Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Moreover, Pang Tong was a bit stubborn, but he was actually a carefree person without any airs, which made it easier for him to win the friendship of the generals than Zhuge Liang.

Furthermore, Li Ji had just recently praised Pang Tong as one of the "Three Sages" and called him "Phoenix Cub".

Therefore, Pang Tong's words caused quite a stir.

Wise men who were proficient in military strategies, such as Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Jia Xu, and Xu Shu, quickly came to some basic recognition and judgment of what Pang Tong said.

The Northern Expedition involved both Wei and Zhao, so naturally there had to be a question of priority.

Attacking Qingzhou and attacking Yanzhou are two different directions.

What Pang Tong said makes some sense.

Compared with quickly swallowing up the entire Qingzhou, it is undoubtedly much simpler to focus on attacking Yanzhou and cutting off the connection between Wei and Zhao.

Knowing that the Northern Expedition is a major event, we must be extremely cautious.

The route of the Northern Expedition is even more related to success or failure.

Zhuge Liang also spoke out without hesitation.

"Prime Minister, Pang Tong's worries are not groundless, and winter is not far away. It will be difficult to capture Qingzhou before the snow falls."

"If we fail to establish the overall situation in Qingzhou before winter, giving Cao Wei a chance to catch his breath, all our previous efforts will undoubtedly be wasted."

Li Ji nodded slightly and looked at the others, giving them enough time to make suggestions.

Among them, the reactions of Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang undoubtedly made Li Ji very happy.

Pang Tong was an expert in military affairs, and he must have secretly begun studying the Northern Expedition long ago. That's why he could suddenly blurt out the idea of ​​attacking Yanzhou.

Zhuge Liang's reaction was to serve the public interest and advise Li Ji based on his own judgment.

In comparison, Sima Yi, this little rascal, remained silent at this time.

Soon, people like Lu Zhi, Xu Shu, Guan Yu and others also spoke up to express their opinions, vaguely leaning towards supporting the main attack on Yanzhou.

After all, the main attack is on Yanzhou. There is no need to take the entire Yanzhou in a hurry. It is only necessary to cut off the connection between Yanzhou and Qingzhou. Then, if Lu Bu and Cao Cao want to join forces, it will be very troublesome.

The burden on logistics and food routes alone is enough to establish a huge advantage.

And in terms of strength, Cao Cao, who controls the three states of Ji, Bing and Qing, is much stronger than Lu Bu, who is not good at governing.

The main attack on Yanzhou is to attack Lu Bu.

To attack the weak first and then become strong is undoubtedly in line with the art of war.

Li Ji was by no means a man who acted arbitrarily and on his own. He knew that the Northern Expedition required unity and concerted efforts to accomplish a great cause. He also hoped that everyone could really find out the omissions and fill them in for him to avoid any negligence that he had not noticed.

Therefore, after many civil and military officials had expressed their opinions, Li Ji signaled to Xiahou Bo, and then ten personal guards filed in from outside the door, each holding a tray with a thick piece of clothing on it.

Everyone was puzzled when they saw this.

People like Mi Zhu and Mi Fang, who usually come into contact with all kinds of objects, looked a little surprised.

There is no other reason, it’s just that the material of this thing is unheard of.

Li Ji just spoke calmly.

"The main attack on Qingzhou is actually due to concerns about Cao Cao's evil deeds of digging up the Yellow River. In order to prevent him from continuing to do such unscrupulous things, we have to take advantage of the Yellow River's dry season to control Qingzhou with lightning speed."

The last time the Yellow River was dug, the damage to the Han army was not great, and the gap was blocked in time, so the damage to Xuzhou was controlled within a certain range.

Relatively speaking, it was the State of Jinan under Cao Cao's rule that suffered greater losses.

But for some things, once it happens for the first time, the second, third, and fourth will naturally follow.

This was actually Li Ji's biggest concern about capturing Qingzhou.

If the Yellow River is dug up again during the flood season given Qingzhou's terrain, most of Xuzhou will become a swamp, not to mention the continued logistics of the army attacking Qingzhou.

This remark made the civil and military officials feel a little puzzled and they realized the problem.

To prevent such incidents from happening again, the only option was to seize Qingzhou while the Yellow River was in the dry season.

Now that the troop movements have been concealed from Cao Wei, it is undoubtedly a rare, godsend opportunity to launch a surprise attack on Qingzhou.

Without waiting for the others to speak, Li Ji continued.

"As for the difficulty of using troops in winter that you are worried about, these clothes are the remedy. These clothes are called cotton clothes, and the inner and outer materials are made of 'white folds'."

"The warmth and protection provided by these cotton-padded clothes are comparable to fur coats. Soldiers can use them to withstand the wind and snow. You can give them a try."

"Please forgive me, King of Han and Prime Minister, and I will give it a try."

Pang Tong would not keep any objections to himself.

But Pang Tong believed everything Li Ji said.

Immediately, Pang Tong did not mind taking off his court clothes in front of a group of civil and military officials, leaving only an inner shirt on, and then put on the cotton coat.

It is autumn now, and the weather is clear and cool.

But with the thick cotton coat on, Pang Tong kept moving up and down.

In less than a moment, Pang Tong felt like he was in a furnace. When he hurriedly took off his clothes, he found that he was sweating profusely.

This scene also attracted the astonishment of many civil and military officials, who began to study the cotton-padded jackets, and some even tried to wear them to feel the effect. After some tests, they found that they were indeed as good as fur coats.

Immediately, Pang Tong couldn't help but ask.

"May I ask, Prime Minister, how much does this thing cost? How much have we prepared? Is it enough for the army?"

Li Ji smiled and said.

"Seven or eight years ago, I accidentally discovered the use of 'Bai Di Zi' and sent it to Yingzhou, asking the Japanese to plant it on my behalf. Now, Bai Di Zi is everywhere in the mountains and plains of Japan, and there are countless of them."

"Two years ago, a large number of 'Bai Die Zi' were sent back from Yingzhou, and I began to secretly organize people to make cotton-padded clothes. Now the scale has been established, and the quantity is sufficient for the Northern Expedition."

Li Ji was not in a position to reveal the exact number or where the cotton-padded clothes were stored, but he could only say that they were enough.

However, once the country is pacified, there will be no need to worry about cotton-padded clothes being supplied to the enemy's rear, and cotton-padded clothes will be popularized among the people, solving the problem of people having few items to keep warm in winter.

After all, the Japanese have mastered mining and cotton picking, and are exporting them crazily.

The only thing that limits the number of finished cotton-padded jackets is the manpower problem.

After all, there are many steps involved in further processing cotton and making it into cotton clothes, so it is naturally not easy to popularize it among the people right now.

Many generals' eyes were shining as they looked at those cotton-padded jackets.

Because heating in winter is a big problem, if we rashly deploy troops on a large scale in winter, the number of soldiers who will be frostbitten or frozen to death will probably far exceed the casualties in battle, and it will not be easy to maintain the morale of the army.

"Teacher, you have foresight and have made preparations long ago. I admire you."

Pang Tong blurted out the words, and even forgot to call out the official title in his excitement.

However, all the civil and military officials did not care about Pang Tong's flaw, but bowed to him one after another.

"The Prime Minister has foresight and has made preparations long ago. The Northern Expedition will surely be a great victory."

At this point, even if Li Ji did not say it explicitly, all the civil and military officials understood Li Ji's plan.

One of the advantages of launching a Northern Expedition at this time is to take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness, but the approaching winter is an even greater advantage.

With such widely available warm cotton-padded clothes, troops can be used normally most of the time in winter unless it snows heavily.

This undoubtedly became one of the reasons why Li Ji boasted that he could quickly capture Qingzhou.

In this way, the conditions for realizing the strategy of first taking Qingzhou, then destroying Lu Bu, and finally attacking Cao Cao from the north and south are undoubtedly in place.

If Qingzhou can be captured quickly, Cao Cao's hand reaching across the Yellow River can be completely cut off, and we can focus on attacking Lu Bu without any worries. The strategic significance of this is self-evident.

Although Liu Bei had given Li Ji full authority to decide on the Northern Expedition, it was naturally impossible for Li Ji to remotely control the wars in two directions at the same time.

Therefore, while Li Ji personally led the army to the north to attack Qingzhou, the important task of resisting Lu Bu was left to Guan Yu.

Once Qingzhou was facing an overwhelming force, Lu Bu would certainly send troops to support Qingzhou, or attack Yuzhou, Jingzhou and other places to lift the siege of Qingzhou.

Among them, the possibility of Lu Bu traveling thousands of miles to rescue Qingzhou is very small, and he will definitely choose to besiege Wei to save Zhao in an attempt to force Li Ji to withdraw his troops.

Only after Qingzhou was completely conquered would Li Ji join forces with Guan Yu to attack Lu Bu.

Although the civil and military officials who were able to attend the court meeting this time were actually Liu Bei's trusted confidants.

But after Li Ji had selected his generals at the court meeting, he led his generals from various departments to rush to Langya State that night to prepare to launch a northern expedition.

In order to prevent the Northern Expedition from being leaked in advance, Shouchun would continue to close the city gates for three days until Li Ji had led his generals and many of his trusted followers to a place not far from Langya State. Only then would the city gates be unsealed and a notice issued to reassure the people.

At the same time, Liu Bei sent out a manifesto written in his own handwriting, and it was published in the latest issue of the newspaper to be distributed soon, so that the advertisement could reach the people.

[In September of the second year of Xinghan, this newspaper, under the order of the Hanwang Palace and the Prime Minister's Office, issued the "Xinghan Northern Expedition to Suppress Bandits" as follows:
King of Han, Liu Bei, announces to all the people of the world.

But the Han calendar lasted 400 years, and the Mandate of Heaven remained unchanged; now the heaven and earth are crumbling, and the country is in ruins!
There were two thieves, Cao and Lu, who plotted to usurp the throne. They opened the Yellow River and stabbed the emperor in the street, staining the Han Dynasty with blood. They angered both humans and gods, and they established a false regime as king, causing chaos under the world.

Bei, the great-great-grandson of Emperor Jing, even if he was weaving mats and selling shoes, how could he dare to forget the ambition of Emperor Gaozu, how could he dare to forget the thought of reviving the Han Dynasty?
When Tian became the King of Han, he knew that the Han and the thieves could not coexist, and the kingdom could not be half-hearted.

Now, Prime Minister Li Ji is in command of the six states to launch a northern expedition against the false regime.

If it weren't for the starvation of Shouchun, the front line would have no shortage of food and grass;

If there were no soldier prepared to die in battle, there would still be one in the army.

The prime minister also said: I will never turn back until the Northern Expedition fails.

Alas!

I share the same ambition as the Prime Minister to launch the Northern Expedition, and I respectfully invite the people to see and understand this. 】

PS: I forgot one important thing when I was writing earlier, so I will add it directly in the text to avoid missing it.

That is to choose a reign title.

Since Liu Xie had become a dead, it was naturally impossible for him to continue using the previous reign title. In order to demonstrate his legitimacy, theoretically speaking, even if he was only promoted to King of Han, he should have changed his reign title.

The new reign title was named "Xing Han", and the first year of Xing Han was exactly the same as the first year of Jian'an, which was 196, which made it convenient for the adoptive fathers to sort out the time.

The second year of Xinghan was in 197.

This year, Li Ji was thirty, Liu Bei was thirty-six, and Zhuge Liang was sixteen. (End of this chapter)