Guan Cheng and Yuan Shao did not expect that the Baibo Army, which once dominated Guandong, would suddenly fall overnight. Then Linqu fell and the Han army moved in, almost completely cutting off Linzi's connection with Beihai and Donglai counties. This caused people in Qingzhou to sway, and the entire situation in Qingxu was overturning towards the hegemony.
Throughout March, Guan Yu's troops had not yet joined up with Liu Bei's troops because they wanted to help the refugees return home. However, after the Taishan bandit tribes received the news, Liu Bei's old acquaintances such as Zang Ba and Chang Xi came to surrender one after another and requested orders from the Ba Mansion. Surrender.
Although the Taishan bandits were forced to temporarily surrender to Qi and Han in recent years, they only stayed in one county of Taishan and did not do much for Qi and Han. In addition, they had made great achievements in the fight against Dong a few years ago, so Liu Bei was extremely lenient to them. Except for assigning Chang Xi directly to his command, the rest of them were appointed governors of Qingzhou County: among them, Zang Ba was the Prime Minister of Qi, and Sun Guan was the prime minister of Beihai, Sun Kang was the prefect of Donglai, Lu Qian was the prefect of Le'an, Yin Li was the prefect of Pingyuan, and Wu Dun was the prefect of Jinan.
Liu Bei arranged this mainly because he was considering how to govern Qingzhou after the war. In addition to Chen Chong's proposal to transfer Xun Yu to be the governor of Qingzhou, he also planned to build the imperial court's influence in Qingzhou based on the Taishan bandits. But it's obviously too early to think about this now.
Even though the situation was over, Qi people were still resisting fiercely. After the Taishan bandits surrendered, the Qi people only had one remaining city in Taishan County, Fenggao. According to Zang Ba, there were no more than 6,000 men and horses in the city. Cao Cao led 30,000 men and horses to surround it, built a large mountain of earth, and attacked day and night. Unable to conquer. This was not because Cao Cao failed to attack the city, but because the Qi people's will to resist was as stubborn as a stone. Even though many people in the city had disabled limbs, they still stood firm on the city, despite the rain of arrows, and kept throwing wood and stones. Even Cao Cao's powerful generals such as Dian Wei were unable to get close to him.
Things didn't go well for Liu Bei either. Xu Shu originally planned to pacify the two counties east of Linqu, stabilize his flanks, and then attempt to conquer Linzi. Unexpectedly, after they sent envoys to persuade them to surrender Beihai and Donglai counties, the eight envoys before and after them all returned empty-handed.
Among them, Gongsun Fang, who went to pacify Jimo, was particularly unfortunate. He said that he could not surrender to the Qi people, so he cut off one of his ears. When they returned, the people of Qi specially attached a letter written in white cloth and wrote in blood: "In the battle of Surabaya, the whole state was in ruins, and everyone criticized it. What do you want? The hatred is as deep as the sea, and death can only avenge it!" Liu Bei After reading it, I couldn't help but feel irritated by it, so I circulated this letter among the army, and sighed to all the generals: "It is said that people from Guanxi are courageous, but comparing Yang Feng and his like to Qi people is just deceiving the world and stealing their reputation. generation."
Then Liu Bei was silent for a long time, and said to Xu Shu after careful consideration: "The hearts of the people are not with me, so fighting is inevitable, but we must not kill indiscriminately! Yuan Zhi, you draft a military order for me, saying that if any people come to the army and cause trouble, they must not be killed." , return them all to their hometowns, and just send someone to look after them. If anyone disobeys, they will be reduced to the rank of the people!" Xu Shu agreed and retreated.
However, in this case, the original strategy of pruning branches and weakening cadres could no longer be used. The Bafu counselors re-planned and quickly decided on a new strategy of "encircling the capital by water and setting up a network from east to west". Even if the main force of the army is driven directly to Linzi City, they will use the surrounding water network to trap the Linzi defenders in the city. While besieging the city, they will also set up ambushes on the east and west roads to lure Qi people to rescue. Once something is gained, they can use this to intimidate Linzi. , frustrated his mind. At that time, if we continue to attack fiercely, we will not be afraid that we will not be able to enter the city.
Although the plan was good, it was a pity that God was not kind to it. When Guan Yu came to join Liu Bei and was about to send troops to besiege the city, it suddenly started to rain. It was just a gentle rain at first, but it continued for more than ten days and became heavier and heavier. The Han army had only advanced for forty miles, but the road was already muddy and difficult to navigate. Looking around, the sky and the earth were hazy. All we could see were large and small puddles covering the mountains. The trees, grass and rocks on the mountains and down the mountains were all wet, as if They also turned into water, with a dark watery glow on the outside.
Under this environment, some people in the Han army soon became dizzy and feverish, and then became dizzy and vomited. In the past few days, a large number of fevers have appeared in the Bafu army, with a rough estimate of more than 3,000 people. When Liu Bei saw this situation, even though he was anxious, he could only order the entire army to stay temporarily and boil a large amount of hot water and medicinal soup in the army to wait for the rain to stop.
But the more I thought about it, the more serious the weather became. On the morning of April 12, Liu Bei was in his tent discussing with his subordinates the fortifications needed to be done for the siege. During the conversation, everyone heard a faint noise, neither the sound of people nor the sound of rain, but it could not be ignored. The ground beneath their feet shook slightly, and some people said, could it be that the Qi people took the opportunity to rob the camp? But as soon as the words fell, everyone knew it was not the case, because the sound continued to rise, like rumbling thunder, and then a series of huge sounds rushed from the west, like a flood tidal wave crashing on the earth.
Liu Bei lifted the curtain and looked to the west. He saw a stream of yellow water pouring into the camp from the mountain, overturning more than ten tents. Then he slowly stopped the flow. The pouring sand and soil piled up, and he didn't know what happened to the soldiers below. how. This mountain flow was a heavy blow to the morale of the Han army. Although the mountain flow only crushed more than a hundred Han soldiers to death, such a way of death inevitably reminds people of God's will. Therefore, some people privately said: The East China Sea has been acquired. , How can I look at the North Sea? The greed does not stop, and the color is endless.
This rumor spread quickly, which made Liu Bei very angry. But he also knew that this sentiment did not come out of thin air. It was better to block the situation than to remove it. The top priority was to solve the epidemic in the military. He heard that there was a famous doctor Hua Tuo in Yanzhou, so he planned to send carriages and horses to Yanzhou to invite him. Unexpectedly, things took a turn for the worse. Before the envoy was sent, Zhang Xian brought people to see him, saying that he had a way to cure the disease.
It turns out that Zhang Xian had a younger brother named Zhang Ji, whose courtesy name was Zhongjing. He was very talented and had studied medicine since he was a child. He had not only studied various medical books such as "Suwen", "Lingshu", and "Nanjing", but he could also understand them thoroughly. The organic tree is especially good at treating typhoid fever. Now he is only thirty years old, and he is already known as a miracle doctor. It's just that for many years, he followed Zhang Xian and treated diseases in Changsha, Lingling and other places. However, Jiangnan was far away from the Central Plains, so people knew little about him, and his reputation was not as good as that of Hua Tuo.
Liu Bei was overjoyed and immediately asked Zhang Ji to join the army to see and practice medicine. Zhang Ji and Liu Bei walked around and saw more than a hundred patients. After taking their pulses, Zhang Ji smiled and said to Liu Bei: "My lord, don't be anxious. There are no serious illnesses in the army. Within seven days, I will be able to cure the soldiers." Recover.”
After that, he led dozens of people to cook ephedra soup in the army. After the patient drank it, he added the medicinal soup to bathe his feet. After the patients started to sweat, Zhang Ji simmered the mutton in cinnamon twig soup. When it was cooked, he chopped the mutton into pieces, mixed it with medicinal materials to make meat fillings, wrapped it in dough to make dumplings, and cooked it. Cooked for patients to eat. After three days of this, the fever in the army was greatly improved. Although most of the people were still weak, they were fine when walking on the ground. I think they would be able to regain their strength and fight in a few days.
Strike while the iron is hot, Liu Bei took the opportunity to summon his sergeants and conduct a divination in front of everyone. He used yellow and black ants to fight in a formation to predict the outcome. The yellow ants represented the Qi army and the black ants represented the Han army. The two sides fought in the bowl for two quarters of an hour. As a result, all the yellow ants died, and the black ants also suffered heavy losses. Liu Bei said in front of everyone: "This battle will definitely be won!" It is said in the world that ants possess magical powers. When the soldiers of the Han army saw this result, they all believed it, and their previous hesitation and timidity were gone.
When the rain finally stopped on April 24th, Bafu regrouped and marched forward. The defenders of Guangxian County had already been withdrawn into Linzi City. At this moment, it was just an empty city, which was then occupied by Bafu. Then cross the turbid water to the north and about ten miles to the east, Linzi will be clearly visible.
Since the Zhou Dynasty replaced the Shang Dynasty, the Jiang family was granted the title of Qi for thousands of years. Linzi has always been the capital of Qi, because it has the benefits of fish and salt from the Bohai Sea to the north, the danger of large rivers to the west, and the support of Jimo and Donglai to the east. , blocked by Mount Tai and Muling in the south. Therefore, even though he was in the Five War Zone of the Central Plains, he was still able to defend himself in danger, which was the foundation of the Qi people and became the great name of the Eastern Emperor.
Even though Bafu currently occupies Muling and controls the south gate of Qingzhou, it is not easy to attack Linzi. Linzi has been run by the Yellow Turbans for six years and has undergone several large-scale expansions. Today, Linzi has become a giant city covering an area of dozens of miles. Not to mention the outer walls, inner city, Wengcheng and other fortifications are all available. They also built along Guishan and Gaoshan. There is a Sanbao mountain camp with high walls and deep trenches on three sides except Zi River. According to the Han army's investigation and estimation, if the civilians, old and young are included, the city could accommodate nearly 200,000 people.
Not to mention that there is Dong'an Ping City to the east of Zi River. Dong'an Pingzhong is also well-equipped for defense. However, the city is not as big as Linzi and the walls are not as high as Linzi. However, there are still ten thousand people holding on to it, which is different from Linzi. The city faces each other across the water. There are also ships that can travel between each other.
Liu Bei and his men had just crossed the turbid water. When they saw such a huge city standing on the water from a distance, with mountains to the south and swamps to the north, they felt frightened. He turned to Xu Shu and others and said, "When we decided on the strategy, we said we would besiege the city by water. How can such a huge city be surrounded without an army of 200,000?" He hesitated for a while, and even thought of withdrawing his troops.
When Xu Shu saw Linzi, he couldn't help but exclaimed: "They say that what you hear is false and what you see is true. I don't think so. Only when I see this big city today do I know why." But in the blink of an eye, he also strengthened his determination and said to Liu Bei. : "Ming Gong, now that you have arrived here, you cannot retreat. Otherwise, if you don't fight this year, it will be even more difficult to fight next year. Now that Ming Gong has led the royal army here, he has the task of reviving the thieves. All the princes in the south of the Yangtze River say that destiny is here." Sir, if our army gives in and Youyan falls, the situation will change drastically."
After Liu Bei heard this, he calmed down, pointed his whip at Linzi and said, "Yuan Zhi is right, even if it is extremely difficult, I will defeat this city." He immediately ordered all the armies to camp in the east of the Zi River, and then sent troops to Guishan wiped out the mountain fortress, and then attacked Dong'an Pingcheng. After wiping out the outskirts of Linzi one by one, they finally attacked the city in general.
That night, when I looked around in the Han army camp, I saw moving fires all over the mountains and down the mountains, east and west of the river, as if someone was setting fire to the clouds.
