Chapter 2653 : Sun Zhongmou escaped from birth, 350,000 Chu troops attacked Wu
Chapter 2653: Sun Zhongmou escapes, 350,000 Chu troops attack Wu
After Sima Yi took down brothers Xie An and Xie Xuan, he followed the same pattern and told Zhu Ran that Sun Ce had killed his younger brother Zhu Cai, completely stopping Zhu Ran from turning to Sun Ce.
After that, Sima Yi tried to win over Pang Juan, Tian Ji, Sun Chengzong, Xu Sheng, Dong Xi, Sun Kuang and other generals with military power, but the effect was not obvious.
Without Sun Quan, the generals who were once loyal to Sun Quan have now become a piece of scattered sand.
Pang Juan, Tian Ji and other generals could not see the hope of overthrowing Sun Ce, so naturally they would not act rashly. It was only a matter of time before they turned to Sun Ce.
Although he failed to win over Pang Juan, Tian Ji and other generals, Sima Yi was not disappointed. With Xie An and Zhu Ran, plus Sun Quan's die-hard Zhou Taizai, the combined strength of these three people may not be Sun Ce's opponent, but
It's barely enough for self-protection.
"The news has spread. I hope Liu Xiu can react quickly. Otherwise, when Sun Ce completely stabilizes the situation, it will be difficult for Chu to destroy Wu." Sima Yi murmured to himself.
After Sima Yi received the news that Sun Quan had been captured, he knew that Sun Quan had been completely defeated and that unless a miracle happened, there would be no chance of a comeback, so he decisively betrayed Sun Quan and secretly passed the news of the internal strife in Soochow to Chu.
Liu Xiu did not disappoint Sima Yi. After receiving the news, he held a meeting overnight. Although he finally decided to use all his country's power to destroy Wu, the process was very tortuous and not as simple as it seemed.
Liu Xiu had actually made a plan to destroy Wu a long time ago. After all, under Sun Quan's arrogance, the internal conflicts in Wu had reached an extreme level. Even if Sun Ce did not come back, civil war would break out sooner or later.
Liu Xiu was actually waiting for Sun Ce to come back and become the fuse that ignited the internal strife in Wu. In this way, he could take advantage of the internal strife between Sun Ce and Wu to concentrate on facing foreign enemies, and attack Wu on a large scale, thus destroying Wu at the lowest cost.
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But what Liu Xiu never expected was that Sun Ce's coup came so suddenly, and it only took half a day from start to finish.
Before the Chu State had time to react, Sun Ce's coup was over. This also put all Liu Xiu's arrangements in vain, so Liu Xiu was almost going crazy.
"Waste, Sun Quan is simply a waste. With such a huge advantage, he didn't even hold on for a long time before he was caught by Sun Ce. No wonder Sun Jian has never fought alone and never considered letting him succeed."
Regarding Sun Quan's poor performance, Liu Xiu was angry and speechless, but he quickly realized something was wrong.
Sun Quan may be like Sun Ce, but he is definitely not that unbearable. Therefore, if Sun Ce can defeat Sun Quan so quickly, he must have the support of an expert behind him.
Liu Xiu eliminated all the people on Sun Ce's side, and finally discovered that the most critical person among them was Sun Bin, whom he had always ignored.
"It's really not easy for Sun Bin to be able to plan a sure-kill situation for Sun Ce next time."
Liu Xiu frowned and said to himself: "Sun Ce's coup plan this time can be said to be interconnected with almost no flaws. If you are not careful, you will fall into the trap.
Even if they are aware of it, people who are not highly resourceful will not react hastily at all.
It seems that Sun Quan was defeated at the hands of Sun Bin, and those who lost and lost did not complain."
But soon Liu Xiu realized another problem, that is, Sun Bin was such a talented person and he was from the Sun family clan. Why didn't Sun Jian and Sun Quan reuse him?
It can be explained that Sun Quan did not use Sun Bin, after all, Sun Bin was a member of Sun Ce's lineage, but Sun Jian also did not use Sun Bin, which is somewhat unreasonable.
Liu Xiu instinctively felt that there must be something wrong with Sun Bin, otherwise with Sun Jian's ability to recognize people, how could he let such a great talent as Sun Bin go?
"In addition to Sun Wu, Wu Zixu, Lu Su and Sun Ce, this Sun Bin is also qualified to be my opponent."
From the fact that Liu Xiu ranked Sun Ce behind Sun Wu, Wu Zixu and Lu Su, we can see that Liu Xiu did not value Sun Ce very much, but cared more about the other four.
Liu Xiu never underestimates his opponents, and judging from Sun Bin's performance in this coup, Sun Bin poses an even greater threat to Chu than Sun Wu.
Sun Wu's ability to lead an army was unparalleled in the world. Except for being tricked once by Tao Qian and captured alive by Zhu Yuanzhang, he had never been defeated again.
But no matter how capable Sun Wu was in fighting, he was just a soldier.
In the battles between countries, in addition to military duels, political games are also equally important.
Sun Wu almost never lost a battle against Chu, but Chu became stronger and stronger with each defeat. No matter how many times he lost, he would never be completely defeated by Wu.
On the other hand, the Wu State became weaker and weaker as it won, and after Jiangxia's disastrous defeat, the gap between it and the Chu State was completely widened. If you are not careful, your country may be destroyed.
The main reason for this situation is that the monarch of Chu State, Liu Xiu, was much stronger in politics and governance than Sun Jian and Sun Quan of Wu State.
Even if Wu had an undefeated general like Sun Wu and could defeat Chu repeatedly and weaken it to offset Wu's disadvantage as a monarch, Chu would not collapse as long as Liu Xiu was still there.
But under Liu Xiu's governance, Chu State became more and more stable, its national power became stronger, and its talents became more and more abundant.
At this time, even if Sun Wu wanted to defeat Chu, it would not be easy.
This was also the main reason why Sun Wu was unable to conquer the Chu State later, because the Wu State was still the same Wu State, but the Chu State was not the original Chu State.
Now Chu State has completely surpassed Wu State in military terms.
As for military commanders, although the Chu State still does not have a top commander at the level of Sun Wu, it does have many famous generals such as Guo Ziyi, Ma Yuan, Wei Zhang, and Cao Shen.
Although the Chu State was not as good as the Wu State in terms of the quality of its commanders, it also surpassed it in terms of quantity.
What's more, in addition to this, Chu State has another biggest advantage, and that is its political advantage.
Liu Xiu, the king of Chu, was one of the wisest monarchs in the world and almost never made mistakes, but Sun Quan of Wu State made many mistakes. Under his governance, Wu State was full of internal conflicts.
Therefore, as long as Sun Quan is still the king of Wu, the gap between Wu and Chu will only become wider and wider, and this is Liu Xiu's biggest support.
But the appearance of Sun Bin changed everything, and the greatest advantage of Chu State was instantly wiped out. This made Liu Xiu not afraid of Sun Bin.
"Sun Wu's lineage and Sun Bin's wisdom are both rare to see for hundreds of years, but they were born into the Sun family at the same time. God really loves the Sun family."
Thinking of this, Liu Xiu felt envious of Sun Jian. If he had been assisted by Sun Wu and Sun Bin, he would have unified the south long ago and then went north to compete with Ying Hao. How could he have wasted so many years in Jingnan.
But what about Sun Jian? Not only are there two unparalleled talents, Sun Wu and Sun Bin, but there are also Wu Zixu, Lu Su, Lu Meng, Xie Xuan, Xie An, Pang Juan... and many other great talents that are rare in the world.
Wu Guo obviously has so many talents, but cannot make good use of them. If the country is not destroyed even after this, it would be really unreasonable.
To put it bluntly, if the Wu State did not fight among themselves, it would only need to make full use of its own talents. Even if there were no top generals, the Chu State would have no chance of destroying Wu.
But Wu State happened to have Sun Quan, which made the originally iron-clad state of Wu leak out. This gave Liu Xiu hope to destroy Wu.
Liu Xiu knew the importance of talents in troubled times, and if he wanted to compete with the Qin Dynasty, he had to destroy Wu and collect the talents from Jiangdong for his own use.
But now Sun Quan has been captured by Sun Ce, and Sun Ce has completely gained the upper hand. If the Chu State sends troops to attack Wu at this time, it is very likely that it will stimulate the internal affairs of the Wu State, unite for self-protection, and concentrate their forces to attack the outside world.
If such a situation is really caused, it will actually help Sun Ce gain power.
If Sun Ce is really allowed to completely control Wu's military power, and if Sun Wu, Wu Zixu, Lu Su and others are allowed to reassert their military power, then the difficulty for Chu to destroy Wu will increase more than ten times.
In addition, the situation in the Central Plains was also a major reason why Liu Xiu did not dare to send troops easily.
The Qin Dynasty had already declared war on the Ming Dynasty. In just the first round of testing, they sent a total of 330,000 troops, which also showed that their estimate was wrong.
Although the Wei and Song Dynasties had issued documents to reprimand the Qin Dynasty, and openly formed an alliance with the Ming Dynasty, and the three countries united to fight against the Qin Dynasty, the strength of the Qin Dynasty was unfathomable, and even if the three countries of the Central Plains joined forces, they might not be able to withstand it.
If Wu Guo could definitely be destroyed by sending troops, then Liu Xiu would not hesitate too much. However, at this time, the internal situation of Wu State had been decided, and even if Chu State sent troops, it would not be able to completely destroy Wu Guo.
On the contrary, once the Chu State sends troops to attack Wu, it will have no spare power to interfere with the war in the Central Plains.
Once the Great Qin destroyed the Three Kingdoms of the Central Plains, but the Chu State failed to destroy the Wu State, it would be a real disaster for Liu Xiu, and he would no longer be able to stop the Great Qin from unifying the world.
At this time, the Chu State was in a dilemma. Even if it could win against Chu, it would not necessarily destroy the Wu State. On the contrary, it would not be able to support the Three Kingdoms of the Central Plains. However, if it did not attack Wu, it would miss a golden opportunity.
Regardless of whether to attack Wu or not, there are pros and cons, and there are disadvantages, so Liu Xiu cannot help but think carefully, because if he is not careful, he will fall into disaster.
Pang Tong, Kuai Yue, Kuai Liang, Liu Ba, Liao Li, Zhufu Yan, Hong Rengan, Meng Gongwei, Shi Guangyuan, Jia Chong and other counselors looked at the frowning and hesitant Liu Xiu, and they didn't know what to do.
Advise the king to resolve his doubts.
The current situation is too complicated, and they don't know what Du Chu should do.
The top leaders of the Chu State, including Liu Xiu, were extremely hesitant about conquering Wu. After all, the current situation was unclear and the variables were too great.
But not long after, a piece of news suddenly came, which made Liu Xiu make up his mind and decisively decided to use all the troops of the country to attack Wu, as if he would not give up until Wu was destroyed.
And the news is that Sun Quan was rescued.
"This king has ordered us to raise 350,000 troops today and divide them into four groups to attack Wu."
"Order Guo Ziyi as the general to lead the three counties of Jiangxia, Nanjun and Lujiang, with a total of 80,000 troops from Beilu County, march from Jiangbei to attack Lujiang County of Wu State."
"Order Ma Yuan as the chief general to lead the two prefectures of Jiaoguang and Guangzhou, with a total of 70,000 troops as the South Route Army. They will march from Nanhai County to attack Wu Guoji County."
"I personally led the three states of Jingzhou and Guangzhou, with a total of 200,000 troops as the middle route army. They sent troops from Changsha and Guiyang to attack the Yuzhang and Panyang counties of Wu State respectively.
I personally led an army of 150,000 to attack Yuzhang County, and Cao Shen, the leader of the partial army, led an army of 50,000 to attack Panyang County."
The Chu State occupied the territory of Jing, Guang, and Jiaozhou, with a total population of 5.7 million. After extreme military expansion, the total military strength suddenly increased from 200,000 to 420,000, an increase of 200,000.
An army of 120,000.
Now the Chu State has a total of 420,000 troops, but Liu Xiu directly dispatched 350,000 troops to attack Wu, leaving only 70,000 troops to guard Jing, Guang, and Jiaozhou. The risk is not small.
This also shows that Liu Xiu was completely willing to fight. If he didn't take action, he would do it. Once he took action, he would use all the troops in the country. Without any room for maneuver, he would not give up until Wu was destroyed.
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Wu State, Jianye, Xicheng Daying.
Sima Yi, Xie An, Xie Xuan, Zhu Ran, Zhou Tai, Zhu Huan, Xue Zong, Gu Ti and other people from Sun Quan's line were gathering together to discuss what to do next.
Xue Zong, Gu Ti and other members of the aristocratic family felt that if Sun Quan really could not come back, then there was nothing wrong with supporting Sun Ce, but the premise was that Sun Ce kept his promise and did not touch the interests of the aristocratic family.
Xie An and Zhu Ran disagreed with everything. After all, one of them had died, and the other had lost his brother, and they both died at the hands of Sun Ce. How could they surrender to their enemies?
Just when the two sides were arguing, someone suddenly broke into the camp, and this person turned out to be the imprisoned Sun Quan.
Now everyone, including Sima Yi, was completely dumbfounded.