The Adventure of Gan Ning

Jian Yong looked at Liu Bei. Liu Bei looked at Wang Xuan. Wang Xuan spread his hands...

"Coming to me won't help. Either we rely on Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping's horse-trading channels, or we wait for the shipyard at Taixiang to be completed. The best option is to travel by sea and land to find Gongsun Bogui. He has plenty of horses. Whether we trade iron cavalry, grain, or anything else, that's fine. The problem is, ships still have to be built one step at a time!"

"These shipwrights have only just finished learning how to build five-hundred-ton displacement ships from me. They still have the thousand-ton ships and larger ones to learn. Even a five-hundred-ton ship would be doing well to transport two hundred horses at once. After all, they're living creatures!"

"Two hundred? That many?" Jian Yong and Liu Bei looked astonished.

"That many?" Wang Xuan glanced around, waved for the others to disperse, and only then lowered his voice. "Why do you think I'm building a navy? Once we have twenty ships with displacements of a thousand tons or more, we'll be able to transport ten thousand infantry and enough provisions and supplies to Jizhou, Youzhou, Xuzhou, or Yangzhou all at once. We can choose any landing site we want. Do you understand what that means?"

"No matter how many passes you build, we can still deploy troops wherever we want along the rivers. What passes? What supply routes? We can attack wherever we please!"

Liu Bei: "wДw"

Jian Yong: "Σっ°Д°っ"

"Shh!" Wang Xuan raised his eyebrows and patted them both on the shoulders. "Remain still, and nothing happens. Once we move, it'll be like thunder breaking the earth!"

"I've already sent Zhou Tai and Jiang Qin back to the Yangtze. They're recruiting the former river