In the Jiangzhou mansion, Liu Bei suddenly said to Zhuge Liang: "Military advisor, I want to avenge my second brother and take back Jingzhou. As long as Lu Bu agrees to let my third brother go, we can give Dongchuan to him now." This is what Liu Bei thought for many days.

Zhuge Liang smiled wryly and shook his head and said, "Lord, do you think we can still take Jingzhou back from Sun Quan with our current strength? Now we have no soldiers, no generals, and even no boats. How can we cross the Qianlixia River to attack Jingzhou? If one year ago, even not long ago, before Chang Yun lost Jingzhou, I would definitely agree with you. But now... it is really not possible now, we have no way out."

Of course, Liu Bei did not have this plan just for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, but now he truly felt the importance of Jingzhou. He urgently needed to regain Jingzhou, even if the remaining half of Bashu could be exchanged.

Now, after hearing Zhuge Liang's words, he fell down like a deflated ball. Now, Zhao Yun is the only general under his command who can fight. He gathered all the troops in Dongchuan, and only more than 50,000 people. When he left the Xiajiang River and went to Yiling, he would definitely be slaughtered by Sun Quan.

Liu Bei stopped talking, walked out of the inner hall of the government office, came to the yard, looked at the sky, and let out a long sigh of relief.

In the late summer and early autumn of the 12th year of Jian'an, Cao ** forced Emperor Xian of Han to abdicate the throne and establish the country as Wei. Sun Quan also called him the emperor and established the country as Wu. Even Liu Bei, who had only the big slap in Dongchuan, inherited the emperor as a general emperor in Jiangzhou in the name of the Han family. In the world, only Lu Bu, the four major princes, had not yet been called emperor.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, Lu Bu bid farewell to Cao Min, Diao Chan and his own children. He wanted to return to Chengdu and direct the autumn offensive against Liu Bei.

...

In the late autumn of the 12th year of Jian'an, Lu Bu led his troops eastward and personally led an army of 30,000 from the Shuzhong Plain to Jiangzhou. Gao Shun and Zhang Ren transferred from Liangzhou led 20,000 troops along the Minjiang River and the Shu River waterway towards Jiangzhou. Cheng Lian and Zhang Ren led 20,000 troops along the Jialing River. At the same time, Lu Bu ordered Shangyong's defenders to dispatch a two thousand troops to recover Badong.

On the Shuzhong Plain, on both sides of the Shu River and on both sides of the Jialing River, the three armies of Lu Bu did not encounter decent resistance. The counties passed by were slightly destructive, and there were not many defenders in the city. It turned out that Zhuge Liang had already shrunk all his troops to the sides of the Xiajiang River, centered on Jiangzhou. There were mountains blocking them on both sides of the east and west, which was not suitable for Lu Bu's cavalry to play a role.

Lu Bu met with Cheng Lian in Heyang, but the Jialing River waterway here was blocked by Zhuge Liang by means of iron chains crossing the river. The Shu army built a pair of camps every twenty miles along the Jialing River, and there were thick iron chains between each pair of camps. There were three pairs of such camps. These iron chains made it impossible for ships transporting the baggage to pass, so Lu Bu had to order the temporary garrison of troops in Heyang.

Gao Shun and Qu Yi were also blocked by Zhuge Liang in Jiangjin in the southwest of Jiangzhou by the same method. Gao Shun had to temporarily station troops here and find an opportunity to break through the Shu army camps stationed in the iron chain of the river. Only the two thousand partial troops from Shangyong on the north road were the most smooth, and they captured the counties in Badong County with almost no blood.

When the rice was ripe in autumn, Lu Bu used his old tricks. A two thousand cavalry horse with dry food for several days quietly crossed the hilly area on the right side of the Shu army camp, and then raided down the right bank of the Jialing River and came to the plains of the Shu River Valley where Jiangzhou City was located.

However, these crutches did not find crops to be harvested, and even had no land to be cultivated, so they had to return in disappointment. Zhuge Liang learned about the past war history of Lu Bu's army through various channels. Therefore, he had been preventing the strategy of "cutting firewood from the bottom of a cauldron, cutting off food and grass" used by Lu Bu in Guanzhong and Taihang Mountains. He abandoned the plains that were easy to irrigate and cultivate, and moved all the military and civilians to the mountain valley dam east of Jiangzhou to cultivate.

Lu Bu, who received the reward, thought to himself [It seems that there is only a hard attack. First, we must remove a series of camps arranged along the Jialing River and Shu River, and demolish these railway cables. Otherwise, transporting by land, the rear army's baggage that crosses the hilly areas will be slow and easily robbed by the opponent. But it takes too much time to conquer the camps one by one. Moreover, Zhuge Liang has a lot of experience in the construction of the camp defense, which will also cause major casualties to his own soldiers. What should we do?]

...

It was dawn and I stayed up all night. The yawning Shu army whistlemen suddenly found more than a dozen huge bamboo rafts sailing downstream in the Jialing River waterway, and there were a large number of long-term Viking ships, marshals and other armed ships next to them. The whistlemen did not dare to be negligent and quickly reported to the top.

A general came to the river bank and observed the fleet. Xu laughed and said, "Do they want to break the iron chains on the river? This is too funny. The Prime Minister has conducted a test, and the big ship that once used a bunker with iron to break the iron chains that were thick with the arm."

No matter how he said that, he still did not dare to order the soldiers to shoot arrows into the center of the river to prevent the opponent from approaching the iron cables on the river. Rockets and arrows shot into the river. The ships used for cover have taken fire prevention measures and are not easily ignited. The unmanned bamboo rafts were in the center of the waterway, and the range of arrows on both sides of the river was not reachable.

When the bamboo raft was stopped by the river cable, someone from other ships used iron hooks to pull up the iron cable that sank into the water and placed it on the bamboo raft. Then the piles of things on the bamboo raft began to burn. It turned out that the bamboo raft was reprinted with flammable objects.

At this time, the Shu army knew what they were going to do. Lu Bu was going to melt the iron chain with fire. In just half an hour, the iron chain that blocked the river was burned. Lu Bu used the same method to burn three sets of iron chains in succession. Finally, the warships loaded with infantry and cavalry of Lu Bu passed through the hilly areas in the eastern part of Jiangzhou from the Jialing River and entered the Shujiang Valley Plain. At this time, these camps built along the river of Shu army were cut off from the contact with Jiangzhou.

Gao Shun of Jiangjin used the same method to break through the defense line of the Shu army, and 10,000 infantry cavalry entered the southwestern section of the Shu River Valley.

At this time, Liu Bei was lying in bed, and Zhuge Liang was the main force of military affairs. After Zhuge Liang learned about this situation, he sent Miao Hua and Zhang Bao to lead 5,000 troops to snipe the vanguards of the two Lu Bu army, trying to repel the two forwards and reconnect with the two lines of defense. However, this fallacy, Zhang Bao was too weak and almost vulnerable, and his combat process was not worth mentioning. He was soon defeated by the vanguard generals of Gao Shun and Lu Bu.
Chapter completed!