In the eighth year of Chongzhen, chun, Zhu Yuanzhang, Xue Hongqi, and Baiyuzhu coalition troops stationed Lingbao. This place is exactly one hundred miles away from Tongguan, facing the Yellow River in the north, and the Lushi Mountains in the south. There is a slender corridor to the west. After stationing here, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the detective cavalry to go out everywhere and try to inquire about the information near Tongguan.

Not long after, the spy reported: "There were eight thousand officers and soldiers stationed in Tongguan, and the general in charge was Cao Wenzhao."

It was really frightened to hear that Cao Wenzhao was in front of him, Bai Yuzhu's face changed. This powerful general has been chasing the rebels around in recent years, running around invincible battles, second only to Hong Chengchou, and is a monster that everyone in the uprising soldiers has heard of.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang, Xue Hongqi, Xu Renjie, Wang Er and others had a calm face and no panic at all. When Bai Yuzhu saw that he was the only one who was panicking, his face turned red and he wanted to find a crack in the ground to get in.

Xu Renjie leaned into Zhu Yuanzhang's ear and whispered: "Brother Zhu, do you really want to fight? I thought you were going to hide your tracks until our strength was already very strong before taking action."

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and whispered: "Huanglong, Baishui, Chengcheng, and Dali, together, only three and a half counties are only three and a half counties. Although we have accumulated considerable strength by planting taro, the ability of these three and a half counties is not enough to support a larger army..." The so-called three and a half counties is because Huanglong can only be considered half a county, and its population and productivity are far inferior.

Xu Renjie nodded to show that he understood.

The biggest problem of the three and a half counties is not only food productivity, but mainly population. Shaanxi and Xi are not originally densely populated areas. With the population of three and a half counties, it has reached its limit for Zhu Yuanzhang's army and it is impossible to expand again. They are not Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng's bandits, and it is not advisable to pull all the old and weak into the army.

Zhu Yuanzhang said seriously: "With the moment when the rebel army was in high morale after the Xingyang Conference and attacked from all sides, we need to expand our territory... occupy more places, and at the same time expand our influence. We have been lurking in the dark for the past two years. The influence in the green forest is no longer as good as that of the 36th Battalion, which is very unfavorable for recruiting new people, so we must fight this battle."

Xu Renjie said: "That means you have to defeat Cao Wenzhao... This guy is not easy to deal with."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded. In fact, according to the information Zhu Yuanzhang saw in his previous life, Cao Wenzhao should not have appeared in Tongguan at this time. He should have been active in the southern part of Henan Province to pursue and suppress the bandits. At this time, Hong Chengchou should have been in charge of Tongguan. However, because of Zhu Yuanzhang's activity, history changed subtly, Cao Wenzhao appeared in a place that should not have appeared. Hong Chengchou was attracted by Hengtianwang and Hunten Ten Thousand to the vicinity of Wuguan.

"Eight thousand officers and soldiers, our army is 16 thousand." Bai Yuzhu said carefully: "This battle feels difficult to fight..."

According to Bai Yuzhu's past experience, bandits often need more than ten times the strength to defeat officers and soldiers. They encircle from all directions and scare the officers and soldiers first to achieve victory. It is difficult to defeat officers and soldiers with only twice the strength. Moreover, Cao Wenzhao has 3,000 officers and soldiers from the Liaodong border army, which is not an opponent that can be scared easily.

Bai Yuzhu is not optimistic about the outcome of the battle.

But the leaders of Zhu Yuanzhang's men looked relaxed and smiled: "Our army is accompanied by the officers and soldiers, and this battle seems easy to fight."

Bai Yuzhu's Adam's apple bulged upwards, and it seemed that he had swallowed a mouthful of saliva and wanted to say something, but he didn't say it in the end.

Zhu Yuanzhang hugged him and smiled and said, "Brother Bai Yuzhu, I want to ask you to take the lead, are you willing?"

"Be the leader?" Bai Yuzhu was startled: "I... I'm afraid I can't beat Cao Wenzhao... Will it be depressing the morale of our coalition forces when I go to be the leader?"

"It's okay, all you want is to lose..." Zhu Yuanzhang whispered in Bai Yuzhu's ear: "You just need to..."—

Tongguan, Loess Plateau, Cao Wenzhao's camp.

Although Tongguan is a pass, there are actually three gates. The gate to the north is called Beiying, the gate to the south is called Nanying, and the middle is a small highland called the Loess Plateau. The imperial court has always stationed a thousand garrisons here, which are directly under the jurisdiction of zhong yāng. It does not belong to the local military system. These thousand soldiers are stationed in the north and south camps. When encountering war, local troops are transferred to garrison the Loess Plateau. If there is no local troops to reinforce, the two battalions of the north and south will each have a part of their forces to garrison the Loess Plateau.

In the winter of the sixth year of Chongzhen, the starry sky, Rangxinglang and others used 100,000 thieves to attack Tongguan. Since then, the garrison in Tongguan has been abolished and no garrison has been arranged. They have always served as the army responsible for the suppression of bandits to serve as the garrison here.

At this time, Cao Wenzhao led 3,000 Liaodong border troops to station in the Loess Plateau, and the two battalions in the north and south respectively said that the Yansui Army and the Xi'an Army were garrisoned. Cao Wenzhao made countless contributions in the bandit suppression in recent years, but a failure not long ago almost caused him to lose his official position.

It turned out that in July of the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Manchu Tatar soldiers invaded the west, attacked Huairen County, Jingping Fort, and Yingzhou. Cao Wenzhao was transferred back from the front line of the bandit suppression by the court and ordered to station in Huairen to defend. In August, the Qing army was surrounded and released, and Cao Wenzhao moved to Zhencheng. He failed to fight in the battle with the Qing army and was regarded as a frontier. Fortunately, the governor of Shanxi (note, the governor of Shanxi should be Wu Qi at this time, but Wu Qi was dead in this book, so this place became a passerby. Please do not be serious). Knowing that Cao Wenzhao was brave and good at fighting, he strongly protected Cao Wenzhao and recommended him as the general officer of the aid and suppression general, and made merits and redeem himself. Therefore, Cao Wenzhao could only maintain his official position.

At this time, Cao Wenzhao sat in the military uniform in the central army tent, and his nephew Cao Bianjiao was sitting next to him. Both Cao generals were both heavy and heavy. A spy knelt in front of Cao Cao and reported: "The two generals, three thieves, totaling more than 16,000 people, have been stationed with Lingbao, a hundred miles away from here. The other party sent many horses to explore Tongguan. It seems that they want to defeat us and enter Shaanxi from Tongguan."

After hearing this, Cao Wenzhao nodded lightly and waved his hand to let the spy go down. Cao Bianjiao next to him said, "Uncle... This thief army really doesn't know how to live or die..."

Cao Wenzhao said after a nod, "We sent back the news from the inside line arranged by the Xingyang Conference. This time the bandits adopted the strategy of dividing troops and directing the troops. These bandits assigned to the west must go to the west. Even if they know that Lord Hong and us are stationed in the west, they have to attack with their heads, otherwise they will not be able to raise their heads in front of other bandits."

Cao Bianjiao said "Oh" and asked, "Uncle, which bandits are there?"

"This... the information is not detailed enough, and I don't know which route we are coming." Cao Wenzhao shook his head and said, "Our information comes from buying stupid thieves. These stupid thieves are illiterate, have no flexibility in their minds, and cannot speak in a mess. The information they are looking for is always unconventional." (Note, this is true of historical facts. The court has basically not figured out what the leaders of the rebel army have. The historical materials circulating in various places are in a mess and cannot be combined together)

He paused and said to Cao Bianjiao: "You send more scouts to see the flags raised by the thieves from afar. Let's detect which bandits are coming."

Cao Bianjiao responded and quickly sent an order.

He looked at the sky in the northeast and said quietly: "Uncle... This time we will strive to make a great contribution and solve this thief beautifully. The last time we failed to fight against Jiannu, we can redeem it..."

"Yeah!" Cao Wenzhao couldn't help but look at the northeast and said depressedly: "Jiannu (that is, Manchu Qing Dynasty)... Alas... Jiannu has become a climate, and it is really difficult to deal with... Uncle was just a little careless last time and was defeated by the slave soldiers... Damn... This time, he must make great contributions in the bandit suppression and re-transfer back to Liaodong. This revenge must be avenged..."

"Uncle, don't worry, my nephew will fight bravely and help you defeat the bandits. We must return to the battlefield in Liaodong and give the Tartars some beauty." Cao Bianjiao said.

The two uncles and nephews were talking about this when they suddenly saw the scout who had just been sent back. The scout shouted anxiously: "Two generals, the big thing is not good. Please take the reward from the spies ahead. The bandits sent troops to attack Tongguan..."

"What?" Cao Wenzhao and Cao Bianjiao's two uncles and nephews stood up together: "Will the thief army be brave after being ambitious? How many people have come?"

The scout said in a sweat: "The 16,000 bandit soldiers have all set out to camp and come to Tongguan in three units. The vanguard of the bandit army is the 3,000 people led by the thief Bai Yuzhu."

Cao Wenzhao sneered: "Bai Yuzhu? That fickle villain? What kind of virtue does he have to dare to mess with me? Change the dragon, you lead a thousand people to take the lead, defeat the enemy's vanguard, and slash his spirit, and uncle will come later."

"Yes!" Cao Bianyi saluted and rushed out.

Although the three thousand border troops led by Cao Cao are all border troops, there are actually good and bad ones. One thousand of these three thousand border troops are sharp, while the other two thousand are relatively ordinary border troops, which are slightly inferior in combat power and morale. Of course, they are still much stronger than the mainland soldiers.

With the order from Cao Bianjiao, a thousand sharp border troops gathered first and served as vanguards. Cao Bianyi brought the thousand people to the east and went towards the Baiyuzhu. Cao Wenzhao came to reorganize the army in detail. He left 2,500 Xi'an troops to station in Tongguan, summoned 2,500 border troops, and then set up 2,500 Yansui troops, a total of 4,500 people, left Tongguan and advanced behind Cao Bianjiao.

Don’t look at the total of only 5,500 officers and soldiers who left Tongguan to fight the bandit army this time, and there were 16,000 bandit army. However, Cao Wenzhao, Cao Bianjiao, and even the entire army, no one thought he would lose. According to the usual situation, the bandit army had a lot of water, at most only 30% were young and strong, so the 16,000 bandit army could produce only 5,000 fights, and at most more than 5,000 fights more than 5,000. In the eyes of officers and soldiers, especially the border army, it was simply effortless.
Chapter completed!