A war cannot be easily started with a snap of the head or a move of the mouth.
It needs to go through the early preparation stage, the mobilization of troops and horses, the accumulation of food and grass, the strategy of sending troops, etc., and then choose the right time and opportunity to launch the war according to the predetermined strategy.
In this battle of Hanzhong, Lu Yuan was responsible for the mobilization of soldiers and horses, troop deployment strategies, etc.
As the highest military commander of the Chu State, his approval and approval were indispensable for the mobilization of large and small troops in the country.
Therefore, this is a large army to conquer Hanzhong, and it can only be decided by Lu Yuan which army should be dispatched.
First of all, the original troops stationed in Qianzhong County and Dongting County cannot be mobilized.
This means that the two forbidden armies in Qianzhong County and the five forbidden armies in Dongting County, with a total of 140,000 soldiers, as well as the local prefecture and county soldiers in the two counties, are all left-behind troops.
They need to stay in place to frighten the southwest and defend Ningguo. They have a heavy responsibility and cannot be moved lightly.
Apart from the local garrison troops in these two counties, Lu Yuan could only mobilize two forbidden armies with 40,000 soldiers in Dongting County.
As for Xiangyang and Xichuan counties.
There are a total of three forbidden armies in Xichuan.
Two of them were stationed at Jianmen Pass in the north of Xichuan County, guarding against the Zhou soldiers in Hanzhong County. The remaining one is stationed in the county town of Jinguancheng. As a mobile force, it is ready to coordinate with Xichuan and Hehe counties to quell local rebellions.
The forbidden army in Jinguan City must not be moved.
This is the last insurance for Xichuan and Hehe counties. It is related to the stability of the western border of Chu State and should not be ignored.
However, the two forbidden armies at Jianmen Pass were originally used to defend against the Zhou Kingdom in the north. They could be used in this expedition, which resulted in an additional 40,000 soldiers.
On the other side of Xiangyang County, a forbidden army was stationed in Xiangyang City to guard against the threat of Zhou Kingdom in the north. On the east side of Xiangyang County, a forbidden army was also stationed to guard against the threat of Ningguo.
The above two forbidden armies also have important responsibilities and cannot be mobilized.
Fortunately, a forbidden army was also stationed in Xicheng Mansion, west of Xiangyang County and bordering Hanzhong County, to guard against the Zhou soldiers in Hanzhong County to the west.
This forbidden army can indeed be dispatched.
After such calculations, in this expedition to Hanzhong, Dongting County can send out two forbidden troops, Xichuan County two forbidden troops, and Xiangyang County one forbidden army.
In total, there are five forbidden armies and one hundred thousand soldiers.
In addition, except for the new policy of Hehe County, which requires a large number of soldiers and horses to be stationed, it is impossible to mobilize county soldiers.
The two counties of Xichuan and Xiangyang can each support 10,000 county soldiers. These are soldiers who are not weaker than the Forbidden Army. This adds another 20,000 people.
There is also the navy in Dongting Lake. The Han River flows through Hanzhong, and boats can swim directly up to Hanzhong.
In addition to the river defense of Dongting and Xiangyang counties, the Navy can also send 20,000 people to participate in the Hanzhong expedition.
After counting everything in this way, Chu State can dispatch 120,000 land troops and 20,000 naval troops, totaling 140,000 troops and horses, without affecting the defense lines and local stability.
In terms of innate masters, Huang Xuan and Lu Yuan from Xichuan County can also participate in this battle.
In comparison, the only enemies to be dealt with were the 50,000 Zhou soldiers stationed in Hanzhong County and a Zhou general from the Nanzhu Kingdom.
The strength gap between the two sides is more than three to five times greater.
Moreover, the above is not the full strength of Chu State.
Lu Yuan had already made up his mind. If the raid failed and the Zhou people discovered the flaw, they would not be able to resolve it quickly and the war would be deadlocked in Hanzhong.
Then the three vassal vassal states in the southwest can also be recruited to participate in this war.
After several years of recuperation, Kunhai, Chili, Jianchuan and other countries have recovered a lot of vitality.
Under an extreme call-up, the whole country can mobilize 100,000 civilian soldiers and horses.
Lu Yuan did not want them to use all their strength. If each country sent 50,000 soldiers and recruited one or two kings, the Chu country would have 150,000 more available soldiers and horses, and one or two innate masters.
As these vassal states have weakened, the troops stationed in Qianzhong County can be relaxed accordingly, and another forbidden army can also be drawn out, which adds another 20,000 soldiers.
With such a small-scale mobilization, the Chu State could dispatch more than 300,000 troops and more than three innate masters.
This kind of strength is equivalent to a national war even for those world hegemons.
If you lose, your vitality will be severely damaged and your country's destiny will be damaged.
In the Northern Expedition of Yue State, Zhou State lost more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, and two innates died. As a result, they had to rest for six or seven years before they could barely recover.
If the Chu State also loses this time in conquering Hanzhong, it will abandon all its troops and horses in Hanzhong.
Then not only will the hegemony be affected, but the national power will also decline significantly. Without more than ten years of rest, there is no way you can regain your strength.
Therefore, the Chu State can only win, not lose, by sending troops this time.
Lu Yuan could not bear the loss of defeat, and Chu State could not bear the loss of defeat.
Fortunately, judging from the current situation, Zhou State is facing three major enemies at the same time and is already exhausted.
At this time, even if you try your best, it will be difficult to draw out the power comparable to Chu State to deal with the challenge launched by this new overlord.
In this war, Chu State is already at an absolute advantage and has a great chance of winning.
This advantage was even greater, especially when Zhou State had not yet realized that the war had quietly begun.
…
Sun Siwen and the others were at loggerheads with the Zhou State, and Lu Yuan was also mobilizing troops and horses intensively. The entire Chu State quietly turned on its war machine without anyone realizing it.
In this busy situation, a piece of bad news soon came.
On July 20, the ninth year of Shenwu, news came from Qianzhong County.
Ji Hui, the protector of the country, who had been guarding the country for nearly four years in Qianzhong County, finally could not survive his injuries. He passed away three days ago and passed away in Baifeng Temple.
When the news spread back to Baling, the government and the public were shocked, and everyone in the Chu State was deeply saddened.
The departure of an innate grandmaster represents the loss of one of Chu's top-level combat capabilities. This is no less than the collapse of a corner of the Optimizing Pillar, causing a disguised decline in Chu's national strength.
In the current war preparation stage, in order to avoid alerting the enemy and at the same time to hide his strength, Lu Yuan temporarily concealed the existence of Qingyunzi.
In the eyes of outsiders, the number of Xiantian Grandmasters in Chu State has changed from the original six to five.
Although the number is still large, since the Chu State has a large amount of territory and needs innate grandmasters to guard it, it undoubtedly means that the number of innate grandmasters that the Chu State can use for external development has also decreased in disguise.
The State of Chu has five counties, and there are only five innate masters. According to the distribution of one county and one innate master, they can barely fill the vacancies.
It can be deduced from this that after losing Ji Hui, the Chu State will have no ability to develop externally for a long time in the future until a new member joins innately.
Because there is no innate master to guard it, even if the Chu State has gained territory, it cannot hold it at all.
In this case, still insisting on opening up to the outside world is just a waste of national power and a completely thankless task.
This is undoubtedly great news for other countries.
So when Lu Yuan was "inexplicably sad" about Ji Hui's death and ordered to stop working for the day.
The Chu Kingdom had lost an innate talent, and the news that Ji Hui had died quickly spread to surrounding countries.
Among them, Nanhai, Su State, Song State in the south, and even several Yi States in the southwest were naturally relieved after hearing the news.
Chu State has lost an innate talent and will not be able to develop externally for a short period of time. In the future, there is no need to worry about Chu State taking action on them.
Taking advantage of this rare period of peace, they could quickly accumulate national strength to prepare for future threats from Chu.
Not to mention Ningguo in the east.
According to the news coming back from Jinling, Emperor Jianwu laughed three times on the spot after hearing the news of Ji Hui's death. Then he put down the government affairs at hand and invited all the ministers to hold a banquet to celebrate.
In recent years, as the Chu State has become increasingly powerful, innate masters have emerged one after another. Especially in the past few days, they have begun to dominate, catching up with Ning State.
Each one of these, one after another, put an incredible amount of pressure on Ning Guo.
The Emperor Jianwu was even hit by the rapid rise of the Chu State and gave up his ambitions. He no longer considered how to unify Yangzhou, but instead deployed defenses on the existing territory of the Ning State to resist the Chu State's inevitable attack in the future. The battle of Eastern Expedition.
Even many of the Linhai aristocratic families are considering whether one of the six surnames and seven clans can add another Lu surname to become the seven surnames and seven clans, and share the rule of Yangzhou with Lu Yuan.
In the past few years, Lu Yuan has received many letters of greetings from Linhai aristocratic families, and even admitted a lot of daughters from some branches of the aristocratic families into the palace. This shows how much pressure he puts on those Linhai aristocratic families.
At this time, the news of Ji Hui passed through, just like a signal.
Tell Shen Qiu, tell those Linhai families, and tell Ning Guo that Chu State does not seem to be what they thought. It is like the rising sun, constantly climbing towards glory and unable to resist.
Chu State will also encounter setbacks, troubles, and failures.
That's it.
An innate master died of illness just like that.
Chu State's only six top-level combat forces were gone.
However, Ning State still has six innate masters, and at the level of innate masters, it finally maintains an advantage over Chu State.
This is certainly something to celebrate.
Not just a celebration.
After the grand banquet celebration, Shen Qiu even launched the innate master training program again.
He took out the national treasury reserves, and even the family reserves, and then called on the six surnames and seven clans to have the entire Linhai family gather together the elixir, and prepare to devote all their efforts to cultivate several innate masters.
Now the pressure from Chu State on Ning State is too great.
Now that he finally saw Ning Guo overpowering Chu State again and ensuring his absolute advantage, Shen Qiu would not let it go easily.
Not only did he prepare to train more innate masters, he also ordered a new round of military expansion in the country.
The existing 500,000 army and 150,000 naval forces can no longer give Ningguo a sufficient sense of security.
Shen Qiu planned to recruit another 150,000 land troops and 800,000 land and water troops to serve as a barrier to protect the country.
Nowadays, wars are becoming more and more fierce in the world. Countries are involved in the war. The increasingly large-scale troops and horses not only put pressure on Chu State, but also put great pressure on Ning State.
Looking at the overlords of other states, any one of them has millions of troops on standby.
Ningguo, which has always boasted that it was the overlord of Yangzhou, only had 600,000 troops. How could it be reconciled and how could it be at ease?
Therefore, military expansion has actually become an inevitable choice.
The news of the Chu State's innate loss this time is just a trigger to promote this matter.
Even if Ji Hui had not passed away, this matter would have been promoted in Ningguo for various other reasons in the future.
However, Ning Guo was flexing its muscles to expand its military strength, but Lu Yuan could not take care of that for the time being.
Now Chu State is busy preparing for the Battle of Hanzhong. Even if it knows that there is something wrong in Ning State, it has no energy left to intervene.
on the contrary.
Although Ning State is now expanding its army, it will definitely not be good news for Chu State in the future.
But for Chu State at this time, it may not be the case.
An army expansion cannot be accomplished by patting oneself on the head.
This requires preparing enough armor and equipment, recruiting enough qualified soldiers, training these recruits at the same time, and running in between the various units that include a large number of recruits.
When the Chu State expanded its army to more than 100,000, it took a full five years for training.
Now Ningguo has expanded its army by 150,000, even though their base is larger and their influence is smaller.
But even so, it will take at least two or three years before the expanded Ning Army can regain its combat effectiveness.
Before that, as long as Ning Guo didn't lose his mind, Chu State basically didn't have to worry about threats from the west.
This is quite important news for Lu Yuan.
Without the interference of Ning Guo, and the small countries in the south were not strong enough, he could concentrate on dealing with the Battle of Hanzhong.
As another protagonist in the war being prepared, Zhou Guo was also excited by the news of Ji Hui's death.
Even many Zhou people have the idea that God will help me.
If Zhou State originally had a lot of doubts about the grain trade with Chu State, it would be wary of whether Chu State had any conspiracy and was preparing to deal with Zhou State.
Then with the passing of Ji Hui at this time, most of the doubts and worries in Zhou Guo's heart disappeared.
With Ji Hui dead, Chu State's Qianzhong County would have less manpower to suppress the enemy.
Qianzhong County is bordered to the west by Chu State, three vassal states with different agendas, and further away there are two Yi states, Dali and Nanzhao, looking at them with eager eyes. To the south is Su State, a very expansionist wolf. The surrounding situation is facing , it can be said to be extremely complicated.
In such a place where the situation is complicated and may even explode at a moment's notice, Chu State cannot stabilize the situation in the southwest without enough powerful people in charge.
Therefore, it has become imperative to re-send an innate master to Qianzhong County to take over the position left by Ji Hui after his death.
You can look across the country of Chu.
General Zhou Qing is stationed in Xiangyang County. The situation there is no less complicated than that in Qianzhong County. It is impossible for this person to move lightly.
Huang Xuan, the real protector of the country, has to guard Hanzhong County in the north, take care of the southwest countries in the south, and is also responsible for the security of Xichuan and Hehe County. The responsibility he shoulders is greater than Zhou Qing, and he cannot move at all.
After excluding these two people, the only ones Chu could use were the three innate masters in Baling City.
That is, Lu Yuan, Lan Cai'er, and Sun Siwen.
No matter who among the above three people went to Qianzhong County, there were only two Xiantian Grandmasters left in Baling City.
Thanks to Lu Yuan's always keeping a low profile, even now, although many people already know that Lu Yuan is a dual cultivator of immortality and martial arts, he is very powerful.
But those people, at most, only regarded him as a second-level innate master, and did not know his true strength.
Therefore, based on this situation, among the two remaining innate masters in Baling City, even if they include Lu Yuan, outsiders do not think that under the strong pressure of Ning Guo, he can select another innate master to participate in external affairs. war.
After all, Bai Mengyang, the Marquis of Wu'an, and the four innate masters who faced the Zhou and Shu coalition forces in Xichuan were also forced to huddle in Yuzhong City and did not dare to show their heads at all.
Today's Ningguo has successively cultivated two new innate queens in recent years. Except for the Yangtze River and Guangling defense lines in the north, which have to leave one innate grandmaster each, there are four innate grandmasters left who can be mobilized. It also includes Shen Qiu, a veteran second-level innate master.
With this threat of pressure, outsiders did not think that the Chu State was so bold as to send troops to attack other countries in such a situation, regardless of the safety of the capital Baling.
If Chu State really dared to do this, Ning State would definitely go crazy with joy.
The Emperor Jianwu would definitely immediately mobilize 500,000 soldiers and horses, take the four innate masters, and then march westward along the Yangtze River, attack the empty Baling City, and completely destroy the Chu Kingdom.
Therefore, out of this consideration, and after not knowing that Lu Yuan actually secretly hid his own strength and also the existence of Qingyunzi, Zhou's concerns about the threat from Chu were naturally greatly reduced.
The original plan prepared by Zhou State to temporarily remove 50,000 soldiers from Guannei County and go to Hanzhong for defense during the grain trade between the two countries was completely abandoned after receiving the news of Ji Hui's death.
However, in Hanzhong County, Zhou State still planned to mobilize 200,000 civilians during the transaction period to make complete preparations in case Chu State turned against him.
It's just that the second round of downgrade was canceled and downgraded again soon after another news came back from Chu State.
On the third day of August in the ninth year of Shenwu, another news came from Baling of Chu State.
When Chu King Lu Yuan was a prince of the Yue Kingdom, he followed the left minister Cui Changqing of the Chu Kingdom during the Shaoyang Prefecture Period, the Changsha Kingdom Period, and the Chu Kingdom Shenwu Period. Cui Changqing, the Chu Kingdom's Left Prime Minister, was overworked with government affairs. After half a year of recuperation, he still inevitably ran out of oil and lamps. He eventually died of illness in his residence.
This figure who almost single-handedly established the civil service system of Chu State was gone.
It would be somewhat exaggerated to say that with Ji Hui's death, Chu State collapsed like Optimus Prime.
Regarding Cui Changqing's death, this statement is absolutely no exaggeration.
This can be seen clearly from the way the King of Chu shed tears in public after the death of the left prime minister, and then announced that he would not go to court for three days.
In the heart of King Chu, Cui Changqing was far more important than Ji Hui.
Even in the officialdom of the Chu State where Cui Changqing's disciples were everywhere, the importance of this left prime minister far outweighed the opportunities.
The passing of such a figure was enough to shock the entire Chu State and the entire officialdom.
To say that the sky has fallen is a bit exaggerated, but a hole has appeared, which is almost the same.
Before this hole can be repaired, chaos in Chu's officialdom and chaos in the court's political situation will certainly be inevitable.
Before these chaos are stabilized, it will be difficult for the Chu State to integrate all its forces and gather the strength of the whole country to do one thing.
And war is exactly what needs to be done by gathering the strength of the whole country.
