"The last general Liu Bei, see the left general."

"Hey, Xuande doesn't have to be too polite. I really didn't expect that you were leading troops to rescue Chen Cang. The war in Liangzhou made His Majesty and the General worried. This is Song's fault."

After cleaning the battlefield, Liu Bei met Huangfu Song and Dong Zhuo. Liu Bei immediately got out of his saddle and saluted, and was very humble to Huangfu Song.

Huangfu Song was also very satisfied with his attitude, as kind as he was to his nephew in his younger generation: "Xuande, now you are the general of Zhenxi, you can just match your words, even if you are a friend of mine."

Liu Bei refused and changed his words: "Meng Yi Zhen Gong is loving."

Even so, he added the word "官" after the word "官" to show respect.

Huangfu Song patted his shoulder and asked about military information. Only then did he realize that Liu Bei did not come to help him, but to break through the road to eliminate the rebel Zhang Lu, Han Sui just blocked Liu Bei's path.

Huangfu Song ordered: "Since that is the case, I will not delay your mission. It is enough for me to lead the troops of Zhongying to pursue Han Sui. In today's battle, Li Shen and other troops in the east of the city, except for those who escaped from the Wei River, most of them were annihilated and destroyed at least 20,000 enemies. Han Sui suffered this severe defeat, and his morale would definitely be declining later."

"I wish to respect General Zuo! I will take a break tonight, and I will pursue General Zuo tomorrow!" Dong Zhuo, who had been by the side, hurriedly answered.

In history, Dong Zhuo has always opposed the pursuit, but now he saw that Liu Bei and Huangfu Song had already won a lot of victory. It seems that it is easier to make a fortune. How could Dong Zhuo not pick up the cheap ones that were picked up for free?

Seeing this, Liu Bei quickly said something polite to Dong Zhuo, wishing him a victory.

Li Su, who had been watching coldly, felt quite strange when he saw this scene: Liu Bei now even regarded Dong Zhuo as a loyal and kind-hearted man, and the two of them were talking about how to kill the enemy and serve the country...

But there is nothing we can do. Some things are difficult for him to explain, so let it go.

Now that we have some good impression, we will make a good relationship for the time being, it will prevent Dong Zhuo from using the central government to target Liu Bei in the few months before the princes attacked Dong.

Both sides counted their respective seizures, gains, and summarized the results. Huangfu Song first reported them to the court. After a night of banquet, Huangfu Song and Dong Zhuo led their troops out of the city.

Only thousands of Huangfu Song's army soldiers were left in the city to be responsible for logistics and ensure food channels, and the rest of the defense was temporarily handed over to Liu Bei.

Because Liu Bei's large troops could not rush in to attack Hanzhong, the valley could not accommodate so many troops. Therefore, in the next half month to one month, Chen Cang will temporarily be the base and base camp for Liu Bei to send troops.

At the same time, although Chencang City had not yet been out of food, it was eaten by Huangfu Song's army for nearly half a year, and the granary was almost at its bottom. Liu Bei had to support the army and had to transfer grain from the direction of Mei County or even buy grain.

Because his troops had many hidden reports, the excess source of troops was far beyond the level of the court's knowledge, so the official allocation of food was definitely not enough to eat. If these tasks were not done well, it would be impossible to kill Hanzhong if they were to make a rash effort.

Liu Bei was forced to send civil officials to Fayan. Fazheng's family had a good relationship and let the Legalists, the most prominent family in Mei County, help contact the food.

In this spring, as long as Fa Zheng can help Liu Bei buy grain at normal prices, it is already a big favor, and if it is not done well, it will have to add extra money.

In just a few days, Liu Bei spent 20 to 30 million yuan to prepare for the battle and stored food, which really cost money like flowing water.

The total grain and grass collected was more than 100,000 stones, of which the 50,000 to 60,000 stones allocated by the court, and the additional 70,000 to 80,000 stones were bought by himself, which could allow 40,000 people to eat for two months.

...

Every day the troops rested, they had to eat hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food. This pressure certainly made Liu Bei dare not rest for too long.

The next morning, after Huangfu Song and Dong Zhuo led their troops to the war, it was still early and Liu Bei couldn't sleep anymore. He got up and exercised for a while, and went to Li Su's bedroom next door, intending to talk alone about when and how to advance.

Li Su was dragged from the bed in a daze, and she felt so depressed: Do you think you have insomnia like your middle-aged man of twenty-nine years old? My brother is only seventeen years old and still needs to make up for his sleep!

Li Su yawned, heard Liu Bei ask a question, and waved his hand to show his peace of mind: "Why should you be anxious? It's rare to have a chance. General Zuo handed over Chen Cangcheng's defense to his brother. Why not take the opportunity to work for General Zuo and let the idle soldiers strengthen the city defense?"

Liu Bei said anxiously: "It's not the case when I was eating Qingzhou now. The people here are all people of the court, and we pay every bit of extra-staff military rations."

Li Su smiled and said, "It's useless to be anxious. The Sanguan Road is narrow and cannot accommodate too many large troops to advance together. Therefore, in the first ten days and half a month, the main force of the rear army must have been stranded in Chencang. I'll find something for them to avoid eating a waste of money. Why don't you listen to me after finishing it?"

Liu Bei shook his head helplessly and waved his hand: "Okay, let me listen to my brother. Let me talk about the matter behind first. How can I strengthen the city defense?"

Li Su had already thought about it when he heard Huangfu Song temporarily handing over the defense to Liu Bei yesterday, and now he showed up: "I see that General Zuo was besieged for half a year, and Han Sui has also attacked many times. Although he has not yet been broken, the city is extremely old.

Especially on the northwest sides, the entrance of Longshan Valley is facing the city wall, and the outsourcing bluestone near the city gates have fallen off and the city tower has collapsed. Why not raise some stones and rebuild the city tower and the city gate."

Liu Bei said anxiously: "Brother Boya, what are you kidding? It's good to give some manpower. How can you still spend money to raise stones by yourself? The stones for repairing the city are expensive and heavy, and you have to go to the Qinling Mountains to mine. It's too expensive to get here for dozens of miles!"

Li Suzhizhu smiled and said, "I didn't ask my brother to quarrele. Isn't this ready-made? I see that there are also many residual stones on the southeast sides of the city wall. The surrounding rammed earth is eroded and not stable. It's better to dig out all the loose stones on both sides of the southeast and use them for the north gate of the west gate and the corresponding city tower. After the stones on the southeast are completely removed, dig some rammed earth and the surface is leveled."

"Isn't this like tearing down the east wall to repair the west wall? No, there is no need to say anything, just!" Liu Bei couldn't help but be curious. If he hadn't known that Li Suyoumou, he would have almost thought it was a joke, "What's the point of this, brother?"

Li Su whispered: "Brother, think about it carefully, where is the northwest side of Chencang City? It is the Longshan Valley Road, which is guarding Han Sui, and the southeast side is the Qinling Valley Road, which is guarding Hanzhong Road, which is guarding Hanzhong Road, which is guarding Zhang Lu.

For the court, Han Sui was a lasting and great danger and had to be kept on guard. Zhang Lu was already a grasshopper in the autumn. With us, we will fight Zhang Lu and completely wipe out it out. From then on, the court will no longer need Chen Cangcheng to defend against the enemy on the south side. I am saving money for the court."

Li Su modified his true thoughts and said, "We will leave Sichuan in the future."

But even the modified idea made sense.

Yes, I, Liu Xuande, is the number one loyal minister of the Han Dynasty. I am guarding against the enemy from Hanzhong in the southeast of Chencang City, and Hanzhong is mine, so it is impossible for anyone to rebel against Han.

Good fortifications must be used on the blade, so it is decided to tear down the east wall and repair the west wall!

He immediately ordered to help Huangfu Song repair the city defense, remove all the stones on the southeast sides, and prepare for the northwest renovation.

In fact, when it comes to the execution level, Li Su, who "deceives the superiors and hides the subordinates", is even more unethical than Liu Bei expected.

Li Su did not even use any reliable quality rammed earth to build the gap in the southeast wall, but secretly dredged some silt from the moat, and stuffed it directly into the cavity formed by the weathering and loss of the city wall, piled up the inside, and covered it with a layer of rammed earth on the outside.

Anyway, as long as you don’t encounter enemies to attack the city, this kind of shoddy project will not be discovered within one or two years.

...

After arranging the corvee service during the main force stationed in Chencang, Liu Bei asked about his strategy for advancing again: "My dear brother thinks, where is the key to going to Hanzhong? How should our army advance?"

This question is quite simple. Novice who has read "Romance of the Romance" can answer it. Li Su blurted out: "The key to entering Hanzhong is of course the Yangping Pass where his gate is. I think the road to Shu is difficult and Yangping Pass is steep.

You should not rely on your elite troops and soldiers. You should also try your best to take advantage of your wisdom, attack or lure the enemy, and you should not tell them in detail when you see the local situation. I only heard of the name of Yangping Pass and did not know the geographical details."

Liu Bei thought for a while: "What should we do now?"

Li Su asked someone to take the map, took a rough look, and said, "I think it's better to go in two steps. First, the army stayed in Chencang, which is indeed too far from the front line and could not provide reinforcements at any time. You can first use the main force to go out of Sanguan and enter the area of ​​Hechi County, Wudu County along the valley.

The Hechi is close to the Western Han River. From Hechi to the south, you can reach Wuxing. You can walk 50 miles to Juxian along the Mian River. You can reach Yangping Pass by land.

If we go upstream from the Hechi River, we can go to the lower part of Wudu County. To the west, we are all in the vast valley of Qishan Mountains and reach Dazhong, with abundant water and grass. Our army has two purposes here, one is to pacify Zhang Lu, and the other is to find a horse farm for Fuluo Shanyu and allow him to govern the local government.

In this case, we can use the second purpose to conceal the first purpose. This time we went south, we first took advantage of the guise of just to place ourselves in Fuluo, and blocked the news along the way, and caught the people and businessmen who had crossed mountains and valleys and ran into the army, and detained them all, so that the thieves in Hanzhong would not let us know our movements for the time being.

Then, under the pretext of being placed in Fuluo, he pretended to continue to help General Zuo attack Tianshui from the south side of Wudu, Dazhong and attacked Han Sui. In this way, even if Zhang Lu found that a small army was advancing in Chencang Road, he would have hoped to deceive him, making him temporarily think that he was not going to attack Han Sui.

As long as our army does not go south from Hechi for one day, it will not alarm Zhang Lu for a day. This plan has another advantage, that is, Yu Fulu's cavalry is useless when attacking the pass. Send him away for the time being, and it will also reduce the logistics consumption of our army. His Shanyu personal guards are all one person and two horses, and 10,000 people and 20,000 horses are too much."

Liu Bei thought about it and it was indeed the reason.

Then, take a short walk from Chen Cang to Hechi, and transport most of the military rations to Hechi one after another. Then, while sending Yu Fuluo to the suspicion array, he sent a small group of scouts to Yangping Pass from Hechi to check the terrain. After having a detailed terrain map, he held a military discussion in Hechi to discuss how to fight.

Li Su was also a little nervous. This was a tough battle that could not be used. He could not even count on the trick of losing food when attacking the level, so he could only fight head-on.

But because he had no stable base before, Li Su had no chance to climb the technology under confidentiality. Now there is neither black gunpowder explosion nor other epoch-making siege weapons, but what should I do with Yangping Pass?

In history, when Cao Cao attacked Zhang Lu for the first time, he could not break through Yangping Pass.

I can only take one step at a time.
Chapter completed!