In November 279, Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu, ordered that the plan formulated by Yang Hu before his death be adopted, and a six-way army, with a total of more than 200,000 horses, began to launch a general attack on the state of Wu.
Among them, the Zhenjun general Sima Ling marched from Xia Pi to the direction of Zhongzhong, and the Andong general Wang Hun marched from Yangzhou to the west of the river. These two routes were the main offensive forces, and their goal was to approach the capital of the State of Wu, Jianye, to contain the main forces of the State of Wu and relieve the pressure on the other Four Route Armies.
In addition, the Pingnan general Hu Fen marched from Jingzhou to Xiakou; the Jianwei general Wang Rong marched from Yuzhou to Wuchang; and the Zhennan general Du Xuan marched from Xiangyang to Jiangling. These three armies attacked three critical points of the State of Wu.
Another way was the Longjun general Wang Mao, who, together with the Guangwu general Tang Bin, descended the Yangtze River from Yizhou to the east, attacked all over Jingzhou, and finally aimed at Jianye. However, Wang Hao also received an instruction that after his army captured Jianping in Jingzhou, he should be dispatched by Du Pre and reach the vicinity of Jianye to accept Wang Hun's command.
In addition, with the lieutenant Jia Chong as the governor and the champion general Yang Ji as the deputy governor, they led the army to garrison Xiangyang, unified management of the Six Roads Army, appointed Zhongshu Ling Zhang Hua to support the Shangshu, and overall allocation and planning of the grain and grass transportation of the Six Roads Army.
In the first month of 280 AD, several large armies of the Jin State set out one after another, and everyone fought relatively smoothly. After the army of the Zhennan general Sima Ling entered The Middle Of the Yangtze River, he immediately asked Liu Hong, the minister of Langya, to lead his army straight to the Yangtze River and confront Jianye City across the Yangtze River. The Jianwei general Wang Rong sent Luo Shang and Liu Qiao as forwards to assist Wang Hao in attacking Wuchang, and the Wu generals Yang Yong and Sun Shu and Wu Guo jiang xia taishou Liu Lang surrendered to Wang Rong, and after Wang Rong led a large army to the Yangtze River, Wu's general Meng Tai sacrificed Puchun and Yixian to surrender to him. Hu Fen's original plan was to capture Xiakou, but later Xiakou surrendered to Wang Rong, and Hu Fen, in turn, changed direction and conquered Jiang'an in the State of Wu.
After talking about the above three roads, let's talk about Du Pre's road again.
Since the beginning of the general offensive of the first month, Du Pre began to work Gangneung, but the city defense of Gangneung was strong, easy to defend and difficult to attack, so Du Pre changed his thinking, and did not attack Gangneung first, but began to clean up the places around it.
Du Pre sent Xiangyang Taishou Zhou Qi and others to lead the army along the jiangxi, and after ten days of hard work, they conquered many cities in a row, and then sent Zhou Zhi, Wu Chao and others to lead eight hundred strange soldiers to attack Lexiang by boat overnight. After these people arrived near Lexiang, they put up many banners in the local area and lit countless torches on the mountain, which frightened Sun Xin, the governor stationed in Lexiang, enough to choke, and more than 10,000 Wu people surrendered to the Jin army.
Prior to this, Sun Xin sent a force of men and horses to fight Against Wang Mao, who withdrew to Lexiang City after the defeat. I don't know how these people were so sloppy, they were actually mixed up by the Wu army, and these Wu troops who mixed into the city went to the governor's mansion and captured Sun Xin alive, and Lexiang also reached the hands of the Jin state.
By now, the perimeter of Gangneung had been almost cleaned by Du Pre, and he had begun to launch a large-scale attack on Gangneung. Although the current Jiangling City was still strongly defended, the morale of the defenders of the city was gone, and it was not long before the Jin army took Jiangling, and Jingzhou fell into the hands of the Jin State.
After taking Jingzhou, Du Pre continued to send troops to the east, cooperating with other routes to attack Jianye. At the same time, he also divided a part of his soldiers and horses to the south, occupying the Jiaozhou and Guangzhou areas of the State of Wu respectively, and by this time, in addition to Jingzhou in the west, Jiaozhou and Guangzhou in the south were also owned by the State of Jin.
Well, after talking about the situation of Du Pre's army, let's look at the situation of Wang Hun's main army.
Since the launch of the Zhengyue army, Wang Hun's road has been very smooth, on this road is a continuous siege of the city, successively captured many cities in the State of Wu, and even some places do not need to attack, they took the initiative to go out of the city and surrender, and the Jin army rushed to the Yangtze River.
In February of that year, Emperor Sun Hao of the State of Wu could no longer sit still, and he ordered the chancellor Zhang Ti to lead Shen Ying, the protector Sun Zhen, and the deputy zhuge Liang, a total of 30,000 troops, to cross the river to meet Wang Hun, so as to prevent the Jin army from crossing the Yangtze River.
When Zhang Ti's army reached Niuzhu, Shen Ying offered him an opinion.
You see, after the Jin State occupied Yizhou, it has been training water troops, and now they launch a national force to attack, and the water army in Yizhou will definitely fight. Our upstream army was not defensive enough, and there were no famous generals stationed, so they certainly could not resist it, and the water army of the Jin State would not take long to reach here.
It is better that we not cross the river, concentrate our forces here in the quarry, wait for the arrival of the Jin army, and then fight with them, if we can defeat the Jin army, we can prevent them from crossing the river, and we can also march west to recover the lost land. If we cross the river to engage them, in case we are defeated, there will be no way back.
For Shen Ying's suggestion, Zhang Ti did not approve, he felt that the current situation in the State of Wu was already very dangerous, everyone was panicked, and when the Jin army really hit the front, it would be difficult to summon up enough courage to fight. Now, while the Jin army had not yet arrived, there was still hope of victory in the battle with them on the Yangtze River. If the army is defeated, we will die for the country without regrets, if we can win, then the army will be greatly enhanced, just take advantage of the situation to go south, and then face the enemy from the west, and we will certainly be able to win. If you had sat here and waited for the enemy to arrive, as you would have meant, and had not arrived, I am afraid that the troops would have dispersed long ago.