At the end of May in the first year of Zhangwu, summer entered, and the climate became increasingly hot. The average temperature in Luoyang was above 20 degrees every day.

Thanks to the construction of canals, trenches and dams in Henan Yinhenei County and other places starting seven or eight years ago, when summer came, there was no drought caused by the sudden rise in temperature.

The people are working enthusiastically in the fields. As the saying goes, farmers have less leisure in the month, but people are twice as busy in May.

The harvest seasons are different between the north and the south. In the North China Plain area of ​​Hebei Province, wheat has been grown since the Han Dynasty, and this has remained the same even for thousands of years.

Sumai is winter wheat. It is sown in September or October last year and harvested in May or June next year. The growth period is about 230-270 days. Therefore, when Luoyang dispatches the army, you can see a bright yellow wheat field outside the city.

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Lines of troops slowly walked out of the city. Chen Mu was riding on his horse, feeling the gentle breeze blowing in the summer. The sun was shining brightly, shining warmly on his face. The endless wheat fields in the distance were full of vitality.

Countless farmers are busy in the fields, with scarecrows standing in the fields. Birds flying from Mang Mountain are hovering in the sky. They can always peck a few grains of wheat left over from the harvest when people are not prepared.

Chen Mu looked around, squinting his eyes slightly to enjoy the cool breeze. On his left and right were Xu Chu, Ah Da Ah Er, Zhang Long, Zhao Hu and other generals, and behind him were thousands of troops.

Before Liu Bei left, he left Xu Chu with him and asked Xu Chu to protect Chen Mu personally.

When Xu Chu joined the army, his combat effectiveness was not strong. In addition to his strength, he was seriously lacking in skills. He was outmaneuvered by the battle-hardened Zhang Fei.

Now that he has been in the army for many years, he is often encouraged by many generals in the army, and his force value has skyrocketed. If his force value was only 70 or 80 when he debuted, it is now around 94, which is very close to the strength of a top-notch general.

What's more important is that he is still young. He has just turned thirty this year. In a few years, when he is about thirty-five, he will reach his peak as a military commander and be on par with the Five Tiger Generals. It will be a matter of time.

In addition to Xu Chu's eldest brother, Zhang Long, Zhao Hu and a thousand Xuanjia heavy cavalry, there are two generals, Feng Kaiwen and Su, who serve as troop commanders, as well as Yu Du, Liu Shi, Deng Sheng, Xia Zhao and others.

He was named the Black Mountain Army or Yuan Shao's surrendered general and served as a partial general, leading an army of 10,000 to the south.

If the original military system is followed, then Feng Kai and Wen Su can be regarded as captains, each commanding a man, that is, five thousand people. Yu Du, Liu Shi, Deng Sheng, Xia Zhao and others can be regarded as military commanders, each with

People lead five songs, that is, 2,500 people.

Now after the restructuring, generals can be regarded as captains, and generals can be regarded as army commanders.

In fact, by the end of the Han Dynasty, all the princes had basically reorganized their structures. For example, after the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao regarded the partial generals and the assistant generals as army adjutants, equivalent to the captain and army commander. These two positions were basically no longer provided.

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Therefore, the current restructuring is only in the preliminary stage. In the future, when the country is gradually unified and the number of troops begins to increase, plans will be made again to fix the number of soldiers owned by generals at all levels of the army.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang He is also among them.

Many of Yuan Shao's generals surrendered to Liu Bei. Naturally, these generals could not hold high positions from the beginning. Even if Zhang He led tens of thousands of people to surrender to Cao Cao in history, he was only assigned as a partial general, so Chen Mu was also

He was appointed as a partial general and followed him to participate in the battle.

The sources of these 10,000 horses were 3,000 transferred from Hongnong, 2,000 from Henan, and 5,000 from Hanoi. Half of them were elite veterans, and the 5,000 transferred from Hanoi were new recruits from Ju Yi.

The trained recruits may not have strong combat effectiveness.

However, attacking Nanyang is not very difficult. Zhao Yun's soldiers are all elite, so Chen Mu doesn't care about the quality of the soldiers. He is now thinking about the reply Jia Xu gave him a few days ago.

Yan Zhong had recruited Jia Xu in his early years and asked him to follow him to Qingzhou. However, Jia Xu had many concerns at the time and finally politely refused and stayed in Zhang Ji's army.

The main reason is that Jia Xu and Chen Mu are the same kind of people. To put it nicely, a gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall, but to put it worst, he is greedy for life and afraid of death.

What was Jia Xu's identity back then?

He was from Xiliang who followed Dong Zhuo in rebellion, and he was also a lieutenant in the auxiliary army under Dong Zhuo. He had a hostile relationship with Liu Bei's forces.

Unlike Yan Zhong, he had already taken refuge in Qingzhou, so he had no worries in the past.

After all, Dong Zhuo's deeds were really outrageous and hated the Kwantung Army. Jia Xu was afraid that Liu Bei would be liquidated after he invaded Chang'an.

Therefore, after Dong Zhuo's death, he immediately encouraged Li Jue and Guo Si to cause trouble, and did not dare to follow Yan Zhong to Qingzhou.

Finally, after going round and round, I went to Zhang Jibu and came to Nanyang.

The reason why he chose Zhang Ji was not only because Zhang Ji and he were from the same hometown of Wuwei, but also because Jia Xu knew people very well. He knew that Duan Xuan would be suspicious of him and was afraid that he would seize his army. But Zhang Ji would not, so he chose Zhang Ji.

Zhang Ji is even weaker.

After following Zhang Ji from Wuguan into Nanyang, Zhang Ji's troops had a very difficult time. As a last resort, they chose to attack Liu Biao. As a result, Zhang Ji died and Zhang Xiu took over.

Under Jia Xu's planning, Zhang Xiu finally made peace with Liu Biao, received Liu Biao's funding, and temporarily gained a foothold in Wancheng, Nanyang.

But everyone knew that Liu Biao only used Zhang Xiu to guard the door for him.

Although Jingzhou was stable, Liu Biao still had many internal problems. He not only coveted Jiangdong, he once sent Huang Zu to attack Yuan Shu, hoping to capture Jiangdong. He also had to deal with the various rebel forces in Jingnan, and he was unable to do anything at the same time.

Therefore, Zhang Xiu was left in Nanyang to serve as the gateway to the north. In this way, Liu Biao could deal with the rear and send troops to the east of the Yangtze without worrying about the princes from the north going south.

Chen Mu has also written many letters to Zhang Xiu and Jia Xu these days. The replies from the two are quite intriguing and the content is meaningful.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Thinking about the intention conveyed in the letter, before you know it, you have arrived at Yinque Pass. If you go further south, you will enter Ruzhou City in later generations.

, we should be able to arrive in Jiaxian County and officially enter Yingchuan territory tomorrow.

When we arrived at Yinque Pass, it was already dark, and the army rested in the pass for a day.

Chen Mu ordered the generals to have a good rest and there was no need to arrange patrols. Yinque Pass itself had defenders, and this was the hinterland of Luoyang. Zhao Yun's 30,000 troops were in Yingchuan County in front. There was no possibility of an enemy appearing. If they were on alert,

Naturally, there are patrol guards from the Yinque Pass garrison.

After the order was issued, Chen Mu summoned Zhuge Liang, Yang Xiu, Chen Qun and several other young men who had been following him to discuss matters. In a mansion in Yinque Pass, everyone sat down and the room was filled with candles, which was brightly lit.

"I have called you here today for two things. One is to discuss with you how to deal with Zhang Xiu. The other is, take a look at this."

After saying that, Chen Mu handed an official document to Zhuge Liang who was nearest to him.

After Zhuge Liang read it first, he passed it on to Yang Xiu, Chen Qun, Yao Bo, Huang Qi, Kong Jian and others. They read it one by one. Except for Zhuge Liang and Chen Qun, everyone showed obvious joy.

The content of this official document is very simple. Cao Huanjie, the commander of Changsha County, reported to the court that he had persuaded Zhang Xian, the governor of Changsha, to surrender to the court. Zhang Xian planned to raise soldiers from Changsha County, Guiyang County, Lingling County, and Wuling County.

Ma raised an army to fight against Liu Biao and sent an envoy to Luoyang to ask the court's opinion.

"What do you think?"

When Chen Mu saw that everyone had finished reading, he asked.

Yang Xiu immediately said: "This is a good thing. If it succeeds, Liu Biao will have no time to support Zhang Xiu, and we can easily capture Nanyang. After defeating Zhang Xiu, we can attack Liu Biao from the north and south with Zhang Prefect, and hopefully

Recover Jingzhou."

"not that simple."

Chen Qun shook his head and said: "Liu Biao has been running Jingzhou for ten years and has deep roots. The city of Xiangyang is as solid as a rock. How can it be so easy to shake? Moreover, if we attack Xiangyang directly, Cao Cao and Sun Jian are afraid that something will happen. Although Sun Jian expressed his loyalty to the court, they can't

His son has been eyeing Jiangdong in Shouchun, so he may not have the ambition to dominate."

"oh?"

Chen Mu smiled and said: "It seems that the long article has profound meaning. Tell me what you think."

"Master Shi, I think we can push the boat forward and let the court respond to Governor Zhang's envoy in the name of the emperor and agree with him to mobilize troops from the four counties to fight against Liu Biao."

Chen Qun said: "Our army is small and it is very difficult to attack Nanyang. We may even be attacked by Zhang Xiu and Liu Biao. Therefore, after Zhang Prefect raises his troops, he can help us share Liu Biao's pressure. There is a fire in Liu Biao's backyard, so we can only send

The people went to suppress it and had no time to take care of Zhang Xiu. We can take the opportunity to seize Nanyang and occupy Wancheng to guard our throat."

"you mean?"

Yang Xiu looked surprised and said: "Inciting Governor Zhang to raise troops, but only using him to attract Liu Biao's troops. In fact, after we captured Nanyang, we stood still and watched Governor Zhang fight with Liu Biao?"

"There's nothing we can do about it."

Chen Qun shook his head.

Yang Xiu's idea was to agree with Zhang Xian to raise troops and let Zhang Xian contain Liu Biao first. At this time, Chen Mu's army went south and captured Nanyang, and then attacked Xiangyang and captured the entire Jingzhou.

However, Chen Qun believed that it was difficult for them to do this with their current strength, and there were two powerful princes, Cao Cao and Sun Jian, in Henan. Attacking Nanyang might not cause them to rebound.

Because Nanyang was too close to Yingchuan, and the troops of Zhao Yun, Dian Wei, Huang Zhong, Taishi Ci, Zang Ba and Cai Yang were also around them, they did not dare to take action easily.

But if we attack Xiangyang in Jingzhou, we will have to fight deep into the enemy's heartland. It is too far away from Yingchuan, and Zhao Yun and others may not be able to support them so quickly.

Sun Jian, however, could directly cross over from Zhongyang Mountain. Zhongyang Mountain was located in the northeast of Biyang County and southwest of Zhumadian City. There was a large plain area dozens of miles wide between it and Boshan. The road was very easy to walk, and it was only two miles away from Nanyang.

Hundreds of miles.

Therefore, Chen Qun felt that it was no problem for Zhang Xian to raise troops, which could just help them contain Liu Biao's army. As for going south to attack Xiangyang, that was obviously a bit too idealistic. Sometimes you have to sell your teammates.

After listening to Chen Qun's words, everyone felt that it made sense. But after thinking about it, they felt that it was unfair to Zhang Xian. After all, he was a loyal minister of the imperial court and planned to raise troops to help the imperial court regain Jingzhou.

As a result, you sold someone in the blink of an eye. What will the world think?

Thinking of this, Kong Jian said: "Our army is indeed weak in strength, but if we leave Governor Zhang alone, I am afraid that it will chill the rest of the loyal ministers in the world who want to serve the imperial court. I think it is not advisable."

"It's difficult to go deep into the hinterland of Jingzhou."

Chen Qun sighed: "Xiangyang is located to the south of Hanjiang River and north of Xiangjiang River. It is surrounded by water and has Xianshan Fortress. The city has high walls and thick walls, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack. Even if our army easily defeats Zhang Xiu's army, how can we defeat it?"

Can we go south to meet Governor Zhang? The plan of a pincer attack from the north and south will not work at all."

"Then why do we still want to fight Nanyang?"

Zhuge Liang suddenly asked.

"oh?"

Chen Mu became interested, looked at his young apprentice and asked, "What's Kong Ming's opinion?"

Zhuge Liang then said: "The emperor is now attacking Youzhou in the north. Zhang Yan has come to surrender. Xian Yufu has recruited more than 100,000 troops. It would be easy to quell the rebellion in Wuwan and Xianbei in the north. Even Gongsun Zan cannot compete with your majesty. So.
To be continued...