Now Kong Ming is in Jingzhou, and Pang Tong is the first army division for Liu Bei in the army, so Liu Bei asked Pang Tong's opinion about Zhuge Song's thoughts. The opinion of Pen, Qu, and Pavilion www.biquge.info Pang Tong is that Hanzhong is extremely steep and abnormal, its own military strength is limited, and Hanzhong is eager to attack, and a rash attack is likely to cause the loss of sharpness and the inability to advance or retreat. And now that Ma Chao has been defeated, even if he takes Hanzhong, he is likely to directly face the blow of Cao Cao's army at any time, and it is likely to be very difficult to defend Hanzhong at that time, not to mention returning to the division to take Yizhou, it is better to leave Zhang Lu in Hanzhong as a barrier to block Cao Cao, first set Shudi, connect Jingyi and Yizhou, strengthen the army, and then Xu Tu Hanzhong.

Pang Tong's words are undoubtedly strategically correct from the current situation, and Liu Bei is obviously more inclined to Pang Tong's proposition, after all, now Liu Zhang in Yizhou has Zhang Song, Fa Zheng, and Meng Da as internal responses, and it is much stronger to devote energy to the direction of Chengdu than Zhang Lu, who is difficult to conquer quickly on an expedition.

Zhuge Song saw that his opinion was not adopted, and he was also quite helpless. After all, he is "still young" and soft-spoken, the reason why he was able to come to Yizhou this time was mostly because Liu Bei wanted to balance the emotions between Kong Ming and Pang Tong, and the weight of speaking in front of Liu Bei was not as good as Pang Tong. But Zhuge Song was not willing to be so irreversibly moved towards the trend of history, Zhuge Song's idea was based on knowing the importance of Hanzhong in the future, although Liu Bei and Pang Tong also knew that Hanzhong was important, but they could not know how much trouble the late Hanzhong would bring them in the future.

It's just that how can Liu Bei agree to send troops? In the next period of time, Zhuge Song pondered and thought hard, and there was no good way. In this way, the time slowly came to the first month of the seventeenth year of Jian'an, that is, in 212 AD, Ma Chao, who had been defeated by Cao Cao in Tongguan and fled back to Liangzhou, united with the Qiang people to attack Longshang County, Zhang Lu also sent the general Yang Ang to send more than 10,000 troops to help Ma Chao, and besieged Liangzhou Assassin Shi Weikang in Jicheng. Zhuge Song can be said to be very happy after receiving this news at Jiameng Pass, although Zhang Lu's military strength is about 50,000 according to the information provided by Liu Zhang, and sending 10,000 soldiers does not affect the overall defense of Hanzhong, but what makes him happy is another thing.

Zhuge Song rushed to see Liu Bei, told him about it, and once again put forward the idea of sending troops to attack Zhang Lu. Liu Bei was very surprised that Zhuge Song also asked him to send troops to fight Zhang Lu, Liu Bei said to Zhuge Song: "Song'er, now Ma Chao and Zhang Lu are united to besiege Jicheng, dealing with Cao Cao, a traitor, if it weren't for my interests here, I would like to send troops to help them, but you proposed at this time that I send troops to fight Zhang Lu, isn't this a favor to Cao Cao?" ”

Zhuge Song was not in a hurry to tell Liu Bei his thoughts, but asked Pang Tong, who was sitting on the side: "What does Pang Junshi think?" ”

Pang Tong shook his head with a smile and said, "Song'er, you better tell the lord what you think!" Kong Ming is good at tricking the mysteries, and you also learn to play dumb riddles with the lord! ”

Because Zhuge Song also thought of this idea suddenly, and he was afraid that he would forget Liu Bei's appetite for a long time, so he told Liu Bei what he had thought about before why he had to send troops and the follow-up actions he took after sending troops.

Liu Bei looked overjoyed when he heard this, looked at Pang Tong and said: "I always told Kong Ming that he, a scholar, has a lot of ideas, and many things are not according to common sense, does Mr. think Song'er's idea will work?" ”

Pang Tong squinted his eyes slightly, not knowing what he was thinking, and said to Liu Bei for a long time: "Lord, this child taught by Kong Ming is really weird, it is better to say that he is Kong Ming's scholar than to say that he is my scholar!" He laughed.

Zhuge Song was very surprised by Pang Tong's evaluation, but he also smiled when he thought about it carefully, indeed, compared with Wolong and Feng Yan, Kong Ming is better at using the right way, seeking safety in everything, and likes to use regular soldiers to assist in appropriate strategies to win logically, while Pang Tong was overjoyed, no matter the method, he only sought to defeat the other party with the most effective and concise means.

Pang Tong's statement is equivalent to admitting that Zhuge Song's strategy is feasible in disguise, and agreeing that Liu Bei let Zhuge Song send troops. So on the second day, Zhuge Song took Zheng Liang, Jiang Xiaoyu and 5,000 soldiers out of Jiameng Pass and marched north.

When Zhuge Song led the troops out of the customs, he made a lot of noise, which was to motivate the soldiers and beat the drums in unison, just to let Liu Zhang and Zhang Lu arrange the spies nearby to report back to their lordship. Liu Bei's army has been under a lot of pressure in front of his subordinates for a long time, and he was ecstatic when he learned the news, and immediately arranged for someone to send supplies to Liu Bei. Five thousand people said that it was not too much, and it was not too much to say less, Zhuge Song's attack was taken for granted by Liu Zhang as a vanguard, and he believed that Liu Bei's follow-up troops would definitely follow up as soon as possible after the vanguard achieved certain results. In this way, those in Shu who previously suspected Liu Bei's ulterior motives for entering Shu will also have nothing to say. In this way, Liu Zhang was even more convinced that Liu Bei had come to Shu to help his judgment, so he naturally relaxed his guard against Liu Bei. As for Zhang Lu, after all, the strength of the troops in Hanzhong is still far superior to Liu Bei's 20,000 people in Sichuan, not to mention Zhuge Song's vanguard of 5,000 people, so he didn't react much for the time being, but just ordered his subordinates to guard the pass.

The 5,000 soldiers led by Zhuge Song marched all the way to the north after opening out of Jiameng Pass, but the march was relatively slow, and the reconnaissance cavalry was sent to guard the front along the Golden Bull Avenue. When the army drove to Yangping Pass thirty miles away, Zhuge Song ordered the soldiers to camp hastily to rest, the camp was extremely simple, and there were not even simple antlers outside the camp, it was completely a simple marching station.

After eating enough, Zhuge Song ordered Jiang Xiaoyu to take 1,000 soldiers to guard the camp, and personally took Zheng Liang and 4,000 soldiers to Yangping Pass. The war drums rumbled, and I saw that Yangping Pass was really dangerous and abnormal, closing the flag like weaving, swords and guns like a forest, but seeing that the handsome chess was a big Zhang Zi, an old man who was slightly blessed was looking at his side surrounded by several generals.

Zhuge Song estimated that the person was Zhang Lu, and he was secretly glad that the situation was really developing in the direction that was best for him. After a while, Zhang Lu actually walked down the city wall with a few generals, leaving only a middle-aged general in the city to command the guards, and the general was also a Zhang character, Zhuge Song expected that it must be Zhang Lu's younger brother Zhang Wei.

Soon the city gate was wide open, and thousands of horsemen and several generals surrounded Zhang Lu from the city, Zhang Lu looked anxious, and as soon as he stopped his horse, he asked Zhuge Song: "Who are you under Liu Bei?" I have no grudge against Liu Bei, why did I invade my borders and invade my territory? ”

Zhuge Song saw that there should have been, at this time, if he annoyed Zhang Lu directly, he would fight hard with himself, with his subordinates, it is estimated that it will not take dark to be beaten back to Jiameng Pass, so he arched his hand at Zhang Lu and said: "In Xia Zhuge Song, just the pioneer of my lord's account, I came here today just to check the terrain, and I don't know what my lord's true intentions are, if you want to fight, my lord's father-in-law will come to the next day, and then it is not too late to fight with Shijun!" He just looked at him with a smile and waited for his reaction.

Because Zhuge Song's 5,000 troops sent reconnaissance infantry to investigate the surroundings after leaving Jiameng Pass, and did their best to expel the enemy spies in the direction of Hanzhong, Zhuge Song guessed that even if there were Zhang Lu's spies in the vast territory of Jiameng Pass, it would definitely not be as easy as before to deliver accurate news to Zhang Lu. Zhuge Song believed that the area reconnoitred by Zhang Lu's spies would definitely get smaller and smaller as his five thousand soldiers got closer and closer to Yangping Pass, that is to say, the current Zhang Lu must not know that in fact, the five thousand troops under Yangping Pass this time were all the troops that Liu Bei used to attack him!

Sure enough, after listening to Zhuge Song's words, Zhang Lu decided that Liu Bei would personally lead the main force to rush here to join Zhuge Song and attack Yangping Pass, and Zhuge Song's words to Zhang Lu were also trying to guide Zhang Lu to continue to speculate in this regard. Generally, those who are in danger will not easily come out to fight the enemy in the field, because then it will be too much of a loss for the side that can be defended, and everyone wants to make full use of their own advantages to fight the enemy.

But now it is different, Zhuge Song now has only 5,000 people, Zhang Lu's troops concentrated in Yangping Pass are estimated to be no less than 30,000 according to Zhuge Song, Zhang Lu's face is cloudy, but in the end he still stopped the generals who tried to fight Zhuge Song pretended to be relaxed and said to Zhuge Song: "Okay, you and I will go back first, and when Liu Bei comes here, I will ask him face to face!" Then he led the troops back to the pass.

Zhuge Song did not chase after him, and when Zhang Lu entered the city, he closed the gate and led the troops back to the camp. The whole army, including Zheng Liang, was a little confused, and some small leaders said that they should cut down more trees to strengthen the defense around the camp, Zhuge Song smiled and promised them, but did not tell anyone to do it. During dinner, he called Zheng Liang and Jiang Xiaoyu into his big tent, looked at Zheng Liang's appearance of wanting to speak and stopped, and asked him with a smile: "Do you think Zhang Lu will send someone to rob our camp tonight?" ”