SFS Chapter 776 This Generation of Young People
Chapter 776 This Generation of Young People
Jiang Wei's night raid on three strongholds established the reputation of the Wudang Flying Army, greatly pleasing Zhang Fei.
However, the Wei army had a different feeling. Upon learning that the Han army had captured three camps in succession, they panicked and immediately organized a large army to counterattack, attempting to recapture the lost camps.
It is important to understand that the 72 camps of Dahong Mountain form a complete defensive system. Losing even one camp would create a gap in the defense, let alone three. Therefore, the Wei army was eager to take advantage of the opportunity when the Han army had just captured the camps and was not yet firmly established to retake them.
However, they forgot that the Han army wanted more than just these three camps; they wanted all the camps in the Dahong Mountains. They also didn't know that the Han army that captured the camps and the Han army that defended them were not the same group of people at all.
Currently, Sun Lang is guarding the camp. Although Sun Lang cannot conquer the strategically important Wei camp, he can still hold it.
More importantly, after Sun Lang took over the camp, Jiang Wei had nothing to do. During the great battle, Jiang Wei naturally couldn't stay at home and sleep. Instead, he rested during the day and acted at night, venturing deep into the Dahong Mountains to continuously attack the Wei army's camp.
Furthermore, due to the narrow terrain, he could only bring a thousand or eight hundred men each time. It was impossible for all five thousand Wudang Flying Army soldiers to be deployed to the battlefield at once. Therefore, after a few times, he and Zhang Bao each led a team to act separately.
Then something chilling happened to the Wei army: the Wudang Flying Army, skilled in rock climbing, appeared and disappeared like ghosts. You never knew when or where they would emerge from. Therefore, they had to strengthen their vigilance and stay alert at all times. But the Wei army was also human. Even an iron man couldn't withstand being on edge for twelve hours a day.
What made the Wei army even more devastated was that after the first battle, Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao became more cautious. They no longer charged directly into the Wei camp to fight to the death like they had that night. Most of the time, they stood on the mountaintop and fired arrows, then quickly retreated, thus frantically damaging the morale of the Wei army. By the time the Wei army calmed down and prepared to counterattack, the Han army had already disappeared.
After harassing the Wei army several times, exhausting them and making them mistakenly believe that the harassment was only for a short time, Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao would launch a fierce attack and capture the camp in one fell swoop.
Thus, the Wei army not only failed to recapture the lost camps, but also continued to lose their own camps. In just half a month, the Wei army lost one-fifth of its camps in Dahong Mountain.
When the news reached Zhangling, Xu Huang's old face was so gloomy it could be wrung out. He was filled with both anger and fear, because he knew that if things continued like this, it was only a matter of time before his camp in the Dahong Mountains was wiped out by the Han army.
In the county government hall, the eldest son, Xu Gai, dared not look at Xu Huang's face, but said tremblingly, "Father, we have found out that the one who recently attacked the camp was the Wudang Flying Army, which Guan Xing formed by drawing elites from the Southern Barbarian army, and was led by Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao."
“Wudang Flying Army…” Xu Huang gritted his teeth as he uttered these words, then nearly broke down and cursed, “It’s that damned Guan Xing again.”
After Guan Xing destroyed Wu, he stopped leading troops and instead actively ran schools and training classes in the army. He trained 3,000 students, and only a few of them forced Wei and Han to start a war ahead of schedule. Now, the Wudang Flying Army has emerged.
Although he didn't know about the Wudang Flying Army, he did know about the Southern Barbarians. He had heard that the Hengduan Mountains were the most dangerous place in the world, with mountains everywhere. What looked like a distance of only a hundred meters would take a whole day to traverse. Soldiers from there could climb steep cliffs as easily as eating and drinking. The terrain of the Dahong Mountains was no different from the plains in front of this group of people. Guan Xing letting them enter the Dahong Mountains to deal with him was truly a dimensional reduction attack.
That damn Guan Xing is really good at making the most of things!
Xu Gai tentatively asked, "Father, we can't let the Han army continue like this. Losing the camp is a small matter, but sacrificing the camp's defenders would be a huge loss for us."
There were seventy-two camps, each with two to five hundred men, totaling nearly twenty thousand. If such a large army were to be devoured piece by piece by the Han army, the losses would be unbearable.
Xu Huang pondered for a long time before slamming his fist on the table and saying weakly, "Execute the second plan. Order the army to shrink the defensive line, abandon all the camps in the east, and only hold the thirteen camps in the west. The same applies to Tongbai Mountain."
The thirteen camps mentioned by Xu Huang were the last line of defense between Zhangling and the Han River, forming a straight line connecting the Han River and Zhangling County. In other words, if any one of the thirteen camps were lost, the Han army could break through the Dahong Mountains and enter the Nanyang Basin to threaten the main force of the Wei army.
In doing so, the Wei army essentially abandoned all the strategic depth in the Dahong Mountains, shrinking the hundred-meter-thick defensive line to only ten meters thick.
But there was nothing that could be done. When Xu Huang learned that the Wudang Flying Army was rampaging, he wanted to use a fishing tactic to lure the Han army into a trap and then set up an ambush to annihilate them. However, Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao were not fooled at all. Several consecutive failures made Xu Huang feel a deep sense of loss.
Xu Huang was dismayed to find that he seemed to have fallen behind. This generation of young people were even more cunning than Jia Xu when they fought, and their unpredictable tactics made it impossible to anticipate their moves. This left him with no choice but to shrink his defensive lines.
Forced into a corner by the two young men, Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao, Xu Huang had no choice but to shrink his defensive line. However, retreating was not so easy for him, as Jiang Wei and Zhang Bao, who had been fighting for many days, had their eyes on his transit camp.
After the war began, in order to facilitate operations, Jiang Wei numbered all the Wei camps from one to seventy-two, with the transit camps numbered seventy-two.
The so-called transit camp was a transit station between various camps. It was located in a relatively large valley in the middle of Dahong Mountain. Two thousand soldiers were stationed in the camp, and a large amount of grain and fodder were stored in it. Therefore, this camp was responsible for providing grain and fodder to the camps to the east, as well as supporting the camps to the east.
On the first night that Wudang Flying Army entered the mountains, Jiang Wei wanted to take it down, but Zhang Bao refused. Now that the Wei camp to the east had been almost completely taken down, the retreat route was clear, and there was no risk of being surrounded by the Wei army if they were not careful. So Jiang Wei prepared to take action against Wei Camp No. 72.
On the mountaintop northeast of Camp 72, Jiang Wei, with a foxtail grass in his mouth, lay in the grass with Zhang Bao, observing the Wei army in the camp. After a long period of observation, he said slowly, "Recently, that old scoundrel Xu Huang has been trying to lure us into a trap. If he fails, he will definitely take other measures. If you were Xu Huang, what would you do?"
Zhang Bao said, "What else can we do? Of course, we should withdraw from the camps and shrink our defensive line. Are we just going to watch the camps be wiped out by us?"
The seemingly perfect defensive system of seventy-two camps would lead to the dispersion of troops and difficulties in resupply. In addition, with half of the camps now destroyed and the defensive system broken up, there is no point in continuing to defend. Therefore, the only option is to withdraw troops to prevent them from being defeated one by one by the Han army.
Jiang Wei laughed and said, "Great minds think alike. We've been playing with that old scoundrel Xu Huang for so long. Now that he's leaving, wouldn't it be impolite of us not to give him a send-off?"
Zhang Bao's eyes lit up with excitement as he asked, "What are you planning to do?"
Jiang Wei pointed to the Wei camp ahead and said, "This large camp is the transit point for all the Wei camps, and it is also the only way for the Wei army from camps one to sixteen to retreat. As long as we take this place, we can block the retreat of the Wei army from camps sixteen. So my plan is for us to block and intercept them here, and let the Third General lead the main force into the mountains to pursue them and try to wipe out the Wei army from camps sixteen in one go. What do you think?"
The Wei army in the sixteen strongholds numbered three to four thousand men. If they could be wiped out, it would definitely give Xu Huang a hard time.
Zhang Bao shook his head and said, "Sixteen isn't enough. Since we're already doing it, let's go all out."
After speaking, he took out a miniature map of the Wei camps from his pocket, laid it on the ground, observed it for a moment, and said, "Here, here, here, and here, if we hold these three points, we can block the retreat route of all forty-six Wei camps, including the seventy-second camp, and wipe out the Wei army in all forty-six camps. What do you think?"