When the war in Huguan on the eastern front gradually calmed down, the Western Front where soldiers gathered was so nervous that it made people breathless. (_)

The flying tiger army and the Canglang army, which had won the victorious flag, finally retreated to the Fushisheyan River area and threw a large area of ​​land to the steady Huangfu Song.

According to Shadow's reconnaissance, Lu Zhi had led his army to cross the Yellow River from the Beiqu area of ​​Hedong County and entered Shangjun. Needless to say, Lu Zhi must have been preparing to join Huangfu Song north of Gaonu, and then advance steadily, gradually compressing the strategic space of the Bingzhou army, and eventually forcing Zhao Xing and the coalition forces to fight a decisive battle along the Yellow River.

If Zhao Xing does not respond to the battle and continues to retreat into Xihe County, then Lu Zhi can lead his army to the north and attack Fushi, the Shangjun Prefecture. Once Fushi falls into the hands of the coalition forces, the two places of Yuanyang and Yuanyin, located west of the Yellow River section in Xihe County, will soon fall. The Yellow River has a river bank of more than 500 miles in Xihe County. At that time, the coalition forces can choose the place to cross the river at will. With the 60,000 troops in Zhao Xing's hands, it is no different to dream of defending the Yellow River, which is 500 miles away without any danger.

The reason why Lu Zhi dared to let Yuan Shu, Liu Biao and Liu Yan blocked Ji Pass and led his main force to cross the Yellow River to meet Huangfu Song was to see clearly the weakness of Bingzhou. Bingzhou is now just defense, and its strategic goal is to defeat the siege of the coalition forces. Even if Xu Huang, who was stationed in Ji Pass, was able to swallow Yuan Shu, Liu Biao and Liu Yan's three troops, 80,000 troops, was still unable to resolve the crisis on the Western Front.

The advantage of the imperial coalition was that it had a large number of people and could use the opportunity to suppress Bingzhou. Even if the entire territory of Bingzhou cannot be conquered when winter came, at least most of the land in Shangjun could fall into the hands of the court. When flowers bloomed next spring, Lu Zhi could continue to attack Wuyuan and Shuofang north of Shangjun, or cross the river east to attack Xihe and Taiyuan. Lu Zhi could even give a more crazy order, leading his people to fight east, and Huangfu Song led his people to attack north, further compressing the space of Bingzhou.

Although Zhao Xing's generals and soldiers were very capable of fighting, they were only one state after all, and their troops were limited. Under the siege of Lu Zhi, the hinge tactics, after a long time, they would eventually collapse because of the difficulty. Now it seems that Lu Zhi started to mobilize such a large formation, but he still played a plot that Zhao Xing could not resist.

Lu Zhi kept calculating Zhao Xing, and Zhao Xing did not dare to relax and guard against Lu Zhi for a moment. Zhao Xing knew in his heart that although both the East and West Fronts had local victories, he could not fundamentally reverse the disadvantages of Bingzhou. No matter how hard he tried, he could not escape the decisive battle with Lu Zhi and Huangfu Song. The possible consequences of this battle, after repeated calculations by the military advisors and generals, Zhao Xing did not dare to take a look at it.

The best result was that both sides suffered losses. Zhao Xing's 60,000 soldiers were killed and injured. Finally, with the sudden rescue of the Dragon Cavalry, the last wave of attacks was crushed by Lu Zhi and Huangfu Song, and then the two sides stopped their troops and truce. Of course, the price of the 60,000 Zhenbei Army was that the Central and Western Unions of the imperial court had to leave 200,000 bodies in Bingzhou!

This is not the result that Zhao Xing wanted. The court lost 200,000 soldiers and spread them to the 40 million people in more than ten states in the world. Each state has less than 20,000 people, and the casualty rate is 5% of a thousand. Zhenbei Legion lost 60,000 elite troops, but it can only spread them to the more than 2 million people in a state. The casualty rate is as high as 30,000, which is six times that of the imperial coalition! The population bases of the two sides are already very different, and the casualty rate is so huge. How can Zhao Xing accept it?

The key is to train 60,000 soldiers with the same combat power, which will take at least three years, and it is necessary to ensure that the generals above the division will not be killed in large numbers. If the extreme recruitment ratio, that is, a 10-out-of-10-point ratio, Bingzhou can also temporarily recruit 200,000 troops, but this will completely damage the vitality of Bingzhou. When the imperial coalition forces launch another attack next year, how should Bingzhou resist?

Now it seems that Zhao Xing is still trapped in a situation of death set by Lu Zhi, and he will suffer huge losses no matter what, until he is finally defeated.

In fact, Zhao Xing was not without a way out. The poisonous soldier Jia Xu secretly reminded Zhao Xing that there were at least two ways to choose from. First, it was to produce and use firearms on a large scale, and completely expose the hot weapons, a killing weapon that was strictly controlled by Zhao Xing, to the Han army; second, it was to artificially deploy plagues, turning the entire Shangjun into an unmanned land!

A poisonous soldier is a poisonous soldier. He either does not make plans. Once he makes plans, he is a vicious means to make thousands of people die and blood flow. But Zhao Xing really doesn't want to adopt these two strategies. He is still trying to find a more gentle and humane way to break the situation, which can not only reduce the large number of deaths of the warriors on both sides, but also relieve the crisis in Bingzhou.

Zhao Xing, who had been struggling and distressed for several days, frowned and walked out of the camp, came to the wilderness, and looked at the Tongtian Mountain in the distance. For a moment, he didn't even think that someone was coming to the sky.

"Why is Guochang so frowning? He has been frustrated for a few days and is full of worries." Xu Shu's voice sounded in Zhao Xing's ears.

Zhao Xing, who was pulled back from Xu Shu's thoughts, said with emotion: "I am better than the bright moon, but why does the bright moon shine on the ditch?"

Xu Shu knew the elegant meaning when he heard the string song. He understood that Zhao Xing was still struggling with how to break the death plan that Lu Zhi set up for Bingzhou, so he spoke: "The kind loves others, Guochang has always been unwilling to see too many casualties in the soldiers. He has a compassionate heart, and the heaven can see it. Since the death plan is tied to Bingzhou, why not look further and look for a living plan outside the death plan."

When Xu Shu reminded him, Zhao Xing suddenly became energetic. He stared at Xu Shu who still liked to dress up as a knight and said thoughtfully: "What kind of strategy Yuan Zhi can say clearly? There are only you and me here, so there is no need to worry."

"The Zhenbei Army naturally needs to stick to the end, but when things are really unsuccessful, it is better to confess to the emperor of Luoyang, and at the same time imply that we have the third son of Emperor Ling Liu Rong in our hands! If the court still insists on attacking Bingzhou with his head bowed down, we will support Liu Rong to become the emperor in Bingzhou and fight against the court to the death! If the court agrees to withdraw its troops, as a bargaining chip in exchange, we promise not to raise the flag to rebel, support Liu Rong as King of Jin, and obey the King of Jin in the future." Xu Shu said with a serious face.

After listening to Xu Shu's suggestions, Zhao Xing thought for a while, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this plan was feasible. He couldn't help but look up to Xu Shu, who had been serving as a military advisor for the first time, could not help but look up to him much.

Xu Shu really dared not tell Zhao Xing about this plan when there were many people. Everyone knew that Zhao Xing intended to be independent and eventually overthrew the Han royal family and dominate the world. Moreover, under the influence of Zhao Xing, everyone was always striving toward this goal. If Xu Shu proposed to make Zhao Xing bow to the court, he would obey the orders of King Jin in the future and no longer raise the flag to rebel, wouldn’t it break the dreams that everyone had fought and paid for for many years?

But Xu Shu's original intention was not like this. With Xu Shu's background, he was not loyal to the ideological burden of the Han royal family, and definitely did not want Zhao Xing to stop his anti-Han. Xu Shu's plan was actually inspired by the "relaxed king" mentioned by Zhao Xing. He believed that the current situation in Bingzhou was not yet time to break with the court completely, so it would be better to take a step back in exchange for living space and time to strengthen himself.

After thinking through the joints, Zhao Xing immediately stretched his eyebrows and had an idea in his heart. According to Xu Shu's suggestion, the worst result was that after Bingzhou supported Liu Rong as emperor, Huangfu Song and Lu Zhi continued to attack Bingzhou, but at this time Zhao Xing was no longer fighting alone. He was fully capable of summoning Liu Dai from Youzhou and Ma Teng from Liangzhou under the banner of Liu Rong. In this way, Bingzhou's strategic depth was greatly expanded.

Zhao Xing is even a little eager for the court to not agree to the request of Bingzhou, so that he can also play the good show of "using the emperor to order the rebellion of the ministers" and completely clean up the forces north of the Yellow River. At that time, Zhao Xing can seize the river and have a large depth of Bingzhou, Jizhou and Youzhou. When the power is accumulated enough, he will go south to the Yellow River to capture Luoyang in one fell swoop and occupy the heartland of the Central Plains, and the world will be in sight.

"Yuan Zhi's plan is very good, I am determined to adopt it!" Zhao Xing thanked Xu Shu, and then casually said two poems: "When you follow the trend, you can rest assured the world. How can you fight for hegemony be more killing?"

Many years later, Zhao Xing's sentence "Why is fighting for hegemony more and more killing" has become the motto of many generals. When everyone starts a war, they can't help but ask themselves, "Why are we going to fight for? Is there no better way to resolve the dispute than killing?"
Chapter completed!