Of course, no matter how Liu Bogen was defeated, the outcome was now decided. For Liu Yu, how to deal with the next situation was the most important thing.
Liu Bogen failed in this battle. I don’t know how many of the 60,000 troops could have escaped. Moreover, most of Linzi City had been lost. Even if the Donglai Army who had escaped with their lives regrouped, it would be difficult to capture Linzi City again, and east of Linzi Qingzhou will also be defeated because of Liu Bogen, and those powerful families who were just like grass on the wall will beat up the drowned dogs. One after another, like a pack of wolves, they will jump out and tear the remaining Donglai army into pieces.
The more contact he had with those powerful Qingzhou families, the more Liu Yu became certain of this judgment.
And there is another question. As the second-ranking figure in the Donglai Army, Wang Mi led some of his followers to escape. Where did he go? What is his current strength? These are also very important to Liu Yu. After all, if Wang Mi If Mi is still stronger than Liu Yu after escaping, Liu Yu will not only have to guard against powerful local families from causing trouble, but also prevent Wang Mi from looking for opportunities to annex his own power.
Liu Yu was on the only way to go east from Linzi. If the escaped Donglai Army Commander Shi Wangmi fled eastward, he would definitely encounter him. However, Liu Yu and the others did not find any traces of Wang Mi and his party. Whereabouts, then Wang Mi must have fled southward from Linzi.
Gongsun Sheng judged that Wang Mi was definitely not strong now and did not dare to cross more than half of Qingzhou to flee eastward. He probably felt that he was not strong enough to deal with the powerful people along the way or Liu Yu, who had a suspicion with each other. He probably led the remnants of his troops to flee into Mount Tai. , in the mountains around Lushan, where there are many mountains and there are many grass bandits occupying the mountains. Wang Mi's methods should be enough to lick the wounds there.
After basically ruling out the possibility of Wang Mi annexing himself, the next step is a matter of life and death.
Some people suggested that they should just turn around and head east, returning to Donglai County. However, the problem of lack of food supplies for Liu Yu's troops will still not be solved. Moreover, after returning to Donglai County in despair, he may still be in trouble because of his prestige. No longer, he was also surrounded by powerful men.
Others suggested that they simply leave Qingzhou and, like Wang Mi, go south to Xuzhou or Yanzhou to find a place to hide temporarily and become a happy and happy king of the green forest. However, this proposal was quickly rejected, because most of Liu Yu's troops are soldiers with family backgrounds. If they bring tens of thousands of people with their families, the movement will be very slow, and finding a place that can accommodate tens of thousands of people will be very slow. It may not be easy to find a suitable place to be a mountain king. Even if you find it, you may starve to death in the mountains faster in that kind of place.
After rejecting several seemingly reliable or unreliable proposals, Liu Yu discussed with his confidants and felt that there were only two ways to find sufficient food supplies.
The first is to capture Linzi City, where there are reserves that can support tens of thousands of troops for two or three years, but the powerful Youzhou soldiers need to be defeated.
The second way is to collect food from Qingzhou's powerful people and ordinary people with registered households. Of course, they are basically powerful. After all, many ordinary ordinary people with registered households are now so poor that they have become refugees or bandits, and there is not much money to be squeezed out.
If you want to collect food, you need to let the powerful people know that Liu Yu and the others have the strength to make those who dare to disobey pay. Otherwise, if there is no strong deterrent, then Liu Yu needs to lead his men to attack these powerful people one by one. Compared to this, it is half the result with twice the effort.
Now that the Donglai Army led by Liu Bogen has suffered a new defeat, the prestige established by the Donglai Army in the past few months has been swept away by the Youzhou soldiers. If Liu Yu still wants to take advantage of this opportunity to establish control over the Qingzhou family, he must re-establish it. Get a new reputation.
So Liu Yu told his confidants present that based on the questioning of the Donglai Army soldiers who finally escaped back, the Donglai Army soldiers in Pingcheng, Dong'an were afraid of the Youzhou soldiers crossing the river to pursue them, so they burned the two pontoon bridges on the Zi River. He judged that After Youzhou soldiers entered Linzi, most of them had no time to look eastward.
He decided to march forward to Dong'anping, plunder and collect food and baggage near Dong'anping, and even rely on the obstruction of the Zi River to attack the Youzhou soldiers who were trying to cross the river, thereby establishing a reputation, and then march eastward. , you can blackmail the powerful people along the way.
After hearing Liu Yu's decision, everyone present was a little worried. After all, Liu Bogen's 60,000 soldiers were defeated by Youzhou soldiers. Now everyone only has a total of only 3,000 soldiers. How dare they touch the tiger's butt.
In fact, what Liu Yu really thought was that after the Youzhou Ningbei general Wang Huan defeated and beheaded Liu Bogen in history, he did not station himself in Qingzhou, but quickly retreated, leaving the Qingzhou territory that he could clearly swallow. Sima Yue, King of the East China Sea, was definitely not because Wang Jun, the governor of Youzhou, was loyal to the country and taking care of the overall situation. It must have been some kind of change in the rear, which forced the governor of Youzhou Wang Jun to recall Ningbei general Wang Huan who had just captured Linzi, Qingzhou. Department.
Based on this speculation, Liu Yu felt that he would approach cautiously. When the Youzhou soldiers retreated, he would follow behind and wave the flag and make some noise. Maybe he could get some benefits. As for the dangers, there are always dangers, but as long as he is a good outpost For reconnaissance, the Donglai Army, which has the advantage of being familiar with the terrain, should be able to escape the danger in time.
But Liu Yu certainly couldn't make this idea known to the public.
He used another set of words, saying that the Donglai soldiers who had escaped from the battlefield ran for dozens of miles without finding the Youzhou soldiers chasing behind them. Most of the Youzhou soldiers had already started to plunder the treasury in Linzi City. After the pontoon bridge on the Shuihe River was burned down, they should not care about pursuing these frightened troops.
Therefore, we can send sentries to check tomorrow. If the Youzhou soldiers are not found on the east bank of Zishui River, we can go to Dong'anping as planned.
Although everyone was a little afraid of the Youzhou soldiers who had just defeated Liu Bogen, but in this dilapidated situation, if they did not take risks, I am afraid that within a few days, they would all beg for food or go to the poor mountains and ravines to become bandits.
Finally, under Liu Yu's final persuasion that he would not catch the tiger's cubs if he did not enter the tiger's den, everyone agreed to continue taking the risk. After all, they all knew that there was a large amount of food and baggage stored in Pingcheng, Dong'an. No one present was willing to make a trip and then go back in despair to become a bandit.
