Chapter 293: Change of direction, rebel general in the army With Sun Ce and Zhou Yu working together on the Piliang defense line, they can basically prevent more than 90% of the plans. And what strategy can Qin Zhen use to defeat this combination? To put it simply, we must first take Wuxi, which is a city between Piling County and Wu County! Because Sun Ce is now in a completely desperate situation. In the entire Wujun, only Shaxian, Wuxi, Wuxian, Louxian and Haiyan are still under his control. After being divided and surrounded by them, Shaxian and Haiyan have now become enclaves. With Youquan's Sun Ben being defeated by Zhang Fei, they only needed to capture Wuxi to trap Sun Ce in an isolated city. Under such circumstances, if either Wuxian or Piling fell, Sun Ce would not be able to hold on. Therefore, if Sun Ce did not want to be defeated, he had no choice but to withdraw from Piling and defend Wu County! Following Qin Zhen's suggestion, Liu Bei ordered Zhang Fei to go north and raid Wuxi from Zhenze Lake. Their main force no longer attacked Pi Ling, but turned their attention to Sun Ce's camp to attract attention. As Liu Bei's army turned, the pressure on Zhou Yu in the city was relieved. It was obvious that Liu Bei's offensive was fierce. The generals in the city said: "Now that Liu Bei is attacking our lord's camp, why don't we lead our troops to attack him from behind?"

Under Liu Bei's offensive, Sun Ce's army had fewer and fewer generals. At this time, there were only Zhu Zhi, Cheng Pu and others in the city. People like Jiang Qin, Sun Fu, and Lu Meng were all under Sun Ce's command. Zhou Yu listened to what the two said, thought for a while, then shook his head and said: "Not yet. Liu Bei is unable to capture the city now, so he must be resorting to trickery. If we attack rashly, we may fall into the enemy's trap." "We must guard the city strictly and not let Liu Bei take advantage of the situation!" Upon hearing this, the two generals said no more and marched out to investigate the movements outside the city. On the other side, after Liu Bei turned around, he led his troops to Sun Ce's camp to check the terrain. It turned out that Sun Ce's camp was located on the river bank, which was quite high in terrain, making it difficult to cut off the water supply or to attack by force. Seeing this, Liu Bei was naturally troubled and didn't know how to attack. Qin Zhen saw this and pointed to the river bank and said: "We can set up camp here, build a high platform inside the camp, and use catapults to throw catapults at it!" “If the enemy marches out, we can ambush one of their forces below the river bank and defeat them.” Liu Bei followed his plan and sent Chen Dao and Taishi Ci to challenge the enemy in front of the camp. He also ordered his strong soldiers to bring earth and stones to build a stronghold and a platform. Sun Ce was watching Liu Bei in the camp and couldn't help but wonder: "The enemy army could have just come with their troops to challenge us, but why did they station soldiers in the rear?" Everyone was puzzled when they saw this, except Lu Meng who hurriedly said: "Liu Bei's army has siege weapons. With this behavior, I'm afraid they are planning to throw rocks outside the camp!" When Sun Ce heard this, he was horrified and hurriedly gathered his troops in the camp and rushed out. Unexpectedly, Taishi Ci and Chen Dao's armies were waiting here to prevent Sun Ce from leaving the camp. As soon as he led his troops out, two generals immediately led their troops to attack. Sun Ce was unable to defeat them, so he had to retreat back to the camp and ask his generals for any strategy. Jiang Qin heard this, thought for a while, and then offered him a plan:

"My lord, why don't you lead the army to charge out, pretend to be defeated and retreat, and then advance toward the north gate." "We will fight our way out of the south gate and stop the enemy from stationing in the camp first!" Upon hearing this, Sun Ce hurriedly led another troop of soldiers and horses to march out. When he saw Chen Dao and Taishi Ci leading their troops towards him, he pretended to be defeated and retreated. When Taishi Ci and Chen Dao saw them, they naturally gave chase. Unexpectedly, just as they left, Jiang Qin and Lu Meng led an army out of the camp and headed straight for the engineering team. The two men were shocked when they saw this and tried to fight back, but were bitten by Sun Ce and could not move. Jiang Qin and Lu Meng were overjoyed when they saw this, and rushed forward hastily, but at this moment, thousands of soldiers and horses emerged from the river bank. It turned out that it was spring at that time. Although the ice and snow had melted, the water level was low. Liu Bei asked Gao Shun and Zhao Yun to ambush on the river bank. At this time, Jiang Qin and Lu Meng led their troops forward, but were stopped by the two men and killed. As soon as Sun Ce returned to the camp in defeat, Jiang Qin and Lu Meng also returned in defeat. After the battle, not only did they fail to stop Liu Bei's army from stationing in the camp, but they also lost more than 3,000 soldiers. Upon seeing this, Sun Ce dared not go out again and had to let Liu Bei camp at the door. In this way, Liu Bei set up his camp in one day, and two days later, several high platforms were built in the camp. On the fourth day, catapults were put on the stage in the camp and the soldiers pulled them at the same time, causing stones to fly into the air and hit the enemy camp. They were in a dominant position and Sun Ce's troops had nowhere to hide, so they had to retreat to the rear. Upon seeing this, Zhuge Liang advised Liu Bei to break through the stronghold from the main gate. Liu Bei immediately ordered Chen Dao and Taishi Ci to lead their troops to attack the stronghold. Sun Ce resisted for two days in a row, but could no longer hold out, so he sent a letter to Zhou Yu for help. After receiving the order, Zhou Yu led his troops to launch a surprise attack while Liu Bei was attacking the big camp. But as soon as he arrived outside Liu Bei's camp, he was shot by a large number of crossbow arrows. It turned out that since the last time they resisted Lu Bu, Liu Bei's army had been equipped with thousands of crossbows. Here they mainly attacked Sun Ce's camp, and let Xu Sheng lead the crossbowmen to defend the rear. When Xu Sheng saw Zhou Yu leading his troops to attack, he ordered his men not to move until Zhou Yu arrived in front of the camp, and then he gave the order to shoot. A wave of arrows rained down, killing and wounding hundreds of Zhou Yu's men, and he hurriedly ordered his men to raise shields for defense. But when Xu Sheng saw that he was defending in the front line, he ordered his soldiers to shoot with bows and crossbows at the troops in the rear. If it was an ordinary bow and crossbow, shooting like this once would leave Zhou Yu with a lot of room. The repeating crossbow can shoot several times in a row without loading arrows. Although the range is short, the firepower is sufficient. Two more rounds of projectiles killed and wounded hundreds of Zhou Yu's soldiers, causing chaos in Zhou Yu's formation. Seeing the opportunity, Xu Sheng led the remaining troops to charge out. After a fierce battle, he repelled Zhou Yu's attack.

At this time, Liu Bei heard that the camp was attacked and hurriedly led his troops back. As for the camp, they found that Zhou Yu had been defeated. After listening to Xu Sheng's story, they were overjoyed and said: "If there is someone who is good at driving under my command, who else can he be but Xu Wen?" Subsequently, he promoted Xu Sheng to the rank of Huwei Cavalry Captain, and in addition to his own 3,000 troops, he transferred another 2,000 troops for Xu Sheng to command. At this point, Xu Sheng also joined the ranks of Liu Bei's generals and led an army on his own. On the other side, Zhou Yu failed in his surprise attack on Liu Bei's camp and couldn't help but sigh: "Liu Bei's army defends and attacks at the same time, and they can still advance and retreat freely. How can our army win?" "It is difficult to defeat the enemy army now. We should persuade Bo Fu to enter the city quickly!" He then wrote a military report and sent it to Sun Ce, and at the same time ordered Cheng Pu and Zhu Zhi to lead troops to escort Sun Ce back to the city. He sent the letter, and after Sun Ce received it, he also sighed. After considering for a while, he decided to retreat back to the city at night and no longer fight with Liu Bei's army outside. In order to prevent Liu Bei's army from discovering anything unusual, he did not even withdraw the camp, but directly informed the entire army and withdrew the camp at four o'clock in the morning. However, his camp had been attacked by Liu Bei for many days, and his officers had lost their will to fight. Among them was a general named Ding Fan, who was originally from Kuaiji. When Sun Ce defeated Wang Lang at the beginning, this man, along with He Qi and others, joined Sun Ce's army. In the original story, this man was beheaded by He Qi because he disobeyed military orders. But in this timeline, he always followed Sun Ce in his campaigns and served as a grain officer. As the connection between Wujun and Kuaiji was cut off by Liu Bei's army, they had already lost hope. Seeing that Sun Ce was losing the battle and had to retreat into the city, he complained: "If we continue to fight like this, we will all die for your grandson's family." Unexpectedly, these words were heard by his subordinates and passed on to Sun Fu, who became furious upon hearing them. If it was just a normal complaint, it would be fine, but Ding Fan’s words “Nai Gong” not only insulted Sun Ce, but also included him in the insult. So he led his troops straight into Ding Fan's tent, grabbed Ding Fan and slapped him in the face without saying a word. The slap made Ding Fan's mouth and nose bleed, and he kept begging for mercy. Seeing this, Sun Fu calmed down, stopped slapping, pointed at Ding Fan and cursed: "You bastard, I told you to withdraw your troops, but if I hear you say anything bad again, I will never let you go!" Upon seeing this, Ding Fan readily agreed without saying anything more. After Sun Fu left, he burst into tears thinking of the humiliation he had suffered. This sound attracted Ding Fan's local soldiers to come and look. When they heard the whole story, they were all furious. Among them was a man from Danyang named Gui Lan, who had long wanted to defect. Seeing this, he said: "In this battle, many of us Jiangdong men died and were injured for Sun Ce, but this man does not regard us as human beings." "Let them retreat as they please. They will die in the city sooner or later. Such humiliation is intolerable to the scholars!" Upon hearing this, Ding Fan nodded quickly, as if he had met a bosom friend, and cried:

"As you said, I am not afraid of death but I am afraid of humiliation. However, it is difficult to obey the military orders. What should I do?" When Gui Lan saw his reply, he knew what he meant and continued to test him: "Liu Zhengdong is away now, and there is nothing we can do. Since he is leaving the camp at four o'clock tonight, we just need to report the news." "I don't care whether he lives or dies, as long as their army is defeated, we will be free!" "If you are interested, I will lead the others out to fetch water and report the news later." "When he retreats tonight and Liu Zhengdong launches a surprise attack, we can tie a white cloth around our bodies as a signal and lead our troops to cause chaos, and then we can succeed!" Ding Fan had always intended to take revenge, and when he heard this, he immediately agreed. So he called his trusted followers, and when evening came, he pretended to go out to fetch water, and then headed towards Liu Bei's camp. When they entered the camp and talked about everything, Liu Bei listened and said with a strange look on his face: "Since our army fought against Sun Lang, there has never been a single rebel!" "I didn't expect someone to come and tip off the news. Could it be a scam?" The troops under Sun Ce's command were the most tenacious force Liu Bei had ever encountered, bar none. After all, there were always people defecting from Cao's army, but no one from Sun Ce's army had ever defected since the start of the war. So when he saw someone suddenly come to tip him off, he was a little confused. Qin Zhen originally thought it was Sun Ce's plan, but after hearing the names of Gui Lan and Ding Fan, he laughed and said: "When the time comes, heaven and earth are on your side; when the luck is gone, heroes are helpless." "Sun Ce has been defeated in battles one after another, so his subordinates must be restless, and it's not surprising that one or two villains have emerged." "And given Sun Ce's current situation, he should retreat back to the city and hold on!" "If our army didn't know, it would be fine. Now that we know, we should make some arrangements." He immediately summoned all the generals and set a trap together with Zhuge Liang. After the troops were deployed in this way, the sky gradually darkened. At four o'clock in the night, Sun Ce woke up all his soldiers and sent out spies to investigate the situation in Liu Bei's camp. After confirming that most of the lights in Liu Bei's camp had been turned off, he led his troops slowly out of the camp. According to the agreement between him and Zhou Yu, they walked along the main road towards Piling City. In order to cover his tracks, he told the soldiers not to light torches and to move forward quietly. As they were approaching the city, a burst of shouting and killing suddenly rang out in the silent night sky. This sound scared Sun Ce and others, and they quickly ordered them to be on alert. But when he looked around, he saw no enemy troops coming out. Just as he was wondering, he suddenly saw a knight coming up and shouting: "My lord, something terrible has happened. There are traitors in our city." "Open the city gates and welcome Liu Bei's army into the city!" "Our army is defeated. Please come and reinforce us as soon as possible."

When Sun Ce heard this, he was horrified, thinking that Zhou Yu had sent troops to support the city tonight and the city was already empty. With such shouting and killing sounds, could it be that Liu Bei's troops are trying to stop Cheng Pu and others from returning to the city? Thinking of this, he no longer hesitated and led his troops to the west. When he was halfway there, he suddenly saw two groups of soldiers fighting each other. He shouted loudly and led his troops to charge forward. After several days of fierce fighting, he had only 8,000 soldiers left, and they lined up in a long line, trying to attack the rear of Liu Bei's army. Sun Ce was the first to lead the way. Looking at the soldiers fighting in front of him, he shouted: "Where is General Cheng? I have already brought troops to reinforce here!" But when he shouted, he saw the soldiers fighting in front of him suddenly stopped. The two armies joined together and actually formed a battle formation. At the same time, countless soldiers stood up on both sides of the road. When Sun Ce saw this, he was shocked and quickly retreated. But at this moment, with an order, a large number of arrows shot towards his army. (End of this chapter)