In June of the twelfth year of Jian'an, in Danqu County, Ba County, Cai Mao in the county office kept rubbing her temples.

Cai Du, a close confidant next to him, saw that he was bored, so he asked, "Uncle, what's wrong?" Although the recent offensive has not been smooth, it is not a big problem. ”

Cai Mao shook his head and said, "Your Majesty's letters urging me to use soldiers have been flying like snowflakes these days, which makes me very sad. ”

Cai Du thought for a while and said, "Why didn't my uncle write the current situation into a chapter and tell His Majesty to listen?" ”

"It's useless to say it."

Cai Mao, who was in her fifties, had gray temples at the moment, stood up with a melancholy face, and walked in the hall with her hands behind her back and said: "What's more, even if my offensive goes well, I must not continue to march into the army." ”

"Why is that?"

Cai Du is Cai Mao's nephew, so he doesn't have so many scruples when he speaks, and asks: "If you defeat Zhang Lu and capture Xichuan, wouldn't your uncle be a great achievement?" ”

"Huh."

Cai Mao sneered and said, "A great achievement? I'm afraid that the day we seize Xichuan will be the time when your uncle and I die. ”

Cai Du was shocked: "Ah, why is this happening? ”

"The eldest prince has no queen, you married the second prince from your sister, what Your Majesty is most worried about now is that once he collapses, our Cai clan will be in charge of the entire south, and once the south is gained, I will die for Your Majesty."

Cai Mao remembered the correspondence between him and Kuai Yue from the beginning of the year to the present, and he didn't believe it before, but during this time, Liu Biaoxin seemed to be more and more dissatisfied with him.

From the beginning of this year to the present six months, there have been at least five or more letters every month, as well as official letters denouncing him.

This big change in attitude before and after also made Cai Mao realize that maybe things are really as Kuai Yue said.

Although the truth is also what Liu Biao thinks, Cai Mao and Kuai Yue just want to push Liu Cong to the throne in order to control the entire south.

But the problem is that we have the intention of being a powerful minister, and you can't eradicate us powerful ministers.

Now is the key to life and death, and it also makes Cai Mao extremely bored.

Cai Du was shocked when he learned of this, Cai Mao is the pillar of the Cai family, if he falls, the Cai family will be finished, so he hurriedly said: "The general will not be subject to the military orders abroad, and my uncle is in charge of the army, so don't you just delay for time?" ”

"Hmph."

Cai Mao snorted coldly: "I don't want to delay time, but Your Majesty has recently held frequent court meetings, saying that he wants to send me to Xiangyang and send Wen to take my place. ”

Cai Du hurriedly asked, "How is that good?" ”

Cai Mao rubbed his temples and said: "I plan to write to Your Majesty, I will launch a general attack this year to delay time, and when the war comes, I can't change the generals on the spot." ”

"That's all there is to it."

Cai Du pondered: "Now that Zhang Lu occupies Hanchang, it will be difficult for us to conquer it in a short time, even if we can conquer it, we can delay it for a year or two to attack Liu Zhang, maybe at that time."

"I hope so."

Cai Mao nodded noncommittally, her eyes full of melancholy.

In history, he and Kuai Yue became a surrender faction and surrendered the huge Jingzhou to Cao Cao.

But the situation is very different these days.

Because Liu Xian really has the strength to dominate the world.

It's just that he is too old and may not be able to finish it in his hands, but there is a lot of hope in the hands of the second generation.

In other words, once Liu Biao takes the entire south and Liu Cong takes the throne, then Cai Mao will become the most powerful person in the world.

As a relative, at least he is also a general.

It is not good to say that in the future, if you will dominate the world, you will be able to go to the palace with a sword, enter the court without trending, praise and worship without a name, and add nine tin, crown ten, take a golden car, drive six horses, enter and exit with the Son of Heaven Luanyi, and even.

Although Cai Mao hasn't thought that far, he will never let go of the opportunity to reach the throne of power in the world overnight, not to mention that it involves life and death.

So at this moment, Cai Mao had a complicated emotion.

I want to pacify the south as soon as possible and let myself reach the top, but I also want to delay time and wait until Liu Biao dies before he can become a general.

Therefore, the mood is extremely conflicted for a while.

It's just that no matter how contradictory it is, the current top priority is still survival, and under the pressure of Liu Biao, he also had to launch a forcible attack on Zhang Lu.

You can't even be defeated.

Once defeated, not only will Liu Biao have an excuse to kill him, but his military power will also be taken away, so he can only go all out.

In July of the twelfth year of Jian'an, Cai Mao once again launched a fierce attack on Pingxiang Pass.

Heavy rain in Hanzhong in August, the water level of the Qianjiang River soared, and the lower reaches of the Qianjiang River were very wide, but the upper reaches of the Pingxiang area were relatively narrow, making it difficult for Cai Mao's water army to play.

Now that the water level had risen sharply, the fleet had arrived in Pingxiang, and their position was even higher than the city that Zhang Lu had cast in Pingxiang, and countless arrows rained down from the ship against Pingxiang Pass, and almost no one dared to defend it.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cai Mao immediately ordered the infantry to attack the city, and Pingxiang Pass was quickly overcome, and Zhang Lu's army hurriedly withdrew to Hanchang.

By the end of August, Cai Mao had completely taken the entire Pingxiang Pass.

After Pingxiang Pass was conquered, the pressure on Cai Mao was greatly relieved, and Liu Biao no longer mentioned the matter of letting Wen Ping replace Cai Mao in the recent court meeting, but he was still urging Cai Mao to defeat Zhang Lu as soon as possible.

For this reason, Cai Mao also had to continue to attack, Pingxiang Pass is the most dangerous level, and it should be easier to fight Hanchang City after Pingxiang Pass.

Originally, most of his sources of grain and grass were transported from Jingzhou by water, from the Yangtze River to Jiangzhou, and then from Jiangzhou to the Dianjiang River, and finally from the Dianjiang River to the Danqu, a long journey of thousands of kilometers.

The previous rivers were all big rivers, and although they were all countercurrents all the way, it was better to transport them by water than by land. However, after the Pingxiang Qianjiang River, the upper reaches of the river are getting narrower and narrower, and there are fault waterfalls, so it is difficult to transport by water.

The road by land is the road of the rice cang road, but it is also extremely rugged, and it is transported from the ditch for hundreds of kilometers, which makes Cai Mao suffer a lot, and can only temporarily be stationed in Pingxiang, waiting for the follow-up grain and grass.

In October, after waiting for more than a month, a large amount of grain and grass was sent from Danqu County one after another, and Cai Mao sent troops to Hanchang and surrounded Hanchang City.

The two sides are again at a stalemate.

Until November, Cai Mao's army was close to running out of grain and grass, but fortunately, a new batch of grain and grass from Jingzhou was transported to Danqu and could be replenished soon.

However, what no one knew was that in the Bashu Road in the east, Zhang Lu sent Yang Ang, a general of the army, to lead 10,000 elite soldiers and quietly went south.

Although Zhang Lu pressed Liu Zhang to fight, he was able to occupy the northern part of Ba County because he accepted a lot of Guanzhong property, and Dong Zhuo's rebellion caused countless Guanzhong people to move to Hanzhong, so that his soldiers and horses and strength skyrocketed.

But his total strength is only 50,000 or 60,000, and he has to guard against other places, so in fact, the number of troops fighting against Cai Mao is only more than 30,000, far from the claimed 50,000 army.

Therefore, when he was attacked by Cai Mao, he could only accept the advice of the strategist Yan Pu and let the commander of the front-line army, that is, his younger brother Zhang Wei, retreat back to Hanchang.

What people didn't expect was that after retreating back to Hanchang, it exposed the weakness of Cai Mao's army's supply difficulties.

So Yan Pu immediately proposed a plan to him, and after leading Cai Mao into Hanchang, he sent people to take the Bashu Road to Xuanhan, but instead of attacking Xuanhan, he took a small road, that is, the area of Shuanglong Town, Dazhou City, in the later world, bypassing Xuanhan City and going straight to the ditch!

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On Jiangdong's side, Huang Zu didn't have as many troubles as Cai Mao.

Because he is Liu Qi's faction, Liu Qi is shrewd and capable, and his prestige is enough, so he will not become Cai Maoyue's puppet like Liu Cong.

Therefore, Jia Xu, Huang Zu, and Shen Chen are basically the three cornerstones left by Liu Biao for Liu Qi's future succession.

It's just that Jiangdong has been unable to conquer for a long time, and Liu Biao has also sent documents to urge him every month.

Huang Zu was helpless, although he made considerable progress, even pulled out more than ten cities in Jiangdong, and had captured Nanling in May this year, and killed the mouth of the water, but was blocked by the mouth of the water.

This place is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and Huang Zu has repeatedly attacked the city, but he can't take it. Although it is also possible to attack Jiangdong by land, the mouth of the wet beard is not broken, and the lone army is looking for death if it goes deep.

Just as Liu Bei has already killed Luocheng, and Chengdu is close at hand, it is obviously impossible to fight Chengdu behind him if Luocheng is not broken.

Therefore, the two sides can only fight to the death in the mouth.

Sun Quan personally sat in the Spring Valley City, and the Ochre City occupied by the mouth of the water and Huang Zu, that is, the Nanling, was at its peak.

The three parties are intertwined in this area, entangled with each other, and the daily fighting has hardly stopped.

Although Huang Zu had an army of more than 100,000 people, Mei Gan, Lei Xu, Chen Lan and others were originally local forces on the wall, so they naturally refused to help each other with their lives.

So in a short period of time, Huang Zu actually didn't have much to do with Sun Quan.

The two sides have been in a stalemate until the second half of the twelfth year of Jian'an in September, because of the war, the people in this area have almost fled, and on the sixth day of September, Huang Zu launched an attack on the mouth of the water again.

After a day of fighting, the Jiangxia Navy returned to the barracks very tired, and these days were a great torment for both sides of the battle.

The Jiangdong army was exhausted, and the Jiangxia army was also exhausted, so the nerves of both the enemy and us collapsed to the extreme.

It was in the midst of this day and night.

A group of soldiers and horses quietly left the mouth of the mustache and took advantage of the night to touch the camp of Meigan.

At first, Huang Zu was still very prepared for night attacks, but after a long time, he was very tired of being so defensive every day, thinking that he had an army of more than 100,000 people, and Sun Quan did not have the courage to sneak attack, so he slowly relaxed.

As a result, there had been no raids for more than a year, which wiped out Huang Zu's original caution, leaving only a few men and horses to keep vigil, and most of the soldiers rested in the barracks.

Even Huang Zu's army is like this, not to mention Mei Gan, Lei Xu, Chen Lan and others, their troops are Jianghuai Liukou, and their quality is not as good as Huang Zu's army.

Therefore, the sudden attack of the Jiangdong Army directly caused the Meiqian Army to bomb the camp, tens of thousands of people roared, and caused a terrible stampede and collision accident.

Mei Qian's army was like this, and Lei Xu and Chen Lan were similar, and soon this kind of bombing camp spread to the whole army, except for Huang Zu's headquarters in Zheqi City, most of the military camps outside the city were affected to varying degrees.

Sun Quan then took advantage of the night to attack the whole army and launched a big counterattack on Jingzhou!

this day.

Jingzhou, a prosperous building, is about to collapse!

Well, basically this book has entered the middle stage, the progress is fast, and it is expected to end with more than 2 million words, and I will work hard to finish it by the first half of next year.

(End of chapter)