Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Li Ji expected a great victory in Wu Commandery, but he never anticipated Liu Bei uttering such an abrupt sentence.

Immediately, with a somewhat strange expression on his face, Li Ji took the military report made of bamboo slips, opened it, and began to read it carefully.

This military report was sent from the Wu Commandery government office, written personally by Jian Yong, and sent day and night by fast boats and horses, detailing the great victory's results.

Enticing the enemy, exhausting them, confusing them, and then using a great fire to completely secure the victory, resulting in nearly ninety thousand prisoners.

Upon seeing such an astonishing number of prisoners, the corner of Li Ji's eye couldn't help but twitch.

Using the city as a pot and reducing the broth with a great fire had obvious benefits: the entire anti-Wu coalition was trapped inside.

Furthermore, if Li Ji hadn't used the "military household system" to hide soldiers among the people, allowing Jia Xu to gather fifty thousand military household soldiers in a short time, Jia Xu's nature might not have led him to spare any prisoners.

'In terms of ingenuity, Jia Xu is second to none; in terms of ruthlessness… he is unmatched under Heaven…'

Li Ji sighed inwardly.

What made Li Ji slightly speechless was that Jia Xu completely attributed the credit to Li Ji, both before and after the event, claiming it was a brilliant plan left behind by Li Ji.

Jia Xu even put on an act, producing a brocade pouch containing a piece of silk supposedly written in Li Ji's handwriting.

Li Ji naturally didn't think Jia Xu's actions were a selfless act of giving away credit.

Jia Xu's character could never be associated with selflessness; in reality, it was probably just that Jia Xu knew that to repeatedly use ingenious plans, one needed to remain hidden and be underestimated as much as possible.

The allure of ingenious plans is self-evident: achieving more with less, overcoming strength with weakness, and creating miracles.

However, the prerequisite for any ingenious plan is that the enemy must hold considerable contempt and lack cautious defenses.

"Caution," these two words alone are enough to invalidate over ninety percent of ingenious plans.

Just like in the original timeline, when Zhuge Liang first came out of the mountains, he frequently used ingenious plans to fight with weaker forces and achieve victories, but after Zhuge Liang became famous throughout the world and held the high position of Prime Minister, ingenious plans became increasingly rare.

This wasn't because Zhuge Liang's abilities had declined, but because Zhuge Liang's great reputation caused all the generals who opposed him to proceed cautiously, and naturally, most ingenious plans couldn't take effect.

Li Ji's current predicament was similar; if Li Ji were stationed in Yangxian, even if Li Ji were to enter the game himself, feign madness, or even play dead, the anti-Wu coalition would never dare to be careless.

Therefore, Jia Xu probably saw this predicament in Li Ji and deliberately pushed the credit onto Li Ji.

Of course, there might also be some of Jia Xu's self-preservation psychology; the more someone cherishes their life, the less they like to be famous.

Li Ji didn't deliberately expose Jia Xu's thoughts, and Jia Xu's style was also quite specialized, only excelling at ingenious and poisonous plans. To completely expose Jia Xu to the sunlight and have everyone study him with a magnifying glass would undoubtedly weaken him greatly.

When Li Ji saw the end of the military report, it stated that all the naval forces of Wu and Kuaiji Commanderies had been dispatched to control Lu Jiang and other commanderies, and a name that surprised Li Ji appeared on it.

Lu Jiang Zhou Yu.

Li Ji had naturally been paying attention to Zhou Yu.

However, the Zhou family of Lu Jiang might not be considered a top-tier aristocratic family in the entire Han Dynasty, but at least they had produced two short-term Grand Ministers within three generations. Such a family was undoubtedly the most prestigious in Jiangdong.

Furthermore, the Zhou family of Lu Jiang's attitude towards Wu Commandery had never been friendly.

Therefore, even though Li Ji learned half a year ago that Zhou Yu had returned to Lu Jiang with his family, he didn't rashly try to contact him.

After all, with Li Ji's current influence in Yang Province, his every move would be watched by countless people. Rashly revealing excessive importance to the now-unknown Zhou Yu might trigger a series of unnecessary interference, which would then affect the overall situation.

Therefore, Li Ji originally planned to control the entire Yang Province, and after the Zhou family of Lu Jiang completely became meat on the chopping board, there would be ways to bring Zhou Yu under his command.

'It can be considered discerning the situation, understanding that the general trend in Jiangdong is in Wu Commandery, so after learning of Ce'er's identity, he chose to directly attach himself to Ce'er's command?'

With Li Ji's current perspective, the reason why Zhou Yu would make such a choice could be described as perfectly clear.

The anti-Wu coalition was utterly defeated, and Liu Bei becoming the overlord of Jiangdong was just around the corner. There were no longer any obstacles in the entire Yang Province. Even at this moment, no Jiangdong aristocratic family would dare to shout: I object.

Moreover, the Battle of Yangxian captured countless members of aristocratic families, and Wu Commandery also possessed countless pieces of evidence that could be used to control the Jiangdong aristocratic families.

In this situation, the Jiangdong aristocratic families only had three choices: either flee Yang Province in panic, or kneel down and kowtow, or kneel down and be beheaded.

Zhou Yu's early allegiance, coupled with the fact that Sun Ce was Li Ji's disciple on the surface, made his position quite transcendent.

With Sun Ce's protection, Zhou Yu could protect the Jiangdong aristocratic families and allow them to barely stand up…

"Since that's the case, then let's set an example for the Jiangdong aristocratic families."

After much deliberation, Li Ji subconsciously picked up a writing brush from the desk and circled the two characters "Zhou Yu" on the military report, and then subconsciously picked up a blank bamboo slip to start writing…

Li Ji suddenly realized that Liu Bei was still sitting in front of him, and quickly put down the brush and apologized. "I was lost in thought for a moment, neglecting my lord. Please forgive me, my lord."

"What crime has Zikun committed?"

At this moment, the excited and joyful expression on Liu Bei's face had disappeared, and he sighed.

Seeing this, Li Ji asked, "Why does my lord sigh? Could it be that I have disappointed my lord?"

"No."

Liu Bei shook his head and then said, "What I sigh about is precisely because of Zikun, but it is not disappointment, but rather a lot of emotion."

"In the past, I only saw that Zikun could govern and pacify the people internally, making them live and work in peace; and externally, he could plan strategies and win battles from a thousand miles away. But I neglected that this was by no means obtained by luck or easily, but was actually the result of Zikun's day and night deliberation."

Li Ji replied modestly, "My lord overpraises me."

Perhaps in the beginning, suddenly having to grasp all aspects of governance was indeed tiring for Li Ji.

But after so many years, coupled with the fact that Li Ji had openly and secretly recruited a large number of talents to assist and share the burden, Li Ji now didn't feel particularly busy, and could even maintain two hours of reading time every day.

For example, Li Ji now almost entirely delegated the many tedious and miscellaneous affairs in the army to Guo Jia, and Li Ji only needed to spend a few glances each day to look at the summary made by Guo Jia. (End of chapter)