A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 636 Borrowing Food Again

During the following march, Lu Cheng deliberately avoided many government troops, so the marching speed was much faster. Along the way, he also gathered some scattered Yellow Turban troops and roaming refugees.

When the group passed through Zhongshan State, passed Tang River and entered Li County, the Yellow Turban Army under Lu Cheng, together with the elderly, the weak, women and children, had already numbered about 2,500 people.

As we went further, we encountered fewer and fewer Yellow Turban troops along the way.

However, there is still a problem at this time. The troops under Lu Cheng are about to run out of food.

"General, we don't have much food left. It can only last for three days at most."

Lu Cheng nodded: "I already know, is there any fort ahead?"

"General, there is a fort five miles to the north, with a flag with the word 'Wang' hanging on it. There is also a fort eight miles to the east, with a flag with the word 'Zhang' hanging on it."

"Then let's go to the north first. Zhou Cang, gather 1000 soldiers and follow me to borrow food."

"The last general takes command!"

"Guo Xian, you lead the rest of the group and fall behind by one mile."

"Yes, General."

During the march, Lu Cheng had already carried out a simple reorganization of the more than 2,000 men under his command. He had barely picked out more than a thousand young and strong men, equipped them with weapons and armor seized in recent days, and carried out simple queue and formation training. Now they had the appearance of a garrison and could be sent out to strengthen their morale.

Following Lu Cheng's order, ten teams of one hundred men quickly gathered together, and under the leadership of Zhou Cang, they formed a line and marched forward.

Half an hour later, outside the gate of Wang's fortress, Lu Cheng looked at the fortress in front of him. It was much smaller than the Zhen family's fortress, and the soldiers on the wall were already ready for battle.

Lu Cheng gestured to Zhou Cang beside him, who immediately rode forward and said in a loud voice: "Listen, everyone inside. We are the Yellow Turban Army under the command of General Shenwu. We are passing through your precious land and have come to borrow food!"

A middle-aged man wearing armor and a long sword on the gate tower drove them away directly: "A group of refugees and bandits, dare to come to borrow food? Leave quickly, otherwise I will kill you all!"

As he spoke, the man drew his bow and shot an arrow at Zhou Cang.

Zhou Cang quickly took a step back to avoid the arrow, and waved his spear angrily, pointing it at the man on the gate tower: "You little rat, you sneaked up on me with arrows. Do you dare to come down and fight me?"

The man on the gate tower was not moved by Zhou Cang's provocation. Instead, he waved his hand and dozens of arrows shot towards Zhou Cang. Zhou Cang could only ride his horse back until he was out of the range of the arrows.

At this moment, Lu Cheng had already galloped to Zhou Cang's side and said, "Zhou Cang, let me lend you my spear."

"General, please."

Lu Cheng took over Zhou Cang's spear, glanced at the fort gate an arrow away, raised his right hand, gathered strength and threw the spear forward. With a sharp whistling sound, the spear crossed a distance of dozens of feet in the blink of an eye, and with a bang, it hit the center of the fort gate. The blade almost completely penetrated the gate, and the spear body was still shaking.

The two doors that were originally tightly closed were shaken open by this terrifying force, leaving a gap several fingers wide.

Everyone on the gate tower was startled at once, but at this moment Lu Cheng jumped off his horse, holding a long sword, and leaped three or five feet, quickly approaching the gate tower.

The general on the gate tower noticed something was wrong and immediately ordered: "Shoot, shoot quickly!"

However, Lu Cheng's speed was so fast that the archers had no time to aim before Lu Cheng rushed forward and was outside the gate in a moment.

The sparse rain of arrows could only fall behind Lu Cheng and could not cause any harm.

When he was less than ten feet away from the gate, Lu Cheng leaped up more than ten feet high, and the long sword in his hand drew a graceful arc, and chopped down along the gap in the middle of the gate with incredible precision.

When Lu Cheng jumped into the air, the people on the gate tower could even see Lu Cheng's face and the bright light of the sword.

With a click, the bolts behind the two doors were instantly cut off, and the long knife in Lu Cheng's hand hit the ground with a dull bang.

At this moment, everyone on the gate tower was completely shocked by the explosion. Some even dropped their weapons and fell to the ground in fear.

With two bangs, Lu Cheng kicked the door open and rushed into the fort with a knife in hand.

He jumped onto the gate tower in two or three steps, and struck left and right with the long sword in his hand, clearing out the surrounding miscellaneous soldiers in an instant. Then he stretched out the long sword and put it on the neck of the man with the sword: "Would you like to borrow some food?"

"Yes, I will have someone prepare food and fodder right away. Please spare my life, General."

"Within half an hour, 1000 stones of food and fodder, 200 swords and spears, bows, and feather arrows!"

"Yes Yes Yes."

"Why don't you get ready quickly?"

"General, we don't have that many bows in the fort. We only have less than eighty bows. Do you think we can use swords and guns to counter them?"

"also may."

At the same time, Zhou Cang, who was outside the fort, saw that Lu Cheng had already reached the gate tower, and immediately called for his men to come forward to support him. A thousand Yellow Turban soldiers soon arrived outside the fort.

Lu Cheng waved his hand and did not let his men enter the fort.

Unless necessary, Lu Cheng didn't want to cause too much killing.

In troubled times, when the princes fight for supremacy, population is also the most important resource.

From the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the division of the country into three parts, and then to the later Three Kingdoms' reunification with the Jin Dynasty, too many people died in between.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, the population was originally more than 50 million, but later it was reduced to less than 8 million.

Cao Cao's words "White bones are exposed in the wild, and no roosters crow for thousands of miles" are not really an exaggeration.

Moreover, if we want to develop Liaodong in the future, we also need to attract a large number of people to flow into Liaodong. This place is already the territory of Youzhou, very close to Liaodong, and the people here will be his own people in the future. Lu Cheng will certainly not kill people easily.

Soon, the food, weapons and armor that Lu Cheng needed were prepared in the fortress. After Lu Cheng had his men receive the supplies, he left directly.

The people in the fort thought that they would be robbed by the Yellow Turban Army, but they did not expect that the other party would just take the food and weapons and leave, and did not take away all the food in the fort. This was very different from the Yellow Turban Army they had heard of before.

With the new food supply, the Yellow Turban Army in the team became obviously much more stable.

Over the past few days, Lu Cheng has initially fulfilled his promise and brought these Yellow Turban Army all the way here. He did not abandon any of them along the way. Even for those who were sick or injured, Lu Cheng would give them treatment and place them on ox carts.

This also gave the Yellow Turban Army further hope of survival, making them more and more trusting of Lu Cheng, and becoming more and more disciplined and energetic.

The next afternoon, Lu Cheng was leading his troops on a march when a sparrow that was released to gather information suddenly flew back, indicating that there was a large group of government troops in the northwest direction.

Soon after, the sparrows that were gathering information from the rear also flew back, indicating that there was also a large group of officers and soldiers behind them.

It was obvious that his group had been targeted.

This is inevitable. With more people under your command, you become a bigger target, and it is impossible to completely avoid the officers and soldiers.

"Zhou Cang, send two teams to scout in the northwest and southwest directions respectively. Report back immediately after you find any officers or soldiers."

"Yes, General!"

Soon, two cavalry squads rushed out to further investigate the situation.

At the same time, Lu Cheng sent people to conduct reconnaissance in the north and east to look for favorable terrain.

Half an hour later, Lu Cheng led his men to a small hill with gentle terrain in the northeast and formed a battle array to defend against the enemy.

Soon, scouts from the south came back to report that there were 300 government cavalrymen from the south, rushing towards this side.

Soon after, scouts from the northwest came to report that two thousand soldiers were heading this way...