Runan County is the largest county in Yuzhou, with 37 large and small counties under its jurisdiction, and the population of this county is more than 3 million in the prosperous years, which can even compare with the total population of a remote state. There are many mountains and many rivers in Runan, and the Huaishui that divides Yuzhou and Yangzhou originates in Runan.

Because the territory of Runan is mountainous, it is convenient for the population to hide, which is not conducive to the movement of the army, which is also the reason why the remnants of the Yellow Turban here can never be completely swept away. After Liu Bei escaped from Xuzhou from the east gate of Tancheng, with the acquiescence of Cao Cao, he passed through Peng County and Pei County from Tancheng all the way, and then entered the hinterland of Runan.

The year before last, the Chang'an Imperial Court had appointed Jin Shang, known as one of the "Jingzhao Sanxiu", as the pastor of Yuzhou, but unfortunately Jin Shang and his entourage had just entered the territory of Yuzhou, and they were blocked by the chaotic situation here.

Since Jin Shang, the situation in Yuzhou has become even more chaotic, all the officials in the county have fled cleanly, and the local people can only rely on the local wealthy families, and build large and small dock forts in the counties and townships to protect themselves.

Liu Bei was desperate at that time, so he had to bite the bullet to break into the Longtan tiger's den in Runan, but when he arrived, he found that there was actually a lot to be done here, as if he was waiting for him to govern and develop. Liu Bei found that because the officials sent by the imperial court did not dare to come, and there was no one in the local area to take the lead in organizing the people in the county and township to unite to fight against the Yellow Turbans, it caused a chaotic situation in Runan and even Yuzhou.

If you change to someone else, you may feel that it is very dangerous to stay in Runan, but Liu Bei is not an ordinary person, since he responded to the call of the imperial court and raised troops in Zhuo County to fight against the Yellow Turban Rebellion, he has been dealing with danger. There is a way to "seek wealth and danger". Liu Bei, who was born as a straw mat seller, came to this day with a ruthless spirit that is not afraid of death, so he didn't care about the power of the yellow turbans that raged in the counties in Runan, and when he first arrived, he erected a banner of "clearing out bandits and protecting the territory and the people".

Liu Bei is very politically minded, he did not write the words "clean up the yellow scarf" on his banner, but changed the concept and replaced it with "clean up the bandits", which is very particular. All the Yellow Turbans never thought they were "bandits", because they played the banner of "the sky is dead, and the yellow sky should stand". If Liu Bei was in Runan under the banner of "cleaning up the yellow turbans", then he would have to face more than a dozen large and small yellow turbans to beat him, but after he changed his concept, He Yi and Gong Du, the leaders of the yellow scarves, were embarrassed to bring their younger brothers to beat Liu Bei. Isn't this obvious, whoever wants to beat Liu Bei will be tantamount to admitting that he is a "bandit" who is harming the township, and this kind of practice of pouring dirty water on himself will not even be done by the Yellow Turban leaders.

The Yellow Turban's strength was not good enough to attack Liu Bei, who was protecting the territory and the people, just gave Liu Bei time to gain a foothold and breathe in Runan. He used the more than 2,000 veterans he brought out from Xuzhou as a team to first occupy Pingyu City, the seat of governance in Runan, and then used Pingyu as a base to connect the four county towns near Pingyu in more than a year. He appointed his subordinates Jian Yong, Liu Deran, Sun Qian, and Lü Fan as county commanders, and appointed Guan Ping, the eldest son of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Chen Zhi, and Guan Yu, as the governors of these four counties, while Liu Bei himself commanded a thousand veterans loyal to him to sit in Pingyu, and forcibly created a "revolutionary base area" with five counties in the chaotic territory of Runan.

Just when Liu Bei was lamenting the lack of soldiers and major generals under his subordinates. God also seemed to think that Liu Bei had been tossed a little too much over the years, so he showed mercy and sent a guy named Shan Fu to Liu Bei's side.

said that when Shan Fu first came to Liu Bei. Dressed as a scribe, he had a blood-stained sword hanging from his waist, and there was a murderous aura all over his body, not the bookish aura of a literati. Liu Bei is best at recognizing people, although he feels that this Shan Fu may hide his true identity, but he can also see that he is not a mediocre person, just when employing people, Liu Bei received this Shan Fu as a guest, and then secretly inspected and tested Shan Fu for a period of time, and Liu Bei was surprised to find that this Shan Fu is not simple, especially not simple.

After Shan Fu became familiar with the terrain and situation around Pingyu City, his first suggestion to Liu Bei was to build a military camp near Gepi, which was close to the river, and send the soldiers under the four county lieutenants to the camp in turn for training, and the focus of the drill was to adapt to the water warfare near the river, as well as the combat in the mountainous and jungle terrain.

Liu Bei's four county lieutenants were Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Chen Zhi and Guan Ping, and most of the soldiers under their command were given to Liu Bei after they came to Runan, and the large and small dock forts in the counties and townships gave Liu Bei a tribute in order to thank Liu Bei for protecting the territory and the people. These soldiers were not at all comparable with the more than 2,000 veterans that Liu Bei brought from Xuzhou, and they not only lacked the training to actually use various weapons, but also lacked the experience of facing the enemy in array.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are both good at training, and Chen Zhi, who Liu Bei recruited after coming to Runan, is also outstanding, and several of their leaders are responsible for training these local soldiers in Runan day and night.

After carefully observing the training of several county lieutenants, Shan Fu pointed out to Liu Bei that there are not only three large rivers around Pingyu, Yingshui, Lishui and Rushui, but also more than a dozen smaller rivers, and the Yellow Turban forces entrenched in the nearby mountains come and go freely through these rivers, so Liu Bei's soldiers must be familiar with fighting in the terrain conditions near the rivers, as well as fighting in the mountains and jungles.

As soon as the connoisseur makes a move, he will know if there is one. Liu Bei has led the troops to fight for more than ten years, and he is extremely familiar with the army, so he naturally heard that Shan Fu's suggestion was definitely to the point, and it was the key to getting out of the current bottleneck situation. In order to further test Shan Fu, Liu Bei appointed Shan Fu as the military commander in the Gepi barracks, and was fully responsible for the rotation training of soldiers in each county.

At first, Guan Yu and Zhang Feiting looked down on Shan Fu, who was white and clean and dressed as a scholar, and felt that Shan Fu was a guy who could only talk on paper, but when these two people took their soldiers into Ge Pi's military camp and had face-to-face contact with Shan Fu, they found that the white-faced scholar who liked to hang a long sword on his waist actually had real skills.

Not to mention anything else, in terms of fencing alone, Zhang Fei, who was born as a martial madman, felt that his swordsmanship might not be better than Shan Fu's. Of course, this is a competition limited to the use of a long sword, not the kind of rushing with a prancing horse and a spear on top of the battle array. Even so. Being able to make a super-first-class martial artist like Zhang Fei look at him differently is enough to prove that Shan Fu's swordsmanship is indeed extraordinary.

Guan Yu also saw some extraordinary features from Shan Fu in the actual process of training soldiers, such as Shan Fu is very good at boosting morale, and only a few simple words can mobilize the enthusiasm of soldiers for training. For another example, Shan Fu can endure hardships, can put down the shelf of a scholar, and sweat and practice with the soldiers. Guan Yu was originally from a humble background, and the most annoying thing was that the reader was boastful with a high shelf, and he was able to speak in vain. But Shan Fu subverted Guan Yu's perception of scholars.

Shan Fu was able to gain the recognition of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in a short period of time, which made Liu Bei pay more attention to him. After the soldiers from all counties completed their training in Gepi, Shan Fu put forward a second suggestion to Liu Bei, that is, to dispatch soldiers to take action against the small group of yellow turbans near Pingyu, so that they could not only train the soldiers, but also accumulate wealth and gain more popularity.

Liu Bei also felt that it was time to expand the territory outward, so he worshipped Shan Fu as a military advisor. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were the deputy generals of the left and right, and they personally commanded 5,000 soldiers to clear Liu Pi and Gong Du who were entrenched in the area of Haoyang and Wufang.

Before sending troops, Shan Fu suggested to Liu Bei that the momentum should be made big enough. But don't rush to push the troops close to Maoyang, wait until Liu Bi and Gong are scared, and then send people to persuade them to surrender, maybe they can not hurt a single soldier. can get the effect of Liu Bi and Gong Du.

Liu Bei felt that Shan Fu's proposal was a bit whimsical, and although Liu Bi and Gong Du were not strong enough to be strong and strong, they had nearly 10,000 people under their command. How could he have defected with just his own deterrence and intimidation? However, Shan Fu's suggestion was not to let Liu Bei take risks, although the possibility of success was very small, but trying it would be a delay of more than ten days, so Liu Bei finally adopted Shan Fu's suggestion and acted according to Shan Fu's plan.

After all the foreshadowing was completed, Shan Fulai asked Liu Bei to resign, saying that he was willing to go to Haoyang alone to persuade Liu Bi and Gong Du, Liu Bei pretended not to allow it, took Shan Fu's hand and said a lot of words that he didn't want to see Shan Fu risking his life, which moved Shan Fu almost to tears. Shan Fu looked resolute, and said to Liu Bei that the idea was made by himself, so naturally he couldn't send others to take risks, so this trip to Haoyang to persuade Liu Bi and Gong Du to surrender, even if there was a sea of swords and fires in front of him, he had to go.

Liu Bei's dissuasion was fruitless, and after the last day, he sent Shan Fu onto the boat with tears on the east bank of Rushui, and watched Shan Fu cross the river to Haoyang.

Three days later, Shan Fu returned to Liu Bei's camp with a strong man with a beard and a swarthy face. After the black-cheeked man saw Liu Bei, he fell to his knees, and then verbally pleaded guilty to Liu Bei.

"The despicable Liu Pi, who has admired the general for a long time, has come to defect, and hopes that the general will take him in!"

It turned out that the person who bowed on this earth was Liu Pi, and this time he actually listened to Shan Fu's persuasion and came alone to show his loyalty to Liu Bei!

Liu Bei was overjoyed, and hurriedly helped Liu Pi up with both hands, and since then he has been accepted as a subordinate. What surprised Liu Bei even more was that Liu Bi just came to make a front stop, and when Gong Du, who stayed behind, learned that Liu Bei was really willing to take in the two brothers, he led nearly 10,000 of his men entrenched in Wufang and Haoyang to cross Rushui and come to Liu Bei together.

After this incident, Shan Fu completely established his position in Liu Bei's camp, Liu Bei was in the wind for Liu Bi and Gong Du, and praised Shan Fu at the banquet as his "ovary", it seems that this was originally said by Cao Heizi to Wang Zuoxunyu?

Things in the world are sometimes incomprehensible. In the time and space in Liu He's memory, Liu Bi and Gong Du, the leaders of the Yellow Turban in Runan, defected to Liu Bei, and when Liu Pi led the army led by Cao Cao's troops, in order to cover Liu Bei's safe retreat to Jingzhou, he resolutely stayed behind, and was killed by Gao Ran. And Gong Du was also extremely loyal after following Liu Bei, and was later killed by Cao Cao's subordinate Cai Yang.

In this time and space, because Lao Cao did not have the opportunity to turn against Yuan Shao, it was impossible for him to take Yuan Shao's general Gao Ran for his own use, but he would send more powerful generals than Gao Ran to Runan to deal with Liu Bei. (To be continued......)