The Warriors of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 401 Rumors Are Fierce Than Tigers

After thinking about it all night, Dongfang Sheng finally chose a method commonly used by later generations: spreading rumors.

Three people become tigers, the ancients understood the power of rumors very early.

Of course, due to the underdevelopment of communication, the speed of rumors spreading at this time is extremely slow.

Although Dongfang Sheng has no way to create a mobile Internet to spread rumors, he has his own method.

Although Dongfang Sheng lost contact with the scout battalion who had ambushed earlier because of Sun Quan's blockade, but now that Dongfang Sheng has entered Kuaiji County, the blockade will not be broken by itself.

Contacting the scout battalion again, Dongfang Sheng immediately ordered all the scout battalion staff to start spreading rumors. One was the news that Zhang Zhao was going to surrender to Cao Cao, and the other was that Zhang Zhao was planning to abandon the people of Kuaiji.

The people in the scout battalion immediately started to take action. They spread the news through word of mouth through some so-called 'well-informed' folks. For a while, the entire Kuaiji County began to fall into the offensive of rumors.

The first of these two rumors is more reliable. Although it is not true, considering Zhang Zhao's capitulation style before, the credibility is relatively high.

As for the second rumor, it was purely fabricated by Dongfang Sheng to distract the people of Kuaiji County.

It is said to be a distraction among the people, but in fact the rumors will shake the morale of the soldiers under Zhang Zhao's command. At this time, the army is not completely independent. In addition, I have to go home to do farm work.

Even Sun Quan is now relying on some private soldiers of the gentry who are in the same spirit as him, and these soldiers of the gentry are more similar to the existence of the Eight Banners in later generations. They are farmers in leisure time and soldiers in wartime.

Among the rumors spread by Dongfang Sheng, Zhang Zhao wants to abandon the people of Jiangdong, so why not shake the morale of Jiangdong soldiers?

Dongfang Sheng deliberately slowed down the offensive, so that rumors would have a chance to spread everywhere, and the scout camp lived up to Dongfang Sheng's expectations, and soon spread the rumors, and the entire Kuaiji County already knew that Zhang Zhao was going to join Cao Cao and abandon Kuaiji The people of the county.

What's more, Cao Cao's promise of Zhang Zhao's official position was exposed with embellishment, and some people even said that Cao Cao sent twelve beautiful beauties and countless gold, silver and jewels to Zhang Zhao.

These rumors with nose and eyes are so detailed and true that ordinary people can still tell the difference. For a while, the Sun family, who was originally popular among the people, began to be abandoned by the people.

Dongfang Sheng's pressure suddenly eased, and at this time the rumors even spread to San'in.

But Zhang Zhao sits in the Sun family's base camp and manages a lot of things every day, so he will care about folk gossip.

It's just that he didn't know that it was these gossips that ruined all his hard work.

In the hearts of the new generals like Ling Tong, Zhang Zhaoyuan was not as friendly as Sun Quanlai. Although Zhang Zhaode was highly respected, his previous remarks about surrender made these young and passionate generals quite unhappy.

In addition, Zhang Zhao's strict military law is a bit unreasonable. As soon as the rumors that he was going to surrender to Cao Cao spread, Ling Tong was the first to react.

Then the generals who belonged to Zhou Yu's faction who led the battle also became suspicious of Zhang Zhao. In the end Ling Tong gathered all these generals and prepared to go to the palace to ask Zhang Zhao's plan.

So one day, after Zhang Zhao had finished dealing with various matters in Kuaiji County, he stretched out. In the afterglow of the setting sun, Ling Tong led a group of generals in armor and swords and rushed in from the outside.

"Ling Tong, what are you guys doing?" Zhang Zhao was a little annoyed when he saw Ling Tong's domineering appearance, "Where are the rules I taught you? You really have no knowledge!"

Zhang Zhao was quite dissatisfied with this group of military generals who barged in unreasonably. Since ancient times, civil servants and military officials have not dealt with each other very much and looked down on each other.

As soon as he heard Zhang Zhao's condescending words, Ling Tong felt that Zhang Zhao was abominable, so he put his right hand on the hilt of his sword and asked, "Zhang Zhao, are you guilty!"

Zhang Zhao was taken aback when he saw Ling Tong's performance, but then he cursed a little angrily: "Well, your Ling Tong dared to yell at me! Someone brought Ling Tong down and punished fifty Baton!"

Ling Tong sneered and said, "There's no need to call someone. If you can't tell the reason today, I'll have to tie you up and go see the lord."

"Ling Tong, how dare you!" Zhang Zhaoxue rushed into his head, pointing at Ling Tong with a blushing face, and said, "You are going to miss my lord's important event, and miss the hope of the Sun clan!"

"Haha, will I miss my lord's hope?" Ling Tong said with a big laugh, "I'm afraid it's you, who won Cao Bandit's high-ranking official and rich salary, so you can't wait to report to Xudu!"

"You...you, Huangkou kid!" Zhang Zhao thought about Sun's wholeheartedly, he didn't expect Ling Tong to slander him so much, he pointed at Ling Tong and was speechless.

"I've got nothing to say!" Ling Tong smiled smugly when he saw that Zhang Zhao was speechless.

Zhang Zhao rushed forward with wide-eyed anger and wanted to punch Ling Tong, but how could Ling Tong, as a general, let Zhang Zhao succeed? Just by turning sideways, he passed Zhang Zhao's punch, and Ling Tong's Stretching out his toes directly tripped Zhang Zhao to the ground.

"Ah, Ling Tong bullied me too much, even your father Ling Cao didn't dare to do this to me back then." Zhang Zhao roared to the sky full of anger.

It's a pity that Ling Tong had already tied him up involuntarily, and the rest of the generals acquiesced to Ling Tong's actions, and no one spoke for Zhang Zhao.

The "Minister of Gu Ming" designated by Sun Ce, a veteran who has worked hard for the Sun family until now, Zhang Zhao, seems to have aged in his teens in an instant. He drooped his head and kept saying, " Ling Tong made a mistake in children'.

Ling Tong put Zhang Zhao under house arrest for the time being. It wasn't that he had no brains to lead Zhang Zhao directly to Sun Quan who was fighting fiercely in Xuzhou, but he temporarily took over Zhang Zhao's position and began to set up a defense line.

Dongfang Sheng soon saw some tricks from the different arrangements of Jiangdong's soldiers. Zhang Zhao before did not seek meritorious deeds, so Zhang Zhao's arrangements were exhaustive, and basically they would not let Dongfang Sheng have any It's cheap.

Although Ling Tong is also a rare general, but because he is young and inexperienced, his arrangements are more inclined to quick success and quick profit, and he wants to wipe out Dongfang Sheng in one fell swoop.

From this, Dongfang Sheng came to the conclusion that Zhang Zhao must be resigned, so he immediately ordered Tuobahan and the others in front to start a fierce attack, and at the same time he led the army to speed up the advance.

With the help of rumors, the people in Kuaiji County no longer rejected Dongfang Sheng's army as before, so the pressure on Dongfang Sheng's army was reduced.

(End of this chapter)