The attack on Zigui Wu County was just a forefront of the battle to attack Shu. These battles were actually insignificant to Cao Liang, and for the Shu army, they were not positions that must be held. They were places that could not be abandoned and were useless.

Therefore, whether it is the Wei army or the Shu army, they maintain a low-force battle mode in the Wu County area of ​​Zigui. Neither side invests a large-scale force. The main force of the Shu army is busy building the Yong'an defense line, while the main force of the Wei army is preparing for the plan to attack Shu, which naturally led to a relatively low attention to the battle in Wu County in Zigui.

However, low attention does not mean that the battle will not be fierce. The troops invested by both sides have exceeded 30,000 in total. Affected by the terrain, the mountain canyons in Zigui Wu County have a narrow terrain. Even if a large army is fighting, it cannot be used.

So these battles have been very fierce, although to outsiders, this is just a small-scale conflict. Compared to a decisive battle of hundreds of thousands of people, such a battle is somewhat uninteresting.

But for the two armies that directly confronted each other, the tragic level of the battle was no less than those of huge battles. The two sides fought fiercely for more than four months in the Zigui area, and the positions changed hands several times, and the battle situation was unprecedentedly fierce.

When Cao Liang was in Jiangling, his focus was not on this battle, but on trying to raise food and supplies, making the final preparations before attacking Shu.

Cao Liang did not simply raise food and supplies for the Right Legion and the Navy. After all, the attack on Shu would be a systematic project. The troops participating in the war were not limited to the Right Legion, but all three field corpses were fighting. Deng Ai's left legion was in Yongzhou, Du Yu's right legion was in Jingzhou, and Yang Hu's central legion was in Jiaozhou. The three armies would launch an attack on Shu from three directions.

Cao Liang will use all his strength in the Battle of Destroying Shu. There is no doubt about this. The Battle of Destroying Shu is related to whether Cao Liang can unify the world, whether he can achieve true peace in the world, peace and peace in the country. This is the final battle. Naturally, Cao Liang will not have any reservations anymore. He will devote all his strength to launch the final attack.

At this time, the Shu Kingdom was not the weakest time when the Three Kingdoms were in power. When the Sima family was defeated, Sima Lun led the remnants to surrender to Shu Kingdom. When the Wu Kingdom was destroyed, Lu Kang also led the army of the destroyed country to join the Shu Kingdom. Today, the Shu Kingdom army is no longer simply an army from Shu. More accurately, it should be the Three Kingdoms coalition, integrating the power of Shu Han, Sun Wu and Sima Jin. In terms of military strength, it has almost reached 200,000 people, twice the number of those of the previous Shu Kingdom's permanent army, and its strength has increased dramatically.

Yizhou has a population of one million, maintaining a standing army of 100,000, and the proportion of soldiers and civilians has reached 10 to 1. Theoretically, the ratio of soldiers and civilians has reached a limit. What's more, Shu Kingdom still has a team of nearly 40,000 officials, which also requires the burden of ordinary people. No wonder the envoys of Wu Kingdom went to Shu Kingdom to visit Shu Kingdom. Looking at the countryside of Shu Kingdom, the people have good fortune. The burden of the people is so heavy. How can they not be poor?

Maintaining a 100,000 permanent army is already a limit for Shu Kingdom. Now that Sima Lun and Lu Kang led the army to join, although it doubled the military strength of the Shu army, it also doubled the economic burden. In a short period of time, it may still be able to maintain it. However, in the long run, the economy of Shu Kingdom will inevitably collapse and the people will live in poverty.

The ratio of soldiers and civilians reaches 5 to 1, and then joining the bureaucratic group, that is, every four civilians will support one officer and soldier. This is obviously unrealistic. No matter how developed the productivity of Shu is, it is impossible to achieve such a level.

Perhaps Jiang Wei would find some ways to solve this problem, such as farming farms, allowing the idle army to reclaim wasteland and be self-sufficient, but this is just a temporary opportunity. After all, the main responsibility of the army is to fight. Once the enemy attacks, even if the crops rot in the fields, they have to give priority to the battle and cannot take these crops into consideration.

Therefore, the economic pressure of Shu Kingdom is still difficult to solve. If the 200,000 troops want to solve the problem of eating, they can only continue to increase taxes. The taxes of the people of Shu Kingdom are already very heavy. If they add taxes, the people of Shu Kingdom will definitely not be able to bear it.

Cao Liang actually had a good way to avoid bloodshed, that is, to dispose of troops on the border between Wei and Shu, creating a situation where a large army was approaching, forcing the Shu army to give up other things and go all out to prepare for war and defend. However, the Wei army did not use offensive methods and confronted the Shu army in this way.

In a few years, Shu either cut down its troops or collapsed its economy. This long-term confrontation will compete with national strength. Shu's national strength is weak and cannot be consumed at all. In the long run, if the Wei army does not need to attack, Shu will inevitably have civil strife and the people will live in poverty.

If Cao Liang could do some more actions in Shu, such as bribing Huang Hao, giving Jiang Wei some slander in front of the later ruler Liu Chan, or supporting the local Yizhou faction headed by Qiao Zhou, and creating some tension in Jiang Wei's rear, it would inevitably accelerate the demise of Shu Kingdom.

Such a method can also be called "peaceful evolution". Cao Liang does not need to do it himself. He only needs to apply some external pressure to make the internal internal reversal of Shu himself, and he can achieve twice the result with half the effort. When Shu is in chaos, Wei will send troops to destroy Shu again, and it will naturally be easy.

However, this peaceful evolution process will be relatively long, ranging from three to five years to more than ten years to achieve results. Obviously, Cao Liang was unwilling to wait.

Now the world is becoming unified. As the saying goes, long-term division will lead to unity, long-term division will lead to division. Now Cao Liang has stood at this moment. If Cao Liang is asked to wait for more than ten years, he will obviously not want to.

Although the Wei State had a great family and a great cause, if it had confronted Shu State for more than ten years, it would definitely consume a lot of Wei's resources ruthlessly, and the huge military expenditure would also overwhelm the people of Wei State.

Therefore, it is an unshirkable responsibility before Cao Liang to resolve the Shu Kingdom in the shortest time and achieve the unification of the world.

Now Deng Ai's left army and Du Yu's right army are ready to go, and have made all preparations before going to war. With only Cao Liang's order, they can send troops to Shu Kingdom and open the curtain for attacking Shu.

Only Yang Hu's Central Army was still fighting in Jiaozhou, so Cao Liang could only wait quietly and wait for the war in Jiaozhou to end before he could make the next step of deployment.
Chapter completed!