Therefore, the plan given by the General Staff on the issue of the tripartite alliance was to act as soon as possible against Liu Bei, the weakest of the tripartite forces, and put pressure on Cao Cao and Sun Quan in other directions, forcing them not to act rashly.

Now, due to the huge advantage of the Han army on the grassland, the Bingzhou and Duliao regions have become very safe inland areas, and the heavy responsibility of border defense has been transferred to the shoulders of the Beiting Protectorate and Youzhou.

The submission of Gongsun Du also relieved the worries of the Liaodong direction, and made the mobile forces that could be used unprecedentedly rich.

The emergence of the Central Navy also tilted the superiority of the naval army in favor of the Central Army.

In particular, the great victory of the Central Navy in the Battle of the Yangtze River Estuary gave Soochow an unprecedented sense of crisis over its own coastal areas, and the naval forces were greatly restrained by the Central Navy.

Now the shipbuilding speed of the Central Navy is greater than the manufacturing speed of the supporting artillery, and it is in a state of waiting for the rice to be cooked.

A large part of the reason for this is that most of the newly built artillery was transferred to Jiangzhou to speed up the construction of the Yangtze River Fleet.

In August, the Battle of Jingzhou began, and the 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 16th Divisions led by Xu Shu began to move east down the Yangtze River on the transport ships of the Yangtze River Fleet and headed for Jingzhou.

The 17th Division remained in Yizhou, and the 3rd, 5th, and 15th Divisions all completed the refitting of flintlock pistols.

The attack fleet of the Yangtze River Fleet was one step ahead of the convoy and went down the river first.

The Yangtze River, which leaves Yizhou, immediately enters the famous Three Gorges, where the water is turbulent, the reefs are densely packed, and the two banks are precipices, which are not conducive to defense.

Therefore, Liu Bei focused on defending the Yangtze River waterway in the Yiling area, where the Yangtze River has widened and the water flow has slowed down a lot.

Liu Bei relocated all the counterweight stone throwers that were originally placed in the public security waterways to prevent Dongwu to both sides of the Yangtze River in Yiling.

Six barrage iron cables were placed in this waterway, which greatly consumed a lot of manpower and material resources in Liu Bei's territory, especially the lack of iron, and even confiscated many common people's farm tools and iron pots.

However, these changes are all in the hands of the Central Army Intelligence Department, and even the location of the stone thrower, the length and weight of the barrage are all known, and they have long been provided to Xu Shu.

Therefore, the Yangtze River Fleet, except for the Three Gorges, did not rush to continue the offensive, but transported the army units of the Central Army to Badong by transport ships and landed directly here.

In this way, the fatigue of marching by land is saved, and the transportation of a large amount of grain and grass is also more convenient and economical than that of overland.

The division of labor in the Central Army was clear, Xu Shu was responsible for attacking the Jingzhou army on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and Jingzhou on the north bank of the Yangtze River was in charge of Zhang Liao and Zhuge Liang.

Because Xiangyang was still under Cao Cao's control, the central army could only bypass Xiangyang, set off from the direction of Fangling, and go south to Jingzhou.

Zhang Liao's troops could mobilize more, the second division, the seventh division, the special operations division, the second garrison division, the first Rong division, the first cavalry division, the third cavalry division, and the seven divisions were all old main divisions, and all of them had completed the replacement of flintlock pistols.

In addition, Lu Bu also had the Eighth Division and the Fourth Cavalry Division by his side, which took on the important task of garrisoning Nanyang and monitoring Cao Cao's movements.

This time, the army of the north and south dispatched a total of eleven divisions, just to end the battle in the shortest possible time with absolute superiority, not to give Liu Bei a chance to breathe, and also to break Cao Cao and Sun Quan's idea of aiding him.

Therefore, at the same time that Xu Shu's army left Sichuan, Zhang Liao's army also began to march south.

When Liu Bei entered Sichuan to aid Liu Zhang, he lost 30,000 elite infantry in the battle with the Central Army.

Yes, Liu Bei's life is too difficult, he only has half of Jingzhou, and the richest part is divided by the other three, and Liu Bei's finances are very tight.

Therefore, the loss of 30,000 people is a good move, but the loss of 30,000 sets of equipment and weapons is not easy to build.

Many of these current equipment were aided to him by Cao Cao and Sun Quan after the alliance.

Therefore, when Zhang Liao's army attacked, it faced such an enemy.

Several divisions of the Central Army rushed to take the lead one by one, and finally decided to take turns to go out of the formation, among which several of Zhang Liao's old troops, the Second Division, had the most courageous style, and the distance they advanced in a day was as far as the First Cavalry Division.

Cao Cao did not act rashly and sent troops directly, but intelligence from the Ministry of Intelligence showed that the Wei army's troops showed signs of moving towards Jingzhou.

Because the Wei army was bordered by the Central Army on all sides, all the troops on his border could not be mobilized, in fact, what he could mobilize was the mobile corps trained by Guo Jia, with the tiger and leopard cavalry as the core.

The number of this army has expanded to 100,000 people, and it is the number one trump card under Cao Cao, and it is the only one who can be mobilized to Jingzhou.

The Eastern Wu side is said to have sent a small naval army to reinforce Liu Bei.

Zhang Liao's army marched all the way, invincible and invincible, and the Jingzhou army was invincible.

The counties in the direction of the offensive were basically Kaesong and surrendered as soon as the central army arrived, and there were no recalcitrant resistors.

Of course, there is also a lot of credit for Kuai Yue and Li Yan, and the Kuai brothers and Li Yan are inextricably linked with many Jingzhou officials and wealthy families.

In particular, Kuai Yue joined the Ministry of Intelligence, and even became the head of the Jingzhou region of the Ministry of Intelligence.

He used his connections and the vast network of the intelligence department to carry out a large number of activities in Jingzhou, and many officials and middle- and lower-level officers were bribed and co-opted by him.

After Li Yan finished studying at the Central Military Academy, he went to serve in the Second Division, and now he is only a small battalion commander.

At the beginning, he was one of the main generals of the Jingzhou Army, commanding an army of 30,000.

However, this change is very quick for him to adapt, after all, there are many such people among the previous cadets of the Central Military Academy, such as Zhang Yan, Huang Zhong and others.

So Li Yan didn't think anything of it, he even took the initiative to apply to be the commander of the reconnaissance battalion, walking at the forefront of the whole division.

Along the way, using his connections, he also persuaded the guards of a county town and a thousand Jingzhou troops!

Liu Bei also wanted to resist step by step, but he had no soldiers, he now only had a total of 20,000 sailors and 80,000 infantry.

He had already concentrated as many troops as possible in the southern counties, and he had only gathered so much.

His greatest hope now is that Cao Cao can abide by the covenant and send troops to Nanyang to relieve the pressure on his side.

Soochow sent a navy to help him fight against the central army's navy, and he was content.

I heard that the naval division of the Central Army has been renamed the navy, and many new warships have been built in Jiaozhou Bay, and a new weapon called "artillery" has been installed on it, which is similar in principle to mortars, but much more powerful and larger.

(End of chapter)