Pang Tong's mind jumped straight to what he had once said about Zhang Ziqiao. Plain-looking on the outside, pure genius underneath.
Man... were they not just the same?
So alike it hurt! Loads of talent stuffed inside both of them, yet both doomed to carry it all straight down to the grave unused.
Find a truly great ruler... only to show up at the wrong time. A heart bursting with big dreams... nowhere at all to actually put them to work! How tragic...
"Shiyuan..."
The voice came from his lord.
Pang Tong clutched Liu Bei's warm hand like a drowning man seizing a rope, gripping it tightly as if afraid it might slip away.
Liu Bei gently patted this newly joined strategist and said with quiet reassurance, "Do not worry, Shiyuan. We simply will not go to Yizhou. There are still many places that need your strategic mind."
"To die by a stray arrow is no longer Pang Tong's fate. I will take Yizhou for my lord."
His voice struck the ground like iron. The turmoil within him had already settled.
"I shall live until the day my lord settles the Central Plains!"
After steadying himself, Pang Tong sat back down with the others. Leaning closer, he lowered his voice and asked Zhuge Liang,
"Kongming, tell me... did you see your own end as well?"
Zhuge Liang only smiled, saying nothing.
[Lightscreen]
[The second point worth mentioning is the defense of Jiameng.
While Liu Bei was marching south toward Liu Zhang's territory, he left Huo Jun behind to defend the city, and Huo Jun had a problem: he did not have a particularly impressive army.
Liu Zhang's generals, Fu Jin and Xiang Cun, eventually marched north with over 10,000 men and laid siege to Jiameng. Huo Jun, on the other hand, had only a few hundred soldiers under his command. According to the Huayang Guozhi, the exact number was just 800.
So, yeah.
Over 10,000 attackers versus 800 defenders. Not exactly the kind of math that helps a commander sleep peacefully at night.
But Huo Jun held. And he kept holding.
For nearly a year, Liu Zhang's forces could not take Jiameng. Then Huo Jun noticed that the besieging army had grown careless. Instead of sitting behind the walls forever, he picked his best soldiers, launched a sudden sortie, and smashed into the besieging force with such ferocity that Xiang Cun was killed and the attackers were driven back.
So Jiameng did not fall.
And that mattered.
Huo Jun had preserved one of Liu Bei's most important positions while the main army was fighting elsewhere in Yizhou. It was not some gigantic battle that decided the entire campaign by itself, but strategically, it was a very important little fortress doing a very big job.
Sometimes in war, the hero is not the guy conquering a city.
Sometimes it is the guy sitting inside a city with 800 angry men saying: No. You are not getting in.]
"Is that why Zhongmiao was later called a famous general?" Liu Bei recalled that when the Lightscreen mentioned Huo Yi earlier, it had referred to his father Huo Jun as such.
If A-Dou had allowed Huo Yi to go to Chengdu back then, perhaps Shu Han's fate would not have ended so quickly.
"Both father and son are heroes!" Guan Yu praised heavily.
The map clearly marked the lines of attack in the Yizhou campaign, and Guan Yu saw it with perfect clarity.
"If Jiameng Pass had fallen, Liu Zhang could have cut off Big Brother's retreat and harassed the grain lines, winning without a fight. Or he could have joined forces with Zhang Lu from the outside. Big Brother would have been in grave peril."
"The title of famous general is well deserved." Guan Yu stamped his approval.
"Another Eight Hundred hero? Where do they keep coming from?" Zhang Fei drew in a cold breath, feeling like the times were moving faster than he could keep up.
"How come the screen does not call those losers Fu Ten-Thousand?"
Zhao Yun leaned over and whispered to Zhang Fei, "Yide, do you think I should set my personal guard to exactly 800 men as well?"
Zhang Fei nodded vigorously. "Zilong, that is a great idea! Think about it. Why is it always 800? And why do they always win? There has to be a secret!"
"Kongming, you must show me the records of Xiaoyao Ford tomorrow," Pang Tong whispered while tugging at him.
Zhuge Liang had already given him a brief explanation of the Sun Shiwan joke, but Pang Tong still found it hard to believe.
Yet deep down, he felt a wave of relief. 'Crap. I almost pledged myself to such a lord.'
[Lightscreen]
[As for Liu Zhang's refusal to use a scorched-earth strategy, there is actually a little more going on here.
One of his advisers, Zheng Du, proposed a brutally effective plan: evacuate the population from Baxi and Zitong, burn the grain and supplies, fortify the strongholds, and simply wait for Liu Bei's army to run out of food.
It was basically:
Do not fight Liu Bei. Just delete his food supply.
Liu Bei was understandably worried when he heard about it.
But Fa Zheng was not.
Fa Zheng knew Liu Zhang's character well enough to predict that he would never accept the plan.
And he was right.
Liu Zhang rejected Zheng Du's proposal because, in his own words, he had heard of resisting an enemy in order to protect the people, but had never heard of disrupting the people in order to avoid an enemy.
So Liu Zhang's refusal was clearly connected to his concern for the population.
But there was also a larger political context.
Yizhou was not exactly a perfectly harmonious society. Liu Zhang's administration depended heavily on the Dongzhou faction, immigrants who had settled in the province, while tensions between these groups and the elite local Yizhou clans had already produced serious political conflict in the past.
So a scorched-earth policy would not merely have hurt Liu Bei.
It would have hurt Liu Zhang's own people.
Had he ordered scorched earth, the two factions would have started a civil war before Liu Bei even arrived. And that would have made things even easier for Liu Bei.
In other words, Liu Zhang's biggest problem was that he could not manage the contradictions within his own province. He was trapped between two factions that hated each other, and he could neither suppress the conflict nor satisfy their demands.
And that is exactly why his rule was doomed to fail, regardless of what strategy he chose.
Fa Zheng saw all of this clearly.
He understood something Liu Zhang's other advisers did not: Liu Bei's biggest problem was not Zheng Du's strategy. It was that Liu Zhang was simply not the kind of ruler who would be willing to destroy his own territory in order to win the war.
And that turned out to be a huge advantage for Liu Bei.
Instead of fighting through a province that had been stripped of food and population, Liu Bei was allowed to keep advancing while local resources, cities, and eventually people gradually fell into his hands.]
Zhuge Liang picked up his brush and wrote two words at the front: "contradictions" and "demands." Then he said with admiration,
"The summary of later generations is remarkably incisive. Governing a region is nothing more than managing contradictions and addressing the people's demands."
"Are the Dongzhou people and Yizhou natives truly so irreconcilable?" Liu Bei asked Pang Tong.
"In earlier years, tens of thousands of households from Nanyang and the Three Auxiliaries fled into Yizhou. Liu Yan used them to govern the region, and they were called the Dongzhou scholars," Pang Tong explained.
"Liu Yan relied on them to suppress the powerful clans of Yizhou, so the local elite resented them. Moreover, once the Dongzhou group gained power, they often oppressed the native populace. Over time, the two sides became as incompatible as fire and water."
'What a tangled mess.' Liu Bei shook his head inwardly.
'No wonder the Lightscreen said conquering Yizhou inch by inch would avoid internal unrest. Display strength first, then rule with benevolence. Who would dare cause trouble after that?'
[Lightscreen]
[External instability came from Cao Cao. Because after taking Hanzhong, Old Cao's territory decided to live up to its reputation. You know the pattern: small revolt every two years, major riot every three. Wudu Commandery and Hechi decided to rise up again, right on schedule.
At that time, Sun Quan had not yet earned his famous nickname of Sun Shiwan. So Cao Cao, worried about trouble brewing in his rear, chose not to push any further after securing Longyou. He ordered a retreat instead.
But before leaving, he left Zhang He behind with ten thousand troops and a very clear mission: invade Baxi Commandery, grab land, grab wealth, and grab people.
And Zhang He did exactly that.
He marched from Hanzhong deep into Baxi Commandery, taking money, grain, and human beings. Anyone from Baxi he ran into got a brand new Hanzhong household registration shoved into their hands on the spot.
And after the defeat at Hanzhong, Cao Cao went even further. He reassigned these people to Chang'an or Luoyang and relocated their entire families. Truly the kind of life experience you could not imagine even in your wildest dreams.]
"Again!!! with the population grabbing!" Zhang Fei burst out angrily. "That dog Cao! Always the same tricks! And so brazenly!"
Liu Bei was equally incensed. By calculation, those were all people who should fall under his rule.
Pang Tong, however, sensed something off.
"After pacifying Yizhou, with capable troops in hand, how could such a detached force be allowed to penetrate so deeply and rampage at will?"
Zhuge Liang could guess the answer, but it was not convenient to say it outright. He simply glanced at his lord and said,
"Shiyuan, just keep watching."
Liu Bei blinked.
A look of confusion returned.
[Lightscreen]
[This military operation started successfully for Zhang He. He reached Dangqu, only four hundred li from Chengdu.
The direct reason for this smooth advance was that Liu Bei was not in Chengdu at the time. He had taken thirty thousand troops to the Xiang River to have a friendly chat with Sun Quan.
This move was later fiercely criticized by Liao Li: The late emperor took his soldiers on a stroll, gaining neither Hanzhong nor the three southern commanderies, merely exhausting military strength, while allowing Xiahou Yuan and Zhang He to push deep into Baxi Commandery, nearly costing Yizhou itself.]
Only now did Liu Bei understand the meaning behind Zhuge Liang's earlier glance.
Thinking back to the events before and after the Xiang River alliance, he broke out in a cold sweat. Yizhou had only just submitted, the people had not yet been pacified, and yet he had withdrawn elite troops back to Jingzhou.
If at that time the alliance had failed and instead turned into war with Sun Quan, the consequences were too terrible to contemplate.
"Big Brother need not worry. Yizhou still has Yide."
Guan Yu offered calm reassurance.
He remembered clearly that during the Xiang River alliance, it was the third brother who remained to guard Yizhou.
Zhang Fei said nothing. Though he very much wanted to puff out his chest and claim Zhang He would be easy prey, in the end he only nodded firmly at his elder brother.
[Lightscreen]
[Liao Li had a habit of being arrogant, but his criticism here was quite fair. Fact is, Liu Bei never fought a wealthy war in his life. As the Zhaolie Emperor, he was resilient in adversity and brilliant with small-unit tactics during the Hanzhong campaign.
But once he got rich? He spent the Xiang River campaign tracking his WeChat steps with thirty thousand men. And Yiling... well, we will get to that.
In this moment of crisis, similar to the Dangyang Bridge, Zhang Fei stood up once more. As the Administrator of Baxi Commandery, Zhang Fei led ten thousand men to intercept Zhang He at Dangqu.]
Zhang Fei stared at the Lightscreen, unease written all over his face.
Guan Yu noticed and reached out, patting his shoulder.
"Yide, you are a peerless general of this age! Kongming's goal of connecting Jingzhou and Yizhou must be achieved by you in this battle!"
"Inscribing the stele and carving the inscription. The fame of Zhang Fei of Zhuo Commandery shall be passed down for a thousand years!"
[Lightscreen]
[The exact numbers on both sides were never recorded.
But whatever the numbers were, Zhang Fei and Zhang He spent more than fifty days staring each other down across the mountains of Baxi Commandery.
Neither side could force a breakthrough.
Zhang He had pushed deep into the region, while Zhang Fei had been sent to stop him. The mountains turned the campaign into a miserable game of patience.
And Zhang Fei was getting tired of playing.
So he studied the terrain.
The mountains around Wakou Pass offered exactly what he needed: narrow roads, steep slopes, and barely enough room for an army to move in formation.
It was the kind of battlefield where having a large army could actually become a problem.
Zhang Fei took more than ten thousand elite soldiers and approached from another direction.
Then he struck.
The narrow mountain roads broke Zhang He's formation apart. The men at the front could no longer properly support those in the rear, and once Zhang Fei's troops came crashing down on them, the entire formation began to collapse.
What had been a stalemate for more than fifty days suddenly became a rout.
Zhang He abandoned his horse and fled into the mountains with only a little over a dozen men.
Not exactly the glorious retreat a famous general dreams about.
Baxi Commandery had been secured.
And Zhang Fei was not finished making sure everyone remembered who had won.
According to a later tradition, a stone inscription was carved at Bameng Mountain commemorating the victory:
Han General Zhang Fei, leading ten thousand elite troops, utterly defeated the bandit chief Zhang He at Bameng.
Whether every detail of the later inscription tradition happened exactly as recorded is another question.
But the message was clear enough.
Zhang Fei had arrived in Baxi Commandery, stopped Zhang He's advance, and sent one of Cao Cao's most capable generals running through the mountains with barely a dozen men.
This act also served to intimidate the local Cong tribes who leaned toward Cao Cao, thoroughly stabilizing Baxi Commandery. The crisis of Yizhou was resolved, and stability was restored both internally and externally.]