Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

There is nothing better than this when the world is so hot and cold.

Liu Qi looked at Sun Qian, who was surrounded and fawned upon by a large number of people from the aristocratic families of Jingzhou, with a bitter look on his face, but he had no intention of reprimanding them.

After all, Liu Qi had a kind heart and he knew that he and his son had let Jingzhou down.

My father was blinded by greed and ambition, which resulted in the death of 100,000 Jingzhou soldiers in a foreign land. Among them were many relatives of Jingzhou elders and many members of Jingzhou's aristocratic families.

During these days, Liu Qi was not only tormented by the question of how to avenge his father, but what was even more painful was that he didn't know how to make up for Liu Biao's loss of Jingzhou.

Relatively speaking, if Jingzhou could be handed over to the benevolent Liu Bei, it would be an explanation to the people of Jingzhou.

Liu Qi sighed quietly, his eyes then fell on Liu Pan, Wen Pin, Huang Zhong and others who were still standing beside him, and he spoke.

"You don't need to worry about me. You can talk more with Sun Gongyou. I have had several contacts with Liu Huangshu. He is a benevolent monarch with a broad mind, a kind heart, and a wise ruler."

After saying this, without waiting for Liu Pan and others to react, Liu Qi turned around and went down the city wall and said.

"Although Yuan Shu has retreated, we must be vigilant against his retreat and return. The defense of Xiangyang will rely more on Zhongye and we will have to worry about it for a while."

Watching Liu Qi's somewhat lonely figure disappear around the corner of the city wall, Wen Pin felt complicated and could only bow to see Liu Qi off.

Liu Pan, Huang Zhong, Kuai Liang and others also expressed their feelings.

Just from this action of Liu Qi, it can be seen that Liu Qi can be regarded as a generous ruler. It's a pity that he was born at the wrong time and the situation did not give Liu Qi more opportunities.

The complex human sentiments within Xiangyang City undoubtedly had limited impact on the situation outside the city.

After the siege lasted for more than a month, the number of available soldiers in Xiangyang was greatly reduced, with only more than 10,000 soldiers left, and many of them were injured.

They are more than capable of defending the city, but are undoubtedly insufficient to fight outside the city.

For Xiangyang today, all it can do is to start a rare rest while waiting for the decisive battle between the Liu and Yuan families outside the city to decide the outcome, which will then determine the ownership of Xiangyang and even the entire Jingzhou.

Li Ji, who chose to land in Yicheng, did not rush to Xiangyang when he learned that Yuan Shu had given up the siege of Xiangyang and retreated ten miles to set up new camp.

While using Yicheng as a place to store grain and coordinating with a fleet of 10,000 naval forces to ensure the logistical supply of grain and fodder, Li Ji also chose to send out a large number of scouts to gather detailed intelligence on the Yuzhou army.

For a while, in the hundred-mile plain south of Xiangyang, the scouts of the two sides clashed first, constantly exploring, chasing, fleeing, and fighting...

Both sides lost as few as a dozen scouts per day, and as many as twenty or thirty.

This also made the intelligence of both sides gradually become clearer under the investigation of scouts.

The number of troops remaining in the Yuzhou Army was slightly higher than Li Ji had expected.

Even though a certain amount of Yuan Shu's troops were tied down in Shouchun and Wancheng, the long siege also consumed a lot of Yuan Shu's troops.

But Xiangyang is close to Nanyang County after all, and Yuan Shu already has considerable roots in Nanyang County.

This allowed Yuan Shu to regain control of most of Nanyang County, and he continued to recruit young and strong men from Nanyang County to supplement his military strength. In addition, with the strong support of a large number of aristocratic families, Yuan Shu was also constantly replenishing his military strength. His current military strength was still as high as more than 110,000.

Even though these 110,000-plus troops are mixed with a lot of water that may not even be as strong as the county troops, this number is almost twice that of the Yangzhou army.

"As expected of the famous Yuan family, which has three officials for four generations, the foundation accumulated by Wujun over the years is just the starting point for the other party..."

Li Ji couldn't help but sigh. Li Ji also understood that people are not the same and fair from beginning to end, and the paths they take are not replicable.

Not everyone can be the Skeleton King.

However, Li Ji will help Yuan Shu and allow him to become the Skeleton King smoothly.

After reading through the latest intelligence on the Yuzhou Army, Li Ji picked up the letter sent back from Wujun.

Liu Bei's handwriting.

Two-thirds of the content is almost all about concern for Li Ji's recent situation, and the remaining one-third mentions whether reinforcements are needed and the arrangements for Sun Ce.

Compared with Yuan Shu who had almost exhausted all his military forces, Yangzhou undoubtedly still had considerable spare strength.

However, in Li Ji's opinion, 60,000 soldiers were enough to stabilize the situation in Jingzhou, and there was no need to go to the trouble of further deploying more troops.

Under the "military household system", the proportion of troops that Yangzhou could mobilize was slightly higher than that of normal prefectures and counties.

But comparatively speaking, Yangzhou's business is also bigger.

Both Yizhou and Yingzhou need to station 5,000 troops to maintain the situation to avoid any chaos.

In Shouchun, Li Ji also secretly dispatched additional troops, increasing the number of soldiers available to Guan Yu to 30,000.

When we add the troops who secretly assisted Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, and Yu Guo in controlling Jiaozhou, as well as the navy that maintained various types of ships and the troops that maintained internal security in Yangzhou, the actual number of troops in Yangzhou has reached 150,000.

It was the popularity of Linyi rice, coupled with the backing of mountains of gold and silver, that allowed Yangzhou to officially enter a stage where it had no worries about money and food. Otherwise, even if Liu Bei was taken directly to the oil press, Yangzhou would not have been able to easily support an army of 150,000.

We can continue to draw soldiers from military households to increase the military strength. Even if there will be no pressure on money and food, the decrease in young and strong people will undoubtedly affect the stability and development of Yangzhou, which serves as its basic base.

Of course, even though Li Ji was quite confident in his ability to govern Jingzhou, he rejected Liu Bei's proposal to send additional reinforcements.

However, considering that it is better to be prepared, he still prepared to write back and suggest that Liu Bei move 20,000 troops to the Chaisang camp to prepare for any emergency.

In addition, what Li Ji was quite concerned about was the treatment of Sun Ce.

With Li Ji's letter in front of him, Liu Bei naturally would not really kill Sun Ce.

Just to stop the gossips, Liu Bei had to act furious and threw Sun Ce into the dungeon on the spot.

Of course, although in name he was thrown into a dungeon, in reality Liu Bei specially arranged a "luxurious single room" for Sun Ce.

Apart from being unable to move freely and contact outsiders, it is almost equivalent to being in a hospital to recuperate.

Liu Bei was undoubtedly able to do this out of consideration for Li Ji's face. Otherwise, if he had killed Sun Ce or handed him over, Liu Bei would have been doing Liu Qi a favor, and it would have been a natural thing for him to take control of Jingzhou.

After all, it is true that Liu Bei is a kind and virtuous man... and he values ​​friendship very much.

In his eyes, the importance of supporting the Han Dynasty was only inferior to some special feelings.

If it could be exchanged for a state, Liu Bei would not hesitate to throw Adou to the ground, let alone Sun Ce. (End of this chapter)