Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"more than!"

Following Tian Feng, Xu You also added with great excitement.

"Cao Aman may have other intentions, but as long as the lord is in power, he will still be trapped in Qingzhou and will have no choice but to submit to the lord's lackey."

"No matter how many times Lu Bu changes his mind, he should know that the situation in the Central Plains is a struggle between Liu Bei in the north and Yuan in the south. After he has taken Nanyang County to contain Liu Bei for a while, he will surely change his target to attack Sanfu, Liangzhou and other places in order to plan for future changes."

"By then, you can stop Yuan Gonglu and Cao Aman from checking Liu Bei. After sweeping across Hebei and taking over Youzhou, Bingzhou and Jizhou, you can then control the eight directions, march south and defeat Liu Bei in one fell swoop, and achieve hegemony."

For a moment, everyone in the tent felt that the haze that shrouded their hearts had dissipated.

Before this, the pressure on all the counselors came not only from Gongsun Zan, but also from Liu Bei in the south, who had already occupied Jing and Yang states.

Liu Bei's actions were so fast that his advisers even felt overwhelmed. They began to fear that Liu Bei would successfully launch a northern expedition to the Central Plains before Yuan Shao completely defeated Gongsun Zan.

All these factors made the counselors who placed their bets on Yuan Shao feel that their future was bleak.

Even though he defeated Gongsun Zan by using the weak to defeat the strong, he was ultimately no match for the momentum created by Li Ji.

Yuan Shao glanced at the counselors below who seemed to have regained their confidence, smiled domineeringly, and said.

"The road to hegemony begins at Jie Bridge. I ask for your help."

All the counselors stood up and bowed in return.

"How dare you not die for it?"

"it is good!"

Yuan Shao couldn't help but burst out laughing and said, "With your full support, we have defeated 100,000 soldiers. How can we not defeat Gongsun Zan?"

"And considering the changes in the movements of the various units under Gongsun Zan, it will take at least ten days or at most half a month for them to launch a general attack. By then, I will fight Gongsun Zan to the death at Jie Bridge!"

"If you succeed, you will achieve great success; if you fail, you will die in Qinghe."

At this moment, Yuan Shao's bright eyes seemed to reveal a gleam of brilliance, and there was no intention of retreating. He was only able to fight to the death without caring about his life.

This spirit also infected a group of counselors, not only making them convinced, but also allowing them to put aside their past grudges and work together to provide Yuan Shao with advice and fill in the gaps.

Half a month!

It’s also exactly two and a half weeks later!

Gongsun Zan, who intended to use confrontation to drain the money and food of both Han Fu and Yuan Shao, finally took action.

Gather all available troops under your command.

Including the cavalry led by Zhao Yun, the 70,000 cavalry were like a large shadow, slowly spreading from far to near towards the Jie Bridge.

Even though Yuan Shao's soldiers had seen cavalry countless times during the long confrontation, they still couldn't help but feel cold in their hands and feet when they saw the black mass of cavalry all over the mountains.

In the past, only the foreign tribes on the grasslands could gather such a large cavalry.

Gongsun Zan was able to form such a powerful army only after the Wuhuan tribe fell to their knees and with the money and food earned from the trade with the Port of Tianjin.

Against the backdrop of the 70,000 cavalry, Han Fu's 50,000 infantry who arrived with them seemed so inconspicuous.

The sound of horse hooves as the 70,000 cavalrymen slowly marched was as if the earth was being beaten like a war drum.

For a time, Qinghe River was used as the boundary and Jieqiao Bridge was used as the distance.

Yuan Shao's army was on the southeast side of Jie Bridge, while the army led by Gongsun Zan began to adjust their military formation after approaching the northwest side of Jie Bridge.

The cavalry led by Zhao Yun was deployed on the left flank by Gongsun Zan, in addition to the original 3,000 White Horse Volunteers and 2,000 Wuhuan cavalry.

Gongsun Zan was also very generous and gave Zhao Yun another 5,000 Wuhuan cavalry, so that Zhao Yun could gather 10,000 cavalry. Of course, in Gongsun Zan's eyes, there was no chance of using Zhao Yun's cavalry at all.

The reason why 5,000 Wuhuan cavalry were specially allocated to Zhao Yun was entirely out of the intention of returning the favor.

Brother Liu Bei sent Zhao Yun from afar to support him and brought 5,000 cavalry with him. So Gongsun Zan, who was always generous, generously gave 5,000 Wuhuan cavalry to Zhao Yun.

There are not many cavalry generals in the world who are capable of commanding more than 10,000 cavalry.

It just so happened that Gongsun Zan was one of them.

Zhao Yun, a humble man, was well aware of his own shortcomings. He might be able to command thousands of cavalrymen with ease, but when the number reached tens of thousands, he obviously felt a bit tired.

Therefore, during the confrontation at Jie Bridge, Zhao Yun never slacked off. He often asked Gongsun Zan for advice on how to use troops and train his cavalry.

After nearly a year of continuous training, Zhao Yun, wearing white armor, had a more weathered and mature look on his face. He commanded tens of thousands of cavalrymen under his command and protected the left wing of the army as they advanced to the bank of Qing River.

Guo Jia, who was also wearing a light armor to protect himself from stray arrows, still looked unruly. He stopped beside Zhao Yun on his horse and squinted at the Yuan army that was ready for battle across Qinghe River.

This is the place where the Qinghe River is the narrowest and the water flow is the slowest.

However, it is May and there is frequent rainfall.

Even at this moment, the water level of Qinghe River is quite high and the current is fast. Once the soldiers fall into the water, they will be swallowed by the river in an instant.

Jie Bridge is a bridge across Qing River that can accommodate several horses passing side by side. It is about fifty meters long.

At a distance of fifty feet, Guo Jia did not have the eyesight to see the details of Yuan's army's formation.

However, Guo Jia, who studied under Li Ji, did have some ability to judge celestial phenomena. He looked up and scanned the sky for a while, muttering to himself.

"It's a good day, but I'm afraid it won't rain today."

Guo Jia immediately looked at Zhao Yun and asked, "Zilong, can you tell anything about Yuan's army's formation?"

Any general who is good at archery has extraordinary eyesight and hearing. People like Zhao Yun and Gongsun Zan who are good at archery are not unable to see anything.

Zhao Yun thought for a moment and answered, "The military formation is strict, layer upon layer, and contains murderous intentions. I'm afraid General Gongsun will have a tough battle today."

A tough fight?

Guo Jia was not as optimistic as Zhao Yun.

Gongsun Zan's military force was indeed far superior to Yuan's army.

Guo Jia roughly estimated based on the number of troops in the military formation that the strength of Yuan's army stationed on the southeast side of Jie Bridge was between 60,000 and 70,000.

But over the past year, Yuan Shao's advisers had used countless strategies to weaken Gongsun Zan, which gave Guo Jia a good understanding of those advisers.

Each and every one of them is not an easy person to deal with.

A resourceful person rarely does anything unwise.

The two sides confronted each other for about a year, and the military strength and intelligence of both sides gradually became clear.

Under such circumstances, it is conceivable that a group of advisers would still support Yuan Shao in his decisive battle with Gongsun Zan at Jie Bridge. There must be some calculation behind this.

However, over the past year, Guo Jia had repeatedly provided advice to Gongsun Zan, cracked many schemes that weakened Gongsun's army, and also solved some of Gongsun Zan's problems.

However, Gongsun Zan did not take Guo Jia seriously as he did Li Ji. He only occasionally praised Guo Jia for his "brilliant ideas at a young age."

(End of this chapter)