The rain was pouring down, and the bean-sized raindrops hit the loess solid road surface heavily, making the road surface that was still thought to be solid muddy. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info At this time, the wind also rose, and the cool air whistling from the north suddenly made this autumn solar term even colder than winter. The bone-piercing ice, with the water vapor in the wind, turned into a confused appearance, and soon enveloped this section of the Han River, which is not very wide. There was a heavy fog on the water, and it was impossible to see the situation on the other side at all, and it seemed that he could only vaguely glance at the huge embankment wall on the opposite side, which was more than ten feet high. It is the embankment wall that belongs to Xiangyang, as long as you cross this embankment wall and walk about five miles to the south, you can see the vigorous posture of Xiangyang City.

"It's almost there." Liu Bei stood on the embankment belonging to Fancheng with a poncho and looked at everything on the opposite side. Although the scenery over there was blocked by the foggy river, as far as Liu Bei was concerned, he could depict the situation on the other side with his eyes closed.

"You should be able to cross the Han River before Cao Cao's pursuers arrive, right?" Taking a deep breath, Liu Bei seemed to be muttering to himself, and as if asking Ma Jian who was standing beside him, he said softly: "As long as you can enter Xiangyang, will it be safe?" Youchang, are you ready for things over there? ”

"Everything was ok. This time, it should be a lot easier than we thought. Ma Yan nodded, his wet face stained with rain was full of excitement: "When I went to Xiangyang two days ago, I was helped by the third brother, and it seems that his lord Li Sheng also sent someone to Xiangyang on business." They also wanted to evacuate a group of people, who were said to be their men in the middle of Surabaya in Xiangyang. ”

"Oh? Did Zixu also make a move? Although I don't know what his final decision was, I think he also saw Xiangyang's instability. Liu Bei nodded and said calmly and calmly.

"That's true. Lord Li Sheng seemed to attach great importance to his subordinates, and for this group of people, he even mobilized the only five hundred cavalry in his hands to escort them. They moved quickly, leaving Xiangyang for the south long before we arrived here a day. Only the remaining 300 family members were left to me. Ma Jian explained: "It is precisely because of these three hundred people that I can guarantee control of the east gate of Xiangyang." As he spoke, he paused, looked at Liu Bei's calm look cautiously, and said tentatively again: "Does the lord really not want to take down this Xiangyang City?" I heard that Cao Cao had sent Cao Chun's tiger and leopard riders south. If there is no support from the city, with our current travel speed, I am afraid that it will not be long before Cao Chun catches up. That's ......."

"I will not do anything unrighteous." Liu Bei still stubbornly shook his head: "I won't capture Xiangyang City, I just hope that Liu Cong can take a break in Xiangyang City for the sake of the people." ”

"Is this possible?" Ma Jian looked at Liu Bei and felt that his lord was really a little naïve: "Liu Cong is just afraid that we will enter the city." Unless we break the city ourselves, Liu Cong will not open the door. Even if we have an internal response in Xiangyang and control the East Gate. And that kind of control can only be controlled for a while, if the lord is willing to cover up with soldiers, it's fine, if not, then you can only let the people in the city come out. It is simply a whimsical thing to want to control the city gate for a long time and let the people enter by relying only on the inner three hundred. ”

"Is it......" Liu Bei's words were low, and he looked into the distance for a long time and became silent.

Ma Tan looked at him quietly, looking at his depressed face. The water beads rippled on a white face, and I couldn't tell whether it was tears or rain.

The migration of nearly 100,000 people is definitely a disaster for the people themselves, although the migration that caused such a disaster was originally voluntary by the people, although Liu Beijun's people had already made corresponding preparations in this migration, but there are still a large number of old, weak, sick and young people who die in this migration journey every day. They are all weak, and they are all the weakest who are most vulnerable to taking their lives. In this struggle between man and heaven and earth with his will, they did not give in but lost their lives. Every day, people are quietly lost, and every day there are several relatives and friends who are mourning for their deceased relatives, but Liu Beijun's refugee team has not become smaller and smaller because someone has died, on the contrary, the team that stretches for dozens of miles is still expanding. Almost every day, many people join this army of people going south. This is not only the residents of the six counties under Liu Bei's own rule, but also the people of several counties that originally belonged to Nanyang. Those counties that originally belonged to Nannanyang were originally under the control of Liu Biao, because they were closer to Xinye, most of them had heard of Liu Bei's heroic name, at this moment Liu Biao was dead, Jingzhou was going to surrender to Cao Cao, who was known as "brutal", these people were unwilling to stay in place, and chose to follow Liu Bei, who had the name of "benevolence and righteousness", to pursue that piece of paradise that belonged to them.

Liu Beijun's team was located a little further back in the middle of the camp, while Liu Bei's own wives and children were placed further back. Since Cao Cao's pursuit had already begun, Liu Bei, who had already received the information, naturally knew that if his team continued to march at such a slow speed, they would definitely be caught up by Cao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry - the rear was definitely not a safe place, and it was foreseeable that if Cao Cao's army caught up, the rear would definitely start attacking first, but Liu Bei still made up his mind to make such an arrangement.

"If Cao Cao really wants to do something to the people, then let my Liu Bei's wife and children be the first person to die under Cao Cao's army." When his subordinates wondered why their lord did this, Liu Bei said in an unprecedented solemn tone. He had already made up his mind.

The army is safe, at least for now. Although Liu Bei himself already had the consciousness of defeat, he did not have the idea of waiting for death after all, and he used all the best cavalry in the army as a reprimand to constantly inquire about the movements of Cao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry behind. He knew that the tiger and leopard rider had come with all his might, and there was no idea of hiding traces at all, so it should be easy to check the movements of the tiger and leopard rider. In fact, he also got a lot of news because of this: "The tiger and leopard ride is still about 700 miles away from us. Well, it's almost time to reach the White River, I'm afraid they'll be looking at the river and sighing for a while. Knowing that the navy would play a great role in the next battle, Liu Bei simply ordered the looting of ships in Xinye, Anzhong, Nieyang and other places, on the one hand, to transport refugees across the river, and on the other hand, to try to delay the pursuit of Cao Cao's army again because he could not find ships. As a stoic person, he will never give up until the last hopeless moment. Although the years of calm had somewhat smoothed his edges, the fire in his heart had not subsided because of this. When the war came again, he regained the blood of his old years.

It took Liu Beijun three days to cross the Han River, because too many civilians in his army greatly slowed down his march. But fortunately, Cao Chun's tiger and leopard riders in the north also spent three days of hard work to cross the White River. Although they were few and well-trained soldiers, they were so caught up in the dilemma of having no boat on the water that they had to spend two days building a pontoon bridge for horses to walk on.

Due to the heavy rain in the past few days, the water system in Jingzhou has risen unexpectedly, which has caused great trouble for the tiger and leopard riders, who are all northerners. The last pontoon bridge was erected, but the tiger and leopard riders also lost the lives of more than a dozen soldiers, all of whom were drowned by the rolling waves in order to find out the depth of the river. As northerners, they really can't figure out the depth of this southern river.

Time is life for Liu Beijun. After crossing the Han River, after two days of arduous trekking, Liu Beijun's people finally saw the tall and majestic cyan city wall of Xiangyang City. It is a bluestone brick wall that is unique to the south. Because of the rain in the south, it is impossible for the walls here to be made of mud.

The army, made up of refugees, stopped at the north gate of Xiangyang City. Faced with the closed city gates and the tense atmosphere of arrows pulling out at the head of the city, the people under the city did not dare to take a breath. They were all extremely tired, and they thought that they could rest well for a while when they came here, and although they could not say that they had settled down, it should be okay to go into the city to rest. However, the appearance of the city as if they were facing a great enemy undoubtedly made their already tired hearts completely cool. The people under the city could clearly see that the people at the head of the city did not seem to want to let their group in.

The crowd was agitated by this. They turned their disappointment into dissatisfaction and pointed to the group of people at the head of the city. Gradually, they pressed down on the city. That group of black oppressive past, although they didn't have any weapons in their hands, and they were just cowardly people, but because there were many people in front and back, left and right, it was quite imposing to suddenly rush up like this.

In the face of such momentum, the people in the city became more and more frightened. The soldiers had stunned expressions on their faces, they didn't know why there were so many people surrounded by the city, and they didn't know where they were going. They were just standing here under the orders of the general's superiors, and they also heard the news that Liu Beijun was going south to launch an attack on their Xiangyang City, and their swords were unsheathed. The only thing they knew was that, and they were completely unaware of the deeper things, such as that Jingzhou was already planning to surrender to Cao Cao, and that Liu Bei had brought tens of thousands of civilians with him in his army to the south. This is the "news control" imposed on them by the top level in Jingzhou. In peacetime, such an official system would undoubtedly help stabilize their military morale, but at this moment, they were a little helpless in the face of the swarming people. They also came out of the people of Jingzhou to serve as soldiers, and they were unwilling to do anything to the people. In the face of the crowd that was constantly surrounding the city, they didn't dare to deny that there would be their own father and brother among them.

Tensions are on the verge of blowing. Although the soldiers in the city were reluctant to release their arrows from the bottom of their hearts, they reflexively opened their bows and crossbows to the people who came in. They have tightened their minds. The so-called attack is only a clarion call in their ears.

Cai Mao, Zhang Yun and others, who already knew about Liu Bei's arrival, also came to the city wall. As an uncle, Cai Mao seemed to be a little worried that his nephew would be frightened, so he took him to the castle tower. He asked Liu Cong to sit there without caring about anything, and then asked people to constantly report the situation outside. Soon, they got the news that Liu Bei had appeared.

Liu Bei appeared at the front of the crowd, and in addition to a dozen or so personal guards around him, there were only three subordinates, Chen Dao, Ma Yan, and Zhang Fei. Dressed in civilian clothes, he obviously didn't come to attack the city, but he took the three people behind him very boldly to a place less than twenty zhang away from the city wall, stood still, and shouted loudly to the city: "Liu Congxian's nephew, why don't you come out and see it?" ”

See? Liu Cong himself thought very much, after all, he was only fourteen years old, and he belonged to the time when "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers", how could he be willing to hide in the city tower like this?

However, Cai Mao held him down: "Haven't you heard? Liu Bei also had three people with him. The other two are okay to say, but this Zhang Fei is a character who was praised by Guan Yu, who was famous all over the world. As your elder, I have to think about your safety, Liu Bei and they are too close to the city wall. ”

"But somebody has to go out and answer. Even if the two countries are fighting each other, it needs to be like this, not to mention that there is no ...... between us," Liu Cong frowned. Although he was powerless to object to his uncle's arrangement for him, he was still very clever enough to learn something.

"Then leave it to me." Cai Mao asked in a package.

"That's it!" Liu Cong reluctantly agreed.

Cai Mao, who was authorized by Liu Cong, adjusted the armor on her body and came to the gap in the city wall. Although he is a military general, his strength is nothing, but his armor also shows a bit of power. At this moment, he leaned over and looked down, but he saw Liu Bei's calm and calm face.

"Liu Bei is a person who is moody and angry, stoic by nature, but he attaches great importance to feelings and is good at winning people's hearts. It's definitely better to be friends with him than to be enemies, but once you are an enemy, he is like a stinky and hard momentum in a stone pit, which is really difficult to deal with. Looking at Liu Bei under the city, Cai Mao's heart couldn't help but burst into such a sentence, which made Cai Mao's heart awe-inspiring. This is the evaluation of Liu Bei when Liu Biao was still in the past, and his original intention was to advise Cai Mao and them not to provoke Liu Bei too much.

As the lord of Jingzhou, although he is quite poor in employing people, he is very strong in knowing people, and he immediately saw that there was something wrong between Cai Mao, Zhang Yun and Liu Bei. He wanted to let go of such a mistake, let the two contain each other, thinking that his son would use it, so as to better control Jingzhou, but he didn't want his means to be worse after all, and his luck was not better, so that after his death, such a thing actually happened: first the important ministers instigated his young son to disobey his original will, and then there was a situation where Cao Cao's important ministers from the south all wanted to surrender, so all kinds of means and all kinds of concealment finally caused today's incident. Cai Mao, who wanted to take refuge in Cao Cao, looked coldly at Liu Bei who came for the people on the city tower, and a trace of cruel light flashed in his eyes from time to time.

"Are the stones in the pit smelly and hard? Today, I, Cai Mao, want to see how hard you can be with this stone. Cai Mao thought about Liu Biao's evaluation of Liu Bei, and was quite unimpressed with it in her heart. In his opinion, Liu Bei is such a defeated general, a villain who often loses his wife to others, and he doesn't have much ability, he was able to win Wancheng so quickly, and he didn't rely on his prestige? If it weren't for that, why wouldn't he dare to fight Cao Cao right now, and come here with his men and horses. "Hmph, I'm going to have to give you some color." Cai Mao thought so.

"Uncle Liu Huang, I haven't seen you for a long time. You don't protect the people in Xinye, what are you doing in my Xiangyang? And brought so many people here, don't you think of the rebellion? On the city wall, Cai Mao pretended not to know a haha, but he pretended to be crazy and stupid and put a rebellious hat on Liu Bei. He didn't know how many people around him would believe his words, but he understood that Liu Bei must not be allowed to occupy the position of righteousness, otherwise this battle would not be fought.

"Nephew Liu Congxian, why did you dedicate the land of the nine counties of Jingzhou to Cao Cao, don't you know that it is the foundation created by your father?" Liu Bei directly ignored Cai Mao's clamor at the head of the city, he didn't pay attention to Cai Mao, but continued to shout towards the city. Regarding the matter of Xiangyang, he learned the latest information from Ma Yan: it seems that the people in Xiangyang City and even the soldiers of Xiangyang did not know about the fact that their lords and ministers were going to surrender to Cao Cao. This is what Liu Bei wants to target at the moment. He tried to let those who didn't know know the truth through his loud shouts.

There was no flickering of swords and swords, no sound of drums and horns, only the two people facing each other in the city and the city shouted in their own words. It may not look like a war, but it's a real war. Because, this battle was fought with saliva and won the hearts of the people.

Regarding Liu Bei's ignorance of himself, Cai Mao seemed to be punched in the air, and he was uncomfortable for a while. He couldn't refute Liu Bei's words, because everything Liu Bei said was true. Cao Cao's army was about to arrive in a few days, and although he Cai Mao was shameless, there was no way for him to make a face of surrender when Cao Cao arrived after denying the decision to surrender here.

"Damn Liu Bei, he actually dared to talk about this." The cold sweat on Cai Mao's forehead slid down, and he secretly glanced at the sergeants around him, but he was horrified to find that their faces also had a little puzzled look on their faces.

"I can't let Liu Bei say it any more, if the matter is made public before Cao Cao arrives, God knows what will happen." Cai Mao thought in fear, looked at Liu Bei below and those who followed Liu Bei fiercely, and quickly issued an order: "Now investigate Liu Bei's conspiracy to rebel and besiege Xiangyang, it is a great rebel." Quickly fire arrows with me left and right, and shoot Liu Bei and these chaotic people to death. He shouted so loudly that one intuitively thought he was a little hysterical.

The arrow was fired. Under the sudden order of Cai Mao, the general, the soldiers in the city reflexively let go of the hand that was originally holding the bowstring. Just listen to a "grab ...... The sound of "grabbing ......" sounded, and countless arrows rained down on Liu Bei and their places like the rain curtain that had fallen from the sky a few days ago. Because it was a scatter attack, the arrow did not have any accuracy except for a general direction, and the so-called general direction completely included the people around Liu Bei.

The howls, the groans, the weepings, the angry screams all rang out after the rain of arrows fell. Because of the protection of Zhang Fei and Chen Zhi, two fierce men, Liu Bei and Ma Jian have nothing to do, but those people who are very close to Liu Bei are miserable. After the rain of arrows from the tower, few of them were still standing, except for a few lucky people who were on the edge of the rain of arrows, all of them fell without exception. Red blood flowed from beneath them, quickly staining the brown earth red. In an instant, countless people were killed and injured.

Liu Bei was unprepared for Cai Mao's sudden outburst. When that large area of energy flew into the sky, he was as stunned as the people. Although he escaped in the end because of the guards of his brother's subordinates, in the face of the corpses of the dead and wounded people around him, he did not have the excitement of escaping from the ascension in his heart. A deep sense of guilt brought tears to his eyes, and he felt that he had killed all these people around him. It was his naivety that cost so many lives.

"Damn!" He bit his lip tightly. Under the escort of Zhang Fei and Chen Zhi, he and Ma Jian retreated to the main formation of their own army, which was still about a hundred zhang away from the head of Xiangyang City, and there was no way for the bows and arrows on it to shoot here. So it's safe.

Liu Bei glanced at the city angrily, and then whispered to Ma Yan: "Young Chang, it's time for your people to act." We have to teach Cai Mao and Zhang Yun a lesson. ”

"I understand." Ma Yan nodded heavily, and then took out something from his bosom that looked like a scroll rolled up. There was a long twist on it, and he lit it with a fire breaker and held it high to the sky. After three breaths, three red flowers of light spread out across the sky. Although it flashed by like a flash in the pan, it was also clearly seen by the hundreds of thousands of people inside and outside the city. Except for those in the know such as Ma Tan and Liu Bei and some other well-intentioned people, they didn't know what was going on at all.

Cai Mao, who stayed on the city tower and had a ghost in his heart, saw this, and even wondered: "Is there a god in Liu Bei's army to help?" Obviously, he was also frightened by the sudden light.

The city and the outside of the city suddenly fell silent, and then they were immediately supported by a "support...... Support! The sound was ruined. A piece of news quickly spread from their respective tanma to Liu Bei and Cai Mao.

"What east gate was opened? Which bastard does this exactly. Cai Mao was shocked and viciously ordered: "Hurry up and let me go to the east gate, no matter what, I have to catch Liu Bei's group of insiders." Although it is not very good, decades of experience still made Cai Mao think about what happened at once: "If it weren't for the people in the city who had Liu Bei's internal response, how could the east gate be opened?" Fast...... Hurry up for me. He was so anxious that he was really afraid that Liu Bei would take this opportunity to enter the city and occupy Xiangyang by the way.

Compared with Cai Mao's anxiety, Liu Bei, who heard the news, did not show any ecstatic expression. He calmly glanced at Ma Yan beside him, then turned his head and ordered Chen Zhi and Zhang Fei: "Uncle and nephew will lead a team of archers to suppress the city defense of Xiangyang, and Yide will lead my personal guard cavalry into the city to take Liu Yan and them out of the city, this speed must be fast." The longer we stay in the city, the more trouble we get. ”

"If!" After Chen Zhi and Zhang Fei tidied up their armor, they said to Liu Bei in unison. The arduous march of more than ten days had made them extremely depressed, and now that they heard their lord give this battle order, they were not excited to laugh. They quickly turned on their horses and went off in high spirits.

Although the distance of the troops in the city is much less than that outside the city, the elite of these Jingzhou soldiers in the city is far inferior to Liu Beijun outside the city. When Cai Mao and the others hurriedly ran to the east of the city, Liu Bei's personal guards had already been led by their three generals, Zhang Fei, to gallop into the east gate with a dong dong horse - Cai Mao and they were a step slower after all.

Seeing the black-clothed, black-armored, white-faced military general riding a black horse galloping on the avenue of Xiangyang City, Cai Mao at the head of the city sighed helplessly. Liu Beijun had already entered the city, and he had no choice but to do anything about it. After all, compared with Liu Bei's troops, the defenders of Xiangyang City and Liu Bei's troops are far inferior to Liu Bei's soldiers and horses, not to mention the differences in morale and training. Since the Jiangxia rebellion at the beginning of this year, Jingzhou's military strength has always been Jiangling, 40,000 army, 70,000 navy, with a total strength of 150,000, Jingzhou army has 110,000 in Jiangling, and even Xiangyang, as the capital of Jingzhou, has only left a mere 20,000 city defense troops, which is not enough to compete with Liu Bei at the moment.

"Alas...... If you are one step slower, you will lose everything. "Cai Mao had no choice but to let his soldiers retreat to the north gate again, find Liu Cong, the Jingzhou Mu who was panicking about the changes in the city, and ask him to order all the defenders of Xiangyang City to be concentrated in the north of the city." Xiangyang City may no longer be able to hold on, we must hold on to the north of the city for a while and find an opportunity to prepare for a breakthrough. Now most of our supplies and troops in Jingzhou are in Jiangling, even if we can't hold Xiangyang, then we can immediately retreat to Jiangling to wait for Prime Minister Cao's Wang Shi, which is also a matter of not much loss for us. Cai Mao made such a plan for the current situation. Cao Cao's army, which came from the north in his hurry, has undoubtedly become the savior of his side at the moment.

"Prime Minister Cao, come quickly." The group of important ministers on the city tower who had already made up their minds to be of the same heart as Cai Mao and Zhang Yun all prayed silently in their hearts.

Unrest is taking place in the city. In fact, this is not a turmoil, at least there are certain rules for this chaos. Due to the lack of Cai Mao's resistance, Liu Beijun, who entered the city, smoothly merged with the Ma family who was responsible for picking up him, and they formed a flow of people, a flow of people galloping on the street. According to the plan that Ma Tan made for Liu Bei, the flow of people separated soon after the convergence: one of the main roads was led by Zhang Fei, but it went straight to the mansion of Liu Yan and others at a very fast speed; The other part was scattered with a bang, and a team of about twenty people ran up the streets of Manxiangyang, shouting loudly as they ran: "Is it really like surrendering from the north?" Why not tell us? Do you want to betray our people in Jingzhou as if you betrayed your uncle? ”

As Liu Bei and their intelligence learned, most people in Xiangyang did not know that Liu Cong had decided to surrender to Cao Cao, and they did not understand the behavior of Cai Mao and Zhang Yun in these days of nervous blockade of the city, let alone why Liu Beijun's men surrounded Xiangyang City today. None of them knew what was happening, and Ma Yan's plan was to let Liu Beijun's knights enter the city, and by shouting loudly, everyone in Xiangyang City would know what was happening. He is fighting for Liu Bei to win the hearts of the people in Jingzhou.

That's the best he can do. Since Liu Bei insisted on not allowing the attack on Xiangyang City, these cavalry they sent out had to return after completing their work. They had to hurry up with Liu Beijun's troops, who were going to continue south, and they could only run all over the city for Xiangyang.

On that day, most of the people around Liu Cong and Jingzhou returned to Liu Bei. Liu Bei's army to the south was further expanded.