At dusk, in the dark room of an inconspicuous dwelling in Ruyin City, under the dim candlelight, a distorted face full of evil aura looked extremely terrifying.

The owner of this face is Yuan Shu, who has been "buried in the sea of fire".

At this time, Yuan Shu only had four of the most trusted henchmen around him, since Chen Guo's battle against Zang Ba, he was defeated in a row, and then Shouchun was besieged, he went all the way back to help, encountered hope, and more than ten generals such as Li Feng, Liang Gang, Liu Shen, Le and other generals died after the lead, Lei Bo, Lei Xu, Chen Lan defected, until the two battles of Ruyin, Qiao Rui, Ji Ling was captured, Lu Mian was killed, Yang Hong and other long histories were missing, and 200,000 soldiers and horses went to seven or eight.

The power of the former number one prince is now almost gone, and the Zhong clan was almost wiped out within seven months of the founding of the country, how can Yuan Shu, the son of the Zhong clan, not hate!

For the hatred in his heart, he disguised himself as self-immolation and died, in order to hide from Zhang Liao, even the following Yan Xiang and several Wenchen were killed and then burned by him, so as not to leak the news that he was not dead.

Only he hid in this hidden house with a few henchmen, dressed in poor cloth clothes, and did not dare to show his face like a mouse, as soon as he thought of this, Yuan Shu's heart was like a sea of hatred.

"Zhang Liao has already chased Chaohu?" Yuan Shu looked at the only few henchmen beside him and asked again.

"Not bad." A confidant said: "The villain just found out, Zhang Liao ended the war in the afternoon, and he divided his troops to rush to Chaohu, it must be that the news that Wen Qiang was trapped has come." ”

"Excellent! As long as he goes to Chaohu, he will be dead and alive! Yuan Shu clenched his fists and asked, "How many soldiers and horses did he bring?" ”

The henchman said, "There are about 30,000, of which there are 10,000 cavalry." ”

"Thirty thousand?" Yuan Shu said hesitantly: "I know Zhang Liao's temperament, the most affectionate and righteous, and his younger brother is in difficulty, how can he not be in a hurry, how can he not rush to Chaohu Lake day and night...... 30,000 soldiers and horses, only the 10,000 cavalry in the front, not to mention Shouchun and Lujiang, Zhang Liao must divide the troops, and in Chaohu, three mountains and three rivers, what is the use of cavalry? Xiang Yu has the power to carry the tripod, didn't he die there back then? ”

After that, Yuan Shu asked the henchman: "How are the precautions outside?" ”

The henchman said: "The war has been decided, and the city is not under martial law." ”

"Very good...... I want to escape from here and see Zhang Liao die with my own eyes by ten thousand arrows! Yuan Shu's eyes flashed with fierceness and resentment, he gasped, leaned against the wall, and muttered: "As long as Zhang Liao dies, I can revive the Zhong ......."

……

The enemy who knows himself best is often the enemy, as Yuan Shu expected, after Zhang Liao learned that his younger brother Zhang Jian was in danger, he was indeed anxious, anxious and angry.

Because Zhang Jian's identity is very hidden in Jianghuai, Zhang Liao deliberately downplayed the name of this younger brother in Luoyang, and even his family only knew that Zhang Jian went to other places, and he didn't know where, and Zhang Jian only came back three times in two years, and he only saw his parents every time, few people knew his identity in Jianghuai, and even the shadow didn't know, only knew that Wen Qiang was very important.

At this time, Zhang Liao only thought that those bandits coveted Zhang Jian's power and wealth, and he didn't think that the target of the people behind him was not Zhang Jian, but him!

What Zhang Liao didn't expect was that he didn't reveal Zhang Jian's identity here, but accidentally leaked it from Lu Bu.

Lu Bu had seen Zhang Jian once in Jianghuai, recognized it, and envied Zhang Jian's wealth in his heart, and inadvertently leaked it to Cao Bao after a drunkenness, and the Cao family was a family, Jianghuai was one, and Cao Bao sold the news to the Jianghuai family, and the Jianghuai family colluded with Yuan Shu to plot themselves.

It was precisely because Zhang Liao didn't know everything behind this, and because Zhang Jian had indeed gathered a lot of wealth in the past two years, so after the news that Zhang Jian was besieged by water bandits came from Jianghuai, Zhang Liao didn't think of himself, he only thought it was an accident that attracted people's hearts.

Moreover, Zhang Liao gave Zhang Jian a strong escort force, and now he is in danger, obviously the situation is very serious, so he is very anxious.

And Zhang Liao's troop deployment was not unexpected by Yuan Shu, tens of thousands of foot cavalry moved too slowly, the Ruyin battlefield needed to be cleaned up, and the prisoners needed to be guarded, he left Jiang Qi and 20,000 infantry, and the remaining 30,000 all rushed to the south.

However, there are still Shouchun and Lujiang in the south with the rest of Yuan Shu, Zhang Liao wants to rush to Chaohu to save people can not have worries, so he ordered Zang Ba to take 10,000 infantry from the land to Shouchun to besiege Zhang Xun, Huang Zhong with 10,000 soldiers and horses from the waterway to Lujiang to contain Liu Xun, he and Xu Chu personally led 10,000 cavalry straight to Zhang Jian's place in distress, Chaohu.

……

At the junction of Jiujiang County and Lujiang County in Yangzhou, south of Hefei and north of the river, there are 10,000 hectares of large lake, named Chaohu.

The land of Chaohu Lake is the Chao country in ancient times, it is said that it was built by the descendants of the Chao family, and the 36 rivers around Chaohu Lake are connected with it, forming a large river basin like a spider web, and the hills are all over the four sides, forming the terrain of "three mountains, three rivers and three fields", which is convenient for Tibetan soldiers to use soldiers.

Numerous water areas can also carry out naval training and water operations, the Yuxi River goes south for more than 100 miles to reach the Yangtze River, which can not only go down the river to the east, but also trace the Jiangxi expedition, so there is also the saying of "laying Huai right, blocking the south of the Yangtze River", since ancient times, it is a place for soldiers to fight.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, Chaohu Lake is the head and tail of Wu, and in order to compete for this strategic place, more than ten large and small battles have occurred here between Wu and Chu.

When Chu and Han fought for hegemony, Xiang Yu's soldiers were defeated, led 800 cavalry to break through, fled more than 200 miles south to Dingyuan, southeast of Shouchun, only 28 cavalry remained, was chased by the Han army, Xiang Yu took 28 cavalry to rush back and forth, once again opened a bloody road, and rushed south for nearly 200 miles, and arrived at the Wujiang River not far from the southeast of Chaohu Lake.

Xiang Yu killed hundreds of Han soldiers by himself, and his body was also wounded by more than ten wounds, and finally he killed himself, and the overlord fell in the land of Chaohu Lake.

Zhang Liao also attached great importance to Chaohu, because he knew that in history, after the Battle of Chibi, the situation of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu was initially formed, and the Chaohu region became an important place for Wei and Wu to fight. But Cao's camp was strong, besieged the city for 100 days, no progress, Sun Quan took the initiative to withdraw the army, Cao Cao took the opportunity to counterattack, chased to Chaohu, because the water army was not good, had to look at the lake and sighed, and returned without a fight.

Five years later, Cao Cao commanded an army of 400,000 and attacked Eastern Wu by water and land from Chaohu Lake and Xiguan.

After another two years, Sun Quan took advantage of Hefei's emptiness, and once again led an army of 100,000 to besiege Hefei, this battle made Zhang Liao famous, 800 horses broke Sun 100,000, Zhang Liaowei Town Xiaoyaojin can stop children's night crying.

In the next two years, Cao Cao attacked Chaohu Lake again and returned in vain, which is what Zhuge Liang said in the "Teacher Table" that "Cao Cao's four Chaohu Lake cannot be achieved". The four wars failed, and the momentum of the three kingdoms was established.

In four battles in a row, the two sides invested more than hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, which shows the importance of Chaohu's status, but it is difficult to distinguish the winner from defeat, which shows the complexity of Chaohu's topography.

Zhang Liao originally arranged for Zhang Jian to control shipping in the middle and lower reaches of the river and set up two strongholds.

One is in Guangling, Guangling is close to Dahaikou, and in the future, it can receive the Ganning and Taishi Ci water armies that go south along the coast at any time.

The other place is in Chaohu Lake, Chaohu Lake is not only easy to hide, but also strategically important, occupying this place, south, west, and east are all free.

Because there were many wars around Guangling, and Chaohu Lake was relatively stable, Zhang Liao was afraid that there would be problems in Guangling, but he didn't expect that there was a problem with Chaohu, and he didn't know that a crisis was coming.