I am not an ant thief in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 429, the footsteps of war
The three princes and nine ministers of the imperial court are all asking Cao Cao what he thinks of Hebei!
In their view, Yuan Shao has an army of 30, Cao Cao has an army of 20, and the imperial court also has a central army of 30, combined with an army of 80, this should be the most powerful force in the world, and it should be able to deal with Lei Gong!

It can be said that Yuan Shao's "distinguished teacher" ignited the nostalgia for Luoyang City among all the civil and military officials in Xiangyang. Everyone wanted to return to Luoyang City again, and restore the old days of talking and laughing with great Confucianism and no white people!
And if they want to go back to Luoyang City, Lei Gong is the biggest obstacle, and they dare not go back to Luoyang City without killing Lei Gong!

Cao Cao knew what these people were thinking, but he emphasized to the civil and military officials of the court that Lei Gong was powerful and could not be easily defeated.
On the contrary, Yuan Shao's petition said: "Your Majesty can go back to Luoyang City first. Firstly, it can boost the morale of the army. Second, it also means that the imperial conquest will be personally conscripted. During the crusade against Hebei, if Your Majesty appears in Luoyang, it will be difficult for the Northern Expedition. estimated impact.

From Liu Bei's military operations in the past few years, Yuan Shao saw that the Liu family still has an extremely powerful influence, and this is not comparable to his Yuan family, just like the crusade against Yuan Shu, if there is no imperial court behind Liu Bei, although he can defeat Yuan Shu, But it is impossible to do so easily, and there is also the battle against Yizhou. If Liu Bei does not have the name of the court, with Yizhou's natural dangers, Liu Bei may not be able to enter Yizhou after three or four years!

So Yuan Shao's idea is simple, that is, to draw Emperor Xian to his side, so he doesn't worry about Liu Bei's lack of effort,

Just as Yuan Shao said this, Yang Biao and Zhang Wen stopped him and said, "It's absolutely impossible!"

Yang Biao said: "The Son of Heaven is extremely honorable, how could he leave the capital so easily!"

Yuan Shao laughed and said, "Luoyang City is also the capital of the Han Dynasty!"

Zhang Wen also said: "Now that the big man has moved his capital to Xiangyang City, how can he give up Xiangyang easily, which will be very detrimental to His Majesty's prestige!"

Wang Yun also said: "Such a frequent move of the capital will make the people at a loss. Even if His Majesty wants to go back to Luoyang, he should go back after defeating Lei Gong's rebellion!"

The other Sangong Jiuqing, civil and military officials also stopped Yuan Shao from wanting to let Emperor Xian return to Luoyang City!Firstly, they understand Yuan Shao's wolfish ambitions, and secondly, Luoyang City is not a safe place, otherwise they would not have wanted to move their capital to Xiangyang City at the beginning!These civil and military officials don't want to put themselves in a dangerous place!
Yuan Shao saw that everyone's commotion was so big, he laughed it off, stopped persuading him, and said instead: "Attacking Hebei is related to the integrity of our Han country. Only by defeating Lei Gong can we truly revive our Han! Please support me!"

Hundreds of officials in the imperial court expressed their opinions in various ways, but most of them decided that now is the time to defeat Lei Gong, the biggest rebellion of the big man!

Of course, everyone also knows that it depends on the opinions of Liu Bei and Cao Cao to really determine whether these coalition forces can be established!
So after the court meeting is over!

Liu Bei invites Yuan Shao and Cao Cao to discuss matters in his General's Mansion!
After the host and guest were separated, Liu Bei said bluntly: "Brother Benchu, please be blunt, why did you attack Hebei when disasters occurred in the Central Plains for three consecutive years? At this time, what we should do is to recuperate! If Brother Benchu ​​doesn't tell the truth, Bei It is impossible to send an army to the Central Plains to fight against Lei Gong!"

Cao Cao looked at Yuan Shao playfully. He and Yuan Shao had played together since they were young, so he knew Yuan Shao's pride. If he was pressed by Liu Bei before, he would definitely be furious!
But looking at Yuan Shao now, although he was a little angry, he held back. After Yuan Shao sank for a long time, he smiled helplessly and said: "The Central Plains can't hold it anymore, and I can't afford to support an army of 30. If I don't fight Lei Gong this year, I will just We can lay down our troops to protect ourselves! However, the Central Plains has been plagued by disasters for many years, but the land of Hebei has been harvested year after year under the governance of Lei Gong. Now Lei Gong has saved enough food and grass for millions of troops. If Hebei harvests another bumper harvest this summer, I am afraid that Lei Gong will The army will invade the Central Plains! So I plan to strike first!"

Liu Bei has no doubts about Lei Gong's farming ability. Mayi, a barren land, forced Lei Gong to produce a pearl, not to mention that Hebei is a rich land. Even if it suffers from drought, Lei Gong's ability will definitely be able to spend it!

Liu Bei looked at Cao Cao and asked, "Brother Meng De is near Hebei, so didn't he hear any news from Lei Gong?"

Cao Cao looked at Guo Jia. Gathering information on Hebei has always been Guo Jia's main job!
Guo Jia sorted out his thoughts and said: "In the land of Hebei, the army has not been mobilized much in recent years. That is to say, this year Lei Gong mobilized 5 troops from Bingzhou to attack Xiliang, and at the same time allocated 500 million shi of grain relief from Bingzhou. The people of Hu and Han in Xiliang, and Lei Gong can so easily pacify Xiliang, these grains play a vital role!"

"The natural disasters in the Central Plains not only made us exhausted, but also the Qiang people in Xiliang. Faced with Lei Gong's food offensive, many tribes of the Qiang people even voluntarily surrendered to Lei Gong, just to get a full meal!"

Liu Bei said seriously: "In other words, Lei Gong has no plans to attack the Central Plains this year?"

Guo Jia shook his head and said, "I can't tell. Dagan implements a combination of standing army and recruitment system. The standing army is Lei Gong's officers. Lei Gong only has 5 standing troops in Hebei, but it can be expanded to 50 within a month, or even more. Many, now Jizhou has a population of about 600 million, and the entire Jizhou can recruit 60 to 70 young adults!"

Zhang Fei sneered and said, "60 to 70 troops, how dare you brag! What do so many people eat? How do you transport the food?"

Guo Jia said solemnly: "Lei Gong implements the food stamp system. The people don't have a lot of food. Most of the food is in the hands of Lei Gong. The entire Jizhou alone has 3000 million shi of military rations. If the civilian rations are also added , I am afraid that the grain storage in Jizhou alone exceeds [-] million shi.

The three counties of Wei County, Qinghe County, and Bohai County in Jizhou have piled up grains like mountains. These are Lei Gong, which is going to be used in the Central Plains War. Do you think Lei Gong can mobilize 60 to 70 troops! "

Zhang Fei and the others were shocked when they heard this. Liu Bei has done a good job in farming these years, but the food in his hand is only tens of millions of stones in front of him. According to Guo Jia, their food storage is even one-tenth of Lei Gong's. Not as good, the gap is too big!
At this time, Xu You also said: "The situation we got is similar. This is why my lord dare not reduce the army, because Lei Gong may cross the Yellow River at any time and step into the Central Plains!"

Yuan Ji hesitated and said: "Lei Gong has so much food in his hands, logically speaking, he does not lack food to attack the Central Plains? The Central Plains has been in drought for three years. This should be the best opportunity for Daqian. Why didn't Lei Gong attack?" Central Plains?"

This is actually the strange thing about Yuan Shao and the others. If they were Lei Gong, not to mention having hundreds of millions of shi of grain in their hands, even if they had several million shi of grain, they would launch a large army to take the opportunity to attack the Central Plains!
Guo Jia said with a wry smile: "The three-year drought not only made the Central Plains mourn, but also made Hebei miserable, and even affected Lei Gong. He was worried that the drought would continue to expand, so he formulated a three-year grain storage plan. Enough food for three years, only in this way can Lei Gong dare to expand his territory.

But now Lei Gong didn't even have enough food for a year, and he was worried that if he continued to use troops in the disaster year, a large number of people would starve to death, and the food in his hands was not enough to relieve the people, so Lei Gong stayed in Hebei for three years!If Ma Teng and Han Sui hadn't attacked Bingzhou and angered Lei Gong by murder and arson this time, Lei Gong might not even be willing to attack Xiliang! "

Liu Bei and the others were dumbfounded for a while. They knew that there were about 2000 million people in Hebei. According to the fact that a commoner eats 20 shi of grain a year, it would be 60 shi in three years. Multiply this huge number of 2000 million. What Lei Gong wanted The stored grain is actually 12 billion shi!

Zhang Fei didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "I admit that Lei Gong is very good at farming, but such a huge amount of grain, I'm afraid Lei Gong can't accumulate it in less than 10 years. We are still worried about what Lei Gong is doing. Lei Gong will not go south for at least 10 years. The Central Plains!"

Seeing Zhang Fei, Xu You said mockingly: "If we really think so, we will die without a place to die!"

"Lei Gong made this plan because he knew that the Central Plains would be difficult to capture, and the battle between the millions of troops on both sides would not end in a short while, so he had to hoard more food. But if the Central Plains is fragile, like Xiliang, Lei Gong only wants Tens of thousands of troops can capture it, Lei Gong will definitely change his plan and capture the Central Plains ahead of schedule!"

"This is Lei Gong's poisonous plan. He wants us to fight with him. He only arranged 10 troops (20 Bingzhou Army, 30 Jizhou Army) at the border. We have to arrange [-] or even [-] troops to guard against Lei Gong. Armed with so many troops, how can we recuperate? If this situation continues, the gap between us and Lei Gong will widen even more, I am afraid that when Lei Gong's army attacks the Central Plains, we will not be able to resist Lei Gong's cavalry even if we want to!"

Liu Bei looked at Cao Cao and asked, "Brother Meng De thinks, is now the best time to attack Lei Gong?"

Cao Cao smiled wryly for a long time and said: "I don't know if it's true, but I know that time is on the side of Lei Gong. The longer we delay, the stronger Lei Gong will be. We can't compare with Lei Gong! Now we are the strongest This year has passed, and the gap between us and Hebei will become wider and wider!"

Liu Bei said seriously: "Since this is the case, I have plans to attack Lei Gong. I wonder if Brother Meng De would like to join us?"

After Cao Cao sank for a moment, he said solemnly: "My Qingzhou army is willing to cooperate with the general!"

Attacking Lei Gong now is also good for him in Qingzhou. After all, they are the ones who face Lei Gong directly. Now Liu Bei is willing to support them. Of course Cao Cao wants to delay the speed of Hebei's development!Anyway, this war will not break out in Qingzhou.

Youzhou, Jixian!
Yuan Shao and the others guessed correctly, the drought broke out again in the Central Plains, which made Wang Ge and the others extremely happy. When Xu Wei returned to Ji County, he immediately handed over his plan for going south to fight in Xu Wei's hands!
Xu Wei looked at it casually and said in surprise: "You want to attack the Central Plains after Xia Harvest and destroy Yuan Shao?"

Wang Ge’s plan was extremely huge. He recruited 10 troops from Bingzhou and 5 Xiliang troops to attack Guanzhong, Taiyuan County recruited 5 troops to attack Hedong, Shangdang County recruited 5 troops to attack Hanoi County, and Jizhou launched 15 troops. Ten thousand troops, of which 10 troops attacked Yanzhou, and 5 troops attacked Qingzhou, delaying Cao Cao's support for Yuan Shao!

Then the two armies are like two fists, and they come to use their ears to get used to the wind. The other two armies want to smash the outer defenses of Luoyang City with two blows. Eliminate Yuan Shao's 30 troops, and seize the lands of Sili and Yanzhou!
Wang Ge said with a smile: "Yuan Shao has been very unlucky in the past few years. The three-year drought in the Central Plains was either in Guanzhong or Yanzhou, both of which are his core sites. But because he wants to prevent us from attacking the Central Plains, he doesn't want to face such a drought. Build canals to survive the disaster, but mobilize the people to build docks to resist our southward movement!"

"Now Yuan Shao can't bear it any longer. This is the time when he is weakest. If we don't want to defeat Yuan Shao now, when Yuan Shao regains his energy, the difficulty for us to go south to the Central Plains will increase several times!"

This Li Gang also followed up and said: "In power, Yuan Shao has already started to act. It was reported from Xiangyang secret agents that Yuan Shao started relations in Xiangyang, wanted to mobilize the power of the entire Han Dynasty, and wanted to attack us in the north! We don't take the initiative to attack the Central Plains now, or else No matter how many Yuan Shao and the others will form a coalition to attack Hebei, this battle is inevitable!"

Xu Wei doubted: "Just now you all said that Yuan Shao was almost overwhelmed by the huge military expenditure. He still wants to form a coalition to attack us. He is not afraid of starving his own army to death!"

Wang Ge said with a smile: "Yuan Shao is learning from Cao Cao's old wisdom. When Cao Cao first occupied Qingzhou, his strength was low and his money and food were not much, so he used the excuse of helping Tao Qian attack Yuan Shu and sent 5 of his own recruits to form a team with the Xuzhou army. A coalition army attacked Yuan Shu's territory, and Tao Qian raised his 5 troops for a few months like this!"

"And now Yuan Shao obviously thinks the same way. Yuan Shao has no food, but Liu Bei has food. Liu Bei has reclaimed tens of millions of acres of land in Jingzhou and Yangzhou in the past few years. In addition to the hot climate in the south, it can be done twice a year. Even though Liu Bei has been fighting all these years, Xiangyang still has a lot of food reserves!"

"And now Yuan Shao is interested in the food in Liu Bei's hands. He wants to use the food in Xiangyang to feed his 30 army in the Central Plains. If we fight Liu Bei and lose both, maybe this is what Yuan Shao wants to see the most! Anyway As far as Yuan Shao is concerned, if Liu Bei does not support the army in his hands, he will not be able to maintain it, and if the big man forms a coalition army, it will not consume the strength of his family. This is a good thing for Yuan Shao, so he will You are so actively going to Xiangyang, you want to attack us!"

Xu Wei was speechless!What is this!He has been avoiding the war, but he did not expect that the war is like a shadow!
(End of this chapter)