The scorching sun above my head, the loess, sand and gravel and dead grass shrubs were all over my head. Shi Yanchao picked up the cowhide water bag and took a sip, and turned to a guide wearing linen clothes next to him: "Is there a river water going north?"

The man said, "We are walking on the Changyuan River. However, during the dry season, this section of the river has dried up, and there will be water after walking dozens of miles north."

At this moment, a sudden yellow dust rose up in the distance, and a horse rushed towards him. As soon as he approached, the knight turned over from the horse's back and knelt in front of Shi Yanchao's horse: "Report to the lord! We have discovered a large number of enemy troops in the Northern Han Dynasty!"

Shi Yanchao immediately became energetic and asked, "How many people? Where are they?"

"At least tens of thousands!" said the knight, "very... very close..."

"How close?" As soon as Shi Yanchao finished speaking, he suddenly felt that the sound was wrong, as if a muffled thunder sounded in the sky. When he looked up, he was shocked and saw a black line spreading from the distance on the long yellow sand horizon! He recognized that the black line was a piece of soldiers! He did not have hallucinations, and the faint muffled sound he heard in his ears was the sound of countless horse hooves from afar.

Shi Yanchao was furious and waved the whip without saying a word. "Ah!" The knight covered his face and screamed. Shi Yanchao cursed: "I only realized how you did the scouts so close! What's the use of you? I..."

"Lord, please spare me!" The knight obviously knew Shi Yanchao's temper and kept kowtowing on the ground. "We have limited manpower, so we pay attention to places blocking the hillside... I didn't pay attention to that kind of place. It looked flat, but in fact it was stacked high and low, so the enemy hid under it in batches. From a distance, I couldn't see anything..."

The general advised: "The enemy is approaching, so the lord first takes the strategy of fighting and defense, and there is no need to argue with a villain."

Shi Yanchao looked at him for a while, and then heard from the scouts that there were tens of thousands of Northern Han troops; he was a vanguard, and only had two thousand cavalrymen under his command of the Crane Control Army. He remembered the military orders that Guo Shao sent to issue last night, asking him to stand by on duty when he encountered the enemy and not to fight when he was tired.

Although Shi Yanchao was brave and warlike, he was a veteran who had been in the battle for many years. He was alone here. Of course, he didn't want to attack more than ten times the enemy...

"Order all the troops to turn around and return immediately!" Shi Yanchao said immediately, "Go closer to Dong Zunhui and others!"

He did not "stand on the spot" according to Guo Shao's military orders, because the official military order issued by the Central Army to the generals generally has a sentence: All the generals can act according to the situation in the ground and act in accordance with the situation. Guo Shao's military order asked him to stand on the spot after discovering the enemy. The premise of this military order is that it is generally found that large groups of enemies will be far away. After all, there are too many people and horses to make a lot of noise. This kind of sudden approaching happens rarely, otherwise it will be too easy to attack... But now, if you still obey the military orders rigidly, you will quickly confront the enemy. What is the difference between taking the initiative?

...The vanguard's situation reached the central army with a fast horse. At this time, Guo Shao was still in the valley near the lake. Only the vanguard Shi Yanchao, as well as the three armies of Dong Zunhui and Zhang Guanghan who were planning to meet Shi Yanchao, who were planning to respond to Shi Yanchao, came out of the mountainous area.

After reading the complex terrain and situation description in the letter, Guo Shao only understood the key point: Shi Yanchao and others were ambushed, but the battle had not begun.

After a discussion with the ministers and generals in the military office, he gradually felt the severity of the situation intuitively. This feeling was like a life experience of "pain delayed" that people could not feel it immediately when they encountered pain, and it would take a while to slowly react; it was like a big hole was cut by a knife, and sometimes they could not feel the pain immediately.

The forwards reported the news that they had returned one after another, roughly determined the number of the Northern Han army, and it was estimated that there might be more than 30,000!

Wang Pu said seriously: "The ambush of the Northern Han army was very sudden, and our situation was very bad. The vanguard, Dong Zunhui, one army and Zhang Guanghan, three armies, totaling more than 12,000 people, less than half of the enemy's army. Our army's strength was completely at a disadvantage. The most unfavorable thing was that we marched for half a month and walked nearly a thousand miles to get here. The troops were exhausted, but the Northern Han army was waiting for work. This battle was a disadvantage."

Guo Shao nodded while saying nothing.

Wang Pu said: "It was too late to discover this battle. We seemed to be unable to avoid it. We were forced to fight. The vanguard and Dong Zunhui and Zhang Guanghan on the left and right wings could not retreat. The valley behind was full of people and could not be reached. The main force of the army is still on the road of the valley and cannot gather in a short time. If one day, even if it is still half a day, it would be time to deploy. However, according to Shi Yanchao's report, it was less than five miles apart, so they had to immediately move closer to set up a formation to fight."

A general said, "How about our thousand troops retreating into the mountains?"

Wang Pu shook his head and said, "Most of the thousands of troops are cavalry, and there is no road on the mountain, so it is difficult to climb the mountain. Moreover, it is too late to go back and forth. According to the report in front, Shi Yanchao and others showed no sign of deciding to retreat to the mountain."

Li Chuyun also said: "This is the first encounter since entering the Northern Han Kingdom. When they meet, they run away and they get rid of their sharpness."

At this moment, I suddenly heard Guo Shao's voice saying, "Everyone..."

Everyone stopped talking and looked at each other.

Guo Shao said: "Immediately, order Shi Yanchao and three others to set up a formation on the spot to fight head-on! The front army's left and right sides temporarily listened to Zhang Guanghan, the commander of the left wing of the Longjie Army, and Shi Yanchao moved alone with a camera. I immediately led the guard to the front line and personally came to the war to command the battle!"

Among the three people in the front army, the highest military position was Shi Yanchao, who was in the high position of commander of the front office of the Palace (Zhao Kuangyin's position back then); but Guo Shao completely believed in this person's overall command ability. Why did Shi Yanchao have such a high military position? Because this guy is so easy to use as a vanguard, he made too much money and could not convince him if he was promoted to the military position!

In contrast, although Zhang Guanghan is only the commander of the wing, he has long controlled the marching and formation of 20,000 people, so it is safer to use him. However, Shi Yanchao may not obey Zhang Guanghan's command, and it will be more troublesome to argue at that time.

So Guo Shao made this arrangement for the time being when things were about to come, so as to avoid the chaos of military power. Just because of Shi Yanchao's existence, he had to go there in person or send Li Chuyun to control the scene of more than 10,000 people in front of him!

Guo Shao brought more than 300 fast horses to the north.

When he hurried to the front line, he found that the war was about to begin. The enemy in sight was close to a mile and was about to start a war!
Chapter completed!