Gao Shun and Zhuge Liang entered the Zhuluo camp surrounded by smoke. They looked down from the south of the Dashekou Pass and found that it was a plateau with typical karst landform characteristics.

"Don't hesitate. We have been delaying in Orochikou for more than ten days. Let's step up our journey to Buwei now." Gao Shun said.

Zhuge Liang shook his head and pointed his finger at the plateau area in the south and said, "Although this area is not a steep mountain, it is a complex terrain between the lonely ridges and the Tanyuan. Moreover, Liang also knew that there are many natural caves in these mountains and stone forests, which is very convenient for ambushing troops. Therefore, generals should not rush to advance."

"What should Kong Ming think?" The battle between Orochikou made Gao Shun look at Kong Ming differently, so he could also listen to the young man's words.

"After Meng Huo's troops come up, it will not be too late to join forces with him before advancing."

Gao Shun nodded in praise and said, "This is a good idea. Meng Huo's Southern Barbarians are much more familiar with the terrain than we do, so it would be more appropriate to join forces with them."

Meng Huo's Southern Barbarian Legion's current mission is to ensure the safety of logistics supplies and food channels. Most of the Dianwei Legion's troops are still guarding Gufu County.

Now that Orochikou has been captured, the food supply north of Orochikou no longer requires large-scale troops to support it. Gufu's garrison was also taken over by the remaining forces transferred from Yibin. The main force of Meng Huo's army and Dianwei's army were rushing towards Orochikou.

A few days later, after the three major legions met in Orochikou, they took part of Meng Huo's army as the vanguard, Meng Huo's army and Gao Shun's army as the front army, Gao Shun's army as the main force was the central army, and Dianwei's army continued to march southwest.

In addition to leaving more than a thousand people to guard Dayekou, nearly 10,000 troops crossed Dayekou like a giant dragon, swimming up the wilderness towering like a forest.

When the cavalry and elephant soldiers passed by the Orochikou, the soldiers had to jump off the horses and elephants, pulling war horses and elephants, and carefully climbing the pass along the steep slope.

Even so, war horses and elephants occasionally rolled down the mountain. Nearly 10,000 people and horses passed through Orochikou, and it took a whole day.

...

In the marching Liang army, the soldiers looked left and right at the strange scenery around them. Most of the soldiers of the Gaoshun Legion came from the Daba Mountains of Qinling Mountains. They were naturally curious about such a special scenery and talked about it in a lingering manner.

A soldier named Wang Er from the Daba Mountains said, "The mountains here are really strange. They are all lonely mountains that rise from the plains. We are all mountains, but they are all mountains connected by mountains."

"This is not surprising. There are also such lonely mountains on our Hanzhong Plain, but there are not so many. The lonely mountains and stone pillars here are all gathered into forests."

The person who spoke was a soldier from Hanzhong. The Hanzhong Plain also had some karst landform characteristics, but this place was not as typical as this one.

"Hey, if there is a mountain like Wang Er's family and there is no plank road, then we have to walk to Buwei City, and before the battle is fought, we will be exhausted. I have never heard of the road to Shu, it is difficult...ah!"

Before the speaker could finish his words, he screamed. Everyone turned their heads and looked at him and found a heavy arrow that had penetrated his chest. The two comrades on his left and right sides had splashed blood on their faces.

This man was a famous soldier who threw the spear and the shield. The cracked iron armor on his chest had rolled up and was gushing out blood. The shaft of the "heavy arrow" was one inch thick and four feet long. It was more of a crossbow gun than an arrow.

Of course, this was not the one crossbow gun that flew from the air, but more than twenty shots. Only one of them killed and injured Liang's soldiers.

"Enemy attack! An enemy ambush nearby!" The soldiers of Liang army who found the abnormality all exclaimed. Just as they were screaming, arrows were shot from a dense forest twenty battles away, but these arrows were all ordinary arrows.

The arrows shot on the ring armor of Liang soldiers, making a jingle sound, and then some of them fell to the ground, and some were stuck in the armor. However, the Southern Barbarian soldiers, except for some elite soldiers wearing vine armor, were mostly thin. Many of them were caught in the arrow and fell to the ground.

The gun and shield soldiers immediately built a shield wall facing the dense forest on the periphery. Although they could not block the arrows shot out from the dense forest, they could at least block the enemy's sight.

后方持有盾牌的兵士,无论是梁军兵士,还是蛮兵,都纷纷将盾牌举过头顶,遮挡密集抛射而来的箭矢.

With a puff sound, a crossbow gun pierced through a barbarian's vine shield and directly inserted into the southern barbarian soldier's sky spirit cover. It turned out that another wave of crossbow guns came. This time, in addition to causing the barbarian soldier to die, he also hit a battle elephant directly.

At this time, the former general Meng Huo had already rode his horse. After looking around, he immediately made a decision: "War elephants attack, first open a road to the dense forest at the foot of the mountain. The enemy's giant crossbow is set on the lonely peak behind the forest. Send war elephants and cavalry to the other three sides to block the enemy's retreat!"

The longbowmen of the Liang army and the crossbowmen among the barbarians have fired their bows and fought back into the forest. Then dozens of battle elephants rushed into the dense forest in a row.

This dense forest is just a shrub forest, so it was rushed by the rows of war elephants, and the vegetation trees fell down one after another, and then were flattened by the huge elephant hooves.

The shooting from the dense forest immediately stopped. The barbarian soldiers on the battlefield elephants on the edge found several figures, bent their bows and arrows to shoot at them. Only two screams came from them, and the figures disappeared.

Dozens of war elephants rushed to the foot of the lonely peak before stopping. A "road" of more than ten battles wide was opened behind them. However, no more enemy soldiers were found.

Dozens of war elephants continued to sweep other parts of the forest, opening up several roads, and dividing the forest into several blocks. A large number of scouts with hunting dogs searched carefully one by one, and except for the two bodies of the Zhuluo army, no more were found.

Everyone believed that the enemy troops in the dense forest must have retreated to the mountain ridge behind. The crossbow guns on the mountain ridges also flew down the mountain from time to time. Although the hit rate of these crossbow guns was extremely low, it made every soldier at the foot of the mountain tremble.

"General Meng, we should now dispatch several battalions of troops to the mountain and pull out the nail of the foreign army." A Liang army general suggested to Meng Huo.

"No hurry! The enemy situation on the mountain is unknown. If we rashly attack the mountain, we may suffer a loss. This is an isolated peak. We will surround it first, and it will not be too late to pull it out after we understand the enemy situation."

Not long after, the barbarian army's war elephants and the Liang army's cavalry had been deployed on the Tanyuan around the mountain. Moreover, the Liang army used the war elephants to clear the bushes around the lonely peak. A wide circular passage surrounded the mountain. The war elephants and the cavalry were cruising along the road, and the enemy had no possibility of escaping from it.
Chapter completed!