Chapter 1181 Reinforcements
Yuan Xi couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he heard the news of Zhang Yun's surrender. His main focus for Jingzhou was to appease the people, and to avoid casualties in a major war if possible. Zhang Yun's surrender could avoid irritating the people of Jingzhou and also reduce the loss of many soldiers, which was killing two birds with one stone.

He immediately went over in person, took Zhang Yun to the boat, and said to Zhang Yun: "The governor has abandoned the dark and transparent, and I will definitely repay you."

"Liu Jingsheng and Lord Benchu ​​have always been good friends, but for various reasons, he passed the position of head of the family to Liu Cong. However, facts have proved that this choice was not wise."

"Who is Cao Cao? How could he allow an orphan and a widow to occupy the rich land of Jingzhou? So I came here to mediate the relationship between the King of Hannan and Jingzhou, so as to prevent Duke Jingsheng's foundation from falling into Cao Cao's hands and the Liu family from having a bad ending."

Although Zhang Yun didn't really believe it in his heart, since he had already surrendered, he still said: "Yun would rather stop the war between the two sides, why don't you write a letter to persuade the young master to surrender to the King of Jin."

Yuan Xi smiled and said, "That would be great. I will stay in Yiling to recuperate for a while and wait for news from Wuling."

At that moment Yuan Xi led his troops to join Liu Bei and Lu Xun. After both sides entered Yiling, they began to march towards Wuling from the south and the north.

Yuan Xi and Liu Bei would naturally not be so stupid as to wait for Liu Cong to receive Zhang Yun's letter before taking action. The most effective way is to use war to promote peace.

So Yuan Xi was on the north bank of the river, and Liu Bei was on the south bank of the river, and the two sides advanced side by side and attacked towards Yidu.

Soon the emergency news in Yidu reached Liu Cong, but he was no longer in Wuling. Instead, he was in Yidu, which was only 200 miles away from the Yiling front line!
The reason he did this was not to reinforce Yiling, but because he had previously followed the advice of Cai Mao and the decision of Mrs. Cai, and wanted to go from Wuling through Yidu, then eastward to Yong'an (Baidi City) in Yizhou, and then enter Yizhou to seek refuge.

When the news of the attack on Jiangling reached Mrs. Cai, she didn't know that Yiling had been attacked. So after discussing with Cai Mao, Mrs. Cai found that the soldiers from Jingzhou might be able to resist Liu Bei, but definitely not Yuan Xi. If the battle continued like this, Liu Cong and Mrs. Cai would be blocked in Wuling, and would not be able to escape even if they wanted to.

So after contacting Cao's camp, Mrs. Cai made a decision to abandon Wuling and flee to Yizhou, leaving the mess of Jingzhou to be defended by Cao's army.

She no longer has any big ambitions now and only wants to save her own life and Liu Cong's life. How can she possibly stop the second and third ranked princes in the world from joining forces to attack her?
If she runs slower, she loses!

So Mrs. Cai decisively took Liu Cong and ran away. They were escorted by Cai Mao and 20,000 Jingzhou troops. They finally arrived in Yidu by land. They were about to reach the river to take a boat, but then the bad news came that Yiling in the east was lost due to a surprise attack by the allied forces of Yuan and Liu!
Yiling was only about 200 miles away from everyone. When Mrs. Cai heard the news, her heart stopped. She hurried to find Cai Mao and asked anxiously, "Brother, why are they coming so fast?"

"Can we still go?"

Cai Mao was holding a letter in a daze at this time. When he saw Mrs. Cai coming over, he lowered the letter and sighed, "Let's not talk about anything else, take a look at this first."

When Mrs. Cai took the letter and read it, she was shocked. Zhang Yun actually surrendered!

She gritted her teeth and said, "He is not a member of the Cai clan. He is indeed unreliable. When the enemy arrives, he surrenders faster than anyone else!"

"What are we going to do now?"

Cai Mao said, "Of course there are only two choices."

"One is to surrender to the Yuan-Liu coalition."

"The second is to follow Cao's army and fight them to the end."

The two men looked at each other and both had thoughts of surrendering, because the Yuan-Liu coalition was too fast, so fast that they lost the courage to resist. If they continued to fight against them, who knew if they could save their lives?

The two discussed for a long time, and just when they were about to bow to Yuan Xi, a piece of news completely disrupted their plans.

Xiahou Yuan is leading tens of thousands of naval forces and is about to advance eastward from Yong'an to Yidu to join the Jingzhou army. They will arrive tomorrow.

At the same time, he ordered Cai Mao to build fortifications and water forts, preparing for a decisive battle with the Yuan-Liu coalition forces!

After hearing the news, Cai Mao sighed to Madam Cai: "Cao's army is one step ahead. We can't stay out of it."

"The Cao army cannot tolerate betrayal. For now, we can only join forces with Xiahou Yuan and fight a decisive battle with the Yuan-Liu coalition."

Mrs. Cai thought for a moment and said, "Brother, what do you think about us not helping either side and just running away secretly?"

Cai Mao said helplessly: "Run?"

"Where to run?"

"Right now, we only have Yizhou as our only way out. It's hard to enter Xichuan. If we take most of Cai's wealth and enter Xichuan, we can become a powerful force. But there is no place for us in Jingzhou anymore!"

Madam Cai gritted her teeth and said, "Brother, you just said that Cao's army is difficult to get along with, but when the time comes, if we live under someone else's roof, won't we be at the mercy of others?"

"Even so, it would be better to join Liu Bei, who has a better reputation, or Xiong Hu, who is better than Cao Cao, isn't he?"

Cai Mao shook his head and said, "Cao Cao's grandfather, Cao Teng, was our Cai family's sponsor. Now the Cai family is here to repay the favor!" "Liu Bei was originally our lord's lackey, a common shoemaker. How can we, the great Cai family, bow to him?"

"As for Yuan..." Cai Mao hesitated for a moment, "That fierce tiger has a bad reputation. Every woman who meets him will be killed by him. If I am seen by him, can I expect a good ending?"

Mrs. Cai thought to herself, brother, if you ask me to please Cao Cao, won’t it be the same?
In the final analysis, don't you just want to use me, to take a chance and make a comeback in Cao's camp?
I heard that the fierce tiger has many concubines. Brother, do you think I have no hope of winning his favor, otherwise you would have given me away long ago?

But now that things have come to this, even though Mrs. Cai is full of dissatisfaction, she can only respond: "In this case, then everything depends on my brother."

She returned to the house feeling discouraged and saw Liu Cong waiting for her anxiously. As soon as they met, she asked, "Mother, we are going to Xichuan. Can we return to Jingzhou in the future?"

After hearing this, Mrs. Cai sighed and said, "I'm afraid I won't be able to come back."

"How can anyone return something you have thrown away?"

On the second day, Xiahou Yuan led tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of warships, sailing downstream to join forces with Cai Mao.

In fact, Xiahou Yuan's appearance here was the result of a series of accidents.

According to Cao Cao's order, he should have gone north from Chengdu to Hanzhong, then rushed to Xu Du, and then went to Yecheng to meet Cao Cao.

But after Xiahou Yuan sent Sima Yi away, news came that Yuzhou was attacked by Yuan Xi, so Le Jin rushed to support Cao Xiu who was stationed in Yuzhou.

Afterwards, an unstable situation arose in Xichuan, and Xiahou Yuan had to stabilize the situation in Chengdu. At the same time, he sent Liu Zhang and others to Guanzhong and replaced them with Cao's trusted officials. Two months passed after this.

It was too late for him to rush to Yecheng at that time. Just when the situation stabilized and Xiahou Yuan was preparing to set off, news came that Liu Bei was attacking Jingxi.

Jingxi is the gateway to the eastern part of Xichuan. Upon hearing this, Xiahou Yuan immediately mobilized tens of thousands of Xichuan soldiers, and sailed downstream to reinforce Jingxi.

As a result, when he arrived in Yidu, Xiahou Yuan heard that Yiling in the east had been lost. On the one hand, he was surprised at the enemy's speed, but at the same time he was glad that he had arrived in time. As long as the waterway from Yidu to Yong'an was blocked, Liu Bei's army would not be able to easily take Jingxi.

But the news that came afterwards also made him feel heavy-hearted. The enemy was not only Liu Bei, but also the Fierce Tiger Army!
Why is he coming here instead of going to attack Jizhou and Yuzhou?
Xiahou Yuan has not received any news so far. It was Yuan Xi who came in person, otherwise he might have been alert.

In his opinion, he had a good chance this time. Although the battle situation was temporarily unfavorable, it was fortunate that Yuan Xi's army seemed to have no generals this time, and Liu Bei only had Guan Yu, and Xiahou Yuan had already prepared for this.

He said to Cai Mao who came to meet him: "It just so happens that the Xichuan troops I recruited are not good at naval warfare, and hundreds of warships are useless. I will give these warships to you, and you can use the navy to resist the enemy!"

Cai Mao quickly accepted the order and patted his chest, saying, "General, rest assured. Regardless of the situation on the ground, the soldiers from Jingzhou that I lead are all experts in water battles and will definitely not let the enemy advance even a single step on the river!"

Xiahou Yuan nodded, "The enemy only has one general, Guan Yu, who is proficient in naval forces. The commander-in-chief should be careful when the time comes."

"As long as I can hold off Guan Yu's attack, I can use my superior forces to defeat the infantry of the Yuan-Liu coalition in the shortest possible time, and then come back to help the governor!"

No wonder Xiahou Yuan was so confident. The combined strength of the Yuan and Liu coalition forces was no more than 20,000 men, and Xiahou Yuan recruited 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers from Xichuan this time. Together with Cai Mao's 20,000 naval forces, his strength was three times that of the enemy. The difference in ground strength was even greater, so he couldn't lose no matter how he looked at it!

Cai Mao hesitated for a moment and said, "It would be fine if there was only Guan Yu on the water, but I suspect there may be other generals on the other side."

"Wen Pin, who surrendered to the Jingzhou army, is very difficult to deal with. The one who can defeat him must not be an ordinary person."

"In addition to the surrender of Zhang Yun and others, I heard that the King of Wei also had Cao's generals surrender. I'm afraid..."

Xiahou Yuan waved his hand and said, "It doesn't matter. In the face of our overwhelming force, they can't cause any trouble!"

"Governor, just hold on for five days, no, three days, and then you'll see how I defeat this mob!"

It is no wonder that Xiahou Yuan is full of confidence. In his eyes, Liu Bei is his defeated general. Although he has not fought against Liu Bei in the past two years, how strong can the other party be?

Most of Yuan Xi's soldiers in Jianghuai are good at naval battles. If they fight on land, how much threat can they pose to the enemy?
However, a few days later, when the two sides encountered each other and started fighting, Xiahou Yuan gradually discovered that the development of the situation was completely different from what he had expected.

His opponent on land was Huang Zhong.

Xiahou Yuan had learned earlier that this was a general who had not achieved any success at the age of fifty, so he looked down on him. However, after the fight, he realized that his opponent was not a simple one!
That would have been fine, but Xiahou Yuan suddenly discovered that, judging from various signs and expressions, the person behind the Jin army this time might very likely be King Xionghu of Jin himself!
And Cai Mao never mentioned this news to himself!

(End of this chapter)

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