Chen Tao's uncle and nephew were defeated and fled, and seven out of ten of his nobles were lost. The two urged the boatman to row as hard as he could, and then they escaped with their lives.
By this time, Song Xin had led more than 150 of his men to walk in the mountains for two days.
This road was very steep, and there were no existing roads in most places. Fortunately, Song Xin and Song Yu opened the road in front, which allowed everyone to make the trip.
Finally on the early morning of the third day, Zhang Hu pointed ahead and suddenly said: "Look, we are out!"
At this time, the tired people raised their heads and saw that the front suddenly opened up. There was a small city sitting on the flat land at the foot of the mountain. The vehicles and soldiers coming in and out of the city gate were like ants moving.
"Finally come out!" Zhou Zhong sat down on the ground with a thud. His body had not yet been tempered by the monster meat, and he looked more tired than others along the way.
Song Xin nodded, "It's still early, let's wait until dark before going down." Then he ordered the soldiers to rest on the spot, and took out the cooked monster beast meat jerky and distributed it to everyone. The man handed out a few green grapes.
After three days of painful march, none of them expected that Song Xin actually brought fresh fruits with him. After they finished eating the dried meat and fruits, they had a good sleep. When they woke up in the evening, the fatigue and aches along the way were gone. And empty.
Song Xin saw that they were full of energy. He called Zhang Hu and others to his side, then took out a map and spread it on the ground.
"While you were sleeping, I asked Song Yu to scout this place and draw a map. Now we are at this location." He pointed to the upper right corner of the map.
"To the southwest from here is the Kaihua County town where the enemy troops gathered to store grain. There are several granaries to the east of the city, and there are a thousand people defending it."
"One thousand people!" Zhang Hu and Zhou Zhong gasped after hearing this. Not only were the enemy's troops several times larger than theirs, but they also had the city defended. To attack by force would be to die.
Song Xin saw what they were thinking, "Of course I won't attack you and kill you."
He pointed at the top of the map and said, "Look, there are two enemy camps on the road a few miles away from us. The enemy troops in one camp have all gone to attack Chen Tao, while the enemy troops in the other camp have gone to attack Chen Tao. The army crossed the river to rush to the aid of Jiugong Mountain. Therefore, the two camps are empty. We have to find a way to mobilize a thousand defenders in the city and burn the enemy's food."
Zhou Zhong looked at the map and frowned, "Move them out? How can we do this? In such an important place, the enemy defenders will definitely not come out."
Song Xin nodded and whispered a plan. Zhou Zhong nodded repeatedly after hearing this. After everyone discussed it, they quickly started preparations.
Towards evening, a group of cavalry appeared outside Kaihua County. They were quickly stopped by the soldiers guarding the city gate.
At this time, Zhou Zhong changed into the armor of the enemy Qu Hou and came forward to talk, "Get out of the way, what are you doing blocking here!"
When the soldiers saw that it was a Quhou, they did not dare to neglect him. They stepped forward and saluted and asked, "I wonder where your Excellency came from and why you are here?"
"We were ordered to come to our rescue!"
"But you have too few people, right?" The gatekeeper saw that there were only about fifty cavalry in the middle of the week and continued to ask.
"Well, I heard on the way that the military situation was urgent, so I brought the cavalry here first. My team still has a thousand infantry on the road. They should arrive before noon tomorrow."
When the guard guard heard the news and heard that Zhou Zhong spoke with a Lujiang accent, most of his doubts disappeared. "The battle ahead is tense, and the enemy is attacking in a hurry. With just a small number of us, we can't defend such a large county. It would be great if you could come, sir."
"I'm going to inform the guard now," the soldier said, turning around and running into the city, while Zhou Zhong and his men also slowly rode into the city.
As soon as I came in in the middle of the week, I saw many civilians loading grain and grass to the dock in the west of the city for loading, obviously destined for Jiugong Mountain.
He secretly memorized the route to the granary, and followed the pawn who led the way to the mansion where the guard lived. A tall and thin man with a sallow complexion was waiting at the door. When he saw the horse under Zhou Zhong's crotch, his eyes suddenly lit up.
Seeing Zhou Zhong dismounting, this man with a sallow face also came up to him and said with a fist in his arms: "I am Sima Zou Yi from this city. I don't know.
How to call a step? "
In the middle of the week, I saw that although this man looked unremarkable, there was a shrewd and cunning look in his eyes, and his eyes swept over him and the horses behind him from time to time. He stepped forward, cupped his fists, and said with a smile, "Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Zou. I will be waiting for you in the middle of next week. I'm inadvertently worried."
Zou Yi smiled and said, "I heard from the soldiers at the city gate that it's been a hard journey. Come on, please come in."
As he spoke, he enthusiastically took Zhou Zhong's hand and led him inside. Zhou Zhong turned around and ordered: "You guys go to the camp to rest, and don't get separated! Feed the horses for me, and I will go into battle tomorrow to pick a few heads!"
Zou Yi smiled casually, "Don't worry, I have already arranged accommodation, food and drinks for our brothers."
During the dinner, Zou Yi asked, "Judging from your accent, you must be from Lujiang, right?"
Zhou Zhong smiled and nodded, "Your Majesty is right, I am from Tongcheng."
"Tongcheng? What a coincidence, I am also from Tongcheng."
"It turns out you and I are from the same hometown!" Zhou Zhong suddenly showed an excited look.
Zou Yi asked again: "I am from the West Village of Tongcheng. I don't know where I live?"
Zhou Zhong said hurriedly: "I live in Nanguo, Tongcheng."
"Nanguo? I've been there. There is an old man selling soup cakes there. He seems to be called Old Man Wang. He is over seventy years old, but his soup cakes are really delicious."
Hearing what he said, Zhou Zhong tightened his fingers on the wine glass, and then smiled and said, "Is it possible that you remembered wrongly? The family selling soup cakes is indeed named Wang, but she is a widow in her thirties."
Zou Yi slapped his head, "Oh, yes, yes, you see, I have been busy with military affairs recently, so I forgot about it, I forgot about it." He smiled and brushed it off, but Zhou Zhong understood that he was just testing himself. If he really If you continue to follow his words, I am afraid that you have been captured now. It seems that Zou Yi still has doubts about himself.
Sure enough, after a few glasses of wine, I heard a faint sound of footsteps outside the room in the middle of the week. Zhou Zhong's anxious heart was secretly relieved. It seemed that the other party did not detect anything, so he removed the axe. This Zou Yi is really cautious.
"Master Zou, I wonder how the battle is going?"
Zou Yi sighed, "I originally had three thousand soldiers, but the guard of Jiugong Mountain forcibly transferred two thousand away. Brother, tell me, this is an important place for the army to gather grass and food, and he actually transferred my troops away. If there is a surprise attack by the enemy, how can these 1,000 people defend it?"
Zhou Zhong comforted: "Oh, I'm really confused. I heard that Cao Cao's favorite way to use his troops was to cut off people's food routes. As a result, they ordered me to come to the rescue, but they withheld half of my deployment, otherwise I could have brought one more this time. Thousands of people are coming."
After hearing this, Zou Yi suddenly felt that he and Zhou Zhong were in the same boat. Chen Lan has tens of thousands of horses and infantry under his command, but when he uses his troops, he always sticks to the thousands and hundreds of people. After Song Xin and the others found out about this news, they devised this rhetoric for Zhou Zhong. Unexpectedly, it was actually used.
"Oh, it turns out brother, your people have also been transferred away. They asked me to defend the city, but they didn't give me any manpower. I'm really frustrated."
Zhou Zhong was busy pouring wine for him, "Sir, you and I hit it off right away and we hit it off very well. Come, have another drink."
Zou Yi hurriedly took the wine glass and drank it up, but he didn't notice that when Zhou Zhong was pouring the wine, he secretly flicked a little powder into the spoon.
The two chatted for a while, and Zou Yi felt dizzy. When he looked at Zhou Zhong in front of him, there was a double image. Zhou Zhong was also flushed, smiling drunkenly.
Finally, Zou Yi fell on the table and fell asleep. Zhou Zhong quickly took out a small bottle, opened it, raised his head and drank it. After a while, his dizziness gradually disappeared.
Zhou Zhong walked up to Zou Yi, took out a military card on his body, then walked to the door and gently opened a crack, only to see that there was no one in the yard quietly. He softly let out a night owl cry, and after a moment, several of his men quietly came in.
"Is the kerosene ready?"
"Everything is ready!"
"Okay, once you see the flames of the enemy camp in the north of the city, you immediately rush to the granary and light a fire."
At the same time, Song Xin, Zhang Hu and others had reached the northern part of Kaihua County.
outside the enemy's camp. At this time, flags were planted all over the camp and many soldiers were stationed. However, Song Xin smiled and said, "This guard is really cautious. He made so many scarecrows just to make up the numbers."
It turned out that when the enemy general left the camp to sneak attack Chen Tao, he was worried about the enemy's sneak attack, so he put a lot of straw men in the camp. Under the cover of night, it was difficult for people to distinguish.
He waved his hand, and Zhang Hu and others behind him filed out. With a few arrows in the darkness, they shot the soldiers at the gate of the camp to death. Then a few people went over to remove the antlers, and more than a hundred people walked into the camp like ghosts in the dark night. Every enemy they encountered was shot to death with one arrow.
Then they started setting fires everywhere. Within a quarter of an hour, the entire camp was ablaze. The few defenders' morale collapsed and fled, and most of them fled towards Kaihua County.
When Song Xin saw that he had succeeded, he ordered his men to change the enemy's clothes and armor, and sent a few brave and careful people to mix among the deserters and follow them to Kaihua County.
Song Xin led the remaining people to ambush on the roadside.
An hour later, news of the attack on the camp reached Kaihua County. At the same time in the middle of the week, the sky in the north turned red, and they knew that Song Xin and the others had succeeded.
He immediately took a few soldiers to the garrison in the north of the city, where he saw a chaotic mess of deserters talking about the enemy's robbery of the camp. Song Xin's men were also deliberately spreading rumors, adding fuel to the fire about the enemy's attack on the camp. People were panicked for a while, as if the enemy was about to attack the county. As agreed, Zhou Zhong stepped forward pretending to be angry and slapped a deserter.
"What's the hurry! Be careful of the enemy spreading rumors!"
After saying that, he took out Zou Yi's military card and said, "Master Zou has an order. You must lead people to the rescue as soon as possible!"
Zou Yi's men naturally did not dare to neglect when they saw the military cards, and hurriedly gathered their troops. They volunteered to stay in the city in the middle of the week. He was a Quhou, and the guard had no doubts, so he and his men set off at night.
Seeing them walking away in the middle of the week, he quickly found the soldiers who were ambushing in the city and took them all the way to the granary. At this time, there were only a few veterans here. They saw a group of black figures rushing towards them, and they were shot by bows and arrows before they could make a sound. Shoot to death. Then the soldiers took out the prepared kerosene and threw it all over the granary.
Zhou Zhong took a torch and threw it on the granary.
