After Liu Bei was defeated in Beipi, he led his troops to cross Jiangshui in a hurry. After leaving the battlefield, he took a rest in the southern suburbs of Dongguang.
He thought that Cao Cao had only a small number of people. Even if he had won a complete victory, he still needed time to rest and recuperate. Now that the masses were dispersed, if he returned to the army at this time, it would be difficult for all the states in Henan to be saved. Therefore, he tried to send people to recruit scattered soldiers and gather the people who had separated from the various ministries.
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He waited in Dongguang until September 29th, when Xun You, Fazheng, Zhang Fei, Huang Zhong, Guo Gong, Taishi Ci and other generals from the rear also came to join them. Looking around, the colleagues who had gone north before were
Less than half of them were missing, including Guan Yu, Xu Shu, Wei Yan and other old men in the army. Liu Bei shed tears thinking about it, and everyone looked at each other speechless. After a long time, they talked about the current military.
In three days, although 50,000 remnant soldiers were managed to gather under the tent, the situation was really not optimistic. When they were defeated, in order to escape for their lives, most of them had no soldiers and armor, so the bags of dry food and skins of water they carried with them were all shriveled.
, especially after several days of fleeing, many horses could no longer hold up and began to die one after another, so the soldiers began to kill horses for food.
Liu Bei sighed after hearing this, and asked Xun You who was accompanying him: "The army in Qingzhou has not been mobilized yet. Can we get the Taishan bandits to come to help and stick to Henan?"
Xun You said: "Ming Gong, now all the baggage is lost, the food road is cut off, there are pursuers from behind, Qingzhou has no foundation, how can we defend it?" Fazheng also said at the side: "There is not much to worry about now. The top priority is as follows.
Xu Zhizhi said in parting words that he should first return to Luoyang to defend Luoyang, and order the garrison troops from various counties to return to Chenliu and Yingchuan to consolidate the foundation and then try to revive."
Liu Bei was extremely unwilling. In the past few days, when he recalled the defeat in this battle, he no longer resented the defeat of the entire army. He believed that the loss of this battle was due to his hasty formation and decisive battle with Cao Cao at the death. Therefore, he felt a lot of self-blame in his heart.
He sighed and said: "But now that the army is defeated and the country is full, if I retreat again, won't I put the soldiers in a place where tigers and wolves are trapped? Even if they want to escape, they will have nowhere to go. If I go to Jiuquan in the future, how should I face them?" Someone heard this anxiously and persuaded him: "Why do you care, Duke Ming?" The pawns who escaped said that they heard that Guan Yu, Sima Fang, Chang Xi, Pan Xu, and Wei Yan had all surrendered to the thieves, but Duke Ming still missed him.
I don’t want them to turn the war around in the future!”
When Liu Bei heard this, he was furious. He drew his sword and stood up and cursed: "How dare you talk, Shu Zi?! I am a brother in life and death, Yun Chang. I treat Chang Wen as my own son. Cheng Shu (Chang Xi) and I are of the same mind, let alone Sima Gong and Pan Gong."
We are all elders, how can we easily surrender to thieves! If there is one who surrenders, I will be responsible for them!"
Everyone did not dare to be silent after hearing this, but Fa Zheng advised him: "We are deeply moved by the magistrate's kindness, but we must not defend this place. If you want to wait, you should wait at the Pingyuan pontoon. Don't wait for thieves."
The army came in pursuit, only to regret it!"
Liu Bei stared at him for a long time, and finally he sheathed his sword and said: "Okay, without further ado, we must send a message to Yanzhou and ask Chen Gongtai to lead troops to rescue." The Han army broke camp and went south. In order to recruit more scattered soldiers, Liu Bei was there along the way.
Red cloth was tied to the tree to leave a signal to the soldiers and lead them southward.
When he arrived at the Kingdom of Li, Liu Bei met a group of envoys, who turned out to be sent by Yuan Tan. It turned out that after he led the army to retreat, he discovered that Dong Cheng was leading the army alone, but it didn't help now. Dong Cheng refused to listen to his dissuasion.
, and Chen Wang Liu Chong led their troops to cross the river via the pontoon bridge and went straight to Guanzhong. As a surrendered general, Yuan Tan did not dare to overstep his bounds, so he had to guard the pontoon bridge to welcome Liu Bei to cross the river.
Liu Bei was overjoyed when he heard this and said to the envoy: "As long as Xiansi can guard the pontoon bridge, I will definitely protect his wealth!" But the news was obviously too late. Liu Bei only walked for half a day before Cao Jun appeared on the pontoon bridge and was talking to Yuan
After two hours of walking, we got the news that Cao Jun's scouts had appeared behind the scenes, and it seemed that the main force of Cao Jun's army was heading south.
Liu Bei was greatly annoyed, but he knew that complaining was a waste of time, so he could only keep urging his men to go south. The people could not even take care of cooking, so they could only get water from the old path of the Yellow River. The river was turbid, and the soldiers were impeccable.
I reluctantly introduced it into my mouth and swallowed it directly. I endured the discomfort of the river sand in my throat and ran from day to night.
At about midnight, the hungry Han army arrived at Pingyuan Ferry and saw Yuan Tan's army fighting fiercely with the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry who had seized the bridge. At this time, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry had gained the upper hand and drove down all the soldiers on the bridge on the north bank.
Most of Yuan Tan's troops were on the south bank. They tried to rush onto the pontoon several times, but were beaten down by tiger and leopard cavalry.
At this time, Liu Bei also reached the most dangerous moment. In front were the tiger and leopard cavalry who basically occupied the pontoon bridge, and behind them was the main force of Cao's army that was about to arrive. All the generals rode forward to participate in the battle to seize the bridge. Meng Da saw that there were also people here
The infantry were scattered here, without the command of an officer, and they were all resting in the distance. He galloped on his horse, collecting skirmishers everywhere, and shouted: "If you want to survive, kill them across the river quickly. Cao Aman is chasing after him with his cavalry.
It’s almost here!” He ordered every sergeant he saw to bring bows, arrows and halberds to fight for the pontoon bridge.
For a moment, soldiers gathered near the bridge and fired at each other. The arrows were like rain, hitting and crackling in the air. The corpses were piled up as high as a hillock.
There were only a few tigers and leopards guarding the bridge, so they quickly exhausted all their arrows, picked up the arrows and shot them back. As the force of the counterattack became smaller and smaller, the Han army took the opportunity to rush onto the bridge and killed many of Cao's soldiers.
Rush down to the river.
At this time, a strong man from Cao's army stood at the head of the bridge to block the oncoming sergeant. He seemed to be a Wuhuan man with leopard eyes and a jackal voice. He was estimated to be about nine feet tall, which was a whole head taller than the average person. He was really like a god.
. He held a big stick in his hand, with a ring of iron plates tied around it with iron nails. He beat everyone he met, even if they were wearing armor and helmets. When he hit them, their bones would be broken, and they would be killed or injured.
The Han troops who came up were all beaten back.
Liu Bei was anxious and asked Zhang Fei to come forward and fight with him. However, Zhang Fei had no food for a day and did not have much strength. He went up to attack with a halberd several times, but was forced down. The Han army had to shoot arrows at random.
The arrows stuck in the strongman gradually became denser, like a hedgehog with bristling fur, but they could not penetrate because he was covered with two layers of thick armor. This was also because he was strong, otherwise ordinary people would not be able to withstand such heavy armor, and even more so.
No need to be able to swing a stick to kill enemies.
Liu Bei regarded Taishi Ci as a sharpshooter, and wanted to ask Taishi Ci to shoot an arrow to break the armor. Unexpectedly, Taishi Ci's five-stone bow had already fallen halfway, and there were no armor-piercing arrows available.
In desperation, Huang Zhong rode his horse up a small slope. He dismounted and watched the giant fight against the Han army's attack alone. Because of the wounds from the previous hard battle, he felt hot inside his body and was a little dizzy. But he still couldn't.
He hurriedly pulled out an arrow. The tip of the arrow was sharp and slender, and the feathers of the arrow were so white and flawless that they were clearly visible even in the dark night.
Huang Zhong steadied himself, put on the bow, and waited for his turn. At this time, the man's face was exposed. In just a blink of an eye, the bowstring rebounded, making a crisp sound, and the sharp arrow left the string, just like
The flying bird skims the dark water in pursuit of its prey.
Impartially, the arrow went in from the giant's left eye, and passed out from the back of the neck with the arrow shaft, leaving only the white feathers outside. The giant took two steps blankly, then fell to the ground with a crash, and made another plop from the bridge.
They fell into the water. The Han soldiers were stunned for a moment, and then they cheered thunderously and rushed onto the pontoon. After a while, they drove away the remaining Cao troops.
Liu Bei was then able to lead the crowd across the river. Just as he was about to step onto the pontoon bridge, there was a sudden noise behind him, and a figure approached him and ran quickly to his horse. He knelt on one knee on the dirt and bowed his head to him.
Liu Bei was startled and saw that the man had tied his head with a rag. There were dark red blood stains on the cloth. He was holding a wooden stick in his right hand. He was still wearing single clothes, and the clothes were full of dirty mud spots. Although he leaned over
He bowed down without seeing his face, but the deerskin boots under his feet showed his identity as a Han soldier.
Liu Bei dropped the reins and observed the man carefully. The man slowly raised his head. Before Liu Bei could speak, the people around him cheered.
This person is actually Wei Yan!
It turned out that Wei Yan was captured while charging to the east, and Cao Jun tied him with wooden shackles and imprisoned him in the woods. However, there were too many prisoners for Cao Jun to guard, so Wei Yan took advantage of the darkness and knocked down his guard, and then hid in the reeds and continued
He knocked the shackles with stones until his wrists were bleeding and the skin was worn out. Only then was he freed, and swam out of the crimson water, tracing the footsteps of the Han army all the way south.
Wei Yan said: "General, last time I was in the mud, I really couldn't do anything. Now that I'm here to fight against the bandits, I'm still willing to be a vanguard. I will avenge this battle!"
As if his weapon had been lost and recovered, Liu Bei grabbed Wei Yan's clothes. He remembered that when he was fifteen years old, he followed him around. Now he has a beard and a man, and he was so sad and happy at the moment that he didn't know what to say.
The best thing to do is to grab Wei Yan's shoulders as broad and strong as a bear.
When everyone heard what he said and ran out of Cao's camp, they asked him about the current situation of the remnants of the Han army. Wei Yan did inquire some more, and he said: Pan Xu and Sima Fang must have really surrendered, but Chang Xi said they surrendered and then rebelled again.
He was nowhere to be seen, and Guan Yu was captured and seriously injured. Cao Jun was treating him, but Xu Shu, Zhang Xian and others should have all been killed.
Liu Bei was silent after hearing this. He interrupted Wei Yan's statement and said to everyone: "Cross the river first, otherwise Cao Jun will catch up." After saying that, he got on his horse and walked in front of everyone. He walked to the middle of the pontoon bridge.
At that time, listening to the gurgling sound of the river under his feet, Liu Bei couldn't help but look back at the north bank in the dark night, which was his sad place.
A huge wave of confusion and regret hit him, and the uneasiness and anxiety he had suppressed for the past few days also emerged spontaneously. Liu Bei's mind suddenly went blank. Everyone saw him swaying on the horse, and suddenly fell down, straight into the water.
. Wei Yan was so shocked that he quickly jumped into the river from the bridge and hugged Liu Bei's body before he drowned.
Liu Bei suddenly heard a burst of noise on the bridge, which gradually disappeared into nothingness.