Chapter 272 Everything is ready
Liu Feng returned to Xiang County. Not only did he exceed the task, he also brought Liu Bei 500 sets of armor and more than 40 war horses. His father was immediately overjoyed.
Next, it’s about Lu Su and Liu Ye.
Liu Feng immediately invited the military advisors in Xiang County - Xun You, Lu Su, Guo Jia and Liu Ye.
At this time Liu Bei had already established his government, and Xun You was appointed as the military advisor of the Chinese army, Lu Su as the military advisor of the front army, Liu Ye as the rear army advisor, and Guo Jia as the left army advisor.
Of course, this is just an appointment by Bafu and will not affect their appointment in the court.
This style of behavior was learned from Cao, the widow next door.
Cao Cao first created the Bafu, and then based on this, he started to erode the Han family and finally succeeded in usurping the Han Dynasty, which fully proved that this method was quite effective.
In this regard, Xun You, Lu Su, Liu Ye, and Guo Jia also responded very well. They all happily accepted the post of Bafu Shogun, and at the same time expressed their personal loyalty to Liu Bei, especially Lu Su and Liu Ye looked like he had managed to survive, and he was filled with joy.
Soon, four military advisors were invited over.
Liu Bei took out the emperor's edict and ordered his attendants to forward it to the four military advisors for review.
After the four people watched it, their faces were all filled with surprise.
As the military advisor of the Chinese army, Xun You had the highest status. He was the first to speak. He raised his hands and congratulated Liu Bei: "My lord, great things can be accomplished!"
The faces of Lu Su and Liu Ye He was also smiling, the only difference was that Lu Su was still a little reserved and quite reserved, while Liu Ye was much more unrestrained.
Liu Ye said first: "The Xu family and the Wang family have decided to be loyal to the lord and are willing to send hostages to Xiang County. From what I can see from my humble position, these two families are temporarily trustworthy and available."< br>
Guo Jia also added at the right time: "General Zuo exploited the local area too much. Even powerful families rarely escaped from the harsh conquests. Countless middle-class families were ruined. Shouchun, which used to be prosperous in the past, is now in a state of depression. According to intelligence, According to the letter, the Xu and Wang families have just been ordered by Yuan Shu to contribute 55,000 shi of grain and 1,500 civilians within one month, of which the Xu family will bear 30,000 shi and 800 people, and the Wang family will bear the rest." br>
Speaking of this, Guo Jia sighed: "With such harsh conquests, even Jiujiang tycoons like Xu and Wang will find it difficult to continue."
In the past few months, Liu Feng had already secretly launched an offensive against the powerful Yangzhou nobles, and at the same time sent a large number of spies to conduct detailed operations. The focus was naturally on the two counties in Jiangbei.
Among them, Jiujiang County is the most important. After all, this is Yuan Shu’s base camp.
Among the two counties in Jiangbei, there are three families that Liu Feng has the most to win over, namely the Xu family and Wang family in Jiujiang and the Zhou family in Lujiang.
Among them, the Xu family and the Wang family in Jiujiang are both local tycoons, with strong military force and many tribes.
Because although Jiujiang and Lujiang have many rivers and fertile land, they also have a large number of mountains in their territory. The Dabie Mountains in Lujiang almost divide Lujiang into two.
In these mountains, there are a large number of Nanman and Shanyue. The Nanman and Shanyue in Jiujiang are particularly martial and often go down the mountains to loot the Han people.
For this reason, the Han people in Jiujiang are also quite powerful and have many tribes. They often go into the mountains to hunt down barbarians as slaves.
In the two counties of Jiangbei, the Han and barbarians are so harmonious and friendly, making progress together.
It's just that if the force is too strong, trouble will easily occur. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Jiujiang was the largest source of rebellion in the southeast. Several rebellions not only killed the Han army captains and school captains, but also drove away the county guards several times.
The key to Lu Zhi's ability to jump into the central class was to be ordered to rush to Jiujiang to serve as the prefect of Jiujiang. During his tenure, he suppressed the rebels and the Nanbarbarians, and successfully suppressed Jiujiang.
In fact, the surnames Xu and Wang are common surnames in Jiujiang, accounting for the majority of the population.
Especially for the Xu surname, there was a big rebel named Xu Feng during the Chongdi period. He claimed to be the supreme general and captured several counties in Jiujiang, which shows his strength.
After Yuan Shu took control of Shouchun, he adopted a suppression strategy against the Xu family and Wang family, forcing the other party to send money and food, but at the same time, he did not give the other party corresponding political status.
If Yuan Shu hadn't been very good at fighting at this time and had more than 100,000 troops (including the general's personal troops, as well as local county soldiers, county soldiers and other garrison troops), these two families would have rebelled long ago.
Before, I endured hardship because I had no other choice.
Now Liu Ye is originally from Jiujiang. After hooking up, the two families immediately became interested. They secretly interacted with Liu Ye many times and decided to join Liu Bei and lead the way for Liu Bei's army.
These are all within Liu Feng's design. The surprise attack troops Liu Feng placed in the east city were counting on intelligence from local wealthy families such as Xu and Wang.
The distance from Dongcheng to the coast east of Shaopi is not short, at least one or two hundred kilometers, and the coastline is very long, hundreds of miles away. This range is so huge.
Without reliable intelligence and knowledge of the local terrain, this kind of long-distance attack can easily go wrong.
Once you go the wrong way and attack in vain, the loss will be too great, and you will change from a hunter to a prey, and the situation will be very dangerous.
In this case, the most important thing is not the combat effectiveness of the army, but intelligence.
The value of the Xu family and Wang family is reflected here.
As the local giants of Jiujiang County and their many years of experience in friendly matches with Nanman, they are very familiar with the terrain. Moreover, they can also keep track of the speed of Yuan Shu's reinforcements at any time. Once Liyang, Shuxian and other places begin to gather troops and recruit civilians, they will definitely send the information to Liu Bei as soon as possible.
After Liu Ye and Guo Jia finished speaking, Lu Su also smiled and said: "My lord, the Zhou family is also showing signs of wavering at this time. Gong Jin has exchanged letters with me many times recently. Judging from his words and deeds, he is quite like me." At this time, there is an edict from the emperor to remove General Zuo. As a result, the Zhou family will definitely make adjustments."
"Okay!"
Liu Bei nodded repeatedly. , Now Yuan Shu is the flesh and I am the sword, Yuan Shu still knows nothing about it, which makes Liu Bei feel that he is in control.
I have been fighting for so many years, and I have experienced hundreds of battles, but I have never been as sure of victory as I am now.
Liu Feng said at this time: "Father, Runan is the second county in the world, with thirty-seven counties and cities under its jurisdiction. It cannot be controlled by non-famous people. In Feng's humble opinion, Runan may be the governor of Runan. The post of governor of Danyang cannot be retained by Zhou Shang. If he does not want to be appointed as the governor of Runan, he can be transferred to the position of minister of the state of Lu. If he wants to be the center, he can be saved. The position of Jiuqing.”
The Zhou family also has two generations and three sons, with an extra two thousand dan in the family. Zhou Yu's biological father also served as the order of Luoyang.
From his father, Zhou Zhong, who was also an official to a Taiwei, he was also a Sangong. He is still in Luozhong, serving as a Weiwei and one of the Nine Qings.
When Liu Feng welcomed Emperor Feng back east, he deliberately deepened his relationship with Zhou Zhong. The position of the other party's guard was preserved by Xuzhou, otherwise Cao Cao would have wanted to replace Zhou Zhong with one of his own.
When he entered Luo to ask for the emperor's edict, Liu Feng made a special trip to visit Zhou Zhong.
After a deep discussion, Zhou Zhong made a decisive and wise decision, that is, to side with Liu Bei.
Liu Feng took out a letter at this time and handed it to Lu Su: "Mr. Zijing, this is a letter written by Weiwei Duke Zhou. Please pass this letter to the Zhou family. I believe it can help you."
< br>Lu Su was overjoyed and bowed his hands to Liu Feng and said thanks: "Although Gong Jin wanted to waver, Su lacked the decisive hammer, but he didn't expect that the young master had already prepared. This really makes Su ashamed."
< br>"Sir, why did you hurt yourself? Feng went back and forth to Luozhong many times. This is just a matter of convenience and a little effort."
Liu Feng did not dare to be praised by Lu Su, and replied sincerely: " Gong Jin still needs more attention."
Lu Su raised his hands and replied seriously: "Please rest assured, young master, Su will do his best."
Liu Bei was sitting in the upper seat. Seeing that his elder was so obedient and respectful to his close advisers, he was very satisfied and smiled while stroking his beard.
"By the way, there is one more thing I was about to tell you."
Liu Bei suddenly remembered something, turned to Liu Feng and said: "There is good news from Yuan Long, he Three forts have been broken, and nine salt tycoons have been forced to surrender. The Langya salt incident has been decided. More than 20 salt tycoons, large and small, will surrender if they die. Only a few of them fled to the north and went to Donglai Guancheng. Tens of millions of gold and silver were confiscated. , more than 200,000 stones of food, thousands of swords, bows and crossbows, more than 30 armored collars, more than 100 war horses, and countless other goods and equipment. Now that everything in Langya has been decided, he has ordered Zilong's troops and Jia. Kui and Jia Bin's troops will go south together. Calculating the days, we will definitely arrive before the war begins. "It is already August, and Liu Bei's side is preparing to start the war in September, no later than October.
This is the time of autumn harvest, and the crops are ripe. As long as Yuan Shu does not fortify the walls and clear the fields, there will be edible food almost everywhere. It can be said that the enemy is truly defeated by food, which saves a lot of money. This alleviated Xuzhou’s logistical pressure.
At the same time, it can also effectively attack Yuan Shu's defensive potential, which can be said to be a multi-purpose attack.
Of course, Yuan Shu was not a fool. Liu Beijun had been sharpening his sword for a long time and still didn't make a move. It was obvious at a glance what his intention was.
It’s just that this is a conspiracy after all, and the only way Yuan Shu can solve it is to strengthen the walls and clear the country.
However, this decision is extremely difficult to make, and the initiative still lies with Liu Bei.
Liu Bei's side is relying on waterways to launch a multi-pronged attack this time. The biggest advantage is that even if the attack plan is suddenly stopped, the material losses will not be huge, because most of the material gathering locations are It is a strategic location and can be used during next year's attack.
But Yuan Shu can't do it. If he really clears out all the wheat, corn, and rice, what will he eat next year?
Not only did Yuan Shu have to face the price of losing a harvest, but he also had to spend extra food to rescue the people. How could Yuan Shu afford it?
So Yuan Shu could only hold on, unrealistically hoping that Ruyin could rely on its strong and tall city walls to block Liu Bei's army, thereby giving Yuan Shu time to mobilize reinforcements and harvest food.
"Okay! Great!"
That's six thousand more people, including one thousand cavalry.
However, Liu Feng quickly asked: "I wonder how uncle Zilong, Liang Dao and Jia Bin's troops were damaged?"
Liu Bei was in a good mood and replied with a smile: "It all depends on your artillery crew. Yuanlong was not short of time. He used the cavalry to cover the battlefield, and then captured Wubao one by one. The casualties were not high. Zilong's troops lost more than 300 people, and Jia Kui's troops suffered 100 injuries. Of the remaining people, Jia Bin’s Sanhe Knights suffered no losses, only a few horses were damaged.”
The combined injuries of Zilong and Jia Kui amounted to 500, accounting for 500% of the total number of people. One-tenth, it can be seen that the war is still quite fierce.
However, judging from the frequent casualties of 30% to 40% in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, this casualty rate is really not high.
Liu Feng couldn't help but think of what he did in Qu County. Fortunately, he was not arrogant and underestimated the enemy. At the same time, it was also the arrogance and domineering nature of these Qu County salt tycoons that allowed Liu Feng to design those The big salt tycoons were blocked in Quxian City and they were all captured.
If the plan failed at that time and these salt tycoons fled back to Wubao outside the city, with the strength of the Quxian salt tycoons far superior to the Langya salt tycoons, I am afraid that I would not be able to capture these salt tycoons without thousands of casualties.
If there is no counterweight trebuchet, it will be more difficult, and it may even capsize and fail.
Seeing Liu Feng's silence, Liu Bei thought he felt sorry for the loss of Jia Kui's troops, and quickly comforted him: "Don't worry, my father has already replenished Zilong's troops. Jia Kui's troops It was also expanded to two thousand people. In order to maintain their fighting strength, my father specially added hundreds of veterans to them, and the rest were reserve soldiers."
Liu Feng smiled and said nothing. Explain, after thinking about it for a while, he discussed with Liu Bei: "Father, I want to fine-tune the strategy."
Liu Bei immediately became interested: "Oh, what other ideas do you have?"
< br>
"The boy looked through the information before, and after sorting it out by Mr. Fengxiao, the information coming from Jiangdong is that Sun Ce's elite are still gathering in the southern part of Wu County. Obviously, his target will still be the southern part of Wu County, especially the Wu County of Youquan. The prefect Xu Gong is the most important, followed by Kuaiji County. "
When Liu Feng said this, he nodded to Guo Jia to show respect.
Guo Jia smiled and returned the salute, and then Liu Feng continued: "Since it is impossible for Sun Ce to return to cross the river, the troops deployed by our army in Guangling are too wasteful."
The troops currently assembled in Guangling include 4,000 troops from Gao Shun, 4,000 troops from Xu Sheng, 4,000 troops from Pan Zhang, and 6,000 troops from Zhou, Jiang, Gan, and Dong Shui armies. In addition, there are also Among those sent were Zhao Yun's 4,000 men, Jia Kui's 2,000 men, Xu Ding's 2,000 men, and Jia Bin's 1,000 cavalry.
The total strength of these troops is 27,000, which is enough to directly cross the river and launch an all-out attack on Sun Ce in the east of the river.
But Liu Bei's group did not want to launch a battle across the river.
Because the stalls are too big, it also violates the taboo of dividing the troops.
Originally, Guangling assembled such a large army in preparation for the high probability that Sun Ce would return to Jiangbei to aid Jiangbei. At least he had to gather heavy troops in Qu'a to achieve the purpose of containing the Guangling army.
But now Sun Ce actually showed a face of betraying Yuan Shu, only focusing on continuing to expand his territory, with no sign of returning to Yuan Shu's aid, or even making any move to contain the Guangling Army.
It would be a waste of strength for the Guangling Army to remain in Guangling.
"Father, I intend to use Gao Shun's troops plus Gan Ning's and Dong Xi's troops to guard Guangling, with a total of 7,000 troops. Uncle Zilong's troops will be assigned to the third uncle on the east road. Uncle Yide's troops can be increased to 10,000. People put more pressure on Yuan Shudong, and my personal commanders Pan Zhang, Xu Sheng, Jia Kui, Xu Ding, Jia Bin and Zhou and Jiang troops went to Dongcheng."
Liu Feng explained in detail: "It would be great if we can gather and annihilate Yuan Shu's reinforcements in one battle. If not, with the support of infantry, we can freely advance and retreat, and even cover Shouchun from the south."
Liu Bei and Xun You had just heard this. At this time, his brows wrinkled.
Because the changes proposed by Liu Feng are too dangerous, as mentioned before, the soldiers and horses along the way to Dongcheng are actually without support and have less support, so if they miss a hit, they may become prey. .
Now Liu Feng actually wants to increase the number of troops along the way to Dongcheng. This is obviously unreasonable.
But as Liu Feng explained, the brows of several other people widened again, apparently convinced by Liu Feng.
"The biggest danger along the way to the east city is backup supplies, without a strong city to rely on."
Liu Feng explained to Liu Bei, Xun You and others: "But I reinforced more than 10,000 infantry, so that Along the way to the east city, we not only have the effect of surprise troops, but also have the potential of regular troops. Coupled with the artillery batteries accompanying the army, they are even more capable of attacking cities and demolishing strongholds. In this way, I can freely choose to fortify the city and use it as my own stronghold. It’s a plan to turn against the guests.”
Liu Feng’s words sounded a little arrogant and seemed too arrogant, but according to the intelligence, his statement was not wrong.
Yuan Shu has already assembled his troops at this time. Except for Shouchun and possible reinforcements, there are no large corps in the two counties of Jiangbei.
Along the way to Dongcheng, which received reinforcements, there were 8,000 cavalry, 12,000 infantry, and 3,000 naval troops. With such a huge force, they were not afraid at all even if they encountered Yuan Shu's field group.
Faced with the hollow cities, how could it be possible that Liu Feng's huge force, coupled with the artillery team, could not be captured?
At the same time, there is no big river to support Dongcheng Road, which transports various materials such as grain, grass, ordnance. However, it is the autumn harvest season, and there are grains outside the city. This has also solved the biggest danger along Dongcheng Road. .
"Young Master, this plan is brilliant!"
Xun You was the first to speak in support of Liu Feng: "My Lord, please see, Young Master comes from the east city, if we can gather and annihilate the southern part of Yuan Shu according to the original plan After gathering the reinforcements from the north, we can then easily capture Hefei and Chengde, move north along the Feishui River, and attack south of Shouchun. Even if we fail to gather and annihilate Yuan Shu's reinforcements, the young master only needs to capture Chengde and station 6,000 cavalry here. With 3,000 men and cavalry, we can stop the enemy south of Chengde. The young master can still lead the main force north to Shouchun and join Ming Guild at the foot of Shouchun City."
Liu Bei looked at the map on the desk, listened to Xun You's analysis, and nodded repeatedly.
The biggest flaw in the original plan was that the cavalry regiment attacking from Dongcheng failed to capture the reinforcements assembled by Yuan Shu, allowing the reinforcements to enter Shouchun, or they could turn against the guests and capture the Dongcheng cavalry.
But now Liu Feng has made such a change, closing this last loophole.
No matter how the war situation develops, Liu Beijun is already in an invincible position.
The situation Yuan Shu faced was nothing more than the difference between a small disadvantage and a big disadvantage.
If reinforcements can't get through, that's a small disadvantage.
If the reinforcements are eaten, that is a big disadvantage.
(End of this chapter)