Dong Zhuo’s Rivals Unite – 189 A.D.
Gongsun Zan – 2. Bei Ping Strategy:
Okay this definitely isn’t the best ruler to have. First of all, Bei Ping is probably the worst capital to have. Second of all, Yuan Shao is right next to you, and for the first few years you can’t really do anything if he chooses to attack you. Fortunately, yes, you can raid his army for some stalwart generals, but it’s advised to keep peace with him until Bei Ping is built up economically. And really, that is the key, because the only way a serviceable army will be able to be launched is if you can get Bei Ping (and you might have to not convert some would-be advisors to do it, or to at least make it happen faster) into a flourishing economy. Another good thing however is that you are relatively protected in Bei Ping. Dai Xian and Xiang Ping are open cities that probably won’t be populated. Xiang Ping is a nice city to expand to in the late to early 200’s (yeah, you won’t be beating this one early) as it has Gongsun Gong, Gongsun Kang, and Gongsun Du, solid generals. Dai Xian has the great Zhao Yun as early as 190 ad I believe, so it wouldn’t hurt to check it out just for him, and further down is Jin Yang, which will probably be occupied by Dong Zhuo.
If Dong Zhuo gets beaten up (which is relatively likely) and retreats to Jin Yang, you may be forced to deal with him or whoever is pursuing him. On some rare occasions, Dong will just move into Dai Xian, although he generally doesn’t bring too much firepower, and never builds the city up too well. Could throw a wrench in your attempt to get Zhao Yun but that’s why you should do that early if you can. The caveat with Dai Xian is that you would have to battle Yuan Shao for 50. Yi Jing to be able to move anyone in your army to that city.Â
Starting off, ally with Yuan Shao. After you do this, spy on him. Contradictory? Well you need generals, bad. Yan Gang and Gongsun Yue are loyal soldiers but you need more than that. Gongsun Zan is a solid ruler in all statistics, yet isn’t over 70 in Army so he cannot use Simultaneous attacks. You absolutely need a general who can do this and lead your army, so recruit Zhang He and Gao Lan to have two prime ones. Also, grab Chen Lin, and soon Yuan Shao will recruit Xu You, who is also generally low loyalty. Jiao Chu is probably a bit too loyal (91) to recruit, so I’d focus on those who you just picked up. Again, you need to build the economy above all, so ally with all the major economy-booms (Liu Biao, Liu Yan, Dong Zhuo) and ask for money each January and food in July. Meanwhile, build up your economy with Xu You, Chen Lin and some other general or Gongsun Zan. You might not want to upgrade all these new people yet to General/Advisor, as they cost more and it’s wiser to wait.
Now a common problem Yuan Shao has is that’ll he spend all his money because he feels he needs 700,000 soldiers by July of 189. Why he does this I don’t know, but he can ounce you in a second if he wants with those kinds of numbers. However, he is also lower on food generally, as you can see if you spy. Sometimes he’ll destroy Kong Rong or Liu Bei or yourself, but sometimes he’ll attack no one and just implode in Nan Pi. The one thing working in your favor is food, assuming you keep a better supply of yours than Yuan Shao does (easy to do). If he fights you, just send troops to Yi Jing and run around until time runs out or his army’s food runs out.
This leads to the only way to get Gongsun Zan’s quest kicking fast; make Yuan Shao run out of food. It’s doable, but your timing must be perfect and you MUST have a decent amount of troops, because his men WILL pummel you for a while (because they are trained, but you can get horses if you want). It might take two advances onto Nan Pi to do this, but if you do it once and waste a good portion of his food (he likely won’t attack you for a while) you can just come back and waste the rest.
He’ll have no where to go (assuming Kong Rong and Liu Bei are still alive). This can be done as soon as you start, but again, try to wait until he’s built up a ton of soldiers and has a low food count (try in May or June). This also means you end up getting all of the soldiers Yuan Shao had, however their morale is 0 after starving so you need to spend months building that back up.
A good strategy indeed but I tend to play it safe and build up Bei Ping and let Yuan Shao do his thing. Most of the time he’ll advance on Kong Rong or Liu Bei and tear them up, but if you’re allied with him he’ll probably be cool with you. If at any point however, if he’s vulnerable, just attack him. Like I stated earlier, if he’s imploding in Nan Pi with a huge army and without the funds/food to support it, feel free to exploit him before Kong Rong/Liu Bei do. Check on him in January; if Nan Pi gives him no gold and his officers lost soldiers and their loyalty dropped, then you know it’s time to pounce. The key after this is getting his officers to be loyal once they join your army, which may be easy if he sucked them dry every year (or if you allowed some other bloke to take Yuan Shao’s head first, thus having them be low loyalty to that ruler instead of you, who can just take the new ruler’s head and get Yuan Shao’s generals at a high loyalty).
As you can see, the climb to prominence was stalled for 15 years, then exploded once Gongsun Zan died and Zhao Yun took over. Yuan Shao had betrayed someone, so we raided his non-Yuan squad at Nan Pi. Yuan Shang was governor so we couldn’t get the castle, but we recruited enough loyal officers to build up both Xiang Ping and Dai Xian, in the process recruiting Gongsun Du, Gongsun Kong, Gongsun Gong, Zhao Yun and Zhao Tong. Gongsun died at the end of the year 202, just as Zhao Yun had taken over Nan Pi. It was a tough choice between Guan Yu and Zhao Yun, with Gongsun Du getting slight consideration due to familial ties (although for some reason I don’t think those three are related to Yue and Zan. Anyone know?). Anyway, Nan Pi was actually pretty built up, but Yuan Tan (Shao had died) was more concerned with the action near Pu Yang and Ye, other cities of his. Meanwhile, we swiftly grabbed Nan Pi, with Bei Hai and Ping Yuan following. Yuan Tan died, with Chun Yuqiong taking over.
Our ally Tao Qian was holding Xia Pi and we felt it wasn’t a wise choice to betray him or attack him, so we concentrated on moving a large army towards Dai Xian and one towards Ping Yuan. Wen Chou and the Gongsun’s headed to Dai Xian and took Jin Yang from Dong Huang. Meanwhile, Zhao Yun’s part of the army in Ping Yuan just ripped through Chun Yuqiong, and then Cao Cao at Xu Chang and Chen Liu. Dong Huang just watched as we were allies (this was before we took Jin Yang), but then he betrayed us as we left ourselves too thin at Pu Yang. We managed to survive, and the over-pursuing army of ours took Ye. Dong Huang is stuck in Ru Nan with his army divided.
Meanwhile, Sun Ce has built up a formidable army that continues to push the persistent Liu Biao. Tao Qian (now Sun Qian) and Liu Yong are impressively holding their own. Cao Cao is dead and that is a major relief, but many of the generals we recovered are disloyal towards us (with Zhao Yun as a ruler, we have an obvious Shu bias).
Oh, the difference a year makes. In Zhao Yun’s case, it means we conquered Wang Lang, Sun Qian, Liu Yong, Dong Huang and Ma Teng in one year.
Zhao Yun himself led an army to the southeast, routing Liu Yong, Wang Lang, and the remnants of Dong Huang’s army. Dong himself ending up fleeing all the way to Tian Shui, where he was killed. Ma Teng then surrendered as he had ran Xi Liang into the ground. Liu Biao was killed by Sun Ce, leaving Xu Shu with Xin Ye and Shang Yong. We’re allied with Liu Zhang and Sun Ce, who are both formidable opponents but have no where near the area we have. That said, we can’t really break the alliance yet and attack, because they are well fortified. This is the main problem of having a bad ruler; you lose so much more time building up initially that the other rulers have such solid foundations waiting for you. Still, we have a large mass of troops at Xia Bian, Wan and Jian Ye. We’re pretty close to invading Xin Ye and taking out Xu Shu.
Xu Shu began to get pressure from Sun Ce to the south, so we forced the issue from the west (starting at Shang Yong). He gets caught twice; freed, and then killed. Pang Tong takes over and is ounced at Jiang Xia.
Sun Ce is then threatened but does not budge. Liu Zhang is in much better position (soldiers/city-wise) despite having less overall area compared to Sun Ce. Sun Ce in turn is squashed from both sides, as Zhao Yun comes through Lu Jiang, Chai Sang, and then through the southern Jing Zhou area.
Meanwhile another force (led by Yuan Shu actually) comes along the west part of Sun Ce’s area and takes out Wu Ling and Ling Ling, and then occupies Yong An for the eventual trip to unify China. At this juncture, Liu Zhang had upwards of 150,000 troops gathered at Cheng Dou, although most of them were not his best officers (Zhang Ren, Lei Tong, Wu Lan). His other castles are guarded lightly, so we take Zi Tong and Jiang Zhou simultaneously. Cheng Dou is then forced upon, and our difference in General-quality is proven. People like Fu Tong, Liu Jun, and Wang Lei are maxed out for his army; you should have all the good Shu generals that like you naturally (because you’re Zhao Yun) and whomever else you recruited along the way. Finally, Yun Nan and Jian Ning are mopped up easily. Well, the scenario started off hard. Fortunately Zhao Yun made it much easier during the latter part.
1 – Xiang Yang Recruits:
190 – Gongsun Du
203 – Gongsun Kang & Gongsun Gong
2 – Bei Ping Recruits:
NONE