Chapter 29: Jingzhou Aristocracy
“My two brothers fought bloody battles for 300 miles, killing countless bandits, but the Yellow Turbans were too numerous to count, and we were ultimately defeated.”

Cai Zhong and Cai He returned to Tiance Village and were welcomed by Li Qian. The two shamelessly boasted about their achievements.

But according to Li Qian’s understanding, Zhang Mancheng only sent one of his generals to lead 100,000 Yellow Turban troops to defeat Cai Zhong and Cai He.

If they had not brought the navy, Cai Zhong and Cai He would have become prisoners of the Yellow Turban Army.

However, Li Qian cooperated with Cai Zhong and Cai He, so he did not point out the two of them: “The Yellow Turbans are powerful, and it is not their fault. I also ask you two brothers to rest in our Tiance Village and wait for the main force of the Jingzhou Governor to arrive before attacking the Yellow Turbans.”

Cai Zhong and Cai He were delighted when they heard this: “That’s exactly what we were thinking!”

Cai Zhong and Cai He rested in Tiance Village. The food, clothing, housing and transportation of the 10,000 Jingzhou troops were taken care of by Tiance Village, and all the buildings in Tiance Village were operating at full capacity.

With the money provided by the Cai family, the crossbow workshop produced arrows day and night.

The number of arrows consumed by the Jingzhou army was in the hundreds of thousands, and a crossbow workshop could not meet the demand even if it worked all night long.

Li Qian asked Deng Zhi to arrange for able-bodied men to build a second crossbow workshop to provide arrows for Tiance Village’s own archers and light cavalry.

The blacksmith shop made weapons such as ring-handled swords and red tasseled spears to supplement the equipment of Cai Zhong and Cai He’s Jingzhou army.

Li Qian also purchased herbs, weapons, and shields from players, and then sold them to the Jingzhou army at high prices. He used the profits to recruit soldiers for himself.

Tiance Village is located between Wancheng and Xiangyang. After Wancheng fell, Jiyang County and Yuyang County became the front line, and Xinye County was to the south of these two counties.

Tiance Village was close to the front line against the Yellow Turban Army. It served as a place for the Jingzhou Army to transfer supplies and troops, and made a fortune from the war. It had enough money to build a town, and the only thing missing was the buildings.

When Li Qian attacked the number one town in the world, the main force of the Jingzhou army arrived in Xinye.

Jingzhou Governor Xu Qiu joined forces with Jingzhou noble families to send out an army of 200,000. The army formation stretched for dozens of miles.

Qin Jie, the commander of Jiangxia, was appointed by the court as the governor of Nanyang. He led 100,000 soldiers from Jiangxia County upstream to Xinye to meet with the governor of Jingzhou.

The Jingzhou army sent a total of 300,000 troops, determined to recapture Wancheng.

Players in Nanyang County responded one after another, gathering an army of 700,000 and joining forces with the Jingzhou army, all wanting to complete achievement tasks such as “recapture Wancheng”, “be the first to reach the summit”, and “suppress the rebellion in Nanyang”.

Li Qian also sent troops to cooperate with the Jingzhou army to recapture Wancheng and take advantage of the situation.

During this period, Li Qian was busy building his territory and did not do much conquest, and his ranking dropped from first to ninth in the Huaxia region.

Li Qian took a glance.

The tenth place is a player lord from Nanyang County called “The Greatest Emperor of All Time”.

Zhang Mancheng’s siege of Wancheng was extremely brutal, and this player lord managed to squeeze into the top ten thanks to the tragic casualties.

The “greatest emperor of all time” may also have the template of kings, princes, generals and ministers.

I wonder which king, prince or general this template was from?
There are many players in Nanyang County. Li Qian roughly estimates that there may be hundreds of players who have obtained the templates of kings, princes, generals and ministers.

The 300,000 Jingzhou troops advanced to the line of Jiyang County and Yuyang County.

In addition to Xu Qiong’s 200,000 Xiangyang soldiers and Qin Jie’s 100,000 Jiangxia soldiers, the Han army originally in Wancheng also retreated to Jiyang County and Yuyang County.

There were 150,000 Han troops in Wancheng, who suffered heavy losses during the Yellow Turban siege. Only 30,000 defeated soldiers were left, who defected to Qin Jie, the new governor of Nanyang.

Cai Zhong and Cai He believed that Li Qian was invincible, so they invited Li Qian to the Jingzhou military camp.

Li Qian was more than happy to have the opportunity to meet the general of Jingzhou.

If you want to annex Jingzhou in the future, you cannot do without the support of the Jingzhou gentry.

In addition, Huang Zhong, one of the Five Tiger Generals, is most likely in the Jingzhou army.

If we can recruit Huang Zhong…

Cai Zhong and Cai He did not directly introduce Li Qian to the governor of Jingzhou, but took Li Qian to the Cai family’s camp.

In the middle of the tent sat a general in gorgeous armor, talking to a gentle and slightly pale counselor beside him. When Cai Zhong and Cai He saw the counselor, they clasped their fists and saluted: “So Zirou is here too.”

The strategist nodded and looked at Li Qian brought by Cai Zhong and Cai He. His eyes were as sharp as a torch, as if he could see through Li Qian’s thoughts.

Zirou?

In order to conquer Jingzhou in the future, Li Qian looked up information about Jingzhou’s nobles and generals in advance.

Zirou was the courtesy name of Kuai Liang, the representative of the Kuai family, aristocratic family in Jingzhou.

Kuai Liang was Liu Biao’s chief clerk. He was not a first-rate strategist, but he was quasi-first-rate.

Liu Biao entered Jingzhou alone with the support of the Cai family, the Kuai family, the Pang family and other aristocratic families, and Kuai Liang provided him with advice.

Judging from Kuai Liang’s face, he doesn’t seem to be in good health.

According to historical records, Kuai Liang’s whereabouts were unknown shortly after Liu Biao entered Jingzhou. Jingzhou surrendered to Cao Cao, and in the list of Jingzhou officials rewarded by Cao Cao, there was Kuai Yue, a member of the same clan, but there was no name of Kuai Liang, which means that Kuai Liang was likely to have died before the Battle of Chibi.

Another counselor of the Kuai family, Kuai Yue, is currently serving as an Eastern Cao official in He Jin’s General’s Mansion.

Since Kuai Liang served as a strategist in the Jingzhou army, the general who had a good conversation with Kuai Liang was most likely Cai Mao.

Cai Mao came from the Cai family, a wealthy family in Xiangyang.

The Cai family’s influence is enormous.

Cai Mao’s aunt was the wife of Zhang Wen, the current prime minister of the imperial court, and his eldest sister married Huang Chengyan, a member of a Jingzhou noble family, who was Zhuge Liang’s father-in-law and Huang Yueying’s father.

Cai Mao’s second sister, Lady Cai, married Liu Biao.

However, Mrs. Cai is still single and young and pretty, so she is not the type that Boss Cao likes…

It is said that Cai Mao was good friends with Cao Cao when he was young.

Cai Mao was tall and strong, and his fighting ability should be higher than those two idiots, Cai Zhong and Cai He.

But Cai Mao’s martial arts skills were not that strong, not as good as Huang Gai and Cheng Pu.

Cai Mao’s most powerful ability should be his mastery of naval forces. The Jingzhou navy was able to fight against the Jiangdong navy.

When Li Qian recognized the two men, Cai Zhong and Cai He introduced them to Cai Mao: “Brother, this is Li Qian, the extraordinary general who killed Sun Xia, the leader of the Yellow Turbans in Xinye.”

Cai Mao glanced at Li Qian, and seemed to be very dissatisfied with Li Qian, who was born in a commoner family. “How many soldiers do you have?”

“More than a thousand.”

“Too little.”

“Quality is more important than quantity. Even if the Yellow Turbans have a million men, how difficult is it to defeat them?”

“Oh?”

Cai Mao and Kuai Liang were impressed by Li Qian’s lofty ambitions.

Cai Mao said: “If you can reach Wancheng first and help the soldiers recapture the city, I can ask the governor to submit a petition to the court to appoint you as the commander of Xinye.”

Captain Xinye?
Li Qian was secretly happy.

In Global Warring States, there are two main ways for players to obtain official positions. The first is to seize territory, and then have enough reputation to submit a petition to the court, asking for the title of county magistrate, governor or even governor. The second way is for local officials such as governors and governors to submit a petition to the court, at which time they only need to have enough reputation, not territory.

With an official position, one can legitimately seize territory and also have an advantage in recruiting local famous generals of the Three Kingdoms.

Li Qian clasped his fists and said, “It’s a deal.”

(End of this chapter)