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

However, after a day of siege, Liu Zhang lost a total of 30,000 soldiers.

Compared with Liu Zhang, Zhang Ren's losses were much smaller.

There were only 10,000 casualties.

After seeing the loss report for the day, Liu Zhang slumped down in his chair.

If I continue like this, I can only last half a month at most.

Gu Rubing's offensive and combat effectiveness far exceeded his imagination.

Liu Zhang was already a little anxious at this time.

But the one who was even more anxious than Liu Zhang was Surena.

There was no movement from Cao Cao, and Shi Xie showed no intention of taking action. With Su Lena's intelligence, it was not difficult to guess that these two people had abandoned Liu Zhang.

The best way now is for Liu Zhang to win a great battle to make these two princes regain their confidence in him.

However, with the lineup Liu Zhang had, it was not easy to win, even winning a single game was very difficult.

Surena locked herself in the room, thinking about ways to break the impasse.

However, during the days when Surena was away, Liu Zhang's losses were around 20,000 every day.

By the time Surena came up with a solution, he learned that there were less than 80,000 soldiers left to defend the city.

Surena's face changed and he quickly came to Liu Zhang.

At this time, Liu Zhang was slumped in a chair, looking exhausted, and he looked as if he had aged ten years in an instant.

"king!"

"Surena, you're here, have you come up with any solution?"

Liu Zhang knew that Surena locked himself in the room to find a solution. Now that Surena came out, it meant that he had thought of a solution.

"I have thought of some ways. Now the difference in strength between our two sides is too great. It is basically impossible to win. So my lord needs to go to Cao Cao. As long as we get Cao Cao's support, I think Shi Xie will not hesitate anymore."

Hearing this, Liu Zhang looked at Surena. In the current situation, they were bound to lose. If he left at this time, wouldn't it mean that Guangxin City would definitely be lost?

Surena looked at Liu Zhang and nodded with satisfaction. Liu Zhang now still has some abilities of a lord and knows how to consider the army.

Surena smiled and then handed a letter to Liu Zhang.

"My Lord, please read the contents of the letter first."

Liu Zhang opened the letter doubtfully, and after reading its contents, he was completely stunned.

"This……"

"My lord, all these words are insults to Cao Cao, and there are threats to Cao Cao at the end. Of course, this is not just a threat. What I said is also the truth. We can't be Liu Bei's opponent. It will be of no benefit for us to continue to stalemate with Liu Bei. But we are not without choices. We have a large population and the cities in Jiaozhou. As long as we have these, we have the trump card to surrender to Liu Bei."

Only then did Liu Zhang react.

Yes, if Cao Cao refuses to help me, then I will join Liu Bei.

He has a population of millions, an army of more than 200,000, equipment, food, and horses, which are what Liu Bei lacks now. As long as he uses these things as a trump card and joins Liu Bei, then he will be very safe. However, living under someone else's roof is definitely not as free as being a king himself, but it is not impossible to do so in order to survive.

After Liu Zhang figured this out, he immediately sent someone to deliver the letter to Cao Cao's location.

A few days later, Cao Cao received a letter from Liu Zhang.

When he saw that Liu Zhang's letter was full of insults to him, his face changed and he became angry.

But soon, his anger was suppressed by Cao Cao.

Cao Cao knew very well what kind of person Liu Zhang was.

Being timid and submissive has become his label. How can such a person suddenly have the courage to point fingers at me and even scold me?
When Cao Cao finished reading Liu Zhang's entire essay scolding him, he finally focused his attention on the last point.

It clearly stated that if he did not send troops, he would join Liu Bei and simply surrender.

Cao Cao knew in his heart that Gu Rubing had everything that Liu Zhang had, but no one could ever think that Liu Zhang was too much.

With wars everywhere, who cares about more people? Who cares about more soldiers? Who cares about more war horses, weapons and armor?
Anyway, Cao Cao doesn’t care about quantity, and the more the better.

Cao Cao slammed the letter directly on the table.

Then he immediately called Xun Yu.

"Wen Ruo, what do you think about this matter?"

Xun Yu read the letter and then laughed out loud.

"My lord, Liu Zhang clearly does not want to surrender to Liu Bei, otherwise he would not have written to tell us. It is obvious that he wants to force us to send troops and threaten us."

"Yeah, I noticed that, but so what?"

"My lord, although Liu Zhang is threatening us, he may be desperate and really do that, so we need to think about what to do next."

The two discussed for a long time.

The final decision was to send troops.

After this period of rest, Cao Cao's troops were restored to a strength of 100,000, which was enough to cause some trouble to Gu Rubing.

The news of Cao Cao's dispatch of troops soon reached Gu Rubing.

"Cao Cao, you bastard, actually dared to interfere. After we deal with Liu Zhang, you'll be the next one."

Gu Rubing snorted coldly, then accelerated the siege of Guangxin City.

Liu Zhang also received the news that Cao Cao had sent troops at this time, so he simply withdrew the troops from Jiangzhou City and returned Jiangzhou City to Cao Cao.

Cao Cao directly ordered Cao Ren, the Xiahou brothers, and Jiang Wei to enter Jiangzhou City with 60,000 troops, and Liu Zhang also mobilized the troops originally in Jiangzhou City to their side.

In this way, the number of troops in Jiangzhou directly increased to 150,000.

In contrast, Deng Ai and Zhong Hui only had 50,000 men, so it was extremely difficult to defend the city, let alone attack.

In desperation, Deng Ai could only ask Zhuge Liang and Gu Rubing for help.

After receiving Deng Ai's request for help, Gu Rubing had no choice but to stop the siege of Guangxin City.

"My lord, there are still 50,000 soldiers in Guangxin City, and we still have 30,000 soldiers. It is impossible to capture Guangxin City in a short time. But if we retreat now, Xiyu City and Longbian City, plus the troops we have, will only have 50,000 soldiers in total. It is difficult to defend the city, and it is almost impossible to support Deng Ai and his men."

Gu Rubing also knew this situation, but Zhuge Liang's troops had already reached their limit and it was impossible to withdraw troops to reinforce Deng Ai.

Just when Gu Rubing was hesitating about what to do, Zhang Liao walked in from outside.

"My Lord, I heard that our army is in trouble, so Zhang Liao came to ask for a fight."

Looking at Zhang Liao who seemed a little tired, Gu Rubing directly rejected Zhang Liao's request to fight.

"My lord, Yizhou needs support. The troops we have now are barely enough to defend the city. There is no way to support Deng Ai. But if you give me a small number of troops, I can play a big role."

Looking at Zhang Liao's appearance, Gu Rubing hesitated for a moment.

Zhang Ren stood up at this time.

"My lord, if that's the case, why don't you and Wenyuan go to Yizhou together? Leave the matters here to me. My lord, don't worry, as long as I'm alive, Longbian City and Xiyu City will not be lost."

Looking at Zhang Ren, Gu Rubing nodded.

Now there are so many troops, and the only one who can be considered a famous general is Zhang Ren.

After everyone made the decision, Gu Rubing immediately ordered the troops to withdraw.

Seeing Gu Rubing retreat, Liu Zhang breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that Cao Cao must have put enough pressure on Liu Bei to force him to withdraw. Liu Zhang was grateful, but he also wanted to take advantage of the situation. He immediately ordered Ling Bao, Liu Qi, and Wu Lan to lead 50,000 troops to pursue.

Surena, who was standing by, was about to stop them, but found that the messenger had already gone far away, and sighed helplessly.

Soon, three generals led 50,000 troops out of the city to pursue.

However, Gu Rubing had already kept some tricks when he retreated.

The three generals had just left the city and were in pursuit for a short while when they were blocked by a large fallen tree.

The three of them immediately asked someone to move the tree away.

Just as a group of soldiers were about to move the tree, several arrows flew out.

Anyone who came forward to move the tree was shot.

The three generals were frightened by the sudden attack and retreated one after another.

Liu Qi was the first to react.

Immediately have the archers return fire.

However, Liu Qi's reaction was still a step too slow, and the person who shot the arrow had already run away.

Soon another group of people came forward to move the tree, but more arrows were shot from the other side.

Liu Qi ordered a counterattack again.

However, after this round of sword rain, there was no scream, only the sound of arrows hitting the shield.

Seeing this situation, the three generals had already planned to retreat.

At this moment, a group of people rushed out from both sides, and the leader of this group was Zhang Ren.

Soon, the two sides began to contact each other.

In just one encounter, the foreign army lost nearly five thousand people.

Only then did the three generals realize that these people were actually all Taishan tiger bandits. Although there were only 10,000 of them, their fighting power was no weaker than their 30,000 men.

Faced with the Taishan tiger thieves, they had only one thought, which was to run away quickly.

The three generals immediately ordered a retreat.

Zhang Ren watched them retreat and had no intention of pursuing them. Instead, he took everyone and quickly left.

The three generals ran for a long time, and after making sure that Zhang Ren did not catch up with them, they realized that the other side had only 10,000 people, but they had 50,000 people. It should not be them who should run, but Zhang Ren and his men.

Thinking of this, the three of them finally reacted. When they wanted to chase him, they found that Zhang Ren had already disappeared.

The three of them could only retreat helplessly.

After finding out what happened, Liu Zhang wanted to draw his sword and kill these three useless people. But when he thought that now was the time when he needed more people, if he killed them, there would be no one to lead his troops, so Liu Zhang had to give up.

But he still punished the three of them.

After Gu Rubing returned to Xiyu City, he directly handed over Zang Ba's Taishan Tiger Bandits and other people in his hands to Zhang Ren, and he left Longbian City with the Iron Pagoda and the Eighteen Riders of Yanyun.

Gu Rubing did not go directly to Yizhou, but took Zhang Liao back to Zhuge Liang's camp.

When Zhuge Liang saw Gu Rubing coming, he immediately walked over.

"My lord, I have counted the troops I have, and I can provide support to Yizhou with a maximum of 30,000 men. What about you?"

"I……"

Gu Rubing told Zhuge Liang everything with some embarrassment, including how many soldiers he had left.

Zhuge Liang felt helpless after hearing this. Although he had always had news about Gu Rubing, it did not say how many people Gu Rubing still had. According to Zhuge Liang's opinion, judging from Gu Rubing's battle record in the past period of time, he should have 70,000 to 80,000 people under his command, but he did not expect that he only had 50,000 people.

It seems that Gu Rubing has no way to help Yizhou.

Zhuge Liang thought of this and turned to look at Zhang Liao.

"General Wenyuan, how is your recovery?"

"In reply to the Prime Minister, I have recovered and am ready to fight at any time."

"Okay, in that case, let's go to Yizhou with the lord. I will also give you the Qinglong Swordmasters. I hope you can make good use of them."

"Prime Minister, please rest assured. I will definitely show the might of our Lie Army."

Zhuge Liang nodded.

After a few days of simple rest.

Gu Rubing set off directly with his army.

At the same time, Yizhou Yu recovered the city.

Deng Ai led 30,000 troops to gather in Yu Fu City.

Zhong Hui, on the other hand, led 20,000 troops to guard Fuling.

The two cities were not very far apart, so they could form a pincer attack against each other and provide support to each other, which made Cao Ren and his men quite exhausted for a while.

Three days later.

Cao Ren called everyone together.

"Everyone, the enemy only has 50,000 people and they are guarding two cities. We have 80,000 people, but up to now, not a single person from Gongda has come down. Wouldn't it be a bit embarrassing if this got out?"

After hearing this, the Xiahou brothers smiled awkwardly.

Not only do they have more people, they also have four famous generals, while the other side does not have a single famous general.

The number and quality of the men and generals were not on the same level, but Deng Ai and Zhong Hui still held out for three full days, forcing them not to move at all.

If this were to get out, it would be more than just embarrassing. I'm afraid Cao Cao would be furious.

"Boyo, what do you think?"

Jiang Wei heard this and looked at the map.

However, Jiang Wei did not say anything, but looked to the corner.

"Guo Huai, what do you think?"

Although Guo Huai is talented, he is also the youngest and least experienced among their group. Usually, he can only listen in such meetings.

But Jiang Wei actually asked him about himself now, which made Guo Huai unable to react for a while.

Seeing that Guo Huai was stunned and didn't say anything, Jiang Wei smiled and patted Guo Huai on the shoulder.

"Go ahead, just say whatever comes to your mind. We are all very easy to talk to."

Guo Huai looked at Jiang Wei for a long time before nodding.

"Well, let me show you my trick. My suggestion is simple: lure you into a trap and break it apart!"

Cao Ren and others looked at the map.

All those present were experienced generals, and they understood what Guo Huai said instantly.

Cao Ren slapped his head excitedly.

"Yeah, I was really stupid. Why didn't I think of that? Why should we let them lead us by the nose? We can take the initiative to attack." (End of this chapter)