The Jagged Emperor of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 53
Mrs. Zhuge was really powerful, she really convinced Zhao Feng, and made Zhao Feng obediently come to plead guilty to Liu Chan.Liu Chan's anger had long been relieved by Madam Zhuge's explanation, and seeing that the wound on Zhao Feng's head had been wrapped in white cloth, he couldn't help but feel a little guilty, so he forgave Zhao Feng for contradicting him.

Liu Chan then asked Zhao Feng to quickly prepare things for the trip.Especially the outfits of the guards had to be changed. The silver armor on them was too eye-catching, and they had to be replaced with the normal clothes worn by the guards hired by the merchants.

Early the next morning, Liu Chanjiu, Zhuge Qiao and Deng Ai were escorted out of the city by Zhao Feng's fifty bodyguards, and arrived at Han Long's manor the next night.

Han Long has already made preparations for Liu Chan's trip, and has sent four followers from Jiangdong to Jiangdong first to make a stop.After Liu Chan had some secret business with Han Long, he finally finalized the route of travel.

Three days later, Han Long and Liu Chan arrived at the port of departure with more than a hundred followers.

But I saw three large ships moored steadily on the river, several feet high and several tens of feet long. The sun shone obliquely, casting long shadows on the bank.

Liu Chan squinted his eyes and looked at the boat. Many sailors were busy going back and forth on it. Some of them were still carrying bags of things on their shoulders. They should be preparing for the voyage.

Han Long's business has been very big in recent years, and his firm has built its own merchant ships.However, Han Long prepared so many large ships at once, which was beyond Liu Chan's expectation.In fact, Han Long's preparations made sense: Liu Chan's journey to Jiangdong may be full of dangers. If something unexpected happens, more ships will be more secure.Only then did Liu Chan understand Han Long's painstaking efforts, and secretly sighed that he was really thoughtful.

Liu Chan and his two companions, Han Long and Zhao Feng's guards boarded the largest merchant ship, while Han Long's followers boarded the remaining two ships.A line of three big boats sailed under the rising sun.

The big ship went down the river at an extremely fast speed.

In the first few days, they didn't stop the boat and dock, and they lived and boarded on the boat.In order to take good care of Liu Chan, Han Long even brought the chef on board, so Liu Chan and others ate better than those at his own home.In addition, it is the first time to travel by boat, and I am full of curiosity, even if I stay on the boat all day, I don't feel bored.

They soon came to Yunmeng Lake and the mouth of Dongting Lake.Yunmengze is actually not a simple swamp, to be precise, it is a wetland with a range of hundreds of miles.

Liu Chan looked at the vast reeds in front of him, and thought of the first four lines of Meng Haoran's "A Gift to Prime Minister Zhang at Lin Dongting Lake": August Lake is level, and the emptiness is too clear.The steam steams in Yunmengze, and the wave shakes Yueyang City.

Perhaps Meng Haoran at that time was also like he is now, standing quietly on the bow of the boat overlooking the beautiful scenery on the river.But the difference is that Meng Haoran is giving someone away, but he has so many friends by his side.And soon, he will see his long-lost mother.

The boat passed Yunmengze and came to Chibi.

It has only been six or seven years since the Battle of Chibi, and the traces of the war are still clear, and there are traces of burning everywhere on the river bank.Many lives perished because of that earth-shattering battle, and became piles of bones at the bottom of the river.

Now, not only Zhou Lang, who smiled at Cao Cao's 80 troops, has also fallen, but Lu Su, who is quite a loyal elder, is also dying.

After Liu Chan and others paid their respects by the river, they continued to move forward.

At this time, the flow direction of the Yangtze River has changed, turning to the north, then turning to the south, and finally turning to the east, forming a huge azimuth, which greatly reduces the speed of the river.Therefore, this area has been the hardest hit area of ​​the Yangtze River flood in the past dynasties.

When their boat came to Lukou, they saw ships anchored everywhere on the river, almost blocking the river, making the speed of the ships extremely slow.

After walking for a long time, they saw dozens of huge warships lined up in the distance, with Soochow flags planted on them, completely blocking the river, obviously to prevent the ships from passing.

How could so many warships suddenly appear here? Is there going to be another war?But now the battlefield between Cao Wei and Soochow is not here.

Zhuge Qiao was very familiar with the affairs of Soochow, so he introduced them from the side.

He first pointed to a ship that was several times longer than his own merchant ship, and there was a tower-like ship on it, and told everyone that it was a building ship known as the invincible warship of Soochow, which could attack from a distance or fight in close quarters.

Liu Chan was somewhat intimidated by its huge size.In front of it, human beings are as insignificant as an ant!

In fact, during the Three Kingdoms period, water warfare was mostly based on shooting bows and arrows, ship collisions, and hand-to-hand combat. The size of a ship directly determines the number of sailors and soldiers that a single ship can accommodate, as well as the impact force of the ship. Served to a large extent as the capital ship of water warfare.

Then, Zhuge Qiao pointed out the warship on the river.

The warship is a very narrow and long warship, with parapets on the ship, which can be three feet high, and a spear hole under the ship.Five feet inside the boat, a shed was built, flush with the female wall.A female wall was built on the shed to re-arrange the soldiers.There are holes for inserting oars on both sides of the hull, and a parapet is built around the boat, and there are arrow holes on the parapet for attacking the enemy.There are soldiers on the high platform at the stern to observe the situation on the water.When Sun Quan was conquering Huang Zu, Gan Ning shot Ling Tong's father Ling Cao to death with a bow and arrow in Mengyao.

Just when Liu Chan was admiring the might of the Soochow Navy, a walking boat drove up ahead.There were more than a dozen soldiers with weapons in their hands and a small school boy with wicked eyebrows and mouse eyes on the boat.

The little school yelled loudly at Liu Chanchuan from a distance: "Stop the boat, stop the boat...the channel ahead will be blocked, and all ships will stop for inspection!..."

Seeing this, Deng Ai had a look of disgust on his face, turned his head and whispered something in Liu Chan's ear.Only then did Liu Chan realize that this small school was probably here to extort money.Liu Chan asked Han Long if this was the case.

Han Long nodded with a smile and told Liu Chan that such things have always been commonplace and will happen no matter what era, please don't worry.The goods loaded on his three ships have complete procedures, and there is no smuggled goods mixed in.The other party is just a small character, let the boss of the boat give him some money, and he can be sent away with just a few words.

Liu Chan felt that what Han Long said was reasonable, so when asking the boss of the ship to give the money, he should try his best to find out some relevant information about Lukou Port.

Sure enough, after the little schoolboy and his soldiers got on the ship, they didn't rush to the cabin to check the cargo or check the suspicious people on board, but they were pulled aside by the boss of the ship to chat cooperatively.

Liu Chan and others approached them pretending to be nonchalant, and learned from the conversation between the two that an extraordinary person came to Lukou, so they wanted to block the Yangtze River waterway.Moreover, there may be a big battle in Jingzhou's territory recently, so let them be careful.But apart from these news, the little school refused to discuss it any further.

Liu Chan asked Zhuge Qiao in a low voice: "Aqiao, can you guess who is that extraordinary person? Why is there such a big battle?"

Zhuge Qiao shook his head and said: "The flags ahead are very messy, I really can't see it. But there are very few people in Soochow who can make such a big battle."

Only then did Liu Chan nod to the boat boss, indicating that he could give the money, and sent the little school away.The captain of the boat took out a small piece of gold from his pocket and handed it to the schoolboy, and then distributed some copper coins to each soldier, telling them to get off the boat quickly.The small school was also interesting, after getting the money, he smiled and thanked everyone on board, everyone took care, and then got off the boat.

Not long after, a scorpion suddenly rushed past not far away.On the upper deck of the ship stood an old man in his sixties, dressed in luxurious clothes, wearing a tall crown of embarrassment, with a very serious expression, faintly showing the aura of a high-ranking and powerful person.It seems that this person is a high-ranking official from Soochow.

As soon as Zhuge Qiao saw the man, he turned around immediately, and then told Liu Chan an unexpected message: "My lord, that man is Zhang Zhao, the number one counselor in Eastern Wu! My father, Zhuge Jin, and Zhang Zhao My son Zhang Cheng is relatively deep, so Zhang Zhao must know me."

Only then did Liu Chan understand that Zhuge Qiao didn't dare to look at Zhang Zhao's side because he was afraid of revealing his whereabouts.However, Zhang Zhao's name Liu Chan has already been heard like thunder.Zhang Zhao loves to learn good books, which is a banner of the scholars of the Eastern Wu Dynasty.

When Sun Ce started his business in Jiangdong, he named Zhang Zhao as a long history and regarded him as Guan Zhong.When Sun Ce was dying, he entrusted Sun Quan to Zhang Zhao and Zhou Yu, and said in his last words, "For internal affairs, please rely on Zibu, and for external affairs, you must rely on Gongjin."After Zhang Zhao entrusted his order, he had a lot of direct advice to Sun Quan, and was called "the mastermind" by Sun Quan.However, because of his upright personality, he was always admonishing Yan Yan directly, so that Sun Quan could not bear it anymore, and blocked the door of his house with earth and stones to prevent him from going out.

However, at the time of the Battle of Chibi, Zhang Zhao was the leader of the descendant sect, which disappointed Sun Quan deeply. "The Analects of Confucius" note.

Therefore, although Zhang Zhao's influence in Soochow is not as good as before, he is still a well-respected elder. How could he suddenly appear here with a sullen look on his face?Liu Chan's heart trembled: Could it be that Soochow is going to deal with Jingzhou?
Liu Chan remembered that in another time and space, after Liu Bei captured Yizhou, Sun Quan was furious and ordered Lu Meng, Sun Jiao, and Lu Su to divide their troops to attack Jingzhou.In order to stabilize the interior of Yizhou, Liu Bei was unwilling to tear himself apart with Soochow, so he had to make peace with Sun Wu.And returned to the three counties of Changsha, Jiangxia and Guiyang with the Xiangshui River as the boundary.

During this period, Sun Quan personally guarded Lukou for the sake of solemnity.Will this story repeat itself at this time?Otherwise, how could an important official like Zhang Zhao appear here?It seems that they are sure that Kong Ming has left Jingzhou, and they are going to start to take action against Jingzhou.

Moreover, Liu Chan never imagined that he would meet that uncle Sun Quan who made his teeth itch with hatred!Tell Zhuge Qiao, Deng Ai and Han Long this information.The three had different reactions:
Zhuge Qiao was thoughtful; Deng Ai didn't take it seriously, it seemed that even if the Jade Emperor stood in front of him, he would still be so careless; Han Long frowned.He was worried that if Sun Quan was really here, Jiang Mian would be blocked for how long.

Then, Zhuge Qiao and Deng Ai both spoke at the same time, vying to be the first to ask Liu Chan. In order to ensure the safety of Jingzhou, he should immediately send someone back to inform Guan Yu.However, Deng Ai's stuttering hadn't completely healed yet, so Zhuge Qiao finally let Zhuge Qiao finish speaking first, so he gave Zhuge Qiao a very unconvinced look.Zhuge Qiao didn't take it seriously, it was already normal for them to fight like this.

However, Liu Chan had already guessed that Sun Quan guarded Lukou himself not because he wanted to personally lead the navy to attack Jingzhou, but to deter Cao Wei in the north so that they would not dare to act rashly when the Soochow army attacked Jingzhou.

Moreover, Guan Yu must have heard about Soochow's big move, otherwise he wouldn't have come out to mix with the Three Kingdoms, which is simply an insult to his reputation of "familiarity with "Spring and Autumn" and mastering the art of war."

So Liu Chan felt that it was necessary to send someone back to inform Guan Yu, but there was no need to say how serious the situation here was.Instead, Guan Yu should be reminded to be careful of Lu Meng's troops attacking from the east of Jingzhou.

Liu Chan asked Han Long to find a reliable and eloquent disciple, and asked him to take a small boat back to Jingzhou to convey his opinion to Guan Yu.The next thing he has to do is to patiently line up to pass the inspection of the Soochow Navy, and then go to Jianye to see Sun Shangxiang.

(End of this chapter)