"The persimmon picks up the soft pinch first!"

Even children know this sentence, Yang Jian can't not know.

Especially when the great powers are in conflict, this sentence is especially reasonable, if Yang Jian wants to keep his newly established Sui Empire and not be regarded as a soft persimmon by others, he must increase his own strength as much as possible to pinch other people's soft persimmons.

At this time, there were very few countries and forces in the Sui Empire, the north was still the powerful Sha Bolu Khan, the western regions in the northwest had become the territory of the Datou Khan, the northeast was the Xia kingdom that was more powerful than the Turks, and the east was the vast sea.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the southwest and the Nanban land in the south of Yizhou will never be included in their own considerations, looking around, that is, Tuyuhun in the west and Chen in the south are two soft persimmons, and the Sui Empire must start from these two aspects if it wants to expand.

The first to be targeted by Yang Jian was Tuyuhun.

There is no way, who let him be so close to the Guanzhong Plain, the ruling core of the Sui Empire, from the Huangshui controlled by Tuyuhun down the river into Jincheng County (Lanzhou), it will directly threaten the strategic places such as Longxi and Tianshui in the west of the Guanzhong Plain.

Tuyuhun is the closest to Guanzhong, and in the past, Emperor Wu of Zhou Yuwen Yong had already greatly reduced the strength of Tuyuhun, and it was no longer the appearance of the four major military empires a hundred years ago, which became the first reason for the Sui Dynasty to take Tuyuhun to open a knife.

At this time, the Sui Empire was established at the beginning, although it failed to gain a little population in the process of attacking Wang Yong, and it had just gone through the war of the three governors, but the entire Sui Empire still had a huge population resource of 25 million.

Moreover, in the process of attacking Sanqi, the Northern Zhou obtained the new farming technology promoted by Wang Yong in Sanqi, as well as a large number of advanced production tools.

Wang Yong's relocation of almost all the people east of Liangzhou freed up large tracts of land for the Sui Empire, allowing Yang Jian to carry out large-scale new farming here, using the least amount of manpower to produce the most grain, all of which gave the Sui Dynasty a better agricultural foundation after its establishment.

The progress of agricultural production technology gave the Sui Empire the ability to support more troops, and the huge human resources allowed them to build a strong army, and even the war horses produced in the horse breeding areas in the northwest allowed the Sui Empire to build a cavalry of 200,000 people.

So in the twenty-sixth year of the Xia calendar, Emperor Wen of Sui Yang Jian took his younger brother Yang Shuang as the main commander, and Li Chong, Yang Hong, the king of Hejian, and Dou Luchang, the governor of Xiazhou, commanded the army respectively, and attacked Tuyuhun in three ways.

Yang Shuang is the prototype of Yang Ling, the backer king in the Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, but this person is indeed a handsome talent, in the original history, the army led by him almost wiped out the Turks, but unfortunately died young, only twenty-eight years old when he died.

Under the leadership of Yang Shuang, the Sui army went all the way out of Jincheng and followed the Huangshui to attack Qinghai, all the way out of Lintao to attack the southeast of Tuyuhun, and all the way out of Qilian Mountain to attack its northwest.

In the face of the powerful Sui army, Tuyuhun was unwilling to be captured, but now Tuyuhun is no longer the powerful military empire, and the 300,000 Sui army will soon completely defeat the broken Tuyuhun and include it in the four counties of the Sui Dynasty.

After the Sui army defeated Tuyuhun, it not only gave its half-hearted quasi-ally Turkic a dismount, but also greatly increased its military strength.

The fall of Tuyuhun not only allowed the Sui Dynasty to gain a large area of horse-producing land, but also the Guanzhong Plain, which was originally threatened by the northwest, became a hinterland, and there was no longer any need to worry about being plundered by Tuyuhun and other tribes, and the ruling core was more stable.

After pinching the soft persimmon Tuyuhun into his hand and eating it, Yang Jian set his eyes on Nan Chen in the south, which was his next target.

Since the beginning of the nineteenth year of the Xia calendar, when Emperor Wu of Zhou Yuwen Yong conquered the Eastern Expedition to destroy the Northern Qi, Nan Chen was in the process of the Northern Zhou Dynasty to destroy the Northern Qi, the army went north, intending to recover the Central Plains, and in the process of fighting many times with the Northern Zhou, and even the general Wu Mingche was captured and killed in Chang'an.

Soon after Yang Jian ascended the throne of the emperor, the question of attacking Nanchen was put on the agenda, and he sent He Ruobi as the governor of Wuzhou to guard Guangling (now Yangzhou City, Jiangsu), and Han Baohu to be the governor of Luzhou to guard Lujiang (now Hefei, Anhui).

Yang Jian had the ambition to annex Jiangnan, but he was very cautious in his strategy against Nan Chen, after all, at this time, the Sui Dynasty had just been established, and the northeast was still facing a powerful Xia state, in case the Sui Dynasty intervened when it attacked Nan Chen, it would be a disaster for the Sui Dynasty.

The Sui Dynasty had the ability to defeat Nan Chen, but it was cautious, and Nan Chen, who had already lost a lot of strength, did not know the ambition of this neighbor in the north at this time, but thought it was an opportunity during the Zhou Dynasty of the Sui Dynasty, and the queen of Chen also sent Zhou Luo and Xiao Maha to launch many attacks on Jiangbei. 2k

I have to say that Nan Chen's self-esteem, since the defeat in the twenty-first year of the Xia calendar, Nan Chen's army has no ability to fight against the northern army on the Central Plains Plain, Emperor Wen of Sui just sent Chang Sun Lan, Yuan Jingshan, Gao Gong and others to lead the army to fight, and then repelled Zhou Luo and Xiao Maha.

Yuanjingshan out of the estuary, Zheng Xiaoru led 4,000 troops to attack Yongshan, Nanchen sent the general of the navy Lu Lun to lead the navy to rescue, but was defeated by Zheng Xiaoru, in the face of the strong combat effectiveness of the Sui army, the defenders of the Chen Dynasty in Zhuokou, Yongshan, and Zhuanyang abandoned the city and fled.

Only then did Empress Chen know that he was afraid, so he had to send someone to ask Emperor Wen of Sui for peace, and returned the Hushu City (a small city) in Jiangbei occupied by Zhou Luo before as sincere, hoping that the two sides would continue to reconcile as before.

At that time, many generals of the Sui Dynasty suggested that now that Nan Chen was outnumbered, he should immediately send troops south to attack and destroy Nan Chen, but Emperor Wen of Sui unexpectedly rejected these suggestions, and instead chose to accept Nan Chen's request for peace, and then called for the withdrawal of troops.

At that time, the eldest grandson Lan wanted to disobey the order and take advantage of the situation to destroy Chen, but Gao Ying, who led the troops together, disagreed, although it was said that it was because of the death of Chen's mother's illness, "the ceremony is not mourning, and you can't take advantage of her mourning to attack" In fact, the main force of Chen Jing's soldiers was deployed along the river, and there was a strong naval army to block it, and the Sui army was actually unable to cross the river south.

In addition, at this time, the Sui Dynasty was still dealing with Tuyuhun, so it was unable to fight on both battlefields at the same time.

The Sui Dynasty was particularly cautious about Chen's strategy, and after attacking Tuyuhun and teaching Nanchen a small lesson to the first test of the army, the Sui Dynasty still maintained a very serious attitude towards Nan Chen.

After all, whether it was Chen Baxian, Chen Qian, or Chen Ji's several large-scale northern expeditions before, the Chen army had burst out with strong combat effectiveness, so Emperor Wen of Sui Yang Jian did not dare to despise Southern Chen no matter what, and the lesson of Northern Qi's contempt for Chen Jun was there.

After that, Chen ridiculed Zhang Zi and wanted to be attached to the Sui Dynasty, but the Sui refused to accept it in the name of reconciliation.

In order to paralyze Nan Chen, Emperor Wen of Sui even ordered 'to be very good with Chen's neighbors' Every time the soldiers on the front line captured Nan Chen's scouts and horses, not only would they not abuse them, but they would even be sent back after a good reception, so that Empress Chen even thought that the Sui army was afraid of him and became even more arrogant.

After the fall of Tuyuhun, Gao Gong proposed a complete strategy of leveling Chen to Yang Jianxian's 'Pingchen Policy'.

This strategy generally includes two main contents, one is to constantly harass the Chen Dynasty, delay their agricultural time, and weaken Nan Chen's national strength at one time, after all, in an agrarian society where grain determines national strength, a large reduction in grain will greatly reduce Nan Chen's strength.

Second, while harassing the enemy, it was also necessary to strategically confuse the enemy, so that the Chen army's vigilance against the Sui Dynasty would be reduced, so that the Sui army could smoothly cross the river, overcome the Yangtze River moat, and solve the strategic difficulties of crossing the river.

Although Gao Ying didn't know that Nan Chen's development of Lingnan had completely invalidated the first point, his strategy was still appreciated by Yang Jian, and the increasingly mediocre Chen Houzhu was obviously his perfect collaborator, making this originally unremarkable strategy shine.

After determining the strategy for destroying Chen, Emperor Wen of Sui Emperor Yang Jian began to formulate a specific plan for the use of troops.

At this time, the minister Cui Zhongfang suggested that Qizhou (now Qichun, Hubei), Hezhou (now Hexian, Anhui), Chuzhou (now Chuxian, Anhui), Fangzhou (now Liuhe, Jiangsu), Wuzhou (now Yangzhou, Jiangsu), Haizhou (now Lianyungang City, Jiangsu) and other places below Wuchang should be sent to secretly operate.

In Yizhou (present-day Chengdu, Sichuan), Xinzhou (present-day Shangrao, Jiangxi), Jingzhou (present-day Jiangling, Hubei), Xiangzhou (present-day Xiangyang, Hubei), Yingzhou (present-day Zhongxiang, Hubei) and other prefectures, they rushed to build boats and made the appearance of sending troops in these areas, attracting Chen's attention here.

If Chen wants to carry out a decisive battle on the water, he must concentrate his troops in Hankou and Xiakou (now Yichang, Sichuan), and when Chen traces the river upstream, the upper armies can take the opportunity to cross the Yangtze River; If they do not move, the upper armies will be able to go down the river.

After Emperor Wen of Sui heard this, he appointed Gao Ying as the assassin of Yingzhou and operated according to the plan; He also ordered Yang Su to build large ships in Yong'an (now Xinzhou, Hubei), which further put a certain degree of pressure on Nan Chen.

This set of strategic arrangements is a multi-way but focused (middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River) offensive direction, which is not only suitable for the geographical situation of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, but also consistent with the Chen army's many defensive points and wide defensive areas.

When the Sui Dynasty was actively doing a good job of crossing the Yangtze River south to attack the Chen State, it still continued to paralyze the Southern Chen side, so the Empress Chen became more and more self-righteous, and he was either happy with Zhang Lihua and other beauties all day long, or he was filling in the glamorous words with several fortunate ministers.

Because the Sui Dynasty concealed its strategy from itself in place, Nan Chen was almost unaware of it, even if Nan Chen's generals found something wrong, the Empress Chen, who had been completely paralyzed, still didn't care, and he even said, "The king of Jiankang is here, and there is a big river and natural danger, how can the Sui division fly across?" ”

In this way, another three years passed in a blink of an eye, it was already the fifth year of the emperor, the twenty-ninth year of the Xia calendar, just after the New Year, Emperor Wen of Sui suddenly issued an edict to count the sins of Nan Chen, and ordered a large army to attack the Chen Dynasty in the south.