Chapter 877

The strategists of this year were not simple; although they were not as proficient in the five elements, eight trigrams, astronomy, and geography as Zhuge Liang, everyone also had wisdom and schemes.

Watching Watching Cheng Gongying's analysis was correct; it was indeed as he said, Wang Yan couldn't raise a large army to conquer Liangzhou; the supply line was stretched too long, and sending one stone of rice would consume one stone of rice; this investment was extremely mismatched with the harvest. If he really stretched such a long supply line, taking Liangzhou would be useless, because he would lose the opportunity to cross the river to attack Henan.

Relatively speaking, the Henan land was much more important than Liangzhou. There were more people, better land, and abundant water conservancy. This was a choice that any mature person would make. What's more, Grand General Wang could also be called a military strategist and a strategist; he would even more not have a twitching brain and raise a large army to conquer Liang.

In fact, Han Sui didn't understand the key to the problem. Why did Wang Yan fight Liangzhou? It was because this place was poor, farming wasn't very suitable, and cotton could be planted on a large scale, and it connected to the Western Regions, which could be used for business. The Hexi Corridor also had considerable strategic importance; it was the throat of the east and west, and it was necessary to control it.

So if Han Sui and others were smart enough, what they should do now was to write a letter to seek peace. Promise to sell all the cotton they planted to Wang Yan at a low price, and promise to pay the commercial tax to Wang Yan. In other words, Han Sui would not rely on him, would not defect, but would work for Wang Yan.

Then as long as he expressed this meaning, Wang Yan would immediately cease hostilities, and would start grain trade with Han Sui, and start trade on a larger scale, prospering Liangzhou. In this way, Han Sui could absolutely live stably until the time when Grand General Wang unified the north and south; he would absolutely be the last one to die.

But unfortunately, Han Sui and others didn't understand Wang Yan's meaning, or even if they thought of it, they weren't willing to do so, because that was truly living in humiliation.

Now resisting, at least guaranteed autonomy. But once opened, letting Wang Yan enter Liangzhou, Han Sui and others didn't doubt at all that at that time, it would definitely be bloodless, Liangzhou would be gone, and he, old Han, would become a skeleton, and he wouldn't be able to run even if he wanted to.

After pondering for a long time, understanding Watching Watching Cheng Gongying's meaning, Han Sui nodded: "Watching Watching Cheng Gongying's words are very good. If we hold out against Lu Bu, Wang Yan will surely not raise a large army to attack. But if we can win a quick victory, Wang the Thief might not come to attack, which is truly a loss that outweighs the gain. Now Lu Bu and Zhang Liao have fifty thousand troops, and most of them are barbarian soldiers; their combat power must be insufficient.

In this way, I should seek a quick victory. If one battle is successful, and Lu Bu and Zhang Liao are driven out of the two counties of Beidi and Anding, Wang Yan will know that my army is strong and will surely not disturb us again. What does Watching Watching Cheng Gongying think?"

Watching Watching Cheng Gongying paced and thought; he naturally understood that if they could win a quick victory and let Wang Yan know that they were a hard bone to chew, it would be correct not to easily labor the army to conquer from afar. But he felt that Wang Yan was too powerful, and he was too good to the military and civilians under his command; if Lu Bu and Zhang Liao suffered losses in Liangzhou and many soldiers died, then it was hard to guarantee that Wang Yan wouldn't ignore Yuan Shao in Henan and raise an army in anger.

This kind of thing had a great possibility of happening, because Wang Yan was not a reasonable leader; throughout the ages, there had never been such a person who was so hostile to powerful clans. Then now that there was such a person, it was not hard to understand that he would do something unexpected. So in a state of hostility, one had to consider this unexpectedness.

He stopped his pace and said: "Lord, I think it's better to hold out. The army under Wang Yan's command has extremely strong combat power; in the previous battle against Yuan in Hebei, one hundred thousand defeated Yuan Shao's army of five hundred thousand. Now Lu Bu and Zhang Liao lead fifteen thousand troops of two units, and also hold tens of thousands of barbarian troops; one must not underestimate them. If we seek a quick victory, even with the help of barbarians, I fear it will be difficult to succeed.

What's more, Wang Yan treats the military and civilians well, and highly respects the words of Chen Tang of the Former Han: 'Those who offend the strong Han, though far away, will be punished.' His military and civilians are fierce and brave; if we really win a quick victory, Wang Yan might not necessarily not raise a large army to conquer us. Lord, don't forget, Wang Yan is only thirty, in the prime of his strength; even if he conquers Henan a few years later, it won't matter. Lord, think twice."

"Wang Yan is strong, but Lu Bu is a reckless man; he and Zhang Liao lead the army, and the main force is only over ten thousand, the rest are all barbarians. And what the nature of barbarians is, we all know. Lu Bu and Zhang Liao lead tens of thousands of barbarian soldiers to form an army; ten percent of the combat power is lost by five percent, it's just that there are many people. Now the terrain and the people are on my side, and my army is twice as many as Lu Bu and Zhang Liao. We should send a large army and seek a quick victory. If we can't win, it won't be too late to seek to hold out."

This was the decision Han Sui made after thinking once, twice, and three times; to summarize, it was four words: fuck his mother. It wasn't that there was a large army of hundreds of thousands here; the real elite was only over ten thousand, there was nothing to be afraid of. Lu Bu was indeed brave, so what?

... Watching Watching Cheng Gongying was silent, arched his hands and said: "I will obey the order!"

"Order Liang Xing, Hou Xuan, Cheng Yin, Li Kan, Zhang Heng, Cheng Yi, Ma Wan, and Yang Qiu, eight generals, to lead fifty thousand troops. Contact the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Qianghu tribes; you personally persuade them, clarify the pros and cons, and raise an army of one hundred thousand. Thus, an army of one hundred and fifty thousand will attack Lu Bu together."

"Yes!"

Watching Watching Cheng Gongying responded, and hurriedly went out to arrange it. It wasn't the time to fight now; reorganizing the army would take two months; it was early winter now, and a thin layer of snow fell the day before yesterday; even if they had cotton clothes, they didn't have that many cotton clothes.

What's more, even if they had cotton clothes, the consumption of fighting in winter would be even greater, which was extremely uneconomical. So this winter was the time to reorganize the army, and the real big battle would still have to wait until spring.

So this winter, Han Sui was reorganizing the army and preparing for war, carrying out winter training. At the same time, he was also connecting everywhere, actively persuading the Xiongnu and other barbarian tribes, and forming an allied army.

In fact, they didn't need to persuade; after all, Liangzhou had a population of one million, and five or six hundred thousand were chased to this side by Wang Yan; they naturally understood how hateful Wang Yan was and how much he deserved to die. It was just a pity that they had no way to resist; they couldn't fight in winter, and when they wanted to fight again in spring, their vitality had been consumed, and the tribes had different ideas, so they couldn't unite, and raising a large army to fight Wang Yan had never had a leader.

Or there were leaders, but they were all killed in the past many years; they had truly suffered under Wang Yan for a long time.

Now Han Sui took the lead, and he himself sent fifty thousand troops, and the barbarian tribes participated very enthusiastically, sending people and horses, howling and wanting to fight Wang Yan, return to the previous land, and save their compatriots.

Han Sui could be called shaking his arms and shouting, clouds gathering and echoes following, together creating the grand event of fighting Wang Yan.

They all thought very beautifully; the barbarians thought they could fight back all at once, and could also go to Wang Yan's governance to loot, while Han Sui thought that even if the large army couldn't win, he could maintain the situation. They had one commonality, which was that they didn't think about what would happen if they were defeated.

Indeed, this was also not necessary to think about, and it wasn't that there were no examples. It was just that they didn't think they would fail, at least they could stabilize, and wouldn't be beaten into collapse.

They admitted Wang Yan's strength, but wouldn't think that when the main force didn't come and there were only fifteen thousand troops, he was still strong.

Wang Yan used one hundred thousand troops to fight Yuan Shao's five hundred thousand troops, and beat Yuan Shao into a miserable southern flight, losing Hebei; this was a matter known to the world, and no one would doubt the fierceness of the army under Wang Yan's command.

But to say the least, the only one in the whole world who had truly fought with Wang Yan's large army was Yuan Shao alone. The one who knew best how strong Wang Yan was was also Yuan Shao and his subordinates.

Only they knew best that in the previous Battle of Hebei, excluding the battle on the Taiyuan side, the first-tier troops that Wang Yan directly participated in the war in the entire region east of the Taihang Mountains were only less than fifty thousand. The remaining over one hundred thousand troops were all logistics and chores, almost having no war experience.

It was precisely these fifty thousand troops that defeated Yuan Shao's forty thousand people here, and there was no annihilation battle; from beginning to end, it was a battle with coming and going. Just like this, it still broke Yuan Shao's army of forty thousand.

The main reason was certainly Yuan Shao withdrawing his troops and running away, losing his fighting spirit and confusing the military heart; if not, with such coming and going, if Yuan Shao didn't have a major mistake, he would still have to fight for a year or a half. This was because Wang Yan didn't fight city battles and didn't seek quick victory.

But even so, fifty thousand people beating Yuan Shao's army of forty thousand until they didn't dare to leave the city was enough to show the strength of the combat power under Grand General Wang's command.

What was more important and more advanced was the thought; the soldiers didn't fight for a full stomach, they fought to let more people have enough to eat and wear. The soldiers under Lu Bu and Zhang Liao all knew that their attack on Liangzhou this time was for cotton, to let more people leave the house in winter. And they were also giving lectures to the barbarian soldiers who were rolled up, letting them have beautiful expectations.

This was the guarantee of combat power.

And these were all things that Han Sui and the barbarian tribe leaders and heads couldn't understand...

"Grand General, Guo Jia sent a letter, saying that Han Sui gathered his large army, and at the same time connected with the barbarian tribes, wanting to beat back our army in one battle; they will surely fight in the coming spring, please give instructions."

Jia Xu took Guo Jia's letter and found Grand General Wang to report.

It wasn't that he read the letter privately, but that Guo Jia's letter was sent to the General's Mansion, not to the Grand General, which were two different things. Jia Xu was the General's assistant, a real big secretary, leading the work of the General's Mansion, so naturally he was the first to know.

Wang Yan took it and looked at it, threw the letter on the table casually, and asked with a smile: "What does Wenhe think?"

"Han Sui's move is to strengthen himself against us. Because where we are, it is thousands of miles away from Liangzhou, and laboring the army to conquer from afar is a loss that outweighs the gain. He thinks that one battle will drive away Lu Bu and Zhang Liao, and I will naturally not raise an army to attack again. But the good land for planting cotton is what I must take. So I think this battle must be fought, but we cannot wait for the enemy to attack us; we should attack first.

Han Sui wants to drive us out of Liang in one battle, and I want to beat Han Sui into disability, or I can quickly take the land of Liang. This winter, Liao Hua can not attack the grasslands, but attack Han Sui; by the coming spring, his vitality will be lost, so how can he attack us?

Lu Bu has no schemes, and although Zhang Liao is steady, he cannot command a large army. These two generals leading tens of thousands of troops, I fear they are not capable enough. And I have no intention of moving south within three years; the training, defense, and preparation for war of the army can be handled by the military secretary, and my Grand General is free. Therefore, we can transfer a few generals, and also transfer cavalry from each army to Liangzhou as reinforcements, to lead the barbarian army separately.

Then there is Guo Jia sitting in town, breaking the enemy's schemes and carrying out my plans; in this way, we will surely have a firm grasp of victory and must take Liangzhou."

"Then follow Wenhe's words."

Wang Yan nodded with a smile, "Besides the grasslands and the Northeast, transfer five hundred light cavalry from each unit, and Zhao Yun, Taishi Ci, Gao Shun, Zhang He, and Gao Lan, five generals, will enter Liangzhou as reinforcements. Allocate military equipment and grain and grass, set off today, and must deliver them to Beidi before spring."

"Yes!"

Jia Xu stood up, saluted, turned and walked away quickly.

Without paying attention to other things, Wang Yan continued to look at the book in his hand.

If one isn't hurt once, one will never remember the lesson. People's growth comes from eating losses and being fooled; after all, from childhood to adulthood, parents, teachers, or other people have told countless big truths, but they didn't listen; only when they experienced it themselves would it be engraved in their hearts.

Some people eat losses, are fooled, and will absorb lessons and summarize experience; such people will have progress. Some people won't, remembering eating but not remembering being beaten; such people are probably mediocre. There are also people who both absorb lessons and summarize experience, and still don't retreat when encountering the same situation; such people are perhaps mediocre, perhaps successful.

Yuan Shao will progress; he rarely had domineering spirit and determination, and focused on fighting Wang Yan, but was beaten into collapse by Wang Yan, and fled south miserably, so naturally he would have lessons. And this lesson made him feel fear when facing Wang Yan, being afraid before fighting.

So even if he knew Wang Yan was attacking Han Sui, even if he knew that the capable generals and elite cavalry were transferred, and he was conquering Liangzhou from afar, he still didn't dare to provoke Wang Yan at this time, and didn't dare to take the opportunity to cross the river and come for a northern expedition again.

He didn't dare to gamble, and his subordinates were the same; they hadn't talked about Wang Yan for a long time, and were all subconsciously ignoring him. If they really went on a northern expedition, if they really suffered a defeat, then Yuan Shao would be completely finished. He had no basic board to buffer, could retain part of his vitality, and Cao Cao wouldn't let him go.

It was also because of this that Wang Yan could mobilize like this. Giving Yuan Shao eight guts, he wouldn't dare to come and find trouble actively. In fact, even if Yuan Shao really sent an army to attack, it wouldn't be a big deal; it was just that there were no generals who could fight, not that there were no generals. If it really didn't work, Grand General Wang personally leading the army to conquer was also possible.

In a blink of an eye, he hadn't personally fought for many years; sometimes thinking about it, he still wanted to move around.

Grand General Wang smiled and turned the page of the book; he could say he had read most of the books existing in the Eastern Han Dynasty; after all, he emptied the royal collection of the Great Han, and also had Cai Yong's collection, as well as the collections of so many families he killed, and the powerful clans who ran away with Yuan Shao before had many collections, some were burned, some were snatched, and basically he had read them all.

The books he was reading now were all written by those scholars of the present, and many books were quite high-level. In fact, he was reading all the published books. It was precisely through these books that he could grasp the current literary context.

The present was truly a flourishing age of literature, and it hadn't been too much affected by the war; thanks to Grand General Wang's various policies, the literary style of the entire Great Han was now flourishing, and the theories of the hundred schools were ushering in a revival. In the past, the Wenchang Report, which only had a few pages, was now like a book for every issue, because there was too much content and it couldn't be discarded, so it had to be made thicker.

For this reason, he had to open five new newspaper offices, which were Medical Special Issue, Agricultural Special Issue, Engineering Special Issue, General Report, and Livelihood Special Issue, diluting the content related to this on the Wenchang Report.

The General Report was naturally the newspaper of the General's Mansion, and the basic content was similar to the internal publication for officials, but it paid more attention to ideological construction, all of which were various advanced deeds, various commendations, and some big events.

The Livelihood Special Issue, as the name suggested, was dedicated to livelihood, and added some entertainment content; while spreading ideas and updating the actual situation under his governance, he specifically asked scholars to write stories to enrich the spiritual life of the common people, which was naturally also very important.

The work of eradicating illiteracy had been going on all the time; school children had teachers to teach, and those who were older had night schools. Even if Wang Yan didn't simplify the characters, nor did he engage in any Chinese pinyin, after so many years, the latest statistical literacy rate had reached thirty percent.

This base was already quite huge, and in another ten or eight years, just based on the current population, a batch of those who didn't know characters would die, and another batch would learn to read, basically reaching eighty percent. In another twenty years, this number would be infinitely close to one hundred percent.

The reason why it wasn't one hundred percent was to consider the disabled, which was unavoidable; congenital deficiency, acquired trauma, all were possible.

It was also because of this that Wang Yan added newspaper special issues; his newspaper was for the people under his governance to read, not specifically printed to be sold outside the territory to make money. Now that more people knew characters and could read newspapers independently, this was the key.

These things were complementary; in the future, the literary style would only become more flourishing, more prosperous, and the ideological trend would be wave after wave, washing the people on this land...