Chapter 338: Sending troops to Jingnan, Liu Ye discusses the situation After persuading Zhang Ji, Qin Zhen once again raised his army and marched towards Jingnan. With the pacification of Cangwu and Jiaozhi, the number of troops under his command increased instead of decreased. In the direction of Jiangdong, in addition to the navy that has expanded to 20,000, there are also 60,000 permanent troops. As for Jiaozhou, there were originally a total of 60,000 to 70,000 soldiers and horses in Jiaozhou. Among them, Zhang Jin had 30,000 troops, Shi Xie had 20,000, and the remaining counties had nearly 20,000 garrisons. Qin Zhen's army to attack Jiaozhou included 10,000 troops from Taishi Ci's headquarters and 20,000 troops from the Shanyue and Nanyue coalition forces. In other words, Qin Zhen alone had more than 100,000 soldiers and horses at his disposal. However, these troops are scattered everywhere, and only 30,000 to 40,000 of them can be mobilized quickly. Most of these troops were ragtag troops, and there were only less than 10,000 elite troops.

After making hasty preparations, Qin Zhen led an army of more than 37,000 soldiers including generals Taishi Ci and Xu Sheng and marched north. He certainly did not expect that these 40,000 troops would be able to defeat Liu Biao and seize Jingzhou. If they really want to capture Jingzhou by force, they will need Liu Bei's elite troops who have experienced many battles. So before setting off, he asked Gan Ning to lead the army north and at the same time send the news to Liu Bei by fast horse. Naturally, there is some explanation for the news he reported at this time. After all, he had previously informed Lao Liu about the purpose of seizing Jiaozhou, and Lao Liu nodded in agreement. In this way, when he sent troops to Jiaozhou, he could arrange the time of sending troops freely, but now he seized Jingzhou without informing Liu Bei in advance. He couldn't just send out troops himself and then send a letter to Lao Liu asking him to come and fight. This is neither in line with their banner of benevolence and righteousness nor in line with his current function. Therefore, the reason he sent troops this time was that Zhang Xian sent an envoy to ask them for reinforcements. Since Zhang Xian had an imperial decree to attack Liu Biao, he was now going to rescue the "friendly forces"! This statement is of course a lie, and anyone with a discerning eye can see their intention. But sometimes, justice is just that simple, as long as there is a legitimate reason! As for the rest, they need to be resolved through war and politics. First, we must take over Jingzhou and then negotiate with Liu Biao. With this idea in mind, Qin Zhen naturally led his troops quickly north and entered Guiyang. Since Zhang Xian had already made arrangements in advance, Guiyang prefect Zhao Fan directly welcomed Qin Zhen to Jingnan. He also sent his general Bao Long to lead more than 3,000 soldiers to help. Qin Zhen naturally accepted all the offers and joined forces with Bao Long, heading north. At this time, news came from the north that Zhang Xian had died of illness. The people of Changsha had already appointed Zhang Yi as their leader. Before his death, Zhang Xian dictated a letter, requesting Qin Zhen to move north quickly. In desperation, Qin Zhen left Xu Sheng and Lu Xun behind, and personally led Taishi Ci's elite troops to go ahead.

At the same time, the envoys he sent also arrived in Shouchun City. When the messenger arrived, it was the Lantern Festival, and every household decorated with lights and colors to celebrate the New Year. Even though the Mid-Autumn Festival had not yet been established in this era, the Lantern Festival was already one of the legal holidays. The custom of hanging lanterns and decorations originated from Emperor Ming of Han's promotion of Buddhism. Because at that time Cai Yin had returned from India and said that on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the Indian kingdom of Magadha, monks would gather to pay homage to the Buddha's relics, and it was an auspicious day to visit the Buddha. When Emperor Ming of Han heard about it, he ordered that lanterns be lit in the palace on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to honor Buddha. After that, this custom spread to the people and took shape by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It can be said that in the Han Dynasty when there was no Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival was the most important festival. But at this time, everyone in Liu Bei's army gathered together and had a heated discussion. As for the topic of discussion, it was nothing more than the question of where to send troops next. Because last year, that is, at the beginning of the fifth year of Jian'an, long before Cao and Yuan mobilized their troops, Liu Bei's army ended the war against Jiangdong. From then on, Liu Bei returned to Shouchun to take charge and stabilize the situation on all sides. There is no need for Qin Zhen to personally operate Jiangdong, but Xuzhou is not yet stable. Therefore, under Liu Ye's suggestion, Liu Bei launched a call for talents and began to recruit talents according to the examination that Qin Zhen had proposed in the past. The scope of this recruitment campaign spans three major states: Yuzhou, Xuzhou and Yangzhou. Grassroots talents are selected through examinations based mainly on morality and ability. At that time, scholars from the three states who heard the news came to surrender, numbering in the thousands. When Liu Bei saw them, he was very happy and placed them in various counties in Xuzhou. In addition, there were capable people such as Wang Can, Pei Qian, Shi Tao, and Meng Jian who governed the various regions. In just half a year, the administration in all aspects of Xuzhou was stabilized. As Xuzhou stabilized, Lao Liu began to implement the policy of allocating land tax to each household that Qin Zhen had implemented in the south. Due to the influence of the war in Xuzhou, the Xuzhou gentry either declined or moved away. Once the policy of distributing the tax rate based on the amount of land was implemented, it was successfully carried out at the local level under the leadership of the Chen and Mi families. On the way, Qin Zhen went south to seize Jiaozhou and built workshops everywhere. With the Shanyue, Yi and Yue captives from the south constantly moving north, Liu Bei's army gained a large amount of manpower. Workshops sprang up one after another, and a large number of nobles saw the business and began to turn to business. For a time, Shouchun's business was prosperous, with merchants coming and going from the north and south in an endless stream every day. Seeing this, Liu Bei naturally expressed his concerns to Chen Qun, Zhang Zhao and others.

After all, he was not very good at governing the people. Seeing that business was becoming more and more prosperous, he was afraid that the people would all pursue profit. However, at this time, Zhang Zhao told Liu Bei not to worry. His original words were: "Before the King of Qin promoted commerce in Huainan, the government was based on emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce." "As a result, the nobles often used land as their foundation and continued to annex land." "Now the King of Qin is promoting commerce and is also imposing a tax on each acre of land, thus cutting off the foundation for the nobles to annex other states!" "Commerce is not harmful to a country, so Guan Zhong made Qi rich because of commerce." "Now that the King of Qin has promoted commerce and reformed the system, making the people under his rule prosperous and the country wealthy, what should the Lord worry about?" After hearing these words, Liu Bei put aside his worries and watched business develop freely. Zhang Zhao's words were obviously very confident, because with the arrival of October of the fifth year of Jian'an, it was a harvest season for them! Before this, they had little food surplus and relied entirely on the military industry for support. But last October, they received a harvest of more than 8 million koku. This is just the grain. According to the commercial tax collected by Qin Zhen, they collected a total of 340 million yuan in commercial tax! In addition, there are also incomes from Qin Zhen's paper mills, sugar mills, ceramic mills, glass mills, textile mills, garment mills, salt fields, etc. During the entire year of the fifth year of Jian'an, their financial income exceeded billion coins. After deducting various expenses, there was still a surplus of 500 million coins in the treasury alone. Similarly, in terms of grain, after paying salaries to local officials and supporting the army, the surplus exceeded three million shi. Such a large amount of money and food shocked Liu Bei and his ministers. It should be noted that three million shi of grain is enough to support an army of 150,000 and auxiliary soldiers and civilians for more than a year. That is to say, they now have all the conditions to launch a large-scale battle. Apart from them, no other force in the world possesses such ability. Therefore, faced with this situation, both Liu Ye and Zhang Fei and others wrote letters to request to fight. Seeing that more and more people were writing letters to him, Liu Bei gathered all his ministers together to discuss where to fight. There were only two suggestions from the crowd: the first was to attack Jingzhou, and the second was to attack Yanzhou. Those who suggested attacking Jingzhou were led by Liu Ye and Zhang Fei, and seconded by Qin Song, Chen Duan and others. Those who suggested attacking Yanzhou were Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, Chen Qun, Liu Fu and others. Each side holds its own opinion, neither can convince the other, and neither side has the upper hand. According to Liu Ye and others, the current stalemate between Cao and Yuan is a good opportunity for them to seize Jingzhou. As long as they captured Jingzhou, they would be able to occupy the Yangtze River defense line and open the way to Yizhou. And now Qin Zhen is in Jiaozhou. If they advance from three routes, namely water and land, Jingzhou will be within their grasp.

On the contrary, if they participated in the Cao-Yuan Central Plains battlefield, they would have missed the best opportunity to send troops! Now it seems that both families have been crippled, but once they take action, the two families may unite to deal with them. Therefore, their best choice was to take advantage of the war between the two families to seize Jingzhou and occupy the advantageous location in the south. In contrast, Zhang Zhao and others believed that attacking Yuan Shao was the righteous act. Now they have strong troops and horses, and can easily defeat Yuan Shao together with Cao Cao and divide the four states of Hebei. However, attacking Jingzhou not only lacks a suitable reason, but is also not that simple. After all, although Liu Biao only had Jingbei and Wuling in his hands, he had more than 100,000 soldiers and horses. If they were entangled by Liu Biao in their attack on Jingzhou, and Cao and Yuan were free to attack, they might be attacked from both sides. Comparatively speaking, if they did not attack Liu Biao, Liu Biao would not dare to attack them. They have no worries, and defeating Yuan Shao will be much faster than defeating Cao Cao! Besides, there is another important point, they still don’t have any horse breeding land! Although Hepu in Jiaozhou can produce horses, the annual output is only a few thousand horses. Moreover, the horses in the south are relatively short and not suitable for leading cavalry to charge into battle. Now they can still obtain horses from Liaodong, but if the northern princes unite to blockade it, they will not be able to form cavalry. Compared to their current total number of soldiers and horses, which is over 300,000, there are only less than 6,000 cavalry! These thousands of cavalrymen were the result of horses given by Cao Cao and their continuous purchase of horses. Otherwise, their army of hundreds of thousands might not even have cavalry! This situation can be maintained in the short term, but in the long term they will be suppressed by the two companies. Therefore, Zhang Zhao and others felt that going north to fight Yuan Shao was the most correct decision. However, Liu Ye refuted everyone's conclusion without mercy: "You all must know that the horse-producing areas in Hebei are far away in Youzhou and Bingzhou." "These places are thousands of miles away from Huainan." "Although our army has nothing to worry about now, if we want to seize these places, we must destroy Yuan Shao!" "Most of our troops are from the south, and they are good at sailing but not good at fighting on foot." "If our army really marches into Hebei, then the entire thousand-mile defense line will be under Cao Cao's attack!" "The battle line is so long, how can our army defend it, and how can we resist Cao's army?" "Although the land that produces horses is good, it is difficult to hold it if you seize it. What's the use of it?" "Compared to this, although Jingzhou has no land that produces horses, it can threaten Guanzhong." "So our army should take Jingzhou as the best strategy, and Hebei as the worst strategy!" The battle line issue is also their biggest problem now, just like the worries of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao.

Now their defense line is too long and requires a large number of troops to defend it. If we follow everyone's opinion and attack Youzhou, then we will be in big trouble. This means that they will need at least twice as many troops as they do now to defend against Cao Cao. After Cao Cao occupied Xiliang and Bingzhou, he would have more cavalry than them. In any case, they could not defeat Cao Cao with their cavalry in the Central Plains. Faced with his rebuttal, Zhang Zhao and others frowned and said nothing. Seeing this, Liu Ye stepped forward, came to Liu Bei, bowed and said: "My lord, now is a golden opportunity to seize Jingzhou. If you miss this opportunity, you will regret it!" "While Governor Qin is in Jiaozhou now, let him go north first." "We will send out tens of thousands of cavalry, infantry and navy from here, and we can seize the entire Jingzhou within half a year!" But as soon as he finished speaking, Liu Bei's brows knitted together, and after a long while he replied: "Having said that, Liu Jingsheng and I are from the same clan, and he helped me before. I really can't bear to take away his foundation!" In fact, he is also struggling with this issue now. Even though Qin Zhen once told him about it, he is still very conflicted now. After all, there had been no conflicts between Liu Biao and him before. In addition, Liu Biao had also helped him in conquering Jiangdong before. This made it difficult for him to get over this hurdle and he always felt guilty towards others. When Liu Ye saw this, he sighed inwardly, thinking that it would be great if Qin Zhen was here. I think with Qin Zhen's prestige, no one would dare to refute Qin Zhen. And relying on the position Qin Zhen holds in Liu Bei's heart, he should be able to persuade Liu Bei! While he was thinking, he organized his words again and wanted to persuade him, but unexpectedly he saw Jian Yong rushing into the hall. Everyone was surprised to see him like this, and Liu Bei hurriedly asked: "Where did Xianhe come from, and why does he look so anxious?" As soon as he asked the question, Jian Yong stopped and took a breath. "The Lord Commander sent an urgent message, saying that he has dispatched troops to Jingnan!" "I have sent an envoy here specially to ask you to send troops to help them as soon as possible." As soon as these words were spoken, there was silence in the venue, followed by an uproar. They were still arguing about where to attack, but Qin Zhen had already sent troops! (End of this chapter)