With the departure of Cao Cao and Sun Quan's envoys, the "peaceful" relationship between Li Sheng's side and Cao Cao and Sun Quan was broken. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIn order to deal with the possible attacks on both sides, Li Sheng quickly began to carry out a series of reorganization arrangements:

First of all, the commander of several aspects was established, the commander of the west road was naturally Li Sheng himself, and the commander of the middle road was Pang Tong, and the commander of the east road was not a second candidate except for Gan Ning. In fact, this is also a matter that has been decided a long time ago, but because Li Sheng, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan have not torn their faces with each other, Li Sheng has not fixed this matter in plain text. At this moment, since he was ready to fight Cao Cao and Sun Quan, and it was an unprecedented fight, Li Sheng naturally determined the commanders of the three aspects in his hands in clear text.

The establishment of the tripartite commander is to establish the commander-in-chief, and the next second clear text is to establish the candidates for several small generals. Because he believed in the abilities of Pang Tong and Gan Ning, Li Sheng did not interfere with the distribution of generals there, he only cared about the candidates for his Yizhou side, and naturally the orders issued were also aimed at his side. Wei Yan paired Xu Shu with Nanzheng, Huang Zhong with Fa Zheng to guard Wudu, Li Yan with Meng Da to guard Nanxiang, Li Sheng sent several generals under his command to go up, and scattered 120,000 soldiers and horses together to defend the north. Among them, Wei Yan's Nanzheng side had the most men, reaching 70,000 people, while Huang Zhong's military capital was 20,000 people, and Li Yan's Nanxiang was 30,000 people.

This is also something that has been done a long time ago, and it can be solved by just a clear order, just like the establishment of a three-sided commander-in-chief. In fact, Li Sheng has been busy since the departure of Cao Cao and Sun Quan's envoys, and this busyness is not for anything else, but for the formation of his own "Lord Legion". Because this legion was mainly composed of troops on the CD side, it was impossible for Li Sheng to make such a move when Cao Cao and Sun Quan's envoys were present, and it was not until they were gone that Li Sheng began his work.

After several years of development, Li Sheng's soldiers and horses have greatly expanded compared with a few years ago. Not to mention the Jingzhou part and the Jiaozhou part, as far as Li Sheng's current Yizhou is concerned, Li Sheng's regular combat troops have reached 100,000 people, all of which Li Sheng obtained through the merger of Zhang Lu's Hanzhong Army, Liu Zhang's Yizhou Army, Ma Chao's Liangzhou Army, and part of Xiqiang and Nanzhong's men and horses, and through the selection of merit-based men and horses. In fact, these centaurs can only be regarded as elite, and they cannot all be regarded as all of Li Sheng's troops that can fight. According to Li Sheng's three-level army, in addition to the 150,000 regular troops, Li Sheng also has 150,000 garrison troops and nearly 200,000 mobilized troops. With the power of Yizhou alone, 400,000 soldiers and horses can be mobilized, which is Li Sheng's greatest military strength. Of course, mobilizing so many troops in one go is definitely a laborious matter, and in the absence of this necessity at the moment, Li Sheng is certainly not prepared to do so.

In order to deal with Cao Cao's possible attack on Hanzhong, Li Sheng finally decided to use 160,000 troops. This is a mobilization estimate made by Li Sheng and Kong Ming at the moment when they estimated the scale of the war and the time of the war. Since Li Sheng's own regular combat troops were far from reaching the number of 160,000, the soldiers and horses that Li Sheng's army finally dispatched were actually an army mixed with garrisons and regular soldiers. It can be said that except for the Guards Regiment that Li Sheng is currently forming in the CD, which is composed of all regular soldiers, the three armies of the entire Hanzhong defense line are mainly garrisons mixed with regular troops. Among them, the Nanzheng side has 40,000 garrisons and 30,000 regular troops, the Wudu side has 10,000 garrisons and 10,000 regular troops, and the Nanxiang side has 20,000 garrisons and 10,000 regular troops.

As the center of the whole Yizhou, CD has the most materials and manpower. Although preparations for war could not be carried out on a large scale due to the envoys of Cao Cao and Sun Quan, after the departure of those who stood in the way on both sides, under Li Sheng's order, the preparations for war went very smoothly. In just half a month, the corps led by Li Sheng himself had already been organized: 8,000 mountain soldiers, 4,000 archers, 4,000 lancers, 16,000 archers, and 16,000 infantry constituted the entire corps.

Since it is the army that Li Sheng personally commanded, this army is naturally not a deputy general that ordinary people can do: the commander of the eight thousand mountain soldiers is Song De; The commander of the four thousand archers was Zhao Yun; The commander of the four thousand lancers was Zhou Rui; The commander of the 16,000 archers was Yan Yan; The commander of the 16,000 infantry was Wu Yi - all of them were heavy generals under Li Sheng. Although some of them surrendered to Li Sheng from Liu Zhang's side, Li Sheng accepted them meaningfully. At this moment, their loyalty to Li Sheng is much higher than that of Liu Zhang in the past.

Li Sheng trusted them, and they reciprocated Li Sheng's loyalty, and Li Sheng, who had obtained this loyalty, naturally regarded them as humerus. There is a so-called vicious circle in the world, and naturally there is also a so-called virtuous circle. In short, the entire Yizhou has become a monolith under Li Sheng's regulation in the past two or three years, not to mention the army, even ordinary people, as life has become more prosperous day by day under Li Sheng's rule in recent years, they naturally have respect and loyalty to Li Sheng. As soon as Li Sheng's war mobilization order was issued, saying that it was to defend against the people who wanted to invade Yizhou, most of the people in Yizhou acted quickly.

Although Li Sheng did not ask them how much materials to contribute or how much to expand the army, their spontaneous actions made Li Sheng receive an unexpected surprise: at the granary built by Li Sheng, every day people said that they would dedicate the surplus grain at home to their lord; Next to Li Sheng's barracks, there were also many strong people who kept asking how to join Li Sheng's army.

All the people of Yizhou have a very high enthusiasm for this battle, after all, all of them, whether they are big families or ordinary people, have obtained a great deal of good money from Li Sheng's policy in the past two years, and they absolutely do not want such a good outing, so it will be canceled by outsiders - most of them have inquired, and there is no second place in the world besides Yizhou where they can obtain benefits with such peace of mind.

"We want to defend our own homeland......" Under the secret instigation of Li Sheng's white clothes, Yizhou was the army and the people who were single-minded. Naturally, the reorganization of this army proceeded very smoothly.

On March 10, the 22nd year of Jian'an, Li Sheng swore to send troops from the CD, as if he had received the mandate of heaven, and Li Sheng's loud speech was just a gloomy day, but after Li Sheng shouted the word "departure", it was very cooperative to crack a gap and shine the sun on the CD city.

“…… This is the blessing of the gods. We will win this battle......" The abnormality of the queen of heaven became a hint of some kind of omen, and the morale of the entire CD and the morale of the entire Li Sheng army were extremely high. Versions of the legend of the Queen of Heaven appeared several times overnight, making people more and more excited.

The team went to Chuyang with high morale. It took more than ten days to get there, and it took only ten days to get there, under the rush of the soldiers' direct requests.

At this moment, Cao Cao had already sent troops, as Li Sheng guessed, he went all the way south from Wancheng and came straight to Xiangyang. Because Cao Cao's own injuries were not all healed, and Li Sheng's side did not want Liu Bei to be completely powerless at that time, so the commander of this battle Cao Jun's southern expedition was the southern general Cao Ren, as for the original commander of the western expedition, Xiahou Yuan, who was originally in charge of the western expedition, was retransferred by Cao Cao to Chang'an, where he organized new soldiers and horses to attack Hanzhong according to the situation.

Li Sheng, who rushed to Hanzhong County, directly set up a command post in this place of Weiyang, and paid special attention to the battle report of Xiangyang. He knew that Pang Tong, the commander of Jingzhou, planned to concentrate most of his troops and horses in Xiangyang City and fight a battle to defend the city with Cao Cao's 100,000 army from Wancheng. At this moment in Xiangyang City, Pang Tong had gathered 80,000 horses, including 30,000 regular troops and 50,000 garrisons, and was ready to resist Cao's army.

At the beginning of the war, Cao's army's southward movement was very rapid and smooth. From Xinye to Fancheng, the empty city that came all the way made Cao Ren march smoothly, but the doubts in his heart were unabated. He didn't dare to underestimate Pang Tong, because he had already heard that the reason why Li Sheng took Hanzhong and Yizhou was all due to the credit of this Pang Tong military division. Such a strong character is hostile to himself, even if he really has no experience in fighting with him, he can't underestimate the other party because of this. Cao Ren became cautious because of this, and he repeatedly suppressed the demands of his men to speed up their march, and sent more scouts around his army to check on the situation. For the Li Shengjun he is about to face, Cao Ren has done some research. Through research, he came to a conclusion, that is, Li Shengjun was very good at ambushes.

"They might even dig pits and ambush them in the plains and snow." Looking at the record of Li Sheng's capture of Hanzhong, Cao Ren couldn't help but be vigilant. Although from Xinye to Fancheng, he never encountered Li Shengjun's interception, and the vast land of Pingchuan seemed to have no possibility of being ambushed, but seeing those descriptions of Li Sheng, Cao Ren became a little suspicious. He always felt that there seemed to be a hidden person secretly observing himself in the dark, and he could see everything about himself clearly.

"Alas...... Can we win this battle? Cao Ren looked at his powerful army, but for the first time he had a hesitation in his heart.

Although his heart is not very stable, Cao Ren still does what he has to do. He buried all the hesitations in his heart, and on the surface he was still so firm and calm.

The battle was fought in Fancheng. Although Pang Tong secretly had plans to give up Fancheng, he didn't have the idea of giving up for no reason. He planned to retreat only after Fancheng had given Cao Ren some hardship.

is similar to the scale of Li Shengjun's own team, and the Cao army that drove from Wancheng is also star-studded. In this army, the general is Cao Ren, the deputy generals are Cao Ren, Dian Man, Guo Huai, the military division is Xun You, as for the leader of the whole army is Cao Cao's number one vanguard Cao Chun and Zhang Jaw, of course, Cao Chun is still in command of the 5,000 tiger and leopard cavalry, and Zhang Jaw, who is also the vanguard, is the commander of 20,000 infantry closely behind. As far as the information obtained by Pang Tong is concerned: Cao Chun's cavalry is the most prominent part, but this prominence is not so obvious, he and the 20,000 people with Zhang Jaw are always one. Although his men were about half a day's ahead of the Jaws behind, he only marched for half a day, and spent the other half a day waiting for the Jaws' army to follow. As for the 25,000 men of the vanguard, they were much behind the vanguard, and the interval between them was about two days. Just like right now, Cao Chun's front army is almost in Fancheng, but Cao Ren's rear army is still in Xinye.

"Hehe, it seems that we can give Cao Chun a hard time in this Fancheng." Pang Tong said with a smile after getting these situations.

In Li Sheng's reorganization of his own corps, Pang Tong also reorganized his Jingzhou corps. With the addition of Liu Beijun and his cadres, the problem of insufficient generals who had been bothering the Jingzhou Army was greatly alleviated. At this moment, Pang Tong took Liu Feng, Guan Ping, and Guan Xing as generals, and led Liu Bei's 10,000 remnants of the army and 20,000 horses of the Jingzhou Changsha Army to set up a battle situation in Fancheng, but he only waited for Cao Chun's vanguard to launch a deadly attack as soon as he arrived.

Although in the eyes of ordinary people, the distance between the front army and the rear army by one or two days seems to be nothing wrong with a strong army with large forces, Pang Tong thinks that one day is enough time for Cao Chun and them to suffer a big defeat. After all, Pang Tong did not intend to use any conventional means in this battle. He was fighting the idea of this stretch of Han water, which flowed through Fancheng and Xiangyang—and he was ready for a short water attack.

“…… In the dark night, water came and fire came, and I was afraid that Cao Chun would have a big headache. Youchang, this is a bit similar to the one you did in Wancheng back then. Pang Tong smiled and said to the young man sitting across from him with scars on his face and missing his feet.

"Ho...... Ho, I have used this strategy to make Cao Chun suffer once in the past, but I don't think he has a long memory. As far as the average person is concerned, the same strategy cannot be used twice, but we are trying to break this rule today. Ma Tan laughed in his hoarse voice, but said resentfully. At the beginning, Liu Bei entrusted the lives of his children to him when the city was broken, so that he had to endure humiliation and flee for his life in disfigurement. Because all this was caused by Cao Cao's side, he had a deep hatred for Cao Jun's people. Pang Tong valued him and knew that he still had some ability, so he asked him to join his command and become one of his staff, responsible for the intelligence collection and sorting work on his side. After all, Pang Tong has now become the military commander of one side, and there is really no more time for such meticulous work as intelligence analysis and collation.

"It's not that Cao Chun doesn't have a long memory, but a series of measures in front of us, which made Cao Ren and Cao Chun both feel down. You have also seen that when we gave up Xinye, Cao Ren and Cao Chun's nervous appearance, how could they forget the hardships they had suffered? If they had forgotten, they would not have been able to become Cao Cao's left and right arms as they are now. You must know that Cao Cao is a little partial to his Cao family and Xiahou family in some places, but that is only a small place. How can an incapable person steal a high position in the big picture? Cao Cao is not a fool. Pang Tong retorted with a smile.

"Hmph......" Ma Tan whispered softly, but stopped talking. Pang Tong could see that Ma Jian had actually agreed with his statement, but it was just because of something that made him refuse to admit the strength of Cao Cao's ability on the surface.

"Forget it, as long as he understands it in his heart." Pang Tong didn't intend to interfere in many of these superficial things, he was already too busy.

"By the way, are the Bright Moon Warriors ambushed in the city ready?" Pang Tong retracted his thoughts and asked such a question that was directly related to the success or failure of this battle.

"No problem." Ma Jian hastily flipped through the information behind him and said to Pang Tong: "The Haoyue of Jingzhou is composed of the original team of the remaining avengers and military divisions of our Liu Beijun in Changsha. Changsha's Haoyue team has strong combat capabilities, while our original Avengers have the ability to operate in Jingzhou. With such a composition of people, coupled with our secret arrangement, I don't think Cao Chun will find out everything we have left here. ”

"Then I'll be relieved." Hearing Ma Tan say this, Pang Tong nodded with satisfaction, and then asked another question, "Then what about the ship we prepared between Xiangyang and Fancheng?" Are these ready? This is also a major matter related to our success or failure, and there can be no sloppiness. After defeating Cao Chun's vanguard army, we need to transport these ships and our men from Fancheng. ”

"I understand that these things are also in place. All the merchant ships of the Surabaya Chamber of Commerce and the large fishing boats on the Han River were requisitioned by us as ships for this shipping operation, and we also requisitioned all the small fishing boats. I'm afraid that for a long time from today, Cao Ren's pace can only stop at Fancheng. They wouldn't have been able to come here without a navy. Ma Tan said with a smile.

"Huh...... It's natural. But even that would only give us a few more months. Cao Cao's strength is very strong, and we can't underestimate this in any way. Pang Tong replied with a smile, he knew that Ma Yan, who had already had combat experience with Cao Cao, understood this very well, so he didn't say anything, but asked another question: "By the way, where are Cao Chun's men and horses now?" ”

"The report from an hour ago is still about twenty-eight miles away from our Fancheng, and I'm afraid that we are already near Fancheng now." Ma Jian reported the situation to Pang Tong. As Cao Ren's suspicious feeling showed, there were indeed some people staring closely at this vast Jingxiang land. Cao Renjun's every move was reported to Xiangyang at a rate once every hour: the forest used trees, the road used smoke, the sun spread the flag, and the night flashed, Pang Tong quietly arranged this series of hidden "beacons" on the land of Jingxiang in the past few months, which greatly improved his own intelligence transmission. Since some of these methods are unknown to people in this era, Cao Ren has the uneasy feeling of being watched, but he has never been able to find out who is examining him.

"Hehe, right now, he probably won't enter the gate of Fancheng. He will definitely look at the surroundings of Fancheng. Pang Tong chuckled, making a prediction about Cao Chun's possible move. Of course, these predictions are well-founded and very effective, but these so-called effects are not worth caring about for Pang Tong at all. Because Pang Tong already had a way to deal with them: "Where can they think of it, but I have hidden all the troops on the ship in this battle." Hehe, the distance between Xiangyang and Fancheng is too close. We'll send a boat to Fancheng, but I'm afraid it won't take half an hour. ”

"Ho-ho, that's right. Right now, it's like before the red cliff. Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed. Ma Jian nodded, and he also admired Pang Tong's idea in his heart. This time the battle of Fancheng planned by Pang Tong is clearly a copy of his burning of Wancheng in the past, but it is different from the method of hiding soldiers used by Ma Tanna to burn Wancheng. At present, Pang Tong's method of hiding troops is to take advantage of his own naval army, and all the teams used for ambush are lurked on the ship, docked in the harbor of the north embankment of Xiangyang, and quietly waits for the arrival of the departure order.

"Dongfeng? Our east wind came easily. It looks like there's not much time left. Pang Tong looked up at the sky outside the window and said to Ma Jian with a smile.

"About half an hour before it was completely dark. I don't think it's necessary to arrange for the soldiers to eat? Only when you are full can you have the strength to fight. Ma Jian nodded and put forward such an opinion to Pang Tong. He knew that Pang Tong was already a big man in charge of the whole aspect, and he would definitely not care about the small problems of the soldiers' food again.

"Well, just do as you say." Sure enough, as Ma Jian guessed, Pang Tong didn't expect this, he heard Ma Jian remind himself, and then he realized that today is different from usual, and this dinner must be eaten first when the sun has not yet set.

The order was given, and the soldiers of the city quickly distributed portions of dry rations to the soldiers on board. There wasn't much space on the ship, and the soldiers were already ready, so it was a little impractical to let them cook dinner directly on board. As a result, Pang Tong could only replace his usual rice with dry food. Of course, in order to make these soldiers more selfless to kill the enemy, and in order to eliminate the cold air on those of them who were about to cross the river, Pang Tong also gave them half a catty of cured meat and a tael of wine during this dinner.

"Eat well, eat well, let's kill the enemy together." Almost every soldier who delivered the meal would tell the people who came to receive it with this sentence. Although this was just an ordinary sentence, listening to the ears of the soldiers who received the meal, it inadvertently gave them a sense of belonging to the same family - obviously, this was also a means for Pang Tong to improve the morale of the soldiers in this battle.

The sun finally set, and a deep gloom shrouded the north and south of the Han River. It's April, but the spring water is rising, and when the spring is cold and warm, the mist and humidity everywhere and the rain that will fall at any time have become the most headache of camping in the wilderness. If there is a city that can be stationed, if this city that was easily abandoned by the other party is not a trap, then there is no Cao army willing to ask for hardships and be stationed outside the city. Zhang Jaw, who came from behind, was unwilling to do this, and Cao Chun, who had always been cautious and suffered again, was also unwilling to do so. After the tiger and leopard cavalry carefully searched the surroundings of Fancheng and found that there were no enemy soldiers, Cao Chun directly entered Fancheng and began to divide the area where the barracks were stationed tonight.

Because it was a time of war, the army could certainly not be divided as arbitrarily as usual, so Cao Chun, who was in charge of the vanguard of the whole army, took the place near the wharf in the south of the city as his own stationing place, and left most of the area in the north of the city to Cao Ren - after entering Fancheng, he Cao Chun had already found that this time and the situation seemed to be the same as the last time, the wharf in Fancheng was still empty, and no ship docked.

"It seems? The south side thinks that as long as there are no boats, we will not be able to cross the river. It's a headache...... "Cao Chun looked at the barren dock and patted his forehead gently, but there was nothing he could do. In his opinion, although the strategy in the south is so simple that it is almost a bit of a scoundrel, there is really no better way to deal with it on his side, although the gurgling Han River is not as good as the surging Yangtze River, but it is not something that these people can easily penetrate. Helplessly, he thought as if he was going to stay here in Fancheng for a few more days.

Cao Chun was busy like this for a long time, and when Zhang He and his infantry arrived in the afterglow of the setting sun and settled in the city, it was already the dead of night. Because everyone was evacuated, and because Cao Chun had concentrated all the soldiers and horses in the south of the city, the entire Fancheng looked a little different under the dark blue night. The south side of the city was full of vitality because of the presence of Cao Chun and the others, while the north side of the city was like a ghost domain because there was no one else. The light from the lights in the south of the city disappeared into the distance of the road after illuminating a certain distance. I don't know if the darkness swallows up the light, in short, the people in the south of the city look at the darkness in the north of the city, but they are always a little worried and afraid. Although Cao Chun had already ordered the whole city to be sentinel, the definition of this order in the city was somewhat different from that of his soldiers. Cao Chun's "city" is the entire Fancheng, and the "city" that the soldiers understand is the south of the city where they are currently stationed. So, after Cao Chun's group fell asleep, without anyone watching, the scope of the patrol soldiers was very narrowed a little. They were all afraid of the dark, even if they had enough torches in their hands to dispel a small piece of darkness.

Cao Chun, Zhang He, and their soldiers were able to rest early. Although the distance from Xinye was not too long, and they were not as hurried as when they were chasing Liu Bei in the past, the fatigue caused by several days of continuous marching still made them quickly fall asleep and rest deeply. After a series of observations, they were sure of the safety of Fancheng, and they were relieved after taking the most basic precautions. They all thought they could get a good night's sleep tonight, but they didn't want to ignore the north of the city where the patrol soldiers under them seemed to be intentionally or unintentionally, and some of them met quietly.

"Those people are hiding and going back." In the darkness, a local accent in Fancheng sounded quietly, as if to report the situation in front of someone in front of him.

"Hehe, wouldn't it be nice to retract? This is exactly what the military advisor estimated. Despite our best efforts, there is not much oil here. In this humid environment, if they hadn't curled up together like this, would we have really burned the whole of Fancheng? Another voice scolded, too, thinking he was the leader of their men.

"That's true." The voice in front nodded approvingly, but no longer spoke, only to hear the voice behind him ask in a low voice: "By the way, has the person from the military division already arranged?" ”

"It's already good, according to the results of An Hou'er's secret observation on the city tower, the soldiers and horses of each gate are already in place one by one." A third voice sounded, telling the most important thing at the moment.

"That means that as long as we take action?" The leader raised his voice slightly, but the excitement in it was clear.

"Yes!" The third voice nodded in affirmation.

"In that case, what are we waiting for? Anyway, it's about the same time. The leader said, looking up at the sky, where the bright moon was shining against it—it was midnight.

"Let's act!" The leader gave an order in a deep voice, and countless figures rose and fell in the streets and alleys of Fancheng, but they quietly sneaked from the north of the city to the south of the city. A sleepless night is clearly about to begin.