My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 189: Defeat Jiangxia with Three Axe Skills
After Pang Tong's initial introduction, Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin had a direct understanding of the composition and characteristics of Huang Zu's troops:

Huang Zu had a lot of troops, and with the support of Liu Biao and Yuan Ni's newly surrendered troops, it seemed like a large army. But these people were certainly not united.

Among them, Huang Zu's direct line of soldiers, only about 10,000 people, and there are several thousand old-line county soldiers in Jingzhou, plus nearly 10,000 newly recruited soldiers, and nearly 10,000 Yuan rebels, four parts make up the 40,000. Those who are absolutely loyal to Huang Zu personally account for a little more than 30%.

Therefore, Pang Tong analyzed the situation to Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin one by one: "Among all the troops of Huang Zu, the surrendered army of Yuan Ni is the most unreliable. They were forced to surrender and had no choice but to surrender. It was just that Huang Zu came faster last year and attacked Sui and Zhu first, so Yuan Ni surrendered without knowing why.

If our army shows more strength than Huang Zu this time, these spineless fence-sitters will most likely surrender again.

Apart from Yuan Shikai's surrendered troops, the original county soldiers in Jingzhou were ranked second in unreliability, and were even more unreliable than the newly recruited soldiers - because in theory the county soldiers in Jingzhou were loyal to Liu Biao, and after knowing that Huang Zu had become a traitor, once the situation was unfavorable, they could immediately defect to Liu Biao and return to his direct jurisdiction.

Therefore, in the end, only Huang Zu's direct troops and the newly recruited troops in Jiangxia who were fed by Huang Zu needed to fight a tough battle, and our army must also make comprehensive preparations. We cannot expect to defeat Huang Zu's direct troops easily.

As for the newly recruited soldiers, they cannot be persuaded by righteousness and reason, but they can be intimidated by force. As long as they are hurt on the battlefield and captured, they will definitely surrender. "

Pang Tong first analyzed the enemy's composition in one go, and then directly answered Guan Yu's question: how to attack their hearts and make the people under Huang Zu's command waver.

Guan Yu did not urge him. He was knowledgeable and knew that these prerequisites must be laid out firmly before the subsequent strategies could be solid. Otherwise, it would be nothing but empty talk.

Seeing this, Pang Tong also looked up to Guan Yu's patience and knowledge, and continued:
“And I think that the best way to make Huang Zu’s army feel that they are surrounded by enemies everywhere and that Huang Zu will definitely not be able to hold on is to spread false news that other princes are about to attack Huang Zu before our army’s main attack, or just as the main attack begins.

For example, it is now early April, the snow in the Tongbai Valley has completely melted, and the ice flood and mud have basically ended. Now there is no news of Yuan Shu's death from the north, so Cao Cao will surely complete the final blow to Yuan Shu as soon as possible.

But since Yuan Shu was in Xinyang Valley, he would not necessarily sit there and wait for death. He could also break out to the south with a small force and enter the Sui and Zhu areas, or at least move to the southern foot of Tongbai Mountain.

Regardless of whether Yuan Shu comes or not, we can spread the news that a small group of Yuan's defeated soldiers were cornered by Cao's army and risked their lives to cross Tongbai Mountain and head south. In order to ensure that Yuan Shu died at his hands, Cao Cao had ordered the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry to penetrate Xinyang Valley, and it is possible that he would personally pursue him to Sui and Zhu areas.

Of course, these things are impossible to happen, and Yuan Shu himself should not be able to run that far, but we can forge rumors and make a small matter out of a big one, so that Huang Zu's Jiangbei garrison in Sui and Zhu areas will believe this.

Then we launched a massive and fierce attack, spreading the word that 'in order to prevent Cao's army from entering the area south of Tongbai Mountain and entering Jingzhou, the Yangzhou army had to speed up the attack. Originally, they might have wanted to preserve their strength and take it slow, but now they have to launch a fierce attack at all costs and punish those who resist with thundering means.'

It can also be said that Liu Biao originally wanted to sit on the mountain and watch the fight between the two tigers, but because he heard that Cao's army had a tendency to move south and cross the Tongbai Mountain recently, he accelerated the attack and showed no mercy. Anyone who dared to take it would die!

It can even be implied that if these resisters refused to surrender to the Yangzhou army early and delayed their resistance, eventually leading to Yuan Shu and Cao's army being forced to the south of Tongbai Mountain, then even if Liu Yangzhou/Liu Jingzhou was benevolent for a while, he would definitely punish those delaying villains severely in the end..."

Pang Tong proudly listed three specific tricks to intimidate Huang Zu's outer troops, with each trick being very clear in its structure.

These fake news strategies of "it's obvious that for now only Liu Bei and his family are about to attack Huang Zu, but they can pretend that Yuan Shu might flee south, so Cao Cao will soon chase him and Liu Biao dare not hold back" were obviously slowly figured out and perfected by Pang Tong since the last December when he confirmed that his lord would attack Huang Zu in the future.

It took a man like Pang Tong four months of thinking (of course he didn't just focus on this one strategy during these four months, he also had daily work to deal with), so the expected effect was naturally outstanding.

Guan Yu's eyes lit up after hearing this. He looked at Taishi Ci and Gan Ning, and saw the approval in each other's eyes.

"This is a good idea. It's obviously our army that's attacking, but we'll take the initiative and pretend that Huang Zu is being attacked by three or four princes at the same time. Once one of them attacks, the other three won't be able to sit still...

However, will the generals under Huang Zu believe it? After all, words are not enough, and it would be bad if it backfired. Who is the garrison commander of Sui and Zhu in Jiangbei? Who is the garrison commander of the counties outside Xiakou in Jiangnan? What about Hannan in Jiangbei?"

While Guan Yu affirmed Pang Tong's suggestion, he also pointed out that the success of this strategy would be largely influenced by the factor of "whether the local garrison commanders are easy to deceive", so he had to ask about the situation of the generals in various places.

Jiangxia County is where the Yangtze River and the Han River meet, so all the counties in the county are divided into three parts by this "T-junction" of the Yangtze River and the Han River. They are the Jiangnan area which is mainly attacked by Yuzhang County, the Jiangbei and Hanbei areas which can be mainly attacked by Lujiang Army, and the Jiangbei and Hannan areas which Liu Biao Army faces directly from the direction of Nanjun.

The "Three Towns of Wuhan" under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan in later generations basically correspond to the three sides of this "T-junction".

Jiangnan is Wuchang, and the corresponding location of Wuchang District in later generations is now called "Xiakou" (but when Cao Cao conferred the title of Wuchang Marquis on Liu Bei, it was already renamed Wuchang. After Liu Bei actually occupied it, the name could be officially changed)
The Jiangbei Hanbei area is the Hankou of later generations. Of course, due to the many swamps in the local area at the end of the Han Dynasty, there was no strict correspondence with the county town of Hankou in later generations. There was only a county town called Xiling in the northeast of the swamp area.

However, just north of the confluence of the Han River and the Yangtze River, Huang Zu also built an unnamed crescent-shaped purely military fortress to control the north bank waterway. However, due to the surrounding swampy terrain, it was relatively small in scale, only a few hundred steps in radius. It was a pure fortress with no civilian use. The civilian county seat was still in Xiling.

The area south of the Yangtze River corresponds to the later Hanyang District, where there is now a Jiangxia County (in theory, according to the ancient naming rules, the county south of the Han River should be called "Hanyin", but it is called Hanyang, and I can't do anything about it). Before Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin went to war, they had initially deduced that the southern part of Jiangxia County would definitely be completely taken over by Liu Bei's army. If Liu Biao or Cao Cao wanted to covet this place, they would have to cross the Yangtze River, which was too difficult.

The part north of the Yangtze River and south of the Han River should also be taken back by Liu Biao without any suspense, because that place is connected to the land of Nanjun, and Liu Biao would not tolerate other warlords extending their hands to the area between the Yangtze River and the Han River.

After all, Liu Biao's core territory was protected by two water barriers, the South River and the North Han River. If a breach occurred between these two water systems, Liu Biao would be unable to sleep or eat, and would have to fight to the death with the enemy. If Liu Bei wanted to avoid a fight to the death with Liu Biao, he had to deliberately avoid this fuse.

The last part north of the Yangtze River and north of the Han River is the most complicated. Theoretically, Liu Bei could attack upstream from Lujiang River, Liu Biao could attack downstream from Fancheng, and even Cao and Yuan could intervene if they had enough strength to cross Tongbai Mountain.

Before the war, neither Guan Yu nor Zhuge Jin were completely sure that they could completely take over this area.

Listening to what Pang Tong said at this moment, it seems that the key is to use this piece of territory to disrupt the situation, create emotional panic among Huang Zu's army, and make them mistakenly believe that they are being besieged from multiple sides.

Therefore, it is very important to find out which generals are in this area and whether they are easy to deceive.

Fortunately, Pang Tong had done his homework in advance, so he answered without hesitation: "There are more than ten famous generals under Huang Zu, and I have people investigating them all.

In Xiling and Zhuxian in northern Han, the main defenders were Zhang Hu and Chen Sheng, both of whom were originally Sima of other departments. There were also Mei Qian and Lei Xu, former generals of Yuan Shu's army who were forced to surrender last year.

Xiakou and Shaxian in the south of the Yangtze River were Huang Zu's most trusted places, and were respectively guarded by Huang Zu himself and his son Huang She. There was also his naval commander Su Fei, who was stationed in E County and controlled the key pass of the Yangtze River between Jing and Yang. He had three naval commanders under his command: Zhang Shuo, Chen Jiu, and Deng Long.

The areas north of the Yangtze River and south of the Han River are mostly garrisoned by the former Jiangxia County troops, including Han Xi in Jiangxia County and Gao Xiang in Jingling County. These people are loyal to Liu Biao. If our army can quickly defeat Huang Zu and not fight with them until we take Xiakou, they will definitely return to Liu Biao and draw a clear line with Huang Zu. They will not fight with us, so there is no need to worry. "

As Guan Yu listened, he looked at Pang Tong with higher regard. He felt that this Yuzhang prefect had done his homework well, as he had sorted out the enemy generals so clearly before the battle.

Guan Yu pointed to the map and analyzed: "Well, Shi Yuan is indeed a great talent. No wonder Zi Yu once said that when you were in Jingzhou, you were as famous as his brother. Before the battle, you had already understood the enemy situation so thoroughly. So, we mainly used tricks on Zhang Hu, Mei Qian and others near Zhu County in Jiangbei, so that they dared not fight to the death, and even abandoned their defense.

Once we achieve a breakthrough in the north of the Yangtze River and capture Zhu County (today's Huanggang, you can look at the current map of Hubei, Huanggang is on the opposite bank of Ezhou, so after Huanggang falls, Ezhou alone can no longer control the river), then Su Fei's control of E County in the south of the Yangtze River will be meaningless, because the dangerous part of the Yangtze River waterway between Jing and Yang has been breached, and Su Fei can no longer expect to hold on and cut off the waterway.

At that time, he would either be trapped in the isolated city of E County and be divided, surrounded and eroded by us, or organize the main force of the navy to fight us on the Yangtze River, or he could only conserve his strength and withdraw all the Yangtze River navy to Xiakou and Shaxian to join forces with Huang Zu's main force.

Once the first line of defense in the north and south of the Yangtze River collapses, our army will take over Zhu County and E County on both sides of the river, and then we can go upstream and approach Xiakou and Shaxian to fight Huang Zu himself. As long as we fight fast enough, I believe that Huang Zu's so-called 40,000 troops will be able to retreat to less than half of the battlefield in Xiakou.

The troops in Jiangbei and Hanbei may be forced to surrender by our army, and the troops in Jiangbei and Hannan may withdraw to Liu Biao's direct command. Only the troops in Jiangnan will follow Huang Zu to participate in the final battle of Xiakou. "

After dividing the enemy into three parts along the Yangtze and Han Rivers and thoroughly analyzing them, Guan Yu was much more confident about the battle.

Huang Zu seemed to have 40,000 people, but less than half of them were on the same side as him! The remaining half or more could be divided, disintegrated and deterred!
In fact, if Huang Zu knew about military affairs, the best choice for him would be to gather all the main forces of tens of thousands of people from the beginning, build fortifications and clear the fields to defend the twin cities of Xiakou and Shaxian. Anyway, he had enough food stored, and tens of thousands of people would have enough food to eat to besiege the city.

But who made Huang Zu greedy? Before the battle, he certainly didn't want to lose a single county. Little did he know that this mentality of not wanting to lose anything gave his opponent the opportunity to defeat him one by one and divide and disintegrate him.

It seems that Pang Tong's plan is very feasible.

In order to train Pang Tong, Zhuge Jin never took the initiative to speak today, but just stood by to control the situation and evaluate.

Seeing that Guan Yu thought Pang Tong's plan was feasible and Zhuge Jin himself did not see any obvious flaws, he nodded and indicated that they could try this strategy first.

Anyway, the key to the follow-up is at the execution level. It depends on how Pang Tong operates to scare Zhang Hu, Chen Sheng, Mei Qian and Lei Xu, and make them quickly collapse because they are "about to be besieged from all sides."

If Pang Tong's execution ability is not good enough, Zhuge Jin will step in to train him.

Fine tune.

(End of this chapter)