 4,000 defenders who had gathered back to meet him personally. The 10,000 soldiers he led chased after Ji Ling's headquarters army. As for the camp that was now on fire, no one wanted to take care of it. What was burned was not their own stuff anyway.

More than ten miles south, the soaring fireworks in the camp could be seen clearly by the retreating soldiers of the Anton Army. Although they did not know how many Yuan Shu's troops would be burned by the fire, all the generals understood that the campfire If it starts, it means that Ji Ling has seen through his own layout and the army has begun to chase him.

The army marches fifty miles a day, and the distance traveled every hour is about ten miles. This means that the army marches normally when it carries baggage vehicles and the baggage vehicles are loaded with supplies. Therefore, although Anton's army has left the camp for more than an hour, it has only traveled ten miles so far.

However, if the army does not carry a lot of baggage, the marching speed will be faster. In other words, if Ji Ling's army travels lightly and quickly, it should catch up with the retreating army within two to three hours. However, there is a distance of more than 60 and nearly 70 miles from the camp to the county seat of Yulou. The army left the camp at Sishi. If it continued day and night at the fastest speed, it would not be able to successfully reach Yulou until Mao hour of the next day. Under the city.

For Anton Army, these seven hours are the speed of life and death. A general once suggested giving up most of the grain and grass and rushing to Yulou with light equipment, but Huangfu Chaobo refused. Although Zhang He seized more than 100,000 stones of grain and grass in Yulou City, he still had nearly 100,000 troops, and these grains were not enough. The army is needed for a month, but the reinforcements from Yuzhou are estimated to take more than a month to arrive at the earliest, and this is if the road is smooth.

If Yuan Shu sends another army to stop him, his 100,000 troops will starve to death in Hulou. Therefore, Huangfu Chaobo thought over and over again and decided to take tens of thousands of stones of food in the camp to Yulou to take precautions. Even though Huangfu Chaobo didn't want to leave the grain behind, in the end the army only loaded up the trucks and took away more than 60,000 shi of grain. Even so, considering that each baggage truck carried 25 shi of grain, there were still more than 2,000 baggage trucks. car.

But in the current situation, it is obvious that Ji Ling has discovered the evacuation of his army, and this time is much earlier than the noon predicted before. It seems that Ji Ling's army has begun to pursue. If the inference is correct, it should take three to four hours. , Ji Ling's army will catch up with his retreating army.

Seeing this situation, Huangfu Chaobo fell into deep thought again. Whether to give up tens of thousands of stones of grain or not to give up was a difficult question to decide.

"Come here, invite the two military advisors to discuss the matter!" After pondering for a moment, Huangfu Chaobo stood up abruptly and ordered to the guards beside him;

Since a battle is still unavoidable, let's prepare early. Huangfu Chaobo has made up his mind. At this time, his two military advisers were on a carriage hundreds of steps ahead. Guo Jia, in particular, was not in good health and was not suitable for long-distance travel at all. Therefore, Huangfu Chaobo had prepared preparations for the two of them before setting off for the expedition. A carriage was prepared for the two of them to travel.

After Guo Jia and Pang Tong arrived, Huangfu Chaobo told them his thoughts.

Guo Jiali thought deeply: "According to the speed of Ji Ling's army, it is estimated that they will catch up with our army before dark at the latest. There will definitely be a battle at that time. Moreover, by then we should be more than thirty miles away from here, at Hulou. It is less than twenty miles to the northwest, and there is a river right here. If the army crosses the river here, the baggage train will be very slow. At that time, if the Ji Ling Ministry happens to launch an attack, our army will lose heavy."

"Yes," Pang Tong nodded: "Since the Lord intends to fight, the battlefield can be set up here to buy time for the baggage convoy to cross the river."

Looking along where Pang Tong and his two men were pointing, Huangfu Chaobo also noticed this river channel. This was a small river flowing from the Dabie Mountains, and merged into the Shi River from south to north. The river surface was not wide, and It is only five or six feet wide, and the water is not deep. War horses can wade across the river in the deepest part, but baggage vehicles cannot.

In addition, there is only one stone bridge over the river. It would take two or three hours for nearly 3,000 baggage trucks to cross the river no matter how fast it is. Therefore, when he decided to withdraw his troops, Huangfu Chaobo had already sent people to take a detour to Yulou to let Zhang He The main purpose of arranging the defense of the county town and immediately leading troops to come for reinforcements was to allow him to build several pontoon bridges on the river in advance to speed up the transport of baggage vehicles across the river.

According to the report from the fast horse, Zhang He had arranged a thousand halberd soldiers and a thousand Yuanrong crossbowmen to defend the county town. He led four thousand halberd soldiers, two thousand surrendered guards and eight thousand civilians to the river. They were busy building pontoon bridges. When the army arrived, they should be able to build four pontoon bridges. But even so, it would take more than an hour for thousands of baggage carts to cross the river. Therefore, it was necessary to line up at the riverside and fight a big battle with Ji Ling's army.

Since they decided to fight, Huangfu Chaobo immediately discussed the war arrangements with the two. After repeated discussions, the war arrangements were finally determined. Then Huangfu Chaobo asked the guards to pass the order to the relevant generals. Soon, the army began to speed up and move towards the set goal.

At the same time, two thousand iron wall camps, five thousand iron eagle warriors and ten thousand combat soldiers left the majority and went north. They were going to meet Huang Wudie's troops. Huang Wudie had sent someone to report the news of the confrontation between Yuan Shu's 30,000 troops to Huangfu Chaobo as early as the two armies met, but at that time, the strategy for the battle with Ji Ling had not yet been determined, so there was no rush to arrange for the army to return to support.

Now that a battle with Ji Ling's army has been determined, then before the battle, destroying this 30,000-strong army first will be of great help to the subsequent war.