My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 204: Huang Zu: He survived Yuan Shu but not Lu Bu

Cao Cao's thoughts were disrupted by Yuan Tan's behavior of grabbing territory and disrupting the situation, so that he could not judge for a while whether the failure of Chen Deng's uprising and his takeover by Liu Bei was a real accident or a conspiracy between Liu Bei and Chen Deng.

Cao Cao only felt that the situation was becoming more and more complicated, giving him a splitting headache.

Over the next five or six days, he tried every possible way to gain confirmation indirectly.

This included sending someone to send a letter of inquiry to Liu Bei, in order to inquire about Liu Bei's recent movements.

He investigated and interrogated the officials and officers from the five counties of Yixi in Donghai County who had just been forced to land from Lu Bu, and learned from them the details of Chen Deng's actions before he started the rebellion.

In the end, no evidence of Liu Bei's collusion with Chen Deng was found.

At the time of the incident, Liu Bei himself was even in Wuhu County, proposing a meeting with Sun Ce in an attempt to reach a "permanent peace plan to reconcile Sun Ce and Wang Lang."

Of course, Sun Ce did not agree to the meeting in the end, but only replied by letter, but this is not important.

Liu Bei's main force was indeed in Jiangxia County, besieging Huang Zu's last stronghold, Xiakou City.

When Cao Cao arrived in Xuzhou, Xiakou had not been captured yet, and the banners of Guan Yu, Gan Ning, and Taishi Ci were all dragged to Xiakou. No matter how you look at it, Liu Bei was devoted to the country and had no selfish thoughts.

The troops who finally came to help Chen Deng were indeed those sent by Zhuge Liang to Guangling County to participate in the summer double harvest and help the people farm. It was only when they were farming that they suddenly heard that Chen Deng had started an uprising, so they doubled their speed to come to the rescue.

Everything is seamless.

The advisers around Cao Cao were secretly anxious when they saw that Cao Cao was so conflicted that it even affected his health and mentality.

In the end, Cheng Yu had the foresight to advise Cao Cao: "Why do you have to worry about whether Liu Bei is colluding with Chen Deng? It is not important at the moment. What is important is that Liu Bei has already established a firm foothold in Xiapi and Donghai, and has a solid rear behind him.

If our army is eager to investigate this case, it will not only affect the final elimination of Lu Bu, but may even lead to being attacked from both sides in the future. Since Yuan Shao annihilated Gongsun Zan at the end of last year, he has rested his troops and taken care of the people, storing weapons and grain. Now that the summer grain has been harvested, the troops in Hebei are becoming more and more powerful, and it is said that Zhang Yan of Heishan is about to be destroyed.

Liu Bei is located in a place surrounded by enemies. Even if he covets the land of Xuzhou, he may not dare to compete with the court. Yuan Shao has the desert behind him and has nowhere to expand in the north. If he kills Zhang Yan and finds an excuse to march south, how will the court respond? It is better not to pursue Liu Bei for the time being, first break through Pengcheng, destroy Lu Bu, and then make long-term plans. "

Some of the information mentioned by Cheng Yu was indeed due to the butterfly effect brought about by Zhuge Jin - for example, in the original history, the Black Mountain bandit Zhang Yan was still alive and well until the Battle of Guandu broke out. Later, when Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao, Zhang Yan immediately expressed his surrender to Cao and also kept his one acre and three mu of land in Bingzhou.

But one of the key reasons why Zhang Yan lived so long in history was that not long after Gongsun Zan was defeated, the serial murders of Zhang Yang, Yang Chou and Sui Gu broke out in Hanoi between Cao and Yuan. Then Yuan Shao and Cao Cao became tense and began to station troops in Liyang. Half a year later, they were involved in a full-scale war, so Yuan Shao had no time to spare to kill Zhang Yan.

Now Gongsun Zan died two or three months earlier, while Lü Bu died a few months later than the same period in history. Yuan Shao had not yet fallen out with Cao Cao, and was now invincible, with only Zhang Yan of Heishan left. Therefore, everyone in the world could see clearly that if the imperial court had been slower in pursuing the remnants of Yuan Shu and Lü Bu, Yuan Shao would have had enough time to kill Zhang Yan, unite the rear into a solid block, and then find an excuse to go south.

Cao Cao thought about it and it did make sense. Because of Liu Bei's change of heart, he had even delayed the final siege of Pengcheng. Now he should make sure that Lu Bu was destroyed first before dealing with the rest.

Eat your food one bite at a time. Ten birds in the bush are worth a bird in the hand.

After realizing this, Cao Cao quickly let go of his psychological burden, and his headache also improved a little. For the next half month, he ordered his men to attack Pengcheng in an accelerated manner, wanting to kill Lu Bu as soon as possible.

……

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun peacefully stole the entire Xia Pi County in Xuzhou, plus the three counties of Donghai County located in Yidong, and also ensured that Cao Cao did not dare to tear his face off and settle accounts, so he directly accepted the bitter fruit.

This series of news spread quickly back to Wuhu within just three or four days, and also reached Jiangxia within five or six days.

As for Liu Bei, after confirming that Cao Cao's incompetent rage had ended and did not cause any waves, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and decided to go north to Xuzhou in person to complete the work of pacifying the people and taking over the city as soon as possible.

As for the defense of the southern part of Danyang County, it was handed over to Lu Su and Zhang Fei. It would be a problem for Zhang Fei to defend the home alone, but if he was warned and ordered to listen to Lu Su's advice, the situation would be much better. Sun Ce and Liu Bei had not yet torn their relationship, so he dared not act recklessly with Lu Su around.

Liu Bei's prestige and reputation in Xuzhou are still very high. Whether Liu Bei shows up is very important for the rapid and thorough control of Xiapi and Donghai counties. And only after Liu Bei arrives can Zhao Yun be transferred back to Shouchun and Hefei to defend the defense line in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River. Otherwise, the gap left in that direction will be too long and too large, which will also cause problems.

Two days after Liu Bei set out, Jiangxia County also received the corresponding news.

When Zhuge Jin heard that Cao Cao had swallowed his anger and temporarily admitted defeat, he immediately discussed with Guan Yu:
"Yun Chang, it's time to give Huang Zu the final blow! Our army has been slow to attack because we are considerate of the soldiers and want to reduce casualties. Secondly, I considered that if Xiakou is broken too quickly, our main force will have returned from Jingzhou to defend, and Cao Cao will think that the changes in Xiapi were intentional.

Now the situation in Xiapi and Donghai has been set, and we have fully proved that 'the main force of the lord's army was not present when the incident happened, and everything happened in a hurry', so there is no need to keep Huang Zu as a cover! Strike quickly and don't miss the opportunity! "

In fact, Guan Yu had estimated the situation of the siege seven or eight days ago. At that time, he felt that if he launched two more fierce attacks and followed Sha Xian's tactics, he would be able to kill Huang Zu.

Anyway, the preparatory work such as sinking the tower ships, laying the moat, trench bridge, and using catapults to smash the towers, turrets, battlements, and crossbows on the city walls had been completed long ago. Ge Gongche had also successfully tried to climb the wall several times, and Huang Zu's army had already been exhausted.

It was only because of Zhuge Jin's global vision and overall view that he was able to recuperate for a few more days.

Now that he had finally received approval at the strategic level, Guan Yu did not hesitate. He assembled a total of one or two thousand warriors clad in steel-filled armor, pushed Ge Gong carts, and under the cover of counterweight catapults, launched a final fierce attack on the solid fortress of Xiakou.

Gan Ning and Taishi Ci also participated in the siege. Everyone wanted to finish the work as soon as possible to avoid any further complications.

……

June 18th, the fourth year of Jian'an.

It was the third day after Guan Yu's troops resumed their full-scale attack on Xiakou City.

Dense rubble hit the top of Xiakou City fiercely, all the crossbows were destroyed, and the towers and battlements were smashed bare. The entire top of the city was only a bumpy rammed earth, and sporadic crossbowmen were shooting arrows in the earth pits to resist. Even the more powerful waist-drawn crossbowmen were rare, because waist-drawn crossbows were more clumsy to use, and it was difficult for soldiers to move when they were attacked, which was too dangerous.

Huang Zu's loyal and diehard generals were pushed to the brink of morale collapse by repeated blows and desperate circumstances.

The arrows that Guan Yu's crossbowmen threw at the city walls were denser than the arrows Huang Zu's troops shot down. Guan Yu's troops also had tight rattan shields and log-built formation houses as cover, and the cover environment of the long-range troops was not even worse than that of the defenders.

With the loud bangs of Ge Gongche's planks hitting the top of Xiakou City, Guan Yu's troops, dressed in clanging steel armor, with the front row carrying large shields and wielding ring-handled swords, and the back row using two-handed horse-cutting swords, swarmed up to the top of the city.

"Hold on! Block the gap for me!" Huang Zu shouted at the top of his lungs, commanding the last reserve of spearmen to move forward to block the gap.

He hoped to use the advantage of the length of their weapons to drive back Guan Yu's troops who were having trouble wielding long weapons when climbing the city walls.

However, just as Huang Zu's spearmen began to line up shoulder to shoulder in a dense formation, the besieging archers in the distance, under the command of the flags of the chariots, began to shoot arrows at the gathering position of the spearmen. Huang Zu's army was immediately unable to stand steadily and had to disperse to avoid the arrows.

Xiakou City had been under siege for nearly a month, so Guan Yu certainly had enough time to build a tall and steep well-siege vehicle to gain an advantage in observation vision.

After more than a month of cooperation with Zhuge Jin, Guan Yu became more adept at using the siege tower than before. He realized that the siege tower could not only provide direct downward firepower on the top of the city wall as it did in the previous Battle of Hefei.

If it can be combined with a sufficient system of flag signals and military command codes, Jinglan can also command a large number of archers and other long-range firepower such as catapults and crossbows deployed on the ground with ease, playing the role of a pure and efficient "fire observation post".

It is not surprising that Zhuge Jin is good at coding flag signals and summarizing codes. On the one hand, Zhuge Jin has the insights of a modern person and is very active in applying mathematical tools.

Secondly, the Zhuge family was originally doing this - even if there was no time traveler like Zhuge Jin, in the original history, Zhuge Liang later improved the "Eight Formations". After all, one of the important reforms was to use three-color flags to quickly convey action orders for the Eight Formations, making changing formations and passing orders on the battlefield much more efficient.

Some people in later generations have verified that Zhuge Liang's improvement on the Eight Formations, to put it simply, was the use of binary mathematical ideas. The three flags of different colors represented three binary digits, and raising the flag and not raising the flag represented 1 and 0 respectively. Isn't the cube of two enough to represent the Eight Formations?

The three-digit binary notation, which can be understood by those who have learned elementary school mathematics in later generations, was only mastered by top wise men like Zhuge Liang at the end of the Han Dynasty. Ultimately, too many people in ancient times did not think of using mathematical thinking to solve problems.

Of course, these problems did not exist for Zhuge Jin. Therefore, after more than a month of siege of Xiakou City, even Guan Yu learned Zhuge Jin's mathematical flag command ideas and was able to make real-time fine-tuning of long-range firepower as easy as using one's own arm.

If we use the data performance in previous games of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to make an analogy, this improvement is worth "a command value increase of 5".

The spear team of Huang Zu's army responsible for blocking the entrance was shot to pieces by Guan Yu's precisely adjusted firepower and was unable to form a dense formation.

The warriors who were first to ascend the battlefield, wearing steel armor, took the opportunity to hold up their large shields and charge wildly, creating a gap for their comrades behind them. The warriors who followed with horse-slashing swords rushed in from the gap, their horse-slashing swords flying left and right, killing Huang Zu's spearmen one after another.

As the charge reached its climax and the long-range firepower from the city walls was completely suppressed, Gan Ning and Taishi Ci were not to be outdone and personally joined the ranks of those climbing the city walls to supervise the battle.

Guan Yu himself wanted to go up, but was finally persuaded by Zhuge Jin.

Zhuge Jin simply felt that Guan Yu's arrow-absorbing physique was too easy to be defeated, almost like Pang Tong. Xiakou was already doomed to fall, so why take the risk again.

Guan Yu had been unable to get any advice from anyone before, but now that it was Zhuge Jin who was persuading him, he could only endure it.

As Gan Ning and Taishi Ci led their troops to charge and kill on the city wall, Huang Zu's troops finally collapsed. Spearmen and crossbowmen knelt down and surrendered one after another, like a whirlwind.

Huang Zu himself retreated to the top of the city wall. Seeing his trusted guards becoming fewer and fewer in number as the battle went on and his subordinates surrendered one after another, he roared in despair and wanted to draw his sword and commit suicide.

Unfortunately, Taishi Ci had already rushed to within a few dozen steps of Huang Zu. With his sharp eyes and quick hands, Taishi Ci was unable to let him get his wish. He immediately took out a bow and arrow from behind and shot Huang Zu in the arm.

Huang Zu's right arm suddenly drooped weakly, the sword fell out of his hand, and he let out a painful howl.

He took a few breaths before recovering from the severe pain and exhaustion. He urgently requested the guards around him: "It's urgent. Please kill me quickly, and then you can surrender!"

The trusted guard officer next to him couldn't bear it any longer: "Master, it's already come to this! We will fight and die with you! How can we betray you before we die!"

Huang Zu panted and yelled, "Fool! I have committed the great crime of killing an angel of the imperial court. If I am captured, I don't know what kind of humiliation and torture I will have to endure. Since you are loyal and righteous, why don't you help me get rid of it? You can just take my head and make a contribution!

Back then, Yang Xi was just a dog slave! He stole Xiang Yu's leg and became the Marquis of Chiquan and the Yang family of Hongnong. Since you are loyal and righteous, I will also treat you as an old friend, and you can be Lu Ma Tong! "

The guard officer heard this and his face was uncertain for a few seconds. Seeing that Taishi Ci was about to kill him more than ten steps away, he finally made up his mind. He dodged behind Huang Zu and used Huang Zu's body to block the arrow. Then he stretched out his sword from behind and slashed Huang Zu's neck with it, cutting off his head.

When Taishi Ci saw that someone was about to cut off Huang Zu's head, he panicked and shot another arrow. However, Huang Zu's guard was prepared and hid behind Huang Zu. The arrow hit Huang Zu's chest and failed to stop the person behind him from cutting off his head.

"You bastard! How dare you steal my credit!" Taishi Ci roared angrily, but he could do nothing.

Because the next second, the other side shouted in unison and led the team to surrender.

"Huang Zu has been killed! We are willing to surrender!"

The enemy killed Huang Zu, and Taishi Ci's soldiers did not dare to openly kill the surrendered. The Battle of Xiakou, which lasted for more than a month, ended in such a dramatic way.

A quarter of an hour later, the gates of Xiakou were opened, and Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin led their army into the city safely and successfully took over various parts of the city.

Although Huang Zu outlived Yuan Shu, he ultimately did not outlive Lu Bu.

(End of this chapter)