My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 711 The Future Five-Way Attack on Cao

Liu Bei's army completed the final strategic deception, withdrew completely, and broke away from the conflict with Cao Cao.

The contact line between the two sides, which stretched for more than 2,000 miles, calmed down again, and peace temporarily returned to the Han Dynasty.

Both Liu Bei and Cao Cao knew that they needed to work hard and accumulate strength in preparation for the final battle in the future.

Normally speaking, time is definitely on Liu Bei's side.

Liu Bei's territory covered a larger area, but the level of development was not high enough at that time.

But as long as Liu Bei continues to reclaim wasteland and promote new high-yield crops, his territory will surely become more prosperous in time.

The territories occupied by Cao Cao were all mature territories during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and their potential for subsequent development was not obvious.

All he could do was to restore vitality to Guanzhong and Heluo, two territories that had been severely damaged by war and had a sparse population.

Apart from this, they could only hope to speed up the capture and naturalization of some Xianbei and Southern Xiongnu people and use them for their own purposes. Historically, in the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, because the Han population declined too quickly, all parties could not hold on and they all set their sights on naturalizing the Hu people.

Whether it was the Southern Barbarians used by the Later Han, the Shanyue used by the Eastern Wu, or the Xianbei Xiongnu used by the Cao Wei, the foundation for the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China was also related to the large-scale migration of northern barbarians to the south and their cohabitation with the Han people.

Generally speaking, the weaker the side, the greater the pressure it feels on the front line, and the more eager its rulers will be to naturalize the Hu people.

Now that Cao Cao was already lagging behind Liu Bei in military terms, he would naturally pay attention to this matter earlier than at the same time in history and accelerate the conquest of the Xianbei and Southern Xiongnu populations for his own use.

……

A month had passed quickly since the temporary ceasefire between the two sides, and time had quickly come to the early autumn of the 14th year of Jian'an.

With the successful completion of the takeover of the new territory, the strategic deception and propaganda work has temporarily come to an end, and the autumn harvest and tax grain collection season is approaching.

Zhuge Liang, who had been stationed in Jingbei for several months, also bid farewell to Liu Bei in time and prepared to return to Chengdu to handle his job.

The governance and reform in Shu are still in progress. This year or next winter, the Yizhou army will have a rotation plan to march south to pacify Nanzhong. All of this requires Zhuge Liang to be in charge personally.

At the same time, Jingbei also needed to take advantage of the truce to carry out in-depth governance, learn from Yizhou to implement a new tax system and personnel system, and digest the legacy left by Liu Biao as soon as possible, so as to better prepare for the full-scale northern expedition in two years.

Zhuge Jin could naturally be in charge of the outline and overall planning of this work. After he came up with a plan, he would hand it over to the people below to carry out the specific work.

As for Liu Bei himself, during this period of stalemate, he would also set up the Taiwei Mansion in Xiangyang, and he would stay there most of the time. The Wuchang Marquis Mansion would naturally remain in Wuchang County, and he would occasionally return to Wuchang or even Hefei for inspection.

During the Battle of Jingbei, Guan Yu was transferred to Jingzhou to assist in the war. As the war subsides, he will return to Hefei and continue to be responsible for the Xuyang Defense Zone in the future.

In the future, when the Northern Expedition comes again, Guan Yu can lead the troops of Hefei and Shouchun to the north to attack the entire Huaibei area controlled by Cao Cao. He can also let the troops of Xuzhou advance westward to threaten Liang, Lu and other counties in Yanzhou and Yuzhou.

Zhang Fei, who was transferred back from Yizhou, did not need to go anywhere else after this round of battles. He could just leave his troops in the Runan area, and then he could go through the Xinyang Road and cross the Tongbai Mountains to return to Wancheng to garrison. In the future, when there is another northern expedition, Zhang Fei can lead the troops in Nanyang and Runan to the north to Yingchuan.

This deployment seemed a bit troublesome, mainly because Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had to switch positions at the end - because Guan Yu was in Wancheng at the end of the battle, but he had to go back to Hefei. Zhang Fei was in Runan at the last moment of the battle, but he had to go back to Wancheng.

However, this decision was made carefully by Liu Bei after discussing it with his Zhuge brothers. There must be other reasons behind it and it was not a deliberate act.

Liu Bei knew his second and third brothers too well. He knew that Yunchang was capable of handling things on his own, so it would be less likely for mistakes to occur if he put him in charge of the longer Xuhuai defense line.

Zhang Fei's talent on the battlefield was only barely comparable to Guan Yu's. As for governing the local area and ensuring internal and border stability, he was definitely not as good as Guan Yu.

If Zhang Fei was left in Wancheng, since Liu Bei himself was nearby in Xiangyang, he could ask for instructions at any time if anything happened. Zhang Fei would not have to worry about other aspects and could focus entirely on military affairs and defense.

This can be considered as making the best use of people's talents.

One day at the end of July, seeing that Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu were both going on a long journey, Liu Bei held a grand banquet in Xiangyang City to see them off.

Now Liu Bei's business is thriving, and the people are living and working in peace and contentment. At this time of year, there is no need to be too frugal, so the dishes and drinks at the farewell banquet are all prepared from land and sea.

Several-foot-long sturgeons and other precious and plump large river fish, bear paws, roasted deer, stewed pheasant and other wild delicacies, and distilled high-proof liquor were all freely available.

"Come on, second brother, Kong Ming, you will set off tomorrow, so make sure you have fun today and don't return until you are drunk! Yi De, there is no need for me to say more, just take it easy."

At the farewell banquet, Liu Bei personally filled the bronze wine cups and urged everyone to drink. The senior officials of Liu Bei's camp who stayed in Xiangyang also accompanied them.

In addition to Zhuge Jin and Zhang Fei, who will definitely be present, there will also be Xu Shu, Huang Zhong, Gao Shun, Chen Dao, Guan Ping and others.

Most of the people were drinking, but Gao Shun rarely drank, and he had been seriously injured half a year ago and had broken his leg. The recuperation period he needed was much longer than Guan Yu who had to scrape his bones to treat the poison, so Liu Bei was very careful and avoided Gao Shun. Before the banquet, he also told Zhang Fei not to persuade him to drink.

After three rounds of drinking, everyone was in high spirits. Liu Bei thought that he was about to leave, and there were no outsiders in the room, only his confidants, so he could naturally chat about some confidential matters.

Liu Bei, under the influence of alcohol, discussed with Zhuge brothers the deployment of the generals and the direction of attack when they would march north again in the future.

"Ziyu, Kongming, you two can tell me. When our army marches north again in two years, or if something unexpected happens in these two years and Cao Cao takes the initiative to restart the war, how will our army be divided into different routes and how will we advance? Who will be the commander of each state and town?"

In this life, there was no "Longzhong Discussion" in the strict sense. When Zhuge Jin formulated the strategic plan for Liu Bei, he never mentioned the specific attack route.

As for the strategy of "a general leading the troops of Jingzhou to attack Wanluo, and the general personally leading the troops of Yizhou to Qinchuan", it no longer exists. With so many easier offensive routes, who would want to take the hard bone of Qinling? Naturally, we have to start from the easy and then to the difficult.

After hearing the question, Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang did not answer immediately, but looked at each other tacitly. Finally, Zhuge Liang hinted with his eyes that his elder brother should speak first, and raised his wine cup.

Zhuge Jin knew that his second brother was giving him the easy-to-answer, general questions to answer. His second brother probably intended to fill in the gaps or discuss specific personnel arrangements.

Zhuge Jin was not polite and took advantage of the alcohol to speak out his plan:
“In the future, when we start a war again and launch a full-scale northern expedition, we can at least divide it into five war zones: Nanyang, Huainan, Xuzhou, Qingji, and Youzhou, and launch it simultaneously.

The troops from Nanyang, as well as a part of the troops heading north along the Ru River from the western part of Runan County, can attack Yingchuan County under the rule of Cao Cao, with the goal of capturing Xu County.

Although Xu County was no longer Cao Cao's pseudo-capital, it had been the core of Cao Cao's rule for many years. As long as it could be conquered, the morale of the people in Cao's camp would be greatly damaged. Therefore, Cao Cao would definitely divide up and defend it to the death, thus tying down a large number of enemy forces.

This battle line is relatively short in depth, so when our army fights again in the future, the distance we need to transport grain will be relatively short. In addition, the grain from Yizhou will have to be transported eastward along the Yangtze River and the Han River, and the local grain from Jingzhou will also have to be assembled in Xiang and Wan.

By sending the army northward from here, we can save the loss of food and grass from Jing and Yi states by transporting them thousands of miles to other places, and also minimize the number of Cao troops that other fronts need to face. "

Zhuge Jin spoke eloquently and first got to the point, pointing out the route among the five future routes to attack Cao that would require the most troops and attract the strongest enemy firepower.

Along the way, the efficiency of land expansion may not be high, and the number of counties and counties that can be captured and the number of people controlled are not large, but as a magnet, it is very suitable to tie down Cao Cao's military forces.

Among the states under Liu Bei's rule, Jingzhou and Yizhou were already the first tier with the largest population and the highest grain production. Only Yangzhou could be compared with these two states. Other states, such as Qingxu and Youzhou, could not be compared with them. Although Jizhou was also populous and rich, Liu Bei could only rely on Zhou Yu to control the coastal line of Bohai County, and in the territory of Yuzhou, Liu Bei only occupied Runan County.

After the Jingbei Campaign ended, the Zhuge brothers briefly calculated the current paper strength of the enemy and us.

Today, the total population of the world is just over 20 million but less than 30 million.

The total population of the areas under Liu Bei's rule was about 14 million, while the total population under Cao Cao's rule was still 13 million.

Liu Bei has slightly surpassed Cao Cao by about one million men, with an advantage of about half a percent.

Of Liu Bei's 14 million people, Yizhou had more than 3.5 million people, which was the place least damaged by war and had the best population preservation at the end of the Han Dynasty. Jingzhou also had more than 3 million people (including Nanyang, Jingnan, and Nanhai).

It can be said that these two states together accounted for half of Liu Bei’s total population and grain production.

If Liu Bei could launch an army of 500,000 or 600,000 to attack in the future, then these two states would be able to support the food and logistics for 200,000 or 300,000 troops.

Therefore, allowing the armies of these two states to absorb as much of Cao Cao's main force as possible would obviously create a gap for other fronts focusing on expanding territory.

But Cao Cao was not stupid. He certainly knew that in order to preserve more real territory and benefits, he would not willingly be restrained by Liu Bei.

This required Liu Bei's Jingzhou and Yizhou armies to select a sufficiently important target and attack the enemy where they must rescue.

Xu County is a good target. If that is not enough, we can continue to threaten Luoyang. In short, the goal is to keep Cao Cao firmly stuck.

Only a small portion of Cao Cao's 400,000 to 500,000 troops could be used to guard those rich but flat areas.

After Liu Bei and other generals understood the core idea of Zhuge Jin's hypothesis, the other supporting strategies became easy to understand.

There are five routes to attack Cao. One route is to attract hatred, and the other four routes are to gain benefits.

Zhuge Jin glanced at everyone in the room, confirmed their expressions, and continued to deduce and predict:
"After trying to use the troops from Jing and Yi to absorb more than half of Cao's main force, our army can directly seize Qiao, Liang, and Chen from Hefei and Shouchun. Clear out all the other counties in Yuzhou under Cao's rule.

If we go west from Xuzhou, we can capture Lu, Jibei, Jiyin, Shanyang, and ultimately the entire Yanzhou.

The territory occupied by our army in Jizhou is too small, with only one Bohai County, and we cannot form an independent army, so we let the Bohai troops work together with the Qingzhou garrison to advance along the Yellow River to Pingyuan, Qinghe and other places.

Finally, the garrison in Youzhou can follow the Yishui River for hundreds of miles, find the enemy's weak points to break through, attack Hejian and Zhongshan, and sweep across Cao's Jizhou hinterland from north to south.

Once this plan is implemented, Cao Cao's three states of Yan, Yu, and Ji will be completely captured by our army in one round of northern expedition."

Zhuge Jin had planned the overall pace of the future Northern Expedition for Liu Bei, and also said that it would take about two to three years to complete this first phase.

Today we have simply further refined it, sorting out which state's garrison will attack where the enemy troops are and how to divide the targets.

Moreover, Zhuge Jin was absolutely realistic in the process of detailing the details, rather than simply drawing a map and making random gestures based on the map.

To give the simplest example, Cao Cao still occupies the two westernmost counties in Youzhou, Shanggu and Dai.

However, Zhuge Jin did not let Liu Bei order our Youzhou garrison to march directly westward to retake the two counties and occupy Youzhou in the first phase of the future Northern Expedition.

Because Zhuge Jin actually garrisoned Youzhou for several years, and he also advised Zhao Yun to recover Liaodong. Zhuge Jin had a practical understanding of the geography of Youzhou. He knew that Shanggu County and Dai County were located north of the main range of Yanshan Mountain. It was equivalent to the later period between the capital and Zhangjiakou, with dangerous passes and mountains and rivers.

Since we have to climb the mountain, and the mountain road to Shanggu is more difficult than the mountain road to Jizhou Zhongshan County in the south, why do we have to take back Shanggu, a buffer zone close to the grassland, as soon as possible? Isn't it better to go all out to the fertile land of Jizhou Plain first?
Just for the false reputation of "completely restoring Youzhou"?
Compared to empty reputation, Zhuge Jin obviously preferred to let Liu Bei "either not go to war, or if he did go to war, he would first focus on the fat meat", and leave those targets with low economic value and small population to the next stage.

In this way, in the future Northern Expedition, it will be clear which battlefields are for "attracting hatred and attracting firepower" and which battlefields are for "reaping real benefits and making a fortune in silence."

When assigning tasks, Liu Bei also had to fully consider the comprehensive contribution of each war zone, and could not simply and crudely evaluate the contribution according to the traditional method of "whoever captures more counties has greater merit."

We must also consider the number of enemies killed and the number of enemies restrained, and we must not let the soldiers responsible for resisting damage shed blood and tears.

Liu Bei obviously thought of this, so he asked Zhuge Brothers whether there was a need to adjust the commanders of the troops in each war zone in the future:
"Ziyu, Kongming, who do you think should lead each of the five armies to attack Cao? Do we need to make changes based on the current situation?"

Faced with this question, Zhuge Jin did not answer, leaving the opportunity for his second brother to perform. Of course, Zhuge Liang was more careful and meticulous than him.

Zhuge Liang was seen waving his feather fan and talking eloquently: "Basically, we can keep the status quo and let Yide lead the troops to attract the enemy. Besides, with the lord personally in Xiangyang, Yide will not be at a disadvantage in the future. His efforts and merits will surely be seen.

General Huang Lao can then serve as Yide's deputy general and vanguard. General Huang Lao is a native of Jingzhou, and leading the old Jingzhou army is more popular, which is just right for him.

It has been agreed that Yunchang will lead the troops to take Yuzhou from Hefei. At that time, we only need to add some more troops, and Wenyuan and Zhongda can continue to serve as deputy generals under Yunchang.

The battlefield in Xuzhou is currently lacking a capable general, but Xingba is still in Shu. When Shu is well governed in the future and a general is no longer needed to stay in the rear, Xingba can be transferred to Xuzhou to be responsible for attacking Lu.

Ziyi can be the commander-in-chief of the attack on Qingzhou and Bohai County, and Gongjin can be his deputy. Ziyi is originally from Donglai, and his ancestral home is Qingzhou. Letting him coordinate and train Yuan Tan's former subordinates and work together with Gongjin's navy in Bohai will surely maximize their combat effectiveness and ensure that the soldiers and generals know each other.

The final Youzhou army will serve as the main force to march south to take Ji. There is no doubt that Zilong can take charge of that route alone.

Youzhou has a shortage of food and grass, so we can only support a small number of garrisons, but we can focus on the cavalry. When the time comes, Zilong will lead tens of thousands of cavalry, and there will be no need to attack the enemy. He can just cut through the Hebei Plain and divide and surround Cao's army. The task of attacking the enemy can be handed over to the other two friendly armies."

When Zhuge Liang was planning, he arranged everything according to each person's talents and abilities, without considering personal relationships or fear of offending anyone.

Liu Bei nodded repeatedly after listening to this. He thought that if he were to think about it himself, the conclusion would probably be similar, so he secretly took note of it.

If nothing unexpected happens, we will follow this plan in the future.

After figuring all this out, Liu Bei felt much more at ease, and the atmosphere of the farewell banquet became more relaxed and harmonious.

Everyone let go of their psychological burdens and got drunk. The next day, everyone slept until noon, and almost delayed their trip.

Finally, they managed to pack up before noon. Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu each took their fleet and accompanying troops and boarded the ship at the north pier of Xiangyang City.

Liu Bei personally escorted them to the dock and watched them set sail and sail downstream.

The two groups of people had no further ado and everything went smoothly. Finally, Zhuge Liang returned to Chengdu smoothly in September, and Guan Yu arrived in Hefei in mid-August.

After a brief rest and adjustment, everyone soon began to manage the defense areas they were responsible for, develop farming, and expand armaments production according to plan.

(End of this chapter)