Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Since the advent of the troubled times, there has been almost no moment of peace in this Yongliang land.

From the Qiang people's rebellion and invasion of the Three Auxiliary Areas, to Dong Zhuo's entrenched position in Liang Province, and then the remnants of Dong Zhuo were driven to the Three Auxiliary Areas, where they sometimes formed an alliance and sometimes fought with separatist forces such as Ma Teng and Han Sui.

A few years ago, these three families had formed an alliance to fight against Lu Bu, but now they are fighting each other again, which is really chaotic.

However, the Xiliang Iron Cavalry, one of the three elite cavalry forces of the Han Dynasty, gradually declined amidst this chaos and infighting.

When the news reached Li Ji, he couldn't help feeling a little regretful. He also felt that the chaotic fight between the Ma, Han and Dong families might be the only remaining glory of the Western Liang Iron Cavalry.

However, while most people thought that Ma Teng might be defeated by Han Dong, they did not expect that when the situation was almost desperate, Ma Chao, who was revered as the "Mighty General of Heaven" by countless Qiang people, stood up, led his troops to charge into the battle line and killed three generals, Yan Xing, Li Jue and Niu Fu, thus reversing the situation in an instant.

As a result of this battle, Ma Teng won a tragic victory, Han Sui was hunted down and had to flee Liang Province alone, and Guo Si led the remaining troops to retreat back to the Sanfu area...

In a sense, this result made Li Ji, Lu Bu and Cao Cao quite satisfied.

The result that these three families were almost all defeated was undoubtedly a complete announcement of their withdrawal from the stage of dominating the world. There was no need to worry that one of them would become a force that had to be taken into consideration in the next Central Plains War.

As spring plowing in various parts of the Han Dynasty was basically completed, Li Ji led his troops to the north without waiting for the Wei-Zhao coalition forces to prepare for the march south.

There were nearly 700,000 soldiers marching for dozens of miles, with flags covering the sky and mountains shaking at every turn...

These 700,000-strong army almost drained more than 90% of the Han Dynasty's military strength.

In addition to Youzhou, even Liu Zhang of Yizhou chose Zhang Ren as the general, Zhang Song, Fa Zheng and others as military advisors, and led an army of 50,000 out of Sichuan to assist Li Ji's Northern Expedition.

Obviously, even Liu Zhang, who was far away in Sichuan, knew that the ownership of the world would soon be revealed, and placing a bet in advance at this moment was undoubtedly a timely help.

As for the noble families, powerful people, and wealthy merchants of Wei and Zhao, they also donated generously.

Of course, there may be some people who donated voluntarily, but at this point, neither Cao Cao nor Lu Bu could care less.

The Han Dynasty, which was now gradually becoming prosperous under Li Ji's governance, was able to support the 700,000-strong Northern Expedition Army led by Li Ji.

But for Cao Cao and Lu Bu, if the noble families, powerful people, wealthy businessmen and other groups do not give their full support, the huge army of 500,000 will not even be able to provide logistics and will be able to completely drain their treasury.

It was also because of this that Li Ji successfully launched the Northern Expedition before Cao Cao and Lu Bu, and led his troops directly to the border between Yanzhou and Sili. His goal was undoubtedly to cut off the connection between Sili and Yanzhou and force Lu Bu to send troops for a decisive battle.

Lu Bu may have established the State of Zhao, but in fact the territory of the so-called State of Zhao was nothing more than Sili, Yanzhou, and a small part of Bingzhou and Nanyang County.

Now, Lu Bu has completely lost Nanyang County, and the remaining territory is like a worm composed of Sili and Yanzhou, which may be cut in half by Li Ji.

Unless Lu Bu could make up his mind to completely abandon Yanzhou and retreat to the small Sili to hold his ground, he must find a way to stop Li Ji.

As the Northern Expedition army moved, the whole world was shaken. Lu Bu, who was the first to bear the brunt of the attack, responded hastily and deployed heavy troops in Weishi City and Kaifeng City in an attempt to hold off the enemy for a while.

(PS: The current geographical locations of Kaifeng and Zhongmou County are east-west, but in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the locations of ancient Kaifeng and Zhongmou County were north-south.)
But in the face of absolute military strength, unless it is a well-known pass like Hulao Pass, how can some small cities stop the Northern Expedition?

These two cities were conquered by the fierce attacks from all sides after just three drum beats.

After Li Ji captured two cities in succession, his next target was Zhongmou County, which was the place where Chen Gong captured Cao Cao when he was the county magistrate.

However, Li Ji's gaze did not stop at Zhongmu County. After all, Zhongmu County was just a small city, not enough to accommodate the decisive battle between the Cao and Lu armies.

Li Ji took the lead in leading his troops to the north and captured two cities in succession. After marching over a hundred miles, according to reports from spies, the more than 300,000 troops led by Cao Cao had gradually crossed the Yellow River and began to join Lu Bu.

The day of decisive battle is near.

Zhongmu County will not be the battlefield, so the battlefield will be...

Li Ji's gaze moved from Zhongmu County to the northeast and fell on a place marked "Guan Du" and the "Hong Gou Water" artificial canal it represented.

This artificial canal, built by the Wei State in the pre-Qin period, spans the east and the west. This is also the canal that Li Ji had to break through in order to block the connection between Sili and Yanzhou.

Therefore, for the Wei-Zhao coalition forces, taking advantage of the canal and setting up a defense line with "Guan Du" as the center to resist Li Ji would undoubtedly be the best choice at the moment.

This couldn't help but make Li Ji feel a little emotional. The location of "Guan Du" is similar to that of "Jie Qiao", both of which can be said to be extremely dangerous and critical places.

In the original trajectory, Yuan Shao's army marched southward, with the goal of directly taking Guandu.

Now that Li Ji was leading his army to the north, the marching route also included Guandu as a must-pass place.

And the fact was exactly as Li Ji expected.

Before Li Ji led his mighty army to Zhongmou County, scouts had already reported back that the Wei and Zhao armies had stopped north of Guandu after merging, and then began to set up camp and build a large number of defensive fortifications on the spot.

Obviously, Cao Cao released the "ten wins and ten losses" story to the outside world, but in reality he had no confidence at all and was determined to fight Li Ji to the end.

Therefore, the Wei-Zhao coalition chose to set up a defense line to the north of "Guan Du" in an attempt to block Li Ji's northern expedition while slowly looking for opportunities to fight.

Li Ji, knowing Cao Cao's intention, did not take a detour or avoid the battle. After ordering Sun Ce to lead a force to capture Zhongmou County and intending to use Zhongmou County as a grain storage place, he led the army directly to "Guan Du".

Guandu.

This one serves as a ferry across the chasm water.

Today, it is more lively than in the past hundreds of years.

As Han flags appeared on the south side of Guandu, Cao Cao, who was standing on a newly built high platform on the north side, said with a slight change of expression.

"coming."

Standing side by side with the short Cao Cao was the tall and sturdy Lu Bu, who spoke with a tone that revealed some dissatisfaction.

"Li Ji is really a scholar. He is so slow and has only just arrived now."

Cao Cao stroked his short beard and chuckled.

"King Zhao, why should you be anxious? A battle between hundreds of thousands of troops will not be decided overnight. It will take a long time. You need patience to find Zikun's weakness and seize the opportunity to win." (End of this chapter)