The four counties in Jingnan are famous fish and rice towns, but because they are located in a hilly area, the terrain is dangerous and the transportation is inconvenient, it is quite difficult to conquer.

Liu Bei said that he had pacified these counties, but in fact he just captured the county town.

Most of the other counties and towns did not send officials to manage them, and they all rely on the local aristocratic families to select representatives and manage them on their behalf.

Liu Bei did not think about completely controlling these places. He mainly wanted to collect military rations and taxes to support the army.

Jingnan and Jiangdong are directly bordered by Changsha and Guiyang counties. The closest to Jiangling is Lingling County, and the farthest is Guiyang County. Therefore, when Liu Bei pacified Jingnan, the first choice was Lingling.

Although the distance between Wuling County is similar, it is rugged mountain roads, which are difficult to reach.

After receiving Sun Quan's order, Lu Meng caught Guan Yu off guard and did not attack the neighboring Changsha first, but led the army from Chaisang to Guiyang.

After Lu Meng lured the magistrate of Guiyang County, Guan Yu was still in the dark.

Taking Changsha from Guiyang, Lu Meng used deception methods to gain control of Changsha City without any blood.

Lu Meng easily issued an edict to these two counties, mainly because the two sides were allies, and these counties were almost unprepared. Each county had less than 2,000 troops, so it was naturally difficult to resist the raid of Lu Meng's 20,000 troops.

After Liu Bei acquired Xichuan, his trustworthy officials were seriously insufficient, and he transferred a large number of experienced officials from Jingzhou. The county magistrate of Jingnan returned to the old path of Liu Biao and handed it over to the local aristocratic families.

These aristocratic families will not be loyal to anyone. What they care about is their own interests and their family.

At the beginning, Sun Quan sent officials to receive the three counties. Guan Yu only sent someone to notify him and did not send troops to deter him. However, all the officials sent by Sun Quan were expelled from the country by these county magistrates.

Because Sun Quan did not arrange their positions, if the county magistrate violated Guan Yu's order and handed over the city to Sun Quan, it would be like losing his power. Naturally, they would not surrender and handle it according to Guan Yu's order.

Now Lu Meng leads his troops to attack, and Lu Meng promises to retain their current official positions. In order to save their lives and family interests, they chose to open the door and accept the general without hesitation.

Therefore, Lu Meng pacified the two counties without any resistance, but after arriving in Lingling, he was subjected to fierce resistance from Hao Pu.

In fact, Hao Pu's troops in Lingling City are less than 2,000, and it is definitely not possible to resist Lu Meng's 20,000 troops for a long time.

But Lu Meng had sent troops for more than half a month, and Hao Pu had already received news of his attack on Jingnan. He promptly reduced his troops and defended the city. If Lu Meng wanted to attack the city, it was obviously not possible to break the city in one or two days.

The trip to Lingling is less than three days away from Jiangling City, and Hao Pu sent a messenger three days ago to ask for help.

He believed that Guan Yu's reinforcements would arrive soon, so even though they had less than two thousand troops, Hao Pu still confronted Lu Meng without fear.

Hao Pu is not a brave man, so he naturally would not go out of the city to fight against Lu Meng, but would close the city gates and wait for help.

Guan Yu had also received a letter of help from Hao Pu, and had already set up a large army to rescue him. He had arrived not far from Yiyang County, but was blocked by Lu Su.

Deng Xuanzhi was Hao Pu's best friend. After hearing Lu Meng's words, he believed it and was very worried about his friend's safety, so he took the initiative to go to the city to see Hao Pu.

He did not act as a lobbyist, but just told Lu Meng's words to Hao Pu truthfully.

Hao Pu is also a local gentry. Although the Hao family is not particularly prosperous, the family has a lot of wealth, and it has hundreds of private soldiers, and it has a considerable power.

He was also afraid that Guan Yu's reinforcements would not come. After Lu Meng broke through the city, he would definitely settle the score with him. He would probably die and die, so he believed Deng Xuanzhi's words as true, because he couldn't afford to bet, so he had to open the door and surrender.

After Lu Mengzhi defeated Hao Pu, he left Sun Jiao to deal with the aftermath of Lingling City. He led a large army to Yiyang today.

...

...

Ma Su received the order from Liu Bei and led 500 elite troops to Jiangling.

Guan Yu had already led his troops to Jiangling. In addition to leaving enough troops to guard Xiangyang, he was gathering troops to prepare for a decisive battle with Sun Quan.

Maybe it was because of the busy military affairs, maybe Ma Su was not worth enough, and Guan Yu did not come to pick up Ma Su in person, but sent his fourth brother Ma Liang.

Although Ma Su didn't deal with Guan Yu much, he had known his arrogant personality and didn't care too much. After Ma Liang arranged the camp, the two of them were very happy to talk together.

Originally, with Ma Liang's talent, Liu Bei also wanted to transfer him to Chengdu, but because Guan Yu was very dependent on Ma Liang and Ma Liang's family was all in Jingzhou, Ma Su went out for several years, so Liu Bei kept Ma Liang.

The two brothers met again after a long separation and had endless words.

Speaking of family affairs, there were three brothers at home to take care of them. The family was still smooth. However, their parents' health in recent years has not been very good, which made Ma Su miss him very much and was about to go home to visit relatives after the work was done.

The two brothers talked together at night, and Ma Su could no longer help but ask Ma Liang for advice, why Liu Bei did not take Sun Shangxiang back and occupied Jiangling with justification.

Ma Liang knew that this little brother was obsessed with military affairs, had novel ideas, did not care much about Confucian etiquette, and did not take his reputation to heart. It was reasonable to not understand this matter, so he simply said:

"There is no other reason, it is the two things that reputation and solar terms, which is what the lord cares about the most."

Seeing Ma Su's expression still confused, Ma Liang explained in detail:

"Sun Quan married his lord at that time. Although Zhou Yu's beauty plan, Sun Quan's intention was even more sinister! He was planning to use beauty to confuse and put the lord in house arrest. You know this too! But Sun Quan's idea is far more than that. He knew that it is definitely impossible to put the lord in house arrest for a long time, but he wanted to confirm his lord's identity as the son-in-law! For this reason, Sun Quan did not hesitate to use Jiangling as Sun Shangxiang's dowry. Jiangling City is also known as Jingzhou City. At that time, Xiangyang was still in Cao Ren's hands, and the lord, the governor of Jingzhou, could only be in Jiangling. This is equivalent to the lord living on the territory of his wife Sun Shangxiang. No matter what position Liu Bei was, he could not get out of the door.

The suspect of son-in-law. The identity of a son-in-law in the house is quite embarrassing. It is much worse than the current soft-eating experience. It is mainly because he has no status at home! The lord will naturally not admit this fact! Therefore, after he came back from Jiangdong, he did not use the existing Jiangling City as a capital. Instead, he built a large-scale construction in Chanling County and built a new city, named it the Public Security Bureau. He was in charge of the Public Security Bureau himself and never entered Jiangling, which made Sun Quan's plan fail. When Sun Quan saw that he could not position Liu Bei as his son-in-law in the house, he turned to take back Jiangling, because Jiangling City was known as Jingzhou City, and he was preparing to change his concepts and seek the entire Jingzhou!"
Chapter completed!