The Three Kingdoms: Rise to Power Starting with Intercepting Liu Bei

The exciting chapter "Chapter 66 Xue Rengui Arrives in Time, the Three-Way Allied Forces Suffer a Crushing Defeat!" is now available online. Click to read it now!

In the dead of night, when the darkness was as black as ink, Li Jing sat alone in the prefectural governor's mansion. The candlelight in the hall flickered weakly, illuminating his exhausted face.

Since he began defending Guangling, he has never had a good night's sleep. If he weren't still physically strong, he probably would have collapsed long ago.

The situation has now reached an extremely critical point. Not long ago, the deputy general reported the casualties, and the situation was even worse than he had imagined.

Only about two thousand defenders remained in the city to fight. Once dawn broke, the enemy would launch another fierce attack, and the city would not be able to hold out for long.

"Reinforcements! I need reinforcements!"

Li Jing kept muttering those words, hoping for a miracle to happen.

"General~~~~General~~~"

Just as Li Jing was worrying, a series of hurried footsteps broke the silence of the night. Li Jing suddenly came to his senses and looked towards the door, where he saw his deputy rushing in with a happy expression.

"Could there be good news?"

Seeing the joy on his deputy's face, Li Jing guessed what was going on.

Before he could even ask, the lieutenant, panting heavily, exclaimed, "General, great news! We've finally received reinforcements!"

"What?" Upon hearing this, Li Jing immediately stood up from his seat, strode over to his deputy, grabbed the man's shoulder, and a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes:

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely true!" The lieutenant nodded through gritted teeth, the sharp pain in his shoulder nothing compared to the truth. "Our guards just captured a spy attempting to infiltrate the city. Turns out he's one of our own! He said General Xue has led 10,000 troops to the enemy's rear and wants you, General, to go out of the city as bait so he can launch a surprise attack!"

"To break the enemy's encirclement in one fell swoop!"

"This is General Xue's token that he brought!"

As he spoke, the lieutenant pulled out a palm-sized iron token from his pocket, on which was written a large character "Xue".

Li Jing took it and immediately recognized it as Xue Rengui's token. Qin Xuan had made these tokens individually for each general, so that seeing the token was like seeing the person.

After listening to his deputy's words, Li Jing remained silent for a while, seemingly weighing the feasibility of the operation. After a moment, his eyes flashed, and a long-lost smile appeared on his face.

"Alright, pass down the order to all soldiers to assemble and attack the three-way allied forces!"

"Also, create the impression that the entire population is retreating, so they think we're buying time for a retreat. That would make it more realistic!"

"promise!"

The deputy general immediately accepted the order and left. Not long after, Li Jing tidied his armor, took his weapons, and left the prefectural governor's mansion.

·············

In the Sun-Liu allied army camp outside Guangling City, torches flickered, illuminating the tents where soldiers snored loudly. After a day of fierce fighting, the surviving soldiers were exhausted and had forgotten the horrors of the battlefield, drifting into a short and pleasant sleep.

Meanwhile, Liu Bei, Sun Ce, and others gathered together, staying up all night to discuss launching a final attack on Guangling at dawn.

They suffered heavy losses, and the Xuzhou army in Guangling was in no better shape. If they launched another attack after dawn, they could completely capture Guangling.

"Lord Xuande, it seems we need to adjust our plans. We need to find other ways to deal with Yan Baihu. Li Jing of Guangling is at his last gasp; one more attack and they won't be able to hold out!"

Zhou Yu was extremely proud of himself. In his first battle after leaving the mountain, he had wiped out one of Qin Xuan's generals and captured Guangling County. Who could match his achievements?

"Yes, wiping out so many of Qin Xuan's troops, we've finally avenged ourselves!"

Upon hearing this, Liu Bei became somewhat arrogant. He had originally been able to develop his career in Xuzhou, but Qin Xuan's appearance not only caused him to lose a fortune but also resulted in the loss of a beautiful woman.

I can't be happier that I've managed to cause Qin Xuan such a huge loss.

After their initial excitement, the group continued discussing how to deal with Yan Baihu, completely unaware of the danger lurking in the darkness.

After an unknown amount of time, a deafening battle cry suddenly ripped through the night sky, resounding like thunder not far from the allied camp. The thunderous snoring inside the camp was interrupted, and the soldiers were jolted awake. They quickly donned their armor, grabbed their weapons, and ran out of their tents.

"Oh no, someone's attacking!"

Zhang Fei, who was inside the military tent, was the first to react. He grabbed his eighteen-foot spear and rushed out of the tent.

"Walk!"

After seeing Zhang Fei leave, Liu Bei and the others realized what was happening and, one after another, grabbed their weapons and came out of the military tent to check the situation.

Upon stepping out of the military tent, they discovered that Li Jing had led the city's garrison in a night raid, launching an attack on their camp.

"Li Jing actually took the initiative to attack. What exactly is he trying to do? Could it be that their reinforcements have arrived and he wants to use them as bait to lure us in?"

"But my scouts didn't report anything like that!"

To prevent the Xuzhou army from surrounding him and to keep track of their reinforcements, Zhou Yu had long ago dispatched scouts to monitor any unusual activity within a radius of a hundred miles and to report back promptly.

Just as Zhou Yu was pondering, Liu Bei pointed to the faint lights flickering in Guangling City not far away and said:

"Could it be that they are deliberately stalling for time to transfer personnel? After all, there's no time to cover up during the day."

Following Liu Bei's voice, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu looked towards the distant city of Guangling. Just as Liu Bei had said, there were many faint lights in the city. This should be a time for rest and recovery!

"Quick, take this opportunity to eliminate them!"

Zhou Yu understood everything and shouted loudly. The nearby soldiers launched an attack on the Xuzhou army like madmen.

Liu Bei and Sun Ce also joined the battle, continuously slaughtering Xuzhou soldiers in an attempt to annihilate the Xuzhou army in one fell swoop.

As the Xuzhou soldiers fell one by one in the camp, Zhou Yu, witnessing all this, revealed a smug smile on his lips. He couldn't help but think to himself, "What Qin Xuan, what Li Jing, they've all been defeated by me."

Just as Zhou Yu was feeling smug, suddenly, a deafening battle cry came from behind.

The sound was like a raging torrent surging from hell, instantly plunging the entire camp into a deathly silence.

Confused, everyone turned to look, only to see flames shooting into the sky behind the camp, countless torches twinkling like stars, accompanied by the rapid sounds of horses' hooves and war drums.

"What... what's going on?"

Zhou Yu was stunned, and almost dropped his sword.

"General, something terrible has happened! A large army is advancing towards us from the rear; we're surrounded!"

At that moment, a soldier covered in blood rushed up from behind, crying out in despair.

"What? Say that again?"

Zhou Yu glared angrily, grabbed the other man's shoulder, and looked on in disbelief.

"General, it's reinforcements from Xuzhou! I saw them flying the Xue banner and the Xuzhou banner!" the soldier cried.

Upon hearing the news that Xue Rengui's army had arrived, Zhou Yu's body jolted violently, as if struck by an invisible hammer.

My head was buzzing, as if something was knocking in my ear. Then everything went black, and my body fell down uncontrollably. I gradually lost consciousness.

I could still vaguely hear the panicked voices of the soldiers.

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