People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 87 Breakout
It is better to use the remaining courage to pursue the enemy. Of course, we should pursue them, but we cannot just ignore everything in the heat of the moment. Xu Chen certainly knows that the evil must be eradicated, so at this time we should continue the pursuit and maintain pressure, and it would be best to swallow up the enemy army entirely in one go.

Without wasting too much time, after briefly organizing the army, he waited for daybreak and then led the army in pursuit together with Wang Dang, who was wrapped in cloth.

Although he took Wang Dang's injuries into consideration and let him stay in the camp to recuperate, this guy was unwilling to do so and insisted on following the troops, as if he would not give up until he had his revenge.

As we went along the way, we saw many scattered small groups of enemy troops. After all, they were fleeing at night, so it would be strange if they didn't get separated.

Naturally, these scattered enemy troops were all swallowed up by the Yellow Turbans. Most of them were not foolish enough to fight against the Yellow Turban army. They just surrendered when they saw that there was no way to escape.

Just following the trail, the Yellow Turbans were unable to catch up with the enemy, which showed that the enemy was also running for their lives.

After chasing for two or three days, they finally reached Pinggu City.

After many twists and turns, the two warring parties have returned to their original starting point and are confronting each other inside and outside the Pinggu city wall.

The Yellow Turbans who came to pursue this time were even less anxious. Although the old camp outside the city was destroyed, it was easy to repair. The vanguard pursuit troops only needed to watch the county town, but after the rear arrived, they began to repair and build engineering equipment, and the city would be easier to attack.

After defeating nearly half of the enemy's forces in the battle of Xiying, and taking in prisoners and baggage, the Yellow Turbans became increasingly powerful. Now they are in a situation where one side is gaining while the other is losing, so they just have to play with the other side slowly.

However, Zhang Chun and Tian Chou on the top of Pinggu City also understood this point.

"General, the strength of the weak is clear now. Defending the city is nothing but waiting for death. When the Yellow Turban army is fully prepared, Pinggu will surely fall. The only way to survive now is to take the people with you and break through with elite troops!"

Tian Chou looked at the Yellow Turban position from afar and felt extremely helpless. He had not expected the battle to turn out like this.

Although the Yellow Turbans succeeded in their attempts many times, the real reason was the difference in combat power between the two sides.

Who could have thought that the Yellow Turbans were so brave? If the soldiers had not been motivated by bounties earlier, with the fighting power shown by the Yellow Turbans, Pinggu would probably have been lost on the first day.

This group of Yellow Turbans did not feel like bandits at all. Not only did they advance and retreat in an orderly manner, but they also had a strong will to fight and were not easy to deal with.

Zhang Chun, however, had an unpleasant expression, with a look of despair between his brows: "Breakout? Even if we succeed, what will happen? Will the Yellow Turbans let us go if we break out? Now that the enemy is strong and we are weak, it seems that we will die anyway."

Tian Chou said, "Perhaps we can go to the neighboring county. If the enemy soldiers dare to pursue us, you can ask for help, and the enemy soldiers will retreat."

Zhang Chun heard this and immediately looked at Tian Chou, thinking for a moment: "Where do you think Zitai should go?"

Tian Chou smiled slightly and said, "Why not go to Youbeiping? Now that the general is in trouble, my Tian family can provide protection. As long as the general is willing, he will be safe by then."

Zhang Chun was silent for a moment, and he suddenly understood that although Tian Chou was young, he had a big appetite, and he had a crush on him.

These days, he has been used to using Tian Chou as a counselor, but he has forgotten that he is also from Youbeiping family. In terms of strength, it is hard to say who is the eldest brother. Of course, he knows that if he really accepts Tian's protection, it is equivalent to submitting to Tian.

As a member of a noble family, Zhang Chun naturally found it difficult to accept. However, after calm thinking, he found that he did not seem to have more choices. After all, the Yellow Turbans had to settle in Yuyang County. Then he would be the only unlucky one.

After thinking about it for a while, he finally nodded: "I'm afraid this is the only way."

When he said this, his heart was bleeding. This departure would mean losing all his family fortune. What made him sad was not the treasures and food, as he could always earn more after losing them. His real lifeblood was the land.

This departure meant really abandoning his family business, which of course he did not want to do, but the Yellow Turbans had their knives hanging on his head and he had no choice.

Now he can only plan to temporarily avoid the limelight. Although the Tian family wants to swallow him up, he may be able to revive again with the help of the Tian family. It is still unknown who is using whom.

I will come back sooner or later!
"Immediately conscript all the people, regardless of gender, age or status, into the army. In two hours, follow my army and break out!"

Zhang Chun immediately gave the order, and the entire Pinggu was in chaos. At this point, he no longer cared about the Zhang family's reputation in the local area. As long as it could help him break out successfully, he didn't care if all the people in the city died.

Before leaving, he naturally had to take away as much valuables as possible, such as high-value treasures such as gold, silver and jewelry. He could not let go even if it was difficult to carry them, so he could just get a few more carriages to load them.

As for food, fodder and copper coins, they took up too much space and had to be discarded.

If he could take all these riches away, with the remaining four or five thousand troops in his hands, he would have some wealth. When entering Youbeiping, he actually didn't need to care about other people's faces. If he was really irritated, he would have the ability to embarrass others.

During these two hours, the people in the city suffered greatly. Zhang Chun's army did not care whether the people were willing or not, and forcibly captured them into the army. They actually took more than ten thousand people with them, which eventually caused the people to complain.

But no one cared about the people's fear and panic. Two hours later, with Zhang Chun's order, the gates of Pinggu city were opened wide, and the Pinggu army forced the people to run together to break out.

In this tragic expulsion drama, countless old, weak, women and children died before the Yellow Turbans even got involved.

They were either trampled to death in the process, or ran a few steps too slowly when being driven away and were hacked to death by the soldiers.

Although bringing the common people slowed down the speed of Zhang Chun's army, it also brought them benefits. The common people undoubtedly became a moving flesh-and-blood defense line for them. Whenever the Yellow Turbans came in pursuit, they drove the common people to rush to the positions and fight together.

Zhang Chun didn't care whether the Yellow Turbans would kill the civilians. He just wanted the civilians to disperse across the battlefield in panic and create conditions for him to break out.

But what made him overjoyed was that every time this happened, the Yellow Turbans actually cowered and were unwilling to attack the people!
It's ridiculous that a bunch of bandits are pretending to have sympathy for the people. If you give them a chance, you can't blame others.

This tactic was indeed very effective. The people fled in panic, and the entire battlefield was in disarray. Zhang Chunjun took advantage of this opportunity and headed east with all his might, completely ignoring the possibility of crashing into the people. He rushed out of the battlefield in a short time and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

(End of this chapter)