The sudden flames of war in Jingzhou were soon spread by the soldiers who fled in the two cities of Yidu and Xiangyang, as well as some ordinary people in nearby villages and towns.

The Blood Banner Army of Sichuan has hit. Yidu fell, Xiangyang fell, and Jingzhou Mu Liu Biao fled to Jiangling in a hurry!

And the truth is far more dire than the rumors.

Liu Biao was led out of Xiangyang by 500 soldiers at noon on the second day of the offensive and defensive battle of Xiangyang. The direction in which he retreated was indeed Gangneung. Along the way, Liu Biao's mind was always cold. I never thought that in the offensive and defensive battle, the defending side would exchange and compare the besieging side. There are more than 40,000 Jingzhou elites, plus more than 20,000 auxiliary troops in the surrounding military towns, and they can't stop the 30,000 blood banner army besieging the city?!

And I don't dare to take it down if I want to. Once the troops are withdrawn on a large scale, the entire defense system will collapse in an instant, and more people will die in the rout. Even he, Liu Biao, will lose the chance to escape.

As soon as Liu Biao arrived at the edge of the Yangtze River, he saw more than 10,000 Jiangling defenders who were preparing to cross the river to help. After the convergence, Liu Biaoqiang lowered the idea of turning the horse's head and going to Xiangyang again, and ordered the Jiangling reinforcements to return to defend Jiangling, leaving some ships to wait by the river to meet the defeated defenders of Xiangyang City.

As soon as Liu Biao gave this order, the Jiangling army that came in a hurry understood from top to bottom that Xiangyang could not be defended! It sounded close to a myth.

How many people did the Blood Banner Army come? How could they take Xiangyang in just two days?

Regardless of the idea of Jiangling's reinforcements, anyway, the matter has come to this point, it is useless to think about it, so he escorted Liu Biao and returned to Jiangling the same way. But they didn't know that when they left the riverside less than half a day. The defeat of Xiangyang City arrived. In other words, Xiangyang fell half a day after Liu Biao left Xiangyang.

The Jiangling soldiers who were guarding the riverside to answer were shocked in their hearts, looking at the rout soldiers coming from Xiangyang, they were not only extremely embarrassed, but also pitifully small in number. Less than 3,000 in total!

"Brother, let's go, the cavalry of the Blood Banner Army is still chasing and killing, and they have been chasing for two days, maybe they will chase to the river, and they won't be able to leave by then." ”

"Leave now, don't wait for the people behind?"

"Wait a fart! The generals are all captured, and the ones behind are all running slowly, either dead or scattered, and no one will come again. Let's get on the boat!"

In fact, there were not many pursuers, there were only 500 horsemen in total, which was a means for Zhang Liao to deliberately stay at the end to kill the router. Although he deliberately let Liu Biao go, he was unwilling to let too many Xiangyang City soldiers retreat to Jiangling. So they pursued and dispersed all the way, and finally defeated and fled to the river, and the number of defenders of Xiangyang City was less than 3,000.

And the other side. Starry Night rushed to Zhang Fei's headquarters near Xiangyang, and found that the flag on the city wall had been replaced by the blood-red wordless flag of the Blood Banner Army, and he was terrified and did not dare to show his head. He only had five hundred horsemen in his hands, but he didn't dare to go up and provoke these Blood Banner troops who would conquer the fortified city in a few days. Hurriedly turned the horse's head, returned the same way, and informed Guan Yu, who was still on the road, that he didn't need to come again.

In this way, the first strategic concept of the Blood Banner Army has been preliminarily achieved. The door to Jingzhou was completely opened.

Liu Xie, who was far away in Chengdu, counted the time, and he firmly believed that Lü Bu and Zhang Liao would not let him down, so after the scheduled time for the first wave of attacks arrived, and before receiving the report of the results, the first reinforcements of the Blood Banner Army were assembled again in Badong and Fuling, and then rushed to Xiangyang and Yidu.

Regarding the matter of reinforcements, Liu Xie and Chen Gong have also studied it repeatedly. They predicted that Yidu's defensive strength would definitely be much lower than that of Xiangyang. Therefore, in terms of losses, Zhang Liao and Gao Shun's troops who attacked Xiangyang should be greater than those of Lu Bu and Wu Yi. Therefore, the first batch of reinforcements, 20,000 militiamen went to Xiangyang, and 10,000 militiamen went to Yidu.

In the baggage team, there were also three hundred Yama Divine Thunder newly prepared for each of the two legions. and a consumable ordnance.

On February 22, at the same time that Liu Xie received the battle report sent back by Lü Bu and Zhang Liao, the two reinforcements that set off first had arrived in Xiangyang and Yidu. And Liu Xie also hurriedly gathered his main strategists and began to study the two battle reports in his hand.

To tell the truth, the battle on the front line of Yidu was the same as Liu Xie and others had expected, and Yidu City was broken in half a day under Lu Bu's hands. But he didn't expect Xiangyang City to resist so strongly. In order to achieve the order to take Xiangyang within three days, Zhang Liao's losses this time were somewhat unexpectedly large.

"Your Majesty. Generals Zhang Liao and Gao Shun suffered huge losses this time, and they could replenish the main force of the 1,000 Blood Banner Army to pass. Chen Gong suggested.

But Liu Xie has his own ideas. The number of the main force of the Blood Banner Army was controlled at 30,000, and now there are 10,000 in Sichuan. And he still had 6,000 copies of divine water in his hand that he had stored. In other words, under the premise that Lord Yama did not give the divine water again, Liu Xie could still arm the main force of the Blood Banner Army of 6,000 people in his hands, and even if he was greedy, it was okay to arm the elite of the 1,000 Blood Banner Army.

But now the war is on. Do you want to play some hole cards in your hand? This is not appropriate in Liu Xie's opinion.

"No, you don't. Xiangyang, which Zhang Liao has conquered, has now opened up, and when the news spreads, Zhang Liao's troops have already pointed directly at Jiangling City. And Lü Bu's southward expansion plan will also complete the attack on Lingling. At that time, our first phase of strategic vision will be completed. There is no need to send the main force again. ”

Chen Gong nodded and said with a smile: "In this way, Zhang Liao and General Gao Shun estimate that they will have to put more thought into it." ”

"It's inevitable. The battle will be more complicated in the future. You can't rely on reinforcements alone, they have to use their brains to fight on their own. Liu Xie also smiled. Then he picked up the pen and wrote a letter to Lu Bu and Zhang Liao respectively. Then the horse was sent away.

"When we weaken Liu Biao's forces a little more, we can force them to the line of Jiangxia, Baqiu, and Guiyang. Then just wait for the big drama to play out. ”

"Hahaha, what Your Majesty said is interesting, it is true, it will be a great show. ”

The two looked at each other and smiled, extremely cheerful.

Everything was as Chen Gong and Liu Xie expected. On the fifth day of the first month of March, the first army led by Lü Bu arrived at Wuling, besieged the city for half a day, and the defenders in the city led their troops to surrender. Take Wuling.

Then, Lu Bu once again left hundreds of soldiers to guard Wuling, and he continued to lead the First Army and Wuling to kill Lingling. Everywhere they went, all the original military towns in Jingzhou surrendered in unison, not daring to delay for a moment. So much so that when Lü Bu led his troops to Lingling on March 20, his soldiers reached more than 40,000. More than 10,000 of them were Jingzhou troops who surrendered.

Lingling was more straightforward than the previous Wuling, and before the Lu Bu brigade arrived, they had already lowered their flag and surrendered. It didn't take a single soldier to fall into the hands of the Blood Banner Army.

At this point, the first phase of the strategic goal of the First Army Corps to which Lu Bu belonged was completely achieved.

And Zhang Liao's division of the Second Army of the Blood Banner Army, although the start was not smooth, the subsequent battle seemed to be a lot smoother.

The 2nd Army Corps, reinforced by reinforcements, launched an attack on Gangneung on 15 March, five days after facing Gangneung Fortress. This time, Zhang Liao learned the lessons of Xiangyang before. When he came up, it was the Yama God Thunder who opened the way, and he poured out a hundred and fifty pieces of money before he began to press the soldiers.

At dawn on March 16, Zhang Liao used the siege soldiers and the bombardment of divine thunder as a cover to transport ten Yama divine thunders across the moat and arrived at the east gate of Jiangling City. Then ignite. A third of the gates collapsed in the violent explosion. It has opened a fatal hole in this fortified city.

The battle lasted until the evening of March 16. Gangneung Fortress falls. The remaining 5,000 defenders surrendered, and the remaining 2,000 soldiers fled to Jiangxia with Liu Biao and others.

On the fifth day of April, Liu Xie received two battle reports in Chengdu. After reading it, he raised his head and roared, excited. In the past two months of attack, Jingzhou has gone from Xiangyang to Jiangling to Lingling, and all the land west of this line is the territory of his Blood Banner Army!

This knife was fast and ruthless, and under Liu Biao's surprise, he cut off two-thirds of Jingzhou's land with one knife. Whether it is practical benefits or strategic significance, it is of far-reaching significance to the entire Blood Banner Army.

(End of chapter)