"Is the Cao thief really in the Dingtao camp? Did you see it with your own eyes? Or is it hearsay, or maybe the thief sent someone to talk to you? ”

"My lord, the villain saw Cao Ying's thief with his own eyes, and said a few words to him, the last time the three armies of Changyi encircled and suppressed Lu Wenhou, the villain had seen Cao Thief, he was right, Cao Thief also told the villain, saying that it is okay to exchange hostages, as long as the lord you lead the army to withdraw to Xuzhou, the hostage matter can sit down and talk slowly."

After listening to Song Kai's answer, Deputy Director Tao, who had a glimmer of hope, was completely disappointed, and Liu Ye and Chen Ying next to him also had helpless expressions, only Jia Lao Poison remained silent, his eyes flashed with a deceitful light, and he didn't know what he was thinking. After a long time, Deputy Director Tao said helplessly: "I didn't expect that the thief Cao really came, this time our situation is embarrassing, if we fight, we are not sure of winning, and if we win, we will work for others, and we will retreat immediately, and there is no way for Lord Yuezhang to explain ......." ”

"Lord, why don't you follow Yuan Shao's Liyang team, with deep ditches and high bases, holding each other without fighting?" Chen Ying suggested: "Although our army may not be able to win the Cao thief in the decisive battle at present, it is not a big problem to protect itself by virtue of fortifications, as long as the Cao thief is delayed for a period of time, Yuan Shao will see that the northern line of the Cao thief is empty, and he will send troops." ”

"No!" Deputy Director Tao, who has a valuable character, shook his head categorically and said, "The purpose of our army's dispatch is to lure Cao Yuan's two armies into a decisive battle, not to contain Cao Thief on the southern front, nor to completely weaken Cao Thief, so that he cannot compete with Yuan Shao. It is not in the interests of our Xuzhou that Cao Thief is down now, and only by letting Cao Thief and Yuan Shao lose both sides can we get the maximum benefit. ”

Chen Ying closed his mouth, but Jia Lao Poison on the side suddenly opened his mouth and asked Song Kai, a diplomatic liar in Xuzhou: "Mr. Bei'an, in the Cao military camp, in addition to seeing Cao Ying himself, you also saw those famous generals and famous strategists of the Cao army?" ”

"This ......." Song Kai was a little embarrassed, and replied after a little recollection: "Cao Thief is not a villain who is received in public, so the villain has not seen many Cao Army strategists and generals, the Cao Army general who first came forward to meet the villain claimed to be surnamed Wang Mingzhong, and later when Cao Thief met with the villain, this Wang Zhong was also present, in addition, there was only the former Yanzhou Assassin Liu Dai, Mao Jue Mao Xiaoxian, who came to our army camp last time, and in addition, the villain has never seen other Cao army generals." ”

"Liu Dai? Wang Zhong? Deputy Director Tao's eyes lit up, and he shouted in unison with Jia Lao's poison: "Quick! Introduce the details of the meeting with Cao Thief, the more detailed the better! ”

"No."

Song Kai inexplicably agreed, and after carefully recalling the situation at the time, he carefully introduced the details with Boss Cao, saying that after he arrived at the camp of the Cao army in Dingtao, Boss Cao did not immediately meet him because of his busy military affairs, but first sent Zhonglang General Wang Zhong to receive him, and only took the time to see him after it was dark, and he sent himself out of the account and left without saying a few words. Hearing Song Kai's introduction, Jia Lao Poison was immediately full of joy, and hurriedly asked: "Mr. Bei'an, when you met Cao Ying, how was the light in the tent?" ”

"How's the light in the tent? This....... ”

Song Kai was about to recall, but Deputy Director Tao replied for Song Kai with a smile: "Mr. Wenhe doesn't need to ask, I bet that there must have been few lights in the big tent at that time, and I could only barely see people's faces, but I definitely couldn't really see the facial features." ”

"How does the lord know this?" Song Kai exclaimed stupidly, "There were indeed not many lights in the Cao thief's tent at that time, how did the lord know?" ”

Deputy Director Tao and Jia Lao Poison both laughed, Liu Ye also laughed, and even the more kind-hearted Chen Ying thought about it a little, and laughed along, laughing so much that Song Kai was confused, and when he opened his mouth to inquire about the reason, Deputy Director Tao waved his hand and said: "This time the messenger did a good job, go down and rest, by the way, bring an order to the herald outside the tent, and let the herald rush to see Chen." ”

Song Kai inexplicably took the order and left, and after a while, Chen Zhi, the general of Xuzhou who received the order, hurriedly came to the big tent, saluted Deputy Director Tao and asked: "The lord has a meeting, I don't know what to send?" ”

"Uncle Zhi, with your three thousand elite soldiers, go to Dingtao to meet the Cao thief reinforcements, and you must win and return." Deputy Director Tao ordered straight to the point.

"What?!" No matter how bold Chen Zhi was, he was also taken aback by Deputy Director Tao's order, and exclaimed: "Lord forgive me, please ask General Rong?" The lord only has 3,000 soldiers and horses with the last general, how can he defeat the main force of 30,000 Cao troops led by Cao Thief himself? ”

"Lord, it's too risky, isn't it?" Liu Ye was also a little worried, and said: "Although the Cao Ying that Song Kai saw is likely to be a fake, if our analysis is wrong, wouldn't it harm General Shuzhi's 3,000 soldiers and horses?" ”

"Cao thief is definitely not in Dingtao!" There was a powerful spy named Luo Guanzhong, deputy director Tao, shook his head categorically, beckoned Chen Zhi to the front, and whispered an explanation in Chen Zhi's ear.

…………………… Dingtao Cao Jun of course also has eyeliner in Changyi to monitor the Xuzhou army, when receiving the news that the Xuzhou army is dividing troops to the west, Liu Dai and Wang Zhong, the two generals of eighteen kinds of martial arts, suddenly panicked, until it was confirmed that the enemy could not be more than 3,000 infantry, the two generals of Liu Wang breathed a sigh of relief, but Mao Jue was very vigilant about this, and warned: "The Tao thief's suspicion has not disappeared, this time the troops must be to test the reality of our army, especially to find out that the prime minister is in our army, and our army is mostly a second-line auxiliary soldier who is indiscriminate. If the pottery thief detects the truth, our army will be suspended! ”

"What then?" Liu Dai asked, "How about closing the village?" As long as we don't fight, the pottery thief team will have no way to know our reality. ”

"Never!" Mao Jue hurriedly shook his head and said: "We must not close the village and stick to it, otherwise, the pottery thief will know that the prime minister is not here, so he can only go out of the village to face the battle, and fight back against the temptation of the pottery thief. ”

After finishing speaking, looking at the two generals Liu Dai and Wang Zhong who had a difficult face, Mao Jue could only helplessly supplement and cheer up: "The two generals can rest assured, there are not many elite soldiers under the command of the pottery thief, and they will never dare to take the risk of the first-line main force. ”

Listening to Mao Jue's words, Liu Dai and Wang Zhong, the two generals, were somewhat relieved, but you pushed me to let me not dare to lead the second-line army out of the camp to take risks, and finally Mao Jue proposed to draw lots, which was selected by casting lots by General Wang Zhong to lead the army to meet the battle, and General Wang Zhong, who was not lucky, was forced to be helpless, and he could only be a tall man in the group of dwarves, and it took a lot of effort to pick out some Tunqu teams that could barely go to the battlefield and barely be able to see the weapons and equipment. Nervously waiting for the results.

By the way, let's also introduce the situation of this general Wang Zhong, the heroic and invincible general Wang Zhong is a person who helps the wind, has been a pavilion chief, and once fed on the living during the famine in Guanzhong, so he left a great reputation, and later put together thousands of soldiers to defect to Cao Boss, Cao Boss saw that General Wang Zhong brought his own dry food, so he sealed General Wang Zhong a position of lieutenant general. In addition, General Wang Zhong also likes to tie the skull of the dead to the neck of the war horse, in order to express his bravery and fierceness, but the martial arts are ......, and there is not much to say about hurting feelings, in short, although it is not as good as the first-class generals under the command of Cao Laoda, it is also much stronger than ordinary soldiers.

Gossip far away, back to business, riding a war horse with a skull around his neck out of the camp ten miles, General Wang Zhong's team bumped into the Xuzhou Chen team from afar, General Wang Zhong did not dare to slack off, quickly ordered the team to line up on the snow, Chen to the side did not know the reality of General Wang Zhong, did not dare to make a surprise attack at will, so he also chose to let the soldiers and horses line up. After a while, the two armies faced each other, and General Wang Zhong shot his horse out of the battle, and shouted in front of the battle: "The Zhonglang general Wang Zhong under the command of Prime Minister Cao Cheng of the Han Dynasty is here, who dares to come and send him to death?" ”

On the side of the Xuzhou army, Chen Zhi of the white horse and silver spear also came out of the formation, came to the front of the battle with a spear, and shouted: "I am Chen Zhi of Xuzhou, I have something to bring to Prime Minister Cao Cheng on the order of the lord, please come out and answer Prime Minister Cao!" ”

"Chen? Isn't Xu Chu, the number one warrior in Xuzhou? General Wang Zhong quietly breathed a sigh of relief, and pretended to laugh and said, "You are a nobody, the prime minister is willing to see you easily?" Hurry up and go back and tell Tao Ying the thief that he will lead his soldiers and horses to his death! ”

"As the lord said, Cao Thief really refused to show up in public."

Chen Zhi was also secretly happy in his heart, and then Chen Zhi stopped talking, and took Wang Zhong directly with a gun, General Wang Zhong bullied Chen to a white face, looking like a weak scholar, so he also shouted to cheer himself up, patted the horse and raised the gun and rushed straight to Chen Dao, the people had not met, the gun had not yet been pierced, and the roar like a gong had already resounded through the battlefield of the two armies, "Piff, suffer death————! ”

General Wang Zhong's tail note has not been finished, "whew" a wind sound, Chen Zhi's hand of the steel gun has been extremely fast in front of the piercing, General Wang Zhong was shocked, hurriedly raised the gun to the rack, hurriedly messed up, finally blocked Chen Zhi's shot, forced Chen Zhi to the right and his wrong horse, Chen Zhi couldn't help but smile, said: "It's a bit of a skill, but it's ......." ”

Before the words fell, Chen Zhi suddenly smashed the gun backwards with one hand, and smashed General Wang Zhong's vest with the tail of the gun, General Wang Zhong was embarrassed to dodge again, the tail of the gun had hit the right rib of the back, the bones were crisp, and the back rib was broken on the spot, so painful that General Wang Zhong screamed and fled with a horse, Chen Zhi chased after the horse, and stabbed the buttocks of General Wang Zhong's war horse with a spear, and the war horse stood up in pain, Chen Zhi reached out with his left hand, grabbed the armor rope behind Wang Zhong, pulled off the war horse alive, and dragged his team to the front of the battle. Several Xuzhou soldiers had already rushed up and tied up the poor General Wang Zhong.

Seeing that General Wang Zhong was captured by Chen Zhisheng only one together, the Cao army team composed of the second-line auxiliary soldiers was suddenly in chaos, Chen Zhi decisively ordered the pursuit, three thousand Xuzhou elite soldiers cheered and rushed up, killing the enemy three times their own, and the Cao army auxiliaries who were basically doing coolies in ordinary times also completely collapsed, scrambling to scatter and flee, and the Xuzhou team was reluctant to chase the enemy of the brigade, chopping melons and vegetables to slash and kill as much as they wanted, and killed the Cao army to the point that people were turned over on their backs, and the corpses were all over the field, and a little bit came out of the vicious atmosphere of the Cao army slaughtering more than 20 cities in Xuzhou five years ago.

There were cavalry Cao soldiers who fled back to their own camp first, and reported the news that Wang Zhong was captured alive by the Xuzhou army in the fighting generals, and after hearing the news, poor General Liu Dai and Mr. Mao Jue also turned pale together - it was nothing to lose a battle, but General Wang Zhong, who knew that the Dingtao Cao army was captured alive by the Xuzhou army, as long as Wang Zhong opened his mouth, all the circumstances of the Dingtao Cao army were all exposed!

No matter how pale the little face is, it is useless, this will be to kill General Liu Dai, and General Liu Dai, who is three points sparser than General Wang Zhong in eighteen martial arts, did not dare to lead the army out of the camp to save his companions, so he could only quickly order the whole battalion to be on guard, relying on the previously built camp fortifications to strictly defend it, and simply ordered the camp gate to be closed, refusing to accept his own defeated soldiers back to the camp, lest the crowd of defeated soldiers overwhelm the camp gate, giving the Xuzhou army the opportunity to rush into his own camp to kill people and set fire.

In this way, it is natural to suffer the poor Cao army defeated soldiers, and finally escaped from the battlefield back to the camp but was rejected, forced close to the camp gate and was shot back by their own bows and arrows, and the Xuzhou army behind was in hot pursuit, cutting the backward Cao army soldiers one after another into pieces, the poor Cao army defeated soldiers had no way to go to the sky, no way to go to the ground, even if they cried bitterly, they could not escape back to the camp to save their lives, helplessly, these Cao army defeated soldiers could only flee to a relatively safe open area, Chen Zhi decisively divided a thousand people to pursue, Break into pieces and slash and kill the defeated enemy who can catch up with them in units of fifty people, desperately expanding the results and gains, while the main force is in front of Cao's camp to monitor and prevent Cao's army from raiding out of the camp.

After killing the defeated soldiers of the Cao army in front of the Cao army camp, seeing that there was still no team in the Cao army camp that dared to come out to meet the rescue, Chen Zhi finally believed in the judgment that Cao Boss was not in the Dingtao camp. In the end, Mao Jue is also a strategist who has followed Boss Cao for many years, although he is a literati and courageous, he is obviously stronger than Liu Dai, Wang Zhong and others, and he really walked out of the camp gate alone and answered Chen Zhi before the battle.

"Mr. Xiaoxian, my lord has something to bring to you, please bring it to Prime Minister Cao." Chen Zhi said to Mao Yu very politely: "Please Mr. Xiaoxian return to Prime Minister Cao, in the future, I will play less in my father-in-law's set of virtual and real, virtual is real, real is virtual, this hand may be useful to others, but in front of my father-in-law to play such tricks, it is asking for hardship." ”

Mao Jue's face was expressionless, and after a long time, he bowed his hand to Chen Zhi and said: "Thank you for the general's guidance, Jue will definitely bring the words of the envoy to the prime minister, and ask the prime minister to decide." ”

"I'm tired." Chen Zhi politely thanked him, and said loudly: "There are a few more words, the last general must explain to Mr. alone, and Mr. doesn't mind that the last general will come forward and talk to Mr. closely, right?" The last general can guarantee that he will never take the opportunity to hurt or capture Mr. ”

"It's okay, I'll do it myself." Mao Jue agreed and strode forward towards Chen Dao, and said without fear: "What Tao Envoy Jun says in public has always been a promise, General Shu Zhi is Tao Envoy Jun's love general, and Jie can trust the general." ”

Seeing that the unarmed Mao Jue dared to walk to his thousands of teams alone, Chen Zhi was also a little impressed, so he also stepped forward and met Mao Jue in the middle of the battlefield. After getting closer, Chen Zhi leaned down and whispered in Mao Jue's ear: "These words, please Mr. must truthfully convey to Prime Minister Cao Cheng - the lord said the truth, if the prime minister wants my Xuzhou army to withdraw, or even form an alliance with my Xuzhou army to join forces to fight against Yuan, these can be discussed, but my lord has one condition." ”

"On what terms?" Mao Jue hurriedly asked.

"The lord didn't say anything."

Chen Zhi's answer made Mao Jue dumbfounded on the spot, and also made Mao Jue ask suspiciously: "Tao Envoy Jun does not explain the details of the conditions, how can the prime minister know what the envoy wants?" ”

"The lord said the truth, the prime minister knows what my lord wants." Chen Zhi replied truthfully: "My father-in-law also said that not only did the prime minister know what he wanted for a long time, but Mr. Xun Yu, Xun You, Guo Jia and Cheng Yu actually knew what my father-in-law wanted, but they were reluctant to give it." So Mr. only needs to bring the original words of my lord to Prime Minister Cao, and the prime minister will understand. ”

After finishing speaking, Chen Zhi bowed his hand to Mao Jue, then turned his horse's head and returned to the team, led his own team and left, and went straight to the Changyi camp of the Xuzhou army, leaving Mao Jue in the same place confused, "The truce and alliance conditions that the pottery thief wants, the lord has long known?" Uncle Xun Yu and Guo Tuberculosis, they also know? Just reluctant to give? What exactly are the conditions? ”

(To be continued)