The night was silent, and under the flickering oil lamp, Xu Shu carefully studied Pang Tong's plan. As a wise man, he Xu Shu is not easy to convince people, but after looking at Pang Tong's plan in detail, he has to admire Pang Tong. Although he knew that Pang Tong was stronger than himself for a long time, he hadn't seen Pang Tong for a few years, and he hadn't heard anything outstanding about him, but he thought that he could catch up with him through several years of study.

“…… I should be about the same as Shiyuan, right? Occasionally, such thoughts appeared in his heart, and although they were only fleeting, they made him unforgettable. It's pretty much the same! Gradually, he felt the same way. But this is only a matter of the past, after seeing Pang Tong's plan, he understands that there is still a gap between himself and the other party after all, not only in terms of ability, but also in some personality differences. He knew that his personality belonged to the kind of ordinary personality that was not particularly stable or radical, and this kind of personality made him unable to do it in one step like Kong Ming, nor like Shi Yuan to plan such a huge risky attack plan in one go.

“…… With the naval fleet, Sima Yi, who had already pacified the Wa Kingdom, raided Jianye to attract the attention of Jiangdong, and then used Jingzhou's troops to raid Wanluo and directly capture Cao Wei's center of gravity...... That's a lot of money. Xu Shu sighed. For such a plan, he thinks that he can't do it, and he can't implement it ruthlessly. Of course, it's not that he doesn't see the benefits of doing this, but that he sees the benefits and disadvantages of doing so with his own intelligence: "What if...... If there really is such a case, we know that danger is about to befall us. It's hard to say anything else, but I'm afraid that Jingzhou is likely to be captured by Soochow. ”

"What should I do......?" Xu Shu pondered this question. He knew the reason why Li Sheng handed over this plan to him: "Your Majesty doesn't see the benefits of doing this, but he, like me, is afraid that he also sees the disadvantages of doing so." This plan is too huge, and the demands on all sides are very high, and under such demands, it is a question whether our generals will do it coldly. Although the project was a great success on paper, what about it in practice? No one can say for sure. Success is a big gain, failure is also a big loss, and the risk is still very large. Your Majesty is afraid that he will know this, so he will leave the plan to me. He wanted me to revise the plan, the goal didn't need to be so big, and the risk had to be minimized as much as possible. Soon, Xu Shu grasped Li Sheng's true intentions: His Majesty was satisfied with such an adventure, but he felt that such an adventure was too grand and necessary to make a certain reduction, and I was arrested to be the reduction of this plan.

After clarifying this, Xu Shu began to thoroughly investigate the essence of his plan. He began to think about and evaluate every aspect of the plan. As for why His Majesty would find himself to deal with such a thing, whether it was because of his own ability or because of his personality, Xu Shu didn't want to think about it so much. He knew that his majesty would find him like this, and he would definitely have his own considerations, and it would be a dangerous thing to measure the heart of a monarch in his current capacity. Although he Xu Shu is ninety percent sure, his majesty doesn't care about this.

"Forget it. That thing...... Not what I could imagine. He muttered faintly, and then turned his mind to the side.

In order to study the plan, we must first study the general situation of the whole world, especially when all enemy countries are involved. Today's situation is that Datang has 400,000 regular troops and about 500,000 reserve soldiers. At present, 100,000 regular troops of the Northern Front, 400,000 troops of the Western Front, 200,000 regular troops, 200,000 reserve troops, 200,000 Eastern Front troops, 100,000 regular troops, and 100,000 reserve troops are used. Although Datang's reserve troops also have considerable combat effectiveness, it is also a fact to say that Datang has exhausted all his strength at the moment, and it is completely a strong outsider.

The Tang Dynasty that has the upper hand is like this, not to mention Wu Wei, who is still inferior to the Tang Dynasty:

Wu State, which had not yet joined the war, had 100,000 regular troops and about 200,000 reserve troops, and its main areas were Jianye (20,000 regular troops, 50,000 reserves), Jiangxia (50,000 regular troops, 50,000 reserves), Yuzhang (30,000 regular troops, 60,000 reserves), and Yecheng (40,000 reserves). This was after the signing of an agreement between Wu and Wei, and Jianye's troops were mainly responsible for the security of the capital and the defense of the Yangtze River defense line. Although Wu Wei formed an alliance, both sides still had some precautions against this; The Jiangxia side is aimed at Jingzhou's war preparations, you must know that Eastern Wu has never concealed its ambitions for Jingzhou, of course, at this moment their statement to the outside world is to defend Pang Tong's Eastern Front with such a force. As for Yuzhang, it is to deal with the chaos of Shanyue, which is the inherent trouble of Dongwu, but unfortunately it has not been solved, which is of course due to the wrong policy of Dongwu, but his own continuous support for Shanyue is also one of the aspects; In the end, Yecheng is purely to serve Jiangdong's naval army, you must know that Yecheng is very close to the Quanzhou base, the largest base of Jiangdong naval army, so Jiangdong's intention to put such a force of troops and horses there is self-evident. Of course, there are many troops in this part of Yecheng, but in the process of calculating the actual combat strength, they can be completely ignored - because the whole world knows that Jiangdong's troops in Yecheng are full-time logistics and have not been trained, and they are truly complete logistics troops.

“…… Jiangdong did not join the battle, and his combat strength was not damaged at all, and because he already had a certain understanding of the situation, and Sun Quan, the lord of Wu, was still an extraordinary person, he could only harass Jiangdong, but could not directly be an enemy with him. I think we have to delete the part about Jiangdong in Shi Yuan's plan, although our strength is already very strong, but it seems that we are not sure of fighting Jiangdong and Cao Wei at the same time. Xu Shu quickly understood this, and he thought that it would not be beneficial for his side to directly provoke such a tough opponent as Jiangdong at the moment.

The situation in Dongwu is already like this, so what is the situation on Cao Wei's side? Cao Wei had the largest population of the three countries, so his army was also the largest regular army of 500,000, close to a million reservists, and countless local armed forces, which gave Cao Wei a war potential that no one could match. Xu Shu knew that although his side had gained the upper hand in this battle by virtue of some technological superiority and the suddenness of the war, if his side delayed the war and did not solve all this as soon as possible, then once Cao Wei relieved himself, what was waiting for him would be a more and more slim victory and a closer and closer defeat. This is something I don't want to see, so the battle must end quickly.

“…… At present, the troops on Cao Wei's side are mainly divided into the following large parts: the total strength of the Hebei Army in the north is about 400,000, including 200,000 regular troops, 200,000 reserve soldiers and local armed forces; Then Cao Zhen's Guanzhong Army had a total strength of about 500,000, including 150,000 regular troops and 350,000 reserve troops and local troops; Next was the Nanyang Army in Wancheng, with a regular army of 50,000; Then there was the Xuzhou Army in the east, with 100,000 regular army reservists and countless local armed forces—well, Cao Wei, like us, concentrated his troops on the border. This may seem like a good and reasonable layout, but it's not without its weaknesses. Well, as Pang Tong said, the key to defeating Cao Wei in one fell swoop lies in Wancheng. If we can successfully break through Wancheng, then with our strength, we can completely win the Tiger Prison Pass before Cao Wei can react. At that time, our court of Cao Wei will become a trend of closing the door and beating dogs. Xu Shu pondered this question carefully, and his eyes slowly fixed on the point of Wancheng on the map: "With our ability, can we raid Wancheng and succeed?" Xu Shu began to recall all kinds of things about Wancheng.

Now the defender of Wancheng is Zhang Hu, the son of the late former general Zhang Liao, who is said to be a fierce general, and he is also extremely outstanding in the new generation of the Wei army. However, Xu Shu confirmed that he should not take him to heart on his side, because there is information similar to Zhang Hu, who only learned his father's martial arts, but he is quite reckless in personality. Xu Shu felt that he could not resist Feng Xiao's attack.

"In other words, if our side goes north, Wancheng won't be able to stop ......us at all," Xu Shu made this judgment. This problem was solved, but another question appeared in front of him: "Since it will be of so much benefit to us to go north from Wancheng, what kind of troops will we use to achieve such an attack?" Because it was impossible to drag Soochow into the war, it was no longer possible to attack Jianye with the troops stationed in the Wa Kingdom...... Since this is the case, then we can only use that trick again......" Xu Shu hesitated for a long time and finally made a decision: "Use suspicious soldiers and civil strife to drag Jiangdong in this way." ”

"Hmm...... That's probably what it looks like. Xu Shu studied for a long time, re-added, deleted, and modified the plan, and finally put down the pen and walked out of the camp tent gently. At this moment, the night has passed, the sky is bright, the camp that had been quiet all night has begun to make noise again, and a new day has begun. Xu Shu was busy all night for such a plan. Originally, he was not very tired when he was writing, but now that he stood up, he felt a wave of tiredness come over him. But now is not the time to sleep, although his body is very tired, Xu Shu knows that he still has something to do, he must hand over the plan he has written, and let His Majesty make the final decision.

Just asked for a basin of cold water, touched a few handfuls on his face at will, and let the cold stimulate him to wake up, Xu Shu went to Li Sheng with the results of his night. He soon met Li Sheng, but to his surprise, Li Sheng also met him with a pair of black eyes.

"Your Majesty didn't sleep well all night?" Xu Shu asked tentatively.

"Each other, each other." Li Sheng glanced at Xu Shu and said with a smile: "You also know, I'm not the kind of person who pretends to be calm at all. Now that the war is imminent, I am moved by Shiyuan's plan, and I can't wait for a result, but my heart can't settle down. I guess you and I are the same about this. ”

"That's ...... Is that. Xu Shu smiled and nodded, and then took out the plan from his arms and handed it to Li Sheng: "This is my revised plan, and I ask Your Majesty to take a look." ”

"Oh? Li Sheng sighed lightly at this, and then carefully looked at the plan that had been modified by Xu Shu.

Time passed quietly in the end, and after a long time, Li Sheng put down the paperwork in his hand, his eyes became a little confused, obviously he still had some doubts about the plan that Xu Shu handed over to him. "Yuan Zhi, how sure sure is your plan of success, can you be sure that our actions will definitely make Jiangdong take care of himself? If we can't really drag Jiangdong there, I'm afraid that if we move Jiangdong and occupy Jiangdong, this will be very unfavorable to me. Li Sheng is always worried about this.

"Your Majesty is worried about this problem, I don't have a special solution. This is the case, we don't have much action against Jiangdong now, and if we can't make Jiangdong safe with the existing means, I'm afraid that we can only use the town defenders of the Wa Kingdom as Shiyuan originally suggested. Of course, even if it were to be used in this way, our side would only be able to suppress it to a certain extent, but not to carry out a full-scale campaign. Xu Shu spread his hands helplessly, he had no better way to contain Jiangdong, except for believing that Pang Tong could handle it well here, but he could only use the huge plan formulated by Pang Tong as the final compensation.

"That's all there is to it?" Li Sheng was silent, and in the end he didn't think of any better way, so he had to settle down like this: "Then let's do it." I hope Shi Yuan can handle this matter well. Li Sheng agreed to this plan, but his promise was not based on the very feasibility of the plan itself, but on the confidence that the civil and military forces stationed in Jingzhou could be stronger than Wu and Wei under the command of Pang Tong. In other words, the reason why Li Sheng agreed like this is because of people, not because of things.

The matter was thus determined, and the Tang army immediately launched an operation: Li Sheng with 350,000 troops held on to the northern plains to fight Cao Zhen's men and horses, while Wei Yan quietly left the camp with 50,000 horses, crossed Weishui overnight, and re-dived from Wuzhangyuan to the Xiegu Trail. Of course, all of this was carried out without Cao Zhen noticing it - Li Sheng's army was so huge, the camp stretched for more than ten miles, and the camp tents were layered on top of each other, how could Cao Zhen see the truth clearly? Fifty thousand men and horses are of course a lot, but they are nothing compared to Li Sheng's army, Li Sheng put a few more flags in his camp, which actually dazzled Cao Zhen's eyes, and he couldn't see anything unusual.

After that, Cao Zhen's 500,000 army fought with Li Sheng's 350,000 troops here. The first is the roar of cannons. Although there are only 300 artillery pieces in Cao Zhen's hands, because these 300 artillery pieces are all heavy artillery of a unified caliber, and Cao Zhen is very clever in arranging the artillery according to the rotation pattern of Li Sheng's side, it is far superior to Li Sheng in terms of long-range firepower. On the first day of the war, he took out his artillery and carried out a frenzied bombardment of Li Sheng's array, focusing on directly aiming at Li Sheng's artillery battalion. Because Cao Zhen was very deep about the artillery in his own troops, and the dispatch of his artillery was very hidden, although Li Sheng's side knew that the Wei army already had a certain amount of artillery hunting equipment, they did not know anything about the configuration and quantity of their artillery. It can be said that Li Sheng's side is completely unprepared for this. As a result, after such a prepared and unprepared bombardment, Li Sheng's artillery battalion lost more than half. Under the constant shelling of the opponent's artillery, they were obviously a little at a loss, and for a while there were those who ran around, and there were those who stood still, but their reaction was not much better than the Cao army they had laughed at.

"It's terrible, it's really terrible! We only remember that we have an advantage, but we forget that the enemy is not a complete soft egg. We know what they can, and they don't know. Cao Zhen...... Hehe, he's really taught us a good lesson. Regarding the current situation, Li Sheng was annoyed and at the same time, he couldn't help but quickly discover the shortcomings of his side - underestimating the enemy, and he still underestimated the enemy.

"Your Majesty, what should I do?" Xu Shu whispered to his lord. In this battle, the emperor who was born as a military general was not only the monarch of the imperial conquest, but also the commander of the battle, after encountering such an unexpected blow, the people of the Tang army couldn't help but set their eyes on Li Sheng, trying to get a trace of guidance from him. It is also true that they have never experienced shelling and have no idea what they should do at the moment.

"What's the panic? The opponent's artillery was nothing more than solid bullets, and it was not lethal at all. A hundred can't kill a few of us. Pass the order down, and let everyone lift my spirits. Don't be afraid, they have cannons, and we have them too! All were laid out in normal battle columns, and the defeated men told them to go to both sides. If you block me in the middle, I'll just bombard him to death! Li Sheng's eyes widened and he shouted.

"No!" Hearing Li Sheng's roar, everyone who was originally a little flustered couldn't help but be stunned, settled down, and the panic in their hearts disappeared a little. They took Li Sheng's order, quickly waved the flag, blew the horn, and commanded their troops. The Tang Army's high-intensity parade training showed their demeanor at this time. Although there were two fist-sized cannonballs still in their own formations, and although there were always some unlucky people around him who were beaten by this cannonball, all the soldiers simply ignored them. They lined up in the rumbling of cannons, and watched as the gaps in the battle formations around them filled in at any time, keeping the battle formations dense - this is very important as infantry.

Although the infantry was not afraid of death, and Li Sheng also said that he could get the support of his own artillery here, but in the continuous waiting, the cannon sound on Li Sheng's side did not sound for a long time. Is it that they are all scared and do not dare to fire? Not really, because even the infantry brethren who had only the most basic training could treat artillery fire as if it were nothing, let alone those of them who had already experienced such a trick in the exercise. In the shelling just now, they were hit quite hard. was caught off guard all of a sudden, and hundreds of comrades-in-arms and dozens of doors were destroyed overnight, which was their fate. At this moment, they didn't wait for their eyes to turn red, and they only thought about revenge, wouldn't they suddenly fall into the prestige of being the most powerful soldiers in the Tang Army? Of course, they don't want to do this, and the reason why they haven't moved until now, and sit and watch their robes being beaten, is just to want to make a splash and take out the opponent's artillery position in one fell swoop. As artillery training in the Tang Army, they know the power of artillery well, they know how big a threat artillery poses to their own family, and naturally think about how to solve this threat in one go. It's not that their hearts are too big, but that they discovered a weakness of the Wei army's artillery through the series of observations just now: the other party is actually an artillery without a gun car.

"There are no gun carriages, how do you maneuver? Although it is difficult to maneuver once the artillery position is discovered, as long as you have a gun carriage, you can still dodge a little. Judging from this situation, you don't even have this chance to die, so it's no wonder that we don't even have this chance to die. After looking at it for a long time, the commander of the artillery battalion gently waved the red flag in his hand and gave the order directly: "Target: the enemy's artillery position, fire!" ”

The sound of artillery roared from the Tang army camp, and hundreds of field guns opened fire at the same time under the command of the command, blowing up the artillery position that had just been majestic on the opposite side into a raging fire. Because they hated the other party's sneak attack, and hated that the other party actually used this non-influential artillery and non-influential shelling level to hit themselves and caused a certain amount of damage to themselves, so this time the shelling was not specifically stopped by Li Sheng, and they all used the most expensive flowering shells. They shot these expensive things, which were worth several dollars in a single shot, into the enemy's camp, but they fought happily without money.

If the artillery of the Tang army did not fire, then the artillery of the Wei army would still have the upper hand on this battlefield, but now that the artillery of the Tang army has issued its own roar, the situation on the entire battlefield has changed rapidly. Before he really saw the artillery fire of the Tang Army, no matter how he thought about it, he would never have imagined that he would be so terrible. A roar came down, and the judgment between the two was made. In the loud rumbling noise, in the midst of countless sparks, the artillery of the Wei army was miserably turned into a pile of scrap metal - they were no match for the Tang army at all.

"Damn, it's like an adult beating a child!?" Seeing that his artillery was blown up in the flames like this, it was very bad to see it, Cao Zhen was heartbroken, and he couldn't help but be a little dumbfounded: "The artillery of the Tang Army is too strong, even if you have artillery here, you can't be stronger than them in quality anyway." Fighting an artillery battle with them is simply self-defeating. Miscalculated, I really miscalculated. That's it, what to do? Cao Zhen looked at the subordinates around him with such doubts, and found that their faces turned pale in an instant. Fall from the clouds to the ground! This is the idea of the Wei army, originally they thought that with the gradual establishment of a full artillery unit can suppress the prestige of the Tang army and fight a regular decisive battle with him, but as far as the real situation is concerned, the original idea is really a little too naïve. In the use of artillery, the gap between himself and Li Tang is not only in the configuration of artillery, but in the deeper level of artillery training and command. In these places, the distance between himself and Li Sheng is the same as when Li Sheng had artillery and he didn't have artillery, which is the difference between cloud and mud. Such a huge gap and such a profound blow undoubtedly made their original confidence completely lost. Cao Zhen felt the demoralization of the whole army, and his mood became heavier. If the contest between the artillery of the two sides is compared to the duel between the generals of the two armies, then in the duel that has just passed, he will be completely defeated.

"Hey, forget Mingjin and withdraw his troops." Cao Zhen looked at the situation on the field, felt his state of mind, and couldn't help but sigh helplessly and gave such an order. This also seems to be a very correct decision, in the case of "one blow, then decline, three and exhaustion", it is definitely the best choice to retreat and save strength.

The crisp sound of gold sounded on the battlefield. Countless Wei soldiers were happy because of this voice, they didn't laugh out loud, but the joy in their hearts couldn't be hidden. In their opinion, this decision to retreat was really the most wise and martial decision made by their own general.

For a while, the Wei army retreated like a tide, but it was extremely fast before Li Sheng's side could react. Although this was just a retreat, the situation was very similar to the rout - Li Sheng was a little overwhelmed by this situation for a while. He sat and watched the Wei army retreat to his camp, but he guarded the camp so carefully that he couldn't even care about the undead on his own artillery position.

This is the end of the battle. After that, the battlefield showed an extremely eerie quiet, and if you don't count the encounters between scouts and cavalry that inevitably occur every day, the whole battlefield is indeed unusually quiet. After seeing the power of the Tang army's artillery, Cao Zhen did not have the courage to have a head-on duel with Li Sheng again, but he was embarrassed to withdraw his troops, so he had to stay on the spot very embarrassed, quite a bit of chicken ribs in hand. On the other hand, Li Sheng, because he had to wait for Wei Yan's news, only took it as his responsibility to stick to the camp, and let Cao Zhen go free there, and did not make any offensive moves, lest Cao Zhen be scared away by his timidity. Although his own artillery fire that day taught the Wei army a hard lesson and completely scared them, which seemed to be what Li Sheng's side wanted, but after the war, Li Sheng was very afraid. He didn't do anything else, he was afraid that Cao Zhen would be afraid of the power here and return to Chang'an. Therefore, in order to redeem a strategic mistake caused by this tactical victory, Li Sheng had to take advantage of the time when Cao Zhen had not yet retreated to leak such a news to Cao Zhen: "The artillery ammunition of Li Sheng's army was also exhausted because of the artillery battle that day. Not only is this true of Li Shengjun's artillery ammunition, but it seems that even Li Shengjun's grain and grass are the same. As long as he waited here for a few more days, Li Sheng's army would be forced to retreat because of the lack of food and grass. ”

This is great news for Cao Zhen, after repeatedly verifying the authenticity of this matter, Cao Zhen also believed this, and waited with peace of mind. How could he have thought that after waiting for more than ten days, he did not wait for Li Shengjun's independent retreat, but waited for the news that Chang'an was captured by Li Sheng. This bad news was like a thunderbolt from the blue, which caught Cao Zhen off guard. However, the matter is far from over, just when Cao Zhen has not yet come to his senses, the news that Pang Tong led the army to raid Wancheng and then attack Luoyang came again, which made Cao Zhen completely lose the last heart of resistance: Chang'an was lost, and his hundreds of thousands of troops completely became the root of no water, and they were already in a desperate situation, and once Luoyang was lost, the entire Great Wei court was finished, and who would he be loyal to? At that moment, Cao Zhen killed himself and left a suicide note, but he asked the deputy general to lead the army to surrender to Li Sheng.

In a huge battle, the Battle of the Northern Plains was actually a footnote with such an ending. At this point, Cao Wei perished, leaving only one branch in Jiangdong, although Sun Quan is still there, but everyone knows that the last world belongs to Li Sheng.

On the first day of the first month of the tenth year of China, the Tang Dynasty moved its capital to Chang'an, Guanzhong.

In August of the 11th year of China, the Tang army waved its army to attack Wu in four directions. In the fierce battle in March, the army was like a broken bamboo and attacked directly under the city of Jianye, Emperor Sun Quan of Wu burned the palace and died, the Eastern Wu was destroyed, and the United States was unified. Li Sheng then temporarily collected the armor, reduced millions of soldiers, and recuperated in to appease Li Shu. So far, the Tang Dynasty, which has unified the world, has gradually surpassed the signs of surpassing the former Han Dynasty.