Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"Yuan Shu, send out troops!"

This news was within Liu Biao's expectations.

It's just that Yuan Shu sent out his troops earlier than Liu Biao expected. The war between Yi and Jing states had only lasted a month, and the outcome was still unclear, but Yuan Shu was already impatient to enter the battlefield.

"The appearance of a child is like the dry bones in a grave, nothing more than this."

Liu Biao commented on Yuan Shu's move with a tone that could hardly hide his contempt.

In other words, Yuan Shu came from a superior family, and he controlled Runan County, Pei State, and Chen State with almost no effort by relying on the Yuan family's reputation. Otherwise, Liu Biao could have regained control of Nanyang County little by little by relying on his political skills.

At this moment, in Liu Biao's view, Yuan Shu's timing of sending troops seemed too hasty, and the excuses he found were even more laughable and difficult to convince the people of the world.

But unlike Liu Biao's calmness, Cai Mao in the military tent was sweating profusely when he heard the news, and he spoke quickly.

"My lord, an army of 250,000 is coming in a mighty force. Wouldn't it be better to withdraw quickly and return to support and temporarily defend Xiangyang?"

"Why are you panicking?"

Liu Biao scolded Cai Mao.

"Yuan Gonglu has controlled Yuzhou for less than a year. Even with the help of many noble families, it is impossible for him to organize more than 200,000 troops."

"They claim to have 250,000 soldiers, but in reality, half of that is good enough. Moreover, these Yuzhou soldiers must have not been well trained and their combat effectiveness is average."

Liu Biao was naturally aware of the abilities of his brother-in-law Cai Mao.

His ability to command troops is passable and his naval warfare can be considered outstanding, but in other aspects he is not even average.

However, this is also the reason why Liu Biao is quite confident in Cai Mao.

As long as he was in Jingzhou, Cai Mao would never be able to seize his power. Instead, he could use Cai Mao to balance the forces of all parties for his own benefit.

Some things that Liu Biao was inconvenient to do could also be done by the Cai family, with Cai Mao bearing the blame.

After being scolded by Liu Biao, Cai Mao gradually calmed down.

In fact, it is no wonder that Cai Mao was panicked. For Cai Mao, the Cai family and Liu Biao are now completely tied together. If one suffers, all suffer; if one prospers, all prosper.

But the Cai family's roots are entirely in Jingzhou. Once Liu Biao is really cruel enough to exchange Jingzhou for Yizhou, then even if they receive a lot of compensation from Liu Biao after entering Yizhou, it will still not be as much as the Cai family's losses.

"Furthermore, in addition to Qi'er and Wen Pin leading 20,000 troops to guard Xiangyang, Huang Zu has 10,000 troops stationed in Wancheng, and Liu Pan has 10,000 troops stationed in Xinye, all of which can serve as a defense for Xiangyang."

"Furthermore, Wancheng and Xinye have been repaired many times in the past six months and are now strong cities. Huang Zu and Liu Pan are also determined to defend the strong cities to the death, which is enough to delay Yuan Shu in Nanyang County for a long time."

(PS: Wancheng and Xinyecheng are both in Nanyang County, and Wancheng is located roughly in the middle of Xinyecheng and Bowangpo.

Judging from the geographical location and the wars that have occurred there, Wancheng and Xinyecheng are both important locations for Xiangyang to defend against the north.

In history, Zhang Xiu was able to station troops in Wancheng with Liu Biao's permission, just like Liu Bei's move to Jingzhou, so that Zhang Xiu could serve as a barrier for Xiangyang to resist Cao Cao's attack on Jingzhou and Nanyang County.
Liu Biao spoke calmly and steadily, and his calm attitude quickly stabilized the military morale in the tent, which had been slightly unstable.

In terms of population alone, the population actually controlled by Liu Biao is not necessarily much larger than that of Yuan Shu, but Liu Biao has been managing Jingbei for quite some time.

Nanjun and Jiangxia counties were managed by Liu Biao like an iron bucket.

In addition, Liu Biao had begun planning for this battle long ago and did not hesitate to withdraw all the available troops from the four counties in southern Jing in advance.

Therefore, even though Liu Biao left 40,000 elite troops to rely on the strong city to resist Yuan Shu, and deployed 50,000 defensive troops on the Zigui and Yiling front lines, he still had nearly 50,000 elite troops waiting for the opportunity.

It can be said that in this battle, Liu Biao had already emptied out all the available assets in Jingzhou, and he had almost sold everything he had to gather an army of nearly 150,000.

For this reason, Liu Biao had even prepared to give up Jiangxia County to satisfy Liu Bei. However, Liu Bei's change of attitude made Liu Biao very confused, and he felt uneasy in his heart, always wondering if something went wrong.

Liu Biao absolutely did not believe that Liu Bei was really a foolish and inflexible person. Moreover, if Liu Bei wanted to support the Han Dynasty and revive the Han Dynasty, it would be impossible for him to give up the fight for territory.

Therefore, when Liu Biao learned that Yuan Shu was leading his troops to attack, he did not panic but felt somewhat relieved.

At least, Yuan Shu's actions were within expectations and nothing went wrong.

If even Yuan Shu's behavior was completely different from what he expected, Liu Biao would really have to seriously consider withdrawing his troops back to Xiangyang.

Immediately, Liu Biao could not help but bring up the old matter again and asked Kuai Yue, the military advisor whom he relied on as his think tank in the military tent.

"Yi Du, have you figured out anything about Liu Xuande's abrupt behavior?"

Kuai Yue replied with a bitter look on his face. "Please forgive me, my lord. I have thought about it for a long time, but I still can't figure it out."

In this era, people place great emphasis on promises. Once a promise is broken, the loss to one's personal prestige will be enormous.

What's more, Liu Bei was a vassal known for his benevolence. Kuai Yue also didn't think that Liu Bei would risk the infamy of murdering his fellow clansmen and breaking his promise to launch a surprise attack and attack Jingzhou.

Given the reputation and potential Liu Bei has shown, Jingzhou may not be worth the price of breaking his promise.

"That's all, that's all..."

Liu Biao waved his hand, stopped thinking about it, and said.

"Yangzhou and Jingzhou are bordered by only the four counties of southern Jing and Jiangxia County. Even if Liu Xuande really doesn't care about his face, what's wrong with giving Jiangxia County and the four counties of southern Jing to him for the time being?"

For Liu Biao, as long as he could occupy Yizhou while keeping Xiangyang, any other losses would be acceptable.

By then, with the support of Yizhou behind the scenes, it would be easy to regain control of Jingzhou using Xiangyang as a stepping stone.

Immediately, Liu Biao spoke.

"Everyone, Liu Xuande and Yuan Gonglu are not a threat for now. The priority now is to defeat the Yizhou army first."

After a pause, Liu Biao glanced at everyone in the military tent and spoke.

"Now, our army has been fighting with the Yizhou army for more than a month, and both sides have suffered casualties, but we are still somewhat unsure of the strength of the Yizhou army. Do you have any good strategies to defeat the enemy?"

After these words were spoken, most of the people in the military tent looked hesitant, but did not dare to answer easily.

During this month or so, the battle situation... seemed strange.

Since leaving Sichuan, the Yizhou army mostly rested during the day, and constantly sent small groups of troops to launch sneak attacks and harassment at night. Some even went around to attack from behind or pretended to be grain transport teams in an attempt to trick their way open the Zigui city gate.

They came with great force, but never launched a strong attack. Instead, they used all kinds of despicable means.

As a result, after fighting for more than a month, both sides had lost a lot of corpses, but the actual loss of troops was almost the same.

Jingzhou lost about five thousand people, and Yizhou lost slightly more. Kuai Yue estimated that the number should be around six to seven thousand.

Because of this, even though Liu Biao sent spies to verify Yizhou's military strength many times, he still had no idea of ​​its true strength.

Moreover, Liu Biao's original plan was to wear down the morale of the Yizhou army by holding on, then lure the enemy deep into the territory, set up an ambush, severely damage or even annihilate the Yizhou army, and then take advantage of the situation to attack and knock on the gate of Yizhou.

However, the Yizhou army's almost slacking-off style of fighting was completely different from what Liu Biao had expected, which gave Liu Biao a headache. (End of this chapter)