Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1210 Choice
When Yuan Xi asked, he had already noticed that Lu Xun looked a little uneasy, and knew that he was indeed a little worried about the defense situation in the Lujiang area.

This is not surprising. The war between Jin and Wei almost mobilized all their resources and accumulation, so they only made the most basic preparations for the defense in the Jiangdong direction.

This defense was originally sufficient, because when Lu Xun arranged Gan Ning, he took his own side, Jiangxia, and Liu Bei into consideration.

Part of the pressure on the defense line actually came from Liu Bei's side. After calculations, Lu Xun believed that after Liu Bei conquered Jingnan, he would consolidate the defense line, so he would return to Changsha to rest and spend the winter. In this way, the three-party joint defense line would not have too many problems.

However, despite all Lu Xun's calculations, he still failed to anticipate Liu Bei's determination to rescue the emperor. After Liu Bei defeated Cai Mao, he did not return immediately, but crossed the river and headed straight to Xiangyang, marching towards Xu Du!
This plan was actually Pang Tong's idea. He made this decision after seeing that Cao Cao was too busy to take care of Xu Du.

To be fair, this strategy is not wrong. It is already late autumn, and winter is less than two months away. If we can conquer more territory, even if we cannot reach Xu Du, it would be good to conquer Xiangyang in an ideal situation. This will force Cao's army to retreat to Xinye and Nanyang areas, which is equivalent to losing control of some prefectures and counties in Jingzhou, and can also help the Jin army share some of the pressure in disguise.

Lu Xun and Pang Tong had anticipated the possibility of sending troops from Jiangdong, but they had not anticipated Sun Quan's determination to go all out and disregard everything. He actually mobilized all the troops of Wu and launched a full-scale attack with Changsha and Jiangxia as the main attack directions.

This was obviously beyond the ability of Liu Bei's army to withstand, and they were driven back to Changsha in a short time. The situation in Jiangxia was even worse. Huang Zu's army had been almost exhausted in the past few years, and they had thought of relying on Jin to recuperate in the future. Who would have thought that Wu would direct its main force against them?
On the Jin army's defense line, which was one of the three routes, Gan Ning was unable to hold out alone in the face of several Jiangdong generals and had to retreat to the Yangtze River. When Lu Xun learned of this situation, he knew that he had missed something, and the most serious collapse of the defense line was on the side of his father-in-law Liu Bei, which made Lu Xun quite uncomfortable.

Yuan Xi saw Lu Xun's concerns and said, "Bo Yan, this kind of thing is not uncommon. No matter how well you plan, you won't always get what you want."

"You have been building the Jianghuai defense line for so many years. It will be extremely difficult for Wu to enter Chaohu Lake before winter. You can speak up for the next suggestion if you want to. There is no need to worry about anything."

After hearing this, Lu Xun said, "My lord, you are right. Instead of crossing the river, Jiangdong should attack the weaker Hannan. The threat to Jin from Jianghuai is indeed not great."

"Moreover, for the State of Jin, the current battle for Jianghuai is far less important than the battle for Jizhou."

"But seeing that the lord was about to enter Yanzhou, Wu State sent troops at this time. I have to say that the timing was extremely clever."

"If we only want to protect the territory of Jin, we only need two generals and advisers to stop the Wu army."

"The most suitable candidates are the two currently on the eastern front of Jizhou."

Yuan Xi immediately responded, "No wonder you are worried, are you talking about Lu Su and Jiang Qin?"

"It is indeed most appropriate for the two of them to go to Jianghuai. After all, the Yellow River has burst its banks, and their navy can only be forced to fight on land, and cannot display their full capabilities."

"But they were once subordinates of Sun Quan. Boyan is afraid that they might have other thoughts when facing the State of Wu?"

Lu Xun nodded and said in a deep voice: "It would be fine if I stayed in Jianghuai, but Xingba has an average relationship with the two of them, so it's not easy to subdue them."

"But if I return to Jianghuai, the offensive in Yanzhou will be affected, so..."

Yuan Xi thought about it carefully, then laughed and said, "Indeed, this is a troublesome matter."

"In that case, I'll just do the opposite."

"I will now give orders to Lu Su and Jiang Qin. I will appoint Lu Su as the commander-in-chief and Jiang Qin as the commander-in-chief. They will cooperate with Gan Ning to stop the Wu army at Ruxu River."

Lu Xun was shocked. This way, Lu Su and Gan Ning would be on the same level. Isn't Yuan Xi afraid of Lu Su's betrayal?

Seeing this, Yuan Xi explained, "If it were anyone else, I would really be worried, but Lu Su is an honest man. The better you treat him, the more embarrassed he will be to do such a thing."

"Besides, I asked him to order the defense, not to initiate the attack, and he couldn't find a reason to refuse. The same goes for Jiang Qin."

"If I really misjudged the person, Shouchun has Liu Xun and others, so Hefei will not be lost."

"As long as Jianghuai can hold out until after the New Year, we can concentrate our efforts on breaking through Yanzhou, encircling Jizhou, driving Cao's army into the pass, and then coming back to settle accounts with Wu."

Lu Xun said, "My Lord, do you think we can capture Yecheng within half a year?"

Yuan Xi said in a deep voice: "If Cao Cao is in good health, it will be difficult."

"But I guess that Cao Cao's illness this time is very likely to be real."

"Although intelligence shows that Cao Cao was probably faking illness last time, this time the illness was so sudden, and the time between the two attacks was too short. Even if Cao Cao was luring the enemy deep into our territory, he should have sent more cavalry to harass and attack them, but this time the frequency of sending troops was surprisingly low."

"This approach does not pose much threat to us. If it is really a strategy to lure the enemy, it is too perfunctory."

"So I guess that something big has happened in Yecheng now. Kong Ming's letter further proves my guess."

"Cao Cao can only take a defensive stance in Jizhou at the moment, and he certainly has no time to take care of Yanzhou, because Cao Xiu in Yuzhou has been completely defeated, which should be beyond Cao Ying's expectation, so Yanzhou's defense line must be weak." "In addition, Yanzhou has been severely drained by Cao Cao in recent years, and the people must be dissatisfied, so we must seize this rare opportunity to break through Yanzhou and completely disrupt Wei's logistics. At the same time, we will start a rebellion in Yecheng and force Cao Cao into a desperate situation, otherwise it will be even more difficult to fight when the Wei army recovers next year!"

After hearing this, Lu Xun bowed and said, "Since my lord has this idea, I will go all out and focus on attacking Yanzhou!"

"If Jiang Huai is lost, Xun will definitely get it back for my lord!"

Yuan Xi nodded and said, "Then it's Lao Boyan."

"I'm not too worried about the Jianghuai defense line, but Princess Xuande is out of town, so how to defend Changsha is a big problem. The pressure he faces is greater than mine."

What happened in the next half month was just as Yuan Xi had expected. Under the leadership of him and Lu Xun, they invaded Yanzhou with great force. Many prefectures and counties along the way surrendered, and they did not encounter much resistance.

The reason for this is that Cao Cao had drained Yanzhou's population and food resources, leaving them with no capital to resist. In this case, it would be better for them to surrender to Yuan Xi and save their lives.

Le Jin, who retreated from Yuzhou to Yanzhou, was completely unable to stop the momentum of his defeat. He could defend the city, but now each city had little food reserves, and most of them were seeds for next year's cultivation. Le Jin led tens of thousands of soldiers into the city, and within a few days, he had eaten up most of the reserve food. When the people in the city heard about it, they were even more dissatisfied, and several riots broke out.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Le Jin had to retreat to the next city before the food ran out, taking all the food with him and leaving this mess to Yuan Xi. Under such circumstances, as soon as the Jin army arrived, the people in the city immediately opened the city gates and surrendered. After all, there was no food left, so what was there to defend?
However, Le Jin's strategy was indeed effective. In order to quell the riots caused by food shortage, Yuan Xi had to find a way to send people to mobilize food and fodder to relieve the people. Moreover, Qingzhou had recently suffered from floods and there was not much surplus food. For a while, the speed of attacking the city gradually slowed down.

Yuan Xi was very open-minded about this. This was a problem that must be faced in conquering the world. If you want to win at the lowest cost, you can only give up the people's hearts. If you want the people's hearts, you have to pay a price. If he learns from Cao Cao, then when Cao's army attacks, the cities under his rule will also surrender.

Moreover, the battle has reached this point, and both the Wei and Jin armies are almost at their limits. Otherwise, Cao Cao would not have abandoned the three armies of Jizhou and retreated to Weijun. In the final analysis, it was because they could not sustain the food supply.

The sooner Yuan Xi captures Jizhou and Yanzhou, the sooner he can drive Cao Cao into Guanzhong. He can then build a defense line and resume production in Yanzhou and Jizhou next year. Otherwise, if this terrible war continues for another year, conservatively millions of people in the two states will starve to death.

At the same time, after receiving the order from Yuan Xi, Lu Su and Jiang Qin rushed to Qingzhou. They gathered the naval ships and led their navy from the Huai River to Shouchun. Now, after seven or eight days of travel, they are almost at the Rushu River.

The two of them watched the occasional fighting along the river from time to time on the boat, and they were in a complicated mood. In the end, Jiang Qin couldn't help but ask, "Is King Jin too careless? Is he so confident in us?"

Lu Su was also speechless. The appointment of Yuan Xi would be unlikely to happen if it were Sun Quan, no, any other lord in the world, but he did it anyway!

Didn’t Prince Jin ever think about the consequences of his and Jiang Qin’s betrayal?
He sighed, "Prince Jin is asking us to gamble with our reputation after death."

"Isn't he sure that we are not such shameless people?"

Jiang Qin said angrily: "We were indeed controlled by him."

"But Zijing, tell me the truth, from what we have seen and heard under the lord's command over the past year or so, which side do you think is more suitable to be the emperor?"

Lu Su smiled bitterly and said, "Gong Yi already has the answer in his mind, otherwise why would he ask me?"

Jiang Qin looked at the surging river below him and sighed, "To be disrespectful, King Wu..."

"No matter which aspect you compare them to, they are far behind."

"No wonder Mrs. Wu doesn't even want a son, all..."

He then realized what he had said and quickly shut his mouth. Lu Su also had a strange look on his face. At this time, a fleet appeared faintly in front of them. The two men quickly ordered their men to prepare for a battle. As a result, the enemy approached, and it turned out to be Wu Jing from Wujun who came to greet them.

Wu Jing boarded the two-person boat and came to meet him. He said with a smile, "Zi Jing, Gong Yi, I didn't expect that the day we met would be like this."

"The king has entrusted you two with important tasks. Even I am jealous of your trust. This kind of thing is rare from ancient times to the present."

Lu Su and Jiang Qin said a few humble words, and then they heard Wu Jing jokingly say: "I am afraid that Wu hates me to the core. If you two take my head and surrender, I am afraid you can also be made a marquis."

Lu Su was speechless and said, "General, what are you talking about? How can you make such a joke casually?"

Wu Jing smiled, came closer, and whispered, "I also heard some news."

"My sister heard that Wu was attacking Jin, and she has already informed the king. She rushed from Jicheng to Wankou, wanting to persuade the king of Wu in person."

This news shocked Lu Su and Jiang Qin greatly. Was Mrs. Wu trying to persuade her son to surrender to his adoptive father?

Mrs. Wu was directly declared dead by Sun Quan. If she appeared now, this ethical drama would be a bit too absurd, right?

(End of this chapter)