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The next day, Zhou Yu led the reorganized 50,000 Yizhou troops back to Ba County and took charge of Jiangzhou.

The other three generals Lu Meng, Deng Xian, Wu Lan and Yan Yan followed him to Ba County this time. After discussion last night, Li Li officially sent the three of them to Zhou Yu's tent to listen to him. Among them, Lu Meng and Deng Xian were appointed as generals and were granted titles. Although they were miscellaneous generals and had no titles with fiefs, they were ranks comparable to the nine ministers. In addition to them, Wu Lan was promoted to General of the Central Army and was under the jurisdiction of Zhou Yu's tent.

Yan Yan was quite outstanding and highly appreciated by Li Li. He was not only promoted to general, but also served as the prefect of Ba County and served as Zhou Yu's deputy general, which was a success and fame.

Not only that, Yan Yan was the first "successful general" among the Yizhou generals to be entrusted with important tasks, which surprised many generals and secretly sighed, "Yan Yan will finally be a wise ruler!"

What is little known is that the reason why Yan Yan stood out this time was thanks to Zhang Fei. To be precise, it was Zhang Fei who fought with him for more than 20 rounds, which invisibly helped him, which made him enter Li Li's sight, and thus was appreciated by Li Li and entrusted him with important tasks.

Therefore, Yan Yan has the status today thanks to Zhang Fei's success. If Zhang Fei had not shown mercy and had not killed him after defeating him, I'm afraid he would have been dead for a long time now.

But who knew that Yan Yan was not grateful for this, but instead was indignant and depressed for half a month, and was disgraced. If Liu Zhang had not come forward to persuade him in time, he would have committed suicide in his mansion ten days ago.

Speaking of the Battle of Jiangzhou, Yan Yan is indeed very innocent and very sad.

When Liu Zhang decided to form the Dongzhou army, Huang Quan recommended Yan Yan as the commander of the Dongzhou army. He went to recruit new troops. However, Zhang Song had ulterior motives to offer advice to form a new army, so he would definitely not sit idly by and watch the recruitment of new troops fall on Yan Yan's head. So he volunteered to recruit new troops with Wu Yi to recruit new troops. This move did not arouse the vigilance of Liu Zhang and the officials of Yizhou at that time. Therefore, Liu Zhang readily agreed and approved Zhang Song's request, so he sent Yan Yan to Ba County, trying to disrupt Jiangzhou, the foundation of Zhao Wei, and gave him a fatal blow.

However, Ba County was the rear of Zhao Wei's rebels. It was not easy for Yan Yan to sneak into Ba County and take over the troops of Ba County, which was tantamount to an impossible mission. However, with Liu Zhang's order, Yan Yan knew that the task was arduous, but he did not dare to disobey. He could only bite the bullet and take more than a thousand troops of his troops to Dongchuan.

Along the way, Yan Yan hid with more than a thousand troops, tried to avoid the rebels' suspicion, and did not fight head-on, often hiking at night, and moving forward in a roundabout way. Since this, the marching speed has been extremely slow, traveling up to twenty or thirty miles a day, and even for many days without any impetuous progress. He could not hide. Therefore, a lot of time was delayed, so that when Yan Yan brought more than a thousand people to the city of Jiangzhou, the capital of Ba County, Zhou Yu's army had already surrounded Jiangzhou City. He immediately discovered the "reinforcement army" he led.

The most blinding thing is that Yan Yan did not know that the Western Liang army was under the city of Jiangzhou, so he crashed into the arms of the Western Liang army in a confused manner. He was surrounded by the Western Liang army. The sudden encounter lasted less than a quarter of an hour, and all the more than a thousand troops under Yan Yan's tent were killed. He was the only "bare guy" left. Just as Yan Yan was about to fight to the end and fulfill his loyalty to Liu Zhang, he met the only powerful opponent "Zhang Butcher" (Zhang Fei) he saw in his life. In just twenty-six rounds, he was defeated, and his sword was picked up by Zhang Fei's Snake Spear and was knocked off.

At that moment, Yan Yan was severely injured, unarmed, surrounded by the Xiliang Legion, and had no hope of escaping. Therefore, he was ashamed of his heart and had already determined to die. Unexpectedly, Zhang Fei did not kill him, but captured him alive, and then took him to Li Xian, pleaded for him, so he saved his life.

This experience was regarded as a great humiliation by Yan Yan. He would rather die in the battlefield than be defeated and captured and become a prisoner under the ranks. Therefore, he not only did not appreciate Zhang Fei, but hated him to the core. For this reason, he insulted Zhang Fei and Li Xian in public, trying to anger the two of them, and then he would be happy to avoid being humiliated.

But he didn't know that as early as when Li Xian led his army to Ba County, Zhou Yu had an explanation, and mentioned that Li Li once mentioned that one person was loyal, righteous and brave, which was very useful, and this person was Yan Yan. It was precisely because of this that Yan Yan could save his life, so that he deliberately angered Li Xian and Zhang Fei, but it was still useless.

After that, the situation suddenly changed. Liu Zhang surrendered without fighting and handed over Yizhou to Li Li, so that all the civil and military officials in Yizhou became surrendered generals and ministers in an instant, and Yan Yan was no exception.

Li Li's way of dealing with the surrendered generals and civil officials in Yizhou was quite special. He did not convince the civil servants of Yizhou to surrender to him one by one, but directly put them aside and ignored them for more than half a month. After the situation in Yizhou stabilized, any civil officials who could be favored by him would directly appoint official positions without any persuasion, and the rest would automatically remove all positions. This is the way for civil officials in Yizhou to handle it. It is simple and rough, but effective and extremely efficient.

Compared with civil officials, Li Li seemed very cautious in the appointment of military generals. About 60% of Yizhou generals were all demoted to Yizhou County Government soldiers under Li Xian's tent; about 20% of the generals were removed from their posts and demoted to common people; the remaining 20% ​​of the generals were the top priority, and they were also available generals who could enter Li Li's eyes.

For these generals who were still useful, Li Li himself did not come forward at all, and asked Liu Zhang to persuade them to surrender; the typical representatives were Zhang Ren, Yan Yan, Lei Tong, Deng Xian and others. At this point, many people suddenly realized that Li Li had been leaving Liu Zhang in Yizhou, and this was the intention.

After being reused again, Yan Yan's feelings for Zhang Fei were quite complicated. Although he still hated Zhang Fei as always on the surface and did not appreciate it, he was full of gratitude to Zhang Fei in his heart. He was just afraid to face it calmly because of his face and was unwilling to admit it in public.

After saying that, Yan Yan had to mention the reason why Zhou Yu was ordered to guard Jiangzhou this time.

More than 20 days ago, after Jiangzhou fell, in order to conquer Chengdu as soon as possible, Zhou Yu transferred all the troops under his tent to Chengdu. This made the newly captured Ba County empty, and the border passes and riverside troughs were neglected, so that the news of the fall of Yizhou was leaked and then spread into Jingzhou, which was only separated by a river. So half a month after Li Li occupied the entire territory of Yizhou, on the night when he was secretly discussing with Zhou Yu, Zhuge Liang and others, Li Li received a secret report that the Jingzhou navy was frequently mobilized, and tens of thousands of troops gathered in a row towards Ba County, as if he was moving westward.

After hearing the news, Li Li made a quick decision and appointed Zhou Yu to continue as the governor of Hanzhong, restraining the troops of Hanzhong, Guanghan, and Bajun, and leading 50,000 troops to Jiangzhou to resist the Jingzhou army's advance westward.

At the same time, facing the Jingzhou army's eagerness to move westward, Li Li was extremely calm and flatly rejected the general's request to go to war with the Jingzhou army. He also told Zhou Yu to try his best to restrain his emotions, and not fight without fighting, and to make a smooth transition for a period of time. If it is necessary to fight, Zhou Yu is fully responsible for the battle between Ba County, and he will decide on the battle and major plans on his own without asking for instructions.

For this reason, Li Li privately told Zhou Yu that the more than 100,000 troops that went to Yizhou this time were already all the troops that the Xiliang army could mobilize now, and Yizhou had just recovered, and a smooth transition was the top priority. Each county and county must station a certain number of troops to maintain stability. Therefore, the more than 100,000 troops stationed in Yizhou could not be mobilized at will and could not support the war in Ba County. The reorganized Yizhou army also had other uses and could not be used to resist the Jingzhou army's westward advance. The implication is that Zhou Yu had only 50,000 troops available, and there were no reinforcements available, so whether he could resist the Jingzhou army's western offensive depends entirely on how he used his troops.

It can be seen from this that Li Li does not want to go to a full-scale war with Liu Biao, Jingzhou, so Zhou Yu's real intention of seizing Jiangzhou is to prevent the Jingzhou army from advancing west rather than taking the initiative to attack. This is a temporary measure and a relatively conservative defensive strategy.

Relatively speaking, in terms of the current situation, the time for the Xiliang Army to go to war with the Jingzhou Army is not yet ripe, and there are many unpredictable unstable factors; once the two armies go to war, Cao Cao from Jizhou will definitely reap the benefits. Not only Li Li knows this, but he is afraid that Liu Biao from Jingzhou will also know it.

Therefore, the frequent mobilization of troops in Jingzhou this time is very likely to be a feint, bluffing, trying to shock the Xiliang army, and not really intending to start a war with the Xiliang army. After all, Yizhou and Jingzhou are the only two remaining Han forces. Although they have always been incompatible with each other, they are relying on each other and coexisting vassal forces. Now, Liu Zhang of Yizhou surrendered without fighting, and Li Li occupied Yizhou, which shocked Liu Biao of Jingzhou and could not sleep or eat.

As the saying goes, the lips are lost and the teeth are cold. After the fall of Yizhou, Li Li's power further expanded, and invisibly formed a cross-border attack on Jingzhou from east, west and north. Faced with such a severe situation, how could Liu Biao remain indifferent? How could he sit in Jingzhou?

It is no exaggeration to say that after Li Li occupied Yizhou, Liu Biao in Jingzhou was already forced to the corner of the wall. Whether he was interested in fighting for hegemony, whether he really wanted to spend his old age in Jingzhou or pretend to be hypocritical, he had been forced to the edge of the cliff with no way out. Now he has only two choices left, one is to follow Liu Zhang and surrender without fighting; the other is to not compromise, and to give up and compete with Li Li.

There is no choice but to that.

However, if Liu Biao wanted to confront Li Li head-on with just the territory of Jingzhou, it would be like hitting a stone with an egg and causing self-destruction. Obviously, Liu Biao had long realized this, so he wanted to take advantage of Li Li's occupation of Yizhou and the army was pretending to move, causing a large-scale westward momentum, putting pressure on Li Li and shocking him. Behind the shock, Liu Biao must have other plans, but what is his intention is still unknown, and everything is quietly brewing.

It can be foreseen that there is a strange and strange fog covering the country. When the fog is cleared, the current situation of the world will be changed again.

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Chapter completed!