Lu Meng was defeated by Guan Yu, and Yuan Tan recaptured Muling Pass. The Western Army had now completely completed the encirclement of Linzi.
But before Linzi was officially flooded, according to usual practice, Liu Bei still planned to persuade him to surrender. Even if he failed, it would be able to undermine the morale of the city. First, Zhao Yun was ordered to escort the Dongwu prisoners to Linzi City, march around the city slowly, and inform the people in the city that the reinforcements had been defeated. Secondly, dozens of soldiers from the Eastern Army who had surrendered in the previous battle at Xindu were selected. Led by Xu You, they led Ju Hu, the son of Ju Shou, Xin Ping, the younger brother of Xin Ping, and other old officials of the Eastern Dynasty to parade under the city. Dressed in brocade and riding tall horses, they walked under the city while calling the names of the old people in the city. Then they informed them of the news that the Western Army was about to flood Linzi, and urged their old friends to surrender as soon as possible.
After two days of this, there was indeed a commotion in Linzi City, but it was eventually suppressed by Cao Cao. Then if someone approached the city again, the soldiers on the city would shoot arrows one after another. After shooting down a few people, the Western Army stopped sending people to persuade them to surrender. Instead, the army was gradually retreated and stationed in the surrounding highlands in an organized manner. It was obvious that they were going to build embankments in the lower reaches of the Zi River to store water.
The Western Army's embankment construction did not go smoothly at the beginning. The first two embankment constructions in March failed. When Dong Yue was in charge, the first embankment he built was only two feet long. Due to the soft spring mud, the weir collapsed from the middle. So he ordered the filling to be accelerated and then repaired. Unexpectedly, when the construction reached three feet, there was another heavy rain. , the spring tide surged, and the weir dam was destroyed again. It will be April soon, and when it rains heavily every day, it will probably be more difficult to build the weir. Liu Bei ordered Fazheng to personally supervise the construction. He buried several century-old giant trees on both sides of the river and filled dozens of tons of gravel between the giant trees to serve as the foundation for the dam. Then the dam was built.
However, for the Eastern Army, the time of waiting for flooding was even more difficult. Tian Feng suggested to Cao Cao that he should lead his army out of the city to break out before the enemy's dam was completed. If they could escape to Huainan, they could borrow a boat from Sun Quan. The boat may not be able to escape back to Liaodong and make a comeback. Cao Cao heard this but showed little interest. He refused and said, "If we fail to break through, you and I will be overturned in an instant. If not, if we just hold on in the city and the food in the city is enough to last me two years, can Liu Bei still besiege me in Qingzhou for two years?" "
Tian Feng said: "The marshal can guard the city for two years, but the hearts of the officers and men in the city may not wait for the marshal for two years." After saying this, Cao Cao was horrified. He stood up and stared at Tian Feng for a long time, until Tian Feng's hair dropped. He stood up, waved his hands again and said, "Yuan Haorong, let me think twice."
Unexpectedly, after that night, Shi Tianfeng, the head of the Marshal's Mansion, was stabbed to death in the mansion. Cao Cao was shocked when he heard this, and immediately sent someone to investigate the matter in detail. He then concluded that there were traitors in the army who wanted to defect to the Western Bandits, so he arrested them in large numbers in the city, tortured them in detail in prison, and then took the list and continued to demand people. , and for a time more than a thousand traitors and spies were discovered among the generals and tribesmen who agreed to break out. Cao Cao beheaded them all and hung their heads high around the city gate. No matter whether people inside or outside the city saw this scene, they were all frightened, trembling and sweating.
At this point, the completion of the Xijun Dam became a relief. With the arrival of heavy rains in spring and summer, the Western Army continued to reinforce the weirs and dams. As a result, the vast ocean outside Linzi City made it look like a vast city, as if the giant city was an isolated island. The water surface is wide, and fish and turtles can be seen from time to time. A few of the Eastern Army were veterans who had participated in the Yellow Turbans. Seeing this situation, they all remembered the tragic situation of Gengcang's destruction, and they were moved by the scene and felt sad in their hearts.
But as Cao Cao said, after the flooding, although the city wall was much shorter, the Western Army could not attack the city. They could only go in and out by boat and shoot arrows at the wall. The Easterners took turns to rest, lit bonfires at night, and built arrow towers inside the walls, making it obvious that the Western army would not be able to capture the city in a short period of time. Among the top generals of both armies, there is a clear consensus on this battle: both sides will decide the final outcome in this long confrontation.
On the other side, after about a year of recuperation, Chen Chong's body finally got better. But tuberculosis still left some sequelae on him. When the humidity was severe, he could not help but cough all the time. He spent the whole winter and spring coughing repeatedly. At this time, Fu Qian had returned to Yunbei, but his wife's brother Dong Yao came to visit him again, so there was no lack of popularity in the mansion.
At this time, Dong Yao has been promoted as a talented person and is a young man who is quite proficient in poetry. When he saw his brother-in-law coughing all the time, he felt bad, so he mentioned the matter to Dong Bai and said, "The summer in Chang'an is even more humid and unbearable. It's not as cold as Longyou. Why not go to Longshang to recuperate?"
Dong Bai smiled bitterly and was speechless. It turned out that Chen Chong was still thinking about the war in the east and wanted to go to Luoyang to see the situation after a while. No matter how Dong Bai warned him, he would not listen.
After hearing this, Dong Yao wrote a letter that night and asked someone to send it to Luoyang East Palace to mention the matter to Liu Xie. After Liu Xie found out about it, he also wrote back to Chen Chong overnight, persuading him: "Although my uncle worked hard, he underestimated the younger generations. How can a country prosper in one person? If my uncle really wants to share the country's worries, You should take good care of your body. If you die of a terminal illness, what good will it do to the country?"
After reading it for a long time, Chen Chong agreed and agreed to go to Lintao to recuperate, which just satisfied Dong Bai's idea of returning to his hometown to visit. After making the decision, the whole family was happy. After all, Chen Chong's two daughters, Asuo and Ayun, had lived in Chang'an since childhood and had never left home. When they heard that they were going to travel thousands of miles this time, they only felt excited and curious. Chen Xiu was only one year old at this time. Although he could not speak yet, when he got on the carriage, his eyes were glancing around and he was obviously very interested.
It's just that Zhao Qiu is in a bit of a dilemma. After all, he had already agreed with Chen Chong to move to Luoyang. In the past few days, he had corresponded with several senior brothers in Beijing and planned to move to Dongdu Taixue. He had already found a place to live. Upon seeing this, Chen Chong said: "Since everything has been agreed, you can go on your own. In your free time, you can learn from Kong Ming and others. The Xihe elders have high expectations for you, so don't let them down."
After greeting Jingzhao Yin Yufan again, he and his family slowly left Chang'an in a car. As they drove past the Wei Bridge, he couldn't help but look back at the Chang'an city wall until it disappeared from sight. At some point, the heavy pressure in his chest suddenly disappeared, and his whole body felt relieved from the inside out. When Chen Chong realized this, he couldn't help but sadly thought: In his heart, Chang'an was already a sad place that was hard to mention.
While continuing to travel west, Chen Chong began to dream frequently. At first, I dreamed of being on an endless road without a destination. Later, I gradually saw branches, leaves, rivers, and endless fields around me. When he finally felt that the scene was familiar, he suddenly remembered that this was the scene when his grandfather Chen Shi died and he went back to Yingchuan for the funeral. But he did not dream about his father, nor did he dream about his grandfather's remains. When he finally arrived at Huaili, the light and shadow in his dream suddenly changed, and he found himself sitting in the carriage room, looking up at the vast stars in the sky. When he lowered his head, he found a young man sitting in front of the car. He was riding his horse silently. His figure from behind was both familiar and unfamiliar.
Who is it? While Chen Chong was still thinking, he heard the young man turn around and ask: "Teacher, did you call me?"
"Yuan Zhi!" When Chen Chong called out the boy's name, he had already woken up. Dong Bai, who was looking after him, was still awake. Seeing him sitting up suddenly, he was extremely worried and asked him what was wrong. Chen Chong shook his head, stroked his forehead and said, "It's just a dream." He paused, and suddenly felt something strange on his forehead. He brought his hand in front of his eyes, only to find that it was covered in cold sweat.
Why do I dream about the scene when I left Luoyang? Thinking about it now, he just felt that from then on, after saying goodbye to his grandfather forever, his life entered a new stage, separated from most of his past, and began to work hard for a new goal. It has been two years since then. More than ten years. If I have such a dream again now, does it mean that I have entered a new beginning?
He suddenly had a bad premonition. It was Chen Shi who left him then, but now? Could it be that someone is leaving me again? But after thinking about it for a while, he felt that such an idea was too ridiculous, so he put it down for the time being, thinking that it was just that people tend to be sad when they are old.
Around early May in the third year of Yanxing, Chen Chong and Dong Bai came to Lintao (today's Min County). The local county magistrate had long received the news that the prime minister was coming to recuperate, and he had already led the crowd to wait twenty miles outside the city. Chen Chong didn't like this kind of ostentation, but he also knew that favors were inevitable, so he politely asked them to help arrange accommodation and security, and then they had a dinner together, which was the end of the welcome.
But then living in Lintao really made people feel comfortable. It is located on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and is the transition zone from the Gannan grasslands to the Loess Plateau and Longnan mountains. It is low temperature and dry. In the humid and sultry summer, it is indeed suitable to escape the heat here. For this purpose, the Lintao Order built a small courtyard for Chen Chong by the Tao River. Hundreds of white pears were planted around it, and Chen Chong and his family lived in it.
At Dong Bai's request, Chen Chong also went with Dong Bai and Dong Yao from time to time to search for Dong's old relatives. Although Dong Zhuo had no relatives within the three clans, there were still some distant relatives living locally. Just because of Dong Zhuo's involvement, they have been discriminated against by the locals over the years and have been living a miserable life. Many people even changed their surname from Dong to Su and moved to live elsewhere, which made Dong Bai feel quite guilty. When Dong Bai came to find her, they heard that the wife of the then prime minister was actually Dong Zhuo's granddaughter. They were very surprised for a moment, but then they became happy and hoped that Chen Chong could promote her. However, Dong Bai pushed them back and only gave them some money to subsidize their family expenses.
All in all, the days in Lintao are quite pleasant. Probably because of the high terrain, I can easily climb up a hill here, and then look up at the sky. I feel that the blue sky is very close to me. If I have been there occasionally. When it rains lightly, you can see rainbows cascading all around you, which is a unique spectacle here. Looking down on the land, there is an endless grassland, on which Qiang people and Han people can be seen grazing everywhere. While singing, they use whips and shepherd dogs to drive the ink-black sheep. These sheep are all black and purple lambs, a local specialty.
These scenes made Chen Chong feel comfortable, and the cough he had been having was somewhat improved. By August, he had almost stopped coughing, and his health was probably much better than before he got sick. And Liu Xie has been corresponding with him, saying that everything is going well with the Eastern Expedition, that the Eastern Dynasty is not far away from being destroyed, and that the country's reunification is close at hand.
Seeing that there was no urgent matter in the country, Chen Chong decided to stay in Lintao for a while longer, copying inscriptions and collecting folk songs during the day, and writing at home at night. He planned to return to Luoyang to visit after completing the work.
