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At night, the Jiangdong Thousand Stone Warship left Qichun County and sailed north along the Yangtze River. This was Cheng Jin's tentative move. He wanted to test the Jiangxia army's bottom line and see if the Jiangxia army dared to take the risk of turning against the Jiangdong army and attacked the Jiangdong army warships.

On the main ship of Jiangdong, Cheng Pu watched the warship sailing north, his eyes were very complicated. This time, Wu Hou considered it for two days before finally making up his mind. Cheng Pu also knew very well that the decades of feud between Jiangdong and Jingzhou would not be easily eliminated.

It can be said that seizing Jingzhou and unifying the south have always been the national policy of Jiangdong. Although there was an alliance in the Battle of Red Cliff, this does not mean that Jiangdong gave up its fundamental interests.

Just before he led his army to fight, Zhou Yu insisted on persuading Wu Hou not to violate the alliance, but it angered Wu Hou and took away half of Zhou Yu's military power. Cheng Pu showed a sneer on his face, and he could only say that Zhou Yu did not understand Wu Hou's ambitions.

Now Cao Cao's strategic contraction and the north is uneven, so he will not be able to fight south for at least ten years. If the Marquis of Wu did not take advantage of this opportunity to unify the south, it would be difficult for Jiangdong to make any more achievements.

At this point, Cheng Pu saw through Sun Quan more than Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu was still very angry and said that he was committed and valued credibility. However, when the two countries competed, the important thing was interests, and the contract was just a tool to realize interests.

"Father, is this a risk?" Cheng Zi asked in a low voice, Gan Ning's stern and sharp advice still vividly.

Cheng Pu glanced at Er coldly, "Then what do you think you should go to the trouble and give up, then how do you explain to Mr. Wu?"

Cheng Zi was speechless after a series of questions. Cheng Pu said to him: "Don't underestimate the Marquis of Wu. Of course, he knew that the Jiangxia army would not allow us to transit, but he still ordered me to come. It can be seen that the Marquis of Wu had made up his mind to fight the Jiangxia army. Now the court appointed me as the magistrate of Nanjun, but the Jiangxia army stopped me from taking office. They had lost their moral points."

Cheng Zi's lips moved. In fact, he wanted to say that if his father was single, the Jiangxia army might not have stopped him. Now he led 5,000 troops to go. This is not what he would be guarding.

Although he thought so, Cheng Zi did not dare to say it. Cheng Pu patted his shoulder and smiled and said, "Don't worry about anything, we are just a vanguard army. If the Jiangxia army forcibly block or even use swords, then the Wu Hou General personally led the army to expedition the west."

.........

The Jiangdong warship had just left Qichun County, and the Jiangxia army sentry ship that was monitoring the river immediately returned to Wuchang to report.

Currently, there are 10,000 troops stationed in Wuchang County. In addition to the 20,000 navy troops led by Ganning, there are also thousands of soldiers led by Liu Hu and five thousand cavalry led by Liao Hua.

In addition, veteran Huang Zhong also led a thousand troops to train tens of thousands of soldiers in the militia camp west of Wuchang County. These are tens of thousands of elite soldiers selected from Cao's prisoners of war. After only half a year of intensive training, they will be loyal to Jingzhou and Liu Jing.

In this way, the total strength of the Jiangxia army will reach 100,000, but it will be difficult to support such a huge army by relying solely on the five counties of Jiangxia, Changsha, Anlu, Nanjun and Xiangyang, so external expansion will become inevitable.

Gan Ning led a dozen cavalrymen to run away and soon rushed to the military yamen. Gan Ning turned over and dismounted and walked towards the military yamen. "The military advisor is here," he asked anxiously.

Gan Ning wanted to find military advisor Jia Xu. Liu Jing had an order before the western expedition to Jiangling. When he was not here, all major military affairs were decided by Jia Xu. Now that the Jiangdong Army warships are heading north, Gan Ning cannot make the decision. He needs to discuss countermeasures with Jia Xu.

The soldiers on duty quickly responded: "The military advisor is in the back hall and is discussing affairs with Chief Xu."

Gan Ning immediately walked quickly to the back hall. At this time, in the back hall, Jia Xu and Xu Shu discussed the system arrangements of the militia. In history, Jingzhou has long been a long time since its vast land and sparse population, and has always adopted the backward planting method of rushing and wovening water, with low yield per mu.

However, with the continuous wars in the north, a large number of northern people moved to Jingzhou, which led to a rapid increase in the population of Jingzhou. In addition, Liu Biao and Liu Jing's two generations of provincial governors attached great importance to agricultural development, which led to a rapid development of Jingzhou's agriculture, increasing the land reclaimed, and greatly increasing the output.

At present, Jingzhou implements wheat-rice rotation, with wheat mainly winter wheat, so the spring season is actually relatively leisurely.

Therefore, Liu Jing considered establishing a local militia system and implementing military training for all people, so that it is necessary to coordinate with the local government and seek assistance from local governments.

"The meaning of the provincial governor, since the recruitment of militias was temporarily implemented during the Battle of Chibi, I took this opportunity to comprehensively promote the militias system, farming when I was busy, training in my spare time, and camping in the township, and not leaving my hometown. The chief minister thinks it is feasible."

Xu Shu pondered for a moment and said, "It is not a big problem to not leave his hometown. This time, Cao's army invasion in the south made the people realize the importance of defending their homes. It is easier to persuade them to participate in military training. The key is that during the slack farming period, everyone has to be busy with other tasks, such as fishing and growing vegetables. Once they participate in training, they can no longer earn money to support their families. For them, this loss is huge. Have the military advisor considered it?"

Jia Xu smiled and said calmly: "This problem can actually be solved. When participating in training, you can give a certain amount of money and food subsidy to make up for their losses. More importantly, there is no need to train every day. For example, one day of training for five days is actually not a big impact. The key is that there is a system where you can collect and replenish troops at any time."

"Since that's the case, I'll go back and discuss it in detail, make a specific plan, and then discuss it."

While the two were discussing, the soldiers reported at the door: "Report to the military advisor, Captain Gan asked for an urgent matter."

Jia Xu smiled and said, "Please come in."

He said to Xu Shu again: "It is probably because the Jiangdong Army has taken action, so the chief may as well listen together."

After a moment, Gan Ning walked in quickly and bowed, "Gan Ning met with the military advisor and the chief secretary."

"General Gan, please sit down"

Gan Ning sat down and said, "Just at the fourth update last night, a ship from the Jiangdong Army left Qichun County and headed north. It is estimated that it will reach the Wuchang River soon. Should we fight or not?"

"It seems that Jiang Dongjun really wants to eat the toast and not eat it, and he will be punished."

Jia Xu sneered and was about to make a decision, but remembered that Xu Shu was there, so he asked Xu Shu: "What do the Chief Secretary have any ideas?"

Xu Shu was very cautious. He thought for a while and said, "Yesterday afternoon, Cheng Zi also came to me and said that his father was appointed as the governor of Nanjun and was preparing to go to Jiangling to take office. He wanted to borrow a passage from us. At that time, I replied that a passenger ship could pass by, so why do you need a warship if you have to pass by the warship and need permission from the governor? In fact, it was just a polite rejection. I felt that Jiangdong had nothing to gain in this battle of Chibi, and they were going to take the opportunity to cause trouble."

Jia Xu nodded, "The Chief Secretary said it was not bad at all. The Cao army retreated north and was unable to move south for a long time. The Sun family has been trying to plan for Jingzhou and unify the south for generations. There is no trouble to the north now. It is their opportunity. The provincial governor also has a deep understanding of this. He said more than once that if we do not solve the worries of Jiangdong, we will not be able to move westward."

At this time, Gan Ning next to him said, "I have been thinking about it. Since Jiangdong wants to unify the south, why can't we unify the south. If we wipe out Jiangdong and unify the south, then we will have the capital to compete with Cao Cao."

Speaking of this, Gan Ning felt embarrassed and said, "This is just a little foolish opinion."

Jia Xu smiled and said, "General Gan's idea is good, but it's a bit difficult to realize. The Sun family has been entrenched in Jiangdong for a lifetime, with deep roots and a military strength above us. We may be able to defeat them, but we cannot do it to completely destroy the Jiangdong regime. Moreover, this is exactly what Cao Cao hopes. When the cranes and clams fight, he also comes to pick up the benefits of the fisherman. Therefore, the plan set by the provincial governor, with harmony as the main line with Jiangdong."

Seeing Gan Ning talking, Jia Xu waved his hand and smiled: "Our purpose is harmony, but there are many ways to achieve harmony, and war is one of them. After the Battle of Chaisang, didn't we have six years of peace?"

Xu Shu also sighed: "The military advisor is right. The east and Sun Quan, the north to resist Cao Cao, and the west to expand the territory. This is our national policy. War is just a means, to achieve this fundamental strategy."

Gan Ning nodded silently, "I understand that there are two factions within Jiangdong. We must attack the Southern Union faction and strive for the Southern He faction, so we must not be lenient with Cheng Pu."

Jia Xu stroked his beard and smiled, "General Gan is right. There is an order before the provincial governor left. If Cheng Pu leads his troops, General Gan will let go."

...........

The Yangtze River belongs to the Jiangdong sphere of influence to the east of Chaisang, and to the west of Xiakou to Yiling, it belongs to the Jingzhou sphere of influence. In the section from Chaisang to Xiakou, it belongs to Qichun County in the east and Jiangxia County in the west, so this section of several miles long river should theoretically be shared by two companies.

However, since Jingzhou Prefecture is located in this sensitive area, in order to ensure the safety of Wuchang, the Jing-Wu alliance reached by Sun Quan and Liu Jing clearly stipulated that the warships of the Jiangdong Army could not pass through Qichun County without the consent of the Jiangxia army.

In other words, Cheng Pu sent a warship to leave Qichun County without authorization to head north, which had already violated the Jing-Wu Alliance.

The Thousand Stone Warships sailed northwards with the southeast wind. At noon, they had passed Wuchang County, but just as they were about to drive towards Xiakou, a two-wing formation of a navy army composed of ten warships suddenly appeared in front of them, heading towards them.

Ten Jiangxia warships were moving rapidly and soon surrounded Jiangdong warships. Jiangdong warships immediately hung the battle-free flag and began to slowly turn around and put away the sails. This means that they had no intention of heading north again and were willing to return to Qichun.

But Gan Ning sneered and issued an order to "sink them"

The Jiangxia Navy, trapped around the Jiangdong Army's warships, launched an attack. The talc was shot out strongly by stone cannons and violently hit the Jiangdong Army's warships. The arrows were like rain and shot at the enemy ships from all directions.

Soon, the front warship was penetrated by the hull, a large amount of river water poured in, and began to slowly sink, and the other two warships also ignited a fire. The soldiers were so scared that they shouted in horror, and they jumped into the river to escape.
Chapter completed!