Choose Liu Bei at the start, I am the only one who knows the plot of the Three Kingdoms.

Chapter 577 Retreat
Sura hesitated for a moment and sat back in his chair.

"Prime Minister, what's the point of saying so much? Aren't you treating us as pawns? When we are of no use, aren't you going to throw us aside and let us fend for ourselves?"

Hearing this, Zhuge Liang shook his head.

"We are different. We want you to be the real king. You are indeed our pawn, but we will not interfere with you."

"You won't interfere with us?"

Zhuge Liang's conditions were indeed very tempting to Sulla.

You have to know that neither Rome nor Parthia actually want to continue fighting. They are now busy clearing up internal problems. Now, whether it is Rome or Parthia, some people are supporters of Cao Cao and Sun Jian. This group of people is also the pro-war faction, while the other part is the pro-peace faction. These people are all for the development of their own country.

Both Sulla and Surena knew in their hearts that only those who advocated peace were truly concerned about their country, while those who advocated war were all spies of the Han Dynasty.

"I'll think about it."

Sura was not sure whether what Gu Rubing and Zhuge Liang said was true. He could only go back and hold a meeting with everyone to discuss it.

After Sura left, Gu Rubing looked at Zhuge Liang.

"Prime Minister, do you think this Sura will really cooperate with us?"

"As long as he is not a fool, he will definitely cooperate with us. Sun Jian and Cao Cao have already made the two empires a mess. If they still want their own empire, they have no choice but to cooperate with us."

Gu Rubing just nodded in response to Zhuge Liang's confidence.

When Sulla returned to the military camp, he called everyone from Rome and Parthia, even Surena, who knew about Parthia's past.

And told Surena about Zhuge Liang's plan.

Hearing this plan, Surena hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

The situation inside Parthia was not much better than that of Rome, and it was barely maintaining itself thanks to his reputation in the army.

There have even been some small riots within Parthia.

After all, compared with the losses, the losses on the Parthian side were the most serious, with even 70% of the people killed.

At this time, in Jiaozhou, a war had already begun.

Sun Jian felt that Gu Rubing had been held back by the West, so he joined forces with Cao Cao. The two of them formed an alliance again and launched a siege on Guan Yu's camp.

At first, Guan Yu and his men could still hold on for a while, but soon, Guan Yu could no longer hold on.

Meng Huo and Miao Moqing of the Gu Clan sent out the Gu Mother and Gu Ancestor to fight with the legendary generals, while they themselves followed the army to besiege the camp.

Zhang He swung his sword and killed the Yangzhou soldiers who rushed towards him, then looked at Zhang Ren who was not far away.

"Justice, we can't hold on any longer. Should we retreat to the second line of defense first?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ren looked around and found that they were actually surrounded. If they continued to hold on, by the time the encirclement was completely formed, it would be too late for them to get out even if they wanted to.

"withdraw!"

Zhang Ren shouted, but just as they were about to leave.

Two voices came from a distance.

"Where to go."

As the voice fell, the Xiahou brothers rushed out from a distance.

Zhang Ren immediately drew out his two guns and rushed forward with gritted teeth.

Seeing that Zhang Ren was entangled, Zhang He had no choice but to rush forward with his gun.

With Zhang He sharing the burden, Zhang Ren indeed felt much more relaxed.

The two guns made Xiahou Yuan a little flustered for a moment. Although there were no wounds, looking at Xiahou Yuan's appearance, one could see how dangerous he was.

As for the strength of Zhang He and Xiahou Dun, there is not much difference between them, and it is difficult to tell the winner for a while.

Just then, Gan Ning arrived with reinforcements from Yangzhou.

At this time, the combined forces of the Yangzhou and Yizhou armies were almost three hundred thousand strong.

This time, Sun Jian revealed all his secrets.

The Xiahou brothers immediately shifted their targets and began to join forces to attack Zhang Ren, while Gan Ning faced Zhang He.

Gan Ning's eighteen black shadows had been constantly disrupting Zhang He's attack rhythm, making Zhang He a little timid for a while.

Seeing the right moment, Gan Ning swung the ancient ingot knife in his hand and slashed at Zhang He's arm.

Zhang He's arms trembled slightly, and just as he was about to fight back, he saw a black shadow waving a knife and slashing at him. Zhang He quickly waved his gun to block, while Gan Ning took the opportunity to leave the battle, waiting for his own opportunity to launch another surprise attack.

Zhang Ren was not feeling well either. Ever since the Xiahou brothers got together, the advantage of his dual guns disappeared instantly. Moreover, the Xiahou brothers had a very high level of tacit understanding and could often cooperate in unexpected ways. Fortunately, Zhang Ren chose to use dual guns. If he had only one gun, he would have been shot down by now.

Just as the two men were barely holding on, a commotion broke out behind the Yangzhou army.

Gan Ning looked to the rear of the camp and discovered that a group of people had rushed in from behind the Yangzhou army, causing an unfunny commotion.

There were not many people, and it looked like there were only about two hundred cavalrymen. But what was different about these two hundred cavalrymen was that all of them were wearing heavy armor, even their horses were covered with armor. This was a typical heavily armored cavalry.

In Gu Rubing's hands, the only special unit that could be called heavy cavalry was the Iron Pagoda.

When I saw the general he brought with him, it turned out to be Zhang Liao.

After leaving Wujun, Zhang Liao brought the Iron Pagoda and rushed to Jiaozhou. However, due to the long-term melee, the Iron Pagoda's speed slowed down a lot.

Zhang Liao had no choice but to give the order to rest while continuing on his journey.

As a result, as soon as he arrived in Jiaozhou, he learned the news of the war and immediately brought people over.

With Zhang Liao's support, the Yangzhou army and the Yizhou army were indeed in a panic, but the number of Iron Pagoda was too small. Even with Zhang Liao's support, these two hundred Iron Pagoda could not make much splash in front of an army of 200,000.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Liao immediately led all the Iron Pagodas and rushed to the front line and came to the side of Zhang Liao and Zhang He.

However, it was not only the Iron Pagoda that came with Zhang Liao, but also Huang Gai, Xu Huang and others.

As more and more famous generals joined, Zhang Liao and his men knew that they could not stop them.

"withdraw!"

The three of them led all the rest and hid directly in the second line of defense that had been set up in advance.

As for the second line of defense, it is the border of Cangwu County.

Guan Yu had known for a long time that once the two sides started fighting, it would be impossible to defend Cangwu County with the strange methods of the Gu tribe in Sun Jian's hands. He could only wait for Gu Rubing or Zhuge Liang to come back.

The so-called second line of defense is also the last line of defense set up by Guan Yu.

Stationed inside are Zang Ba's Taishan Tiger Bandits, which are under Gu Rubing's command and have the largest number of special forces among the three major forces. Although their strength is not as strong as those elite special forces, they have the advantage in numbers. With only 50,000 Taishan Tiger Bandits, even if the other side sends 100,000 people, they cannot break through the city.

At this time, there were not only the Taishan tiger bandits in the city, but also Pang De and Wei Yan, who were also on high alert.

As soon as the two men saw Zhang He and his men coming back, they immediately opened the door and let them in.

"Junyi, what's going on?"

"The enemy has too many people. We only have 50,000 people. We can only hold out until now. If Wenyuan hadn't come to support us, we might not be able to come back."

Pang De heard this and looked at Zhang Liao. "Wenyuan, how many people do you have?"

"There are less than 200 Iron Pagodas left."

Hearing this number, Pound sighed helplessly.

There were 50,000 men at the front line, and now, those who followed Zhang He and his men back were less than 10,000. There were less than 200 men in the Iron Pagoda. Together with the people in his own hands, all together, there were only 170,000 men, while the other side had nearly 200,000 men.

Pound suddenly felt a little troubled.

However, what gave Pang De the most headache was the methods used by the Gu tribe.

If the Gu Clan did not exist, based on the number of soldiers and combat effectiveness they had, this battle would never have turned out like this.

"General Guan and the others haven't come back yet?"

Zhang He looked around with some concern.

Pound shook his head when he heard this.

"General Guan said that once the battle between them begins, they will definitely hurt their own people, so we don't need to care where they are. We just need to do our own thing and defend Jiaozhou."

When Zhang He heard this, he just smiled bitterly.

It is easy to say that defending Jiaozhou is easy. Half of the 50,000 people were killed by poison gas as soon as the war started, and the remaining half were poisoned to varying degrees.

How can we defend the city in this situation?

This was also the situation that the people present were worried about.

At this time, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning and others, with the Xiahou brothers and the Yangzhou and Yizhou armies, arrived at the city.

"Why are you doing this? If I were you, I would leave Jiaozhou. We can guarantee that as long as you leave Jiaozhou, we will not attack you again. Our only goal is Jiaozhou."

Zhou Yu didn't want to consume too much. He knew better than anyone how Sun Jian got these 100,000 people.

These are all the males available in the whole of Yangzhou.

The process of conscription is almost the same as recruiting people.

If we lose this battle, Yangzhou will be completely lost. We can't let women and children go to the battlefield.

"Zhou Yu, you don't have to think about letting us go. If you suddenly attack us, when our lord comes back, you will know how terrible his anger is. I'm afraid that you Yangzhou won't be able to bear it!"

Pang De directly rejected Zhou Yu's words.

"Okay, Zhou Yu, why are you talking to them so much? We have nearly 200,000 people. What are we afraid of? Just charge up and drive them away."

The Xiahou brothers no longer had much patience at this point.

The situation in Yizhou is much better than that in Yangzhou.

The 100,000 people they brought with them did not harm the civilians, so it was quite easy to put together 100,000 soldiers.

Zhou Yu glared at the Xiahou brothers, and just as he was about to take action, a voice suddenly appeared behind them.

Hearing this voice, Zhou Yu hurriedly looked behind him, because he felt that this voice was very familiar, and every time this voice appeared, it was not a good thing.

"Meng Huo?"

Meng Huo walked in front of Zhou Yu, ignored him and closed his eyes.

Not long after, Zhou Yu discovered that a green poisonous gas was beginning to emanate from Meng Huo's body little by little.

There was only a little at the beginning, but as time went on, the poison gas became heavier and heavier. If it weren't for the antidote pill developed by Meng Huo before the war, they would have been the first people to be poisoned.

Seeing the familiar poison gas getting closer and closer to the city wall, Pound could only ask everyone to take out cloth and cover their mouths and noses to block the poison gas as much as possible.

However, at this moment, a convoy slowly entered the city.

A centurion immediately came to Pound's side.

"General, Mr. Hua Tuo has sent us the antidote he developed. Mr. Hua Tuo said it can only last for five hours, after all, there is not much."

"There's an antidote? That's great."

Soon Pound had the antidote distributed.

After everyone took the antidote, all the poison gas entered the city wall.

Meng Huo saw Pang De and his men falling to the ground on the city wall and clapped his hands.

"Grand Commander, you may proceed now."

"it is good."

Seeing this, Zhou Yu immediately led his men to rush forward.

Soon, the first soldiers of the Yizhou army climbed up the city wall.

However, before he could check his surroundings to see if there were any enemy troops who were still awake.

A sword suddenly stretched out and struck him straight in the heart.

He casually threw the corpse in front of him away.

"Brothers, do it."

Pang De's voice was so loud that all the soldiers lying on the ground pretending to be dead stood up and waved their swords at the enemy troops around them.

Zhou Yu, who was outside the city, saw that Pang De and the others had actually woken up, and looked at Meng Huo with a puzzled look on his face.

Meng Huo was also very helpless at this time. He didn't understand what was going on. The poison in his hand was obviously incurable.

But Meng Huo forgot that the fact that there is no cure does not mean that there is no resistance. What Hua Tuo developed was not an antidote, but something that could help them prolong their fighting time.

As Meng Huo's methods failed, Zhou Yu launched a tentative attack for three hours and finally chose to give up.

"More than 100,000 troops are stationed not far outside the city."

Listening to the deputy general beside him counting the losses, Zhou Yu frowned slightly.

Although they won this battle, they also lost nearly 40,000 soldiers. Compared to this, Cao Cao's losses were very small, with a total of only 20,000 soldiers.

"I say, you two, aren't you going too far? We fought for a whole day and you only lost 20,000 people. Are you kidding me?"

Hearing this, they both looked around.

"Grand Commander, I don't like what you said. We two brothers are going to the battlefield, right? And we have Xu Huang and others to support us. Isn't this a loss?"

Before coming, Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan received orders from Cao Cao to inflict as little loss as possible on Sun Jian.

The two of them were strictly following Cao Cao's requirements.

Listening to what the two said, Zhou Yu wondered for a moment whether he had blamed the wrong person.

"Okay, no matter what, we lost so many people, but fortunately, Jiaozhou only has one county, which is in Liu Bei's hands."

(End of this chapter)