Chapter 353: Cai Mao rebels because of Le Yang Cai Mao was in a daze and had not recovered until he returned to Jiangling. Qin Zhen wanted to capture the city, so he asked him to help as an insider in this battle, which was a troublesome matter. Just as he said, his family is now in Xiangyang, so he cannot act openly. Even if we lose a city, we have to do it with some technical skills, ensuring that the mission is accomplished and that no one is noticing. Moreover, this matter must be done quickly, and the city’s defense issues must be resolved before Qin Zhen takes action. While he was thinking about this, when he returned to Jiangling City, it was already evening. It was not yet summer, the nights were long and the days were short, and it was only the first watch in the evening. When Cai Mao returned home, he did nothing else but asked his servants to bring him some wine and food so that he could fill his stomach first. After drinking two kilograms of wine, he not only did not feel dizzy, but felt more awake, and could not help thinking about the current situation.

Indeed, it is now a foregone conclusion that Liu Bei will take control of Jingzhou. If there are no other circumstances, Liu Bei will most likely be able to occupy the entire Jingzhou. Under such circumstances, it would be extremely beneficial for the Cai family to establish a relationship with Liu Bei's army as soon as possible. So theoretically speaking, there is nothing wrong with agreeing to Qin Zhen's conditions for asking him to help. But he always felt that something was wrong, at least not as simple as it seemed on the surface. Because he is now helping Qin Zhen, it is not as simple as Huang's surrender to Liu Bei. Huang surrendered to Liu Bei and helped him capture Jiangxia through rebellion. This contribution is obvious. But now he is helping Qin Zhen, but his contribution is hidden and no one knows about it except Qin Zhen. This means that the credit for his loss of Jiangling went to Qin Zhen, and the most he received was an evaluation of incompetence. The benefits that can be gained by helping Qin Zhen are premised on Qin Zhen explaining his contribution to Liu Bei after the war. This obviously leads to a problem. Liu Bei attaches great importance to personal loyalty, but the credit he gained is disloyal and unrighteous. As a relative of Liu Biao, betraying Liu Biao is disloyalty; being stationed in a foreign place and colluding with the enemy in advance is unrighteousness. In this case, even if he has made a contribution this time, will Liu Bei still respect him? In other words, given his previous record of helping to surrender the city, would Liu Bei dare to use him in the future? The answer to this question is very obvious. No one would be able to use him, let alone Liu Bei. A person who can betray even his own brother-in-law will never be valued by any monarch. This would also lead to a possibility that after seizing Jingzhou, Liu Bei would abandon the Cai family and eventually alienate them. Even if Tsai can still be reused, his political career will come to an end. This is obviously not in the interests of the Tsai family or his personal interests. But if he didn't do this, another problem would arise. He would directly offend Qin Zhen, the second-in-command of Liu Bei's army. After all, Qin Zhen has now found the door, and he can help capture the city. He first agreed to Qin Zhen's request, but then did nothing. This would naturally make Qin Zhen unhappy!

When he joins Liu Bei's army in the future, Qin Zhen will have plenty of ways to make things difficult for the Cai family. It can be said that this is a problem that is blocked at both ends. No matter how it is done, it will not be good for the Cai family. Thinking of this, Cai Mao couldn't help but throw the wine cup to the ground and cursed: "You are such a shameless boy. You keep calling me brother, but everything you do is so rude!" If he had known this would happen, he should not have gone to see Qin Zhen today. Thinking of this, he cleared away the food and wine on the table. At one point, the bronze tripods fell to the ground with a clang, startling a woman who came into the hall and called out: "Why is my husband so angry? Could it be that someone in the mansion has made my husband unhappy?" This woman was none other than Cai Mao's concubine. She was a concubine's daughter from a small family in Jingzhou and was quite loved by Cai Mao. But now when he saw this woman, Cai Mao became even more angry, pointing outside and shouting: "I am eating and drinking here. You didn't come to serve me before. What are you doing here now? Get out of here!" When the concubine was scolded by him, her face turned pale immediately, and then she left with red eyes. Cai Mao felt sorry for her when he saw this, and wanted to follow her to comfort her. But he felt troubled, so he stopped. But at this moment, another old man walked into the house quickly and bowed directly, saying: "My Lord, what is this? Old Lord Cai Zhou has sent a letter to you!" He originally wanted to ask Cai Mao what was wrong, but when he saw Cai Mao's unfriendly expression, he quickly changed the subject. Cai Mao was about to yell angrily, but when he heard the letter from Cai Feng, his expression immediately perked up. As mentioned earlier, in order to see the current situation clearly, he sent a letter to ask his father for his opinion. Now he is hesitant and angry because he finds it difficult to deal with the current situation. At this time, Cai Feng's opinion became extremely important. As soon as he heard that there was a letter, he stepped forward to take the wooden tablet and take a look. As a result, he looked at it and saw only one sentence on the wooden tablet: "Have you not seen Le Yang serving Wei Wenhou?" Le Yang was a famous general of the Wei State during the Warring States Period and the ancestor of Le Yi. He was granted a fiefdom for defeating the Zhongshan State. Wei Wenhou was not only Wei Si, but also the founding monarch of Wei, one of the seven major powers in the Warring States Period, and the lord of Le Yang. Looking at the relationship between these two people alone, there is actually not much to see, but there is a little story between them. Because Le Yang was ordered by Wei Si to attack Zhongshan State, he had to adopt a defensive stance due to his weak military force. In order to force Le Yang to fight, Zhongshan State chopped his son Le Shu into meat paste and made a meat soup for him. Unexpectedly, after Le Yang knew about it, he ate the whole bowl of meat soup to show his loyalty. When Wei Si heard about this, he praised Le Yang's loyalty to everyone, but Du Shizan said: If his son eats it, who wouldn't eat it? After hearing this, Weiss began to suspect Le Yang, and although he was granted land for official purposes, he was no longer employed. Cai Feng sent this sentence directly to Cai Mao. His intention was very simple, which was to show that the Cai family and the Huang family were different. The Cai family is related to Liu Biao, and even their relatives can betray them. That would be like Le Yang, who would not be valued even though he had made contributions. If they wanted to gain Liu Bei's trust, they had to be loyal and follow Liu Biao till the end. Although this will not gain any extra credit, it can ensure that the Cai family will not be suspected in the future.

Cai Mao was originally hesitant at this time, but after reading these words in the book, he was immediately cheered up! He thought that although the pressure from Qin Zhen was great, Qin Zhen could not protect the Cai family forever. If they wanted to continue to prosper, the key was to start with Liu Bei! In this case, not only would he be unable to help Qin Zhen, but he would also have to guard against Qin Zhen's sudden sneak attack. Thinking of this, he strode out of the palace, summoned all the generals in the city, and ordered: "Our spies have received news that the enemy will launch a surprise attack on the city tonight. You must guard the city gates tightly and don't give the enemy a chance to take advantage of you!" The generals naturally didn't know what happened during the day, and they were all shocked when they heard this. Only Huo Jun frowned and said: "May I ask, Advisor, since the enemy has come to attack us by surprise, what are they planning to do and when will they come?" "You must know that our army is small in number. How to deploy the defense must be focused and not dispersed." Being on guard does not just mean guarding the city tightly. It is also better to know the enemy's methods and timing! After all, Jiangling City is not like any small city. This city is six or seven miles long from east to west, three or four miles wide from north to south, and more than twenty miles in circumference! They only have 15,000 soldiers in the city. Assuming that half of them are used to guard the city, excluding the patrolling reserve soldiers in the city, there are only 5,000 people available to stand guard. If five thousand people were divided equally, one step would not be enough to get one soldier, and it would take one and a half steps to get one soldier. This deployment of troops can be considered as a complete lack of defense, and coupled with the cover of night, it is extremely difficult to defend. So when Huo Jun, a natural defensive general, heard the news, he immediately asked for relevant details. But when he asked this question, Cai Mao was stumped, and he suddenly remembered something! Qin Zhen only told him that he was going to launch a night attack, but did not tell him how he was going to launch the attack! Are they here to seize the city by deception? Or are they sending troops to attack directly? Are they coming in the first half of the night? Or in the second half of the night? In other words, he knew that Qin Zhen intended to attack at night, but he was completely unaware of Qin Zhen's strategy. "I don't know about this!" Cai Mao shook his head and thought: "Maybe we can mobilize the whole army and guard all four gates, is that okay?" Since I don't know when Qin Zhen will come, I will send all 15,000 people forward. This way I can prevent Qin Zhen's attack, right? However, he also knew about military affairs. As soon as he said this, Huo Jun couldn't speak. He realized another problem. What if Qin Zhen is trying to take advantage of his trick and doesn't come tonight but comes tomorrow night? If it was someone else planning this, they might not act this way, but Qin Zhen is different. This guy never plays by the rules. He himself is still hesitating here, how could Qin Zhen not know what he is thinking? How could Qin Zhen be sure that he would act according to the plan when even he himself was not sure about it? If Qin Zhen himself was unsure, then given his cautious personality, would he not take any protective measures? Assuming that Qin Zhen had protective measures himself, his idea of ​​defending against all odds would most likely not succeed. Qin Zhen could completely use the strategy of tiring out the enemy, constantly harassing them, and then suddenly launching an attack on Jiangling City. Thinking of this, Cai Mao frowned, paced back and forth with his hands behind his back, thinking. Before making the decision, he always felt that Qin Zhen’s request was a bit shameless, but after deciding to become his enemy, he felt that this person was simply unpredictable. Not only is he erratic, but his thoughts are also difficult to fathom. You have no idea which of his words are true and which are false! If you can’t distinguish between truth and falsehood, it’s easy to make mistakes in judgment and fail to make correct decisions. After thinking about it for a while, he simply turned his head to look at Huo Jun and said earnestly: "I have just finished drinking and my thoughts are not clear. I wonder what Zhongmiao thinks our army should do?" Huo Jun frowned when he saw his expression, then he clasped his fist towards him and said: "May I ask, my Lord, is the person I met outside the city today Qin Zixuan?" In fact, he felt something was wrong when he followed Cai Mao out of the city today. Now seeing Cai Mao's appearance, he guessed about 70% of it!

Because now they are facing no one else but the tens of thousands of soldiers led by Qin Zhen. Cai Mao originally said that he was going to meet an old friend, but once he arrived outside the city, he was allowed to surround the manor. This move was not ordinary. Now that he had returned to the mansion, he drank some wine first, and then told them that the enemy would launch a surprise attack tonight. All this clearly proves that the person Cai Mao met today was not a simple person, and was most likely the enemy commander Qin Zhen. As soon as he asked the question, all the generals were shocked. Seeing this, Cai Mao knew that the matter could not be concealed, so he simply said in a deep voice: "It is this person. I am ashamed to say that I had some dealings with him in the past, so he came to persuade me to surrender today." "I don't want to betray my lord, and this man said he would attack at night, so he asked me to help him." "I am the governor of Nanjun, so I pretended to respond to it and invited you to discuss how to break it!" Anyway, he had already decided not to rebel against Liu Biao, and saying it now would also show his determination to the generals. Naturally, everyone didn't know what Cai Mao was thinking. Seeing that he was so determined, they all bowed and said: "We are all willing to help you, Lord, to defeat Qin Zhen's army and will not let him take the city." However, Huo Jun frowned as he listened, and after thinking for a moment, he said to Cai Mao: "Please forgive me for speaking frankly, my Lord. Qin Zhen is a man of many schemes, and it will be difficult to succeed by taking advantage of his tricks." "I have a plan. Why not take the initiative and attack the enemy camp while they are careless?" "Otherwise, this guy has so many soldiers and horses that even if he fails tonight, he will come back to attack the city tomorrow!" Cai Mao saw that he wanted to take the initiative to attack, and naturally his heart sank. He hesitated for a moment and stroked his beard and said: "Even if I want to take the initiative to attack, how can I sneak attack the enemy camp if I don't know where it is?" Of course he knew that taking the initiative would be more effective, but he only saw Qin Zhen and not his troops. How could he know where Qin Zhen's camp was? As soon as he finished speaking, Huo Jun shook his head, pointed to the east and said: "I know the enemy camp must be in the east of the city. We only need to send someone to investigate and we will know the details!" (End of this chapter)