My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 475 Shen Dan Shen Yi: Old Huang Zhong has gone too far, go and ask General Xiahou Yuan to come to the rescue!
Although Cai Mao was crude and uncultured, he brought Kuai Yue with him as his substitute to help him quote from classics. His parallelism and analogy of "Cao Cao is like Ying Zheng, Xiahou Yuan is like Bai Qi, and the lord is like King Zhao" really fooled Liu Biao for a while.

Liu Biao's ambition, which had just been mustered, was once again dragged down by his aging body and gradually extinguished.

Fortunately, Yi Ji did not leave the Jingzhou Mu Mansion. Before he came to offer advice today, he had read the private letter Xu Shu sent him and had made preparations.

So when he heard that Cai Mao and Kuai Yue had come to advise him, Yi Ji was on standby at all times, and as soon as they left, he went in again to ask to see Liu Biao.

Yi Ji did not give the other party face and spoke first: "My lord, Kuai Yidu's advice to you not to mobilize troops must be far-fetched. You must pay attention to it. Under the current situation, if my Jingzhou army does not seize Shangyong, there will be endless troubles!"

Liu Biao raised his eyelids and asked suspiciously: "How do you know he is making things up?"

Yi Ji was still smart enough. He just bowed to Liu Biao and said that he didn't know what Kuai Yue said specifically, but he firmly believed that these people must be friendly to Cao Cao and did not take the interests of Jingzhou seriously. If the lord did not believe it, he could relay their words. Yi Ji volunteered to refute it on the spot.

Liu Biao then roughly repeated what Kuai Yue had just said.

After hearing this, Yi Ji immediately followed one of the plans he had prepared in advance and refuted it on the spot: "Please understand, my lord! Who is Bai Qi? Bai Qi led the Qin army, and how many defeats did he suffer in his life? And who is Xiahou Yuan? Last year and the year before, Cao's army was defeated by Lord Xuande. Xiahou Yuan was defeated first, and Cao Ren was defeated later, and both were defeated by Guan Yu.

Is such a person also worthy of being compared to Bai Qi? This is the first reason, so I say that Kuai Yidu's words are purely forced analogies and cannot stand up to scrutiny.

Secondly, when Zhao accepted the surrender of Feng Ting, the governor of Shangdang County, the Qin people lost face in front of the princes of the world. Moreover, among the other princes, none was as strong as Zhao at that time. Naturally, Qin had to attack Zhao to establish its prestige and intimidate the other countries.

In the modern world, although Jingzhou is also strong, it is indeed inferior to Cao Cao and Liu Bei. If Cao Cao wanted to establish his authority, he should have found Liu Bei to establish his authority. We seized Shangyong only out of fear of Cao Cao and to provide a barrier for Xiangyang and Fancheng to prevent Cao's army from going down the Han River from Hanzhong to Xiangyang. This is a truth that everyone in the world can see clearly.

On the contrary, if we do not take Shangyong, Cao Cao will think that Jingzhou is weak and can be bullied, and that Liu Bei does not fully support us, and he will then bully us even more. If our army resolutely resists and shows that we can always win over Liu Bei to reinforce our army, Cao Cao will be wary and think that Liu Zhang is weaker and can be bullied than our army, and Liu Zhang is farther away from Liu Bei, making it difficult for him to get Liu Bei's reinforcements, and we can divert the disaster to the west!"

Of course, Yi Ji did not think of these words himself. Xu Shu hinted at them to him, and he digested and understood them and reorganized his words.

Xu Shu did not tell Liu Qi about these principles. However, when Liu Qi sent an envoy to find Yi Ji, he attached a letter to Yi Ji, which mentioned these principles vaguely.

This is also very normal, because after all, some truths are easier said than done, and should not be told by people in Liu Bei's camp to the top leaders of the Jingzhou army, as this may easily hurt the other party's self-esteem.

"You, Liu Biao, have to compete with Liu Zhang to see who can cling to Xuande's thigh tighter. In this way, Cao Cao can only bully the one who clings less tightly first." This truth must have been told to him by "his own people" around Liu Biao.

Yi Ji's identity is very suitable.

After listening to this thorough analysis, Liu Biao was indeed quite moved and his attitude changed again.

Indeed, Kuai Yue's speech seemed majestic and his parallelism was strict, but many details could not stand up to scrutiny.

In today's situation, how can we apply the story of Qin and Zhao mechanically?

To seek comfort by being weak is like trying to put out a fire by adding fuel to it. The fire will not go out unless the fuel is exhausted.

……

After Cai Mao and Kuai Yue left, they thought that their lord was finally convinced and would recall the envoy and stop the eldest son from sending troops to anger Cao Cao.

Unexpectedly, Yi Ji would make such a surprise attack. The next day, Cai Mao went to sound out the situation, only to learn that his lord had not taken any action. He hurried to find out the situation again, and after another day, he finally realized that the matter was a foregone conclusion and his obstruction had no effect.

Liu Qi was also very decisive and resolute. His army and Liu Pan's army were already well prepared and ready to march at any time.

Su Fei was the general of Jiangxia and Huang Zhong was the general of Jiangling. They each led an army of 10,000 to 20,000. They boarded ships from Jingling and Yicheng, went up the Han River, passed by Xiangyang without entering, and acted decisively, showing an attitude of "a general is not subject to the orders of the king when he is away from the court."

Cai Mao and Zhang Yun were furious, but they could do nothing. After this incident, the pro-Liu faction and the pro-Cao faction in Jingzhou became more and more hostile to each other. Cai Mao hated Yi Ji very much, but he could not find an excuse to attack him.

Liu Qi appointed Huang Zhong and Su Fei as generals, and for the next five or six days, they marched up the Han River, first passing Zhuyang and then Wudang. Later, the Han River became increasingly turbulent, with a greater drop in the water level, making it more difficult for the troops to march by boat, so they disembarked and marched along the river on foot.

Only a few auxiliary soldiers and boatmen were left to pull the grain ships along with the army.

Of the two generals, Huang Zhong and Su Fei, Su Fei was better at naval warfare and had been the naval commander under Huang Zu. Naturally, the grain fleets were also escorted by Su Fei. Huang Zhong was good at archery and horse riding, so he led all the cavalry in the army as the vanguard to explore the way and clear the obstacles along the way.

The army marched for several more days until it was almost the middle of July, which was the Ghost Festival.

Huang Zhong's land vanguard troops passed Yang County, which is near Shiyan, Hubei in later generations. The Han River forked here, and a tributary "Dushui" on the south bank branched out and led to Shangyong County. Huang Zhong calculated the distance and found that he was two days faster than Su Fei and the eldest son. He planned to go to Shangyong along the fork on the south bank to inquire about the situation and see if he could make a contribution.

Huang Zhong had been in Jingzhou for a long time and knew a lot about the local tyrants in Shangyong. He knew that the brothers Shen Dan and Shen Yi, and even their father's generation, were not tough people.

They just want to be local tyrants, and they will join whoever has more power in Hanzhong upstream or Xiangyang downstream, as long as the other party can guarantee their local interests.

Now it is unknown whether Zhang Lu has been completely destroyed. Even if he has not been completely destroyed, he has probably been chased by Xiahou Yuan and fled to Daba Mountain. He certainly cannot take care of Shangyong.

Based on this consideration, Huang Zhong ordered: "All cavalry will follow me and march straight to Shangyong County along the Dushui River. The infantry will camp here and wait for Governor Su's navy and grain ships to join us."

After Huang Zhong finished giving his instructions, one of his generals could not help but advise him: "General Huang, how can our army attack the city with only cavalry? Moreover, the cavalry is few in number. It is better to advance cautiously and cooperate with Commander Su."

Upon hearing this, Huang Zhong turned his head and looked at him. This man was a person who had been promoted by the eldest son in recent years. His name was Huo Jun. He was originally a wealthy family in Jingling County, Jiangxia Commandery. He joined the eldest son with hundreds of private soldiers and was promoted gradually due to his merits.

Huang Zhong also knew that his action was unexpected, so he explained: "I will not be reckless, I just bet that Shen Dan and Shen Yi are not brave enough. Now that Zhang Lu has fled and the local tyrants in Shangyong are leaderless, who knows, whoever comes first may surrender directly.

Although my one or two thousand cavalrymen are nothing, the eldest son brought more than 30,000 people to pacify Shangyong. As long as this news spreads, how can Shen Dan and Shen Yi not be afraid? The population of Shangyong counties is only a few thousand households, and the total population of the whole territory is only 20,000 to 30,000 households. How can such a small population resist an army of 30,000? "

Huo Jun saw that his commander's words made sense, so he could not refute them. Huang Zhong followed suit and ordered Huo Jun: "Take the rest of the troops and set up camp here, guard the mouths of the Dushui River and Hanshui River, and support Commander Su. I will be back soon, and we will have news on whether it succeeds or not in two or three days."

After saying that, Huang Zhong took 1,500 to 1,600 cavalrymen and headed towards Shangyong County along the Du River.

Liu Biao's Jingzhou army had been in the south for a long time and had few cavalrymen. When Liu Qi went on the expedition this time, he could only gather 2,000 cavalrymen out of the 30,000 troops.

Even so, nearly half of the war horses were assembled by Liu Qi after he surrendered to his uncle Xuande over the past year or so, and his uncle Xuande supported him with Liaodong war horses obtained from previous trade. Without that support, Liu Qi would not have been able to fight a battle with only cavalry.

Huang Zhong certainly knew about these situations.

The famous horse under his crotch and the precious armor on his body were all gifts from Lord Xuande. After more than a year of courtesy and enticement, Huang Zhong knew very well that the object of his direct loyalty was the eldest son. In addition, he also had to support his lord and Lord Xuande to form an alliance to fight against Cao Cao.

Those traitors in Jingzhou who are pro-Cao and anti-Liu are his enemies. It is impossible for the lord to betray the Han Dynasty. If the lord has the idea of being pro-Cao one day, it must be that he was temporarily deceived by those traitors! Those traitors took advantage of the lord's old age and confusion!
……

With the ambition of making great achievements, Huang Zhong led a thousand-plus cavalrymen and marched at double the speed for more than a day before arriving at the city of Shangyong.

Shen Dan received the scout notification before Huang Zhong arrived, but not too long in advance - mainly many of Shen Dan's scouts were shot dead on the spot after meeting Huang Zhong on the road, and several groups at the beginning did not have time to come back to report the news.

Finally, when Huang Zhong was less than thirty miles away from Shangyong County, the scouts of Shen Dan’s army became more and more dense. Huang Zhong did not have time to shoot them all, so he left a few alive to report back.

Upon learning that an old general of the Jingzhou army was leading his troops to attack, Shen Dan was shocked and angry, especially when he heard that the other party killed all the scouts they met without any agreement and lost dozens of his elite cavalry along the way. Shen Dan became more and more unwilling to lose face.

He also knew that Zhang Lu had lost his power, but he was not dead yet. He was said to have hidden in Daba Mountain and was being chased by Xiahou Yuan. If the forces in Jingzhou came to persuade him to surrender and protect the interests of the Shen family, he could consider pretending to be submissive and temporarily surrendering in name.

Anyway, if Cao Jun or Xiahou Yuan came again in the future, he would never help Liu Biao. As long as Xiahou Yuan arrived, he would surrender again! This was something the Shen family had already thought of.

However, the situation has changed now. The old man from Jingzhou kills everyone he sees right away, which is clearly to establish his authority. If I surrender directly, my reputation will be ruined, and it will be difficult to ask for a high price in the future.

The generals around Shen Dan were all looking at him, waiting for him to make a decision: "My Lord, the people of Jingzhou are bullying us too much. How should we respond? Please make a decision quickly."

Shen Dan gritted his teeth and said, "If we are frightened by this show of force and directly ask for peace, I am afraid that we will never be in power in Shangyong again. Let's hold our ground and refuse to fight to establish our authority! If Liu Biao sends someone to persuade us with kind words and promises to swear an oath, we can give him this face.

In addition, while the enemy has not yet surrounded the city, we should quickly send scouts and messengers to cross the mountains and ridges to the west to seek help from Cao Sikong General Xiahou Yuan! If Xiahou Yuan arrives quickly, we will sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, guarding the city and seeing who will win or lose between Liu Biao and Cao Cao. We will be the winner if we surrender in the end!"

(End of this chapter)