My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 296 Zhuge Jin: If Zhou Yu surrenders, I will give up hunting down Sun Quan
The four clans of Jiangdong are Gu, Lu, Zhu and Zhang.

Gu Yong promised that after the storm had passed next year, he would go to Jiangxia County to serve as a local official.

Lu Yi also agreed to continue serving in the army as a naval general with little chance of meritorious service and promotion.

Once the resettlement of the Gu and Lu families was settled, Jiangdong's family problems were mostly solved.

As for Zhu and Zhang who came later, they were actually solved naturally without Zhuge Jin's intervention - although the Zhu family in Jiangdong had two major branches, the Zhu Zhi and Zhu Ran family was at least an important branch among them.

Zhu Zhi's ancestral home was in Danyang County, and his family was very powerful. Before the chaos in the world, the governor of Danyang often recommended Zhu Zhi's family members as filial and honest officials, including Zhu Zhi himself. As Zhu Zhi's family stood on the wrong side and stubbornly followed Sun Jian and Sun Ce for two generations, they were destroyed by Guan Yu. At least two-thirds of the Zhu family's power was eliminated, and the remaining small fish and shrimps could be dealt with with a little cleaning.

The Zhang family of Jiangdong has nothing to do with Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong. Both of them were northern scholars who fled from Huaihe River and Si River, one from Pengcheng County of Xuzhou, and the other from Guangling County of Xuzhou.

The Zhang family of Jiangdong, historically, mainly refers to the Zhang Wen clan. Zhang Wen is not well-known now, he is just a teenager. The previous leader of the Zhang family was Zhang Wen's father Zhang Yun (he is not the same person as Zhang Yun in Jingzhou, they just have the same name. Zhang Wen himself also has the same name as Dong Zhuo's old boss, the late Sikong Zhang Wen)
Zhang Yun had served as Sun Quan's Dongcao official after Sun Ce appointed his brother Sun Quan as Fengyi Xiaowei four years ago. Now, because he stood on the wrong side and the Sun family would rather flee than surrender, Zhang Yun was naturally implicated. Zhuge Jin would certainly not miss this opportunity to weaken his power.

Zhuge Jin did not need to be too drastic, and in order to win people's hearts, there was no need to pursue the other party's crimes, but depriving him of his official title and confiscating his land as punishment was absolutely reasonable.

As a result, the Zhu family was basically destroyed, and the Zhang family was punished. Gu and Lu were transferred to the central government for their meritorious service.

With two punishments and two rewards, the initial approach to handling the Jiangdong Four Clan was straightened out. The subsequent detailed operations could naturally be handed over to the specific officials in charge, and Zhuge Jin was only responsible for setting the tone at the beginning.

By accomplishing all this, Zhuge Jin's inspection trip to Wu County can be considered as completing a small goal.

……

When Zhuge Jin arrived in Wu County, it was already midway through February of the sixth year of Jian'an.

After reaching a tacit agreement with the Gu and Lu families on resettlement, he lingered for a while and appeased the local tyrants. In the blink of an eye, it was already late February.

During the past few days, the matter of "sending navy patrols and searching for the movements of Zhou Yu and Sun Quan" that Zhuge Jin and Guan Yu had discussed was also arranged in an orderly manner.

Taishi Ci and Lu Yi each led their navy to conduct a sweeping search and check on the islands in the archipelagos at the mouth of the Yangtze River and the mouth of the Zhejiang River.

Taishi Ci was responsible for blocking the northbound shipping route, while Lu Yi, as a native of Wujun and more familiar with the local geography, was in charge of searching the various islands.

After just a few days, Lu Yi had some clues. Through the torture of several captured local pirates, he found out that Zhou Yu should have moved to the Yongdong Islands - because these pirates were just driven out by Zhou Yu who destroyed their lair a dozen days ago.

After Lu Yi learned about it, he also sent troops back to the pirates' lair to check, but he only saw destroyed fishing villages and water forts, but no living people.

Lu Yi then estimated: Given Zhou Yu's cautiousness, he might not directly occupy the pirates' lair to hide himself. Perhaps he was afraid of being neighbors with the pirates and being implicated by them, which would expose his whereabouts, so he killed all the pirates as he saw them passing by.

Zhou Yu should have temporarily chosen one or several uninhabited islands among the islands in eastern Ningbo to hide temporarily. As for supplies, they should not be lacking for the time being. When Zhou Yu set sail from Qiantang and Shanyin, the ship should have been full of supplies.

Lu Yi didn't want to alert the enemy, so he didn't immediately send the navy to search island by island. After all, there were too many islands in Zhoushan Archipelago. He hurried back to Wu County and reported his findings to Zhuge Jin, asking Zhuge Jin to decide whether to continue to search island by island.

After hearing about it, Zhuge Jin first commended Lu Yi for his meticulousness, as he was able to find out relevant information by capturing the fleeing pirates.

Then he also felt that it was indeed wrong to alert the enemy, and Lu Yi's caution was very correct.

Zhuge Jin thought for a moment and came up with a plan to lure the snake out of its hole - although it might not be sure to work, there was no harm in trying.

Zhuge Jin then casually pointed out to Lu Yi: "At present, the people of Wu County have made up their minds, Zilong has also taken over Shanyin, Juzhang and other counties, and Kuaiji should have mostly submitted.

If the public is allowed to spread the news that "Cao Cao has defeated Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu", it will not affect the people's support in Jiangdong. The ban on this matter can be lifted from now on.

I think that since Zhou Yu chose to take refuge temporarily in the islands of Yongdong, instead of deciding where to go immediately after Sun Ce's death, he was most likely waiting to hear the news of the outcome of the battle between Yuan and Cao.

When this news reaches Zhou Yu, he will probably be ready to take action. You and Ziyi have recently deployed heavy troops to defend the interior and weaken the exterior, and set up more blockades and patrols from the Yongdong Islands to the Yangtze River Estuary.

Zhou Yu's ships are not as fast as ours, and they don't have the navigation skills to sail in the open sea, so they will definitely reveal some clues."

After hearing this instruction, Lu Yi was also convinced: "General, your foresight is brilliant. I admire you."

Zhuge Jin chuckled and said, "What kind of ingenious plan is this? You should be able to figure it out. It's just that you don't have the authority to spread the news of Yuan and Cao's victory. I have to give my approval in person.

By the way, let Zishan take you and General Taishi to handle this matter. If there is any other cooperation required, Zishan can also coordinate it. "

After hearing Zhuge Jin speak so frankly, Lu Yi smiled at himself with a hint of embarrassment.

He came to ask for instructions this time, on the one hand, to seek stability and let his immediate superior make the decision. Since the decision came from Zhuge Jin, even if Zhou Yu escaped in the end, there was nothing he could do.

On the other hand, it was also because he had no authority to make decisions on internal affairs. He himself had only known the outcome of the Battle of Guandu a few days ago, so how could he dare to decide whether to release or receive the news?

Zhuge Jin also thought of this, so he let Bu Zhi lead them to do the work.

Bu Zhi was once authorized by Liu Bei to contact Gu, Lu and other potential anti-Sun forces in Wu. Later, he served as the liaison officer between Liu Bei and Wang Lang and controlled Wang Lang's forces.

After Sun Ce put down the rebellion this time, Bu Zhi was able to completely surface from the "underground front".

Zhuge Jin gave this old classmate a lot of temporary authority in the internal affairs of Wu, asking him to help handle some government affairs in taking over and stabilizing the local areas. He also immediately submitted a petition to Liu Bei to help Bu Zhi get a formal official position, and the appointment should be delivered in March. ...

Bu Zhi quickly took Lu Yi and began to deploy according to Zhuge Jin's plan.

Within just two or three days, the news that "Cao's army won a great victory in Guandu and drove Yuan Shao back to Hebei" finally spread widely among the people in Wu.

To be honest, Zhuge Jin received the news in early January, and it is now late February, so he had already tried his best to block the news and kept it secret for more than a month.

Even if Zhuge Jin wanted to block it again, it would not last for a few days. At most, by early March, the powerful families in Jiangdong would know about it. The experience of the previous two information blockades has repeatedly proved that the longest effective period of such a blockade is more than two months. It is a matter of course to release it now.

However, because Zhou Yu had gone to sea, he was less well-informed than the powerful families on land in Wujun. Finally, in early March, Zhou Yu was convinced that Cao Cao had won and pushed Yuan Shao back to Hebei.

This also made Zhou Yu, who had been undecided about whether to go south to Jiaozhou or north to join Cao Cao, finally make up his mind.

Cao Cao won! Bofu sacrificed so much to fight with Liu Bei for Yangzhou, but he also delayed Liu Bei and sent Zhongmou to Cao Cao. Cao Cao must have given Zhongmou a county title, right? Otherwise, it would be unreasonable.

Zhou Yu himself did not admire Cao Cao, nor did he think that Cao Cao was a great hero. But he was loyal to the trust of others, and Bofu entrusted him with a task before his death, so he had to ensure that Zhongmou would have a stable and wealthy life. In life, you must do what you promised, and this is loyalty.

After a brief packing and replenishment at the Zhoushan Islands, Zhou Yu weighed anchor and set sail, leading his fleet north by sea to break out.

He still had the last 3,000 or 4,000 men around him, all of whom were the defenders brought over before the fall of Qiantang and Shanyin. They were also Zhou Yu's last direct lineage and the last loyalists of the Sun family. A small half of them were servants and slaves.

The warships seized by Sun Ce's army from Guan Yu during the naval battle in Jiangyin last year were only enough to carry a few hundred people. Together with the several keel sea ships that Zhou Yu had hastily built in the past six months, they could only carry more than a thousand people in total.

So there were at least 2,000 people left, and they were still sailing slow-moving old-style ships. This was also a helpless move. Zhou Yu couldn't abandon some of his trusted confidants just because there were not enough new-style ships. At this time, one more person would mean more strength to break through.

The troops were stationed in Zhoushan Islands for more than a month, and the military rations were consumed a lot. Fortunately, Zhou Yu was good at planning. He let the soldiers eat less rice while in the islands, and try to supplement their staple food with fresh sea fish.

Therefore, the soldiers only needed to use about 30% of their food every day, and the remaining 70% was fish and wild vegetables. This time, the fleet's supplies could barely support them, and the part of the food that was not enough was supplemented by dried fish.

Zhou Yu's fleet sailed safely past Haiyan County and the coast of Wu County. On the ninth day of March, it was finally intercepted by Taishi Ci off the coast of Lou County in Wu County.

"Zhou Yu, surrender quickly! You have fallen into Mr. Zi Yu's trap! He deliberately spread the news that Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao! With your limited skills of navigation and surveillance, do you expect to escape our army's ambush?"

As soon as Taishi Ci arrived, he ordered the loud-voiced sailors to hold up wooden trumpets and shout to undermine Zhou Yu's morale.

The soldiers under Zhou Yu were already frightened birds, hiding here and there, and no longer had the will to fight. Seeing that Taishi Ci's fleet was countless in number, how could they still have the will to resist?
What's even more terrible is that as Taishi Ci was intercepting him head-on, a fleet appeared from Zhou Yu's flank in the open sea, chasing him, flying under the flags of Bu Zhi and Lu Yi.

Zhou Yu had no idea that the other party had a simple low-power telescope made from natural crystal from Donghai County.

This kind of sophisticated command instrument used by senior generals has a very high degree of technical confidentiality. Unlike warships or siege equipment, which can be seized by killing a few enemy soldiers, the telescope cannot be seized unless you kill a general of Liu Bei's army.

The existence of this thing, plus the fact that the large speedboats supervised by Zhuge Jin all had higher mast sights, meant that Taishi Ci and Lu Yi's field of vision and search distance was several times farther than Zhou Yu's.

When the enemy's vision is three times farther than yours, it is completely futile to expect to make up for it or make a detour by relying on naval command ability and navigation technology.

Zhou Yu felt a rush of blood to his head and knew that he was doomed for the day, but he still firmly chose to personally lead the slower-speed warships and navy to delay Taishi Ci and cover Sun Quan, who was on a fast boat, to break out.

"You guys protect Zhongmou and help him break out! I'll hold Taishi Ci back!"

After Zhou Yu gave the order, he immediately commanded the fleet to rush towards Taishi Ci in order to entangle the enemy.

The two sides soon engaged in a fierce fight, but Zhou Yu's soldiers' morale was too low. After a warship was covered by several hails of arrows, they would simply hang up white cloth and surrender. The soldiers knew that the Sun family was finished and did not want to die in vain on the eve of the end of the war.

Seeing that his comrades were dwindling in number and all defecting to the enemy, Zhou Yu became increasingly desperate.

However, at this time, Bu Zhi showed up in time and had people shouting to persuade Zhou Yu to surrender, giving Zhou Yu a way out:
"Zhou Yu! You have been surrounded! Your ship is slower than ours, so it is impossible for you to break through! If you refuse to surrender, we will kill you and continue to chase Sun Quan. We will definitely catch him!

However, our Lord Xuande is kind and righteous. He does not want to kill all the children of criminals. He also wants to set an example for the world and influence future generations. Sun Ce's crime was to trust Cao Cao and become an accomplice to the evil. Now he is dead and his crime is forgiven. Madam Wu and Wu Jing are in Qiantang, and they are taken care of by General Guan. They have not harmed anyone.

General Fubo has promised that if you surrender, he will let Sun Quan go and not kill him! He will also help to bear the responsibility on the Lord's side. General Fubo is trustworthy, so you can do whatever you want!

Moreover, when you passed through Chu County, although you used a trick to deceive General Zhang and successfully crossed the river to join Sun Ce, my master also returned your family afterwards. My master is kind and righteous, don't you know? If you continue to resist stubbornly, it is equivalent to killing Sun Quan!"

Bu Zhi dared to say this, he must have been fully authorized by Zhuge Jin.

He also gave enough face, first saying that Guan Yu did not take action against other relatives of the Sun family who stayed in Wu, and they lived a stable life. He also mentioned that when Zhou Yu just crossed the river, Liu Bei returned his family, and finally used Sun Quan's life as a bargaining chip to give Zhou Yu a way out.

Past events and new events, kindness and force, plus the rain of arrows getting closer and closer, Zhou Yu's troops could no longer bear it, and they all advised him to give him a way out: "Grand Commander! The lord is gone, and you have already escorted the second son out of the siege according to the lord's will, which is considered to be the most benevolent..."

Zhou Yu finally sighed, walked to the bow deck, and shouted: "Bu Zhi! Going north, we have to pass the coasts of Guangling and Donghai counties. What's the point of letting Zhongmou cross the Yangtze River?
I want you to break an arrow on behalf of Zhuge Jin and swear that as long as I surrender, I will no longer send ships to chase Zhongmou! If you can do this, I will naturally be willing to serve the General of Chariots and Cavalry! As long as you don't break this oath, I will never break it either!
Zhongmou has no other purpose than to become a rich man and hold a noble title. He will not be a threat to the General of Chariots and Cavalry again!"

Bu Zhi had been authorized by Zhuge Jin, so he agreed to this condition and promised not to search for Sun Quan anymore, so Zhou Yu surrendered.

(End of this chapter)