Chapter 873

The Yangtze River is a true natural barrier; wanting to cross the river is extremely difficult.

But whether it was Cao Cao or Liu Bei, they both crossed it. The method was very simple: forced crossing.

They beat Yuan Shu in the Huai region to the south of the Yangtze River, and then, taking advantage of the lax defense, used a large number of small farm boats to send powerful martial generals across the river to hold the ferry, and then sent more troops across the river to expand the area, and the natural barrier of the Yangtze River was broken just like that.

Afterward, Cao Cao fiercely attacked Yuan Shu, while Liu Bei caught Sun Ce and beat him fiercely.

The current Liu Bei was far from comparable to the Liu Bei of the same period. He had stronger strength and higher military literacy; after all, the half-year in Liaodong wasn't spent in vain. And he was also consciously learning from Wang Yan; although he didn't understand economics and couldn't achieve what Grand General Wang did—having only two taxes in his entire territory, a commercial tax and an agricultural tax, with the agricultural tax being a clear one-tenth tax, relying on these two hands to maintain the operation of his territory.

But he had already tried his best to improve the treatment of the military and civilians and solve military and civilian problems, and the combat effectiveness of his army was still very high. Moreover, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu had also learned to fight Mobile Corps Commander warfare, penetrating deep into enemy lines alone, coming and going freely; this was very terrifying.

For example, in the previous Battle of Xuzhou, the old Cao, who was best at cutting off other people's grain supply lines, was beaten by Guan Yu and Zhang Fei until he had no temper.

Now Liu Bei crossed the river to fight Sun Ce; although Sun Ce had obtained the support of a considerable portion of the Jiangdong powerful clans, by comparison, he still couldn't beat the current Liu Bei in hard power.

Wang Yan fought Yuan Shao for half a year, and Liu Bei fought Sun Ce for half a year; in these six months, Liu Bei beat the Little Hegemon of Jiangdong out of Wu County...

"Big Brother, since we have already gained a foothold south of the river, why are you worried?" Looking at his good brother who was sighing again, Zhang Fei was very puzzled and asked this while taking a sip of wine.

Mi Zhu sighed: "Just now, our family's merchant caravan sent a letter saying that the war between Wang Yan and Yuan Shao has ended. Yuan Shao crossed the river and fled to Henan, stationing in Luoyang, while Wang Yan has obtained the entire Hebei region, having already obtained half of the empire. Since Yuan Shao has moved south, he will surely not return to Yanzhou, and Cao Cao will surely fight him. No matter who wins, we are all in danger. Even though there is the danger of the river south of the river, we are huddled in a corner and unable to defend the river. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao are powerful, and we surely cannot hold out for long."

Guan Yu was also present, and he said: "Since that is the case, why don't we take the opportunity to sweep away Yuan Shu and Sun Ce to dominate the Jiangdong region? Or attack Liu Biao in the west, advance to take Yizhou, and rely on the natural barrier of the Shu region to resist."

Liu Bei shook his head and said: "Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Liu Zhang of Yizhou are both clansmen of our Han imperial family; how can I fight against my own kin? Yuan Shu and Sun Ce are not mediocre people; wanting to dominate Jiangdong is actually difficult. I can resist with all my might, but before we can dominate Jiangdong, the outcome between Yuan and Cao will have been decided, and they will cross the river to attack me; what can be done then?"

"Looking forward and backward is not what a great man does. Big Brother, let's attack Yuan Shu today; if it doesn't work, we just die."

Zhang Fei really didn't like Liu Bei's sighing appearance; just do it, why so many words. Can't fight this, can't fight that, not straightforward at all.

But in fact, Liu Bei just had a sense of worry; he couldn't just think about the present and not consider the future, so he naturally worried often.

Liu Bei sighed; he really hadn't thought of any other good methods. He had no talent under his command, no talent who could devise strategies for him and formulate long-term plans.

So in the short term, he could only attack Yuan Shu, hoping to completely dominate the Jiangdong region...

By now, compared to the original trajectory of development, it was already unrecognizable, and even some warlords had already disappeared.

For example, Liu Yao, the Inspector of Yangzhou, was sent in 194. The original seat of Yangzhou was in Shouchun, so he went to Qu'e (Danyang City) south of the river, and was able to gain a foothold in Yangzhou.

But now it was different; as early as 193, Yuan Shu had already been beaten by Cao Cao to the south of the Yangtze River, and the Yangzhou region north of the river was also occupied by Cao Cao. Although Liu Yao was also appointed as the Inspector of Yangzhou, how could he gain a foothold in Yangzhou? Who listened to him? Yuan Shu had already been beaten to the south of the river; how could he let Liu Yao come over to seize power? Moreover, Liu Yao had nothing; how could he seize power?

So Liu Yao came over to see the situation, lived well for a month, and seeing that there was truly no opportunity, he ran to Jingzhou to defect to Liu Biao. After all, Liu Yao was also a clansman of the Han imperial family; everyone was a relative. As for being the Inspector of Yangzhou, whoever had the ability could go.

Therefore, in the current Jiangdong, there were only a few forces. Yuan Shu, Sun Ce, Liu Bei, and Cao Cao occupied a part, and there was also Liu Biao of Jingzhou. Sun Ce was beaten by Liu Bei and ran to Kuaiji. So he wasn't independent yet, belonging to Yuan Shu's vassal. Of course, there were other small forces, but in front of these few forces, they were all unknown small shrimp, belonging to the gift packages that delivered warmth.

The development of events did not exceed Liu Bei's expectations. After Yuan Shao stationed in Luoyang, Cao Cao sent a letter demanding Yanzhou. Yuan Shao had lost Hebei and naturally couldn't return Yanzhou. Besides, he had indeed suffered heavy losses, with many generals beheaded, but he wasn't truly finished; at least he still occupied Qingzhou and Yanzhou.

Moreover, Liu Bei adhered to the route of staying away from Wang Yan, putting his main force south of the river, and at the same time was migrating the common people of Xuzhou across the river. The vacated land was also occupied by Yuan Shao. Although he lost many troops in this defeat, quite a few people still escaped across the Yellow River. In addition, he now occupied Luoyang, and relying on his name, he recruited various small warlords in the Sili region. There was also Liu Biao of Jingzhou who stood on his side, which was also a force.

After integrating like this, and scraping together, he could still pull out an army of two hundred thousand, which could fight Cao Cao to a draw. The only thing that was a bit worse was that he had no great generals; there was no one who could handle things now. But this was also a small problem; anyway, no matter how brave an individual was, they couldn't fight a thousand troops alone.

So naturally, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao went to war. Yuan Shu behind them was also taking the opportunity to attack, hoping to take back the lost territory south of the river and drive Cao Cao back to the north of the river. On the other side, Liu Bei still stood on the same front as Cao Cao, beating Yuan Shu and Sun Ce fiercely, hoping to dominate the Jiangdong region.

At the same time, the fighting between Li Jue, Guo Si, and others had not yet ceased; the two of them teamed up to kill Fan Chou, and then turned against each other, beginning to fight. Ma Teng, Han Sui, Zhang Ji, and a group of loyal ministers of the Han imperial family were involved, carrying out a great melee.

The world was in chaos again, with fighting everywhere; only here at Grand General Wang's place was it very stable, conscientiously restoring the scars everywhere.

Between driving away Yuan Shao and governing Jizhou, there was a certain window period. It was precisely during this window period that defeated soldiers roamed everywhere, and knights-errant, refugees, and other criminals took the opportunity to make trouble. They raped and looted, destroyed production, and then epidemics broke out; as these people spread the contagion everywhere, it caused quite serious consequences.

For this reason, Wang Yan dispatched a large army to carry out a large-scale slaughter. If the epidemic hadn't broken out, most of these troublemakers would actually have had a way to live; it would just have been the length of their labor service. But now, because of the epidemic, investing resources to save these people was a bit of a loss.

At this time, even distinguishing between loyal and treacherous was a waste of human resources, because there was no time to pay attention to so much. The standard for killing was very simple: anyone encountered outside the village in a group of ten or more men, kill without mercy. Anyone encountered outside the village in a group of two or more, wearing armor and holding weapons, kill without mercy. Anyone passing through a village, if villagers reported them, kill without mercy.

Of course, it wasn't really not distinguishing between loyal and treacherous; after all, Jizhou had no grain now, and many people were seeking a way to live but hadn't broken the prohibitions; this situation also existed. It was just that at this time, Wang Yan gave the army great power; whether to kill or not depended entirely on their mood, and there would surely be a considerable number of unjust cases.

But there was no other way. Although Wang Yan would make up for it later and deal with the soldiers who violated discipline at this time, the people who should have died were already dead, and their lives couldn't be made up for; it could only be said to be the fault of the era. If one wanted to find someone, one had to go find Yuan Shao; it was all Yuan Shao's fault.

What Wang Yan had to do was to stabilize the situation in Jizhou as quickly as possible, while at the same time curbing the spread of the epidemic.

A large number of physicians came to Jizhou, studying this epidemic to come up with prescriptions for treatment. At the same time, a large amount of medicinal materials and grain were pulled to Jizhou. There were also tens of thousands of young people who came to Jizhou, starting to reorganize order, while fighting the disaster, while starting to restore production and construction.

The destruction during Yuan Shao's flight, and the destruction by various people taking the opportunity to make trouble, destined that many people in Jizhou would die.

The workload at the grassroots level was quite large; controlling the epidemic was one aspect, burning corpses, replanting grain, counting the population, distributing materials, population migration, all kinds of big and small things, summarizing them to Wang Yan here, they were all big things.

So Wang Yan's workload also increased; he had to coordinate the above matters at the highest level, while also taking into account the original You, Liao, Bing, and the grasslands. Because Jizhou had a large population and not enough grain, he could only think of ways to solve it in these three places.

Now, in the homes of the common people in Youzhou and Liaodong, almost everyone stored enough grain for a family to use for more than a year. He certainly couldn't just watch the common people of Jizhou starve to death; work-for-relief, there always had to be grain for the common people to consume. So Wang Yan mobilized the vast grassroots civil officials to reason with the common people and sell some grain.

Of course, the common people certainly gave face; although production had decreased in the past two years, there was still plenty of grain, always enough to eat. Taking out the surplus grain, they would just save it again later. With the Grand General personally ordering, surely no one would not support it. Generally speaking, under Grand General Wang's governance, everyone was still of one mind, and there was no talk of shaking the rule.

After all, Wang Yan was appealing to the common people; the days of having enough to eat for three meals a day were distant, but the common people of the world were one family; today you support them, tomorrow they support you, and happy days need everyone to help each other to create.

As long as they held out until next year's autumn harvest, the crisis would be lifted, and life would be easier.

The land in the North China Plain was good, and the land in the Northeast Plain was also good; now Grand General Wang held two fertile lands, and there were various studies on farming, as well as the large-scale construction of water conservancy projects; although it was now an Ice Age, grain production was still guaranteed.

And in order to continue to tap into the Northeast Plain, this time the common people of Jizhou would also migrate to the Northeast; all the land had to be developed. In such a large area in the Northeast, although every household had large areas of land, there was no problem accommodating over ten million people. And now, the entire Northeast had only over two million people, which was truly not enough...

Besides coordinating materials, there was another important big thing, which was moving the capital. In order to facilitate the governance of Jizhou, and even more to facilitate the subsequent strikes against Henan, Grand General Wang moved the General's Mansion from Ji County to Zhending. Once again, he began to start large-scale construction, building medical and Wenchang pavilions.

Because the territory had expanded, there were more places to defend, so Wang Yan expanded the army, which were the Longxiang and Feixiong, with Lu Bu as the Longxiang Captain and Zhang Liao as the Feixiong Captain. At the same time, he also adjusted the areas where each unit was stationed.

There was absolutely no war along the Yellow River; whether it was Yuan Shao or Cao Cao, giving them eight guts, they wouldn't dare to come over and seek death at this time. But he still deployed defenses along the Yellow River, which was necessary, guarding floating bridges and ferries, and controlling trade. This work was stationed by the three units of Zhou Cang, Taishi Ci, and Zhang Wu.

Then there was the normal defense of the Liaodong region, as well as the disaster relief function of the army; troops still had to be left behind, so Wang Yan transferred the originally stationed troops and carried out a rotation, including the grasslands. It was impossible to let them stay in one place for a long time, because this would inevitably breed corruption.

As for Lu Bu and Zhang Liao, they were sent by Wang Yan to Bingzhou, because next, he was going to take action against Liangzhou. That was also Lu Bu's hometown, so letting them go there was just right.

Liao Hua still swept the grasslands, and then there were the garrisons at various passes. The old general Huang Zhong was stationed in Zhending, and at the same time, cooperated with the troops in Taiyuan to clear the vast Taihang Mountains. Although Zhang Yan was beaten into submission in one battle, hiding in the mountains and not daring to come out, there were still three or four hundred thousand people hiding in the mountains.

No matter how one put it, from ancient times to two thousand years later, human power was a resource. Letting such a number of common people hide in the mountains and ignoring them was a huge waste. The Black Mountain Army had to be thoroughly cleared, and all the escaped households in the mountains had to be driven out.

To summarize, Lu Bu and Zhang Liao were promoted, and all the troops under his governance were combed, rotated, and changed main generals, which could be considered as clearing out the unhealthy trends in the army, and dispelling the fantasies of some officers who felt they were very powerful with a large army in hand.

Generally speaking, the current military strength was actually insufficient, unable to take care of all places. If it weren't for Wang Yan implementing the militia system and arranging police officer work for retired soldiers, in special circumstances, he could temporarily mobilize the militia to assemble; otherwise, many situations couldn't be taken care of.

Although he had now experienced another round of army expansion, the reorganized troops reached a strength of one hundred thousand, but compared to such a large territory, it was still not enough.

But this was also inevitable, because there were only so many resources, and he truly couldn't afford to support so many troops. Any unified dynasty had no way to support a large number of troops.

The most powerful Han and Tang dynasties had only seven or eight hundred thousand troops at their peak. The Ming dynasty had over two million troops, but the Ming dynasty had a population of nearly two hundred million, and the Ming dynasty implemented the Weisuo system. The two million troops were all collectively farming in various places.

Wang Yan was now almost implementing the Weisuo system; except for his personal guards, there were no pure professional soldiers, all were farming to support themselves. His current army could actually be considered full; any more would affect normal operation. The common people had to support the army and also support a large number of officials, which was not easy.

Unless it was like the previous battle with Yuan Shao, violently increasing troops in a short time, otherwise he absolutely couldn't support it.

Regarding the war outside, Wang Yan was naturally clear; he was completely sitting and watching the wind rise. Of course, even if there was an opportunity to raise an army, he wouldn't do it. Zhao Benshan's famous saying: wear pants as big as your butt; without thoroughly digesting the land of Jizhou, it was useless for him to take down new territory.

Joining the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184, to the current 195, in eleven years, sitting on half the country, the development had been very rapid. Compared to the Three Kingdoms, it was before the Battle of Red Cliffs, the peak period of old Cao, and it couldn't be compared with his current territory.

Although at that time old Cao occupied more places south of the Yellow River and north of the Yangtze River, he hadn't killed the one who occupied Liangzhou, only reaching the Sili region. But now he occupied the entire Northeast, as well as two-thirds of the grasslands, but the population under his governance was not much.

Jizhou indeed had over four million people left, but in reality, because of the destruction of war, as well as epidemics, and he killed people to stabilize Jizhou as quickly as possible and block the spread of the epidemic, and the people who died of cold and hunger in the winter before. After the diligent statistics of grassroots officials, the number finally reported to Wang Yan was 3.65 million people.

This was the destructive power of war; in the Ling Emperor period, there were nearly five million people, and now that he, Wang Mou, took over, there were over a million fewer. It was in the eleven years since the Yellow Turban Rebellion until now, the time he started his business, that it decreased.

Thus, adding up the population he had before, it didn't even reach eight million, and the land he controlled was half of China, and it was the two fertile lands of the Northeast Plain and the North China Plain.

War was so cruel...

Zhang Yan also thought so, but he didn't think war was cruel; he just simply thought it was cruel because it was too cruel to him.

Looking at the big rebel who was sitting lazily in the top position, in a single garment, revealing a strong chest, with disheveled hair that had just been washed, and looking at him, Zhang Yan really wanted to show some backbone; death was death, there was nothing to be afraid of. But unfortunately, he was still kneeling tremblingly.

Wang Yan looked at Zhang Yan and said with a smile: "No need to fear. You were able to lead your army out of the mountains to surrender, saving my large army from entering the mountains to search and suppress; I am very pleased. I am absolutely not a person who kills indiscriminately. Since you say you are innocent, after investigation, if there is no victim to report, I will divide land for you to farm for a living. If you deserve to die, considering you took the initiative to come out of the mountains, I will leave you a pot of poisonous wine, leave you a whole corpse, and bury you at the foot of the mountain."

Actually, Zhang Yan just saw that he couldn't hide anymore; the Taihang Mountains were surrounded by Wang Yan, he couldn't fight, and he couldn't run; death was death, he had no other way, and he didn't want to be hacked to death by his subordinates in a daze, so he had to take people out of the mountains and wait for the big rebel's judgment.

However, Zhang Yan taking the initiative to take people out to surrender indeed saved trouble; although the large army still had to clear the Taihang Mountains again, there was no large-scale fighting, and fewer people died, which was always good. So for Zhang Yan, Wang Yan was willing to leave a whole corpse and bury him in the earth.

Zhang Yan gave a clatter, his head heavily kowtowing on the floor: "Thank you, Grand General."

Wang Yan waved his hand: "Go."

There were personal guards who came forward, taking Zhang Yan away to wait for the judgment of fate.

At this time, a personal guard came forward and said: "Grand General, just now the Supervisor Guo Jia sent a letter, saying that someone in Bingzhou is bringing his family to defect, his name is Jia Xu, courtesy name Wenhe, a native of Guzang, Liangzhou (Liangzhou District, Wu Wei City), formerly a subordinate of Dong Zhuo, later a strategist for Li Jue, Guo Si, and others, appointed as the Guanglu Grand Master of the Han imperial family, and is already on the way to Zhending."

Wang Yan raised his eyebrows and laughed; he lacked civil officials who could handle things under his command. Obviously, Jia Xu was very good...