Since the Western Army began to flood Linzi, Zhang Wu's three-year trend was generally consistent with Fazheng's prediction.
Linzi City was well defended, and even though floods were poured in, making life in the city extremely miserable, there was no trace of the broken city for a while. Although Cao Cao, the marshal of the Eastern Dynasty, stood firm in the isolated city, he still did not give up the hope of turning defeat into victory. On the one hand, he eliminated dissidents in the city, and on the other hand, he served as a target, eating and working with the soldiers. Therefore, the soldiers of the Eastern Army were afraid of him and moved at the same time. For a while, the chaotic military morale in the city gradually stabilized.
The reason why Cao Cao still harbored hopes of a comeback was simply because unrest broke out in Hebei at this time, thus forcing Liu Bei to lead his troops to withdraw from the siege. But unfortunately he was only half right. At the turn of summer and autumn in the third year of Zhangwu, there was a severe drought in Jizhou. First, there was no rain in June, and then in July, drought locusts raged, resulting in no harvesting of autumn crops and widespread famine. After the heavy taxation of the Eastern Dynasty last year, the people of Hebei were already in dire straits. A large-scale exodus occurred in the early spring, and by this time, it was even more miserable.
Folks fled and died, and villages were often reduced to ruins. There are no human beings during the walk, but lone wolves and tigers are common. Even the wealthy intellectuals in Hebei can only close their homes in Wubao and eat vegetable porridge to satisfy their hunger. The refugees who are wandering in Xindu, Yijing, Nanpi and other places can only peel tree bark to eat. He died by listing books on his pillow beside the road. The Hebei Plain, which used to be known as the richest place in the world, is now empty of ten houses, leaving only stripped mulberry trees, willows, and pear trees everywhere, dying of thirst under the scorching sun.
Then Taiping Dao was revived in Hebei. There was a rioter named Zhang Dao who claimed to be a follower of Zhang Jiao. He distributed talisman water everywhere and gathered hundreds of thousands of people. Then they attacked Shijiawu Fort everywhere and looted food, but there was still not enough food. Then they raised the slogan "Heaven is dead, Huang Tian is here" and led the crowd to try to attack Yecheng and Hanoi. At this time, the chariot general Zhang Fei was stationed in the Qinghe area to prevent the rebel army from going south to attack Liu Bei's baggage, so he was unable to help in this matter. As a result, the rebel army captured Yecheng for a time, and the troops were directed towards Hanoi.
But even so, Liu Bei still did not withdraw from the siege.
Prince Liu Xie discussed the matter with the court and urgently transferred back 20,000 Nanfu troops, and ordered Commander-in-Chief Zhuge Liang to lead his troops north to defend against the enemy. Zhuge Liang led his troops to confront Zhang Dao on the bank of the Zhang River. He built a pontoon bridge with 2,000 soldiers and set up a chariot formation in front of the bridge. He was so exhausted that he finally had to ask Zhuge Liang for food. Zhuge Liang was very sympathetic to the refugees in Hebei, but after years of war, the country did not have much food reserves. At this time, it had to supply hundreds of thousands of troops in Qingzhou. Where could they get food and grass to relieve the victims?
After discussing with Liu Xie's reply letter, Zhuge Liang urgently collected mulberries, radish, bracken and other items from all over Henan. He also invited people to Bingzhou to buy cattle and sheep from the Southern Xiongnu and Yunbei Changshi Mansion, hoping to relieve Hebei. of famine. But even though Zhuge Liang tried his best, his manpower was eventually exhausted. In July and August of that year, hundreds of thousands of people in Hebei starved to death. The poor ate each other, and the plague became rampant. Zhuge Liang wrote to the court saying that there was no grass left in the wilds in Hebei, mountains of corpses were piled up, fires were burning, and smoke was lingering at night.
At the same time, Sun Quan from Jiangdong led another 100,000 troops into Yuzhou and launched a large-scale attack on Longkang, Ruyin, Xincai and other places, making a gesture of going all out to conquer the Central Plains. But Liu Xie immediately moved to Xu County, Yingchuan, and spread the news to the south that Nanzhong was in chaos and that the Xifu Army was about to leave. When Sun Quan learned about it, he immediately relieved the siege and led his troops to Xuzhou, where he divided his troops to build the city. Obviously, preparations have been made to accept everything after Cao Cao's defeat.
Under this situation, Linzi has completely become a helpless city. In the blink of an eye, it was the twelfth lunar month of the third year of Zhangwu's reign, and Linzi City had been under siege for nearly a year. The casualties among soldiers and civilians were gradually increasing, and the city walls were flooded and collapsed in many places. There is a vast country outside the city, and the Westerners approach the city with large ships. There are stone shooters and people who are good at shooting on the ships, and they go back and forth with the people in the city to shoot. Although there is enough food and grass in the city, the arrows are gradually running out, so that they are gradually unable to fight back. Cao Cao thought he could hold on for two years, but in fact, in a few months, the city might fall.
By the early spring of the fourth year of Zhangwu, the chaos in Hebei gradually subsided, but Liaodong refused to give up and sent a fleet to try to attack Donglai across the sea. However, Huang Zhong was on guard here, and the Donglai people soon failed. And return. Liu Bei then spread the news to Linzi City. One after another, soldiers in Linzi City jumped out of the city wall and tried to swim to surrender to the Western Army. The generals were overjoyed when they heard this, and they all knew that victory was just around the corner.
One day, Liu Bei had a strange dream. He suddenly dreamed of the strange rocks in Longshan, and a big snake escaped from the rocks. However, it no longer spoke to him, but instead entangled itself and bit his arm. Liu Bei was greatly frightened. When he woke up, he felt quite unlucky. Could it be that it foreshadowed bad luck in the war? Then he ordered Zhang Fei to be transferred near Linzi. Before Zhang Fei's troops were in place, Liu Bei and Fazheng and others watched Linzi's approach just in case.
During these days, seeing Linzi falling, the Western Army, as the besieging side, could not help but feel a little slack. The soldiers were tired for a long time and were unwilling to attack again and cause casualties. Every day they used large ships to approach the city and shouted to the city to summon them to surrender. If the people in the city did not respond, they would shoot them with random arrows. The people in the city were dissatisfied and occasionally responded with arrows. These big boats quickly raised their oars and rowed far to the center of the water to avoid arrows. Coming back and forth like this, the people from the East are disturbed.
This afternoon, the sky was dark, the sky was overcast, and it seemed like there was going to be a downpour. This was probably the first heavy rain this year, but since it was about to rain, it made people feel extremely bored. There was only a smell of dust in the air. It was as if a strong wind was blowing in the distance, blowing up all the dead grass and dust from last winter.
Liu Bei, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, and Fa Zheng, the supervisor of Zhongshu, came to the weir to observe the city. Because they were not fighting in battle, and the weather was getting hotter, neither of them wore armor. Instead, they wore light military uniforms, tied with a gold belt, and a pair of short leather boots. There were no more than ten followers around him, and they were all dressed lightly. They had a short sword hanging on their waist, and they didn't even bring any bows or arrows.
The group of people looked at Linzi City in the water not far away from the shore and pointed at it. During this time, Liu Bei always felt unaccustomed to the local environment and felt a little heavy in his abdomen. He was still a little tired after walking and standing for a long time, and wanted to find a place to sit. At this time, people saw white gas rising into the sky from the northeast, spiraling up like a whirlwind. The white air gradually turned into yellow, mixed with the sound of whining wind, and was gradually approaching them.
Everyone said it was a dust storm. The earthy smell in the air became stronger and choked my mouth and nose. The dust storm seemed far away, but it moved very quickly. It didn't take long before it rushed in front of us. Dust was flying all around. People covered their eyes and noses with their sleeves and hurriedly looked around for shelter. It happened that there was a big boat, which came back from patrolling the city for archery in the morning. It parked on the shore next to it and tied it with a rope to the wooden pile on the shore. Everyone had no time to think about it, so they protected Liu Bei and Fazheng, walked to the boat, brushed off the loess on the railings and other places in the boat, sat down together to take shelter from the wind, and waited until the wind subsided before going out.
Unexpectedly, instead of decreasing, the wind became stronger and stronger. The hull of the ship swayed with the wind, and the sand on the top of the ship fell rustlingly. After a while, it was already dark outside, and it was impossible to distinguish between day and night. The flying gravel hit the hull of the ship and flew like arrows. The hull of the ship swayed in the wind, and the ship's cables were stretched straight, making the wooden piles rattle. Maybe the sergeant who came back in the morning didn't notice that the rope tied to the pile was not secure, so there was a bang and the ship's cable came loose and flew into the water. Taking advantage of the wind, the big ship broke away from the shore sideways and drifted towards the opposite side of Xiangzi.
The Western soldiers on the shore were shocked and rushed to the shore together, but the ship had drifted away far away. At this time, the strong wind was so noisy that many people's hats were blown into the water. The surrounding military flags were blown loudly, mixed with the horrified shouts of the soldiers, and reached the head of Linzi City on the other side.
When the people in the east of the city saw the strong wind blowing, they all squatted in front of the crenels to watch. But I saw a lone Western ship, carried by the wind, drifting towards the city wall. Hearing the shouts, the people in the East stood up and looked around. They saw that there were only a dozen people on the boat, none of them wearing armor. They were squatting or sitting as the boat rocked. People in the East said that it was blown here by the wind, but it was not an attack on the city.
At this time, the wind gradually died down, but the big boat was still drifting towards the city by its inertia. The people on the boat were panicked and didn't know what to do. When the people in the East saw someone wearing a golden belt on the wall, they said that there was a high official inside, and they took their bows and arrows and fired arrows at the people in the boat. Now the people in the boat had no choice but to be forced to jump into the water.
Then someone else jumped into the water to catch him. The person guarding Liu Bei at this time was Xu Huang's son Xu Gai. He pulled Liu Bei into the water and quickly dragged him forward. But the water waves came and it was difficult for him to swim. The Westerners fired arrows on the city, and there were people behind him who pressed him, making it extremely difficult for him. In a daze, he felt a pain in his left arm, apparently from an arrow. But he still gritted his teeth and supported Liu Bei to continue swimming. At the end of the swim, when his mind was almost blank and he couldn't think of anything, he suddenly felt a lightness on his body. It turned out that the comrades on the shore also went into the water to pull them out.
Half of the more than 20 people who fell into the water died in the water. Those who could serve as Liu Bei's guards were basically the children of nobles in the court, either rich or noble. Such an end made the Western soldiers extremely sad. But after seeing Liu Bei's condition, all the Western soldiers fell silent. After being pulled out of the water, people suddenly discovered that the emperor had been hit by an arrow in his back, and he himself was unconscious due to excessive blood loss. The imperial doctor came to bandage and treat me, but there was no sign of improvement for several days.
Under this situation, the Western Army was filled with grief and anger, and had no choice but to report the news to the court and invite the generals to hold a military meeting to discuss the army's next move. The transcoding has been serious recently, which makes us more motivated and updates faster. Please use your little hands to exit the reading mode. Thanks
