A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 705: Conquering Xuzhou

At the beginning, Cao Cao sent troops from Dongjun to attack Xuzhou.

Lu Cheng ordered Zhang He to launch a surprise attack on Dongjun, and ordered Guo Jia and Taishi Ci to lead troops to rescue Xuzhou.

After Cao Cao fled from Dongjun, Lu Cheng ordered generals such as Zhang He and Taishi Ci to lead troops to seize the entire Yanzhou.

At this time, there was no decent force of princes in the entire Yanzhou. After hearing that Lu Cheng was appointed as the general by the emperor, the counties and prefectures all took the initiative to submit and allowed Taishi Ci and Zhang He to send troops to take over the city.

Except for those princes who were ambitious and wanted to dominate independently, those ordinary county governors and county magistrates did not dare to disobey the orders of the court. Even though they knew that the court was headed by General Lu Cheng, they could only obey orders.

He holds the emperor hostage to command the princes, has the righteous cause in his hands, and with a strong army and numerous brave generals, there are really few people who are not afraid of death.

Moreover, even if you are not afraid of death, it depends on who you die for.

Behind the general is the emperor Liu Xie and the entire court. Anyone who dares to resist will be labeled a traitor and his death will be in vain.

Of course, there were also some people who began to call Lu Cheng a traitor who brought disaster to the country, just like Dong Zhuo, a minister of the Han Dynasty in name but a traitor in reality.

Lu Cheng simply asked the Flying Eagle Guards to remember all those who dared to criticize him, and then deal with them one by one.

After taking Yanzhou, Lu Cheng had basically occupied half of the Han Dynasty.

Of the Thirteen Prefectures of the Han Dynasty, Xuzhou, Yuzhou, Yizhou, Jingzhou, Jiaozhi and Yangzhou in the south were not occupied.

However, with the previous experience of Taishi Ci rescuing Xuzhou, Lu Cheng directly asked the emperor to issue an imperial edict to Xuzhou Governor Tao Qian, asking him to go to Luoyang to meet the emperor.

In the Xuzhou Governor's Mansion, after Tao Qian received the imperial edict from the court, he immediately summoned civil and military officials to discuss countermeasures.

"Everyone, today the emperor has returned to Luoyang and ordered me to go to Luoyang to pay homage. I intend to go to Luoyang, what do you think?"

Cao Bao, one of the generals below, said, "My lord, the great general Lu Cheng is no different from Dong Zhuo in the past. If you go to Luoyang, I'm afraid you won't come back."

"That's wrong. The general had sent troops to rescue Xuzhou before and blocked Cao Cao's troops for us. How can he be compared with Dong Zhuo? Moreover, since the general started his army in Liaodong, wherever his army went, no one was harmed. The people under his rule were peaceful and healthy. His reputation for benevolence spread throughout the world. How could he be against the lord?"

"Mi Zizhong, don't think I don't know that your Mi family has been trading with Liaodong for a long time, and you may have secretly surrendered to Lu Cheng. Now you are persuading the lord to go to Luoyang, aren't you putting the lord in danger?"

Tao Qian saw that everyone started to argue, so he turned to look at a young scholar and said, "Yuanlong, what do you think about this?"

Chen Deng and Chen Yuanlong below did not answer directly, but asked: "My lord, how does the general's army compare to Cao Cao's?"

"The general is a great ruler in the north, with many brave generals and counselors under his command, as well as hundreds of thousands of brave soldiers. Cao Mengde fled after hearing his name, so how can he be compared with the general?"

"My Xuzhou is not strong enough to face Cao Cao, how can we resist the general's army? Moreover, the general has the emperor behind him. If you don't obey the emperor's order, wouldn't you be a traitor and rebel?"

Cao Bao below said: "Even if we can't stop Lu Cheng, we can form an alliance with Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Yuan Shu of Runan to fight against Lu Cheng together."

Mi Zhu snorted coldly: "In the past, Dong Zhuo had the Xiliang Iron Cavalry and fought against all the princes in the world alone. How many princes are left now? Even if they unite, they can't stop the trend of the times."

At this moment, a servant walked out of the hall and handed in a letter from Kong Rong of Beihai.

After reading it, Tao Qian stood up and said, "Everyone, I have made up my mind. I will set off for Luoyang tomorrow. Zi Zhong, Yuan Long, Xuzhou will be guarded by you two for the time being."

At the beginning, when Lu Cheng sent troops to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion in Qingzhou, Kong Rong of Beihai had already surrendered. Lu Cheng allowed him to continue to serve as the prime minister of Beihai, but he took back Beihai's military power, sent his generals to take over the city defense, and replaced Beihai's troops.

Later, all the troops stationed in counties that were captured or surrendered voluntarily had to be reorganized. According to the old Liaodong rules, after three months of training and ideological education, they would return to their original cities and become garrison troops.

Of course, Lu Cheng will also draw out some elite troops from those local armies, and recruit some young and strong men to train them as combat soldiers.

Nowadays, the troops under Lu Cheng's command can be roughly divided into three levels. The first level is the elite, such as Dian Wei's black armor heavy cavalry, Xu Chu's Modao battalion, Huang Zhong's Shesheng battalion, Zhao Yun's Longqiang battalion, Taishi Ci's Feiyu cavalry, Lu Cheng's directly under the Flying Eagle Guard, and so on.

These troops are all equipped with the best equipment and have undergone rigorous training and actual combat tests. Each troop is more or less the most elite combat force. You can refer to Cao Wei's "Tiger and Leopard Cavalry", Eastern Wu's Jiefanwei, and Gao Shun's Xianzhen Camp.

It is precisely because of the mastery of the most advanced smelting technology and the possession of rich iron ore resources that the troops can be equipped with the most advanced weapons. In addition, with scientific training methods and sufficient supply of food and grass, it is possible to train one elite soldier after another.

Now, Gao Shun was also following Zhao Yun and began to select strong men to form the Xianzhen Camp.

The second-level troops under Lu Cheng's command are the hundreds of thousands of field soldiers, including cavalry, sword and shield soldiers, archers, spearmen, etc. They have also undergone complete military training and are equipped with sophisticated weapons.

As for the third-level troops, they are the local garrison troops distributed in the cities of various counties and prefectures. They usually take turns guarding the city and taking care of production. They carry out necessary military training in their spare time and serve as auxiliary troops when necessary. They are considered to be garrison soldiers and militia.

Of course, in some border areas, some towns will also form local patrol guards to protect the area.

Excluding local garrison troops, Lu Cheng now has more than 400,000 field troops.

Of course, some of these field soldiers must be assigned to guard the four directions. The number of field soldiers that can actually be used for combat at any time is about 200,000.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that in the novels, hundreds of thousands of troops are often deployed, and it is said that there are millions of troops. In fact, the real number is much lower than this.

In the Battle of Red Cliffs, Cao Cao claimed to have an army of 80, but in reality, including combat troops and auxiliary troops, he only had a little over .

The total number of troops actually participating in the war from the Sun and Liu coalition forces was only about 5.

It is not easy to support an army of millions. When the Han Dynasty was at its most powerful, it had about 700,000 soldiers, definitely less than a million, let alone Cao Cao who occupied half of the country?

Of course, given the current food reserves under Lu Cheng's rule, it is not impossible to increase the number of troops to one million, but there is no need to waste food.

Under such circumstances, even if Lu Cheng had not sent troops to rescue Xuzhou before, Tao Qian would not dare not come to Luoyang.

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Cao Cao attacked Tao Qian, all the princes in the world were still there, including Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu, etc., each of whom was entrenched in one side, and Cao Cao was only the prefect of Dongjun.

What Xuzhou is facing now is not just one Dongjun prefect, but the equivalent of Yuan Shao plus Cao Cao plus Lu Bu plus Dong Zhuo plus Gongsun Zan plus Gongsun Du and so on.

Therefore, Tao Qian quickly set out from Xuzhou and came to Luoyang...