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

Gu Rubing nodded, without hesitation, and took Sun Shangxiang, Pang De and Huang Zhong with him and headed towards Liangzhou.

Now Wei Yan has only 10,000 men, and Deng Ai has only 30,000 men.

There are only these few people left in the entire Yizhou, and we still need to mobilize some troops from Liangzhou.

However, after Gu Rubing arrived in Liangzhou, he looked at the only 50,000 soldiers left in Liangzhou and immediately gave up the idea.

There are only these few people left in the entire Liangzhou. If I take some of them away, there will inevitably be some problems with Liangzhou's defense.

After learning that Gu Rubing was coming, Taishi Ci put aside everything and immediately came to Gu Rubing.

"My Lord, I didn't know you were coming and was unable to come to greet you. Please forgive me."

"It's okay, it's okay. Ziyi, you've been working really hard in charge of the entire Liangzhou. Has there been anything unusual in Liangzhou recently?"

Hearing this, Taishi Ci hesitated for a moment, looked at Gu Rubing and opened his mouth, but did not speak for a long time.

Gu Rubing could see that Taishi Ci wanted to say something, but was a little hesitant.

After looking around, Gu Rubing sent away all the guards around and looked at Taishi Ci.

"Ziyi, just say whatever you want to say."

Taishi Ci hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, "My Lord, I am familiar with incompetence!"

As he said this, Taishi Ci actually knelt down.

"Ziyi, what are you doing?"

Gu Rubing pulled Taishi Ci up from the ground.

"My lord, there is a rocky mountain thirty miles south of the city. On top of it is a mountain stronghold where a group of bandits live. The leader of these bandits is quite strong and is proficient in concurrent attacks. When I first heard the news, I sent my lieutenant to attack them, but they returned in vain and all of his men were captured. When they were released, all the soldiers' armor and ice blades were taken away."

"Oh?"

"Then Ziyi, have you ever been there in person?"

Taishi Ci nodded.

"After hearing this, I personally led people there, but the other party seemed to know that I would go, so they set up many traps. We lost a lot of people trying to get up the mountain, but when we got to the top, we found that they had already escaped. We lost so many people, but in the end, we ended up with an empty village."

Gu Rubing finally understood what was going on. Taishi Ci was being tricked.

The fact that he could play tricks on the battle-hardened Taishi Ci showed that he was definitely not an ordinary person.

"Come on, take me to see. I'm a little curious about who this person is and how could he be so capable."

"Yes!"

Upon hearing this, Taishi Ci immediately led three thousand soldiers and led the way.

Gu Rubing followed behind the team, accompanied by Sun Shangxiang, Pang De and Huang Zhong.

Soon, everyone arrived at the stone mountain that Taishi Ci mentioned.

At first, Gu Rubing just thought it was a bare and short mountain.

But I didn't expect that the so-called stone mountain was full of trees and very high, with only one path leading to the top of the mountain.

Taishi Ci led his soldiers and prepared to head to the top of the mountain.

"Wait a minute, Ziyi, since there is only this one road here, it means that they have prepared it. Since we want to defeat them, we can't follow the road they have planned. We should go through the woods on the side."

"Yes!"

Taishi Ci also felt that what Gu Rubing said made sense. Although there was no road in the woods on both sides, they had hands and feet, and even if there was no road, they could climb up. Besides, they didn't have any baggage.

With everyone's efforts, they quickly reached the top of the mountain without encountering any danger along the way.

Gu Rubing saw that there were indeed two bandits guarding the entrance to the mountain stronghold.

However, Gu Rubing did not act in a hurry, but waited quietly for dark.

After it became completely dark, Taishi Ci, along with a deputy general, quietly approached, killed the two bandits guarding the gate, and then waved his hand.

Three thousand soldiers rushed directly into the mountain stronghold.

But soon, Taishi Ci and his men discovered that the entire mountain stronghold was empty, without a single person. Moreover, the water in the cup was obviously cold for a long time. The people in the stronghold definitely had not just left.

"It's a bad trick."

Those present were all veterans who had been through many battles and they reacted immediately.

However, at this moment, shouts and screams suddenly rang out outside the village, and countless rockets flew into the village, igniting the surrounding kerosene and straw.

Only then did Gu Rubing realize that everything was planned by the other party.

However, this made Gu Rubing even more curious about who was the other side's commander. Anyone who had this ability was definitely not an ordinary person.

As the flames died down, thousands of bandits rushed in from outside.

The two sides officially started fighting.

Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the previous fire attack, these bandits took the upper hand as soon as they came in.

Gu Rubing and others did not move. There was no need to fight with this group of bandits. All they had to do was to find the commander hiding in the dark.

A group of bandits, a rabble, without a commander, would be defeated in an instant.

Although it was night, Huang Zhong had very strong eyesight and he could see three people standing in a woods not far behind the bandits.

One of them was sitting on a chair, with a man on each side holding a flare in his hand.

With each whistle of arrows, the bandits would change their formation.

The three people in the woods will then quickly change their positions to prevent anyone from finding them.

With the help of signal arrows, a group of bandits turned into well-trained soldiers. Moreover, the combat effectiveness of these bandits was not too low. With the advantage, they even had a tendency to suppress the elite troops trained by Taishi Ci.

This made Gu Rubing even more interested.

"Ziyi, move on. Old General, it's your turn to take action. Capture the man back."

"Yes!"

The two of them said yes in unison and turned to leave.

With Taishi Ci joining the fight, the bandits finally couldn't hold on any longer.

No matter how good the tactics are, they still need a reliable general to support them. Otherwise, if there are only soldiers, the tactics will be destroyed in an instant.

With the addition of Taishi Ci, the bandits' formation was instantly in chaos, and then they began to be defeated.

Huang Zhong entered the woods.

However, when he entered, he found that the three people had disappeared.

What kind of strength does the other party have to be able to disappear in front of a legendary general?
When Huang Zhong thought of this, he suddenly became flustered, so he gave up the search and hurried back to Gu Rubing.

At this time, Taishi Ci's battle had ended and he began to clean up the battlefield.

"My Lord, I didn't find them." "What?"

Gu Rubing was shocked by the news.

Huang Zhong is a legendary general. The opponent was able to escape right under the nose of a legendary general. Could it be that the opponent is also a legendary general?
Gu Rubing quickly dispelled this doubt. Legendary generals are all top-level existences. If they existed, he would have known them long ago.

Gu Rubing still didn't understand how Huang Zhong could have lost the person.

Soon, Gu Rubing led everyone to the place where the three people disappeared. They searched all the locations but could not find any trace of the three people, but they found three tunnels.

These three tunnels are extremely deep, and no one knows where they lead to.

Huang Zhong personally entered the tunnel, but found nothing. However, according to Huang Zhong, it was like a maze in there, and he almost couldn't get out.

After hearing this, Gu Rubing had no choice but to give up.

"My lord, we found a few survivors. Perhaps they can lead us into the tunnel."

Taishi Ci brought a few slightly injured bandits to Gu Rubing.

"Do you know how to get inside the tunnel?"

Several people shook their heads.

"So where does this tunnel lead to?"

Several people continued to shake their heads.

Upon hearing this, Gu Rubing frowned slightly. He didn't believe that even they themselves didn't know about this tunnel. Then he drew out his knife and killed one of them.

"If you don't know, I will keep killing until I kill you all. I won't lose anything anyway."

However, when they chopped down the third one, one of the bandits finally couldn't bear it anymore and actually burst into tears.

"Sir, we really don't know. When the boss dug the tunnel, he only let his confidants do it, and he didn't even let us outsiders watch. And although we are bandits, we have never harmed the people. We only attacked the caravans passing by."

Gu Rubing didn't expect that this so-called boss was so cautious that he was even on guard against his own people.

"What's your boss' name?"

"I heard from our eldest master that his ancestor was also an official. I forgot his name, but he seemed to be called Jiang Wei."

"what is it call?"

Seeing Gu Rubing so excited, the bandits hid back in fear.

"Call...Call Jiang Wei!"

After confirming the name, Gu Rubing sat on the chair helplessly.

He didn't expect that the person he had been looking for so hard would be let go by himself.

"My Lord, what happened to this guy named Jiang Wei?"

"It's okay. Notify everyone immediately and make sure to find this person named Jiang Wei."

Taishi Ci nodded, but it was obvious that he misunderstood Gu Rubing's meaning.

What Taishi Ci sent out was not a notice looking for someone, but a wanted notice, and he also revealed that Jiang Wei was the leader of the mountain stronghold.

In the crowd, Jiang Wei was wearing a straw hat and was accompanied by two trusted followers.

"Boss, what should we do?"

"What else can we do? How do I know that the other party is actually King Lie? He is Liu Bei's uncle of the Han Dynasty and the most powerful prince. Now we can only surrender to Cao Cao. Only Cao Cao can compete with Liu Bei."

After Jiang Wei gave some instructions to his two subordinates, the three of them immediately left the city and rushed towards Cao Cao's Yizhou.

Gu Rubing had never expected that Jiang Wei, whom he had been looking for so hard, was lost just because of this incident.

Several days passed without any news from Jiang Wei, and finally Gu Rubing had to give up, after all, the Yizhou front was still waiting for him.

"Ziyi, if you get any news about Jiang Wei, you must keep him here for me. He is a very talented person."

"Great talent?"

Taishi Ci saw that Gu Rubing did not seem to be joking, then he realized that he had sent the wrong notice, and quickly sent someone to change it.

But it was too late.

Gu Rubing and his four companions quickened their journey and finally arrived at Mianzhu City in Guanghan County, Yizhou six days later.

At this time, Deng Ai had already been waiting for Gu Rubing outside the city.

As soon as he saw Gu Rubing, Deng Ai knelt down in front of him.

"My lord, I failed to defend Jianmen Pass. It was my fault. Please punish me."

"Shizai, this is not your fault, get up."

Deng Ai looked at Gu Rubing after hearing this, and only dared to stand up after making sure that Gu Rubing had no intention of blaming him.

"My lord, General Wei Yan has done his best. He..."

"I know that Jianmen Pass is easy for us to defend but difficult to attack, but it is much easier for Cao Cao."

After Gu Rubing finished speaking, he helped Deng Ai up and led everyone into Mianzhu.

Deng Ai brought Gu Rubing to the map.

"My lord, we currently have 30,000 troops stationed in Mianzhu. I asked General Wei Yan to guard the Yinping trail. As long as the trail is in our hands, Jianmen Pass will be ours sooner or later. After Cao Cao occupied Jianmen Pass, he did not move forward. There are about 60,000 people over there."

"What difficulties are you facing now?"

"My lord, we are short of people. We are short of generals and soldiers."

The general's task was not very difficult. After all, there were many people in Yulin County, including Zhang He, Zhang Liao and others. But this soldier made Gu Rubing feel troubled.

All the people he could deploy had come to Yizhou, and the rest were in their respective positions and could not be mobilized at all.

It can be seen that Gu Rubing is in trouble. Deng Ai is silent. The biggest problem at the moment is the lack of people.

Of these three counties, only Guanghan County has soldiers stationed there, while the other two counties are almost entirely occupied by old and sick soldiers, with no one guarding the city.

Once the enemy discovers this weakness and Wei Yan cannot defend the Yinping Road, the enemy can directly give up Guanghan County and enter Shu County and Hanzhong County directly. At that time, they will be forced to leave Guanghan County, otherwise they will be attacked from both sides and retreat to Ba County.

In order to avoid this, Deng Ai had to speak up and ask for the person even though he knew Gu Rubing was in trouble.

"Shi Zai, hold on for a while. I will send a message to the Prime Minister to see if he can spare some troops to support us."

Now that the battle has been going on for so long, both sides have already deployed all the troops they can. Originally, both sides did not have many available troops, but at this time, Liu Zhang joined in, brought a large number of Westerners, and even formed a Western Legion, which disrupted the balance between Gu Rubing and Cao Cao.

Gu Rubing originally wanted to write a letter to Zhuge Liang, but when he thought about the current situation in Yizhou, he was afraid that Zhuge Liang also knew about it. The reason why there was no reinforcement must be that Zhuge Liang was also in trouble.

Therefore, Gu Rubing decided to go to Yulin County in person to see where to withdraw some troops.

After making up his mind, Gu Rubing left Huang Zhong and Pang De in Guanghan County, and he hurried to Yulin County with some guards.

Along the way, Gu Rubing was only concerned with getting on the road, forgetting that there might be dangers around him. (End of this chapter)