Chapter 195 The thief never escapes
Ding Jingzhen led his troops to retreat without any hesitation, one day before Li Yuanhui arrived in Anfeng.

The attitude of retreat was extremely firm.

Even Li Yuanhui couldn't deal with this. Is this a strategy to lure the enemy?

Otherwise, why would he leave so easily?
Li Yuanhui wasted a day because of his hesitation when he arrived in Anfeng.

Ding Jingzhen, Lei Shimeng and Shen Liuxing retreated quickly, leading an army of more than 100,000 all the way to Goyang. After all, Goyang was only a hundred miles away from Anfeng and Yulou, so if they quickened their pace, they would be able to retreat to Goyang.

If Li Yuanhui sent cavalry to pursue, he could have caught up with them, but Li Si, who was always cautious in his actions, was not Li Er.

The reason for capturing Jinyang City was because we were facing a life-and-death situation and had to fight hard. If we had a choice, we would definitely choose stability.

Therefore, objectively speaking, Li Yuanhui's hesitation and suspicion also led to a missed opportunity to fight.

And this is just two days.

When scouts reported back that Ding Jingzhen had led his troops to retreat to Goyang, and only left a part to guard Goyang, the majority continued to retreat westward. It was estimated that by now they should have passed the three passes of Yiyang and returned to Jingzhou.

Li Yuanhui and a group of generals were somewhat puzzled by this. The enemy had superior military strength, claiming to have an army of 300,000. Even if they were cut in half, there would still be more than 100,000 troops. On their side, there were only more than 30,000. How could they run away without even fighting a battle?
Isn't that so?
This gave Li Yuanhui a slight illusion: Am I so powerful?

However, he quickly dispelled this illusion. The fact that Ding Jingzhen could withdraw his troops so quickly without fighting a single battle with Li Yuanhui could only mean that the Western Wei army's attack was a feint to lure him over.

In fact, it was almost as he guessed. Under the leadership of Kuai Wenxian, the Western Wei Dynasty also wanted to disband its army of hundreds of thousands of people.

This time, the troops led by Ding Jingzhen, Lei Shimeng and others, except for the more than 10,000 elite troops from their own headquarters, mostly were to be laid off and made civilians to farm.

Ding Jingzhen was, after all, an officer of the Great Yan Dynasty. After realizing the difference between the Yan army in Jianghuai and the Yan army in Yuzhou, he immediately decided to retreat.

After all, it was just a feint attack. Unexpectedly, the Yuzhou army did not resist and directly captured Sanguan and Geyang, and then pushed all the way to Anfeng and Yulou.

Under the current circumstances, Li Yuanhui personally led the elite troops here, and the strategic goal has been achieved. The rest depends entirely on whether Emperor Cao Xuan and General You Zilu can capture Wanxian and Wankou.

The 150,000-strong naval and land forces of Cao Xuan and You Zilu were already considered elite in the Western Wei army. They were all selected young and strong men, and were commanded by generals Zhang Wenxiu, Xu Xuan, Wan Zan, Xu Deji, Guo Hua, Han Xiu, Qi Quan and others.

This time, these generals also followed Cao Xuan to the southern foot of Dabie Mountains to attack Wan County.

Among them, You Zilu led the navy to besiege Wankou, and Cao Xuan led an army of 120,000 to besiege Wanxian.

However, the strength of the city defense of Wan County and the tenacity of the defenders' resistance were beyond his expectations. In a word, it was very difficult to fight.

The person in charge of guarding Wan County was Zhou Ben, who came from a prominent family in Lujiang and was originally a branch of the Yuan family in Runan. More than two hundred years ago, he had a very famous ancestor named Zhou Gongjin.

Although they declined somewhat during the Former Wei Dynasty, they were still a powerful family that could rule the local area.

Therefore, Zhou Ben was also familiar with the art of war and practiced martial arts since he was young.

Faced with the current situation, I am not panicked.

Previously, Li Yuanhui sent him to garrison Xunyang and Xinchun. Later, the situation changed and the Yuzhang prefect defected to the Eastern Wei, so Li Yuanhui asked him to retreat to the Wanxian area.

He was not idle in Wan County. He first ordered people to clean and widen the moat, and then renovated the city walls, watchtowers, horse faces and sheep and horse walls.

The city defense weapons such as Yaksha Rally, Rolling Stone, and Wolf Fang Bat were extremely well prepared.

So after inspecting the defense of Wan County, Li Yuanhui returned to Hefei with peace of mind.

After learning that the enemy was attacking from two directions, they firmly chose to first eliminate the enemy in Anfeng at the northern foot of the Dabie Mountains. Facts have proved that the city defense of Wanxian and Zhou Ben's Lujiang Left Camp can stand the test.

The 120,000 elite troops in Cao Xuan's eyes fought for more than a month, losing seven to eight thousand people. A small town defended by only two thousand people still stood firm.

It was not until Li Yuanhui led tens of thousands of troops back from Anfeng Yulou area and the advance cavalry arrived in Shu County that Cao Xuan, who received the news, immediately sent a message to You Zilu, who was also at a disadvantage in the siege of Wankou, to prepare to retreat.

However, this time Li Yuanhui did not hesitate. He personally led the four cavalry camps of Huaishang, Huaiyuan, Yueqi and Tuqi, plus more than 500 cavalry from his own personal guard Wuwei Camp, totaling more than 6,000 cavalry, crossed Shiting and headed straight for Wan County.

Cao Xuan was still sober and did not lead his troops to retreat immediately. Instead, he dug several trenches and sent people to cut off the official road before leading various units of the army to retreat to the riverside under alternating cover.

Cao Xuan's actions did slow down the speed of Li Yuanhui's cavalry to a certain extent, but cavalry is cavalry. Even though it took most of the day to restore the road, Li Yuanhui's cavalry still caught up with his rear army after Cao Xuan retreated to the riverside.

The general Zhang Wenxiu was in charge of the rearguard. He led more than 10,000 infantrymen to fight and retreat in order to cover the main force.

Li Yuanhui ordered the light cavalry of Chang Yanheng, Liu Ju and Wang Tong to harass for half a day. Even the infantry of Zhang Wenxiu's unit had already fled before the heavy cavalry of the Tuqi Camp came on the scene.

Although vulnerable, Zhang Wenxiu still bought one day for Cao Xuan and the main force.

This precious day allowed Cao Xuan and his troops to cross the Yangtze River and launch a surprise attack on Pengze, which was in the hands of the Eastern Wei. They then surrounded Chaisang.

However, except for Zhang Wenxiu himself who escaped with his life, less than a thousand of his troops were killed in the pursuit of the Yan army's cavalry, and hundreds of them chose to jump into the water out of fear of the Yan army. As many as 8,000 people were captured.

When Cao Xuan learned that the rear army had been defeated, he did not get angry. Instead, he wrote a letter himself and ordered someone to deliver it to Li Yuanhui, the commander of the Yan army.

The content of the letter was roughly: The Western Wei sent troops to Wan County this time purely as a pretext to attack Guo, not because they really wanted to be the enemy of General Li. Now that they have captured Pengze, they will attack Chaisang and the entire Yuzhang County next.

He hoped to reach a consensus with Li Yuanhui's troops so that both sides could jointly deal with the Eastern Wei.

After reading it, Li Yuanhui was speechless and gave the letter to several generals to circulate.

Li Qinglian, the military advisor who came with him, saw it and said, "This Cao Xuan is really good at scheming. He should have used the strategy of driving the tiger to devour the wolf at the beginning, and wanted to take advantage of Cao Yuanjing's battle with our army to reap the benefits. However, he didn't expect that Cao Yuanjing suffered a big loss last autumn, and this time he directly stationed troops on the south bank of the Yangtze River, waiting for the opportunity to attack. And he led his army to attack Wanxian and Wankou, but it was unfavorable. He had no choice but to retreat to the next best thing and attack Yuzhang County as a springboard to advance eastward along the river. Such a treacherous villain is really shameless."

However, Liu Ju, the commander of Huaishang Camp, laughed and said, "Mr. Li is right. This is very similar to people like us who come from a bandit background. A thief never leaves empty-handed."

"Ha ha ha ha"

"Ha ha ha ha"

Upon hearing this, several people burst into laughter, full of contempt for the Western Wei's behavior.

However, Li Yuanhui remained calm and did not join in their laughter.

Because he felt that Cao Xuan's method was somewhat similar to that of Sun Zhongmou, the King of Wu in the Wei Dynasty.

Is Sun Zhongmou easy to deal with? The answer is of course no.

Although Sun Zhongmou fought Hefei five times and returned in defeat each time, Cao Mengde and his son also encountered setbacks at Ruxukou.

The confrontation between Cao Wei and Sun Wu in Huainan was basically a case of whoever strikes first will suffer.

The two victories Li Yuanhui won after taking office in Jianghuai were both defensive counterattacks.

Therefore, it seems difficult to take Jingzhou at the moment.

(End of this chapter)