Chapter 188 I'm in love with you
"Oh? Why is that?"

Not only Wang Jing, but also Xu Huang, Zhang Fei and others showed curious expressions, as they really did not quite understand Xun You's deployment of troops.

As for Guo Jia, he seemed to be thinking about something after hearing this. Obviously, he had guessed something, but he did not stand up to steal the limelight from Xun You.

Xun You calmly analyzed the current situation facing the Northern Army for Wang Jing: "Although the Yellow Turban Army of Qingzhou is attacking fiercely, it is just a pile of loose sand inside. We only need a general who is good at defense to lead a small number of elite troops to guard the main roads, station camps, and strictly defend against them to prevent them from continuing to attack. Without the channels for looting and unable to obtain supplies, the rebels will be defeated within half a year."

"But the situation of the Black Mountain Army is different. Yu Du, Sui Gu and Bai Rao are all very famous in the Black Mountain Army and have strong control over their own troops. If we fail to destroy their main force and allow them to continue to grow, it will be a real danger to Yanzhou."

After listening to this, Wang Jing felt that Xun You's tactical arrangement made sense, and he immediately agreed to his suggestion: "In that case, I will start assigning tasks now."

"Gongming, I will give you 5,000 infantrymen to go to Shouzhang to stop the Yellow Turban Army of Qingzhou."

"Subordinates take orders!"

Xu Huang's voice is as loud as a bell and his aura is steady. After his growth in the battle of Hulao Pass, he has now become a capable military general under Wang Jing's command.

"Yanming, you will lead two thousand armored cavalrymen to follow me to attack the Black Mountain Army's logistics supply routes and cut off their retreat."

"Subordinates take orders!"

Yan Xing was in high spirits. In the previous battle to capture Suanzao, he basically did not contribute much. Later, when he attacked Chenliu, he became famous in one battle thanks to the powerful force of Lu Fang's Shenji Camp.

Seeing that several of his colleagues had gotten their share of the "big meat", he was envious for a long time.

Now, it was finally Yan Xing's turn to succeed. How could he not be excited?
"Youping, you lead 3,000 Danyang soldiers to assist Gongming in guarding Yanzhou and resisting the invading Yellow Turbans from Qingzhou. Remember not to let them cross the defense line and threaten the safety of Puyang."

"Subordinates take orders!"

Zhou Tai had a serious expression. He always followed Wang Jing's orders meticulously and never had any doubts.

Wang Jing was very relieved to leave Zhou Tai to look after Puyang. After all, Zhou Tai was loyal, brave and reliable, and his personality was similar to Xu Huang's, a calm and capable person with great resilience. He would be able to counter the overwhelming attack of the Yellow Turbans in Qingzhou with a small number of elite troops.

There were still more than 7,000 Hedong soldiers left to be deployed. Wang Jing allocated 1,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry to Zhang Fei and ordered him: "Yide, this is the first time you will lead an army into battle alone. I have high hopes for you."

"Don't worry, I will show my skills this time and kill him without leaving a single piece of armor, hahahaha!"

Zhang Fei laughed heartily and patted his chest as he made a promise to Wang Jing.

He is in a better mood than ever before!

Thousands of cavalry and two thousand infantry, all well-trained elite, and their equipment is so luxurious that it makes people drool. They have never been so luxurious when they were with Liu Bei.

After all, Liu Bei was also a poor guy. He had only a few hundred men under his command all year round. Having more than a thousand men was a luxury, let alone leading an army of 3,000 men.

Therefore, after Zhang Fei was appointed by Wang Jing, he was very excited and eager to show his talents, achieve great achievements and become famous.

Finally, four thousand men were left to Xi Zhicai, who was asked to garrison Puyang and suppress the local noble families to prevent these restless dogs from causing trouble.

Everything was arranged properly. Wang Jing personally led 3,000 Bingzhou soldiers, together with Zhang Fei and Yan Xing, to Dongwuyang, northeast of Puyang City, to fight with Yu Du and others.

In Dongwuyang, Yu Du led his troops to besiege the place and was driving the people to attack the city day and night.

Since coming out of the mountains, he, Bai Rao and Sui Gu have successively conquered counties and prefectures with great momentum. They have plundered everywhere in the wealthy Yanzhou and made a lot of money.

Now they are so greedy that they are even thinking about taking over the city in front of them, and then moving south to occupy Puyang and celebrate the New Year in advance.

The Montenegrin Army camp was filled with messy tents all over the mountains. Although it was very impressive, it looked like a huge rag. It gave people a sense of disarray and seemed extremely unprofessional.

But it is no wonder. After all, no matter how strict Yu Du’s military discipline is, and no matter how disciplined the main force of the Montenegrin Army is, the so-called rebels can hardly conceal their own "poor" nature. They lack not only daily necessities, but also strategic materials, and their morale is maintained entirely by looting.

The weapons of the Black Mountain Army's soldiers were mostly dung forks and spears, or even sharpened wooden spears. Not to mention armor, they didn't even have uniform clothing. They were all dressed in rags, like beggars.

But it was this army that risked their lives for the sake of survival and still defeated the government troops step by step, forcing them to retreat step by step and have no choice but to hide in the towering city walls to defend themselves.

Outside Dongwuyang City, Sui Gu laughed loudly: "Hahaha, I heard that Liu Dai, that rubbish, died in the battle, and Cao Cao was defeated and retreated. Now in the entire Yanzhou, who else can stop us?"

Sui Gu had already started thinking that after taking the city, he must first occupy the treasury.

In troubled times, as long as you have money, food, weapons and equipment, you can recruit as many soldiers as you want. These are the real good things.

As for gold, silver, treasures, or beautiful women, Sui Gu disdained them all.

With a knife in your hand, are you still afraid that you can’t steal money and women?
Yu Du and Bai Rao rolled their eyes after hearing this: "It's too early to say these things since we haven't even taken the city yet. Don't be too careless or you might end up capsizing in a ditch."

In response to the two people's words, Sui Gu looked contemptuous, his eyes full of disdain: "I will flip over? What a joke!"

With a large army in hand and having conquered counties and captured a large amount of money and grain, Sui Gu was now extremely confident. Naturally, he would not listen to a word of Yu Du and Bai Rao's mature words. Instead, he thought that they were all cowards. They had rebelled, but were still afraid of this and that. It was simply shameful.

"Keep attacking!"

"After conquering the city, we will plunder for three days without stopping!"

If you don’t lay down your weapons, you can burn, kill and loot for three days!

The Black Mountain soldiers who were responsible for attacking the city wall had red eyes when they heard this. Sui Gu's words aroused the murderous intent in their hearts. Like wild beasts that smelled blood, they rushed to the top of the city wall with a howl.

"Kill!"

"Kill your way into the city, eat wine and meat, and sleep with beautiful women!"

The evil of human nature was infinitely magnified at this moment. Even the evil aura of the Black Mountain Army changed from blood-red to black-red, like a bloodthirsty and cruel jackal.

Throughout history, so-called uprisings have never been sentimental, nor have they been about justice or destiny.

For some people living at the bottom of society, they are indeed exploited and oppressed and are extremely poor, but being poor does not mean that they are good people.

If they have the opportunity to do evil, they will be even more cruel and tyrannical, and have no moral bottom line. This is what is meant by extreme evil.

"Kill, kill!"

With fierce attacks, wave after wave, the Black Mountain Army's soldiers were constantly shaking the defenders of Dongwuyang with their bloodthirstiness and madness.

Faced with such a terrible wave of offensive, the morale of the defenders has hit rock bottom.

Now the only thing holding them back from giving up is their families in the city. They know how vicious the Black Mountain Army is. Their parents, wives and children are in the city, and they must not let the beasts in front of them break through their defenses.

Therefore, the defenders still fought to the death, but their physical and mental strength were worn out by the continuous attacks, and they finally reached the brink of collapse.

Just when everyone was about to despair, a fiery red battle flag rose slowly on the distant horizon like the scorching sun.

This touch of bright red became the dawn that illuminates the darkness.

"Reinforcements, reinforcements have arrived!"

Red is the color of the Yanhan Dynasty's national destiny!
The red battle flag fluttered, blazing like fire, and what it represented was naturally the majesty of the imperial court.

The soldiers and civilians of Dongwuyang did not care who the new ruler was. They only wanted to find a strong man to protect them and avoid the invasion of war.

Seeing that they were about to capture the county town, reinforcements arrived. Sui Gu was so angry that his forehead was on fire: "Who dares to ruin my good thing?"

Three miles outside the city, Wang Jing looked at the Black Mountain Army attacking the city not far away and sneered: "They attacked the city but didn't place spies around them. They were discovered only when our army approached three miles away. Is this arrogant or stupid?"

Before coming, he had some expectations for the Black Mountain Army, as he felt that they would be at least stronger than the ordinary Yellow Turban Army.

But after seeing it for real, I can only say that I am really disappointed. It is indeed stronger than the ordinary Yellow Turban Army, but not much. In Wang Jing's opinion, this kind of small fry troops are unlikely to become a force to be reckoned with, and are simply vulnerable on the battlefield.

As a branch of the Yellow Turban Army, the Black Mountain Army still had not gotten rid of the biggest problem of the rebel army, which was lack of professionalism. In Wang Jing's eyes, they were not even militia, but at most a large bandit group. They could fight a favorable battle, but once they fell into a balance or even a disadvantage, the problem of insufficient resilience would be infinitely magnified, and they were prone to inexplicable defeat.

"Dismount and line up!"

In order to save energy, the three thousand Bingzhou soldiers all rode on horseback, with each person riding two horses.

One of the horses carried people, one horse carried equipment and supplies, and a thousand auxiliary soldiers accompanied them.

When fighting with the enemy, the Bingzhou soldiers dismounted and fought on foot in formation, while the auxiliary soldiers guarded the horses and provided some long-range fire support with bows and crossbows. After the battle, they were responsible for cleaning the battlefield and doing miscellaneous tasks such as setting up camp.

However, this move became a joke in the eyes of Sui Gu, the commander of the Black Mountain Army: "I thought that the 4,000 cavalrymen were attacking and encountered a strong enemy, but I didn't expect that they were actually a group of fools."

Sui Gu drew his sword, grinned, and said with a ferocious smile: "It's really stupid not to ride the horses. Guys, go and grab their horses!"

"Hahaha, the leader is right. It's such a waste to let these idiots ride such a good warhorse. It's better to give it to us so as not to waste it."

"Kill!"

Each of Sui Gu's subordinates had shining eyes and did not hide their greed at all.

In this era, a good war horse is worth a fortune!
Especially in the current chaotic times, war horses are even more expensive than weapons and armor, and they are in short supply. Even if you have money, you may not be able to buy them.

The entire Black Mountain Army has more than 100,000 people, but only a few hundred of them have horses to ride. The rest of the people don’t even have a pair of shoes, let alone riding horses.

Now, with six thousand top-quality horses appearing before them, it would be strange if they didn't go crazy.

In order to prevent friendly forces from coming to steal food, Sui Gu did not even inform Yu Du and Bai Rao of the arrival of reinforcements. After receiving the news, he secretly led his main force away from the battlefield and went to steal horses.

Dongwuyang, a high slope outside the west gate of the city.

Yu Du frowned: "Wait, where did the Sui Gu people go?"

Bai Rao was also very curious: "Could it be that he is deserting the battlefield? But Dongwuyang City is about to fall, why would he run away? Is he crazy?"

Not long after, one of Yu Du's men came running to report: "Captain, we have spotted a large number of enemy reinforcements in the south, several thousand strong, all cavalry."

"South? Isn't that the direction Sui Gu is in charge of? Why didn't he tell us?"

Bai Rao was very surprised after hearing this, and then he became furious: "Cavalry? This idiot Sui Gu deserves to die!"

Thousands of cavalry meant at least thousands of war horses. Bai Rao was not stupid, so he certainly understood why Sui Gu did not inform the friendly forces of this news.

Yu Du had a serious expression on his face. "Thousands of cavalrymen must be the elite among the government troops. Can Sui Gu eat all of them by himself? Are his teeth so good? Aren't you afraid of breaking all his teeth?"

Having said that, Yu Du knew that the attraction of war horses was too great.

If it were him, he would probably also hide the news.

After all, comradeship is just talk among us normally, but when it comes to sharing the benefits, everyone becomes more greedy and selfish than the other.

Bai Rao looked at Yu Du: "What do you think about this?"

Yu Du smiled coldly, obviously he had long been dissatisfied with Sui Gu, and now he spoke in a bad tone: "We are all brothers who are in the same boat, and we should share the same difficulties. Thousands of cavalrymen are too threatening, and Sui Gu is so impulsive, we should go and help him."

Bai Rao said disdainfully: "Then you stay and attack the city, I'll go and help."

Of course Yu Du refused: "No, you stay and attack the city, and I will go to help."

No matter how rich Dongwuyang is, it is definitely not as valuable as thousands of war horses. Moreover, if you grab thousands of war horses and hold them in your hands, you can attack from all sides and seize more than ten counties like Dongwuyang.

Therefore, as to what is more important, both of them are old Yellow Turbans and can naturally make the calculation in their minds.

"It's not a good idea to continue to be in a stalemate like this. Why don't you and I each leave a team behind to continue attacking the city, and then go together to help Lao Sui."

Yu Du didn't want to waste time, so Bai Rao could only agree: "Okay, we are all brothers, if we want to help, it is of course more appropriate for us to go together."

The two men were afraid that Sui Gu would monopolize these thousands of war horses, so they mobilized their main forces without hesitation and hurriedly caught up with Sui Gu from behind.

"Brother Sui, wait for us."

Before Sui Gu had walked out not far and had the chance to engage in battle with Wang Jing's Bingzhou soldiers, he was caught up from behind by Yu Du and Bai Rao with several hundred of their personal soldiers.

Seeing the two of them, Sui Gu's already dark face suddenly became even darker, and he cursed in a rough voice: "Why are you here to join in the fun instead of attacking the city properly?"

Bai Rao smiled, but his tone was mocking: "Brother Sui, your words are meaningless. We came here specially to help you."

But this smile was full of falsehood, without a trace of sincerity at all.

"What help do you need? I don't need it. You guys should go back quickly. It's better to take down Dongwuyang as soon as possible."

Sui Gu sneered, obviously not accepting Bai Rao's "good intentions". He spoke directly and almost shouted the words "get out".

But Bai Rao was always shameless, and he didn't take Sui Gu's ridicule to heart. Instead, he kept saying hypocritically: "You and I are brothers, and it is our duty to help each other. Why are you so treacherous? Now that the government troops are attacking, if I don't help, am I still a human being?"

"That's absolutely true."

Yu Du also caught up and forcefully interrupted the topic.

Be a human being?

You two bastards, when have you ever behaved like human beings?

Sui Gu was filled with resentment, and he said angrily, "Stop talking nonsense. Do you think I don't know what you are thinking? Get out of here if you know what's best for you. These six thousand war horses are mine, first come first served!"

Bai Rao smiled coldly, not bothering to pretend to be brothers on the surface, and directly ridiculed Sui Gu: "If you say it's yours, it's yours? You shout, will they agree?"

Yu Du did not choose to tear his face off, but advised from the side: "Old Sui, don't think about eating alone all day long. These are 6,000 war horses, and anyone who sees them can get a share. Without us, are you sure you can defeat the other party?"

Sui Gu laughed loudly: "Nonsense, if they were riding on horses, I might still worry about whether they can eat enough, after all, two legs can't run faster than four legs. But they chose to dismount and fight on foot. There are only 4,000 people. Do I need to be afraid? I can kill them with a pile of heads!"

It is obvious that Sui Gu is very confident in his own abilities.

After all, his army had more than 20,000 soldiers, although most of them were indeed refugees temporarily recruited, and the main force accounted for less than a quarter of them.

However, as long as he uses the cannon fodder tactics to wear down the opponent's physical strength, and then uses the trump card he brings, he will definitely be able to win the game with a high chance of success.

At least that's what Sui Gu himself thought, so he was so confident that he wanted to eat alone.

Of course, the risk of trying to eat alone is indeed very high and it is easy to fail.

But he has already started a rebellion, so what risks is there to be afraid of?
In this world, the bold will die of overeating, and the timid will die of starvation.

He is stubborn and would rather die of fullness than starve to death!
The main forces of Bai Rao and Yu Du had not arrived yet. They wanted to delay Sui Gu's pace with words, but Sui Gu, who seemed crude and brainless, was not fooled at all: "All of you get out of my way, don't get in the way, I will come to settle with you after I capture these 3,000 war horses."

After saying this, Sui Gu shouted angrily: "Men, attack!"

"Kill, kill!"

The Black Mountain troops under Sui Gu swarmed forward like vicious dogs out of a shed.

(End of this chapter)