Because of Li Su's dissuasion and Xun You who expressed his disapproval before, Liu Bei had to increase his attention to the Hedong battlefield. He also lowered Guan Yu's expectations of surrendering to Luoyang while taking advantage of the window of the enemy's morale collapse.

Since Zhuge Liang was temporarily appointed as the former general Sima, he was responsible for helping Guan Yu supervise the rear military logistics work, he caught up with this opportunity. After three days of hasty preparations, he quickly took his troops to Anyi on the sixth day of May.

It is not that Zhuge Liang had to pack his luggage like a woman on his way. It is mainly because Liu Bei sent him 15,000 reinforcements from around Chang'an. It takes three days for these troops to gather and detach the camp.

As mentioned earlier, before the Liu Bei camp started a war against Yuan Shu, the total combat power that could be used for attack was about 250,000 people, including 200,000 infantry and 50,000 cavalry. Those second-line local garrison troops that could only defend their homes and were like militias were not included.

The distribution of these 250,000 people was 30,000 to 40,000 before the war, and there were 30,000 to 40,000 reserve troops behind Yizhou Dianzhou. Therefore, the total force in the north was about 180,000.

The central army in Guanzhong had a total of 100,000, and Zhang Fei had a total of 20,000 to 30,000 Hanzhong soldiers. These forces are now trapped in the wide front of Hongnong-Nanyang-Jiangxia. Therefore, the total number of the Hedong Army and Chang'an reserve team was only 60,000, with Guan Yu's 40,000 and Liu Bei's 20,000.

Liu Bei sent another 15,000 reserve team to Guan Yu, so he had to make Zhao Yun shrink a little. Anyway, Zhao Yun also admitted that it was difficult to break through the Yique Pass, Taigu Pass and other Luoyang Passes, and it was a waste to keep more people for him. As for the difference in the period of time, it would be enough to mobilize some Jingzhao civilians to take advantage of the summer slack training and serve as garrisons.

Anyway, there is no need to worry about the safety of Chang'an, because all the roads that the enemy can get close to Chang'an have been blocked. The princes in the east are coming to Chang'an, either by Hedong or by Hongnong Kouhan Road, or by Nanyang Wuguan Road. All three roads have heavy troops unless the enemy lands in the air.

Because Guan Yu's journey was originally lacking ships was not the main attack direction planned at the beginning, the generals there were also relatively weak ones. Only Guan Yu and Xu Huang were considered famous generals, and the others were all unknown public-faced officers.

Zhuge Liang set out on the road hastily this time, and only had three days to prepare, and he could not mobilize any famous generals. In the end, he only brought Zhang Ren, who was idle guarding his family around Chang'an, and Dian Wei who Li Su temporarily sent him.

Before leaving, Li Su also left the city and sent him to Bashang, and explained some words to him.

Zhuge Liang has been busy getting familiar with the troops mobilizing personnel and supplies these two days, and he has no energy to think about many things. At this moment, everything is ready to stop and ride a horse with Li Su to Bashang. Only then did he think of some questions that need answers along the way.

Zhuge Liang humbly asked for advice: "When discussing with the king that day, you clearly said, 'You can't tell whether Yuan Shao would start a war with us immediately for the sake of Luoyang's belonging.' But in the various preparations later, I could see that you think this probability is still very high and you were prepared very seriously.

Some words are just not easy to make a fuss in front of the king. Now there is no outsider, so please tell me the basis for your intuition. Anyway, you don’t have to be responsible for just talking about it.”

Zhuge Liang had already seen that Li Su did not say those words of promise. On the one hand, he was not sure, and on the other hand, there was no evidence. But talking about some conjectures in private is not as responsible as the court discussion, and many imaginative hypotheses can be said without any psychological burden.

Li Su gently lifted the reins: "I think the value of Luoyang area and even some areas of Hedong to Yuan Shao's camp is no longer comparable under the original normal circumstances.

The strategic value of Luoyang and the Qingshui River Basin in Hedong to Yuan Shao is to 'whether we can ensure that our army can be blocked in the Yellow River Basin below Sanmenxia, ​​without a single point'. This is a qualitative change of existence and non-existence, not a quantitative change of one to two, two paths and three. The difference between zero and one is the most valuable and deadly one."

After all, Zhuge Liang was also well-read, so he naturally understood the history and geography of the world. He closed his eyes and recalled the map of the world for a few seconds. He knew what Li Su was saying:

"You mean, because of Kunyang and Ye County, the Yuan Shao army was blocked, and the downstream connected to the Hangou of Jianghan-Huanghuai, and the Ruxu was in Sun Ce's hands. Therefore, as long as you ensure that the anchorage of a single inch of the wharf along the Yellow River below Sanmenxia is not left for our army, and a place where a shipyard is set up to build ships is not left.

They felt that our army's military logistics system could not penetrate into the lower reaches of the Yellow River and could not attack the lower reaches of the Yellow River? In order to achieve this goal, they might not be willing to give up Luoyang, and even attack Hedong to achieve the "dividing Shaanxi and governing" so that they could at least be invincible first?"

The word "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Shangshu" are included in the word "Records of the Grand Historian". When King Wu of Zhou died, Zhou Gong discussed with Zhao Gong that in order to prevent the merchants from turning the tables, he decided to use Sanmenxia as the boundary and govern half of each of them.

Since then, Duke Zhou also established a political center in Luoyi, and ruled the world with Haojing, one in the west and one in the east. Later, the world-wide pattern of Chang'an in Luoyang and Chang'an was formed at least with the ruling level of that era. To ensure the unity of China, a direct political center must be established east and west of Sanmenxia.

Modern people cannot understand this horror, and they cannot understand it many times. Perhaps it is just because when they were born, Sanmenxia had already built a dam reservoir, and the "gate of hell" no longer exists.

Li Su finally said earnestly: "Aliang, I still say the same thing. You have to travel thousands of miles by reading thousands of books. You probably haven't seen what the real terrain of Sanmenxia looks like."

Zhuge Liang: "Indeed, I have been to Hongnong several times, but I have not climbed Mount Lu to see it. The road is difficult to walk. I have never been to Hedong before. When I was young, I followed the king into Sichuan and also walked from Luoyang through Chang'an into Sichuan."

Li Su: "This time I went to Hedong and had the opportunity to see it myself. The north bank of Sanmenxia is easier to walk on than the south bank. The steep parts of Zhongtiao Mountain are not like Wushan. They are not directly adjacent to the bank of the Yellow River. There are roads to walk on most places.

If you personally go to the gate of the ghost among the three gates of humans, gods and ghosts, you will know what "one hundred passes through the ship". The others are swallowed up by the torrent vortex, or they are directly smashed to the mainstay."

Zhuge Liang said that he was educated and set off with his troops.

This time, his troops did not help Guan Yu carry out offensive operations, but only helped Guan Yu guard his family, so they didn't have to consider how to reach the Yellow River, so they didn't use a caravan that was used for both amphibious and land. They all chose to take a boat and just take a water to Anyi.

...

Because the message transmission takes time, the battlefield for Liu Bei's army to fight against Yuanshu is now very open, with extreme situations such as thousands of miles apart from north to south.

So Zhuge Liang and Dian Wei and Zhang Ren have just set out, and the real-time situations of Nanyang, Luoyang and Hedong battlefields are already very different from the latest news heard by the monarchs and ministers in Chang'an.

After Zhao Yun, outside Yique Pass, found that he was unable to break through the pass, he also reduced his investment, saved some manpower and logistics, and focused on conquering Wancheng, which had become an isolated city.

Wancheng has been surrounded and has been almost a month since now. If it weren't for this city, it would have been one of the strong cities in the world. In addition, Liu Bei's army did not want to lose too much, so it was mainly to surround but not fight to continue to advance north, so it would probably not last for so long.

However, as Zhao Yun re-supported Gao Shun and threw Zhou Taiganning into the battlefield on the Gao Shun side, plus the siege weapons preparations for many days before, several moats had been filled. Large counterweight catapults and rushing cars, and many wooden donkey chariots were built, and the Wancheng defenders were about to usher in their own doomsday.

More importantly, after these days of siege, Chen Lan, the chief general in the city, was able to deceive the soldiers and temporarily stabilize the morale of the army when he was surrounded.

But after being surrounded for more than 20 days, there was no movement about friendly troops outside. Instead, the besieged troops shouted and bragged there every day, lying to attack the morale of the defenders, and deceived the defenders and said, "The coalition forces in the outside world against Yuanshu have won victory in the fight against Yuanshu, and bypassing Wancheng and even Luoyang are almost defeated." In this way, the deception and attacks were deceiving and attacking internal and external news, gradually made the defenders panic all day long.

On the fourth day of the fifth month, after Gao Shun took a serious attack all day, the walls of Wancheng were destroyed everywhere, and many defenders in the city were killed and injured. Most people were already covered with a shadow. It was only a matter of time to break the city. The difference was just how many enemy soldiers could be killed before the city was broken.

But who would insist on fighting to kill more people just before death? It would be better to surrender yourself to survive. There are not many murderers among these ordinary officers and soldiers.

For this matter, two days ago, a small group of rioters in the city who were dissatisfied with Yuan Shu's rule had already launched a rebellion. Unfortunately, they only had farm tools and kitchen knives, and did not have enough standard weapons. They were slaughtered by the guard general Chen Lan. The people and the guards combined, and there were casualties and thousands of people were liquidated.

This situation is not surprising, because not to mention under Yuan Shu's brutal rule, even twenty years later in history, when Guan Yu attacked Xiangyang from Jiangling, and when Fancheng, there was a man from Wancheng Hou Yin in the uprising to respond to Guan Yu. Nanyang was originally a densely populated place with frequent rebellions.

The first opportunity for chaos in the city was not captured by Gao Shun outside, but it cannot be said that it was completely useless.

On the one hand, it also reminded Gao Shun that the orders Gao Shun received before were mainly siege and was not prepared to switch to the general offensive at any time. Now that he realized that there might be someone in the city to respond, Gao Shun naturally became very energetic, and every test was ready to switch to the general offensive at any time.

On the other hand, Chen Lan's cruel behavior of attacking and killing the storm people in the city also made some grassroots officers and generals who were originally just soldiers and were dissatisfied with Yuan Shu's rebellion and became increasingly disinterested in his rebellion.

After all, when most officers joined the army to serve Yuan Shu, they didn't know that Yuan Shu would rebel in the future. They just wanted to find a way to make achievements, and Yuan Shu was the governor of Yuzhou. Many locals joined Yuan Shu's army based on the consideration of "finding a job close to home". If they knew that Yuan Shu rebelled, they might not have come back then.
Chapter completed!