"Stay calm! Don't be confused! Retreat in an orderly manner! This general personally cuts off the rear, and those who are in trouble will be killed!"

After a loud killing sound, he fought and retreated. Xu Huang personally cut off the rear and finally retreated outside the mouth of Shujia Valley. The sky was already very dark.

This bloody battle lasted for about half an hour. Although it was not long, the intensity was extraordinary. Xu Huang's five thousand cavalry lost nearly one-third of the battle, and more than three thousand cavalry left were withdrawn in an established system.

Xu Huang flew over the axe and killed more than a dozen enemy cavalry. He was so tired that he was panting and dangerous, but he did not fight with Zhang Liao in person during the rush.

Xu Huang's cavalry was not all iron armored heavy cavalry, but at least half of the breast armored equipment rate. Compared with Zhang Liao's cavalry, he still had a clear defensive advantage. However, this time, 5,000 people were against 17,000 people, and he still encountered the enemy on three sides in the valley, so he suffered heavy losses.

If Xu Huang hadn't had the strict governance of the army, and had personally led the iron-armored cavalry to cut off the rear, I'm afraid that more than 3,000 people would not have been able to withdraw.

Zhang Liao's side suffered no less damage than Xu Huang in this raid. In order to cause casualties to Xu Huang's army, Zhang Liao's side still had more than 2,000 casualties to the number of people. The exchange ratio was basically three for two.

However, with Xu Huang's retreat, the final loss ratio of this battle was obviously more beneficial to Zhang Liao. As long as you win the battle, the victorious side will get the opportunity to clean the battlefield.

Before, the cavalry of Liu Bei's camp fought so many battles. Although there were many casualties, they all won battles. Therefore, the advantage of chest-plated cavalry being injured more and fewer casualties can be fully utilized. When cleaning the battlefield, they can save all the wounded soldiers with internal injuries, vomiting blood, and cutting their hands and feet for restoration, and the equipment and spoils can also be recovered.

This time, since Zhang Liao controlled the battlefield, even if Xu Huang lost only 300 cavalry and only 300 of them were killed directly, the rest would be captured, and the breastplate would be stripped away as spoils, and the loss of equipment to horses would be amazing.

By doing this, Zhang Liao made a huge profit. Most of his more than 2,000 casualties could be saved by cleaning the battlefield, but Xu Huang suffered a complete loss.

But this is not the end. Zhang Liao's ability to lead troops is extraordinary. He is too good at this kind of fighting style of chasing people to defeat the enemy after he first and then chasing and expanding the results of the battle.

So even though he chased Shujia Valley, Zhang Liao did not slow down the rear army at all. He still chased Xu Huang tightly without giving him a chance to breathe, and did not allow Xu Huang to pull the distance and then reorganize the team.

Zhang Liao had some infantry troops under his command. After chasing out of the valley, he felt that he could not catch up with the cavalry, so he was a little lazy. He also wanted to steal the horses and armor left by the dead and wounded cavalry of Xu Huang's army. Zhang Liao decisively asked the officers of the rear army to kill and kill several soldiers of the chaos, and strictly enforced military laws on the front line:

"Don't take iron armor without permission. The entire army must chase to Wenxi County! If infantry cannot keep up, they must run to Wenxi County to rest! Those who are stranded and unable to keep up will be killed!"

Under Zhang Liao's strict military law, all the Bingzhou troops did not dare to stop. After leaving the valley, they chased Xu Huang's army through Zhouyangyi before chasing him for a few miles, and then continued to follow the water to Wenxi County.

Zhouyangyi is a small town under Wenxi County and is a wharf at the uppermost reaches of Fengshui. Therefore, many of the military supplies transported from Pubanjin, the mouth of the Yellow River in the Tushui Yellow River, did not enter Wenxi County, but were directly transported to the final transport terminal.

Fortunately, Xu Huang took away a large amount of supplies before (although he was also robbed), and the dock Dige warehouse on Zhouyangyi's side has not yet been restocked, so there is not a lot of inventory. This kind of dock town has no walls, only some wooden fences. Xu Huang was defeated and chased and couldn't breathe. Of course, it was impossible to defend such a small town, so he was successfully seized by Zhang Liao.

Unfortunately, Xu Huang originally expected Zhang Liao to be greedy for money. Seeing that there were still a large number of military supplies in Zhouyangyi warehouse, he would rush to divide his troops to accept them. However, Zhang Liao was also very good and still couldn't stand it. Obviously, he wanted to chase Xu Huang to death before he gave up.

Xu Huang had never had the opportunity to reorganize the team. As the sky turned completely dark, his subordinates had lost control and fled in the darkness. He only knew to go west and escape downstream of the water, but did not know where to escape before stopping. Xu Huang completely lost the possibility of reorganizing resistance.

Seeing that the torch light on the wall of Wenxi County had appeared on the horizon, Xu Huang knew that he could never be bitten by Zhang Liao like this anymore, otherwise his troops and Zhang Liao's were twisted together in the dark night and rushed to the bottom of the city. Will the defenders at the top of the city open the city gate or not?

If Xu Huang had opened the city and let him in, he would have been killed by Zhang Liao, who rushed into the city and seized the city.

When Xu Huang thought about this, he gritted his teeth and made a cruel decision and ordered a Sima of his subordinates: "You take the light cavalry first, enter the city quickly, I will take the iron cavalry to fight to the death, and be sure not to let Zhang Liao rush in! If I don't keep a sufficient distance, you will also take care of the guards. If you can't see the enemy clearly in the dark, you will never open the door! Just close the city and defend it!"

In fact, there were not many guards in Wenxi County, Guan Yu left Xu Huang's 10,000 mobile troops. In addition to the 5,000 cavalry he brought today, there were 5,000 infantry left, which were deployed in Anyi, Wenxi and Dongyuan. Therefore, Wenxi had only more than 1,000 elite infantry, and the rest were the defenders and farmers who were occasionally trained in the slack season. If you miss it, you will easily fall.

After Xu Huang finished explaining, he also waved his axe and shouted in the dark to attract the enemy: "Xu Huang from Hedong is here! Zhang Liao's dog thief should not leave!"

Zhang Liao was originally not far from Xu Huang, but he was not far from the darkness by the torch lighting. He noticed it after hearing the shouts and immediately rushed over.

The axes and halberds intersected, sparks burst out, and both of them were fighting in a mess. In addition, they were not fighting against the generals in the darkness. There were cavalry from both sides randomly filling the flesh and blood grinder, which quickly killed Zhang Liao and Xu Huang and the others.

Xu Huang fought for more than 30 rounds, and he also had to take time to block the attacks of the soldiers next to him. He had a total of more than 50 bloody moves. At the beginning, he actually had a slight advantage.

But after Zhang Liao fought against the pressure for fifty moves, he gradually reversed the situation. Xu Huang's big axe became heavier. When he fought with all his strength, he consumed his physical strength faster. In comparison, Zhang Liao's Crescent Sphur was not that hard. He knew very well that if there were another fifty rounds of this melee, Xu Huang would definitely expose his flaws to death, and then it would be the time to take his life.

Of course, Xu Huang knew in his heart that he could not delay Zhang Liao when he did not cherish his physical strength at the beginning. If he finished it, let alone Wenxi County, even Anyi and the entire Hedong County would be lost.

Xu Huang finally tried his best to open Zhang Liao's crescent halberd with three axes. Taking advantage of Zhang Liao's numb horses' stomp and immediately drove away and opened the distance. Xu Huang didn't even dare to rush towards Wenxi County. He knew that no matter how hard he ran, he would not be able to pull off enough time to wait for the city gate to open, so he simply ran to the dark side of the hillside of Zhongtiao Mountain in the south, just to get rid of the pursuit.

When Zhang Liao saw Xu Huang fleeing into the hillside in the dark, he did not dare to chase him rashly. He only dared to take the remaining troops to chase the walls of Wenxi County, which were lit torches on the city tower. Along the way, hundreds of cavalry were killed and captured, and not many cavalry fled into the county. Seeing the enemy's army approaching, the defenders at the city gates were closed early. Xu Huang's cavalry, who had not had time to enter the city, had to continue to walk around the city to escape downstream to the west.

Fortunately, he was blocked by Wenxi County, so Zhang Liao wasted more time in order to find flaws in the city. It was impossible to chase after Anyi downstream tonight. Zhang Liao's troops were rushing far enough, and they were all dependent on a mouthful of perseverance and morale. After surrounding Wenxi City, many soldiers were exhausted and collapsed on the ground.

...

Xu Huang suffered a little injury during a bloody battle with Zhang Liao's army. In addition, he fled to the south of Zhongtiao Mountain in the dark night, and could not see the road clearly. Although he got rid of the enemy, he also fell off his front and tripped to the ground in the middle of the night. His chest, wearing iron-breasted plaque, hit the ground heavily, and his ribs were cracked.

Fortunately, when he escaped, he still had dozens of his most confidant personal soldiers with him. Someone changed his horse and took off his armor and forced him to walk all night. In the early morning of the 9th day of May, he found several civilian boats by the people by the Tangshui River. Xu Huang had some skin and knife wounds in his hands and feet, so he couldn't ride a horse. He was protected by his personal soldiers and got on the boat and went down the river.

The personal soldiers did not dare to rely on the water-dumping boats alone, for fear that the speed would be too slow and the cavalry would catch up. They rowed hard for a long time before fleeing back to the county's Anyi afternoon on the afternoon of the 9th day of the lunar month.

Not two hours after Xu Huang entered the city, in the evening of that day, Zhang Liao's scout cavalry chased after Anyi to investigate the situation. It seemed that he had found that Anyi was still prepared and did not dare to continue to press forward for the moment.

Obviously, Zhang Liao's troops suffered a huge physical loss in the previous surprise attack. After a wave of offensives, they had to be well repaired and restored. If they had not caught a flaw that could be taken advantage of, they would not have made any more storms.

Xu Huang almost didn't close his eyes when he was on the boat. He was confused. He was always wary of the enemy's pursuit and had to abandon the boat and replace the horse and run wildly for life. He only felt relieved after entering Anyi. He was exhausted and fell asleep. The military doctor in the city quickly treated Xu Huang.

Xu Huang was already unconscious and slept for almost a day and a night, and did not wake up until the evening of the tenth day of the lunar month. He endured the pain in the ribs and held up his body, insisted on going out to check the situation in the city, and found that the defenses in Anyi City were quite stable, and the soldiers were on high alert.

During his sleep for more than a day, a large camp of Zhang Liao's army pioneers had appeared in the north of the city, with only a few thousand people. Obviously, Zhang Liao's main force had not yet gone so far.

However, even with thousands of people, Xu Huang was unable to go out of the city to fight back in this situation. He asked his subordinates to report on the situation and see how many remaining soldiers have been collected during this period.

That afternoon, with the defeat in the middle of the night, almost all the troops were disbanded. Fortunately, most of the soldiers knew that even if they were disbanded, they had to flee westward and downstream, so they would come to the county gate.

There were still two thousand cavalrymen left, and the two thousand elite infantry guarding the city were 4,000 elite soldiers, some of whom were injured. The others were some peasants who could only throw wood, stones and boiling water when defending the city.

It is probably okay to defend Anyi City for a period of time, but how to ensure the logistics of Guan Yu's army? Should Guan Yu give up all his supplies and run away with ease?

The key is that Xu Huang doesn't know how Guan Yu's fight is. If Guan Yu was not going well and was about to retreat, Xu Huang would feel better. As long as the elite main force finds a way to come back alive, he will temporarily endure other losses.

If Guan Yu had been successfully attacking Luoyang, he would have been almost a shot, but because Xu Huang lost the road to support, he failed, and then Xu Huang felt that his career struggle had basically ended.

This made him extremely depressed, but he couldn't quickly find out the situation on the front line.

Xu Huang had no choice but to find a way to send light-equipped scouts to contact the areas in front of him that were separated by Zhang Liao, and acted according to the opportunity. At the same time, he also sent messengers to Chang'an in the rear to ask for help, trying to wait for reinforcements to reopen Guan Yu's retreat.

Fortunately, after he rested for another night, Xu Huang finally got good news on the morning of May 11th.

That morning, he first saw that Zhang Liao camp in the northeast of the city had another additional army arrived, but when he was at a loss, the messenger he sent out last night in the downstream direction actually came to repay him, saying that it was 15,000 reinforcements sent by the King of Hanzhong, which was approaching Anyi.

Xu Huang was shocked: "What? Didn't you go to Chang'an to ask for help last night? You came back after just half a day out? Did you fly to Chang'an to report the news? Even if you fly over, reinforcements won't fly over."

The messenger replied with joy: "The king sent reinforcements on the sixth day of the lunar calendar five days ago. I heard that it was General Right and Mr. Xun who both felt that the former general underestimated the possibility of conflict with Yuan Shao, so he asked for support."
Chapter completed!