Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 230 The general trend of the world, Liu Biao's death

At the beginning of the 13th year of Jian'an, the new year did not bring any good news to Jingzhou.

Since last month, that is, last December, Cai Mao has been procrastinating in Jiangzhou for more than ten days, refusing to come back, on the grounds of gathering the scattered soldiers and guarding against Zhang Lu.

Until the end of December, it was heard that Liu Biao's condition became more serious, and he was even bedridden, vomiting blood before returning to Jingzhou.

From the new year to the beginning of January, Liu Biao became terminally ill. He fell into a high fever and fell into a coma.

When Liu Bei heard about this, he wanted to come to Xiangyang to visit Liu Biao.

But Cai Mao and Kuai Yue rejected his proposal and kept urging him to go to Yizhou as soon as possible.

It turned out that at the beginning of December last year, Liu Bei received a letter from Liu Biao, hoping that he would send troops to Yizhou, and also gave him a lot of food, grass, weapons and equipment to help him attack Xichuan and fight against Zhang Lu.

At this time, Liu Bei had not yet broken with Liu Biao. Although Liu Biao proclaimed himself emperor, both Zhuge Liang and Shen Chen advised him to be patient and not to conflict with Liu Biao.

Therefore, Liu Bei could only choose to remain silent, neither acknowledging Liu Biao's move to proclaim himself emperor, nor directly sending troops to attack Liu Biao.

The two sides barely maintained a superficial relationship, and Liu Biao completely used Liu Bei as a mercenary.

But this time Liu Biao asked him to send troops, Zhuge Liang told Liu Bei that the purpose of Liu Biao's doing so was to help him buy time to train soldiers and horses.

After the two big defeats at the end of the 12th year of Jian'an, the situation in Jingzhou is that the defensive force is more than enough, but the active offensive force is seriously lacking, and it takes time to recruit and train soldiers.

Liu Biao is still unwilling to give up on Bashu, but without the power to take the initiative to attack, he can't attack Yizhou either.

To make matters worse, now that Cai Mao has been defeated and returned, Zhang Lu has taken advantage of the vacancy and has already occupied the entire Berkshire. The next step is to send troops to Chengdu.

Therefore, Liu Biao was afraid that Zhang Lu would get Yizhou, so he asked Liu Bei to contain Zhang Lu.

Although Zhang Lu had more soldiers and horses than Liu Bei at this time, half of Liu Bei's men were surrendered soldiers from Yizhou. Now, in the name of returning to Yizhou, they would definitely be able to stimulate their combat effectiveness, so it might not be impossible to fight Zhang Lu.

Once Liu Bei enters Xichuan and fights with Zhang Lu and Liu Zhang, then Liu Biao can develop steadily in the rear, and wait until their three-party dog ​​brains come out, and finally take advantage of it.

This is the so-called plan to drive away wolves and tigers!

Knowing that Liu Biao had this idea, Liu Bei was furious and decided to verbally refuse to enter Sichuan.

But Zhuge Liang said that he would do whatever he could, and took the opportunity to seize Bashu.

So after the new year passed, Liu Bei, who had been preparing for about a month, took a boat northward, entered Dongting Lake on the Xiangjiang River, and then entered the Yangtze River from Dongting Lake, and headed for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

It's just "Among the colorful clouds of Emperor Baidi's resignation, a thousand miles of Jiangling will be returned in one day."

It is true that it only takes one day to go from Baidi City to Jiangling, but it takes several days to go from Jiangling to Baidi City. Besides, going up the river is slow, so time is wasted.

When Liu Bei set off from southern Hunan in early January, he arrived in Yufu, which is the area around Baidi City, after half a month.

At that time, Cai Mao's army was stationed in Quren Yufu, and the two sides handed over the city. Liu Bei temporarily stationed here in the name of waiting for follow-up food and grass, watching the situation in the world.

The world is changing at this moment.

In the year before last, Cao Cao in the north joined forces with Yuan Tan to attack Yuan Shang, defeated Yuan Shang's army, and seriously weakened Yuan Shang's strength.

Yuan Tan took advantage of the situation to occupy Qinghe, Anping, Bohai, Hejian and other places.

Yuan Shang occupied Wei County, Zhao State, Changshan State, Zhongshan State and Julu County.

The two divided Jizhou almost equally.

When the two Yuans fought again last year, Cao Cao stationed troops in Yanzhou, eyeing Jizhou covetously, and when Yuan Tan attacked Yuan Shangyu Julu, he brazenly sent troops and captured Weijun.

Yuan Shang was defeated by the two men, and was forced to flee north to Youzhou to join Yuan Xi, the governor of Youzhou. Yuan Tan annexed Yuan Shang's troops and stationed troops in Longcou to guard against Cao Cao.

Cao Cao was furious when he learned that Yuan Tan had betrayed the alliance, so he sent troops again to capture Julu County, Anping Kingdom, and Qinghe Kingdom, and surrounded Nanpi.

As a result, in the middle of the 12th year of Jian'an, he suffered from head wind again, and the pain was unbearable. He had to retreat back to Chendu and call Hua Tuo to treat him.

Hua Tuo was summoned by Cao Cao to Chendu for medical treatment in the tenth year of Jian'an. Because he had been away from home for too long and missed his family, he went back at the beginning of the 12th year of Jian'an under the pretext of his wife's illness.

At this moment, Cao Cao retreated back to Chendu and called Hua Tuo to come to treat his illness, but Hua Tuo tried every means to evade it. Cao Cao was very unhappy because of this, and sent someone to Qiao County to see what was true.

The people who went there discovered that Hua Tuo was lying, so they detained Hua Tuo and sent him to Chendu. The news was also known by Shen Chen's internal staff in Chendu, who sent all the recent information about Cao Cao back to Jingzhou.

In fact, Shen Chen doesn't have any high-level internal response in Chendu. Either he sends someone to pretend to be a merchant to open a restaurant in Chendu, or he tries to sneak into some minister's mansion as a servant. live news.

But even that was enough. Knowing that Hua Tuo was imprisoned in Chendu, Shen Chen didn't consider rescue, because Zhang Zhongjing's magic dragon could not see the end, but Hua Tuo liked to stay in his hometown in Qiao County. He had invited him before. Do not agree.

So don't say that it is impossible to rescue Hua Tuo from Chen Duzhao Prison. Even if he can be rescued, he may not choose to come to Jingzhou with him. Therefore, Shen Chen has nothing to do but choose to bribe the jailer and get the "Book of Green Bags" .

As the originator of surgery, Hua Tuo's medical skills are extremely superb. He can treat internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, gynecology and even tumors and cancer. Shen Chen is still very interested in the medical skills he wrote with all his energy. If he can rule the world in the future, This is the good stuff that drives medical progress.

In addition to this incident, the Guanzhong area is also fighting.Cao Cao sent Zhong Yao, Duan Yan and Ma Teng's forces back to Guanzhong. It happened that the high-ranking officials came to invade and joined forces with Han Sui. Zhong Yao calmly commanded and defeated the high-ranking officials and Han Sui's coalition forces.

After this battle, Gao Gan was forced to return to Bingzhou, and Han Sui was repelled to Youfufeng.At this time, Zhong Yao did not take advantage of the victory to pursue Han Sui, because Han Sui had not lost much strength, and his prestige in Xiliang was so high that he was pushed into a hurry. It was very easy to attract 10,000+ Qiang people to help him.

So Zhong Yao judged the situation and wrote a letter to Han Sui personally, urging him to reconcile with Ma Teng's forces, and sent his proton to Chang'an to stabilize the situation.

Because of the power of the imperial court, Han Sui had no choice but to ask for surrender, and Guanzhong was gradually pacified.

The population of Zhang Lu in Hanzhong in the south is only a few hundred thousand. Although he has recuperated for many years, he can raise an army of [-] and almost hollowed out his foundation. Only then did he barely repel Cai Mao.

Counselor Yan Pu told Zhang Lu that if you want to become the master of Xichuan, you must be fast.Because they were able to have such an opportunity because Liu Bei wiped out half of Liu Zhang's army in Zigui, so they could take advantage of it.

Liu Zhang's background is much stronger than Zhang Lu's, and the population under his rule is more than three million. Although the actual population under his control is only tens of thousands more than Zhang Lu's, most of them either refuse to obey discipline, or are controlled by aristocratic families.

But he was also stronger than Zhang Lu. Given Liu Zhang a year or two to recuperate, he would soon be able to train tens of thousands of soldiers. Therefore, during this period, Zhang Lu immediately began to attack Chengdu in an all-round way.

Liu Zhang began to fully shrink the defense, turning himself into a tortoise shell.

During the reign of Emperor He, the population of Guanzhong was 60 to [-]. At the end of Han Dynasty, the population of Guanzhong was one million. After Dong Zhuo's death, the Chang'an Rebellion caused millions of people in Guanzhong to migrate to Nanyang, Hanzhong, Yizhou and other places.

The population of Hanzhong was originally less than 30, but now it has become more than 80. Adding the northern part of Berkshire that Zhang Lu acquired, the total population is about [-].

The Shu County occupied by Liu Zhang has a population of 130 million, Guanghan County has a population of 50, and the southern part of Berkshire has a population of 70. In addition to Qianwei County, Guanghan Dependent Kingdom, and Shu County Dependent Kingdom, the total population is about one million, and the total population is 350 million.

Excluding the population controlled by the aristocratic families under the rule of Liu Zhang and Zhang Lu and the minority tribes who refused to obey discipline, the actual population controlled by Liu Zhang is about 150 million, and the actual population controlled by Zhang Lu is about 50. This is the foundation of the population of 150 million. 50, the advantage lies in Liu Zhang.

However, half of Liu Zhang's main force was killed by Liu Bei in Zigui, resulting in a serious shortage of his troops in a short period of time, which made Zhang Lu's early offensive very fast, so he divided his troops into two groups and went straight to Chengdu.

Zhang Lu first conquered Bajun along the way, then conquered Langzhong, and went north along the West Han River, intending to capture Jiameng Pass from behind, and then counterattack Guanghan County from Jiameng Pass.

The other way is to go south along the dive to Jiangzhou, enter Qianwei County from Jiangzhou, go north along the Jianshui (Tuojiang River), and go to Jiangyang, Han'an, Zizhong, which is the southeast of Chengdu such as Luzhou, Longchang, Neijiang, and Jianyang. The counties and cities in the direction are heading towards Chengdu.

There was no decent resistance along the way. Pang Xi, the former prefect of Bajun County, was beaten to the point of losing his helmet and armor, and retreated to Niudang County to defend, guarding the southeast plain of Chengdu and crossing the Longquan Mountains to attack Chengdu.

However, the guards of Jiameng Pass, Fu Jin, Xiang Cun, and Baishui Pass guard Yang Huaigaopei were seriously short of troops at that time, and they were attacked from the rear, so they had to retreat to Zitong County and Fu County.

The rest of Pang Xi, Zhang Ren, Liu Gui, Yan Yan, Leng Bao and others defended the traffic arteries around Chengdu to prevent Zhang Lu's army from attacking Chengdu.

As for Wu Yi, Fei Guan, Zhang Yi, Deng Xian, Wu Lan and others, they had already surrendered to Liu Bei in the Battle of Zigui.

As a result, the current situation in Yizhou has become very bad. Almost the entire territory of Ba County and Qianwei County to which Liu Zhang belonged has been lost. Now there are only Shu County, Guanghan County and two vassal states left. The situation is still quite difficult.

It's just that Chengdu's geographical environment is superior, and there are continuous mountain ranges blocking the east, west, north, south, and traffic arteries. If they can't be killed in a short time, the war will naturally become protracted.

And here in Jingzhou and Yangzhou.

After Jiangdong defeated Huang Zu, he regained Yuzhang, and even took advantage of the chaos to bring Lujiang and Jiujiang and Huainan counties under his rule. You must know that these places were all acquired by Cao Cao in history, and Sun Quan only got half of Lujiang County, and The population has been relocated by Cao Cao, and it is basically wasteland.

At this time, Sun Quan was almost at the peak of his life. Taking advantage of Cao Cao's unification of the north and no time to take care of the south, he took Lujiang and Jiujiang counties into his hands, even invaded Xuzhou, attacked Guangling prefect Chen Deng, and occupied a part of Guangling county. .

This incident caused Cao Cao to be furious, and he issued an imperial edict to reprimand Sun Quan, but Sun Quan was sure that Cao Cao had no time to control him now, and he would do his own way.He not only deployed troops in Yuzhang to confront the Jiangxia navy, but also attacked Shanyue in the south and Xuzhou in the north, looting a large number of people and replenishing Jiangdong. For a while, his prestige in Jiangdong soared. host.

And at this time, Liu Biao died of illness!

(End of this chapter)