Wanzi City is only the entrance to Taihang Cheng, and it is necessary to tear four or five passes from Wanzi City to the inside to reach the inside of Taihang Cheng, and it is also the most critical Tianjing Pass in the south of Jincheng, but seeing such a strong and dangerous Wanzi City, under the eyes and nose, was attacked by the attached Shu soldiers, Cao Gan's heart was definitely hit a lot.

However, what made Cao Gan even more unexpected, the Shu soldiers, who had never been strong in fighting spirit, after beating the bowl city, were like taking medicine, screaming, not waiting for the follow-up people to enter the bowl city, there were several teams of soldiers and horses, followed by the fleeing enemy army, and directly rushed to the black calf pass in the south pass of Taihang Shan.

The leader of the general, Cao Gan vaguely felt familiar, as if he had been an assistant by Zhao Mengji's side, but somehow became a general who led the army.

From the bowl city to the north, the pass is steeply narrow, two peaks and cliffs stand in a forest, and the steep cliffs are full of bushes and dense forests.

Cao Gan saw a team of soldiers and horses enter the bowl city, using the bowl city as a transit point, and continuously transported soldiers and horses and weapons to the pass, but the pass was too narrow, and it was impossible to arrange him to watch the battle closely, and returned to Qinyang City at dusk.

Qinyang City's side is also making preparations to move the forward tent forward in order to win the bowl city.

At the night banquet, the front-line probe horses rushed to report, saying that Zhuang Peigong was the first to lead his troops to the Black Calf Pass at dusk, according to the original battle plan, Zhuang Peigong was only responsible for leading the troops to use obstacles such as horses, antlers, and thistles to form a protective belt to isolate the defenders in the village in front of the Black Calf Pass, and then wait until the next day to build a fence wall and dig a ditch, but seeing that the defenders in the enemy village in the Black Calf Pass were not prepared in a hurry, Zhuang Peigong immediately decided to wear heavy armor and personally lead the elite soldiers to join the city to attack the enemy village. It didn't take half an hour to defeat more than a thousand defenders, and at this time they had already captured the Black Calf Pass.

"What kind of medicine did Zhuang Peigong take, brave as a tiger?" He Xu was responsible for staying in the newly captured Wanzi City, and Zhao Shuo, Li Zhi, and Feng Yi accompanied Cao Gan and the envoys of Shu back to Qinyang, and he was also stunned when he heard the news.

Although even if the top and bottom of the girder are not encouraged, they will not suppress the forward generals from taking the initiative to master the fighters, but when the battle plan is established and there is no major change in the enemy situation, it is difficult to define whether it is a rash decision or a risky behavior.

Behavior like Zhuang Peigong's is not an act to be encouraged, at least in the military.

"Congratulations, your lord, my Liang has another tiger general!" Feng Yi stood up with a smile and said, "It's worth making an exception and drinking a big glass of wine!" ”

"Li Zhi, you immediately take someone to bring three hundred jars of wine to Bowl City and the black calf, to ensure that you are on duty without worry, and to reward the generals who have broken the pass today!" Han Qian asked Li Zhi to go to the front camp to enjoy the wine on his behalf, and said to Cao Gan, "This Zhuang Peigong, I have some impressions, it should be a Jiangyou person, he also has a younger brother Zhuang Peiyin who served as an official in Jiangyou County, Shu State, Zhuang Peigong served as an assistant beside Zhao Gong Mengji in his early years, familiar with military books, and good at swords and bows, so Zhao Gong used him to lead the troops. A few years ago in Gong County, this Zhuang Peigong also made us suffer a lot, and I remembered him at that time - it is indeed worth drinking a bowl of wine! ”

With Zhao Mengji's surrender to the Liang State and the Shu generals and military attachés who were captured or surrendered during the capture of Fengxiang by the Liang army, Cao Gan also had a not so complete list in his hand, which included Zhuang Peigong's name, and he also had some impressions of Zhuang Peigong, but it was not very prominent.

The middle-level generals of the Liang army are not one thousand but eight hundred, but I didn't expect that Han Qian, as the respect of a country, could know all the generals at the level of the generals, and Cao Gan's heart was quite complicated.

Han Qian put a wine bowl beside the generals with Hu Qian, picked up the pottery bowl and filled it with wine, and drank a bowl with everyone first.

There are few people in the army who are not good at drinking, Li Zhihe, Han Donghu and others are no exception, before it was only limited to military discipline, but now Han Qian made an exception to open the ban and put the wine jar up, except for those who were on duty, everyone else drank happily.

When he was elated, Wang Zhe asked when he toasted Cao Gan with a little drunkenness:

"Today, the soldiers and men of Shu are fighting bravely to kill the enemy, and Lord Cao has also witnessed it, dare to ask Lord Cao, if one day, the Liang soldiers and horses will attack Shu, so that these invaders will be the pioneers, how many days can the Shu army resist?"

"Presumptuous, what nonsense? Apologize to Lord Cao! Han Qian reprimanded.

Wang Zhe woke up as if he had scolded Han Qian, and was busy apologizing for his rudeness to Meng Lang and Cao Gan.

"You've drunk too much, let's go down and rest first!" Han Qian drank Wang Zhe back, apologized to Cao Gan, and said, "If you don't go to this unhappy guy, I will give Lord Cao a drink." ”

Cao Gan didn't know if Wang Zhe had really drunk too much wine, or if he was deliberately stimulated by Han Qian's words, but he was bitter in his heart.

Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian were initially bewitched by the Mugwu people, and led their troops and horses north from Liangzhou to conquer Guanzhong, taking away the 70,000 elites of the Shu army and 30,000 strong people, and these horses were blocked north of Liangzhou after the mutiny.

Because they are far away from their homeland and have difficulty in supplying, these people have low morale and have no combat effectiveness, and they are precisely demoralized and timid, and the casualties over the years have not been large.

Over the years, it was mainly due to injuries and long-term hunger that led to some attrition, and in the end, more than 70,000 people were left to be absorbed by the Liang State.

Cao Gan originally thought that these Shu soldiers who joined the Liang army would not have any combat effectiveness, and at most they would be used by Han Qian as auxiliaries, and they would definitely not be elite, but he didn't expect that they would be able to connect the Kemeng army today.

Just as Wang Zhe asked with drunken provocation, if Han Qian used these Shu soldiers as pioneers to cut down Shu, how long could they resist?

With such worries, Cao Gan drank the banquet depressedly, returned to the barracks with the envoy officials to rest, and then made Han Qian spend two days in Qinyang before going to Luoyang.

Compared with the dilapidated ruins in Guanzhong, Luoyang is full of thriving atmosphere.

Cao Gan went to Xuzhou and Jinling on behalf of Wang Yong many times in his early years, and knew many of the generals of the Great Liang, and after arriving in Luoyang, he and his two deputy envoys and envoys were warmly entertained, and they did not embark on the journey back to Chengdu until mid-August.

At that time, Kong Xirong had already joined forces with Li Xiu in Qinshui, took over the command of the war in southern Jin, and sent troops and horses to Yangcheng in the west of Zezhou.

In addition to Feng Yi's return visit to Shu on behalf of Liang Guo, Han Qian also specially prepared a batch of exquisite national gifts, so that Cao Gan brought them back to Chengdu Mansion and dedicated them to Wang Yong, the lord of Shu, to show the friendship between the two countries forever.

Even if the horses can be replaced with the help of post roads, the traditional horse-drawn carriage is not a comfortable thing to ride long distances due to the lack of limited shock absorption mechanism on the body.

There is no big problem with the slow movement of the carriage, but with the help of the post station system, the post is changed for horses, and theoretically the post road is leveled, and the carriage can travel 400 miles a day without any problem, but if a person sits in such a carriage for a day, the muscles and bones will be scattered.

What's more, take the land route from Luoyang to Yongzhou, and then take the Fu Luo Road from Yongzhou, and return to Chengdu through Liangzhou and Lizhou, which is more than 2,000 miles by land.

Cao Gan sent an envoy to Luoyang, from Chengdu to Yongzhou, chose to take a horse, and then changed to a boat after arriving in Yongzhou; This time, when he and Feng Yi returned to Chengdu Mansion, they took the whole road route, and more than a dozen new carriages were prepared here in Luoyang.

The Luoyang carriage was really much more comfortable, and at the end of August, the autumn was crisp, and it took six days to rush back to Chengdu from Luoyang, which was half the time Cao Gan expected to take; There are too many details, which makes Cao Gan feel the huge gap between Liang and Shu.

Not to mention the newly formed forbidden army of Shu, from soldiers to generals, the vast majority of people have not experienced the test of war, even if Shu has incorporated barbarian mountain bureaucrats over the years, and the number of households has finally recovered to five million, but compared to Chuliang, it is still a weak country.

After returning to Chengdu Mansion, Cao Gan and his envoys also shared details such as what Liang had seen and heard for nearly two months, and no matter how much disagreement there was within the Shu court on the issue of uniting Chu to resist Liang or sitting and watching Liang and Chu fight, one thing was certain, that is, at this time, Shu should never take the initiative to provoke the Liang army on the surface, and avoid Shu from becoming the object of the next soldier after the Liang army recovered Jinnan and Taiyuan.

Regarding the small family issue of the generals who belonged to the Shu army, the Shu court also quickly reached a consensus.

Ordinary soldiers have always had to go with the flow, and it is impossible for Shu to send up to 300,000 or 400,000 ordinary soldiers to Luoyang or Mengzhou, Han Qian proposed to belong to the Shu soldiers, and more than 9,000 military attaches and generals above the rank of the team will be paid a ransom of 200,000 yuan by Liang State to move them to Mengzhou as soon as possible.

In the eyes of the monarchs and ministers of Shu, sending these families to Luoyang can effectively resolve and weaken the hostility of the Shu soldiers, not only can they prevent them from becoming the vanguard of the Liang army's attack on Shu, but can even use their feelings for their homeland to make them a force within the Liang State to resist the Liang army's attack on Shu.

When Feng Yi completed the mission and left Chengdu Mansion in mid-September, the first batch of 1,200 people from the official family moved directly to Luoyang with him.

At that time, it was also Cao Gan and Jing Qiongwen, on behalf of the Shu lord Wang Yong, who rushed to the Meishan Station outside Chengdu to see them off.

Seeing the people and horses heading north gradually disappearing into the distance, Cao Gan took the reins, intending to return to the palace with Jing Qiongwen to reply to the decree; More than 100 brocade armor riders on the left and right crowded together.

Jing Qiongwen, who is nearly seventy years old, has frosty temples and white temples, and he is good at the way of self-cultivation, but he is energetic and energetic, at this time, he is still in charge of national affairs with the left servant shooting auxiliary Wang Yong, he looked back at the northbound people who had left traces of dust, waved his hand, signaled the left and right attendants to disperse, and asked Cao Gan: "Cao Gong is going to Luoyang, according to Cao Gong's view, when will the Liang army be able to recover Taiyuan?" And if Sima and Xu Mingzhen return to Southern Chu, is there any possibility for the Chu army to compete with them? ”

After returning to Chengdu Mansion for more than half a month, there were many people who asked about the details of Liang publicly or privately, but no one asked about it directly like Jing Qiongwen; Jing Qiongwen hadn't asked so directly before.

Cao Gan grabbed the reins, sighed abruptly, and said: "When Han Qian was in Mengzhou, there were only more than 30,000 soldiers and horses on the north bank, and even half of them were piled up on the south side of Taihang to attack the Mongolian army, but Zhu Rang sat on the south bank of Bianliang with 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers and horses, and he was afraid to fight, and even the intention of containment was very sloppy. According to what Gan saw, if the Mongolian army could not defend southern Jinnan before the end of the year, it was not impossible to take the initiative to retreat to the north and south of Yanshan to defend Taiyuan and Heshuo. As for the Chu army, as long as they failed to build a battleship that defeated the Liang division in one day, and their capital Jinling was under the direct threat of the Liang army's soldiers, Jing Gong felt that the Chu army could really compete with the Liang army? ”

"What if Chu Ting moves the capital to Hongzhou?" Jing Qiongwen asked.

Hongzhou is located on the west bank of Poyang Lake, not only has the waterway to connect the river and the sea, but also has the land route to connect Hunan and Jiangdong, as early as the period of Emperor Tianyou is a key management of a hinterland town, Yang Zhitang as a general of the clan, in the early years also sat in Hongzhou for many years.

Cao Gan pondered for a while and said: "If Chu Ting can decisively move the capital to Hongzhou, he may be able to struggle for several years. ”

"Can you only struggle for a few years?" Jing Qiongwen asked.

Cao Gan has already said it thoroughly, and he has no intention of giving Jing Qiongwen a more affirmative answer, looking up at the blue white clouds above the mountains, as if the scenery has not changed for thousands of years, what has changed is only piles of white bones turned into dust......