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Time flies, and it's another year in the blink of an eye.

In the past year, the sun of peace has shone on the earth, and the situation in the world has remained stable.

On the border of various forces, although there were constant frictions and never stopped fighting, they were all small fights and no large-scale battles.

During the year, there was more rain than usual, so that the north showed a good weather, while the south was flooded and natural disasters were frequent. And this also seems to indicate that the seemingly stable land of Jingchu is actually not calm, and the Jiangdong forces that were forced to rely on Liu Biao in Jingzhou are not willing to accept the status quo, and are still trying to get rid of Liu Biao's clamp and restore the original separatist situation.

When it comes to Liu Biao's vital interests, he must not let it go, and he will never sit idly by and watch the fat in his mouth gain and lose. So the continuous rain hid one fight after another, covering up the battles and battles again and again; Although it was a small-scale local war, the fighting situation became more and more tragic and the scene was extremely tragic. Moreover, the heavy casualties and the wide range of the impact were not inferior to a large-scale confrontation between the two armies.

According to the post-war statistics transmitted by various parties, in the year-long open and secret battles, more than 30,000 soldiers and horses under Liu Biao's account in Jingzhou lost more than 30,000 people, and the casualties of the Jiangdong Army were comparable to those of the Jingzhou Army, or even exceeded. It is worth noting that the Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army did not collide head-on, and all battles were fought by shady means such as ambushes, assassinations, or assassinations. Therefore, the soldiers and horses lost on both sides were all elite soldiers from one in a hundred, and the dead soldiers privately cultivated by the major families and princes were the mainstay, which means that most of the casualties were private soldiers.

It is worth mentioning. In these shady assassinations, almost all of them revolved around Jingzhou Mu Liu Biao and his military ministers. Among them, Liu Biao was assassinated six times. The most dangerous one was shot in the right arm by a poisoned dark arrow, and he almost died. Fortunately, Liu Biao has always spared his life. And he is cautious, his life is very regular, and there are five hundred armor guards around the bedroom all the year round; Every time he went out of the palace, he often mobilized thousands of armor soldiers to accompany him, and the most important thing was that he rarely went out, no more than five times a year. Therefore, no matter when and where, Liu Biao has at least more than 100 personal soldiers around him to protect him, and it is undoubtedly difficult to assassinate him, and he can hardly find a chance to start. But even so. Liu Biao still encountered six assassinations, and was almost killed by the assassins.

Liu Biao is still like this, not to mention the civil and military officials under his account. Repeatedly assassinated, so that they even went to the toilet with strong martial arts servants or generals, and could not be left unprotected at all times within ten steps, even if they were sleeping, hundreds of family members or nurses had to be arranged in front of the house or behind the house.

Even so, there were still as many as 100 officials who died in assassination under the account of Mu Liu Biao in Jingzhou, and even more people who did not hold official positions. The Cai family, headed by Cai Mao, died twelve family children, seven of whom were generals in the army; More than 20 people died in the Kuai family to which the Kuai Liang brothers belonged. Among them are Kuai Yue's own nephew and three cousins; The list of casualties is too numerous to mention. In addition to the clansmen, the casualties of the maids and servants were even greater, half of the 30,000 casualties were the servants of the major families, and even the maids and servants in Liu Biao's mansion were killed more than 200 people. The casualties of the soldiers and guards were as high as more than 1,600.

Such an unscrupulous assassination operation has never been seen or heard in the classics of the Han Dynasty for more than 400 years, and it can be described as a strange news. And the source of this qiē comes from Liu Biao. He successively used ambushes and assassinations to plot against Sun Jian, Sun Yi and his son. It caused chaos in Jiangdong, and the chickens and dogs were restless. Jiangdong's civil and military people are in danger.

Although Liu Biao acted meticulously, he did not leave any flaws. However, he underestimated the wisdom of the sages of Jiangdong. In the chaos of the situation, they may not have thought that there would be external forces to intervene to stir up the situation, but after the situation stabilized, they only needed to think about it a little, and they understood it all. Therefore, the serial assassination operations that occurred in Jingzhou were obviously a violent counterattack by the Jiangdong forces, and they wanted to return blood for blood, tooth for tooth, and their own way to return the favor to the other, sending a large number of assassins to assassinate the Jingzhou officials, and the top of the assassination target was Liu Biao.

The year-long continuous assassination finally succeeded in angering Liu Biao.

Seeing that it was approaching the end of the year, Liu Biao suddenly dispatched a large army to attack the camp of Qu'a, trying to break through the defense line along the river in one fell swoop. Although the Jiangdong Army had been prepared for this, it did not expect Liu Biao to make such a big determination to dispatch 100,000 sailors to forcibly cross the river at one time, so that the Jiangdong Army was not strong in strength, and lost more than 200 warships and nearly 10,000 soldiers in the first battle.

Seeing that the Jingzhou army was menacing, Changshi Zhang Zhao was frightened, and summoned three veterans, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai and Han Dang, overnight to discuss countermeasures, and then sent people to cross the river at night, begged for peace with Liu Biao, and offered 50,000 gold to show his sincerity. What exactly was promised in the begging and book was known to outsiders except for a few people such as Liu Biao, the Kuai brothers and the Cai brothers. I only know that this battle of crossing the river lasted for three days before and after it ended hastily, and the forces of Cao Cao in Jizhou and Li Li in Xiliang did not know that there was such a farce, and they did not hear about it until more than a month later.

Just after quelling the counterattack of the Jiangdong forces, just when Liu Biao was preparing for the New Year, the Jizhou envoy came to Xiangyang City with Cao Cao's handwritten letter of alliance.

?????? Xiangyang Prefecture Pastoral Mansion, main hall.

"Under the orders of the lord, Liu Ye will see Uncle Liu Huang!" As soon as he walked into the lobby, Liu Ye, the envoy of Jizhou, bowed down and bowed, and gave the following ministers to Liu Biao, who was on the upper floor, to meet the Son of Heaven. This is the first time that the princes have honored Liu Biao as "Uncle Huang" in public, and they have made three kneeling and nine bows, which shocked all the Jingzhou bureaucrats in the hall.

It is not strange that many people are courteous, not to mention that it is still a transgression ceremony. Liu Biao, who was in a high position, had a good impression of the Cao Cao envoy in the hall, and his heart was quite useful, and his old face, which was originally calm as water, instantly became kind, and said with a smile: "The virtuous nephew doesn't need to be polite, please get up quickly." The sedan chair carried people, and Liu Ye's gift of audience won Liu Biao's favor, so he directly crossed the gift of diplomatic relations and called Liu Ye a virtuous nephew, which instantly brought the relationship closer to each other.

However, Liu Biao's "virtuous nephew" is not a greeting and politeness, because Liu Ye is indeed a member of the Han family, with the same origin as Liu Biao, both of whom are of the same lineage as Gaozu and descendants of the royal family.

Speaking of which, since the founding of Gaozu, for more than 400 years, there are not 10,000 but 8,000 descendants of the royal family scattered in various states and counties, Liu Ye is one of them, and he is the descendant of the Liu family recorded in Zongzheng Mansion, and the royal family tree clearly records the inheritance of Liu Ye's lineage.

Liu Ye, whose name is Ziyang, was a native of Chengde, Huainan (now southeast of Shou County, Anhui), and was a descendant of Liu Yan, the king of Fuling, the son of Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor. He is young and well-known, known as the talent of the world, since his emergence has won Cao Cao's appreciation, he has repeatedly offered clever plans, and the development of the world's shape shì is often in a word, and he is Cao Cao's pivotal strategist.

Therefore, Liu Ye, like Liu Biao, is actually a Han clan member with strong roots, Liu Biao knows this, because before he became the pastor of Jingzhou, he was the head of the Liu royal family, and the Han clan relatives distributed in various states and counties are in his heart, and no one knows the whereabouts and situation of the descendants of the Liu family better than him.

It's a pity that if there is chaos today, the blood of the descendants of the royal family is cut off, and all that is left behind are side branches, and the identity and circumstances of the Han family are also different from the past. Ten years ago, the descendants of the Liu family like Liu Ye, once they came out, they all contributed to the foundation of their ancestors, added bricks and tiles to the Liu family, and consolidated the supremacy of the royal family. Now it's good, except for Liu Biao in Jingzhou, all the Han clan relatives who are divided into state ministers, assassins and county guards are almost killed and wounded, so that the descendants of the royal family have become pawns under the accounts of the princes in troubled times, giving advice to those rebellious ministers and thieves, and running around. The talented Liu Ye in front of him is a typical representative.

Liu Ziyang's talent no longer needs to be verified. According to Jingzhou's detailed report, the thunderbolt used by Cao Cao's army in the Battle of Jizhou was made by Liu Ye; The plan to build a dam in the upper reaches of the Zhanghe River to intercept and store water for a month, and then flood the 100,000 Xiliang army was still from Liu Ye's strategy. This pile and each piece of breathtaking whimsy is enough to show that Liu Ye is very scheming, not only good at strategy, but also proficient in the art of things, and is really a genius who has not been encountered in a hundred years among the Han clansmen.

What made Liu Biao feel embarrassed was that Liu Ye, a descendant of the royal family, actually served under Cao Cao's account, joined forces with rebellious ministers and thieves, and helped the troubled traitor Cao Cao to destroy the Liu family. What is this behavior? It is not an exaggeration to say that he aided and abused his ancestors and disobeyed his ancestors.

As soon as he thought of this, Liu Biao was deeply pleased with Liu Ye's respectful and polite behavior, and couldn't help but be a little annoyed, angry and disobedient. It's just that these words are inconvenient to say in public, after all, he needs some time now to stabilize the situation and strengthen the control and clamp on the Jiangdong forces, so Jizhou Cao Cao needs to contain most of Li Li's forces in Xiliang, forcing Li Li to have no time to take care of anything else and unable to draw his troops south to Jingzhou.

Therefore, in a sense, Liu Ye came to negotiate with Cao Cao's handwritten alliance this time, which undoubtedly coincided with what Liu Biao wanted. In the current situation, Liu Biao, like Cao Cao, needs the help and support of allies. In other words, in the situation of dividing the world into three parts, whether it is for self-preservation or long-term interests, Liu Biao and Cao Cao's alliance against Li Li is an inevitable choice and the only choice.

If not, would they still be able to form an alliance with Li Li? As long as he is not sick in the brain, who would not know that forming an alliance with Li Li is tantamount to seeking skin with the tiger and throwing himself into the net, which is simply tired of looking for death. Therefore, Liu Biao has no choice but to borrow the donkey from the slope, sign the alliance letter very happily, and hold a banquet to entertain Liu Ye and his party.

"Uncle Huang is majestic in Jingchu, has millions of soldiers, and is old and strong, he is really a pillar of the Southern Heavens, the Optimus Prime of the Han Dynasty!" At the banquet, Liu Ye did not hesitate to praise Liu Biao.

―――――― To be Continued ―――――――――――――――― (To be Continued......

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