Guo Jia and Chen Gui looked at each other tacitly, and neither of them said anything else.
That's all I have to say. Yuan Xi should have understood it, so I can just forget about it.
Because if the mastermind behind the scenes was not Yuan Shang, then almost all of the remaining possibilities could not be spoken out loud.
They listened to Yuan Xi's fingers tapping lightly on the table, lowered their heads and remained silent.
Zhao Yun, Liu He, Tian Yu, Yan Rou, Hua Tuo and others in the hall didn't know whether they had guessed it or not, and they all remained silent.
Yuan Xi thought about the day when he was in Yecheng, someone had killed Zhen Fang before him, and his decisiveness was somewhat similar to that of today's assassins.
Yuan Shang, who had never fought in a war, was not decisive enough in doing things. In other words, his actions might be disgusting and despicable, but he could not be said to be cruel and heartless.
He stopped his finger and said in a deep voice: "This matter ends here for now."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and then they heard Yuan Xi say, "I am going to start building the charity school."
"The location of the main school must be connected to the north and south, with convenient transportation, so that officials and craftsmen from all counties can come here to study, so it is best to build it in the capital of a state."
"From the perspective of location, Beixincheng is somewhat inappropriate."
"Although Beixin City is a place I have worked hard to manage for several years, it is bordered by Jizhou in the south and Bingzhou in the west, with no buffer zone in between. It is suitable for being a military fortress, but not for being the seat of a state."
"I have been thinking about where is the most appropriate place to put the seat of government of Youzhou."
"It wasn't until I was on my way to Jicheng these few days and saw the mountains and rivers along the way that I had some ideas about this place."
"I would like to ask you, I want to set up a government office here and expand the city, is that possible?"
Seeing that no one dared to speak first, he said, "Just say whatever you want. It doesn't matter if you are wrong. Even if everyone thinks it is right, the situation may change in the future and it may be very different from what you expected."
"Just tell me what you think. I will make the final decision on whether to build a city here."
However, no one dared to underestimate it, because this was almost the first time that Yuan Xi gathered all his capable officials and generals to discuss things together.
Before, Yuan Xi would ask Guo Jia about matters of strategy, and would ask Zhao Yun and Taishi Ci about matters of military formation. Now that Taishi Ci is not here, new subordinates have joined the team.
Zhao Yun is from the Changshan faction. Although there is only one person, he is the earliest and has the highest status.
Guo Jia is from the Yingchuan faction and is considered a solitary man.
Tian Yu is a remnant of Gongsun Zan, but he is capable and highly appreciated by Yuan Xi. In the future, the remaining forces of Gongsun Zan in Youzhou should be under his control.
The others are the remnants of Liu Yu's forces, led by Liu He, Yan Rou, and Xian Yu Fu who did not come, all of whom are from this faction. These people have deep private backgrounds, which led to Liu He's reluctance to say much now, for fear of being feared by Yuan Xi.
Chen Gui is from Xuzhou, but this time there were many Chen family members who followed Yuan Xi to Youzhou, so it can be said that their strength should not be underestimated.
As for Hua Tuo, he was just a minor figure, but he had the widest network of contacts.
There are less than ten people, but their positions are extremely complicated. The more people there are, the more difficult it is to manage. There are also differences in the closeness and distance of the relationships between them, and they will also form cliques.
Zhao Yun spoke first: "This place is connected to the Xiongnu and Xianbei outside the Great Wall in the north, and the Wuhuan nomads in the east. With the current scale of the city, it is far from enough."
"Besides, the area around here is flat and it is very easy for cavalry to attack. Even if we set up beacon towers along the way, we may not be able to mobilize troops in time."
After hearing this, everyone nodded. Yuan Xi nodded and said, "What Zilong said does make sense."
"It is useless to just build Jicheng into a solid isolated city."
"If we are surrounded by the enemy, we will be dragged to death sooner or later."
"So I have an idea too."
"Use this city as the center and build a military town along the route that the enemy may take to prepare for defense."
"If the enemy attacks the military town, Jicheng and other military towns can provide support. If they want to bypass it, we can cut off their retreat."
After hearing this, everyone thought that this was a good idea, but was it necessary to go through so much trouble to rebuild the city?
Guo Jia said, "Sir, this idea is quite interesting."
"Although this place is surrounded by plains, if we take a longer-term view and regard it as a huge city, we can control a fairly large area instead of being trapped in the city."
"But this city is quite large, covering parts of Zhuo County, Guangyang County and Yuyang County."
Guo Jia ordered people to take out the map and hang it up, then stood up and began to talk. Yuan Xi looked at the ancient place names on it and compared them with the place names in his own later life. He couldn't help but sigh that Guo Jia's vision was indeed very sharp.
To the north of Ji County is the Yanshan Mountains, which stretch over 800 miles from Shanhaiguan in the east to Zhangjiakou in the west.
To the west is the Taihang Mountains, which is more than 800 miles long and serves as the eastern boundary of the Loess Plateau.
To the south is the Yellow River flowing through Shandong, and to the east is the Bohai Bay.
Fan Zhenzhi wrote in "Youzhou Fu": It is surrounded by the vast ocean on the left, Taihang Mountains on the right, Juyong River in the north, and Heji River in the south. It has fertile land for thousands of miles and is the best in the world. It is the capital of emperors and the land of abundance.
In Guo Jia's conception, Beixincheng was just a western military town spanning the three states, just like the west city gate.
Everyone was dumbfounded. Guo Jia had drawn the scope too large!
Guo Jia explained: "At each important pass, we should build a military camp. This way, we can keep the enemy out of Youzhou."
"Only by focusing on this can we build a solid line of defense."
Yan Rou said, "I think that in this case, every city and military town should have a lot of soldiers stationed there, right?"
"With too few people, it's meaningless, but with too many people, if we don't fight, the military rations will be a very troublesome matter."
After hearing this, everyone expressed their deep agreement.
Guo Jia turned his gaze towards Yuan Xi, and indeed Yuan Xi smiled and said, "I have some immature thoughts on this."
"I have always thought that if we build cities in various places, when the enemy attacks, we can only fight on our own, and each city will have to station a lot of soldiers, which is really a waste of money and food."
"But if we develop water transportation and smooth the roads between the cities, and retain a mobile cavalry team to garrison in each city in rotation, we can rotate to that place if there is danger."
"In this way, can we greatly reduce the number of soldiers stationed there?"
Liu He and others heard this and praised: "Sir, this is a great idea."
On the one hand, due to the large population and the consumption of food and water resources, a large city cannot rely on defense alone to solve the problem. The besieging army can simply cut off the water supply outside the city, which would be a very deadly move.
On the other hand, although offense is the best defense, given the current situation in Youzhou, it is unrealistic to expand beyond the Great Wall, so the issue of defense must be considered.
Defense can be divided into two types: passive defense and active support.
With a large number of horses, Youzhou can give full play to the mobility of the support troops, making it a live chess piece rather than a dead chess piece that is passively stationed and defended.
The reason why Yuan Xi had this confidence was because later history served as advanced experience, proving that this idea was feasible.
In four directions, the southern part of Jicheng is adjacent to Jizhou, and has a dense river network, making it easy to defend.
There is the Great Wall in the north, and relying on the defense of the pass, there is no major problem for the time being.
The situation in the east is unclear now. Chanyu Tatun and Gongsun Du are holding each other back in Liaoxi and Liaodong, and it is not the current focus of expansion.
What remains is the most important but also the most porous western Taihang Mountain defense line. As long as a few easy-to-defend and difficult-to-attack passes are blocked, it will be difficult for the enemy to enter.
There are eight passes in Taihang Mountains, Jundu Pass is one of them. Juyongguan is a pass in Jundu Pass. It is one of the Nine Fortresses in the World and is also known as the Four Famous Passes in the West of Beijing.
Feihu Pass is connected to Puyin Pass and controls the North China Plain, the Shanxi Plateau in the east of the Loess Plateau and the Mongolian grassland. It is the most critical node.
Later, the Mongolian army marched south to attack the Jin Dynasty, but was blocked at Juyongguan, so they changed their route and advanced to Feihu Pass, and finally captured the Jin Dynasty's capital Zhongdu, which is now Beijing.
During the Tumu Incident in the Ming Dynasty, the Oirat Mongols held Zhu Qizhen hostage. Zhu Qizhen kept knocking on the gates along the way, and the defenders along the way were forced to open the gates and surrender. The Oirat army was unstoppable and threatened the capital. The Minister of War Yu Qian used the Zijing Pass in Puyin Xing to stop the emperor from knocking on the gates and successfully guarded the capital.
This is to defend against the enemy outside the city. Otherwise, to defend the capital, hundreds of thousands of soldiers are needed. Before the enemy arrives, we will be defeated.
These bloody lessons, which have been verified by the loss of countless lives in later generations, are now placed before Yuan Xi, which will help him avoid many detours.
This is also the reason why he is in a hurry to attack the Black Mountain Army immediately. Although its leader Zhang Yan is powerful, he doesn't know what happened in the future. Therefore, there are only some not very solid mountain strongholds scattered at the pass of Taihang Mountain. This is the best opportunity.
Yuan Xi's idea was to achieve his goal in one fell swoop, break through the important pass of Taihang Mountains at one time, and establish his own camp and garrison there.
In this way, even if Zhang Yan cannot be completely wiped out, he can still attack or defend and remain invincible.
Otherwise, the two sides will continue to fight each other. If Zhang Yang realizes the importance of the pass and sets up a camp first, Yuan Xi will be in trouble!
At that time, Youzhou would have to face constant harassment from the Black Mountain Army, and it would be difficult to fight back. Yuan Xi definitely did not want to see such a scene.
Yuan Xi attached great importance to Jicheng because he knew the lessons of history. It was a nail. Once it was pulled out by foreigners, the area north of the Yellow River would be left to wreak havoc, just like the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Yuan Xi told everyone his thoughts on the Black Mountain Army, and finally said: "The Black Mountain Army and the Yuan family have become mortal enemies, and there will be a battle sooner or later."
"If everything goes well, the three counties will have enough food after the spring plowing and summer harvest, and we can prepare to attack the Black Mountain Army."
Everyone started thinking about it, wondering if they were too confident.
Those hundreds of thousands of Black Mountain troops are not hundreds of thousands of pigs!
Yuan Xi saw the confusion of the crowd and said, "The other side does have a lot of people, but I heard that Bingzhou's grain harvest has been poor in the past two years, and they can't even get enough food."
"The spring ploughing will start in a month or so, and Jicheng needs a lot of manpower to open up wasteland and build a city, so I want to use some strategies to attract the labor of the Black Mountain Army."
Chen Gui listened and praised: "This is a loss. With more laborers coming to cultivate the land here, there will naturally be fewer people on the Black Mountain side doing spring ploughing. Then there will be an even greater shortage of food, which will make it even more difficult to fight during the war."
"Sir, this idea is quite ingenious in the art of war."
"The only thing that can attract the people is land and food. As long as you are willing to give, you will surely be able to attract people to surrender."
Yuan Xi smiled and said, "There is nothing to be reluctant about. Land is dead, but people are alive. Right now, living people are much more important than land."
"Please help me, Mr. Han Yu, think about how to get people to come and join us. Then I will ask Guo Rang to send people to Taihang Mountain to spread the news."
Liu He said: "If Jicheng is so important, then County Magistrate Xu..."
Yuan Xi said decisively: "Brother Liu, please collect evidence of his illegal activities. Even if he has nothing to do with some things, he cannot be kept. What's more, what he has done is enough to kill him."
"The people of Jicheng need an explanation, and someone needs to take responsibility for everything."
"It ends with him."
When everyone heard this, they were all shocked.