In June, Hebei has been scorching sun in the sky for many consecutive days, and the heat is hard to come by.

Zhang He and Gao Lan had fought with Cao's army before, but gradually retreated. Although not many soldiers died in battle, the epidemic was prevalent, and many injured soldiers became worse and the deaths were very common.

The situation on Cao Cao's side is similar. After a battle some time ago, maybe only hundreds of people were killed in battle, and more than a thousand or two or three thousand injured.

If it was a colder day, the infection was not that serious, and most of the minor wounded people could survive. However, in the war in May and June, basically, if the wounds cannot be completely treated, two-thirds of the minor injuries will die.

When Zhang He and Gao Lan were supervising the battle, as long as they did not charge themselves, they were too lazy to wear armor. Every day, iron armored soldiers fought continuously in the army. After returning to the camp, they died of heatstroke and other diseases such as armor-removing wind also occurred frequently.

At the moment when we finally decided to surrender, both sides felt relieved and exhausted.

On the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day, Zhang He and Gao Lan turned against each other and removed their armor, held their horses with their flesh and bare hands, walked to Cao Cao's camp, and surrendered as promised:

"The distant people are ignorant, not understanding the truth, and are wandering until now. Finally, they meet the wise master, and they are like seeing the sun, and they are willing to attach themselves to the tail of the horse. Now they are bound by the military supervisor Tian Feng here, and their hearts are firm. I beg the Ming Duke to ask the eldest son to persuade him to surrender."

Cao Cao came forward in person, helped Zhang He up, and Gao Lan's two generals: "Why do you say this? My kindness and I are brothers. This time, we are just to correct the original source and to support the great righteousness. Now the general is here, he will go to Shang like Weizi, and Han Xin returns to Han.

Tian Yuanhao, you are also a wise and honest man. Haven’t you heard that good birds choose trees to live in, and wise ministers choose masters to work. Who is Yuan Shang? He is worthy of your loyalty? It’s better to think it through carefully and bet first.”

Then he announced that Zhang He, Gao Lan's general's name remained unchanged and his original position was retained, but he reported that the emperor had moved the fiefdom, Zhang He was the Marquis of Hejianting, and Gao Lan was the Marquis of Qingheting. Tian Feng was temporarily in prison and tried to soften slowly.

There is no way, who made Yuan Shao the court in this life? Cao Cao was not as many officials as Yuan Shao, so Zhang He and Gao Lan were already at the high position of General Si'an under Yuan Shao. Cao Cao could not directly reward him in a hurry. It can only be said that he could "report the emperor to ask for rewards."

This led to Zhang He Gao Lan's visit in this life, but it was much shabby than the surrender in the Battle of Guandu in history.

In addition, it is not difficult to see from Zhang He Gao Lan's surrender that when Wang Xiu sent Xu You and Wang Xiu to persuade them to surrender a few days ago, Wang Xiu only played a fig leaf.

Let them have a step in their hearts and feel that "we are surrendering to Yuan Tan rather than Cao Cao."

When it was the moment of surrender, I had just accepted Cao Cao as the main point, and I had enough of the half-spoken and half-spoken drama.

Who can't tell that Yuan Tan is a new puppet? What's more, there is a puppet emperor Liu He in the Yuan family.

The puppet is still a puppet, but the middle merchandise in the middle is a redundant structure that can be removed at any time. When Cao Cao took Liu He, all the generals nominally directly respect the emperor. What is Yuan Tan's thing then?

It’s better to go to Wei in one step.

In the following days, Yuan Tan gradually became more and more aware of this problem. When all the old generals of Yuan Shao, including Zhang He, surrendered, they said they were surrendering to the eldest son, but in fact they didn't come to burn his cold stove at all. They all went to Cao Cao to flatter and express their loyalty.

Yuan Tan gradually became angry, but he had no choice but to realize that his father's old subordinates had been taken away. But he inherited his father's hesitation, and felt that his strength was not good, so he did not dare to act rashly for the time being, and wanted to wait for the opportunity slowly.

...

After Cao Cao spent a few days to rectify Zhang He, Gao Lan's surrendered army, and stabilized the people's hearts, he finally marched under Yecheng on June 12th, and then spent several days to camp and build a camp, and began to siege the city after half of June.

Yecheng is also a strong city in the world, and it is more majestic and difficult to break than Jicheng that Zhang Fei is surrounding. Therefore, it will take at least half a month to arrange siege positions, build equipment, and destroy peripheral fortifications.

In addition, it is the hottest day of the year now, and Cao Cao thought he would have to delay until at least mid-July before he could start forcing the tough battle.

Diplomacy of persuading surrender had already tried, and Yuan Shang was not moved. Even if he had no hope, he still insisted on defending himself.

Fortunately, Yuan Shang's troops had been greatly weakened, leaving only his own troops of about 40,000, and more than 20,000 Lu Kuang's troops dispatched from the high-ranking officials, with a total force of 60,000 to 70,000 to defend Yecheng.

Cao Cao thought to himself that after the besieged camp was roughly completed, he would not have to leave too many troops to waste time here. As long as there were more than 100,000 people, it would be ensured that Yuan Shang would never dare to break through and not be able to break through.

Cao Cao and Yuan Tan's coalition forces will leave up to 150,000 yuan on the battlefield in Yecheng. The rest can be divided into counties or go out to rescue Yuan Xi.

This time, Cao Cao used the total number of troops on the Hebei battlefield was only more than 100,000, but there were 80,000 people at the beginning, plus the troops that Zhang He surrendered.

However, in the previous bloody battle, both sides also suffered major casualties. Cao Cao, Zhang He and the senior officials fought in succession. The two sides died in total more than 20,000 deaths, and the wounded people gradually became severe and died, with no less than 20,000 to 30,000.

It is equivalent to Cao Cao who originally surrendered Zhang He, theoretically there should be 270,000 to 80,000 people on the battlefield in Hebei, but excluding the dead, there are still only about 230,000 left.

If 150,000 people want to stay in the battlefield in Yecheng, at most 80,000 people will be assigned to defend the Bohai Sea and rush to Youzhou. It is still quite difficult.

Before sending troops officially, Cao Cao couldn't help but find a counselor who was good at internal affairs and law in the account, and roughly compared the accounts with the strength of our enemies and us, and he felt very confident.

This kind of work does not require much technical content, so Mao Jie, Man Chong and others took action to help Cao Cao check.

According to the deduction, they compared the strength of the current princes in the world, just like playing a Go piece, replaced the estimate and gave a result.

When playing Go, in order to facilitate the calculation of the territory of both sides, the black and white pieces embedded in the other side's sphere of influence will be equivalently compared. Similarly, for example, there is still one Ye City in Cao Cao's camp that has not been swallowed, and there is another Ji City in Liu Bei's camp that has not been swallowed. Assume that they each swallowed this dead chess piece, and then look at the total strength of both sides.

According to Mao Jie's estimate, if Cao Cao could not save Jicheng and retake Youzhou, then it would be deduced according to the assumption that both sides each swallowed up the "dead chess".

After the war, Cao Cao would only own the five prefectures of Ji, Qing, Yan, Henan and Xu.

We also need to eliminate the Changshan, Zhongshan counties in Jizhou, and half of Yingchuan counties in Yuzhou. However, we can add some of the Jiangbei and Huainan areas in Yangzhou, such as Lujiang and Jiujiang.

Based on population and economic mobilization potential, plus what is sold and what is deducted from the bill, it means that there are still five whole states left.

And even if the Yuan family no longer exists, all the rest of the world belongs to Liu Bei.

According to the algorithm of the original Thirteen Prefectures of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei owned eight prefectures. Considering the split of new administrative divisions such as Jiaozhou and Dianzhou, that would be ten prefectures.

Sili, Jing, Yi, Yang, Yong, Liang, You, Jiao, Dian.

The Yuan family's civil war was also terrifying to consume the economy. In the summer, the fight to death and delayed the farming season. The soldiers on both sides died of battle and infection and 50,000 people. Ordinary civilians wanted to transport food, so a large number of people died of heatstroke and epidemics. There were also poor people with no savings who would starve to death due to famine during farming.

The direct death of the people alone was at least ten times or even twenty or thirty times the deaths of regular soldiers. This was normal in the social environment at that time. Think about the battle of Guandu in history at the Battle of Jiacangting, Hebei was beaten more than a million people.

According to Mao Jie Man Chong's estimate, Jizhou and Youzhou were destroyed on a large scale this time, and Qingzhou and Yanzhou also suffered some losses due to supplying the battlefield, but fortunately, the local area was not ruined.

The Hedong area of ​​Liu Bei and Sili in Bingzhou and Sili had to support the Youzhou battlefield, and even the old nests in Guanzhong had to transport grain to Fen River to support Bingzhou, so the population loss of hundreds of thousands of people was always inevitable.

It is estimated that in the entire Chinese land, in the process of "the demise of the Yuan family and the complete division", the full battle will lose three million people. This is not a question of whether or not, the production environment of the productive forces is like this, and the number of people in war is to reduce so many people. (The people who are not dead but are probably going to die have been included, including the two most cruel siege battles that have not been completed, Yecheng and Jicheng)

The total household registration in the world has dropped from about 35 million to 32 million to 33 million.

This algorithm is actually similar to that of the hostile camp. Li Su's estimates in the past few years were similar. Li Su once believed that by the time the world was unified, the total population might fall below the 30 million mark.

But Li Suneng calculated it correctly because he had mathematical models and references from the original historical data. Moreover, this number has been considered that double-season rice has been popularized in the southern part of China for four to seven years, resulting in an increase of more southern population by one million. If there was no bonus for double-season rice, it would probably have fallen below the 30 million mark now.

(It was popularized in Yizhou for the seventh year and the fourth year of popularization in Yangzhou for the second year, and there was a time difference from west to east.)

Before the collapse of Yuan's clan, the power comparison between Liu Bei and the princes of Kanto was once that Liu Bei had a population of 18 million, and the total population of Yuan and Cao was 17 million (calculated based on the total population of 35 million at that time).

After the change of flags in Bingzhou, Liu Bei added hundreds of thousands, and Yuan Shao reduced the price by hundreds of thousands. After the change of flags in Youzhou, Liu Bei added another million, and nearly one million people were destroyed due to war and dispersion (Youzhou eliminated the Liaodong area, and originally had a population of about 170 million under Yuan Xi's rule, which was close to three million, including Liaodong and Lelang.)

In addition, if Mi Zhu's territory changes peacefully and returns to the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei's rule can climb to the 20 million mark.

After Cao Cao integrated the Yuan family's heritage, he first reduced 3 million internal friction on the basis of 17 million, that is 14 million. Then he reduced all Youzhou, lost all flags in Liaodong, and Zhongshan, Changshan, Jizhou, was seized, and in the end, only 12 million people were left.

In the future, the world will be divided into two parts. In these two companies, Liu Bei beat Cao Cao 12 million by 20 million, and the world will have a total of 32 million, and Liu Bei's strength will account for 60% of Cao Cao.

The gap is further widening from 18 million to 17 million two years ago.

And this is just a comparison of population. There is no comparison of the differences in talents, military technology, production technology, economic system advantages, etc. If all of them are counted, the gap in real strength will only be even greater.

What's more, Cao Cao puppets Liu He and uses Liu He to subdue Yuan Tan. After all, these operations are not as good as Liu Bei's internal integration. No matter how much Liu Bei is, he is the emperor himself, and he doesn't have so much internal guard against his own internal friction.

Cao Cao was not strong enough, and he had to "distribute two or three percent of the internal force to suppress the reversal of the alien true qi in his body", and the gap was even greater.

Finally, compared with the scale of mature elite standing troops, Liu Bei had expanded to 500,000 regular troops before the war. The losses in previous battles could be captured and captured and captured, and more than 10,000 more troops were added after the battle.

Youzhou can still be reduced by tens of thousands after fighting. After all, Youzhou is Liu Bei's hometown, and his will to resist will not be too firm, and most soldiers will not really follow Yuan Xi until they die.

Xu Rong's troops in Liaodong can be directly reorganized. Liaodong Jialelang has a population of more than one million, and it is easy to raise 50,000 regular troops every year.

After all, if there are no new unexpected losses, by the end of this year, the relatively elite regular army under Liu Bei's command could be expanded to 600,000.

On Cao Cao's side, before the internal strife, he and Yuan Shao had only 250,000 regular troops left. Even if all one of them was peacefully taken over by Cao Cao, then there would be only 500,000 troops.

But the problem is that Yuan Xi’s more than 70,000 yuan was directly annihilated by Liu Bei or surrendered in the future. The Cao family was not allowed to be divided by the entire Cao family. Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan suffered a permanent loss of 50,000 yuan in civil war.

Therefore, even if one of the more than 60,000 people in Yecheng are still alive, they will be surrounded and surrender peacefully in the future and will be returned to Cao Cao. Cao Cao's plan is only 500,000 yuan and 70,000 yuan. It is 380,000 yuan.

What's more, the two sides will have to die in the Yecheng battle to kill tens of thousands of people before Yuan Shang will completely collapse, so it would be nice that Cao Cao could have left 350,000 veterans.

If you want to expand your army next year, you can only continue to force recruits from the people without training.

Veterans have a scale of 600,000 to 350,000, which is a more severe figure than the comparison of population strength.

All the world is victorious and dangerous, and Liu Bei is snatched away. Not to mention anything else, this time, in order to maximize the use of Yuan and Cao's internal strife, Liu Bei directly attacked Youzhou first, and this is clearly the need to take all the advantages of transportation and geographical advantages in his own hands.

Youzhou seems to have less than one-third of the population of Jizhou, but the account of military value is not calculated in this way.

Cao Cao's remaining five states, except for the junction of Qingzhou and Xuzhou, there are some dangerous places in the Taishan and Yimeng Mountains, while the rest are all flat. The surrounding Yanshan, Taihang, Hulao, Tongbai, Dabie, and Yangtze River... All the geography is almost in their hands by Liu Bei.

Cao Cao wanted to attack any point, even if he attacked, Liu Bei could hold on with a small number of troops for a long time.

If Liu Bei goes out of these six natural dangers to attack Cao Cao in the Thousand Mile Plain, Cao Cao can only be exhausted from defending the army, and any lack of troops may be broken through.

Even if the main force rushed over to rescue Liu Bei, who was relatively short of single-line troops, would definitely inevitably lead to severe damage to local production and population abducted.
Chapter completed!