Chapter Seventy-Nine: Forming an Alliance with Soochow (9)

I sent Li Sheng and a few barbarian guards back to the forest to explore the traces, and sent Zhuge Qiao and Zhang Bao down the mountain to carefully investigate the recent movements of the four counties of Jianning, Yongchang, Qiqi and Yuewang. At the same time, I quickened the pace of negotiations with Sun Deng to prevent the joint talks with Soochow from being sabotaged.

Zhuge Qiao and the others did not find out any changes in the counties, but the Li brothers were extremely capable, and they came to report to me on the third day and discovered the whereabouts of those barbarians.

"Your Highness, my brother went down the mountain that day and went to the hillside to inspect it carefully. In order to prevent snakes and insects, a large number of snake medicine and antidote were specially brought in case of accidents. In the place where the king python appeared, we checked for a long time, and found nothing, there are too many traces of snakes crawling there, and they are distributed in all directions, and we can't see anything. We thought that these poisonous snakes might have been summoned by the king python, so as soon as the king python died, they scattered in all directions. But what a huge thing that the king python is, it must not have crawled all the way from the south to this place. If you go by land, you have a car, and if you go by water, you have a boat. And from Nanzhong to this place, it is by no means a day's work, and the matter of His Royal Highness's meeting with Sun Shizi is only a matter of nearly a month, and it is absolutely not enough time to transmit the news to Nanzhong and then transport this python here. When we didn't probe for a long time, we gave up, thinking that if we went further, the mountain road was steep, and the locals said that there was no way, how did the barbarians in the south know? So we turned around and looked back. At a ferry ten miles from the hillside, we inquired for news, and sure enough, we heard that the day before our hunting, we had seen a small boat carrying a dozen barbarians and carrying a huge suitcase. I think it must be the barbarians and pythons we're looking for. However, few people know about our hunting, and their timing is so accurate that there is no doubt that there is no doubt that there is a thief to report the news. At the moment, my brother divided his troops into two routes, and I asked Li Wei to check the location of the nearest Wu camp nearby, and I went to various places to check whether there were any records of the passage of this small boat and the barbarians, and until two months ago, there was no record. If there was no record in the past, His Highness was here in person, and all the guards sent capable men from the White Ear Army to supervise and inspect it, and there should never be any dereliction of duty. And those who can penetrate deep into the hinterland of our army, but escape our ears, unless it is the Wu army who came to negotiate.

When I met Li Wei, we both agreed with this view. So we lurked next to the Wu camp and inquired about the movements of the Wu camp. In addition to Sun Shizi and others who lived in the mountain, there were also Xu Sheng's naval army and Pan Zhang's army under the mountain to negotiate in White Emperor City this time. The military camp here is a camp tent under Pan Zhang, and Liu Zhang is also living in this camp. ”

I was startled and grabbed Li Sheng's hand: "You said, Liu Zhang is in that camp." Very good, very good, you have done a great job. However, that Wang Python almost injured Sun Deng, did the people of Eastern Wu not even care about their own sons? ”

Li Sheng said: "We lay in wait outside the camp for two days, and we couldn't find a chance to attack, so I took the risk of knocking down a soldier who was on guard, and put on his clothes and sneaked into the Wu camp at night. Because of the remoteness of the barracks here, it didn't matter, and with a bit of luck, I was actually blinded in. Sure enough, in the camp, I found a few barbarians there setting up a fire to barbecue game, drinking wine while roasting, and singing loudly, I did not understand the barbarian language, nor could I understand what they were saying, but I felt that they were a little unhappy, as if they were complaining. After a while, one of the soldiers came up and said: 'In the barracks, you need to be quiet, and you must not drink wine, eat meat, or make loud noises. Before he could finish speaking, a barbarian waved his mace and shot it on the head. The soldier burst out of his head and rolled over and fell to the ground. I was taken aback at the time, this barbarian was afraid that he had three or four hundred pounds of strength in his hands, even Hesse, and he might not have such strength. At this moment, the Wu army was in chaos, and they all surrounded and stepped forward, surrounding more than a dozen barbarians. Although these barbarians were powerful and ferocious, they could not resist the might of the enemy's battle array, and they were surrounded in the blink of an eye. At this moment, a barbarian came out of the camp next to him, with a dozen feathers on his head, a golden bead around his neck, and green eyes like a wild beast. shouted: 'Stop! Liu Yizhou, we have come all the way to help you, what do you mean? Don't you want to hide all the birds? He speaks fluent Chinese. Then a general of the Wu army came out of the tent, waved his hand and said, "It's all scattered, scattered." A soldier said, 'General, he killed our men.' The general looked at the corpses on the ground, turned back to the barbarian leader, and said, "King Jing Python, this is yours, in my military camp, you should obey my orders, this is not Nanzhong, how can your subordinates kill people indiscriminately?" The king said, "You are just a small general, and you dare to be so presumptuous." Let Liu Yizhou and General Pan speak directly to me. They want to attack Yizhou, so that my southern and central departments will cooperate with it, and attack the east in the south, making it difficult for Liu Bei's men and horses to support them. But at this moment, seeing that something big is about to happen, what kind of talk is there to talk about? Talk together, but they don't let us go, but ask us to help kill people. At this moment, our dragons have been killed, what is it to kill all of you? When the Wu general heard this, he just smiled and said, "Why does the king need to be like this." Since you said that the dragon is dead, then your revenge for killing my sergeant is revealed. General Pan is busy with military affairs, and Liu Yizhou is not in good health, so he doesn't have time to see you. Although the military camp here is small, I am only a small general, but in this acre and three points of land, I am still in charge. In the past few days, the wind outside has been tight, and your subordinates still don't know how to restrain themselves, don't you want to die? King Jing Python hated and said, "What are you, you dare to take care of grandpa." There is no place to stay here, there is a place to stay here, the master is here, go! The Wu general said, "Go, I'm afraid it's not so easy." As the curtain opened, an obese old man over fifty years old came out, but his face was full of sickness, and he said, "Don't do it, everything is negotiable." The generals of the Wu people and the king of the Jing python shouted in unison: "My lord." The old man said: "Forget it, if you want to leave, leave it, from here to the south to a hundred miles, there is a mountain called Turtle Spirit, the people from the south are there, you change into Han clothes, quietly set off, only cross the mountains, do not take the main road, about three or five days to arrive." This time, you have done such a big thing, and I am also in suspense day and night, and you can't get along with them. Let's go. Wait for my news there, rest assured, even if Wu Hou doesn't do it this time, he will always be useful to you. As he spoke, he pulled the barbarians into his account. I lay in wait for a while, and then left the barracks by night, and in the morning I saw that the barbarians had changed their attire and quietly left. I followed quietly according to the platoon, and reported the matter to His Highness myself. ”

I patted Li Sheng and Li Wei on the shoulder: "Ziang, Zixuan, you two are very good, you are doing a good job." However, don't take that risk in the future, if you get caught, then what a good thing it is. There is another thing, the Dongwu sentinel was defeated by you, wouldn't it leak the news? ”

Li Wei lowered his head, and after a while, he said, "I brought a poisonous snake with me, bit him with the snake, and put his armor back on him when I came back." Even if the people of Eastern Wu saw him, they only thought that he was bitten to death by a poisonous snake, and they would not suspect him. ”

I nodded and told them to go down.

I have never heard of this place name, and I don't know how many people there are in the mountain. Looking at the attitude of the Wu generals and the king of Jing Python towards the fat old man, he is very likely to be Liu Zhang. And from their conversation, it can also be known that these barbarians came to be summoned by Liu Zhang, and planned to deal with Yizhou together. If our army was going all out to deal with the Wu army, and the entire barbarian army was dispatched from Nanzhong, it would indeed be difficult to deal with. However, in Yizhou, I resolved the contradictions of various ethnic groups and accepted famous people of all ethnic groups to become officials, and the ethnic contradictions were not as intensified as in history. As far as Sun Quan's choice to talk with us is concerned, I am afraid that not many people will be summoned by Liu Zhang, and the support given to Liu Zhang is extremely limited, so it will not be able to strengthen Sun Quan's confidence in winning Yizhou. In fact, it is not difficult to imagine that Liu Zhang can't do anything in front of Yizhou Mu, let alone now.

However, since Sun Quan chose to reconcile with me, why did this assassin appear in Pan Zhang's camp. And its target is actually Sun Deng, if Sun Deng really dies, what good will it do to Dongwu? This kind of stupid thing, how could Sun Quan do it? And Liu Zhang was born timid, if it wasn't for someone to support him, he wouldn't dare to let out some barbarians to do this, although he attacked with wild beasts, even if something went wrong, he could only blame me Ji Han for improper arrangement and poor protection, but as long as it was made by people, there might be loopholes, how could he dare to come up with such a strategy, he was not afraid that he would be found out in case?

What is the reason for this?

Is it a succession? Yes, it must be a succession!

When I think of this verse, my heart suddenly brightens. In my impression, the struggle for power in Eastern Wu should be after Sun Deng's death, that is, Sun Quan's second son and Sun Ba competed with Sun Ba, and the fight was inextricable, Sun Quan was angry, killed all two sons, passed the throne to his younger son Sun Liang, and planted the seeds of the defeat of Eastern Wu. Unexpectedly, at this time, there were already signs. I can't help but think further, could Sun Deng's early death also have something to do with this?

The negotiations are coming to an end, and Sun Deng and I have the experience of killing pythons together, and our friendship is getting closer day by day. I took the opportunity to inquire about the situation in Soochow: "Cousin, I heard that in Soochow, there are many people who advocate fighting with us. ”

Sun Deng smiled: "In the world, how can everything go well." Only some stupid people who don't know anything would think like this. ”

"I heard that some of your brothers are also involved?"

Sun Deng's face was surprised: "How does my cousin know?" In fact, this matter has nothing to do with Sun Ying and them, it is all caused by their masters. ”

As I expected, my heart was in ecstasy, but I sighed: "Since ancient times, there has been no family affection." ”

Sun Deng bit his lower lip all of a sudden, and his eyes swept to the wall, on which hung a newly made horned bow made of python tendons: "What do you mean, cousin?" ”

He was a smart man, and he seemed to have sensed that the hunt was not right. I shook my head and said, "I didn't say anything, but if the peace talks are successful, you can also be regarded as a great contribution to Soochow, but I'm afraid that some people will not be happy." ”

Sun Deng said unhappily: "No, even if they don't want the peace talks to succeed, they won't come to harm me." ”

I got up and said, "That's nature, I'm just talking about it." However, in three days I plan to go hunting again, this time I will only invite my cousin, is he interested? ”

Sun Deng looked at me, nodded for a long time, and said, "The hunting organized by my cousin has always been unexpected, how can I miss it, junior brother!" ”