Xie Bi was a very low-key one among the generals of the Taishan Army. This was also related to his experience. No matter who was stabbed like a pig or a dog by the head of his family, his aspirations would be different.
He prided himself on being the handsomest among his clan members, and felt that even if he was on the sidelines, he could gain his own glory through his own efforts. But in the three ridges outside the Xue family wall, the sword given to him by his clan leader made him truly understand what
It's just that some things are determined from birth. As long as you work hard, these things are not yours.
Simply put, not everyone in this world is like this. At least there are heroes like Qu Kui, who will bring fairness to this world so that everyone who works hard can have the opportunity to obtain his own glory.
Therefore, although Xie Bi's mind has changed, it is not dead. Instead, he is more tenacious than before. The result is that Xie Bi no longer has the arrogance of the past, but has become restrained and low-key.
But keeping a low profile, Xie Bi is undoubtedly a recognized wise general in the military.
Once, Zhang Chong asked military advisor He Kui:
"Among the many generals, such as Ding Sheng, Dian Wei, and Tian Jun, who can be called good generals?"
He Kui said:
"Ding Sheng is a fierce general, not a strategic general; Dian Wei is a fighting general, not a leading general; Tian Jun is a cavalry general, not a general."
Zhang Chong did not comment, but asked:
"Who does Shulong think is a good general?"
He Kui said:
"Guan Yu is brave and righteous, Zhang Dan is wise, Xie Bi is benevolent in planning, Li Da is powerful in eyesight, and strict in prohibiting faith. They are all good generals."
Zhang Chong was silent for a while and said this:
"Sun Tzu said, there are five dangers in a general: death can be killed, life can be captured, anger can be insulted, integrity can be humiliated, and love for the people can be troublesome. Any of these five will lead to disaster if the general is overkill. If the general is overthrown, he will be killed.
, there must be five dangers, so we must pay attention to them."
What does Zhang Chong mean by this? He Kui commented on the generals in the army. Although they all have good words about bravery, strictness, benevolence, and righteousness. But in fact? These shining qualities in human nature can also become yours.
defect.
For example, if you love the people very much, and the enemy knows about it, they will go outside the city to kill your people and force you to fight. If you just love the people and don't want to see the people die in vain, then you will fall into the enemy's trap and overturn the army and kill the general.
In front of you. And if you are a person who cares about your reputation very much, then after the enemy finds out, he will give you a set of women's clothes and humiliate you. A person with such a character will definitely go out to protect his reputation. When the time comes, it will be overturned.
The army kills the general.
Therefore, we always think that tenacity, integrity, benevolence, and courage are the flashes of human nature, and generals also require this of themselves. This is good and right, but it is not enough.
As a general, the most important thing is to know the right way. This is not only to be right in using troops, but also to your own character and emotions. Benevolence and righteousness are instincts and must be adhered to, but what is more important is to know when to be benevolent and righteous.
is more useful.
In the words of Zhang Chong later generations, generals must understand materialist dialectics. This thing can be learned for a lifetime. Later, this passage was recorded by Zhang Chong in the "General Strategy" class at the Suijun Academy, so that the generals should always be alert.
Returning to Xie Bi, he did not have many military exploits in the past, because at that time there were not many people in the army who were good at planning, so he was often stationed in the base area to assist him. But this time during the expedition, Zhang Chong wanted to promote Xie Bi, so he asked him to
As a former military pioneer.
Xie Bi lived up to his trust, wading through rivers, paving roads and building strongholds properly. Not only that, Xie Bi was also cautious in temperament. When encountering steep mountains and valleys, he would send out sentries carrying flags to detect them before proceeding.
They built a bridge at a shallow and narrow part of Wenshui River, and then crossed the river to the west bank of Wenshui River. The rest of the road needs to be walked along the west bank.
When we came to a group of mountains, although these mountains were not very high, they were right next to Xie Bi's marching path, with mountains on the left and water on the right, making it an ideal place for an ambush.
Xie Bi was a little surprised and suspicious, so he ordered his troops to stop. He called his guide and asked what mountain this was. The guide said this was Gao Mountain.
Xie Bi pondered for a while, and then ordered the detective horse to go up the mountain to investigate. After a moment, the detective horse reported that there was a Han army lying on the mountain.
Sure enough, the Han soldiers knew that the ambush had been released, and instead of hiding, they waved their flags on the mountain to declare their power.
Zhang Chong's previous guess was correct. The Huang clan and county soldiers in Zhang County had indeed joined forces with the Wuyan Liu clan. But what Zhang Chong didn't know was that this time it was not only the Wuyan Liu clan who joined forces, but also the Wuyan Liu clan. There are soldiers from other counties.
There are seven counties in Dongping Kingdom. Except for Fucheng, Xuchang, and Ningyang counties, which are far away, others such as Shouzhang, Wuyan, Dongpinglu, and Zhangxian are all on the Wenshui River. This time, the seven counties were directly connected to the Wenshui River. County soldiers from four counties came here, and they wanted to destroy the Taishan Army heading north here.
Yes, they knew the strength of the Taishan Army, and they also knew that this wave of bandits had turned into the Yellow Turban Army, so they had no illusions and directly joined forces to ambush the Taishan Army.
Dongping Kingdom's response was very quick and timely, and all of this must be attributed to Li Zan, the Prime Minister of Dongping Kingdom. This king was from Xiangcheng, Yingchuan, and was well-known throughout the world.
How famous is it?
In this way, all the scholar-bureaucrats in the world know him. Just because his father is called Li Ying, the Li Ying who is a model in the world. The Li family in Xiangcheng was originally a noble family, and later Li Ying became the leader of the Qingliu Party, and his disciples With thousands of disciples, it can be said that his disciples and former officials are all over the world. Later, he was arrested in the first party prison and died generously in the second party prison, which brought Li's reputation to a new height.
So when Li Zan gave the military order, all the counties responded immediately because he had such prestige. Even Liu Kai, the king of Dongping, handed over his bodyguard to Li Zan and let him lead it. This is very rare, generally speaking The relationship between the Prime Minister and the local fiefdom king will not be very good, because after all, the Prime Minister has usurped the power of the county king, and even has the intention of monitoring. But who makes Li Zan a model for the world?
Liu Kai's son Li Ying, and the current King of Dongping, Liu Kai, was still young and had only been king for two years, so he naturally had admiration for this kind of famous person who helped the world.
Li Zan lived up to the name of his father. In his prime, he was one of the few bold officials in the Han Dynasty. After the death of Chen Gui from Jibei Kingdom next door, he sent sentries to investigate the situation of the Taishan bandits.
Some people are smart and capable because they do things first, instead of being like some arrogant people who talk about their hearts and minds on weekdays and die to repay the king in danger. What's the use of having integrity? What you want is to solve problems.
So when the Taishan Army began to march north along the Wenshui River, Li Zan knew that his Dongping Kingdom would bear the brunt. Originally, he had to prepare more. After all, there was a snake hill in front of him, and at least there were soldiers passing through the city.
Thousands and many Cao officials are also here. As long as they defend, there is no problem for a few months. When the time comes, he, Li Zan, has gathered the troops of the Dongping Kingdom and goes down the Wen River. It can be reached in three days. By then, won't he be able to defeat the thieves?
easy?
But who would have thought that Sheqiu would actually run away without even defending, and a bunch of incompetent and mediocre officials ruined the good situation.
Reluctantly, in order to block the Taishan Yellow Turban Army's northward march, Li Zan no longer wanted to sit idle in the county, so he rushed directly to Zhang County, the southernmost gateway of Dongping Kingdom, and parked all the carriages and carriages here.
Then he took over the military affairs from County Magistrate Zhang and urgently urged the county soldiers from the four counties on Wenshui River to come here to gather together. He wanted to ambush the Taishan Yellow Turban Army here and reverse the current situation in one fell swoop.
But Li Zan was capable of doing his job, but the guards who followed him were not all like him. When he rushed to Zhang County, he took 200 guards with him. When he set out, the guards were all pale and frightened, crying and unwilling to die.
Li Zan ordered:
"Anyone who disobeys my rules will be killed!"
In this way, these soldiers were brought to Zhang County.
Fortunately, while walking along the Wenshui River, we passed by Dongpinglu County. Liu Xiang, a brave man from the county, led his troops of 200 soldiers to bravely surrender to the army. They stabilized the morale of the army and made it all the way to Zhangxian County.
Then on the third day after Li Zan arrived in Zhang County, the first one who dared to come was the soldiers from Shouzhang who were the furthest away. Zhang Chao, the younger brother of Shouzhang Zhang Miao and the captain of Shouzhang County, led thousands of soldiers and marched two hundred miles a day.
, rushed to Zhang County to join forces with the Prime Minister Li Zan.
At about the same time, Dongping Lu County Lieutenant Wu Zi led five hundred county soldiers, and Wuyan Liu's tribesmen also rushed over. In addition, powerful men from various places, such as Gao Ya, Zhao Shu, and Li Zou, led their tribes to join the army. And in the county,
Celebrities also came to Zhang County to join the Li Zan shogunate, such as Wang Kai, Xu Si, etc., all of whom were the best of the Dongping Kingdom.
The armies arrived one after another, allowing Li Zan to gather 3,000 troops, and this army continued to expand.
Then Li Zan ordered Gao Ya to block the Wen River and cut off the Wen River communication line. After that, he took Zhang Chao's Shouzhang soldiers and Wu Zi, Liu Xiang's Dongping land soldiers, Liu Gan's Wuyan soldiers, and Huang Cen's Zhangxian soldiers.
Bing, Zhao Shu, and Li Zou's troops moved to Gaoshan. This was the only way along the west bank of Wenshui River. Li Zan planned to ambush the Taishan Yellow Turbans heading north here.
Li Zan's plan was to ambush the Yellow Turban Thieves here when they had just broken through Snake Hill and were complacent. In addition, he had already sent an order to Ningyang, asking them to go north to sneak behind the Yellow Turban Thieves and prevent them from escaping. In addition, he had
He has called on local tycoons from all over the country to bring their own troops as backup.
He just wanted to lie down and block behind, and on the side of Gao Mountain and on the shore of Wenshui River, he would wipe out the fierce Taishan Yellow Turbans in one fell swoop, and renew the luck of the Han Dynasty.
But Zhang Chao, the Shou Zhang Wei, actually disagrees with Li Zan's view. He knows the situation of the Taishan bandits better than Li Zan. After all, two years ago, their Shouzhang Zhang clan went to aid Hu's mother's family.
The thieves suffered a big loss. Later, they spent a lot of effort to collect military reports from the Taishan thieves, and then they discovered that the Taishan army was really invincible and invincible.
Regardless of whether those who were once hostile to the Taishan Army were useless, but at least one thing is certain, the Taishan Army is stronger than most armies. But now? Li Zan only has three thousand soldiers, and the number of opponents is uncertain, but at least
It will not be less than theirs. But now where does Li Zan have the confidence to fight with others in the wild? It is better to enter Zhang County and defend the city. Isn't that safer?
Zhang Chao expressed his doubts, but Li Zan replied:
"Unexpectedly, Mrs. Zhang is as timid as a chicken."
Zhang Chao couldn't stand it all of a sudden. He boasted that he was the best in the provinces and counties in martial arts, and the Zhang family was famous in Yanzhou. Even if you, Li Zan, are famous all over the world, you can't humiliate me.
Therefore, Zhang Chao asked for orders and took himself as the vanguard, determined to show Li Zan whether Zhang's son was a dragon or an insect.