Chapter 379 Reorganizing the Militia
The strategic purpose of Pang Tong's strategy was very direct, which was to involve Tian Ze's troops and create a chance of victory for Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and Sun Quan.
"If the situation changes, we can directly change direction and attack Jizhou from the north of Yanzhou, and coordinate with Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and other forces."
"What's the next best thing?" Liu Bei nodded, obviously agreeing with this strategy, but he still asked casually.
"Send troops out of the Yellow River and join forces with the other princes." Pang Tong said.
In fact, he was not willing to have the princes of the Central Plains unite to attack Tian Ze, because although that would increase the chances of winning, it would give Tian Ze a lot of room to maneuver.
After fighting with Tian Ze many times, Pang Tong deeply understood a truth.
Victory is not achieved just by winning the battle.
Many times, even if you win tactically or strategically, you may not be the party that benefits in the end.
To deal with Tian Ze, it is not very meaningful to just win or kill a large number of his soldiers.
The other party can make a comeback at any time.
As long as he is not killed by a stick, Tian Ze can fail countless times, just like Yuan Shao after the Battle of Guandu.
The biggest reason why Yuan Shao lost was that he died.
Otherwise, it is still unknown who will have the last laugh.
After all, even though he had suffered consecutive defeats, his hard power was still much stronger than Cao Cao.
Moreover, there were many hidden dangers both inside and outside Cao Cao, and the risk of problems was much greater than that of Yuan Shao.
Pang Tong naturally also hoped that Tian Ze would die of anger or stabbing like Yuan Shao or Sun Ce in history, but is that possible?
His subordinates were built like an iron barrel, and his martial arts were even not inferior to Lu Bu. He could handle repeated assassination attempts with ease.
He has a lazy and indifferent temperament, without any major flaws. He pays special attention to health preservation and likes to go fishing, play chess, etc. when he has nothing to do.
For such a person, living to eighty years old is not too much.
Rather than waiting for Tian Ze to have an accident, it would be better to hope for a meteorite to fall from the sky.
"Changwen, what do you think?" Liu Bei looked at Chen Qun and asked.
Chen Qun pondered for a moment, then said, "My Lord, if we want to win this battle, there are only three best outcomes."
"One is to take advantage of the chaos in the war in Xiliang and occupy part of Xiliang or turn Xiliang upside down, destroy Tian Ze's goal of taking Xiliang as soon as possible, and delay his next plan."
"Second, we will attack Sili and force the Tianze army to come back for support, thus facilitating the other princes to achieve their strategic goals."
"The third is to attack Hebei and win a great victory south of the Yellow River, then march north to seize Hebei, especially the local population and money and grain."
"The three strategies that Shi Yuan mentioned actually correspond to these three, but they are not completely corresponding."
"The group believes that a middle course is appropriate. The risk is relatively small, and if things go well, a second or third result can be achieved. As long as one of them is achieved, the situation will be fine."
Chen Qun also has a strong sense of the overall situation.
The only difference between him and Pang Tong is that he pays more attention to immediate interests.
Although sending troops to Xiliang is beneficial to the overall situation, it will be harmful rather than beneficial to Liu Bei in the next three to five years or even longer.
As time goes on, who knows what will happen? It is better to preserve the present first, and also leave a way out.
Chen Qun never forgot how Yuzhou was lost.
The so-called allies are only temporary.
Once Tian Ze shows signs of decline, these allies who seem to trust each other will immediately fall apart.
Especially for Liu Bei who was in the middle of the four princes. If Liu Bei was still involved in Xiliang at that time, the outcome would be self-evident.
Liu Bei nodded slightly. What Chen Qun said was also what he thought.
"Okay, then we'll follow the middle strategy. Yide, Hansheng, you must train your troops well these days. Also, organize more craftsmen to build some siege equipment."
The previous battle with Tian Ze brought many shocks to Liu Bei, and also made him deeply aware of his own shortcomings.
Especially in terms of siege equipment, the one-sided crushing caused by the qualitative gap between the two sides is still deeply remembered by Liu Bei.
The next step was to attack the checkpoint wall under Tian Ze's command, so Liu Bei naturally had to be prepared, otherwise he might not even be able to touch the edge of the wall.
"Yes!" Zhang Fei and Huang Zhong said in unison.
After the previous battle, the two men no longer dared to underestimate the world, and they also clearly realized their own shortcomings, both in martial arts and in leading troops.
I have been practicing martial arts and military skills a lot in recent days, just to avenge my humiliation.
……
Naturally, the movements of the princes of the world could not be hidden from Tian Ze who was in Youzhou.
Both sides have already made their cards clear.
In order to prepare for any eventuality, Tian Ze did not expand the army on a large scale, but he strengthened the training of militia forces in Jizhou, especially in the counties and villages along the north bank of the Yellow River, and transported a large amount of military equipment, money and food to these places.
You know, although these people are militia, in terms of quality, they are not inferior to the soldiers under the command of the princes in the Central Plains.
Moreover, they are also organized and have queues. With just one order, they can quickly reorganize into troops and prepare for war.
This is also one of Tianze's final trump cards.
The princes in the Central Plains are not unaware of this.
Tian Ze has too many cards in his hand. Although many of them are obvious, they are of the hopeless kind.
For example, these reserve militiamen.
There are millions of people in Jizhou, and if the war goes wrong, they can immediately replenish the army with hundreds of thousands without any pressure.
Yuan Shao and his men had thought about this possibility.
But they dare not think about it, nor do they want to think about it.
When fighting against Tian Ze, you can't think too much. The more you think, the more desperate you will become.
Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and others were all heroes. They were unwilling to admit their failures, nor were they willing to be inferior to others. Therefore, they could only believe that man can conquer nature and believe in miracles.
Seeing that Tian Ze took it seriously, Cheng Yu also stepped up training and deployment in various places.
Having learned from the lessons of previous failed battles, the naval warships under Gan Ning's command were refitted with a self-destruct function.
The craftsmen under Tian Ze had invented this function early on, but for the sake of the overall performance of the warship, they did not add it.
After all, the navy under Tian Ze's command has been invincible and has never suffered any losses, so there is no need to add unnecessary trouble.
However, after the battle between Gan Ning and Zhou Yu, Cheng Yu felt that it was necessary to add this function.
Although it will sacrifice some space and functions of the warship, it can effectively avoid assisting the enemy.
As long as Zhou Yu does not have enough advanced warships, no matter how strong his tactics are, it will only be a lose-lose situation for Gan Ning, and he will never be able to win.
This is a dimensionality reduction blow to the war caused by technological bonus, which cannot be compensated by Zhou Yu alone.
Of course, the premise is that Gan Ning does not make some fatal low-level mistakes.
After the previous lessons, Tian Ze believed that Gan Ning should have learned his lesson.
(End of this chapter)
