Chapter 99: Setback

  "Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

  A string of sharp, piercing sounds rang out, and several Qin cavalrymen fell from their horses. The other knights saw this and immediately shouted: "There's an ambush here! Retreat, retreat!" Then they hastily turned their horses around and galloped wildly to the rear.

  Although Zhao Jun shot a round of arrows and shot down two Qin soldiers, there were still four Qin soldiers who escaped the range of the arrows and could not be caught up.

  Li Yinghong held a bow and arrow, jumped out of the woods, stomped her feet on the ground several times, and said, "It's really infuriating, they've escaped again for the third time." Although she was already married to Gao Yuan, Li Yinghong was still just a girl under seventeen years old. If it were in modern society, she would only be considered a high school student, so at times, she still had a bit of a childish expression.

  Behind her, Wu Hong also shook his head and said: "There's no way, our ambush has been discovered by the Qin army, let's retreat quickly, it won't be long before the Qin army arrives."

  Li Yinghong also helplessly nodded and said: "Pass down the order, we retreat."

  Two men led the ambush troops of Zhao to withdraw from the ambush site, and marched east for about five or six miles. In a mountain valley, there was a temporary camp of the Zhao army, but only a dozen tents were set up. At this time, Gao Yuan was in a simple tent with Chen Zi, drawing on a map together.

  Only to see the canopy lifted, Li Yinghong walked in with a dejected look: "We were discovered by Qin's scouts again, so we had to retreat. How about Zhong Sunqi and Wu Zhanpeng's route?"

  The plateau raised its head from the map, shook its head and said: "They also had a tough time in the battle of ambushing the Qin army, losing more than 100 soldiers, and they have already retreated just now."

  Li Yinghong sat on the cushion and said, "What can be done? It's already been seven days, and we haven't even won a single battle. If we retreat again, we'll soon be retreating to Jingxing's large camp."

  Gao Yuan also smiled wryly. Since the successful raid on the Qin army's camp, and then winning a big victory in a cavalry battle against the Qin army on their way back, Gao Yuan led the cavalry back to the Jinyong Great Camp, where he was praised by Li Mu. This victory had indeed greatly boosted the morale of the Zhao army.

  Gao Yuan immediately put forward another suggestion to Li Mu. The distance between Jingxing and Chouyu is more than 150 miles, the Zhao army can fully utilize this distance, dispatch a small number of soldiers, use ambushes, surprise attacks, and other tactics to launch layered attacks on the Qin army during their advance, not only can slow down the Qin army's advance speed but also continuously attack the Qin army, making them exhausted and demoralized, laying a solid foundation for defeating the Qin army later.

  Li Mu also agreed to Gao Yuan's suggestion, and still gave him 3,000 cavalrymen and 7,000 infantrymen, a total of 10,000 troops. He let them ambush the Qin army along the way, only sending Chen Zuo to assist Gao Yuan.

  After receiving Li Mu's order, the Qin army also divided its troops into several routes and began to march towards Jinyong from Chouyu. Gao Yuan immediately started implementing his own plan. At the beginning of the battle, Gao Yuan was full of confidence in his plan, believing that under the harassment tactics of the Zhao army, he could continuously gain victories, although these victories were not great, but they made the Qin army exhausted and fearful.

  But the development of the situation was far beyond Gao Yuan's expectation. Gao Yuan first chose to set up an ambush at a point about 50 miles away, waiting for the Qin army to enter its own designated position. However, Gao Yuan did not expect that during the march, the Qin army sent out a large number of scouts to investigate the movements of the Zhao army along the way. As a result, the ambush of the Zhao army was discovered by the scouts of the Qin army, and they had to show up, although they shot and killed more than ten scouts of the Qin army, but still let several scouts escape. After the Qin army learned about it, they turned around and attacked from both wings of the Zhao army, attempting to surround this branch of the ambush army at once.

  Fortunately, the plateau also sent out many scouts, and the movements of the Qin army were basically under the control of the plateau. Therefore, the timely retreat did not allow the Qin army to succeed, and the ambush plan of the Zhao army was also in vain.

  In the following days, Zhao's forces launched a series of attacks on the Qin army, including night raids, ambushes, and feigned retreats, but the Qin army strengthened its defenses every night, making it impossible for the Zhao army to find an opening. When encountering the Zhao army's surprise attacks during their advance, the Qin army remained calm and quickly formed a dense defensive formation, using strong bows and crossbows to counterattack the Zhao army, leaving no gaps for them to exploit. On the contrary, due to the infantry's bow and crossbow range being stronger than that of the cavalry, the Zhao army lost some of its cavalry and was forced to retreat. At the same time, they also notified nearby Qin forces to encircle the Zhao army, forcing them to withdraw.

  Then Zhao Kuo thought to lure the Qin army into a pursuit, leading them into his own ambush, but the Qin army was not moved at all and did not lightly pursue. Instead, they first sent out large numbers of scouts to confirm that there were no Zhao troops lying in wait before advancing. As a result, all of Zhao's arrangements were ineffective, and on the contrary, during the luring and surprise attack, nearly 200 cavalrymen were lost. Of course, the Zhao army also killed many Qin scouts, but overall, both sides suffered roughly equal losses.

  Of course, the deployment of the highlands was not completely fruitless. Under Zhao Jun's harassment, the Qin army indeed had some grass and trees as soldiers, and the speed of advancement was not fast. One day could only advance 30 or 40 miles, sometimes even only 20 miles. However, the ultimate goal that Gao Yuan most hoped for - to successfully ambush the Qin army several times and win a few victories - never materialized.

  While the two sides were entangled in this back-and-forth, the Qin army's advance was slow but still steadily moving forward, and they had already covered more than half of the distance. The closest branch of the Qin army to Jiyuan was less than 30 miles away, roughly parallel to their current location. This branch of the Qin army had already stopped advancing and was setting up camp, digging trenches, building walls with stones, cutting down trees for palisades, and establishing a solid foothold.

  This result, of course, is quite different from Gao Yuan's original idea, and it has also made Gao Yuan very disappointed. At the same time, he is also reflecting on himself, it seems that he still thinks that war is too simple, thinking that after winning a few victories, he can be considered a famous general. Although he has more than 2,000 years of experience in this era, knowing the trend of historical development, and perhaps having a deeper understanding of the theory and recognition of war, but when it comes to actual combat skills, compared to Li Mu, he is still far behind. Even compared to Wang Jian, the main general of the Qin army, he is also much worse.

  Looking at the process of Qin army's march, Wang Jian has already seen through his own intentions and made targeted arrangements, making it impossible for Qin army to find any weakness throughout the entire march. Indeed, he is worthy of being a famous general in the late Warring States period who can be compared with Li Mu. If I were the commander-in-chief of Zhao army this time, I estimate that I would not be Wang Jian's opponent at all. It seems that only Li Mu can counter Wang Jian.

  At this time, Chen Zuo said: "Gao Yuan, the Qin army has already started to set up camp and station troops. Other Qin armies will also follow soon. If we stay here any longer, it will be impossible for us to ambush the Qin army again. Moreover, if we are discovered by the Qin army, we may be surrounded by them, which is too dangerous. Therefore, let's hurry back to the Jingxing Great Camp and wait for General Hou's arrangement."

  After Gao Yuan and Li Yinghong got married, he became Li Mu's son-in-law. The attitude of the other generals towards Gao Yuan also became much more intimate. Chen Zuo was considered a veteran among Zhao's generals, having followed Li Mu in battles for nearly twenty years, participating in almost all of his fights. Li Yinghong treated them with great respect, treating them as elders. Therefore, Chen Zuo could also address Gao Yuan by his name directly, showing closeness.

  Gao Yuan nodded and said, "General Chen, you are right. We should retreat immediately." He then called the guards and ordered, "Pass on the order to withdraw from here within an hour. Notify all the other troops not to gather here, but to return to their respective camps in Jiuyong immediately. They are not allowed to entangle with the Qin army again."

  After the guard left, Li Yinghong pouted again and said: "These days have been a waste of time, not even a decent battle has been fought."

  Gao Yuan also smiled wryly and said, "It's because I underestimated Qin Jun too much."

  At this time, Chen Zixiao smiled and said: "Gao Yuan, you don't have to blame yourself either. Actually, before the troops were dispatched, General told me that this expedition would be very difficult to gain anything, because Wang Jian is a famous general of Qin State, who uses his troops cautiously, and it's not easy to find his weakness."

  Gao Yuan was taken aback and said: "Did General have expected such a result?"

  Li Yinghong furrowed his brow and said, "Father is really something. If he knew it would end up like this, why did he still let us lead the troops out and waste several days of effort?"

  Chen Zixiao smiled and said, "Yinghong, General Li is doing this for a reason." He looked at Gao Yuan again and said, "Firstly, he doesn't want to spoil Gao Yuan's enthusiasm, only by letting him experience the battlefield himself will he understand what war is like, and it will be very helpful to him in the future. Secondly, he also wants to see Gao Yuan's ability to lead independently, and when he misjudges the situation, whether he will fight recklessly with the Qin army or retreat and look for another opportunity. If Gao Yuan really doesn't care about anything and wants to fight the Qin army, I'll persuade him, but it seems that General Li's concern is unnecessary."

  Then he patted the plateau on the shoulder and said, "Plateau, the great general attaches great importance to you. I hope you can inherit his career, don't let him down."

  Gao Yuan listened and couldn't help but feel grateful to Li Mu, also feeling a bit ashamed. He said: "I didn't expect the great general to be so thoughtful towards me, General Chen, I..."

  Chen Zixia smiled and said, "No need to say more, you were originally a family, General Lian gave you the Swan Goose, he wouldn't cultivate anyone else, let's not delay any longer, we'll withdraw our troops immediately."