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Wang Yue's voice did not fall, but when he saw Zhuge Liang's stunned expression, he said in surprise: "Pang Tong leads the army? ”

"Hmm." Wang Yue nodded when he heard this: "According to the detailed report, the nominal commander of the Jingzhou Army is Huang Zu, but in fact it is Pang Tong who is in charge of the army. ”

After a pause, seeing that Zhuge Liang still seemed to be suspicious and did not believe his words, Wang Yue simply told him what he knew: "It is said that when Liu Biao decided to send troops to the Northern Expedition, he intended to order Pang Tong to take command of the expedition, but he was resolutely opposed by the general Cai Mao, and then Cai Mao recommended Zhang Yun as the chief general of the three armies, and the Kuai brothers recommended Liu Biao's nephew Liu Pan as the chief general. Just when the two sides were in dispute, Pang Tong recommended Huang Zu as the chief general, and proposed to invite the Jiangdong Army to participate in the war, and proposed to let the Jiangdong general be the deputy general of the Chinese army, so as to calm his heart.

This mention was approved by Liu Biao, so the battle between the Jingzhou military commanders was settled. Huang Zu served as the commander, but he knew very well that the commander of the three armies selected by Liu Biao was actually not him, but the military advisor Pang Tong. In this way, as a close general under Liu Biao, Huang Zu naturally knew what he should do, and he also knew that the reason why he served as the commander was actually to suppress the deputy general Zhang Yun and escort the Northern Expedition led by Pang Tong. ”

After listening to Wang Yue's words, Zhuge Liang knew that there were so many twists and turns in it, and Pang Tong's ability to lead the army to fight this time can be said to be the result of the tripartite game.

As soon as he thought of this, Zhuge Liang's heart moved, and he immediately grasped the key veins in it and followed the main line. I couldn't help but think about it, so I contemplated it.

is different from Zhuge Liang's special attention to Pang Tong's Northern Expedition. After Li Li heard Wang Yue's words, he was concerned about the Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army jointly sending troops. The Jiangdong Army also participated in the Sili War, which made Li Li deeply surprised and couldn't help but think like a tide. Secretly speculating about what kind of relationship is between Jiangdong and Liu Biao in Jingzhou, is Jiangdong Wenwu really willing to obey Liu Biao's drive?

Perhaps, in the eyes of Li Xuan, Guo Jia, Zhuge Liang and others, Jiangdong is located in a corner, with only four counties, less than one million people, and only 100,000 soldiers and horses. However, Li Li never despised Jiangdong's civil and military ministers. did not ignore the Sun clan in Jiangdong because of the death of Sun Ce's brothers one after another, nor did he take Jiangdong lightly because he was attached to Liu Biao, let alone ignore the existence of Jiangdong forces.

At present, the Sun clan in Jiangdong is in a period of distraction, and Sun Ce's son Sun Shao is young and ignorant of the world, so he can't control the Jiangdong ministers at all. It is precisely because of Sun Shao's youth and ignorance that Jiangdong's civil and military forces are disheartened and compete for fame and fortune, and Jiangdong's old ministers Zhang Hong and Zhang Zhao have different political views with the military generals Cheng Pu, Huang Gai and Zu Mao. The civil officials are in peace, and the military generals are in the main battle, and the two sides do not give in to each other, fighting openly and secretly. There is endless infighting. This gave Jingzhou Liu Biao an opportunity, using both soft and hard, and co-opting and luring while pressing the border. In the end, the Jiangdong forces were forced to join Liu Biao and bow down.

But this situation will fundamentally change as Sun Shao grows up day by day. In addition, the collateral clansmen of the Sun clan in Jiangdong are not dead, and Sun Ce's wife Wu, sister Sun Shangxiang, Wu Jing and Sun Benhe and other Sun relatives are still alive. As long as they support Sun Shao behind their backs. The Sun clan will not be destroyed, and sooner or later it will break away from the clamp of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, reorganize Jiangdong, and dominate Jiangdong.

Li Li clearly realized that the Jiangdong forces would not always act as the vassal of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, and the Jiangdong civil and military forces were not willing to act as lackeys and eagle dogs, and they were even more unwilling to be called around and driven by the ministers of Jingzhou.

But at present, the Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army are mixed together, and they join forces to attack the Western Jin Dynasty, which greatly boosts the momentum of the Jingzhou Army, and its combat effectiveness has skyrocketed, and its strength has become stronger and stronger. This was by no means what Li Li wanted to see, and it invisibly increased the difficulty and pressure on the Xiliang army to resist the Jingzhou army's subsequent northward advance. At the same time, the Western Liang Army had one enemy and two enemies, not only to resist the attack of the Cao army of the Northern Wei Dynasty, but also to face the attack of the Jingzhou and Jiangdong coalition forces, fighting on both sides in the north and south, and the situation was extremely grim and dangerous.

In the face of the Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army joining forces to march north, Li Li had both worries and some expectations for the upcoming Second Sili War, and his mood was very complicated. On the one hand, he did not want to see the Jiangdong generals and the Jingzhou army mixed together, prompting the Jingzhou army to gather generals and greatly increase its strength, thereby greatly enhancing the combat effectiveness of the Southern Han army; On the other hand, he also did not want to see the Jiangdong Army watching the fire from across the strait and staying out of the matter, because this would allow the Jiangdong Army to preserve its strength, and it would become stronger and stronger over time, adding many variables to the pacification of Jiangdong in the future.

Although Li Li was very conflicted and had mixed feelings about the Jiangdong Army's participation in the war, since the matter had happened, it had to be faced. Joy or sorrow, since they are here, they don't have to go back, what awaits them is that they all stay in Sili and sleep here forever.

In the midst of a sharp turn of thought, Li Li said in a deep voice: "The Jiangdong Army and the Jingzhou Army are mixed together, and it is not difficult to see that Liu Biao has further strengthened his control over the Jiangdong forces, and has already taken the Jiangdong Army for his own use and let it be driven. In this way, Liu Biao of Jingzhou was not inferior to Cao Cao of the Northern Wei Dynasty in terms of military strength, and was still above the Northern Wei Dynasty in terms of grain and grass and the wealth of the state and county. ”

Li Xuanshen nodded approvingly and said: "It is true that as His Majesty said, Liu Biao of Jingzhou has been dormant for more than ten years, but it is categorically unable to compare with the two major vassal states of the Western Jin Dynasty and the Northern Wei Dynasty with the power of one state. However, with the Jiangdong forces attached to his command, the soldiers, horses, money and grain increased by forty percent, prompting the Southern Han Dynasty to soar in national strength, and it already had a strength that was not inferior to that of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Nowadays, the overall strength of the Southern Han and Northern Wei is comparable, but they are far less powerful than our Jin Kingdom.

However, once the two countries join forces, their strength is almost equal to that of our Western Jin Dynasty, and the two countries, one south and one north, echo each other, forming a two-sided attack on our Jin Kingdom. Since then, the situation facing our Jin Kingdom is not optimistic, and it is currently in a passive and unfavorable situation, which forces us to deal with it cautiously and not make the slightest mistake; Otherwise, we will regain and lose the favorable situation we currently occupy and suffer huge losses again, thus completely losing our supremacy as the leader. If the situation deteriorates to this point, the situation of our Jin Kingdom will be worrying, and there is indeed a danger that the horse will miss the front foot. In the last sentence, Li Xuan said more implicitly. In fact, if the Western Jin Dynasty loses in this contest, then what awaits the Western Jin Dynasty is not that the horse stumbles, but that the rivers are declining and plummeting. Obviously, Li Xuan's words were actually a subtle admonition, advising Li Li not to take the enemy lightly, not to be negligent, and the slightest carelessness would lead to unimaginable consequences.

After Li Xuan finished speaking, Jia Xu continued: "Up to now, in terms of army combat effectiveness alone, the combat power of our Western Liang Army is far superior to that of the other two countries, followed by the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Southern Han Dynasty is ranked last. In terms of the number of soldiers and horses, the Northern Wei Dynasty had more than 500,000 infantry and cavalry, and the Southern Han Dynasty had 600,000 soldiers and horses (including the Jiangdong Army); In contrast, our army now has 22 main war battalions, with a total of more than 700,000 troops in the three armies, in addition to nearly 500,000 county soldiers, with a total strength of up to one million, which is the first place. This set of figures undoubtedly makes everyone here very proud and very excited, because it is the result of their hard work and years of hard work.

Seeing the difference in everyone's expressions, Jia Xu immediately paused, took a sip of tea without hurry, and then changed his words and continued: "However, my Jin Kingdom has a border line that is thousands of miles away, from Wusun in the west, to Ding Ling in the north, to Fuyu in the east, and to Heishui River (now Vietnam) in the south. Because of this, although our Jin Kingdom has a million soldiers, more than half of the soldiers and horses are stationed in the border passes, and the troops that are really used to conquer the Central Plains are only 30% of the total strength, that is, 400,000 troops. Fortunately, most of the soldiers stationed at the border gates are county soldiers, and now in addition to the main battalions stationed in various states and counties, the available soldiers are the soldiers and horses under the accounts of the generals present, totaling 320,000 troops.

Compared with our Western Jin Dynasty, the two forces of Liu Biao of the Southern Han Dynasty and Cao Cao of the Northern Wei Dynasty did not have the danger of the border, and the borders were all in the territory of our Western Jin Dynasty, and their border was the place where they confronted our army. In this way, the two countries can send troops to attack our Jin Kingdom without any scruples, and if necessary, they can raise their troops to start a decisive battle with our army. And my Western Jin Dynasty is not a last resort, so it will not be able to mobilize troops and horses at the border pass to participate in the war, and can only rely on the existing forces to fight against it.

This is the reality of the situation that our country is facing right now. The borders are so long and so scattered that we have the strength to wipe out both countries in one fell swoop, but now we are out of power. With the existing strength of our Western Jin Dynasty, it is not a big problem to defeat one of the two major vassal states, but at the same time, in the face of the joint attack of the two countries, it is overstretched, and the heart is more than enough but the strength is insufficient. ”

Jia Xu, as the secretary of the Ministry of War, knows a lot about the deployment of troops in the country, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is like a few treasures. Therefore, he told all the forms and difficulties he was currently facing, so that the generals could understand the specific deployment of the army, so as not to complain about his slow mobilization of troops and horses, unfavorable rescue, or delay of fighters when he was about to fight.

At present, the national strength of the Western Jin Dynasty is indeed strong, the states and counties are stable and peaceful, the treasury is full, there are millions of soldiers, thousands of generals, and strong soldiers. However, this is all appearance, and it is not.

Many people only see that the Western Jin Dynasty has many war horses and troops, but they ignore that the border line of the Western Jin Dynasty is extremely narrow, occupying all the border passes of the Han Dynasty, and has expanded its territory many times, constantly lengthening the border. Even if there are only a few dozen armor soldiers in a pass, it cannot withstand the infinite stretching of thousands of passes, and hundreds of thousands of troops scattered on the border are like a handful of sand thrown into the sea, and they sink to the bottom of the sea without even making a splash.

—————— To be Continued ———————————————— (To be Continued......

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