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

While the deputy general was pondering, Shi A walked directly to the city gate.

"Listen up, soldiers on the city wall! Open the city gates now, and I'll spare your lives. You all know you have no reinforcements. If you don't open the gates, don't blame me."

Shi A's voice startled the deputy general, who was still deep in thought.

Looking at the soldiers who were ready behind him, and even some civilians who had spontaneously climbed the city wall, the deputy general knew that he could not surrender.

Immediately, the lieutenant took out his bow and arrow and shot at Shi A below the city.

The deputy general's strength was only at the level of a first-rate general, and the arrows he shot could not possibly harm Shi A, a famous general.

Shi A casually reached out and caught the arrow in his hand.

Judging from the power of the arrows, Shi A could tell the strength of his opponent and couldn't help but sigh.

Despite the vast disparity in troop strength and commanders between the two sides, a mere deputy general was willing to risk his life to hold them off, all to buy more time for the rear.

If this were in their own camp, their own people would probably have opened the city gates and surrendered long ago.

This is the difference between the two sides, and the reason why they keep losing. The quality of the two teams is clearly not on the same level.

Although Shi A greatly admired this deputy general, he would not show him any mercy because of that admiration.

They fought their way through, and although they had moved at top speed, there was fierce resistance everywhere they went, which meant it took them a full half month to reach Yangguan. No one knew when Gu Rubing's reinforcements would arrive.

"Siege the city."

At Shi A's command, the 30,000-strong army launched a fierce attack on the city.

The lieutenant general felt a pang of regret when he realized he had failed to kill Shi A with a single arrow, or even cause him any harm. He wondered why he hadn't practiced his martial arts skills properly in the past.

However, before the deputy general could think further, Shi A had already led his men and stormed the city wall.

Upon seeing this, the surrounding soldiers quickly surrounded him, trying to block Shi A's path.

Unfortunately, no one could withstand Shi A's attack.

Seeing this, the lieutenant had no choice but to grit his teeth and charge forward with his sword drawn.

"I'll fight you to the death."

The lieutenant knew he was no match for Shi A, but if he wanted to stop Shi A, he had to do it himself.

Seeing the deputy general charging towards him, Shi A gave a cold laugh.

The lieutenant swung his long sword, gathering all his strength into it, and slashed at Shi A with incredible speed.

However, to the lieutenant's surprise, Shi A did not dodge his full-force attack. Instead, he thrust his sword at Shi A's blade.

The moment the longsword touched the blade, it instantly wrapped around the blade and gradually dissipated the force from it.

When the long sword fell on Shi A, the force of the blow was so great that it couldn't even cut through Shi A's armor.

Seeing this, the lieutenant knew things were going badly and tried to draw his sword.

As a result, Shi A's sword, along with the lieutenant's knife, reached the lieutenant's throat.

Seeing this, the lieutenant dared not move again; Shi A's sword was only an inch away from his throat.

Even his own neck had been slashed open by the sword energy, leaving a small gash from which trickles of blood were slowly flowing.

"You've lost. If you surrender, I'll spare your life."

Shi A knew that if he wanted to help Shi Xie, he would have to gather a group of capable and powerful confidants.

Nowadays, Shi Xie has very few people around him who can be considered his confidants.

The lieutenant didn't speak, but slowly closed his eyes. He knew that Yangguan Pass was lost!

Seeing the deputy general's expression, Shi A knew that anything he said would be superfluous.

Just as Shi A was about to swing the longsword in his hand.

An arrow flew straight over, accompanied by the sound of it cutting through the air.

Upon hearing this sound, Shi A knew he couldn't catch the arrow.

He immediately withdrew his sword and dodged the arrow by sidestepping.

Immediately afterwards, Taishi Ci's voice came over.

"A bunch of petty scoundrels, how dare you launch a sneak attack on my Liangzhou! I think you're tired of living."

As soon as he finished speaking, Taishi Ci came to the side of the deputy general.

After glancing at his lieutenant and finding that he wasn't seriously injured, he smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"You've done a good job. Now that the main force has arrived, you can take a rest."

"Army?"

The lieutenant looked around somewhat blankly.

Besides his own 10,000 garrison troops, what other soldiers are around here?
Taishi Ci pointed outside the city.

The lieutenant quickly looked outside the city wall.

Fifty thousand men charged out from the surrounding area, led by Zang Ba.

Shi A has been fighting Gu Rubing for a long time and knows a bit about Gu Rubing's lineup.

Now that Zang Ba has arrived, it means that these 50,000 men are probably the Tiger Bandits of Mount Tai.

Although the 30,000 men he led were all cavalry, they had almost no chance of winning against the Tiger Bandits of Mount Tai.

While Taishi Ci was talking to his deputy, Shi A climbed down the city wall using a ladder and immediately retreated.

Upon seeing this, the lieutenant immediately shouted, "General, Shi A is trying to escape! We must chase after him!"

"Don't worry, he can't get far. The Prime Minister's original goal was to take down 200,000 of their troops in one fell swoop. However, Wang Yue and his army are too slow in marching, and Yangguan is almost impossible to hold. We have no choice but to make our move ahead of schedule. We are confident that we can take down even 200,000, let alone these 30,000."

Shi A led his cavalry to break through the encirclement from both sides, and after searching around, finally found a weak point in the encirclement of the Taishan Tiger Bandits.

Immediately, Shi A led his men directly towards the breakthrough point.

Shi A was right; that place was indeed a weak point, but unfortunately, it was deliberately left for him by Zang Ba.

Not long after he ran out, Shia was stopped by a group of people.

Shi A had never seen the leader before.

Shi A naturally looked down on the person he had never met before, assuming he was just another deputy general.

The deputy general standing to the side glanced at the number of enemy soldiers with some concern.

"General, judging from their formation, the enemy has at least 30,000 men, and we have 50,000 pursuers behind us. We can't afford to get entangled with them for too long."

Shi A nodded, then looked ahead at the people blocking their way.

"Who dares to stop me? Get out of my way, or you'll die!"

"Haha, I am Xu Rong, who has been waiting here for your arrival, General. Please put down your weapon and come with me to see our lord!"

"Xu Rong?"

Upon hearing this, Shi A's expression immediately changed.

Xu Rong had been on the battlefield in Jiaozhou. Shi A had never actually met him, but he had heard of him to some extent. He was also a famous general.

"I never expected Liu Bei to transfer you all here. It seems he's planning to devour me in one fell swoop."

After hearing this, Xu Rong laughed again and shook his head.

"General, you jest. My lord's attention is not on you at all. Do you really think that Yumen Pass is so easy to take? Or that Dunhuang County is so easy to conquer? Actually, my lord's target is the 200,000-strong army led by Wang Yue. It's just a pity that Wang Yue's marching speed is too slow, so we had to change our plans and choose to eat your 30,000 men instead."

Eat up 200,000 people in one go?
Shi A's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't expected Gu Rubing to have such a big appetite. He knew he had to spread the news.

Having made up his mind, Shi A swung his sheathed sword and shouted, "Kill!"

Xu Rong was not to be outdone, and directly brandished his knife, shouting, "Kill!"

The two armies clashed, and screams of agony filled the air, but they were quickly drowned out by the shouts of battle.

After Xu Rong killed several soldiers who approached him, he realized that Shi A was nowhere to be seen on the battlefield.

Clearly, Shia had already abandoned these 30,000 men, using them as bait to help him escape.

However, Xu Rong showed no intention of pursuing them.

Instead, they began to attack the 30,000 people. Soon, the Taishan Tiger Bandits, led by Zang Ba, also rushed over and joined the battle.

Shi A broke away from the group and began heading towards Wang Yue's direction.

They had clearly been outmaneuvered by Gu Rubing, and he was in a hurry to pass the news on to Wang Yue.

However, they didn't run for very long.

Shia stopped in his tracks.

"General Shi'a, I have been waiting for you here for a long time."

Shia watched the people in front of him warily.

"Zhang Liao! I didn't expect you to come too."

"Yes, we originally planned to swallow your army of 200,000, how could we have only made so few preparations?"

Shi A saw that Zhang Liao's army was not large, only five hundred men.

But these five hundred men were more frightening than the fifty thousand bandits of Mount Tai who followed them.

They were armed to the teeth, even their horses were covered in armor. These five hundred men were the Iron Pagoda, a force that gave all the feudal lords in the world a headache!
Zhang Liao slowly broke away from the Iron Pagoda's ranks and walked to a distance not far from Shi A.

“Shia, if I were you, I would just surrender. Continuing to struggle like this is not a good thing for you.”

"You want me to surrender? We'll see if you have the ability."

Shi A brandished his sword, ready to charge at Zhang Liao.

Zhang Liao knew that Shi A was also a famous general, and a rare one who was skilled with a sword, so he naturally dared not be careless.

Just as he was getting into a defensive stance, he realized that Shi A wasn't charging at him, but instead was rushing towards the hillside to the side.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Liao immediately prepared to give chase.

However, at this moment, Xu Rong, along with Zang Ba, had already caught up with the 30,000 remnants of the army and brought them right up to him.

Zhang Liao ultimately decided to abandon Shi'a and deal with the 30,000 men first.

In half a day, all 30,000 people had been killed.

Zhang Liao didn't even spare those who surrendered.

"Alright, we should go back now, or our lord will be getting impatient."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Liao immediately led his men slowly toward Yangguan.

Inside the Yangguan Prefecture government office.

Gu Rubing was looking at the map in front of him, pondering how to fight.

Then they saw Zhang Liao and his men walking in with smiles on their faces.

"Is everything resolved?"

"Reporting to my lord, all 30,000 men were killed without leaving a single survivor. Only Shi A escaped, and I failed to catch him."

Gu Rubing nodded.

"Alright, everyone go and rest. Wang Yue's marching is so slow, he's wasting the Prime Minister's excellent plan."

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately nodded.

Gu Rubing came to Liangzhou entirely because of Zhuge Liang.

Originally, after Gu Rubing finished talking with Cao Cao, he was prepared to watch the show. However, Taishi Ci arrived with an army of 100,000 and a letter from Zhuge Liang.

Gu Rubing opened the letter. There were two documents inside. One was the battle plan, and the other was addressed to Gu Rubing.

After reading the contents of the letter, Gu Rubing smiled helplessly.

The letter stated that Zhuge Liang was worried about changes in Jiaozhou, so he could not leave. He suggested that Yizhou should be left to Lu Su, since there was no war, and with the assistance of Deng Ai and Zhong Hui, as well as the help of Wei Yan and Zhang He, there would be no problem. Therefore, he wanted to invite Zhuge Liang to go to Liangzhou.

After all, Liangzhou needed to station 100,000 troops, and he didn't trust anyone to do so.

However, what Gu Rubing did not expect was that not only Taishi Ci and his group came to Yizhou, but also Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.

Clearly, this was to ask him to bring Guan Yu and Zhang Fei along as well.

However, Gu Rubing felt that with Liu Zhang and Shi Xie already in power, Guan Yu was of no use and it would be better to keep him in Yizhou to deter Cao Cao.

Of all the warlords, the one that worried Gu Rubing the most was Cao Cao.

After putting the letter away, Gu Rubing looked at the situation in Yizhou.

Jiangzhou City is now garrisoned with as many as 150,000 troops, exceeding the number of troops Cao Cao had stationed in Linjiang City. So, he simply pulled out another 50,000 troops and, with a total army of 150,000, began to head towards Liangzhou.

On the way, Gu Rubing finally opened Zhuge Liang's plan and began to examine it.

Gu Rubing strictly followed Zhuge Liang's plan, using Yumen Pass and Dunhuang County to temporarily slow down Wang Yue's vanguard's siege.

They forced the vanguard to rejoin the main force, then launched a surprise attack on Wang Yue's camp, ultimately swallowing up all 200,000 troops in one fell swoop.

However, Zhuge Liang's plan was excellent, but unfortunately, the troops under Wang Yue's command were all new recruits from Sun Jian and Liu Zhang, and their speed of travel was extremely slow. Moreover, the commanders of Yumen Pass and Dunhuang County were killed by Shi A as soon as they engaged in battle.

This led to a very quick defeat, which prevented Zhuge Liang's plan from succeeding.

This can be considered a lucky accident for Wang Yue, saving him from being swallowed whole.

Zhang Fei stood beside Gu Rubing, watching Gu Rubing still reading the letter Zhuge Liang had given him, and muttered with some dissatisfaction.

"Brother, don't bother reading this letter. If you ask me, we should just smash through them at Yumen Pass. Why bother with this plan, which caused us to lose Yumen Pass and Dunhuang?"

Upon hearing this, Gu Rubing rolled his eyes at Zhang Fei.

"Zilong, what do you think of the Prime Minister's plan?"

Zhao Yun smiled upon hearing this and praised, "The Prime Minister has considered things very thoroughly. We understand Liangzhou, but we don't understand the outside world. Fighting outside the region puts us at a disadvantage. Although we can win, we can't annihilate them all. So since the enemy's army is attacking, why not give them Dunhuang and Yumen Pass, and then we can trap them and beat them? That way, no matter how many people they send, we can swallow them whole. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister is thousands of miles away. Even if you are a genius, you couldn't have predicted that Wang Yue's army would march so slowly."

After listening, Gu Rubing nodded in satisfaction and couldn't help but look at Zhang Fei. (End of Chapter)