The Warriors of the Three Kingdoms

Otherwise, after coming to Shangyong city rashly, it will inevitably arouse the vigilance of other forces.

Only by finding a reason to come here, for example, Liu Zheng came to Shangyong City under the pretext of condolences to the three armies, so that others' fears can be dispelled.

Although it is impossible, Zhang Lu, Liu Bei and others are completely relieved.But at least after gaining a name, Liu Bei and others knew that Liu Zheng didn't come to Shangyong specifically to target them.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. The last general will lead the three armies. Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward!"

After Huang Zhong heard Liu Zheng's words, a smile appeared on his face.

Hastily cupped his fists to thank Liu Zheng.

Only then did Liu Zheng get off the carriage.

Under Huang Zhong's guidance, he gradually walked into Shangyong City.

Came to the temporary palace already prepared in the city.

Along the way, Liu Zheng was chatting with Huang Zhong about some things in Hanzhong, and at the same time chatting about how Huang Zhong and the others lived here during this time.

After briefly understanding that Huang Zhong and others had a good time stationed in Shangyong City, Liu Zheng asked about Hanzhong, Zhang Lu and Liu Bei.

"Han Sheng, have you heard anything about Zhang Lu and Liu Bei from Hanzhong?"

"Your Majesty, if you don't ask me, I plan to report the situation here to you."

"Oh, Han Sheng, it looks like something happened here in Hanzhong?"

Seeing Huang Zhong's appearance, Liu Zheng's face was a little dignified, and he knew that there must be something new in Hanzhong, and he was very curious.

At this time, Huang Zhong also knew that Liu Zheng was more concerned about this matter, so he naturally did not hesitate.

"Your Majesty. Not long ago, our spies sent back news from Hanzhong. It said that Zhang Lu had sent someone to Chengdu to pass the news of Liu Bei's army suppressing the border to Liu Yan in Yizhou."

"Liu Yan has sent his son Liu Zhang to lead an army to support Zhang Lu. Now in Hanzhong, apart from Zhang Lu's own soldiers and horses, there are also soldiers and horses brought by Liu Zhang."

What happened in Hanzhong naturally couldn't escape Huang Zhong's spies.

Although Huang Zhong was not able to know the details of these events, Liu Zhang led an army of tens of thousands to Hanzhong.

Originally, if it was just Zhang Lu's tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, there would be no danger to Huang Zhong at all.

If Huang Zhong really wants to attack Hanzhong, he only needs to unite with Gan Ning's troops.

But now with Liu Zhang's army, the situation is different.

Huang Zhong was not sure that he could take Hanzhong under the garrison of Liu Zhang, Zhang Lu and others.

After Liu Zheng heard Huang Zhong's words, his face darkened and he frowned, he was more concerned about the affairs of Hanzhong.

"I knew Hanzhong was not that easy to take down. Zhang Lu will definitely not sit still, and the only one he can find now is Liu Yan."

"And Liu Yan and Zhang Lu have a close relationship. If Zhang Lu really doesn't care, then Liu Yan will be troubled by Liu Bei and us."

After listening to Huang Zhong's words, Liu Zheng began to think for himself.

After a moment.

He raised his head again and asked Huang Zhong a question.

"General Han Sheng. Zhang Lu already has reinforcements here, so it's hard to deal with. What about Liu Bei?"

"Liu Bei's side is alright. A month ago, they had secretly started gathering soldiers and horses, and now they have set up camp in Chenggu County, not far from Nanzheng City. There are [-] troops stationed here. Liu Bei's second brother Guan Yu personally guards the army. Ma Chao is the deputy."

"Ma Chao?"

Huang Zhong suddenly mentioned Ma Chao's name.

Liu Zheng's expression changed again.

"I don't know when Ma Chao joined Liu Bei."

In fact, Liu Zheng knew about this before, but what he knew was that Ma Teng had already joined Liu Bei.It is not clear that Ma Chao also took refuge in Liu Bei.

After all, the current Ma Chao is still not well-known and will not attract the attention of others.

Naturally, no one told Liu Zheng about Ma Chao.

It's just that after hearing the news about Ma Chao, Liu Zheng couldn't help but start to think about the famous generals under Liu Bei's command.

In addition to Liu Bei's two sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, Liu Bei now has Zhao Yun and Ma Chao under his command.

There are also Xu Chu and Pound who took refuge in Liu Bei in the mid-term.

Not long ago, Zhang Xiu, who belonged to the imperial court, was recruited.

Speaking of which, today's Liu Bei also has a lot of talents under his command. These generals alone are enough to compete with Liu Zheng's famous generals.

However, Liu Zheng is not what it used to be.

Chapter 952 Sand Table

Liu Zheng's subordinates have always been famous generals like Yun.

Except for Huang Zhong, Xu Huang, Tai Shici and others who joined Liu Zheng in the early days.

In the past two years, Liu Zheng has also attracted the support of Shamoke, Zhang Liao, Zhang Yun and others.

Sha Moke was the barbarian leader Liu Zheng subdued when he went to those Nanman tribes to mediate disputes between the Nanman tribes.

All the tribes of the Wuxi Man belong to Liu Zheng now, and they can be regarded as a piece of territory under Liu Zheng's command. However, the geographical location of the Nanman tribes is not very good, and the mountains are stacked. It is not easy for Liu Zheng to send a message to Sha Moke. In addition to the previous civil strife in Wuxi, what the new barbarian king Sha Moke needs most is to recuperate, not to lead troops and horses to fight abroad.

In the future, Liu Zheng will have the opportunity to recruit these barbarians. For now, let them rest for a few more years before talking about it.

Zhang Liao was the general who surrendered during the battle between Liu Zheng and Ding Yuan, but Zhang Liao has not been reused by Liu Zheng since he surrendered to Liu Zheng.

For one thing, Zhang Liao was a demoted general after all. If Zhang Liao was promoted directly, he would definitely not get the consent of many veterans under Liu Zheng.

After all, meritocracy is no problem, but those veterans who have followed Liu Zheng for so many years have worked hard even if they have no credit, and their status is unshakable.

Even if Zhang Liao, Le Jin, Li Dian and other surrendered generals were to be entrusted with important responsibilities, they would have to be inferior to several generals in the army.

After all, no matter in terms of age or seniority, Zhang Liao is not enough to rank under Liu Zheng.

Zhang Liao's seniority was not even comparable to that of Le Jin and Li Dian.

The current Zhang Liao is just a lieutenant general under Huang Zhong, commanding thousands of soldiers and horses.

The military rank is nothing more than a lieutenant colonel.

It is far from the major generals of Huang Zhong and others.

However, Zhang Liao made a lot of contributions in the capture of Shangyong City this time, and he can be promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel when he is rewarded next time.

Besides Zhang Liao, Liu Zheng has another heavyweight under his command.

That was General Zhang He, who originally belonged to Yuan Shao's subordinates.

Zhang He originally followed Yuan Shao, but after Yuan Shao's death Zhang He took refuge in Yuan Shao's eldest son Yuan Tan.

However, Yuan Tan is also a weak lord. After being defeated by Liu Bei, Zhang Yun did not join Liu Bei but fled all the way. He planned to return to the command of the other sons under Yuan Shao, but he just happened to catch up with Xu Huang and his party, so he had no choice but to take refuge. Xu Huang.

After surrendering to Xu Huang, Xu Huang told Liu Zheng the news.

Liu Zheng was still aware of Zhang Yun's ability, so he immediately recruited Zhang Yun under his command, and temporarily asked Zhang Yun to act as Xu Huang's assistant. On the one hand, he trained the cavalry, and on the other hand, he also cultivated some qualifications for Zhang Yun.

Liu Zheng couldn't give them too high a position or too low a position for these newly recruited enemy generals.

Therefore, in order to neutralize the opinions of both parties, Liu Zheng usually gave them low ranks, such as the rank of the most senior colonel, which was one or two ranks lower than Liu Zheng's generals.

But at the same time, they are equipped with slightly more soldiers and horses than some young generals trained locally.

Only in this way can they show their importance in Liu Zheng's heart and give them some psychological balance.

It's just that although Liu Zheng has many famous generals, but now the territory is vast, more people are needed to be stationed, and there are not many who can be dispatched by Liu Zheng to this Shangyong City.

It is nothing more than Le Jin, Li Dian, Zhang Liao and other generals who belong to Huang Zhong's subordinates.

Then there are the two major generals Huang Zhong and Gan Ning.

Although there are not many generals that Liu Zheng can send here, but in the same way, Liu Bei will certainly not be able to send all his main forces here.

Otherwise, if he calls other people over, he will have to worry about Liu Zheng's people.

If Liu Zheng directly attacks Liu Bei, it will be difficult for Liu Bei to react.

"Is Liu Bei ready to attack Zhang Lu?"

Liu Zheng learned about the situation here in Hanzhong from Huang Zhong, and asked Huang Zhong again.

Huang Zhong also nodded.

"Yes, Your Majesty, a few days ago Liu Bei dispatched his young general Ma Chao to lead five thousand troops to capture the partial county in Hanzhong. Now in the entire Hanzhong County, Zhang Lu himself occupies not much territory. They were all occupied by Liu Bei and our troops."

As Huang Zhong spoke, he walked to the sand table in his military tent.

In fact, there was already such a thing as a sand table during the Three Kingdoms period.

According to the biography of Ma Yuan in the Later Han Dynasty, in the year of AD, Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, wanted to conquer Pohuo in Longxi.However, he didn't know much about the terrain and landforms of the northwest region and the deployment of Poxiao's troops, so Emperor Guangwu asked Ma Yuan to find out.

Ma Yuan was originally Kai Xiao's subordinate, but was successfully instigated by Liu Xiu and taken over for his own use.Ma Yuan was very familiar with the geography of Longxi area, but such a large northwest area could not be explained clearly in a few sentences. After talking for a long time, Emperor Guangwu didn't understand it.

Ma Yuan was very anxious, and after returning home, he summoned his staff to discuss how to make Emperor Guangwu understand, but no one thought of a good way for a while.The next day, Ma Yuan got up early to practice his sword, and happened to see a group of children piled up sand. The sandbags were dotted with wooden sticks, like military camps.

Immediately, Ma Yuan felt his eyes light up, so he went home immediately, asked his attendants to clean out the east wing room, asked someone to find a wooden board, brought a few bags of sand and poured it on the wooden board, and then asked his attendants to start to pile up the sand with bamboo The plaque was engraved and inserted in the sand, marking Kai Xiao's military deployment.

After three days, a model similar to the real terrain was made.Ma Yuan invited Emperor Guangwu to his home and answered questions for Emperor Guangwu in front of the model.Emperor Guangwu understood this time, and said happily to Kai Xiao: "The enemy is all in my eyes! This thing is good, what is it called?"

Emperor Guangwu thought for a while, and then said to Ma Yuan, "This is a big wooden plate filled with sand, so let's call it a sand plate." Ma Yuan immediately applauded.

Ma Yuan, who made the sand table, is the ancestor of Ma Chao, and Ma Chao is the successor of General Fubo Ma Yuan.

After hundreds of years of development, things like sand tables did not improve much in the Three Kingdoms period, but Liu Zheng once drew a map of the whole of China in order to let his generals understand the terrain of the battlefield better. map.

Including the sea area, although it is not precise, it has a general appearance.

Later, he asked his subordinates to improve the model of the sand table. Now in Liu Zheng's military tent, the sand table can clearly show the terrain, mountains, rivers, canyons and other terrains.

It can even accurately represent towns and cities around the world.

Chapter 953 The young player Ma Chao

Huang Zhong pointed to the sand table beside him, and gestured at a place on the sand table that indicated a town.

This place is the Pianxian County that Huang Zhong Gangkai mentioned.

It is not far from Nanzheng City in Hanzhong County.

Liu Bei took down here, which already shows that Liu Bei has already approached Zhang Lu's Nanzheng City with his army. With the arrival of Liu Bei's army, Liu Bei is already here, gathering enough soldiers and horses, and can attack Nanzheng at any time.

If Liu Bei has the heart, it will only take a few days to take down Nanzheng as quickly as possible. Even Liu Zheng, who is far away in Shangyong, may not even react, and Liu Bei has already taken down Nanzheng.

After all, the distance between Shangyong and Nanzheng is nearly [-] miles, and even if you go fast, it will take three days to pass the news to Liu Zheng's Shangyong City.

And Liu Zheng still needs time to react. It will take at least seven days for Liu Zheng to kill his soldiers and horses to Nanzheng.

If Liu Bei's hands and feet are fast enough to beat Nanzheng down in seven days, then Liu Zheng will really be too late.

It's just that Nanzheng City is where the county government is located, and there are a lot of soldiers and horses here, Zhang Lu's men alone number tens of thousands, and now there are these soldiers and horses brought by Liu Zhang.

Nanzheng City now has more than [-] soldiers and horses stationed. With such a force, even if Liu Zheng and Liu Bei attack together, it may not be possible to defeat Nanzheng in such a short period of time.

"Han Sheng, Liu Bei sent Ma Chao to attack Pian County, which means that Liu Bei has already planned to attack, and we can't be idle. You immediately let Le Jin and Li Dian lead [-] soldiers and horses to the border first to prevent Liu Bei and Zhang Lu. Engaging, we don't know."

"Yes, Your Majesty, the last general will do it."

After Huang Zhong received Liu Zheng's order, he planned to go directly to deliver the order. Liu Zheng saw that Huang Zhong was going to go down, but remembered something, and immediately said something again.

"Wait a minute, let Gan Ning go too. Le Jin and the others only have a few thousand soldiers. Even if they go, it may not be of any use. It's better to let Gan Ning's troops follow. Anyway, our people , It is useless to stay in Shangyong, our goal is to deal with Zhang Lu and Liu Bei."

After Liu Zheng thought about it, he still decided to let Gan Ning's troops and horses follow. After all, according to Liu Zheng's guess, Liu Bei should choose to do it in the near future, otherwise he will continue to procrastinate. Things are going to be busy.

In a short period of time, after defeating Zhang Lu and taking down Nanzheng, Liu Bei was able to go back and prepare for spring plowing.

"The last general takes orders, so I'll go back and tell them."

After Huang Zhong received Liu Zheng's order, he quickly went down to order the soldiers stationed here in Shangyong City to act.

Speaking of which, the soldiers here in Shangyong City have not had a war for some days. They have been stationed here, and they have basically never fought with Zhang Lu in Hanzhong for a few months.

For the soldiers who have been on the border all year round, the period of leisure time is really boring.

Now that war is finally starting again, they are more excited than anyone else.

After all, only when there is a battle can they gain military merit and be promoted.