Chapter 683 Zhuge Liang lost confidence
Jiang Wei is worthy of being Ma Su's direct disciple, and he has great experience in "generals do not obey orders when they are outside".
However, his generals hesitated, and after a while they still spoke.
"Envoy, I think we should... This prime minister is not a general, and there is no reason to talk to the prime minister."
"At most, I will be beaten like the general, but I don't want to miss such a good opportunity." Unfortunately, this didn't scare Jiang Wei at all, and he said it directly.
Of course, Jiang Wei was not really reckless. Since he was in charge of Qingzhou, he has been farming and raising troops here, and in just two years, he has expanded the Qingzhou army to 30,000.
If the Wei army crossing the river to the south is several times more than him, then Jiang Wei will definitely be more obedient than anyone else. But now the Wei army has a total of 40,000 people, not much more than him. If he retreats again, the people who return to the general's mansion will laugh at him.
So, Jiang Wei finally chose to disobey Zhuge Liang's deployment and took the initiative to lead his troops to fight the Wei army.
The same situation happened to several other generals. Shu Ji, Zhang Yi and even Liu Yin felt that Zhuge Liang was too stable and was prone to miss opportunities, so they all began to exert their subjective initiative.
After all, Zhuge Liang's current strategy is still the Yizhou Northern Expedition strategy ten years ago. But now is not the same as it was back then. The Han army is big and can afford losses. Compared with that little loss, it is more important to seize opportunities.
Moreover, these generals have been following Ma Su for a long time and their strategies are all radical. Zhuge Liang's strategy of being steady is really not suitable for them.
When the entire Guandong region began to mobilize and all the generals began to move, Ma Su had to retire in Xu County in an orderly manner.
Ma Su was really tired this time and his body was a little weak. But even so, Ma Su still looked forward to it every day, waiting for when he could be discharged from the hospital to fight against Dongwu.
What made Ma Su speechless the most was that he had to be watched by someone no matter what he did. Someone follows him when he sleeps, someone follows him when he eats, and even when he goes to the toilet, he has to follow several guards around the toilet.
They are afraid that Ma Su will ignore his physical condition and suddenly climb over the wall and run away.
"You have nothing to do, right? Do you have to follow me so closely when I go to the toilet?" Ma Su looked at the guards outside with a dark face and couldn't help but said angrily.
"Please forgive me, General. We also received the order from the Prime Minister. There is nothing we can do!" The leading guard also spread his hands helplessly and apologized to Ma Su.
"The Prime Minister specifically asked us to keep a close eye on you. What if you take the opportunity to climb over the wall and escape to join the war? If something happens, we will not be able to explain it!"
"Even if I have a hole in my brain, I won't... Wait, what did you say just now?" Ma Su rolled his eyes and subconsciously wanted to say something, but suddenly caught a key word.
"Is there a war now? When? Where?"
The leader of the guards immediately realized that he had let the cat out of the bag and quickly shut up. However, his attitude made Ma Su more certain of the situation.
"Fuck, why did the Prime Minister suddenly watch so closely? It turns out that there is another war to fight!" Ma Su narrowed his eyes and began to talk to himself, not knowing what he was thinking.
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Zhuge Liang didn't know that the head of the guards he arranged had revealed everything because of his loose mouth. And Ma Su, who had been helpless to recuperate, also had some thoughts that he shouldn't have.
These were all unknown to Zhuge Liang in Hefei. At this moment, he had met with Deng Ai, the governor of Lianghuai.
"Meet the Prime Minister!" Deng Ai saluted Zhuge Liang honestly and handed the Lianghuai account book to Zhuge Liang respectfully.
Zhuge Liang nodded, took the account book and flipped through it briefly, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
Because the price of Longyou paper improved by Ma Su was lower, all the account books of Ji Han were now recorded on paper. The plasticity of paper is much higher than that of bamboo slips, so Deng Ai made some improvements on this basis.
In short, Deng Ai recorded the account book with deficits for expenditures and black for entries. This way of recording red and black makes the account book of Lianghuai simple and clear, and easy to understand at a glance.
So Zhuge Liang just glanced at it and basically calculated the troops that Lianghuai could mobilize.
"The account is well done, Youchang really promoted a good subordinate!" Zhuge Liang looked at Deng Ai deeply and said.
"This is all the merit of the general. If there is no Longyou paper, I can't do this!" Deng Ai said without hesitation, and directly attributed the credit to Ma Su.
Zhuge Liang nodded gently, extremely satisfied with Deng Ai's performance. After a brief calculation, Zhuge Liang also calculated the troops that Lianghuai could mobilize.
70,000 people!
After only two years of farming in Lianghuai, Deng Ai had accumulated a huge amount of food and fodder. Zhuge Liang didn't even need to transfer troops from other places. The troops and food in Lianghuai alone were enough to fight against Dongwu.
"What do you think about how to defeat Dongwu?" Zhuge Liang looked at Deng Ai again and suddenly asked.
Having not commanded troops for many years, Zhuge Liang basically didn't know much about the senior generals of the Han army. Now that he suddenly had to come out again, Zhuge Liang also wanted to take a good look at the composition of the people promoted by Ma Su.
"Report to the Prime Minister! Dongwu's gathering of troops in Danyang this time is nothing more than Ruxuwu, to take back their stronghold in Jiangbei. We only need to send tens of thousands of troops to defend Ruxuwu, and use Thunderbolt Chariots to assist in defending the city. The Wu army will definitely not dare to land and fight..."
Speaking of this, Zhuge Liang nodded slightly, feeling that his level was not bad.
But before Zhuge Liang could say anything, he heard Deng Ai continue.
"Then we will send a partial force eastward, sneak across the Yangtze River from Wu County, and go straight to Jianye! When war breaks out in Jiangdong, the Wu soldiers will be panicked, and Jiangdong will be decided in one battle..."
"Stop, stop, stop! I'm here to repel the Wu army this time, not to destroy Wu!"
Deng Ai's words confused Zhuge Liang. And most importantly, Zhuge Liang found that all Deng Ai's generals agreed with his strategy.
Sure enough, there are as many soldiers as there are generals, but we still can't expect the generals promoted by Ma Su to be very stable.
That Hebei battlefield...
broken!
Suddenly, Zhuge Liang was made less confident by this group of people, and now everything seemed to be full of variables.
It's better to make a quick decision and rush to Hebei's aid. Ma Su, a trained general, must scare him out of heart disease.
"The purpose of this operation is to encircle and annihilate as many Wu troops as possible and weaken the power of Jiangdong. Therefore, for this purpose, our army must lure the enemy deep, lead Wu troops to the north of the Yangtze River, and then encircle and annihilate them!"
Zhuge Liang shook his head, and then began to make his own arrangements.
"Shi Zai, you are responsible for leading three thousand troops to fight the Wu army. It's best to fake a few defeats and then lead the Wu army out!"