Since the Western Army began to flood Linzi, Zhang Wu's three-year trend was generally consistent with Fa Zheng's prediction.
Linzi City was well defended. Even though floods were poured into the city, which made life in the city extremely miserable, there was no trace of the broken city for a while. Although Cao Cao, the marshal of the Eastern Dynasty, stood firm in the isolated city, he still did not give up the hope of turning defeat into victory.
Eliminating dissidents, he served as a target, eating and working together with the soldiers. Therefore, the soldiers of the Eastern Army were both afraid and moved by him, and for a while, the chaotic military morale in the city gradually stabilized.
The reason why Cao Cao still harbored hopes of a comeback was simply because he was counting on the outbreak of turmoil in Hebei at this time, which would force Liu Bei to lead his troops to withdraw from the siege. Unfortunately, he was only half right. At the turn of summer and autumn in the third year of Zhang Wu, there was a severe drought in Jizhou.
, first there was no rain in June, and then there was drought and locusts were raging in July, resulting in no harvesting of autumn crops and widespread famine. After the heavy tax imposed by the Eastern Dynasty last year, the people of Hebei were already in dire straits, and a large-scale flight from famine occurred in the early spring.
But at this time, it was even more terrible.
The people fled and died, and the villages were often reduced to ruins. There was no human habitation when walking through it, and lone wolves and tigers were often seen. Even the wealthy families in Hebei can only close their forts and eat vegetables and porridge to satisfy their hunger. In Xindu, Yi
Refugees fleeing from Beijing, Nanpi and other places can only peel tree bark to eat, while the hungry line up on the roadside and die on their pillows. The Hebei Plain, which used to be known as the richest place in the world, is now empty of ten houses, leaving only
Everywhere you can see stripped mulberry trees, willow trees, and pear trees, dying of thirst under the scorching sun.
Then Taiping Road was revived in Hebei. There was a rioter named Zhang Dao who claimed to be a disciple of Zhang Jiao. He distributed talisman water everywhere and gathered hundreds of thousands of people. Then he attacked Shijiawu Fort and looted food, but it was still not enough. Then he cited
With the slogan "Heaven is dead, Huang Tian shall stand", he led his troops to try to attack Yecheng and the Hanoi area. At this time, the chariot general Zhang Fei was stationed in the Qinghe area to prevent the rebel army from going south to attack Liu Bei's baggage, so he was unable to help.
As a result, the rebel army once captured Yecheng and directed its troops towards Hanoi.
But even so, Liu Bei still did not withdraw from the siege.
Prince Liu Xie discussed the matter with the court and urgently transferred 20,000 Nanfu troops back, and ordered Commander Zhuge Liang to lead his army north to defend against the enemy. Zhuge Liang led his troops to confront Zhang Dao on the shore of Zhang River, and built a pontoon bridge with 2,000 soldiers on the bridge.
They set up a car formation in front of them and fought hard with Zhang Dao. Although Zhang Dao had a large number of people, he was exhausted and exhausted in less than a month. In the end, he had to ask Zhuge Liang to surrender and ask for food. Zhuge Liang was very sympathetic to the refugees in Hebei, but he was exhausted year after year.
During the war, the country did not have much food reserves, and now it had to supply hundreds of thousands of troops in Qingzhou. Where could they find food and grass to relieve the victims?
After discussing with Liu Xie's reply letter, Zhuge Liang urgently collected mulberries, radish, bracken and other items from all over Henan. He also invited people to Bingzhou to purchase cattle and sheep from the Huns in the South and the Changshi Prefecture in Yunbei, hoping to relieve Hebei.
However, even though Zhuge Liang tried his best, his manpower was eventually exhausted. In July and August of that year, hundreds of thousands of people in Hebei starved to death. The poor ate each other, and the plague was rampant. Zhuge Liang wrote to the court saying that Hebei
There is nothing left in the wild, mountains of corpses are piled up, the fires are burning, and the smoke is lingering. It can be said to be a miserable life.
At the same time, Sun Quan from Jiangdong led another 100,000 troops into Yuzhou and launched a large-scale attack on Longkang, Ruyin, Xincai and other places, making an effort to conquer the Central Plains. However, Liu Xie immediately moved to Xu County, Yingchuan, and launched an offensive to the south.
The chaos in Nanzhong was peaceful, and there was news that the Xifu Army was about to leave. Sun Quan immediately relieved the siege after learning about it, and led his troops to Xuzhou, and then divided his troops to station and build the city. Apparently, he had made preparations to take over Cao Cao's defeat. p>
Under this situation, Linzi has been completely reduced to a helpless city. In the blink of an eye, it is the twelfth lunar month of Zhangwu's third year, and Linzi City has been under siege for nearly a year. The casualties of soldiers and civilians are gradually increasing, the city walls are flooded, and many places have collapsed.
There was a vast country outside the city, and the Westerners approached the city with large ships. There were stone shooters and people who were good at shooting on the ships, and they went back and forth with the people in the city to shoot. Although there was enough food and grass in the city, the arrows were gradually running out, so that they were gradually unable to fight back. Cao Cao since
I thought I could hold on for two years, but in fact, in a few months, I'm afraid the city will fall.
By the early spring of the fourth year of Zhangwu, the chaos in Hebei gradually subsided, but Liaodong refused to give up and sent a fleet to try to cross the sea to attack Donglai. However, Huang Zhong was on guard here, and the Donglai people soon failed.
After returning, Liu Bei spread the news to Linzi City. One after another, soldiers in Linzi City jumped out of the city wall and tried to swim to surrender to the Western Army. The generals were overjoyed when they heard that, and they all knew that victory was at hand.<
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One day, Liu Bei had a strange dream. He suddenly dreamed of the strange rocks in Longshan, and a big snake escaped from the rocks. However, it no longer spoke to him, but instead wrapped around him and bit his arm. Liu Bei was greatly shocked.
Shocked, he felt quite unlucky when he woke up. Could it be that it was a bad omen for the war? So he ordered Zhang Fei to be transferred to the vicinity of Linzi. Before Zhang Fei's troops were in place, just in case, Liu Bei and Fazheng and others watched the situation near Linzi.
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During these days, seeing the fall of Linzi, the Western Army, which was besieging the city, could not help but feel a little slack. The soldiers were tired for a long time, and they were unwilling to attack again and incur casualties. They used large ships to approach the city every day and shouted to the city to surrender.
Answer, just shoot them with random arrows. The people in the city were dissatisfied and occasionally responded with arrows. These big boats quickly raised their oars and rowed far away to the center of the water to avoid the arrows. The people from the east were disturbed by the back and forth.
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This afternoon, the sky was dark and gloomy, and it seemed like there was going to be a downpour. This was probably the first heavy rain of the year, but since the rain was about to fall, it made people feel extremely depressed. There was only a smell of dust in the air.
.It seemed as if a strong wind was blowing in the distance, blowing up all the dead grass and dust from last winter.
Liu Bei, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, and Fa Zheng, the Supervisor of Zhongshu, came to the weir to view the city together. Since they were not fighting on the battlefield, and the weather was getting hotter, neither of them wore armor. Instead, they wore light military uniforms and tied their waists with gold silk belts.
, wearing a pair of short leather boots. There were only a dozen or so people accompanying him, all of whom were dressed lightly. There was a short knife hanging from their waist, and they didn’t even bring any bows or arrows.
The group of people looked at the Linzi City in the water not far away and pointed at it. During this period, Liu Bei always felt unaccustomed to the local environment and felt a little heavy in his stomach. He was still a little tired after walking and standing for a long time and wanted to find it.
Have a place to sit down. At this time, people saw white gas rising into the sky from the northeast, circling upward like a whirlwind. The white gas gradually turned into yellow, mixed with the whistling wind, and gradually came towards them. p>
Everyone said that it was a dust storm. The earthy smell in the air became stronger and choked the mouth and nose. The dust storm seemed far away, but it moved very fast. It didn't take long to rush into the eyes. Dust was flying all around, and people covered it with their sleeves.
They closed their eyes and noses and hurriedly looked around for shelter. There happened to be a large ship, which had returned from patrolling the city in the morning for archery. It parked on the shore next to it and tied it to a wooden pile on the shore with a rope. Everyone had no time to think about it, so they just protected it.
After meeting Liu Bei and Fazheng, they walked to the boat, brushed off the loess on the railings and other places in the boat, sat down together to take shelter from the wind, and waited until the wind subsided before going out.
Unexpectedly, instead of decreasing, the wind got stronger and stronger. The hull of the ship swayed with the wind, and the sand and soil on the top of the ship fell rustlingly. After a while, the sky and the earth were dark outside, and it was impossible to distinguish between day and night. The flying gravel flew across the sky.
It hit the hull and flew like an arrow. The hull swayed with the wind, and the ship's cable was stretched straight, making the wooden pile rattle. Maybe the sergeant who came back in the morning didn't notice that the rope tied to the pile was not
As soon as it was secure, there was a bang, and the ship's cable loosened directly and flew into the water. Taking advantage of the wind, the ship broke away from the shore sideways and floated towards the opposite side of Mingzi.
The Western soldiers on the shore were shocked and rushed to the shore together, but the boat had drifted away far away. At this time, the wind was so loud that many people's hats were blown into the water, and the surrounding military flags were blown loudly.
, mixed with the horrified cries of the soldiers, reaching the head of Linzi City on the other side.
Seeing the strong wind blowing, the people from the East at the top of the city crouched down under the crenellations to take shelter from the wind. Gradually, they heard the commotion on the other side, and some people raised their heads to face the wind and looked down. They saw a lone Western ship, knocked up by the wind.
It floated towards the city wall. When they heard the shouts, the Easterners stood up and looked around. They saw that there were only a dozen or so people on the boat, none of them wearing armor. They were squatting or sitting as the ship rocked. The Easterners all said that this was brought here by the wind.
, but they are not from the city.
At this time, the wind gradually died down, but the big boat was still drifting towards the city by its inertia. The people on the boat were panicked and didn't know what to do. The East people saw someone wearing a gold belt on the wall and said, "What's going on inside?"
A high-ranking official took his bow and arrows and fired arrows at the people in the boat. Now the people in the boat had no choice but to be forced to jump into the water.
Then another Dongman jumped into the water to catch him. At this time, Xu Gai, son of Xu Huang, was guarding Liu Bei. He pulled Liu Bei into the water and quickly dragged him forward. But the water wave rushed towards him.
It was difficult to swim. The Westerners were shooting arrows on the city, and there were people from behind who were forcing him, which made it extremely difficult for him. In a daze, he felt a pain in his left arm, which was obviously an arrow. But he still gritted his teeth and supported Liu Bei to continue swimming.
At the end of the swim, when his mind was almost blank and he couldn't think of anything, he suddenly felt a lightness on his body. It turned out that his colleagues from the shore had also come into the water to pull them.
Half of the more than 20 people who fell into the water died in the water. Those who could serve as Liu Bei's bodyguards were basically the children of nobles in the court, either rich or noble. Such an end made the Western soldiers extremely sad. But look
After seeing Liu Bei's condition, all the Western soldiers were silent. After being pulled out of the water, people suddenly discovered that the emperor had been hit by an arrow in his back, and he himself was unconscious due to excessive blood loss.
.I asked the imperial doctor to come to bandage and treat me, but there was no sign of improvement for several days.
Under this situation, the Western Army was filled with grief and anger, and had no choice but to report the news to the court and invite the generals to hold a military meeting to discuss the army's next move.