Chang'an, the General's Mansion.

After more than two years of absence, Li Li finally led the army back to Chang'an, returned to his mansion again, reunited with his subordinate Wenwu, and reunited with his family.

Since the beginning of Yuan Shu's proclamation as emperor, Li Li led his army to the Central Plains, and since then: the formation of a princes' alliance, the eastward expedition to Youzhou, the southern expedition to Yuan Shu, the fierce battle in Hebei, the pacification of Xuzhou, until two years later in the mid-autumn season did not return to Chang'an.

During this period, the brothers Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao were defeated one after another, Gongsun Zhan died generously, and Lu Bu tied his hands.

Li Li also suffered the first major defeat since the conquest, and the army was defeated in Yecheng, so that the entire Hebei battlefield was defeated, the soldiers were lost, and more than 200,000 soldiers were killed in one fell swoop.

It is worth mentioning that this was the first defeat in several encounters between Li Li and Cao Cao, which directly endangered his own life. Before that, he had also pushed Cao Cao to a corner, but Cao Cao finally escaped. In the previous defeat of Yecheng, Cao Cao pulled back another game and also trapped Li Li in the city, but in the end Li Li still broke out of the siege and escaped. Since then, the two sides have pushed each other into a desperate situation, but in the end they both lost, and each other won and lost, which can be regarded as a draw.

With the implementation of Li Li's ban on customs closure, the war situation in the Central Plains tended to stabilize, the smoke dissipated, and the people of various states finally ushered in a peaceful life that had not been seen for a long time.

At the same time, more than 60% of the troops of the Western Liang Army were concentrated in the four prefectures and counties of Sili, Bingzhou, Youzhou and Xuzhou, trapping Yanzhou, Jizhou and Qingzhou under Cao Cao firmly in the middle, and completely isolated from the outside world except for internal communication. Since then, it has been easy for Cao Cao's detailed work to go to Li Li's rule, but it is not easy to come out after entering. And the caravans under Cao Cao were also trapped in the territory. It is no longer possible to communicate with other states and counties, let alone find out information for Cao Cao.

It stands to reason that the ban is a double-edged sword. can not only stab the other party, but also hurt yourself, it can be said that success or failure is half and half, and no one can take advantage. However, the ban issued by Li Li was only aimed at Cao Cao, and did not prohibit the roads and waterways leading to Jingzhou, Yizhou, and Jiangdong. In this way, it is a protracted war of attrition. The comparison is the war potential and material reserves of the states and counties under the control of both sides.

Fighting consumption, on the surface, Cao Cao is not timid. After all, he himself needs a period of time to consolidate Jizhou. It will take a long time to build up the war horses and grow their strength. This is not the case. While he was growing and growing, the military strength under Li Li was also growing rapidly, and the speed of development was definitely not worse than that of Cao Cao. On the contrary, it is at least twice as fast as Cao Cao's development.

The reason for this. It's just two words: capital.

Today, Li Li has occupied seven prefectures and counties, with a vast area and a large population, and firmly controls all the border counties and grasslands rich in war horses.

In terms of the wealth of the state and county, Jizhou is certainly rich, but Yuzhou and Xuzhou under Li Li are no worse than Jizhou. What's more, since the Chang'an Rebellion. There was no war between Liangzhou and Yongzhou, and they developed steadily for nearly eight years. Its wealth is better than that of Jizhou.

If compared with the population, Jizhou is the largest state in the Central Plains, with a population of as many as 5 million; However, seventy percent of the most populous prefectures and counties in the Han Dynasty were under Li Li's rule. In addition, Li Li successively exterminated the Qiang tribe, the Xiaoyue clan and some small countries in the Western Regions entrenched in Yongliang Prefecture, destroyed the Southern Xiongnu, and pacified the major tribes in the north, including the most powerful Xianbei and Wuhuan tribes. Therefore, long before the Sili War, there were tens of millions of people under Li Li's rule, and now his population is not what it used to be.

It was precisely because he exterminated the surrounding tribes and many barbarians, and occupied half of the country, that Li Li issued a ban on sealing the customs, specifically targeting Cao Cao, and wanted to fight a war of attrition with him. This is like a fight between their own brothers, although Li Li is much younger than Cao Cao, he is the eldest brother; As a big brother, you have to take care of the overall situation, destroy the enemies outside first, and then close the door, and then compete with your own brothers.

It's just that Li Li's current opponent is far more than Cao Cao, and there are three extremely stubborn and powerful enemies who are watching him fiercely. Therefore, he is now blocking the checkpoint, in fact, in order to isolate Cao Cao from joining forces with several other princes, which can not only trap Cao Cao, but also cut off the connection between him and other princes, so as to avoid being attacked on his back.

Of course, the ban is by no means a long-term solution, at most it can be regarded as a stopgap measure, and it is only a temporary emergency. Once Cao Cao takes the lead in attacking, it will be possible to break through the blockade and break the deadlock. In this regard, Li Li had already expected that the purpose of the ban was to be trapped, and if he couldn't be trapped, Cao Cao would inevitably take the initiative to attack.

As long as Cao Cao takes the lead in breaking the deadlock, then Li Li can win the strategic initiative. In the case that he has enough strategic depth, he will never be able to return after trying to let Cao Jun rush out, and then win the overall initiative, maybe he can also give Cao Cao a siege point to send reinforcements, so that he can also taste the taste of being attacked on his back; Just like Dian Wei and Zhou Yu and others in the battle of Yecheng that day, they were surrounded by Cao Cao and sent reinforcements, suffered a lot, and suffered heavy casualties.

All in all, with the full implementation of the customs ban, there was no more smoke on the battlefield in the Central Plains, and a rare time of peace was ushered in.

And Li Li, who returned to Chang'an, also ushered in a warm life that he had not seen for a long time, reunited with his wife and children, and enjoyed the joy of family.

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Lantian Camp, the wolf riding camp station.

At the Luoyang meeting, Li Li ordered the reorganization of three war cavalry battalions and one infantry battalion. The infantry battalion is the first battalion of the Jizhou general Ju Yi, which was newly attached to Li Li, and the three war cavalry battalions are: the Youzhou battalion under the account of Gongsun Zhan, the flying bear heavy armored cavalry under the tent of Huan Fei and the wolf cavalry army under the tent of Lu Bu.

Li Li did not interfere too much with the newly formed Xiandeng Dead Soldiers Battalion, and clearly stipulated that the Xiandeng Battalion was 50,000 soldiers and horses, plus 5,000 auxiliary soldiers such as scouts, baggage, and miscellaneous soldiers, and sent more than 10 generals such as Wei Xu, Zheng Gu, and Sun Qing to Ju Yi's tent to listen to them. At the same time, Wei Xu, Zhenggu and other generals also escorted a large number of ordnance baggage to support Ju Yi's regrouping and first camp.

In addition, Li Li gave Ju Yi very high treatment, and named him the governor of Jizhou and the general of Lingzhenbei, ranking more than the third duke. This kind of courtesy is the first among the newly surrendered generals under Li Li's command, which shows that Li Li attaches great importance to Ju Yi and appreciates it.

It is obvious that the root cause of Li Li's doing this is a sentence: the general is outside, and the king's order is not subject to it. In other words, Li Li's move is to buy horse bones with a thousand dollars, and he is buying people's hearts to the letter. After all, at present, Jizhou is Cao Cao's territory, and Ju Yi and his subordinates are stationed in Jizhou, and they are in a very dangerous situation, and they will face a large-scale encirclement or sneak attack by Cao's army at any time.

And what Li Li could do was to let Ju Yi and his subordinates first camp be firmly stationed in Jizhou, wedge into the hinterland of Jizhou like a nail, and put it under Cao Cao's nose, making him feel like a fish in his throat and unable to sleep and eat. In order to achieve this goal, Li Li adopted a laissez-faire approach to Ju Yi, not only did not restrain him, but vigorously supported him, with sufficient supply of money and food, and excessive distribution of ordnance and baggage, as if Ju Yi had a strong backing to fight Cao Cao alone.

Compared with the Xiandeng battalion, which enjoyed special treatment, the reorganization of the three war cavalry battalions was all carried out according to Li Li's wishes.

The reorganized Youzhou battalion was led by Xu Huang as the chief general, and Pang De, Hou Cheng and Zhang Fei were the deputy generals. Among them, Zhang Fei was only in name, did not participate in the formation of the new army, training and daily management matters, and only went out with the army during the war, and spent the rest of the time completely outside the Youzhou battalion. In addition, Zhang Fei did not have any substantive position, nor did he have a clear official rank, but he just hung the title of Marquis of Weiting, and he had no food, but he enjoyed the treatment of the Marquis of Ting. That's all.

The Flying Bear Heavy Armored Cavalry Battalion suffered more than half of the casualties in the Battle of Yecheng, but fortunately, Huan Feiqi has always behaved domineeringly, and there is a reserve light cavalry of 20,000 people under his account, and Li Li has always ignored this, which can be regarded as acquiescing to the survival of this cavalry. Therefore, this time the Flying Bear Battalion suffered heavy losses, and Li Li authorized Huan Fei to form 50,000 heavily armored iron cavalry, allowing him to enjoy the priority of requisitioning superior war horses and receiving ordnance and equipment. At the same time, Zang Ba, Sun Li, and He Mansan were sent to his tent to listen to the use, while the former generals of the Flying Bear Battalion were all retained. It is not difficult to see from this that Huan Fei has won the trust of Li Li, although his position is not too high, the same position as Jiuqing, but the real power is not inferior to the commanders of all walks of life, and he belongs to the real powerful generals of the army.

The third reorganized cavalry battalion was the wolf cavalry under Lu Bu's account, renamed the wolf cavalry battalion, with a strength of 30,000. The main general is still Lu Bu, and Li Dian, Guo Huai and Guan Yu are the deputy generals and deputy commanders; Among them, Guan Yu's position is the same as Zhang Fei's, only in name, no real position, no food, but he enjoys the treatment of a pavilion, fights during wartime, and spends the rest of his time being idle, but happy and quiet.

It is worth mentioning that Lu Bu's official rank has not changed, and he is still a general of Fenwei with the third duke, and he is the marquis of Wen. Such a high rank was rare among the existing military generals under Li Li's rule, and it was the same rank as Li Li's uncle Li Dao, second only to Li Li himself.

Nowadays, the station of the wolf cavalry camp is in the Lantian camp, and the Lantian camp is the southern camp that guards Chang'an, with three iron cavalry stationed in it, about 100,000 troops. In addition to the wolf cavalry battalion, the other two war horses were: the flying bear battalion under Huan Fei's department and the unparalleled iron cavalry under Zhao Yun's tent.

With the sound of horses' hooves, Lu Bu, who had not appeared for more than a month, rode the red rabbit horse and galloped out of the camp with three hundred soldiers. The original words of the pro-soldier who came to give the order were: "The lord said that Fengxian has arrived in Chang'an for many days, and there have been many neglects before, so this time he will take the friendship of the landlord and take Fengxian out to relax." So, Lu Bu didn't dare to hesitate, and immediately led his own soldiers to the south of the official road.

—————— —————————————— to be continued(To be continued......

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