In mid-October, in the city of Chaisang.

Eight days ago, Zhou Yu began to dispatch troops and generals, the troops in Chaisang City have become relatively empty, with only some peasant soldiers guarding the city, suitable for large-scale dispatch and mobile combat. All the main forces in mobile combat are gathered towards Xiakou.

However, Zhou Yu himself stayed in Chaisang City and continued to take charge. First, the combat mission has not been officially issued, and he doesn’t know whether to fight until the last moment. Second, because the troops from behind are constantly passing by, Chaisang also needs to be dispatched in the middle.

As a result, on October 13th, Zhou Yu actually waited for a large group of warships coming downstream. The first group was a group of high-speed narrow warships, and there were large slow-moving tower ships lined up far behind.

These troops were not all from Danyang, but were mostly withdrawn from the Lujiang front line, especially those giant tower ships. You can tell at a glance that it was too late to come from Danyang.

Zhou Yu was unstable and had a vague premonition. He personally took a boat to the river to patrol and greet him. Sure enough, he actually saw Sun Ce coming in person.

Zhou Yu immediately crossed the boat to greet him and informed him of the situation on the front line:

"Lord, I didn't expect you to come to Chaisang in person... We have not made up our minds to pick up Cai Mao at that time. You can leave Jianye easily, so how can you make arrangements later?"

Sun Ce stood in high spirits on the forecastle of a largest building with more than 2,000 people, holding the female wall wall wall wall wall wall, allowing the high river wind to blew the cloak. He pulled Zhou Yu with his other hand and put it on his hand and patted it twice:

"Gongjin, you and my brother, why bother to be polite? To be honest, when you reported your urgent report to Danyang, I was not in Jianye City at all. After I decided to send troops, I also knew that the opportunity was rare. If I really could succeed, it would be impossible to move the troops from Danyang and Wujun and Kuaiji to slowly mobilize them.

So I personally went to the Lujiang front line to urge the troops to come here and withdraw the troops to prepare for a new battle. As for Jianye City, I asked Zhongmou to help me stay."

Sun Ce's words revealed some information, which may be a bit confused for the audience who had never learned about the war between the princes of Guandong before:

Why was the main force of Sun Ce's army deployed on the front line of Lujiang County before they got into a feud with Liu Bei? Why did Kuaiji deploy less troops as Jianye, which was the Sun Ce's capital, and Wujun, which was in its heart?

This involves an existence that has been almost forgotten by most people: Huainan Yuan Shu.

Yuan Shu was not dead yet. In the first half of this year, the war between the major princes against Yuan Shu was quickly destroyed within three or four months. At that time, Yuan Shu had to face the attacks of all the princes in the world and was defeated so quickly.

However, once the second half of the year entered, Yuan Shu shrank and no longer had direct borders with Yuan Shao and Liu Bei. In addition, Yuan Shao and Liu Bei officially broke out in Luoyang area, which had the greatest political significance among Yuan Shu's heritage, tore up the alliance. From then on, Liu Bei and Yuan Shao regarded each other as the number one enemy.

As a result, the pressure Yuan Shu was under reduced to the extent that he was only attacked by Cao Cao and Sun Ce. The territory of Yuan Shu's last four eastern counties was much slower than in the first half of the year. Cao Cao could only eat a county in a few months. As mid-October entered, Cao Cao on the northern line finally completely restored Qiao County, and his troops pointed directly at Huainan County, where Yuan Shu finally established his capital.

However, don’t forget that Huainan County not only borders Cao Cao’s territory, but also borders Sun Ce’s territory.

In the first half of this year, because Yuan Shu had a large number of troops in the eastern territory, Sun Ce, who did not like to fight tough battles and chew tough problems, did not want to help other princes with the harm, so it was like a "sitting war", and only showed his banner to fight against Yuan but did not make great efforts.

Sun Ce knew very well that if he wanted to seize a whole county-level territory from Lujiang County to the north, he would have to take down all Huainan County, which Yuan Shu had established. As soon as he came up, he would definitely have too much hatred and would be thankless.

So Sun Ce just picked up soft persimmons and took a little more footprint in Shouchun, the Dabie Mountains, the southern bank of the Huai River, such as Anfeng, Yiyang and other places, across the Huai River from Runan County controlled by Yuan Shao. These places are not only densely irrigated in the narrow area on the southern bank of the Huai River, but other areas close to the Dabie Mountains are not worth it.

At the same time, Sun Ce waited for Cao Cao to attack Qiao County and attracted Yuan Shu's main force to the north. He sent troops from Lujiang to attack along the Ruxu River, first captured Hefei, and controlled the waters of the two major lakes Chaohu and Shaopi, and controlled the main traffic routes.

In the end, there was basically only one strong city in Shouchun, which was Yuan Shu's last capital, and tens of thousands of soldiers in the capital, leaving Cao Cao to gnaw on the last tough bones. Sun Ce just set up some naval troops, cruised by boat, and blocked the way for Shouchun defenders to break south on the surface of Shaopi Lake.

As for how long Shouchun City can last, Sun Ce is worthy of being a soldier. His judgment is similar to that of Liu Bei and Li Su. They all believe that the siege in the cold winter is very unfavorable, and the city is still full of food and supplies, so Cao Cao cannot conquer Shouchun City this winter.

Yuan Shu's life should be able to survive until after the spring plow next year. Cao Cao took advantage of the slack farming system to organize the final general attack. In this way, Yuan Shu had a great hope of living through the first anniversary of his ascension to the throne. In the most unoptimistic situation, he could be at least eleven months of pseudo-emperor.

The news that Zhou Yu reported that Cai Mao might have come to Sun Ce was delivered to him at such a critical moment, which made Sun Ce’s main force happen to be on the Lujiang front line, and he could quickly withdraw the Yangtze River and turn to Chaisang along Shaobi-Hefei-Ruxu.

...

After Sun Ce arrived in Chaisang in person, he prepared to discuss the situation of the war with Zhou Yu for a night, and then sent Zhou Yu to Xiakou to take charge of the front line. Sun Ce could take charge of the second line of Chaisang, the rear departure base in the second line.

Because they hadn't seen each other for a long time, they couldn't help but drink that night, and they took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of their own side and the imaginary enemy, so as to make a decision to not fight in the end.

Sun Ce is of course very clear about his own combat power and national potential. Zhou Yu doesn't need to tell him that he is just not very good at the enemy situation.

The total number of mobile troops that the Eastern Wu army can use for foreign combat this winter is about 100,000, including 70,000 Han soldiers and 30,000 Shanyue soldiers (including Danyang soldiers and also from Shanyue people).

The total combat force of the Eastern Wu regime should be about 150,000, which is not considered the temporary militia defending the city in an emergency.

Perhaps some people will be surprised by this number: Why is the potential of the Jiangdong regime in this era also vaguely explosive? If we follow the original historical trajectory, Jiangdong may not be able to gather 150,000 mobile combat troops in another ten years, right?

This involves a lot of butterfly effects:

First of all, Sun Ce in this life had fewer twists and turns in the process of unifying Jiangdong, and he fought at least three or four years of civil war. After all, he himself was not backfired by the Jiangdong family. It was his father Sun Jian who absorbed all the hatred, and Sun Ce's suppression and massacre of Jiangdong also had much less correspondingly.

On the other hand, after the early end of the civil war, Sun Ce entered the development route of farming development + catching Shanyue slaves and naturalizing Shanyue territory like his younger brother in history. However, in the past two or three years, the peaceful farming development period has caught up with another off-site positive factor, Linyi rice, that is, the popularization of double-season rice.

As we all know, because of Li Su's foresight, people found Linyi Rice in the Southern Central. The Yizhou regime began to test Linyi Rice in a small scale as early as 192.

Later, after two years of strict control and reproduction, and increasing the import of seed trade, Liu Bei's camp achieved the cultivation of one season of Linyi early rice in the entire rice cropping area of ​​Yizhou in 194, and Jingnan area was also planted in 195.

After all, Linyi early rice crops are not high-tech things like "hybrid rice" or other "seeds must be rebuilt every year". This thing can be sown directly in the seeds of the next year after the rice harvested the previous year.

As Liu Bei's camp put Linyi rice into consumption on a large scale, every household in the private sector kept seeds, and this thing was actually impossible to be controlled.

Sun Ce's camp was second only to Liu Bei's camp at that time, and the news of such a big thing could not be hidden. Therefore, Sun Ce's army obtained the initial small number of new Taoist species, which was even slightly earlier than Liu Biao.

In the end, Sun Ce and Liu Biao both started planting Linyi rice in a small scale to breed and gain more seeds. After discovering that this thing could indeed be harvested, private trade even crazily increased the price of buying grain.

Linyi rice produced in Yishi Yizhou or Jingnan can be temporarily sold on the Yangzhou market at a price equivalent to two or three times the price of traditional late rice.

No matter how expensive it is, it is impossible, because Sun Ce can reproduce for one or two years by relying on the geometric range of existing rice seeds, and can get enough seeds. Moreover, this expensive market will last for one or two years, and after the seeds become popular, they will no longer tolerate the premium.

Therefore, Yangzhou and Jingbei regions experimentally planted Linyi early rice in 195, and the planting area reached the scale of several counties in 196, and this year it reached the level of popularization throughout the country in 197.

After the two major positive factors of peaceful farming and the popularization of high-yield new crops collided with each other, Yangzhou under Sun Ce has developed extremely rapidly in the past two or three years. The natural population growth rate in 196 has approached 10%, about 8:00%, and by 197 it officially exceeded 10%.

Considering that the population of young and middle-aged people of childbearing age only accounts for more than half of the total population, and women only account for half of them, it can be seen that the birth rate of 10% is already very terrifying, almost equivalent to one in every three women of childbearing age who are pregnant every year. If it weren’t for the food that was very enough, farmers would not dare to live so crazy.

When Sun Ce first unified Jiangdong in 194, the total population of Yangzhou had fallen below the 3 million mark. Later, relying on the occupation of Yuan Shu, Hefei, Anfeng, Yiyang and other places, he seized hundreds of thousands of people. In addition, the hundreds of thousands of Shanyue slaves captured in the past three years, the theoretical population should be between 3.6 million and 3.8 million.

However, considering the natural increase in population fertility in the past three years, the actual total population under Sun Ce has now reached an astonishing 4.5 million. The surplus value of natural births and natural deaths in these three years is as high as 700,000 to 800,000!

Sun Ce's total population is still not much different from Cao Cao's current current population. After Cao Cao took over the eastern part of Yuzhou, which was originally Yuan Shu, and the population plundered by Cao Cao from the Three Koreans, the internal military farming growth has only increased from more than 3 million to more than 5 million.

Of course, Sun Ce's population growth quality is not as good as Cao Cao. Cao Cao mainly relies on expanding territory growth, so the population age structure of the newly occupied areas is relatively good, and the proportion of young and middle-aged people who can be used directly is extremely high.

Sun Ce's growth mainly depends on the people's birth after more food, so the proportion of infants and young children in the short term is extremely high in Yangzhou's population of 4.5 million, and there are 1 million babies under the age of 3! If it is relaxed to children under the age of seven or eight who have no labor force, it will be as high as 1.5 million.

That is, one-third of Sun Ce's population will take at least seven or eight years to barely form a "child labor" labor force, or be a young soldier. This population structure is no longer young, but young.

If Sun Ce's regime cannot survive in the next seven or eight years, then it will not be Sun Ce's turn to enjoy these "population dividends" of "floating books". Perhaps it will be cheaper for outsiders who will take over this regime and territory in the future.

But no matter what, looking at his own prosperous national strength, Sun Ce's ambitions were a little expanded, which was all bargaining chips to support Sun Ce to muster up the courage to expand rapidly.

The current trend of the world is that with Yuan Shu being completely divided, Liu Bei's rule was only 13 million people at the beginning of this year. After being incorporated into Hongnong, Nanyang and the original Liubiao territory, it expanded to more than 16 million people, and it is still the most populous prince in the world.

Before the war, Yuan Shao had a population of more than 11 million. After annexing most of Sili areas, Yingchuan, Runan and other places, he also seized half of Liu Bei's Hedong, which increased to more than 14 million.

Cao Cao grew from more than 3 million to more than 5 million, and Sun Ce rose to 4.5 million. The total population of the entire Han Dynasty was barely climbed back to about 40 million mark due to the peace in previous years. However, soon, the bloodier new decisive battle without any diplomatic fancy will become more and more intense, with millions of bloodshed.

...

Sun Ce knew his weight very well, and he also knew how great the war potential of Liu Bei's camp now exists. However, he didn't know much about Li Su's branch under Liu Bei's camp, which is now the branch that can be invested immediately, so he focused on this matter that night and asked Zhou Yu patiently for advice.

Fortunately, Zhou Yu's intelligence is relatively sufficient. He has collected it carefully these days. What's more important is that when Zhang Yun came last time, he brought important internal deployment information.

Zhou Yu said with confidence: "The total number of front-line mobile troops that Liu Bei's army now has about 320,000 to fight may also be different, but at least 200,000 left in the north, I am very clear to Li Su, which is 120,000.

For these 120,000 miles, we stayed in Nanhai County, Jiaozhi to control the navy of the sea and ships and assisted in the defense of Linyi Kingdom. At the same time, we can use it to harass our southern coastal areas of Kuaiji, about 10,000. There are also elite troops who stayed in Chengdu to defend themselves and support everywhere at any time, as well as mobile troops who defended the Shan Kingdom in southern Yunnan to defend against the rebellion of the southwest barbarians, which combined more than 10,000.

Therefore, Li Su's mobile troops deployed in Jingzhou were only 90,000. Among them, the source of troops came from Jingnan, Badong, Yidu and other places, only 50,000. There were still 40,000, which were the surrendered troops of Liu Biao and Yuan Shu.

He wanted to leave 30,000 people in Wancheng, Kunyang-Bowang line to guard against Yuan and Cao's troops from Luoyang and Xuchang.

The key points in Hanyang and Baqiu each retained 15,000 mobile elite soldiers, which was 30,000 in total. These troops also had to cooperate in the defense of Changsha and Yiling.
Chapter completed!