Everyone already understood what "physical persuasion" meant and had a profound understanding of it.
Hadn't the peace and prosperity under Liu Bei come from physical persuasion?
But Sun Ce, who had established supremacy over Jiangdong, was no pushover. His martial strength was considerable, especially his Yangtze River navy. Though it certainly could not contend with ours at sea, it was by no means inferior on the Yangtze River.
"I have no objections to physically persuading Sun Ce, but the question is, do we have enough time?"
Guo Jia frowned and continued asking Wang Xuan, "Things are different from before. We can't afford to wait that long. These three million people may appear to be refugees, but they aren't completely without organization. Although they were deceived and driven out, many members of the Central Plains clans are hiding among them."
"With those people inciting the refugees, the damage they're causing locally is enormous. Our forces are limited. We have to defend the border and gather the refugees, and we're already stretched to the limit. The refugees are being gathered very slowly. If we divert troops to deal with Sun Ce..."
Guo Jia shook his head gravely. Everyone understood what he meant. Clearly, he did not favor Wang Xuan's plan. This was also one of the flaws in Liu Bei's military strategy: they had too few soldiers.
They had too few soldiers, yet the territory they had expanded into within a short time was far too vast. Guanzhong, Xiliang, Hanzhong, Yizhou, Jingzhou, and southern Xuzhou—their overall territory had more than doubled in just over a year.
Although Xiliang and Yizhou were vast and sparsely populated, the Qiang people and the mountain tribes posed enormous hidden dangers, and they required no fewer troops for defense.
As a result, their originally adequate forces now