The three kingdoms fought a great war, with thirty-six battles in eight hundred miles, and Lü Bu defeated the horse bandits.

  Lü Bu led a thousand cavalrymen in an eight-hundred-mile raid, but he didn't know who they would attack. Although the northern cavalry had stolen many horses from the Xiongnu, the cavalry were all strong and sturdy horses with good endurance. However, not every soldier could adapt to long-distance raids. Therefore, Lü Bu did not dare to be too careless, resting for one hour after running for an hour. From dawn till dusk, they ran for only four or five hours a day, covering a distance of about three hundred miles, just over a hundred miles beyond the Great Wall. Lü Bu's personal guards were still doing well, but Hao Meng's northern cavalry were all panting and gasping for breath, their horses also breathing heavily. Lü Bu had originally fantasized about long-distance raids, but unfortunately, his soldiers and horses did not meet his expectations. That night, Gao Shun arranged the night watch and rested early.

  At dawn on the second day, Lü Bu rode his horse and set off again towards the north. He ate some dry rations and drank water while on horseback. Lü Bu hoped that the cavalry could run a bit faster, so he reduced the rest time on the second day. They rushed until they found that some horses were foaming at the mouth, and Lü Bu's heart ached as he stopped to rest. After calculating, they had only run 400 miles, which was already their limit.

  As night fell, the army stopped to rest, and both men and horses were exhausted. Lü Bu only then realized a fatal problem, he had rushed too hastily. If they encountered Xianbei soldiers at this time, it wouldn't be a fight, but rather exhaustion would kill them all.

  This night, Lü Bu personally took the lead in patrolling at night, and he was really worried about encountering Xianbei soldiers. Fortunately, it was early spring at this time, and the Xianbei rarely crossed the Yellow River. Lü Bu thought to himself: If the cavalry is not well-trained, and the horses are not good endurance horses, they can only run three hundred miles a day. Otherwise, the cavalry will lose its combat effectiveness, which would be fatal. Lü Bu understood the limits of rapid raids and also figured out the characteristics of cavalry raids and horse running. That is, when the horses start running, they should go from slow to fast, accelerate at mid-stage, then decelerate, and then rest. After resting well, repeat the sprint. In this way, after running three hundred miles a day, the cavalry still has half its strength left for battle.

  On the third day, Lü Bu woke up and realized that he had not noticed the darkness of the night before. He felt that this place was a bit familiar, so he asked Gao Shun about it. After asking, he found out where his army was currently located. This place is not far from a Xianbei tribe that they raided last year. To the north, there are still over 100 miles to the Yellow River, and to the southeast, there are also over 100 miles to Shuofang. Lü Bu remembered Jia Xu's plan to lure the snake out of its hole, so he ordered Gao Shun to take a group of people back to Shuofang, prepare some horse-drawn carriages, and have them disguise themselves as merchants before returning. If there was any situation, they would use signal arrows to communicate with each other. Lü Bu led his army to roam around the surrounding area, trying to see if he could encounter any bandits on horseback.

  After Gao Shun left, Lü Bu led his cavalry towards the Yellow River. When they reached the riverbank, they moved along the river five miles away from it and rested while sending scouts to explore thirty miles ahead.

  Lü Bu wandered along the Yellow River for two days, without seeing any movement, not even a single person. Two days after Gao Shun left, there was still no news. The dry rations were almost gone, so Lü Bu thought of returning to Xiapi to regroup before doing anything else.

  On the way back, Hao Meng muttered: "White white wasted a lot of dry food, and didn't even encounter a ghost."

  Lü Bu didn't think so, this time Lü Bu originally didn't expect to encounter the horse thieves so coincidentally, he was purely practicing cavalry raids. At least for cavalry, how far they can run in a day and when they should rest, Lü Bu remembered clearly. The difference between 300 miles of raiding and 400 miles of raiding is fatal. If it weren't for this long-distance raid, Lü Bu wouldn't have discovered this problem. Fortunately, his previous assumptions were overturned by the actual raid. If he had really encountered a real battle, perhaps Lü Bu's army would have been destroyed by now. Lü Bu now knows more clearly that any reasoning needs to be verified through actual combat. The battlefield is ever-changing, and experience is far more reliable than calculations. Lü Bu was delighted to use this long-distance raid to verify himself.

  Lü Bu led his troops to the northwest direction again, rushing for seventy miles before stopping to rest. Lü Bu still sent out scouts thirty miles ahead. The scouts had just been sent out when one of them returned to report back.

  Lü Bu saw that the scout he had sent out just a moment ago was now returning, and immediately sensed something was amiss. He straightened up at once. The scout hastily reported back: "Report... Governor, twenty li west of here, General Cao's army is being attacked by a group of mounted bandits."

  Lü Bu immediately jumped onto his horseback and shouted: "Deploy the formation..."

  Hao Meng and Cheng Lian hastily mounted their horses and formed an array. In a moment, they were done, and Lü Bu immediately led his troops to follow the scouts in a westward dash.

  Gao Shun returned to the north and gathered a dozen or so horse-drawn carts, disguising them as cargo with hay. He used horses to pull them to find Lü Bu. However, it took a lot of time back and forth, and although the carts were lightly loaded with hay, they couldn't compare to the speed of light cavalry. By the time Gao Shun returned to his original location, Lü Bu had already been wandering along the Yellow River for a day. On his way back, Lü Bu missed Gao Shun again, but instead encountered a group of two or three hundred mounted bandits.

  Gao Shun met the horse thieves without panic, but instead surrounded the chariots in a circle, then took off his leather armor and put it on the horses, and again surrounded the horses in a circle. He hid inside and shot the horse thieves with crossbow arrows.

  The horse thieves were anxious and couldn't help but shoot to death more than a dozen people. Gao Shun also shot several response arrows into the sky, but unfortunately, they were too far away from Lü Bu, who didn't notice. Fortunately, every time Lü Bu rested, he sent out scouts thirty miles ahead, which is how they discovered that Gao Shun had encountered horse thieves.

  Gao Shun and his troops were calmly shooting down the mounted bandits when Lü Bu arrived. Lü Bu gave a single order: "Raise your crossbows..."

  Bandits were besieging a merchant caravan, but they couldn't break through. Just as they were getting frustrated, they discovered a Han army charging towards them from the east. The bandit leader's name was Yang Feng, and he wasn't stupid. He had found it strange that this merchant caravan was here in the first place. Unfortunately, last year, a fierce general came to Shuofang and cleaned up the area like an iron bucket. When the Xianbei tribe raided Shuofang, not only did they fail to gain anything, but they also left behind hundreds of corpses. Yang Feng had originally planned to take advantage of the Xianbei's retreat to go to Shuofang and scavenge for leftovers. But the Xianbei were defeated so badly that Yang Feng was scared off and hid at the foot of a mountain, not daring to cross the Yellow River. For a year, he hadn't gained anything. However, if they didn't leave the mountains soon, they would starve to death. So, he sent people across the Yellow River to scout out the road, and unexpectedly stumbled upon a merchant caravan wandering around by the riverbank. Yang Feng was also suspicious of this caravan. But his hunger had addled his brain, and he couldn't think clearly about anything else. He left some men behind to guard their lair and led his followers across the Yellow River to rob the caravan. Little did they know that this caravan wasn't ordinary - its defense was well-organized. One of his men let his guard down for a moment and over a dozen were shot dead. If he didn't avenge them, it wouldn't be right.

  Yang Feng was already suspicious and had been paying attention. Seeing the merchant group occasionally releasing signal arrows, he felt uneasy in his heart. Now seeing the army rushing over to kill, he immediately knew he had been deceived, so he hastily ordered his men to run quickly.

  Unfortunately, it was too late. In the chaos, a row of crossbow arrows shot over. Suddenly, thirty or forty of his men fell off their horses. Yang Feng didn't have time to think about it and kept running towards the Yellow River. But these horse thieves' horses were no match for Lü Bu's horses, and they were surrounded before they even reached the riverbank.