Lu You was dressed lightly, and the subordinates in front of him were also lightly dressed, and no one wore armor.
"Everyone, Yuan Shu has 50,000 troops approaching the city. Huailing City is so weak that it will be difficult to defend it for a long time. Although the envoy said that reinforcements are coming, you don't know when they will arrive. It's not that Lu You is afraid of death, but I don't want all of you brothers to be afraid of death.
If you die here, I will take you away just as I brought you here."
"Yuan Shu is arriving today and he will not expect us to leave tonight. If he waits for his troops to surround the city, it will be difficult for us to leave even if we want to. After crossing the river, we can destroy the boats and equipment and set up camp on the east bank so that they can't
Crossing the river and blocking the enemy on the west bank, we are no different from garrisoning the city of Huailing. Your Majesty asked us to guard this city in order to prevent the enemy from crossing the river here."
Lu You thought that Liu Bei sent him to guard Huai Ling because he was afraid that Yuan Shu's troops would cross the river here and capture Xia Pi or surround Xu Yi.
"General," Military Marquis Li Jia asked, cupping his hands, "for us to abandon the city and leave like this is disobeying military orders. How should we explain this to the envoy?"
Lu You glanced at Li Jia: "How to explain is my business and has nothing to do with you."
"Even if we have to leave, we must have a plan and leave in an orderly manner." Li Jia added.
Lu You's face looked displeased: "Then how do you think it should be organized?"
Li Jia replied: "We have many people and few boats, so we cannot cross the river all at once. Each battalion must cross the river in turn, otherwise each battalion will rush to cross the river and the enemy troops will not reach us, and we will collapse. Although we left at night,
We must also be prepared for enemy troops to attack, and we must have troops behind us to stop the enemy."
After hearing this, Lu You's face became a little better: "Well, you are right. Each battalion must cross the river in order. As for the rear of the palace, you will lead a thousand people to be in charge of the rear."
When the other military princes heard that someone was going to take the rear, they looked a little nervous. But when they heard that Lu You asked Li Jia to take the rear, they all relaxed again.
When Li Jia made such a suggestion, he originally planned to stay as queen, but he immediately held up his hands and said: "No."
Before leaving, some military princes threw down their armor. Li Jia stopped everyone and said to Lu You: "General, weapons and armor must not be discarded. It is not convenient to wear them when crossing the river, so they must be taken away."
Lu You agreed with this point. It goes without saying that armor is precious, so he could just abandon the city and leave. He didn't want to be blamed for abandoning armor and armor again, so he ordered that no one should abandon their weapons or armor.
He divided the five thousand men and horses into five camps, with one thousand men in each camp, and Li Jia led one battalion to the rear.
Huailing City is located to the west of the Huaihe River, only three miles away from the Huaihe River.
Lu You first sent a battalion out of the city from the east, followed by a battalion led by himself, then the other two battalions, and the battalion commanded by Li Jia was the last to leave the city.
It is now the end of mid-May, the moon is dim, the people in the city quietly leave the city, no one dares to make a sound, and walk to the river.
Most of the vessels are small boats and bamboo rafts, and only four to five hundred people can cross the river at a time.
The first battalion crossed the river twice, followed by Lu You.
By the time all the 1,000 people led by Lu You crossed the river, it was already Chou Shizhong.
Originally, the people of the third battalion should have crossed the river first at this time, but the people of the fourth battalion wanted to cross the river early, fearing that enemy soldiers would pursue them after dawn, and Lu You was already on the other side, so they had a dispute with the people of the third battalion.
, seize the boat to cross the river.
The sound of quarrels echoed along the river, and Lu You stood on the other side, listening to the quarrels of the soldiers but helpless.
In order to seize the boat and cross first, the men of the third and fourth battalions even drew their swords at each other and cut down several people. Although they were stopped by the two battalions with orders, the two battalions did not fight each other, but the two battalions were so noisy.
More vicious.
Li Jia, who was in charge of the rear of the palace, was hiding in the moonlight two miles away with his troops. He heard quarrels and even screams coming from the river.
He didn't know what was going on by the river, and thought it was enemy soldiers attacking along the river. He hurriedly left 500 people to hide in hiding, and took 500 people with him to rush to the river to check the situation and prepare to resist the enemy.
When Li Jia led his troops to the river, the people who were fighting for the boat suddenly saw a group of people running towards them with weapons in the moonlight. I don't know who was so frightened that they shouted: "The enemy soldiers are coming."
Got it!"
This shout is quite extraordinary.
Others didn't know why, and they were all frightened at this time. They believed it to be true. More and more people followed and shouted: "The enemy soldiers are coming, hurry up and cross the river!"
The people at the river suddenly became more chaotic. Many people rushed into the river without climbing onto the boats or bamboo rafts, trying to swim across the river.
People on the shore threw themselves into the river, and people in the river rushed into the depths. Small boats or bamboo rafts that were already full of people were pulled over by many people swimming from the water.
Li Jia was dumbfounded and regretful in his heart.
They originally thought that the enemy soldiers were attacking and wanted to resist them, but unexpectedly they saw their own soldiers and mistakenly thought that the enemy soldiers were chasing them. They panicked and ran away risking their lives.
"Don't be afraid, we are from Xuzhou."
Li Jia quickly asked the soldiers to shout in unison.
But the people who had already jumped into the river and fled in panic could still listen.
Although the moonlight was hazy, Li Jia could still see that many people threw themselves into the river one after another and never came back ashore. And most of these people could not swim across the river.
"Marquis, what should I do?" asked a commander.
"Alas! With such a noise, the enemy soldiers may have already known that we are retreating. Let's go back to the rear. Don't let the enemy soldiers chase us. Let these brothers cross the river first."
Li Jia usually manages the army very strictly and treats his subordinates with loyalty. He is deeply respected by the soldiers. After he gave the order, no one objected and silently followed him back to the rear.
Ji Ling's camp is located to the west of Huailing City, five miles away from Huailing City, and eight miles away from the Huaihe River.
But in the dead of night, the quarrels and shouts by the river were still heard by their sentries outside the camp.
The sentry hurriedly returned to camp to report to the night watch military commander. The military commander went to listen to the sound before reporting to Ji Ling: "General, there are shouts from the Huaihe River. It seems that the enemy soldiers in the city have abandoned the city and ran away."
Ji Ling was sleepy and didn't believe the report: "Abandoned the city and ran away? How is that possible? We haven't attacked the city yet. How could they abandon the city and retreat? Did you hear wrongly?"
"I shouldn't have heard wrong. I'm not the only one who heard it. The other brothers also heard it. Should we lead troops to chase him? This is an opportunity to make meritorious deeds!"
"What time is it now?"
"The End of Ugly Times."
Ji Ling thought for a moment and said: "There are five thousand enemy soldiers in the city. If they hold on and we can't break through easily, they probably won't abandon the city and run away now. It's very possible that they set up an ambush and deliberately led us to pursue them. We can't
Falling into the trap.”
The military lord believed what he heard: "General, the shouts and quarrels are extremely confusing. The Xuzhou soldiers seem to be fighting for a boat to cross the river. We have 50,000 troops approaching the city. It is possible that they will run away in fear."
"In this case, let's gather the troops and send people to investigate first to see if the enemy soldiers really abandoned the city and fled. If it is true, we will pursue them again."
"promise."
The military lord took the order and sent out five scouts to run under the moonlight to explore the Huaihe River.
At Yin Shizhong, the river had calmed down, but there were still two to three hundred soldiers waiting for boats and rafts to cross.
Li Jia led a thousand people to stay at the rear two miles away by the river.
At this moment, the soldiers who were secretly guarding the sentry in front came back and reported: "Marquis, there are a few people coming in front, I don't know who they are."
"There was so much noise by the river just now. Maybe the enemy general knew about it and sent someone to investigate. Whoever it is, thirty of you quietly go over and capture them for questioning," Li Jia ordered.
"promise."
The soldier promised softly and quietly walked over with thirty people.
After a while, the subordinate soldiers escorted five people to Li Jia.
One look at their clothes revealed that these five people were soldiers of Yuan Shu's army.
Li Jia examined them for a moment without saying a word. He suddenly drew his sword and quickly chopped down the two of them. Then he asked the other three people: "Tell me, how many people are chasing me? I will spare your life if I tell you."
The three people looked at each other and said nothing.
Li Jia slashed another one with his knife and continued to ask the remaining two: "How many people are chasing you? If I don't tell you, I won't be so lucky and die so happily. I will cut off my nose first and then my ears."
, and then cut off your hands and feet, so that you can live but not die, so tell me quickly."
"I said, I said."
One of them started killing people when he saw Li Jia being silent and believed that he would really do that. He would rather die than suffer those tortures.
"General Ji Ling heard that you abandoned the city and crossed the river to escape, so he sent us to investigate and see if it was true."
Li Jiaxiao asked: "Then do you think it's true?"
"No...no."
"I am a man of my word. Since you have said so, I will spare your life and you can go. But you must remember to go back and tell Ji Ling that we have really abandoned the city and escaped, and ask him to lead the troops immediately.
Chasing, remember?"
As Li Jia spoke, he slashed another person to death with a knife. The killing was so swift that even his subordinates shuddered.
They never imagined that their Marquis Li Jun would turn out to be such a decisive person.
"Ah?! I didn't... didn't tell you. I just said I didn't... didn't see you."
When the detective saw that five of him had come together, and now he was the only one left, he was so frightened that he trembled even as he spoke.
"No, you have to tell Ji Ling what I said, otherwise, I will kill you now."
Li Jia raised the knife and gestured to chop.
"I...I said." Tanzu replied quickly.
"Go quickly."
The detective couldn't believe that this was true. He was afraid that if he turned around, this murderous guy would stab him from behind.
"Go quickly."
Seeing that he was standing still, Li Jia urged him again.
The detective then turned around and walked away doubtfully. After walking slowly for more than a hundred steps, he looked back to make sure no one was following him and immediately ran away.