In mid-March, Sima Tao said goodbye to his cousin Sima Shang and prepared to return to the command of King Zhao Jiang of Yan.

When sending Sima Tao out of the city, Sima Shang said gratefully: "Tao, you have worked hard these past few months."

It turned out that since Sima Tao accompanied his brother to Changyi in November last year, he helped Sima Shang take over the affairs of the city and trained the local county soldiers, which was a great help to Sima Shang.

Until two days ago, Sima Tao received a letter from King Zhao Jiang of Yan, urging him to go to "Xindu" immediately, so Sima Tao had no choice but to say goodbye to his cousin.

This made Sima Shang quite reluctant to give up. If his cousin Sima Tao was not the favorite general of Yan King Zhao Jiang, and Zhao Jiang refused to let him go, Sima Shang sincerely hoped that his cousin could stay and help him.

"After arriving in Guangchuan, remember to correspond with Brother Yu."

After Sima Tao got on his horse, Sima Shang warned.

Perhaps the environment he was in had changed, which caused Sima Tao's mood to change greatly. Even though the burn marks on the left side of his face were still obvious, he didn't care at this time and deliberately said: "We'll see when the time comes. Master Zhao Jiang recommended me as "Captain Xin", I'm afraid I will have to work hard for a while..."

"Bastard!"

Sima Shang laughed and cursed, and then warned: "Be careful on the road. I heard that some Chu soldiers here in Song County fell into trouble and became bandits."

"How can a little thief be a match for a foolish brother...Brother, I'll take my leave then."

"Well, be careful on the road."

Watching Sima Tao and several of his guards riding away on war horses and gradually disappearing from sight, Sima Shang sighed with emotion, and then returned to the city with the guards behind him.

When returning to the city, Sima Shang ran into his general "Zhonggu" head-on.

Zhonggu was an old pawn from Daijun heavy cavalry.

When Sima Shang was replaced by generals Zhao Cong and Yan Ju under the instruction of Li Hou Han Wu, due to the stupid behavior of generals Zhao Cong and Yan Ju, the 25,000 Daijun heavy cavalry accidentally fell into the Wei army's siege. The losses were heavy, and in the end there were only seven or eight thousand people left, who were taken in by Han Pu, the Marquis of Yuanyi.

At the end of last year, under the instruction of King Zhao Run of Wei, Han Pu, the Marquis of Yuanyi, returned the seven or eight thousand Daijun heavy cavalry to Sima Shang - the same was true for the Shanggu Army under Xu Li.

However, considering that the Shanggu Army and the Han soldiers from the Daijun Army may not all be willing to come to Song County, King Zhao Run of Wei did not force this, and only asked Yuanyi Marquis Han Pu to send the Han soldiers who were willing to go to Song County to Song County. Those who were unwilling were eventually incorporated into Yan Kui and Le Yi's subordinates.

In February this year, Sima Shang received a letter from Han Pu, the Marquis of Yuanyi, and learned that there were more than 5,000 Daijun soldiers and more than 4,000 Shanggu soldiers who were willing to rush to Song County to join him and Xu Li, and Zhonggu was one of them. First, after he learned that Sima Shang was appointed the governor of Song County by King Zhao Run of Wei, he was very happy. In early February, he rushed to Song County from Hebei with hundreds of people and defected to Sima Shang, relieving Sima Shang who had no one available at the time. Awkward.

"General Tao returned to Hebei?"

When he met Sima Shang, Zhonggu asked with a smile.

"There is no way. Firstly, King Yan refuses to let him go. Secondly, Atao is also willing to serve under King Yan..." Sima Shang shrugged. Although he felt a little regretful, thinking about it carefully, his cousin Being under the tent of King Yan Zhaojiang is actually the same as being under his tent.

In fact, it is better to serve under the command of King Zhao Jiang of Yan. After all, King Zhao Jiang favors Sima Tao very much, so everyone in the Hanoi army will take more care of Sima Tao. Unlike Song County where he is located, they may respect each other. Due to the unfamiliar relationship, the Song people here seemed to reject him a little.

Fortunately, the king of Wei, Zhao Run, was appointed as the governor of Song County, and he had the highest official position in Song County. Both Xu Li and Huan Hu were regarded as generals under him, so the local Song people did not dare to offend him. Otherwise, Sima Shang's

The work may be more difficult to carry out.

In late March, Ma You of the Shang Shui Army led the Shang Shui cavalry to Changyi.

After learning the news, Sima Shang personally went out of the city to greet him.

When handing over military power, Ma You seemed a little unswerving.

Sima Shang could also understand this. After all, what Ma You delivered to him was the Youma heavy cavalry among the Shangshui cavalry. It was the backbone of the Shangshui cavalry and even the Shangshui army. But now, this heavy cavalry actually

How could Ma You be calm when he was handed over to Sima Shang, a surrendered general from South Korea?

Thinking of this, Sima Shang could only solemnly promise Ma You that he would treat the five thousand horse heavy cavalry like his own brothers and would never sacrifice his cavalry for greed of merit.

.

Ma You was stunned when he heard this.

After a long time, Ma You nodded and said: "I believe that General Sima's character will not treat these soldiers badly..."

Having said this, he took a deep look at Sima Shang and said in a deep voice: "When I was only a teenager, I was fortunate enough to be recruited into a cavalry, named Dang County Youma..."

As he spoke, he told Sima Shang the story of Yuma in Dang County, and after telling the story, he solemnly said to Sima Shang: "General Sima, please do not bring shame to the name "Yuma".

"

If he had never heard the story told by Ma You, Sima Shang might have thought that Ma You was provoking him, but after hearing the story of "You Ma from Dangjun", he no longer had such thoughts.

"I promise General Ma You that the "Songjun Youma" under my command will run wildly on this land like the Dangjun Youma back then. No matter who it is, no one can defeat this cavalry!"

It turned out that the cavalry under Sima Shang was named "Songjun Youma" by Wei King Zhao Run. This reminded Ma You of the former "Dangjun Youma", so he deliberately warned Sima Shang.

After receiving Sima Shang's guarantee, Ma You was very satisfied and ordered his light cavalry to escort the heavy cavalry to station outside the city. Then he followed Sima Shang into the city. After all, Sima Shang had already ordered people to prepare a banquet for Ma You.

You and his subordinates meet the wind.

However, during the banquet, soldiers suddenly came in and reported: "General, there is an urgent report from Suiyang!"

"Suiyang?"

Both Sima Shang and Ma You felt a little puzzled. The former took the urgent letter, opened it and read it, and immediately frowned.

Seeing this, Ma You asked curiously: "What's wrong with Suiyang?"

"It was a letter sent by Huan Hu of Suiyang, saying that the Chu State not only stationed hundreds of thousands of troops in "Bo County", but also sent 30,000 soldiers to try to attack Dang County..."

After that, Sima Shang handed the letter to Ma You, and immediately ordered his guards to get a map of Song County and search for the locations of "Bo County" and "Dang County" on the ground.

It can be seen that Sima Shang really didn't know much about Song County, so it was only after Ma Youzi carefully read Huan Hu's letters that he found the locations of Bo County and Dang County - which made him a little embarrassed.

At this time, Ma You, who had read Huan Hu's letter, also came to the map and frowned while looking at the map.

He knew that Sima Shang didn't know much about Song County, so he pointed to the map and explained: "The border between Song County and Chu State, starting from Yangxia, the western section was first divided by the "Huihe River", Guling, Kuxian,

Bo County once belonged to the Chu State, but last year Bosile occupied Guling, and this division was a little confusing... The eastern section starts from Bo County, including Yongcheng, then Fuxian County, Linsui, and Xiangcheng

, Zhuyi and Fuli are the boundaries between Song County and Chu State. Originally, Pengcheng and Xiapi were also owned by Song County. However, during the last war, Lord Shouling Jingyun, Lord Xinyang Xiangpei and others led the defeated army.

They retreated to Pengcheng and Xiapi, so these two areas are still in the hands of the Chu State."

"Hmm." Sima Shang nodded, looking at Pengcheng and Xiapi on the map for a while.

As the saying goes, in his position, he will seek his own government. In the past, no matter how Song County fought with the Chu State, he did not care about Sima Shang. But now, since Wei Wang Zhao Run has made him the governor of Song County, then he will naturally find a way to control him in the future.

Pengcheng and Xiapi were recaptured from Chu.

Otherwise, I would really be sorry for the position of governor of Song Dynasty, and I would also be sorry for the regard that King Zhao Run of Wei held for him.

At this time, another soldier hurriedly walked in outside the house and whispered a few words in the ear of Sima Shang's general Zhonggu.

Sima Shang caught a glimpse of this scene from the corner of his eye, raised his head and asked, "What's wrong? Is there any problem with the city defense?"

After hearing this, General Zhonggu clasped his fists and said: "General, some soldiers said that there was a group of broken soldiers and refugees outside the city trying to escape into the city. They claimed to have escaped from Zhuqiu."

"Zhu Qiu?"

Sima Shang secretly rejoiced that after he took office, he had visited the cities under his rule several times and had some impression of Zhu Qiu. Otherwise, the magistrate of a prefecture would not even know the name of the city under his rule. This is really unreasonable.

So embarrassing.

Unfortunately, although he had an impression of this county seat in his mind, Sima Shang was unable to find out the location of the county seat from the map for a while. In the end, it was Ma You, the general of Shangshui County, who led Zhu

The location of Qiu County was pointed out.

Seeing that Sima Shang seemed to be sweating on his forehead, Ma You was secretly amused, but when he was not laughing at the moment, he reminded Sima Shang: "General Sima, why don't you summon those defeated troops first and ask what's going on."

"Yes, yes."

Sima Shang responded repeatedly.

To be fair, Sima Shang is by no means a fool. The reason why he seems to be a little in a hurry is because he is not familiar with Song County.

After a while, several defeated soldiers came into the house under the leadership of the soldiers. When those few people saw Sima Shang sitting on the main seat, they thought that this general must be the city guard of Changyi, so they quickly knelt down and said:

"General, a group of Chu troops have captured Zhuqiu County again. I beg the general to send troops to rescue them."

After hearing this, Sima Shang first calmed the defeated soldiers with kind words, and then asked: "What is the banner of this Chu army? How many people are there?"

One of the defeated soldiers replied: "That Chu army was under the banner of "Three Pillars"..."

"Three Pillars?" Ma You was stunned when he heard this.

"General Ma You, what's wrong?" Sima Shang asked in confusion.

Ma You frowned and said: "The three pillars of Chu, the three tiger commanders under King Chu, used to be Lord Shouling Jingshe, Lord Xiling Qu Ping, and Lord Diyang Xiong Shang. These three people

They all passed away. As far as I know, the three pillars of Chu today are General Xiang Mo, Lord Shouling Jingyun, Lord Pingyu Xiong Hu... According to Huan Hu, Lord Shouling Jingyun is currently

In Bo County; Pingyu Lord Xiong Hu has been confronting me in Shangshui County in Pingyu, Xiangcheng, Xu County and other places. The remaining Xiang Mo died in Yongqiu last year..." At this point,

He sneered and said: "It seems that the King of Chu moved very quickly. He appointed the Three Pillars so quickly."

After that, he asked the defeated soldiers: "Are there any other flags?"

The defeated soldiers looked at each other for a few times, and finally someone said: "You seem to have seen a flag with the words "Xin Yang Jun Xiang"..."

Ma You knew who the other party was as soon as he heard it, and turned to Sima Shang and said: "It's Xiang Pei, Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei. It seems that after Xiang Mo's death, Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei, who is also a descendant of the Xiang family, took over the throne.

The reputation of Tianzhu..."

"Xin Yangjun Xiang Pei?"

Sima Shang touched the beard on his chin and asked Ma You: "Is this person... powerful?"

Ma You chuckled and said: "Compared with Jingshe, Xiang Mo and others, Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei is naturally far inferior. Otherwise, when he attacked Lu State, he would not have been defeated by Huan Hu. But...

He can be considered a capable person."
To be continued...