Runan County, Yuzhou, Ruyin County, the camp of Cao Xiu, the general of Zhengdong.

After Cao Xiu played the Son of Heaven Cao Rong and asked for troops to be sent to meet Zhou Yi, he did not wait for the reply of the Son of Heaven at all, and directly sent troops without authorization, stationed troops in Ruyin, and threatened Jiujiang County under the rule of Eastern Wu.

But this time the dispatch of troops, within the Cao army, is not without opposition.

For example, Gao Tanglong, who was ordered by Yanzhou Assassin Shi Jia Kui to lead 20,000 troops to Runan to help in the war, was very dissatisfied with Cao Xiu's unauthorized dispatch of troops, and sternly opposed it.

Gao Tanglong is a great Confucian, he follows etiquette, and pays attention to the famous teacher.

In Gao Tanglong's view, Cao Xiu's dispatch of troops has no righteous reputation, and there is no edict from the Son of Heaven, and such a dispatch of troops is chaotic, wrong, and should not be supported.

Therefore, Gao Tanglong directly refused the request to follow Cao Xiu to fight together, and stayed at Cao Xiu's original station, Cai, and did not move.

Then Gao Tanglong was deprived of military power by Cao Xiu.

Gao Tanglong is a Confucian, he has his persistence, but unfortunately, the gap between Gao Tanglong's status and Cao Xiu is too big.

Although Gao Tanglong is a great Confucian, but Gao Tanglong did not have a long time to be out of Cao Wei, he was not until the early Huang Dynasty, he was just a Tangyang county magistrate, or Cao Rong succeeded to the throne, he took a fancy to Gao Tanglong's political achievements and reputation, and promoted him to be Chen Liutaishou.

And Cao Xiu was already famous during the period of Emperor Taizu Wu, and during the Cao Pi period, he was already the general of Zhendong and the pastor of Yangzhou.

In terms of government affairs, even if it can be said that they do not govern each other, one is the state pastor and the other is the Taishou, and it is clear who is big and who is small.

In military affairs, Cao Xiu has led the army for many years, and his prestige in the army can not be compared to Gao Tanglong, who has just been Chen Liutaishou for less than three years? !

Therefore, Gao Tanglong was extremely angry that Cao Xiu had deprived him of his military power, but he was helpless.

And Cao Xiu told the truth, Cao Xiu now is indeed much more mature than a few years ago.

If it is replaced by a few years ago, a figure like Jia Kui who is both civil and military, or Cao Xiu's savior, Cao Xiu doesn't pay attention to it, he will fall out when he says it, and the world knows that it is still noisy, but now, Cao Xiu even gave Gao Tanglong an appointment to stay in Cai, so that he could be optimistic about his hometown during his expedition.

Although it is only a nominal official position, in Cao Xiu's opinion, he is already very face-saving to Gao Tanglong.

Gao Tanglong was really angry and helpless about this.

What Shang Cai stayed behind, he didn't care at all, what he cared about was the fact that Cao Xiu sent troops without edict, which was unacceptable in Gao Tanglong's opinion.

But now that Cao Xiu has set off with his troops, Gao Tanglong is a bare-bones commander, or stay in Cao Xiu's old nest that has been operated for many years, what can Cai do? !

Except for writing a letter to impeach Cao Xiu for sending troops without authorization, Gao Tanglong couldn't do anything.

What made Gao Tanglong even more embarrassed was that not long after his impeachment recital was sent, the edict of the Son of Heaven arrived in Shangcai.

The Son of Heaven crowned Cao Xiu as the general of the expedition to the east, and ordered him to send troops to meet Zhou Yi. Gao Tanglong didn't know what to say when he hit his face.

The impeachment note has been issued, and Gao Tanglong does not have the face to chase it back, and it is also a fact that Cao Xiu did not wait for the edict of the Son of Heaven to send troops, and Gao Tanglong believes that his impeachment is not wrong.

But in the same way, since the edict of the Son of Heaven has arrived, Gao Tanglong also asked the army to hurry up and catch up with Cao Xiu's army as soon as possible, and send the edict to Cao Xiu.

If there is no edict from the Son of Heaven, just relying on Cao Xiu's one-sided words and prestige in the army, it is good to say in good times, but in adversity, morale is prone to turbulence.

Gao Tanglong still prioritized the priorities, so he asked people to send the edict to Cao Xiu as soon as possible.

And Cao Xiu was indeed relieved after receiving the edict of the Son of Heaven.

One thing to say, Cao Xiu's letter to the Son of Heaven was actually to conceal his true combat intentions.

Cao Xiu is not as simple as responding to Zhou Yi at all, he is looking for an opportunity to capture Shouchun and retake Huainan.

But in this way, the Son of Heaven will definitely not agree, and he, Cao Xiu, does not have the right to fake festivals like Cao Zhen, and if he really wants to start a war without permission because of his surname Cao, then no matter whether he wins or loses afterwards, the Son of Heaven will not spare himself.

Otherwise, the world will return to the era of warlord scuffle. Cao Xiu is very clear about this.

Therefore, Cao Xiu had to go to that letter to deceive the Son of Heaven into agreeing to send troops to wait until the real fight started, and Cao Xiu had a way to expand the scale of this war.

Originally, Cao Xiu really wanted to wait until the clear edict of the Son of Heaven arrived before actually sending troops.

After all, this battle is not a unilateral battle for him Cao Xiu, and he also needs the cooperation of Jia Kui in Pengcheng, and without the edict of the Son of Heaven, it is really hard to say whether Jia Kui will cooperate in terms of the relationship between him Cao Xiu and Jia Kui.

However, the development of things often does not go smoothly Just when Cao Xiu was waiting for the edict of the Son of Heaven, Zhou Yi sent someone to send a secret letter again, saying that Sun Quan seemed to be aware of his intention to surrender to Wei, and had sent Lu Yi, the captain of the school office, to Huainan to investigate in person.

For this school office, Cao Xiu has also heard about it through the detailed work of the Eastern Wu side, which belongs to Sun Quan's henchmen, and is specially used to target some "disobedient" Eastern Wu officials.

Once they target someone, it is basically equivalent to being on Sun Quan's blacklist.

Zhou Yi also made it very clear that once the people from the school office arrived in Runan, no matter whether Cao Xiu was ready to take him over or not, he would inevitably get into trouble, and he would not sit still.

Therefore, Cao Xiu could not wait any longer.

Although Cao Xiu was still wary of Zhou Doi, if Zhou Doi really surrendered, but because of the slow march on his side, he could not meet Zhou Doi in time, not to say whether he could get a springboard to attack Shouchun, but to say that after Zhou Doi was killed by Sun Quan, the political impact was not small.

The people who wanted to take refuge in Da Wei did not succeed because of Da Wei's slow reaction, and they did not even save their lives. Who will dare to defect to Dawei again in the future?!

Therefore, Cao Xiu had to send troops in advance, and even offended Gao Tanglong for this, and collected the 20,000 Yanzhou soldiers brought by Gao Tanglong.

But because of this, although the 20,000 Yanzhou soldiers obeyed Cao Xiu's dispatch, the morale of the army was not high.

Don't look at Gao Tanglong, who has only been Chen Liutaishou for less than three years, but he has already gained a lot of reputation in Yanzhou with his political achievements and honest style.

These Yanzhou soldiers also knew very well that Cao Xiu had forcibly taken over the command of the Yanzhou soldiers, and they were not clear whether it was out of personal contradictions or fighting for power and profit, and they could not intervene, but they were somewhat reluctant to let them go to the front line to fight in this situation.

Therefore, the morale of the Yanzhou soldiers is not high, and incidentally, it will also affect the 10,000 Yingchuan soldiers who come to help.

These 10,000 Yingchuan soldiers were privately lent to Cao Xiu by Wang Ling, and this unjustifiable situation is even more serious than that of Yanzhou soldiers.

If there is no righteous name that can make these soldiers recognize their purpose of fighting, it is just a bunch of motley troops with low morale and each with their own intentions.

Originally, Cao Xiu was still worried about this, but Gao Tanglong hurriedly sent him the edict of the Son of Heaven.

Now, Cao Xiu has a righteous name.

Reading the edict of the Son of Heaven in public, which stabilized the morale of the army, Cao Xiu breathed a sigh of relief and led the troops to leave Ruyin and march to Dangtu County.

Halfway through the journey, Cao Xiu received news from Dangtu County - Zhou Yi did not wait for Cao Xiu to lead the troops to arrive, and directly removed the banner of Eastern Wu and replaced it with the banner of Great Wei.

He rebelled ahead of time!!

Then, Cao Xiu received a letter from Zhou Yi, hoping that Cao Xiu would lead his troops into Jiujiang County as soon as possible to respond to his uprising, and at the same time, Zhou Yi also told Cao Zhen about the deployment of troops in the three counties around Dangtu County, Xia Cai, Ping'a, and Yicheng.

When Tu County was in an important place, Zhou Yi had 5,000 soldiers stationed in his hands, and the other three counties were each guarded by 3,000 soldiers.

The original intention of Soochow was to build a three-dimensional defensive front centered on Dangtu County and surrounded by three counties, and the total number of troops arranged in the four counties also reached 11,000 people, plus Shouchun behind him could provide timely reinforcements, such a defense system could completely block the threat from Runan.

This point, without Zhou Yi's reminder, Cao Xiu can see it clearly.

And Cao Xiu also understood that the core point of this front-line defense system was Dangtu County, where Zhou Yi was stationed.

Once Zhou Yi of Dangtu County raised the anti-flag, it was equivalent to temporarily cutting off the passage for the other three counties to support each other, and what Cao Xiu had to do was to divide and encircle and capture the three counties under the counterattack of Shouchun's Eastern Wu army to support the three counties or counterattack Dangtu, then half of the land of Jiujiang County would fall into the hands of Great Wei, and at the same time open the channel for attacking Shouchun.

The combat strategy is like this, and now Zhou Yi has also launched a rebellion in advance, and the rest is that Cao Xiu divides his troops and sends people to attack the other three counties.

However, Cao Xiu is really careful now compared to his previous conceit.

Last time, Cao Xiu was lured deep by Zhou Yu because of his carelessness, pressed him to the ground and beat him violently, and he almost died.

Although Cao Xiu was still executing according to the original plan this time, he was not careless, or rather, he did not fully trust Zhou Yi.

Therefore, the combat arrangement given by Cao Xiu is like this.

Ordered Zhang Te, the governor of Yingchuan County sent by Wang Ling to support, to lead 10,000 Yingchuan County soldiers to attack Xia Cai, ordered his subordinate Zhang Pu to lead 10,000 Yanzhou County soldiers to attack Ping'a, and ordered another subordinate general, Xue Qiao, to lead 10,000 troops to attack Yicheng.

For these three people, Cao Xiu gave them enough superior forces, so he asked them to fight quickly and capture the three counties as soon as possible.

And Cao Xiu himself, with 20,000 Runan soldiers from his headquarters, advanced unhurriedly to Dangtu County.

Anyway, this time he will definitely not go deep easily, before the three counties are not captured and his flanks are not protected, he Cao Xiu will never enter Dangtu County.

(End of chapter)