There is a reason why Mao Liyuan is called the first wise general of the Warring States, at this time, there are more than 60 vassal states in Dongying alone, and there are not hundreds, large and small princes, and there are even thousands, that is, he has changed from a local tycoon to the overlord of the hegemonic side.

His scheming is like a demon.

Just like this time, ordinary people would never dare to use the power of local wealthy clans to control Tao Qingxian, the powerful minister of the Ouchi clan, the overlord of the Western Kingdom.

Just kidding, the Ouchi clan is the land of the Seven Kingdoms, and there are more than 50,000 men and horses under his command in the heyday, even if there are traitors inside at this time, the head of the family is killed by the powerful minister Tao Qingxian, and many local wealthy families are not subject to Tao Qingxian's control, but it is still quite simple for Tao Qingxian to pull out 20,000 or 30,000 horses, and Maori Yuan, at this time, there are only two or three thousand people under his full army.

With two or three thousand people against twenty or thirty thousand people, whoever dares to go up will not dare to go up if his brain is in water!

Even if there is artillery, it won't work, because you can't just bombard people with artillery, in the end you still have to let your subordinates rush up and meet people, two or three thousand people rush into the middle of twenty or thirty thousand people, can you win?

For example, when Otomo Zonglin first bought the iron cannon, he didn't stupidly run to attack the Ryuzosi clan, because at that time he had a total of tens of thousands of horses, and the Ryuzosi clan had at least 20,000 or 30,000 horses.

Therefore, Otomo Sorin was not in a hurry to attack the Ryuzoji clan, he first cleaned up the internal rebellion, regained control of the Higo Kingdom, and expanded his men to about the same order of magnitude as the Ryuzoji clan, and then began to attack the Ryuzoji clan.

As for what is better with less, it is not that it is impossible, but it is generally unlikely.

Unless there is a huge difference in the quality of the two sides, on the one hand, there is a serious elite, and on the other hand, there is a farmer who has just dropped his hoe, then it is still possible to win, the problem is that Mao Liyuan and Tao Qingxian's men are as young and strong as the Daming Tunwei, and there is not much difference in personal strength, not to mention that one is ten, even if it is one-on-one heads-up, the victory or defeat is five or five, and there is no advantage at all.

In addition, there is also a possibility, that is, one side has outstanding strategy and is far superior to the enemy, and it is also possible to win more with less.

And Mao Liyuan belongs to this kind, his strategy, that is not ordinary outstanding, in order to become a hegemon, he has been planning for a year or two.

It can be said that from the very beginning of his tenure as the head of the Mori clan, he had already begun to plan.

For example, his marriage to Yoshitaka Ouchi's daughter was part of the strategy.

Why did he marry Yoshitaka Ouchi's daughter?

Ordinary people may think that he is the son-in-law of the overlord of the Western Kingdom, and that identity is a lot of bulls, so it can be said that with this identity alone, the local wealthy families of the Seven Kingdoms under the jurisdiction of the Ouchi clan are all one level lower than him.

However, it seems that his purpose is not for this identity, at least, not only for this identity.

After he married the daughter of Ouchi Yoshitaka, he began to actively participate in the Ouchi clan's external conquest, for this son-in-law, Ouchi Yoshitaka is naturally very important, so, his men and horses obviously exceed the general local wealthy families are fine, Ouchi Yoshitaka not only did not warn him, but praised him vigorously.

In this way, his power slowly expanded, and then he sent his two sons to the other two wealthy clans in Aki Province, the Yoshikawa clan and the Kobayakawa clan, and helped them slowly control the two families.

At this time, the head of the Yoshikawa clan, Yoshikawa Motoharu, and the head of the Kobayakawa clan, Kobayakawa Takakei, are actually his sons, biological sons, and besides, the other wealthy families have nothing to say, because Yoshikawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takashi are not only his sons, but also the grandsons of Yoshitaka Ouchi, and their identities are there, who dares to disagree?

In other words, at this time, not only this strength is actually under his hands, but the Yoshikawa clan and the Kobayakawa clan can also pull out two or three thousand people, and he has expanded his strength a little, and he can still organize ten thousand horses.

Of course, this strength alone is not enough to make him a hegemon, and he is still silently waiting for the opportunity.

In fact, even if Tao Qingxian does not seek to seize the power of the Ouchi clan, he will eventually take action to seize the power of the Ouchi clan, but Tao Qingxian will do it before him.

In order to clean up Tao Qingxian, he has been planning for a long time, for example, Gui Yuancheng is a chess piece he buried, and Itsukushima is the battlefield he has preset a long time ago, where he wants to annihilate Tao Qingxian's main force in one fell swoop!

In order to lure Tao Qingxian's main force to Itsukushima, he tried his best, Zhou Fangguo and An Yiguo were already bordering, logically speaking, it was much easier to attack by land than by water, but he built a lot of defense facilities on land early, which made people look away.

Moreover, he has never developed a naval army, and he does not even have a decent warship under his hands, and the entire waterway in the south of the country of An Yi is as if it is undefended.

Therefore, Tao Qingxian tended to attack An Yiguo from the waterway from the beginning, because the naval army under his command had hundreds of large and small warships, while Mao Liyuan had no naval army under his command at all.

The surrender of this Itsukushima defender Gui Yuanchengichi strengthened his idea of attacking from the water.

Of course, he also knew that Gui Yuancheng might be a fraud, so he directly drove Gui Yuancheng to the big island and let the family watch the play on the sidelines, so that even if Mao Li Yuan had a thousand calculations, it would be useless, because there were no Mao Li Yuan's subordinates on Itsukushima, and Mao Li Yuan had no water army under him, he was afraid of a fart.

Once Itsukushima is taken, the Mori clan is basically finished, because Itsukushima is less than thirty miles away from Hiroshima, the capital of Aki Province, and he can kill it in less than half an hour.

How did he know that this was a pit, a huge pit that the Maori clan had dug for him.

Originally, the Mori clan was going to expand their power first, and then form an alliance with the Murakami Navy who came to the island, and then implement the next plan, because he really didn't have any water army under him, and if he wanted to raid Itsukushima and annihilate Tao Qingxian's main force in one fell swoop, the only way to get the support of the Murakami Navy was to get the support of the Murakami Water Army.

The Murakami Navy was the most famous pirate in the Seto Inland Sea, and its strength even surpassed that of Tao Qingxian's navy, so an alliance with the Murakami Navy was the most important part of his original plan.

However, it doesn't matter whether or not to form an alliance with Murakami's water army at this time, because Hou Zhitan said that Gu Kexue, the secretary of the Ming Ministry of Industry, also has a water army under his hands, and his strength is quite strong, if he needs help, there is no problem at all.

He even secretly followed Hou Zhitan to the sea west of Kyushu Island to take a look at the strength of Gu Kexue's navy, that guy, there are piles of huge ships, and there are even more artillery, compared to others, the warships of the Murakami Navy are simply small sampans.

Therefore, after seeing the strength of the naval army under Gu Kexue, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty, he did not hesitate to let Gui Yuancheng run to deceive and surrender, and lure Tao Qingxian's main force to Itsukushima, and he supported him!