Chapter 257: Seizing Xuzhou, a sudden turn of events Qin Zhen has never had a good impression of Lu Bu. The reason why he had to form an alliance with Lu Bu was, on the one hand, to deter Cao Cao and gain living space; On the other hand, it was of no use taking it from Xuzhou at that time! After all, Xuzhou is located close to the East China Sea, bordered by Qingzhou to the north, Jiangdong to the south, and Cao Cao to the west. Before taking over Jiangdong, this area was surrounded by powerful enemies. Allowing a troublemaker like Lu Bu to stay in Xuzhou can help share the pressure from the west and north. But before the Battle of Guandu, the situation in the world would change drastically every few months. At this moment, it is actually the best opportunity for them to plot against Xuzhou! First of all, Yuan Shao's attention was still on Gongsun Zan and Cao Cao, and he did not notice the drastic changes in the situation in the southeast. Secondly, because they had previously formed an alliance with Lu Bu, Cao Cao began to want to move westward. Now Cao wants to expand his base in the west, so he will not focus on Xuzhou. With these two points as premise, Lu Bu is destined to be isolated and helpless like Sun Ce.

But destroying Lu Bu is not an easy task. Because their main force is now in Jiangdong, it is difficult to destroy Lu Bu with the troops he can mobilize now. But if Chen Deng could provide support, then this would not be impossible to achieve! The key lies in how to cooperate with Chen Deng and find opportunities to completely eliminate Lu Bu from Xuzhou. So after hearing what Chen Jiao said, Qin Zhen smiled and said: "If Chen Yuanlong has this intention, it will be my wish!" "But you must know, sir, I only have 3,000 soldiers under my command, and there are only 8,000 in Zhongli City." "Besides that, the thousands of soldiers in Shouchun cannot be mobilized." "In addition to these 30,000 soldiers and horses, Lu Bu has tens of thousands of troops in various places in Xuzhou." “There is such a huge disparity in the number of troops, but I wonder what strategy Yuanlong has to teach me?” Of course, in reality he can mobilize more than this many troops now. After all, there are as many as 80,000 troops on the front line of Runan, Pei and Chen. It would not be a problem to grit his teeth and pull out 10,000 or 20,000 of them. But now Xu Shu had been transferred by him, and Guan Yu, Zhang Xun and others were out of reach and difficult to arrive. Although there were troops such as Qin Yi and Chen Zhang in the south, they had already been withdrawn once and had no troops left to move south. So the number of people he could flexibly mobilize was only more than 20,000 people. But as soon as he asked this question, Chen Jiao frowned and said: "If Mr. Qin asks me about this, it will be difficult for me to answer!" "Because when the Lord ordered me to come here, he only said that he was going to lure Lu Bu in, and all other matters were left to Lord Qin." "But if the troops are not enough, Guangling can still mobilize 3,000 troops." "As for more, I'm afraid it will be difficult to accomplish anything, because there is still Lei Xu threatening our army to the south, so we must be on guard!" "So, Chen Yuanlong is quite calculating. He lured Lu Bu to the south and let me plan the rest!"

"Don't you know that our army's defense is already stretched to its limit? How can we seize Xuzhou?" After hearing this, Qin Zhen shook his head and smiled, thinking that Chen Deng was a mean guy. Since you are determined to offer Xuzhou to me, shouldn't you give me a feasible plan first? He just said that he would be the insider and then throw the matter to him. What if he didn't agree? As he said this, Chen Jiao thought he was unwilling to act, so he hurriedly said: "You must not think like that, Lord Qin. You must know that it is very rare for Lu Bu to send troops here now." "With the support of the Lord of the Mansion, we can achieve miraculous results with proper planning!" "Your Excellency has good intentions. How can you not consider this matter?" After hearing his advice, Qin Zhen laughed again and said: "Well, since Chen Yuanlong trusts me so much, I will try to figure it out." "Sir, you just mentioned Lei Xu. Could you tell me more about him?" In fact, he also had an impression of Lei Xu, who was also a former general of Yuan Shu. In the original course of events, after Yuan Shu was defeated, Lujiang and Huainan fell into chaos. This man, together with Chen Lan and others, gathered tens of thousands of people, but were defeated by Xiahou Yuan. Later, after the Battle of Chibi, he led tens of thousands of troops to join Liu Bei. But Qin Zhen's understanding of Lei Xu ended there, and he didn't know the details of Lei Xu's current condition. As he asked this question, Chen Jiao told him the situation in the south of Guangling one by one. It turns out that the reason why Lei Xu is in Guangling now is also the butterfly effect caused by Qin Zhen. Because Lei Xu was originally a general under Yuan Shu and had been guarding Guangling for many years. If Qin Zhen had not been around, after Yuan Shu's death, Lei Xu would have entered the Huainan area and established his own regime under the dual pressure of Chen Deng and Sun Ce. However, due to the arrival of Qin Zhen, Liu Bei directly occupied the Huainan area, resulting in Lei Xu and others losing their command. At this point, Lei Xu had not yet become a serious threat to Chen Deng. But later Liu Ye defected to Liu Bei and killed Zheng Bao, leaving the Chaohu bandits leaderless. Also, because Qin Zhen pursued the strategy of using bandits to train his troops, Qin Yi, Lu Su and others attacked everywhere. This forced the Chaohu bandits Xu Gan, Zhang Duo and others to move eastward with their troops. After a few interactions, they established a relationship with Lei Xu, and they gathered a group of tens of thousands of people. During this year or so, Lu Bu was focused on going north and had no intention of going south to help Chen Deng eliminate the bandits. Sun Ce was so focused on eliminating internal strife and dealing with Liu Bei that he had no intention of heading north. In order not to arouse Lu Bu's fear, Liu Bei did not dare to extend his hand into Guangling.

This resulted in Lei Xu becoming a force that no one cared about, even though he was between the three major princes. He already had thousands of soldiers and horses under his command, and after absorbing Xu Gan, Zhang Duo and others, his power became even greater. Among the tens of thousands of troops, excluding the old, weak, sick and disabled, there are more than 15,000 soldiers capable of fighting. With so many soldiers and horses, Chen Deng's limited resources are naturally not enough to wipe them out on his own for the time being. Lei Xu also seemed to be self-aware and limited his sphere of influence to the south of Guangling. As a result of such coincidences, the current structure of Guangling was formed. Chen Deng had an army of more than 10,000 soldiers and occupied several cities north of the Gaoshan and Gaoyou lines. Lei Xu led a group of bandits and occupied five cities south of Guangling. If Chen Deng had been given another year or two, Lei Xu would have been destroyed by him sooner or later. But now, because Chen Deng had been in charge of Guangling for too short a time, Lei Xu was still active in the south and needed to be guarded against. When Chen Jiao told Qin Zhen about this situation, he laughed and said: "There is no need to worry about these troops. If we want to get rid of Lu Bu, they should be our troops!" What he lacks now is military support, and Lei Xu's troops can be of help. Now that Chen Deng has persuaded Lu Bu to march from Dongcheng, it is equivalent to luring Lu Bu into a pocket. As long as he persuades Lei Xu's troops to head north to capture Dongcheng, the entrance to the pocket can be sealed! At that time, even if he was short of troops, he would be able to hold Lu Bu's main force in Jiujiang! Once this problem was solved, the remaining issue would be to capture Xuzhou. There is a prerequisite for taking Xuzhou, which is to deal with Chen Gong in Xia Pi. After thinking for a while, Qin Zhen smiled at Chen Jiao and said: "Now I have a preliminary plan to defeat the enemy, but the key to whether we can capture Xuzhou lies in Xiapi." "Although Chen Yuanlong is in Lu Bu's army, he still needs this person's help." "Sir, please go back and tell Chen Yuanlong that I will take care of the outside affairs myself, but for Xia Pi, we still need his help!" When Chen Jiao heard this, he frowned and said: "Mr. Qin's words are really unreasonable. It is difficult for you to follow Lu Bu right now!" "This place is hundreds of miles away from Xia Pi, so how can you help me?" Seeing that he looked troubled, Qin Zhen said with a confident look on his face: "This plan is not difficult, but it requires cooperation from both inside and outside!" "I think Yuanlong is very intelligent and will understand my intention." "Sir, just go back and tell Chen Yuanlong three things." "First, I have ordered the troops from Xiang County to march to Xiao County;" "Secondly, I will contact Zang Ba in the north to lead his troops south to attack Donghai County!" "Third, I will persuade Lei Xu's troops to launch a surprise attack on East City and block Lu Bu's retreat."

"After knowing these three things, Yuanlong will definitely understand my intention." "If you are willing to act, then act. If you are unable to act, then this battle will be difficult to achieve!" "Sir, just tell them this, but don't come back here, lest you arouse Lu Bu's suspicion." After listening to his confusing talk, Chen Jiao frowned and thought, you two are playing guessing games with me! One said that the time had come to capture Xuzhou and asked him to come and inform Qin Zhen. One said that a method to capture Xuzhou had been thought of, and you should go back quickly to inform Chen Deng to take action. The two seemed to have said a lot, but neither of them said how to do it specifically. Did they just treat him as a mouthpiece? Thinking of this, Chen Jiao felt as if he had been struck by a blow and frowned. "Mr. Qin, what you said is acceptable, but how can I guarantee that you can understand your intention?" "Since you already have a plan, you might as well write it down in detail so that I can pass it on when I return." "If you pass on this empty message and the Lord of the Mansion misunderstands your intention, it will ruin the whole thing!" He originally wanted to ask for a letter to report back, but Qin Zhen shook his head when he heard it: "This is absolutely not possible. Sir, do you know why Chen Yuanlong only asked you to come and deliver the message instead of writing to you?" "Because this is a secret conspiracy, it is passed on verbally. Even if Lu Bu finds out, it will not be a big deal." "If the letter is obtained by Lu Bu, not only will our plan fail, but your life will also be in danger!" "Sir, just remember my words and repeat them to me, and then you can leave!" After hearing the whole story, Chen Jiao reacted immediately. It turned out that these two people were afraid of leaking the secret! Fortunately, he had an excellent memory and repeated Qin Zhen's instructions word for word. After finishing the job, Qin Zhen ordered someone to escort him out of the mountain road and head southeast. After Chen Jiao left, Xu Sheng walked forward with a curious look on his face and said: "Military Advisor, what did this person come here to talk about this time, and why did he leave in such a hurry?" Seeing that he was so curious, Qin Zhen told him Chen Deng's purpose. When Xu Sheng heard that Chen Deng wanted to help them capture Xuzhou, he was overjoyed and said: "If that's true, then we've accomplished a great feat this time when we went north!" Originally, he didn't have much hope of making any contribution when he followed Qin Zhen north this time! Unexpectedly, there was a sudden turn of events and a huge credit was awarded to them. Once Xuzhou is captured, the contribution of this march to the north will be even greater than that in the south! Thinking about this, he naturally perked up and said without being as impatient as before: "Since Lord Chen is the one who planned this, I wonder what we should do?" Qin Zhen saw that the boy immediately became cautious and said with a smile: "If there are things we need to do, there are only three at the moment." "First, have Jiang Ziyi change direction and stop heading north. Instead, head south to Guangling by water and persuade Lei Xu to send troops to Dongcheng!" "Be sure to tell Jiang Ziyi to persuade Lei Xu, and he will be the first to make the contribution in this battle!"

"As for Lei Xu's request, you can respond to it as appropriate. If necessary, you can grant him the position of lieutenant general or captain!" "Second, send a message to Xu Yuanzhi, and tell him to do everything he can to persuade Zang Ba to go south!" "Tell Yuan Zhi directly that this is the key to capturing Xuzhou." "As for what Zang Ba asks for, no matter what it is, we can do it, as long as he is willing to send troops south!" "Third, quickly write a letter to report today's events to you, my lord. No reinforcements are needed, just order Zilong and Xingba to the north." "Lü Bu's courage is extraordinary, and only a fierce general can eliminate him!" "Besides these three things, you will wait outside the city. I must go into the city first to make arrangements." After listening to these three things, Xu Sheng nodded repeatedly and prepared to go and give orders. But after hearing the last sentence, he froze on the spot and said: "If you go to the city, what will we do if we run out of food?" As soon as he finished speaking, Qin Chen smiled and said: "In less than three days, the troops outside the city will be able to defeat them all. What do you have to worry about?" After saying this, he walked towards the lake with his hands behind his back. Now that the overall strategy has been decided, they shouldn't just wait here any longer. Zhang Liao and Gao Shun outside the city should be dealt with together! (End of this chapter)