Although Kuai Yue is an accompanying military division, but the seniority and position are above Liu Pan, although Liu Biao intends to promote his own children as generals and let Liu Pan lead the troops to the battle, but the real decision is still in the hands of Kuai Yue. At that time, Liu Pan saw Zhang Xiu shaking the heads of Jingzhou soldiers under the city gate, so he made an annoyed and angry look and threatened to go out of the city to meet Zhang Ji, in fact, Liu Pan was just acting at that time, he could not lead the army out of the city to fight, and Kuai Yue would also persuade him not to go out of the city. Liu Pan wanted to wait for Kuai Yue to persuade him, so he would stop, so that pretending would at least not chill the soldiers in the army. But Liu Hu misunderstood, Liu Hu was young and vigorous, and seeing that his brother Liu Pan couldn't even get the right to decide to send troops, he ordered archery, so that this war had to be advanced. As soon as Liu Hu did this, Kuai Yue looked nothing on the surface, but he was definitely uncomfortable in his heart, which Ma Hong could see clearly.

That night, Liu Pan guarded the north gate of the city, Liu Hu guarded the west gate of the city, Kuai Yue guarded the east gate of the city, and Pang Ji took the county officials and Zhuangding to guard the south gate of the city. Kuai Yue thought that the south gate of the city would not be attacked, Zhang Ji would not be reluctant to seek the near and far, and the soldiers would take the risk to recruit Rao City to attack the south of the city, if they were suddenly attacked by the reinforcements of Xiangyang when attacking the south gate of the city, and then the soldiers in the city should be combined with the outside, they would definitely suffer heavy damage. In the evening of the same day, Zhang Jijun was reluctant to go out until the third watch, when the south gate suddenly burst into flames, and a large number of Xiliang soldiers attacked the south gate. Kuai Yue was shocked, and hurriedly asked a team of soldiers and horses to be drawn from the north gate, led by Liu Pan himself, to support Pang Ji at the south gate. Liu Pan fought fiercely at the south gate for nearly half an hour, and suddenly received news that the east gate and the west gate were attacked at the same time, and Liu Hu and Kuai Yue were both pinned. When the east and west gates were attacked, the soldiers of the south gate withdrew, and the north gate was attacked after a quarter of an hour, Zhang Xiu personally led the army to attack the city, and drove a large number of civilians in front of the army to attack the north gate, and the north gate was in danger for a while, and the north gate that lost Liu Pan's town guard could be broken by Zhang Ji at any time.

Kuai Yue realized that he had been tricked at this time, and hurriedly sent heralds to the south gate to summon Liu Pan back to guard the north gate, and at the same time personally led a team of men and horses to the north gate to guard the north gate. When Kuai Yue and Liu Pan arrived at the north gate, a large number of Xiliang soldiers had already crossed the city wall and entered the city, but fortunately, the north gate was not opened, Liu Pan took the lead and fought hard to meet the battle, and fought fiercely until dawn before the Xiliang army was repulsed.

Waiting for Zhang Ji to retreat, Liu Pan sat on the city tower, tried to stand up several times in a row but failed to stand up, Kuai Yue held Liu Pan's hand and said: "You sit down, the rest of the matter is handed over to me, it was all my mistake, I didn't expect Zhang Ji to attack the south gate, so I disrupted our deployment." ”

After listening to Kuai Yue's words, Liu Pan lay on the ground facing the sky and breathed a sigh of relief, and said weakly: "It may be that Zhang Ji expected that we would definitely not have reinforcements, so he dared to make a desperate bet." ”

Kuai Yue nodded, and said secretly in his heart: Could it be that there are capable people in this Zhang Ji army? He was able to see through our army.

In the north of the city, Zhang Ji's military camp, Zhang Ji personally led the troops to rush and kill all night, exhausted, just settled the army, and the armor was not removed, so he slept with his clothes. After Zhang Xiu took a piece of cloth and wiped the blood-stained spear and wiped the blood on his face, he sighed, and his whole arm trembled uncontrollably. Zhang Xiu is over forty years old, nineteen years old into the battlefield, now twenty-one years have passed, so many years, there have been many battles, but such a hard battle like last night has been fought no more than five times, he is very tired, tired and does not want to speak. Next to Zhang Xiu sat a middle-aged man, the man was about forty or fifty years old, seven feet long, with a slightly yellow face, a pair of triangular eyes, the eyes were full of bloodshots, but the eyes were very sharp, like a sharp blade, he seemed to be able to tear people's flesh and blood when he looked at people, and the middle-aged man was Zhang Ji's military advisor Jia Xu.

Jia Xu took a bowl of warm water and handed it to Zhang Xiu and said, "The water temperature is just right, you can drink it." ”

Zhang Xiu hurriedly took the warm water, drank it, and then said, "Another bowl." ”

Jia Xu said: "Even warm water can't be drunk like this, do you know why I stopped you from drinking cold water?" ”

After Jia Xu finished speaking, he paused, looked at Zhang Xiu, saw Zhang Xiu shaking his head, and continued: "You have fought all night, you are tired, if you drink cold water, your body will not be able to bear it." ”

Zhang Xiuchang sighed and said: "Hey, although there is a clever plan of the military division this night, although the Jingzhou army was caught off guard at the beginning, but when the Jingzhou army reacted, we couldn't break through the city, and I am afraid it will be more difficult to break the city in the future." ”

After listening to this, Jia Xu said: "Kuai Yue is not an idle person, and his reaction is fast enough, it is really difficult for us to capture the city." If we wait until Liu Biao gathers the men and horses of various counties to attack, we will run out of grain and grass by then, and we will definitely be defeated. ”

Zhang Xiu nodded and said, "Uncle said the same thing, so he said that the army should rest for half a day and attack the city again in the afternoon." ”

Jia Xu filled Zhang Xiu with another bowl of water, and after Zhang Xiu drank it, he poured half a bowl of rice wine for Zhang Xiu, and watched Zhang Xiu drink it, he looked at Zhang Xiu and said slowly: "General, with all due respect, we can't attack the city anymore, it's better to retreat." ”

Zhang Xiu's arm had eased up at this time, so he poured himself a bowl of wine, held the wine bowl in both hands and drank a sip of wine: "Even if my uncle doesn't want to fight now, he has to fight, because the soldiers will not agree, there is no food in the army, how can he support the army?" ”

Jia Xu said: "When Yuan Shu's garrison was in Wancheng, his army was so strong, but it was still cut off by Liu Biao, beheaded the general Sun Jian, and forced it to transfer to Shouchun. At present, except for the official position of the lord is greater than Liu Biao, the rest are not as good as Liu Biao, and we are fighting against Liu Biao in Jingzhou, so for a long time, we will definitely lose. [Zhang Ji's official position: Hussar general. Liu Biao's official position: General Zhennan, pastor of Jingzhou. 】

Zhang Xiu said: "Uncle will not stay in Nanyang for a long time like Yuan Shu, and when the army breaks through the city and gets grain and grass, we will return to Hongnong." ”

Jia Xu didn't speak again, he just poured another bowl of wine for Zhang Xiu and walked out of Zhang Xiu's tent. The moment the tent was opened, the smell of blood in the barracks came to the face, and there was a little despair mixed with the smell of blood. Last night, Zhang Ji was going to gather troops to storm the city, Jia Xu proposed to attack the south gate first, transfer the main force of the Jingzhou army, and then attack the east and west gates at the same time, so that he had no time to take care of the north gate, and finally let Zhang Ji lead the army to storm the north gate. This strategy sounds good, but it doesn't work very well. Because the Xiliang army is less than 10,000, to besiege a city with a garrison of three or four thousand, it is necessary to attack from multiple directions at the same time, even if it is a feigned attack, it will damage many soldiers. Therefore, this strategy is not the best, but Zhang Ji did not hesitate to use it, because if this strategy can be successfully implemented, he can break through the city in the shortest time. At the same time, this strategy can make the soldiers die more, whether it is for the Jingzhou army or Zhang Ji's army, there is not much surplus food in Zhang Ji's army, if you can't get food, you have to find a way to reduce the number of soldiers. These 8,000 Xiliang soldiers are all soldiers who have followed Zhang Ji for many years, and if they reduce their troops in Mingli, it will definitely cause dissatisfaction among their subordinates, so it is better to use Jia Xu's strategy to besiege the city from all sides.

Jia Xu saw all this very clearly, and also looked at Zhang Ji very lightly. Even if Zhang Ji knew that declaring war on Liu Biao was the next step, he still didn't listen to the advice of the strategists, and it was really stupid to attack Jingzhou just because the army lacked food. The two major warlords in the Xiliang Army, Guo Yan Li Dao and Yang Feng, Dong Cheng and others fought three consecutive wars in Hongnong, and now Hongnong County is already full of holes, if you want to stay in Hongnong, not only will you have less food and grass, but you will also be involved in the battle between Guo Yan and Li Dao. Jia Xu didn't want to go back to Hongnong, so he needed to do something so that Zhang Ji would never be able to return to Hongnong.

Note: [Historically, Jia Xu left Guo Yan in 197, first defected to Duan Xuan, and then switched to Zhang Xiu, when Jia Xu defected to Zhang Xiu, Zhang Ji had already died in the battle in Yicheng, and Zhang Xiu and Liu Biao were jointly stationed in Wancheng. In this work, due to the crossing of the protagonist, this world line has changed slightly, and Jia Xu's actions are no longer staged according to the historical trajectory, he directly transferred from Guo Yan's camp to Zhang Ji's camp to become Zhang Ji's strategist. In the same way, Liu Ye's actions are no longer in accordance with history. 】