Daqin Engineering Corps

Yueshi should have no interest in Suzhou.

This is mainly due to the limited population of the Yue clan occupying the oases around Shazhou, which is enough for them to live. However, Suzhou is [-] miles away from Shazhou and there is drought and water shortage all the way. There is only a North River in Suzhou. To the Yue family, it's tasteless...

Because if Suzhou is occupied, the Yue family who has lived in Shazhou for many years will have to drive horses and flocks eight hundred miles away if they want to graze?

If you want to move the people to Suzhou, you must send soldiers to garrison them.

This is also the reason why the Yueshi did not occupy Suzhou after the Huns retreated.

If Suzhou is occupied, how many soldiers need to be stationed to be safe?

With fewer troops sent, these soldiers are simply not enough to guarantee the safety of the herdsmen, so they cannot operate and develop Suzhou, only to be looted.

If there are too many dispatches, Shazhou's strength will be divided into two. At that time, Shazhou may not be able to withstand the attack of the Huns.

So King Yuezhi didn't think too much, just occupied Shazhou and kept it safe.

But now, why is Yuezhi interested in Suzhou?

After thinking about it, Shen Bing understood.

The Yueshi has been adjacent to the Qin army for many years and even had wars with the Qin army, so the Yueshi king is very clear about the strengths and weaknesses of the Qin army.

Previously, King Yueshi thought that his opponent was the Huns or cavalry, so he did not dare to occupy Suzhou lightly.

But now, King Yuezhi knows that his opponent is the Qin army, which is mainly infantry. At the same time, King Yuezhi knows that there is no farmland for more than a thousand miles in the Hexi Corridor, and he has formed an alliance with the Huns... At this time, it is even more important not to occupy Suzhou. when?

Shen Bing was right, Yuezhi was planning to do just that.

After the Xiongnu envoys left, King Yuezhi said to General Qiu Jiu with some trepidation:

"It is said that the Qin State has unified the Central Plains, and the national power is at its peak at this time."

"Now that we have killed the envoy of Qin to fight against him, the Qin army will definitely send troops to attack. What should we do?"

Qiu Jiu answered with confidence:

"Your Majesty, don't worry too much."

"It is necessary to know that the people of Qin lived on farming, and this place is far away from Qin State and there is no land for thousands of miles."

"It is expected that the Qin people will not be able to send many soldiers, let alone transport much food and grass to this place."

"From my subordinate's point of view, instead of worrying... we can use the power of the Huns to expand our power and return to Hexi."

King Yuezhi was justified by what Qiu said, so he sent a small group of troops and spies to Suzhou, only waiting for the Qin army to retreat and they would bring Suzhou into their territory again.

When Shen Bing wanted to understand the reason, he let go of half of his hanging heart.

If King Yuezhi had this plan, it was estimated that the Qin army would abandon Suzhou due to insufficient supplies, and even prepared to receive it... Then it shows that the Yuezhi underestimated the enemy.

The consequences of underestimating the enemy, on the one hand, would lead to strategic misjudgments, and on the other hand, Sanwei Mountain’s defenses were not strong... Since the enemy was expected to retreat instead of attacking, the defense and fortifications were of course just a pretense to deal with it.

Thinking of Shen Bing, he raised his hand to signal the troops to stop.

Li Yan looked at Shen Bing in puzzlement:

"Why did the general stop moving forward?"

Shen Bing thought for a while and said:

"I can't wait to enter Suzhou, so I will camp there."

"At the same time, order all the soldiers in Suzhou to prepare to withdraw from Suzhou and retreat to Ganzhou."

Ganzhou is the modern Zhangye City of Gansu Province, and "Gansu" is derived from the ancient names Ganzhou and Suzhou of Zhangye and Jiuquan.

Li Yan couldn't help looking at Shen Bing in shock when he heard this.

Before that, Li Yan was really scared.

On the one hand, this is because the enemy has much more troops than the Qin army. One hundred thousand Huns plus [-] Yuezhi are against the Qin army's [-].

On the other hand, Li Yan had been commanding the infantry before and had never commanded the cavalry, but there were cavalry from the Western Regions in Suzhou who couldn't speak the language and couldn't even read the banner... How to direct?

He originally thought that Shen Bing would bring these reinforcements... although these reinforcements were not many, only 3000.

But Li Yan knew Shen Bing's skills. Shen Bing had always been able to win with less and more with the weak, so even if the total strength of Suzhou was less than [-], Li Yan believed that Shen Bing could stabilize the situation.

However, before Shen Bing arrived in Suzhou, he ordered to withdraw his troops as soon as he heard that the Yue clan had approached the city. This...

Shen Bing saw that Li Yan was standing still for a long time, so he urged:

"I have my own opinion, General Li Yan will arrange it now!"

Li Yan responded, and then went down suspiciously.

After Li Yan left, Wang Ben leaned over and said to Shen Bing in a low voice:

"The great general has a great plan, the Yue family is in trouble today!"

Shen Bing understood.

Just from Wang Ben's words, we know that he is much better than Li Yan.

Chapter 395 Wisdom

Shen Bing is still really retreating.

Before retreating, the fortress built by Li Yan's tens of thousands of troops was burned down.

Then the army withdrew in the direction of Ganzhou for two full days.

King Yueshi was overjoyed when he heard that the Qin army had withdrawn from Suzhou, and immediately ordered General Qiu to lead an army of [-] to occupy Suzhou and pursue the Qin army.

The so-called "chasing" is actually following Qin Jun far behind.

However, Qiu knew that the Yuezhi cavalry had a slight advantage if the Qin army fought mobile, but they were far from their opponents if they wanted to fight the Qin army head-on.

So Qiu made a plan from the beginning: if the Qin army retreats, I will advance, and if the Qin army advances, I will retreat.

There was no problem with this plan, because anyway, the Yuezhi's cavalry army and the Qin army mainly consisted of infantry, so it was very difficult to catch up with the Yuezhi.

However, Qiu was completely unaware that he had fallen into the trap set by Shen Bing...

The retreat speed of the Qin army was very slow, which was normal. The Qin army, which was mainly infantry, marched no more than fifty miles a day, not to mention marching with supplies and driving cattle and sheep.

On the first night, after the Qin army camped, Shen Bing arranged two thousand Shenwu troops and one thousand Xiangli troops in the mountains and let them hide.

He even told the Li army to go behind to clear the traces of the troops entering the mountains.

Even Qin Jun didn't know this. They thought that the Shenwu Army and the Xiangli Army were still following.

The second night's camp was actually a fake camp.

After setting up the tent and eating, Shen Bing ordered a short rest and prepared for battle.

Li Yan was stunned when he heard "ready for battle":

"General, I'm waiting but you want to call back?"

Shen Bing replied:

"of course."

Li Yan said with some regret:

"General, but we have already burned the camp... Even if we fight back, there will be no camp to defend!"

Shen Bing asked bitterly:

"General Li Yan, is it more important to camp or kill the enemy?"

"What's more, I can only wait for military rations for more than a month."

"This time the killer will go back... I think I can capture a lot of horses and sheep from Yuezhi!"

Li Yan couldn't help but suddenly realized when he heard the words, he nodded repeatedly and said:

"The general is brilliant."

But after thinking about it, he said:

"I'm afraid I won't be able to catch up with Yuezhi..."

Shen Bing interrupted Li Yan:

"I have made arrangements for this matter. General Li can command the soldiers to be dispatched."

After Li Yan finished his explanation, Shen Bing went to look for Ji.

What Shen Bing didn't expect was that the seemingly innocuous Ji turned out to be the prince of the Pulei Kingdom...that is, the son of the Qin Kingdom.

But this Pulei country is pretty much the same up and down, even the father of the Pulei King is just like a herdsman.

Shen Bing guessed that they would not have been so downcast before, but when the Huns broke the country and drove them to flee everywhere in order to survive, of course they couldn't care less about their manners.

As soon as he saw Shen Bing approaching, he greeted him excitedly and said:

"General, my father said that the general is a wise man."

Shen Bing let out an "oh" and asked:

“How come you see?”

He turned his head and bowed to King Pu Lei who was looking at Shen Bing behind him, said a few words, and then replied:

"Father said that the time to counterattack is just right."

"And the general set up an ambush on the enemy's retreat route. This battle should be to retake Suzhou in one fell swoop!"

Shen Bing smiled, this King Pu Lei is quite shrewd.

But he was wrong about one thing.

"No." Shen Bing replied: "In this battle, we are going to attack all the way to Shazhou and vow to take Yueshi down!"

He couldn't help being surprised when he heard this, and after relaying it to King Pu Lei, King Pu Lei also looked at Shen Bing in shock, and nodded slightly after pondering for a while.

Jiang explained:

"Although father doesn't know what good strategy the general has to go to Shazhou to destroy the Yue clan, but I believe that the general has a plan in his mind."

"Father asked me to tell the general that we are waiting for the three thousand Pu Lei army and only the general will follow."

What Shen Bing wants is this sentence, which is to make King Pulei trust Shen Bing unconditionally and hand over the command, otherwise if there is a disagreement on the battlefield...it will be bad for King Pulei to disobey the order.

Pu Lei can only gather [-] cavalry so far, and the other [-] are loose cavalry recruited from various tribes in the Western Regions.

These loose riders are a bit troublesome, because they haven't practiced so far, so it is difficult to command them.

It may even cause chaos if thrown into battle.

Therefore, Shen Bing planned to use only [-] cavalry from the Pu Lei Department for the time being, and [-] scattered cavalry to guard the flock.

The sky gradually darkened.

Shen Bing ordered to the messenger:

"Array and set off!"

Immediately, the messenger rode away holding the command flag, shouting as he ran:

"Array and set off!"

"Array and set off!"

……

Qin Jun, who was sitting neatly on the ground and resting, stood up from the ground "swish", each took his own equipment, and then walked westward steadily under Li Yan's command.

Yuezhi's camp was two miles away, and because of the darkness, he could only vaguely see the white color of some tents and the bonfire that Yueshi had lit.

It can also be seen from this that the Yue clan is not prepared for war at all, otherwise it would be a taboo for military strategists to light a bonfire in front of the enemy's formation.

After waiting for a while, Shen Bing nodded towards Jiang.

With a yell behind him, three thousand cavalrymen jumped on their horses in unison, and then groups of horses followed the infantry with small steps.

There was no drum beating or horn blowing throughout.

This is to ensure the suddenness of the battle without alarming the Yuezhi.

However, Yuezhi still noticed Qin Jun's movements after the cup of tea time... A loud arrow flew into the air with a whistling sound.