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

"what happened?"

Cao Ren was the first to realize what was happening and immediately sent people to investigate.

"General, something terrible has happened! Our warehouse is on fire. We've sent men to put it out, but the fire is too big. I'm afraid it will be difficult to save the contents of the warehouse."

"Useless, what a bunch of useless trash."

Jiang Wei then realized that he had fallen into a trap. The three men's target was not the two great families, but their city's warehouse.

Fortunately, Cao Ren was unaware that he had provided the intelligence; otherwise, he would have certainly been met with suspicion.

Cao Ren quickly mobilized a large number of troops and immediately sealed off the city gates.

When the three of them finished their mission and were about to leave, they saw that the city gate was crowded with people.

Looking at the dark mass of soldiers, Deng Ai turned to Zhang Liao.

"General, are you confident you can break through?"

"Haha, what kind of general can't fight against a thousand men?"

The three gripped their weapons tightly and charged straight toward the city gate.

However, after advancing only a few steps, they were surrounded by the sheer number of Wei troops.

Despite their best efforts, the three of them could not create an opening.

Cao Ren and the others who were watching the battle ordered that the enemy could only be captured alive and no arrows could be fired.

Zhang Liao and his men also noticed this situation, and their courage grew, leading to a frenzied battle.

Half an hour later, they were all panting heavily, exhausted, and the dead soldiers at their feet had piled up into a small mountain.

Deng Ai and Zhong Hui continued to sprinkle Hua Tuo's medicinal powder on the wound to speed up the recovery.

Just when the three thought they were going to die there.

A whistling arrow pierced the sky.

Immediately afterwards, countless lights lit up outside the city.

Cao Ren looked outside the city and discovered that a large force of the Lie Army had begun to attack the city.

With Cao Ren dividing his troops to defend the city, the pressure on the three men was immediately reduced considerably.

Even so, they were still surrounded by thousands of people.

Just as Cao Ren was about to order everyone to go all out, countless arrows flew out from the shadows and struck the crowd.

Caught off guard, the Wei army immediately let out screams of agony.

After three rounds of arrow rain, a hundred men in black emerged from the shadows and charged directly into the crowd.

Cao Ren and his men were completely focused on defending the city walls and had no energy left to deal with Zhang Liao and his men below.

Soon, the men in black joined up with Zhang Liao.

"Generals, we will clear the way for you. Please proceed quickly."

Zhang Liao discovered that the person in front of him was actually the former crossbow captain.

Under the cover of a hundred men, Zhang Liao and his men finally reached the gate and forcibly opened it.

Soon, under the cover of the main force, the group returned to their camp.

Zhang Liao did not rest and immediately ordered his 70,000 troops to launch a full-scale attack on the city.

Now, Cao Ren and his men only have bows and arrows to defend the city, which is their best chance.

Under Zhang Liao's leadership, the Lie Army quickly scaled the city wall.

The two sides began to engage in close combat on the city walls.

The Lie army had an absolute advantage in numbers, while the Wei army had an advantage in famous generals.

At this point, strategy was useless for both sides; they could only swing their weapons and fight desperately.

Just when Yizhou was in chaos.

Gu Rubing had already arrived in Constantinople.

Along with Gu Rubing arrived, there was only Zhao Yun.

Even so, Cao Cao and Liu Zhang immediately halted their offensive upon learning that Gu Rubing had arrived in the Anluo Empire.

When Sun Jian learned that Gu Rubing was coming, he personally went out of the city to greet him.

"King of Wu, you lost this battle a little too quickly. This is not the level of your Wu army's fighting strength."

Sensing the sarcasm in Gu Rubing's tone, Sun Jian gave a helpless, bitter smile.

"Your Majesty, you are quite the joker. Our Anluo Empire is without the divine physician Hua Tuo in your possession. We would have no way to deal with those Gu people, so we would naturally suffer some losses."

Soon, a group of people entered the main hall, chatting and laughing.

Gu Rubing noticed that even though Cao Cao's army was already at the city gates, Sun Jian was still able to laugh and seemed to be under no pressure. This made Gu Rubing a little suspicious of what Sun Jian was thinking.

"King of Wu, please speak frankly, how do you intend for me to help you?"

"King Lie, this whole affair was mostly caused by General Xie telling you where the grain was stored. You can't just get involved, can you? You have to send troops to help me take back the territory I lost, right?"

"The territory you lost? If I'm not mistaken, King Wu, you've already lost half of the Anluo Empire. If I were to help you take it all back, wouldn't that require at least 200,000 troops?"

Seeing Sun Jian nod, Gu Rubing laughed in exasperation.

If I could easily muster 200,000 troops, why would I have been locked in a stalemate with Shi Xie for so long?

“I don’t have any troops. I only brought Zilong with me this time, and he’s here to protect me. This incident shouldn’t be entirely caused by the intelligence you provided. It’s also related to the King of Wu’s wavering, right? Speaking of which, the King of Wu also bears a large part of the responsibility. But now is not the time to investigate who is responsible. Let me write a letter and see their reaction.”

Seeing Gu Rubing's firm attitude, Sun Jian naturally didn't say anything more.

After hosting a banquet for Gu Rubing, the meeting ended abruptly.

Gu Rubing led Zhao Yun back to the post station.

"My lord, should we really help Sun Jian send troops? Judging from Sun Jian's attitude, I'm afraid this matter won't end well."

Gu Rubing smiled and shook his head upon hearing this, but soon his smile faded.

He had a feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Am I just overthinking it?"

Gu Rubing regretted his decision; he should have met with Zhuge Liang first and discussed the matter before coming here.

"What did you say, my lord?"

"It's alright, let's see what happens tomorrow!"

Gu Rubing directly sent two letters, inviting Cao Cao and Liu Zhang to meet in Constantinople.

After such a long period of time, Cao Cao and Liu Zhang, relying on their elite troops and the help of the Gu tribe, have already annexed half of Sun Jian's territory.

They have even reached the gates of Constantinople.

Fortunately, Gu Rubing arrived in time, otherwise Sun Jian would have given up Constantinople.

Although Sun Jian was losing, he still had troops and supplies, so his losses were not significant.

Sun Jian initially mobilized 200,000 troops to fight Cao Cao, but was caught off guard by the Gu tribe. After that, he kept retreating, waiting for Gu Rubing's reinforcements to arrive. Looking at Gu Rubing's letter in his hand, Cao Cao glanced at Liu Zhang beside him.

"What do you think?"

"What do you mean, how do I see it? According to intelligence, although Liu Bei has come to Anluo, he only has Zhao Yun with him and no soldiers. Why should we be afraid of him? This is Anluo, not the Han Dynasty. Even if he wanted to mobilize troops, he wouldn't have time. We can take advantage of the time difference."

Upon hearing this, Cao Cao looked at Liu Zhang and couldn't help but sigh.

Liu Zhang always only considered things from the immediate perspective.

I don't know if being teammates with someone like that is my luck or my tragedy.

Cao Cao immediately abandoned the idea of ​​discussing with Liu Zhang and turned to look at Xun Yu and Surena beside him.

"What do you think?"

The two exchanged a glance, and Xun Yu spoke first.

"My lord, Sun Jian has not put up much resistance along the way. Although we have captured a lot of territory, Sun Jian must still have some strength. If we refuse Liu Bei's invitation, we may force Sun Jian to fight us to the death. It's not worth it."

Surena nodded in agreement with Xun Yu's words.

“That’s right, King Wei. My intention is also to cease hostilities. We have already occupied quite a lot of territory, which is beyond my expectations. This was not my original plan. Now that we have taken so much territory, I’m afraid we will have to return some of it.”

"What do you mean, 'give it back'? We worked so hard to get it, and we're just going to give it back like that? Wouldn't that be a huge loss for us?"

Upon hearing that the territory had to be returned, Liu Zhang reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, immediately becoming agitated.

Looking at Liu Zhang's expression, Cao Cao smiled helplessly.

Someone like Surena is indeed a bit of a waste of his talents to serve a lord like Liu Zhang.

Their journey was too smooth, which was clearly intentional on Sun Jian's part, as Sun Jian's strength had not been diminished in any way.

The purpose was to redistribute the territory after Liu Bei arrived.

If they were to seize half of Sun Jian's territory in one fell swoop, it would inevitably provoke a counterattack from Sun Jian.

At that time, Liu Zhang will have to accept the counterattacks from Sun Jian and Liu Bei from two directions.

Fighting on two fronts—not to mention Liu Zhang, even Liu Bei didn't have the strength for that.

If it weren't for the fact that they were fighting on multiple fronts, Liu Bei would have already wiped them out one by one. How could he have survived until now and ended up in the current situation?

Cao Cao originally only wanted to teach Sun Jian a small lesson so that he wouldn't betray them so easily in the future, but who knew that this time he would play such a big game.

After mentally ranting about Liu Zhang, Cao Cao then ordered, "Immediately reply to King Lie, telling him that we will meet outside Constantinople early tomorrow morning."

After the soldiers left, Liu Zhang was still somewhat dissatisfied with Cao Cao's decision, but no one cared about Liu Zhang's feelings anymore.

After all, this time the stakes were too high and the process went too smoothly, so I still feel a bit uneasy.

Early the next morning.

Cao Cao and Liu Zhang appeared outside the city.

Upon seeing this, Sun Jian immediately led Gu Rubing out of the city and came to the two of them.

This time, none of the four of them had any guards with them. Right below the city, under the watchful eyes of everyone, they leisurely drank tea.

"Did King Lie summon us here because of this war?"

Gu Rubing took a sip of tea and nodded with a smile.

“The three of us are old friends, we all come from that place, why should we fight to the death here? This balance cannot be easily broken, what do you say?”

Upon hearing this, Cao Cao immediately fell into deep thought.

Liu Zhang was getting a little anxious.

After all, he had said that all the territory he conquered would belong to him. Now this is all his territory. If he really needs to return some territory as Surena said, wouldn't that be like tearing flesh from his own body? What he lacks most is territory.

"King Lie, this three-way war has nothing to do with you, does it? Since you insist on getting involved, then explain your reasons so we can see if we can accept it."

"The Otherworldly King is quite the straightforward one. Since that's the case, then I'll say it: all of you, go back to where you came from. Let's just treat this as a joke."

"What? Give them all away? We've captured at least a dozen cities already, haven't we? What are we supposed to do if we give them all away? Are you expecting us to play for free?"

Seeing Liu Zhang's strong reaction, Gu Rubing couldn't help but frown.

Sun Jian remained silent.

He knew perfectly well that it was impossible to get Cao Cao and Liu Zhang to hand over all the cities.

Gu Rubing knew it was impossible, so he only asked tentatively, but he did not expect Liu Zhang's reaction to be so strong.

"King Yi, calm down. In business, there must be a buyer and a seller for it to be reasonable. Since King Lie has made an offer, we should negotiate back. There are so many people watching. As King Lie, what kind of behavior is it to keep chattering like this?"

Cao Cao glared at Liu Zhang, then looked at Gu Rubing again.

"King Lie, no matter what, your price is indeed a bit unreasonable. You can't expect us to work for nothing with these dozen or so cities, can you? How about this, we only want ten, and we'll return the rest to you?"

"You can only take five."

"Eight."

"Six."

"Seven!"

"make a deal!"

After a period of bargaining, Gu Rubing successfully helped Sun Jian reclaim seven cities.

Liu Zhang still held seven cities, which meant he had returned half of them.

Seeing that neither Cao Cao nor Liu Bei had any objections, Sun Jian could only agree without saying anything. Liu Zhang wanted to speak, but Cao Cao held him tightly, so he couldn't say anything either.

"Now that we've decided on the number, let's talk about the specific cities. We've already occupied Nissa, and we know how important Nissa is to the Anluo Empire, so we can't go too far. How about this, I'll return Nissa to you, and we only want the seven coastal cities. What do you two think?"

Gu Rubing had no objections and looked at Sun Jian beside him.

"Okay, as long as you return Nisa, everything is fine."

The negotiations went even more smoothly than Gu Rubing had imagined. Apart from Liu Zhang chattering away at the beginning, the rest of the negotiations were very peaceful.

Gu Rubing even felt that the negotiations could continue even if he didn't come.

Just as Gu Rubing began to have doubts, the two sides had reached the last item in their negotiations: the issue of war reparations.

Cao Cao immediately offered 30 million gold coins and a year's worth of provisions for his 200,000-strong army.

Even Gu Rubing was taken aback by the price.

Everyone knows Sun Jian was wealthy, but he couldn't have devoured so much wealth in one go.

Sun Jian couldn't help but purse his lips, looking like he was about to get angry.

"King Wei, you want to eat so much in one go? Aren't you afraid of stuffing yourself to death?"

"Haha, King Wu need not worry about that. I was born with a big belly, I won't die from overeating."

Cao Cao paid no attention to Sun Jian's taunts.

"Alright, King Wei, you have indeed asked for too much this time. I suggest you reduce it." (End of Chapter)