My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 221 It would be best if Brother Jingsheng is sensible. If he is not, we will help him to be sensible.
Liu Bei was a little shocked when he heard Zhuge Liang's plan of "eat from the pot first, then from the bowl. Once Cao Cao wins over the southern princes to contain the royal supporters' army, take over Jingnan first."

Because he has always been more moral, he always feels that Sun Ce is the bigger problem at the moment. From a moral point of view, if the southern princes stab the loyal army, it is more justified to attack Sun Ce first.

But Zhuge Liang's considerations were obviously not just about righteousness.

What Zhuge Liang wanted was to choose the one who maximizes relative benefits without being branded as unjust.

If the former has 70% righteousness and 80% profit, and the latter has 90% righteousness and 70% profit, then eat the former first. Anyway, as long as the "righteousness" attribute passes the passing line, it's fine.

Liu Bei hesitated for a moment, and could not help but ask as a reminder:
"What if such a situation really happens, and Brother Jingsheng can't stand our behavior of crossing the border to suppress the rebellion, and wants to fight us?

For now, I really don't want to directly damage my relationship with Brother Jingsheng, which is not good for the Han Dynasty."

Zhuge Liang said confidently: "Don't worry, my lord. No matter how Liu Biao reacts, there are only a few possible scenarios, and I have already thought of countermeasures for them.

For our army, if something happens in Jingnan and we take the initiative to help Liu Biao quell the rebellion, then the best case scenario is that Liu Biao is cowardly and slow and has no time to mobilize troops, and Jingnan is completely pacified by us.

The next situation was that when our army went up the river from Jiangxia and arrived in Changsha, Liu Biao took advantage of the opportunity that the main force of the Jingnan rebels was moving towards Changsha and being attracted by our army, and crossed the Yangtze River from Jiangling via Youjiangkou to the south and captured Wuling.

In this way, after all, we are a rebellion-suppressing army from other states, and the resistance we encounter will definitely be more intense than that encountered by Liu Biao's army. In the end, we may be able to capture Changsha and Guiyang, while Wuling and Lingling in the west may fall under the direct jurisdiction of Liu Biao.

In this way, our army will be bounded by the Xiang River in Jingnan and Liu Biao for a long time in the future. Once our army is unable to continue to expand the results of the war, we should promptly transfer the army back to the east line to attack Sun Ce and strive to completely clear the three counties of Wuhui within one or two years.

Compared with the first situation mentioned above, the biggest loss in this situation is not the territory of Wuling and Lingling. After all, the essence of the four counties in southern Jing is Changsha County, and Wuling and Lingling have little population and land. The key is that our army cannot occupy the entire Jiangnan region. Wuling is still in the hands of Liu Biao, which will block our army's way into Sichuan in the future. But there is no need to rush.

The worst-case scenario is that as soon as our army attacks Changsha, Liu Biao will immediately and vigorously seize the power to quell the rebellion from us, and he may even provoke friction with our army and chase us all the way to Changsha.

If Liu Biao really has such courage, then we can only temporarily give up the fight to quell the rebellion in southern Jing, and only defend the counties that have been occupied when Liu Biao arrives, then draw the boundary there, and return to deal with Sun Ce with all our strength.

However, given Liu Biao's decisiveness, this possibility is very small. If he had the courage, he would not have watched our army suppress Huang Zu's rebellion. Moreover, Liu Biao's actions would definitely give him some excuses. We can put it aside for now. After we have dealt with Sun Ce in the future, we can look up the past and "accidentally discover" Liu Biao's previous friction and sins, and finally eliminate Liu Biao as well!
Unfortunately, once this happens, it will take the longest time. By the time we deal with Sun Ce, the battle between Yuan and Cao should have been decided.

If we get into a stalemate with Liu Biao again, the victorious northern warlord will definitely use Zhang Xiu's territory as a vanguard and quickly move south to seize Xiangyang - this is also the reason why we do not want to go to war directly with Liu Biao.

Jingzhou is too big to be eaten up in one bite. If we go to war with Liu Biao when he has nine counties, several counties will surely be divided up by the northern princes. Only by not touching Liu Biao's heartland and taking Jingnan alone, step by step, can we minimize the harm of the northern princes intervening in a few years. "

Zhuge Liang's deduction is actually only reliable in the first half, or the first two-thirds. As time goes on, there are more and more imaginary deductions and more and more prerequisites. Liu Bei is also very clear that these can only be listened to casually and used as a reference.

However, even if it is just for reference, it is remarkable that Zhuge Liang was able to deduce all the best, middle and worst strategies and cover them thoroughly.

Liu Bei's hesitation was gone, he breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to proceed according to this strategy.

Finally, there are only one or two progress issues at the execution level that need to be confirmed, and the remaining details can be taken one step at a time.

Liu Bei thought about it carefully and asked the last two questions: "Sir, how long do you think the truce between Yuan and Cao can last? In other words, how long will it take Cao Cao to win over potential allies in the south? Once we decide to attack Jing first and then Yang, how many troops should we withdraw from the east?"

Zhuge Liang thought for a moment and said, "It will take Cao Cao at least two or three months to win over potential allies in the south, and we have to negotiate all at once and allow time for the envoys to report back. If there is any delay, it may take four or five months before we can take full action."

Yuan Shao would need at least two to three months to find a new reason for Cao Cao to start a war and wait until someone in Xudu was dissatisfied with Cao Cao's generous rewards and appointments and caused trouble. The first person to jump out could be Yang Biao, Kong Rong, Dong Cheng, or even Lu Bu.

Lu Bu himself probably wouldn't dare to jump out, but we can't rule out the possibility that someone might use Lu Bu, and we could even use Lu Bu. So overall, we'll have three to four months to prepare for the war.

As for the deployment of troops, before the attack on Jiangxia last year, our army had 70,000 soldiers. Although there were casualties in the battles of Jiangxia and Xiapi, more soldiers were forced to land. More than 10,000 soldiers were added to Jiangxia, and nearly 10,000 soldiers were added to Xiapi.

At present, our army has 90,000 main combat troops, not including the local militia and rural braves who defend the city. In Hefei, Shouchun, Xiapi, and Tancheng, after all, the Huaihe River defense line is long, and it is necessary to leave 20,000 to 30,000 people to guard against Cao Cao. If there are fewer, we have to worry that Cao Cao will suddenly lose his composure before the war with Yuan Shao. In Danyang and Guangling, there must be 10,000 to 20,000 people to guard against Sun Ce. As long as these people can withstand the time difference in the first stage, the pressure will be reduced after the war between Yuan and Cao officially starts. At that time, the troops in Xiapi and Tancheng can be transferred south to Guangling to strengthen the river defense to prevent Cao Cao's troops and change to defend against Sun Ce.

In this way, all the troops on the eastern front will account for about half of our combat troops. The remaining half can mostly be stationed in Jiangxia, and a small amount can be placed in Lujiang and Yuzhang behind Jiangxia as support.

As long as there is trouble in Jingnan, Jiangxia's 40,000 main battle troops will immediately go out and try their best to seize Changsha and spread to Jingnan as quickly as possible. In addition, we can mobilize most of the cavalry to Jiangxia so that we can quickly penetrate and encircle after the war begins.

There was no need to worry about the gains and losses of a city or a place. If a city was not strong enough to defend, they would bypass it without caring about the food supply and attack it from behind. Although the water network in southern Jing was not conducive to cavalry combat, it was still conducive to cavalry interspersed raids.

The eastern front does not need cavalry, whether defending against Cao Cao or Sun Ce. Since Yun Chang returned to Danyang two months ago and took over the command of the eastern front from Zi Yi, my brother wrote to say that Zi Yi has been busy rebuilding the sea trade route from Donglai to Liaodong from this autumn and winter to the beginning of next spring, establishing trade with Gongsun Du in Liaodong, and purchasing war horses.

Therefore, when we counterattack Sun Ce in the future, there should be no shortage of war horses on the east route. The part supplemented by Liaodong trade alone is enough to form a cavalry. Most of the existing cavalry can be brought to the west front first.

In the next few months, my lord, please seize the time to win over the hearts of the people in Jingzhou, especially the hearts of the exiled northerners under Liu Biao. I will also follow my brother's previous plan to explore the iron ore in E County and see if I can reorganize the mining, iron smelting, and military equipment in Jiangxia County in the next few months. "

Zhuge Liang clearly sorted out Liu Bei's entire war preparation schedule, and Liu Bei only had to follow it. Seeing such a complete plan, Liu Bei also felt relieved. This long-lost feeling was really great.

"Then we will follow your advice and deploy a multi-pronged approach."

……

Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang reached a tacit understanding and knew what to do specifically in the next three or four months, and they quickly started working as planned.

On the one hand, Zhuge Liang synchronized information and shared resources with Liu Bei based on the connections he had accumulated during his two years of farming and studying in Jingzhou.

Then he went to E County to inspect the exploration and mining of the iron ore, and deployed corvee labor, concentrating the labor force in Jiangxia County that was idle during the winter farming season this year, and all of them were used to open the Daye Iron Mine and repair the road leading to Daye Jutie Mountain.

A new metallurgical town was built nearby, and blacksmiths and bricklayers were called in to build a batch of brick kilns to produce ordinary infrastructure bricks and special aluminate clay refractory bricks. After the refractory bricks were available, people were arranged to build furnaces, steel pouring workshops, and blacksmith shops that used new weapon processing and forging technology.

Daye Iron Mine has been flourishing in history for more than 1,700 years, from the period of Sun Quan to the late Qing Dynasty when Zhang Zhidong established the "Hanyeping" coal and steel consortium in Wuhan. The word "Ye" in it refers to Daye Iron Mine.

Later, the modern "Hanyang-made" rifles, as well as the tracks of the two important railways in the late Qing Dynasty, the Pinghan Railway and the Yuehan Railway, near Wuhan, were all built using the iron mines and steel mills there.

Zhuge Jin knew the potential of this place, so he gave his second brother earnest instructions before parting ways. Zhuge Liang also always trusted his eldest brother and took this mission very seriously, not daring to take it lightly.

Liu Bei himself spent most of his time recruiting talented people. He also sent a merchant fleet along the Yangtze River and Han River deep into the heart of Jingzhou, spread the news that the General of Chariots and Cavalry was in his fiefdom, Wuchang County, and spread various gestures to show his eagerness to recruit talents.

Finally, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang did not forget to write down the latest intelligence and analysis and discussion results in a long secret letter.

Let a trusted person take a speedboat to send it down the river to Wuhu and hand it over to Zhuge Jin in person, so that Zhuge Jin can see if there are any problems with this analysis and deployment.

At the end of the letter, there is a special reminder: If you find any problems, please reply with revision suggestions as soon as possible.

If there is no problem and it can be executed directly, then give this letter to Guan Yu to read together, so that Guan Yu can request the deployment of troops in the letter. I also hope that Zhuge Jin will organize the farming preparation work this winter and the beginning of next spring according to the schedule discussed by Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang today.

It can also be seen from the handling opinions of this letter that Liu Bei's attitude towards Zhuge Jin was "consultation", while his attitude towards Guan Yu was "ordering". Although at the execution level, Liu Bei's trust in Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin was no different, but before the final decision was made, it was obvious that Zhuge Jin had more say.

Finally, after receiving the letter, Zhuge Jin also felt that his second brother's judgment was very accurate and there was no obvious place to modify. He simply replied and made some suggestions for modification. Then he handed Liu Bei's order to Guan Yu and asked Guan Yu to deploy troops according to the plan.

(End of this chapter)