Liu Bei received Xun You's reminder that from the next day, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao made a breakthrough in the siege, and the progress was indeed much faster.

Zhao Yun's troops arrived in Qi County a day later on April 16th, and entered Xun You's expected to easily surrender the defenders. Li Jue still did not divide his troops in Qi County and was determined to rush back.

After arriving in Qi County, Ma Chao took three thousand cavalry and turned to the south, left the Jinghe River Basin, and was close to Meiyang, Wugong and other places in the Weihe River Basin. He tried to see where Zhang Fei was pushing on the southern line, and helped him pick up cheaply to bring down some surrounding areas that Zhang Fei could not reach, so as to cover Zhang Fei's wings when he was pushing.

Zhao Yun continued to advance along the Jing River to explore the way and approach Chiyang. The two men finally arrived at their respective destinations on April 17 and 18th.

(Note: The reason why Ma Chao turns south in Qi County every time is because to the south of Qi County, the Longshan Mountains are at the end, and to the east, the intersection between the Loess Plateau and the Weihe Plain becomes relatively smooth, and there is no need to cross Longshan)

However, this is just the speed of the cavalry. The main force of the subsequent infantry led by Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Li Su still has to carry the baggage and fight steadily. He can only walk fifty or sixty miles a day, so he will definitely be two or three days behind Zhao Yun and Ma Chao.

Unfortunately, the tragedy in Chang'an City was indeed as Xun You expected, far faster than Zhao Yun and Ma Chao. No matter how Zhao Yun rushed, Li Jue passed several days earlier than him after all, and he could not catch him.

Before Zhao Yun's troops chased Chiyang, a bloody incident had already happened in Chang'an City, and the specific process and the number of forces involved were more complicated than Xun You estimated.

Because there are still many forces that Xun You did not realize, which were mixed into this vortex, aggravated suspicion and internal strife.

...

To understand the time difference in Chang'an City, a series of short and fierce civil strife began to occur in the past few days before Li Jue returned to Beijing.

We must raise our vision to a global perspective, and look at the various causes and effects that occurred in the battlefields of Lantian, Yuguan and Shangluo in the southeast of Chang'an during the period from April to April 15th, mainly the conflict between Yuan Shu's army and the Xiliang army.

As mentioned earlier, Yuan Shu took Shangluo on the fifth day of April, and Li Ying's troops in Chang'an also received an urgent report that night, and then strengthened the defense of the island, and allocated Li Bei to the next day, and Dong Cheng returned to the defense.

At noon on the seventh day of the April 19th, Ji Ling, the vanguard of Yuan Shu, rushed to Yuguan, 150 miles northwest of Shangluo, and began to tackle the problem.

After all, Yuguan is a dangerous place, and it is no problem to rely on the weak local defenders to hold on for a day or two. Ji Ling came from afar, and it is difficult to carry siege weapons in the mountains. By deterrence and intimidation, he could not directly scare the courage of the soldiers guarding the gate and force him to surrender. Then he would have to spend time to build siege weapons.

While Ji Ling reported this information carefully and made careful reports on the "the enemy's will to resist is very firm. When the information seemed to be wrong before, he did not see that the main forces of the Xiliang army were attracted by Liu Bei." While he was rushing to build siege weapons, he could attack directly when the subsequent troops arrived.

On the ninth day of April, the first batch of ladder trucks and rushers were completed, and Ji Ling invested in a comprehensive attack. On the tenth day of April, two more well rail trucks were invested to facilitate observation of the enemy situation and shooting arrows to suppress the walls.

However, because of Li Ying and Dong Cheng's soldiers sent from Chang'an had already arrived. The next day, another 5,000 cavalrymen who were urgently withdrawn from Li Be of Ji County entered the Zhiguan. Of course, Ji Ling's attack could not work.

Li Bie was chased by Zhang Fei from Mei County to break through the siege and back to Chang'an on the ninth day of April. As soon as he reached Huaili, he received a military order from Li Yingxin to go directly to Yuguan to block the entrance from Huaili. Because he was a cavalry and his actions were quite fast, Li Bie arrived at Yuguan on April 11th, but he was too tired, so he rested overnight.

On April 12, Li Bie recovered and discussed the situation with the guards of the Yiguan Pass. He found that Ji Ling had been pressing Guancheng for five days. The soldiers in the pass were all in seclusion and defending the enemy by shooting arrows and throwing wooden and rocks, and did not dare to fight back at all. Therefore, Ji Ling's style of fighting became more and more bold and radical.

"Ji Ling looked down on us so much. Even Yuan Shu's soldiers dared to be so arrogant! In order to reduce the casualties of crossbowmen, he actually sent only a few people to shoot arrows behind the long shield formation. There were not many infantry under the well railing to escort the shield. Did he think that with the height advantage of the well railing, he could continue to suppress the wall?"

After Li Bie finished observing, he couldn't help but sneer.

It turned out that Yuan Shujun had set up many high arc-shaped rattan cards a hundred to eighty steps away from the Yuguan Wall, allowing the crossbowmen to stand behind the rattan cards and shoot and harass the city. However, Yuan Shujun's crossbowmen's density was too low. There were at most two soldiers behind a rattan card, so they were not fully utilized, and they did not send swords, shields, and spearmen to provide melee protection behind the rattan card.

The same is true for the Jingzhan Car, because the generals who use rigorous troops should arrange a hedgehog-like gun shield array at the foot of the Jingzhan Car. The spear tips on all sides face outwards, and then three circles of shields are placed.

However, these spearmen who lined up close defenses may be shot by bows and arrows on the city, and even if they set up shields, they will suffer casualties. Ji Ling obviously felt that it was impossible to be in close combat, so he cherished the lives of soldiers and was unwilling to waste such extra effort. He could save all these methods.

Since this is the case, if Li Bie does not kill him for a counterattack, wouldn’t he be sorry for the newly arrived 5,000 Xiliang Jingqi in the pass? They dare not be arrogant in front of Zhang Fei. If they still don’t stand by Ji Ling, wouldn’t they live for a lifetime?

On the night of April 12th, the day's siege battle had just ended. Ji Ling was about to withdraw his troops completely and pushed the siege equipment such as Jinglanche back to the camp and left the range covered by firepower at the city. As a result, the gate of Shiguan suddenly opened. Li Bie brought thousands of Xiliang cavalry who had sufficient energy to fight out suddenly.

Ji Ling was paralyzed because of the enemy's cowardly appearance a few days ago and was indeed unprepared. Those who stayed at the gate were either archers or civilians carrying equipment and trumpeting carts, or the sword and shield hands that had just been retreated, and there were no spearmen or cavalry at all.

After all, the weapon of the spearmen is too long and cannot be used as a military force for the ant to climb the city. How can you climb a ladder with such a long gun?

The sudden attack of the heavy cavalry of Xiliang made Ji Ling's siege weapon position wail. After a bloody rush, one or two thousand people were assassinated and injured. The well railings and several cloud ladders that had been built for many days were also burned by Li's cavalry torches and burned.

Ji Ling Company organized the spearmen and cavalry who were supervising the formation in the rear camp to fight back. When he set up his formation and reached the gate, Li Bie had already succeeded in one blow and retreated.

After being played with this trick, Ji Ling was so depressed that his scalp was numb. He knew that the destruction of these important siege weapons would at least lead to the progress of the research and development for four or five days, and he would not be able to do anything during this period.

The enemy got a lot of breathing, and there was no chance to "take advantage of Li Jue and Liu Bei's decisive battle, and we attacked the fisherman to benefit."

Ji Ling did not dare to hide it anymore and immediately reported the situation to Yuan Shu, who was already stationed in Wancheng. While apologizing, Yuan Shu also asked him to make another decision, so as not to be charged with "not reporting on the information, and be proficient in failure after repeated failure."

...

Yuan Shu himself, since he completely wiped out Huang Shao and He Yi's Runan Yellow Turban Army last winter, he once wanted to move his capital to Xuchang, the capital of Yingchuan County.

But this year, with the changes in the situation in the battlefields of Guanzhong and Sili, Yuan Shu saw that he had the opportunity to get involved in the two capitals again, so he obediently moved the capital back to Nanyang, Dixiang, and stationed in Wancheng to facilitate the listening of the situation on the front line.

Ji Ling was just his first attack force. After Ji Ling, Yuan Shu actually invested two more waves of troops one after another, so as of mid-April, 50,000 troops had been dispatched.

The two reinforcements behind were Qiao Rui, who was pulled back from Jiujiang, the front line of confrontation with Sun Ce, and Liu Xun, who was pulled back from Liangjun, the front line of confrontation with Cao Cao.

Anyway, Sun Ce definitely dared not turn against Yuan Shu. Yuan Shu put Qiao Rui there. He originally wanted to take the initiative to find Sun Ce's weak opportunity to seize Lujiang, so Qiao Rui withdrew it was just giving up the opportunity to attack Sun Ce.

Cao Cao had some conflicts with Yuan Shu, but Yuan Shu still had a lot of troops. After Liu Xun left, there were naturally others who could withstand the pressure from Cao Cao to the southwest from Xiaopei. Liang and Pei were also the main battlefield for Yuan Shu to fight repeatedly with Liu Bei in Xuzhou in history. It was nothing more than that now the enemy was replaced by Cao Cao, and the warlords of Xuzhou and Yuzhou mainly fought in this area.

It can be seen that Yuan Shu is quite ambitious - this time he recruited Qiao Rui, Liu Xun brought troops, and specially asked them to move their families from Shouchun and Suiyang respectively. He promised that after the two capitals were recovered, they and Ji Ling would guard Chang'an, Luoyang and Nanyang, occupy the iron triangle that is in the heart of the world.

Now, the urgent report of Ji Ling's frustration reached Yuan Shu's ears, saying that he would delay the progress of picking peaches. Of course, Yuan Shu was furious and mixed with hatred for not fighting.

On April 13th, on the day when Ji Ling received an urgent report, Yuan Shu urgently summoned Yan Xiang and Yang Hong, the main adviser in Wancheng, to discuss solutions.

Yuan Shu said angrily: "Ji Ling is incompetent. He will be careless when he attacks a pass. He is attacked by the enemy's reinforcements. Most of the siege equipment prepared for many days has been burned down. The subsequent break of the pass is probably going to be delayed. What if it happens! Yang Hong, tell me first! A few days ago, you swear that you can take advantage of the situation and the fisherman can benefit-

What about the fisherman's benefit now? We wouldn't have fallen into Liu Bei's plan and helped Liu Bei hit some of Li Jue's main force! I just said this was not feasible. Liu Bei had already broken the key points of Chen Cangmei County and other people entering Guanzhong. As long as we defeat Li Jue's main force, we can go to Chang'an. Although our army is close, even the dangerous pass on Wuguan Road has not yet been broken. Maybe the more troops the restraint is, the more gloating Liu Bei!"

Yang Hong felt very passive. Who made him eager to make contributions a few days ago? After "spying" the news that Dong Cheng deliberately spread, he urged Yuan Shu to send troops? Since he wanted to make contributions, he had to bear the anger when he was frustrated.

Yang Hong knew his lord so well that once he had the opportunity to let other princes work for him, he would be very happy and rewarded his subordinates with great priests. But once he found out that he had worked for other princes, he would be furious and find a few advisers and generals to punish him to vent his anger for failure.

Yuan Shu's characteristic is slightly different from his brother's "sexy, bold, and savvy and undecided".

Yuan Shao was hesitant, greedy for small gains, and was reluctant to bet. Yuan Shu was simply enjoying the pleasure of "others were used by me", which best allowed him to enjoy the psychological superiority of the three masters of the four generations. His disciples and former officials were all tool people.

It is precisely because he knows his lord so well that Yang Hong knows that to escape Yuan Shu’s punishment, it is still the second best to help Yuan Shu gain practical benefits. The key is to satisfy Yuan Shu’s mentality of “I used others, but I was not used by others”.

As long as others succeed in making use of it, even if they still suffer a small loss, Yuan Shu will still be very happy.

Under the command of this guiding ideology, Yang Hong launched a brainstorming with the highest goal of "how to make the leader happy".

After a moment, he said sincerely: "Lord, I have a plan. Whether the enemy wants to use the lord to get the thunder from their fire or not, it can make the enemy's plan fail. And even if someone really wants to use the lord, once I make this plan, he will definitely be backfired!"

Sure enough, Yuan Shu hadn't heard the specific content yet, but just hearing the idea of ​​"Whoever wants to use me will not die well", his expression suddenly became cheerful.

It feels so good to let others be puppets and lift them by themselves.
Chapter completed!