Winter goes to spring, and the time has come to the autumn of the fifteenth year of Jian'an. In the past year, Liu Cong has been fighting hard in Jingzhou. Jingzhou's combat power grew rapidly. At the same time, external forces have undergone earth-shaking changes.

First of all, in the summer, Chen Lan, Mei Cheng, Lei Shu and others who were entrenched in Lujiang were destroyed by Zhang Liao. Zhang Liao marched into Lujiang, led more than 20,000 people with Le Jin and Li Dian all the way to the west, exterminated the mountain bandits several times, and then was ordered to garrison Tunhefei.

For the sake of frontier tranquility, Cao Cao did not attach importance to Chen Lan and others, although Chen Lan was secretly funded by Liu Cong, Zhou Yu, etc., but in the end he was not Zhang Liao's opponent, which was also expected by Liu Cong, but a mountain bandit dragged Cao Cao's tens of thousands of horses for nearly a year, which can be regarded as gaining valuable time for Liu Cong's plan to support him.

The second is Buqi to pacify Lingnan, Sun Quan since the autumn of the thirteenth year of Jian'an, taking advantage of Liu Cong and Cao Cao in the Fancheng War to send Buqi to march into Jiaozhou, which lasted a year and a half, sweeping away the counties and counties that did not obey the order, the county order, the prestige was shocked, and the Jiaozhi Taishou Shixie and so on came to attach. At this point, Lingnan (south of Wuling) was subordinated to Sun Quan.

Although Liu Cong was very reluctant, the situation in Jiaozhou still developed in the direction of Sun Quan's favor, of course, Liu Cong benefited from the fact that when Buqi pacified Jiaozhou, tens of thousands of people migrated to Duliang and Guiyang counties. Jiaozhou is already vast and sparsely populated, and about a quarter of the population has returned to Liu Cong, which can be regarded as a consolation.

To Liu Cong's displeasure, in the spring of the fifteenth year of Jian'an, Cao Cao issued the "Seeking Talent Order", ordering his subordinates to recommend talents without restraint. This is the first time that Cao Cao put forward the "meritocracy" employment policy. Cao Cao, who had a group of strategists under his command and a fierce general, also felt the pressure of talents after the southern expedition to Jingzhou and Yangzhou.

In particular, Jing and Yang have the Yangtze River, which Cao Cao does not dare to covet for the time being. However, Cao Cao's role in the Central Plains and Hebei, and the Han Emperor sat in Xuchang, Cao Cao's move not only wanted to seek the world's talents, but also wanted to divide the Jingzhou and Jiangdong group of scholars several times, especially those who were unwilling.

However, Cao Cao's two failures also made him temporarily shift his strategic goals, and decided to first level Guanzhong and Liangzhou, and even occupy Yizhou before going down the river, and then divide the troops into several ways to capture Jing and Yang. The change of his strategic goal directly led to the panic of the princes of Guanzhong and Liu Zhang, the pastor of Yizhou.

And what made Liu Cong happiest was the death of Zhou Yu, who died of illness in Chaisang in the fifteenth year of Jian'an. Zhou Yu (175-210), known as Gongjin, was a native of Shuxian County, Lujiang (now Shucheng, Anhui). Born in a family of bureaucrats, he was the same age as Sun Ce, and became friends when he was young.

Sun Ce raised troops to pacify Jiangdong, and Zhou Yu led his troops to help, and followed Sun Ce to the east and west, and broke the strong enemy. After three years of Jian'an, he was the general of Jianwei Zhonglang, and later served as the protector of the army and the leader of Jiangxia. After pacifying Jiangdong, the town of Baqiu was returned. Sun Ce died, and Zhou Yu went to mourn in person, and took charge of all affairs with Zhang Zhao to assist Sun Quan.

In the fifteenth year of Jian'an, Zhou Yu prepared to join forces with Sun Quan, who had moved to Jianye, to attack Hefei. The soldiers did not send out, and died of illness. Zhou Yu is magnificent, very popular, and proficient in music.

Zhou Yu's importance to Sun Quan in Jiangdong is self-evident, and Zhou Yu's death is a loss for Sun Quan, and it also greatly reduces Liu Cong's pressure. And Lu Su, who succeeded Zhou Yu as the governor of the capital, has an old relationship with Liu Cong. He is the planner and practitioner of the Lianliu policy, and also the strategic planner of Dingzu Jiangdong.

While Liu Cong sent an envoy to Chaisang to mourn Zhou Yu, he also prepared a generous gift to Lu Su to consolidate the Sun-Liu alliance. Lu Su's bold personality can also alleviate the tension between Liu Pan and Jiangdong to the greatest extent, of course, the young talents in Jiangdong who are favored by Lu Su, Liu Cong's brother-in-law Lu Xun has gradually emerged.

Another important event was that Cao Cao began to build the Tongque Terrace in Yecheng (now southwest of Linzhang, Hebei) for his own enjoyment. The site is located in the northwest of Yecheng, because the city is the base, ten zhang high, there are one hundred and twenty houses on it, it is extremely luxurious. This deepened the contradiction between Cao Cao and Xun Yu and others.

It is also a prominent manifestation of Cao Cao's middle-aged and ambitious ambitions. Although Cao Cao may not want to admit it, the location of Tongquetai can see some clues, if he is ten years younger, Cao Cao will definitely choose Xuchang. After being sniped by two young men, Liu Cong and Sun Quan, Cao Cao also faintly felt the fear of the future.

may even think in his heart that the world will be divided like this and the capital will be moved to Yecheng. Of course, these may just be Cao Cao's thoughts for a certain period of time, but compared to the time when he risked being killed by Lu Bu and had to send troops to Xuzhou, Cao Cao was undoubtedly much more conservative.

And Cao Cao's further break with Xun Yu and others is what Liu Cong is willing to see, no matter whether he can get Xun Yu in the end or not, at least it is beneficial to him to be able to weaken Cao Cao's entry into the group!

In this year in Jingzhou, in addition to the counties, each battalion expanded the army according to the requirements. It is gratifying to note that Jingzhou has not led to a significant decline in the number of agricultural producers and minfu as a result, but has increased slightly due to the migration of people from other prefectures and counties. This is a remarkable achievement.

Since the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the population of China has been suffering from the double blow of war and disease, and it has been declining sharply every year, and by the 15th year of Jian'an, less than 23 out of 10 people have survived. Due to Jingzhou's long-term protection from war, coupled with Liu Cong's implementation of living allowances and increased training and support for medical officers, the population has bucked the trend.

And Liu Ba and Pu Yuan did not disappoint Liu Cong, in addition to producing a small amount of armor, the Tieguan Camp in Youxian County also created nearly a thousand divine knives according to Liu Cong's requirements, and the Jiangling Battalion has been equipped.

And Zhuge Liang's achievements are even more significant, Zhuge Liang made a new type of repeater, called the Yuan Rong crossbow, which can fire ten arrows at a time, with very strong firepower and a length of only eight inches. Moreover, this crossbow can be aimed at the target and wait until it is needed to fire, which is conducive to capturing the timing of the shot, and the hit rate is higher than that of the bow.

"Iron as the target" is scientifically reasonable. The use of iron for the arrows of the repeater solves three major problems: first, because the size of the whole arrow is only "eight inches", the non-iron arrow is light, and it does not have much lethality. Iron Arrow solves this problem.

Secondly, a magnet is attached to the bottom of the arrow box, and the iron arrow will be adsorbed on the arrow groove, which solves the problem that the tilt angle of the crossbow body is greater than 90 degrees when the repeater shoots upward, and the arrow in the arrow box leaves the arrow groove and falls in the opposite direction, and the arrow slips when the bow is shot downward. Thirdly, the problem of continuous arrow supply was solved, and the continuous supply of arrows and continuous firing were completed.

However, the disadvantage is that the size and weight are large, and individual soldiers cannot use it, and the "Yuanrong crossbow" weighs more than 200 kilograms, not to mention the difficulty of handling, and even the arrows are to be put on the bow with both feet to kick the strings apart, so as to install the arrows. Basically, it is mostly used as a weapon to defend a city or to ambush.

In addition, it is difficult to add feathers to all-iron arrows, and iron arrows without feathers will lose their balance and roll over when flying long distances, which cannot achieve the effect of long-range weapons.

This is also a problem that Zhuge Liang needs to solve urgently, the interaction of the profit and loss repeater mechanism requires high precision, and the parts are easily deformed by the influence of rainy weather when used in the field, so that the repeater launcher fails.

Despite this, Liu Cong still attaches great importance to it, this kind of crossbow is bound to be a big killer! Liu Cong praised the power of the Yuanrong crossbow again and again, and then immediately set up a special organization to be responsible for the production and storage of the Yuanrong crossbow. Cao Cao's biggest advantage is that he has a large number of cavalry, and if Liu Cong can organize a capable Yuan Rong crossbowmen, it will be Cao Cao's nightmare!

The power of the "Yuan Rong crossbow" can be said to be the most lethal of all weapons in the era of cold weapons, and no hoplite cavalry's armor can block an arrow. The appearance of the Yuan Rong crossbow can greatly inhibit the development of Cao Cao's heavy cavalry, and the large use of crossbows and the cost of training a heavy cavalry will give Cao Cao a headache

As for the tactics of crossbowmen .. In fact, it has also been used in large quantities in the Three Kingdoms... When Zhuge Liang retreated from the Sixth Northern Expedition, he had expected that Sima Yi would send troops to pursue. Therefore, the crossbowmen set up an ambush, and sure enough, Zhang He planned and died from the crossbow arrows...... In fact, why did Zhuge Liang successfully retreat almost every time every time the Northern Expedition failed. In fact, it is also because the Shu soldiers have the most powerful crossbowmen in the Three Kingdoms...

Just like that, Cao Wei's elite division was cavalry, while Sun Wu was a naval army... Shu Han is a crossbowman... The power of the crossbowmen happened to be the nemesis of the cavalry, so that Cao Wei had to be careful when he wanted to pursue the army of Shu Han in the future......

During the Battle of Jieqiao, Yuan Shao also used a large number of crossbowmen to defeat Gongsun Zhan's famous white horse cavalry. Since then, Gongsun Chan has been in a slump, and was finally destroyed by Yuan Shao......

Liu Cong knew that for a long time, he would still be at a disadvantage in terms of strength compared to Cao Cao, and perhaps the extensive use of the Yuan Rong crossbow could make up for this disadvantage to a large extent.