In the twelfth year of Jian'an, that is, in 207 AD, because the battle of Guandu between Yuan and Cao did not break out, there was naturally no matter of Cao Cao's unification of the north after that. History has long been unrecognizable, and the orthodoxy of the Han dynasty headed by Liu Xie is gradually returning to the state before sending troops to recover Yanyu and Henan after five years of recuperation, and with the gradual recovery of the imperial court, Cao Cao, Sun Ce, Liu Bei, and Yuan Xi, who were on one side, also felt more and more that the situation was tilting towards their unfavorable side.

An alliance is imminent! With the strength of only one family, it is really difficult to resist the full force of the Han army, and only by forming an alliance can there be survival. The four companies, which are well aware of this, began to contact each other as early as last year to seek an alliance, but because of the "uneven distribution of spoils," the four countries have not been able to reach an agreement.

First of all, there is the issue of command, and no one wants to hand over their own men and horses to others for unified command. But if the four families are fighting separately, it is just a chance for the Han army to break through one by one.

The second is that the four families are far apart, especially Yuan Xi and Liu Bei, one is in the north and the other is in the south, and it is not easy to talk about it if they want to join forces.

However, under the invisible threat of the Han army, the four princes finally decided to join forces and fight one. Each family sent 30,000 troops, concentrated in Xuzhou Cao Cao, and was led by the generals elected by the four families. The people and horses are good, and the four princes know that Liu Xie's Han will not let them go their own way, and it is a matter of time before they recover their homeland, so in recent years, each family has been constantly recruiting troops to expand their strength, especially Cao Cao, after losing the two states of Yanyu, in order to ensure that they are not annexed by Yuan Xi and Sun Ce, the Cao army has maintained a number of about 70,000, once it is wartime, it can also double the army in the shortest possible time, and 30,000 people can not make Cao Cao hurt his muscles and bones.

But the people are good, but the generals who lead the army are not easy to choose, and everyone hopes that their own generals will lead this joint army, but in this way, the election will become a princess selling melons, and they only know how to elect generals who belong to their own families.

Sun Ce recommended Zhou Yu, Cao Cao recommended Cao Ren, Yuan Xi recommended Zhang Jaw, and Liu Bei introduced Zhuge Liang. The four families did not give in to each other, quarreled every day over this matter, and all believed that only their own family was qualified to lead the union. Until the end, Cao Cao chose to back down, gave up the competition and supported Zhou Yu recommended by Sun Ce, and after Yuan Xi and Liu Bei couldn't talk about who would quit, the commander of the 120,000 combined army was determined, Jiangdong Zhou Yu.

Zhou Yu is both civil and military, Zhuge Liang is resourceful, Cao Ren and Zhang Jaw are also the choice of generals, if these four people get together, it will really be enough to give Liu Xie a headache. Fortunately, the four princes had to choose to form an alliance only because of the situation, but they all had their own small calculations in private. After determining who the commander of the United Army was, except for Zhou Yu, who wanted to stay inside and outside the United Army, the other three were appointed by the heads of each family.

……

Liu Xie knew about the alliance between Cao, Sun, Yuan, and Liu, and as early as when the four families began to send people to contact each other, there were "people with hearts to the Han family" who secretly reported to Liu Xie. Liu Xie knew that the four families intended to form an alliance against him, and he also thought about sending someone to stop it or strike first. It's just that the Han Dynasty is still in the recovery period at this time, and once it is decided to send troops, it will inevitably disrupt the original plan designated by the imperial court.

Liu Xie is not willing to affect his own plans in order to disrupt the alliance of the four families, because as long as the imperial court remains strong, even if the four families do not form an alliance, they will not let the imperial court break the four of them one by one. If you can't strike first, you can only secretly send people to make trouble, beat the side drum and delay time.

As for the formation of a joint army by the four families, Liu Xie is not too worried. Zhou Yu is a cow, Liu Xie admits this. But the same rice raises a hundred kinds of people, and it is difficult to reconcile the mouths, don't look at Zhou Yu is the commander of the United Army, but he wants to integrate his men and horses from the Quartet into a force and twist them into a rope, and some Zhou Yu is busy.

As for the 120,000 people of the combined army, it can already be equivalent to the number of the six main forces of the Han army, but Liu Xie implemented the strategy of hiding troops from the people in the early years, as long as the imperial court gave an order, the elite of the soldiers in each county could be transformed into the regular army of the imperial court.

After learning that the four alliances formed a joint army, Liu Xie secretly ordered each army to prepare for the expansion of the army, and the upper limit of the initial number was 50,000, just to deal with the preemptive strike of the four combined forces.

And with the assembly of the four combined armies in Xuzhou, the dark clouds of war began to envelop the Central Plains again. The seven main armies of the Han Dynasty let go of their hands and feet, accepted the county soldiers who came from various counties, and seized the time to train. Pound was ordered to establish a new army three years ago, with the cavalry battalion as the backbone, and expanded the camp into an army, this will be the first battle of this new army, and Pound, as the main general, is looking forward to it.

The seven main forces of the Han Dynasty, Han'an, Jiefu, Youyi, Tabai, Fubo, Qihuo, and Xiaocai, plus the Son of Heaven's pro-army under the direct jurisdiction of the Son of Heaven, the standing strength of the Han army reached 200,000. This expansion of the army is not a full expansion of the army, and the begging work in the Western Regions and the relief of guarding Yanmen have not been moved. But even with only five troops, there were 250,000 troops.

The four princes will also make up 600,000 people, of which Yuan Xi of Hebei accounts for half, followed by Cao Cao's 140,000, and the remaining 160,000 are the sum of Sun Ce and Liu Bei. Because each family has a different background, the elite level of the people who joined the combined army is also different.

Sun Ce took care of his good brother, and the 30,000 people he took out could be said to be the elite of the Jiangdong Army, and the generals sent Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, and Han Dang, three old ministers, as well as Ling Tong and Xu Sheng, two rising stars in the Jiangdong Army.

Cao Cao and Yuan Xi are also quite kind, although the 30,000 people they sent cannot be regarded as the elite of their own army, they are also at the middle and upper level, and they have the power to fight a war.

The most speechless thing is the 30,000 people Liu Bei took out, the general's name is not known, and the 30,000 horses are mostly old and weak soldiers, and it is okay to do logistics in the army, and going into battle will only lag behind. And Liu Bei also had a strong remark about this, saying that he was weak and weak, Jingnan was sparsely populated, and he needed manpower to guard against the court's retaliation after making it difficult for the imperial court.

Yuan Xi had not dealt with Liu Bei for a long time, and he didn't know much about Liu Bei's personality, and he didn't want to make a joke about disagreement as soon as he formed an alliance, so he didn't comment on this matter. And Cao Cao and Sun Ce know Liu Bei's personality too well, and they know that this Liu Da'er has always been like this, although they have the same concerns as Yuan Xi, but the two of them don't plan to suffer this dumb loss, and the future will be long, and sooner or later there will be a time when Liu Da'er will regret it.

The goal of the alliance of the four families is, of course, to bring down the imperial court and divide the world equally. But the four families also knew that it was unrealistic to want to defeat the imperial court in one fell swoop. For this reason, the four families set a goal for this alliance, first to take Yanyu, and then to capture Jing, and compress the area controlled by the imperial court to the north of Hugao Pass.

Because Yanyu is closest to Xuzhou, it is the primary target of the United Army. The four agreed that after taking Yanyu, the south from Shouchun to Jiangxia would be owned by Jiangdong, while Yuan Xi could get the area from Puyang to the north. Cao Cao reclaimed the remaining land of Yanyu. As for Jingbei and Bingzhou, that is a matter that will be considered after the Han army is driven to the north of Hujiao Pass, according to the agreement, Jingbei will be owned by Liu Bei, and Bingzhou will belong to Yuan Xi, but when to send troops, it will depend on everyone's mood.

It's not that you don't report it, the time has not come. Liu Bei thought that he had taken a big advantage in the alliance of the four families this time, but he didn't know that there was a big trouble waiting for him later. Zhuge Liang's advice did not make him change his mind, due to the failure of the previous attack on Bashu, not to mention the loss of Guan Yu, Liu Bei also had doubts about Zhuge Liang's ability, although he did not distrust Zhuge Liang's ability, but it was not as blind as at the beginning.

And Zhuge Liang also has nowhere to say, Liu Bei's massacre of the city in Chengdu led to the loss of not many talents, first the Ma Liang and Ma Tan brothers left, and then Cui Jun, who went home to visit relatives, never returned, no longer contact, counting Meng Jian, who was captured in Nanban, and Liao Li, who was captured in Jiangxia, Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wan were left among the civil officials under Liu Bei.

Liu Bei's real career in the romance was after taking Bashu, when Liu Zhang was weak, and Bashu was mostly a talent to avoid military disasters, after Liu Bei went to Bashu, those unwilling to be lonely Wenchen generals came to vote, which gave Liu Bei the confidence to argue with Cao Cao and Sun Quan.

But now Liu Bei did not get Bashu, and most of the talents in Bashu were taken away by Liu Xie, who was familiar with history. Zhang Song, Fa Zheng, and Meng Da, the three great heroes who helped Liu Bei achieve Bashu, are now all working for Liu Xie. Fa Zheng was the mastermind of the Fubo army, Zhang Song worked in the eyes and ears of the imperial court, and Meng Da was arranged to serve as the guard of a county in Bashu.

Without the support of Bashu, it is really difficult for Liu Bei to develop only in Jingnan, although Jiaozhou is profitable, but it is far away from the Central Plains after all, and it is not easy to select a few useful people from it. At this time, the people around Liu Bei were mainly from Jingzhou who chose to take refuge in Liu Bei.

Don't look at Liu Bei's subordinates, but although the sparrow is small and has all the organs, it is just such a few people, and it is divided into several factions, there are the patriarchal faction that has been following Liu Bei, headed by Zhang Fei and Jian Yong, and the Jingzhou faction of the Jingzhou people who Liu Bei collected after he arrived in Jingzhou, headed by Zhuge Liang, and the local forces in Bashu that Liu Bei invested in after entering Bashu, headed by Wang Shang and Yang Hong. The people in this department are usually the lowest-key, and almost never take the initiative to express their opinions, who made them look away at the beginning, thinking that Liu Bei was a person who could be invested, but now they regret that they have nowhere to buy medicine. In addition to the above three factions, Liu Bei also has a Jiaozhou faction, after the destruction of the original owner of Jiaozhou, the Jiaozhou faction headed by Wu Ju took root in Liu Bei's power group. However, the strength of the Jiaozhou system is weak and cannot compete with the other three factions, so it is still in the stage of being a little daughter-in-law.

Whenever he saw Cao Cao and Sun Ce's subordinates, Liu Bei secretly swallowed with envy, and when he thought of the current wealth of the imperial court, Liu Bei was even more envious and jealous.

Liu Bei had also thought of learning the methods of the imperial court to recruit talents from the people, but as soon as this decision was put forward, it was jointly opposed by the Jingzhou department and the Yizhou department.

When the book is used, there is less hatred, and when it comes to employing people, it is also less hated. Liu Bei didn't want to send a general to lead 30,000 male soldiers to join the combined army, but the problem was that there were only a handful of generals under his command, and there was a river between the imperial court and Jingnan.

Others don't know the bitterness in Liu Bei's heart, they only see Liu Bei's shameless behavior, and even if they are clear, they won't think that Liu Bei is justified in doing so. But as the mastermind of Liu Bei's side, Zhuge Liang saw it in his eyes and hurt in his heart. The lord is worried about the humiliation of the ministers, the lord humiliates the ministers to death, Liu Bei will be mixed to the point where he is today, which is inseparable from Zhuge Liang's original plan.

If it weren't for Zhuge Liang's desire to show his ability to the world, Liu Bei would not have taken the initiative to attack Bashu in the imperial court as if he had been blinded by lard. If Jingzhou is only occupied, the situation will definitely be much better than it is now. As long as Liu Bei does not claim to be the king to the outside world, but bows to the imperial court, according to the situation at that time, the imperial court will still take Cao Cao as the main target, and will adopt a strategy of appeasement for Liu Bei in Jingzhou.

But because of the lack of greed, he thought that the imperial court had no time to take care of Bashu if he wanted to deal with Cao Cao, and as a result, he was hit hard by the imperial court. Most of the rich land in Jingzhou is in Jingbei, and Jingnan is still in the semi-development stage, and it has lost Jingbei without Bashu, which has a great impact on Liu Bei's subsequent development. Even if Jiaozhou was taken lightly later, there were few people in Jiaozhou, and it was far away from the Central Plains, so it did not have much effective help for Liu Bei's great cause, at most it prepared a safe place for Liu Bei. And this safe place is not safe, once the imperial court sends troops to seize Jingnan, how long can Jiaozhou last?

"Strategist, don't be discouraged, I think that the situation I encountered at the beginning was even more sinister than it is now, but the result is not to survive. Compared to then, the situation is good today. Liu Bei saw that Zhuge Liang was depressed, and opened his mouth to comfort.

Zhuge Liang smiled reluctantly when he heard this, and said: "Lord, this time the four families have formed an alliance, saying that everyone is united, but in fact, everyone has their own calculations. It was nothing for the lord to send 30,000 weak soldiers, but from then on, the lord should be mentally prepared not to rely on the other three. ”

"Huh...... Even if the military advisor doesn't say it, I know it in my heart. However, in your opinion, after Zhou Yu leads the army to the imperial court, what should we do? Liu Bei smiled and asked about Zhuge Liang's business.

"Then it depends on how the lord thinks of this alliance, and the lord thinks that with the strength of the four families, it may be able to compete with the imperial court?" Zhuge Liang asked rhetorically.

"This ...... To be honest, I'm not optimistic. Liu Bei hesitated, but chose to tell the truth. In the thirteen states of the Han Dynasty, the imperial court occupied Yongliang and Yanyu Sijingyi, almost eight states, and although our side also occupied almost half of the Han Dynasty, the problem was that the population of the Han Dynasty was mostly on the imperial court. The situation of Yuan Xi in Hebei and Cao Cao in Xuzhou is relatively better, and it is not an exaggeration to describe the rest of the places as vast and sparsely populated. If there is no one, there will be no taxes, no soldiers, no food, and this time the combined army will send troops, it is best to be able to fight quickly, once the war drags on and enters attrition, then we will definitely not be able to consume the imperial court. ”

“…… Since the lord has this opinion, why didn't he tell others about it when he met the alliance? Zhuge Liang asked with some puzzlement.

"Huh...... Even if I did, who would listen? Military advisor, of these four alliances, only Cao Cao is my contemporary, and how can Sun Ce and Yuan Xi, two children, listen to me, an old-timer who has been defeated repeatedly? Liu Bei said with a wry smile.

The four alliances, each with different intentions, all have the idea of pushing others to be cannon fodder and picking up cheap ones by themselves. Liu Bei just did it more frankly, and did not make a trick in private, but directly put it on the table. Zhuge Liang is also not optimistic about the four alliances this time, and the matter has come to this point, and there is no objection to talking about this. 30,000 weak soldiers were sent, and if there were benefits to be shared in the future, there would be a reason for their own side. But the benefits are a matter for the future, and the current difficulties are the problems that need to be solved urgently.

According to the principle of picking persimmons to pick up soft pinch, once the war starts, the first thing the court will have to clean up, it is very likely that Liu Bei's Jingnan will be cleaned up. The Han army in Jiangling will cross the river and go south, and the Han army in Bashu will probably not be willing to be lonely, and deal with two Han armies at the same time, and it is very likely that there will be more than 40,000, which is a bit difficult for Liu Bei, and it is a test.

There is no need to expect the other three families to lend a hand, Cao Cao and Yuan Xi will excuse themselves on the grounds that the journey is too far to reach the whip, and Sun Ce of Jiangdong, he wishes that Liu Bei would be killed by the imperial court, and then he used the Jiangdong naval army to capture Jingxiang, how could he send troops to save Liu Bei.

The covenant cannot be used as a talisman to save one's life, and if you want to save yourself, you can only find another way. Once Jingnan is not protected, Liu Bei can only retreat to Jiaozhou, and it is difficult for the place to protect itself, let alone enterprising. Therefore, if Liu Bei doesn't want to quit in this game of princes' hegemony, he can only defend Jingnan.

Liu Bei knew it, and Zhuge Liang also knew that in order to defend Jingnan, the two monarchs and ministers could be said to have racked their brains and tried their best to block the first wave of the imperial court's offensive.

Compared with the hard work of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, Liu Xie, who was in Chang'an at this time, seemed much easier. If you are wealthy, you can be arrogant, and today's Liu Xie is not like walking on thin ice at the beginning, so he can only live cautiously. But after these years of development and growth, Liu Xie has the confidence to dominate the world, thanks to the assistance of Xun Yu and Jia Xu, as well as the lives of Zhao Yun, Dian Wei and others.

Liu Xie's small life is good, in the second year of Zhen Mi giving birth to a son, Zhao Yu and Bu Luan gave birth to a daughter for him one after another, and now Liu Xie has both children and daughters, and lives a happy life, the political affairs of the court have Xun Yu and others to work, and the military affairs have Zhao Yun, Pang De and other military commanders are responsible for training, there are not many things that Liu Xie needs to worry about, and Liu Xie will have time to accompany his wife and children, because Liu Xie knows that once the war starts, he will not have time to care about them, the relatives who are vital to him.

If Liu Xie wants to end the troubled times, he must have no distractions, and if he wants to solve Yuan, Cao, Sun, and Liu, it is not possible to do it within a year or two. At present, the combined forces of the four are gradually gaining combat power under the integration of Zhou Yu, and once the battle starts, there will be no private time left for Liu Xie.