。。。

After leaving the government affairs hall, Liu Yi went to the barracks, and it was time for the army to enter a state of readiness.

"Ziang, why did you come here", Zhao Yun walked over with a smile and said, the training in the military camp is getting better and better these days, and Zhao Yun is also becoming more and more satisfied with the white-robed army.

"Come and see, by the way, did you bring him Yide's equipment", Liu Yi said as he walked, and when the news came, Liu Bei estimated that a meeting would be held, and there was no need to tell Zhao Yun now.

"After waiting for such a long time, he will send someone to get it as soon as he comes", Zhao Yun shook his head and said with a smile, when Liu Yi went to find someone to make equipment for Zhang Fei and them before. Zhang Fei ran there all day long, how could he not take it away as soon as possible.

"Just take it away", Liu Yi doesn't care, now his mind is all on Cao Cao, with Cao Cao's character, he will never give up, it's really a headache, how to end this war quickly, and then go home to farm is the right thing, if the war with Cao Cao drags on for a year or two, Qingzhou will be directly dragged down, too many troops need to be fed, and it really can't be delayed.

According to the records of the Book of Han, the population of Wenjing in the heyday of the Han Dynasty was 59.59 million, and the remaining one-tenth of the Han Dynasty, that is, about 6 million people. Refer to the ratio of soldiers and civilians at the time of the demise of Shu and Wu. At the time of the fall of Shu Han, the population was 940,000, and the number of troops was more than 100,000, basically eight or nine people to support one soldier. At the time of the fall of Wu, it had a population of 2 million and a military strength of 230,000, which was also a 9:1 ratio. If the military strength of the late Han Dynasty is calculated according to the ratio of 8 to 1 between the people and the soldiers, then the total number of troops in the country in the troubled times of the late Han Dynasty is about 800,000. This conclusion is basically credible.

In the heyday of the Three Kingdoms, the total number of troops in the country is only about 1 million, you must know that this is still after half a century of recovery, mainly because the strength of the heroes in the late Han Dynasty is relatively scattered, and it is indeed difficult to count, among the heroes, it is clearly recorded that: Liu Biao is known as "100,000 with armor", Ma Teng and Han Sui have more than 100,000 soldiers, Gongsun Zan has tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, including 10,000 elite cavalry, about Sun Ce's troops, Liu Yi remembers that there were more than 100,000 when he swept the Yangtze River, Liu Zhang's Bashu army and Zhang Lu's Hanzhong army are not recorded in the official history, but according to the strength of the Shu Han Dynasty at the time of its demise, the total strength of the Bashu and Hanzhong forces, that is, the order of magnitude 100,000, will not be too much.

However, Cao Cao's troop strength record is quite "contradictory", he collected 300,000 Qingzhou Yellow Turban Army in Yanzhou in his early years, but he could only gather 10,000 people to meet the enemy in the fateful Battle of Guandu. So how many troops did Cao Cao have in the fifth year of Jian'an, that is, before the outbreak of the Battle of Guandu in this year? An in-depth analysis will reveal that Cao Cao did not have many soldiers. The history books say that Cao Cao's collection of Qingzhou Yellow Turbans is "more than 300,000 surrendered deaths, more than 100,000 men and women", this is actually a lot of water, this "more than 100,000 Qingzhou Yellow Turbans" is counting the families of the army, and the "more than 100,000 men and women" are actually ordinary people. Such an "army" is not so much a military force as a great migration of people between Qingzhou and Yanzhou. And the so-called "more than 300,000 surrendered soldiers" is actually just the co-optation of men in the "more than 100,000 mouths". We see that in addition to women and children, there are only 30 percent of the men left in a family, and there is this so-called "more than 300,000 surrendered deaths", but in fact, these 300,000 men also include all adult men, among whom there are many old, weak, sick and disabled, young and middle-aged. So the sentence "those who accept their elites are called Qingzhou soldiers", so it seems that the so-called "those who accept their elites" may not be very brave and good at fighting, but just integrate young and middle-aged people into the army.

We know that the poor performance of the Qingzhou soldiers in the future does not have the quality of "elite troops" at all, but it is only that they have a special status within the Cao army, so they have been taken care of by Cao Cao. The "Qingzhou soldiers" are only a symbol of Cao Cao's rise, and the core force of Cao Cao's rule is still the army led by the group of people he started. Cao Cao's troops were not much, he raised only 5,000 troops in Jiwu, and then Xingyang was defeated, and he went to Danyang to recruit troops, but he encountered a mutiny, and there were not many people to replenish, and his troops in Yanzhou were at best 20,000 or 30,000 people.

Liu Yi judged that without the supplement of the Qingzhou Yellow Turban, Cao Cao's army should not go much, and it would be forty or fifty thousand people to hollow out Yanzhou, after all, Cao Cao's development in Yanzhou in this life was very smooth, and there were no other interference factors.

As for the remaining Yuan Shao, who has the greatest strength. According to the previous calculations, the total strength of the country's 800,000 troops, including Liu Biao, Sun Ce, Cao Cao, Ma Teng, Liu Bei, Liu Zhang, and Zhang Lu, is about 560,000, so there are more than 200,000 troops left, and these more than 200,000 troops are in the hands of Yuan Shao, who occupied Jizhou, the richest and most populous city in China at that time. Jizhou was the center of gravity of the Yellow River Basin in China from the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, after encountering the great turmoil at the end of the Han Dynasty, the body that has been destroyed is incomplete. Dong Zhuo burned Luoyang, Li Dao slaughtered Guanzhong, Cao Cao slaughtered Xuzhou, and Yuan Shu conquered Huainan violently, coupled with the melee of the princes, there was famine for many years. For more than a decade, the southern part of the Yellow River has become a hell on earth.

However, Yuan Shao, who occupied Jizhou, had an absolute advantage in troops and resources over Cao Cao before the Battle of Guandu. Yuan Shao gathered 100,000 "elite soldiers" in the Battle of Guandu, but the whole army was annihilated and the elite forces of Hebei were destroyed. But even so, Yuan Shao's army of more than 200,000 still has more than 100,000, and his strength is still not under Cao Cao, so after Cao Cao annihilated Yuan Shao's 100,000 elites in Guandu, it is still difficult to swallow Hebei in one go. After that, it took him another seven years to completely sweep away the Yuan clan and unify the north. So Yuan Shao in Yizhou is definitely a big boss, well, it is estimated that Yuan Shao may not be beaten by hard work now.

"Zilong, how much can Yide's army go to the battlefield, I remember if I didn't give them the equipment", Liu Yi asked with a headache, it is still not enough, there is no kind of accumulation of thousands of years and hundreds of generations of the family, so I can only scrape together some equipment and build some army.

"I didn't ask specifically, but at that time, I heard Yide say that half of this equipment is not enough, and it should be at most thirty or forty thousand people who can go to war", Zhao Yun also shook his head, this kind of armament matter, it is not convenient to ask more, after all, the equipment brought by Zhao Yun's white-robed army is too good, which makes people jealous.

"Thirty or forty thousand, white robe plus thirty thousand, the second master's thirty thousand, one hundred thousand army should be enough", Liu Yi said to himself, 100,000 troops to conquer Cao Cao is also the limit of Qingzhou.

"What did Ziang say, what should be enough", Zhao Yun asked suspiciously.

"I'll know later, let's go, go to the government affairs hall, the messenger is coming", Liu Yi said with a smile, seeing a soldier running over there, he knew that Liu Bei was going to ask them to discuss.

Zhao Yun followed suspiciously, while Liu Yi fell into deep thought, the chaotic times at the end of the Han Dynasty, the war continued for many years, the people were displaced, starvation was everywhere, in the face of the super high ratio of soldiers and civilians, it can be imagined that the hardships of the people and the misery of the military households at that time, and the continuous wars have caused the population to shrink sharply, which is a headache.

Liu Yi often imagined what would happen if Han Xin's theories were placed in the Three Kingdoms period. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the heroes were competing for the deer, there were many local forces, so at most they had tens of thousands of soldiers. Later, Yuan Shao unified Hebei, but only accumulated more than 100,000 troops; Cao Cao unified the Central Plains, and his military strength was not even 100,000. At that time, among the separatist forces in the south, Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Liu Zhang of Yizhou would not have more than 100,000 troops at most, and the Sun family in Jiangdong fought for years and years, and the number of troops was only 60,000 or 70,000. If according to Han Xin's theory, then all the military geniuses of the Three Kingdoms period should have failed to fully prove their generals, because they didn't have many opportunities to bring 100,000 soldiers, and they couldn't prove that they were stronger than Liu Bang, so how could they be as strong as Han Xin? As for Cao Cao being recognized as the first military strategist in the Three Kingdoms period, the evaluation of Cao Cao's military talents and achievements in later generations is at least comparable to Han Xin's, and I have not yet heard of any theory that Cao Cao is not as good as Han Xin. However, Cao Cao may not have commanded more than 200,000 troops in his lifetime, so how can it be said that the number of troops he leads can determine his military talent. And I think one of the relatively important items in Cao Cao's military thought is that the number of soldiers is not in the many, but in the fine.

It is true that Cao Cao was never a military strategist who won with the majority of troops. At the pinnacle of Cao Cao's military career, the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao had an overwhelming advantage over Cao Cao's force ratio. That is, Cao Cao was using less than 10,000 troops to fight against Yuan Shao's 100,000 army at that time! Cao Cao later personally went to Wuchao to burn grain, dispatched 5,000 troops, and left less than 5,000 to stay in the Guandu camp. However, these two weak forces won a complete victory on both sides, especially in Wuchao, Cao Cao defeated Chun Yuqiong's army of more than 10,000 people, and burned up the grain and grass of Wuchao. I have to say that Cao Cao's army is one to ten, and it is extremely elite.

The person who made Liu Yi's heart ache the most, after the battle of Guandu, Cao Cao did not accept Yuan Shao's 80,000 soldiers, but killed them all. may not understand why Cao Cao wanted to kill the pawns, but in fact, Cao Cao has done it more than once or twice. In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", in order to reflect Cao Cao's treachery and cruelty, he once arranged the plot of his conquest of Tao Qian and the massacre of the people in Xuzhou. This is not entirely a fabrication by Luo Guanzhong, Cao Cao did commit a massacre in Xuzhou in history. It is recorded that Cao Cao conquered Xuzhou, "where hundreds of thousands of men and women were killed, there were no chickens and dogs, and Surabaya did not flow, and it was the county protection of the five counties, and there was no trace of repetition." Among the hundreds of thousands of people killed by Cao Cao, although there were civilians, tens of thousands of them were actually Tao Qian's pawns. At that time, when even his own army could not have enough to eat, where did Cao Cao have extra military rations to feed tens of thousands of soldiers, so he decisively ended their lives. As for the above-mentioned pit killing of Yuan Shao's pawn, Cao Cao's starting point is also this. There were less than 10,000 Cao troops fighting on the front line in Guandu, and if we wanted to ensure that these soldiers did not turn back, and at the same time solve the food problem of 80,000 people, I am afraid that the only way was to kill them all.

This is also the reason why Liu Yi especially wants to destroy Boss Cao, this massacre, a pit killing, directly reduced the population of the Three Kingdoms by hundreds of thousands. What's more important is that in a place like the Three Kingdoms, how can anyone place corpses, the death of so many people will inevitably cause some diseases, and I am afraid that there are far more people killed than killed.

However, compared with Cao Cao's "no soldiers", Liu Bei absolutely did not agree. Liu Bei has been running all his life, and the richest thing is fame and courage, and what he lacks the most is land and soldiers. When Liu Bei was competing in the Central Plains, he also had more than 10,000 men and horses in Xuzhou, but his troops were often annihilated by others. Yuan Shu, Lü Bu, and Cao Cao almost all annihilated Liu Bei's forces. Defection to Liu Biao in Jingzhou was the real beginning of Liu Bei's accumulation of land and soldiers. On the eve of the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei's 20,000 troops became an important force to contain Cao's army. After the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei borrowed Nanjun, and then collected the four counties of Wuling, Changsha, Lingling and Guiyang in the south of Jingzhou, accumulated money and grain, and accumulated 60,000 or 70,000 troops within three years. At this time, Cao Cao had hundreds of thousands of people sitting in the north, Jiangdong should have an army of about 100,000 people, Jingzhou four battles, difficult to hold, and later Liu Bei "led tens of thousands of foot cavalry into Shu", in order to help Liu Zhang resist Zhang Lu and Cao Cao, in fact, he began to attack Shuzhong. Regarding how many soldiers Liu Bei brought into Shu, there are different opinions in history, and there is no unified answer. However, the Shu Road was difficult and rugged, there were too many troops, and it was inconvenient to transport vehicles such as grain, grass, and baggage, and Liu Bei had few soldiers, so Liu Yi thought that Liu Bei only brought one or two hundred thousand people into Shu at that time. These 30,000 people are the 10,000 or 20,000 people that Liu Bei brought from Jingzhou, plus the total number of some Shu troops that Liu Zhang sent to Liu Bei. At that time, Liu Zhang should have about 100,000 troops, so after Liu Bei entered Shu and annexed Liu Zhang's troops, together with the defenders of Jingzhou, he probably had an army of 150,000 or 60,000. And this is almost the maximum number of troops in Liu Bei's group, and then Liu Bei went east to conquer Sun Quan, and at most sixty or seventy thousand people were dispatched; Zhuge Liang's northern expedition to Cao Wei was only 60,000 at the most, and only more than 10,000 at the least. Cao Wei had been amassing 200,000 troops on the Western Front to defend, so even if the Shu army could achieve a small tactical victory, it would be difficult to achieve a strategic victory. It is a pity that in order to highlight the importance of Liu Bei, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" described Shuzhong as a cornucopia and a cash cow, Liu Bei's eastern expedition to Sun Quanneng raised 700,000 troops, Zhuge Liang Nanzhong Pingban even raised 500,000 troops, and later the first Northern Expedition raised 300,000 troops. If there were really so many troops in Shuzhong, then Liu Zhang estimated that he would have destroyed Zhang Lu in the north and Liu Bei in the east, and ruled the world, where would it be Liu Bei's turn to fight, but that little force was also lost by Wu Guodu, Guan Yu's Jingzhou army was annihilated, and the Jingzhou army of 40,000 or 50,000 people collapsed under Lu Meng's "salary draw from the bottom of the kettle" strategy. Three years later, the Battle of Yiling broke out, and Liu Bei used 80,000 or 90,000 troops in order to recapture Jingzhou and avenge Guan Yu, which was all he could use. In the end, Liu Bei was defeated by Lu Xunhuo and suffered heavy losses, and the military scale of the Three Kingdoms period was actually very small, and it was impossible to support the ambition of a general like Han Xin. However, whether there are many soldiers or few soldiers, all sides kill the people and people of the world in the struggle, and in the end the tragedy of the entire Chinese population is less than 10 million, and we also see how cruel the war is.

Soon arrived at the government affairs hall, after Liu Yi and Zhao Yun entered, the developers were already together, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu had already come, and the others were staying in the government affairs hall before.

"Xuande Gong", Liu Yi sat back in his position without changing his face, there was no embarrassment of being caught, the realm on his face had been successfully cultivated, anyway, Liu Yi would not feel embarrassed, mainly many times, and he was used to it.

"Well, sit down. Zilong also sits", Liu Bei saw Liu Yi coming in outside, and he didn't feel any difference, and said with a smile.

After Liu Yi and Zhao Yun sat down, Liu Bei stood up and looked at everyone.

"Everyone present must be clear about the main purpose of this time, Cao Cao's father died in Xuzhou, just got the news, Cao Cao swore to attack Xuzhou, what to say that the hatred of killing his father is not the same as Dai Tian, what is the blood sacrifice to Xuzhou, for his father's funeral", Liu Bei said helplessly, Cao Cao's father is really dead, Liu Bei is a little caught off guard, the development here is good, and he is going to fight, it is really helpless, but the relationship between Xuzhou and Qingzhou has been very good before, and Tao Qian has also given Qingzhou a lot of convenience, which is also no way.

"Cao Cao is afraid that he is crazy, he actually wants to vent with the people, his reputation will stink directly, and no one will dare to defect to him in the future", Xi Zhicai calmly analyzed, he was not optimistic about Cao Cao's behavior, no matter what he did, he couldn't get up, obviously, Cao Cao was a little up, or rather, he wanted to go up.

Liu Yi smiled and said nothing, they didn't know about this kind of thing.