Chaos of the Three Kingdoms Summons

Chapter 2635 The War Between Two Empires: Destroying the Southern Chu Navy

Southeast Asian battlefield.

Two years have passed since Bai Qi and Chang Yuchun led 20,000 troops on their southern expedition.

Of course, although two years have passed since the Southern Expedition, it does not mean that there has been fighting every day for the past two years.

A large-scale war consists of many battles of varying sizes, and it is quite normal for each battle to be separated by several months.

The soldiers couldn't take it anymore, fighting every day.

On the Southeast Asian battlefield, Bai Qi's northern army is currently bogged down in a quagmire.

Bai Qi's northern army was generally divided into two routes. One route was led by Bai Qi himself and advanced westward into the two far-eastern provinces of the Kushan Empire.

The two Far Eastern provinces of the Kushan Empire were mostly territories in Southeast Asia that the Kushan Empire had acquired during its wars with other Southeast Asian states, primarily the area that later became Burma.

After the Kushan Empire conquered this Southeast Asian region, Bodhi divided it into two provinces: Burma Province and Chan Province.

If you continue westward from this area, you'll reach the Ganges Plain, one of the two major plains in the Kushan Empire, and one of the two regions with the highest concentration of population and resources in the Kushan Empire.

Therefore, how could the Kushan Empire possibly sit idly by and watch such a large empire as the Great Jin occupy such a region?
It was precisely for this reason that the Kushan Empire deployed a large number of troops in this war, attempting to block the Jin Empire's troops from entering these two eastern provinces.

As for the rest of Southeast Asia, the Kushan Empire would do everything in its power to prevent the Great Jin from taking over. After all, no one wants to see their neighbor grow stronger.

However, if it is truly impossible to prevent, and the benefits are disproportionate to the risks, then the Kushan Empire cannot force the issue.

However, for them, these two eastern provinces are their bottom line.

These two eastern provinces are directly related to the security of their homeland.

Not only can they reach the Ganges Plain to the west, but if these two provinces are lost, even the navy of the Great Jin Dynasty can use them as a springboard to take waterways directly to the coastal areas of the Kushan Empire.

It was precisely because national security was at stake that the Kushan Empire showed no sign of backing down regarding these two provinces.

It might not matter if it were the small countries in Southeast Asia, since, frankly speaking, those small countries in Southeast Asia don't have the ability to directly threaten their homeland, and it's already good enough that the Kushan Empire doesn't bully them.

However, when faced with a massive empire like the Great Jin, they could not possibly hand over the most vital parts of the country to someone else.

However, for the Great Jin Dynasty, these two provinces were also part of their plan for this southern expedition.

Moreover, during the three years of the pandemic, the Kushan Empire had taken advantage of the Han Dynasty quite a bit.

Back then, in order to get through those three years of the pandemic, some things were tolerated. But now that we've recovered, there's no need to continue indulging the Kushan Empire.

Even the grudges and grievances from those three years of pandemic should be settled at this time. Therefore, the Great Jin Empire showed no sign of backing down in its stance on these two provinces, and the Kushan Empire could only continuously increase its forces and investment. Taking advantage of its homeland being right next to these two provinces and the ability to invest domestic resources on a large scale, the two sides launched several major battles in these two provinces.

In the eastern and central regions of Southeast Asia, Yang Su was in charge, continuously advancing southward. However, after the initial rapid advance, coupled with the continuous problems arising in some areas of the occupied rear, Yang Su had limited troops at his disposal.

Therefore, it has already shown a state of sluggish progress.

After all, Bai Qi's army sounds like it has 100,000 troops, which is a considerable number. However, Bai Qi himself has already taken a portion of them away, and Yang Su has to leave a large number of troops behind to suppress the rear. The number of troops that he can actually mobilize to the front line is very small.

Regarding the problems in the rear, Yang Su employed numerous ruthless methods, killing wave after wave. However, he would at most resort to collective punishment; he was always extremely cautious about the issue of massacring entire cities.

It wasn't that he couldn't bring himself to do it; on the contrary, if it weren't for the Southeast Asian empire, but the Kushan Empire, he would have already raised his sword long ago.

If any city in the rear experiences such a problem, he will massacre that city. If ten cities experience such a problem, he dares to massacre all ten cities.

Unfortunately, while the Kushan Empire could operate this way, it couldn't do so in Southeast Asia.

The reason is simple: the population densities of the two sides are not the same.

The Kushan Empire has a large enough population that even if you kill indiscriminately, there will still be people to cultivate the land. But if you kill too many people in Southeast Asia, who will cultivate the land for you afterwards?
The population density of Japan back then was incomparable to that of Southeast Asia. However, after Bai Qi's final massacre, almost everyone was killed, so much so that even though a small number of people from the Central Plains were moved there, there are still very few people.

Unclaimed wasteland is everywhere.

Otherwise, why would such a large area be so easily divided up, yet so few people are willing to go there?

While the Northern Route Army was already bogged down and struggling to advance, Chang Yuchun, as the commander of the Southern Route Army, was advancing triumphantly from the very beginning.

The southernmost archipelagos of Southeast Asia are the most underdeveloped, lagging far behind the mainland in every aspect.

Therefore, these archipelagic regions basically lacked any strong military forces, or even many regular military forces. Chang Yuchun and Xu Cheng, working together by land and sea, swept through these archipelagic regions in a short period of time.

After that, they landed directly in Southern Chu and within a short period of time, they captured almost half of Southern Chu's territory.

Therefore, if the most intense fighting initially took place on the northern front, it later shifted to the southern front. The center of the conflict between the Southeast Asian Alliance and the Great Jin Dynasty also changed from the northern front to the southern front.

In fact, during this process, Chang Yuchun risked his life, resulting in the casualties of 5,000 soldiers, the deaths of generals Deng Dang and Wang Junke, and the encirclement and siege by the Southern Chu army by land and sea, thus creating an opportunity for Xu Cheng to severely damage the Southern Chu navy.

After this battle, almost two-thirds of the Southern Chu navy was destroyed, and it completely lost the ability to confront the Eastern Jin navy head-on.

Given the strength of the Southern Chu state, there was simply no possibility of restoring the navy to its fighting capacity in a short period of time.

In fact, Chang Yuchun risked his life and paid a heavy price to create such an opportunity, which shows that he was quite farsighted.