Chapter 275 Liu Pi asks to surrender
“What?”
Liu Pi, who had just sat down, immediately straightened up again and looked at Zhou Cang with a confused look on his face, suddenly suspicious. I heard wrongly.
"Liu Shuai, Cang has surrendered to Liu!"
After Zhou Cang repeated it, he left the table and bowed to Liu Pi and said: "Cang is here to apologize to Liu Shuai for bearing the thorn. , let Liu Shuai handle it, and the second is to persuade Liu Shuai.”
"Persuade me?"
Liu Pi reacted at this time, and his voice turned cold and said: "Persuad me what?"
Pei Yi on the side felt tight and heard Liu Pi's voice. changes, knowing that the most critical moment has come.
As long as Zhou Cang says something wrong, Liu Pike will fall out in the next moment.
“Persuade Liu Shuai to abandon the dark side and join the bright side!”
Zhou Cang raised his head and said to Liu Pida: "Liu Shuai just wanted to fight for a way for his brothers in the Tao to survive. During this period, Liu Shuai suffered many grievances, but he never wavered. But now that the way to survive is in front of him, why did Liu Shuai Are you hesitating again? "
Liu Pi was stunned, remembering Zhou Cang's persuasion in the past few months.
Since the Yingchuan Yellow Turban surrender, Zhou Cang has repeatedly persuaded Liu Pi to surrender to Liu, or at least sent people to contact him.
But Liu Pi was a little hesitant. He suffered a big loss when he defected to Yuan Shu before. He lost hundreds of thousands of stones in food alone, not to mention a large amount of money, silk and equipment.
Therefore, Liu Bei's sphere of influence was Xuzhou, and I heard that Yingchuan was not completely occupied after he captured it, which made Liu Pi a little hesitant.
"It concerns the lives and fortunes of hundreds of thousands of Taoist brothers and sisters. How can I make this decision easily?"
Liu Pi half explained and half masturbated, and then angrily said: "I asked you to guard Runan. Gate, is this how you repay me? "
Dingying is the gate where Yingchuan enters Runan. Although most of Runan is plain, especially the north.
But army operations generally rely on waterways, and Dingying is the intersection of the two waterways. Coupled with the swamp lake covering dozens of square miles next to it, it is indeed northwest of Runan. The place of lock and key.
If Dingying is still in Liu Pi's hands, then the Yellow Turban reinforcements can continuously move north along the Peishui and Ru Rivers to rescue.
In this way, the Yellow Turban Army has the advantage of waiting for work.
Once Guan Yu's army is at the foot of Dingying City, over time, the opponent will not be able to retreat even if they want to.
But now, Dingying actually opened the city and surrendered, which was equivalent to exposing Shangcai and Pingyu to Guan Yu's troops. Liu Beijun could attack whomever he wanted.
On the contrary, Shangcai and Pingyou were cut into two parts, and the situation was extremely bad.
No wonder Liu Pi was so angry.
But Pei Yi saw something different. Although Liu Pi was very angry, the reason for his anger seemed not to be that Zhou Cang surrendered, but that Zhou Cang surrendered without asking for instructions.
"Liu Shuai, Yuan Fu may have no choice but to do so."
Suddenly, Pei Yi spoke and persuaded from the side: "Guan Yu's 20,000-strong army has already arrived at the city, and Dingying only has three or four thousand men. , It is estimated that only the two thousand troops of Yuan Fu can fight. If they really resist, they will not be able to withstand it for a few days."
The Yellow Turban Army is a typical combination of soldiers and peasants, even if Zhou Cang has two. There are more than 10,000 people, most of whom are old, weak, women and children. There are only eight or nine thousand real men, and there are no more than 5,000 strong men among them.
Zhou Cang's 2,000 men are semi-full-time, and they still have enough energy to practice occasionally. They are already considered to have good combat capabilities, but compared with Liu Beijun, they are far behind.
No matter in terms of equipment, training, or even experience, they are not on the same level.
But what Pei Yi said is also a lie. After all, Zhou Cang has a Dingying city in his hands. If he really wants to mobilize the old, weak, women and children to defend the city, it may not be able to last for three to five days, and Guan Yu's army The casualties will certainly not be low.
"You have no choice but to surrender like a child's play!?"
Liu Pi glared at Pei Yi fiercely, turned to Zhou Cang and said: "You let me get in touch with Liu Bei , then you have to give me time. If you surrender, the door will be opened. What's the point of contacting me again? "
At this time, in addition to being angry, Liu Pi also felt deep regret. .
If I had known earlier, I would have listened to Zhou Cang and He Man and sent someone to contact Liu Bei.
If the conditions cannot be negotiated, we must strengthen our fighting spirit.
Now Zhou Cang surrendered directly, gave Dingying to Guan Yu, and ran back.
Now Liu Pi felt like he was sitting on a candle.
Kill Zhou Cang?
Liu Pi was reluctant to part with him and did not dare to kill him.
Zhou Cang has surrendered to Liu Bei's army. Killing him at this time will not only be useless, but also form a deadly feud with Liu Bei's army. Guan Yu's army in the west has already settled in Dingying, and Liu Bei's army in the east has gathered in Xiang County, which is a distance of Pingyu is only three or four hundred miles away.
“Hey!”
Liu Pi simply squatted on the ground.
This way of sitting is quite rude and arrogant, but Liu Pi himself is just a strong man. He was so angry that he couldn't care about etiquette.
"Yuanfu, you have harmed me."
Hearing Liu Pi's accusation, Zhou Cang bowed his head and apologized: "Cang knows his guilt and is willing to be punished by Liu Shuai. But Cang has a word that has been brewing in his heart for a long time. , If you can't explain what you said, you won't rest in peace."
"Okay!"
Liu Pi waved his hand towards Zhou Cang: "Tell me, I want to hear what you want to say."
Zhou Cang replied respectfully: "Liu Shuai was serving Yuan Shu a few years ago. He was a timid and greedy man who plundered and oppressed the Taoists. At that time, you surrendered. Liu Shijunren The name of virtue is known to all women and children. At the beginning of this year, he went north to welcome the emperor. Compared with white jade like Liu Shijun, how is Yuan Highway different from a broken tile? "
"Why did Liu Shuai bend his body and stay away from Bai Bi?"
Zhou Cang has obviously been holding these words in his heart for a long time.
Not only did Pei Yi on the side think it made sense, but even Liu Pi was stunned on the spot.
Liu Pi remained silent, Zhou Cang kept kneeling, and Pei Yi was thinking about how to persuade Liu Pi.
In fact, it is normal for Liu Pi to have this mentality.
Before, he surrendered to Yuan Shu and was willing to pay tribute to the other party because he was surrounded by enemies in Runan and there were still alliances among the warlords, but they had the same attitude towards the Yellow Turban Army.
In order to survive in Runan, Liu Pi actually begged Yuan Shu to accept him.
But the situation is different now. He occupies a county in Runan and has 50,000 or 60,000 Taoist households. Even after betraying Yuan Shu, the other party could not do anything to him.
In this case, who wouldn’t be careful?
Even if you don’t have too much ambition, there is always the idea of a landowner who can continue to maintain his dominance over the mountain.
Therefore, when facing Liu Bei, who currently seems to be as powerful as Yuan Shu, but even more famous, Liu Pi's hesitant, hesitant and complex expression of procrastinating and not suppressing his subordinates' surrender to Liu is also a complex expression. It is not difficult to understand.
But fortunately, Liu Pi's mind was still clear, and he was not so arrogant that he thought he could compete with Liu Beijun.
The Yingchuan Yellow Turbans next door are slightly weaker than Runan, and they are not enough for Liu Beijun to fight in a month.
After a long time, Liu Pi sighed, but suddenly turned to Pei Yi and asked: "You came here with Yuan Fu, could it be that you also surrendered?"
Pei Yi suddenly ate When Liu Pi asked, his whole body trembled, and he quickly shook his head and said: "I haven't surrendered yet..."
Immediately afterwards, Pei Yi changed the subject and said: "But I think what Brother Yuanfu said is quite reasonable."
Liu Pi calmed down, and he could no longer see his previous anger.
He continued to ask lightly: "So you also want to surrender?"
Pei Yi glanced at Zhou Cang, gritted his teeth and nodded: "Liu Shuai, follow me. Look, we really can’t hold on.”
After hearing this, Liu Pi nodded.
As Pei Yi said, Liu Pi has led troops for many years, and his strategic and tactical vision has improved.
Currently, both Guan Yu and Liu Bei have become two dragons playing with each other. Unless Liu Pi has the confidence to repel one side first, he will be in a dilemma under the pressure of the opponent's two armies.
Liu Pi sighed, knowing that if he continued to indulge his petty thoughts, the entire Runan Yellow Turbans would be implicated.
So Liu Pi got up, walked to Zhou Cang, and pulled him up.
“I am obsessed.”
Liu Pi looked at Zhou Cang with complicated eyes, and patted the other party's shoulder hard: "Fortunately, Yuan Fu woke me up."
Afterwards, Zhou Cang and Pei Yi were mixed with expectations, anxiety, and hope. In his eyes, Liu Pi said loudly: "I shall personally ask General Hussar to surrender." ********
Liu Pi was deciding to surrender, but Guan Yu also A new guest was welcomed.
This new guest’s surname is Gong Mingdu, a native of Wufang. He is a powerful local man. His family has a lot of property and supports more than 3,000 households. He has two or three tribes. Thousands of people.
This person is entrenched in the Wufang and Aoyang areas.
Although Gong Du and others were powerful, they got along well with Liu Pi's Yellow Turban Army. At least the two sides did not break out into battle, but lived in peace.
It can also be seen that the Yellow Turbans of Yingchuan and Runan are indeed very different from the Yellow Turbans of Qingzhou.
The biggest feature of Qingzhou Yellow Turban is mobility, while the biggest feature of Runan and Yingchuan Yellow Turban is residence.
The former carries millions of people, passing through the border like locusts, taking away everything that can be eaten, used, and all the people.
The Yellow Turbans in Qingzhou are like the refugee army in the late Ming Dynasty. They go wherever they go and eat wherever they go. Although they also have farms, they are limited to the stalemate stage on the front line and are not a long-term behavior.
But the Yellow Turban Army in Runan and Yingchuan was completely opposite to their colleagues in Qingzhou. Most of them had already taken root in the local area, focusing on farming and producing, and supplemented by robbing the people.
So the fundamental reason for the deterioration of military discipline in the Qingzhou Army under Cao Cao was not just because the soldiers were from the Yellow Turbans, but also had a lot to do with the fact that Cao Cao could not afford adequate rewards and salaries to the soldiers at that time.
After all, because Cao Cao couldn't afford enough salary, he openly allowed his army to plunder the people to obtain enough loot.
What kind of military discipline can there be in an army led by someone whose supreme commander blatantly allowed the plundering of the people and even took a commission for himself?
Not to mention that in the future there will be situations such as hair cutting and head substitution.
The Yuzhou Yellow Turbans can stay in the local farmland and rarely wander around to loot the people. This also makes their military discipline much better than that of the Qingzhou Taoists in the north.
Originally, their down-to-earth nature would lead to fierce, even life-and-death struggles with the powerful local nobles.
Coincidentally, Runan was also the hardest-hit area by the first wave of the Yellow Turban Army uprising. A large number of counties and cities here were killed and all the powerful nobles were killed, and the people were taken away, leaving an empty white land.
Now that Liu Pi and others are farming on this white land, not only have they not been attacked by Gongdu and other local powerful forces, but they have also reached a tacit understanding and even started trade in private.
It cannot but be said that Liu Pi and others were indeed good at farming.
Of course, a harmonious relationship is a harmonious one, and you should be on guard against it.
Gong Du and other local powerful people are still very wary of Liu Pi and others.
Therefore, after Zhou Cang surrendered to Guan Yu and welcomed Guan Yu's army into Dingying, Gong Du and the others quickly received the news.
While they were shocked, they immediately discussed it and made a decision quickly.
Surrender to Liu Bei.
Originally Gong Du and the others were a small force in Runan. In terms of strength and influence, they were actually inferior to even Liu Pi and the others.
Gong Du is considered the leader of this group of local powerful people. He is the strongest, but he can only cover more than 4,000 households and a tribe of two or three thousand people.
No one else can match half of Gong Du's strength.
Fortunately, they were leaning to the southwest and close to the Dabie Mountains.
You can abandon Wufang, Aoyang and other county towns at any time and retreat directly to the southwest into Tongbai Mountain.
It can be said that you can move forward and retreat freely, and others will not come easily.
Guan Yu's journey has progressed so smoothly. Although he stayed in Dingying, he has completely opened up the pattern on the left, effectively blocking the flank security of Liu Bei's army in the middle.
Soon, Guan Yu accepted Gong Du's surrender in Dingying. At the same time, Zhou Cang sent back news that the Runan Yellow Turbans were willing to surrender, but Liu Pi wanted to go to Xiang County and asked Liu Bei to surrender directly.
Guan Yu had no opinion on this, but he just asked to settle in Shangcai first.
Liu Pi readily agreed and asked Pei Yi and Zhou Cang to go back to greet Guan Yu's army, while he took He Man, Zhang Peng and more than a hundred cavalry to Xiang County to ask for surrender, and at the same time asked his younger brother Liu Jiang to guard Pingyu.
After Guan Yu entered Shangcai, the contact with Gongdu's headquarters was immediately opened. At noon the next day, the main force of Gongdu's headquarters rushed outside Shangcai City to accept Guan Yu's dispatch.
Guan Yu received Liu Bei's promise of power, and did not continue to press Ping Yu. Instead, he reorganized Shangcai and organized Gong Du, Zhou Cang, and Pei Yi into a school of 2,000 people each.
He also went to Liu Bei to ask for officials for the three of them. He told Gong Du to be the captain, and Zhou Cang and Pei Yi to be the commanders of other departments.
Liu Bei got the news faster, because once Liu Pi made a decision, he stopped procrastinating and rushed to Xiang County with his people.
In just three days, Liu Pi had already arrived outside Xiang County.
When Liu Bei heard that Liu Pi had come to vote, Liu Bei didn't even think about it for a while.
"Who is Liu Pi?"
Liu Bei asked around in a daze, but failed to think of the Runan Yellow Turban.
This is no wonder Liu Bei, who would have thought that such a powerful force as the Runan Yellow Turban would vote for it before the war even started.
Moreover, the Runan Yellow Turban is mainly responsible for Guan Yu. Unless the opponent takes the initiative and attacks two to three hundred miles, Liu Bei's middle route army can be threatened.
"Ming Gong, this person is the co-leader of the Yellow Turbans in Runan. He had taken refuge with Yuan Shu a few years ago, but he turned against him the year before last."
Xun You introduced at the side: "Congratulations Ming Sir! If Liu Pi comes to vote, the Runan Yellow Turban can be determined!"
At this time, Liu Feng was no longer in Xiang County, and Lu Su, Liu Ye, and Guo Jia were also leaving.
Among them, Lu Su and Liu Ye went to Xiapi Dongcheng with Liu Feng. While strengthening contact with Zhou Yu, they monitored Yuan Shu's every move in the two counties north of the Yangtze River, looking for fighters that could kill him with one blow.
Guo Jia then went to Chengfu to join Zhang Fei's army and serve as Zhang Fei's military advisor.
After Zhang Fei reunited with Zhao Yun's troops who were heading south, his 10,000-strong army immediately set off, heading south along the Lishui River and taking Longkang directly.
Although Liu Beijun's middle road is as stable as Mount Tai, in fact, both wings and pincers have already moved, and the hidden sharp blade has been pressed against Yuan Shu's waist, and the former is still completely ignorant.
Almost all of Yuan Shu's attention was focused on Liu Bei in Xiang County. Zhang Fei at least sent some troops to reinforce Long Kang along the way, hoping to prevent the enemy from encircling Shouchun.
As for Guan Yu and his party, Yuan Shu really can't take care of him anymore, let alone Liu Feng's troops who are hiding in secret.
Only Xun You and Xun Gongda stayed with Liu Bei and took up the post of military advisor of the Central Route Army, which was equivalent to the chief of staff of the group army in later generations, advising Liu Bei.
When Liu Bei heard this, even though he was quite deep in the city, he couldn't suppress the curve of the corner of his mouth.
"I see, sir, please come with me out of the city to greet Liu Pi."
Liu Bei made a prompt decision and decided to go out of the city to greet him in person.
Liu Pi and others stayed outside the city waiting to enter the city without any impatience.
Yuan Shu had much more rules than Liu Bei before. A mere envoy dared to ask Liu Pi and the others to wait for four hours on the outskirts of the city, almost from morning until night.
What does this little time mean now.
Liu Pi was thinking about how he could get some benefits for Runan Yellow Turban and himself after meeting Liu Bei.
Although he surrendered, he still came with 300,000 people and tens of thousands of fighting pawns.
Liu Bei has a reputation of being kind, and he will not treat me lightly, either emotionally or rationally, right?
Liu Pi's face was expressionless, but his heart was full of thoughts. He regretted not surrendering earlier. If he had acted immediately after receiving the Yingchuan battle report, it would have been much better than surrendering now.
After a while, I thought that after surrendering, I would have to rely on others and be driven by others.
Now that Liu Bei is about to attack Yuan Shu, will he push out the Runan Yellow Turbans as cannon fodder to fill the trenches outside Yuan Shujian's city?
On the way here, Liu Pi also talked with He Man and Zhang Peng. What made him feel relieved and helpless was that even these two people supported Liu Bei's surrender, but their attitude was not as good as that of Zhou Cang and Zhang Peng. Pei Yi is just so determined and positive.
Seeing Liu Pi willing to surrender, He Man and Zhang Peng also breathed a sigh of relief.
Zhou Cang and Pei Yi were only facing Liu Bei's army's Guan Yu branch, but they were facing the main force of Liu Bei's Chinese army. How could they not be afraid?
Liu Pi was thinking wildly at the moment, but He Man and Zhang Peng behaved quite relaxedly, and they still had time to observe Liu Beijun's soldiers.
It’s okay if you don’t observe it, but you will be shocked when you observe it.
Liu Beijun's soldiers were well trained. Although the soldiers guarding the gate did not openly guard against them, they secretly had a layered defense.
As long as these people dare to make any move to rush the door, they will immediately attract a joint attack from the city wall and the city.
At the same time, two teams of soldiers stood inside and outside the city gate to ensure that the city gate could be closed at any time.
(End of this chapter)