With Liu Bei's departure, Cai Mao reluctantly led the army back to Xiangyang. At this moment, Liu Biao had also received the news, rushed to the West City Gate, ordered the Jingzhou army to disarm, and let Chen Zhi and others return to Xinye.

After returning to Xinye, Liu Bei told Pang Tong and others what happened, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were angry and rushed to the crown, and immediately ordered troops to enter Xiangyang and arrest Cai Mao, but were stopped by Liu Bei and Pang Tong, on the grounds that the time was not yet ripe, and his own people could not shake Liu Biao's dominance over Jingzhou. Guan and Zhang had no choice but to give up.

Subsequently, Liu Bei wrote a letter to Liu Biao in accordance with Pang Tong's suggestion, which was full of nonsense, but only briefly mentioned that Cai Mao's attitude was not very friendly. After Liu Biao received Liu Bei's letter, he knew that Liu Bei was dissatisfied with Cai Mao, and for the purpose of balance, Liu Biao immediately replied to Liu Bei, comforted Liu Bei, and among the more than 30,000 troops, he picked out 5,000 strong as a substantial reward for Liu Bei, hoping to dispel Liu Bei's dissatisfaction.

After getting 5,000 soldiers, Liu Bei once again wrote a reply letter to Liu Biao in accordance with Pang Tong's strategy, expressing his gratitude to Liu Biao, stating that the past has passed and will not be taken to heart, and stating his position, if Liu Biao is useful to Liu Bei in the future, Liu Bei is still willing to obey Liu Biao's orders.

In this way, Liu Bei exchanged two letters for 5,000 soldiers, and at the same time paralyzed Liu Biao, making Liu Biao unwary of himself. After that, Liu Bei loosened the inside in the new field. Secretly stepped up the training of his 20,000 soldiers, ready to launch a riot at any time. According to Pang Tong's analysis, the Central Plains and Hebei, there will soon be a big war, this war will even affect Youzhou in the north and Jingzhou in the south, at that time, Liu Bei's opportunity to fish in troubled waters will come, and now what Liu Bei has to do is to make adequate preparations for fishing in troubled waters in the future.

While Liu Bei was preparing in Xinye, Ao Lie was also preparing for the war in Yanjing. The North has been decided. Ao Lie no longer has any external troubles. The various alien races have followed his ideas and embarked on the right track of sinicization, and it is time to unite with Cao Cao and launch a big war against Yuan Shao.

Exactly at this time. Wang Hun personally came to the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion. Tell Ao Lie. The Celestial Maiden Scattered Flower has been successfully developed. Ao Lie was overjoyed, and followed Wang Hun to the general prison and witnessed the power of the Heavenly Maiden scattering flowers. The Heavenly Maiden Scattered Flowers developed by Wang Hun and Ma Jun are divided into two types. One is larger, which is cast by a stone thrower; The other is only the size of a fist and can be thrown with your hands.

Ao Lie first watched the power of the large celestial maiden scattering flowers. The desktop is large and the Celestial Maiden scattered flowers are placed on the stone throwing machine by two craftsmen who will be the supervisors, and then use the range of the stone throwing machine to throw the Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers more than 300 steps away, and the Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers after being thrown, they have produced a huge inertia, and this inertia collides with the ground, and immediately produces a reaction force, vibrating the internal structure of the Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers, so that it can instantly produce a high-temperature explosion inside, thus forming an explosion. The explosion itself is not very lethal, but once the body of the Celestial Maiden Scattered Flower is shattered, it will be shattered into hundreds of fragments in an instant, scattering in all directions, which is the most powerful part of the Celestial Maiden Scattered Flower. After the Celestial Maiden Scattered Flower was squeezed and blasted at high temperatures, most of the energy was concentrated in these flying pieces of iron, a fist-sized piece of iron that could easily break through the three layers of iron armor.

Although the power of the small celestial maiden is not as terrifying as the large one, it is easy to carry and easy to throw. A small celestial maiden scattered flower that is only the size of a fist can be thrown more than a hundred steps away by a person with strong arm strength, and when it lands, it will explode, scattering more than a dozen pieces of iron, and there is no problem in penetrating a layer of iron armor. Probably the same as the grenade usage in later generations, but not as powerful as the grenade.

While Ao Lie was happy, he didn't forget to ask about the cost and existing quantity of the two kinds of Heavenly Maiden Scattered Flowers. Wang Hun answered one by one. The core of the Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers, is the original produced in Buyeo, and it must be a clear oil that has gone through three processes, if the original is slightly turbid, then it can not be used to make the Heavenly Maiden distribution. Therefore, the cost of the Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers is extremely high, after Wang Hun's calculations, a large Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers, it is estimated that it will cost thousands of copper coins, that is, small Heavenly Maiden scattered flowers, but also consume about a hundred dollars. Ao Lie, who listened to it, secretly smacked his tongue, where is this using special weapons to kill and injure the enemy, it is simply using money to smash the enemy, the projectile of a hundred stone throwers will cost 100,000 money, and how many princes can withstand such consumption?

As for the number of Heavenly Maidens, it is even more of a headache for Ao Lie, because its production process is extremely complex, and the core components cannot be made by ordinary craftsmen, so as not to leak out, so the production process is extremely slow, coupled with the clear oil transported from Fuyu, it is often not enough to supply the needs of Wang Hun and others, coupled with the consumption of the early development process, now there are only two hundred large Celestial Maiden scattered flowers, and the number of small ones is more, there are thousands. However, Wang Hun assured that after preliminary research, the production process will be accelerated to a certain extent in the future.

Surprisingly, Ao Lie did not let Wang Hun speed up the production process, but asked him to slow down the production of the Heavenly Maiden Scattered Flowers. In Ao Lie's view, this kind of cross-era firearms are enough for small-scale use, and if they are produced in large quantities and put into the battlefield, they will inevitably lead to the early arrival of the firearms era, which will be a disastrous scene. Imagine that all the princes used firearms in the battle, the number of soldiers and the number of innocent people affected will be greatly increased, the current Han Dynasty population has been sharply reduced compared to the beginning, Ao Lie does not want to see more people die under the firearms that should not appear. Large-scale war-type firearms should be left to future generations to study.

After inspecting the Heavenly Maiden Sanhua, Ao Lie couldn't wait to ask about the new warship, and Wang Hun replied that two new warships have been developed, and they are currently in the test period, so it is not yet possible to determine whether it is successful, so he did not report to Ao Lie. Ao Lie rushed to the water's edge with great interest and took a look at the two new-style warships in the water testing period. In terms of appearance, the new warship is very close to the warships of later generations, and the sides of the ship are like knives and axes. It has a perfect arc and forms an inverted triangle shape with the bottom of the boat. The hull was equipped with six red-clothed ballistas and four batters, and at the bottom of the ship, Ao Lie even saw half of the water slurry exposed to the water, which was somewhat similar to the propellers of later generations, Ma Jun explained, this was based on Ao Lie's proposal, the water turning wheel used for agricultural work, after modification, used on the battleship. This saves the effort of the paddling soldiers. At the same time, they also freed their hands and switched to pedal paddling.

Replacing hand paddles with pedal paddles is one of the concepts put forward by Ao Lie, and now it has been perfectly developed by Ma Jun. Such a new type of warship. It combines robustness, flexibility, and speed. After equipping the redcoat ballista and the batter. The combat effectiveness will also reach the peak of the warships of the Han Dynasty. Once these two warships successfully pass the test period, the Qilin Army under the command of Gan Ning will not be able to find an opponent on the water!

After greatly praising Wang Hun, Ma Jun and other craftsmen. Ao Lie told them to protect the core secrets and not to leak the production skills of these cross-era weapons, and at the same time asked Wang Hun to speed up the research and development process of warships and strive to manufacture more new warships as soon as possible. From Ao Lie's heart, he eagerly hoped that these new warships could reach a certain scale, in that case, his dream of crossing the ocean and completely destroying the island country of Fuso would not be far away!

Leaving the general prison, Ao Lie's heart was full of joy, with the help of the Heavenly Maiden Sanhua, he became more sure of the matter of conquest of Yuan Shao. In the next few days, Ao Lie gathered the core members of his subordinates to discuss the general direction and specific details of Yuan Shao's consultation. Liu He, who was in charge of money and grain, first gave a lecture on the economic situation of the five northern states. Last year, under the constraints of Yanjing Law, under the careful governance of the ministers of the government, and with the help of advanced tools such as the water wheel developed by Ma Jun, the two states of Youhe and the two states obtained an unprecedented bumper harvest, but because of the three states of Guang, Ming and Tong, which had recently joined the territory of the Han Dynasty, one-third of the money and grain of the two states were sent to the territory of the three states to speed up the construction there, and the remaining two-thirds, half of which were used as military expenses and pensions for the soldiers who died in the war, and now the money and grain stored in the treasury are only a little more than one-third. This money and grain can be used to meet the operational needs of an army of 100,000 for half a year.

Next, Xun Yu talked about the situation of public security in the territory. Now the sinicization of various alien races has been on the right track,The Han people who moved to the new three states,Have gradually accepted the life of peaceful coexistence with the aliens,They are working hard to build a common homeland,The five northern states are in a good order of ethnic integration,All the people,No matter what nationality he is,Are more satisfied with the current living situation,There are no abnormal big problems。 After the end, Xun Yu made a summary that this situation of internal stability and unity was conducive to the war and laid the foundation for the army to go out.

Subsequently, Jia Xu, on behalf of the Military Government, gave a clear explanation of the composition and distribution of troops in the five northern states. First of all, after the four elite troops have been replenished, they still maintain the establishment of 20,000 people per army, with a total of 80,000 elite soldiers, but the 20,000 naval troops belonging to the Qilin Army can play a role in this battle, which will be reduced to a minimum due to geographical restrictions, so the 20,000 people of the Qilin Army, Jia Xu does not recommend being included in the sequence of this battle; In addition to the four elite troops, the five northern states now have 360,000 regular troops, including 120,000 cavalry, 180,000 infantry troops, and 60,000 naval troops. Of course, Jia Xu did not count the county soldiers who were responsible for local security and the auxiliary troops who served the regular army. In the regular army, the Han accounted for more than half, and the rest were soldiers of various foreign races such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Wuhuan. Of course, the members of the four elite troops are all authentic Han Chinese, and if they are counted, the proportion of Han people in the army will be even more. The addition of aliens has greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of Ao Lie's army, and the fighting will and physical fitness of aliens are an excellent supplement to the Han army.

After the last, it was Tian Feng's turn to speak, this time, after Tian Feng weighed it comprehensively, he did not stop Ao Lie's troops, he thought that there was no problem with the army's combat effectiveness, will to fight, logistics and supplies, etc., and even because of the pacification of Mingzhou and Tongzhou, the morale of the soldiers because of a series of big victories was at the highest peak, and it was the most suitable time to fight.

The general direction of the expedition was a foregone conclusion, and next, Ao Lie began to discuss with everyone the list of soldiers who would go on this expedition. Eventually, after some discussion, Ao Lie decided that he would use 100,000 troops for this expedition. The three elite troops participating in the battle, such as the Blood Killing Army, each mobilized 10,000 people, and the remaining 70,000 people, including 30,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry troops, were sergeants of various nationalities, but they were still dominated by Han Chinese.

As for the generals and strategists who went out with the army, Ao Lie also drew up a list. The generals included Lu Bu, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, Tai Shici, Xu Chu, Dian Wei, Zhang Liao, Zhang He, and Xu Huang; The strategists include Zhuge Liang, Jia Xu, Chen Gong, Xu Shu and Tian Feng. The rest of the military generals were led by Wei Yan, Pang De and Ma Dai, Wenchen was led by Xun Yu, Liu Yu and Jiang Wan, and Gan Ning and Su Fei led the naval army to patrol the coastal sea and jointly defend Yanjing. (To be continued......)