Not long after Liu Bei left the city, Sun Ce received the news. He was puzzled. Liu Bei can obviously walk openly, why do you want to run secretly at night, don't you know that it is dangerous to march at night? The water hadn't receded yet, and if he got lost and fell into the swamp, he would be dead.

"Treat others with oneself and be a thief with a weak heart." Guo Jia made a conclusion.

Sun Ce felt that Guo Jia's words were a bit ruthless, but they made a lot of sense. People are biased, with a strong sense of subjectivity, and will inevitably use their own standards to see others. Liu Bei himself has no bottom line, so in his eyes, others will not have a bottom line. He didn't know at all that if he wanted his life, let alone Yanzhou sending 10,000 people to respond, even if he didn't have another 10,000.

The county soldiers, who can't even be defeated by the Yellow Turban Army, can have any combat effectiveness at all. Only a celebrity like Liu Dai would have inflated confidence, thinking that he would be able to defeat the Yellow Turban and make great achievements by talking and laughing. Unexpectedly, although the Yellow Turban Army was a rabble, it would be easy to kill him. Everyone is an amateur, so it depends on who is ruthless and who has more.

Otherwise, the Yellow Turban Eight Prefectures would have risen together, and in the end, how could they have achieved the reputation of Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun alone.

Sun Ce didn't want to chase. First, there is no need, he doesn't want Liu Bei's life now; The second is that fighting at night is indeed too dangerous, the soldiers of this era eat less meat, most of them have night blindness, and his subordinates are no exception, not to mention that there are still swamps. In case Liu Bei was in a hurry, he was dying and counterattacked, biting him, and capsizing in the gutter, it would really become a joke.

Liu Bei spared his life, he still spared his life. Poor Kou Mo Chasing, how can I have such a big net worth as I can see Liu Bei, a poor ghost who has nothing.

"Let him go." Sun Ce was very sympathetic to Liu Bei. Liu Run, run slowly, the Long March has just begun, and you still have a long way to go. "I hope he doesn't go the wrong way and fall into the swamp, or he'll be too bored."

——

The night is deep, the starlight is dim, the ground is blurred, and the image of the two black trees on the official road is a giant warrior with a halberd and a forked neck, looking down on all beings condescendingly, which makes people frightened. The sound of hurried footsteps, heavy breathing, the sound of weapons and armor leaves colliding, and the sound of stagnant water being disturbed, mixed together, full of panic, full of panic, full of ominous.

Liu Bei gave orders in a low voice from time to time, urging the soldiers to hurry up. Only by keeping himself busy will he not be crushed by fear.

It has been ten years after the heavy rain, the water on the ground has not been completely drained, some sections of the road are still submerged in the water, even the exposed ground is slippery and muddy, you have to be careful to walk during the day, you can't see clearly at night, and you are afraid that Sun Ce will chase after you, so you don't even dare to light the torch, you can only rely on the vague shadow of the tree next to the road to identify the direction, many people fell, and some people fell into the swamp, and sank right away, giving their lives, from time to time sounded desperate cries for help, faintly, like a ghost crying, it was desolate.

Liu Bei heard it with cold hairs standing on end, but he didn't dare to cover his ears, and he had to put his two big ears up high, listening to every move behind him, for fear that Sun Ce would pursue. The Danyang soldiers have been left, except for nearly a thousand old infantry soldiers whose combat effectiveness is acceptable, there are only 5,000 Jiyin soldiers led by Yuan Xu around him. Those people pretended to be okay, and they really had to meet the elite led by Sun Ce, which was no different from a flock of sheep.

Yuan Xu is a typical example of this rabble. At this time, he still refused to ride a horse, but had to ride in a car. The wheels got bogged down in the mud several times, which seriously affected the speed of the march. If it weren't for his surname Yuan, he was Yuan Shao's younger brother, and if he hadn't been supported by him after arriving in Yanzhou, Liu Bei would have cut him down with a knife and thrown him directly into the pond on the side of the road.

After walking for half the night, Liu Bei didn't dare to relax, and he was barely relieved until he didn't encounter any resistance after the autumn season. Even so, he didn't dare to be careless and urged everyone to move on. The sky was slightly bright, they rushed to Yuting, met the Yanzhou scouts who came to meet them, and knew that the 10,000 Yanzhou army was not far ahead, so they stopped advancing.

After a night of rapid travel, the soldiers of Jiyin County were tired miserably, and after giving the order, many people sat directly in the water.

Liu Bei turned over and dismounted, stood in the muddy water, and looked at the sparse and long line behind him, feeling depressed.

"The whole team, count the number of people." Liu Bei said in a hoarse voice.

Jian Yong answered and turned around to make arrangements. There are not many of them, and it is easy to count them, and at a cursory glance, there should be limited losses. After all, he is a veteran of many years of war, and he is much stronger than the soldiers of Jiyin County. But when Jian Yong came back, his face was not very good.

"What's wrong?" Liu Bei felt faintly uneasy in his heart.

Jian Yong swallowed his saliva and said with difficulty: "The loss is limited, there are thirty-seven people missing, but ...... The general's wife and children are gone. ”

Liu Bei was stunned, looking at the two Guan Zhang lying in the car, his heart was painful, tears came out of his eyes, and he beat his chest and swore to the sky.

"Sun Ce'er, you deceived me too much. If God forbids me not to die, I will avenge this in the future. ”

——

Sun Ce successfully took over Xiao County, and there were 4,000 Danyang soldiers.

Knowing that he was abandoned by Liu Bei like this, Danyang Bing was indignant and scolded Liu Bei's ancestors for eighteen generations. Hearing what Tao Ying said, they were ashamed and swore that the next time they met Liu Bei, they would ask for an explanation at a time.

Tao Ying consulted Tao Qian and transferred the 4,000 people to Sun Ce. Sun Ce was not polite, accepted it, allocated 2,000 people to Zhu Zhi, and asked him to continue to guard Xiao County, and the remaining 2,000 people were organized into a battalion, and dozens of generals at the level of military marquis and commander were transferred from the guard battalion to strengthen the leadership, and Xu Kun, who was promoted to captain because of merit, was also among them. Sun Ce has high expectations for him, hoping that he will be able to lead this elite team in the future.

A few days later, Tao Qian led the army back to Xuzhou, leaving 10,000 people for Tao Ying to guard Pengcheng, and returned to Tan County by himself. The Qingzhou Yellow Turban is regaining momentum, and the Xuzhou Yellow Turban may also be ready to move, and he must rush back to preside over the overall situation. Before leaving, he had a detailed conversation with Tao Ying, and learned that Sun Ce took great care of Tao Ying, and Tao Ying's progress was also very obvious, he was very happy and agreed to Sun Ce's request to recruit people from Xuzhou.

Soon, Qin Mu rushed back, taking Elfang and three hundred knights with him. The strength of the elk family is strong, these three hundred knights are carefully selected, and their physical fitness is no worse than that of the knights who ride in the guards, but they lack systematic training, and their combat effectiveness is still insufficient. Elfang himself has good martial arts and is skilled in riding and archery, and he has worked hard since he was a child. Sun Ce was very happy and let Elfang enter the personal guard battalion as a military commander and be Qin Mu's deputy.

Elfang was overjoyed, thanked him again and again, and vowed to train hard, keep up with the pace of the guard battalion as soon as possible, and not embarrass Sun Ce. Lu Zhu was also very happy after receiving the news, and he was more confident in cooperating with Sun Ce. He proposed to Tao Qian to transport salt into Yuzhou and Jingzhou to do business with Sun Ce.

Tao Qian readily agreed.

Successfully repelled Liu Bei and stabilized the northern defensive line, Sun Ce returned to the south and prepared to defeat Chen Deng.

In early April, Sun Ce returned to Xiangxian. Jiang Gan rushed from Pengcheng with Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao dragged his family with him, and even the collection of books did not fall a single volume, and he brought all of them over. In addition to his son Zhang Cheng, he also had his nephew Zhang Fen, all of whom were fourteen or fifteen years old.

Sun Ce was very happy, talked with Zhang Zhaoshen for a while, and immediately decided to hire Zhang Zhao to serve as a student in Runan County, and the treatment was comparable to Cai Yan. Zhang Zhao didn't know who Cai Yan was, but after listening to Sun Ce's explanation, he learned that he was Cai Yong's daughter, his face was slightly softened, but he still didn't think so.

"A mere woman, even if she has some talents, how can she be a teacher, isn't this a misguided child?"

Sun Ce smiled. "Otherwise, Zhang Gong will go to Wancheng to meet Cai Yan and test her knowledge. If she is really unqualified, I will remove her and replace her with Zhang Gong, so as not to delay those children. How is it? ”

Zhang Zhao agreed.