My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 537 Put the Blame on the Dead Traitor

Xiahou Yuan's troops, although they could have defended the dangerous Yangping Pass behind them, chose to advance and set up camp on the road.

Isn't the purpose to block Wu Yi's way back and wait until he runs out of food, or for Cao Cao to personally lead the army over the Qinling Mountains and attack him from both sides to kill him?
Therefore, once Cao's army found that this strategic goal could not be achieved, it was impossible for them to set up camp on the road and fight a war of attrition in the valley which was far less solid than Yangping Pass.

Even with Xiahou Yuan's ability to control the army, he could not do this.

People do things with a purpose and motivation.

As the saying goes, one can take away the general of an army, but one cannot take away the will of a common man. When the goal itself becomes a bubble, the morale of the army is lost and the whole army collapses.

Xiahou Yuan was alive only to give Cao's army a commander. Pang Tong's psychological strategy was to take away Cao's army's will.

With this analysis, Xiahou Yuan’s defeat was not unfair at all.

Fortunately, the camp blocking the "human" shaped intersection outside Yangping Pass is not far from the pass wall behind it, less than ten miles in total.

When Xiahou Yuan was defeated and retreated, he arrived there in one go. As long as he sacrificed a few of the remaining troops to delay time and prevent Zhang Fei from taking advantage of the chaos to follow his friendly troops through the city gate, the main force could withdraw smoothly.

This is very different from the battle in Dianjiang County more than a month ago. In Dianjiang County, Xiahou Yuan had no solid support point behind him. Once he was defeated, he had to retreat hundreds of miles and was attacked madly along the way, which led to him losing two-thirds of his troops.

In this battle, Xiahou Yuan finally relied on his solid basic skills and only suffered 20% to 30% casualties and losses in the rear guard, and withdrew the remaining 70% to 80% of the troops safely back to the interior of the country.

Before this, there were about 13,000 to 14,000 Cao troops in the camp in front of the pass. After two days of fighting, the remaining 3,000 to 4,000 were wiped out by Zhang Fei, leaving only 10,000 and a few hundred people who retreated smoothly.

After this defeat, Cao's army's morale was even lower. Xiahou Yuan hid back inside the pass and probably didn't dare to fight for at least a few months. He didn't even dare to harass the enemy, and could only shrink and wait for help.

……

Liu Bei drove Xiahou Yuan back to the pass, but was not in a hurry to attack and capture Yangping Pass.

He was very clear about the priorities of the matter. Before coming, Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong had explained it to him, and even Fa Zheng had hinted to him in a letter:
You can't be too honest and kind, just thinking about helping your allies out and attacking the traitors. After fighting the traitors for a while, when it's time to ask your allies for interest, you still have to swallow your pride and collect a little, so that sustainable development can be achieved.

When Zigong redeemed a person, Confucius taught him to ask for a little compensation, which was in line with the way of a sage.

Therefore, on the night when he captured the stronghold blocking the road in front of Yangping Pass, Liu Bei shifted his focus to pacifying and winning over the hearts of the people. He asked the leader of the friendly army, Wu Yi, to move the camp to join him, and used both kindness and force to appease them.

Wu Yi's troops had been in a bloody battle for half a day today, and finally managed to move Xiahou Yuan away who was blocking the road. Wu Yi felt a little empty for a moment.

He originally wanted to wait a day or two to think clearly about how to face Liu Bei before coming to pay his respects.

When Liu Bei sent someone to invite him for the first time, he used the excuse that there were many wounded soldiers in the army and his generals were dying, and he needed to handle the internal military affairs personally, and wanted to delay it.

Unexpectedly, just one hour later, Liu Bei sent another batch of medical supplies to aid friendly forces and treat the wounded in today's battle.

Seeing that Liu Bei was so good at dealing with people and started giving gifts to the friendly forces right away, Wu Yi could not delay any longer and had to bite the bullet and go to Liu Bei's camp to pay his respects and express his gratitude.

Along the way, Wu Yi's mind was racing, thinking about how to explain the whole thing to Liu Bei.

"At this point, Lord Xuande helped me defeat Xiahou Yuan and escorted my army back, most likely to force our army to surrender. Even if he still cares about the face of the lord, at least our army will obey his unified command and dispatch from now on. The lord will only be left with an empty name...

However, if this matter is not handled well, the lord and him may fall out if he openly seizes 20,000 or 30,000 troops. And after all, I killed Yang Huai and Gao Pei who showed their intention to surrender to Cao, and I haven't figured out how to explain this to the lord. If all these are added together, it will be quite tricky..."

Wu Yi rode his horse slowly while going over the above cause and effect in his mind, feeling very uneasy the whole time.

He was worried that Liu Bei did not take his face into consideration when doing things, and he was also worried that if he surrendered under such circumstances, his cousins who stayed in Chengdu would be implicated.

Unfortunately, the journey was only so far, and before Wu Yi could figure it out, they had already arrived.

While he was still lost in his own thoughts and hadn't reacted yet, he heard a refreshing voice from afar.

"You are General Wu. Nice to meet you."

When Wu Yi came to his senses, he saw a middle-aged man in fine clothes, with his hands reaching down to his knees and eyes that could see his ears. He had a graceful face and was bowing to him with a warm expression.

It’s hard to say that the visitor has a particularly noble and outstanding appearance, but he gives people a feeling of admiration.

Wu Yi was stunned, and saw the man approaching the horse, raising his hand as if to help him off the horse. Wu Yi panicked, and quickly rolled off the horse, clasping his fists and saluting: "I greet the General of Chariots and Cavalry."

Liu Bei also made a false bow, took two quick steps forward, and took Wu Yi's forearm: "General Wu, there is no need to be polite. Those who are willing to contribute to the rebellion and the restoration of the Han Dynasty are all loyal and righteous people, regardless of their status! How can we compare them based on their titles and official positions?"

Wu Yi felt more and more ashamed and thanked him repeatedly: "The General of Chariots and Cavalry has served the country with great righteousness and his reputation is known throughout the world. I am a person from a remote mountain village and it is a great honor for me to receive such courtesy from the general." Liu Bei pulled him into the tent and sat at the table. He did not show him excessive courtesy, but just let Pang Tong sit close to one side, and let Zhang Fei, Gan Ning and Wei Yan sit on the other side.

Then let Wu Yi sit in the position where Pang Tong would attack, facing Gan Ning.

After sitting down, Liu Bei changed his friendly expression when he was just talking about private relations, and turned serious, and started to discuss the righteousness of the alliance with Wu Yi.

Liu Bei just sighed. There was no harsh reproach in his voice, but it was definitely a sign of disappointment:

"I originally thought that Brother Ji Yu would be of one mind with me and Brother Jing Sheng to fight against the rebellion. Why do you want to fight for credit and blame when the time comes? Isn't this undermining the righteousness of the alliance to fight against the rebellion?
General Wu, in order to rescue your army, we have disrupted many strategic deployments and missed the opportunity to encircle and annihilate Xiahou Yuan! Otherwise, we might have destroyed Xiahou Yuan outside Yangping Pass! Hanzhong can be recovered easily!

I am not blaming you alone, but someone in your army must be responsible for these changes! Look carefully, my third brother was injured in order to quickly break through Langzhong and come to reinforce your army! He fought with injuries in the past two days of fighting Xiahou Yuan, and ended up being wounded by an arrow. "

As Liu Bei spoke, he pointed at Zhang Fei opposite him.

Zhang Fei's injury is a true story, not fabricated by Liu Bei. Liu Bei would never use a self-torture tactic to make his brother's existing injuries worse, that is not Liu Bei's style.

He has always been upright in his actions, and no matter how badly he was injured in actual combat, he would continue to receive excessive treatment and use some costumes and makeup to make Zhang Fei look more vicissitudes of life when his injuries healed quickly.

For example, although Zhang Fei only had some minor injuries, Liu Bei still asked the doctor to bandage his arms and shoulders tightly.

There seemed to be a lot of blood on the bandage, but that was all the blood of the enemies splashed when they were killed today.

But no matter what, Zhang Fei was once injured, and that is a true story, and it is honest.

Not to mention Zhang Fei, even Gan Ning and Wei Yan, who were standing by, had some headaches and fevers after fighting these days, and Liu Bei asked doctors to bandage them up. Gan Ning even had a white cloth wrapped around his forehead with blood.

When Wu Yi saw this scene, his momentum suddenly dropped significantly.

Liu Zhang's desire to seize credit and territory was indeed an injustice to Liu Bei!

The two armies had been at a standstill for nearly half a year, and the final counterattack and annihilation of the enemy were all fought by Liu Bei. Liu Zhang just wanted to take advantage of the situation and occupy more counties. Is this reasonable? Absolutely not!

Wu Yi was unable to respond for a moment, and could only bite the bullet and admit his guilt: "The general is very magnanimous. It is indeed my lord's fault this time, but he was also bewitched by others, and it was not his own will... The general did not hold grudges and still came to rescue. All the soldiers on the front line are grateful for his kindness."

Wu Yi was panicking, but Pang Tong, who was standing by, started to play the good guy and help him think of an excuse to get out of the siege: "General Wu is a loyal and righteous man. He was besieged for so long but refused to surrender to Cao Cao, which shows his loyalty. However, I heard that when Cao Cao tried to persuade you to surrender, your army almost fell into internal strife, and Generals Yang Huai and Gao Pei... Could you tell me the details?"

Wu Yi was stunned, and immediately realized that Pang Tong was trying to save his life. In the past six months, he had heard that Pang Tong was very useful to Liu Bei, and that he had made great achievements in winning hearts and minds. Wu Yi quickly explained the situation, and mentioned that he had no choice but to kill Yang Huai and Gao Pei.

Pang Tong actually had some preconceived guesses from the beginning, but he just wanted to confirm it with Wu Yi himself. Seeing that Wu Yi's statement was not much different from his own guess, he took the opportunity to find an excuse to interrupt Wu Yi's statement:
"So, Yang Huai and Gao Peili were the ones who lost their minds. They were greedy for merit and were reckless at first, wanting to occupy land and get rewards. Later, they bullied the weak and feared the strong. When they saw that Cao Cao was powerful, they wanted to turn against him. They just wanted to keep their wealth and be appointed by Cao Cao, so that they could continue to occupy remote places and act on their own?"

As Wu Yi listened, he was stunned.

How can you frame someone like this?

Yang Huai and Gao Pei were not determined and thought about surrendering to Cao at that time. This is absolutely true and they were not wronged.

But Pang Tong lightly added a few more charges, saying that they "initially wanted to gain merit, occupy territory, and then establish their own regime," which seemed to make sense.

Because Liu Zhang was weak, similar things happened again and again when he was governing Shu.

He sent a general to Zitong, intending to counterattack Hanzhong. However, the general who came to Zitong disobeyed orders and wanted to become a local emperor. Pang Xi was an example.

Liu Zhang sent someone to Ba County, but it turned out that the generals of Ba also wanted to establish themselves as emperors. They were still subject to Liu Zhang only in name, but in reality they were local emperors.

Therefore, it makes sense to say that the generals Liu Zhang sent to recapture Hanzhong had the ambition of "locking the door after entering Hanzhong and replacing Zhang Lu himself."

Although Yang Huai and Gao Pei were of a lower rank and might not have the strength to occupy Hanzhong by themselves, it made sense for them to occupy several counties on the Jinniu Road, Hechi, or even go west along the road from Hechi to Wudu and occupy Dazhong to establish themselves.

The terrain of Bashu is fragmented and the roads to Shu are difficult. Any mountainous basin isolated from the outside world may become a separatist region.

These facts are no longer important. What is important is that Pang Tong helped Wu Yi open up his mind. He also came up with a solution to put all the sins on the dead generals who were spineless and wanted to surrender to Cao.

In this way, even if Wu Yi surrendered to Liu Bei or was actually controlled by Liu Bei, he could push more of the blame onto the deceased, allowing Liu Zhang to save as much face as possible while suffering the same actual losses.

After understanding this, how could Wu Yi dare to hesitate? Of course, he immediately agreed with Pang Tong's words. Whatever Pang Tong said was true.

Wu Yi was convinced and said, "Mr. Shi Yuan is indeed very insightful! He was able to figure out the evil intentions of Yang Huai and Gao Pei a month ago, thousands of miles away! I am really stupid. If I had thought of it earlier, I wouldn't have come to this point..."

(End of this chapter)