The Yangtze River is a real natural chasm, and crossing the river is extremely difficult.
But whether it was Cao Cao or Liu Bei, they all made it through. The method is very simple, force crossing.
They defeated Yuan Shu in the Lianghuai area to the south of the Yangtze River. Then, taking advantage of the loose defense, they used a large number of farm boats to send powerful generals across the river to guard the ferry. Then they sent more troops to cross the river to expand the area. The natural dangers of the Yangtze River were thus blocked. broken.
Then Cao Cao attacked Yuan Shu fiercely, while Liu Bei caught Sun Ce and beat him fiercely.
Today's Liu Bei is far from comparable to Liu Bei at the same time. He has stronger strength and higher military quality. After all, Liaodong's half-year training was not in vain. And he is also consciously studying Wang Yan. Although he does not understand economics and cannot be like General Wang, there are only two taxes under the entire rule, one commercial tax and one agricultural tax. The agricultural tax is still clearly divided into ten taxes and one tax. , relying on these two hands to maintain the operation of the rule.
However, he has tried his best to improve the treatment of soldiers and civilians and solve their problems. The combat effectiveness of his army is still very high. Moreover, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu also learned to fight guerrillas. They could go deep alone and come and go freely, which was very scary.
For example, in the previous battle of Xuzhou, Lao Cao, who was best at cutting off other people's food routes, was beaten to the point of losing his temper by Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
Now Liu Bei is crossing the river to attack Sun Ce. Although Sun Ce has won the support of a considerable number of Jiangdong's wealthy families, in comparison, he still cannot beat the current Liu Bei in terms of hard power.
Wang Yan fought with Yuan Shao for half a year, and Liu Bei fought with Sun Ce for half a year. During this half year, Liu Bei defeated the little overlord of Jiangdong and beat him out of Wu County...
"Brother, why are we so depressed now that we have settled down in the south of the Yangtze River?" Looking at his good brother who was sighing again, Zhang Fei was very confused and asked after taking a sip of wine.
Mi Zhu sighed: "Just now I received a letter from my caravan. The battle between Wang Yan and Yuan Shao has ended. Yuan Shao fled across the river to Henan and stationed in Luoyang. Wang Yan has captured all the land in Hebei and half of the country. Since Yuan Shao has gone south, he will not When we return to Yanzhou, Cao Cao will fight with them. No matter who wins, we are all in danger. Even though there are dangerous rivers in the south of the Yangtze River, we are in a corner and unable to defend the river. Cao Cao and Yuan Shao are powerful, and we will not be able to hold on for long."
Guan Yu was also present. He said: "In that case, why don't we take the opportunity to defeat Yuan Shu and Sun Ce and dominate the land south of the Yangtze River? Or we can attack Liu Biao in the west and advance towards Yizhou. With the natural dangers of Shu, we can also resist."
Liu Bei shook his head and said: "Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Liu Zhang of Yizhou are both members of my Han family. How can we fight against each other? Yuan Shu and Sun Ce are not mediocre people. It is actually difficult to dominate the south of the Yangtze River. I can resist with all my strength, but I am not as good as others." Dominating the land south of the Yangtze River, Yuan and Cao have already decided the winner. They cross the river to attack me. There is nothing they can do."
"It is not the behavior of a man to look forward and backward. Brother, we will attack Yuan Shu today. If we fail, we will die."
Zhang Fei really didn't like the way Liu Bei sighed, just do it and it's over, there are so many words. You can't fight this, you can't fight that, it's not straightforward at all.
But in fact, Liu Bei just has a sense of worry. He can't think only about the present and not think about the future, so he is naturally worried all the time.
Liu Bei sighed. He really didn't think of any other good way. He had no talents under his command, no talents who could give him advice and make long-term plans.
Therefore, in a short period of time, he can only defeat Yuan Shu, hoping to completely dominate the Jiangnan region...
At this point, compared with the original development trajectory, it has changed beyond recognition, and some princes have even disappeared.
For example, Liu Yao, the governor of Yangzhou, was sent in 1944. The original seat of Yangzhou was Shouchun, so he went to Qu'a (Danyang City) in Jiangnan and was able to establish himself in Yangzhou.
But it is different now. As early as 193, Yuan Shu had been driven back to the south of the Yangtze River by Cao Cao, and part of the Yangzhou area in the north of the Yangtze River was also occupied by Cao Cao. Although Liu Yao was also appointed as the governor of Yangzhou, how did he gain a foothold in Yangzhou? Who listens to him? Yuan Shu was already beaten to the south of the Yangtze River, how could he let Liu Yao come over to seize power? Besides, Liu Yao has nothing, how can he seize power?
So Liu Yao came over to take a look at the situation, and stayed there for a month with good food and drink. Seeing that there was really no chance, he ran to Jingzhou and joined Liu Biao. After all, Liu Yao was also a member of the Han clan, and everyone was related. As for the governor of Yangzhou, whoever has the ability will go.
Therefore, there are only a few forces in Jiangnan now. Yuan Shu, Sun Ce, Liu Bei, and Cao Cao occupied part of it, and then Liu Biao of Jingzhou. Sun Ce was beaten violently by Liu Bei and ran to Kuaiji. Therefore, it is not considered independent and is a vassal of Yuan Shu. , of course there are other small forces, but in front of these forces, they are all unknown little shrimps, who are a big gift package of warmth.
The development of the matter did not exceed Liu Bei's expectation. After Yuan Shao settled in Luoyang, Cao Cao sent a letter asking for Yanzhou. Yuan Shao lost Hebei, so it was naturally impossible to return to Yanzhou. Besides, he did suffer serious losses of troops and generals, and many generals were killed, but it was not that he was really dead. At least he still occupied Qingzhou and Yanzhou.
Moreover, Liu Bei adhered to the route away from Wang Yan, and put all his main forces in the south of the Yangtze River. At the same time, he also moved the people of Xuzhou across the river. The vacated land was also occupied by Yuan Shao. Although this defeat resulted in the loss of many soldiers and horses, many people still escaped across the Yellow River. In addition, he now occupies Luoyang and uses his reputation to recruit various small warlords in the Sili area. And Jingzhou Liu Biao was on his side, which was also a force.
After integrating in this way and searching again, he can still pull out an army of 200,000, which is comparable to Cao Cao. The only thing that is worse may be that he has no generals, and there are few people who can take charge now. But this is also a small problem. No matter how brave an individual is, he cannot fight a thousand armies alone.
So naturally, Yuan Shao went to war with Cao Cao. Yuan Shu behind was also taking the opportunity to attack, hoping to regain the lost territory south of the Yangtze River and drive Cao Cao back to the north of the Yangtze River. Liu Bei on the other side still stood on the same front with Cao Cao, beating Yuan Shu and Sun Ce violently, hoping to dominate the land south of the Yangtze River.
At the same time, the fight between Li Jue, Guo Si and others continued. The two of them worked together to kill Fan Chou, then turned against each other and started fighting. Ma Teng, Han Sui, Zhang Ji and a group of loyal officials of the Han Dynasty were involved in a big fight.
The world is in chaos again, and wars are happening everywhere. Only General Wang is very stable here, and he is working conscientiously to restore the devastation.
There was a certain gap between the defeat of Yuan Shao and the governance of Jizhou. It was during this window period that broken troops were running around, and rangers, refugees, and other criminals took advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos. They raped, plundered, destroyed production, and diseases were rampant. As these people spread the disease everywhere, it caused quite serious consequences.
For this reason, Wang Yan sent out his army and carried out a large-scale killing. If there had been no epidemic, most of these rebellious people would have had a way of survival, it was just a matter of the length of time they had to work. But now because of the epidemic, if we have to invest resources in treating these people, it is not worth the gain.
At this time, even distinguishing between loyal and traitorous people is a waste of human resources, because there is no time to pay attention to so much. The standard for killing is very simple. Anyone who encounters a gang of more than ten men outside the village will be killed without mercy. Anyone who encounters two or more people outside the village, wearing armor and holding weapons, will be killed without mercy. Anyone who passes by a village and is reported by the villagers will be killed without mercy.
Of course, it’s not true that there is no defense against loyalty and treachery. After all, there is no food in Jizhou now, and many people are looking for a way to survive, but they have not violated the prohibition. This situation also exists. It's just that Wang Yan gave the army a lot of power at this time. Whether to kill or not depends on his mood. A considerable number of unjust cases will definitely occur.
But there is no way. Although Wang Yan will make amends later and deal with the sergeant who violated discipline at this time, people are dead and their lives cannot be redeemed. It can only be said that it is the fault of the times. If you want to find someone, you have to find Yuan Shao. It's all Yuan Shao's fault.
What Wang Yan has to do is to stabilize the situation in Jizhou as quickly as possible while curbing the spread of the disease.
A large number of doctors came to Jizhou to study the epidemic and prepare for treatment. At the same time, a large amount of medicinal materials and grain were brought to Jizhou. Tens of thousands of young people came to Jizhou and began to restore order. They provided disaster relief and resumed production and construction.
Damn the destruction caused by Yuan Shao during his run, and the destruction caused by various people who took the opportunity to cause trouble. Many people in Jizhou are destined to die.
The workload at the grassroots level is quite large. Controlling the epidemic is one aspect. Burning corpses, replanting grain, counting the population, distributing supplies, relocating the population, and all kinds of big and small things. If you summarize them here for Wang Yan, they are all major events. .
Therefore, Wang Yan's workload has also increased. While he has to coordinate the above affairs at the highest level, he must also take into account the original You, Liao, Merge and Grassland. Because Jizhou has a large population and insufficient food, we can only find solutions in these three places.
Nowadays, almost all people in Youzhou and Liaodong have enough food in their homes to last a family for more than a year. We must not just watch the people in Jizhou starve to death, and use work as relief. There must always be food for the people to consume. So Wang Yan mobilized a large number of grassroots officials to reason with the people and sell some grain.
Of course, the people must be giving face. Although production has decreased in the past two years, there is still a lot of food and there is always enough to eat. They can just take out the excess food and save it for later. The general personally ordered it, and there must be no one who would not support it. Generally speaking, under the rule of General Wang, everyone is still united, and it is impossible to say that the rule is shaken.
After all, Wang Yan is calling on the people. The days when they can have three meals a day are far away. The people of the world are one family. Today you support them and they will support you tomorrow. Happy days require everyone to help each other to create them. .
As long as we survive until next year's autumn harvest, the crisis will be over and life will be easier.
The land in the North China Plain is good, and the land in the Northeast Plain is also good. Now General Wang has two pieces of fertile land in his hands. There are also various research on farming and large-scale construction of hydraulic projects. Although it is the Ice Age now, However, food production is still guaranteed.
Moreover, in order to continue to excavate the northeastern plains, the people of Jizhou will also migrate to the northeast this time, and all the land must be developed. The Northeast is such a large area, and even though every household has a large area of land, there is no problem in accommodating more than 10 million people. But now there are only more than two million people in the entire Northeast, which is really not enough...
In addition to coordinating supplies, there is another important event, which is moving the capital. In order to facilitate the governance of Jizhou and the subsequent attack on Henan, General Wang moved the general's mansion from Jixian to Zhending. Once again, large-scale construction began, building Medicine and Wenchang Pavilions.
Because the territory expanded and there were more places to defend, Wang Yan expanded the military guards and named them Longxiang and Feixiong respectively. Lu Bu was appointed as the captain of Longxiang and Zhang Liao was appointed as the captain of Feixiong. At the same time, adjustments were also made to the garrison areas of various ministries.
There is absolutely no war along the Yellow River. Neither Yuan Shao nor Cao Cao dare to come here to seek death if they are given eight courages. However, we still deployed defenses along the Yellow River. This was necessary to guard the pontoons and ferries and control trade. This work was garrisoned by Zhou Cang, Taishi Ci and Zhang Wu's three guards.
In addition, the normal defense in the Liaodong region and the army's disaster relief function still required troops to remain behind. Wang Yan transferred the troops originally stationed and changed defenses, including on the grasslands. It is impossible for them to stay in one place for a long time, because this will inevitably breed corruption.
Lu Bu and Zhang Liao were sent to Bingzhou by Wang Yan because they were about to attack Liangzhou next. That's also Lu Bu's hometown, so it's just right for them to go there.
Liao Hua was still sweeping the grasslands, and then there were the garrison troops at various passes. Veteran Huang Zhong was stationed in Zhending, and at the same time cooperated with the troops in Taiyuan to clear the huge Taihang Mountains. Although Zhang Yan was defeated in the first battle, he hid in the mountains and did not dare to come out. But there are still three to four hundred thousand people hiding in the mountains.
No matter how you put it, from ancient times to two thousand years later, manpower has been a resource. It would be a huge waste to have such a large number of people hiding in the mountains and letting things go unchecked. The Black Mountain Army must be completely eliminated and all the fleeing households in the mountains must be driven out.
To sum it up, Lu Bu and Zhang Liao were promoted, and all the armies under their control were sorted out, and defenses and generals were changed. This successfully eliminated the unhealthy tendencies in the army and eliminated some of the army's feeling of being awesome. An officer's fantasy.
Generally speaking, the current military strength is actually insufficient and cannot cover all areas. If Wang Yan had not implemented the militia system and arranged police lieutenant jobs for retired soldiers, and under special circumstances, militiamen could be temporarily recruited and assembled, otherwise many situations would not be taken care of.
Although it has now experienced another round of military expansion and the integrated troops have reached 100,000 troops, it is still not enough for such a large territory.
But this is inevitable, because there are only so many resources, and he really can't support so many troops. No unified dynasty can raise a large army.
The most powerful Han and Tang Dynasties had only 700,000 to 800,000 troops at their peak. The Ming Dynasty had more than two million troops, but the population of the Ming Dynasty was nearly 200 million, and the Ming Dynasty implemented a guard system. More than two million troops are collectively farming in various places.
Wang Yan is almost implementing a guard system now. Except for his personal guards, there are no purely professional soldiers. They all work the land to support themselves. His current army is actually already full, and any more troops will affect normal operations. It is not easy for the people to support the army and a large number of officials.
Unless it was a sudden attack of troops in a short period of time like the previous battle with Yuan Shao, he would definitely not be able to sustain it.
Of course Wang Yan was aware of the war outside. He just sat back and watched the situation unfold. Of course, even if he had the opportunity to raise troops, he would not do it. Zhao Benshan famously said, "No matter how big your butt is, how big your pants are. If you don't thoroughly digest the land of Jizhou, it will be useless to conquer new territory."
He joined the Yellow Turbans rebellion in 184, and now in 195, in eleven years, he has occupied half of the country, and his development has been very rapid. Comparing the Three Kingdoms, even before the Battle of Chibi, Lao Cao's peak period could not be compared with his current territory.
Although Lao Cao at that time occupied more places south of the Yellow River and north of the Yangtze River than he did, he had not yet occupied Liangzhou, only the Sili area. But now he occupies the entire northeast and two-thirds of the grasslands, but the population under his rule is not large.
It is true that there are more than four million people left in Jizhou, but in fact, due to the destruction of the war, the epidemic, and the people he killed in order to stabilize Jizhou as quickly as possible and prevent the spread of the epidemic, there are also the people who died of freezing and starvation in the previous winter. people. After diligent statistics by grassroots officials, the number finally reported to Wang Yan was 3.65 million people.
This is the destructive power of war. During the Ling Emperor's period, there were nearly five million people. Now that his king has taken over, there are more than one million fewer people. It was reduced within the eleven years since the Yellow Turban rebellion to now, when he started his business.
In this way, his previous population was less than 8 million, but the land he controlled was half of China, and it was the two rich lands of the Northeast Plain and the North China Plain.
War is so cruel...
Zhang Yan thinks so too, but he doesn't think war is cruel, he simply thinks it's cruel because it's too cruel to him.
Seeing the big rebel sitting lazily at the top, wearing single clothes, with his strong chest exposed, and his freshly washed long hair disheveled, Zhang Yan wanted to act more courageous, just die, it's nothing. scary. But unfortunately, he still knelt down with fear.
Wang Yan looked at Zhang Yan and said with a smile: "There is no need to be afraid. I am very relieved that you can lead the army out of the mountain and surrender, saving my army from entering the mountain to search and suppress. I am by no means a person who kills indiscriminately. Since you have said that you are not guilty, after the investigation, If there is no one to report the suffering, I will divide the land with you and cultivate it for a living. If you die, I hope you will take the initiative to go out of the mountain, share a pot of wine with you, leave the whole body, and bury it at the foot of the mountain."
In fact, Zhang Yan just couldn't hide anymore. The Taihang Mountains were surrounded by Wang Yan. He couldn't beat him, and he couldn't run away. He would die sooner or later. He had no choice, and he didn't want to be confused and be hacked to death by his men, so he had to lead others. Go out of the mountain and wait for the trial of the big rebel.
However, Zhang Yan took the initiative to lead his people to surrender, which indeed saved trouble. Although the army had to clear the Taihang Mountains again, it was always better to have fewer people killed without a large-scale battle. So for Zhang Yan, Wang Yan was willing to keep his body intact and bury it in the soil.
Zhang Yan made a clang and hit her head heavily on the floor: "General Xie."
Wang Yan waved his hand: "Go."
Some personal guards came forward and took Zhang Yan away to wait for the judgment of fate.
At this time, a bodyguard came forward and said: "General, I have just received a letter from the governor Guo Jia, saying that there is someone in Bingzhou who is willing to join in with the young and old. His name is Jia Xu, courtesy name Wenhe, from Guzang, Liangzhou (Liangzhou District, Wuwei City). He was a vassal of Dong Zhuo, and later became the mastermind of Li Jue, Guo Si and others. He paid homage to Dr. Guanglu of the Han Dynasty and was already on his way to Zhending."
Wang Yan raised his eyebrows and smiled. He lacked civil servants who could do the job. Obviously, Jia Xu was very good...
I would like to express my daily gratitude to the good brothers who vote monthly for their support.
Thank you to all the brothers who recommended me for your support,
Thanks to the big brothers who read silently for their support.
(End of chapter)
