Chapter 230 The general trend of the world, Liu Biao’s death
At the beginning of the thirteenth year of Jian'an, the new year did not bring any good news to Jingzhou.
Since last month, that is, December of last year, Cai Mao has been dragging his feet in Jiangzhou for more than ten days, refusing to come back on the pretext of gathering the scattered soldiers and guarding against Zhang Lu.
It was not until the end of December that Liu Biao's condition became more serious and he was even bedridden. He vomited blood before returning to Jingzhou.
After the New Year and early January, Liu Biao became seriously ill. He fell into a high fever and fell into a coma.
When Liu Bei heard about this, he wanted to come to Xiangyang to visit Liu Biao.
However, Cai Mao and Kuai Yue rejected his proposal and kept urging him to rush to Yizhou as soon as possible.
It turned out that in early December last year, Liu Bei received a letter from Liu Biao, hoping that he would send troops to Yizhou, and also gave him a lot of food, grass, weapons and equipment to help him attack Xichuan and become Zhang Lu's enemy.
At this time, Liu Bei had not actually broken with Liu Biao. Although Liu Biao proclaimed himself emperor, Zhuge Liang and Shen Chen both advised him to be patient and never conflict with Liu Biao.
Therefore, Liu Bei could only choose to remain silent, neither acknowledging Liu Biao's move to proclaim himself emperor, nor directly sending troops to attack Liu Biao.
The two sides barely maintained a superficial relationship, and Liu Biao completely used Liu Bei as a mercenary.
This time Liu Biao asked him to send troops, and Zhuge Liang told Liu Bei that Liu Biao's purpose was to help him buy time to train his troops.
After the two major defeats at the end of the twelfth year of Jian'an, Jingzhou's situation was that the defensive power was more than sufficient, but the active offensive power was seriously lacking, and it took time to recruit and train soldiers again.
Liu Biao still refused to give up on Bashu, but without the power to take the initiative to attack, he could not take action against Yizhou.
What's worse is that now that Cai Mao has been defeated and returned, Zhang Lu has taken advantage of the situation and has occupied the entire Bajun. The next step is very likely to send troops to Chengdu.
Therefore, Liu Biao was afraid that Zhang Lu would get Yizhou, so he asked Liu Bei to go and contain Zhang Lu.
Although Zhang Lu had more troops than Liu Bei at this time, half of Liu Bei's men were surrendered soldiers from Yizhou. Now, in the name of returning to Yizhou, it will definitely stimulate their fighting power, so it is not impossible to fight Zhang Lu.
Once Liu Bei enters Xichuan and engages in a melee with Zhang Lu, Liu Zhang and the others, Liu Biao can develop safely in the rear and wait until the three parties have their wits about them before finally taking advantage.
This is the so-called strategy of driving away wolves and devouring tigers!
Knowing that Liu Biao had this idea, Liu Bei was furious and decided to verbally refuse to enter Sichuan.
But Zhuge Liang said that he would use his plan and seize the opportunity to seize Bashu.
So after the New Year, Liu Bei, who had been preparing for about a month, took a boat to go north, entered Dongting Lake on the Xiang River, then entered the Yangtze River from Dongting Lake, and headed upstream of the Yangtze River.
It's just that "the white emperor's farewells are among the colorful clouds, and the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains are returned in one day."
It does only take one day to go from Baidi City to Jiangling, but it takes several days to get to Baidi City from Jiangling. Moreover, going up the river is slow, so time is wasted.
When Liu Bei set out from southern Hunan in early January, it took half a month before he arrived at Yufu, which is the Baidi City area.
At that time, Cai Mao's army was stationed in Yufu, Quren, and the two sides handed over the city. Liu Bei temporarily stationed here in the name of waiting for the follow-up supply of food and grass to watch the situation in the world.
The world is changing at this moment.
Cao Cao from the north united with Yuan Tan the year before last to launch a surprise attack on Yuan Shang, defeating Yuan Shang's army and seriously weakening Yuan Shang's strength.
Yuan Tan took advantage of the situation and occupied Qinghe, Anping, Bohai, Hejian and other places.
Yuan Shang occupied Wei County, Zhao Kingdom, Changshan Kingdom, Zhongshan Kingdom and Julu County.
The two almost divided Jizhou equally.
Last year, the war between Yuan Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty started again. Cao Cao stationed troops in Yanzhou and stared at Jizhou. When Yuan Tan attacked Yuan Shang in Julu, he boldly sent out troops and captured Wei County.
Yuan Shang was defeated by the two men and was forced to flee north to Youzhou to join Yuan Xi, the governor of Youzhou. Yuan Tan annexed Yuan Shang's tribe and stationed troops in Longcuo to defend Cao Cao.
When Cao Cao learned that Yuan Tan had betrayed the alliance, he was furious, so he sent troops again, captured Julu County, Anping State, Qinghe State, and surrounded Nanpi.
As a result, in the middle of the twelfth year of Jian'an, he suffered from headache again and the pain was unbearable. He had no choice but to retreat back to Chendu and summon Hua Tuo for treatment.
In his tenth year in Jian'an, Hua Tuo was summoned by Cao Cao to Chendu to treat his illness. Because he had been away from his hometown for too long and missed his family, he returned at the beginning of his twelfth year in Jian'an on the pretext that his wife was ill.
At this time, Cao Cao retreated to Chendu and summoned Hua Tuo to treat his illness. Hua Tuo also made excuses in every possible way. Cao Cao was very unhappy and sent people to Qiao County to see what was going on.
The people who went there discovered that Hua Tuo had lied, so they detained Hua Tuo and sent him to Chendu. This news was also known to Shen Chen's internal intelligence stationed in Chendu, and all the recent information about Cao Cao was sent back to Jingzhou.
In fact, Shen Chen didn't have any high-level internal agents in Chendu. He either sent people to disguise themselves as merchants and opened restaurants in Chendu, or he found ways to sneak into the mansions of some ministers and work as slaves. The information he got was basically the kind that could not be concealed. Live news.
But even that was enough. When he learned that Hua Tuo was being imprisoned in Chendu, Shen Chen did not consider rescuing him because Zhang Zhongjing Shenlong was nowhere to be seen, but Hua Tuo liked to stay in his hometown in Qiao County. He had invited him before, and they didn't even think about it. Don't agree.
So let alone the fact that it was impossible to rescue Hua Tuo from Chendu Prison, even if he could be rescued, he would not necessarily choose to come to Jingzhou with him. Therefore, Shen Chen had no choice but to bribe the jailer and get the "Green Bag Book" .
As the originator of surgery, Hua Tuo's medical skills are extremely superb. He can treat internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, gynecology and even tumors and cancers. Shen Chen is still very interested in the medical skills he devoted his whole life to writing. If he can dominate the world in the future, This is a good thing to promote medical progress.
In addition to this incident, there was also a war in the Guanzhong area. Cao Cao sent Zhong Yao and Duan Xuan to join forces with Ma Teng to return to Guanzhong. It happened that Gao Gan came and joined forces with Han Sui. Zhong Yao calmly commanded and defeated the coalition forces of Gao Gan and Han Sui. .
After this battle, Gao Gan was forced back to Bingzhou, and Han Sui was pushed back to Youfufeng. At this time, Zhong Yao did not take advantage of the victory to pursue him, because Han Sui was not seriously damaged. His prestige in Xiliang was extremely high, so he was cornered. , it is very easy to recruit hundreds of thousands of Qiang people to help.
Therefore, Zhong Yao assessed the situation and wrote a letter to Han Sui personally, urging him to reconcile with Ma Teng's forces and send protons to Chang'an to stabilize the situation.
Taking advantage of the power of the imperial court, Han Sui had no choice but to petition for surrender, and Guanzhong was gradually pacified.
Zhang Lu in Hanzhong in the south had a population of only a few hundred thousand. Although he had been recuperating for many years, he could raise an army of 50,000, which was almost empty, and he could barely repel Cai Mao.
Counselor Yan Pu told Zhang Lu that if they wanted to become the lord of Xichuan, they had to be quick. Because they had such an opportunity because Liu Bei wiped out half of Liu Zhang's army in Zigui, which gave them the opportunity to take advantage.
Liu Zhang had a much stronger foundation than Zhang Lu, with a population of more than three million under his rule. Although he actually controlled only tens of thousands more households than Zhang Lu, most of them were either disobedient or controlled by aristocratic families.
But it was still better than Zhang Lu. If Liu Zhang was given a year or two to recuperate, he would soon be able to train tens of thousands of soldiers. Therefore, during this period, Zhang Lu immediately began an all-out attack on Chengdu.
Liu Zhang began to conduct a comprehensive contraction defense and turned himself into a turtle shell.
During the period of Emperor He, the population of Guanzhong was between 500,000 and 600,000, and at the end of the Han Dynasty, the population of Guanzhong was one million. After Dong Zhuo's death, the Chang'an Rebellion caused millions of people in Guanzhong to migrate to Nanyang, Hanzhong, Yizhou and other places.
The population of Hanzhong was originally less than 300,000, but by this time it had become more than 500,000. Adding in the northern part of Bajun that Zhang Lu acquired, the total population was about 800,000.
The Shu County occupied by Liu Zhang has a population of 1.3 million, Guanghan County has a population of 500,000, and southern Ba County has a population of 700,000. In addition, Jianwei County, Guanghan vassal state, and Shu County vassal state total about one million, with a total population of 350,000.
One hundred thousand.
Excluding the population controlled by the aristocratic families under Liu Zhang and Zhang Lu, as well as the minority tribes of people who are unruly, the actual population controlled by Liu Zhang is about 1.5 million, and the actual population controlled by Zhang Lu is about 500,000. This is 100,000
With a population of 500,000 and a population of 500,000, the advantage lies with Liu Zhang.
However, half of Liu Zhang's main force was killed by Liu Bei in Zigui, resulting in a serious shortage of troops in a short period of time. Zhang Lu was very quick in the early offensive, and divided his troops into two groups to capture Chengdu.
Zhang Lu first captured Bajun along the way, then captured Langzhong, and went north along the Western Han River, hoping to capture Jiameng Pass from behind, and then counterattack Guanghan County from Jiameng Pass.
The other way is to follow the diving south to Jiangzhou, enter Qianwei County from Jiangzhou, go north along the Jianshui River (Tuojiang River), and take Jiangyang, Han'an, Zizhong, which later became Luzhou, Longchang, Neijiang, Jianyang and other places southeast of Chengdu
Counties and cities in the direction are heading towards Chengdu.
They did not encounter any decent resistance along the way. Pang Xi, the former governor of Bajun, was beaten to the point where he abandoned his armor and retreated to Niuchang County to defend, blocking the path from the southeastern plains of Chengdu through the Longquan Mountains to attack Chengdu.
As for the guards at Jiameng Pass, Xiang Cun and the guard at Baishui Pass, Yang Huai Gaopei, were seriously short of troops at the time and were attacked from the rear, so they had to retreat to Zitong and Fujian counties.
The rest, Pang Xi, Zhang Ren, Liu Sui, Yan Yan, Leng Bao and others, each guarded the traffic arteries around Chengdu to prevent Zhang Lu's army from attacking Chengdu.
As for Wu Yi, Fei Guan, Zhang Yi, Deng Xian, Wu Lan and others, they had already surrendered to Liu Bei in the Battle of Zigui.
As a result, the current situation in Yizhou has become very bad. Almost all of Ba County and Qianwei County where Liu Zhang belonged were lost. Now only Shu County, Guanghan County and two vassal states are left. The situation is still quite difficult.
It's just that Chengdu has a superior geographical environment, with mountains blocking it from the east, west, south, and north, guarding the main transportation routes. If it can't be defeated in a short time, the war will naturally become protracted.
And here in Jingzhou and Yangzhou.
After Jiangdong defeated Huang Zu, he regained Yuzhang, and even took advantage of the chaos to bring Lujiang, Jiujiang and Huainan counties under his control. You must know that these places were acquired by Cao Cao in history, and Sun Quan only got half of Lujiang County, and
The population was moved away by Cao Cao, and it was basically wasteland.
At this time, Sun Quan had almost reached the peak of his life. Taking advantage of the fact that Cao Cao had not unified the north and had no time to take care of the south, he took Lujiang and Jiujiang counties into his hands. He even invaded Xuzhou, attacked Guangling prefect Chen Deng, and occupied part of Guangling county.
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This incident made Cao Cao furious and issued an edict to reprimand Sun Quan, but Sun Quan was convinced that Cao Cao had no time to take care of him now and went his own way. Not only did he deploy troops in Yuzhang to confront the Jiangxia navy, he also attacked Shanyue in the south and Xuzhou in the north, plundering a large number of
The population replenished Jiangdong, and his prestige in Jiangdong rose sharply for a while. By the thirteenth year of Jian'an, he was already the legitimate lord of Jiangdong.