The tenth day of the sixth month.

With the continuous contact between the envoys, after a lot of communication, the kings of the Su and Song dynasties each led the carriage to the border between the two countries, and built an altar to worship the heavens outside a small city called Hongbi, and announced the oath, which was the conclusion of the covenant.

Subsequently, the two countries withdrew their heavy troops stationed on the border, leaving only the local government and county soldiers to maintain law and order, and no longer hostile to each other.

Su also sent 50,000 elite soldiers to officially enter the territory of the Song State, and after converging with the Song State Shenjian Army, the 70,000 elite army went north and was stationed in Cangwu Mansion, the northern gateway of Yulin County.

The intention of the two countries is obvious, that is, to unite together to counter the heavy pressure of the Chu State.

It's like a signal.

With the actions of the joint forces of the Soviet Union and the Song Dynasty, the South China Sea finally cheered up, apportioned the Latin everywhere in the country, collected 50,000 strong men, and drew out an army of 100,000 people.

However, these 100,000 troops did not go north, like the Soviet Union and the Song Dynasty, and wanted to keep the enemy out of the country.

Instead, he was directly stationed in Nanhai City, the national capital, and he looked like he had made up his mind to defend it, but he refused to go out.

Then there is Ning Guo.

After meeting several waves of envoys from the South China Sea in succession, the emperor of Ningguo sank into the hill, under the pretext that southern Xinjiang was restless, and the night was frequent, and he needed to suppress it with force.

So the Jianwu Emperor announced that he officially drove the western tour, with 50,000 forbidden troops, and went to Yuzhang in a mighty way, preparing to review the soldiers and horses of the battalions here, and use the fierce military power to deter the hearts of the people in the world.

Well.

The Xiao Xiao in Ning Guo's mouth, you don't have to think about it, it is naturally Chu State.

And Shenqiu's western tour has a very clear purpose, which is aimed at the Chu State.

Although the name is to inspect the parade of horses.

But as we all know, whenever a large army goes out, the general must count the soldiers and horses, review the soldiers, sacrifice to the heavens, and boost morale.

The Son of Heaven of Ning Guo ran to Yuzhang County, maybe he was reviewing and reviewing, so he directly announced that he would personally take command, and then led hundreds of thousands of troops to the west.

This is highly likely.

After all, with the arrival of Shenqiu, at the junction of Ning and Chu, 600,000 Ning State troops have gathered, in addition to the Son of Heaven himself, there are ten innate grandmasters.

It can be said that in addition to the guards and horses of the local counties, there are also the elites of the northern Xinjiang who defend the Liang State.

All the mobile forces that could be mobilized in the Ning State had already converged on the Chu Ning border.

As long as the other party starts a war, it will be a battle against the Chu State, and there is no spare strength.

Such an attitude has already shown that Ning Guo is ready to go to war and start a war that will allure the country.

With the successive mobilization of troops and horses from the Su, Song, Nanhai, and Ning States, at this time, in the east and south of the Chu State, on the border, 770,000 troops from various countries have been gathered.

Without exception, these soldiers and horses were all hostile to the Chu State, and they were faintly united.

As long as the Chu State dares to launch an attack on any side, then the remaining three parties will not hesitate to pounce on the Chu State from all sides and bite at the Chu State.

This is to pull a hair and move the whole body, and it is unavoidable.

It can be seen that with the continuous expansion of the Chu State in recent years, the pressure on the surrounding countries has been great.

It can make natural enemies like Su and Song, and world enemies like Su and Ning, abandon their previous suspicions one after another, unite in one place, and deal with an enemy together.

Speaking of which, Lu Yuan is also famous in history.

……

The countries united and faintly formed an alliance against the Chu State.

But the clouds of war did not ignite immediately.

The depressing atmosphere, in addition to continuing to envelop the entire Yangzhou, is still brewing.

Although the outside world has speculated, and even made a judgment, the state of Chu is going to march south.

But in fact, Lu Yuan was not in much of a hurry about this big battle.

The reason is also very simple.

At this time, the time is not yet ripe, or rather, he is not fully grasped.

The so-called uncertainty does not mean that he is not confident that he can cope with the pressure of Ning Guo in addition to sending troops to the south.

Although the Ning Kingdom is strong now, it has fourteen innate beings and 800,000 soldiers and horses.

Being able to do this is not enough to make Lu Yuan afraid.

Now there are ten innate soldiers and horses in the state of Chu, and the standing soldiers and horses have also expanded to as many as 670,000, in addition to Li Xiong and the 100,000 vassal soldiers and horses he commanded.

This kind of strength is not much different from Ning Guo.

If it really starts, with the strength of Lu Yuan and the two clones, Chu State has more advantages in terms of high-end combat power than Ning State.

Supplemented by standing troops and horses of equal size, Lu Yuan was completely confident that he could block the possible attack of Ning Guo while marching south.

So Ning Guo is not worried.

What really made him feel jealous was the Kyushu Immortal Sect headed by Ziyun Dao.

In today's world, Lu Yuan is already a small group of people standing at the top, and in the words of outsiders, that is, a Dao master-level figure.

But the Taoist master-level figure does not mean that he is completely at ease.

On the Ning Kingdom's side, there is a Purple Cloud Dao Master at the same level.

At the same time, in the Purple Cloud Dao, there are also a lot of monks who have cultivated mana.

The above people are all strong enemies who have enough strength to threaten Lu Yuan's safety.

Now that Ziyun Dao is obviously in Ning Guo's camp, if Lu Yuan makes a move against Ning Guo, or if he fights with Ning Guo, it is difficult to say whether these monks will directly intervene and help deal with him together.

This is very likely to happen.

Thinking that he might have to deal with all the monks of an immortal sect, Lu Yuan, no matter how confident he was, could not help but feel jealous.

It is precisely because of this that even if the troops and horses of the Chu State are ready now, and the allocated grain and grass are in place, they can launch a southern expedition at any time.

But when everything was ready, he still did not give the order to attack.

Allowing the outside world to disturb one after another, all kinds of news spread all over the sky.

The state of Chu is still as immobile as a mountain, but it continues to accumulate troops, horses, food and grass, and is ready to attack at any time.

I have to say that this posture makes outsiders a little incomprehensible.

This appearance of wanting to fight but not wanting to fight made countless people suspicious, and they couldn't understand what Chu wanted to do?

And the state of the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Chu State that did not start also made the surrounding countries feel deeply jealous, for fear that the Chu State was making some conspiracy, and in order to protect itself, they had to gather a large army.

Song, Su, Nanhai, Ning, Liang, Zhou, Dali, Nanzhao......

These countries that border the Chu State and also have contradictions or hatred with the Chu State, because of the Chu State's move of gathering heavy troops, they can't help but follow one after another, and they also begin to gather troops more or less.

The north and south of the Yangtze River have fallen into a strange arms race in disguise.

And at the beginning of this kind of competition, many people immediately complained bitterly.

It is not a simple matter to gather heavy troops and lead but not provoke.

In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to gather a large number of elite soldiers who can be used at any time, as well as a larger number of civilians who can provide various kinds of support for elite soldiers.

This alone means that countless manpower has been mobilized. And during the transfer, the requisitioned people did not produce at all, but only purely consumed materials.

This means that a large amount of materials are being consumed meaninglessly.

Just like the state of Chu.

As far as Lu Yuan knew, for the southern expedition, he mobilized 100,000 vassal troops and 60,000 forbidden troops. In addition, there were 250,000 people who served these soldiers and horses to transport grain and horses.

The above 410,000 people in total, all of them are men in the prime of life with a large appetite, plus the consumption of some livestock, the daily grain paid by the Chu State is enough to have 10,000 stone of grain.

10,000 stone of grain a day is 300,000 stone a month, and 3.6 million stone of grain a year.

That's it, because the army cantonment is still and there is no long-distance transportation of grain.

If grain is transported from hundreds of thousands of miles, then this grain consumption will be doubled, or even multiplied, reaching an unimaginable astronomical amount.

And that's just pure food consumption.

In this battle, Lu Yuan transferred 250,000 people, which means that there are 250,000 fewer young men in the local area who are the main labor force.

In order to get enough of these people, Lu Yuan almost requisitioned all the young and strong men from the six prefectures in the southern part of Dongting County.

Without these people participating in local production and operation, it is almost conceivable that without the main productive forces, the grain production and commercial and trade activities of the six southern provinces of Dongting will be fatally affected.

In the land of the six prefectures, the tax burden has been reduced this year, and even the income cannot make ends meet, and the central government needs subsidies, which is already a sure thing.

A peaceful confrontation, before the war, the various losses of the Chu State were already so great.

Then as other countries that are also affected and threatened by the Chu State and have to follow closely with the mobilization of their armies and have a sit-in confrontation, the same should be true.

The state of Chu has two major grain-producing areas, Jianghan and Dongting, and the Xichuan Plain has also been redeveloped after several years of immigration and reclamation, becoming another grain-producing area.

There are three major grain producing areas, as well as the 40 million stone grain accumulated by the Chu State over the years, and the grain consumption of millions of stones a year, Lu Yuan asked himself if he could hold it.

Moreover, with the establishment of Hanzhong County, the acquisition of 1.6 million local households, and the 300,000 people taken captive from Longxi County at the beginning of this year, the total population of Chu State has officially broken through the 10 million mark, reaching more than 10.7 million.

In terms of population, it has officially reached the criteria of a hegemon.

With such a large population, there are 250,000 fewer people in the local area, and the impact will not be too great.

Therefore, there is no problem in the state of Chu to continue to maintain the current consumption strategy, let alone a year and a half, even if it is maintained for ten years, there is no problem.

But what Chu can do, other countries may not be.

The Ning State in the east, which has been peaceful for a long time in recent years, has accumulated a lot of family resources, and it is also the business of the overlord, so there should be no problem with the Chu State.

But in the south of the Su and Song states, this is not necessarily.

The two countries of the Soviet Union and the Song Dynasty are located in the southern wilderness, and the country is already barren, with many mountains and few plains, and is known for its poverty.

The Song country is a little better, the area where the national capital Song Ping is located, there is a Red River Plain, which is barely half of the grain-producing area, but it is still not rich.

And a few years ago, they followed the Chu State to fight the Southwest Yi, and each of them opened up a lot of territory and set up counties.

Expanding its territory is a good thing for a country.

It represents the strength of martial arts, and at the same time can increase the depth of strategy.

It's just that there are two sides to everything.

While the two countries have opened up new territories, they have naturally borne the burden of developing new territories.

In order to develop Dongting, Qianzhong, and Xichuan counties, Lu Yuan carried out several million-scale immigration projects one after another.

At its peak, the state of Chu needed to bear the livelihood of more than 2 million immigrants, take care of their long journey, build houses in their new homes, and invest some agricultural tools and seeds for their initial production, as well as half a year or even a year's free food supply, and a three-year tax holiday.

In addition, heavy troops were stationed in the resettlement areas to clean up wild beasts, rogues, and recalcitrant natives, as well as suppress unrest among the migrants.

Which of the above is not extremely resource-intensive?

In the most difficult time, in order to feed these immigrants, develop new territories, and maintain local garrisons, the state of Chu had to spend tens of millions of stone grain and the same amount of silver every year.

In order to support these consumptions, Lu Yuan invested all the production of more than 6 million people in the three counties and seventeen prefectures of the country into this immigration project, and even relied on plundering outside to barely support it.

As a result, there is now a prosperous atmosphere of hard work and hegemony.

But at the beginning, the Chu State had this heritage to support immigrants, and the two small countries of the Su and Song Dynasty, where did they come from?

Because of frequent turmoil and wars, the people of the Soviet Union have been trapped in hardship, and they have always been known for their poverty.

Now it has already reached the limit to bear the immigrants of half the county and the four prefectures, and to feed the 50,000 soldiers and horses in the country, as well as a large number of powerful people.

The Song State is a little better, supported by this Red River Plain, which can barely maintain the consumption of immigrants.

But in addition to immigration, the Song State also adopted a policy of strengthening the army.

With a small population of 2 million, it supports 150,000 standing soldiers and horses, which can be called a poor army.

All kinds of policies are simply a copy of the original Changsha country.

Lu Yuan knew how poor he was in the treasury during the Changsha Kingdom, and that was the extent that he could starve to death of rats.

In order to grow stronger, the Song State adopted the same policy, which made the national strength grow rapidly, but also made the country impoverished.

Therefore, after these two countries played a game of sit-in confrontation with Lu Yuan, they soon ran out of treasury and were short of money and food, making it difficult to continue.

It was only two months, and at the beginning of August, the 70,000 coalition troops that were originally improvised because of the oath of the kings of the two countries of the Soviet Union and the Song Dynasty soon fell apart due to lack of money and food.

If it weren't for the emergency, a batch of money and grain transferred from the South China Sea country would have helped the two countries renew their blood.

I am afraid that the alliance between the two countries will officially collapse because of this, and it will be completely reduced to a name, and it will be nothing but nothing.

It's just that even so, the South China Sea country has limited national strength, and it is impossible to support the two countries endlessly.

After a long delay, one day, the Three Kingdoms would have to withdraw their troops and give up the confrontation with Chu because of lack of money and food.

Although Ning Guo learned the news, he knew that the situation of the coalition army was a little bad.

Between the two countries of Kening and the Soviet Song Dynasty, there are thousands of miles apart, and there are many mountains in the middle.

In this case, even if Ning has sufficient food, if it wants to be transferred to the territory of the two countries of Su and Song, the cost is also a suffocating amount.

Under long-distance transshipment, the supply of 70,000 soldiers and horses of the two countries is almost no less than the supply of 700,000 troops.

With such a big cost, Ning Guo can't bear it.

And for such a small number of soldiers and horses, it is too worthless to spend so much.

With so much money and food wasted, it is better to recruit another two or three hundred thousand soldiers and horses in the country.

In this way, it can be regarded as enhancing his own strength and using his money and food on his own body.

Therefore, thousands of miles away in the two countries of the Soviet and Song Dynasties, Ning Guo is also a little beyond the reach of the whip, and love cannot help.

It's just the land of Lingnan, and the location is also very important.

Not only can it contain a large number of soldiers and horses of the Chu State, but also drag the Chu State from another front.

Maintaining the existence of the Su, Song, and Nanhai countries can also cut off the Chu State's attempt to invade Lingnan and obtain manpower and material resources here.

So there's no room for loss here.

Under the internal and external difficulties, the four-nation coalition forces were a little unable to sit still, thinking about whether to take the initiative to attack and start the war themselves.

Since Chu State is not coming, then I will go by myself.

I don't believe that the four countries joined forces, poured out millions of soldiers, and still couldn't win a Chu country?

However, although this proposal has been repeatedly put forward, in recent years, the prestige of the Chu State has been too strong, and Lu Yuan's record is too bright, and all countries are afraid of him and the strength of the Chu State, and they dare not take the initiative to attack one by one.

The four countries wanted the other members to be the first to make a move, so as to test the details of the Chu State.

But this kind of wishful thinking, everyone is fighting, and everyone is unwilling to suffer.

After calculating each other, this plan can only exist on paper forever.

It's just that even so, whether it is the coalition side or Lu Yuan's side, they are very clear in their hearts.

This state of confrontation cannot last forever.

Before the coalition army, or the three Lingnan countries in the coalition army, can no longer support it, they will definitely launch it in advance and make a move against the Chu State.

Chu State wants to rely on this method of killing the opponent with his family wealth to win this war, but after all, it is just an extravagant hope.

Those enemies are not stupid, it is impossible to sit back and watch the Chu State defeat its allies one by one, grow stronger step by step, and then devour everything.

The only uncertain factor now is how long the three Lingnan countries can last, or how long will their patience last?

on this.

Lu Yuan estimated that with the family background of the Three Kingdoms, it may last for another two or three months at most, or shorter.

Within a month or two, you can't help it and launch an attack in advance.

And on his side, in fact, he couldn't help it and wanted to launch a southern expedition.

Because as time passed, the connection between the alliances of the four countries became closer and closer, and there was a faint tendency to form an alliance headed by the Ning State and aimed at the Chu State.

At the same time, the military power of the four countries is also expanding rapidly, and the longer it drags on, the stronger these enemies become.

Don't break their alliance in advance before they are completely integrated and their military strength develops to the limit, and take advantage of their weakness to take the lead in destroying several weak forces.

Then when the alliance grows, the price that the Chu State needs to pay if it wants to destroy them again will be far more than now.

Therefore, Lu Yuan was also a little impatient and wanted to take the lead in starting a war.

It's just that as mentioned in the preface, the biggest variable in Kyushu, the major immortal gates are still there, and the Ziyang Dao is still there, so under his fear, he can only forcibly endure the thought of moving troops and continue to wait for the opportunity.

Fortunately, this opportunity, after waiting for two months, finally came.

In August of the tenth year of Shenwu, two pieces of news came to Baling one after another.

First of all, on the side of the snow field, thanks to the sweetness tasted by the joint offensive this spring, the people of the snow field sent an envoy to invite the state of Chu to attack the state of Zhou together in the battle of plundering grain this autumn.

Then there's Flying Frost Road.

Daoist Mo Li led the doorman, went to Baling in person, and bid farewell to Lu Yuan.

As time passed, the one-year period finally arrived.

These major immortal gates in Kyushu are actually ready to go north to the Northern Netherworld to hold a major event of lifting the realm and ascending.