Zhao Yun just asked Liu Yu for 3,000 soldiers, but he didn't expect Liu Yu to hand over the command of more than 10,000 soldiers and horses in Macheng to him, which made Zhao Yun moved but also a little caught off guard.

Zhao Yun thought for a moment and said, "Please forgive me for not accepting this appointment!" ”

Liu Yu was slightly surprised, and quietly waited for Zhao Yun's explanation.

"Yun Nai's eldest prince is single-handed, and the speed of promotion is already special, and the junior position is still shallow in the army, although he has a little merit, but it is not enough to lead the whole army. In Yun's opinion, the lord can wait for the arrival of Captain Xian Yu in Macheng and hand over the military power to him, which is more conducive to stimulating morale and uniting the army. ”

Zhao Yun's words were euphemistic, but the meaning was also clear. It is not that he is afraid of taking responsibility or that he feels that he is incapable, but from the perspective of stabilizing the whole army, he believes that it is more conducive to the command and movement of the troops by letting the oldest qualified person rarely lead the troops as auxiliary commanders.

Liu Yu nodded and said approvingly: "Zilong is not meritorious, not proud, this heart is really rare!" What you said is also reasonable, this official will order people to gather soldiers and horses in the city, let you select 4,000 elites from them, and go out of the city to meet Xian Yufu. ”

"My lord, there is a reluctant request for humiliation."

"Oh, Zilong doesn't hurt to be outspoken!"

"Please go and comfort the wounded soldiers first, and announce in public the compensation for the dead and wounded soldiers, and the rewards and promotions for the meritorious soldiers in battle, so as to inspire the soldiers to seek victory in battle!"

"Okay, this official will agree to everything!"

Not long after, Liu Yu brought Cheng Xu, Gongsun Ji and Zhao Yun to visit the wounded soldiers, and then gathered all the soldiers in the city to announce the compensation measures for the soldiers who died in the battle, and at the same time announced the rewards for the soldiers who had made meritorious contributions to the battle.

Although the purpose of commemorating the deceased is to show the living, Liu Yu's ability to personally come forward to do these things greatly boosted morale and gave birth to the courage and determination of the soldiers to fight.

As a meritorious officer, Gongsun Ji also had a place to use, and along the way, he witnessed the whole process of the bloody battles of the grain guards, and it was very easy and easy to record military merits at this time.

According to Liu Yu's intentions, all the officers and soldiers involved in the grain protection were rewarded and promoted according to the number of enemies killed, and the least rank was promoted by one level, and the most were promoted by three levels in one go. The rest of the various rewards were quite rich, which made the soldiers in the city who did not participate in the battle very jealous.

A particularly prominent commander like Xiahoulan, Liu Yu originally wanted to promote him to three levels in a row, but the military generals under his command now have the highest position at the rank of captain, which is only one order higher than the military Sima.

After the recent period of war, Liu Yu has already moved in his heart to promote several major generals under his command, in the past, he always felt that privately conferring official positions above the general level to his generals would be suspected of rebellion, but now it seems that it is just a mediocrity to disturb himself.

Now Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao and others have begun to privately confer the title of general to the generals under their command, and Cao Cao, Yuan Shu and others have also followed suit, how could they ever put the dignity and appointment of the imperial court in their eyes?

Although Liu Yu has this plan, he really wants to hear Liu He's opinion, and Liu Yu is now paying more and more attention to his son. If it weren't for Liu He's efforts to maintain the situation in the rear this time, and at the same time sending capable generals to send food to the front, I don't know how bad the situation would have been.

After some deliberation, Liu Yu finally promoted Xiahoulan to the post and appointed Xiahoulan as the governor of the northern region, that is, a temporary additional lieutenant. After the war is over, after the remaining three captains are promoted to lieutenants or even partial generals, Xiahoulan can take over the actual position of cavalry lieutenant or infantry lieutenant.

After all the affairs were dealt with, it was already dark, so Zhao Yun stayed in the city overnight, planning to lead the team out of the city early the next morning to pick up Xian Yufu.

The city was originally prepared to kill horses for food, but now it has been replenished with a certain amount of grain, grass and military funds, so the morale of the army is stable and everything is in order.

The situation in Macheng is slightly better, but there are a bunch of bad things in Guangyang in the rear.

However, it was said that Xian Yuyin, who received Liu He's urgent news, hurried to Zhuo County from the country to urge grain, and he was so anxious that he was burning, but he didn't expect to encounter a lot of obstacles in a place called Zhangjiazhuang in Zhuo County.

The Zhang family is a local wealthy family and a large landowner in the vicinity, although they are not cruel and unkind to the tenants, but they are not very considerate and generous, anyway, the land rent that should be collected is a bucket and will not be reduced, but if there is a year of famine and hunger, they will also take out food in the form of loans to help the tenants and the people.

According to the number of registered population in Zhuo County, the Zhang family should have paid 600 stone of grain to the county this time, but only paid 100 stone, which is a big difference from the prescribed amount. The county magistrate of Zhuoxian County repeatedly sent people to urge Xian Yuyin before he arrived, but the Zhang family always shirked it with various reasons and excuses, and until Xian Yuyin arrived with the army, he was still in arrears.

Zhangjiazhuang delayed in this way, and various nearby granges and Wubao also followed suit, and only paid 30 to 50 percent of the prescribed amount to the county, which made Zhuo County's grain collection task far from meeting the tasks and requirements set by Qi Zhoulai.

After listening to the county order report, Xian Yuyin was angry at that time.

"This Zhang family is really stubborn, do you think that Captain Bendu will not dare to follow the methods of Zhao Duwei in Anci!"

"It's not enough to calm the anger of the captain! The Zhang family is a prominent family in this county, and there is a son who is now with Liu Xuande, I heard that he served as an infantry lieutenant in Anping County, and he is a very fierce character. ”

"No need! Ben Duwei decided to personally come to the door to urge food, I want to see if this Zhang family is Longtan Tiger's Den! ”

When Xian Yuyin led 1,500 foot soldiers and 500 cavalry to Zhangjiazhuang with a calm face, what he saw was not the sincerity and fear of the Zhang family, but the fearlessness of the closed door, which made him very angry.

Xian Yuyin found a soldier with a loud voice and shouted at the village.

"Listen to the people of the Zhang clan, our army came to supervise the grain on the order of Lord Liu Bo'an, the pastor of Youzhou, and now I am in Guizhuang, please quickly hand over all the grain that should be paid, otherwise Hugh blames the sword soldiers for being ruthless and hurting the innocent!"

The soldiers shouted three times, and an old man in luxurious clothes walked out of the gate of the Zhang family.

The old man looked at Xian Yuyin with a fearless face, and scolded him sharply: "The old man is the patriarch of this Zhangjiazhuang, your army roared around the village, disturbing the neighbors, and the people panicked, this move seems to be intolerable to Lord Liu's military discipline!" ”

Xian Yuyin thought that this old guy was really stubborn, and he hadn't ordered the troops to make any substantive moves, but the other party was the first to bite back.

"It is everyone's responsibility to defend the land against the enemy! Since Guizhuang is a large household in Zhuo County, why should it take on the responsibility of a large household, why should it pay 600 stone of grain, but so far it has only paid 100 stone? ”

"I'm really sorry, this year's grain harvest in Wuzhuang is not good, and the scrape together is only a hundred stones, and this is still what we saved from the rations of each household, and I ask for forgiveness." The patriarch of the Zhang clan said with a righteous face.

Xian Yuyin is now worried about the safety of Jicheng, where is the kung fu to talk nonsense with the patriarch of a big household here, he looked at some of the family soldiers hidden behind the village wall contemptuously, waved his hand, and ordered: "Tear down the door of this Laoshizi Village for me, go in and search carefully, and see if there is any food in the village!" ”

"Shaft dares!" The old man was furious and pointed at Xian Yuyin's nose and scolded.

"Come on, fork this old thing aside!" Xian Yuyin waved his hand extremely impatiently, directly ignoring the angry scolding of the patriarch surnamed Zhang.

The 1,500 infantry brought by Xian Yuyin, although the marching speed was not as fast as the cavalry, but when it came to the ability to break down doors and houses, they were definitely much better than the cavalry. They quickly brought a few long, thick logs and slammed them into the door of the Zhang family's village. In a panic, the soldiers hurriedly shot arrows outward, which angered the soldiers outside the village even more, and suddenly a burst of arrows like a torrential rain returned fire.

Not long after, the gate of Zhangjiazhuang was broken, and groups of soldiers poured into the village.

Xian Yuyin thought about it again and again, and finally gave up the idea of slaughtering the village, but ordered the soldiers to find the warehouse where the grain was stored in the village, and after taking 500 stone of grain from it, he quickly withdrew. Rao is like this, Zhangjiazhuang still paid for dozens of lives, after all, there are always people who don't have long eyes to hit the knife and gun.

After Xian Yuyin left, the old patriarch Zhang, who was so angry that he fainted, was carried back to the house, and after stroking his chest and beating his back, he finally recovered.

"Quickly send someone to Anping to deliver the letter! Tell Wu'er Yide about the humiliation suffered by the Zhang family today! ”

After Xian Yuyin got Zhangjiazhuang, he took the soldiers to take turns to "visit" several wealthy families nearby, and the grain was successfully collected.

Because he was worried about the safety of Jicheng, Xian Yuyin gave up his plan to go to Fangcheng to supervise the grain at the next stop, and directly escorted the collected grain and hurried back.

Xian Yuyin escorted the grain to Jixian in a hurry to return, and Xian Yufu was also urging the grain team to march in the direction of Macheng.

Because Xia Houlan escorted the first batch of grain to open the road in front of him, Xian Yufu's route was basically unchanged, and it was still leaning on the south bank of the river, and the daily journey was the same as that of Xia Houlan at the beginning.

There are many conveniences in doing this, for example, you can use the camp ruins left behind after the grain team left in front of you, save the time of reconnoitering the terrain, save the effort of leveling the camp and digging various defensive ravines, but it is more than one stone.

When Xian Yufu led his troops to thirty miles west of Zhuolu, he suddenly received an urgent report from the grain team in front, which was when Yan Rou sent people to pretend to be horse bandits and robbers to attack and harass the grain team.

Xian Yufu went further, and the news he received was even more worrying, and when the Xianbei army besieged the grain team, Xian Yufu even moved the idea of changing the route and transporting the grain to Gaoliu City. However, he thought about it, if the Xianbei people really grabbed the grain in front, they would inevitably continue to advance southward, even if he wanted to go to Gaoliu, he was afraid that it would be dangerous all the way, and he would not be able to escape the pursuit and siege of the Xianbei people.

Thinking of this, Xian Yufu simply stopped the grain team and sent scouts to the upstream every day to inquire about the news, so as to decide what to do next.