Chapter 12 4. Offense is the best defense

Soon, Liu Xiu arrived in Xindu County and met the prefect Ren Guang. Ren Guang, courtesy name Boqing, was born in Nanyang Wan.It is said that this person has always been loyal and is especially loved by the village.At first, Ren Guang was an official in the county. After Liu rebelled, he passed through Wan County. The soldiers saw that Ren Guang was dressed in bright clothes, which were particularly eye-catching, so he ordered him to take off his clothes and was about to pull him out and chop him up.Just then, the savior appeared. Anyone with a long memory knows that when Han Xin made a mistake in Hanzhong and was about to fall on his head with a big knife, he suddenly raised his head and screamed at the supervisor Xia Houying.Xia Houying saw that the guy was very handsome and had a serious tone, so he asked people to untie him and drag him under the tent to brag.As a result, as soon as it was blown, it turned out that the post of a general came out later.

The scene of Ren Guang being rescued is like the legend of Han Xin back then.Just when the Han soldiers were about to kill Ren Guang, Liu Ci, who was then Guang Luxun, appeared.Liu Ci saw that Ren Guang was kind-hearted, not like a bad guy, so he rescued him immediately.Later, Ren Guang led a group of township party members to follow Liu Ci, and was worshiped as a partial general, and then followed Liu Xiu to defeat Wang Yi's army under Kunyang City. After Liu Xuan made Luoyang the capital, Ren Guang was appointed as the prefect of Xindu.When Liu Lin supported Wang Lang to become the emperor, all counties in the north voted for Wang Lang one after another, but Ren Guang refused to listen.Wang Lang sent envoys to persuade Ren Guang to surrender, but Ren Guang didn't even blink, and dragged the envoys to the street to hack and demonstrate.

It was a quick cut, but the consequences were very serious.There are only 4,000 guards in Ren Guangcheng, and as long as Wang Lang sends troops, it's like pinching eggs, and Xindu County will be shattered immediately.There is no tomorrow in Xindu County, so Ren Guang is worried about this matter. Unexpectedly, Liu Xiu came and injected him with new strength. To be precise, Liu Xiu caught not one piece of driftwood, but two pieces.In addition to Ren Guang, the prefect of Xindu County, there was another prefect who refused to listen to Wang Lang's orders, and this person was Pi Tong, the prefect of Hecheng County.

Pi Tong, courtesy name Weijun, was born in Xindu.When Liu Xiu crossed the Yellow River to attack the city, Pi Tong, who was the prefect of Hecheng County at that time, surrendered the city.Satisfied, Liu Xiu still made him the prefect of Hecheng County. After staying there for a few days, he went north to Ji County.Later, Wang Lang raised an army and sent people to persuade Pi Tong, but he ignored him. Instead, he sent two thousand elite cavalry to follow Liu Xiu along the road.Unexpectedly, when Liu Xiu entered Xindu City with his front legs, he followed with his hind legs. The brothers are all here, so let's have a meeting to discuss matters.

At the meeting, everyone quarreled fiercely, and the opinions were divided into two factions: one group was the opinion of the majority, saying that the north of the dog day is simply not treated by people, it is better to let Ren Guang and Pi Tong send thousands of people to protect Liu Xiu waited for the group to return to Chang'an before making plans. On the other side, there are only a few people, and there are mainly two people, Ren Guang and Pi Tong.Among them, Pi Tong had the biggest opinion. He told Liu Xiu: Your brothers were afraid of being chased by Wang Lang, so they only wanted to go back to Chang'an.Actually, Wang Lang had nothing to fear.Isn't he just a fortune teller, using his name to fool the world, even though he was lucky enough to win the land of Yanzhao, but the foundation is not stable.If you are willing to lead the troops of our two counties to attack him, are you afraid that he will come to your door?This is one of them.

If you go back to Chang'an now, it will be tantamount to surrendering the north of the Yellow River to Wang Lang, which will definitely shake Chang'an's confidence.People all over the world have long eyes, once the prestige of Chang'an is lost, the consequences will be disastrous.No matter in Chang'an or Da Sima, your future is extremely unfavorable.This is the second. Your general wants to go back to Chang'an, but remember, how can the brothers from Xindu County and Hecheng County follow you into Chang'an?They watched you retreat, maybe all of you ran away on the road, and Wang Lang pursued his troops urgently, that would be dangerous.This is the third.

In short, Chang'an is a long way away, and going back is dangerous, let alone a long-term solution.The only way to survive is to stay, stand by the whole army, and continue to fight. What he said made sense, Liu Xiu nodded repeatedly.After a pause, Liu Xiu said in a deliberative tone, "We can stay, but with only a few thousand troops from the two counties, our forces are too weak to be Wang Lang's opponent at all, so we must seek foreign aid." Liu Xiu glanced at everyone, and then said: "In the north of the Yellow River, we can go to two people, one is Chengtouzilu, and the other is Lizidubu. The former has more than 200,000 troops, and the latter has 60,000 to 70,000 troops. .”

Chengtouzi Road, a native of Dongping, named Ai Zeng, named Zilu, revolted with Liu Xu of Feicheng in Chengtou, Lu County (now south of Changqing District, Jinan City, Shandong Province), so it was named "Chengtouzi Road".Lizidu, a native of Donghai, had 60,000 to 70,000 soldiers. Later, Liu Xuan sent people to persuade him to surrender, and worshiped him as Xuzhou Shepherd. It sounded good, and everyone nodded their heads.However, as soon as Liu Xiu finished speaking, Ren Guang immediately vetoed it. Ren Guang told Liu Xiu, "At a critical moment, it is very unreliable to go to others without thinking of saving yourself."

Liu Xiu looked at Ren Guang and asked, "But we have few soldiers, how can we save ourselves?" Ren Guang said with a smile: "Soldiers are not waited for, but fought. If they can't be fought, we will recruit." Liu Xiu asked, "What's your plan?" Ren Guang said: "Based on our current strength, if we can't defeat Wang Lang, we can still win his other county towns. Take his neighboring cities first to expand our strength. If we can't win, we will let go of our hands and feet." , Let the soldiers rob. Nowadays people are very greedy, seeing the profits, there must be a large number of people coming to join the army.”

What a genius.If the arms can't twist the thighs, then twist the arms first, and when Wang Lang's arms are broken, then twist his thighs to see what skills he still has. Liu Xiu decided to adopt Ren Guang's strategy, to fight back and take a big gamble.Life and death, in one fell swoop.Set off! Liu Xiu deployed the phalanx as follows: appointed Ren Guang as the left general, Pi Tong as the rear general, and also served as the prefect of Chengjun.Pitong's troops acted as the striker and dispatched first.Ren Guangda threw smoke bombs and sent people to distribute proclamations everywhere, boasting: "The great Sima Liu Xiu will lead Chengtou Zilu and Lizidu and other millions of troops to attack Handan."

Ren Guang is exaggerating, but Liu Xiu likes it very much.Wang Lang is a rotten boy who makes a career in fortune-telling. He dares to boast that he is Liu Ao's son. If he is allowed to boast that Liu Xiu has millions of soldiers, then what does it matter.Ever since, in order to cooperate with Ren Guang, wherever Liu Xiu led the army, the banners were widely erected.The flags fly during the day, and the fire is brightly lit at night, and the momentum is shocking. This is called not being afraid of boasting, fearing that you can't blow it. If you want to blow it, you will make people's hearts flutter and want to die.Soon, the news that Liu Xiu led a million-strong army to make a comeback spread to the northern counties like snowflakes. Facts have proved that bragging is still very useful.Everywhere Liu Xiu's troops went, they were invincible. When he took Xiaquyang City, his troops of thousands had grown to tens of thousands. This is a considerable amount of gambling money. Liu Xiu, who was once desperate and pessimistic, once again ignited hope and confidence.Confidence fuels strength, and strength determines the future.At this time, more and more counties fell to Liu Xiu like the wind blowing straw. However, when Liu Xiu captured Lunu (now Dingzhou City, Hebei Province), he stopped his horse and looked ahead worriedly. Ahead is the True Ding Kingdom.Zhending Wang Liuyang, who was also the successor of Emperor Xiaojing Liu Qi, had hundreds of thousands of soldiers.In troubled times, these hundreds of thousands of soldiers are like a mountain of silver, making Liu Xiu drool with envy.However, the frightening thing is that this mountain of silver has been snatched by Wang Lang.Liu Yang declared that he only listened to Wang Lang. With Liu Xiu's tens of thousands of people, to get rid of Liu Yang's hundreds of thousands of people, we have to say one word - hanging. At this time, someone had seen Liu Xiu's worry, stepped forward, and said to Liu Xiu, "Don't be afraid, Chief Sima, I will take care of Liu Yang, you just need to go to the city." The name of the person who said this was Liu Zhi.Liu Zhi, courtesy name Boxian, was born in Changcheng (now northwest of Ji County, Hebei Province). Throughout the ages, those who can achieve great things are often masters of land grabbing and business grabbing.When Wang Lang raised his army, Liu Zhi saw that the rebellion was profitable, so he also led the clan guests to grab business, so he first snatched the land of his hometown Changcheng and gathered thousands of troops.When Liu Xiu led his troops through Changcheng, he opened the city to welcome him without saying a word, and was worshiped as General Xiaoqi. It is said that Americans have three things that are invincible in the world: one is the nuclear bomb; the other is basketball; the third is the eloquence of speech.In my opinion, the first two are invincible. It is nonsense to say that Americans are invincible in eloquence. One tongue can be worth a million soldiers, that is the patent of our Chinese ancestors.Strategists Su Qin, Zhang Yi, Li Shiqi and others are all masters of eloquence.A single tongue can be worth tens of thousands of soldiers, which can be found everywhere in Chinese history.In this regard, if the Americans say that his eloquence is invincible, where will the Chinese Su and Qin be placed? In a word, eloquence is very important when you come out to play.Liu Zhi said that he wanted to deal with Liu Yang because of the tongue in his mouth.From Lunu to Zhending Kingdom, the road is not too far.Liu Zhi left for a while, and news came back soon. Liu Zhi told Liu Xiu that Liu Yang was very knowledgeable, and he was going to change his position. He would not listen to Wang Lang, but only to you. Please feel free to enter Zhending Kingdom. It is really shocking that hundreds of thousands of troops can be disarmed with just one tongue.Liu Xiu led his army into Zhending Kingdom as if he had picked up a big deal.He couldn't believe that he could come back here. Some people may say that Liu Xiu really got a big deal.Wrong, Liu Xiuzhen didn't think what he picked up was a treasure, but a pack of explosives.You know, Liu Zhi changed Liu Yang's position with one tongue, and maybe Handan sent another Liu Zhi, which might also change Liu Yang.Therefore, consolidating Liu Yang's territory is a big problem for him. In fact, this big problem is also a small problem.In order to minimize the risk of military alliances, the ancients had invented an optimal cost-saving method.This method is the tried and tested political marriage, which is what the Lisun Wu Alliance does. Liu Xiu decided to send someone to marry him and marry Liu Yang's niece Guo Shengtong as his wife.In fact, what Liu Yang was waiting for was Liu Xiu's words.Liu Yang is also out to mess around, you didn't do him any favors, so why should he follow you.They are all fools, so I don’t know what to say, and what I’m waiting for is you to give me an excuse or a reason.This is a good reason. If you get married, you will be a family from now on.The family does not speak of two families, and they are engaged in revolution without hesitation. They must go together and share the good things together. After a joyous gong and drum, both parties were very happy.Well, we can finally relax and talk about military offensives. How to attack Handan City, Liu Xiu mainly has two plans.Some people think that Bairen (southwest of Longyao County, Hebei Province) should be used as the base of attack; others think that Julu City (now Pingxiang County, Hebei Province) should be used as the base.So, where should we choose? Liu Xiu stared at the map, thought for a long time, pointed to a place name and said to Deng Yu: "Let's choose this place as the base for attack." The name of this place is Julu City. From the perspective of geographical location, the air distance between Boren and Handan City is 500 kilometers; while the air distance between Julu City and Handan City is only 80 kilometers.Obviously, Julu City has an advantage. Looking at the map, Liu Xiu recalled Deng Yu's previous great theory of establishing a country in peace.He couldn't help sighing and said to Deng Yu: "There are many counties in the world, and we only won one. If we want to take over the world, how long will it be?" Deng Yu said with a smile: "I still say that, your worries are unnecessary. The current world is in chaos, and the common people yearn for a virtuous ruler, just like a baby yearns for a nursing mother. So I think that the size of the territory does not matter, but the spirit of virtue." Deng Yu added harshly: "If you are virtuous, you can gather popularity, and popularity is the support of the people. Those who win the hearts of the people win the world. This has been the case since ancient times." Liu Xiu looked at Deng Yu, and then at the great rivers and mountains on the map. An inexplicable pleasure flowed into his surging veins like a trickle.Is the future really as optimistic as Deng Yu said?If so, what a beautiful world it would be.