Chapter 113: Lu Bu leaves, Zhao Zilong arrives Lu Bu finally chose to leave peacefully. Although Lu Bu is greedy, his ambition is far less than that of Sun Ce. There is a fundamental contradiction between Sun Ce and Liu Bei. The goal of both seems to be just a small Huainan, but in fact, they both want to conquer the whole world. The two are incompatible, and sooner or later there will be a war. Lu Bu is different. Although he has unparalleled military power, his biggest wish is to have a piece of land where he can rule. For Lu Bu, the conditions proposed by Qin Zhen were a bit excessive, but they were not unacceptable. After all, he only had more than 10,000 soldiers and horses this time. Up to now, the total loss has not exceeded 3,000, and the prisoners alone can make up for the troop strength. Apart from that, all the gains are net profit.

He received tens of thousands of dan of grain, plus a compensation of 10,000 gold. Although it was not as good as if he had kept all the money and grain for himself, he still made a small profit. So after thinking it over, Lu Bu drank the wine poured by Qin Zhen. However, before accepting it, Lu Bu naturally still had to bargain and increased the money to 20,000 gold on his own. Qin Zhen naturally could not accept this and refused to give in even if it cost him ten thousand gold coins. After all, now that they have taken Huainan, they still need to govern Huainan, and money is needed everywhere. Ten thousand gold is equivalent to more than 100 million yuan according to the exchange rate. Giving such a large sum of money to Lu Bu is already a huge concession. So the two sides discussed the issue of dividing the spoils for two consecutive days, and finally Qin Song proposed a compromise plan. That’s right, it was Qin Song, the former strategist under Sun Ce. The reason why this happened is because of Sun Ce's defeat. After Sun Ce was defeated, this man was detained in Lu Bu's army. Naturally, he was afraid that Lu Bu would blame him. In order to save his life, Qin Song naturally called Xu Si over and asked him to plead for Lu Bu. Xu Si had accepted money from Qin Song, and he felt a little guilty, so he suggested to Lu Bu: "Qin Song is originally from Guangling. He fled south to Jiangdong to avoid disaster. He has extraordinary talent. If he is found by the general, he should be used!" "It just so happens that our army is lacking in wise men. Gongtai is not smart enough, so why not ask Qin Wenbiao to use him, which can also add strength to our army!" When Lu Bu heard this, he thought that he had been plotted against time and again because he had no one to assist him in analyzing the situation. Since Qin Song can be Sun Ce's strategist, he must be quite capable. Maybe not as good as Qin Zhen, but it can be used. After much thought, he met Qin Song under the guidance of Xu Si. Qin Song originally wanted Lu Bu to let him go back, but unexpectedly Lu Bu made it clear that he either worked under him or waited to die in prison.

Qin Song himself had no sense of character, and knowing that his life was more important, he simply agreed to Lu Bu's request. However, he made it clear that he could serve as an official, but General, you have to redeem my child. Although he felt a little guilty towards Sun Ce, he really couldn't be blamed this time. He believed that Sun Ce could understand his difficulties. When Lu Bu heard this, he naturally nodded and agreed, saying, "Let's go back to Xuzhou first, and I will help you redeem your family." From then on, Qin Song joined Lu Bu's army. He also found out the reason why they failed this time. When Qin Song heard that Qin Zhen convinced Lu Bu with just two letters, he was stunned. They even wanted to provoke Lu Bu and make Lu Bu and Liu Bei enemies. Unexpectedly, Qin Zhen used the general situation to convince Lu Bu. Compared with their calculations, this is simply a dimensionality reduction attack. No wonder they lost so badly! But after knowing the truth, Qin Song did not tell Lu Bu directly. Because he knew that Sun Ce had already been defeated, there was no point in worrying about the truth now. Even if he could really persuade Lu Bu to attack Liu Bei, he would only be asking for trouble. With Qin Zhen, an old coin, they are no match for Liu Bei. On the contrary, the best option for them is to quit while they are ahead, take the money and food and quickly return to Xuzhou to redeem his child! Therefore, seeing that Lü Bu was still arguing with Liu Bei about money and food, he decisively suggested to Lü Bu: "Marquis Wen is still far from Xincai, and Liu Bei's army may not be able to obtain money and food." "Time is urgent right now, and this kind of tug-of-war will not benefit either family." "If we delay any longer, things might change!" "Besides, if our army asks for too much, Liu Bei will definitely be resentful. Even if we get money and food in the future, we may not be able to deliver it in time!" "It's better to ask for less and reach an agreement as soon as possible, which will also facilitate our army's return!" After hearing this, Lu Bu nodded secretly, thinking that Qin Zhen was a cunning guy. If he asked for too much, he might really refuse to pay if he was forced into a corner. Seeing that Qin Song's explanation made sense, he asked Qin Song to come up with a plan. After thinking about it, Qin Song proposed a compromise plan, that is, Liu Bei's army would increase the money to 15,000 gold, and they would leave 20,000 stones of grain and grass in the army to Liu Bei as repayment. According to him, there is a severe drought in Huainan now. If Liu Bei wants to secure his control of Huainan, what he needs is food and fodder, not money! They provided food and Liu Bei gave more money, which was the best of both worlds! Only after this plan was proposed did Qin Zhen finally give in. He knew that Qin Song was a sensible man, so he made an excuse to give the final solution, and they gave him 15,000 gold as a reward.

Similarly, Lu Bu had to hand over 30,000 shi of grain and grass, and promise to hand over the three counties of Xiquyang, Dongcheng and Zhongli, and he was not allowed to rob the people before leaving. In addition, they also needed to agree to a clause: in the future, the two countries would exchange what they needed with each other, and no tariffs would be collected for goods passing through the border, and they were promised that they could purchase oxen, grain, farm tools, iron, salt and other materials from Xuzhou at market prices. Faced with this last option, Lu Bu finally nodded in agreement. In fact, this is what he hoped for. In this chaotic world, business is the industry that has been most severely damaged. Xuzhou is a vast city with abundant resources. If it can be sold to Liu Bei's army at a fair price, it will be a good thing for him. As for the three counties, he didn't want to plunder them anymore. Now that Huainan is in such a drought, the people have no surplus food. If he wants to rob, he can only rob the wealthy families, which is bad for his reputation. As Lu Bu nodded in agreement, Liu Bei and Lu Bu reached an agreement. A potential dispute was resolved through negotiations. Liu Bei was naturally very satisfied with this, and he hosted a banquet for Lu Bu again, and on the next day, he personally sent Lu Bu out of Shouchun. This also declared Liu Bei's absolute victory in the Battle of Huainan. After sending Lu Bu away, Liu Bei summoned all his ministers to discuss the next strategy. Now that the two families have left, what they need to do is to expand their territory as quickly as possible! The eight counties in the north of Jiujiang County have been completely occupied by Liu Bei. They expanded their territory in two directions. One was to go south to capture cities such as Hefei, Jundao, Quanjiao, and control the north bank of the Yangtze River. One is to move westward, through the waterway along the Huai River, and enter Lujiang, or go straight to Runan through the Huai River! As for Liu Bei's strategy, everyone has different opinions. Yuan Huan gave Liu Bei direct advice: "My lord, you have already taken control of the lower reaches of the Huai River. If you want to take control of the south of the Huai River, you should first take Yangquan, Liaoxian and other places, control the water vein of the Huai River, and then move south!" In contrast, Zhang Fei and Qiao Rui strongly advocated capturing Hefei and heading south to Lujiang. They have their reasons for saying so. According to Zhang Fei: "In my opinion, Sun Ce has been defeated now, and his army is only a few thousand, so it is difficult for him to garrison the cities." "Now that we have won, we might as well take advantage of the victory and march south to Hefei to seize all the cities under Sun Ce's command." "Otherwise, when Sun Ce returns to Jiangdong, he may send more troops, and it will be difficult to capture it then." Each side had its own reasons, which gave Liu Bei a headache. He looked at Qin Zhen and asked: "I wonder what the military advisor thinks?" When Qin Zhen came up, he smiled and said to Liu Bei: "In my opinion, both routes are acceptable!"

"The problem with our army is that we don't have enough troops. If we go there first, we might alert the enemy." "Why not take a few days off first, and then discuss it when General Guan comes south!" For them, expanding the territory as quickly as possible is of course urgent, but it is difficult for them to take both into account. The bottom line is, they lack the military strength! You must know that since Liu Bei went south, the army of more than 10,000 has been expanded again and again! First, he captured several thousand soldiers of Yuan Shu's army, and with the reinforcements, the total number of soldiers and horses exceeded 20,000. After that, they entered Shouchun City, and the number of surrendered soldiers and prisoners exceeded 8,000. Together with the large number of captives obtained from defeating Sun Ce, their military strength has now reached 32,000 people. Among them, only a little over 10,000 are their main force! Most of them were Yuan Shu's army, and a small part were Sun Ce's army. The troops of the three parties are mixed together. It seems that there are many of them, but in fact they are completely useless! The best option at this time is to wait for Guan Yu to arrive and then discuss the issue of taking territory. After listening to this, Liu Bei also realized the current problems in his army, so he stopped worrying and directly sent a letter to Guan Yu, urging him to speed up his march south. At the same time, he began to integrate these surrendered soldiers according to the method of Qin Zhen's previous grievance meeting. In this way, Liu Bei's army trained its troops for several days. During this period, Liu Bei was naturally not idle. At Yuan Huan's strong request, Liu Bei personally visited the brothers Zhang Fan and Zhang Cheng. It’s no wonder that these two brothers have a good impression of Liu Bei. It was because Zhang Fan was a kind and generous person, and he could sit down and discuss philosophy with the common people on weekdays. Liu Bei was the same, often eating with the common people and had a very high prestige among them. Seeing that Liu Bei came to visit in person, Zhang Fan gave him enough face, personally entertained Liu Bei, and asked his wife and children to introduce him. However, when it came to taking up an official post, Zhang Fan claimed that he was too old and only asked his brother Zhang Cheng to accept Liu Bei's invitation. Upon hearing this, Zhang Cheng was willing to do whatever it took and directly joined Liu Bei's army. Zhang Cheng's appointment as an official opened up the situation for Liu Bei in Huainan and he was able to invite many sons of the gentry in the city to serve as officials. This instantly alleviated the shortage of grassroots talent in Liu Bei’s army. Seeing that he had gradually gained a foothold in Shouchun, Liu Bei naturally became more and more anxious for Guan Yu's arrival. After waiting like this, five days after Lu Bu left, he finally received a report from Guan Yu. His troops have already reached Xiacai and will reach Shouchun in two days at most. At the same time, Guan Yu also brought good news to Liu Bei. That was Zhao Yun, the Zhao Zilong whom Qin Zhen had asked Liu Bei to find before. He had already arrived in Huainan and was now marching south in his army. Liu Bei was delighted to hear the news. Qin Zhen felt a little more expectant in his surprise. Since coming to the Three Kingdoms, I have met many celebrities, but I have never seen the poster girl Zhao Yun.

After several months of waiting, it’s finally here! (End of this chapter)