In the city of Shouzhou. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Guo Chongtao sat in the courtyard and thought quietly.

Yang Wu knew his intention to solicit, and he naturally had some emotions in his heart.

During this time, he followed Yang Wu's side, and he not only carefully observed Yang Wu, but also observed the entire Huainan.

Although Guo Chongtao is not reused in Hedong, he is a close confidant of Li Keyong after all, and there is still hope that he will be reused in the future.

But if he chooses to stay in Huainan, it will be to give up his previous efforts in Hedong for more than ten years and start a new life in a completely unfamiliar environment, so it is normal for him to be cautious, at least to judge whether Yang Wu is worthy of his service.

In terms of overall strength, Huainan is even stronger than Hedong today.

On the turf, Huainan now has 31 states, while Hedong has only 16 states.

In terms of population and economic power, many of the territories occupied by Huainan were populous states. Before the world was completely chaotic, there was a saying of "one promotion and two benefits", that is to say, the prosperity of Huainan was the most prosperous in the world at that time.

Even after more than ten years of recuperation, Yangzhou has recovered a lot, as evidenced by Huainan's ability to supply 250,000 troops (including state soldiers and naval armies).

Hedong was originally located in the bitter cold land of the north, and after a long period of war, the people were miserable; In particular, Li Keyong was not good at governing the place, coupled with the corruption of military discipline, and the soldiers were so bad at looting that the east of the river was ruined, far inferior to Jianghuai.

Therefore, in terms of overall strength, Huainan actually surpassed Hedong at this time.

However, in this era, it is more the army that determines the strength of a feudal town, and in this regard, the Huainan army is not necessarily stronger than Hedong.

Because of the local poverty, the people of Hedong basically have no other way out except to be soldiers, and these people on the border are already strong, and after forming an army, they are even more robbing, so in terms of combat effectiveness alone, the battle of the Hedong army should be above the Huainan army.

In particular, Hedong had a powerful cavalry that Huainan lacked!

Don't look at the Huainan Army's defeat of the Liang Army this time, but in this battle, Zhu Quanzhong was originally hastily raising troops, and he sent troops without adequate preparations, and even when he didn't know the enemy's situation.

After sending troops, Zhu Quanzhong made several big mistakes, one was to mark the depth of the river with a stone statue, and it was too unworthy for Zhu Quanzhong to suffer at this point.

The second is to divide the troops in Haozhou, which is completely a low-level mistake at this point, as long as the Huainan army cuts off the retreat of the Liang army with the water army, Kang Huaizhen may fall into the encirclement of the enemy, which is an obvious problem, but Zhu Quanzhong selectively ignored it, which led to the later defeat.

Of course. The Huainan army suddenly used a flowering bomb to break through Li Si'an's camp in one fell swoop, which was also an important reason for Zhu Quanzhong's fiasco.

But if you go to the north, the lack of strong cavalry will become Huainan's Achilles' heel.

Even if Huainan has advanced weapons such as flowering shells and Suzhou artillery, these are not enough to determine the outcome of the war in the face of cavalry with strong mobility and assault power.

From this point of view, it is easy for Huainan to dominate the south, but it is not so easy to unify the whole country, at least until the problem of the source of horses is solved, Guo Chongtao is not optimistic about Huainan.

Of course, even if he can't unify the world, as long as he can unify the south and establish a powerful dynasty like the Six Dynasties, it will be worth his allegiance to Guo Chongtao.

What's more, according to his observations these days, Yang Wu does have the image of a Ming Lord, he is not only good at leading troops to fight, but also good at government affairs, appointing talents, staying away from villains, being able to accept the opinions of his subordinates with an open mind, and forging ahead, broad-minded, it can be said that it is definitely his luck to meet such a master.

The most important point is that Yang Wu inherited his father's characteristics and was more generous to his subordinates, which is what Guo Chongtao values the most.

Not everyone has huge ambitions, and they want to be the envoy of the festival themselves, or even become the emperor themselves, and more people still only want to meet a master, and then serve him, and finally establish a meritorious career and leave a name in history.

Therefore, for these people, the lord they want to follow is a powerful and generous monarch like Yang Wu.

Now that he has met such a master, and he appreciates himself very much, what should he hesitate about?

Thinking of this, Guo Chongtao finally made up his mind.

The next day, when Yang Wu convened the generals again to discuss the Northern Expedition, as usual, Yang Wu still did not avoid Guo Chongtao and allowed him to join as a staff officer.

At this time, Zhang Xun, Wang Maozhang and other generals were enthusiastically discussing how many troops were needed to attack Yingzhou or Suzhou, how much time was needed, and how many people were needed to defend after the defeat, etc.; There were even people who proposed to divide troops to attack Caizhou, Shenzhou and other places, and the atmosphere was very lively.

At this time, Guo Chongtao, who had never spoken before, suddenly said: "Your Highness, generals, there are different opinions about this Northern Expedition!" ”

Yang Wu was stunned at first, and then overjoyed, Guo Chongtao had always listened before, but this time he took the initiative to speak, does it mean that he has decided to take refuge in Huainan?

A smile flashed on Yang Wu's face, and then asked, "I don't know if Mr. Guo has any different opinions, you might as well speak it out and listen to it!" ”

"Yes, the opinion of the lower is that this time Zhu Quanzhong went south and returned defeated, of course His Royal Highness should lead the army to the north, and try to make a huge momentum, so that everyone in the world knows the military power of Huainan, and it is best to fight a few more victories after arriving in Huaibei."

Yang Wu nodded, everyone can think of this, there is nothing special.

I only heard Guo Chongtao continue: "However, this Northern Expedition feels that His Highness should try to win as many battles as possible, but it is best not to capture even one city!" ”

"What?"

"Don't take a city? So is this still the Northern Expedition? ”

"Do you want the enemy to give up the city to our army?"

……

As soon as Guo Chongtao's voice fell, Zhang Xun and others objected.

How can there be a reason in the world for people to win battles but deliberately not occupy the enemy's city, this Guo Chongtao looks extremely capable, and has been highly valued by the prince Yang Wu, everyone originally thought that he had any high opinions, but they didn't want him to be such an opinion, if it weren't for Yang Wu's face, I was afraid that someone would have risen up to scold him.

After hearing this, Yang Wu ignored the others, but asked calmly, "Tell me your reason?" I don't think Mr. Guo can think so for no reason! ”

"Yes!" Guo Chongtao glanced at Yang Wu gratefully, since he had made up his mind to stay in Huainan, he naturally had to show his ability well, so that Yang Wu would pay more attention to him, and let other Huainan generals know that he was not incompetent.

And this military discussion was an opportunity for him, but his opinion was a bit shocking, so he was worried about whether it would disappoint Yang Wu.

Seeing Yang Wu's reaction at this time, Guo Chongtao couldn't help but feel relieved, knowing that Yang Wu was not disappointed in him.

"The reason for this is that the first point is that whether it is Yingzhou or Suzhou, it is a strong city, although the Huainan Army is known for being good at attacking fortified cities, but it is not so easy to capture these two strong cities, which will not only cause more casualties, but also consume a lot of grain and grass, and more importantly, it will take a long time and is prone to variables."

Zhang Xun and others must also admit that although Zhu Quanzhong was defeated, the main force of the Liang army was still there, and it still had considerable strength, and the hearts of the Liang army had not collapsed, and in the face of the attack of the Huainan army, there should not be a situation of despair.

If the city is stormed, even if it goes well, I am afraid that it will take at least one or two months before it can be breached, and it is difficult to say what the situation will be after a month or two, maybe Zhu Quanzhong will have eased up by then.

At that time, as long as the Liang army sent a relatively strong reinforcement to arrive, the Huainan army needed to defeat the reinforcements first to break the city, which increased the variables, and in the absence of absolute certainty of defeating the Liang army, withdrawal would become the only option.

Of course, this reason alone obviously can't convince the generals, after all, attacking a city is never an easy thing, and if everyone really decides to attack a city, they will naturally not be afraid of these difficulties.

The second reason is that, as far as I know, Huainan's current strategy is to quickly unify the south first, relieve Huainan's worries, and then concentrate forces to launch the Northern Expedition. If Suzhou or Yingzhou is attacked at this time, it means that Huainan will have to invest heavy troops to defend. What's more, now Zhu Quanzhong's main force is still there, and it won't even take a year to recover his strength; Suzhou and Yingzhou are different from Shouzhou, these two states are located in Huaibei, which is more conducive to the play of the Liang cavalry, and because they are too close to the Central Plains, Zhu Quanzhong will definitely not tolerate these two places falling into the hands of Huainan, so it is inevitable that the Liang army will continue to launch counterattacks. ”

In this way, not to mention whether the Huainan army can defeat the Liang army's attacks in Huaibei again and again, even if it can be done, it also means that the main force of the Huainan army will have to go north again and again to fight the Liang army, which is obviously not in line with the strategy of unifying the south first. At that time, Huainan will become a target to attract Zhu Quanzhong's firepower, and the result will be to let King Qi and other feudal towns reap the benefits of fishermen. ”

"If Huainan does not break through the city, it will only plunder the property and population on a large scale and strike at the living force of the enemy, which will not only increase its strength and prestige, but also greatly reduce the difficulty of this northern expedition. At the same time, if he retreated to the Huai River defense line, there were two major lessons from the defeat of Qingkou and this fiasco, and Zhu Quanzhong would definitely not dare to cross the Huai River again to fight His Highness. In this way, Huainan will be able to concentrate its forces to unify the south first! That's why it's here! ”