After writing down the relevant information and sending it to Liu Jia in Long County, Ma Chao and Zhang Ren led 15,000 cavalry troops to pursue Cao Ren fiercely. Since Cao Jun left behind a lot of food that he had not had time to transport, there are still weapons left by Cao Jun in the abandoned military camp, and some Cao Jun troops lost their armor under the attack of Ma Chao's cavalry, it can be said that Ma Chao's troops did not have many logistical problems. The only thing that restrains them is physical strength and the darkness of night.
After Ma Chao's army arrived at the city of Yumi, which Cao Jun had abandoned, news came from the front that the people of Chang'an, under the influence of Cao Jun, began to migrate to the interior of the Central Plains. Now Ma Chao and Zhang Ren are even more convinced that there is a big trouble in Xuchang, Cao Cao's hometown. They rested for a day in Yumi City, waited for the troops to regroup, and then pursued Cao Jun non-stop.
Precisely because Ma Chao's troops were cavalry, they advanced much faster than Cao Ren's troops. Therefore, the chased Cao Ren's large army soon caught up with and surpassed Ma Chao's troops. These Cao soldiers were also self-aware and knew that it was absolutely impossible to resist Ma Chao's troops with high morale. Seeing Ma Chao's troops catching up, what they did was almost out of instinct - running around and fleeing. As a result, Ma Chao had nothing to do with these scattered fugitives, and most of them just let them run away, regardless of whether they would be bandits or thieves in the future.
When Ma Chao's army approached Yong County, there was a strange scene on the entire Yongzhou battlefield: Cao Ren's troops were running away far behind the Chinese army led by Cao Cao. After several battles and escapes, 20,000 troops were left with only three Four thousand men and horses; more than 15,000 cavalry led by Ma Chao and Zhang Ren were still in pursuit. After they passed by, the city suddenly became an unattended area. What was left behind were dilapidated villages, towns, cities and panicked people, surrounded by Cao's army who had not yet breathed their last breath; almost parallel to Ma Chao's large army were the troops led by Cao Hong, who were also pursued by Pang De's cavalry. , just because Pound had few men and horses, and Cao Hong's combat power was not weak, his escape was not so panicky; behind Pound were the troops sent by Liu Jia to transport logistics supplies for the Ma Chao cavalry.
Everyone seems to have ignored the other vanguard of Cao Jun - Wang Shuang's troops. Until now, Wang Shuang's troops are still staying in place, neither retreating with Cao Cao's army nor rescuing Cao Ren and Cao Hong who were out of breath after being chased by Ma Chao's army.
but. It's not that Wang Shuang didn't do anything, except that he was still fighting with the people for food in the fields as always. He even sent someone to do it
While Ma Chao and the others were happily pursuing Cao Jun in Yong County, Liu Jia, Pang Tong, Xu Shu and others were anxiously waiting for news from Ma Chao and the others. There has been no news from Ma Chao since receiving the interception of Ma Chao's troops defeating Cao Ren's army.
"Why did their letters suddenly stop? It's been several days and they still haven't received any letters. Isn't today the fifth day?" Liu Jia asked.
"The strange thing is that our transportation troops were not attacked by Cao's army, because if something happened to General Ma and the others, our transportation troops would not be spared, right?" Xu Shu was also puzzled.
Liu Jia looked at the pensive Pang Tong and said, "General Ma Chao is too careless. We have sent out several orders urging them to reply every day for the past three days. Why is there no response at all?"
"The commander-in-chief estimates that General Ma and the others are moving forward to kill us. I am afraid that our messenger will not be able to catch up for a while. However, he should also find ways to receive our letter before taking action. Could it be that there is something wrong within Cao's army? ?" Pang Tong said slowly.
After hearing what Pang Tong said, Liu Jia turned to look at Li Hui, who was in charge of collecting information, with doubts in his eyes.
Li Hui immediately said seriously: "There has been no abnormal news from Xuchang these days. Three days ago, news came from Chang'an that there seemed to be some signs of panic there."
Now news from all over the country is first sent to Chengdu by carrier pigeons, and then sent to Hanzhong by carrier pigeons from Chengdu, and then sent to Longxian by fast horses. Therefore, news from Xuchang, Chang'an, Jianye and other places lags behind for three or four days.
Liu Jia nodded and said, "Has our detective team sent out?"
Li Huidao: "We sent it out early! Although we have not seen General Ma Chao's large troops in the exploration horses we sent out in the past few days, we have also captured many stragglers of Cao's army. We learned from their mouths that General Ma Chao and his men It was victory after victory, and Cao's army was defeated. There was no bad news. The strange thing is that our scouts did not pay attention to the messengers sent by General Ma and others. I don't know whether General Ma and others did not send them or the messengers disappeared out of thin air. "
At this time. A detective horse quickly ran into the meeting hall with a look of panic. After seeing Liu Jia and others, he quickly knelt down on one knee and shouted loudly: "Report! We have found a messenger sent by General Ma Chao!"
Liu Jia and others were stunned and glanced at each other.?They are all happy: as long as you have faith!
"Where are the others?" Liu Jia asked quickly.
Tan Ma said: "He is dead!"
"Dead? Where is the letter?" Liu Jia asked hurriedly.
"There is no letter! He said that the letter was taken away by others." Tan Ma continued.
"What? Didn't you just say he was dead? Why is he talking again?" Liu Jia asked.
Pang Tong quickly said to Tan Ma: "Get up first, drink some water, and slowly tell me what's going on."
"Yes!" Tan Ma quickly stood up. He carefully took the Wabo bowl handed over by the guard and took a few sips of water. Then he told what he knew:
Today, when several of their scouts were searching for news, they found a person at the foot of a mountain. A half-dead "mud man" crawled out of a mud pit, covered in blood and mud. After seeing Tan Ma coming on horseback, he immediately shouted for help. Although his voice was hoarse, the scouts still noticed him, and judging from his dirty clothes that he was a messenger from their side, they gathered around to rescue him. It's a pity that this man was too seriously injured. He was stabbed in the chest and could not be rescued. When he was dying, he said that he was intercepted by Cao Jun who was ambushing here. During the fight, he was wounded by Cao Jun who was outnumbered. After Cao Jun seized the letters from him, they buried them in the pit together with the horses. I don't know if it was because the soil was too shallow or for some reason, but he crawled out anyway.
Before he died, the messenger also told Tan Ma that General Ma Chao's troops were progressing very smoothly. They defeated Cao Ren's troops and followed the defeated troops to occupy the city of Yumi, which Cao Jun had abandoned. Moreover, Chang'an is currently in panic. Cao Cao did not come to rescue Cao Ren but fled towards Chang'an. According to Ma Chao and Zhang Ren's estimation, there was a big problem in Xuchang. Therefore, Ma Chao's army did not stop, and only rested for one day before pursuing Yong County. What General Ma meant in his letter was to ask the King of Shu to take advantage of this opportunity to send troops immediately, take advantage of the chaos to occupy Yongzhou and even capture the city of Chang'an.
"General Ma Chao has already defeated Wei Mi City? So quickly?" Liu Jia was surprised at first, and then asked Tan Ma Dao, "Which unit of Cao's army is intercepting our messenger?"
"I don't know yet. I heard from the messenger that Cao Jun rushed out from the hillsides on both sides, and I don't know where they came from. We also searched nearby for a while, but found nothing." Tan Ma said.
Pang Tong also asked a few questions and asked Tan Ma to go down and rest first.
Seeing several people looking at him with inquiring eyes, Pang Tong said: "Yi Tong estimates that the ambush to intercept our messenger was a long-planned act. If they were defeated, they would never rob the messenger who didn't have much money on him. Moreover, all the messengers in the past few days have been intercepted and killed by them. It must be organized and the purpose is very clear, that is, to prevent us from knowing the true situation of General Ma Chao and the others. The only Cao army that can carry out these actions to the west of Suimi City is Wang Shuang!"
"Didn't our detective say that Wang Shuang's troops are still in the fields grabbing grain? Although some of their troops were concentrated, there was still no action." Liu Jia asked.
Pang Tong said: "That's an illusion. Two of the three vanguards are fighting with our troops, but Wang Shuang is slowly gathering his troops, which is inconsistent with the situation. Besides, our scouts can't be meticulous enough to see whether each of them is. They are gathering or harvesting grain. Besides, how could it be that Cao Ren's defeated soldiers were left behind intentionally? Let them scatter everywhere to cut off our communication channel with General Ma Chao."
"Didn't General Ma also bring some carrier pigeons with him? Why didn't he use them if he hadn't received a letter for a few days?" Li Hui said.
Xu Shu took Pang Tong's place and said: "Didn't we agree in advance that they would only use carrier pigeons in emergencies? Now that they are overwhelming, they will naturally not use those precious carrier pigeons. Besides, the carrier pigeons must first fly to Chengdu, and then be transferred from Chengdu to Hanzhong. It will also take several days to deliver it to us by horse."
Liu Jiadao: "Then Cao Cao must be using a strategy to lure the enemy deeper! If this is really the case, then Wang Shuang, who is pretending behind the scenes, has the task of cutting off the rear. He must not only prevent us from rescuing General Ma, but also prevent General Ma from counterattacking. , is his 20,000 troops really so capable?"
Pang Tong said: "Twenty thousand won't work? What about thirty thousand? What about sixty thousand? Or even one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand?"
Liu Jia shook his head and said: "Impossible! Wang Shuang is not a god. How can he mobilize 100,000 or 200,000 troops at once? If he really wants to block both us and General Ma's counterattack, it is absolutely impossible without more than 150,000 troops. possible!"
Li Hui also said beside him: "Our detective horses have not stopped searching nearby. Except for the 20,000 soldiers who found Wang Shuang and some stragglers who could not be counted clearly, no large troops were found. It is impossible to appear all at once. Hundreds of thousands of troops are behind General Ma Chao."
Pang Tong said: "If you don't have it now, it doesn't mean that it will happen next time."?No. There are none around us in Long County, which does not mean that there are none around General Ma. Even if there is no Cao army behind General Ma now, won't there be when General Ma continues to charge forward? ". Pang Tong said, spreading his hands.