Let Yuan Shao and Cao Cao lose both, and then sit on the fisherman's advantage, this is the consensus of most people in the hall. After a year of fierce fighting, both sides suffered heavy casualties, but Yuan Shao still had an army of 500,000 and Cao Cao was able to gather 300,000 troops. At this time, if Liu Xin suddenly declares war on these two people, it is very likely that these two people will join forces, in that case, Liu Xin will face the pressure of an army of 800,000. In fact, there is more than that, the northern states are the most populous places in the Han Dynasty, and if Cao Cao and Yuan Shao join forces and jump over the wall in a hurry, they can even form more armies.

Kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800 yourself. Although the Han army was well-trained and well-equipped, in the face of 800,000 or even millions of enemies, its own casualties were definitely not a small number. Although most of the civil servants were worried, the generals were all gearing up and ready to do a big job.

With a major war imminent, it is imperative to eliminate differences and unify thinking. Looking at the parties with different opinions, Liu Xin waved his hand and said: "There are no two days, there are no two monarchs in the country, and now there are three emperors in the Han Dynasty, isn't it a joke that has never been seen since ancient times?" Now that I have taken the throne, I will naturally not tolerate this situation to continue, and it is imperative to use force! However, what really contributed to my determination were the two emergency military letters! ”

At the head of Chang'an City just now, Liu Xin had already mentioned the two emergency military information, and affirmed that it was precisely because of these two emergency military information that he would rather be misunderstood as a person who does not keep his promises, but also want to be the emperor and rejuvenate the king.

In fact, even without these two urgent military letters, Liu Xin would have proclaimed himself emperor. The purpose of his doing this is not to give those with ulterior motives the opportunity to block him. However, the reversal of these two urgent military information letters gave Liu Xin an excellent excuse. Liu Xin wants to tell the world through these two urgent military information letters that the reason why he can't wait to be the emperor is not because he is greedy for power, but because he endures humiliation and burdens, and would rather sacrifice his reputation than stand up and resist foreign insults.

However, the specific contents of the two emergency military information letters are unknown to everyone. Since he was going to use force against Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, he naturally wanted everyone to know what was going on there, so Liu Xin wanted to explain it to everyone.

Originally, Yuan Shao's strength was stronger than Cao Cao's, but Cao Cao set up the capital in Puyang, and suddenly concentrated superior forces and solved the two major problems of insufficient troops and supplies. But Yuan Shao's advantage was in the bow and arrows and cavalry, and he still held the initiative on the battlefield. Later, Cao Cao used the copycat stirrups and copycat trebuchets "pirated" from Liu Xin to gradually reverse the situation, and the two sides once again showed a stalemate.

The year-long war not only brought huge casualties to both sides, but also the loss of grain, grass, and armor was an astronomical amount.

Take Cao Cao as an example, thirty percent of his food is guaranteed by the smuggling of the Mi family. In order to buy these smuggled grains, it only took half a year to use up half of the gold, silver and jewelry obtained by Cao Cao from digging up the tombs of princes and princes. Coupled with the consumption of the war itself, Cao Cao now lacks not only food and grass, but also money.

Yuan Shao's condition was slightly better, he was self-sufficient in food, but his men were mostly cavalry and archers. Although the cavalry is powerful, the war horse is a money-burning game. Moreover, Yuan Shao did not have such equipment as a horseshoe to protect the horse's hooves, compared to the Han cavalry under Liu Xin, the life span of Yuan's war horses was only half, and the loss was quite amazing. A large number of archers can certainly form a powerful long-range attack ability, but the huge consumption of arrows has made Yuan Shao feel a little overwhelmed.

Cao Cao and Yuan Shao both felt that the battle was becoming more and more difficult, and they both wanted to end the war as soon as possible, but they did not want to compromise with each other. Because whoever compromises first must admit that the person supported by the other party is the right master of the Han Dynasty, and in this way, they will lose the convenience of holding the Son of Heaven hostage to order the princes.

In order to get out of the current predicament, the two can only rely on external forces to put pressure on each other. The current situation couldn't be more obvious, the world is already divided into three, and Liu Xin is destined to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, and he must not be able to count on it. Therefore, both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao set their sights on the grasslands in the north.

The first to take action was Yuan Shao. The Yuan family is kind to Wuheng, and Wuheng has a lot of connections with Xianbei, and these two grassland peoples naturally became the objects of Yuan Shao's struggle. Yuan Shao promised that as long as Puyang City was breached, the children's gold silk would be taken by them.

Although Cao Cao did not have the power of the Phantom Spy, he was fighting fiercely with Yuan Shao, and it was inevitable that he would send some scouts to infiltrate Yuan Shao's rear to listen to the news, and soon learned that Yuan Shao had sent envoys to Wuheng and Xianbei. Wuheng and Xianbei are both nomadic cavalry who are good at riding and shooting, although he also has a considerable cavalry, and is equipped with a copycat version of the stirrup, but compared with the two grassland peoples who are all soldiers, there is a big gap. Cao Cao thought of using nomadic cavalry to deal with nomadic cavalry, so he sent an envoy to the Xiongnu and promised to allow the Xiongnu to break away from the Han Dynasty and stand on their own.

Liu Xin abolished the Xiongnu Shan Yu and divided it into five departments, Cao Cao knew. In Cao Cao's opinion, the Huns must have wanted to restore the royal court and would definitely agree to his request. And Cao Cao is different from Yuan Shao, he sees farther after all. Therefore, Cao Cao did not ask the Huns to enter the Central Plains, but asked them to send troops to the Xianbei grassland to come out of the siege of Wei to save Zhao.

Xianbei was originally just a grassland tribe attached to the Xiongnu, and later the Xiongnu were defeated by the Han Dynasty and divided into two branches, the north and the south, Xianbei took the opportunity to rise, but occupied a large grassland originally controlled by the Xiongnu. Therefore, the Huns and the Xianbei people had a festival. Cao Cao thought that the Huns had no reason not to agree to such a request.

However, Cao Cao overlooked one thing. The battle in which the Han army broke into the grassland a year ago had long frightened the Huns, and they were now not attached to Liu Xin, but completely attached to Liu Xin. After receiving Cao Cao's messenger, Hu Chuquan did not hesitate at all, and immediately handed over Cao Cao's messenger and all the people and letters to the Sixth Army stationed in the grassland new city. At this time, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao, the principal and deputy commanders of the Sixth Legion, had already gone to Chang'an because of the move. The other generals who stayed in the new city did not dare to slack off, so they reported directly to Liu Xin with a red chicken feather letter.

After explaining these two things clearly, Liu Xin said in a deep voice: "After a year of fierce fighting, the Cao and Yuan families are exhausted, if we don't do it, it won't be long before they will quit the army and truce." Take advantage of his illness and kill him! I thought that now the time was ripe, and the Han Dynasty's thousands of miles of rivers and mountains could not continue to be divided like this! ”

Chen Gong arched his hand and said: "Your Majesty, Peichen thinks that he can wait until after the autumn harvest to use troops, so as not to miss the agricultural time." ”

Liu Xin sneered: "I plan to win a decisive victory outside the country this time, and I will never allow a single soldier of the enemy to step in, how can it affect the people's farming?" Let's look at the northern states, young and strong men are either forcibly conscripted into the army, or they are arrested by the people, and the people who farm the land are old and weak, women and children, how many harvests can there be in a year? Even if the wind and rain are smooth, you still have to endure the tyranny. I'm afraid it's better not to have the autumn harvest, but after the autumn harvest, their days will be even more difficult. ”

After a pause, Liu Xin continued: "My identity is different now, and I have to consider not only the people of Jing, Yi, Yang, and Liang Prefectures, but also the people of the world. Therefore, this battle must be fought, and the sooner you start, the better! ”

Zhang Fei slapped the table in front of him, actually stood up, and said loudly: "Big brother is right!" It's long overdue to beat him up! ”

Fu Zhi hurriedly reminded: "General Zhang, it's time to call Your Majesty." ”

Zhang Fei said curtly: "Yes, yes, Your Majesty is right." ”

Liu Xin waved his hand disapprovingly and said, "Yide, Zilong, listen, no matter what happens, we were brothers in the past, brothers now, and we will definitely be brothers in the future!" ”

As soon as these words came out, except for Xu Huang, who was still on the road because of the escort of his family, Zhang Fei, Zhang He, Dian Wei, Xu Chu, and Zhao Yun stood up excitedly, and Huang Zhong, Guan Yu, Zhang Liao and others looked at them with envy in their eyes.

Liu Xin raised his hand, motioned for everyone to sit down, and then began to dispatch troops. Liu Xin was not good at specific operational command, but he knew that in order to achieve victory in front-line operations, a stable rear was more important, so he first did not dispatch troops to attack Yuan and Cao, but first consolidated his own territory.

Huang Zhong and Wei Yan led the Fifth Army to the south on the same day to defend the five counties of Yingchuan, Runan, Jiujiang, Xiapi and Guangling. These five counties spanned the three prefectures of Henan, Yang, and Xu, and bordered Chenliu, Chenguo, Qiaojun, Pengcheng, and Donghai under Cao Cao's control. If Cao Cao sent a force of men and horses south and broke through here, he would be able to penetrate directly into Jingzhou's flank, and he could threaten Jiangnan. Jingzhou is the foundation of Liu Xin, and silk, tea and porcelain from the south of the Yangtze River are Liu Xin's most important sources of wealth. The scene of Lu Bu and Cao Cao's sneak attack on Xiangyang is still vivid, and it still makes Liu Xin feel palpitations when he thinks about it, and he can't help but guard against it.

The Fifth Army had just been withdrawn from the Western Regions and was stationed at the training base in Yiwu, and had not yet had time to rest. However, Liu Xin was about to face a big battle and a vicious battle, and it was obvious that the whole army would have to be mobilized, and there would be no time for the Fifth Army Corps to rest.

Yingchuan and other five counties not only occupy a wide area, but also the battle line is extremely long, although 100,000 people are not a lot, but when they are divided into each point, there are not many people. Holding such a long line of defense is a great challenge for Huang Zhong and Wei Yan. However, this is not the main point of contention between the two armies, so it is impossible for Liu Xin to place more troops here. In order to alleviate Huang Zhong's pressure, Liu Xin transferred Tai Shici and Man Zhong again, and the local armies of these five counties were also unified under Huang Zhong's command.