My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 318: I started shaking just after Uncle Liu came to support me

"What? Lord Xuande not only wants me to cede Zhuxian and Juxian to him, but also wants me to recommend Taishi Ci as the governor of Donglai? Only then will he be willing to provide me with military equipment and troops? Cao Cao has been attacking me for more than two months, and he has only taken four counties from my Bohai Prefecture! Now Lord Xuande wants to take one of my counties at once, which is more than what Cao Cao has taken!
What kind of alliance is this? Does he think our Yuan family is in a desperate situation? The loss of troops in the defeat of Cangting is something our Yuan family can still afford! If my father had not been seriously ill, our Yuan family could have continued to resist Cao Cao and rule the country by dividing the Yellow River.

I have always thought that Lord Xuande was a kindhearted gentleman who wanted to make friends and provide foreign aid, but he is asking for a higher price? George, you really disappoint me! It took me three months to negotiate such a condition! "

After hearing the conditions relayed by Xin Pi, Yuan Tan's first reaction was very intense.

On the one hand, after all, this was a temper tantrum with his subordinates, not with Liu Bei in person. If Liu Bei was right in front of him, Yuan Tan would probably restrain himself, but when he was scolding his own people behind closed doors, he would not have so many concerns.

On the other hand, the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment.

Yuan Tan always thought that Uncle Liu was really good to him, and that the Zhuge brothers were also good friends who had always helped him. He never expected that he would be able to negotiate such a condition when the disaster was imminent. The psychological gap was so huge, who could accept it all at once?

The most crucial thing is that Yuan Shao has not yet breathed his last. Yuan Tan still has illusions about Guo Tu's operations in Yecheng and feels that he still has hope of succeeding his father.

In this situation, the Yuan family was much more powerful than Liu Bei. How could Yuan Tan accept the conditions of ceding a large amount of land?
If he waited a few more months until Yuan Shao breathed his last, Yuan Tan would realize that his father had not chosen him to take over the entire Jizhou. By then, he would be much more sober than he is now, and Liu Bei's conditions would not sound so harsh.

After Yuan Tan scolded Xin Pi, he calmed down a little and said pertinently: "It is absolutely impossible to give the entire Donglai County to Lord Xuande. As for the counties of Langya and Ju County, it's fine.

The reason why our army was able to take control of Langya was that Lord Xuande sent Chen Yuanlong to inform us to take action, and we did not spend much money and succeeded easily. I also know that Lord Xuande was afraid of offending Cao Cao and did not dare to compete with Cao Cao for Langya, so he brought us in.

The counties and prefectures under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou should have belonged to Lord Xuande. Now that the Cao bandits have already gone to war with our army but not with Lord Xuande, it would be beneficial to both sides to entrust the remaining Mengshan defense line on the southern front to them.

Besides, all the counties were fiefs of the princes. The princes' brothers helped me so much in the past, so I should return a favor to the Zhuge family. All the counties have been returned, and Ju County is already an enclave, so it is impossible for me to hold it alone. "

Seeing that the young master had calmed down, Xin Pi dared to continue speaking and explained tactfully:

“My Lord, I agreed to these conditions because I have personally witnessed the abundance and well-equipped military under the rule of the General of Chariots and Cavalry, and that they can be a strong support to our army. That is why I am pretending to be accommodating to him.

The general of chariots and cavalry has opened up a lot of iron and copper mines in the south, smelted steel and forged armor, and the armaments are much more sophisticated than ours. In addition, as I just relayed, which may be misunderstood, the general of chariots and cavalry asked Taishi Ci to be appointed as the governor of Donglai in name only in order to justify his reinforcement to us.

In fact, except for a few seaport counties in Donglai County that will be handed over to the other party for transportation, our officials can remain in the rest of the places. The local money and grain taxes will only be used to cover the food and fodder for Taishi Ci's garrison, and the rest will still be under our control.

If the eldest son still finds it difficult to accept, you can gradually strengthen cooperation, and the reinforcements from the generals of chariots and cavalry will be delivered one by one."

After hearing Xin Pi's explanation, Yuan Tan finally calmed down from his initial shock and at least stopped blaming Liu Bei.

In the end, he did not agree to immediately appoint Taishi Ci as the governor of Donglai, wanting to keep the title and wait and see. He only gave the two additional small seaport counties of Buqi and Dongmou to Taishi Ci for garrison.

As for the various counties in Langya and Ju County, they will be handed over directly.

Liu Bei's original offer was one county and two counties, but Yuan Tan temporarily bargained down to the actual delivery of four counties.

Liu Bei also mentioned, "Please ask Yuan Tan to release Han Dang back to Jiangdong first, and hand him over to Liu Bei for transformation, so that he can feel the changes in Jiangdong and turn over a new leaf together with other former generals of Jiangdong." Yuan Tan also agreed.

Because since Yuan Tan heard that Han Dang surrendered to cover Cheng Pu and Sun Quan's escape, he had kept Han Dang under surveillance. Although he did not imprison him directly, as that would easily lose the support of the people, Yuan Tan would never dare to use Han Dang directly.

What if Cao Cao sent Cheng Pu to the battlefield and told him about his former master's situation, and Han Dang turned against him? So Liu Bei wanted to reform or brainwash a useless general, which had nothing to do with Yuan Tan, and he did not lose anything.

Liu Bei also promised to send some reformed Jiangdong surrendered generals in the future to be responsible for the reinforcement of coastal naval battles and landing battles. In the end, Yuan Tan still made a profit.

Xin Pi was also afraid that Yuan Tan would suspect him of treason, so he dared not say anything more and rushed back to the counties with these conditions.

……

A few days later, Taishi Ci and Zhuge Jun received Xin Pi's reply in Zhuxian, but they did not blame him.

Negotiations are not something that can be completely settled in one go.

Xin Pi was just an errand boy with limited authorization. The fact that he could achieve this step now shows that he already felt that Liu Bei's camp had more prospects.

Zhuge Jun handled the matter impartially, allocating half of the agreed military aid materials and sending them to Linzi by Xin Pi's men, to help Yuan Tan re-arm a force as soon as possible, or to reorganize the army that had retreated from the previous defeat.

Taishi Ci took his troops and temporarily moved to Huang County in Donglai County to station there.

Huang County was not ceded to Liu Bei by Yuan Tan just now, but more than a year ago. At that time, Liu Bei needed to develop Liaodong warhorse trade, so he needed a port in the northern part of Shandong Peninsula, which was opposite to Dashi County (Dalian/Lushun) on Liaodong Peninsula. Yuan Tan allocated the seaport of Huang County to Taishi Ci for use.

Compared with other counties facing the Yellow Sea, Huang County faces the Bohai Sea, which makes it easier for Taishi Ci to lead his troops directly to the coast to provide reinforcements when a crisis occurs on the front line of Bohai County.

On Yuan Tan's side, after receiving the lamellar armor, horse-slaying sword and long spear from Uncle Liu, he personally inspected the quality of these weapons. He then changed his attitude slightly and his misunderstanding of Xin Pi was reduced.

Because the weapons Liu Bei gave him were indeed better than his own. Yuan Tan was born into a wealthy family and had been exposed to military affairs since childhood, so he could still tell the quality of weapons and armor. Just by looking at the color of the steel, he knew that what Liu Bei gave him was not ordinary.

"Come here, get some scrap leather armor and put them on the wooden stakes." After Yuan Tan finished reading, he ordered people to prepare materials for testing the sword.

The attendant immediately brought him what he wanted and put it on the wooden stake. Yuan Tan concentrated and held his breath, swung his horse-cutting sword, and slashed it diagonally. The wooden stake, along with several layers of waste leather, was directly cut off.

"What a good sword!" Yuan Tan's eyes instantly showed joy, and he asked someone to bring back the discarded armor pieces.

The situation was a bit tricky this time, after all, the defense was also equipped with metal armor.

Yuan Tan slashed with his sword, but failed to break the armor directly. If the back of the horse-cutting sword was not thick, it would be possible to break it directly if it was a sword with a thinner blade.

But Yuan Tan was not disappointed. The horse-chopping sword was not meant to cut through armor directly. He had expected too much from the beginning. Moreover, the horse-chopping sword did not have any broken blades, which showed that it was strong enough.

He tried a few more times with the sword, and finally he was able to chop the iron pieces apart. It turned out that he had hit the leather belt connecting the pieces of armor. As the belt was cut, the iron pieces naturally scattered.

After chopping, Yuan Tan looked at the blade again. He chopped the iron bar five or six times. Although the iron was not cut through, there was no gap on the blade itself. The quality was obviously better than the horse-slaying sword equipped by the Yuan family.

"It seems that against lamellar armor, you can still hope to kill the enemy by cutting through the seams of the armor, but against the general's fish-scale black armor, the seams are hidden under the upper layer of fish scales, so cutting is useless.

The only way is to lift the fish scales from the bottom up and attack its weak point. But how difficult is it to use such a move on the battlefield? How high is the requirement for martial arts? Let's try a straight stab."

Yuan Tan thought to himself that he had already assessed the actual combat power of Liu Bei's army's horse-slaying sword.

He was reluctant to try a straight stab at first, because he was worried that the horse-cutting sword could not withstand the impact. A straight stab to the armor would always be the most damaging to the sword, and there was no other direction to relieve the force. This test method would naturally be saved for the end.

Yuan Tan took a deep breath, then rushed forward with all his strength, stabbing hard at the re-folded scrap metal like a spear.

There was a teeth-grinding sound of metal friction. Yuan Tan narrowed his eyes, then opened them again. He was surprised to see that the iron piece had been pierced directly.

The steel made by Uncle Liu is at least one grade better than that used by the Yuan family!
Yuan Tan looked at the tip of the horse-slaying sword again, and there was no obvious chipping. In order to test its limit, Yuan Tan continued to stab with all his might, until he had stabbed the pile of iron bars three times, and the tip of the horse-slaying sword finally broke off a small piece, but this was also very remarkable.

If it really happened on the battlefield, this would mean that after stabbing three armored soldiers on the opposite side to death, one's own horse-slaying sword would be half-broken and lose the ability to continue stabbing, but it could still be used to continue slashing at unarmored targets.

After testing the horse-slaying sword, Yuan Tan asked someone to test the long spear.

The halberds provided by Liu Bei were made of only integrated forged steel parts. In order to facilitate transportation, Yuan Tan’s army had to equip themselves with the poles.

Yuan Tan certainly had no shortage of spears. When he was testing his sword just now, a craftsman had already assembled the halberd. Then a burly and strong Qu Junhou came with a long halberd, stabbing, hooking and pecking.

Spears and halberds were the most powerful armor-piercing weapons of this era. When thrust with full force, they were most likely to penetrate armor. However, the tips of traditional spears were not hard and sharp enough, and were easily broken.

But no matter what, this long and heavy weapon can cause serious internal injuries to the cavalry by relying on the kinetic energy of the charge, even if it does not penetrate the armor.

After the officers under Yuan Tan tried it, they found that as long as this kind of halberd could pierce the iron bar and then slide to the seam between the armor, it would break the defense almost instantly, without exception.

Yuan Tan had his men change their armor to fish scale armor. The fish scale armor was very good at defending against horse swords, but when facing the integrated forged steel-filled halberd, it was also "powerful enough to create miracles". It didn't matter how powerful the martial arts were, because with the huge force of the charge, even if it didn't penetrate directly, it was easy for the halberd head to slide upwards, and then lift the fish scales off and stab into the inside.

"Very good! Immediately give these swords and halberds to Guan Tong's direct troops. After a while, we will try to reinforce Nanpi and see if we can give Cao's army, who are besieging the city, a warning!"

Yuan Tan was overjoyed, having realized that what Xin Pi brought back was indeed worth the control of four counties.

Finally, he examined the 500 sets of armor sent by Xin Pi. This was the only thing that disappointed him, because Yuan Tan found that the materials of these armors seemed to be inconsistent, some were excellent, and some were inferior.

"What's going on? Why can't the workmanship and steel materials be consistent?" Yuan Tan called Xin Pi to question him.

Xin Pi was helpless and explained tactfully: the armor in Liu Bei's army was not all newly made after arriving in Jiangxia County, and some were old goods left over from history. This time, in order to reinforce Yuan Tan, Liu Bei needed too much at once, so he had to take out some of the stock.

Yuan Tan couldn't get angry after hearing this. It was true that they gave you the inventory, so you couldn't say anything.

How can a beggar complain about the food being rotten?

In any case, Yuan Tan was prepared to take advantage of the new weapons to fight Cao Cao first, and also invited Taishi Ci to support him - because Taishi Ci was not appointed as the governor of Donglai, Yuan Tan did not have the nerve to directly ask Taishi Ci to lead the charge, so he just asked him to support as a reserve.

In this way, if Yuan Tan can win on his own, or at least tie, he can also show his strength to Liu Bei and try to get Liu Bei to lower his subsequent offer.

(End of this chapter)