Summoning the Peak of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 2917 Make a fortune from war, attack and defend Jianye

Chapter 2913: Making a fortune from war, Jianye offensive and defensive battle

Although Liu Yu, who became emperor, is currently the biggest anti-Qin leader, his opposition to Qin was also after Liu Ji became the king of Shu. Only Liu Xiu was anti-Qin from the beginning to the end. No matter who was against Qin, he Basically, they will help out.

Liu Che rebelled against Qin and Liu Xiu helped;

Liu Xiu also helped when Li Shimin rebelled against Qin;

Liu Yu rebelled against Qin and Liu Xiu still helped...

Look at the fate of the other princes who opposed Ying Hao. Whether it was Liu Che, Yuan Shao, Li Shimin, Temujin, or Nurhachi, the grass on their graves was basically three feet high. Only Liu Xiu has survived to this day.

Faced with Qin's strong suppression and Sun Wu's crushing strength, Liu Xiu not only did not weaken, but actually grew stronger and stronger. I am afraid he is the only one among the princes in the world who can do this.

Liu Xiu was a monarch who never lacked a view of the overall situation. He was very aware of the consequences of the defeat of the Three Kingdoms of the Central Plains.

For the current Chu State, destroying Wu is the current biggest strategic goal. Only by destroying Wu and controlling the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River can the Chu State be initially qualified to challenge the Great Qin.

But Wu State is obviously not so easy to destroy.

Wu and Chu have been fighting for so many years, but generally speaking, Chu has lost more and won less. Although under the leadership of Liu Xiu, Chu has become stronger than Wu, it has not reached the point of crushing it.

Had it not been for the infighting between the brothers Sun Ce and Sun Quan, which caused the division of Wu, and if Sima Yi beside Sun Quan was one of his own, Liu Xiu would not have destroyed Wu at this critical juncture.

Relying on the internal strife between Sun Wu and Sima Yi's two trump cards, Liu Xiu had gained an absolute advantage in the battle between Wu and Chu after winning the Panyang Lake Water Battle. As long as he marched step by step, it was only a matter of time before Wu was destroyed.

However, the centipede is not dead, and Sun Ce will not be able to catch it without mercy. It will obviously take a long time to completely eliminate Sun Ce and Sun Wu.

But if Da Qin is allowed to defeat the Three Kingdoms Alliance and completely occupy the Central Plains during this period, Chu State may not even be able to protect itself, let alone destroy Wu.

Therefore, although Liu Xiu knew that for Chu, the most important thing at the moment was to destroy Wu, he still did not allocate part of his strength to support the Three Kingdoms Alliance so that it could hold off Da Qin for a longer time. It was best to keep fighting. .

"The Sui Kingdom is dead and Yang Guang is dead. Fortunately, the Yongliang Army of the Qin Dynasty was dragged into the quagmire of the Western Regions and will not be able to return in the short term. Otherwise, the pressure from the Three Kingdoms of the Central Plains may be even greater.

Not long ago, a naval battle broke out in the East China Sea between the Qin, Wei, Song and Ming Dynasties. The strength of the navy of the three kingdoms in the Central Plains was severely damaged. When Zhu Di learned that our army had defeated the Wu navy, he wanted to buy prisoners of war from our army to restore the navy's strength as soon as possible and fight against the Qin army. .

After much thought, I decided to sell all the Soochow prisoners of war to the Three Kingdoms Alliance in exchange for money and food. "

Just as Zhu Di and Yao Guangxiao expected, Liu Xiu did not refuse after learning that they wanted to buy prisoners of war.

After all, for the Chu State, selling these prisoners of war would eliminate hidden dangers, obtain money and food, and allow the Three Kingdoms to continue to confront Da Qin. This was a great thing that had many benefits but no harm. Naturally, Liu Xiu did not Reason for rejection.

In addition to selling prisoners of war to the Three Kingdoms, Liu Xiu even wanted to seize Jianye and kill Sun Ce, while continuing to attack Jiangdong. At the same time, he would detach a part of the navy to join forces with the Three Kingdoms navy to prevent the Three Kingdoms navy from being captured again. The Qin army was defeated.

Of course, although Liu Xiu had this intention, the prerequisite was to capture Jianye and kill Sun Ce. Only after he was completely free from worries could he focus on supporting other battlefields.

However, it seems that Jianye is not easy to fight at the moment. Not only does Sun Ce have 20,000 troops in his hands, but he also mobilizes the entire city to defend the city. If he attacks by force, he will obviously end up with a lot of bloodshed.

Liu Xiu was really frightened by Sun Wu. He knew that even if Sun Wu experienced this defeat, he would still be a tough guy, so he wanted to bypass Sun Wu and deal with Sun Ce first, then Wu Zixu, and then Sun Quan would finally deal with Sun Wu's most difficult problem. Big trouble solved.

But from this point of view, although Sun Ce is far inferior to Sun Wu, he is still a tough guy. I don't know if he can chew up his good skills.

Liu Xiu suddenly realized that adopting Sima Yi's strategy and secretly supporting Sun Quan to become King of Wu was the most correct decision in his life.

Look at this group of people in Wu State. Sun Wu, Sun Bin, Sun Ce, Wu Zixu, and Lu Su. Except for Sun Quan, no one is easy to deal with.

Therefore, only when Sun Quan succeeds to the throne can the internal conflicts in Wu State be completely intensified, and then he will have the opportunity to destroy Wu. Otherwise, Sun Ce and Sun Wu will lead the army to destroy Chu.

Deep down in his heart, Liu Xiu actually envied Sun Ce. Having a good father like Sun Jian not only left him the treasure land of Jiangdong, but also had so many outstanding people to help him, unlike him who had to do everything by himself. accumulation.

No one knows better than Liu Xiu how difficult it is for him to walk on this journey, and it can be said that every step is like walking on thin ice.

Even though Chu State is already the third most powerful country in the world, it may even be the second most powerful country, but it still faces the risk of national subjugation, and the sharp sword hanging above its head is the Qin Dynasty.

"None of the naval generals in the Central Plains were a match for Zhou Yu, and the eighty-five thousand in the East China Sea battle could not defeat Zhou Yu's thirty-five thousand. Therefore, in addition to purchasing prisoners, the Ming envoy also made a request to lend generals to our country."

After saying this, Liu Xiu looked at the counselors below and said in a deep voice: "Although I am willing to lend generals to the Ming Dynasty, there may not be any water warfare generals in our army who are stronger than Zhou Yu."

I have to say that Liu Xiu was too sober.

Although Chu won the Battle of Panyang Lake, Liu Xiu did not inflate his belief that Chu's naval force was stronger than Wu's because the battle was too difficult to win without Sima Yi.

But looking back at the Battle of the East China Sea, Zhou Yu won from 350,000 to 85,000, which was really without any merit.

Even Liu Xiu had to admit that Chu State did not have a better naval general than Zhou Yu. Even if he personally led the army, he might not be able to achieve Zhou Yu's results.

Zhu Di believed that there were naval generals comparable to Zhou Yu in the south. This was not wrong, but Chu State obviously did not have them. The naval generals comparable to Zhou Yu were all in Wu State, such as Sun Wu and Wu Zixu. But even if the Wu Kingdom has many outstanding people and the quality of its talents is much higher than that of the Chu Kingdom, the country will be almost destroyed by Liu Xiu.

It can be seen that the importance of the monarch is much higher than that of the ministers, and the only difference between Wu and Chu is that the monarch is not Liu Xiu.

"My lord, you are right to say so, but even if it is for the right to speak in the future alliance, you still have to borrow it."

Pang Tong stood up and spoke. Obviously, as a young man, he also saw that it was not difficult to destroy Wu. The difficult thing was how to destroy Wu before the end of the Central Plains War.

As soon as Pang Tong said this, he was immediately recognized by Liao Li, Kuai Liang, Kuai Yue, Huan Wen and other advisers.

After careful consideration, Liu Xiu finally decided to send Guo Wei and Chai Rong, father and son, to represent the Chu State to assist the United Navy.

The best candidate in Liu Xiu's heart is actually Sima Yi. The opponent is the best in the world in terms of leadership and strategy, but his latent mission is not over yet.

Anyway, after the Battle of the East China Sea, the Great Qin navy was also severely weakened and was unlikely to make a comeback in a short time. With the capabilities of Guo Wei and Chai Rong and his son, it would not be a fool's errand to let them take the lead first.

In the Battle of Panyang Lake, 24,000 of the 50,000 Wu navy were killed in the battle, and the remaining 26,000 were captured by the Chu army.

Although twenty-six thousand prisoners of war are not too many, if they are bought with money and food, the Ming Dynasty alone obviously cannot afford it. After all, the Ming Dynasty is also expanding its army, and the consumption of money and food is huge, and it is impossible to use them all. Come and buy prisoners of war.

After some discussion, Pang Tong and Yao Guangxiao decided to sell 15,000 prisoners of war to the Ming Dynasty. The remaining 11,000 were sold to the Song Dynasty, 8,000 to the Song Dynasty, and 3,000 to the Wei Kingdom. Only then were all the prisoners of war sold.

Even Liu Xiu was shocked after learning about the proceeds from the prisoner of war trade.

After robbing Ruan Yue, Siam and other countries, although the Chu State was not short of money and food, the more the better, no one would be dissatisfied, even if they couldn't use it, they could store it.

After the transactions with the three kingdoms of Wei, Song and Ming, the logistical pressure on the Chu army will be greatly reduced, and they will no longer have to worry about food shortages in the future.

After understanding the huge benefits involved, Liu Xiu couldn't help but a glimmer of light flashed in his eyes. He felt that this kind of prisoner-of-war trade could continue forever.

Although all Wu's naval forces captured by Chu have been sold, as the process of destroying Wu accelerates, Chu's army will definitely capture more Wu's prisoners of war.

You must know that Sun Ce and Sun Quan's family have a total of 300,000 troops. Even if half of them die in battle, 150,000 prisoners of war can be born.

As the war in the Central Plains progresses, the gap in the military resources of the Wei, Song, and Ming Kingdoms will only become larger and larger. At that time, the transactions between the Chu State and the Wei, Song, and Ming Kingdoms will probably not be limited to navy prisoners of war, and even infantrymen. Prisoners can also be sold.

After all, for the Three Kingdoms Alliance, instead of recruiting new soldiers and spending a lot of money on retraining, it is better to directly buy prisoners of war for reorganization. After all, the Wu army prisoners of war are definitely much stronger than the new soldiers.

At this thought, Liu Xiu seemed to have opened the door to a new world. Now he understood why Ying Hao wanted to open up sea routes, because the money for making war fortune was so fast.

Da Qin relied on selling arms to countries such as Nanyang and Tianzhu to make huge war fortunes and earn huge profits, which is why it developed so fast.

The Chu State cannot take advantage of the maritime arms trade for the time being, but during the Great War in the Central Plains, he can open up a new track and use the prisoner of war trade to make huge war fortunes, thus overtaking others in a corner to improve the overall strength of the Chu State. national power.

Thinking of this, Liu Xiu couldn't hold it in any longer and quickly ordered: "Send the order to the whole army to march towards Jianye immediately."

At the same time, in Jianye, Sun Ce and his subordinates gathered together in King Wu's palace, but the atmosphere was extremely dull.

No one expected that the invincible Commander-in-Chief Sun Wu would not only be defeated this time, but also be defeated so miserably that the entire 50,000-strong naval force was wiped out.

But the failure of this battle cannot be blamed on Sun Wu. If Sun Quan's 15,000 reinforcements had not arrived on time and disobeyed orders on the battlefield, no matter how hard this battle was fought, the entire army would not have been wiped out.

At this time, Sun Ce also had a look of remorse. If he had known that this situation would be like this, he might as well not have asked Sun Quan for help. As a result, the reinforcements came, but they might as well not have come at all. Not only did they not help at all, but they also delayed Sun Wu. The hind legs ultimately led to this humiliating defeat.

With the annihilation of the 50,000-strong navy, the entire Wu Kingdom will be the back garden of the Chu Navy. From now on, the Chu Navy can come and leave as they please.

Of course, this is not the most serious thing. The most serious thing is that without the protection of the navy, the Chu navy can march straight in and directly attack Jianye.

This is no less than a bolt from the blue for Jianye. After all, although Jianye, as the capital, is a fortified city, it only has 20,000 defenders. How long can it hold on? Once Jianye fell, the blow to Wu Jun would undoubtedly be fatal.

Sun Ce naturally knew this, so before the water war began, he had already organized the people and made preparations to defend the city. He was worried that if the navy suffered too much loss, the Chu army would directly attack Jianye. However, he did not expect that his navy would We will lose so miserably this time.

What happened has happened, and there is no point regretting it. All Sun Ce can do is to strengthen Jianye's defense force and use Jianye as much as possible to consume the Chu army.

But this is only treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Facing the steady stream of Chu troops, it will only be a matter of time before Jianye falls.

But Sun Ce had no other choice. He could only place his hope on Sun Wu, hoping that Sun Wu could win a big victory to cheer up people before Jianye fell.

Sun Ce stood at the top of Jianye City, looking at the Chu navy on the Yangtze River waterway, and said solemnly: "Liu Xiu, let's put an end to Jianye."

Sun Ce had already sent his mother, as well as the old, young, women and children at home to Da Qin in advance, and left a will to be succeeded by Sun Wu after his death. He was obviously prepared to die in battle in Jianye.

(End of this chapter)