Jinguan City, the Royal Palace.
"King Chu, the Zhou people are coming with a fierce force. They count no less than 300,000 soldiers and horses. The leader of the army, Dongfang Wuyun, is even more powerful.
My king fought against them for half a year, and lost all 100,000 soldiers and horses, and the capital of White Rock fell to the enemy.
Nowadays, there are only 30,000 remaining soldiers in our country, who have retreated to Jianmen Xiongguan to garrison, thus barely resisting the Zhou invasion.
However, the people of Zhou Dynasty were so powerful that it was really difficult for Hanzhong to resist with such a big country attacking our small country.
Previously, when my king and your Majesty were in Qianyue, we had a friendship in the Northern Expedition together to fight against the Zhou people.
Now that our country is in trouble, we hope that your Majesty will lend a helping hand and send troops to rescue us.
My king is willing to express his vassal status to Da Chu and ask him to become a vassal. From now on, he will be a minister for generations to come and shield the north for Da Chu. "
In the Xiji Palace, the envoy from Han China fell to the ground and begged Lu Yuan with a sobbing look on his face.
The Zhou Dynasty came with great force, and in just half a year, it defeated the capital of Han Dynasty.
At this time, all the three prefectures north of Hanzhong had fallen.
Only the Second Prefecture of Xichuan in the south, relying on natural dangers such as Jianmen Xiongguan, could barely resist the invasion from the Zhou Kingdom.
But with the power of the Zhou Kingdom and the majesty of its troops and horses, even with the Jianmen Pass as a barrier, Han China was still difficult to resist.
Without foreign aid, facing the overwhelming Zhou army, Jianmen Xiongguan would not be able to survive for two months.
Without this heroic pass, the Zhou people marched straight in. I am afraid that before the end of this year, Han China will follow the mistakes of the Xichuan Kingdom and be destroyed early.
Faced with such a catastrophe of national subjugation, Qiao Kangquan was naturally unwilling to accept it.
He abandoned his family and business and came all the way to Xichuan. He spent countless energy and resources and finally managed the foundation of Han China.
Now that he is asked to give up like this, how can he be willing to do so?
But if you want to keep Han China alive, it is impossible to rely on your own strength alone.
The only way is to invite foreign aid, hire an enemy powerful enough to confront the Zhou State, and let it intervene in this battle to curb the Zhou people's fierce aggression.
Looking around, the only force that meets this requirement is Lu Yuan's Chu State.
Therefore, after escaping back to Jianmen Pass, Qiao Kangquan gathered the remaining soldiers and recruited troops from only two palaces in the rear.
On the other hand, envoys were sent to Jinguancheng to ask for help from King Lu Yuan of Chu who was staying here.
So there was this scene in front of me.
"Messenger, please get up first."
Lu Yuan glanced at the envoy from Hanzhong who was kowtowing and pleading below, and then said in a majestic and solemn tone: "The Zhou people who come to the north are always greedy and ambitious.
When he was advancing to Vietnam, he linked up with Li Xiong from Shu and invaded Xichuan brazenly. As a result, the Marquis of Wu'an failed in the battle against Shu and had to retreat to Tianmen Mansion.
If Gu and the King of Hanzhong and others had not fought hard to repel the Zhou people, the land of Xichuan would have fallen into the hands of the Northerners.
Less than ten years after the strike, the Zhou people broke the contract again and attacked Han China.
Such behavior is truly cruel and disrespectful.
The envoy can rest assured that as long as Gu is around, the Zhou people will never succeed.
You can reply to the King of Hanzhong and ask him to continue to hold on for a few days. Then Gu will rectify the Xichuan troops and go north to Jianmen to help him repel the Zhou people. "
Lu Yuan had no hesitation about whether to aid Han China.
The Zhou people have now reached Jianmen Pass.
Where is Jianmen Pass?
That is the first pass in the northern border of Xichuan, the gateway to Xichuan County, and the boundary between Xichuan County and Hanzhong County.
If the Zhou people were to capture this pass, there would be no dangerous barrier to the north of Xichuan.
With the Zhou people in control of this pass, they could send their troops south at any time and drive directly to Xichuan County.
By then, the Zhou people will be able to attack when they advance and defend when they retreat, and they will firmly grasp the strategic initiative.
If the Chu State wanted to resist the Zhou people, it would have to station a large number of troops in Xichuan County, resulting in a large number of soldiers and horses being dragged here and unable to move.
Of course, Lu Yuan couldn't just watch the Zhou people take away such an important place.
Moreover, the remaining two mansions of Jiange and Tongchuan in Han Dynasty were the only two among the ten mansions of Xichuan that were not under the control of the Chu State. They had long been regarded by him as something in his pocket and he wanted to take back the territory.
Even for the sake of the integrity of one county and ten mansions in Xichuan, Lu Yuan could not let the Zhou people attack Han China.
Therefore, sending troops to assist has long been decided.
In fact, before the envoy from Han China arrived, Lu Yuan had already ordered the four old imperial troops outside Jinguan City to be mobilized, and also asked the county government to prepare food and grass to prepare to go north at any time.
With an army of 80,000, even though the Zhou people had 300,000, Lu Yuan had no fear and was confident that he could fight the opponent with his elite soldiers.
Not to mention, is it still a question whether the Zhou people in the north have an army of 300,000?
Yes, the Chinese envoy from Han Dynasty said that the Zhou people went south this time with a total of 300,000 troops.
But no one needs to say much about this, everyone can guess that this is just a bluff by the other party, bragging about the strength of the Zhou people as much as possible, in order to intimidate the Chu State to send troops.
As for the troops and horses of the Zhou people going south this time, through the investigation of the Imperial City Foreign Affairs Bureau and the inference of Lu Yuan's many years of experience in leading troops, we already have a rough number.
Previously, the Zhou people had maintained a force of 100,000 troops in Hanzhong County.
But this time, taking advantage of the defeat of the Xichuan Kingdom, Han China lost the opportunity to have a strong ally, and the Zhou people drew another 50,000 elite troops from the north.
In Hanzhong County, the Zhou people also had about 24,000 county soldiers, which was also a considerable fighting force.
In this way, a total of 174,000 soldiers, led by the Zhou people's Nanzhu Kingdom general Dongfang Wuyun, formed the main force of the Zhou people's southward march.
In addition, in order to transport grain and grass, and also to consume the city, the Zhou people actually sent more than 100,000 civilians in Hanzhong County.
Counting these people, there were indeed 300,000 people in that week.
But that was all in the past.
Just as the Hanzhong envoy said.
In order to resist the Zhou people's invasion from the south and protect his own property, Qiao Kangquan, the King of Hanzhong, resisted the Zhou people with great determination.
Previously, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses had gathered in the area of Baishi City, the capital of the country. They did not form a decisive battle with the Zhou people head-on, but focused on defending this majestic city.
Facing a fortress garrisoned by an innate master leading an army of 100,000 people, even if the Zhou people had three times the number of soldiers and horses as Han Chinese, it would not be that easy to capture it.
The war lasted from March to September this year. In order to conquer Baishi City, both sides fought real fire inside and outside the city.
Han Dynasty's 100,000 troops were killed and wounded in the city.
Zhou's army was not much better. It also suffered heavy casualties, with more than 100,000 soldiers lost, including many elites.
Under such a heavy setback, it was a question whether the Zhou Kingdom's 300,000-strong army could gather 200,000 at this time, and among them, there were only 100,000 elite soldiers left at most.
Lu Yuan marched north with a 80,000-strong army, and met up with the remnant troops of Han Dynasty. In this way, facing the Zhou army, whose numbers are not much different from our own but are exhausted from long battles, the chance of victory may be greater.
With this strength, he is naturally not afraid of Zhou.
But if possible, Lu Yuan actually didn't want to confront Zhou Guo now.
Zhou State has now regained the lost land of Hanzhong County. After these years of development and progress, the country's territory has almost returned to the original eight counties.
With such a vast territory, even if the land of Yongzhou occupied by the Zhou Kingdom was not as fertile as that of other states, the population under its control would not be less than 30 million.
With this huge population base, even though the Zhou Kingdom currently has only 800,000 soldiers and horses, as long as the other party is willing, it can bring in another 200,000 to 300,000 soldiers and horses with sufficient combat power at any time.
This is just for the lower-level soldiers.
After the Northern Expedition and nearly ten years of cultivation, the quota of Zhou Kingdom's Eight Pillar Generals has been gradually filled.
Even on this basis, by recruiting domestic martial arts masters and cultivating them themselves, three additional candidate generals were added. These are also innate masters.
In other words, there are now eleven innate masters in the Zhou Kingdom.
In terms of quantity alone, it was already twice that of Chu State.
If the Zhou State is willing, it can send four or five innate masters southward at any time to support the Hanzhong battlefield.
With so many innate masters gathered together, even if they were facing off against Lu Yuan, it would be quite stressful.
It’s not that I’m worried that I can’t beat the opponent.
With his current extreme strength in both immortality and martial arts, it is not a big problem to deal with five or six masters of the first level of Xiantian, and he can even defeat them.
But Zhou Guo knew the details of Lu Yuan.
His identity as an immortal cultivator is not a secret in the Zhou Kingdom. It is impossible to win by relying on this sneak attack as before.
In this way, it would not be so easy for him to kill Zhou Guoxiantian easily.
However, Zhou Guo was innately incompetent, and with the opponent's numbers and mobility, there was no need to confront Lu Yuan head-on.
Each Xiantian master led tens of thousands of partial troops, all the way along the Han River into Xiangyang, and all the way over the mountains and ridges to surprise Xichuan.
These two moves alone are enough for Chu State to drink a pot.
In that case, even if Lu Yuan has extremely powerful force, if they really compete with each other and go behind each other's enemy lines to cause destruction, he will still lose in the end.
Of course, these are the most extreme choices.
As long as Zhou and Chu are not completely at odds and are ready to break everything and start over, then these situations will not happen, and all wars will continue to be controllable.
But even if it was a controllable war, Lu Yuan did not want to fight with Zhou Guo.
Zhou State has a population of 30 million. Even if Chu State has annexed Xichuan State and plundered some Yi people from Jianchuan State, the total population is less than 8 million.
Zhou State can mobilize millions of soldiers, but Chu State can only mobilize 300,000 soldiers at most even if it mobilizes desperately.
With the gap between the two countries' backgrounds, even if the two sides were losing money one to one, it would be a big loss for the Chu State.
This is the gap in national strength, which cannot be made up by one person's overwhelming force.
Therefore, Lu Yuan does not want to start a war with other countries now that he has just opened up a large amount of territory and is in urgent need of digestion.
Especially a country like Zhou which is the dominant country in the world.
And this idea seems to be not only shared by Chu State, but also the Zhou State in the north, which has just won a great victory, seems to have the same idea.
This can be seen from the fact that after the opponent defeated Baishi City, they only went south to the outside of Jianmen Pass, and after tentatively attacking the city, they did not continue to attack.
The other party didn't seem to be ready for a big war with Chu State.
Therefore, the harvest of this war is only to regain the homeland of Hanzhong County, and there is no sign of going further.
This is consistent with common sense.
After all, not only are the enemies of Chu State surrounding China, but there are also many powerful enemies.
There is Wei State in the north and Liang State in the east. These are big countries that are not inferior to Zhou State.
To the west of Yongzhou, where the Zhou Kingdom was located, there was also the Xiliang Kingdom occupying three counties.
Also in the southwest of Yongzhou, there are millions of snowy people living on the snow mountain plateau that already belongs to the outside world.
The enemies in these two directions can dispatch hundreds of thousands of troops, and they are considered powerful enemies of the Zhou Kingdom.
With so many enemies entangled, it would not be easy for Zhou to let go and fight Chu.
Of course, the above are just speculations made by Lu Yuan based on the information gathered from all parties.
Whether this is correct or not will only be known after he leads his troops north and meets the Zhou people.
…
The envoys from Han Dynasty were weeping when they arrived and excited when they left. They soon returned to Jianmen Pass with the good news that Chu State was willing to send troops.
And it was shortly after he left, on the tenth day of September, that Lu Yuan formally inspected the troops and horses outside Jinguan City and reviewed the troops.
In the end, a new imperial army was left, as well as county soldiers from Xichuan, a total of more than 40,000 people stayed behind in the county.
He personally led the remaining 80,000 imperial troops and the accompanying 70,000 civilians, and led the troops northward in a mighty manner, heading for Jianmen Pass.
On September 20th, Lu Yuan led his army to Jianmen Pass. King Qiao Kangquan of Hanzhong personally went out of the city ten miles to greet him and treated him with courtesy.
The next day, after receiving news of the large-scale arrival of the Chu army, the Zhou army did a little trial. After confirming that the enemy was difficult to deal with, they immediately sent envoys to the Chu camp.
"The foreign minister pays homage to the King of Chu."
In the Chu camp, after being led into the tent, the Zhou envoy respectfully saluted Lu Yuan.
"Now you and I are fighting. The messenger comes to the camp at this time. Why?"
Lu Yuan looked up and down at the envoy of the Zhou Army named Xia Qingxuan below, and saw that he was an elegant scholar in his thirties, but underneath his gentle appearance, there seemed to be a hint of sharpness and extraordinary demeanor.
Xia Qingxuan cupped his hands and replied solemnly: "To the King of Chu, the foreign minister is here to negotiate peace with your army and call for a truce."
Lu Yuan's expression changed: "Negotiating a peace?"
Although he had already speculated about Zhou Guo's choice, he was still a little surprised by how straightforward the other party was.
"Yes, it's peace."
Xia Qingxuan nodded, and then said calmly: "This time our army went south just to regain the lost territory in Hanzhong, and had no intention of competing with the Chu State. Now that the three lost prefectures in Hanzhong have been recovered, our country's goal has been achieved, which can be said to be a great achievement. Perfection.
In fact, there is not much conflict between the Chu State and the Zhou State.
Our country, Zhou, is satisfied and does not want to continue the war. The king has newly acquired two counties and needs to rest and recuperate.
In this case, why do you and I have to fight anymore? Wouldn't it be nice to just call it quits and make peace? "
After saying these words, Hanzhong King Qiao Kangquan, who was sitting aside in the tent, suddenly became ugly.
Zhou Guo regained his lost land and was naturally satisfied.
But while the other party was happy, it was the pain of Han China losing most of its territory.
It's just that Han China, which only has two prefectures left, is as powerful as Huichuan and Nondong, a small country in the southwestern Yi region, with less than 300,000 citizens and no more than 30,000 soldiers.
With this little bit of strength, he no longer has any bargaining chips.
Therefore, even if the Zhou people came to discuss peace at this time and planned to turn the Hanzhong territory they now occupied into a fait accompli, Qiao Kangquan could only watch helplessly and could not say anything.
In fact, the people of Zhou didn't take him seriously at all.
Han China, which previously held half of the county, still had some value in winning over.
But now that the turtle has shrunk back to Xichuan, and only Han China, the land of Erfu, is left, it is really dispensable.
Even in the eyes of Zhou State, Han China, which was like duckweed in the wind at this time, might be directly annexed by Chu State and completely destroyed in a month or two.
So, what value does such a force that is about to fall have to care about?
Not only Zhou State, but in fact even Lu Yuan didn't take Han China seriously.
He must take back the land in the two mansions that the other party currently occupies.
Han China, which has become so weak now, no longer has the value of serving as a barrier and buffer between Zhou and Chu. Chu State no longer needs the other side.
In contrast.
Taking Jianmenguan, the gateway to Xichuan, into his own hands would be of greater value and significance to Lu Yuan.
Otherwise, if the Xichuan gate is handed over to such a weak Han Dynasty, he is really worried that when the Zhou Kingdom will once again be unstoppable and attack Xichuan in one go.
If that were the case, it would hit Chu State seven inches in the face.
In order to prevent this kind of thing from happening, he naturally had to put an end to it as early as possible.
But this is something that will be done later.
At the moment, the most important thing is to negotiate peace with Zhou Guo as soon as possible and end this war that neither side is willing to start.
Therefore, after Lu Yuan heard Xia Qingxuan's words, a smile suddenly appeared on his face: "What the envoy said is very lonely. The Chu and Zhou families..."
Next, a friendly but hidden edge, a tough but compromising dialogue began back and forth in the big tent.
Until near dusk, after several hours of discussion, Xia Qingxuan and Lu Yuan finally reached a relatively consistent understanding on various principles and details of the peace talks.
After seeing that his goal was achieved, Zhou Qingxuan quickly said goodbye and left.
After seeing him off, the atmosphere in the tent suddenly relaxed and was no longer as tense as before.
Most of the Chu generals were somewhat happy.
Having been out fighting for more than two years, even these warriors, who were delighted to hear the battle, were more or less as tired as Lu Yuan.
At this time, it is natural to be happy to not have to go to war with a powerful enemy like Zhou State and not have to bear the huge pressure of death.
The only person who was contrary to the surrounding atmosphere was Qiao Kangquan, who had completely betrayed his interests and became a loser who couldn't lose anymore.
But no matter how angry he felt in his heart, he did not dare to express any dissatisfaction in the face of Zhou and Chu, who were a behemoth that he could not resist.
Even the expression on his face should show stiff joy, trying to make himself blend in with the crowd and not appear so conspicuous.
But even so, after Xia Qingxuan left, Lu Yuan still glanced at him, and then said with a smile: "King of Hanzhong, now that Chu and Zhou have stopped their troops and made peace, the war in the north has ended, and Han China has no worries.
At this rare moment, I just have something I want to discuss with you.
For example, transfer..."
When Lu Yuan said the last two words, his tone suddenly became more serious and his expression became solemn.
