Chapter 38: The Yellow Bird

Zhou Yu waited outside Jiangling City for two days. When he heard that Cao Chong had reached Haoxue a hundred miles away, Cao Ren was probably anxious, so he sent Ling Tong to lead a thousand people and thousands of civilians to guard the camp, and took his men out of the camp, letting the navy go upstream and look like he was going to rescue Yiling. In fact, there were only one thousand navy troops, and he led Lu Meng and others to 8,000 troops in a hidden mountain ten miles away. As soon as Cao Ren left the city to rob the camp, Ling Tong would entangle Cao Ren. In less than half an hour, he would fight to the city of Jiangling, first work together to kill Cao Ren who had left the city, and then attack Jiangling.

In fact, whether he can capture Jiangling City is no longer the most important thing. As long as he can kill Cao Ren, his merits will be fulfilled in this battle. You must know that Cao Ren is one of Cao Cao's most confidant clan generals. He has a reputation for being brave in Cao's army and has made Liu Bei feel embarrassed at Changbanpo. Now he is General Zhennan, with a high position and power. If Cao Ren is killed in one battle, he should not underestimate the shock of Cao's army and Liu Bei.

To his surprise, Cao Ren was not deceived. He left the city, but did not go to the south of the city to rob the camp, but went to the north of the city to join forces with Li Tong and rushed to Yiling. Zhou Yu was half happy and half worried. He was happy that Cao Ren had the chance to defeat him in the field. He was worried that there was no chance to attack the city, and Cao Chong was a hundred miles away. His cavalry was fast and might be able to kill him at any time. Don't be blocked by Cao Chong before he caught Cao Ren's traces. He thought for a long time, discussed with Lu Meng and others for a long time, and decided to take his people to Yiling and capture the fighter as much as possible. Even if he couldn't catch Cao Ren, he would still be able to handle Gan Ning smoothly. He walked along the riverside with the navy. Once he encountered the large Cao army, he could immediately get on the boat and set sail.

He did not expect that God would take care of him this time, and he soon started. He received a message from Gan Ning that Gan Ping was decked by Man Pet. It seemed that Cao Ren would beat him first and then break the siege of Yiling. Zhou Yu was overjoyed when he heard this. No matter what, Gan Ning was trapped in Yiling and wanted Cao Ren to attract Cao Ren. He immediately sent someone to contact Gan Ping and asked Gan Ping to take Cao Ren for two days in the mountains instead of immediately rushing to Yiling to meet Gan Ning and sailing away, just to allow him to catch up and catch Cao Ren.

On the Yangtze River outside Yiling City, Ganning's Jinfan ship had been ready to stop. If it weren't for attracting Cao Ren out of the city, Ganning would have abandoned Yiling City and ran away. So far this strange battle seems to have succeeded both sides.

Zhou Yu received news from Gan Ping last night that he was blocked in the mountains and had no room for maneuver. Zhou Yu immediately supervised the army and rushed for a long time. Finally, he intercepted Cao Ren before Gan Ping's entire army was destroyed. However, he did not expect that Li Tong had killed Gan Ping in a desperate situation and opened up the way forward.

"Order the striker Lu Ziming to step forward and bite Cao Zixiao and entangle him." Zhou Yu said with a little excitement.

When Lu Meng heard the order, he immediately ordered the entire army to put down his baggage and move forward lightly. The three thousand people stopped hiding their bodies and shouted. They ran wildly in the valley.

Cao Ren saw the vaguely visible Lu battle flag, and his heart was in his throat, and a trace of regret flashed through his heart. In order to win face, he wanted to take back Yiling. Unexpectedly, Zhou Yu did not take advantage of Jiangling City, but once again blocked himself in the field. He still had two thousand people, but these two thousand people were wandering in the mountains for two days. After a fierce battle, he had to face the high-spirited army of eight thousand. It was a lot of danger. Although there were still a thousand people on the valley ten miles away, his troops were still at a disadvantage.

He was preparing to fight to the death, and heard a shout from the front. He looked up and saw Gan Ping's banner slowly falling. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Gan Ping was defeated. Then even if the road ahead was opened, at least he would not have to be blocked in the valley and fight fiercely. He was thinking. Li Tong's personal guard ran to him with blood all over his body, and before he could speak, he cried bitterly.

Cao Ren's heart suddenly became thrust, and an ominous premonition enveloped him, which made him breathing more quickly.

"General Li killed Gan Ping, and he was seriously injured." The personal guard cried in tears, "General Li asked the general to quickly meet General Man and rushed out of the valley."

Cao Ren didn't bother to think too much, and forgot that Lu Meng's troops who had already seen behind him had already seen him, strode to Li Tong and hugged Li Tong: "Wenda, Wenda, how are you?"

Li Tong reluctantly pulled his mouth: "General, don't stay and leave the valley quickly. After meeting Man Boning, don't go to Yiling and turn to the north road." He said a few words and was already breathless. His face became pale and his bloody big hands grabbed Cao Ren's arm and looked at Cao Ren with expectant eyes.

Cao Ren understood what he meant and nodded repeatedly: "Wenda, don't be discouraged. I'll take you with you. There are still two thousand people in our area. They can't kill them so easily."

Li Tong smiled bitterly and shook his head: "General, Zhou Gongjin has been waiting for a few days and will he let go? The general is safer here." He let go of his hand, raised his finger with all his strength, pointed to the mountain road ahead, and pushed Cao Ren hard.

Cao Ren regretted Mo Die. He had a good relationship with Li Tong. After the Battle of Guandu, he fought in Runan and worked with Li Tong many times. He had a deep friendship. He was an old friend of many years. Unexpectedly, this time he saw Li Tong fall in front of him because of his reasons. If it weren't for his fighting spirit, Li Tong entered Jiangling City to help him defend the city, how could this happen?

"Wenda..." Cao Renhu's eyes were filled with tears and cried.

"General... Go quickly..." Li Tong's breath became weaker and weaker. The cloak wrapped around his abdomen was soaked red by blood, and his eyes became scattered. He pushed Cao Ren's hand without strength, but just supported Cao Ren's arm, shaking weakly.

"No!" Cao Ren suddenly shouted with red eyes: "I can't let these men take your head to get the merits." He stood up and shouted loudly: "Protect General Li first, I will cut off the back myself. I can kill you back and forth outside Jiangling City, and I can take you out today." After saying that, regardless of Li Tong's anxiety in his eyes, he ordered people to help Li Tong onto the war horse and immediately go forward to meet Man Chong.

"Send someone to notify Man Boning to prepare for the reception." Cao Ren shouted at Li Tong's back, drew his sword and shouted loudly at the group with only more than 200 people left: "Follow me to fight those Jiangdong barbarians!"

"Beat the barbarian!" Niu Jin roared, pulled his sword out of the sheath, raised his legs and walked to the middle of the mountain road. He stood upright.

When the band saw Cao Ren showing his power, they also cursed, held his weapon tightly, walked to the middle of the mountain road, staring at the rushing Lu Meng tribe with blood-red eyes. Cao Ren jumped onto a big rock next to him, and shouted wildly: "The strong archer is ready--"

The remaining 500 strong archers all drew their bows and arrows, pointing diagonally in front of them, and the arrow clan shone with a cold light.

"Cheat—" Cao Ren waved his arm violently.

"Swish-" The long arrow flew away.

Lu Meng took the lead. When he saw Cao's army blocking the valley, he couldn't help but feel a little surprised, but after thinking for a moment, he felt relieved. Who is Cao Ren? Facing the 20,000 troops that dared to lead a dozen people to the camp, how could he run away when he saw eight thousand people? But it was not good, and he just cut off his head. Just as he was thinking, he heard Cao Ren's cry and quickly shouted: "Rise the shield-"

The running soldiers of Jiangdong heard the sound and covered their shields in front of them, and continued to run wildly. They could only shoot two or three arrows at a distance of dozens of steps. As long as they rushed through the arrow formation, they could fight with the advantage of many people. Once they caught Cao Ren, they would be a great achievement, not much worse than taking down Jiangling City. It was a piece of cake to be promoted. It seemed that wealth and prosperity at your fingertips made the soldiers of Jiangdong high in fighting spirit. They were full of infinite strength. They only regretted that their legs were short and they could not step into Cao Ren to cut off his head.

Lu Meng ran with a shield in one hand, pulled out a long sword from his waist with the other, and took the lead in meeting Niu Jin standing in front of the formation.

"kill--"

"kill--"

The two of them were like life-and-death enemies. As soon as they met, they used all their strength and slashed each other three times. The powerful impact force hit Niu Jin so hard that he was unstable. They took three steps in a row and leaned against the soldiers behind him to stop his steps. He stood up straight, suppressed the qi and blood in his chest, took a deep breath, shouted loudly, and met again.

Lu Meng came with great enthusiasm and took a lot of advantages. However, he was also confused. He almost changed his breath, and he was impressed by the powerful general who had almost broken through the Ling United Front Forefront Formation at the time of 300 people. However, it was not the time to appreciate each other. He spat out a spit with bloodshots, screamed and raised his sword and rushed forward.

The two fierce generals got together, and the guards behind him also came up to fight desperately, trying to protect their respective commanders, and fought cruelly on the mountain road less than ten steps. The sword lights were lit, the broken limbs and arms flew across, and blood was splattering for no money, screaming endlessly.

The narrow mountain road began to help Gan Ping, but now it helped Cao Ren. Zhou Yu's army was blocked in the valley and could not rush forward. Instead, it became a good target for Cao's strong archers. He did not aim at it at all, just keep firing arrows. The fierce rain of arrows made the soldiers in Jiangdong dare not put down their shields. From time to time, soldiers were injured by long arrows passing through the gaps and screamed.

Zhou Yu also rode his horse to the hillside and saw the two sides fighting in front of him. He pointed to the whip and ordered the archers to come forward to support him, and ordered Han Dang. Zhou Tai and his most elite guards came forward and prepared to respond to Lu Meng at any time.

The long arrows Cao Renjun brought were almost exhausted. After this round of rapid shooting, many powerful archers no longer had long arrows. They put away their bows, drew out their long swords, raised their shields, and prepared to go forward to fight.

"Beat the drum, step back slowly, don't fight hard." Cao Ren calmly ordered and directed people to set up a defensive formation on the mountain road behind him, and then ordered Niu Jin to fight and retreat. Niu Jin heard the order and slashed a few times, forcing the fierce Lu Meng in front of him, and took the man to retreat quickly. Lu Meng was not willing to let go, pressing step by step, and biting Niu Jin tightly. Niu Jin took a big step back while stroking back dozens of steps, until a defender blocked Lu Meng with the help of the terrain, then turned around and ran wildly.

Cao Ren had rich combat experience. When he just started his army with Cao Cao, he fought too many such inferior battles. However, since the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao had gained the upper hand and Cao Ren had few opportunities to use his life-saving tricks. Today, he was excited by Li Tong's death, and his somewhat confused thoughts immediately woke up. The tactics he used that year immediately came to his mind. He divided the remaining two thousand people into ten groups, and put a song of troops every few dozen steps to meet the retreating soldiers, blocked Lu Meng for a while, and immediately ran away as he saw that he was almost ready. Lu Meng was limited by the terrain and had to attack Cao's small formations built by favorable terrain. After a few rounds, his troops suffered heavy losses, so he had to let Zhou Tai over and take his men down to rest.

Cao Ren's people had no choice but to hold on. In the critical moment, Cao Ren drew his sword to fight. After two hours of hard fighting, only five or six hundred people were left. Cao Ren retreated to the entrance of the valley and met Man Chong, who had been waiting for the battle.

"General retreat quickly. I'll guard here." Man Chong looked murderous intent and gritted his teeth as he looked at Jiang Dongjun who was slaying: "Wenda is right in front of him, and there is not much time left. General, go and see him."

"Be careful, Zhou Yu has divided his troops to break our retreat. Don't be fond of fighting, just block it for a moment and retreat quickly." Cao Ren gasped and ordered, he was very careful. He had been paying attention to Zhou Yu's army's movements. He found that Lu Meng had never appeared again since he retreated. He subconsciously thought that Lu Meng might take a detour to block his retreat, so he immediately accelerated his retreat.

"Don't worry, General, Man Chong understands." Man Chong didn't look back. The long sword slashed down suddenly: "Shot the arrow—"

Cao Ren looked at Man Chong's defensive formation built against the mountain, breathed a sigh of relief and retreated with the remaining soldiers. He saw Li Tong, who was dead. His face was as white as the paper just came out of Xiangyang, and his god-won eyes were wide open. He looked at the blue sky with a look of unwillingness.

Cao Ren covered his face and cried. He wiped the blood from his hands on his body and gently stroked Li Tong's face: "Wenda, don't worry."

The guard whose eyes were red by Li Tong's death looked at Cao Ren with a resentful look, holding the sword in his hand. If Cao Ren had not been the general of the town, he would have drew his sword and chopped him up. Cao Ren's guard looked at him vigilantly, for fear that he would be unfavorable to Cao Ren. Cao Ren turned a blind eye and picked up Li Tong's body with his own hands and looked at Man Chong who was fighting with the Jiangdong Army, and rode away.

Zhou Yu was very annoyed. His plan was unexpected and things completely changed. He brought eight thousand people to intercept Cao Ren. Unexpectedly, he would come one step late. Gan Ping had already died in battle, and there were only reinforcements and no enemy troops in front of Cao Ren. This narrow mountain road, which was originally used to limit Cao Ren's cavalry advantages, became Cao Ren's advantage. The eight thousand army could not play out in the valley and was blocked step by step by step, and was extremely cowardly. He knew that there were a thousand people with full favor outside the valley. As long as Cao Ren left the valley, he might turn north to the main road. No one of his cavalry could keep up with him. Even if he killed all the others, he would not be able to catch Cao Ren.

This is a bit regrettable.

So he thought for a moment in the valley and decided to let Lu Meng, who had retreated and rested, take the people around the side, trying to break the retreat of Man Chong and Cao Ren. However, Cao Ren retreated too quickly. Before Lu Meng could reach behind him, he had already left the valley and left. Lu Meng could not block Cao Ren, but almost blocked Man Chong. Man Chong, who was in full battle with Zhou Tai and Han Dang, had been reminded by Cao Ren, and he had been paying attention to the mountain road behind him. When he heard that the Jiangdong army had appeared, he immediately left 200 people to break the back, gathered the army and turned around and ran away.

After a circle, Lu Meng rushed into the air again and missed Man Chong.

As soon as he left the valley, Zhou Yu's army finally had room to perform. Lu Meng and others let go of their steps on the road and followed Man Chong and Cao Ren to chase him. Seeing the formation that was running more and more dispersed, Lu Su couldn't help but feel a little worried and rushed to Zhou Yu's horse: "Gongjin, it's not good to chase like this. Man Boning and Cao Zixiao are both famous generals, so don't fall into their counterattack."

Zhou Yu smiled and said, "Don't worry, Cao Zixiao's 2,500 people were almost completely broken into the valley. There are at most five or six hundred people. Man Boning is probably just like this now. They can only escape when facing our army, so how dare they turn back? Lejin's 4,000 people are still under Yiling City, nearly one hundred and fifty miles away from here, and they will never be able to catch up at this moment."

Lu Su was still a little worried: "What if the people from Cao Cang Shudi come to pick up Cao Zixiao, he has two thousand iron cavalry, and these two hundred miles can be reached in just one day. Maybe he is ambushing somewhere in front and just waiting for us to rush in."

"It's okay, I'll order them to chase them to the Zhangshui River. If we can't chase Cao Ren by the Zhangshui River, we will stop chasing immediately. Ganning has entered the river and turn the Zhangshui River to meet us." Zhou Yu smiled confidently.

"That's great." Lu Su also smiled: "The Zhang River is still twenty miles away. I think Cao Cangshu won't be so fast, but it's impossible to catch Cao Zixiao. His cavalry is too fast. At this time, I'm afraid that he has passed the Zhang River. As for Man Boning, it's a bit possible. With Gan Xingba waiting in front, maybe he will wait."

Zhou Yu laughed loudly, lifted the horse's reins and rode his horse forward.

Cao Ren ran fast, but when he was about to arrive at the Zhang River, he heard that the Jiangdong naval army had blocked the Zhang River. He immediately knew that something was wrong and did not dare to move forward. He turned his head and walked along the Zhang River upstream ferry. The waters upstream of the Zhang River were shallow, and the big ships in Jiangdong could not enter, so he could cross the river safely. Man Chong also followed the Zhang River shortly afterwards. He was like Cao Ren. When he heard that the Jiangdong naval army appeared in the Zhang River, he turned around and ran away. Zhou Yu's army chased him tightly behind his butt. Although his soldiers were already out of breath, they did not dare to stop. He couldn't run, so he just lay down on the side of the road, threw away his weapons, knelt on the ground with his head in his arms, and surrendered.

However, Lu Meng and others were not interested in captives now. They chose to ignore each other. What was the meaning of a few soldiers? Catching Man Chong and even Cao Ren was a great achievement, which was better than catching thousands of people. When the Cao army saw that no one came to pay attention to them, they became more comfortable. They simply turned over and fell to the ground, gasping for breath, and some even took out the cake in their arms and chewed them with the water in the ditch on the side of the road.

"Run, run, you can cross the river after passing the woods in front." Man Chong looked at the army with less than a hundred people left by his side and smiled bitterly. The battle was so fucking cowardly. He had never been so embarrassed since he led the troops. It was all caused by this Cao Zixiao, and his reputation was lost for his lifetime.

"Run quickly-" "Jiangdong army is chasing us-"

"If you can't run, go to the side of the road to surrender-" Man Chong couldn't help but see some of his guards sweating profusely and staggeringly, and he could fall to the ground and die at any time. After he said this, more than a dozen people stopped running, and leaned to the side of the road to the ground, and Ren beat Ren and killed him.

Man Chong ran into the woods with his people. The thick leaves blocked the scorching sun, which was extremely cool. This made Man Chong, who was sweating all over, feel refreshed. If there weren't thousands of people chasing him for his head, this would be great. Unfortunately, it's not the time to feel comfortable now, so it's more important to escape. Man Chong shook his head helplessly and shouted to the shaking soldiers: "Go away, go quickly, you can't rest. Only after passing the Zhangshui River can you be safe."

"Mo Fenwei, when did you become so embarrassed?" A proud laughter came from the depths of the woods at the same time.

Man Chong looked up and couldn't help but be overjoyed: "So it's Ziyi, is the young master here?"
Chapter completed!