Jia Xu is a native of Xiliang and knows the situation in Xiliang very well.
From Ma Teng's attack on Guanzhong, he knew that Xiliang had run out of food.
In the past, when there was a food shortage crisis in Xiliang, Xiliang's commanders would send tens of thousands of people to Guanzhong to grab it. If they won, they would grab the food. If they failed, they would die. Therefore, no matter whether they win or lose, the food crisis is considered to be resolved.
Back then, Beigong Boyu and the kingdom used this method to solve the crisis in Xiliang!
But Ma Teng and the others didn't know how to work around it. Guanzhong was the center of the drought, and there was a locust plague. How could they possibly grab food when they went to Guanzhong?
It was because he understood the current situation in Xiliang that he decisively betrayed Ma Teng and wanted Xu Wei to lead the army to capture Xiliang! Because he knew that the only one who could save Xiliang now was Da Gan.
In the past, Xiliang could barely survive by robbing Dahan. But now Dahan has suffered from disasters for two years.
But precisely because of Da Qian, all the princes of the Han Dynasty were desperately preparing for war and expanding their armies. Only the Han Dynasty in the Ten Prefectures now had an army of nearly one million.
This has caused the current Han Dynasty to be extremely short of food. In the past, when the Han Dynasty was short of food, it was only ordinary people who were short of food. The powerful nobles of the Han Dynasty were not short of food. Each of their families had several granaries, and each granary contained hundreds of thousands of stones. The amount of food is not an exaggeration. Just one wealthy noble family can feed the entire population of Xiliang County.
But now the Han Dynasty, which has millions of troops, and even the noble families have no food. If Yuan Shao and the others had not annexed the noble families in Xuzhou during this drought, Jia Xu has no doubt that Yuan Shao's power may collapse.
Ma Teng and Han Sui still saw the big Han with their old eyes. Xiliang ran to Guanzhong to plunder when there was no food. They thought that the big Han was the same as before. Even if they couldn't defeat the Central Army, they could plunder and plunder the local area. Get enough food for them to return to Xiliang safely.
But the reality is that Ma Teng and the others didn't grab anything this time. There is no food for them to grab from top to bottom in Guanzhong.
So Jia Xu knew that if Ma Teng and the others continued to occupy Xiliang, more than 100,000 people would starve to death in Xiliang this year. Only Da Qian could provide food to save Xiliang!
Only Xu Wei hesitated and said: "Although Ma Teng and Han Sui are not as powerful as each other, the territory of Xiliang is too vast. It is probably more difficult to attack Xiliang than to attack the Central Plains. The front line of thousands of miles is too long. Even if we dispatch With an army of tens of thousands, the logistics consumption will not be much less than that of the Central Plains!"
Jia Xu immediately said: "Xiliang is different from the Central Plains. Yuan Shao and the others will fight to the death to attack the Central Plains. But the rebels in Xiliang do not have a real leader. Their strength is scattered. One person occupies a county. It can be said that they are a group of people. mob."
"If the ruler wants to attack Xiliang, the size of the army is secondary. The main thing is to have food. As long as the ruler has enough food, I believe the people of Xiliang will definitely abandon Ma Teng and join the ruler."
"This drought is an excellent opportunity for the government, which can allow Da Gan to get Xiliang without any effort!"
Jia Xu continued: "The most important thing is that the population of Xiliang is small. The last statistics of the Han Dynasty showed that the population of Xiliang was only more than 600,000. Xiliang has experienced decades of war. I wonder if half of this population can be retained? Therefore, it is not difficult to provide relief to Xiliang. There are millions of people in any state in the Central Plains, while Xiliang only has a population of hundreds of thousands. The difficulty of providing relief is 10 times smaller than that in the Central Plains! And Xiliang’s strategic location is also extremely important!"
After Jia Xu said this, everyone found that it really wasn't that difficult to fight Xiliang.
But Old Man Wang still said: "I'm afraid it's not good to send troops at this time. Can't we defend our territory? After all, if the war breaks out, our food consumption will double!"
But Jia Xu pointed to the map of Daqian and said: "Our Daqian basically took over the territory of the northern Han Dynasty. The northern border of Daqian is tens of thousands of miles long. This year's drought not only affects the entire Han Dynasty, but also affects the grasslands. But The reason why there is no change in my thousands of miles of grassland defense line is because the ruler has a far-sighted vision and has conquered the grassland before attacking the Han Dynasty. The barbarians on the grassland have become our subjects of Daqian, so even if the grassland suffers Despite the drought, the tens of thousands of miles of defense line is still peaceful.
But we have thousands of miles of defense lines bordering Xiliang. Ma Teng and the others are equivalent to the barbarians in the past. If Xiliang cannot support them, they will have to find a way out. At first, the person they chose to rob was Yuan Shao. , because Yuan Shao was weaker than us, but because of the drought in Guanzhong, they couldn't grab anything in Guanzhong, so they changed their direction and started to rob us, so if we don't get rid of these rebellious Ma Teng, they will keep harassing us until they rob us. He will not stop until there is enough food to feed the army. Now it is not a question of whether we want to fight or not. The first is that Ma Teng must fight us! This war is impossible to avoid."
"If you want to defend, it is impossible for the 40,000 troops of Shangjun and Shuofang County to defend the thousands of miles of defense line alone. You must recruit 100,000 troops, and gather the people in Wubao for nearby defense. Such efforts The price is too high!”
"Instead of passively defending, it is better for us to take the initiative. In this way, we can get the entire Xiliang, and we can also make strategic preparations for future attacks on the Central Plains, and at the same time, we can save more people!"
Then Jia Xu sighed and said: "Now there are more barbarians in Xiliang than Han people. If hundreds of thousands more starve to death, I'm afraid Xiliang will be occupied by barbarians. A barbarian Xiliang, we will occupy Xiliang in the future." , the price paid will be ten times or even a hundred times higher than now!”
Wang Ge also said: "If we attack Xiliang, it will be easier for us to mobilize cavalry. We can mobilize cavalry directly from the desert, and we can also attack Xiliang from the desert. The consumption of cavalry can be reduced by more than 10 times. After all, on the grassland Marching war horses don’t need much food to feed them!”
Mobilizing cavalry from the grassland and mobilizing cavalry from the central plains are completely different concepts. When cavalry moves on the grassland, the war horses only need very little food and grass. The grass can be obtained locally, and the soldiers can harvest the surrounding grass to feed the war horses.
The cavalry in the desert never need food to feed them. After all, there is not enough food for people on the grassland, so it is impossible to feed the horses, and they do not have so much food.
But it was completely different in the Central Plains. There was no grassland at all in the Central Plains. The cavalry had to use precious grains to feed their war horses, and the war horses ate more grain than 10 soldiers.
When Xu Wei attacked Jizhou the year before last, he recruited 100,000 cavalry from the grasslands. These cavalry actually ate more food and grass than Xu Wei's 400,000 army, but they achieved very little results. This shocked the Jizhou army and made them unable to fight. Gancheng completed the division and outflanking of the Jizhou Army.
In the last war, the cavalry mobilized by Xu Wei was somewhat surplus. 50,000 cavalry were enough to complete these tasks.