Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 7 Encounter
Tao Qian coughed twice, his face was slightly pale, after listening to Shen Chen's opinion carefully, he seemed to think it made sense.

But after thinking about it for a while, he still thought that Shen Chen's strategy was too idealistic, and he said: "I want to use one peach from Xuzhou to kill two soldiers, but Cao Cao can't tolerate me, and Yuan Shu is also against me. How can I sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight?" Woolen cloth?"

At the beginning, Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao broke up. Tao Qian, Gongsun Zan, and Yuan Shu once formed an alliance, while Yuan Shao formed an alliance with Cao Cao and Liu Biao. The two sides had several large-scale battles in Yanzhou, Yuzhou and other places.

When Yuan Shu went north to attack Yanzhou, Tao Qian once sent troops to capture Rencheng State, Taishan County and other places under the jurisdiction of Cao Cao.

Later, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shu, the Heishan Army, and the Southern Huns in Kuangting, and then turned around to attack Tao Qian, who beat Tao Qian back to Xuzhou, and the alliance collapsed.

So Tao Qian not only has a hostile relationship with Cao Cao, but also has a bad relationship with Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu's desire to annex Xuzhou is well known, and Tao Qian was afraid of bringing Yuan Shu in. Yuan Shu and Cao Cao would not fight, but joined hands to eliminate him first.

The precondition for the fisherman to benefit from the competition between the snipe and the clam is that the fisherman is stronger than the snipe and the clam.If the person standing next to the snipe and clam is not a fisherman but an earthworm, then the final result is nothing more than a fight between the eldest and the second, and the death of the third.

Naturally, Shen Chen also considered this issue, so he said solemnly: "So Mr. Tao has to shrink his strength to protect himself. And he also needs one or two reliable external allies as reinforcements, so as to save the day."

Tao Qian asked, "Who can help me?"

"I heard that Mr. Tao has gone to invite Mr. Wen Ju, Prime Minister of Beihai?"

Shen Chen said: "Now it is impossible to completely defeat Cao Cao, but Tao Gong can still go north to pacify Zang Ba and Xiao Jian first, with Langya Kingdom as the rear, Donghai Kingdom as the barrier, and Beihai Xiangwen to raise the army and horses. Mainly, take Pingyuan Chancellor Xuande as the general, and then lead Yuan Shu to come, maybe we can slowly plan it."

"Pingyuan Prime Minister Liu Bei?"

Tao Qian was at a loss: "What does this have to do with Liu Bei?"

Shen Chen explained: "I once heard from people who fled from Qingzhou to Xuzhou that Beihai was besieged by the Yellow Turbans last year. Prefect Kong invited Duke Xuande to rescue the siege. Fortunately, Xuande is in Beihai."

"Well, I see."

Tao Qian sighed and said: "It's a pity, if it was two months ago, the childish plan might have worked, but now that Xuzhou is dilapidated, if you invite Yuan Shu to come here again, you will be looking for a dead end?"

Shen Chen said: "Yes, but it's not impossible."

"Child, please tell me."

"Cao Cao is cruel and ruthless. I heard that he killed many famous people in Yanzhou, and the wealthy families in Yanzhou were dissatisfied with him. This time he leads the army, I expect chaos in his rear."

"Oh?"

Tao Qian opened his eyes wide and said, "Is this really going to happen?"

Shen Chen said: "Your Majesty, take this as Chen's prophecy. If the future is as Chen expected, then Tao Gong will first hold on to the city, wait for the right time, and then recover the lost ground. After Liu Bei's help, he will stabilize the East China Sea and Langya, and the North and Wenzhou. If we raise a covenant alliance and introduce Yuan Shu from the south to Peiguo Xiapi, then the three parties will wrestle, and Xuzhou should have no worries in a short time."

This is the miniature version of the Three Kingdoms. The three parties check and balance. Although Tao Qian is the weakest, as long as he can integrate the teams of Zang Ba and Xiao Jian, and form an alliance with Kong Rong, he can gather [-] to [-] troops, which is barely enough. Compete with Cao Cao and Yuan Shu in Xuzhou.

However, in fact, this is the current judgment, because Cao Cao is about to return to Yanzhou to fight against Lu Bu, and the fight will last for two years, Cao Cao has no time to look east, so if he invites Yuan Shu into Xuzhou at this time, he is really leading a wolf into the house.

The problem is that even if Tao Qian does not bring in, Yuan Shu himself still intends to annex Xuzhou while Cao Cao and Lu Bu are fighting.

Therefore, no matter what strategy Shen Chen makes, he can't change the existing facts, but because his judgment is extremely accurate, it will give people the impression that there is no strategy left.

This is what Shen Chen wanted.

Tao Qian said with emotion: "If I had a baby early, why would I have come to this point? Is the baby willing to be born?"

Cao Hong hurriedly said: "Duke Ming, if you let an eight-year-old child become an official, you may be laughed at by the world."

Shen Chen also refused and said: "What you said is very true. The boy is only eight years old this year, and he will be nine years old in October. If he becomes an official, how will he convince the public? Besides, Mr. Ming probably doesn't trust me very much now, so Please allow me to flee with my family and hide in Mount Tai, and wait until things go as I expected, then Duke Ming will make a decision."

"Well"

Tao Qian pondered for a moment, and in the end he really thought that he was too hasty, so he agreed to Shen Chen's statement.

The main reason is that he is being forced too hard by Cao Cao now, and he is already in a hurry to go to the doctor.

After talking about other things, Tao Qian closed his eyes. He felt that his energy was already very tired, and his body was gradually overwhelmed.

Shen Chen bid farewell and left. Someone from Deng and Shen's second clan outside the state capital was waiting for him. After seeing him coming out, they immediately escorted him back to Xiangben, and the whole family began to flee northward.

On the fourth day of April, Cao Cao's other army, led by Cao Ren, went northward and attacked Kaiyang County, Jiqiu County, Feiguo County and other places in Langya Kingdom.

Tao Qian was shocked, because this was already his rear, so he quickly sent people to rescue the northern counties.

The clinker army was just a small force, used to attract Tao Qian's attention, and immediately went south to join Cao Cao again after failing to conquer the counties.

On the eighth day of April, a large force of Cao Jun began to storm Xiapi and other counties.

The army took Lu, Juling, and Xiaqiu, and slaughtered wherever they passed.Whoever killed 10 men and women, left no chickens or dogs, and Surabaya did not flow, so he was the city protection of the five counties, and there was no trace of them.

Shen Chen had fled into Niqiu Mountain at this time. Niqiu Mountain was the southern foot of Yishan Mountain.

On April 24th, Liu Bei and Kong Rong's reinforcements finally arrived in Xuzhou, where they joined Tao Qian's soldiers and horses on the outskirts of Xuzhou, and fought with Cao Cao's soldiers and horses on the outskirts.

At this time, Cao Cao's main force was still in Xiapi, and when he learned that Tao Qian had joined the reinforcements, he immediately led the main force north to prepare to completely wipe out Tao Qian.

The two sides confronted each other in Xiangben. Because Cao Cao was powerful, Tao Qian ordered Liu Bei and Cao Bao to guard Shan County and not to go out of the city for a decisive battle.

At the beginning of May, the villagers in Huangmenting couldn't bear it anymore and clamored to return to their hometowns. Because of the lack of productivity in ancient times, the farmers worked hard to cultivate, but after paying taxes for a year, they could barely make ends meet.

It has been more than a month since they fled to Mount Niqiu. They sit and eat every day, and most of the millet seedlings in the village are probably lost due to neglect. The harvest in the second half of this year is gone. How can they survive?

Faced with this problem, Shen Chen had no choice but to discuss with Deng Mao and his own Shen clan elders, and send people over to investigate the situation first, and then lead the clan back after making sure it was safe.

So on the third day of May, under the discussion of the elders of the Deng and Shen clans, the whole clan's horses were gathered, a total of [-], all of which were cheap rough horses, and a good rider in the clan was found, and they went back to Xiangben County to have a look. See how it goes there.

Shen Chen was also among them, he had to observe the situation to make a judgment.

After coming out of Niqiu Mountain, you will arrive at the official road east of Yishui, which is the road from Jiqiu to Xiangben in the south. It is midsummer in May, with towering mountains on both sides and dilapidated villages along the way.

Later generations here are Linyi City, Niqiu Mountain to the west, Kaiyang County of Langya State to the north, Lanling County and Xiangben County to the southwest, and Shan County to the south.

At the moment, there are a lot of migratory people on the official road, and the scattered horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians are struggling to go south.

The end of the Han Dynasty was actually a bad era, because Tao Qian was fatuous and incompetent in his later years, which caused the originally prosperous Xuzhou to gradually become chaotic.

But Qingzhou was even more chaotic. Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao competed for Qingzhou, Kong Rong struggled to protect himself, Yellow Turban bandits continued to occur everywhere, and the people were displaced.

So even though Xuzhou is already in chaos, many people still choose to flee south to Xuzhou for stability.

Little did they know, they just went from a wolf's den to a tiger's den.

At this time, the news of Cao Cao's massacre had not yet spread, and among the accompanying people, a convoy was also slowly heading south.

It was obviously a big family of the bureaucratic class, with a few knights clearing the way on the outside, and guards wearing armor and holding weapons to protect them.

This team is exactly the migration team of the Zhuge Clan in Langya led by Zhuge Xuan.

A few years ago, Liu Biao sent Zhuge Xuan to Chang'an to pay tribute to the emperor. At that time, he sent a team of hundreds of people to escort him there.

Later Zhuge Xuan went to Shandong to take care of the orphan left by his cousin, but Liu Biao still asked soldiers to protect him.

In the troubled times at the end of the Han Dynasty, there were countless bandits and bandits, and even the regular army rarely had armor. Yuan Shao had only [-] armor at his peak, and Cao Cao now has only a few hundred armor.

Liu Biao was able to send hundreds of armored soldiers to protect them, which shows that he still attaches great importance to Zhuge Xuan.

At this moment, Zhuge Xuan sat on horseback and followed the team. There were several carriages behind him, and in one of them, Zhuge Liang, who was 13 years old this year, was sitting awe-inspiringly in the carriage.

There were many kinds of carriages in the Han Dynasty. The carriage he was riding in was called a cart, which had no roof, like a pickup truck with a sun umbrella on the carriage.

Zhuge Liang and his younger brother Zhuge Jun were in the same car, and the speed of the car was not fast. His eyes wandered around, looking at the fleeing Li people around him in a daze.

At this moment, more than a dozen riders came out from the mountain road on the right side of the post road, causing panic among the surrounding people.

Fortunately, everyone saw clearly that the person who came was not wearing military uniforms, but ordinary people's clothes, and the disturbance quickly subsided.

After the team came out of the mountain road, they followed the flow of people and joined the migrating troops, but their speed slowed down.

Firstly, a rough horse cannot run for a long time, and secondly, there are many people fleeing on the post road, so it would be bad if they collide with the people.

Shen Chen was sitting on horseback and was guarded by an uncle who was good at riding horses. This uncle was once called to defend the northern border, so he was good at riding, and he sat on horseback in a stable manner.

He looked at this group of migrating teams curiously, and found that most of these people were rich peasants with small fortunes, poor families, and even landlords and powerful classes.

Because only these people have the money to escape, ordinary people either joined the Yellow Turban team during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, or were looted and starved to death in the wilderness, and they had no ability to travel long distances.

When he passed by a team obviously of the official class and escorted by armored guards, he saw a [-]- or [-]-year-old boy sitting in the carriage.

The man was good-looking, with fair skin and a handsome appearance, and he was also looking at him curiously.

The eyes of the two met and passed, and there was no intersection again.

Their carriage was a little faster than the convoy, and the clansmen were rushing back to Xiangben to check the situation, so they continued to shuttle among the crowds and moved forward slowly.

(End of this chapter)