Lu Xun didn't expect that Cao Xiu would lead more than 20,000 people to chase Quan Cong to the death, causing Quan Cong to have to retreat to Yinling.

According to Lu Xun's original plan, after Quan Cong "failed" in the attack on Dangtu County, he was going to lead the army back to aid Shouchun.

In order to attract Cao Xiu to take the initiative to march to Shouchun, now there are only 5,000 soldiers stationed in Shouchun, if Quan Cong can safely withdraw to Shouchun, there are about 10,000 soldiers to stick to Shouchun, at least it can ensure that Cao Xiu will not be able to break Shouchun in a short period of time and buy time for his follow-up plan.

But. This is how the war will develop, and it is impossible for everything to be as predicted.

At this time, it is the time to test the coach's layout and command ability, whether it is to arrange the plan in advance or make a decision on the spot, it is very important.

And Lu Xun, although he has been overshadowed by Zhou Yu's light all these years, Lu Xun is also a very outstanding military commander.

There is no need to make a decision on the spot, before the war, Lu Xun took into account the dangers that he might encounter after evaluating the defense of Shouchun City, and had already considered a plan for this - he ordered Lu Shu, who was stationed in Quyang, to lead 5,000 soldiers and horses to rush to the aid of Shouchun.

Give Shouchun enough 10,000 troops to defend the city.

At the same time, Lu Xun asked Sun Shao to take 3,000 people and rush from Chengde to Shouchun with great fanfare.

After all, Sun Shao was the titular commander-in-chief of the Eastern Wu Army in the Huainan region, and he rushed to Shouchun with great fanfare, which basically meant that he was going to continue to fight the Shouchun defense battle with Cao Xiu.

In doing so, on the one hand, it can continue to attract Cao Xiu to Shouchun City, and on the other hand, it can also break Cao Xiu's defense in other directions, so that Lu Xun can start to use troops in the future.

And Lu Xun's plan, at this time, showed its clues.

On the one hand, Lu Xun asked the army to set off immediately, detoured to Yinling, and went to inform Xu Sheng, who was stationed in Guangling, that he could act, on the other hand, Lu Xun left Ding Feng in Chengde to command the Shouchun offensive and defensive battle, and he himself personally led the Dongwu naval army to enter Yingshui from Shaobei, go upstream, and directly attack Ruyin, an important town in southern Runan.

At this time, Cao Xiu was camping under Shouchun City, building siege equipment, waiting for his three-way reinforcements to arrive, and then start attacking the city.

Although there are no big rivers in Huainan, there are countless small lakes, tributaries of large rivers, and even artificial channels.

For example, Shaobei, where Lu Xun is going to cross, is a large artificial lake built by Sun Shuao of Chu during the Spring and Autumn Period.

Although this place has undergone changes of the times and has not been repaired for a long time, resulting in a large shrinkage of the artificial lake, which cannot be used for warfare at all, it is not a problem to build a naval dock to transport troops.

And Shaobi is just connected to the downstream of this Yingshui, and along the Yingshui upstream, you can directly reach Ruyin in Runan County, that is, the base where Cao Xiutun's troops are preparing to attack Jiujiang County.

Lu Xun also chose Huainan at the end of July and early August, just in autumn, but it was still very hot, and the most important thing is that at this point in time, the rainfall in Huainan is very small, so there is no need to worry about the inability to swim upstream.

Therefore, Lu Xun personally led 20,000 Dongwu naval troops from Shaobi to Yingshui, preparing to go to Ruyin to attack Ruyin.

At this time, Ruyin, after Cao Xiu's main force went out, there were only 2,000 people to guard, and with Lu Xun's ability and the advantage of sneak attack, it was easy to succeed.

And once it occupies Ruyin, it is equivalent to cutting off Cao Xiu's retreat.

Of course, at this time, Cao Xiu can also choose to retreat from Shouchun City and counterattack Ruyin with more than 50,000 troops As Cao Xiu considered, Shouchun is not a stone pavilion in the end, it is not far from Runan, and it is not so easy to completely trap him.

Of course, Lu Xun also knew this, so he would notify Xu Sheng, who was stationed in Guangling, to do it at the same time.

In fact, Xu Sheng at this time was no longer in Guangling.

Nominally, in order to deal with the threat of the border of Pengcheng Jia Kuitun's troops, Xu Sheng led his troops north and had already reached Xuyi.

But in fact, Xu Sheng's arrival in Xuyi with his troops had been arranged a long time ago, but Jia Kui's activities in Pengcheng gave Xu Sheng a legitimate excuse.

Next, Xu Sheng will go down the Huaishui in Xuyi, directly into the Yicheng behind Cao Xiu, and when Tu and the two counties, Cao Xiu will be trapped under Shouchun City.

In other words, in order to block Cao Xiu this time, Lu Xun set up three siege networks.

The first is with Shouchun as the core, including Shouchun, Quyang, and Chengde.

This encirclement network is not so much to block Cao Xiu, but to hold Shouchun, attract Cao Xiu under Shouchun City, and try his best to kill and injure the living forces of the Wei army.

The second line of defense was the 10,000 Guangling Army led by Xu Sheng, united with the defenders of the four counties of Dangtu where Zhou Yi was located, to intercept Cao Xiu's retreat as the first step.

And even if Cao Xiu broke through the encirclement network organized by Xu Sheng in the four counties and returned to Runan, there was still the last encirclement network, and Lu Xun led his troops to block Ruyin.

Even if Cao Xiu can really break through, it is estimated that he will have to take off a layer of skin.

And even if Cao Xiu broke through by luck, Lu Xun would not let him go easily, and then Lu Xun would converge with Xu Sheng's troops and directly launch an attack on Runan, which was seriously underarmed.

The lowest goal is to occupy Yingyang, Xincai and other places to expand the strategic space for Shouchun's defense, and the highest goal is to directly capture Runan County and open up a passage into Yanzhou in the Central Plains.

This is Lu Xun's overall strategic plan.

At this moment, Cao Xiu really didn't find anything unusual, and was still attacking Shouchun with all his might.

Thinking about the problem from Cao Xiu's point of view, he really couldn't imagine that Lu Xun would go around such a big circle, send troops from Chengde in the south of Shouchun City to block his back road, and even recruit Xu Sheng's Guangling soldiers to help in the battle, so he would rather empty the defense of Guangling County.

And behind Cao Xiu, the four counties, including Dangtu, have been conquered by the Wei army, and the entire back road has been connected, Cao Xiu really didn't think that in this case, he would be surrounded under Shouchun City without any warning.

Lu Xun sent troops to attack Ruyin, and it was unlikely that Cao Xiu would receive the news immediately in a short time, but Xu Sheng led his troops down the Huai River and occupied Dangtu County at once, Cao Xiu did immediately receive a warning signal from the rear.

But it was too late, the person who sent the warning signal was the defeated Wei army he placed in Dangtu County, and when they ran to Shouchun to warn Cao Xiu, Xu Sheng had already occupied Dangtu County.

And what made Cao Xiu most angry was that the reason why Xu Sheng was able to quietly occupy Dangtu County was completely due to Zhou Yi, a bastard.

Cao Xiu fell for Zhou Yi after all, and this Zhou Doi really surrendered.

Yes, Cao Xiu did take a defensive hand against Zhou Doi, transferred Zhou Doi's headquarters soldiers and horses, and left three thousand Wei army guards for Zhou Doi as Tu. In Cao Xiu's opinion, even if Zhou Yi surrendered by fraud and had three thousand Wei troops watching, he would not be able to make any noise.

But Cao Xiu underestimated Zhou Yi after all.

Zhou Yi is also a city defender, at least when he does not encounter an actual threat, he is still the supreme commander in the city, it doesn't matter if he can't command the Wei army, Zhou Yi has other ways.

Under the pretext of inspecting the city defense, Zhou Yi made a transfer to the city gate guards, and installed some of the dead guards who had hidden themselves to guard the city gate.

At this time, the Wei army, who sensed that something was wrong, wanted to resist, but it was too late.

After some fighting, the 3,000 Wei army could not be the opponent of the prepared Eastern Wu army without unified command, and soon broke up and fled from Dangtu, and some of the Wei army defeated ran to the periphery of Shouchun to report to Cao Xiu.

Immediately afterwards, the bad news that gave Cao Xiu even more headaches came one after another.

The three counties of Xia Cai, Ping'a, and Yicheng, which had already been captured by Zhang Te, Zhang Pu, and Xue Qiao, also directly chose to defect again after Xu Sheng took control of Dangtu County.

For a time, Cao Xiu's back road was blocked.

This also blames Cao Xiu for not being good.

Zhang Te, Zhang Pu, and Xue Qiao, although they captured the three counties, in fact, almost all three of them were bloodless all the way to the three counties that were forced to surrender under the superior forces.

If they were given a little more time to adjust the defense of the three counties and leave their own people to defend the city, it would not be so easy for the three counties to defect again, and Cao Xiu would still have room to retreat.

But in just a few days, Cao Xiu gave an order to the three of them, asking them to immediately lead their troops eastward and join him to attack Shouchun. The three of them had no choice but to let the generals of Dongwu continue to be stationed in the three counties, and these three people did not even have Cao Xiu's guard, and even let the generals of Dongwu stay behind with their own troops and horses.

Originally, the defenders of the three counties of Dongwu surrendered, half of them really couldn't be defeated, and half of them were also arranged by Lu Xun, but now that Xu Sheng led the troops, he easily captured Dangtu, and the defenders of the other three counties would of course choose to "according to plan" and immediately anyway.

The successive bad news made Cao Xiu's brain hurt a little, but. Cao Xiu still didn't panic in the end.

In the final analysis, even if the back road is blocked now, Cao Xiu is not without a chance to break through.

After all, there is a big difference in the strength of the two sides.

Even if Tu and the other four counties rebelled again, the total strength would be less than 10,000 people, and they would still be distributed in the four counties, and the Guangling soldiers brought by Xu Sheng, according to the description of the rout, would probably be around 10,000 people.

In other words, the Dongwu army blocking their back road is about 20,000 people, and they still need to disperse and defend four county seats.

But Cao Xiu has nearly 50,000 people in his hands.

50,000 Wei troops, to break through the interception of 20,000 Eastern Wu troops scattered all over the place, in Cao Xiu's eyes, it is not a difficult task, just need to find the key point to break through.

And it's still that sentence, Shouchun is not too far away from Runan, as long as he breaks through Xu Sheng's blocking circle, Cao Xiu can directly withdraw to Runan.

Moreover, Xu Sheng led the Guangling army to leave Guangling, and to a certain extent, the defense of Guangling County was seriously weakened, although Cao Xiu and Jia Kui did not agree, but Jia Kui's ability Cao Xiu still would not question it.

In the face of such a good opportunity, if he Jia Kui didn't move and bounced, would he really make Cao Xiu look down on him!!

Shouchun may not be able to attack it himself, but Guangling and Jia Kui may not be able to attack it.

It's really hard to say who will take advantage in the end!!

(End of chapter)