The second master is looking at Zhang Xi now. The more he looks at it, the more he dislikes it.
Before Wenpin asked for his full name, he only wanted to kill him for his full name, and felt that it was impossible to persuade Wenpin to surrender.
As a result, Zhang Xi went up and persuaded Wenpin to surrender in a few words.
What do you mean? !
Although the target of Wenpin's surrender was Liu Qi, it didn't matter at all.
Liu Qi's ability is not at the same level as Liu Bei's. Wenpin is Liu Qi who has surrendered now, but in the future, Wenpin will naturally realize who is the one who can really use his talents.
Not everyone is as good as Guan Er Ye. They can remain unmoved in the face of Cao Cao's solicitation and follow Liu Bei wholeheartedly.
Speaking of this, Mr. Guan felt angry again. The second Mr. Guan was stimulated by the inexplicable look Zhang Xi gave him at the end.
You said that when you were captured by Cao Cao in Xiapi, why didn't you expect to have such a move? !
What if I had "surrendered the Han but not the Cao" back then? Would this become my own dark history? !
The second master remembered this because of Zhang Xi's look, and then he looked at Zhang Xi more and more displeased.
Zhang Xi expressed his grievance, which was a subconscious reaction, okay? If you want to blame him, you have to blame Luo Guanzhong.
But no matter what, Wenpin agreed to surrender and was willing to go back to Jiangxia with Guan Yu to meet Liu Qi, and Liu Qi would decide whether to take him in.
Neither Guan Yu nor Zhang Xi thought that Liu Qi would leave an old Jingzhou minister like Wenpin alone. In that case, Liu Qi would be too brainless.
No matter what, Guan Yu overfulfilled his task of holding Jingling and containing Cao Cao's Middle Route Army. He directly defeated Cao Cao's Middle Route Army and captured Wenpin and thousands of prisoners.
These thousands of prisoners were actually local soldiers from Jingzhou led by Wenpin, and only a few were Qingxu soldiers.
It's not that Qingxu's soldiers were not easy to capture and they scattered in all directions. It was not easy to capture prisoners.
The reason why there were not many Qingxu soldiers was because Guan Yu released all the Qingxu prisoners after screening them.
The families of these Qingxu soldiers are all in the north. Even if they are captured, they will not stay here peacefully. Deserters will appear if they are not careful, and it is likely to be a large-scale desertion.
This is because of the institutional problems on Cao Cao's side.
According to the system formulated by Cao Cao, if these soldiers do not return to the army for a long time, they will be regarded as killed in battle, and then the wives and children of these soldiers will be forced to remarry or reorganize their families.
Qingxu soldiers definitely don't want to find out that their wives and children belong to someone else when they return home late, so even if they surrender, they will try their best to escape.
It would be fine if it was a small number. A large number of deserters would be difficult to punish, but would easily cause moral instability in the military.
So Guan Yu simply let these people go, saving himself and his elder brother from embarrassment.
After spending a few days in Jingling to reorganize the prisoners, Guan Yu and Zhang Xi officially set off to return to Xiakou and surrendered their orders to Liu Bei to report their victory.
As for Wenpin, of course he also went back to Xiakou first to meet with Liu Bei.
After Liu Bei heard about Wenpin's surrender conditions, he was not only not angry, but also praised Wenpin, saying that he was a true "loyal and righteous man". After entertaining him for a while, he sent someone to send Wenpin to Xiling. Meet Liu Qi and wait for Liu Qi's arrangements.
After seeing off Wenpin, Liu Beijun immediately held a very important military meeting.
Cao Cao went south this time with great momentum and retreated with heavy losses. Now he has fled back to Jiangling in panic. Zhou Yu is pursuing the victory and encroaching on Nanjun counties. At this time, Liu Bei must not do nothing, otherwise all the benefits will belong to Jiangdong. .
Therefore, the purpose of Liu Bei's military meeting was to discuss the next action.
At this time, Zhang Xi finally no longer had to squat behind Zhang Fei with only his ears and no mouth.
His current position is in the row of civil servants, ranked fifth.
There is no other way. There are still some veterans in Liu Bei's army who need to take care of him. Even Xu Shu is only ranked third. Behind Jian Yong, Zhang Xi is ranked behind Mi Zhu. Isn't this normal?
What's more, Mi Zhu was once Zhang Xi's immediate boss, so he had to take care of his face.
However, when it came to the actual military discussion, Jian Yong and Mi Zhu would not talk nonsense without seeing anything. The people who really played a decision-making role were Zhuge Liang, Xu Shu, and Zhang Xi on the civilian side, and Guan, Zhang, and Zhao on the military general side. .
At the military meeting, Zhuge Liang first described the results of the recent operations, and at the same time Liu Bei gave a series of rewards to some meritorious personnel.
For example, Zhao Yun was promoted to General Yamen, not General Yamen, but General Yamen. His rank was higher than General Yamen, and he was classified as a miscellaneous general.
In the entire Liu Bei camp, except for Liu Bei, who is a general with important titles such as General Sifang, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are all generals with miscellaneous titles.
Zhuge Liang was also promoted from Military Advisor Zhonglang General to Military Advisor General. Xu Shu was also promoted, and the two military advisor generals were tied.
Zhang Xi also had his official position adjusted.
Now that he is back under Liu Bei's account, he naturally no longer needs to continue to be the postal governor of Jiangxia. Instead, he resumes his position as Cao Yu, a soldier in General Zuo's mansion. At the same time, Liu Bei also gave Zhang Xi the military position of "Fenwei Zhonglang General".
Zhang Xi really wanted to say again that I am a civil servant.
But look at the two strategists and generals in front of me. Let's say nothing.
In this way, those who had meritorious service in the Battle of Chibi were basically promoted to official rank, and the civil and military personnel who stayed in Jiangxia also received some monetary and food rewards. Except for Zhang Fei and Guan Yu.
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu obviously won't care about this with Liu Bei. They are brothers, the kind of brothers who truly share blessings and hardships.
After successfully awarding the reward, Liu Bei conveyed an order from his allies to his generals - Zhou Yu asked Liu Bei to send 20,000 troops to besiege Jiangling, the seat of Nanjun.
It's really not Zhou Yu's good intentions. He wants Liu Beijun to get involved. The main reason is that Zhou Yu doesn't have enough troops now.
Although Cao Cao left Jiangling and retreated to Xiangyang soon after escaping back to Jiangling, he still left a part of his army to guard Jiangling City, the seat of Nanjun, with Cao Ren, Chen Jiao and others.
During this period, Cao Ren kept gathering the remaining soldiers. Now the total number of soldiers in Jiangling City is at least 20,000 to 30,000.
Including the naval force, Zhou Yu only had thirty or forty thousand men on hand.
This time it was not that Sun Quan failed to show his strength. In fact, after Zhou Yu defeated Cao Cao in the Chibi fire attack, Sun Quan only used ten days to gather 50,000 troops from the noble families.
When these Jiangdong families saw Cao Cao's defeat, they immediately became generous and almost all reached an agreement. The purpose of sending troops to help Sun Quan was actually to send troops to grab profits.
But Zhou Yu didn't want this group of people to come over and mess around. He didn't say anything when he commanded them, and he didn't want to turn around and get in the way.
It happened that this time Cao Cao was defeated, not only Jingzhou was shocked, but Jianghuai was also shocked, so Zhou Yu suggested that Sun Quan lead the 50,000 people to go north to Hefei, and take advantage of the current panic of Cao Cao's soldiers to attack Huainan.
When Sun Quan heard this, he immediately understood the intention of his governor. He tacitly cooperated with Zhou Yu's suggestion and personally led his troops to conquer Hefei. Anyway, they were soldiers of the famous family. Let alone Hefei, Sun Quan didn't care how many of these soldiers died. Feeling distressed.
Sun Quan's reinforcements went to Hefei, so Zhou Yu only had 30,000 to 40,000 troops on hand, at least half of which were naval troops.
Cao Ren had at least 20,000 troops guarding Jiangling.
With a nearly one-to-one military strength comparison, Zhou Yu was the siege force and Cao Ren was the defender. No matter how you looked at it, there was no great chance of winning.
Therefore, Zhou Yu transferred Liu Bei's men over. On the one hand, according to the covenant, both parties had the obligation to cooperate with each other. On the other hand, Zhou Yu did not want Liu Bei to just rest like this. He would have to consume Liu Bei's strength anyway.
Liu Bei had no choice, and he also had no choice.
If he didn't send troops, Zhou Yu would be accused of breaking the alliance. At the same time, he didn't want to just watch Jiangdong's army attack the city and seize the territory. Jiangdong had eaten these places and would not spit them out again.
In Zhuge Liang's "Longzhong Dui", Nanjun and Xiangyang are very important places. Without Nanjun and Xiangyang, "Longzhong Dui" would be impossible to talk about.
Obviously, Liu Bei could not sit back and watch Zhou Yu annex Nanjun, then conquer Xiangyang and occupy Jingzhou.
But send troops. Liu Bei's current military strength is not enough. If he sends too little, he will be criticized by Zhou Yu. If he sends too much, he may be regarded as expendable by Zhou Yu.
So, when Liu Bei convened a military meeting, he also wanted to see what the opinions of his men were, whether he should send troops, and how best to send troops.
On the question of whether to send troops or not, it was easy to reach a consensus - to send troops.
If we don’t send troops and just watch the Jiangdong people grab territory, won’t we gain nothing in the end? !
Therefore, troops must be sent.
As for the appropriate amount of troops to send, this is somewhat controversial.
Zhou Yu said that he would mobilize 20,000 troops, which was just a big sign. Unless Liu Beijun was collectively stupid, he would not be able to send so many troops to kill him, and Jiangxia would be completely empty.
Xu Shu's suggestion is to send 10,000 troops. This way, if you can capture Nanjun in the future, you can still have some confidence when bargaining with Jiangdong. Otherwise, if you don't send too many troops, people will say you haven't been able to help. They will give you a symbolic county seat and keep most of the money yourself. Eaten into it.
Zhuge Liang suggested sending five thousand troops, but with more generals, such as Guan, Zhang and Zhao, all running to help.
The reason is that Zhuge Liang saw that Jiangdong Army's siege ability was not strong, especially the lack of generals with experience in commanding troops to siege cities. In this case, he would send fewer troops and bring more generals, so that he could show Zhou Yu his own siege ability. , by the way, you can also warn Zhou Yu and ask him to think about whether his soldiers can withstand Liu Beifang's siege if he wants to monopolize Nanjun after the war.
As for Zhang Xi, Zhang Xi was more inclined to Zhuge Liang's suggestion, but he was more ruthless than Zhuge Liang. He thought that three thousand troops would be enough, and he might be able to borrow some troops from Zhou Yu for use.
Zhang Xi's suggestion is not whimsical.
Zhang Xi had personally fought against the army led by Zhou Yu, and coincidentally, Zhang Xi was also on the defensive side of the city and was very aware of Jiangdong's army's ability to attack the city.
Let's put it this way, when he was rescuing Wei Yan at the foot of E County, if the person surrounding the south gate was not Ling Tong but Cao Ren, then Kou Feng would not have been able to kill him.
Zhou Yu believed that there was a problem with Jiangdong Army's land combat capabilities. In fact, he was not wrong. However, Jiangdong Army's land combat capabilities were ultimately not due to the soldiers being incompetent, but to the fact that the generals did not know how to train or command.
So what Zhang Xi means is to first send 3,000 people there, let Zhang Fei and Guan Yu lead the team, let Zhou Yu see what a land battle siege should look like, and then lend these two tens of thousands of enemies to Zhou Yu for use. It is impossible to say that they can deceive some troops from Zhou Yu.
This can not only preserve Jiangxia's military strength, but also show the importance of one's own side. In the future, the distribution negotiations in Nanjun will be justified and the province will be squeezed out.
As for sending more people there, what if Zhou Yu directly asks the soldiers you brought to attack the city? !
Attacking a city is difficult. Jiang Xia's army went to attack the city. If the loss was big, Zhou Yu was happy. If the loss was small, Zhou Yu said you didn't try your best. After the war, he was assigned to use this as an argument. He was just as happy.
Therefore, we must not make Zhou Yu happy. Send fewer people to attack the city. I have few people, so you can send some people to support me.
Liu Bei thought about it and finally chose Zhuge Liang's suggestion.
It's not that Xu Shu and Zhang Xi's suggestions are bad, they both have their own reasons.
But Xu Shu's one, Liu Bei was not willing to give up such a force of 10,000 people, and Zhang Xi's one, Liu Bei felt that just taking 3,000 people there was a bit insulting to Zhou Yu's IQ.
So, it’s better to choose the more compromise one, Zhuge Liang’s suggestion.
After several days of reorganizing the army, Liu Bei led 5,000 troops, two generals Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, two junior generals Guan Ping and Kou Feng, and two counselors Zhang Xi and Xu Shu to Nanjun to help Zhou Yu attack Jiangling.
Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun guarded Xiakou, one handling government affairs and the other leading the defense.
Not only must we guard against Cao's troops in Xiangyang and Runan, but we must also guard against Jiangdong. What if Jiangdong really takes advantage of Liu Bei's absence and betrays the alliance to attack Jiangxia? !
Zhuge Liang is very cautious.
(End of chapter)
