Rome was not built in a day, and Yizhou was not built in a day. Since he found that the Holy Intention was useless at the military level, Liu Beijun had no choice but to return to Nanzheng and slowly farm to find another opportunity to break through.

In the first year, he could only take the Hanzhong region, and in the second and third years, he could completely pacify the entire Shu region, and this pace was not slow. The princes of the outside world have not yet started to discuss Dong, and Liu Bei can afford to drag it out.

However, this trip is not in vain, in addition to persuading those sporadic counties outside Jianmen Pass that originally belonged to Liu Yan, it can also be regarded as allowing the generals and civil officials from Beijing to see the peak of Shu Dao's difficulties with their own eyes, which will definitely be beneficial to future plans.

It's better to read 10,000 books than to travel 10,000 miles.

The Sword Pavilion Road, where the Sword Gate Pass is located, is surrounded by cliffs on both sides. Li Su, who knows a little bit of geographical knowledge, knows that this is a typical Danxia landform, with a full thirty miles of knife-cut peaks on both sides of the plank road, and the valley in the middle is only half a mile wide at the widest, and only twenty-four zhang at the narrowest place!

Jianmen Pass is built in this narrowest place, and the side of this twenty-four zhang is still a turbulent mountain stream with rocks, the depth is not to cross the boat, the turbulence is not to be tredden on foot, and the road left to Shangguan is only a dozen zhang wide——

When Gao Shun took the soldiers in the camp to the front of the pass to announce the surrender, the reason why he only brought twenty soldiers was not that he didn't want to bring more, but that there were only so many people standing on the narrow mountain road in front of the pass, and even if you had thousands of troops and horses, you could only add more than 20 at a time.

Moreover, the road leading to the gate is still very bumpy, full of abrupt large stones, and the slope of the uphill slope is also relatively obvious. Only people on foot and horses can avoid the rocks and slow down, and they have to carry the physical punishment of going uphill.

And all the vehicles with wheels can't pull to the gate because of the rocks in the road, which also restricts the ladder truck, the wooden donkey and the model battering ram to get close to the wall, you can only take a simple flying ladder without wheels or directly chop a tree and carry it as a ram.

Is this still a yarn?

At most, after going back, I will farm and tinker with long-range trebuchets this winter, and in the future, I will feint here to contain Liu Yan's forces and create conditions for the main attack in other directions.

As for whether he can imitate Deng Ai and Fu Youde to smuggle into Yinping, Li Su has actually thought about it, but he feels that the times are easy and not comparable-not to mention whether Li Su can find a way to climb the mountain, even if he finds a way, there are not too many people who fall to death, and he has smuggled through Yinping, and if he wants to take Shu County, he has to fight two more tough battles between Jiangyou and Mianzhu.

Deng Ai and Fu Youde faced Liu Chan and Mingsheng, one of whom was a cowardly lord and the other was a young master, and at that time they were no longer able to gather and mobilize the war potential of the Chengdu Plain to counterattack the small force that rushed in. Liu Chan's Jiangyou guard Ma Miao directly surrendered to the enemy.

But Liu Yan is the first generation of the male lord to establish a foundation, and his subordinates can organize the Dongzhou soldiers composed of exiled Beishi who are absolutely loyal to Liu Yan himself, and you can't pin your hopes for victory on such a male master to make low-level mistakes and not even defend Jiangyou.

Of course, in history, Liu Yan seems to have died soon after Dong Zhuo's death because his son was killed, angry and angry, and "poisonous". If Liu Yan can still be angry to death in this life, and wait for his son to take over, then he can consider risking Yin Ping's spare tire plan, because at that time, the three counties of Shu will definitely be disheartened and will no longer resist stubbornly.

……

Li Su couldn't even think of how to break through the Sword Gate, let alone others.

In the few days on the road back to Nanzheng, Wu Kuang, Gao Shun, and Zhao Yunzhong will inevitably chat with Li Su about strategic issues, and want to see where the strategy of entering Shu goes.

Cai Yong doesn't understand military affairs, but he is high enough and cautious and willing to keep secrets, so it doesn't hurt to listen to it on the side.

Li Su replied in a tone of discussion: "I am going to persuade General Zhengxi to fight from the side of Ba County, find a way to take Diaoyu City, you can break through Jiangzhou, and then go upstream along the Yangtze River and Minjiang waterways, and you can go directly to Chengdu and Fucheng." However, Liu Yan's newly repaired Diaoyu City is probably also very steep, if there are henchmen and generals who are guarding and cannot be persuaded to surrender, it is extremely difficult to capture, and it can only be said that it is slightly better than the Jianmen Pass-

By the way, Cai Gong, Jiangzhou has not been able to recover for a long time, and you, the county guard, can't take office in the county. General Zhengxi meant that the land of Ba County should be divided into Ba County and Pasir County. The area currently recovered is called Brazil, and one of Langzhong or Tangqu can be used as the place of governance.

Moreover, this is also convenient for the future governance of civil affairs, and the policy of 'barbarians using military service in lieu of taxes and conscription' is limited to the land of Brazil, and in the core area of Ba County to be recovered in the future, only the Han people do not live in barbarians, so as to follow the fact of the old law of imperial court taxation, and avoid the people from suffering from inequality. Moreover, the power of the imperial court to appoint you will not be less, as long as Jiangzhou and Yong'an are recovered, they will still be under your governance and jurisdiction. ”

Li Su still called Cai Yong and Cai Gong in public. He suggested this, but he was also afraid that in the future, the Han people would live together in a place where the Han people would live together, and in peacetime, the Han people felt that the Ban Barbarians were treated well, and wanted to secretly pretend to be a soldier who did not have to pay taxes and did not need to fight; And during the war years, Ban Yuman felt that it was better for the Han people to pay money without having to sell their lives, so he pretended to be Han to pay the money, completely separated the regions, and used different policies, so he was not afraid of impersonating and impersonating.

Cai Yong will not expose his additional transaction with Li Su, he feels that Li Su's plan is indeed a stroke of genius, and he just nodded when he heard the words: "This method is feasible, but I don't want to go to Langzhong or Danqu to take office, just Dianjiang County opposite Diaoyu City, which is also close to Jiangzhou, and once Diaoyu City is broken in the future, it will be able to move the governance office back to Jiangzhou immediately." ”

Li Su worried: "Dianjiang County is too close to the front line, and Diaoyu City is across the river......

Cai Yong: "The old man believes that General Zhengxi, it would be good if Liu Yan's traitors could hold Diaoyu City, and it is absolutely impossible to counterattack General Zhengxi - by the way, it is better to talk about how dangerous Diaoyu City is, and it is possible to attack it in the coming year?" ”

Li Su has never been to Diaoyu City, but he can imagine it, and Liu Bei has also shown him the map drawn by the front-line scouts in the past few days, so he also took out the map and consulted it with other generals who had never been to the battlefield on the Eastern Front.

After everyone looked at the map, they couldn't help but gasp, and then they realized how steep Diaoyu City was.

The three rivers of Qujiang, Fujiang and Jialing River converge near Diaoyu City and Dianjiang County, and the water flow is turbulent, which is not counted.

The key is because the Diaoyu Mountain on the south bank is very high - Liu Beijun on the map carefully marked that the cliff on the river bank is 35 zhang higher than the river surface, so after the confluence of the three rivers, it can only flow around the mountain here, forming two S bends. Najiang's trend is almost as tricky as the maps deliberately designed by those tower defense games in later generations. (Note: You can Baidu map of Chongqing Hechuan District)

Therefore, at least seven-eighths of the entire Diaoyu City circumference in the 360° direction is turbulent rivers and cliffs, and only the north-eastern half of the city, which occupies 45° of the entire city's wall, is connected to the outside world by land.

There was no need to defend elsewhere, as it was impossible for the attacking force to cross the turbulent Jialing River and land and then climb a cliff thirty-five zhang high to attack the city.

During the Three Kingdoms period, the trebuchet was not yet mature, but the defenders wanted to block the river transportation, but they did not need to use the trebuchet at all, Liu Yanjun set up some log slides on the top platform of the cliff, put the rolling stones on the slide rails, and naturally accelerated and fell diagonally, which could directly sink the ships in the Jialing River that tried to sneak across this section of the river.

In fact, the steepness of Diaoyu City does not need to be described too much, as long as you think about why the Mengyuan army besieged for 30 years in history, and Meng Ke Khan was killed under the city, you will know the horror of this place.

And don't expect anything to bypass - from Diaoyu City to Jiangzhou and the Yangtze River, there are five to seven layers of horizontal mountains, if you can go around the later generations of Möngke Khan Kublai Khan, you will have to go around it a long time ago. Even the reason why the three rivers of the Qujiang and Fujiang and Jialing rivers converge here is because the three rivers are blocked by the Hengshan of this road and cannot flow out, and the east and west flow for hundreds of miles, only there is a gap here under the Diaoyu City, which can drain the river water out and inject it into the Yangtze River.

Wu Kuang, Gao Shun, Zhao Yun also had a numb scalp when he looked at this map, how could there be such a disgusting place in this world?

Li Su also thought of a question temporarily: "I don't know who the guards of Jianmen Pass and Diaoyu City are, if it is Liu Yan's lineage, it is impossible to betray, and it will be troublesome." ”

This question is easy to answer, and soon Liu Beijun's junior colonel who is responsible for summarizing the scout intelligence gave the answer: In order to ensure the reliability of the defenders of Jianmen Pass, Liu Yan asked Zhang Ren, a young military marquis under his command who was promoted from poverty, to be responsible for the front-line defense of Jianmen Pass.

That Zhang Ren was just in his twenties, and his qualifications were not deep, and when the Shudi Gate Valve was in power, he was simply a low-level at the most Wu Chang and Shi Chang levels. It was Liu Yan who killed the family indiscriminately and pulled out the hanging silk after he came, so he promoted Zhang Ren, so he was considered to have a great favor to Zhang Ren. There are not many soldiers and horses directly under Zhang Ren's command, and there are more than 1,000 people when the sword gate is closed, but because the front is too narrow, Liu Yan can let people supplement Zhang Ren at any time, and he is not afraid of running out of manpower.

And Jiangyou County behind Zhang Ren, there is also Liu Yan's henchman Pang Yi guarding the city, Pang Yi is much older than Zhang Ren, and now he is nearly forty years old, and he is Liu Yan's henchman brought into Shu from outside. Pang Yi's troops are much larger, and Jiangyou has tens of thousands of troops stationed all year round, which can reinforce nearby places.

At the same time, it is said that Liu Yan also sent Zhang Lu's mother, who had a bad relationship with him for two years, to Jiangyou, which can be regarded as secretly spying on Pang Yi.

Zhang Lu's mother is a demon woman who is already in her forties, and it is said that she has the skill to stay in her face, so she is still attractive to Liu Yan, who is over sixty years old, and gave birth to a younger brother who is just over a year old.

(Historically, Zhang Lu's younger brother and his mother were both killed by Liu Zhang after Liu Yan's death, because Liu Zhang didn't want that kind of half-brother of unknown origin to live in the world to threaten his status, and this is how Liu Zhang and Zhang Lu's feud came about.) Zhang Lu's younger brother is equivalent to the half-brother of Zhang Lu and the half-brother of Liu Zhang. ）

And Liu Yan himself, it is said that he does not live in Xinjun to govern Chengdu, but suddenly went to Mianzhu to garrison, stationed more than 10,000 troops in Chengdu and Mianzhu, and always reinforced the gap that may appear in the north.

The defender of the Eastern Front battlefield is Liu Yan's only son who is now following him into Shu, Liu Mao.

Liu Mao personally entered Diaoyu City and stuck to Diaoyu City, and his direct subordinates will have his quasi-brother-in-law Wu Yi and distant relatives of the same clan Liu Bi (Liu Mao's fiancée Wu stayed in Chengdu, because it was not safe for women to go to the front line, Liu Yan asked Liu Mao to return to his hometown to marry after the war. Diaoyu City is a purely military fortress, so there are only soldiers and no civilians in the city, and there are no women and families)

Liu Mao also asked the strategist Zhang Su, the generals Yang Huai, and Gao Pei to guard Jiangzhou. There are more than 4,000 troops in Diaoyu City, because the city there is too small and there is not much food in stock, and it is easy to be besieged and lack food if there are too many soldiers. However, there are 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers and horses in Jiangzhou behind it, and they can use the Jialing River waterway to replenish Diaoyu City from behind if there are casualties or losses in Diaoyu City at any time.

In this way, Jiange, Jiangyou, Mianzhu, Chengdu, Diaoyu City, Jiangzhou, six key checkpoints and cities in Shuzhong, there are as many as 50,000 or 60,000 Shu soldiers, and this is still a state of peace in which Liu Yan has not been fully mobilized. It is said that there are 40,000 soldiers in Dongzhou, and the rest are local soldiers, Liu Yan felt that the locals were unreliable, so he did not continue to expand the army.

This scale, listening to the ears of Liu Beijun's generals and civilian officials, also feels quite tricky.

Who made Liu Bei so far only in Hanzhong (Shangyong), Wudu, Yinping and half of Bajun. The territory controlled by Liu Bei, the population of 350,000 in the Hanzhong Basin, is the largest, Shangyong and Wudu add up to 250,000, the entire county of Yinping is only 780,000, and the total population of the Han people controlled by Liu Bei is less than 900,000, and there are 200,000 barbarians. Therefore, Liu Bei took 35,000 long-term troops, plus some barbarian new troops, and then expanded the army, it would be a bit exhaustive.

But the three counties of the Chengdu Plain mastered by Liu Yan are rich and dense farming areas, Shu County, Guanghan (including Zitong and Qianwei), which add up to nearly four million people!

There are also more than one million people in the four counties of Nanzhong, and the entire Liu Yan has a population of 5 million Han people, plus the Nanzhong and Nanban who cannot be counted.

Don't look at Liu Bei's many fierce generals, many strategists, and excellent weapons. Compared with the troops, population and food, Liu Yan's comprehensive mobilization potential is four times that of Liu Bei! As long as Liu Yan dares to let the locals expand the army on a large scale, it is entirely possible to raise the total strength to more than 100,000 people.

Liu Bei also hoped that after breaking through the key pass, he would rely on the bonus of the holy decree to win over those forces who dared to be angry but did not dare to speak, and hoped that Liu Yan would deviate from morality internally.

……

With all kinds of worries that are not optimistic, Li Su, Cai Yong and others finally returned to Nanzheng on October 12.

Liu Bei expressed his gratitude to everyone for their dedication, and on the other hand, he also took advantage of these days to prepare some happy events-

Guan Yu's marriage was originally prepared after hearing that Li Su was coming back. While they went to the Sword Pavilion and Yin Ping for a turn, they were almost ready to come back.

At the same time, Liu Bei also took advantage of the past few days to have close contact with Zhen Yao, the second son of the Zhen family. Zhen Yao also arrived at this moment to know that Liu Bei had always had a woman by his side, and it was Mi Zhen, the sister of the new Liaodong Taishou Mi Zhu, but he had not dared to announce it because he was afraid that the court would suspect Mi Zhu's reason for taking the throne.

Now even if it is announced, it can only be a concubine for Mi Zhen. Considering that Mi Zhen came earlier than Zhen Jiang and the Mi family's price was higher than that of the Zhen family, Mi Zhen could only be a concubine, so Zhen Jiang had no choice but to be a concubine. After all, Liu Bei is the general of Zhengxi, and his status is already so much higher than that of the Zhen family, and the Zhen family has also recognized it as a concubine.

After the title of Zhen Jiang, the daughter of the Zhen family, was completed, her second sister stopped struggling.

So, he said that a few days later, Liu Bei would first set up a wine to give a concubine ceremony, and at the same time took Mi Zhen and Zhen Jiang away.

Then it was Guan Yu's turn to marry Du Shi with the etiquette of marrying a wife, and then take Zhen off as a concubine.

In the end, Zhang Fei officially married Zhen Dao according to the wife ceremony - of course, it is estimated that it is to go through a ceremony first, set a name, and follow the good deeds of the eldest brother and the second brother to have a good time.

Li Su also appeased Zhu Wenwu from Beijing: "Don't think about the military, there is always a way this winter, it is estimated that the wine in Nanzheng City will be placed for half a month in a row." ”