After much persuasion, Liu Bei had no choice but to withdraw his troops and return to Jiao Province.
Actually, Jiao Province was not small.
It had seven prefectures: Nanhai, Cangwu, Yulin, Hepu, Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, and Sunan.
Among them, Jiaozhi Prefecture had a Provincial Governor's Mansion.
However, due to the terrain, Jiao Province had never been a place that would be fought over.
After all, Jiao Province was completely defenseless against the foreign tribes in the south. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was surrounded by enemies.
However, this was only secondary.
The most important thing was that almost all of Jiao Province had not been developed, unlike in the future.
The current Jiao Province could be said to be truly barren.
Even back then, Shi Xie was more courteous. Whenever a famous person came to Jiao Province, Shi Xie would treat them with respect.
Even so, there were not many people who stayed.
Basically, not a single famous person had appeared in Jiao Province.
All of the Marquises did not care about this place at all. The main thing was that it was too remote, and the income was not proportional to the effort.
Generally speaking, if one could completely occupy Jingzhou, then they could basically take Jiao Province.
However, Shi Xie did not have much ambition. When he saw that Sun Quan was about to attack, he immediately chose to surrender.
As such, Sun Quan took over Jiao Province without much effort.
However, this did not affect the war situation.
The biggest barrier between Jiao Province and Jiangdong was Shanyue's territory.
The mountain was high and the road was long, and it was extremely difficult to travel.
However, Shanyue was still unable to take over Jiao Province, so Jiao Province was basically a wasteland.
After Sun Quan took over Jiao Province, he sent Bu Kui and Lu Dai to defend it.
Originally, they had a lot of soldiers. However, because Jiangdong was in trouble, most of their soldiers were transferred back, leaving only ten to twenty thousand city guards.
How could these city guards be able to defend such a large territory?
However, the current Jiao Province was still quite good. After all, it had become the barbarian land in the south that Sun Quan and Liu Bei had taken down recently. It was still useful.
But even so, losing Jiaozhou had almost no effect.
Therefore, whether it was Liu Bei or Sun Quan, they basically didn't value Jiaozhou.
However, things were completely different now.
Liu Bei lost Jingzhou, and Jiangdong was besieged by Cao Cao.
Now, the only place Liu Bei could go was Jiao State.
Originally, Liu Bei wanted to take a gamble and use his abundant troops to conquer Shanyue.
Linking Jiaozhou and Jiangdong together, they could still work together to defend against the Cao Army.
Even though most of the Shanyue was a mountain range and not suitable for travel, at least there was a road.
However, he never expected that Shanyue would be such a tough nut to crack. Even after hundreds of thousands of people had been attacking for such a long time, they still had not achieved anything.
The soldiers under his command suffered setbacks again and again, and their morale plummeted.
Adding on the Tiger Leopard Cavalry's sudden attack, Liu Bei found it hard to defend himself.
Therefore, Liu Bei could only choose to return to Jiaozhou.
As for Jiangdong, he could only let it fend for itself.
If Jiangdong was destroyed, Sun Quan could only choose to leave Jiangdong and head to Jiaozhou.
However, Jiaozhou alone was unable to stop Cao Cao's footsteps.
After all, Jingzhou, which was a hundred times better than Jiaozhou, had already been lost. Jiaozhou was a barren place with almost no food, so it was impossible to defend.
Hence, Liu Bei and Sun Quan had no choice but to follow the path they had laid out in advance.
They would head directly to the barbarian lands in the south.
Although there were barbarians everywhere in the barbarian lands, they would be attacked from time to time.
However, this was much better than being unable to defend against Cao Cao's attacks.
Liu Bei had been homeless his entire life, running from the north to the south.
Today, Liu Bei did not want to run anymore.
If he could settle down in the barbarian lands in the south, it was not impossible for him to fight his way back to the central plains.
As such, after Liu Bei returned to Jiaozhou, he could only use all the resources he had to make plans for the future.
After all, it was almost impossible for the current Jiangdong to successfully defend against Cao Cao's attacks.
However, after Liu Bei returned to Jiaozhou, he realized that Jiaozhou was not lost at all.
According to Bu Shan, the Tiger Leopard Cavalry did not even come.
However, Liu Bei had already expected this to happen.
However, since he had already given up on attacking Shanyue, Liu Bei would not go there again.
After all, the Tiger Leopard Cavalry had already started to monitor his movements.
If he went to attack Shanyue now, it would be very irrational.
"Yide, go with Yunchang and take 50 thousand men to defend the position closest to Jiangdong."
"Remember, if you encounter the Cao Army, do not engage them. Try to avoid them."
"If anything happens to Jiangdong, the two of you must take Marquis Wu and the people he brought with him."
Liu Bei had no choice but to give this order.
When Zhang Fei heard this, his eyes widened.
"What?"
"Big brother, Jiangdong is still in a bloody battle. Why are you doing this?"
"If Jiangdong is lost, we will not be able to escape!"
Before Liu Bei could speak, Guan Yu said,
"Third brother! Do you think that big brother wants to give up on saving Jiangdong? "
"With the current strength of us and Jiangdong, we will not be able to save Jiangdong.
We will not be able to resist the Cao Army. "
"Right now, it is already too late!"
"Let's go to the south and rest up. It will not be too late to fight again!"
Hearing Guan Yu's words, Zhang Fei could only nod and follow Guan Yu to lead the troops.
The only thing Liu Bei could do now was to defend to the death and defend every inch of land in Jiao Province.
Otherwise, if Jiao Province was lost, it would be impossible for the remaining troops in Jiangdong to evacuate and go to the south together.
As long as Cao Cao wanted to pursue, Sun Quan would not be able to escape Jiangdong if he failed. It could be said that he was doomed.
"Advisors, in the next few days, I need the two of you to go to the barbarian lands in the south and lead the remaining troops."
"We must stabilize the southern tribes."
"I have a feeling that Jiangdong will not be able to hold on for more than a few days."
After Guan Yu and Zhang Fei left, Liu Bei let out a long sigh.
Zhuge Liang immediately frowned.
"Could it be that Cao Cao has already crossed the river?"
Liu Bei nodded heavily.
"Lujiang County, which is closest to Jiangdong, is about to fall. Cao Cao's navy has improved so quickly during this period."
"Without Cao Cao and Zhang Yun, he can still cultivate the navy to such a level. Cao Cao really did not rest for nothing during this period."
Hearing this, Zhuge Liang could not help but sigh faintly.
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