The battle of Hanzhong is in full swing, and on the land of Jingzhou, Guan Yu has officially raised troops to attack Xiangfan.

Before sending troops, Guan Yu made arrangements to let the army led by Zhang Xi set off first, and he led the navy to go north through Jiangxia.

Because I want to say hello to Sun Quan's side, so as not to misunderstand the two sides, I will set off a little later.

After receiving the order, Zhang Xi took Zhang Wei as the vanguard, led 15,000 people to march to the northwest of Linfu, and when passing through Zhijiang County, he recruited Zhijiang County Lingzhou Tai as a lieutenant and went out with the army.

There's no way, in Jingzhou, there are a lot of civil officials who can put them out, and all of them are first-line or quasi-first-line civil officials, but there are really not many generals.

Guan Yu is at least level in his hands, and Liao Hua is two generals, and Zhang Xi has only one Zhang Wei in his hand to use.

Therefore, when passing by Zhijiang County, Zhang Xi remembered that the county order of Zhijiang County was called Zhou Tai, and the relationship with Zhao Lei was not bad Last year, after the locust plague, Zhou Tai was promoted from the county lieutenant to the county commander, and now that the spring ploughing has passed, Zhang Xi thought that there was nothing important for the time being, so he brought Zhou Tai with him and let him join the army to make meritorious contributions.

After all, Zhou Tai is a general who can make a name for himself in the later period of Cao Wei as a cold man, which proves that this ability will definitely not be bad.

In the later period of Cao Wei, the civil and military affairs were all in the world of the family gate, and it was absolutely impossible for a poor family to come out without some real skills.

Zhou Tai did not object, after all, Zhou Tai and Zhao Lei's preferences are different, Zhao Lei is more literary, and Zhou Tai is more martial. If it weren't for the direct promotion from above, Zhou Tai felt that it was good to be a county lieutenant.

Now that he has the opportunity to join the army, Zhou Tai doesn't want to accept it directly, and plans to fight hard to make a name for himself in the army.

After Zhou Tai joined, Zhang Xi asked him to lead a thousand men first and march quickly to seize Linfang.

And Zhou Tai did not live up to Zhang Xi's expectations, rushed to Linfu within ten days, and captured the city northwest of Jiangling in one day.

Seriously, this place in Linfu is really not how outstanding Zhou Tai's ability is, and he can capture a city in one day.

It's because of ah, this place, it's now a three-way zone.

Linfu theoretically falls under the jurisdiction of Xiangyang, but it is too close to Gangneung.

In the early days, when Le Jin was in Xiangyang, he was still engaged in a tug-of-war with Guan Yu in Linfang, and no one could help anyone for a while.

But as Guan Yu moved the battle line north little by little, Xiangyang's control over Linfu became weaker and weaker.

Later, Le Jin was transferred to assist Zhang Liao in guarding Hefei, and Xiangyang was handed over to Jingzhou Thorn Shi Hu Xiu and Zhang Ling Taishou Lu Chang to take care of, and the place of Linfang was slowly abandoned by the two.

Although it is still Cao Cao's territory in name, this place does not even have half of Cao's army, in fact, it is an empty city.

And Guan Yu used to avoid overstimulating the Cao army in Xiangyang, so he didn't have this Linfu in his pocket, so he let it maintain its ostensible position, just control the passage outside Linfu City in his own hands, and if necessary, he could capture the city at any time.

Therefore, Zhoutai's capture of Linfang is not a great achievement, it is just a rapid march and the capture of the empty city.

Zhang Xi knew this, and Zhou Tai actually understood that no one was complacent because of the capture of Linfang.

After resting for three days in Linfang, Zhang Xi left 2,000 soldiers to guard Linfang, and then continued to set off, but this time instead of continuing to attack Fangling, he shook a shot and suddenly entered Dangyang County eastward.

Dangyang County is already a city under Guan Yu's control, there is no need to attack, Zhang Xi is just marching to Dangyang, the real trouble is to attack Yicheng in the north.

At the same time, Zhang Xi also received a military report from Guan Yu.

Now Guan Yu has reorganized the naval army, starting from Jiangling, along the Han River, passing through the territory of Jiangxia, making a detour to the north to attack Xiangyang.

At the same time, he also agreed with Zhang Xi in the letter that the two sides would meet in Yicheng and agree on the specific time and strategy for attacking Xiangfan in the future.

Guan Yu has already set off, he takes the waterway, even if he goes upstream, the speed is definitely faster than Zhang Xi's land.

After all, there is no obstacle on the water, Cao Cao really does not have a decent naval army in Jingzhou, on the contrary, on the land, there are still many counties and fortresses, and Zhang Xi wants to march on land, and it is inevitable to attack the city and pull out the village.

The closer he got to Xiangyang, the more Zhang Xi didn't dare to be careless.

As Zhang Xi led more than 10,000 foot soldiers into Dangyang County and began to attack Yicheng north, Hu Xiu, the assassin of Jingzhou appointed by Cao Cao, and Lu Chang, who was too guarded by Zhang Ling, also responded.

Although Hu Xiu is the assassin of Jingzhou, the nominal leader of Jingzhou, he is mainly a civilian official, and he is used to deal with government affairs.

Therefore, the person who really led the troops to rescue Yicheng and fight against Zhang Xi was actually Zhang Ling who guarded Lu Chang.

Lu Chang is a person, the entire battle of Xiangfan can also be said to be a gathering of famous generals, and Lu Chang is a little transparent.

But Lu Chang held on to Xiangyang in the early stage, and after Hu Xiu, the assassin of Jingzhou, chose to surrender, he still retreated to Fancheng to hold on, and to a certain extent, he was still quite loyal.

It's just that loyalty is loyalty, and it's really hard to evaluate what kind of military ability is.

When Zhang Xi arrived in Yicheng, Lu Chang had only arrived for long, and he didn't even have time to strengthen the city defense.

Zhang Xi wondered, the distance between Xiangyang and Yicheng is only a quarter of the distance from Dangyang County to Yicheng, right? !

Lu Chang is leading an army of 10,000 to march and hurry, how should it be in seven or eight daysHow did Zhang Xi lead more than 10,000 people, starting from Dangyang County, and spent about 20 days marching to Yicheng, this Zhangling Taishou has just arrived?

Could it be that he brought 100,000 people?!

It's a joke, if Lu Chang has 100,000 people in his hands, then what Zhang Xi has to do now is to stick to Dangyang and ask Guan Yu to help.

Zhang Xi really had great doubts about the military ability of this Zhang Ling Taishou.

Seriously, in fact, when Zhang Xi set off from Dangyang County, he was ready to fight a tough battle in Yicheng.

After all, Yicheng is too close to Xiangyang, and there are more than 30,000 defenders in Xiangyang City, even if a third is allocated to defend Yicheng, it is enough for Zhang Xi to drink a pot.

Again, Zhang Xi went north into the control of Xiangyang, and it was inevitable that he would encounter some places such as Chengzi Pass along the way, and these places would definitely be guarded by Cao Bing, and Zhang Xi would not be able to compete with Xiangyang for time at all to see who could seize Yicheng first.

But. This is outrageous.

Along the way, Zhang Xi basically did not encounter many cities guarded, and some villages could not even see a ghost, let alone the organized resistance of the Cao army.

Well, Zhang Xi can blame this on the perennial confrontation between Xiangyang and Nanjun, which caused the border people to flee, and the small group of soldiers of Cao's army did not dare to provoke Zhang Xi's army head-on, so the march went so smoothly.

But what is the situation with this Yicheng and this guard Lu Chang?!

Zhang Xi didn't understand, but since he arrived at the city, Zhang Xi didn't dare to be careless, first set up camp according to the regulations, and then ordered people to build siege equipment, first build some hook ladders and cloud ladders or something, so that Zhang Wei could launch a tentative attack.

Although I don't know what kind of conspiracy this Lu Chang has, a tentative attack is always done, how can I know if the other party is playing tricks without attacking.

However, Zhang Xi himself still feels that since he can be too guarded, he must have a certain ability.

Even if you are not good at military affairs, there should be no problem with defending the city as a cheap thing.

Then Zhang Xi miscalculated.

A thousand soldiers led by Zhang Wei launched a tentative attack on Yicheng, and the means of attack were limited to climbing the city wall with hook ladders. Yicheng was breached.

Breached?!

Yes, Zhang Xi watched Zhang Wei lead his soldiers to climb the city wall first, and then quickly opened the city gate, and suddenly doubted his eyes.

Anyway, how long has it been going on?! Not in two hours?!

It doesn't seem to be!

Such a smooth attack, such a smooth opening of the city gate, Zhang Xi was a little suspicious.

Zhang Xi strongly suspected that there was something like an urn city in this Yicheng, so easy to attack the city wall, that is, the enemy commander personally led the army into the city in order to make himself careless, and then shot himself into a hedgehog in the urn city.

But that's not logical.

The city is a backup line of defense after the first gate is lost, it is not used to set up an ambush itself, so easily give up the first line of defense, how can the enemy boss know that he will be the first to enter the city?!

Zhang Xi was a little skeptical that this was an enemy ploy, but what if it was true?!

The soldiers finally climbed the city wall, killed the guards, ran to the city tower and opened the city gate, if they did not quickly seize the city gate, wait until the enemy reacted, send someone to snatch the city gate back, and then close the city gate, then this opportunity was wasted.

Zhang Xi hesitated slightly, but decided to enter the city.

However, Zhang Xi did not advance, but asked Zhou Tai to lead the Chinese army to take over the city defense first, and at the same time told Zhou Tai to be careful and retreat quickly once there was an ambush.

Then, Zhang Xi ordered Zhang Wei not to venture in, and the two of them entered the city together after converging with Zhoutai, focusing on investigating whether there were tunnels or urn city structures in the city, and beware of schemes.

It was probably less than a quarter of an hour, Zhang Wei sent his own soldiers to report to Zhang Xi, saying that there was no ambush in the city, and there was no urn city and tunnel structure, and now Zhang Wei had killed from the south gate to the north city gate, without encountering any obstacles, and completely controlled the whole city.

As soon as Zhang Xi heard this, he hurriedly let the rear army follow, and quickly entered the city to take over the defense, and at the same time ordered Zhang Wei to quickly lead the troops to pursue Lu Chang, and strive to leave Lu Chang and the army led by him behind.

But so be it. Although Zhang Wei pursued along the way and captured a lot of Cao Jun, he did not catch up with Lu Chang in the end.

Lu Chang, although the speed of the thief was slow when he marched, the speed of escape was really fast, Zhang Wei was stunned and didn't catch up, so he asked him to run back to Xiangyang.

Well, it doesn't matter.

After Zhang Xi entered the city, he first made Zhang Bang to calm the people, and then strengthened the city defense structure, and at the same time sent people to the ferry to contact Guan Yu's army, waiting for Guan Yu to lead the army into the city.

(End of chapter)