Zhang Xi's strategy seems to be quite complicated, but in fact, it is just a variety of possibilities and different ways to deal with it.

In fact, to put it bluntly, it is enough to sneak attack Wuling if there is a chance to sneak attack Wuling, if there is no chance, take the counties north of the Yangtze River in Jiangxia and maintain the strategic advantage over Soochow.

What the real battle situation will turn out will depend on the actual situation.

Once the war breaks out, no one can say what the final outcome will be.

Now that the strategy is in place, it's up to both sides to make preparations.

After half a year of preparation, Zhang Xi finally officially sent troops from Jiangling to the south in late September of the first year of Yanxi.

According to the available intelligence, Zhu Ran really predicted the emptiness of Wuling County's defense, and sent troops in advance to increase the defense of Wuling County, and now Wuling County has about 35,000 soldiers to defend.

But again, there is good news.

In order to increase the defense force of Wuling County, Zhu Ran did not choose to transfer troops from Changsha, but chose to transfer troops from Jiangxia. Now Jiangxia only has 20,000 sailors and 15,000 foot soldiers to defend.

In this case, once Zhang Xi troops Wulin, the threat to Jiangxia will be too great.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Zhang Xi immediately raised his troops and personally led 70,000 infantry into Wulin, facing Zhu Ran across the river from Eastern Wu.

The 25,000 Jiangling Navy also immediately sent troops, left the Jiangling Water Village, went down the river, and set up another water village on the west side of Baqiu to watch the Baqiu Water Army under Zhu Ran.

At the same time, Shi Bao, Jiang Wei, Pan Jun and others led 30,000 troops, leading but not sending in Jiangling City, and Wen Dai led 5,000 sailors to garrison Jiangling Water Village, ready to meet Shi Bao and others to cross the river at any time.

As soon as Zhang Xi moved, the first person with numb claws was Zhu Ran.

From the very beginning, Zhu Ran's defense focus was on Wuling, Changsha County, especially Wuling County, which was the focus of Shu Han's use of troops in recent years.

He really didn't expect that Zhang Xi would garrison troops in Wulin, and he would directly dispatch seventy or eighty thousand troops at once.

This force, whether it is to Changsha or Jiangxia, is a great threat.

The only good thing is that starting from Wulin, whether it is to attack Changsha or Jiangxia, it is necessary to have the help of the naval army.

To attack Changsha is to cross the Yangtze River, and to attack Jiangxia, it is necessary to defeat the Jiangxia naval army stationed in Xiakou. And the Gangneung Navy should not have the ability to fight on two fronts at present.

But there is one thing that Zhu Ran can't quite understand, that is, the location of the water village of the Jiangling Water Army.

Generally speaking, if Zhang Xitun's troops are in Wulin, in order to facilitate coordination and command, the water village of the Jiangling Navy should also be set up near Wulin. But now the water village of the Jiangling Navy is on the west side of Baqiu, across the river from his own Baqiu Water Army.

The Yangtze River is very wide, and it is not that Zhu Ran can completely block it by relying on a water village, and he will not even let it pass.

Obviously, this is not the intention of going to Wulin to join the main army of Zhangxi, but the purpose of the Jiangling Navy is to see the Baqiu army.

So the question is, without the help of the naval army, what did he rely on Zhang Xi to cross the Yangtze River or the Han River and attack Changsha or Jiangxia?!

Do you rely on fishermen's sampan fishing boats?!

Zhu Ran really can't understand what Zhang Xi is going to do now.

And Zhang Xi was arranging his troops unhurriedly at this time.

First, let Zhoutai set off first, led 10,000 troops, and attacked Jingling County, Jiangxia County.

Jingling is the only county seat on the west side of the Hanshui in the Jiangxia counties, and the purpose of letting Zhoutai lead troops to attack this place is to attract Zhuge Ke's attention and let him judge that the Han army is going to attack Jiangxia, so as to shrink the Jiangxia army back to defend Xiakou, and dare not easily cruise in the Hanshui Valley.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Xi asked Wen Qin and Biqiu Jian, two generals, each leading 10,000 troops, to the north from Huarong County near Hanjindu, and waited at Hanjindu until Wen's Xiangyang naval army went south.

After Wen Ping led the navy to Hanjindu, he would first pick up Wen Qin, and the soldiers of Biqiu Jian crossed the Han River and entered the northern part of Jiangxia County without the obstruction of the Jiangxia navy, and this task should not be too difficult to complete.

After that, Wen Ping would continue to lead his troops south and suppress Xiakou, while Wen Qin and Biqiu Jian would divide their troops to attack Yundu, Anlu, Nanxin, Xiling and other counties after entering the northern part of Jiangxia, and sweep away the forces of the Eastern Wu army north of the Yangtze River.

This difficulty is actually not big, Jiang Xia currently only has 15,000 foot soldiers and 20,000 sailors.

In the face of the threat of 70,000 Han troops, it is unlikely that Zhuge Ke will continue to divide his troops to garrison the counties, and must concentrate on guarding the two counties of Xiakou and Shaxian to prevent Zhang Xi from breaking through directly from Jingling in the west. In the northern part of Jiangxia, there should not be many soldiers left.

And when Wen Qin and Biqiu Jian made a big disturbance in the north of Jiangxia, and Wen Ping led the Xiangyang Navy to the periphery of Xiakou, Zhang Xi didn't believe that Zhu Ran could still sit in Baqiu.

The Han army's preliminary combat preparations were carried out completely in accordance with the response plan formulated by Pang Tong.

Zhu Ran is still calm now, but Zhuge Ke can't sit still.

Zhuge Ke is a person, although he thinks very highly of himself, he still has some capital.

After Zhang Xi stationed troops in Wulin, Zhuge Ke did choose to directly abandon Jingling on the west bank of the Han River as Zhang Xi expected.

There is no way, the Shu army has 70,000 troops stationed in Wulintun, even if Zhuge Ke sends all the 15,000 Jiangxia troops to Jingling to defend the city, it may not be able to hold it, and once it can't be held, Jiangxia will only be left with a naval army to fight.

The risk is too great, it is better to abandon Jingling directly, let the Jingling defenders retreat across the Han River, and at the same time collect soldiers from other counties and counties in Jiangxia, a total of 12,000 people, all of whom are stationed in Shaxian for defense.

But Zhuge Ke did not completely abandon the defense of northern Jiangxia, he at least left 1,000 county soldiers to guard the three counties of Yundu, Anlu, and Nanxin in northern Jiangxia.

Although it can't stop the army, if Shu Han is only a small force to cross the Han River to fight, the defenders of these three counties still have the role of warning in advance and waiting for reinforcements for a while.

At the same time, after Zhuge Ke drove away Zhang Cheng and ignored Sun Sheng, he completely controlled the command of the Jiangxia Navy, and did not order the Jiangxia Navy's turtle to retreat to Xiakou for defense.

On the contrary, Zhuge Ke ordered to strengthen the Hanshui patrol under the pressure of the Shu Han army.

Zhuge Ke was actually afraid that Zhang Xi would divide his troops and cross the river from other parts of the Hanshui River Basin, threatening the northern part of Jiangxia County.

Zhuge Ke's vision and response are still no big problems, and they also show some of his personal ability and strategic vision.

But his biggest problem is still a serious lack of battlefield experience. And he was so confident that he didn't realize what was wrong with him.

At the beginning of Yingxian, Zhuge Ke only arranged 3,000 people to intercept and kill the breakthrough troops of Zhoutai, and he did not have a clear understanding of the combat power of his troops. This point is the biggest failure of Zhuge Ke to let Zhoutai break through.

But at that time, in the end, it was Zhou Tai who abandoned the city and left, and he Zhuge Ke was the victorious party. They all won the battle, and even a few defeats broke through, which was not a big deal.

Zhuge Ke didn't realize that it was his own problem at all, he just felt that Zhoutai's luck was too good.

This has led to the fact that Zhuge Ke is still a little self-righteous in the use of soldiers.

He actually thought that the Jiangxia city guarded by a thousand soldiers could delay the attack of the Shu army and wait for him to send troops to the rescue.

Another one, Zhuge Ke's experience in water warfare is even more lacking than his land combat experience.

Zhuge Ke did see the hidden dangers of Hanshui's defense, and arranged for the Jiangxia Navy to patrol back and forth in the Hanshui Valley, but he didn't understand the combat routines of the Navy at all, and still regarded the Navy as an army command.

Patrolling along the river, in Zhuge Ke's understanding, is the same as the army sending scouts to reconnoiter the enemy. He did not follow the naval tactics, with Paimon Chong warships as the main battleship and large and small warships as the auxiliary, to form a fleet to patrol the water village, but used all the patrols as the main force of patrol.

According to Zhuge Ke's understanding, the speed of walking is fast, flexible and convenient, and it is very convenient to patrol the Hanshui Basin.

But the problem is that such a patrol can certainly detect the southward movement of Wenpin's Xiangyang Navy in advance, but in the face of Wenpin's large army, the Jiangxia Patrol, which is composed entirely of Lu Ke, has no capital to delay the Xiangyang Navy to go south, and it does not even dare to take the initiative to approach, for fear of being directly surrounded by the Xiangyang Navy.

Therefore, Jiangxia's naval patrol could do nothing but warn Xiakou, and could only watch as Wen Ping's army occupied Mengjindu and transported all the troops of Wen Qin and Biqiu Jian across the Han River.

Therefore, when Zhu Ran was still thinking about what Zhang Xi was going to do, Zhuge Ke had already known in advance the fact that the Xiangyang Navy was going south, and transported troops across the Han River to attack the northern part of Jiangxia.

Zhuge Ke was suddenly anxious, and he immediately made his own response.

The first order was to let the defenders of Yundu and Nanxin counties retreat, abandon the defenses of the two counties, concentrate 3,000 troops, defend Anlu, and block the Shu army from sweeping through the northern part of Jiangxia.

The second order was to let the Jiangxia Navy take the initiative to attack and intercept and kill the Xiangyang Navy of the Wenpin Department in the Hanshui Valley.

As long as the water war is won and the Hanshui valley is regained, then the logistics and grass of the Shu army that crossed the river will be cut off, and he will send the main army force to reinforce Anlu, and he can suffocate the Shu army that is raging in the north of Jiangxia.

The third command. Ask for help from Zhu Ran, who is stationed in Baqiu.

There are 20,000 people in Xiangyang and 20,000 in Jiangxia, and the troops of the two sides are equal and do not have an advantage.

And now Jiangxia's life and death may lie in the battle of this naval army, which makes Zhuge Ke dare not hold it up.

There must be enough sailors to help in the battle to ensure the victory of the first battle of Hanshui, so that Jiangxia can be held more securely.

Although Zhuge Ke is arrogant, he has a strategic vision, he knows the importance of Jiangxia, and he must not lose Jiangxia, for this reason, even if he is reluctant, he must ask Zhu Ran for help.

And Zhu Ran, who received Zhuge Ke's request for help, also knew the importance of Jiangxia, and he also wanted to support Jiangxia. But on the opposite bank to the west, there is still a 25,000-strong Jiangling naval army.

If he let all the water army go to Hanshui to help in the battle, then this Jiangling water army will inevitably take the initiative to attack and follow the battle.

Or, simply let their own navy leave the waters of the Yangtze River, and the Jiangling navy directly transported the Shu army stationed in Wuling to cross the river and attack Changsha.

Both methods will make Zhu Ran throw a mouse bogey, and he will not dare to act rashly at all.

In the end, after weighing it again and again, Zhu Ran decided to divide the troops.

Divide half of the Baqiu Naval Army, under the leadership of Ding Feng, go to Hanshui to help the battle, and lead the remaining 10,000 Baqiu Naval Army to defend according to the water village, blocking the Jiangling Naval Army and the Shu Han Army in Wulin.

At the same time, under the precautions, Zhu Ran began to think about whether to let Lu Dai divide his troops to support Changsha.

Seeing that the army of Shu Han has basically gathered at the boundary of Wulin and Jiangxia, even the Xiangyang Navy is unlikely to attack Wuling County, right?!

Well. It's also a bit of a bad thing to say.

(End of chapter)