Even if things like Zhang Fei and Zhuge Jin hadn't happened, Liu Bei would have been almost ready to seize Guangling.
Now I can travel lightly and don’t need to carry too much food. Naturally, I can react faster.
Following Liu Bei's order, the troops almost immediately left the city and headed straight for Guangling.
It's a total of 260 miles, and a normal infantry would take at least five days to walk. However, if you take a boat along the canal, you can do it day and night. Anyway, half of the people can sleep and half of the people can drive the boat when it's dark at night.
Liu Xun's defeated troops definitely had no ships to use, and their return to Guangling should be slower than them.
…
After all, Liu Bei is a hundred miles further away from Guangling County than Zhang Fei.
And one is cavalry and the other is infantry,
Finally arriving at Guangling City, it is estimated that the time difference can be at least one and a half days, or maybe two days if it is slower.
At the same time that Liu Bei began his forced march, Zhang Fei had already set off, and he did not dare to rest his horse too much and walk slowly along the way.
Although he didn't have to rush for time, before attacking, Zhuge Jin told him a bottom line: he must make sure that he could run faster than Chen Lan, who was in Liu Xun's retreat.
Because Chen Lan's troops were also cavalry, Zhang Fei wanted to disguise himself as Chen Lan's defeated cavalry and go to Guangling to deceive the enemy.
If the real Chen Lan arrives before this fake Chen Lan, then everything will be over and it will become Li Gui beating Li Kui.
Zhang Fei maintained the pace of marching hundreds of miles a day, rested normally at night, and gave his soldiers time for meals and lunch breaks during the day to ensure that the horses would not be too tired.
After a day and a half of marching and a half afternoon of rest, on the evening of the tenth day of August, Zhang Fei's thousand cavalry finally arrived in the northeast of Guangling County and headed south along the west bank of the Hangou Canal.
The troops' clothes were deliberately tattered, but at least they were in Yuan Shujun's uniform color, and there were no flaws in their appearance.
In order to ensure that the enemy would not be indistinguishable after the battle started, Zhuge Jin also taught Zhang Fei to do some preliminary preparations and asked all the soldiers to carry two pieces of white cloth with them.
Once the fight starts, wrap a white cloth around your forehead and arms. As long as there is a white cloth, it is your own. Don't kill each other.
Taking two pieces is also for insurance. If one piece is dropped and one is left, you will not be accidentally injured.
Moreover, their scheduled start time for the battle should be dusk. Considering that it would be dark soon and dark colors could not be seen clearly in the dark night, they specially used white cloth.
At this moment, seeing the city wall of Guangling County appearing on the horizon, Zhang Fei felt relieved as he stroked the white cloth in his arms.
Ziyu is really a master of calculation. He has thought of all these details. No one doubted their identity for more than a hundred miles along the way, and they got here safely. It can be seen that this battle will be successful!
Zhang Fei finally calmed down, controlled his speed, and let the cavalry quickly approach the Guangling city wall in the manner a deserter should.
The team cannot be too neat, nor can it be assembled into a group.
They have to be scattered, and the vanguard can only have a few dozen riders. It must be small enough so that the defenders can relax their vigilance and have the illusion that "it doesn't matter if they let in so many people." After the first few dozen people entered the city, it was still too late for the scattered people to swarm in.
Of course, Zhang Fei would personally lead the first few dozen riders. This team also included a dozen prisoners of war from the Yuan army who had just been reformed and won over. They were originally officers and soldiers under Lei Bo. Some of them were familiar to the officers left behind in Guangling.
These people will play an important role in cheating the city today.
The idea of letting the reformed prisoners of war answer questions to deceive the city was also proposed by Zhuge Jin seven days ago.
At first glance, it sounded very risky. Zhang Fei himself thought it was very risky at the time, but Zhuge Jin taught him the specific operation method: among the prisoners of the old Yuan Army under Lei Bo, he must select those whose father and son brothers were in the army and who were together. The captured soldiers were used as key targets for development.
The proportion of such people is very small, but Zhang Fei captured more than 600 Lei Bo Army soldiers that day, and finally spent a lot of energy to pick out a dozen, including three officers.
Yuan Shu claimed that he had enough troops and food supplies, and he had more than 100,000 troops in Huainan. There were cases where fathers, sons and brothers were forcibly captured and conscripted. Especially those who are officers, if they can keep their sons safe, they like to take their sons with them.
To prevent these people from rebelling again, the measures are nothing more than a multi-pronged approach. First of all, it's best to make sure they don't have any worries behind them, and choose the ones that don't have worries first.
If you really can't choose, then give these prisoners gold and silver rewards to feed them, and at the same time promise to retain their original positions, or even promise to be promoted and appointed.
The last one is that if a father and son are captured together, the father will be detained, and the same will be done if the brothers are captured together——
Unless the father is an officer, then the son can be detained. After all, the value of an officer showing his face to deceive the city is greater.
Having done so much homework and detailed work, it would be a shame for Zhuge Jin to put in so much mental effort if he failed to make progress at the last moment.
Zhang Fei saw that the city wall was already a hundred steps away. He calmed down and asked his subordinate Yuan Jun, who had just been completely transformed by gold and silver rewards and whose only son was still detained in Haixi County, to answer the call at the front.
Zhang Fei himself tightened his weapon and stood guard behind the opponent. As long as the opponent made any move, he could definitely kill him immediately.
Not to mention, this guy is quite unlucky. He was the one who took the initiative to confess when Zhang Fei discovered that Shiren was murdered while cleaning the battlefield after Lei Bo was destroyed eight days ago. His only son was also there when he wanted to interrogate the murderer. Lei Bo served as a soldier in the army.
Because of his confession, Zhang Fei killed Shiren's murderer Lei Junhou with one knife. As a result, he had no way out.
Everyone saw that his confession led to Shangguan's death. If such a person wants to go back to Yuan Shu's camp, it is like seeking death. He can only follow Zhang Fei to the end.
It can be said that the scarcity of this kind of one-in-a-thousand traitor candidates is already the same as that of Chen Peisi, which is very rare.
Zhang Fei's group of "robber cavalry" approached the north gate of Guangling East City, which of course attracted the attention of the Guangling County defenders. The city gates have begun to close, and the archers at the top of the city are also on guard with their bows and arrows.
"Who is coming, Qu! Stop immediately, don't enter the city without permission." A Qu Junhou at the top of the city shouted an order.
"Xu Junhou, don't you recognize me? Captain Lei died in battle a few days ago, and now we have all been transferred to Captain Chen!" The traitor stepped forward to answer, calling out the other party's identity in one word, and then followed up explain,
"The prince was robbed by Liu Bei, but Lieutenant Chen was unable to save him. He was defeated and returned. Fearing that Guangling might be lost, he asked me to wait for two days to come back and report the news. Why are you embarrassing us? Lieutenant Chen will be here soon!"
When Zhang Fei heard from the side, he realized that the traitorous commander was quite talented, and he vividly portrayed a fake and powerful officer who was "reassigned to subordinates after the death of the general".
I just had to tell Xu Junhou, "Back then, you had a high status under Captain Lei, but now everyone has transferred to Captain Chen. If you offend Captain Chen as soon as you come up, you may not be able to reap the rewards in the future."
Most of the military attaches under Yuan Shu's command have this tone. When Xu Junhou heard that his old master Lei Bo was dead, his troops were transferred. If he didn't prepare some drinks and food to catch the wind at this juncture, Chen Lan would arrive soon, looking disgraced and hungry. If you can't bear it, don't you blame them for their poor response?
Thinking of this, Xu Junhou gave up trying to close the city gate immediately, and instead reopened some of the gates and let the cavalry into the city so that he could inquire more about the situation.
However, during the delay in answering, two small groups of broken troops rushed in sporadically, and the number of cavalry at the gate of the city exceeded a hundred.
General Xu Junhou had already taken the lead, but he did not become alert again because of this change in the number of people.
Zhang Fei, who was mixed in the crowd, could feel himself sweating slightly, but the city gate was right in front of them, and they finally let them in without any danger.
After the first few dozen horses entered the city, Xu Junhou sent people down to block the road and ask questions, asking the traitorous chief to go up to the wall to answer.
Zhang Fei, hunched over and covered in a torn robe to make himself look as inconspicuous as possible, followed the traitor commander up the city wall with a dozen people.
When he reached the wall, Zhang Fei looked up and noticed a relatively well-armored officer in the crowd, who was the Marquis Xu Jun that he had just seen across the battlements.
Xu Junhou didn't know that his death was imminent, so he called the traitor chief to come forward and answer: "Where is Captain Chen? How is he doing? Do you need to send him food and medicine?"
When asked about this, the traitor village chief could no longer make up any lines, so he just peeked at Zhang Fei anxiously and glared.
Fortunately, Zhang Fei did not disappoint. He was able to quickly stop Xu Junhou from talking nonsense.
"Chen Lan's head is here! He has been killed by Nai Weng!"
Zhang Fei shouted loudly, and taking advantage of the opponent's fright, he drew out his spear and stabbed Xu Junhou directly to the core.
"You guys haven't done anything yet!"
Zhang Fei brought more than a hundred horses into the city and immediately began to kill randomly, seizing doors and buildings, and grabbing as many torches as possible and throwing them around.
Yuan Jun had no idea what was happening and was caught off guard. Many soldiers did not even have weapons in their hands, and more than a hundred people were killed in a matter of seconds.
Zhang Fei's "cavalry troops were broken", who were arriving one after another from outside the city. After hearing the noise, they accelerated wildly and rushed towards the city gate, trying to gain as much time as possible to get in as much as possible.
By the time Yuan Jun fully reacted, at least two to three hundred riders had already entered the city.
"Hurry and cut the noose! Release the thousand-pound gate!"
After all, the Yuan Jun guards were not too stupid. Several of the garrison commanders in charge of the city gate resisted desperately and briefly defended the stone chamber where the noose was controlled. They used sharp axes to chop violently, and finally cut off the thick cables hanging from the mouth of the gate. Thousands of pounds of The gate fell in response, blocking the enemies outside the city.
Just now, Xu Junhou dared to be so trustworthy. The gate at Guangling City Gate was also their main psychological support. No normal person would think that a sneak attack on the city without controlling the gate stone chamber would be successful.
Seeing the gate fall, Yuan Jun, who was originally in chaos, finally calmed down a little. Under the stern orders of the officers, he organized a resistance and tried to push back the smaller Zhang Fei's troops off the city wall.
However, they did not notice that although the subsequent Zhang Feijun troops were unable to enter the city directly due to the gate being down, they managed to obtain flying ladders, crash logs, and even many barrels of tung oil in just one or two cups of tea... …
On the Hangou River outside the Northeast Gate, some passing merchant ships arrived at some unknown time and then forcibly washed up on the beach and docked at a place where there was no berth. Some merchant servants in white carried ladders and wood tung oil and unloaded them on the shore, where they were taken away by Zhang Fei's cavalry.
Some ladders were placed directly on the wall section of the city controlled by Zhang Feijun, so that the rear troops outside could climb directly onto the wall.
In addition, because Zhang Fei captured the city tower, there were no defenders able to throw rolling logs and rocks at the doorway below to kill or injure the soldiers who destroyed the city gate.
Zhang Feijun's soldiers who were transporting the tung oil were free to pour all the barrels of tung oil on the fallen gate, set it on fire, and then use the iron-headed bumper to slam into the burning wooden gate.
Seven or eight miles downstream of the battlefield, on the east bank of the intersection of Hangou and the Yangtze River, there are several merchant ships docked there.
In the largest ship, there was an eight-foot-tall scribe with a palm-leaf fan and a turban, none other than Zhuge Jin.
At this moment, he was covering his eyebrows with a cattail leaf fan to block the setting sun, watching the fire across the bank to Guangling City on the west bank.
"It seems that Zhang Fei is quite teachable. It is especially useful when going through a chasm. This fire should be successful. It is not in vain that I personally supervised the tung oil and siege weapons. It is time to consider the next plan."
