At the same time that Cao Cao took Qingzhou, Jingzhou, further south, was also quietly changing.

This Central Plains war can be said to be a move to the whole body, originally just Ao Lie and Cao Cao joined forces to wrestle with Yuan Shao, but I didn't expect that after Ao Lie killed Yuan Xi, it caused Yuan Shao's madness, and the resulting chaos led to a collective rebellion in Liangzhou to the west, Chang'an fell, and Luoyang was in a precarious situation; To the east, the battle for Qingzhou broke out, causing half of Qingzhou to change hands and fall into the hands of Cao Cao; To the south, Liu Bei, who was entrenched in Xinye, got a great opportunity.

At the beginning of the Central Plains War, Liu Bei and Pang Tongyi discussed the strategy of fishing in troubled waters, Liu Bei wanted to use the contradiction between Liu Biao's two sons to make a big fuss and take the opportunity to occupy Jingzhou. Liu Biao's eldest son Liu Qi was guarding Jiangxia, which was the place where Huang Zu used to guard, and half of Jingzhou's money and grain were in Jiangxia. Originally, Jingzhou is a place with a very heavy literary style, which can be seen from the Jingxiang area, so Liu Qi is equivalent to the support of Wenchen, mastering the direction of public opinion and some things at the political level in Jingzhou.

And Liu Biao's second son Liu Cong, who has just turned fourteen years old, is barely an adult, and he has no ability to compete for Liu Qi for the son, but Liu Cong's biological mother, Mrs. Cai, is a member of the Cai clan. As mentioned above, Liu Biao came to Jingzhou alone, relying on several major scholars such as Kuai, Huang, and Cai, which supported the situation of Jingxiang's nine counties, and Mrs. Cai, as a member of the Cai family, naturally hoped that Liu Cong would serve as the future pastor of Jingzhou. And Mrs. Cai's point of view is also the point of view of the entire Cai family. Therefore, the Cai family is the power to support Liu Cong. In Jingzhou, Cai Mao, the contemporary patriarch of the Cai family, controls all the water armies in Jingzhou, and the proportion of the Jingzhou water army in all the armies in Jingzhou is as high as an astonishing one-third! In other words, Cai Mao is in charge of almost one-third of Jingzhou's soldiers and horses, and at a certain level, Cai Mao's attitude towards the Jingzhou military is his attitude. plays a decisive role.

Liu Bei was keenly aware of this, so he decided to follow Pang Tong's plan to provoke the contradiction between Liu Qi, who controlled the civilian system, and Liu Cong, who influenced the attitude of the military, and profited from it.

Liu Bei's insight is very thorough, or Pang Tong's plan is very thorough. It can also be said that the contradictions in the dispute between the princes of Jingzhou are too sharp, in short. Liu Qi really did what Liu Bei and Pang Tong expected. After hearing the news of Liu Biao's death, he didn't distinguish between truth and falsehood, and immediately rushed back to Xiangyang with the men and horses stationed in Jiangxia. This is also expected by Liu Bei, Jingxiang is a place where there are many famous people. It is precisely because the people of Jingxiang have long valued literature over military force that the customs and customs of some literati have deeply influenced the local people. Liu Qi was also deeply affected by this atmosphere, and it was natural that he would go to Xiangyang to mourn and mourn for his "dead" father.

When Liu Qi and Liu Pan rushed to Xiangyang with 20,000 Jiangxia troops, Cai Mao, who received the news early, took the opportunity to slander Liu Qi and create rumors that Liu Qi supported the army and wanted to kill his father and seize power. At this time, Liu Biao was sick, and under the cover of Cai Mao's left and right, he didn't know anything about the outside world, and he didn't know that his two sons had started a life-and-death battle with the help of their respective supporters.

Under the banner of righteousness, Cai Mao mobilized people and horses to encircle and suppress Liu Qi's department, Liu Qi was originally here to mourn, naturally it was impossible to bring a lot of grain and grass, less than half a month, the grain and grass in the army had been exhausted, Cai Mao took the opportunity to cut off Liu Qi's grain road, and wanted to trap Liu Qi alive under Xiangyang City.

At the critical moment, Liu Bei stood up awe-inspiringly, accusing Cai Mao of overstepping his bounds and concealing Liu Biao's private soldiers, and accusing Cai Mao of targeting his eldest son Liu Qi at the direction of his soldiers. In order to save Liu Biao's bloodline and protect Liu Qi, Liu Bei could only be "forced" to send troops to participate in the internal struggle in Jingzhou, stand firmly by Liu Qi's side, and help him get out of the predicament. After getting Liu Bei's help, the literati breath in Liu Qi's personality burst out again, and he whimsically wanted to take Xiangyang and completely eradicate the Cai clan, which was a big problem in Jingzhou.

Regarding Liu Qi's decision, Liu Bei only symbolically dissuaded him, and then made his position clear and was willing to obey Liu Qi's dispatch. So, Liu Qi integrated the troops and transported a large amount of grain and grass from Jiangxia, preparing to take Xiangyang in one fell swoop. When Liu Qi was secretly raising grain and grass, an explosive news came from Jiangdong. Yangzhou's Musun Ce in Jiangdong was assassinated by more than a dozen Xu Gong guests when he was out hunting! Now Jiangdong is in chaos, and Sun Ce's younger brother Sun Quan temporarily takes charge of all the affairs of Jiangdong, and the whole Jiangdong is hanging filial piety and mourning.

After getting this news, Liu Qi had no worries, and thought that Jiangdong would not be able to start a war in the short term, so he moved almost all the soldiers, horses, grains and grass in the entire Jiangxia for the civil war with Liu Cong. Even Liu Bei secretly shouted to God to help me after hearing the news, and his heart was full of joy. Without Sun Ce's ties, Liu Bei felt that his occupation of Jingzhou would become smoother. Only Pang Tong was faintly worried, frowning and looking to the east every day, often whispering to himself in disbelief: "That tiger in Jiangdong died so easily?" It shouldn't be......" However, no one can explain Pang Tong's question, the people of Jiangdong are all dressed in linen and filial piety, this is an indisputable fact, in the Han Dynasty, no one would joke about this kind of thing.

Pang Tong is limited by the thinking of this era, but Sun Ce will not! Don't forget, Sun Ce is Ao Lie's chief disciple, and he has left too many marks on Sun Ce's body, and the ideas that Ao Lie brought from later generations have also had a huge impact on Sun Ce. Sun Ce's assassination is real, but he didn't die, not even slightly injured, the whole people Dai Xiao, it was just a strategy set by Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, the purpose was to paralyze Liu Bei and Liu Qi, and take the opportunity to occupy Jiangxia County in Jingzhou.

The hand of time goes back a few days. Three Xu Gong guests and more than a dozen well-trained killers, under the instruction of Guo Jia, secretly infiltrated Jiangdong, they spent two days to find out the law of Sun Ce's actions, in Sun Ce's favorite hunting place, set a trap, and then waited for Sun Ce's arrival nearby.

Just one day later, Sun Ce, as usual, came to the hunting ground with a team of men and horses with light clothing. In the hunting, Sun Ce was very interested, relying on his horse to gallop back and forth, shooting a lot of game. Later, Sun Ce gradually broke away from the team, led the front alone, and threw the men and horses behind him farther and farther. When Sun Ce rode his horse to the trap set up by the killers, the extremely psychic black horse suddenly stopped and let out a burst of neighing to warn Sun Ce. Sun Ce suddenly had doubts in his heart, turned over and dismounted to check the surrounding environment. The killers who had been lurking here for a long time saw that Sun Ce only had a strong bow in his hand and no other weapons, so they appeared from the hiding place and killed Sun Ce with a steel knife in his hand.

After Sun Ce killed two assassins with his bare hands, he was surrounded by more than a dozen assassins in the core, the form was very dangerous, at the moment of crisis, Ao Lie's words flashed in Sun Ce's mind, Sun Ce shouted, lowered himself and pulled out the Cold Moon Blade from his boots, relying on the sharpness of the Cold Moon Blade, and launched a desperate fight with the assassins. After killing several assassins one after another, Cheng Pu rushed over with his men and horses, and hurriedly ordered his subordinates to chase and intercept the assassins, and more than a dozen assassins were all killed on the spot, and none of them could escape alive.

After returning to the state capital, Sun Ce suddenly had a plan in his heart, and after careful planning with Zhou Yu, he decided to cheat to death and paralyze the people in Jingzhou. In order to be true, except for Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu and Sun Quan, the rest of the people didn't know about it. Later, when the news of the Liangzhou rebellion came, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu decided to take the opportunity to make a big move, leaving a strong mark belonging to the Jiangdong soldiers in this Central Plains War that will be passed on to future generations.

Under Sun Ce's secret order, Zhou Yu temporarily served as the governor of Jiangdong's soldiers and horses, responsible for mobilizing all Jiangdong troops. Zhou Yu made a deployment, ordered Lu Meng, Ding Feng and other rookies to prepare for the war, and when the civil war in Jingzhou was together, he led the army to the west, secretly captured Jiangxia, and extended Jiangdong's tentacles into Jingzhou, also to avenge the death of Sun Jian; On the other hand, Zhou Yu pretended to have a dispute with Sun Quan, Sun Quan was dissatisfied with Sun Ce's will, and had doubts about Zhou Yu's appointment as the governor of the capital, forcing Zhou Yu to be unable to accommodate himself in Jiangdong, and took Zhou Tai, Xu Sheng, Chen Wu, Jiang Qin and other Mesozoic generals to lead 20,000 sailors to Youzhou by sea, preparing to take refuge in Ao Lie, but in fact he was ready to help Zhuge Liang who stayed in the river to resist Yuan Shao; As for veterans such as Cheng Pu and Huang Gai, they stayed by Sun Quan's side on the grounds that they couldn't bear to turn their backs on Jiangdong, in fact, in order to stabilize the overall situation and assist Sun Quan in guarding Jiangdong.

Zhou Yu's arrangements were extremely meticulous, and he made accurate transfers according to the wishes of generals of all ages. Cheng Pu and other veterans have experienced the favor of Sun Jian and Sun Ce's father and son, and they will not deviate from Sun Quan, so they stay in Jiangdong; The Mesozoic generals led by Zhou Yu are not as loyal to the Sun family as the veterans, and it is normal for people to run away in a negative mood, and it is a matter of course to switch to Ao Lie, and no one can see the clues; As for Lu Meng, Ding Feng and other rookies, not to mention in the eyes of other princes, even in Jiangdong, they are not famous now because they are not very old, but not being famous does not mean that they have no strength, Lu Meng and Ding Fengke are both famous generals in Jiangdong later, and their ability to lead troops to fight is not weak, and it is appropriate to use these young generals who have not yet become famous to secretly attack Jiangxia.

Zhou Yu's entire plan has a name, which is called Hiding from the Sky and Crossing the Sea. With Sun Ce's "death" as the inducement, he deliberately created contradictions within Jiangdong, and the troops were divided into three routes, spanning the three regions of Jingxiang, Jiangdong and Hebei, and even the resourceful Pang Tong was concealed, and he failed to detect Zhou Yu's strategy at all. This is not to blame Pang Tong, who would have thought that Sun Ce was cheated to death? And the arrangements made by Zhou Yu, whether from the perspective of military secrets, the concept of war deployment, or even the reasonable response to various generals, have been achieved to the extreme and flawlessly, which is a strategy to hide from the sky and cross the sea. (To be continued......)