The city of Chengdu is too big to defend without a small number of people.
In the past few days, Zhang Lu's army has surrounded Chengdu, attacking from all sides with cloud ladders.
Now there are less than ten thousand people in the city, but the four walls are more than twenty kilometers long.
According to later archeology, the Chengdu ruins of the Han Dynasty were seven kilometers from the south gate to the north gate, which means that the northern and southern sections of the city wall alone were 14 kilometers long.
If we add the city walls at the east and west ends, there may be 20 to 30 kilometers of city wall sections.
Such a long defensive area, let alone 10,000 people, even if 100,000 people are placed there, it is estimated that it can be easily accommodated.
Fortunately, Zhang Lu's army only had 30,000 or 40,000 troops. If there were tens of thousands more troops, Liu Zhang would not have been able to defend for so long, and he would have probably been defeated long ago.
Therefore, a few days ago, Liu Zhang asked Zhang Ren how many soldiers he could fight in the city. When Zhang Ren replied that it was less than 6,000 and there were still deserters, he was already shaken and wanted to escape.
After waiting for two days, the soldiers in the city learned about Liu Zhang's escape. They couldn't sit still and chose to leave the city and surrender.
Yan Pu frowned and nodded: "This Liu Bei is indeed a hidden danger. He has not taken any action in Jiangzhou under the pretext of mourning for Liu Qi. I am afraid that he has the intention of competing with the snipe and the clam to benefit the fisherman. Ming Gong still needs to be careful.
, we must not let him succeed."
If you go on a killing spree and ruin your reputation, who will join the religion?
Therefore, the changing of the King's Banner in Chengdu caused some commotion, but the people did not suffer large-scale killings or looting, and they were relatively peaceful.
Originally they thought that Liu Bei was stationed in Bazhou and had been waiting for Zhang Lu to conquer Chengdu, so that he would have an excuse to defeat Zhang Lu and take Xichuan.
After all, the premise of all this is based on the situation that everything goes smoothly.
Moreover, if there are ships from Jianwei County, they can also go down the Tuojiang River and escape into the Yangtze River. At this time, Jiangzhou is relatively empty, and Zhang Lu may rush to Jiangzhou, sneak up the river, and then escape from Micang Road or
The people from Bashu fled back to Hanzhong.
If he had better luck, Liu Bei would help him defeat Zhang Lu, Liu Zhang would be shameless enough to ask Liu Bei for Yizhou, and Liu Bei would be too embarrassed to seize the opportunity to annex Yizhou due to family sentiments, and return Yizhou to him, that would be even better.
Yan Pu said with a smile: "It is true that Liu Bei has strong soldiers and horses, but he divided his troops into various counties and dispersed his troops. He may not be able to capture Chengdu. Duke Ming only needs to hold on to the city and wait for the right time, and then he can defeat Liu Bei."
After that, he waved his hand and ordered the army to enter the city.
Now Guan Yu's army has arrived in Zizhong, but judging from the current situation, Liu Zhang will definitely not be able to hold on before Guan Yu's army arrives, so he might as well escape.
"wrong."
Naturally, Zhang Lu didn't know this. When he learned that Liu Bei was not planning to come to Chengdu to rescue Liu Zhang, but instead wanted to control the entire Yizhou area, he lamented Liu Bei's shamelessness.
By the time Liu Bei's main force moved south from the Jinniu Road, it was equivalent to besieging Chengdu and making it difficult for Zhang Lu to fly.
The same is true now.
So on July 24, Liu Zhang led all the city's dignitaries, abandoned the soldiers guarding the city, and took a boat from the south gate along the Pi River to Wuyang.
Don't go out.
Liu Bei took Xichuan and led his troops southward from Jiameng Pass to attack Chengdu, while Zhuge Liang and Zhang Fei's troops quickly entered Shu and controlled the entire Bajun.
"oh?"
Chengdu alone cannot control the entire Yizhou.
Although Liu Bei actually stationed 20,000 to 30,000 people to garrison Hanzhong, these people were all commoners with low combat effectiveness and were not the main force of Liu Bei's army. If Zhang Lu could counterattack, there was really a slight possibility of success.
Zhang Lu wondered: "Why?"
On the contrary, Zhang Lu, a mere domestic slave, wanted to avenge the murder of his mother and brother, and his whole family was inevitably spared.
More importantly, Zhang Song's words touched Liu Zhang's heart.
Even though Zhang Lu had people as foreign aid, he also knew the skills of people.
Yan Pu smiled and said: "Now that Chengdu has been destroyed, Yizhou will belong to Ming Gong, and Liu Zhang will not be able to run far."
Liu Zhang was convinced and felt that Zhang Song's words were very reasonable.
Yan Pu pondered deeply.
Yan Pu said: "Cao Cao dominates the north and has fought with Liu Bei many times, but he has never been able to eliminate him. This shows that Liu Bei is difficult to deal with. Now Jingzhou also belongs to Liu Bei. Liu Bei is ambitious in the world. He definitely wants the land of Bashu and plans to seize Jiangdong.
Confronting Cao Cao from the north to the south, I think the face and fame at this time cannot be compared to the huge Yizhou."
Liu Bei's main force moved south from Hanzhong. If Guan Yu took Chengdu directly, once Zhang Lu learned about the situation, he might abandon Chengdu and flee south to Jianwei. At that time, the Jianwei counties would have no defense force and would be captured by Zhang Lu. The ordinary city occupied would be larger than that of
The city of Chengdu is better defended and difficult to completely eliminate.
Except for Chengdu, all of Yizhou must belong to Liu Bei.
If he knew, the right choice at this time would be to immediately go south and fight Guan Yu to the death.
After being silent for a while, Zhang Lucai sighed: "Everyone says that Liu Bei is a loyal man, why is he so ugly?"
This actually made Zhang Lu and the others very embarrassed.
It's not that he is so benevolent and righteous, but that he wants to spread the Five Pecks of Rice religion and deceive people into believing in Longhu Mountain.
Zhang Song happened to come back. He saw Liu Zhang's fear, so he advised Liu Zhang to take advantage of the rain in the past few days. Zhang Lu suspended the offensive, took his family and all the dignitaries in the city, and took a boat from the Pijiang River to the south.
Therefore, Guan Yu's intention to go north this time was to follow the advice of his military advisor Xu Shu, to first control the cities outside Chengdu and cut off Zhang Lu's escape route to the south.
Anyway, he controlled Mianzhu, so even if he couldn't defeat Liu Bei, he could still escape to Hanzhong via Jinniu Road, so there was no need to go south to Jianwei County in Bajun to confront Liu Bei.
However, Zhang Lu and Yan Pu certainly could not have imagined that Liu Bei did this in history.
Yan Pu said: "You can't just watch Liu Bei's army coming. Ming Gong can write a letter to the leader of the people immediately. Once Liu Bei's army makes a move, he will go south to attack Jiangzhou and cut off Liu Bei's army's food route from Jingzhou."
So Zhang Lu's situation is very delicate.
Yan Pu smiled bitterly and said: "I originally thought that Liu Bei would go directly north to attack Chengdu. In this way, we only need to defend outside Chengdu and wait for the people to cut off his food routes, so that he can retreat. Unexpectedly, he simply occupied Badong and Baxi. It seemed that
They want to control the whole of Yizhou first and then take Chengdu."
Zhang Lu said: "What should we do now? Liu Bei has Jingzhou as his rear. He is powerful and has many soldiers and horses. If he takes Bajun first and then builds a camp step by step, I am afraid that the people will not be his opponent, and we will be slowly annexed by him."
.”
"Um."
They may seem to have a large number of troops, but their combat effectiveness and training level are far inferior to those of the elite Han soldiers.
He told Liu Zhang that even if Liu Bei wanted to annex Yizhou in the future, at least he would not embarrass Liu Zhang and his family because of their friendship with the same clan.
Zhang Lu thought for a moment, nodded slightly and said: "Okay, then let's order Yang Ren and Yang Ang to garrison the city and wait for the arrival of Liu Bei's army to extend his logistics supply line."
Yan Pu thought about it and said to Zhang Lu: "Maybe this is not a bad thing."
If Zhang Lu could gather all his troops, break through the blockade, go down the Yangtze River before the encirclement is closed, and then go north from Qidian when he reaches Bazhou, and escape back to Hanzhong through the unguarded Micang Road, maybe
I can give it a try.
Zhang Lu asked in confusion: "How can we win?"
"Ming Gong."
Zhang Lu suddenly thought of something and said: "When he went south from Pijiang River, he must have gone along the river. Liu Bei is still in Jiangzhou, so he went to join Liu Bei."
But there is only one possibility.
at the same time.
Zhang Lu and counselor Yan Pu were sitting next to each other. When they heard the news about Tan Ma's return, the two looked at each other a little bit.
What Zhang Lu didn't expect was that Guan Yu did not go straight to Chengdu, but entered the Jianwei boundary, divided Pingzizhong, Deyang, and Sanmiao roads to invade, and occupied the cities along the Tuojiang and Jialing rivers.
No one has more troops, so they can't fight in a fierce battle in the wild.
Yang Bai rebelled and blocked Jiameng Pass and Baishui Pass, which prevented the news from Hanzhong from being transmitted and made Zhang Lu unaware of the fall of Hanzhong.
"Um."
After entering the city, Zhang Lu was still humane and restrained his troops not to harass the people. He only took the rewards from Liu Zhang's treasury and gave them to his subordinates.
So now he only knew that Guan Yu's army had arrived in Zizhong, so while contacting the people to send troops as soon as possible, he sent generals Yang Ren and Yang Ang with 10,000 men each to garrison Deyang and Guanghan to stop Guan Yu's army.
After Zhang Lu learned about this situation, he looked up to the sky and laughed loudly and said: "Young Liu Zhang, you are so cowardly that you abandoned the city and ran away."
Yan Pu said: "If you think about it, Ming Gong, Liu Bei's army is widely dispersed in Brazil. Bazhong will definitely not have the troops to guard it. Moreover, his army is long. It is relatively simple to transport grain and grass from Jingzhou to Bazhou because of the river water transportation. It can disperse other areas.
It will not be so easy for the county, which will inevitably cause logistical difficulties. Once we hold on for a while, the enemy will be able to retreat by raiding his food routes."
But even if Liu Bei captured Yizhou, he would not kill him.
Zhang Lu nodded and said: "Of course I know, but we only have so many troops now, so I'm afraid we can't stop him."
Since Guan Yu was busy occupying the cities outside Chengdu so that he could coordinate with Liu Bei to surround Zhang Lu, his troops were relatively scattered and the main force was not concentrated together.
They first secured Badong and then captured Brazil. It didn't look like they were here to help Liu Zhang repel the invading enemies. Instead, they looked like they were here to invade Yizhou.
Go out and fight.
Unexpectedly, they stopped making excuses and directly annexed Ba County, and now they started to attack Jianwei County.
Once the city is breached, he will definitely die due to the mother-killing hatred between him and Zhang Lu.
Zhang Lu did not make any reaction at the moment and planned to continue to hold on to Chengdu.
Zhang Lu said disdainfully: "Liu Bei is quite famous, but looking at it now, he has no shame. In the name of rescuing the clan, he is actually embezzling the entire Yizhou."
Guan Yu's army marched north to Zizhong, and Liu Bei's army began to march south to Jiameng Pass.
Because Yang Bai, the guard of Jiameng Pass, rebelled and blocked the Jinniu Road from Hanzhong to Chengdu, no news from Hanzhong reached Chengdu.
What Zhang Lu didn't know was that because of this decision, he lost his last chance.
"Hahahahaha."
Liu Bei's move was really cruel, and it caught them by surprise.
Although he is not stupid.
Knowing that Liu Bei had not sent troops for a long time, he probably wanted to annex Yizhou.
In other words, Zhuge Liang and Zhang Fei did not want to cooperate with Liu Bei to directly capture Chengdu, but aimed to assist Liu Bei in quickly capturing the entire territory of Yizhou in order to achieve the purpose of occupying most of Yizhou's territory except Chengdu.
By the beginning of August, Zhang Lu didn't even know that Hanzhong was gone.
In the city of Chengdu, the residence of Yizhou Mu.
Even if he mobilizes all the troops and horses, he may not be able to fight Liu Bei. What's more, Liu Bei has more than 50,000 troops and more than 100,000 troops in Jingzhou's rear.
Zhang Lu thought for a while and said: "Just do what Zi Mao wants. We advance into the city and collect Liu Zhang's troops. Now we can have one share of the troops. If we can unite with the people and flank the invading Liu Bei, then Xichuan will be the best."
It belongs to us."
And things.
It has never been so unsatisfactory.
So in Zhang Lu's fantasy, when the main force of Liu Bei's army came to Chengdu dragging a long supply line, at the end of August, outside Chengdu, an endless stream of countless troops appeared on the horizon of the vast plain outside the north city.