Whether it is possible to rescue Xuchang without delaying the rebels' attack on Liang County, such a question of 'whether you can have both fish and bear's paws' is the question that Zhao Yu considered on the way here.

From a strategic analysis on paper, there is a certain chance in this matter, after all, Xuchang is actually not the only way for the rebels to attack Liang County, and Yanling, which has been captured by the rebels, can also play the same role - even the distance from Yanling to attack Liang County is shorter.

The only obstacle is whether the rebels can tolerate the continued existence of Xuchang, or in other words, whether the rebels can voluntarily abandon the attack on Xuchang.

At this point, the attitude of Xiang Xuan and other rebel generals is particularly important, and to a large extent, it will determine whether Zhao Yu's plan can be implemented smoothly.

Of course, although he hoped to maintain a tacit understanding with Xiang Xuan and others in the end, just like he did in Kunyang County, Zhao Yu would not easily give up the initiative to the other party, so on the day he arrived in the Yingyang area, Zhao Yu convened the generals in the Chinese military tent to discuss the matter of 'attacking Yingyang'.

Fortunately, before Zhao Yu arrived in Yingyang, Ma Gai, Huang Ben, and Zou Bu, the three commanders of the county, were already ready to attack the city, and ordered the soldiers to build a lot of ladders for siege.

In fact, at that time, Ma Gai and the others could try to attack Yingyang, after all, they also had 5,000 soldiers under their command, and it was not completely impossible to attack Yingyang City, which was only garrisoned by more than 3,000 rebels.

But it's a pity that Ma Gai, Huang Ben, and Zou Bu don't have the same mind, so they haven't taken an offensive against Yingyang for a long time.

The discord of thought mentioned here is not that there is any discord between the three of them, it is entirely because Zhao Yu did not give an order at that time - Zhao Yu did not give an order, Ma Gai naturally would not order an attack, and without Ma Gai representing Kunyang to take the lead, how could Huang Ben and Zou Bu have the right to decide on the attack?

So after the camp was built, Ma Gai, Huang Ben, and Zou Bu fished in the area of the Ying River, which seemed to be training soldiers to practice siege the city, but in fact they had no intention of crossing the river at all.

On the contrary, the five hundred brigade wolves led by Xu Bai, Wang Ping, Hao Shun and other five people successively crossed the river to attack Yingyang to patrol the rebels, but the effect was not obvious.

"Ju Sheng and Cao Wu, the matter of attacking Yingyang will be handed over to the two of you, and I will ask Huang Ben and Zou Bu to raid the battle for the two."

In the meeting that night to discuss how to attack Yingyang, Zhao Yu overrode the public opinion and handed over the task of attacking the city to Ju Sheng and Cao Wu.

Under the suspicious gazes of Huang Ben and Zou Bu, Ju Sheng and Cao Wu happily accepted the order.

Ask a rebel-born general to attack the rebel-garrison city?

Huang Ben, the county lieutenant of Runan, didn't feel right no matter how he thought about it.

So after the meeting, Huang Ben found Ma Gai and expressed his doubts to the latter.

However, Ma Gai said very frankly: "I will return to Kunyang, if Brother Huang has any doubts, you might as well go directly to Leader Zhou." ”

Yes, Ma Gai was originally the commander of the 'Three Counties Alliance', but since Zhao Yu had personally arrived here, and even brought Chu Yan, Liu Tu, Ju Sheng, Cao Wu and other generals, then Ma Gai naturally didn't need to stay here anymore, he would return to Kunyang to assist Chen Mo.

In this regard, Huang Ben was a little hesitant.

After all, he has not yet adapted to it, and Zhou Hu, who was originally surrounded and suppressed by the officers and soldiers of his three counties, has actually become the lieutenant of his Yingchuan County, and his official position is still above him, Ma Gai, and Zou Bu.

That Zou Bu was sleek, and he called out early 'Zhou Du Lieutenant' and 'Zhou Du Lieutenant', but Huang Ben always felt a little unspeakable.

Having said that, Zhou Hu didn't retaliate against them for what happened back then, which made Huang Ben quite lucky.

After hesitating for a while, Huang Ben still went to meet the leader of Zhou.

He came to Zhao Yu's Zhongjun tent and said to He Shun, who was guarding outside the tent: "I have something to ask to see Zhou...... Lieutenant of the Ministry. ”

Without waiting for He Shun to speak, Zhao Yu had already heard Huang Ben's voice in the Chinese military tent, and said with a smile: "Is it Huang County Lieutenant?" Come in. ”

Huang Ben walked into the grass hut that served as the tent of the Chinese army, and saluted the masked leader of Zhou with a complicated expression.

He has a lot of grievances with the person in front of him.

Even if it was him, he was surprised that this Zhou leader had no intention of retaliating against him.

"County Lieutenant Huang?"

"Ahh

After Zhao Yu's reminder, Huang Ben came back to his senses, and after hesitating, he hugged his fists and said: "Captain Zhou, Huang has no other meaning here, just want to ask Captain Zhou for strategic ......" He glanced up at Zhao Yu, and simply made his words clear and said: "Did you really decide to rescue Xuchang?" ”

Zhao Yu couldn't help but wonder: "Why does County Lieutenant Huang have such doubts? I thought I had made it very clear in the meeting. ”

"Didn't you keep saying that you wanted to save Xuchang? But as a result, didn't Ma Gai deliberately delay in Yingyang for nearly two months?"

Huang Ben thought secretly.

But after thinking about it, he didn't dare to talk about this matter directly, after all, what Ma Gai did some time ago was also acquiesced by him and Zou Bu in a sense.

That's right, in fact, Huang Ben didn't want to rescue Xuchang very much, there was no other reason, he just felt that his own strength was not enough, and he didn't want to provoke the rebels, so as not to burn himself, not only failed to relieve the siege for Xuchang, but provoked the rebels to be unfavorable to Xiangcheng and Runan - Zou Bu also meant this.

Because of this, although he and Zou Bu both saw that the Zhou leader had the meaning of 'supporting the army and respecting himself', they did not make a noise and acquiesced to the Zhou leader's inclusion of Xiangcheng and Runan under his protection.

Therefore, today the leader of Zhou came to Yingyang in person, in fact, Huang Ben and Zou Bu were very surprised.

"Captain Zhou...... Are you sure to defeat the rebels in the Xuchang area? ”

After pondering for a moment, Huang Ben asked in a heavy tone.

You know, as far as he knows, there are also 30,000 or 40,000 rebels in the Xuchang area - considering that Yingyin, Yingyang, Linying, Yanling and other counties have been captured by the rebels one after another, Huang Ben seriously suspects that the number of rebels is far more than 30,000 or 40,000.

And on their side, even if you add the 3,500 soldiers brought by this Zhou leader today, it is only 8,500 people plus 500 brigade wolves, and the disparity between the forces of the two sides is too great, so disparity is so great that even if Huang Ben has the heart to rescue Xuchang, he will not dare to act rashly.

As if seeing through Huang Ben's worries, Zhao Yu smiled and said with relief: "County Lieutenant Huang is too worried. …… Although the rebels in the Xuchang area far outnumbered our army, they could not concentrate their forces against us, because they had to divide their troops to garrison Yingyin, Linying, Yanling and other counties, and I am afraid that only Xiang Xuan's army could really become an obstacle to our army. In other words, there will not be much difference in the strength of the two sides. What's more, to relieve the siege of Xuchang, it is not necessary to defeat the rebels in all directions, as long as the rebels in one direction are defeated, Xuchang can get a chance to breathe. ”

Listening to Zhao Yu's analysis, Huang Ben suddenly felt that this was really the case.

However, he still expressed the doubts in his heart: "I heard that Ju Sheng, Cao Wu and their soldiers are the generals who surrendered to Kunyang at the beginning, and the Zhou Lieutenant ordered them to attack Yingyang, will there be something wrong?" ”

Zhao Yu said with a smile: "Facts speak louder than words, when Ju Sheng and Cao Wu attack Yingyang tomorrow, I believe that Huang County Lieutenant will be able to dispel suspicions." ”

Huang Ben will be skeptical.

At the same time, in Ju Sheng's barracks, he and Cao Wu were also talking about the attitudes of others during today's meeting.

Ju Sheng said to Cao Wu: "Except for Leader Zhou, the rest of the people are suspicious of us, and you and I should do our best to attack Yingyang this time." ”

Cao Wu thought so.

He also understood that the trust of the Zhou leader did not mean that others trusted them, and if they wanted to gain the trust of these people, then the best way was to seize this opportunity to capture Yingyang and block the mouth of Youyou.

At dawn the next day, Zhao Yu personally led a large army to attack Yingyang, and according to yesterday's deployment, Ju Sheng and Cao Wu were the vanguard of the attack on Yingyang.

Before attacking Yingyang, Ju Sheng and Cao Wu swore to the more than 3,000 soldiers of the second battalion of the brigade battalion, and he bluntly said to the soldiers: "The leader of Zhou has given us trust, but there are still people who have doubts about us, and have repeatedly advised the leader of Zhou not to reuse us, and to attack Yingyang today, I hope you will do your best, which is not only a reward for the trust of the leader of Zhou, but also for those people to see." ”

After learning about this, Chu Yan frowned and said to Zhao Yu: "Ju Sheng deliberately instigated the soldiers, created a split, or what kind of intention?" ”

Zhao Yu smiled and said with relief: "The right commander is too worried. …… Ju Sheng instigated the soldiers, just to motivate the soldiers to unite. ”

In his view, Ju Sheng's approach is just a way to deflect contradictions, that is, to create a fictitious enemy externally, and to use this fictitious enemy's humiliation and clear vision of them to inspire his soldiers to unite.

In all fairness, it is not a bad way to cheer up the morale of the military.

However, as Chu Yan said, this is indeed very detrimental to the internal unity of the various armies under Zhao Yu.

But what does it matter? As long as Ju Sheng, Cao Wu and the others were still loyal to him, Zhao Yu could allow this—just as he allowed the county army to secretly compete with the Black Tigers.

This is also a kind of balance, and can also be used as a motivator for the various armies under his command.

Around the clock of the day, Ju Sheng and Cao Wu led 3,000 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 3,000 Brigade to launch an offensive against Yingyang.

Ju Sheng was responsible for the main attack at the South City Gate, while Cao Wu led more than 1,000 soldiers to cross the Yinghe River and attack the northwest corner of Yingyang City.

Just as Zhao Yu expected, because he wanted to prove that he was worthy of the identity of the 'Kunyang soldier', and wanted to retain the treatment as a soldier, instead of going to the fields to do farm work like a pawn, the soldiers under the command of Ju Sheng and Cao Wu worked extremely hard when attacking the city.

Although it is not enough to talk about forgetting life and death, it really shocked Guo Sheng, the rebel general who defended the city.

Seeing that the enemy soldiers frequently attacked the city wall, Guo Sheng lost his voice and said: "I didn't expect the Kunyang soldiers under Zhou Hu to be so powerful. ”

Since there was no shortage of soldiers under the command of Ju Sheng and Cao Wu who persuaded the rebels defending the city to surrender during the siege of the city, a soldier under Guo Sheng who knew about it said: "General Qu, these are not Kunyang soldiers, but the soldiers of my Changsha Yishi who surrendered to Kunyang!" ”

"What?" Guo Sheng was even more shocked.

Only then did he know that those powerful 'Kunyang pawns' were actually the pawns of his Changsha righteous division, no wonder they could be as good as the soldiers under his command.

Considering that the enemy still had 5,000 troops outside the city, Guo Sheng, who only had more than 3,000 soldiers, weighed it repeatedly, thinking that he could not hold Yingyang, so he gave up decisively and led the remnants of the army to flee to Yingyin, and at the same time sent someone to announce the defeat to the general Xiang.

On the first day of June, Zhao Yu captured Yingyang in one day.