Due to the distance, or simply because Xiapi is about a hundred miles away from Tan City, the Langya soldiers collapsed first on the third day after Guan Yu captured Xiapi, which was the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of September.

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Even the night before, people from Xiapi City had already reported on flying horses, telling Zang Ba and others that Xiapi had succeeded. Even the next morning, someone brought the news of the surrender of Liangcheng, the important town between Xiapi and Tancheng, and the news.

He was convinced, even though someone soon brought the flag of Mi Fang, the governor of Xiapi... But in the morning, when the ecstatic Zang Ba tried to organize the entire army to bypass Tancheng and settle in Liangcheng behind Tancheng, the senior generals

It's okay for them, but no one believes the lower-level officers and soldiers below.

The reality of the low-quality Langya soldiers who came from bandits was terrible. They knew that after that breakfast, the army would not be able to provide even a meal of food. And after several days of deception and coercion, they were no longer willing to trust their coach Zang Ba.

They don't want to believe the authenticity of those flags and messengers. They just want to go home!

So, just when the whole army left the camp and prepared to go southwest, the mutiny suddenly appeared and became unstoppable!

The tens of thousands of troops completely collapsed on the edge of Tancheng and dispersed. Under the collapsed order, countless soldiers completely lost their minds and turned into an extremely standard rout... They did not hesitate to kill each other in order to fight for roads and some dry food.

Massacres, and some people who thought they were clever knew that the cause of the food shortage was that the Yishui River was blocked, so they tried to cross the river regardless of the dozens of ships cruising in the river, and drowned or were hit to death on the Yishui River.

, reduced to a floating corpse.

And when the gates of Tancheng were wide open, Xuzhou soldiers who were extremely excited swarmed out and tried to hunt down the Langya soldiers who were several times their own. These Langya soldiers were clearly well-equipped, had just had breakfast, and were still killing their own people.

They were so agile, but now they were like tens of thousands of frightened rabbits, losing their last bit of control and heading north one after another!

Surrenders began to appear on a large scale, and more and more people abandoned their armor. The floating corpses in Yishui River became thicker and thicker. Fifty thousand Langya soldiers fell thousands of miles away, and there was no cure!

On a high ground in the south of Tancheng, Zang Ba, who was covered in blood, and all the Langya generals who had worked hard to escape here with their elite henchmen, and Xu Yuanzhi, all looked at the collapse to the north in a stunned manner.

The soldiers may or may not have experience, but when faced with such a level of disintegration, they all trembled for a moment.

Because no one could have imagined that the collapse of the army would be so rapid, and that the collapse of the army would be so terrible.

Guo Jia also had some fear and fear. He had actually expected this scene, because in internal military textbooks, more than one general mentioned the example of the Goguryeo Battle of Siwon, in which tens of thousands of Goguryeo soldiers became soldiers during the retreat.

The retreat and the subsequent tragedy left a very deep impression on Guo Fengxiao.

However, if something similar happened in front of his eyes, Guo Jia would also be shocked.

"Let's go!"

After watching for a while, Guo Jia, who had returned to normal, suddenly said hello, and then he greeted the remaining troops in his headquarters and headed south.

Zang Ba and the others were silent for a moment, and then called on all the troops to follow them... After all, they have been thieves for many years, and these young and powerful tyrants generally have an elite force with the best equipment and the most reliability with them.

Not many, such as Yin Li, Xiao Jian and others, each brought out about two to three hundred soldiers; the Sun brothers were stronger, and in addition to the two brothers' 800 personal soldiers, they also brought out more than a thousand loyal subordinates;

Zang Ba had the largest number, with more than a thousand of the main force of the camp, plus two to three thousand willing subordinates, all following his banner to the south, and he also killed a Tancheng garrison Sima on the way; Guo Jia was still that

There is nothing to say about the five hundred subordinates who came from Qingzhou. As for Wu Dun, some say that he led his people northward, while others say that he died in the rebellion.

But now, it doesn’t matter anymore!

Once the 50,000-strong army collapses, only five or six thousand people will be left in total. If Guo Jia's 500 people are removed, there will be no one left in ten, but it is enough!

Because they have definitely changed hands!

Since Xiapi has changed hands, Zhou Yu is now surrounded on three sides, and may even be surrounded on four sides.

In a bad taste, Guo Jia actually wanted to see what Zhou Yu would do with so many Langya surrendered troops... What would be the use of the 30 to 40,000 surrendered troops who could not fight and would only be thrown out of control by the wind and grass? Langya's surrendered troops.

The army collapsed on the 6th. How many days will it take for Zhou Yu's Xuzhou army to collapse?

The materials in Xiapi City are piled up in mountains, and the city is surrounded by three walls. Guan Yu can firmly hold this place and wait for Zhou Yu to collapse! And there is Shen Pei, who can lead Qingzhou sailors ashore, go south to block Langya Pass, and intimidate Kaiyang.

Joining forces with Guan Yu, or simply letting the navy go directly south to the mouth of the Huaihe River... will put Zhou Yu's group gathered near Yishui into a desperate situation.

Even from a certain perspective, at this moment, even the fate of Zhou Yu Group and Tancheng seems insignificant, because since the fall of Xiapi, it means that there is a fatal loophole in the defense line of the entire Central Plains Alliance, which means that the original stalemate situation

Being completely broken means that the balance of the entire world is tilting at an extremely rapid rate! In comparison, Zhou Yu, who was blocked in Yishui, has really lost his basic strategic significance.

And what caused all this was Zhou Gongjin himself who tried his best to repay his lord!

It was this tactical genius who concentrated his efforts on Tancheng that allowed Guo Jia and Guan Yu to successfully glimpse a strategic gap that flashed by. Then they seized the fighter plane and stabbed into the heart of the Central Plains Allied Forces!

If you say one thousand things and ten thousand things, that’s Xiapi!

If Kaiyang is the key to Langya County, then Xiapi is the key to the entire Xuzhou!

In the afternoon, on the wall of Tancheng, Zhou Yu, who had been overjoyed just now, was momentarily at a loss because the troops actually found the flag seal of the Liangcheng County guard behind him in the Langya Army camp, and found the flag of Mi Fang, the prefect of Xiapi... and it was just

A moment later, Zhou Gongjin, who had completely woken up, was so happy and frightened that his vision went dark and he almost fell off the city wall.

Fortunately, the soldiers around him saw the opportunity quickly and let the feather fan fall in the wind.

On September 9th, the Double Ninth Festival, it was time to climb high and look far, but the one who stood at the highest peak on this day was by no means Feather Fan Lunjin, who defeated Zhou Gongjin with 50,000 Langya soldiers in one fell swoop.

By the way, Xiapi is a well-known important town in the Central Plains. It is the prefecture of Xuzhou, the headquarters of the Eastern Front of the Central Plains Allied Forces, and the transit point for logistics supplies on the Eastern Front. The fall of this city cannot be hidden from anyone, not to mention that Guan Yu is not sitting in Xiapi City.

Motionless... After he obtained Xiapi, he opened a warehouse to store grain, gathered local civilians, and appeased the families of Xuzhou soldiers; but he immediately divided his troops and attacked surrounding towns with the banners of Chen, Chen Qun, and others in the city as a guide!

Liangcheng, Xiaxiang and other cities all surrendered and fell on the second day, the eighth day of September.

On the evening of September 9th, the front line of Tancheng, which had just won a great victory, was already certain, and the three cities behind them, Liangcheng, Xiapi, and Xiaxiang, had undoubtedly fallen.

On September 10th, basically everyone in Xuzhou knew the fatal news.

On the morning of September 11th, Xiahou, who was far away in Changyi, also confirmed the authenticity of the news in Pegasus newspapers all over Xuzhou, and then quickly reported to Guandu.

And on this morning, Zhou Gongjin, who had been thinking about it for two days, actually gathered his energy and without hesitation gave up the plan of relying on Tancheng and holding Kaiyang waiting for help, and chose to break out immediately!

This is a very difficult decision, but it seems to be a very right decision!

If you choose to stay here, you can rely on the navy's blockade, the strength of Tancheng, and the food in Kaiyang to continue to survive. It is impossible to say that after the victory is decided in Guandu, this place may not really collapse. But this is meaningless, just sit and wait for death.

That's all.

Because as soon as winter arrives, the dry season will come, and the naval blockade will collapse immediately; and the strength of Tancheng, the food in Kaiyang, and the huge number of troops are meaningless in the face of the fluctuation of people's hearts... This point, the Double Ninth Festival

The Langya soldiers that day had fully demonstrated it to everyone.

In fact, after I heard that Guan Yu did not commit any crimes in Xia Piqiu, but treated all soldiers, generals, and their families well, and even distributed grain to the people, Tancheng was already a little unstable.

The more important point is that Zhou Gongjin, who has a huge guilt mentality, has no reason to lead so many troops to death. He really wants to do his best to save some strength for Liu Bei and try his best to save a little bit of the situation!

The navy gathered near Tancheng and then chose to abandon the ships and go ashore. The hundreds of warships that Xuzhou had spent six or seven years accumulating were burned to the ground. Together with the original infantry and civilians, they could barely scrape together 30,000 warships.

The troops abandoned all their surrendered troops, immediately crossed the Yishui River, and headed east!

One more thing to say here is that before leaving, Zhou Yu even thought about killing all the tens of thousands of Langya soldiers. The reason why he failed was not because he was soft-hearted, but because he was afraid of wasting time.

The goal is already obvious. Zhou Yu has completely given up on personal life and death at this time. He just wants to fight and fight, hoping to cross Wuyuan and reach the last place between the Central Plains and Xuzhou before Guan Yu and Guo Jia.

Strategic barrier, where Pengcheng County of Pengcheng State is located. As long as we seize this city and control the upper reaches of Surabaya River, although we do not expect to be able to reverse the situation of the war, at least we can let the Central Plains Allied Forces take a breath and see if they can make defense adjustments to prevent

After stabilizing the situation in Xuzhou, Guan Yu directly penetrated into the heart of the Central Plains.

Of course, this move tacitly gave up the entire Xuzhou.

"Commander, Wuyuan is ten miles ahead!"

After marching sixty miles in one day and night, and even crossing the Yishui River, Zhou Yu and his troops finally arrived in Wuyuan County early in the morning of the next day. His trusted naval general Zhong Lixu immediately asked for instructions.

"The whole army will rest for a while, use water and dry food, and then prepare the flags and the remaining golden drums in the army. Later, they will make a noise and move forward!" Zhou Yu, who had already abandoned the feather fan towel and replaced it with an iron armor and steel helmet, thought for a moment and then rode on his horse.

He gave the best answer. He needed to prevent the defenders in the city from being surrendered by Guan Yu. "Guan Yunchang had just captured Xiapi and his troops were limited. Even if the city was surrendered, the original officials should still be there. With a shock, we might be able to directly shake them."

generation."

Zhong Lizu did not dare to neglect and immediately took the order and left.

After Zhou Yu issued the military order, he did not have time to use dry food, so he hurriedly summoned another general, saying that they were going to have a meal together, and then dismounted and went to a secluded place with the general, and no one around him was confused.

It turns out that this general, named Zhou Li, is a distant brother of Zhou Yu's clan. He is now the Army Sima in charge of military law in the army. He was originally the person responsible for investigating the situation in the army.

As soon as the brothers came to a small slope and sat down side by side, Zhou Gongjin couldn't help but asked in a low voice and seriously: "Second brother, we marched one day and night, how many scattered people are there in the army?"

Zhou Li appointed this army commander as a relative, and he was originally doing this job. Naturally, he made many observations along the way, but he still looked serious and shook his head in reply: "Yesterday during the day, two to three thousand local Tancheng soldiers and horses deliberately fell behind Yishui River.

, did not cross the river, you did not let me pay attention to it at that time, and by the evening, there were so many soldiers fleeing, countless, and even officers and army commanders took the lead in fleeing, I have no way of knowing... I can only make a rough guess, even yesterday

During the day, we went together, about four to five thousand people... among them, although most of the navy troops were from Guangling, they were still the safest."

After running away one-sixth of the troops in one day and night, Zhou Yu was not angry, and even nodded slowly, then took a long breath and relaxed for a moment... Obviously, this result seemed to Zhou Yu to be extremely normal, even better than him

Think even better.

There is no way, Xuzhou has only ruled Huainan for a year or two. It is normal that the local soldiers lack centripetal force towards Huainan. That is to say, Xuzhou navy has followed him very early, and they can rely on Zhou Gongjin's personal charm to maintain it as much as possible.

Now that he knew that the situation did not exceed expectations, Zhou Yu no longer thought about it. He just took out the most common dry food in the army today, which is a portion of dry fried noodles, regardless of the image. In a moment of embarrassment, he crushed it into pieces and swallowed it hastily with a water bag.

down to replenish physical strength.

In other words, due to the rush of the trip, there was no time to boil water as stated in the military regulations. Even Zhou Gongjin's water bag was hastily filled from Yishui River. While the two brothers were eating and drinking together, suddenly Zhou Yu

The water bag made of cowhide was not flowing smoothly, as if something was blocking the mouth of the bag... Zhou Yu had no intention of eating, so he simply stopped, put away the grain bag and water bag, and prepared to enter the city.

In this way, Zhou Yu, who had not eaten well at all, mustered up his energy, led more than 20,000 soldiers, fully clothed, and mounted a fine mount that is increasingly rare in the Central Plains area. It was majestic, with continuous banners, and trusted naval forces.

In front, with the infantry behind, they went straight to Wuyuan City.

And sure enough, as Zhou Yu expected, Wuyuan City saw such a majestic military posture from afar, and immediately panicked... There is no doubt that since Guan Yu has obtained Xiapi, he will definitely take the surrounding key towns in order, either to surrender or to capture them.

Although Wuyuan's position is not as important as Liangcheng and Xiaxiang (the former is the inevitable place to connect with Guo Jia, and the latter can lock Zhou Yu's southward retreat), it is a large city nearby next to Xiapi, and it was also Guan Yu's day.
To be continued...