Chapter 198: The Angry Pang Kuo

In Xinping City, Xie Xun took King Chen's order to surrender, and said without saying a word. Ren Ping, who was sitting next to him, said: "General, the king ordered us to surrender. I wonder what you thought about?"

Xie Xun smiled bitterly and shook his head, saying, "What else can we think? Now the king has asked Deng's army to surrender. Da Chen is over. What can we do? Send someone to notify Pang Kuo and say we are willing to surrender."

Ren Ping nodded and said, "It's so good that the war can finally end. But since the king ordered us to open the city and surrender to the Wei army, why did you and me return to Chencheng?"

Xie Xun smiled and said, "Can't you think of this? Xue Rengui wants you and me, so he instructed the king to order you and me to return to Chencheng."

"I heard for a long time that Deng State is eager to seek talents, and King Deng is respectful to the wise and the nobles. From Xue Rengui's approach, we can see that this statement is not false, but General, are we going back?" Ren Ping heard that Deng State had come up with many solutions to recruit talents in order to attract talents, and attached so much importance to both of his two devastated ministers. This shows that Deng State attaches importance to talents, but whether to go back is another matter.

"Can we not go back? Xue Rengui sent our entire family to Wancheng, which is about to stop our thoughts. If we still want to reunite with our family, we have to surrender to Deng State." Xie Xun said helplessly, can we not go back? People have taken your entire family away. If you don't care about your family, you may not go back, but it is obvious that Xie Xun and Ren Ping are not such people.

"Then we will return to Wancheng after the arrival of tomorrow." Ren Ping said.

"No, you can't wait until you surrender before leaving." You have to leave, but Xie Xun disagrees to wait until you surrender before leaving.

"Why is this?" Ren Ping asked in confusion.

Xie Xun explained: "If we wait until we surrender before leaving, Pang Kuo will definitely not let us leave in order to stabilize the surrendered soldiers. So we will leave quietly tonight and arrange a deputy general to surrender. As for the subsequent issues, let Pang Kuo go and argue with Xue Rengui."

When Ren Ping heard this, he thought it made sense. If you surrender, will Pang Kuo still let you go? Deng State knows that it is easy to get a thousand troops, but it is hard to find a general. Doesn’t Wei State understand?

So Ren Ping nodded and said, "Okay, after everything is arranged, we will leave Xinping overnight."

That night, Xie Xun and Ren Ping read out the will of King Chen to their generals, and asked their generals to arrange the surrender. Then the two of them quietly left Xinping with a group of confidants.

The next day, when his generals came to find the two of them, they realized that they had left. In desperation, they had to open the city gate and surrender.

When Chen Jun opened the city and surrendered, Pang Kuo did not see Xie Xun and Ren Ping, so he asked General Chen. Only then did he realize that Xie Xun and Ren Ping received the order from King Chen to ask them to return to Chencheng.

Now, even Pang Kuo knew that Xue Rengui had made him do it, so he cursed like a rural villager in front of everyone, "Xue Rengui, this despicable villain, is really hateful!"

This is not a big deal about Pang Kuo losing his temper. As the saying goes, a thousand troops are easy to get, but a general is hard to find. After this period of battle, Pang Kuo has recognized the abilities of Xie Xun and Ren Ping. Although the two are not top-notch, they are also rare generals. If they can join Wei, they will be happier than getting these tens of thousands of soldiers. After all, soldiers can be trained, but talents are not just there. But now they have been kidnapped by Xue Rengui. It would be strange if Pang Kuo is not angry.

Pang Kuo's sudden little temper frightened the surrendered general Chen, for fear that Pang Kuo would vent his anger when he had disagreement, so he was trembling now.

At this time, the Wei army military advisor Chu Fei walked forward to stop Pang Kuo and glanced at the generals of Chen State. Only then did Pang Kuo realize that he had lost his composure, so he comforted the generals of Chen State, which made everyone feel relieved.

After entering Xinping, Pang Kuo quickly accepted the tens of thousands of Chen troops on the front line of Xinping and Ningping. However, because they were newly surrendered soldiers, Pang Kuo did not dare to take them to fight, so he sent people to send these tens of thousands back to Wei.

After dealing with everything, Pang Kuo went to Chen Cheng without stopping. Because there was news, Longchuan could no longer hold on in Pengcheng. However, this time he went south, Pang Kuo did not bring Wei Bu to him. Because of the Battle of Changshe, Wei Bu shot Guan Sheng, which had already been put on the order in the minds of all the generals of Deng State. In order not to have friction with Deng's army, Pang Kuo still let Wei Bu stay in Wuping.

On the eighth day of the fifth month of the 15th year of Qianyuan, outside Chencheng, Xue Rengui personally led a group of Deng army generals to welcome Pang Kuo. The two were considered old rivals. Pang Kuo attacked Yanling and beat Xue Rengui to a daze. Xue Rengui remembered these things, but Xue Rengui used 30,000 to 40,000 troops in Changshe to block Pang Kuo's 200,000 troops for nearly a month. Pang Kuo still admired Xue Rengui very much.

As soon as Xue Rengui saw Pang Gua, he smiled and said, "Congratulations to Grand Sima, Chen Jun has settled, Pei County is in sight."

But when Pang Kuo saw Xue Rengui, he remembered Xie Xun and Ren Ping's incident, and looked at Xue Rengui with anger and said, "Don't General Xue want to explain it to Sima?"

"Explanation? What to explain?" Xue Rengui asked Pang Kuo as if he didn't understand.

Seeing that Xue Rengui was still pretending to be stupid at this time, Pang Kuo said dissatisfiedly: "Hmph! What is it to explain? Of course, is it the matter between Chen Jun General Xie Xun and Ren Ping? Does General Xue think there is no need to give me an explanation?"

"Oh, it turns out that it was this matter. General Rengui slowly explained it." Xue Rengui pretended to be enlightened and said to Pang Kuo: "That's the case. After our general's army entered Chencheng, General Xie Xun and General Ren Ping's family immediately surrendered to our army, expressing their desire to join our Great Deng, and writing a letter to General Xie Xun and General Ren Ping who were far away in Xinping, asking them to join our Great Deng together. This general originally disagreed, after all, it would affect the friendship of our generals. However, the Xie family and Ren family begged hard. The general couldn't bear the separation of the two families, so he agreed to join our Great Deng. I hope the Grand Sima will not blame him."

Xue Rengui insisted that it was the one who took the initiative to join Deng State, rather than using his own tricks. Pang Kuo was very angry when he heard Xue Rengui's quibbling words, but he thought of the next battle. So he suppressed his anger and gritted his teeth and said to Xue Rengui: "Okay, General Xue is such a good method. I have remembered that the future is long, and I will definitely repay General Xue well in the future."

After hearing Pang Kuo's seemingly threatened, Xue Rengui corrected his face and said, "The Grand Sima laughed. In the future, I will definitely ask Grand Sima for advice."

After Pang Kuo entered Chencheng, he found that Xue Rengui packaged the Chen royal family, civil and military ministers and his family to Wancheng, which made Pang Kuo even more angry and almost fought with Deng Jun. Later, after Chu Feide persuaded him, he endured it.

However, this incident made Xue Rengui very nervous. After all, Deng’s army is less than 30,000 troops in Chencheng, while the Wei army is a little more than 200,000. Once the fight starts, Xue Rengui is not dead enough. In order to prevent Pang Kuo from suddenly attacking, Xue Rengui even ordered Wang Yanzhang to control the south gate of Chencheng. Once Pang Kuo is angry, he can run away in time. Fortunately, Pang Kuo is not irrational.

However, through these two things, Pang Kuo completely hated Xue Rengui, and he sweared that he must make Xue Rengui look good in the future.

However, Xue Rengui was very concerned about this. The hatred between Deng and Wei was difficult to resolve. If this alliance had not been great for Deng, Xue Rengui would not have been able to live in peace with Pang Kuo at all, let alone sit together and chat like a good friend.

However, these things did not affect the joint affairs of the two countries. Now that the Qi army is about to break Pengcheng, there is not much time left for the Deng and Wei coalition forces. Therefore, after many discussions, Xue Rengui and Pang Kuo decided to move their troops to Lai Township in Ku County soon, preparing to attack Qiao County, an important town west of Pei County at any time. However, due to the vast territory of Pei County, in order to compete with the Qi army, Pang Kuo also sent people back to Puyang and asked the Wei army to order the troops stationed on the border of Pei County to attack together, and strive to capture Pei County in the shortest time.
Chapter completed!