After Liu Bei decided on the strategy of attacking Cao in the five prefectures, the generals from all walks of life entered the pre-war sprint preparation stage.

Starting from early February, the generals of the Outer Town left Luoyang one after another and embarked on their way back to their respective defense zones.

Due to the different distances, the fastest time returned to the defense zone in mid-February. The slowest time was in early March, and then the war was ready. All kinds of combat materials began to be transported and hoarded at the front line.

The whole process was nothing happened, mainly because Cao Cao was busy further implementing land distribution, comprehensively promoting military farming in the five prefectures of Kanto, and organizing spring plowing. During this period, he encountered sporadic resistance from some landlords and powerful people, and Cao Cao was really too busy to take care of himself.

But Cao Cao had no other choice. He felt that all this was worth it. When the land and population were weaker than Liu Bei, Cao Cao must ensure that all the people's strength was fully utilized.

Try to let all the people in the East do their best to plant as much as they can.

In addition, because the agricultural population has been squeezed into a very hard-working state, Cao Cao felt that his military rations were still very secure, which would squeeze out more manpower to recruit soldiers.

Cao Cao also knew that Liu Bei had a very high probability of attacking this year, and there was nothing to doubt about this.

The only thing he is uncertain is whether Liu Bei's specific attack time will give the people of Guandong a chance to plow safely in spring.

After discussing this issue with Xun Yu and Guo Jia, Cao Ao reached an unanimous view: that is, whether Liu Bei will allow the people of Guandong to have stable spring farming depends on Liu Bei's mentality.

If Liu Bei was a little arrogant and felt that he could destroy Cao Cao within one year, or at least seize the fertile land of several states under Cao Cao's jurisdiction, then he would be very likely to allow the people of Guandong to plow well in spring.

The reason is easy to understand. This shows that Liu Bei has regarded the achievements of Cao Cao's farming as his own harvest. He thinks that the fields Cao Cao planted were all planted for him, so why should he block Cao Cao from planting it well?

Another possibility is that if Liu Bei is very stable and low-key and does not drift, he may destroy the spring and autumn harvest of the five states in Kanto, which means that Liu Bei is not sure of taking over a large area of ​​territory this year. He just wants to spend a year to consume Cao Cao's national strength and vital strength, and seek further intensify the potential of war.

This practice is also common in history. Of course, there may not be particularly famous examples before the Eastern Han Dynasty. But if you were later officials from the perspective of God, you would never be unfamiliar with this kind of operation.

In history, this was done when Sui destroyed Southern Chen later. That was because Chen had the danger of the Yangtze River and was directly at the forefront of the confrontation between the two countries. Sui felt that if he did not tired the enemy first and weakened Chen's national strength, the first wave of strong attack might be frustrated.

Therefore, at an important time of grain cultivation every year, the Sui Dynasty feinted attacks and harassed Chen's frontier counties, allowing Chen to plant poor fields for several consecutive years and poor grain harvests. After Chen's treasury was exhausted and the troops were dispersed, the final general attack on the destruction of the country was launched.

Although the case of Sui Ichechen has not happened yet, Xun Yu and Guo Jia have top IQs, so these deductions are still expected. So they also gave Cao Cao two plans, so they let Cao Cao determine Liu Bei's mentality and respond to each other and defend.

...

However, no matter how Liu Bei chooses in the end, Cao Cao has some basic responses that can be said to be in a constant way.

In order to deal with Liu Bei's threat, Cao Cao personally took charge of Yanzhou, and set up heavy troops on the front line of Yuzhou, and placed the general reserve team at the Yan-Yuan. Once he found that there was an invasion in Yuzhou, he would personally support him with all his strength.

At the same time, Cao Cao divided Xiahou Yuan to guard Jizhou, and Cao Ren to guard Huainan. He sent out the strongest and most capable confidants among the generals of the Cao family and the Xiahou family, and withstand the pressure on the north and south sides respectively.

The other generals were divided into different distributions.

There are also surrendered generals of the Yuan family such as Zhang He in Hebei, including Ma Yan, Zhang Yan, Yin Kui, Yin Kai, Han Fan, and Liang Qi. They can be said to have many military generals (although they are all a lot of public faces).

Cheng Yu provided advice to Xiahou Yuan, while Han Rong, Li Fu and other civil servants surrendered from Yuan Shao, as well as some civil servants who surrendered to Yecheng, such as Yang Xiu, had a lower actual power and status and could only help Cheng Yu.

In Huainan, Cao Ren also had deputy generals such as Li Dian, Han Hao, Lu Qian, Xu Ding, and Liu Xun under his command of the counties, and Man Chong, Lou Gui, Mao Jie, and Xu Xun were also advisers.

(Note: Liu Xun was a surrendered general of Yuan Shu in Huainan area. Before Yuan Shu was destroyed in Shouchun, Liu Xun's defense zone collapsed in advance and surrendered to Cao Cao. He was able to survive and continue to be a general in Huainan. The old subordinates of Yuan Shu who were incorporated by Cao Cao are still alive and are basically placed in Huainan to guard the township)

In addition to the two groups of people above, the remaining civil and military officials were basically placed in the Yanyu War Zone directly under Cao Cao.

Wenyou Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Dong Zhao, Sima Lang, Sima Yi (23 years old, forced to follow his elder brother to be an official, give advice in the name of his elder brother, pretending to be indisputable and dare not cause hatred), Jiang Gan, Liu Fu, Liang Mao, Wang Si, Xu Yi, Ding Fei, Wei Zhen...

Wu has Xiahou Dun, Cao Hong, Xu Chu, Le Jin, Liu Yan, Shi Huan, Wang Zhong, and Lu Xun (only 19 years old, and his ability has not yet been greatly improved).

There are also a bunch of relatives from our family, Cao Xiu, Cao Zhen, Xiahou Shang, Xiahou De, Xiahou En, Xiahou Jie...

If we only look at quantity but not quality, there are many people who come up with Cao Cao to make suggestions and lead troops.

Of course, compared with Cao Cao's historical period in another time and space, this has been nearly half of the talent withered.

At least two of the five good generals had never been to Cao Cao (Zhang Liao, Xu Huang), while Yu Jin was captured by Zhao Yun in the Battle of Wu and Yue three years ago. The famous generals who surrendered to Cao by the Yuan family also lost all the others in the previous period, except Zhang He.

Only the group of general generals of the Xiahou family of the Cao family did not suffer much loss. Only Cao Chun has died so far, which has increased his average strength. Overall, it is absolutely not an exaggeration to say that Cao's army lost 40% of its strength in terms of military generals compared to the same period in history.

The same is true for strategists. In history, the so-called five major strategists of Cao Cao, Xun You, was in Liu Bei's place, and Jia Xu was cut into pieces by Lingchi at Liu Bei's ascension ceremony five years ago, but there were only three left. The other civil servants were almost in this proportion.

Therefore, Cao Cao was holding a civil and military talent with only 60% strength in the same period of history, fighting against Liu Bei.

Wars require not only talents, but also solid military support. In terms of military scale, Cao Cao also faced a dilemma and had to temporarily expand his army.

When the six states of Kanto were originally divided into Yuan and Cao, both sides could support 300,000 troops with the three states, which was still possible, and the total was 600,000.

Now that Youzhou is lost, Jizhou has also been destroyed by last year's annexation war, directly causing the upper limit of the military that the people in the Kanto region can afford, which has also dropped from 600,000 to 500,000 to 500,000.

Coincidentally, before Cao Cao launched the Unification War against Yuan Shang last year, the regular army veterans on both sides were only about 500,000, and the family was 250,000.

However, 60,000 to 70,000 people were lost in the civil war of Yuan and Cao, and Yuan Xi of Youzhou Army was annihilated by Liu Bei 70,000 to 80,000. In the end, 50,000 or 60,000 were lost in the battle of Yishui to rescue Youzhou. Together, the total force plummeted from 500,000 to 300,000 after Cao Cao unified Guandong.

Among the 200,000 people who lost this loss, the Youzhou Army's military equipment was completely lost because the territory was occupied by Liu Bei. The work of cleaning the battlefield belonged to Zhang Fei, and the remaining broken weapons of the Youzhou Army belonged to Zhang Fei.

Among this part of the losses, the most valuable one was actually the horses of the Youzhou Army. Although Yuan Xi’s army was not strong enough, Youzhou bordered the grassland, Dai County, Yuyang, and Shanggu were pastoral areas north of Yanshan. Therefore, Yuan Xi’s cavalry and war horse reserves totaled more than 20,000 horses.

After being taken away by Zhang Fei, the 20,000 war horses were captured and seized, which was estimated to be 13,400,000. The rest were caused by war damage and injuries. At least they were not suitable for going to the battlefield after being injured, so they could only be converted to a pack animal to pick up the animal.

At that time, Yuan Shao claimed that he was at his peak, but after Bingzhou surrendered and Lu Bu turned against him, the cavalry was reduced to 70,000 to 80,000 when Yuan Shao died. After all, nearly one-third of Yuan Shao's cavalry were from the Lu Bu faction, and Lu Bu seized horses from wars in the Xianbei Tuoba tribe and other places.

Later, the civil war consumed more than 10,000 Yuan's cavalry, and Zhang Fei took away 20,000, resulting in less than 40,000 cavalry inherited by Cao Cao from Yuan Shao.

Cao Cao's original direct cavalry was far less than Yuan Shao in the north, with a total of only 30,000 to 40,000, which was only 40% of Yuan Shao's peak period.

Later, the Cao army's cavalry lost nearly 10,000 yuan in the Battle of Kunyang, and Cao Chun was killed by Guan Yu, and the Yishui rescued Youzhou was a little more, which also caused losses to the Yuan unified civil war. Together, Cao Cao's direct cavalry was only 20,000.

Therefore, facing the upcoming united war Liu Bei was about to launch, the total number of Cao's cavalry was only 60,000, which was already the wealth of all the high-mobile troops in the remaining five states in Kanto.

Cao Cao then divided the land and dug deep into the people's strength. Other sources of troops, steel, and weapons can tap potential, but cavalry and war horses cannot tap potential no matter what.

In terms of weapons and equipment, as mentioned earlier, Yuan Xi's Youzhou Army's equipment was completely damaged, and Cao Cao would have to rebuild it if he wanted to expand his army. Most of the weapons of more than 50,000 people lost in the Battle of Yishui were discarded on the battlefield of Yishui, and were finally taken away by Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun.

In summary, the 200,000 Kanto princes reduced the equipment of the 200,000 Kanto troops last year could be recovered, and they were lost on the civil war battlefield and were returned to Cao's army to clean the battlefield.

The equipment of these 80,000 people has been used after several months of bloody battles and battles. They can only be simply tempered and re-equipped. The durability is so low that they can only endure it first.

Cao Cao's land division to win over the peasant class, which further led to the decline of industry and commerce in Cao Cao's jurisdiction. Fortunately, Cao Cao searched many immigrant families and powerful families. If the industrial and commercial tycoons had originally operated the metallurgical industry, they would not have been able to transfer their homes with heavy property such as steel, so they were basically confiscated.

All the steel obtained from the industrial and commercial household searches in the Kanto area was coordinated, and some blacksmiths were forced to create 120,000 standard weapons and some armor objects within a year, which consumed a total of millions of kilograms of iron.

If one million kilograms of Han jin are used to make this thing, each weapon will be divided into seven or eight kilograms of iron, which will be reduced to three kilograms of later generations. This will definitely not be able to create any good equipment.

Most of them are to create a spear head, then make a stick that is not round, and then arm a spearman. You can also add a shield made of thick wood without skin or metal.

As for armor, don’t think about these newly-soldiers. The productivity cannot keep up with it at all. It’s good to wear cloth armor and cotton coats. Spears with steel spear blades and thick wooden shields are not satisfied?

In addition to 70,000 to 80,000 sets of gun tips, the remaining iron materials saved are only 30,000 ring-headed swords and other short weapons. In order to save steel, these short weapons are generally thinner than the standard standard.

The last remaining scraps were made into clusters of arrows to supplement the loss of war. In ancient times, a cluster was standardized for using eight cents of iron. Because the Hanjin was relatively small, it was more than one or two taels of use, so these scraps also created two million arrows.

This number has to be said to be very shabby. Because just two years ago, when Guan Yu took over Bingzhou, nearly two million arrows were spent on pushing it all the way (of course, most of them could be recovered after the war).

It was the fierce firepower preparation that prompted Lu Bu in Taiyuan City to collapse his mentality. He felt that he could not withstand the consumption of the wealthy Liu Bei, so he chose to negotiate.

Cao's army had no choice but to resume preparations for war, and finally collected the weapons and equipment needed to "re-enlarge the 200,000 troops lost last year", and the rest was to capture the strong men.

The potential for war in the Kanto region is still there, so it is not too difficult to capture 200,000 strong men again.

After all, after maintaining war machines, after ensuring weapons, the most critical indicator left is "soldier-civilian comparison", such as twenty-five civilians (including the elderly, weak, women and children) who provide one soldier.

When we were concerned about the East Six Prefectures, the upper limit was to support 600,000 yuan. After losing Youzhou, Jizhou only provided 500,000 yuan, which was very reasonable.

However, the quality of the military source is very prominent. Cao Cao brought 200,000 strong men. When the official battle was held, it was generally only three to six months in service. The weapons were equipped with low-durance old goods and new shoddy and simplified versions. The combat effectiveness was obviously worrying.

Just when defending the city and fighting against the battalion and defense line, the low combat quality of these soldiers can be covered up to a certain extent. After all, there is no technical content in the matter of array stabbing spears and using crossbows to shoot arrows. If you are defending the city, you will not need to use your technical and tactical skills.

The biggest problem for recruits is that they are low morale and lack discipline, and they are prone to collapse and escape when encountering tough battles.

The remaining 300,000 veterans of Cao Cao cannot be said to be completely reliable.

Of the 300,000 people, about half of them had more than five or six years of experience in joining the army. These soldiers were six years ago when Liu Xie was still alive. When Yuan Shao and Cao Cao fought the Guandu Battle, the two sides expanded their troops (195), and the surviving soldiers have been retained until now.

Half of them had 150,000 people, and their service experience was between three or four years. Mainly after Yuan Shu killed the lord, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao attacked Yuan Shu and divided his territory. This part of the troops expanded at that time (197).

There are 150,000 veterans in 195, 150,000 veterans in 197, and 200,000 new recruits at the end of 200 or even early 201.

No one is sure how much resistance can such a force be exerted in the face of Liu Bei's pressure on Mount Tai?

Liu Bei's side is said to have more than 600,000 new recruits, and it is said that there are 200,000 new recruits, which were trained by Gao Shun in recent years. However, half of the soldiers have three years of service, and the other half also have two years of service, which is much better than Cao Cao's new recruits for several months.

The group of people who served in the three-year service period participated in the battle to pacify the Wu and Yue regions and also participated in the battle to Kunyang. The group of people who served in the two-year service period did not catch up with Pingjiangdong, but also participated in the battle to Kunyang. So strictly speaking, it was not very new, and they all fought one or two big victories.

What's more, even if Liu Bei's soldiers have a short service period of two years, they will only have a short time to train less, but they are absolutely unambiguous in terms of weapons and equipment, and they are treated the same as veterans.

After years of development, the Liu Bei camp has expanded its steel production to nearly 1,000 tons every year in Yizhou alone. The total of the eight states has already produced more than 2,000 tons of steel annually.

This number is four times the total steel output of Cao Cao's five prefectures in Kanto. It has surpassed the peak of steel output in history during the Sui and Tang dynasties, reaching two-thirds of the peak of the Northern Song Dynasty (1,600 tons of steel production during the Zhenguan/Yonghui period of the Tang Dynasty, about 2,000 tons during the Kaiyuan period, and reached its peak during the Xining period of the Northern Song Dynasty, with an annual output of 3,500 tons)

With such a foundation of industry and commerce, at least everyone of Liu Bei’s 200,000 new recruits can be equipped with a steel helmet.

And as long as you don’t wear a whole piece of forged steel breastplate, you have to at least add a heart protection mirror nailed to the chest of other armors. What Liu Bei lacks is not iron, but the processing ability to fine-process iron into various shapes. This is the shortcoming of production capacity, and of course it is only relative.

As for weapons, no matter whether the spear, beryllium gun, the sword ring is cut, at least it is made of steel smelting by the steel filling method, which is much better than the quality of the mature iron weapon.

Of course, in the past three years, Liu Bei has gradually spread the steel-tanking workshop from Yizhou and Guanzhong to Sili, Jingzhou and Yangzhou, in order to comprehensively improve the industrial and commercial level of the states under his rule.

These states bordering Cao Cao's frontiers are definitely not as easy to keep technical confidentiality work as those in Yizhou and Guanzhong.

After all, in Yizhou, checkpoints were set up along the Yangtze River and Han River out of Sichuan, and they could not get out of any sensitive items. The border management of Sili and Jing and Yang was not that easy. In addition, the large population movement last year and this year, the immigrants of industrial and commercial tyrants in Kanto fled, including Cao Cao's detailed work.

Since ancient times, strong people are weak and weak, and weak people are weak and weak, and weak people are weak and deceiving. Now it is Liu and Cao Cao's core use of the game is naturally to intervene in fine deceiving.

The fraudulent decline and detailed work are mixed between the wave of immigration of industrial and commercial wealthy people who really immigrated to Liu. Nine out of ten is true and one false, or even ninety-nine out of one hundred is true and one false. Liu Bei really can't identify it. Then he can invest in industrial and commercial, and gradually find a way to steal some peripheral technology.

So Cao Cao finally mastered the preliminary steel filling method in the second half of last year, and also the hand-pedaled lathe that was as fast as a pencil sharpener to make gun rods and arrows, and officially upgraded the double-person loom that Cao Cao's camp originally used into a new crossbow shuttle loom... It's a pity that everything was too late.

Cao Cao organized production and processing repeatedly, which was only at the beginning of this year. The industry and commerce were in a state of losing its ranks. Cao Cao also had a huge gap in technical talents. Even if he mastered the technology, there was not enough people to promote and copy it.

When Liu Bei rushed in, there were no more than 20,000 people in Cao's army who could carry steel-filled weapons, and no more than half could replace the gun rod with high-quality car round sticks. At most, more cotton robes and cloth armor were provided.

What kind of trouble can this increase make? That is, it means that the soldiers will not think about it at all.

When both sides were preparing for the war, the time finally entered April. Liu Bei's tendency was finally revealed

Liu Bei officially launched an attack at the moment when he entered mid-April and did not destroy or harass him before. It can be seen that Liu Bei regarded all the places in Yuzhou as his own, which is inevitable.

With the entry of the Han army, Guo Jia from the Yancheng front line coordinated the 100,000 defenders from various places in Yingchuan to defend the important stadium with flexible defense. At the same time, he found out the enemy situation and reported to Cao Cao.
Chapter completed!