Chapter 242: Wei Yan shows his power, Wu has Amon Speaking of ancient wars, fighting between generals did not actually occur very often. After all, in the era of cold weapons, wars were mainly based on troops, formations, and logistics. But being rare does not mean that it does not exist. There were many corresponding records in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. There is also a record in the Song Dynasty's "Military Strategy Essentials": After the two camps are set up, each side will send out its general to fight, which is called a challenge. It can be said that a fighting general will not appear easily, but once he appears, it will determine the outcome of the next battle. Originally, according to Sun Ce's idea, they came to fight, and whether they won or lost, they could retreat and lure Liu Bei's vanguard into an ambush. Unexpectedly, Huang Gai started fighting with the enemy general as soon as he arrived, which led to him being involved in the fight. Even though it was three against two at the moment, Zhang Fei's bravery was beyond his imagination! Originally, when he was in Jiangdong, he was invincible in the south of the Yangtze River. Except for Taishi Ci who came from the north, almost no one could match him. Therefore, he fought bravely and always took the lead in every battle, and was praised by Xu Gong as the Little Overlord.

As a result, Lu Bu had already taught him a lesson before, and now when he met Zhang Fei, he was no match for him! As soon as he took action, Zhang Fei's powerful strength made his arms numb, and he thought to himself that this thief was really strong. Zhang Fei was a man of courage and bravery by nature. When he saw Sun Ce blocking the attack, he was not surprised but happy. He laughed loudly and said: "Good block, come again, fight me for three hundred rounds!" As he spoke, a group of horses rode towards Sun Ce. Han Dang took this opportunity to rub his numb shoulders and shouted to Sun Ce: "My lord, this black fellow is so strong, he is invincible!" When Sun Ce saw this, he was naturally dissatisfied. Looking at Zhang Fei rushing towards him again, he gritted his teeth, raised his spear and charged forward. The two fought again, and Han Dang had no choice but to step forward to help Sun Ce fight Zhang Fei. Zhang Fei was fighting one against two, but he was not at a disadvantage. Although he was reckless, he was not stupid. Seeing the two fighting him, he laughed while fighting: "I have heard of the name of Jiangdong Little Overlord for a long time, but I didn't expect him to be such a despicable person." "If you have the courage, fight me alone. If you ask for help, how can you be a hero?" Upon hearing this, Sun Ce grabbed Zhang Fei's iron spear and shouted at Han Dang: "Go quickly, Lord Yi, and watch me capture this official!" But how could Han Dang leave when he was cursing? He could see that Zhang Fei was trying to provoke him. In fact, Zhang Fei is no match for the two of them combined. As long as this continues, Zhang Fei will definitely lose. But if he left, Sun Ce would definitely not be a match for Zhang Fei. So Sun Ce shouted at him repeatedly, but he didn't listen and hurriedly helped Sun Ce to attack. When Sun Ce saw that he did not go, he was furious. Just as he was about to speak, he heard a loud shout from afar: "Brother Yigong, help me quickly!" As soon as the shout was uttered, the two men looked and saw that Huang Gai was already in danger. It is true that fists are feared by young men, and sticks are feared by old men. Although Huang Gai is not as old as Cheng Pu, he is already in his forties and has entered old age.

But Wei Yan was still young and full of vigor. When he saw Huang Gai insulting Liu Bei, he became furious and attacked. Later, he saw that Sun Ce and Han Dang were jointly fighting against Zhang Fei, and he became extremely angry. He thought of killing Huang Gai quickly and then going to help Zhang Fei. So he pretended to be defeated and used a tactic of dragging the sword. Huang Gai saw that Wei Yan was young and didn't think much about it. He thought that this man was timid and hurriedly gave chase. Unexpectedly, after chasing for more than ten steps, Wei Yan suddenly turned around and slashed with his sword. He tried to dodge but was chopped off half of his horse's head by Wei Yan, causing him to fall off his horse immediately. Fortunately, Huang Gai was experienced, and as soon as the horse fell, it rolled to the side and landed safely. When Wei Yan saw Huang Gai fall off his horse, he hurriedly chased after him, and that's when Huang Gai asked for help. Han Dang and Huang Gai were old brothers. When they heard the voice, they were so frightened that their hair stood on end. They rushed forward and forced Wei Yan back with their spears, and rescued Huang Gai onto his horse. When Sun Ce saw this, he knew that it would be disadvantageous to fight again, so he turned around and galloped away while Zhang Fei was turning his horse. When Zhang Fei saw Sun Ce retreating, he was overjoyed and raised his spear and shouted: "The Jiangdong rats are not worth a second thought. Follow me and kill Sun Ce right here!" With a shout, the three armies under his command rushed out and followed Zhang Fei and Wei Yan in pursuit along the way. When Sun Ce saw this, he was secretly annoyed. He knew that the ambush had failed, so he quickly sent someone to inform Lu Meng to send troops to reinforce. The two armies marched for more than ten miles and reached a mountain pass when they suddenly saw dust billowing in the woods to the west and shouts of killing. Zhang Fei was frightened by this. He knew that the enemy had ambushes, so he quickly ordered his troops to retreat to the rear. This allowed Sun Ce to escape the war and return safely to Fanchang Camp. It turned out that Lü Meng had ambushed troops in the valley. Suddenly he heard shouting and killing from the east, and thought that Zhang Fei had fallen into a trap, so he was about to lead his troops to attack. Unexpectedly, a soldier came on horseback to report that Sun Ce had lost the challenge to Zhang Fei and had retreated in defeat. When Lu Meng heard this, he was completely at a loss. He thought to himself, since you asked me to ambush here, I might as well pretend to be defeated and return. I'm asking you to pretend to be defeated, not to show off your bravery and retreat in defeat! After much thought, he realized that he only had more than a thousand soldiers and Zhang Fei was coming with his might. No matter how he fought, he would most likely be no match for him and would suffer heavy losses. The reason why Lu Meng was valued by Sun Quan was not because of his bravery, but because he loved his soldiers and was good at training them. Seeing that his troops were about to be lost again, he simply decided not to send out any troops and ordered them to run back and forth in the valley, shouting loudly. By doing so, it created the illusion that there were many ambushes in the valley. As a vanguard, Zhang Fei naturally led his troops to retreat when he saw the enemy had an ambush. Only after Zhang Fei left did Lu Meng chase Sun Ce back to the camp. When he got to the camp, he thought he would be punished, so he knelt on one knee and said: "I am incompetent and dare not take on this battle head-on. I have no choice but to resort to this last resort. I hope my lord will forgive me!"

But as soon as he knelt down, Sun Ce hurried forward to help him up and said with a smile: "Ziming saved our lives today, so he has done a great deed and has no faults. What crime have you committed?" "Let me ask you, how did you come up with this plan to confuse the enemy today?" When Lu Meng heard this, he was confused and scratched his head: "I don't know what to do, but I think the enemy has more soldiers and we have fewer. If we fight, there will be casualties." "We are doing this on purpose to scare him. If we can force him to retreat, we can save our soldiers!" "So I let my warriors run around and shout, so that he doesn't know how many troops we have. That's all, but I have no other strategy." Seeing him like this, Sun Ce nodded in agreement and said: "Anyone who wants to be a great general must first love his soldiers, and then he can be invincible!" "Ziming has such a natural disposition, but he is a great general!" As he said this, he glanced at Lü Meng's brother-in-law Deng Dang and said with a smile: "Ziming is more clever than you. If he can study hard in the future, he will surely become a pillar of society!" "You are my brother-in-law, how can you ignore him? You should train him well and don't let him harm our generals!" Deng Dang felt a little embarrassed when Sun Ce said this: "I know now. I will urge Ziming to study hard in the future!" After saying this, Sun Ce's feeling of failure in today's battle was immediately swept away. However, after today's battle, he had a more intuitive understanding of the quality of Liu Bei's army, and could not help but ask Zhang Hong and Chen Duan: "When our army was in Shouchun before, I also knew Zhang Fei, but we had never fought each other." "Looking at it now, this man is as brave as Lu Bu, and he can defeat ten thousand men!" "Now Liu Bei's army is several times larger than mine, and he has Qin Zhen and Liu Ye as his counselors, and Zhang Fei as his lackey. How can we defeat him?" In wars, one must rely on military strength, wisdom and bravery of soldiers. Although he discovered Lu Meng as a good talent today, he was still deeply shocked by Zhang Fei. In this situation where the army's strength was inferior to that of the enemy and the bravery of the generals and soldiers was equally matched, even he was not very confident. When the two heard what Sun Ce said, they looked at each other, their eyes filled with solemnity. In fact, with Sun Ce's division of troops, their strength has been greatly reduced. Liu Bei doesn't need to take any other action, just marching directly will put them under great pressure! At this time, it was difficult to recall the troops that had been deployed. Both Chungu and Wuhu were the gateways to Danyang and even Wujun, and they could not be withdrawn! After thinking about it for a while, Chen Duan bowed to Sun Ce and said: "My lord, the enemy's main force is coming. Our army has only 10,000 soldiers against 30,000. Although we occupy a strategic position, it is difficult to resist the enemy's army." "I think Chungu and Wuhu are both important places, we cannot retreat, why not draw troops from Jing County to reinforce them!" "Although Jing County is an important place, we don't need many soldiers and horses. As long as we defend it strictly, three thousand soldiers can defeat more than ten thousand soldiers and horses." "Why not draw 7,000 soldiers from General Sun Ben's army to help us? Divide them into two camps, and we may be able to hold this place!" After hearing Chen Duan's suggestion, Sun Ce thought about it and nodded: "This plan may be credible. I will order my brother to mobilize troops to come here!"

After saying that, he sent another order, asking Sun Ben in Jing County to dispatch troops to reinforce Fanchang. But after Zhang Fei led his troops to retreat, he was still afraid and came to Wei Yan and said: "What the military advisor said before is indeed correct. We are new here and are not familiar with the terrain." "When I came here today, I thought Sun Ce underestimated the enemy and came out, but I didn't expect him to set an ambush here." "If we had not fought the enemy just now and had attacked with light troops, we would have been defeated by the enemy!" Seeing him say this, Wei Yan nodded in agreement and said: "Sun Ce is a man of courage and wisdom who should not be underestimated. Now that he has come here, General, you might as well send more spies to investigate the area in detail." "I see there are many mountains here. If the enemy wants to ambush us, they will definitely look for the wild places among the mountains." "We can see that the terrain here has been mapped out, so we can ask the lord to come and set up camp!" Zhang Fei listened to his suggestion and agreed with it. He immediately ordered his scouts to go out in all directions, explore the mountain roads along the way, draw a topographic map and report it to Liu Bei. On the other side, Liu Bei led a large army to advance in the rear. In fact, he was also worried that Zhang Fei would underestimate the enemy and advance rashly. He expressed his worries to Qin Zhen more than once, but Qin Zhen smiled at Liu Bei and said: "The three generals have already passed the age of thirty. My lord, you can worry about them for a short time, but you can't worry about them for a lifetime!" "Now our army is behind them. Even if they are defeated, we can rescue them in time." "I need to take this opportunity to hone myself so that I can be useful in the future. How can I not make progress because of worry?" After hearing this, Liu Bei thought about it carefully and felt that it made sense, so he said no more. Unexpectedly, before the troops arrived, Zhang Fei and Wei Yan had already explored the terrain of various places and drawn maps. They could not help but say happily: "As the military advisor said, Yide has made great progress. If he were still like before, he would definitely not act like this!" When Qin Zhen saw this, he thought that Lao Zhang was becoming more and more like a general, and if he continued like this, he would be able to take charge of things in no time. However, this was not something Zhang Fei could do, so he said to Liu Bei: "My lord, please don't be too happy. I think the three generals are not such careful people. If you act like this, you may suffer a loss!" "Sun Ce is both wise and brave. Let's go and see how the situation develops." When Liu Bei heard this, he thought so too, and ordered his troops to speed up. When they arrived at the foot of Tianmen Mountain, they saw Zhang Fei stationed there. After entering and asking in detail, they learned that the two armies had already fought. Hearing about Sun Ce setting an ambush in the valley and Wei Yan defeating Huang Gai, he laughed and said: "I thought it was my third brother's progress, but I didn't expect it was Wen Chang's achievement!" "I have learned a lesson from you, Sun Lang. You should know that you should not rush into battle rashly in the future." When Zhang Fei heard him joking, he laughed for a moment and felt a little embarrassed. Upon seeing this, Liu Bei praised Wei Yan again, thinking that Qin Zhen still had a unique vision and the people he recommended were all talented. Needless to say, Wei Yan is also a talented general. As long as he is well trained, he will be of great use in the future. At that moment, he became thoughtful again and valued Wei Yan even more. After the battle, the two families were still tied. The next day, at Qin Zhen's suggestion, Liu Bei moved his camp forward again and confronted Sun Ce. At the same time, Zhuge Liang, sent by Liu Bei, also sailed south and arrived in Yuzhang County.

(End of this chapter)