Overlord!

Chapter 155 Lu Bu Arrives
On the second day of the battle across the river, Sun Ce received the report of the defeat of the Northern Expedition.

Zhang Liao defeated Sun and Liu's allied forces with his illustrious martial arts, causing the allied forces to be defeated.The Northern Expedition was greatly frustrated, and the offensive was blocked in Ling County.

Not only did the soldiers suffer heavy losses, but Xu Sheng, Sima of the Beifu Army, was also rescued after he was pulled out of the pile of corpses by soldiers on the battlefield where there was a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

With such a failure, it is natural to enter the link of chasing and punishing crimes.

The Beifu army angrily reprimanded their comrades in arms, Xuzhou soldiers fled in front of the battle, and the left wing collapsed first, which led to the encirclement of the enemy's soldiers on all sides, and the situation was irreversible.

Zhang Fei accused Jiangdong's generals of being incompetent, which led to the failure of the frontal battle.Before the ambushes launched a surprise attack, they were defeated by the enemy frontally.

Both parties refused to admit that it was their own responsibility and tried to blame each other.

This made Sun Ce furious.

In fact, he didn't pay attention to the outcome of a small battle.

This kind of battle on the scale of thousands of people can only be regarded as a test before the main battle, and it belongs to the normal state of victory and defeat between the two sides.

Just like the scout battle, no matter the victory or defeat, the main general will not get angry. This in itself is a temptation and full of chance.

Since it is a test itself, it is because of ignorance of the combat power of the Bingzhou Army, there may be winners and losers.

Moreover, attacking Ling County was mainly to show an offensive attitude, so that Lu Bu did not dare to calmly push the troops to the south of the Huaihe River without any scruples.

As a result, it is still unknown whether the decisive attitude of one's own side will be shown to the opponent, but the attitude of mutual hostility between the generals and the school is clearly shown to Sun Ce!
Sun Ce decisively ordered that Xu Sheng's command was unfavorable, and he punished the eighty army sticks, deprived him of his post of Sima, and demoted him to be the chief of the village, so that he could make meritorious deeds.Due to his injuries, the responsibility for the stick will be left to the future.If there is more guilt, several crimes will be punished together.

And the more than [-] Xuzhou soldiers who were the first to escape before the battle all took the lead, shocking the entire army!

When this military order was issued, the entire army of Xuzhou soldiers who had always thought they were guest soldiers were shocked.

They never dared to think that Marquis Wu would step over Liu Shijun and Zhang Zhonglang, and directly behead them to abolish military discipline!
In theory, this is of course inappropriate, and there is even suspicion of overreaching.

However, Sun Ce strictly enforced military discipline with an extremely tough attitude.As a result, the military ban was immediately imposed, and all Xuzhou soldiers respected the military law!
Although Zhang Fei was angry about this, he finally chose to accept it.

The main reason is that he also had no face to lead the army back to his lord's account in anger when he was defeated in the first battle.

Before he came, he spoke loudly to Xuzhou's civil and military officials, and he must make great contributions to Jiangdong.

As a result, Jiangdong was invincible, and the first defeat of Invincible was because Zhang Fei's command failed, because his subordinates fled the battle?
In this case, if he caused the alliance to break up unhappy, it would be ridiculous in the future.

However, through this punishment, it can also be seen that Sun Ce did not investigate the culpability of the defeat in detail, but it was just the most basic treatment that had to be done for the defeat.

After he had dealt with these, he summoned the civil servants and generals under his command to discuss with Zhang Fei again the strategic plan for Lu Bu's forces.

After everyone arrived, Lu Su replaced Sun Ce and introduced to everyone: "From the perspective of the battle of Ling County, the combat power of the Bingzhou Army under Lu Bu's command should not be underestimated. If you encounter elite enemy troops, even our Beifu Army will have some Might be broken."

Everyone nodded.

Although the Beifu army were all well-trained professional warriors, the tiger and wolf divisions of Bingzhou under Lu Bu's command were not much different.

They are also funded by plunder, and they have been on the battlefield for many years.

It can almost be said that these people were also professional vassal troops and had never engaged in farming.He also relies on the sword and halberd in his hand to make a living in troubled times.

Many of the soldiers, like Zhang Liao, Hou Cheng, and Song Xian, were all Kansai great men, who had fought in the Quartet battlefield, fought against the Hulu in Bingzhou, entered the forbidden army of the imperial court, conquered the princes of the Guandong, and fought against the rebel generals of Xiliang.

Their military experience is even richer than most of the Kwantung generals.A battle-hardened professional veteran.

Compared with the Beifu army, their biggest gap is the lack of supplies and a slight deterioration of military discipline.

In terms of blood and cruelty, it may be especially superior to the Beifu army.

Even in terms of military equipment, they are not much weaker than the Beifu Army.

The process of building Xuanjia has not been fast.The Military Weapons Supervisor has to forge both horse armor and knight armor, and has always given priority to providing combat power to the elite cavalry units.

In addition to meeting the needs of the cavalry, Xuanjia will be supplied to more than [-] infantry.

Of the thousands of sets of black armor that had been built in total, most of them were taken away by Zhou Tai, and after the rest were distributed to the garrisons in various counties, the Beifu army could only get more than 300 sets of armor.

This is the amount allocated to the entire Beifu Army, not something that a Sima Department can have.

Therefore, the Beifu army has not yet achieved the level of Gao Shun's trap. The seven hundred soldiers are all covered with black armor, and they are omnipotent.

Lu Bu's forces are composed of generals such as Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Gao Shun, Zhang Liao, etc., commanding an elite army is really very threatening.

However, the Bingzhou Army has the combat power of the Bingzhou Army, and Jiangdong has Jiangdong's strategic advantages.

Sun Ce asked: "Our Jiangdong counties are rich and our treasury is full, so we can use our power to win. Lu Bu has only a few thousand people under his command, and Jiangdong can form an army of tens of thousands or even [-] to fight against him. The size of the Northern Expedition army today How's the growth going?"

Lu Su immediately said: "Because the general has all the land on the right side of the Huaihe River, the people's livelihood between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River is prosperous and the population is larger. Therefore, I have served as a captain of the Beifu Military Academy and recruited another thousand new soldiers."

Sun Ce nodded. Although the population of Guangling has not yet been calculated, it will not delay the conscription.

After all, the biggest advantage of the recruitment system is that even if the local household registration cannot be controlled in detail, as long as the local population is sufficient, after the new recruitment point is established, there will be a steady stream of recruits to come to apply.

Guangling has a population of 20.Recruiting a thousand soldiers should not be too much, but it is not too little.

The five counties in Jiangdong can maintain more than 2 troops, not entirely due to the population.The core is because Sun Ce has the right to mint coins in his hands, and Wujun is a land of fish and rice, one county is rich, and several counties forget their hunger.

The money and food are all under Sun Ce's control, which greatly dilutes his cost of raising soldiers.

However, the effect of minting rights has reached the extreme. With the expansion of the territory in the later period, the effect of minting rights will not be as significant as in the early stage.

After all, with a population of [-] million at the peak of the Song Dynasty, it only raised a million forbidden troops.

If according to the previous scale of conscription, there are more than 2 troops in five counties, and all one hundred counties of the big man are under the control, there may be 40 professional soldiers under Sun Ce's rule.This is obviously not possible at the moment.

In fact, this is also an obvious rule since ancient times. The farther away from the administrative center, the less help the county can provide to the central court to raise troops.

Soldiers generally come from near the capital of the imperial court. In the Western Han Dynasty, they were youths from Wuling and good families from six counties.The soldiers of the Eastern Han Dynasty were the Sanhe Cavalry and the Fifth School of the Northern Army.

Sun Cezhi is located in Wu County, and Jianghuai can provide him with military assistance. When he arrives in Youzhou and Liangzhou, let alone how much assistance he has, he may have to subsidize the finances to maintain administrative expenses and governance costs.An important reason is that copper coins are minted from the center, and there is a huge transportation cost to send them to the frontier.

But at present, Jiangdong still has an advantage, and that is to travel south in clothes, and hundreds of thousands of people will be exiled from the north to Jiangnan.

In addition to the eastern direction of Guangling, there is also the central direction of Hefei.

Lu Su said: "In the direction of Liyang and Shicheng, the northern refugees recruited finally formed the first Beifu military school lieutenant. Now it is training troops in Danyang. Zhang Zhonglang mobilized a thousand Danyang elite soldiers from Danyang and sent them to Guangling."

This is undoubtedly an exciting news.

This is not just a matter of a thousand Danyang elite soldiers, but it proves that Jiangdong's sphere of influence has actually expanded from the southeast of Wu County to the Danyang and Jiujiang areas.

The Beifu army's station is no longer limited to one area, but is expanding to the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

With such a Northern Expedition, the situation in the future will be magnificent.

Even now, this first attempt at the Northern Expedition, the scale of the light soldiers who took advantage of the provocation and entered the north immediately became considerable.

From the initial 3000 people who entered Guangling north to September, the scale has gradually increased to nearly 6000 people stationed in various places in Guangling.

Regardless of the composition of this unit, whether it is elite or not.The Northern Expedition of at least 6000 people can already be regarded as a formal troop dispatch.

Coupled with the more than [-] Liu Bei's army in Dongyang, there are actually [-] troops stationed in Guangling County.Enough to affect the entire situation in Xuzhou.

Sun Ce said calmly and confidently: "Since the army is gradually arriving, let the lonesome come and meet him for a while. Let's see if Lu Bu has the strength to defend Xuzhou!"

And just when Sun Ce dispatched troops and generals to prepare for a showdown with Lu Bu.

Lu Bu has also led his army to Ling County.

After Zhang Liao learned that Cheng Lian's entire army had been wiped out and that Hou Cheng had been killed by the Jiangdong army on the battlefield, Lu Bu's expression suddenly became serious.

Everyone said that Lu Bu was brave but not resourceful.But this lack of strategy refers to the lack of long-term planning related to the strategy of the world compared with heroes like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Ce.

Rather than being very reckless on the battlefield, there is no strategy of war.

In fact, Lu Bu can definitely be called the top general in the world.

This not only depends on himself, but also depends on the attitude of other princes towards him.

Cao Cao is hailed as a master of the world, but it was a tie with Lu Bu in Yanzhou.

Cao Cao was able to turn defeat into victory in the end. The biggest help was the severe drought in Yanzhou, when Yuan Shao gave him a large amount of military supplies and army reinforcements.

But Lu Bu had no foreign aid, so he was eventually defeated.

But you must know that during this period, the battle between Cao Cao and Lu Bu was extremely intense, and Cao Cao himself was almost captured by Lu Bu's cavalry.At that time, the cavalry of Lu Bu's army scattered the Qingzhou soldiers, causing Cao's army to be in chaos. Lu Bu's cavalry generals captured Cao Cao, but they didn't know him, so they asked him where Cao Cao was. Cao Cao said, "The one on the yellow horse is."

So Lu Bu's cavalry let Cao Cao go, and went to chase the yellow horse rider.Cao Cao rode his horse into flames to break through and burned his left palm.

When he was most desperate, Yuan Shao sent someone to make peace with Cao Cao, hoping that Cao Cao could move to Yecheng and serve as Yuan Shao's general from then on.At that time, Cao Cao saw that Yanzhou was newly lost, and his army rations were about to run out, so he planned to agree to Yuan Shao's request.

It can be said that without Cheng Yu's strong remonstrance, and Cheng Yu's cruelty to push all the township party and people of Dong'e County into the mill and turn them into dried meat for Cao Cao's army food, Cao Cao would have nothing to do with the hegemony in the future.

If Cao Cao is considered a superhero, then Lu Bu, who beat Cao Cao to such despair, is naturally the top star in the world!
And not only Cao Cao was afraid of Lu Bu, Liu Bei and Yuan Shu were also extremely afraid of Lu Bu.

Lu Bu's most famous shooting halberd at the gate, but only brought [-] infantry and [-] cavalry, and the two sides were so frightened that they did not dare to fight again.Both sides were very afraid of Lu Bu's combat power.

It can be said that Lu Bu's mighty military power on the battlefield was all created by himself. Even with only a small amount of troops, it can make any enemy general extremely fearful.

The only flaw of Lu Bu on the battlefield may be that his army has not been large.Since he has little achievements in internal politics, it is difficult for him to pull together a large-scale elite.

This also made it extremely difficult for him to face Jiangdong's army.

In particular, Zhang Liao emphasized to him: "There is an army in Jiangdong, which is extremely tough, well-trained and brave. If my elites compete with it, it will be difficult to gain the upper hand."

Lu Bu frowned, and asked, "If it's like Wenyuan's investigation, Jiangdong has both a large-scale elite cavalry and an elite army of soldiers? Isn't this more powerful than the Cao thief?"

Zhang Liao nodded solemnly, and said: "I was waiting in Yanzhou. I fought against Cao Cao in the early days, and I was able to win many battles. It was only because of insufficient food and grass in the later period, and because of Cao Cao's tricks, that I lost. But I was still able to calmly withdraw from Yanzhou and enter Xuzhou. "

"But just after the battle with Jiangdong, it is extremely difficult for us to wait. If you win, it will be difficult to make progress, and if you lose, you will have no place to die. You will be crushed under the iron hoof. I think that the general must be cautious when fighting Jiangdong."

When Lu Bu heard this, he had to be cautious.

During the Battle of Yanzhou, his greatest advantage was cavalry.

The troops in the Central Plains had no experience in fighting cavalry.So even if they are as strong as Qingzhou soldiers, they have been battle-tested, and they are all young and strong elites selected by Cao Cao from tens of thousands of people, and they have been trained for a long time.

Lu Bu's cavalry charge could also disperse them once, causing chaos in the formation.

But if Jiangdong also had a large-scale elite cavalry, Lu Bu wondered in disbelief, would the two sides want to fight a cavalry decisive battle along the Huaihe River?
At this time Gao Shun opened his mouth and said: "The general bowed down to kill Dong Zhuo, and he shocked Yidi. He sat upright and looked forward. He was naturally afraid of being subdued from far and near. It is not appropriate to go out of the army lightly. If he fails, his reputation will be damaged. I think the battle with the Marquis of Wu , Do not rashly move the army to the south of the Huaihe River."

Gao Shun's suggestion is very clear, if Marquis Wu's combat power is really so powerful, then any rash advance would be a risk.

Military serves strategy.No battle is fought for war's sake.

Since Lu Bu has the reputation of being mighty in the world, as long as he stays north of the Huaihe River, he will naturally be intimidated by the distance. At this time, it is indeed not a rash advance, otherwise, in the battle with Jiangdong, Lu Bu himself will be defeated.

The loss of the entire prestige is far from what he can make up for by his success in attacking Huainan.

Moreover, Liu Bei has clearly rejected Lu Bu's invitation.

The situation in the Huaihe River is already very tense right now, and it may not be a good choice to start a war.

(End of this chapter)