Although Cao Cao concealed the news of Ma Teng's arrival, there was a lot of noise in mobilizing the army and horses. The news of his southern expedition was long no secret.

During this southern expedition, Cao Cao learned from the lessons of the defeat of Chibi and did not gather 300,000 troops to Hefei, but asked Li Dian and Le Jin to command 20,000 troops and horses to join Zhang Liao first.

Li Dian and Le Jin's mission was not to capture Lujiang County, but to follow Zhou Yu's plan to capture Jiangling County, first sweep the outer counties and passes of Lujiang County, and then gather troops to attack an isolated Lujiang City.

The last time he returned from Chibi, Cao Cao made profound reflections after returning to Xuchang.

Since his rebellion, he has always defeated the weak with the weak.

After pacifying the entire north, Cao Cao took over hundreds of thousands of Yuan Shao's army, but Cao Cao did not accept it in full. After the selection, less than half of it was left.

Despite this, after several years of conquest in the north, Cao Cao's army has greatly improved its number and combat effectiveness, and it can be said that its military strength is at its peak.

As his strength increased, Cao Cao's ambition expanded, and he then launched a large army, hoping to use his absolute strength to force Liu Bei and Sun Quan to surrender, and to defeat others without fighting and unify the world.

If Liu Bei and Sun Quan overestimate themselves, he is ready to crush them with absolute strength.

However, because Cao Cao himself and his subordinates' mentality changed, he relied too much on his strong military strength and neglected to plan and prevent, which led to Zhou Yu's teachings.

This time, when Cao Cao suffered a crushing defeat in Chibi, he not only suffered heavy losses in military strength, but also consumed food, grass and military funds. He was not less expensive than his pacifying the entire north, making it unbearable and he was unable to raise an army to take revenge!

Learning from the pain, Cao Cao felt that he should take the elite military route and decided not to rely on his military strength to conquer Jiangdong.

Although it was 300,000 troops this time, Cao Cao only prepared an army of 80,000. Li Dian and Le Jin led 20,000 troops to advance. After the Lujiang defender was unable to bear it, Sun Quan naturally led troops to reinforce.

At that time, Cao Cao will lead the army to fight again.

Li Dian and Lejin lived up to Cao Cao's expectations and ran rampant in Lujiang County. All the governments and money and grain in each county were taken away by Cao's army.

The guards of Lujiang was Jiangdong veteran Cheng Pu. He couldn't sit still anymore, and only he could suppress such arrogant soldiers and generals in Jiangdong.

Since the news of Cao Cao's southern expedition came, Sun Quan has increased the guardian power of Lujiang, and his troops have increased from the original 5,000 to 10,000. He also sent all the generals who could fight such as Lu Meng, Jiang Qin, Zhou Tai, Ling Tong, etc., so he naturally prepared to fight with Cao Cao in the end.

It’s not because Sun Quan’s lack of troops. If he wants to defend the small Lujiang City for a long time, he can only station so many troops.

But when Lujiang City faces water, it is easy to defend but difficult to attack. If Cao Cao wants to attack and win the city, the damage will definitely be significant.

Therefore, Cao Cao's idea was to siege for a long time and force the Jiangdong army to retreat. If Sun Quan wanted to rescue the siege, he had to assemble another army and fight Cao Cao outside the city, and the loser could only retreat.

Although Cheng Pu was at a disadvantage in the number of troops, Li Dian and Le advanced to the point of division, giving him the opportunity to defeat each of them.

In order to maintain morale, Cheng Pu naturally could not tolerate Cao's army rampant and had sent troops to attack several times. However, because of the huge mobility of Cao's cavalry, Cheng Pu fell into the plan of Li Dian and Le Jin, and lost many military and horses, and had sent a letter of help to Sun Quan.

Sun Quan received a letter of help from Cheng Pu, and also received a reply from Zhuge Liang to Lu Su.

In the letter, Zhuge Liang swore that Jiangdong did not need to use troops, but just guard the city. Jingzhou did not send troops to attack Xiangyang because it had not completed its military training. However, there would be major changes in the northwest in one month. If Cao Cao did not attack the city, he would have to retreat voluntarily.

After receiving a reply from Zhuge Liang, Lu Su naturally guessed that Zhuge Liang wanted to persuade Ma Teng to raise an army to attack Chang'an, and he was full of confidence in Zhuge Liang.

When he was about to persuade Sun Quan to persevere, he received uncertain news. Ma Teng, Xiliang, seemed to lead his troops to Xuchang. In this way, Kong Ming's plan was likely to be unsuccessful.

In Lu Su's view, Zhuge Liang had an unpredictable opportunity, and miracles were possible. He could not make a correct judgment, so he directly reported Zhuge Liang's letter to Sun Quan and let him make a judgment for himself.

After receiving the letter from Cheng Pu and Zhuge Liang, Sun Quan summoned his civil servants and military generals to discuss matters. Although he was skeptical about Zhuge Liang's judgment, his civil servants did not want to fight with Cao Cao and agreed not to take any major attacks for the time being.

Some generals from Jiangdong believed that they should not stick to it. If they lose their spirits, they will lose their mistakes after being able to defend for a long time.

Sun Quan had no choice. It would not take a day or a night to remember the decisive battle between the army. Even if it was preparing food and grass, it would take ten days or half a month.

Sun Quan finally decided to wait a moment before talking. However, he also responded to Cheng Pu's request for help and sent Gan Ning to lead two thousand troops to assist in defending the city.

Cheng Pu sent a letter of help because he lost two consecutive minor defeats and wanted to hold on. However, his subordinates, Lu Meng, Zhou Tai and other generals were a little dissatisfied and asked Cheng Pu to fight to fight against Li Dian and Le Jin.

Cheng Pu couldn't refuse it all the time, so he had to ask Sun Quan for help on the name of insufficient troops.

Gan Ning brought two thousand troops and horses, and also brought Sun Quan's order to hold on to the aid of aid, which blocked Lu Meng and others' requests for battle.

Because Lujiang County has many mountains and rivers, dense water nets, rugged roads, and inconvenient march, Li Dian and Lejin were fishing for the big fish Chengpu, and did not do their best to clean the periphery. A month passed in a blink of an eye. Because Chengpu did not take the bait, the two sides entered a stalemate.

...

...

Ma Su joined Ma Shuchang's caravan with more than 100 guards and soon became acquainted with the members of the caravan.

Because there were already a lack of war horses in the army, Ma Su could not equip the guards with all the horses, so he simply walked all the horses and left more than ten horses to Ma Liang's guards.

Although there are no horses to travel, the speed of travel does not have much impact, because the caravans mainly walk on mountain roads, and horses are used to transport goods, so they can only walk slowly.

The force of the Ma Su guards has become much stronger now, because Shamoke wants to gain reputation. Although Liu Bei adopted the policy of mercy, the Xiongxi tribe did not get a quota for generals. Several warriors who were as famous as Gong Li in the tribe were moved and wanted to follow Ma Su and gain fame on the battlefield.

Ma Su naturally refused everyone and hired two warriors, He Yun and Fang Shan. With Xing Daorong, he had three brave generals. With such force, even if he was surrounded by a large army, it would not be difficult to break out.

The route Ma Shuchang chose was to pass through Xiangyang, from Shangyong, Hanzhong, Wudu, and finally to Tianshui City.

Tianshui City is Ma Su's destination this time, because Ma Teng's army is here to guard, and Ma Su can go and deliver letters.
Chapter completed!