Chapter 294: Standoff

Feihu Pass.

After more than two days of marching, Zhao Xu and his party arrived here.

Upon learning the news, the Feihu Pass garrison commanders Niu Cha, Zhong Li, and Chen Hu all came out to welcome them, and the main army entered Feihu Pass to station.

"What is the situation outside Feihu Pass now?" After resting briefly, Zhao Xu climbed the Feihu Pass city wall and looked toward the vaguely visible Xiliang encampment.

As the garrison commander, Niu Cha naturally had the duty to grasp the military situation; he cupped his fists and said, "Reporting to Your Highness, just one day before Your Highness arrived, a large number of Xiliang Infantry entered the encampment."

Zhao Xu nodded.

Feihu Pass is roughly the location of the contemporary Pingxing Pass.

The terrain here can truly be called a throat-like strategic passage.

On both sides of the mountain road are towering mountain bodies, and on the mountain bodies are lush, green trees.

Below the mountain is a flat road about fifty meters wide.

And Feihu Pass is built at one end of the mountain road.

At this time, the Xiliang encampment is pitched at the other end.

It is equivalent to him not letting Xiliang in, and Xiliang not letting him out.

To enter Jinzhou, a battle must be fought here.

The encampment in the distance does not look very clear.

Zhao Xu then reached out his hand toward Chang Wei.

Chang Wei understood and immediately handed the Telescope to him.

Picking up the Telescope, Zhao Xu adjusted it slightly and looked toward the Xiliang encampment.

Through the Telescope, Zhao Xu could see the wooden fences of the encampment.

Inside the fences were gray tents, and Xiliang soldiers were moving in and out of these tents.

There were also tall watchtowers in the encampment, with Archers standing on them.

Chang Wei at this time took the Telescope from Qin Shan's hand and also began to look, roughly counting the number of tents in the encampment.

He said, "Your Highness, a Xiliang tent generally houses thirty people; there are at least thirty thousand people in this encampment.

"

Zhao Xu put down the Telescope and frowned.

With so many troops stuffed into such a narrow place, the Xiliang encampment almost presented a long, snake-like shape.

Niu Cha, Zhong Li, and Chen Hu, the three of them, listened to the two talking, their gazes falling on the Telescope in the two's hands, their expressions strange.

After hesitating for a long time, Zhong Li asked, "Your Highness, what is this? Why hold this thing before your eyes?"

Chang Wei chuckled twice and placed the Telescope before Zhong Li's eyes, letting him look toward the Xiliang encampment.

Zhong Li did not react at first, but upon looking again, his jaw almost dropped.

"What is this object?" he shouted.

Chen Hu and Niu Cha, seeing this, could not suppress their curiosity even more and one after another requested to take a look.

Upon this look, they were immediately as shocked as Zhong Li.

Chang Wei felt proud for a while and explained it to them.

After the three finished listening, they looked toward the Yan Wang, revealing expressions of reverence.

They did not expect this thing to have been created by the Yan Wang.

Zhao Xu saw that the few were attracted by the Telescope; he waited a while, and after their sense of novelty passed, he said, "Uproot this encampment tomorrow."

"Yes, Your Highness." Chang Wei responded with a yes.

Xiliang Main Camp.

Deputy Commander Ye Renrong looked toward Feihu Pass from afar.

Beside him, four Main Generals were waiting for his orders.

Yesterday, Ye Renrong arrived here, bringing twenty thousand people.

And before that, only over twenty thousand Xiliang soldiers were stationed in the encampment, led by one Main General.

In order to deceive the Da Song soldiers, Ye Renrong ordered forty soldiers to live in each tent in the encampment to cover up the true troop strength.

"Deputy Commander, several faces not seen before have appeared on the battlements of Feihu Pass." Just at this time, a Xiliang soldier responsible for scouting returned and reported to him.

"What characteristics do those few people have?" Ye Renrong asked.

"One is young, about sixteen or seventeen years old; one is tall and large, with a face full of whiskers," the soldier said.

Ye Renrong nodded and said to the Main Generals, "It seems to be the Yan Wang and his subordinate general Chang Wei."

They had long since obtained the date of the Yan Wang's attack on Jinzhou from Wuwei.

Now that these two unfamiliar faces appeared, it undoubtedly confirmed this matter.

"In that case, the war will be within these two days," a Main General said.

Ye Renrong looked toward Yanguan again.

The order he received was to test the strength of the Yan King Army and at the same time consume a portion of their troops.

If they could not win, they were to abandon the encampment and retreat toward Jincheng, luring the Yan King Army deep into Jinzhou, and subsequently dispatch Cavalry to harass the Yan King's Baggage Train.

Thinking of this, he said to the Main Generals beside him, "You take advantage of the night to ambush ten thousand troops in the mountain forest on the left, and you ambush ten thousand troops in the mountain forest on the right; the rest will hold the encampment firmly. Once the Yan Wang's troops arrive and the ox-horn horn sounds, all three sides will emerge at once to catch him off guard."

"Yes, Deputy Commander," the Main Generals shouted.

Jincheng.

Tuoba Wuji stood on the city wall at this time, looking toward the east.

It was as if his gaze could pierce through the earth and reach Feihu Pass.

At this moment, besides the Xiliang generals following him, there were also several officials with Da Song faces.

They were precisely the Heads of the Family of the Four Great Wealthy Clans of Jinzhou.

Below the city walls, Xiliang soldiers were driving the commoners of Jinzhou to hammer sharpened wooden stakes into the ground at an angle.

The earth became like a hedgehog.

And at the city gate, the driven commoners were piling sandbags behind the gate, stacking them layer upon layer.

"Hmph, even if Yan Wang has Artillery, I want to see how he can take Jincheng, which is like a wall of bronze and an iron fortress," Tuoba Wuji said.

It had been over a hundred years, and the Xiliang people had finally occupied Jincheng.

Now, to take Jincheng away from their hands, it would require every single Xiliang soldier in Jincheng to die.

"The leader is right; this Jincheng has high walls and thick ramparts. This official believes the Artillery is merely exaggerated; otherwise, why would Da Song agree to the peace request of the Northern Di? If it were truly that miraculous, wouldn't it be better to directly retake their Ningjin Dusi?" an official said.

His name was Cao Rui, and he was once a Commandery Governor.

The Four Great Wealthy Clans of Jinzhou were the Cao, Qu, Hou, and Chang families.

After Xiliang took Jincheng, they immediately surrendered to Xiliang.

And the Xiliang people, in order to stabilize Jinzhou as quickly as possible, accepted them.

Now, they were true Xiliang officials.

Tuoba Wuji frowned upon hearing this.

As the most outstanding general of Xiliang, he was not that arrogant.

During this period, he had received quite a bit of information about Artillery from the Ma Family.

Moreover, the true power of the Artillery had been verified in Jinling City of Da Song.

The officials who went to observe the Artillery firing would not lie.

It was precisely because he faced the power of Yan Wang's Artillery squarely that he had made so many countermeasures.

However, the good news now was that the Ma Family would not attack Jinzhou from two sides with Yan Wang.

This would greatly alleviate the pressure on Jinzhou.

At the same time, a flaw of Yan Wang, visible to all, was seen by him.

Cao Rui said that Yan Wang dared not leave Yanguan because the power of the Artillery was not that great.

In his view, that was wrong.

Yan Wang dared not leave Yanguan because he dared not stretch his supply lines too long.

Otherwise, facing the fierce Northern Di Cavalry, if the supply lines were cut, even with Artillery, Yan Wang's soldiers would collapse.

Therefore, he formulated a strategy of fighting while retreating to exhaust Yan Wang's troops, while simultaneously luring Yan Wang's forces deep into Jinzhou.

Although his Xiliang Cavalry was slightly inferior to the Northern Di.

But he was confident that he still had a huge advantage in dealing with Yan Wang's Cavalry, which had only been trained for a few months.