It is said that there is a place in the east of Sichuan and Shu, where mountains and rivers are sandwiched, and naturally forms a thoroughfare, and the merchants and visitors in the land of Jingxiang and Sichuan and Shu in the past dynasties can only pass from here. Since the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, it has gradually formed a pass controlled by the government, and with the migration of time, the prosperous appearance has become more and more obvious. It has evolved from a single route for merchants and civilians to a military place that must be fought for every time there is a war, and people call it Kuiguan.

Kuiguan is an ancient old pass, but it does not look old at all, because almost every once in a while the person who masters Kuiguan will renovate Kuiguan and strengthen it. Now Kuiguan is six zhang high, and the length of Kuiguan from north to south is only one hundred and twenty or thirty zhang, the east and west sides are separated by about two miles, it becomes a small county town, there are not many long-term residents, there are only the innkeepers and clerks among them, and the garrison among them, most of them are for the past businessmen, the businessmen spend a night or two here, and then go east or west.

The danger of the pass is small, and it is not possible or necessary to garrison too many defenders, although it is of great importance. Kuiguan is now under the control of Jia Long, a rebel general in Shu, and after Jia Long was driven out of Shu by Chen Lin, he fled to Yong'an and attached himself to Liu Biao, the pastor of Jingzhou. Liu Biao pondered that there was a buffer for Jia Long to be connected to Yizhou, so he took Yong'an as Jia Long's territory, and provided Jia Long with some grain and grass on a regular and irregular basis.

Jia Long abandoned Linjiang and other counties, took Kuiguan as the western front station, and garrisoned 3,000 troops to reject Chen Lin, and Jia Long survived in Yong'an. Usually the 1,000 troops in Kuiguan are already crowded, but now there are 3,000 soldiers and horses in one breath, and it is suddenly very lively, and this is the only passage into Shu in the south, so there will naturally be no shortage of merchants. Jia Long did not dare to cut off the exchanges, this is now Jia Long's largest tax location.

Three thousand soldiers and horses, two thousand on the pass, one thousand on the water, guarding the pass, with the support of Jingzhou, Jia Long put all the big ships on the defense of Chen Lin, and at the same time Jia Long knew that Yizhou was now in Jiangzhou and other places There was no formed navy, so he was at ease.

In Yong'an County, in a luxurious mansion, several dark shadows were discussing things, and it was Jia Long and several of his cronies. I saw Jia Long said: "Alas, now Yizhou has five permanent troops in Shuzhong, and even the Jinfan thieves in Linjiang have become generals who lead 3,000 soldiers and horses, guarding Jiangzhou, in case our army wants to attack Shuzhong, it is difficult, the way home, it is difficult." ”

One of them shouted, "Five armies? Then plus the county soldiers from all over the country, wouldn't there be fifty or sixty thousand horses in Shu. "The defenders in Shu were all personally appointed and agreed by Chen Lin, each of them was limited to three thousand, and Yang Ren of Lujin Pass was even more than five thousand, plus each county and each county had its own county soldiers and soldiers, so fifty or sixty thousand was indeed less. Now in the entire Han Empire, the only place where the number of soldiers is not counted is Yizhou, which is under Chen Lin, Chen Lin's calculation of soldiers and horses has always been only based on regular soldiers and horses, and the county soldiers who are mainly used for defense and maintaining law and order are not counted.

Jia Long said again: "Who says it's not, now our army only has more than 10,000 troops, and the grain and grass are still controlled by Jingzhou, if there is no big war, it's okay, if there is a big war, the grain and grass are not enough to support ten days, alas, a certain understand, Liu Jingzhou is using us to guard the western barrier of Jingzhou, I knew it was so, it was better to learn from Liu Junlang and go to Xiangyang directly alone, and directly be a Taiping Wen." Liu Yan has now faded out of people's eyes, and the whole family has found a secluded place in Jingzhou to be a laughing rich man.

Yong'an's Jia Long and others are sighing and shortening, but Kuiguan is still lively coming and going. On this day, a large merchant group of about 100 people at the east gate of Kuiguan was about to enter the city with nearly 100 trucks. The little colonel guarding the door looked at it and shouted with joy, and smiled at the soldiers next to him: "Look, the caravan of the Liu family is back again, and I have a treat tonight." Dozens of soldiers around immediately cheered, the colonel ran down the city gate with a bang, and went down to "collect taxes" in person, not happy, this Liu family's business group has run four or five times this year, can you donate less taxes every time, and today I happened to meet this small colonel on duty, and I will definitely make a lot of money from it.

Sure enough, the leader of the Liu family's caravan seemed to be the same as the junior colonel, and hurriedly came over: "General Li, are you on duty again today?" The little colonel laughed: "Fortunately, I'm on duty today, otherwise it would be Wang Ba's bastard again." "The leader of the Liu family caravan knows Wang Ba, Wang Ba is the same as this General Li, the two of them take turns to be on duty at the east gate, and it is usually drudgery on duty, but when they encounter a large merchant like the Liu family caravan, it will be different, there must be oil and water.

The leader laughed, with the face of a businessman, approached General Li, and retreated a small bag into General Li's arms: "I understand, General Li is fortunate." General Li laughed, as soon as he took the bag, his hand sank, he was stunned, and suddenly his face was like a flower, looking at the weight, I am afraid that the military salary for two years will not be so much, General Li laughed, and walked in with the leader side by side.

The leader turned around and beckoned to a caravan: "Ada, you pay taxes to the official next to you, and at the same time park the car and let the official take a good look." When General Li heard this, the tax paid by the leader was, of course, the kind of tax that was paid on official business, and the small bag just now was his own oil and water. When General Li heard this, he immediately shouted: "The Liu family's caravan is an old guest, what to check, let it go, don't miss the time." But he shouted at the officers and soldiers, and then turned back to the leader and said, "Let's stay here tonight, for it's getting late." "Talk about something that doesn't matter.

In the same way, just as the gate was about to close, a group of dozens of merchants came to the west gate of Kuiguan, and what was surprising was that what happened at the east gate was almost exactly the same as what happened at the east gate not long ago. Today, the two guards were drinking happily with their brothers in the only inn in Kuiguan at this time. Both groups are in the army, and they are on the same pass, so they naturally know each other.

General Li seemed very happy when he saw that General Zhang, the guard of the West Gate next to him, was also here, and asked, "Old Zhang, why are you so happy?" The two chatted, and after chatting, they realized that the good things of the two were the same, and the two laughed at each other, raised their wine glasses and drank again.

At this time, in the warehouse compound specially used for the storage of goods by merchants, there were three or four hundred people quietly gathered together, and a big man in the middle bowed his head and ordered something. If any of the defenders of this pass saw it, they would be surprised, aren't these people all businessmen who came in during the day, there are squads, and the Liu family today. At this time, all of these people still looked like vendors, and everyone had a big simple knife in their hands, and a pot of bows and arrows on their backs.

I saw the man in the middle say: "Every time we pass the level, we bury a little weapon here, and finally we have earned enough weapons for hundreds of people, remember, our goal tonight is to open the west gate and let the general in." One of them asked, "Vice General Shen, is the general here?" "If there is someone I know here, I will be scared to death, isn't this Shen Mi, the deputy general of Ganning's subordinates in Jiangzhou Jinfan Battalion.

Shen Mi said: "Not only the generals, but even the three generals are here, good guys, it took the three generals three months to secretly send the three thousand troops to Shu County to Jiangzhou, this time if it weren't for General Gan's struggle, this matter of grabbing the city gate would not be our turn." ”

"Three generals? That is, the governor who is not the governor, it is really strange to say that the three generals, a year ago, let us be this bird merchant. ”

Shen Mi shouted: "You know a fart, the three generals are doing this for tonight, damn, they have been soldiers for so long, and some people say that a certain is a Jinfan thief, let everyone see tonight, we are the Jinfan Battalion." All cheer up, the three generals are outside the city, if anyone makes the three generals decide that our Jinfan Camp can't work, Lao Tzu will pick him up and act. ”

At the same time, three miles outside the west gate of Kuiguan, it was just nightfall, and some late businessmen who wanted to rush to Kuiguan were imprisoned by a group of fierce officers and soldiers. In the blink of an eye, nearly 6,000 soldiers and horses rumbled out of the mountains not far away, fresh clothes and angry armor, murderous aura, so that the air couldn't help but exude the smell of blood, which was a unique smell emitted by the blood on the weapon and the coldness of the iron weapon, which made people suffocate and couldn't help the urge to kill.

In a simple small tent, two warriors smiled and toasted, one of them was arrogant, and the other was smiling, sitting steadily, unable to see the waves in his chest. The heroic general laughed and said: "Three generals, this move is powerful, the six thousand army plus Shen Mi and them, they will definitely take this ghost pass tonight, hahahahaha, a certain old man is willing to give you a cup." ”

The general who was sitting on the table still smiled: "Then I will answer General Gan's auspicious words, I will wait for the sun to rise tomorrow on Kuiguan, this cup is done, but the general is not allowed to get drunk and make mistakes." "This person is the Yizhou general Chen Lin's own brother, Chen to Chen Shuzhi.

It turned out that as early as when Jia Long fled, after Chen Lin returned to Nanzheng, Chen Zhi was left in Shu to preside over the overall situation, and Chen Zhi offered Chen Lin a plan, which was approved by Chen Lin and ordered to be implemented. Chen Zhi then selected a cadre of 300 people in the Ganning Army a year ago to serve as merchants who traveled to and from Jingzhou and Yizhou, and went to guard Kuiguan. And three months ago, Chen Zhi thought that the time had come, and Kuiguan was not in his hands, and Chen Zhi always felt that Shuzhong was not so stable. So he used Caiyang's army as a cover and secretly sent 3,000 pikemen to Jiangzhou, and Chen Zhi also secretly came to Jiangzhou five days ago.

Tonight is the time when Chen Lin is going to attack Kuiguan, merge with Ganning's 3,000 troops to attack 6,000 men and horses, almost from the mountains, without any baggage, only weapons and ten days of food, Chen to a sentence: Kuiguan can not be captured in one day, this operation is already a failure, and it is useless to stay in Kuiguan. Kuiguan can be described as a husband and a woman, plus two thousand defenders, and at the same time Jia Long behind him will support at any time, if you want to storm Kuiguan, I don't know how many people to lose, now the focus of Yizhou is not Yong'an is not in Jia Long, so Yizhou does not have too much strength on this side, only relying on Chen Zhi's raid, success is success, failure is failure, there is no second chance.

A scout rushed back: "Report to the third general, Kuiguan shouts." ”

Gan Ning jumped up, and Chen Zhi still smiled: "General Gan, it's our turn." "The fighting spirit is high.