The snow has stopped and the sky has cleared. The Chu soldiers who had rested in the camp for several days walked out of the camp tents one after another, each holding a broom and shovel to clear the snow.

Chen Ping walked briskly in the camp with his head down, holding a roll of bamboo slips tightly in his hand, his brows kept locking, as if he was worried about something. Chen Ping, who came to the big tent of the Chinese army of the Chu army, stopped his steps, took a deep breath, calmed his breath, and tidied up his clothes a little, and then pushed open the curtain and walked in.

There was a burst of warmth, and several red-hot braziers placed in the middle of the tent were like warm spring in the tent, although it was a cold winter. Chen Ping's eyes swept slightly, and he saw that Zhong Li, Wei Yuzi and other Xiang Yu's henchmen were already sitting on the table.

Xiang Yu raised his eyebrows and said with some displeasure: "Chen Ping, you're late."

Chen Ping hurriedly bowed his body to plead guilty; "King Xiang forgives the sin, because the minister is busy checking the baggage equipment in the army, he can't get out for a while, so he came late." Chen Ping was the marching Sima of the Chu army, and the verification of grain and grass was naturally his duty.

Xiang Yu said "En", and asked again; "What about the weight of the grain and grass?"

Chen Ping usually takes care of these day and night, so he is naturally very familiar with them, so he hurriedly replied; "Back to King Xiang, our army still has 260,000 stone corn left, which is enough to support the army for more than a month."

Xiang Yu nodded, "That's for the time being." ”

Chen Ping replied "yes" respectfully, hesitated, and continued; "However, the arrow disease and the loss of weapons are extremely serious, and it has long been beyond its means, and there are still supplies sent by Pengcheng every day, but the supplies have been cut off for three consecutive days, or will the minister send someone to Pengcheng to urge?"

Xiang Yu glanced at him and said lightly; "There's no need to rush, Pengcheng is already unable to protect itself now."

Chen Ping was stunned when he heard this, and immediately reacted and was shocked, and looked sideways at the other people in the tent, Zhong Liwei Yuzi's face was as usual, he should have known it a long time ago, and the others were as surprised as himself.

Xiang Yu also ignored everyone's surprised expressions, reached out and threw the bamboo slip on the table in front of Chen Ping with a "wow" sound, and said in a loud voice; "I'll tell you about it after reading it."

Chen Ping bent down to pick up the bamboo slips, looked at it carefully, his face suddenly turned pale, and said to everyone's eyes; "Liu Bang took advantage of the fact that the main force of our Chu army was deep in Qidi, and suddenly came out of Hanzhong, and united with the Wei army and the Zhao army to defeat General Ji Bu under the city of Daliang. General Ji returned to his army and retreated to Pengcheng due to insufficient troops, while the two thieves, Sima Wei and Shen Yang, surrendered to Liu Bang. Now Liu Bang is in the city of Luoyang to meet the princes of the alliance, gathering Han, Wei, Zhao, Yin, Henan, Han and other seven countries of the coalition army, a total of 560,000 troops are killing my Pengcheng. ”

After Chen Ping finished speaking, the tent was silent, and it was suddenly extremely quiet, and everyone's faces were extremely complicated. Chen Ping looked at Xiang Yu and said with a wry smile; "King Xiang, this Liu Bang has always been cunning, I think he said that most of the 560,000 troops are bluffing, but in fact there may not be so many."

Xiang Yu shook his head and denied; "He's not bluffing, our secret agent in Wei has already reported the news, Liu Bang has expanded his army after occupying several counties, and now he has more than 200,000 troops, plus the Wei army and Zhao army are not less than 100,000, so the 560,000 army he said is not false."

Chen Ping secretly complained in his heart, thinking about how this Xiang Yu was so upright, he didn't see that the generals in the tent were already frightened when they heard that most of the Han army was strong, and he originally wanted to calm down the army's heart, but Xiang Yu directly broke it.

Sure enough, the generals in the tent changed color one after another, but at this time, they heard Xiang Yu sneering disdainfully; "Why, all my warriors of Dachu, are you all frightened by Liu Bang? An army of 560,000 people, tsk, it sounds so magnificent, how about the 460,000 Qin army of Julu?"

Zhong Liwei stood up and laughed; "Liu Bang's subordinates are all rabble who rushed to the army, how can they be compared with the elite of the Qin army, at the beginning, even Zhang Han Wangli's Qin army was not wiped out compared to our whole army, Liu Bang, a clown who jumped off the beam, is nothing, I'm afraid he will do something."

"You don't know if you still remember the scene when Liu Bang opened his throat and begged for mercy outside the Hongmen camp, anyway, my old bell will never forget it for the rest of my life, when I think of Liu Bang's scared appearance, I can't help but be happy for a long time."

The camp burst into laughter, and the tense atmosphere was half gone. Xiang Yu clapped his hands and smiled: "Liwei said well, a scoundrel is a scoundrel, even if he is changed into a dragon robe, he can't be the emperor." Liu Bang, a dog @ mother's thing, took advantage of it and cocked his tail to the sky, and he actually dared to hit my Xiang Yu's idea. ”

Speaking of this, Xiang Yu's eyes were full of murder, "If he occupies several counties and then holds on to the city to accumulate strength, and then sends a large army south to capture the empty land in the south of my Chu State, this is what I Xiang Yu is most afraid of." But this old scoundrel is so anxious that he wants to fight me, and that Xiang will fulfill him. ”

"If you want to fight, you will fight." Xiang Yu "Huo" pulled out his saber, slashed the case in front of him, and shouted; "The happiest thing about my Xiang Yu is three things, one is to have wine to drink, the second is to have meat to eat, and the third is to fight. Since Liu Bang is so bent on death, then I will fulfill him. ”

"The army of 560,000 is just a chicken and a dog in Xiang's eyes, I'm just afraid that our Chu army warriors don't have enough sacks, if they can't hold so many heads, it will be a big trouble."

Xiang Yu's arrogance dispelled the worries in everyone's hearts, and all the Chu generals laughed and laughed; "What King Xiang said is right, let's go and kill Liu Bang, the dog @ Niang."

Chen Ping smiled silently on the side, but he knew it in his heart, and couldn't help but sigh secretly; "Xiang Yu is Xiang Yu, this innate leadership temperament is not comparable to others at all, he doesn't know what fear is, there is nothing in this world that can make him retreat from people and things, a group of sheep under his leadership can also become a howling hungry wolf, fearless towards the tiger. It's a pity that no one is perfect, if Xiang Yu can be less rigid and self-serving, more obedient, can understand some means of buying people's hearts and abandon cruel and tyrannical behavior, then he must be an excellent emperor, not only unprecedented, but also unprecedented. ”

Seeing that all the generals were relaxed, Xiang Yu waved his hand, "But since it is a march to fight, then we naturally can't be careless, plan and then act, this is the way to win." ”

"Someone. Take the map. ”

"No." The soldiers outside the tent responded loudly, and they presented a huge battlefield map in a moment. Xiang Yu and a group of generals surrounded them, each contemplating and thinking.

Xiang Yu thought about it carefully, and already had an idea in his heart, but suddenly he felt that someone was secretly peeping at him, so he raised his head suddenly, and his two eyes looked at Chen Ping like lightning. But he saw Chen Ping with his head down, his eyes and nose and his heart, and he looked like an old monk was meditating there, so he said; "Chen Ping."

Chen Ping said urgently with a look of sudden awakening; "Wechen is here."

Xiang Yu said with a smile; "I have often heard my father praise you for your thoughtfulness and resourcefulness, and I greatly appreciate you, so I appointed you to be the commander of this march. Now that my Chu army is in trouble, I want to hear what you think. ”

Chen Ping said with a smile; "King Xiang's words are serious, I, Chen Ping, am just a little talented, I know some of the work of a scribe, if you talk about the ability to march and fight, you can't beat the horse, you can't beat the horse, King Xiang is so confident, I must have already held the pearl of wisdom. However, if King Xiang really wants to hear Weichen's thoughts, then Weichen will be ugly. ”

"That's it."

Chen Ping coughed lightly a few times, his face was faintly pale, and he said slowly: "The minister has the upper, middle, and lower three strategies for the king to choose." ”

"What is the bottom, what is the middle, and what is the top?"

Chen Ping talked eloquently; "The next strategy is for our army to immediately pull out the camp and return to Chu, and abandon all the Qi land, as long as King Xiang and your army appear in Pengcheng, the minister expects that Liu Bang will not be able to easily capture Pengcheng. But the disadvantages of this are also obvious, our army has lost all the merits of the campaign in the past three months, and Tian Heng can also take the opportunity to sweep the land, and then regroup the army to the south and Liu Bang and our Great Chu to confront Pengcheng. After that, if there is no accident, the world will be divided into two, the north is the Han army camp headed by Liu Bang, and the south is the land of my Great Chu. ”

The clenched fist in Xiang Yu's hand slowly let go, and asked quietly; "How's this plan?"

Chen Ping shook his head, "Since it is a good strategy, it is naturally not the way to take, so not only will my army's previous achievements be wasted, but it may also fall into the situation of being attacked by the enemy, which is really not a wise choice." ”

"What about the middle policy?"

"The middle strategy is that the main force of our army is still staying in Qi and continuing to attack Qi with great fanfare, and King Xiang, you lead the elite to rush to Pengcheng, presumably if King Xiang you appear at the head of Pengcheng City, then our army will definitely be greatly boosted. If I hold on for a period of time, reinforcements from all over the country will definitely rush to Pengcheng, so that the battle situation can be stabilized. However, this is too risky in the first place, and the battle is protracted, and the fundamental loss to our Great Chu is also extremely great. ”

Xiang Yu laughed, "Then presumably Sima Chen, your best strategy is the first choice, let's hear it." ”

"The minister's best policy is to ignore the offensive of the Han army, let him attack our Chu State, and we will concentrate on capturing the remnants of the Qi State, and then move westward to capture Liu Bang's base camp. In this way, Wei was encircled to save Zhao, not only did he not have to go on an expedition, but he could also easily capture the Central Plains. ”

Xiang Yu squinted at Chen Ping and suddenly said; "It's a good plan, but there are two flaws."

Chen Ping was a little unconvinced, so he stiffened his neck and retorted; "The minister is stupid, I don't know what the flaw of King Xiang is?"

Xiang Yu stretched out his finger, "First, whether we can successfully capture the Qi State and the Central Plains is a question, once it is blocked, it will be useless, and if Chu Land falls, our army's morale will definitely be in chaos; Second, don't forget that Liu Bang himself is also a Chu person, and his reputation in Chu is not low, even if the Central Plains is occupied, it is a big deal for him to be the king of Chu and Chu. ”

Chen Ping was stunned, and lowered his head a little ashamedly, "What King Xiang said is extremely true, it is Weichen who has not considered it thoroughly. ”

Xiang Yu didn't answer, but poured three glasses of wine, and suddenly drew his knife and said: "My idea is somewhat consistent with your middle strategy, I decided to let the main army of Liwei continue to stay in Qi and attack Qi to attract Liu Bang's attention." Ziqi and I took 30,000 elite horsemen to the south to attack the Han army, and we must complete our efforts in one battle and completely annihilate the Han army. ”

As soon as Xiang Yu's words fell, everyone was in an uproar, and they used 30,000 troops to sneak attack the 560,000 army, and they wanted to annihilate them all. If it wasn't Xiang Yu who said this, I'm afraid everyone would laugh at him for being a crazy person, but it came out of Xiang Yu's mouth.

Cold sweat was dripping from Chen Ping's forehead, and he felt that as a marching Sima, he needed to remind Xiang Yu, and he had to remind Xiang Yu. While self-confidence isn't a bad thing, it's obviously not a good thing to be over-confident.

"King Xiang, don't you think this move is too risky, if you have any mistakes, how will I deal with myself!"

Xiang Yu snorted coldly; "Do you think I'm talking casually, if I don't have the certainty of victory, will I, Xiang Yu, do such stupid things? I have made up my mind, and you need no more to say. ”

Chen Ping sighed, knowing that Xiang Yu was usually extremely stubborn and self-serving, except for Fan Zeng's words, he could still listen to them, and the others only listened to his orders, so they had to stop talking.

Xiang Yu had already made up his mind, so he quickly divided the army into two, Zhong Liwei and Sima Chen Ping led an army of 150,000 to continue to storm Beihai in Qidi, and he led 30,000 elite horsemen to quietly hide their tracks, walking day and night, resting in the mountains and wilderness in the forest during the day, and galloping wildly at night, and slaughtering the people of the villages they saw along the way so as not to leak their traces. After five days of traveling like this, he rushed from the North Sea in the north of Qi to the land of the East China Sea.

Secondly, Xiang Yu is also helpless for a long time, if he withdraws the army from Qi with great fanfare, he will definitely be attacked by the Han army and the Qi army, and he will not be able to advance and retreat at that time, and sooner or later he will die and the country will be destroyed. As for Chen Ping's best strategy, he categorically rejected it without thinking about it, what kind of person is he Xiang Yu, how could he lose to Liu Bang, an old dog, no matter what, this is not acceptable to Xiang Yu, a person with extremely inflated self-esteem.

On the one hand, he knew that although Liu Bang was outnumbered, most of them were a rabble of hasty troops. Moreover, the factions are complicated and the military orders are different, many people are like Sima Wei and Shen Yang, Chu Qiang belongs to Chu, and Han Qiang belongs to Han. It's okay to follow Liu Bang to fight a tailwind battle, but if they are asked to work hard for Liu Bang, it is absolutely impossible.

Moreover, Liu Bang took several counties in the Central Plains lightly, and he must have bred arrogance in his heart, and Xiang Yu boldly left the main force in Qi to confuse the Han army, which greatly eliminated Liu Bang's wariness of Xiang Yu. 30,000 elite cavalry is not much, but it can be said that it is not too much, if it is used properly, it is completely possible to defeat the anti-Chu coalition army with a big tail in one fell swoop.

You must know that these 30,000 elite cavalry have followed Xiang Yu all the way south to fight a hundred battles, and have experienced many tragic battles such as Yongqiu, Julu, Xianyang, etc., if you talk about the essence of the cavalry in the world, then I am afraid there is nothing that can be compared with this cavalry, not to mention that this army has an invincible commander - Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu!

The most important thing for an army is to have a soul, and with a soul, that is the invincible army of tigers and wolves. If this soul is lost, no matter how elite the army is, no matter how well-equipped, no matter how rich the combat experience of the soldiers, it is just like the Northern Army that has turned to dust in the noise of the Battle of Julu.

Just when Xiang Yu's fast horse was heading south day and night, Liu Bang was full of ambition and marched all the way with his mighty anti-Chu army. A month ago, he was still panicking in Nanzheng City, but today he has become the leader of the princes of the world, and the huge contrast makes him feel fluttering,

An army of 560,000 people, what a concept this is! You must know that when Xiang Yu entered the customs, the army that he could command was only 500,000, but he Xiang Yu was able to divide the princes of the world with this, and he could command the world with a halberd.

What Xiang Yu can do, he Liu Bang will definitely be able to do, and he can do it better and more beautifully!

Of course, although Liu Bang is ambitious and proud, he still adheres to his usual cautious style. While marching and camping cautiously, he was not in a hurry to make the troops too scattered by rushing forward, and at the same time sent a large number of scouts to Qi and Chu to closely probe any movements of Xiang Yu's army.

At the same time, the army of the princes under his command was divided into three routes, Zhou Bo, Cao Shen and Guan Ying led a Han army and the Zhao army as the northern route army, crossed the river from Weijin, captured boiled dates, Dingtao, and the troops arrived at Huling, and copied Pengcheng from the northwest of Pengcheng; Fan Xu led the generals Wang Su, Wang Ling and Wei to lead the army from Wan to Yangxia through Ye County, and attacked Chu from the south to Pengcheng; Liu Bang led Xiahou Ying and the princes of all walks of life to capture Waihuang in the southeast, and from west to east Liankedang and Xiao, and successfully arrived at the city of Pengcheng.

Ji Buyi City stubbornly held on to block the Han army layer by layer, but because of the small number of soldiers, he had to fight and retreat, abandoned the city and retreated to the east, and retreated all the way to Pengcheng, and Fan Zenghui, who stayed in Pengcheng, and relied on Pengcheng to hold on to help.

Pengcheng was originally named Zhuolu, and it was the place where the Yellow Emperor sat in the capital. After Dayu divided the world into Kyushu, Xuzhou's seat was Pengcheng. Peng Zu cooked pheasant soup and gave it to Emperor Yao to establish the Great Peng Kingdom in Zhuolu, and Zhuolu was renamed Pengcheng from then on.

Pengcheng is located in the north and south, and is the hub connecting Chu, Qi, Wei and Han. In addition, the surrounding waterways and arterial roads are dense, and the merchants are very prosperous, so the territory is unusually rich. The reason why Xiang Yu set the capital here at the beginning was that on the one hand, he wanted to control the princes of the world conveniently through this place, so as to avoid losing his influence on the Central Plains and Hebei because of his long residence in the south. On the other hand, it is indeed Xiang Yu who is greedy for pleasure and can't give up the prosperity of Pengcheng.

The capital of Pengcheng also brought a fatal flaw to Xiang Yu, that is, Pengcheng was surrounded by a flat river, and there was almost no danger to defend. If the state of Chu remains strong, it will not matter, but if it declines and is invaded by the enemy, the capital will become the front line in a few days.

At this time, Xiang Yu also paid a heavy price for his arrogance, and the anti-Chu coalition army encountered almost no decent resistance, so they drove straight into the city of Dao Pengcheng.

PS: I estimate that many people who see Chen Ping will have doubts in their hearts: Didn't Chen Ping follow Liu Bang, how could he run to Xiang Yu's side.

In fact, Chen Ping was originally Wei Chen, but the king of Wei didn't treat him very well, so he turned his head to Xiang Yu's account, and even the number of sacrifices was not bad in Chu State. It's a pity that Xiang Yu's self-righteous character is destined to end well for the advisors around him, so Chen Ping switched to Liu Bang. This is a record in the official history, and there is naturally a lot of discrepancy with this book, but it can be determined that before the Battle of Pengcheng, Chen Ping was still a Chuchen.

Chen Ping likes to be curious, and always unexpectedly comes up with some strange tricks that seem to be speechless but very practical, and he himself is also an expert in governing the world.