Before Yuan Shu launched the rebellion, he was prepared for failure in advance. After his rebellion failed and died, Yan Xiang, Ji Lingzhongchen and others protected the families of Yuan Shu's son Yuan Yao, as well as some generals such as Lian Po.
He fled into Lian Po's army.
Although Yuan Shu died, the 70,000 Henan troops outside Shouchun City were still there, but Lian Po was unable to completely control the army.
Shouchun fell, and the two Huaihe Rivers were in Zhu Yuanzhang's hands. The families of the soldiers were all under his rule, and the families of the generals of the Henan Army were all in the city.
Although Ji Ling rescued some of the generals' families, most of them were still in the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang used the families of the generals as a means of coercion, which naturally made the Henan troops outside the city avoid rash action.
As a result, there were surrender factions and opponents in Lianpo's army. Both sides held their own opinions and argued endlessly about whether to surrender or not.
Lian Po naturally did not want to surrender, but most of the generals in the army wanted to surrender, and even Lian Po was almost unable to suppress them.
On the other side, when Zhao Kuangyin learned that Yuan Shu could no longer bear it and surrendered before Lian Po returned to Shouchun, he was about to go crazy.
Yuan Shu's voluntary surrender disrupted all Zhao Kuangyin's arrangements. He originally thought that no matter how bad Yuan Shu was, he could at least hold on until Lian Po returned. By then, the Yu and Ming armies would be defeated and injured, and he would take advantage of the situation.
After seizing the Lianghuai granary, Yuan Shu unexpectedly surrendered.
Yuan Shu's surrender meant that Lianghuai and Zhao Kuangyin were completely out of business, and all the previous preparations and plans were in vain.
Zhao Kuangyin made too many plans to seize the Lianghuai granary, but in the end he didn't get anything. Instead, Zhu Yuanzhang easily occupied the Lianghuai.
At this thought, Zhao Kuangyin became even more furious and cursed Yuan Shu as a waste, unable to hold on for such a short period of time.
However, what Zhao Kuangyin did not expect was that Yuan Shu immediately rebelled after his surrender, which gave Zhao Kuangyin hope to seize the Huaihe River.
In Zhao Kuangyin's view, Yuan Shu's rebellion would never succeed. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang was not an ordinary person. How could he not guard against Yuan Shu's rebellion?
In the end, as Zhao Kuangyin expected, Yuan Shu failed in his rebellion and was killed by Luo Shixin. The 70,000 Yu army outside the city became an army without an owner.
Zhao Kuangyin realized that as long as Lian Po could be brought over, if the Song and Yu armies united, they might not be able to expel Zhu Yuanzhang from occupying the Lianghuai granary, so he promised Lian Po to surrender with huge profits.
At the same time, Cao Cao also sent envoys, hoping to recruit Lian Po under his command.
Now Lian Po is already a piece of fat. Whether it is Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhao Kuangyin or Cao Cao, they all want to take a bite, but Zhu Yuanzhang is the most greedy and wants to swallow Lian Po in one gulp.
Among Cao Cao, Zhao Kuangyin and Zhu Yuanzhang, the one Lian Po did not want to take refuge with the most was Zhu Yuanzhang. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang killed his lord, and taking refuge with him would damage his reputation.
As for Zhao Kuangyin, to be fair, Lian Po did not want to take refuge with him. Although the two had a good personal relationship at the beginning, Zhao Kuangyin used various despicable methods to deal with Lian Po. Not only did Lian Po suffer, but he almost harmed Lian Po's entire family.
, the personal relationship between the two ended here.
That's why Lian Po looked down on Zhao Kuangyin so much, and among the three families, Lian Po was more inclined to Cao Cao.
Zhao Kuangyin couldn't help but panic when he saw that Lian Po ignored his former friend after the death of his old master, and instead became quite enthusiastic with Cao Cao, who had no friendship with him.
Zhao Kuangyin also realized that his original methods were too much, which made Lian Po go further and further away from him, but he had no choice but to starve to death at that time. Lian Po had no mercy at all and had completely forced him.
It's a dead end. If I didn't use dirty tactics, I wouldn't be alive now.
It is naturally too late to say this now. Zhao Kuangyin must retain Lian Po so that he can have a chance to seize Jianghuai. At this time, military advisor Zhao Pu made a move for him.
Zhao Pujin said that the standard can be lowered, and there is no need to recruit the Henan Army, but only cooperate with the Henan Army. After success, the Jianghuai River will be divided into two parts, the Song Army will get Huaibei, and the Henan Army will get Huainan.
In the past, both the Song and Wei families wanted to recruit Lian Po. Now Zhao Pu persuaded Zhao Kuangyin to lower his standards and change the recruitment to cooperation, so that Lian Po could guarantee his independence and continue to support Yuan Yao as the leader. The cost of this move was heavier than that of Cao Cao.
If you have more, you will not be afraid of being honest and will not be tempted.
As Zhao Pu expected, compared to Cao Cao's recruitment, cooperation was undoubtedly more sophisticated, and Lian Po was very moved.
In the end, Lian Po decided to cooperate with Zhao Kuangyin to expel Zhu Yuanzhang from Jianghuai and rejected Cao Cao's solicitation. However, he did not dare to refuse Zhu Yuanzhang, because once he refused, it meant that there would be no room for relaxation with Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang will probably call directly at that time.
Lian Po wanted to hang Zhu Yuanzhang first so that he could sort out the internal situation and take complete control of the army and delay time.
How could Zhu Yuanzhang be so smart? How could he be deceived by Lian Po? He could see at a glance that Lian Po didn't want to surrender and was just delaying time, so he pretended to believe Lian Po, but secretly attracted those in Lian Po's army who surrendered.
He sent Lian Po to wait for the opportunity to secretly deliver a fatal blow to Lian Po.
Lian Po was indeed good at fighting, but his methods of fighting for power and profit were far from perfect.
Although Lian Po also killed many surrendering factions to establish his authority, there were too many surrendering factions in the army and he could not kill them all.
In the end, the 70,000 Henan troops broke into internal fighting and fierce fighting. With the internal fighting, even Lian Po could not control the army. Zhu Yuanzhang took the opportunity to lead the army out of the city to help the capitulating faction attack the opposition.
The capitulation faction naturally gained the absolute upper hand by cooperating internally and externally, while the opposition led by Lian Po suffered a disastrous defeat and fled.
Seeing that Lian Po had run away, Zhu Yuanzhang personally led an army to pursue him, just to capture Lian Po, a famous general. However, Lian Po was so cunning that even Zhu Yuanzhang could not keep him when he wanted to escape.
In the end, 40,000 Yu troops surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang, while Lian Po protected Yuan Shu's family and led a remnant army of less than 10,000 to defect to Zhao Kuangyin, whom he least wanted to surrender to.
Previously, Lian Po held 70,000 Yu troops, so he was naturally qualified to say no to Zhao Kuangyin, but after rejecting Cao Cao's solicitation, Zhao Kuangyin was the only last resort left. Apart from Zhao Kuangyin, Lian Po had no one to turn to.
Zhao Kuangyin was leading his army towards Shouchun, but before the army arrived, he received news that 40,000 Yu troops had surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang, and that Lian Po had led the remaining troops to join him.
If Zhao Kuangyin had learned that Lian Po had come to vote before, he would have been crazy with joy. Now, although he was a little happy, it was far from the level of excitement.
Lian Po voted in this way, which meant that he failed to control the army, and that his plan to retake the Huaihe River completely failed.