Overall, Guo Chongtao's point of view is still very reasonable. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Although Zhu Quanzhong suffered a crushing defeat when he went south, with the profound background of the Liang army, it would not take long to recover.

In fact, in history, if you count from the time when Li Cunqiao succeeded to the throne, in the fifteen years of the Jin and Liang Wars, the Liang army was defeated many times, and there were several major defeats like this one, which lost 70,000 or 80,000 people, and the rest of the losses of 30,000 or 40,000 people were even more, but the Liang army was still able to hold on, and there was no sign of the collapse of the army.

Later, Li Cunqiao was able to destroy Houliang in one fell swoop, or because a traitor leaked to Li Cunqiao the emptiness of the Houliang capital Bianzhou, and Li Cunqing, under Guo Chongtao's suggestion, led the elite cavalry to avoid the main force of the Liang army, launched a surprise attack, and captured Bianzhou in one fell swoop, which eliminated the great enemy of Houliang.

In other words, the strength of the Liang army at this time was still very strong, far from the time of collapse, if Huainan sent troops to capture Suzhou, Yingzhou and other places close to the Central Plains at this time, it was very likely to cause a strong collision with Zhu Quanzhong.

In the land of Huaibei, after losing the geographical advantage, it is obviously difficult for the Huainan army to defeat the Liang army again and again; More importantly, this will make the main force of the Huainan Army be pinned down in the north, which is not conducive to the strategy of unifying the south first.

"Build a high wall, accumulate grain, and slowly become king!" Yang Wu said slowly.

Guo Chongtao's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he hurriedly said: "Yes, that's what it means!" What His Highness said is so incisive! ”

In just nine words, it depicts the strategy that Huainan should implement now, which makes him deeply admired.

Yang Wu smiled, but didn't explain anything.

On the side, Zhang Xun and the others listened to it and chewed carefully in their hearts.

The six words "building a high wall and accumulating grain" are very easy to understand, that is, to accumulate strength to the greatest extent and consolidate the foundation. And now the foundation of Huainan is naturally to unify the south.

As for "slow king", it is not to come forward until you have enough strength, especially now, Zhu Quanzhong's strength is still very strong, and he can't go head-to-head with him, which will only weaken Huainan's strength and cheapen other feudal towns.

In fact, Yang Wu didn't plan to have a tough battle with the Liang army in Huaibei at the beginning, and his main purpose of this Northern Expedition was to brush up his prestige, and then take the opportunity to loot and snatch back everything Zhu Quanzhong had robbed from Shouzhou.

Of course, if the Liang army is not beaten, Suzhou and Yingzhou can be easily defeated, and Yang Wu will naturally not be polite.

Especially Suzhou, which is the flank of Xuzhou, must first take here if you want to attack Xuzhou, and if you want to go north to the Central Plains in the future, you must first take Xuzhou.

So if he can really take Suzhou, Yang Wu will not give up easily, even if he has another big battle with Zhu Quanzhong.

Of course, the more important point is that Yang Wu knew that it wouldn't be long before Zhu Quanzhong would meet a big . Trouble, this is the challenge of Li Cunqing, who is much more enterprising than Li Keyong, who is already dying, and has much stronger means and ability to lead troops to fight.

Even if Yang Wu occupied Suzhou, as long as he did not continue to raise troops to the north and attack other places, Zhu Quanzhong would not fight Huainan to the death for a Suzhou in order to deal with Li Cunmiao's huge challenge with all his might.

Therefore, Yang Wu estimated that if Huainan captured Suzhou, at most, it would be enough to withstand a counterattack by the Liang army and let Zhu Quanzhong know that it was not so easy to recapture Suzhou.

Guo Chongtao did not know about the changes that were about to happen, so he strongly advocated not to occupy the city of Huaibei.

"It is indeed inappropriate for our army to have a head-to-head confrontation with the Liang army at this time, but since it is the Northern Expedition, how can it be done without achieving some results? Therefore, feint to attack Yingzhou, and attack Suzhou! This is Lone's decision! Yang Wu finally said in a deep voice.

After listening to Yang Wu's statement, Wang Maozhang and others immediately understood what he meant, and naturally didn't say more.

Anyway, generals like Wang Maozhang and Zhou Ben, whether they attack the north first or unify the south first, there is no shortage of opportunities to make meritorious contributions, but Zhang Xun and Li Chengsi are a little unhappy, because if they unify the south first, these generals stationed in the north will lose the opportunity to make meritorious contributions.

Of course, after hearing that Suzhou would be attacked, Zhang Xun and the others had new hope, maybe Zhu Quanzhong continued to go south in order to compete for Suzhou? When the time comes, they will naturally have the opportunity to make meritorious contributions.

"In addition," Yang Wu continued, "When Zhu Quanzhong went south, he plundered in Shouzhou and caused great harm to the people; Therefore, after our army arrived in Huaibei, all departments were allowed to loot, but remember three points: first, one-third of the looted property of each department must be handed over to reward those casualties and soldiers, and to compensate for the losses of the people of Shouzhou! The rest is up to you! ”

Zhang Xun and others were overjoyed, the Huainan Army is now strict in military discipline, and it has long been out of the matter of looting the people, but they didn't expect that this time Yang Wu actually specially allowed them to loot, which was an unexpected joy.

In fact, Yang Wu is not a moral saint, and the reason why the Huainan Army was forbidden to loot the people before was only because the Huainan Army fought against either Tian Hao and other rebels, or Qian Biao.

The people of Runzhou, Xuanzhou and other places are all Huainan's own people, and Yang Wu of course forbade them to loot; As for the people of Liangzhejiang under Qian Biao, these people have long been regarded by Yang Wu as his own people, and naturally they will be forbidden to loot.

But this time in the Northern Expedition, those Huaibei people will not be able to become the people of Huainan in a short period of time, so naturally they don't care about anything.

What's more, an important purpose of this Northern Expedition is to plunder the population, and it is naturally difficult to avoid looting in this process, so it is better to directly relax the restrictions.

So Yang Wu continued: "The second point is that all the departments of the Northern Expedition should try their best to plunder the population, as long as they can cross the Huai River, each male will be rewarded with two hundred yuan, women and children will be rewarded with one hundred yuan, and the elderly over fifty years old ......."

Yang Wu hesitated slightly, and finally said: "Fifty dollars for each old man!" ”

In these troubled times, the old man is generally considered useless, and it is of little use to loot and come back.

However, Yang Wu is a later generation after all, and he has not been completely assimilated by this era.

He knew that if he directly declared that the old man was worthless, he could imagine how many old men would be killed directly by those soldiers in order to save trouble.

Because of this sentence, countless old people died because of this, Yang Wu couldn't do this kind of thing, anyway, he would pay a few hundred yuan more, and it was a big deal that he came out with this money himself.

"Your Highness is benevolent, and your subordinates admire it!" On the side, seeing that Yang Wu still gave this order after hesitating for a moment, Gao Miao couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and at the same time felt very relieved in his heart.

He himself is an old man over fifty years old, if Yang Wu gives up the old man in order to save so little money, he will definitely have a feeling of sadness in his heart.

Yang Wu then said: "As for the third point, looting is okay, but it can't affect the battle of the army!" If the army is defeated because of looting, Lone will definitely be punished severely! Have you written it all down? ”

"The last general and the others have all been remembered!" Wang Maozhang and the others hurriedly replied.

Next, Yang Wu assigned military orders and began to cross the northern expedition, with a total of 150,000 troops, falsely claiming to be 300,000, and marching on the east and west.

Among them, Shi Yan was the vanguard of the Western Route Army, with Li Chengsi as the main general, and Qin Pei led 40,000 elite soldiers and 20,000 state soldiers, a total of 60,000 people, to attack Yingzhou; On the east road, Hou Zan was the vanguard, and Yang Wu personally led Zhou Ben, Wang Maozhang, Zhang Xun and other nearly 90,000 troops to attack Suzhou.

For a time, the Central Plains shook, and the world shook!

"300,000 people on the Northern Expedition? How can it be? Up to 150,000! ”

In the city of Bianzhou, Jing Xiang sneered, and broke the reality of the Huainan Army in one word.

After Zhu Quanzhong returned to Bianzhou, he immediately found Jing Xiang, although he did not explicitly apologize to him, but Zhu Quanzhong still vaguely admitted that it was a huge mistake that he did not listen to Jing Xiang's opinion before, which made Jing Xiang deeply moved, and naturally tried his best to plan for him.

Zhu Quanzhong smiled a little bitterly: "The total strength of the Huainan Army is not 300,000, so Yang Wu must have exaggerated his strength to increase his momentum, there is no doubt about this." But even if there are only 150,000, it is a 150,000-strong army with high morale, and the momentum is huge, and it is difficult for our army to resist for a while! ”

"The king doesn't need to worry too much! Yingzhou has more than 20,000 troops to defend, and Gao Jichang is also a capable person; As for Suzhou, it has always been the first place for the Huainan Army to attack, so the defense is very perfect, plus the defense of 30,000 defenders, Kou Yanqing is also a competent candidate, I believe that the Huainan Army will not be able to break through these two states in a short time! ”

"Therefore, what the king has to do now is first of all to deter the other feudal towns, and not let the other feudal towns feel that the king's strength is empty, so that they will attack in groups. As long as the rear is stabilized, the king will mobilize the army south to relieve the siege of the two states. In this way, the Huainan Army will plunder at most, and it will not affect the overall situation! ”

Jing Xiang is worthy of being a wise man, and he broke the key to breaking the game with one sentence.

Zhu Quanzhong nodded again and again: "What Mr. Jing said is very true, so in Mr. Jing's opinion, which feudal town will be the first to jump out now?" ”

"The first people to jump out must be Li Maozhen and Yang Chongben!" Jing Xiang said flatly.

"Dare to ask Mr. Jing, why can't it be Li Keyong or Liu Rengong?" Li Zhen asked a little strangely.

During this time, he also understood that he was not good at military strategy at all, and several important wrong suggestions for this defeat were basically made by him, so he was very honest during this time, and he was much more respectful to Jing Xiang than before.

Jing Xiang said: "Li Keyong just suffered a big loss from Liu Rengong not long ago, so he won't raise troops for the time being; Liu Rengong is even more ambitious and talented, and when he sees things late, he will not make a decision soon even if he wants to raise troops to the south. ”

"Only Yang Chongben and Li Maozhen were the only two people, they raised troops to the east last year, and then they were shocked by the prestige of the king to level Zhao Kuangning within a month, so they retreated. So this opportunity, he will definitely not let it go! Jing Xiang said with great certainty.