Shu Han Confucian General of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 121 Catching Cai Mao Alive
"Your Majesty, according to what Jiangzu said, Cai Mao and his younger brother Cai Xun disguised themselves as ordinary people. When the fire started, they mingled with the common people and ran north! General Zhongye Zhongye is now patrolling around, and General Gan Ning has already blocked the waterway. There is nothing to hide!" Zhuge Liang reported to Guan Yu as soon as he returned to Xiangyang.

"That's great, Kong Ming, what's the situation in Xiangyang?" Guan Yu nodded and continued to ask.

"General Chen Wu has just taken Cai Mao's commander-in-chief to recruit the rest of the counties, and the whole area of ​​Xiangyang can be pacified just around the corner. It's just that this fire has really hurt Xiangyang's vitality!" Zhuge Liang sighed.In order to create chaos, Cai Mao ordered his cronies to set fires everywhere in the city. Most of the streets were burned down, and tens of thousands of people were burned to death. The once prosperous Xiangyang City is now a piece of rubble.

"Let Zhengfang rebuild Xiangyang here, and Xingba lead the water army to help defend the city. You and I should lead the army south as soon as possible!" Guan Yu sighed after thinking about it.Now besides Zhuge Liang, that is, Li Yan can handle this mess.At present, only Kuai Yue, who is entrenched in Jiangling in Nanjun, and Cai Mao, who has fled, are the rebels of the Cai family and the Kuai family.It was now the end of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and the weather turned cold. Guan Yu left his soldiers and tens of thousands of horses to cooperate with Li Yan to guard Xiangyang and Fancheng.When the army was approaching Nanjun, they sent a report from the horses, thirty miles to the south, the defenders in the city were attacking Zhao Feng's camp, and the battle was extremely fierce.

"Assemble all the cavalry, follow me to help Bo Tao!" Guan Yu was a little anxious when he heard that, and quickly led the cavalry to rescue him.When he marched into Jingxiang this time, Guan Yu only led two thousand cavalry.After defeating Zhang Xiu the day before yesterday, he confiscated more than 2000 Xiliang war horses, and now he can barely gather three or four thousand cavalry, and Guan Yu led a horse to rush to the rear of the Jingzhou army.Thirty miles away, the cavalry arrived very quickly, and Guan Yu, who was at the head of the horse, had already seen Zhao Feng's camp standing like a rock, which was undergoing a tide-like attack from the Jingzhou army.Especially at the gate of the village, the corpses had already piled up.

"Kill me!" Guan Yu roared and rushed into the Jingzhou army formation. Every time the Qinglong Yanyue knife was swung, it could take away a lot of people's lives. Behind him, the five hundred school swordsmen led by Zhou Cang followed closely. The 500 people were originally Guan Yu's personal guards, and their combat effectiveness was extremely strong.After winning the Xiliang war horses, Guan Yu immediately ordered them to learn how to ride horses quickly, and then adapted them into cavalry as a matter of course.Cooperating with Shangxiliang horses and broadswords, the combat effectiveness of these 500 men is not inferior to Zhang Liao's [-] cavalry.

The Jingzhou army was caught off guard when they were suddenly attacked from behind, and their positions were thrown into chaos.Cai He and Huang She, who were commanding the battle from the former army, were shocked, and hurriedly ordered people to fight the army coming along the way.But Guan Yu came too fast, Cai He and Huang She were caught off guard.

"Red face, it's Guan Yu!" Cai He's face changed drastically when he saw the leading general for a while.Huang She also knew that he and Cai He couldn't compete with generals of this level, so the two quickly gathered their troops and prepared to retreat to Nanjun.After all, Guan Yu had few men, and when the large force behind caught up, most of the Jingzhou army had already fled, so they could only catch up and wiped out more than a thousand people, and hundreds of others surrendered.

"Bo Tao, you have been stationed in Nanjun for a long time, how is the situation now?" Guan Yu and Zhao Feng are old friends, and they were not very polite after meeting, Guan Yu directly asked about the current situation.

"Feng is ashamed. I haven't captured Nanjun so far, so I can only rely on the Second General and Kong Ming to preside over the overall situation." Zhao Feng said helplessly.These days really felt like years, Kuai Yue sent troops to attack his camp every day without stopping.On the most exaggerated day, [-] arrows were shot out alone.Naturally, the Jingzhou army would not have been shot to death [-] that day, but there should still be [-].These days, I dare not go out to fight at all, otherwise the Jingzhou army will use their superior numbers to consume this group of people alive.If so, when Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang arrived, Zhao Feng's [-] Yangzhou army, except for the troops guarding various places, now had less than [-] troops left at hand, and the entire Dazhai seemed somewhat empty. Zhao Feng The local garrisons in Dangyang and Yiling have been ordered to join them.After all, after Yidu County was breached, the defense of these two places was not so important. At this time, he didn't know that Zhang Ling had also been sold to Liu Pan by the Shen brothers, two famous [-]-year-olds.

"Why should Bo Tao be modest? It's not easy to reach the current field with 3 horses!" Guan Yu comforted.At this time Zhuge Liang had also arrived with the army, except for Wen Pin and Li Yan who were still busy cleaning up the mess in Xiangyang, the rest of Liu Bei's army was already here.In Jiangling City, after Kuai Yue learned that the reinforcements had arrived, he simply chose to defend and not fight again.

A few days later, after a long delay, Liu Pan personally led 2 people from Zhangling to Nanjun.Three groups of people successively gathered under the city of Nanjun, totaling about 7 to [-] people.In contrast, there are nearly [-] defenders in Kuai Yue in the city.

Using 7 to 5 people to attack a city guarded by [-] people is not a good deal.Now Zhao Feng is very helpless, since his debut, most of the encounters he has encountered are shrinking turtles.The same is true for fighting Yuzhou, the same is true for fighting Jiangdong, and the same is true for fighting Jingzhou.It would be so much easier if he could directly slash the opponent's general with a knife like in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and then directly take down a city.It's a pity that the current Kuai Yue is even more shy than Cao Ren, and he knows that he will die, and he is determined to stick to it. The whole thing is a replica of the audition.Besides, Jiangling has enough money and food, so I really don't know how long this battle will last.

Not to mention Zhao Feng's emotion in his heart, at the edge of Xiangshui at this time, a dozen pedestrians dressed as ordinary people were sitting and resting under a tree, the leader of them was holding a bamboo tube for water, and after taking a sip, But the eyes are a little distracted looking into the distance,

"Brother, let's eat something!" At this time, another person stepped forward and handed over a piece of dry food. The person took two bites, drank some water, and then took a breath and said, "Second brother, has the person who inquired about the news returned yet?" ? What's the current situation in the north?"

"Just came back, according to what he said, Wenpin led the army to search everywhere. The portraits of you and me are also posted everywhere, and there is a reward for their capture. Right now, all the nearby ships have been confiscated, and not even a piece of wood can be found. Ah." The man before replied.That's right, they are the brothers Cai Mao and Cai Xun who just escaped from Xiangyang, and are now preparing to go north to defect to Cao Cao.

"Since this is the case, it's better to go out at night and go north while the night is dark. I remember that there is a section of muddy water that is quite narrow in the tens of miles ahead. I can swim across the river later." Cai Mao thought for a while. .Cai Xun has nothing to do, the two brothers rest for a while, find a shady place to sleep, and then prepare to go on the road.

Sleeping until evening, the people on the road woke up one after another, counted the number of people and were about to go on the road, but found that two people were missing. "No, they are going to report to the officials!" Cai Mao understood the key point when he thought about it, his face changed drastically, and he hurriedly packed up and ran north.

About half an hour later, Wen Pin led his people to Cai Mao's foothold just now. "Is this the place?" Wenpin pointed to the area and asked the two people beside him. It was a small forest by the Mioshui River.

"Exactly, Cai Mao was still sleeping here just now." One of them quickly replied. "There is no fork in this road, and there is no boat to cross the river. He can't run far, let me chase him!" Wen Pin snorted, and led more than a hundred cavalry under his command to catch up.

"Brother, it seems that someone is catching up!" Cai Xun's face changed drastically when he heard the sound of horseshoes behind him.Cai Hao had already heard it, and suddenly saw a large swamp of reeds on the side of the road. He really panicked and ran in to avoid it. Cai Xun and others followed suit one after another.The last one looked back, only to see that Wenpin had already caught up, he hesitated for a moment, and had no time to hide in the reeds, so he could only catch him without a fight.

"Where's Cai Mao?" Wen Pin grabbed the man and asked with a livid face.

"Just went in!" The man's face was pale, but he still pointed to the reeds and reluctantly said.Wenpin took a look at the large reed marshes, and realized that the hundreds of people under his command must not be enough.Seeing that the reeds had withered and turned yellow, Wenpin couldn't help showing a cruel smile on his face.

"Set fire to me!" Wen Pin ordered.The torches were already lit during the night chase, but when they were lit, the flames really shot up into the sky, and the reeds suddenly turned red.Fortunately, there is no one nearby, otherwise it will be a catastrophe.

"Don't burn it, don't burn it!" It didn't take long to see a few ashes-faced people running out of the reeds in a hurry, each of them was choking and coughing again and again.After one of them fell to the ground, he immediately turned his back to Wenpin, it was too late to cover up.

"Cai Dudu, no, Caizhou Mu. You don't enjoy life in Yangzhou, why do you come to Jingzhou?" Wen Pin only looked at his back, and immediately recognized that this person was Cai Mao, whom he had been looking for for a long time. Ridiculous.

Cai Mao complied with his breath, then stood up, turned his head and looked up at Wenpin and said, "Wen Zhongye, since I fell into your hands, if I want to kill you, I will do as you please, so why bother talking." I have a lot of grievances, and it is impossible for him to let me go.

"Hmph, I'm only responsible for arresting you, how to deal with the princes and the others." Wenpin didn't want to kill him like this, it would be too cheap for him.Then he ordered people to tie up Cai Mao and his henchmen and send them to Guan Yu in Nanjun.

But Guan Yu can't take care of Cai Mao's matter for the time being, and Nanjun is difficult to capture at the moment, and everyone is in a bad mood for a while.On this day, Zhao Feng, Liu Pan, Zhuge Liang and other generals gathered in Guan Yu's big tent to discuss matters, and they wanted to discuss a way to take Nanjun as soon as possible.

"Everyone, I have a plan, maybe I can take down Nanjun." A scribe who followed Liu Pan suddenly raised his head and said, Zhao Feng knew him, he was Zhuge Liang's classmate Meng Jian and Meng Gongwei.

"What's the plan?" Liu Pan asked quickly, but Zhuge Liang seemed to realize something, and turned to look at Meng Jian with sharp eyes.

"Dig the moat and flood Jiangling!" Meng Jian laughed.Everyone's face changed drastically when they heard this, they were ruthless, once this kind of strategy was used, it is hard to predict how many people will survive in the entire Jiangling.Even if they win Nanjun, it may be hard to win the hearts of the people here for a while.Although Zhuge Liang knew that this strategy was feasible, as a person from Jingxiang, it was naturally difficult for him to use such a poisonous strategy against the elders in his hometown.Meng Jian is from Runan, so he doesn't have so many scruples.But this was only one of the reasons, Zhao Feng and Zhuge Liang later found out that Meng Jian had other intentions in doing this.

Of course, this strategy is not easy to use.First of all, it depends on whether the water strength of the moat is enough. If it is not enough, it will not break the city wall.Right now, Jiangling's moat is made by diverting water from the Yangtze River, so the force is naturally strong enough.

Everyone couldn't make up their minds, and finally turned their heads to look at Guan Yu at the same time.Although this time it was an action by two families, Guan Yu had the highest official rank and the most prestigious reputation, so it was up to him to make up his mind on such matters.The expression on Guan Yu's face also changed continuously, and finally stood up with a "huh" and said: "Zhou Cang, lead 1000 people to build a dam upstream and prepare to store water!"

"Pa", just as Guan Yu finished speaking, the feather fan in Zhuge Liang's hand fell off.

(End of this chapter)