Zheng Chang's attitude was extremely tough, although Xiang Kang had already taken the initiative to take Jingshui and Bashui as the boundary, Zheng Chang still took the chicken feathers as an arrow, and as Xiang Yu's plenipotentiary representative, he forced Xiang Kang to hand over the entire Guanzhong and go south to Hanzhong to claim the king, with a resolute attitude as if Xiang Yu had nothing to do and could pinch Xiang Kang to death at any time.

Fortunately, they all just want to temporarily stabilize each other, and after nearly an hour of negotiations, Xiang Kang and Zheng Chang still quickly reached a negotiation, Zheng Chang took a step back, and on behalf of Xiang Yu, he promised to divide about one-fifth of the land in Guanzhong west of Bashui and south of Weishui to Xiang Kang as an enclave, but Xiang Kang could not garrison more than 6,000 troops in the Guanzhong enclave, and the capital could not be established on the Guanzhong Plain.

After the negotiation was reached, Zheng Chang very much hoped to sign on the spot, and get the ironclad evidence that Xiang Kang promised to give up the documents in the Bacheng Pass, but Xiang Kang proposed to pick an auspicious day to kill the white horse as an oath, and then officially signed, Zheng Chang did not dare to let Xiang Kang see that he was in a hurry to reach a negotiation and had doubts, so he could only nod his head and agree, and promised Xiang Kang to kill the horse in three days later, and officially signed.

But before the matter was over, Xiang Kang said casually: "Doctor Zheng, there are still three days left, how about we simply invite Liu Ji, the prince of Pei who is stationed in Hangu Pass, to participate in the oath of killing horses?" ”

"Why did General Right name Pei Gong to participate in the oath of killing horses?" Zheng Chang asked suspiciously.

"Three reasons." Xiang Kang said casually: "First, I want to find a witness to the oath, second, after the oath of killing horses, I plan to withdraw directly to Bashang to station, Pei Gong is here, just in time to take over the land and city I gave up for my elder brother, and third, I want to have a careful discussion with Pei Gong, resolve the misunderstanding between me and him in Hangu Pass, and discuss how to coexist peacefully in the future, so as not to have any conflicts in the future." ”

The three excuses given by Xiang Kang were somewhat far-fetched, Zheng Chang was inevitably a little suspicious, and he didn't agree immediately, but Uncle Zhou next to him snorted coldly, stood up and said, "General Right, the last general is not wrong, right?" The former generals did not believe in the sincerity of our reconciliation at all, and they wanted to prevent us from suddenly turning around and breaking through Pei Gong first and then taking Hangu Pass, so the defenders of Hangu Pass would definitely not enter the pass easily. ”

Xiang Kang didn't say anything, but looked at Zheng Chang with a suspicious expression, Zheng Chang also came to his senses and understood that Xiang Kang was testing his sincerity in negotiations, and wanted to test whether he really wanted to conclude a peace treaty with him by inviting Liu Laosan to enter the customs.

But fortunately, Zheng Chang knew on the way to Hangu Pass that the Qi army was marching towards Hangu Pass, and was ready to take over Liu Laosan to guard Hangu Pass, so that Liu Laosan could free up his hands to enter the pass and establish the outer barrier of Hangu Pass, and Liu Laosan did not have to worry about the safety of Hangu Pass even if he entered the pass. So Zheng Chang didn't hesitate, and immediately smiled and said: "General Zhou, don't misunderstand, since General Right has this request, then in order to prove our sincerity in reconciling with General You, Xia Guan will immediately send someone to invite Duke Pei to come to Ning Qin to participate in the oath." ”

Xiang Kang nodded, and then warned: "Doctor Zheng, I also said in advance, if Pei Gong finds any excuse not to come, I will definitely not sign the oath document." ”

Zheng Chang agreed, and agreed with Xiang Kang on some details, and after returning to Ningqin City, Zheng Chang also sent the accompanying officials to rush back to Hangu Pass immediately, asking Liu Laosan to come to Ningqin immediately to participate in the oath.

At the same time, after Tian An rushed to Hangu Pass with more than 20,000 Qi troops, Liu Laosan, who had already discovered that the situation was wrong, also obediently took the initiative to hand over the control of Hangu Pass and transferred the headquarters to the self-army camp located outside the east gate of Hangu Pass. During this period, although Wei Ji, the supervisor sent by Xiang Yu, urged Liu Laosan to immediately enter the pass and carry out Xiang Yu's order to build the outer barrier of Hangu Pass, Liu Laosan used the excuse that he could not stimulate Xiang Kang, sabotage the peace talks between Xiang Yu and Xiang Kang, and did everything possible to delay and resign.

It's a pity that on the morning of the second day when Xiang Kang and Zheng Chang reached a negotiation, when the envoy sent by Zheng Chang rushed back to Hangu Pass, Liu Laosan couldn't find any excuse - Xiang Yu asked Liu Laosan to enter the Guanzhong, and Xiang Kang also took the initiative to invite Liu Laosan to enter the customs to participate in the oath, what excuse could Liu Laosan have for refusing to enter the customs? Wei Ji, the overseer sent by Xiang Yu, had just listened to Zheng Chang's request, and immediately urged: "Pei Gong, don't delay the time, hurry up and raise the army and go to Ningqin to participate in the oath." ”

Liu Laosan smiled and agreed, but he still ordered the camp to be raised, and just smiled and asked the envoy sent by Zheng Chang: "General Right trusts me so much, and asks me to be a witness to the oath?" ”

"Pei Gong, Doctor Zheng made it clear that General Right asked you to participate in the oath by name, first, he was sure that he could trust you, and wanted to discuss with you how to get along amicably in the future." Zheng Chang's envoy replied directly: "Second, he wants to take the opportunity to test the sincerity of our peace talks and see if we really want to negotiate with General You." Therefore, Dr. Zheng instructed, please be sure to enter the customs immediately, and do not delay the important affairs of the former general. ”

Liu Laosan smiled and thought in his heart, and said secretly: "Xiang Kang Xiao'er is really just for this purpose?" If he is really ready to swallow his anger and ask for peace, it would be better to say that he would enter the customs to take over the city land that he took the initiative to give up, and it would be difficult for Lao Tzu to make a windfall. But if this little vertical man has ulterior motives, and even knows about Xiang Yu'er's accident, wouldn't Lao Tzu want to enter the tiger's mouth when he enters the customs this time? ”

When Liu Laosan was uncertain, the news of Tian An's request to see suddenly came outside the tent, and Liu Laosan, who was trying to gain time, hurriedly went out of the camp to greet him personally, who expected that he had just met, Tian An bowed his hand to Liu Laosan with a smile on his face and said: "Congratulations to Pei Gong, congratulations to Pei Gong, this time to enter the customs to take over the city land, Pei Gong just wants not to make great contributions to the Chu country, he is a few days ago the general on meritorious deeds, to Pei Gong knighthood, but don't forget to drink a glass of celebration wine." ”

"If there really is such a day, of course, I must invite General Tian to have a few drinks." Liu Lao Sanqiang replied with a smile.

"How? Is Pei Gong's troops enough? Tian An couldn't wait to ask: "I heard that General Right promised to cede all the city land east of Bashui and north of Weishui this time, and the troops under Pei Gong's command are no more than 10,000 people, will there be some shortcomings?" ”

Before Tian An finished speaking, the old hooligan Liu Laosan already knew that Tian An was the money, food, and materials on the fertile soil in the red Guanzhong, and that he wanted to take the opportunity to get a piece of the pie, so he immediately moved in his heart and hurriedly said: "What General Tian said is very true, and he is also worried about this matter, and he is also trying to ask General Tian for help. ”

If it was changed to usual, Tian An wanted to take advantage of Liu Laosan, of course, it would be more difficult than ascending to the sky, but the current situation is different, he has already guessed that Xiang Yu had an accident, and he is very suspicious of Xiang Kang's real purpose of insisting on inviting him to enter the customs, of course Liu Laosan would like to pull a substitute for the dead ghost to be a shield for himself. Therefore, as soon as Tian An was invited into the account, Liu Laosan took the initiative to invite Tian An to lead an army to join hands with him to enter the pass, help him take over the land and city in Guanzhong, and prevent the young marshal army or the old Qin army from making chaos in the unwilling to subdue.

On the contrary, the envoys sent by Xiang Yu and Zheng Chang had opposing opinions, all worried that Tian An would enter the customs without invitation, which would make Xiang Kangsheng misunderstand, but Liu Laosan waved his hand and said: "It's okay, anyway, the day after tomorrow will kill the horse and swear an oath, the time is too late no matter what, we just need to immediately send a fast horse into the pass, tell General Right about the situation, and ask him to agree to let General Tian enter the customs as a witness." ”

Tian Anda, who was anxious to enter the customs to reap the benefits, nodded his head, strongly agreed with Liu Laosan's proposal, and put aside Wei Ji and Zheng Chang's envoys, and immediately wrote a joint letter with Liu Laosan, sending a fast horse to Ningqin to contact Xiang Kang, asking Xiang Kang to agree to Tian An's entry into the customs to witness the oath of killing horses. Then Tian An couldn't wait, and personally led the army and Liu Laosan to join forces in the pass that day, Wei Ji and others objected, Tian An said that if Xiang Kang did not agree to himself, he would return to the pass immediately, Wei Ji and others had no choice but to let Tian An and Liu Laosan toss casually.

Fortunately, in the evening of the same day, Liu Tian's coalition army had just arrived in Huting, and the messenger who went to contact Xiang Kang sent a reply, saying that Xiang Kang raised his hands to welcome Tian An's army into the customs, Tian An heard the great news, and his saliva almost didn't flow directly into the corner of his mouth, but he hated to have wings on his shoulders, and immediately flew to the hinterland of Guanzhong to grab money, food, and women.

In addition, because Xiang Kang was repeatedly forced to endure before, Liu Laosan was of course greedy, and felt that Xiang Kang might not really take the initiative to give up eighty percent of the land and city in Guanzhong in order to avoid war with the princes' coalition forces, and if this was the case, he would not only be able to make great contributions to Xiang Yu, but also definitely get countless benefits, but it would be difficult to get rich in the world.

Greed did not completely confuse Liu Laosan's mind, the next afternoon, Liu Tian's coalition army had just opened to the vicinity of Ningqin, Liu Laosan immediately ordered the army to set up camp in Taolinsai, which was geographically important, ready to slip away at any time, Tian An strongly persuaded Liu Laosan to drive the army to Ningqin City to set up camp, but Liu Laosan also excused himself not to let Xiang Kang misunderstand and refuse, Tian An had no choice but to set up camp on the shore of Weishui, which is easy to get water in the north.

When Liu Laosan set up camp, Xiang Kang also sent a messenger to visit Liu Laosan and Tian An on behalf of himself with pigs and sheep wine, and politely greeted Liu Laosan with various situations now. However, after sending away Xiang Kang's envoy, Liu Laosan immediately arranged for people to go to Ning Qincheng to give Zhou Bo an order, and secretly ordered Zhou Bo to flee out of the city and east immediately when Xiang Kang suddenly turned his face, and came to meet his main force, without any hesitation.

"Pei Gong, why did you give Zhou Bo such an order?" Fan Xu next to him asked puzzledly: "Xiang Kang's little erection there, there is no sign of turning his face?" He also gave us a gift, why should we be so wary of him? ”

"You know!" Liu Laosan scolded angrily: "Lao Tzu is too familiar with Xiang Kang's little shaft, hiding a knife in his smile is his forte, the more polite and affectionate he is to us, the more we must be careful, be careful to sail the ship of ten thousand years, understand?!" ”

After the reprimand, Liu Laosan ordered the whole army to let his army loosen the outside and tighten the inside after night, carefully prevent sudden changes, and arranged special manpower to arrange secret posts on the periphery of the self-army camp at night, and did his best to buy time for the self-army to respond. After making these arrangements, Liu Laosan muttered: "It'll be fine after tonight, tomorrow is the day of the oath to kill the horse, Xiang Kang's little erector is hypocritical, the most trustworthy, signed the oath document, and generally won't turn his face easily." ”

In the first half of the night that night, Liu Laosan, who had a ghost in his heart, was so nervous that he didn't dare to close his eyes, or after a long time passed in the third watch, he still didn't see any movement outside the camp, Liu Laosan was a little relieved, and lay down on the couch to close his eyes to rest, but even so, Liu Laosan still didn't dare to take off the armor on his body, and the weapon was always within reach.

"Bell bell!"

Liu Laosan was not nervous in vain, when the fourth arrived faster, there was a sudden sound of gongs outside his army camp, which suddenly woke up Liu Laosan, who had just fallen asleep, and when Liu Laosan picked up his weapon and rushed out of the sleeping tent, Liu Laosan was already shouting outside the camp, and countless torches rushed directly towards Liu Laosan's camp. Seeing this scene, Liu Laosan's face immediately turned pale, and he said word by word: "Sure enough, there is fraud!" ”

Fortunately, Sergeant Liu was relatively well prepared, and the secret post outside the camp called the police in time, and the enemy just rushed to the vicinity of Liu's camp, and many Sergeant Liu rushed to the fence to block it with arrows, and was not directly attacked by the enemy. What made Liu Laosan angry was that when he rushed into the big tent of the Chinese army to command the battle, Wei Ji, the supervising army, rushed in and shouted: "The enemy who came? Pei Gong, is this the enemy sneaking up on our camp? ”

"Do you need to ask?" Liu Laosan yelled angrily: "Of course it's Xiang Kang's little shaft, thanks to you, you forced me to enter the customs, and now we are in big trouble!" ”

"General Right? How can it be? Isn't he going to swear an oath to kill us tomorrow? How could they send troops to attack us overnight? ”

Before Wei Ji's words of disbelief fell, a soldier outside the tent entered the report and said loudly: "Qi Peigong, the enemy outside the camp saw the handsome banner of General You, and it was General Right who personally commanded the troops!" ”

"Good!" Liu Laosan gritted his teeth and said: "I personally led the army to attack my camp, Xiang Kang's little vertical son really hates me to the extreme!" Order the whole army, defend the camp, and be sure to block the attack of Xiang Kang's thief army! ”

"Wait!" Han Xin, who had already left a deep impression on Liu Laosan, stood up to stop him and said loudly: "Pei Gong, since Xiang Kang personally commanded the troops, then the army he brought must be elite soldiers, your camp is newly established, there is neither a wall nor a trench, and it is absolutely impossible to block Xiang Kang's strong attack." The only way to do this is to abandon the camp and go east, otherwise the losses will definitely be greater! ”

Glancing at Han Xin, Liu Laosan hesitated, considering that it would be a pity to retreat directly like this, and that Zhou Bo's troops in Ning Qin City would be completely isolated, and said: "My army is well prepared and can fight a battle, hold on for a while first." ”

Liu Laosan quickly regretted his decision, although his army was indeed relatively sufficient, and temporarily blocked the first wave of attack of the young marshal's army, but the young marshal's army really hated Liu Laosan too much, and in the fierce battle, Ding Ji, the general of the young marshal army, who took the initiative to ask Ying to serve as the vanguard, also rushed to the front line, personally picked up the knife and cut people to kill the enemy, and drove the young marshal soldiers to step forward bravely, sacrificing their lives to attack the Liu army camp, and at the same time, the young marshal soldiers with sufficient supplies also did not hesitate to throw a large number of expensive rockets to the Liu army camp. It soon ignited countless military tents and created great chaos in Liu's camp.

Then, after only a moment of fighting, the young marshal soldiers rushed out of a gap in the fence of Liu Jun's camp, shouting revenge slogans and rushing into Liu Jun's camp, and the rear army surged in, slashing and killing Liu Jun's soldiers who were not wrapped in red cloth on their heads with red eyes, even if Liu Jun's fierce general Fan Hao personally led the army to intercept it, he failed to drive the young marshal out of the camp, and the other fences of Liu Jun's camp were also broken one after another, and more young marshal soldiers shouted and killed into the camp. And when Xiang Kang personally led the rear army to launch a general attack, the slogan of capturing Liu Ji alive directly sounded among the officers and men of the young marshal's army.

At the same time, Long Ji and Zhu Jishi also broke through the camp of the Qi army in the north, the Qi army was already less combative, and it was not as prepared as Liu Laosan's army, and the situation was of course more miserable, only a moment later, it was directly broken through the camp of the Chinese army by the young marshal's army, and the soldiers of the Qi army were scattered, and they scattered and fled, and there were countless people who surrendered on their knees, and Tian An, who was caught off guard, also gave up resistance, and hurriedly ran with the remnants of the defeated army to seek Liu Laosan's help.

The same is true of Liu Jun and Zhou Bo in Ningqin City, although the young marshal army did not cut down trees to make any siege weapons in order to avoid the enemy's vigilance, nor did he take the opportunity to launch an attack, but Zhou Bo just took the army out of the city to meet Liu Laosan according to Liu Laosan's order, and was immediately attacked by the cavalry of the young marshal's army led by Guan Ying, and the soldiers quickly dispersed, and Zhou Bo, who had learned a life escape skill with Liu Laosan, had no choice but to quickly give up the banner command and change into the clothes of a soldier. Blend in with the defeated crowd and flee for their lives on the path to the southeast.

"Capture Liu Ji alive! Kill! ”

The anger that the young marshal soldiers had been holding back for a long time completely turned into a sky-high fire, just like a wildfire burning the plain, quickly engulfing Liu Jun's outer camp, killing the terrified Liu Jun's corpses all over the ground, bleeding profusely, and then quickly surrounded Liu Laosan's Chinese army camp on three sides. Seeing that the defeat was decided, Liu Laosan did not dare to have any illusions, so he could only quickly order Cao Shen to lead the army to the palace and flee with the defeated soldiers to the way he came.

During this period, the young marshal soldiers also successfully captured Tian An, the general of Qi State, but when the news was reported in front of Xiang Kang, Xiang Kang didn't even blink his eyelids, and immediately shouted: "Don't worry about him, just do what you want!" Pursue with all your might, today I only need Liu Ji's head! As long as Liu Ji's head! ”

The narrow Cuihan Road helped the defeated soldiers of the Liu Army to block the offensive of some of the young marshal army, and also avoided the doom of being surrounded by the young marshal army, but the narrow road also pitted the poor Liu Jun's soldiers, and ran for his life. I don't understand why Xiang Kang, who has always been known for his kindness, hates his own army so much, and why does he do such a poisonous thing?

Only Liu Laosan knew why Xiang Kang hated him so much, but Liu Laosan now just wanted to regret it and didn't have any chance, in order to escape, Liu Laosan even ordered his own soldiers to cut down the Liu soldiers who were blocking in front of him, and when he galloped wildly, he suddenly had such a thought in his mind, "Lao Tzu is really self-inflicted, now, it is impossible to be a good brother with Xiang Kang." ”