Neither Ding Shao nor Lu Yao's estimate of the enemy can be perfect.

It was originally thought that the bandits in Hebei would arrive at noon the next day, but in fact, Shi Le's use of troops was faster than expected. From the early morning of the next day, many defeated soldiers from Dongwu City, Qinghe, Beiqiu, Boping, Liaocheng and other places rushed to Guangzong. According to them, since the news of Ding Shao's critical illness reached the front line, the Jin army defenders in each city felt very panic, and some troops had no fighting spirit, and the soldiers fled. At this most dangerous time, the bandits braved the storm and used considerable troops to launch a night attack at five cities 160 miles away from east to west.

Such a fierce offensive was rare in the past few months of stalemate. Almost overnight, the bandits seized these five cities of great strategic significance. This was just a prelude to the real bloody battle. The bandits continued to go west without stopping, driving the broken soldiers full of fear and panic to Guangzong like cattle and sheep.

From early morning to evening, more and more soldiers flocked to the crowd. Many of them were injured, and many of them had fever due to the bad weather and huge psychological pressure. There were also people who were unable to persist in running for dozens of miles and had already died along the way, or were chased by Hebei bandits and killed. The soldiers who could persist until Guangzong had exhausted their basic physical strength and their spirits were on the verge of collapse.

If Ding Shao was indeed seriously ill, the emotions of these defeated soldiers would have spread rapidly to the entire military camp like a plague, causing the already low morale of the Jizhou army to fall again. Unfortunately, the plan of the bandits was impossible to achieve. The Jizhou army built a temporary camp near Guangzong County behind Gundi to accommodate defeated soldiers, and urgently dispatched dozens of loud-sounding soldiers to publicize the news that Governor Ding was very healthy in the camp to calm people.

Ding Shao himself personally led his subordinates to inspect Gun Dike to boost morale. Although he was not a long time as the governor of Jizhou, he was good at economics and was well-versed in laws, so he achieved the effect of "political and legal justice". Aristocratic families in various places were satisfied with his governance methods, and many ordinary people survived with his fair judgment. In just two years, he accumulated considerable prestige. Wherever he went, the soldiers who were anxious because of his illness cheered and excited, and some soldiers even burst into tears and could not do it themselves.

In the evening of that day, the Hebei bandit army, which was closely behind the defeated soldiers, also arrived.

The disaster weather that lasted for four days gradually improved at this time, and the overwhelming rain lines obviously became sparse. Pine and open torches were lit up in the military camp, and some people tried to find the torches to the open air. Although the flames were swaying by the rain, they were not in danger of extinguishing. However, the clouds were still so thick, like a layered black curtain, firmly pulling them over, isolating the light from the high places of the sky.

In this sky, no matter how many torches are lit, it is not enough to illuminate the distance. Therefore, the soldiers can only see large pieces of black appearing from the end of the plain. Those black traces are the army of Hebei bandits. They are like dense bee swarms, gathering, scattering, surging forward, getting closer and closer, gradually spreading out their formations.

After Shi Le took command of the thieves in Hebei, he attached great importance to the orders of the army and tried to gradually integrate the thieves into a powerful and tightly deployed army. But after all, the days were too short and his prestige was far from established. The thieves who appeared in front of the Jizhou Army were still in a mess.

They marched in front of the Jizhou army without any scruples, and while advancing, they adjusted their queues. Some teams were blocked by another cross-marching team during the advancement, and had to stop and wait patiently in the chaos; the teams that should be moving towards the left lost their direction in the darkness and went around the right wing; some bandits called their friends during the advancement, accepted other small groups of thieves, and became a larger team; some found that the road was uneven or had any obstacles during the advancement, so they took their own initiative to turn to another seemingly better direction.

If the imperial army marched in this way, it would definitely be a vulnerable weak army, but this indicator could not be used to judge the combat effectiveness of the bandits. After all, they were thieves, and had long been used to chaotic and unplanned actions, and even to start attacks from such a chaotic situation with no command at all and launching an attack happily.

Compared with these chaotic but brave and good at fighting bandits, except for some recruited tyrants who could serve as backbone, the rest of the soldiers were temporarily recruited farmers, and their combat effectiveness was really not as good as those of them. The Jizhou army had the same understanding, so they did not feel the need to take advantage of this chaotic situation and take a half-cross action. They just stick to their own camps and observe the movements of the bandits through the faint light before nightfall.

"Did you see that cavalry? The one with white feathers on his helmet!" A soldier climbed half of the height of the Diao Dou and pointed at the enemy opposite. He was a famous scout in the Jizhou army and had a good understanding of the background of the bandits: "That is Wu Yu's cavalry. Wu Yu's guy was a Yuezhi native. He was originally a herd slave from the Chilong Ranch in Hebei. Later, he followed Shi Le cavalry and was known as one of the eighteen cavalry, but he was a brave general! Hey, it's a pity that he didn't kill him early, and he stayed to do evil until now!"

"It's too dark and I can't see clearly... How can there be any white feathers?" His companion complained, covering his ears on the ground: "It sounds like thunder, and it seems that their cavalry has a lot."

"The sound of hooves is very loud, but don't you feel a little tired? Their war horses are tired." Another scout said: "From Xipingchang, Ande to Guangzong, it is not closer than Guangzong to Yedu, right? Besides, it is difficult to walk on rainy days, and you have to cross the river along the way, which is not easy."

"What's the point of crossing the river? The key is this kind of weather! The heavy rain and cold weather are the most harmful to horses. The bandits are willing to use cavalry, but I really don't know what to think."

The imperial court set up pastures and horse gardens in various places in Hebei to raise military horses. The more famous ones are Chiping Ranch, Chilong Ranch and other places. When Sima Teng, the King of Xincai, used to capture Hu's children and sell them to Shandong, and many of them were converted into pastoral slaves in the pastoral. No one expected that these pastoral slaves would rise up one day, and not to mention anything else, swept the court's army and horses first. Because of this, Shi Le had a large number of cavalry and all the way to travel around. However, the war horses had limits to the patience of the harsh climate and also had requirements for breeding conditions. Traveling long distances in such heavy rainy environments without feeding them, it was easy to cause fatigue and weakness in the war horses and become sick.

"What do you know? The bandits have been forced to a dead end by Governor Ding, and there is no food for everyone, let alone the horses? They can't even get all the forages for winter! Anyway, this time it's their last fight. If they lose one hundred times, how can they care about the life and death of the war horses?" The scout who spoke at first sneered: "But, no matter what the bandits do, it's useless. This time they're dead!"

While they were chatting, there were dull sounds of magic snails, and teams of crossbowmen, sword and shield hands, and spearmen came out from various camps in the Jizhou Army camp and gathered to the side facing the bandit army.

*******

I'm going on a business trip again today and I'm expected to return on May 2nd. But I will try my best to ensure updates in the past few days.
Chapter completed!