Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 228 The Building Collapsed

In June of the 12th year of Jian'an, in Dangqu County, Bajun County, Cai Mao in the county government kept rubbing his temples.

Cai Du, his confidant, saw that he was very depressed, so he asked, "What's the matter, my lord? Although the recent offensive has not gone well, it's not a serious problem."

Cai Mao shook his head and said: "The letters from Your Majesty urging me to use soldiers these days are flying like snowflakes, which makes me very sad."

Cai Du thought for a while and said, "Uncle, why don't you write the current situation into a memorial and report it to His Majesty?"

"It's useless to say."

Cai Mao, who is in his fifties now, has gray temples, stood up with a melancholy face, walked in the hall with his hands behind his back, and said, "Besides, even if my offensive goes well, I must not continue to march."

"Why is this?"

Cai Du is Cai Mao's nephew, so he didn't have so many scruples in speaking, and asked, "If you defeat Zhang Lu and capture Xichuan, wouldn't uncle have done a great job?"

"Ha ha."

Cai Mao sneered and said, "A great achievement? I am afraid that the day when Xichuan is captured will be the day when your uncle and I die."

Cai Du was shocked and said, "Ah, why is this happening?"

"The eldest prince has no heirs. You have married the second prince from your elder sister. What His Majesty is most worried about now is that once he dies, our Cai family will rule the entire South. Once the South is won, I will bestow death on Your Majesty's behalf."

Cai Mao remembered the correspondence between him and Kuai Yue from the beginning of the year to the present, and he did not believe it before, but Liu Biao's letter seemed to be increasingly dissatisfied with him during this period.

From the beginning of this year to the present half a year, there have been at least five letters and official documents berating him almost every month.

The big change in attitude before and after this also made Cai Mao realize that perhaps things were really as Kuai Yue said.

Although the truth is what Liu Biao thinks, Cai Mao and Kuai Yue just want to push Liu Cong to the top, so as to control the whole south.

But the problem is that we want to be ministers of power, and you can't eradicate us ministers of power.

Now is the key to life and death, and it makes Cai Mao extremely depressed.

Cai Du was shocked when he heard this, Cai Mao is the mainstay of the Cai family, if he falls, the Cai family will be ruined, so he quickly said: "The general will not accept the military order abroad, my uncle is in charge of the army, just delay it gone?"

"Humph."

Cai Mao snorted coldly and said: "I don't want to procrastinate, but His Majesty has recently held court meetings frequently, saying that he wants to summon me to Xiangyang and send Wenpin to take over my position. I think it's because I can't conquer Zhang Lu repeatedly. dissatisfied."

Cai Du hurriedly asked: "Then what should I do?"

Cai Hao rubbed his temples and said: "I plan to write to Your Majesty to launch a general offensive this year to delay the time. When the big battle comes, I can't just change the generals."

"That's all it takes."

Cai Dusi said: "Now that Zhang Lu is occupying Hanchang, it will be difficult for us to conquer it in a short time. Even if we can conquer it, it will take a year or two to attack Liu Zhang. Maybe at that time."

"I hope so."

Cai Mao nodded noncommittally, his eyes full of melancholy.

In history, he and Kuai Yue became the capitulators and handed over the huge Jingzhou to Cao Cao.

But things are very different today.

Because Liu Biao now really has the power to dominate the world.

It's just that he is too old, and it may not be possible in his hands, but there is great hope in the hands of the second generation.

In other words, once Liu Biao takes over the entire South and Liu Cong takes over, Cai Mao will become the most powerful person in the world.

As a foreign relative, at least he is also a general.

It’s hard to say that in the future when the world is unified again, you will be able to go to the palace with swords, enter the court without going, praise without being famous, add nine pewter, crown ten, ride in a golden chariot, drive six horses, enter and exit with the emperor’s luanyi, and even.

Although Cai Mao has not thought so far, he never wants to let go of the opportunity to ascend to the throne of power in the world overnight, let alone life and death.

So at this moment, Cai Mao had a complicated emotion.

He wanted to pacify the south as soon as possible and let himself reach the top, but also wanted to delay the time until Liu Biao died before he could become a general.

So I feel very conflicted for a while.

It's just that no matter how contradictory, the immediate priority is survival. Under Liu Biao's persecution, he had no choice but to launch a forcible attack on Zhang Lu.

Not even defeated.

Once defeated, not only will Liu Biao have an excuse to kill him, but his military power will also be taken away, so he can only go all out.

In July of the 12th year of Jian'an, Cai Mao once again launched a fierce attack on Pingxiangguan.

In August, it rained heavily in Hanzhong, and the water level of the Qianjiang River soared. The lower reaches of the Qianjiang River were very wide, but the upper reaches of the Pingxiang area were relatively narrow, which made it difficult for Cai Mao's navy to perform.

Now that the water level has soared, the fleet has arrived at Pingxiang. Their position is even higher than the city that Zhang Lu built in Pingxiang. Countless arrows rained down on Pingxiang Pass from the boat, and almost no one dared to defend it.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cai Mao immediately ordered his infantry to attack the city. Pingxiang Pass was quickly conquered, and Zhang Lu's army quickly withdrew to Hanchang.

By the end of August, Cai Mao had completely captured the entire Pingxiang Pass.

After Pingxiang Pass was conquered, the pressure on Cai Mao was relieved to a great extent. Liu Biao stopped mentioning Wenpin to replace Cai Mao at the recent court meeting, but he continued to urge Cai Mao to defeat Zhang Lu as soon as possible.

For this reason, Cai Mao had to continue to attack. Pingxiang Pass was the most dangerous pass, and it should be easier to fight against Hanchang City after passing Pingxiang Pass.

But this also greatly extended Cai Mao’s supply line. Originally, most of his food sources were transported by water from Jingzhou, along the Yangtze River to Jiangzhou, then from Jiangzhou north to Dianjiang, and finally from Dianjiang to Dangqu , traveling thousands of kilometers.

These previous rivers are all big rivers. Although they are countercurrent all the way, water transportation is always better than land transportation.However, the upper reaches of the Qianjiang River in Pingxiang became narrower and there were fault waterfalls, making it difficult to transport by water.

Taking the land route is the road of Miicang Road, but it is also extremely rugged. It is transported from Dangqu for hundreds of kilometers, which made Cai Mao suffer so much that he can only temporarily station in Pingxiang, waiting for follow-up food and grass.

In October, after waiting for more than a month, a large amount of food and grass were sent from Dangqu County one after another. Cai Mao sent troops to Hanchang northward and surrounded Hanchang City.

The two sides fell into a stalemate again.

Until November, the grain and grass in Cai Mao's army was almost exhausted. Fortunately, a new batch of grain and grass from Jingzhou arrived in Dangqu, and it could be replenished soon.

However, what no one knew was that on the Bashu Road in the east, Zhang Lu dispatched general Yang Ang, leading [-] elite soldiers, to quietly head south.

Although Zhang Lu suppressed Liu Zhang to fight, he was able to occupy the northern part of Berkshire because he accepted a lot of property in Guanzhong. During the Dong Zhuo Rebellion, countless people in Guanzhong moved to Hanzhong, which allowed his troops and strength to skyrocket.

But his total strength is only 3 to [-], and he has to guard against other places, so the actual strength to fight Cai Mao is only more than [-], which is far from the so-called [-] army.

Therefore, when he was attacked by Cai Mao, he could only accept the advice of his counselor Yan Pu and let the commander of the front-line army, that is, his younger brother Zhang Wei, retreat back to Hanchang.

As a result, what people did not expect was that after retreating back to Hanchang, the weakness of Cai Maojun's difficulty in supplying was exposed instead.

So Yan Pu immediately proposed a strategy to him. After leading Cai Mao into Hanchang, he sent people to take the Bashu Road to Xuanhan, but he did not attack Xuanhan, but took a small road, that is, the area around Shuanglong Town, Dazhou City, to bypass Xuanhan City. , Go straight to Dangqu!

.

.

Huang Zu in Jiangdong didn't have as many troubles as Cai Mao.

Because he belongs to Liu Qi's faction, Liu Qi is shrewd and capable, and has enough prestige, so he won't become Cai Mao Kuaiyue's puppet like Liu Cong.

Therefore, Jia Xu, Huang Zu, and Shen Chen are basically the three cornerstones Liu Biao left for Liu Qi to succeed to the throne in the future.

It's just that Jiangdong was unable to attack for a long time, so Liu Biao sent documents to urge him every month.

Huang Zu was helpless, although he had made some progress, he had taken more than ten cities in the east of the river, captured Nanling in May of this year, and rushed to Ruxukou, but was blocked by Ruxukou.

This place is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Huang Zu couldn't take it even after attacking the city.Although it is also possible to attack Jiangdong by land, but Ruxu's mouth is not broken, and a lone army going deep is courting death.

Just as Liu Bei has already killed Luocheng and is very close to Chengdu, it is obviously impossible to attack Chengdu behind him without breaking Luocheng.

Therefore, the two sides can only die at Ruxukou.

Sun Quan personally sits in Chungu City, which is a tripod rivalry with Ruxukou and Zheqi City occupied by Huangzu, that is, Nanling.

The three parties intertwined and entangled each other in this area, and the daily fighting almost never stopped.

Although Huang Zu had an army of more than [-], Mei Gan, Lei Xu, Chen Lan and others were local powers in the wall, so naturally they refused to use their lives to help, and they were greedy for food, grass, weapons and equipment, which was annoying.

So in a short period of time, Huang Zu actually had nothing to do with Sun Quan.

The two sides remained deadlocked until September in the second half of the 12th year of Jian'an. Because of the war, almost all the people in this area had fled. On the sixth day of September, Huang Zu attacked Ruxukou again.

After a day of fighting, Jiang Xia's navy returned to the barracks very exhausted. These days have been a great torment for both sides of the battle.

The Jiangdong army was exhausted, and the Jiangxia army was also exhausted, so the nerves of both the enemy and us collapsed to the extreme.

In this day and night.

A group of soldiers and horses left Ruxukou quietly, and went to Meigan's camp at night.

At the beginning Huang Zu was still very guarded against night attacks, but after a long time, he became very tired of being so prepared every day. He thought to himself that Sun Quan didn't have the guts to attack with an army of more than [-], so he gradually relaxed.

As a result, there was no surprise attack for more than a year, and Huang Zu's original caution disappeared, leaving only a small number of troops to watch the night, and most of the soldiers rested in the barracks.

Even Huang Zu's army is like this, not to mention Mei Gan, Lei Xu, Chen Lan and others. Their trilogy is originally Jianghuai bandits, and their quality is not as good as Huang Zu's army.

Therefore, the sudden attack of the Jiangdong army directly caused the Meigan army to bomb the camp, and tens of thousands of people roared in the camp, causing terrible stampede and collision accidents.

The Meigan army was like this, and Lei Xu and Chen Lan's sides were similar, and soon this kind of bombing camp spread to the entire army. Except for Huang Zu's headquarters in Zheqi City, most of the military camps outside the city were subjected to different attacks. degree of influence.

Sun Quan then took advantage of the night to attack with the whole army and launched a big counterattack against Jingzhou!
this day.

This bustling building in Jingzhou is about to collapse!
　Well, basically this book has entered the middle stage, and the progress is fast. It is expected to end with two million words. I will work hard and strive to finish it before the first half of next year.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)