Three Kingdoms: Let Yuan Shen be great again

Chapter 35 The Sun Family's Empire, The Sun Family's Army

Sun Ce has arrived!

After a long and drawn-out process spanning ten chapters, the Little Conqueror of Jiangdong finally overcame all obstacles, regrouped his troops, and set out to fulfill his promise to hunt with Yuan Yao in Wancheng.

To be honest, the reason why Sun Ce couldn't forget Yuan Yao was because the other party provoked trouble first. Last year, he insisted on doing something messy, claiming that the root cause of the Zhong clan's decline was all Sun Jian's fault, and that he wanted to launch a full-scale southern expedition to settle accounts with the Sun family. This angered the ruler of Jiangdong, who decided to launch a counterattack.

In reality, everyone knows that this is just an excuse.

When Zhongshi first raised the banner of attacking Jiangdong, Sun Ce didn't take it seriously at all. He had worked under Yuan Shu for many years, so how could he not know the situation of his former employer?

You can fool others, but don't fool yourself.

Even though Zhou Yu warned that Zhongshi might be using the pretext of a campaign against Guo to seize Lujiang, Sun Ce still didn't take it seriously.

Sun Ce knew all too well what Yuan Shu was capable of; he was the kind of guy who could trip and fall even on flat ground. So what could Yuan Shu do if he got Lujiang?

The most important thing is to focus on the internal affairs of Jiangdong.

After all, Sun Ce's methods in conquering various counties over the years were somewhat brutal, and he made enemies with many people. He needed to spend some time sorting out his internal affairs, otherwise his title as the ruler of Jiangdong would be nothing more than an empty name.

Therefore, Sun Ce ignored the mess that was caused by the Zhong family until more than half a year ago, when he heard that there was an internal strife in Yuan Shu's army. It was said that Liu Xun, a former subordinate of Yuan Shu, rebelled and both sides were severely injured. In the end, Yuan Shu's son, Yuan Yao, took control of the military and political affairs.

Sun Ce immediately became interested. He loved to kick the good leg of a cripple. Since the Zhong clan had started killing each other, he was naturally interested in taking advantage of the situation and seeing if he could pick up a corpse.

Unexpectedly, just as he had this thought, he heard that the Zhong family had eliminated the effects of the internal strife and stabilized again.

At that moment, Sun Ce, a top hunter, quickly sensed something was amiss.

He knew Yuan Shu and Liu Xun; both were incompetent figures whose reputations outweighed their abilities—oh, Liu Xun might not be very famous, but he was still more famous than he was capable.

Sun Ce had met Yuan Yao, who was the last to rise to power, but he was too young at the time to remember him well and was unaware of his background.

It seems that Yuan Yao was able to quickly stabilize the situation, which is quite a bit better than his father Yuan Shu.

When the unofficial histories circulating in Wancheng came later, saying that Yuan Yao had plotted to seize power and betrayed his oath by imprisoning his father, everyone else listened to it as amusement, but Sun Ce looked serious and felt that this was very likely the truth.

Coincidentally, Zhou Yu was analyzing the next strategic goals and directions with Sun Ce at that time.

Zhou Yu: "First is Yuzhang Commandery. The Prefect of Yuzhang, Hua Xin, is quite talented in literature, but his military strategy is very poor. The only concern is that he may ask Liu Biao for help, making the overall attack extremely difficult."

Zhou Yu: "Next is Yuan Shu, oh, now it's the two counties of Huainan, Lujiang and Jiujiang under Yuan Yao's rule. You know very well the strength of the Yuan family, so I won't go into details. Considering their size, the difficulty is low."

Zhou Yu: "Finally, there is Guangling County. To be honest, this is the place I most want to take, but the governor of Guangling, Chen Deng, is a formidable enemy. I must deal with him carefully. The difficulty is moderate."

Zhou Yu: "Bo Fu, what's your opinion? Which one do you plan to choose?"

Sun Ce: "You have three difficulty levels in total, I'll choose medium."

Zhou Yu: "The one you mentioned is inferior. These three are inferior to inferior, inferior, and average..."

Sun Ce: "Stop fooling around."

Theoretically speaking, of the three directions proposed by Zhou Yu, Guangling is the richest and most valuable, while Yuzhang is the easiest to capture. It is estimated that there is no need to fight; just intimidating Hua Xin a couple of times would be enough to take it.

But Sun Ce firmly chose Yuan Yao.

His intuition told him that Yuan Yao seemed different from Yuan Shu, and he couldn't allow the Zhong clan to have such a powerful person.

After deciding to take action against Yuan Yao, the next and most important step was to choose an attack route.

There are two in total.

One route is through Jiujiang County, then from Ruxukou northwards towards Shouchun. The challenge that may be encountered is how to conquer Hefei, the most formidable pass south of the Yangtze River, located north of the river.

Route two leads to Lujiang County. After capturing Wankou, it would only take less than 100 li to reach Wancheng. The downside is that the entire route is located in the heart of Lujiang, where resistance is expected to be very strong.

Sun Ce's answer was, "I want them all."

"The Yuan family, attack from two directions simultaneously!"

In Sun Ce's view, after so many years of Yuan Shu's wreaking havoc, the Zhong clan's regime was already a dilapidated house on the verge of collapse. As long as he gave it a good kick, it would collapse with a crash.

Even if Yuan Yao is really capable, he is still young and inexperienced, and has only been on stage for half a year, so there is no need to take him too seriously.

What else is there to say? Let's send out a challenge first and scare them a bit—

As a result, I felt disgusted.

Yuan Yao was indeed capable. Not only was he not intimidated, but he also contacted the anti-Sun forces in Jiangdong, offering them large sums of money as bribes to incite them to rebel and cause trouble, which annoyed Sun Ce to no end.

On one occasion, three assassins attempted to kill Sun Ce while he was hunting. Luckily, they were unsuccessful; an arrow grazed his face, otherwise, all would have been lost.

Afterwards, Sun Ce spent a lot of effort to temporarily quell the anti-Sun forces, and had to send capable generals such as Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu to various places to guard against the enemy's old tricks, which further strengthened his idea of ​​attacking Yuan Yao.

He's already this terrifying right after taking the throne; if he gains power, what will become of him?

This child must not be allowed to live!

Then I stayed for another half month.

There was no other way; Cao Cao's face had to be given. After all, he was the Marquis of Wu of the Han Dynasty, and they couldn't go too far.

After negotiating with Cao Cao's messenger and confirming that Xuchang could not provide what he wanted, Sun Ce finally stopped hesitating. Even when Yuan Shao's envoy came, he ignored him, met him briefly, and sent him away. He then began to muster his troops and set off in a grand manner to cross the river and launch a northern expedition.

Because he needed to divide his troops and station them in various parts of Jiangdong, Sun Ce could only muster about 30,000 troops, which he believed was enough to deal with the Zhong clan.

It must be said that the Sun family had served under Yuan Shu for two generations, and they knew this abstract regime all too well. With just a few words of discussion, they could analyze the Zhong family's true intentions with great accuracy.

Yuan Yao may seem to control both Jiujiang and Lujiang, but Jiujiang is in a state of disrepair and not worth worrying about. Only Lujiang can still be squeezed out of some troops, at most thirty to forty thousand men.

While it may seem that they have more troops than Sun Ce's Jiangdong army, and they also have the advantage of fighting on home ground, the actual strength of the two is vastly different, and this numerical advantage is insignificant.

This only considers the quality of rank-and-file soldiers and does not take into account the command level of generals; otherwise, the gap would be even greater.

Therefore, in February of the fifth year of Jian'an, Sun Ce swore an oath in Qu'a and officially led an army of 30,000 to launch a northern expedition against Yuan Yao, claiming to have 100,000 troops.

When they reached the vicinity of Danyang, Sun Ce, as originally planned, divided his troops into two.

Led by his cousin, General Xu Kun, the army marched through Ruxukou to capture Jiujiang County. The total number of troops was 10,000, and the generals under his command included Ling Cao, Chen Wu, He Qi, and Song Qian.

The other route was naturally led by Sun Ce himself, with the remaining 20,000 men, along with Han Dang, Huang Gai, Dong Xi, Jiang Qin, and others. They first launched a strong attack on Wankou, and then pushed forward all the way to Wancheng, where Yuan Yao was located.

You have to keep your word when you're in this business. If you said you'd hunt in Wan, you have to take Wan.

Sun Ce was very confident about the outcome of this battle. He knew his own side was a given, and while Xu Kun on the other side might be a bit less capable than him, he was still a seasoned general with extensive experience and was definitely better than the Zhong family's bunch of scoundrels.

As for whether Yuan Yao might pull off something big?

Sun Ce sneered. Perhaps given time, the other party could really lead the Zhong clan to rise again, but at this point in time, what could he alone change?

The ensuing battles quickly validated Sun Ce's idea.

Just as he was crossing the Yangtze River and about to attack Wankou, Zhong sent him a letter seeking peace.

How could Sun Ce possibly agree? He didn't even bother to look at it, and casually had his younger brother Sun Yi, whom he had brought along specifically to broaden his horizons, read it to him.

Sun Yi read Yuan Yao's letter aloud, and the more he read, the happier he became.

It turned out that Yuan Yao knew he was no match for Sun Ce, so he humbly apologized to him, saying that his previous boast about settling scores with the Sun family was just a naive joke and that everyone should resolve the issue peacefully instead of fighting.

Not only that, Yuan Yao also made a very tempting offer to express his sincerity and apology.

"Huh!" Sun Yi suddenly exclaimed.

Sun Ce asked casually, "What's wrong?"

Sun Yi quickly said, "Yuan Yao said he's willing to return the Imperial Seal to us!"

"Oh?" Sun Ce's expression changed slightly, but he did not say anything further.

Sun Yi, unable to contain his excitement, exclaimed, "Congratulations, brother, you can become emperor!"