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Chapter 2733 Sun Quan Seeks Peace!

Guan Xing glanced regretfully at the Nanchang city wall, then left without saying a word to Wang Yue, leading several hundred of his personal guards.

Wang Yue stationed his army outside the city, but at the same time sent others to subdue the surrounding counties.

Less than two hours after Guan Xing left, Guan Yinping arrived with a large number of catapults.

As a result, Pan Zhang and the soldiers in the city were in trouble. The overwhelming stones meant they could only passively endure the beatings every day.

Since Wang Yue wants to be a strategist in this life, winning hearts and minds is definitely the best strategy.

So while he was throwing stones into the city, he also sent people to the surrounding counties to screen out the families of the soldiers guarding Nanchang.

Wang Yue wouldn't go so far as to coerce the soldiers' families, but he could very generously allow them to enter the city directly.

Pan Zhang had experienced the loss of the city gates once when he was in Chaisang, so he was absolutely unwilling to accept it.

But how could the defending soldiers resist when their own family members were calling for the city gates and the attackers stopped attacking?
So even though Fan Zhang gave a strict order, the city gates were still opened by soldiers in the middle of the night, less than two days later.

The instant the city gates opened, Wang Yue immediately ordered his cavalry to attack the city, and at the same time began to have catapults throw stones into the city.

These past few days, I've gotten used to throwing stones, so the stones I throw mostly hit the city walls or inside the walls, which is just enough to block reinforcements.

Those civilians who entered the city happened to escape the stone attack by staying under the city wall.

This time, Pan Zhang did not escape. Because Wang Yue's psychological warfare tactics had caused the morale of the army to be somewhat unstable, Pan Zhang was able to personally lead his troops to the city wall to resist. In the process of defending the city, he was accidentally killed by falling stones.

Without their commander, the other soldiers naturally lost their ability to resist instantly, since for them, they would receive their pay regardless of who they followed.

After Wang Yue took control of the entire city, he arranged for someone to inform Chaisang of the news, and then ordered Guan Yinping to lead the army to continue south.

Meanwhile, Wang Yue had already taken control of Nanchang, and Sun Quan in Jianye only then received the news.

It's not really Sun Quan's fault for the communication bottleneck. Wang Yue had already sent his navy to block the river in Yuzhang and had also captured the cities around Poyang Lake. These cities were all located on major transportation routes, which meant that anyone who wanted to send a message had to take a longer mountain route.

Sun Quan had not received any news for a long time, so he sent the veteran general Han Dang with three thousand naval troops to investigate. As a result, they encountered the Han navy led by Wu Ban!
Wu Ban used the catapults along the river to defeat Han Dang's navy and also let Jiangdong know that Yuzhang had fallen.

When Sun Quan learned of this news, he was extremely shocked. He never expected that his attempt to steal a chicken would backfire. He ordered Zhou Tai to block the river while summoning his civil and military officials to discuss what to do.
Unfortunately, after this great battle, the strength of the pro-war faction was further weakened, and the surrender faction, led by Zhang Zhao, directly said that they would submit a memorial to submit their allegiance. After all, they had already submitted to Cao Pi, so submitting to Liu Bei would be no problem at all.

Furthermore, the two sides were already related by marriage. After Sun Quan submitted his letter of submission and Sun Shangxiang whispered in his ear, the war might have ended there.

After hearing this, Sun Quan had no choice but to agree.

After all, Jiangdong now only has ten naval and army forces left in total.

The problem was that these 100,000 men weren't all elite troops capable of fighting. Aside from 20,000 to 30,000 in the navy who were somewhat usable, the rest were auxiliary soldiers conscripted later. Fortunately, Wang Yue didn't have time to attack Stone City at this point. After capturing Nanchang, he immediately sent Guan Hu with 5000 men south. Since he had taken it, he wanted to take the entire Yuzhang; he couldn't leave only half behind.

Wang Yue had also calculated that these 5000 men would be enough to make those county towns, with their garrison numbers around 2000, surrender without a fight once they heard that a large army was coming.

After all, those remote counties, like Jiaozhou in the south, would surrender no matter who came; it was just a matter of changing who paid taxes. The struggle for supremacy in the Central Plains had nothing to do with them.

Therefore, when Liu Bei received Sun Quan's memorial acknowledging his submission, Wang Yue had already captured the entire Yuzhang.

……

Wancheng

Prefectural Governor's Residence!

"Haha~!"

Liu Bei was in a very good mood. After laughing heartily, he handed the memorial in his hand to Guan Yu and said with a smile, "Second brother, come and see. This green-eyed man has been driven to desperation by your good son-in-law. He has actually taken the initiative to submit to you. How satisfying!"

Guan Yu didn't stand on ceremony with Liu Bei. He accepted the gift generously, glanced at it, and then said with a smile, "Changwen always thinks three steps ahead. Since he wants to take over Jiangdong, he probably already knows everything about Yuzhang. I'm not surprised at all that he was able to take Yuzhang."

Looking at Guan Yu's smug expression, Liu Bei said with emotion, "Xing'er is not bad either, he actually took Chaisang. Ping'er is also capable of handling things on his own in Ye County. You can rest easy now. We are all getting old."

Guan Yu handed the memorial to Fa Zheng, stroked his beard, and then calmly said,
"Your Majesty, what are you saying? These young people are too impatient; they need us elders to look after them."

The two brothers chatted happily, but were somewhat disappointed that Zhang Fei was still guarding Hanzhong and couldn't reunite with them.

Fa Zheng had just finished reading the entire memorial. He smiled and said to Liu Bei, "Your Majesty, Sun Quan is almost catching up with Lü Bu, and he's even inferior to Lü Bu."

He submitted to the emperor very quickly; it's clear he wasn't particularly sincere.

According to historical records, Fa Zheng should have died of illness, or rather, from overwork. However, with everything going smoothly in Jingzhou, Fa Zheng doesn't need to worry about that area. He can focus his attention on dealing with the Yizhou group, which reduces the pressure he faces.

His health is still not very good. Although he still coughs from time to time, it has kept him alive until now.

Seeing that Guan Yu had already steered the conversation to the point, Liu Bei stopped reminiscing and nodded, saying, "Since that's the case, then I'll refuse him. We don't want this fickle Jiangdong."

Fa Zheng coughed several times before hurriedly stopping him, saying, "Your Majesty, I think it would be better to agree to that blue-eyed man's request, but we should also reward Zhang Zhao, who advocated that he submit a memorial to submit to the emperor! Let's create discord between them, so that we can make final preparations to take over the entire Yangzhou."

Liu Bei valued the opinions of his advisors, especially those of Fa Zheng, a man known for his eloquence.

However, he didn't understand how Fazheng could do it, so he said uncertainly, "Xiaozhi, it's probably very difficult to sow discord among them."

(End of this chapter)