A thousand-year-old family begins with one fighting against ten thousand.

Liu Bei and Han Shu exchanged glances, and with Han Shu's nod, Liu Bei agreed.

The territory of Nanyang was crucial to their future plans, and they did not believe that Yuan Shu would give them a prefecture for nothing.

"it is good."

Yuan Shu was delighted to discover that Liu Bei had agreed to Yan Xiang's request, and that he would gain two more counties.

He also noticed the exchange between Liu Bei and Wei Shu, and extended an olive branch to Wei Shu.

Wei Shu smiled and refused. He had already chosen Liu Bei and naturally wouldn't consider other warlords.

Yuan Shu, in particular, was considered one of the weaker warlords among the various warlords. Although he was better than Tao Qian and Liu Dai, he was not as good as Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Liu Bei, and others.

Yuan Shu was arrogant; once he was invited and rejected, he would not consider it a second time.

This caused him to lose interest in continuing the banquet, and he began serving tea and seeing the guests off.

In the following year, Liu Bei led Yuan Shu's army and successively captured Jiujiang and Danyang, obtaining Nanyang Commandery from Yuan Shu and beginning to establish his base there.

Cao Cao and Yuan Shao had also taken over Yan Province and Ji Province respectively, while Gongsun Zan had taken over You Province. The three forces were wary of each other and restrained each other.

During this period, Yuan Shao sent people to Youzhou to seek an alliance with Gongsun Zan to jointly resist Cao Cao, who occupied both provinces.

Gongsun Zan always felt that when Liu Bei was in Ji Province, he had not yet unified You Province and was unable to provide Liu Bei with any help, which led to his junior brother being driven away by Yuan Shao and wandering in the south.

Feeling somewhat sorry for Liu Bei, and dissatisfied with the reasons behind all this, coupled with the fact that he came from a local powerful family while Yuan Shao came from a top-tier aristocratic family, he was unwilling to form an alliance with Yuan Shao even though he knew that Cao Cao was their formidable enemy.

Gongsun Zan was unwilling, and Yuan Shao didn't want to be snubbed. Ji Province was one of the three richest provinces in the world, and even with just one province, they could fight against Cao Cao's two provinces.

Yuan Shao, seeing Gongsun Zan as a mere nobody, began to contact Cao Cao, wanting to agree to jointly attack Youzhou.

After conquering Youzhou, he shared the territory with Cao Cao.

If Cao Cao were to take half of Youzhou, it would greatly extend his battle lines, allowing Yuan Shao to seize Liaozhou and create a strategic deterrent against Cao Cao.

Cao Cao did not agree and instead sent Yuan Shao's letter to Gongsun Zan.

Gongsun Zan was furious and mustered up the troops of Youzhou to march on Jizhou, to show Yuan Shao the might of his White Horse General.

Seeing the two enemies begin to fight, Cao Cao also prepared to take action against Xuzhou, and for this purpose he summoned the naval fleet that had just returned from the Japanese islands.

Tao Qian is now old and no match for him.

Even after he conquers Xuzhou, the war between Jizhou and Youzhou will not be over, and both sides will suffer heavy losses.

He could then lead his troops north to sweep across Ji and You provinces, unify the Central Plains and Hebei, and lay the foundation for conquering the world.

"Xingba, Zhongde, thank you for your trouble. You have just returned from the vast ocean, and now you are going to the ocean again."

"However, your surprise force is of paramount importance in the attack on Xuzhou. It is crucial to whether we can take Xuzhou as quickly as possible and send troops north."

"If this plan succeeds, the fate of the world will be sealed!"

Cao Cao looked at the gaunt Gan Ning and Cheng Yu, and said, "Please!"

The two bowed in return and returned to their ship.

Cao Cao looked at the two men's backs with some confusion. Why did Gan Ning seem a little afraid of Cheng Yu?

Gan Ning is clearly a warrior, while Cheng Yu is just a scholar.

His expression was like he was with a ghost, especially when he heard that the two of them would have to stay on the ship together. The bitter look on his face was completely unrelated to Gan Ning.

"General Gan seems somewhat afraid of me?"

What Cao Cao could notice, Cheng Yu could naturally notice as well. However, he had been on a ship for months, surrounded by the boundless ocean, and had no time to pay attention to these things.

Now that we've returned to the Han Dynasty, and will need to continue cooperating with Gan Ning, we naturally need to ease tensions as soon as possible.

Otherwise, if the generals and ministers are at odds during a war, it is a major taboo in military strategy, and we cannot let this ruin the lord's important affairs.

"How could that be?"

Gan Ning instinctively jumped back and chuckled awkwardly.

"Was it because my methods on the Japanese islands were a bit too ruthless?"

Cheng Yu stated it plainly.

That's a bit too extreme, isn't it?

It's probably a tiny bit too intense!

Gan Ning trembled at the thought of Cheng Yu's methods.

Is this really a human, or a demon crawled out of hell?

"These barbarians are not human, and for some reason, I feel uncomfortable whenever I see those natives."

Cheng Yu was somewhat puzzled, as this area had been conquered by the Han Dynasty not long after its founding, during the reign of Emperor Jing of Han.

Before that, it was a wild and primitive place where you couldn't even find a decent small boat. How could it make him feel uncomfortable?

"Do you feel that way too? I thought it was just my imagination."

When Gan Ning heard that Cheng Yu had the same feeling, he recalled that when he first set foot on that island, he also felt a little uncomfortable, as if he had a blood feud with those barbarian natives.

The two exchanged a glance, and Gan Ning quickly looked away.

"This not only dealt with those who were disobedient, but also reduced the consumption of grain and fodder, and allowed them to replenish their nutrition so that they could mine more gold and silver for the Han Dynasty, enabling our lord to unify the world more quickly and reduce the losses to the people."

Yu felt that there was nothing wrong with doing this; resources should not be wasted, as waste is bad.

Cheng Yu felt that the world had a deep misunderstanding of him; he was a good person.

Gan Ning chuckled, "You're right. So, what do you suggest we do next when we attack Xuzhou? Let me make it clear, the people of Xuzhou are also citizens of the Han Dynasty. If you dare to do the same, I'll kill you even if it means being punished by our lord!"

When Gan Ning said this, he was very serious. He couldn't even accept it if it were directed at those barbarians, let alone the common people of the Han Dynasty.

"Xingba is overthinking it. We are all Chinese people, of the same lineage. How could I possibly regard them as barbarians?"

Cheng Yu looked into Gan Ning's eyes and said sincerely.

Gan Ning gave him a deep look. "That's for the best."

"Our lord's army marched out of Mount Tai and successively conquered the states of Lu and Pei, with its advance reaching the East Sea."

"If Tao Qian does not want to be besieged in the East China Sea, he will definitely send a large number of troops to guard Pei State."

"This is our opportunity. While the troops from Xuzhou have been relocated to Pei State, we will set off from Donglai and take the sea route to bypass Donghai County. After landing, we will head straight for Tan County, the county seat of Donghai County."

"We must capture Donghai City before the main force of Pei Kingdom returns to reinforce it!"

The two returned to their tent, and Cheng Yu began to explain their strategic plan to Gan Ning in detail.

The key to attacking Xuzhou is speed. They need to be quick in attacking Xuzhou, even faster in attacking Donghai, and even faster in launching their northward march to You and Ji provinces!

Fortunately, they brought back a lot of gold and silver from the Japanese islands this time; otherwise, their rapid multi-front war would have been a great test of Cao Cao's resources.

His domestic food strategy is unusable, so we are grateful for the contributions made by the indigenous people of the Japanese islands.