After a year, Su Fan returned to the East China Sea Territory again.
After traveling for a year, Su Fan also had a certain understanding of the geographical advantages of the Shenhan world.
At the same time, he also understood the princes of Shenhan better. After all, An Xiao's information was not as accurate as what he saw with his own eyes.
Moreover, An Xiao's strength is far behind him. Many times, An Xiao cannot investigate clearly what he can sense.
From south to north, Su Fan personally observed the strength of several major princes. Nowadays, Luoyang Zhengtong is considered the greatest force.
Occupying Dayi itself, plus part of the Forbidden Army and Xiliang Army, as well as Lu Bu's Bingzhou Army, these are all elite.
Although various forces in Luoyang City are vying for power and there is no unified voice, even the Yang family cannot have the absolute right to speak like Dong Zhuo.
So on the surface, they are the strongest, but it is difficult to send troops. However, if someone attacks Luoyang, these people will unite together.
Therefore, the threat to Luoyang is not great. It only has defense but no offensive capabilities. In addition to fighting for power and profit, it is more about living in dreams and dying.
Secondly, the princes in the north are undoubtedly Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan.
Liu Yu of Youzhou was defeated by Gongsun Zan and died in defeat. Most of the chassis fell into Gongsun Zan's hands.
Jizhou fell to Yuan Shao.
The two princes coveted each other's place.
Yuan Shao coveted Youzhou's war horses, while Gongsun Zan coveted Jizhou's wealth.
Therefore, both sides had a tacit understanding and started to fight.
The battle between the two major princes was quite fierce. As for the army, Yuan Shao had millions of soldiers and horses under his command.
Jizhou is rich and has a large population, even higher than Yuzhou, so after Yuan Shao captured Jizhou, he immediately started a violent attack mode.
In just a few years, millions of soldiers and horses were mobilized.
This is the work of the local tycoons. Because there is no shortage of money and food, the Yuan brothers can recruit troops as much as they like, but other princes cannot.
It's fine if you raise soldiers without paying them, but at least you have to feed them. The daily rations are a terrifying figure.
Most of the princes have just received their own territory, have not digested it, and do not have much money or food at all.
So it's very difficult to attack.
In the entire divine Han Dynasty, the two Yuan brothers had more than a million soldiers and horses. Others, such as Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Liu Yan of Yizhou, only had an army of several hundred thousand.
Of course, due to the geographical location of the two places, there is no need for violent troops.
However, in recent years, Jingzhou has also begun to recruit troops. Because Yuan Shu continued to attack, Liu Biao had to recruit troops to deal with it.
Gongsun Zan in Youzhou was even more miserable. The bitter cold land of Youzhou was not much different from Bingzhou.
The population was small and not rich, and Gongsun Zan was not good at internal affairs, so he was even worse at governing the place. After acquiring Youzhou, he had no money or food, otherwise he would not have paid attention to Jizhou.
He didn't have much money and food, so he didn't have many soldiers and horses under his command. After swallowing Liu Yu, they barely reached 600,000.
However, he did not have many troops, but the proportion of elites was extremely high. After all, Youzhou was originally located on the border and often had to fight with the barbarians in the grassland.
Even the large army under Liu Yu's command originally included many elite soldiers.
It was precisely because of this that Gongsun Zan had the confidence to fight Yuan Shao.
In his opinion, although Jizhou has many soldiers and horses, they are similar to the Yellow Turban Army and have little combat power.
It may not even be comparable to the Yellow Turban Army. After all, the Yellow Turban Army has Yellow Turban warriors and a group of religious soldiers who can often exceed their ultimate combat power.
Jizhou's soldiers and horses are all new recruits, how can they compare with their Youzhou soldiers?
In the battle between the two major princes, the soldiers and horses of Jizhou at the beginning were indeed no match for Gongsun Zan of Youzhou.
After all, the quality of the soldiers cannot be compared, especially Gongsun Zan's cavalry is extremely powerful. Baima Yi is never a heavy cavalry, but a light cavalry.
However, they were almost invincible on the battlefield. Whether they were charging into the formation or harassing them from a distance, Jizhou soldiers and horses were never able to counterattack.
Therefore, in the early stage of the battle between the two armies, Jizhou usually suffered greater losses, and even Gongsun Zan captured more than one county in Jizhou.
It is a pity that although he conquered such a county, it was difficult to gain much. After all, he did not completely defeat Yuan Shao. Naturally, the big families in this county would not completely surrender to him. All he could get was a small amount of food.
After all, most of the food was in the hands of those wealthy families, and he did not dare to rob it easily.
With the power of the family, even the most powerful man at that time would not dare to suppress it too much, let alone now.
The last person who suppressed the aristocratic family and massacred the aristocratic family is dead.
Gongsun Zan did not get that much from taking over a county. On the contrary, after several battles, the soldiers under Yuan Shao's command were tempered. Especially those generals, after experiencing several battles, each one made rapid progress.
In addition to Ju Yi, a fierce general in Jizhou, you must know that when Yuan Shao was still trying to get Jizhou, Pan Feng was not only the only general in Jizhou, there was also a general in Jizhou, and that was Ju Yi.
Of course Pan Feng is stronger in terms of personal force, but in terms of leading troops in combat, Ju Yi can defeat Pan Feng and the others.
Ju Yi himself was of low origin, born in Liangzhou. He fought in the frontier army since he was a child. Later, he was appreciated by the previous Jizhou governor and became a general in the Jizhou army.
People with ability are very arrogant, and Ju Yi is naturally the same. He looked down on Han Fu and thought that Han Fu was incompetent.
Therefore, when Han Fu became the governor of Jizhou, he was quite suppressed.
Later, when Yuan Shao and Han Fu fought, he took the lead to defect to Yuan Shao, and it was he who caused Han Fu to quickly lose to Yuan Shao.
After all, his status in the Jizhou army is still very high. Pan Feng is very strong personally, but he is not a general who knows how to fight. The soldiers know that Pan Feng is brave personally, but he is not good at fighting.
But Ju Yi is different, most of the soldiers are more willing to follow Ju Yi.
It was with Ju Yi that Yuan Shao could easily capture Jizhou.
In the battle with Gongsun Zan, Ju Yi was always on the front line. Without Ju Yi, Yuan Shao would have suffered an even worse defeat.
After all, historically, Yuan Shao was no match for Gongsun Zan in the early stages.
It is even more difficult now, because in Jizhou today, the generals are withering, and half of the famous generals in Jizhou have fallen into the hands of Su Fan.
As a result, the quality of Jizhou's generals suddenly dropped by 50%.
Although Zhang He and Gao Lan did not have much experience at the beginning, as long as they experienced a few battles, they would definitely become powerful generals.
It's a pity that it's all gone. The same is true. Yuan Shao faced Gongsun Zan's attacks and retreated steadily. In addition to Ju Yi's desperate efforts and the help of Yuan's magic group, he was able to stop them.
Of course, after half a year of fighting, Gongsun Zan's soldiers were tired, and the fighting gradually stopped.