In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, if you want to say who is the "experience package" of the Three Kingdoms, then it is undoubtedly Yuan Shu, Yuan Shu.
The image in the romance Yuan Shu is an incompetent person who is so bright-eyed and overjoyed, take Ji Ling, the first general under his seat, for example, he was stabbed to death by Zhang Fei in less than a few rounds, so Yuan Shu called the emperor very abrupt, and it also made people wonder what kind of terminal illness he had to have such thoughts.
And in real history, Yuan Shu was indeed beaten very badly after being called the emperor, but sometimes you can't just look at the game data when you look at history, the reason why Yuan Shu dared to call the emperor was precisely because he had hard power, so he dared to risk the world's disapproval to be the emperor, so how strong was Yuan Shu back then?
First of all, on the generals, we can see that Yuan Shu really doesn't have any powerful generals on paper.
But everything can't just look at the surface, in fact, many times we think that Yuan Shu and Sun Jian's father and son are separated, but in history, Sun Jian can be said to be the force under Yuan Shu's hands, in the crusade against Dong Zhuo, many times Sun Jian is under Yuan Shu's orders, when Sun Jian is fighting abroad, many times Yuan Shu is responsible for the allocation of grain and grass, and then the two Yuan fight for hegemony, Sun Jian is the basic plate of Yuan Shu, so after Sun Jian's death, Sun Ce temporarily succumbed to Yuan Shu's side.
It wasn't until later that Sun Ce borrowed thousands of men and horses from Yuan Shu in order to get out, and the little overlord Sun Ce relied on these thousands of men and horses to begin to dominate Jiangdong and gradually got out of Yuan Shu's control.
Therefore, in terms of generals, there are really no outstanding generals under Yuan Shu, and Ji Ling in the romance only records in history that he led the army to crusade against Liu Bei, and then retired through the mediation of Lu Bu, which is the origin of the Yuanmen halberd.
However, the absence of a general under his command does not mean that the strength of Yuan Shu's subordinates is poor, after all, the real history is not that one or two top generals can solve everything, let alone fight each other in every battle, otherwise Liu Bei is related to Zhang Zhao all the year round, wouldn't he be invincible in the world?
Therefore, whether the strength is strong or not ultimately depends on the troops, grain and grass, and the economy.
At the time of the division of the princes, Yuan Shu occupied Huainan, Runan, Jianghuai and other areas, from a geographical point of view, the overall area is not large, but this is different from the Central Plains of Hebei.
Although Yuan Shu's territory is not large, there are no strong enemies around, which is different from the situation when Cao Cao was surrounded by enemies on all sides and Yuan Shao was contained by Gongsun Zhan behind him, and there were no strong enemies in the Huainan area controlled by Yuan Shu.
Therefore, taking both sides of the Huai River as the foundation, the layout of Jiangdong and Xuzhou is a stroke of genius. Not only did they occupy the rich area, but they also faced Jiangdong opponents who were very weak, and in the face of Yuan Shu's army, Jiangdong Haoqiang, Yan Baihu, Wang Lang, Zhou Xin and others surrendered without any resistance.
So far, at the beginning of the second year of Jian'an and Jian'an, that is, the year when Yuan Shu became emperor, Yuan Shu's territory reached Chen and Pei in the north; east of Xiapi, Guangling; south to Huiji Dongye; Jiangxia of Liu Biao in the west. Spanning the eleven counties of Yang, Henan, and Xuzhou, it became the strongest force at that time.
Among them, the population of Nanyang County was close to 2.4 million at that time, and the population of Runan County was close to 2.1 million, which was equivalent to the total population of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, and although several other places were not as good as these two places, they were also able to feed many people because they were large grain producers, so it was estimated that Yuan Shu had a population of about 6 million to 8 million.
In addition to sufficient food and a large population, Yuan Shu at that time was indeed the largest military warlord in the late Han Dynasty, according to statistics, there were 170,000 soldiers and horses under Yuan Shu's account at that time, but whenever there was a major war and needed to go out to fight, he could command about 100,000 troops.
You must know that the total strength of Cao Cao, who had already dominated one side at that time, was less than 50,000, and when Cao Cao and Yuan Shao confronted each other in the later Battle of Guandu, there were only more than 20,000 people, and when Yuan Shao launched the Battle of Guandu, there were only 100,000 mobile troops, and the combined forces of Sun and Liu during the Battle of Chibi were only 50,000.
It can be seen that this is Yuan Shu's biggest reliance, even in the later period of the Three Kingdoms, it is already very difficult to mobilize 100,000 people.
In addition to these, Yuan Shu still got a lot of convenience by relying on the identity of the Yuan family's sister-in-law at that time, and the previously mentioned Sun Jian was strictly speaking, Yuan Shu's ally, but in fact he was still controlled by Yuan Shu, and in addition to Sun Jian, Gongsun Zhan, who dominated Youzhou at that time, was also a loyal ally of Yuan Shu, and because he contained Yuan Shao in Hebei, Yuan Shao had no time to take care of his brother for a while.
As the son-in-law of the Yuan family, he has eaten a lot of "dividends", not to mention anything else, when the Kwantung princes joined forces to defeat Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shu had already paid homage to the general, and he was the highest official among the thirteen princes, and the official was also a disguised resource at that time.
It is precisely because of the abundant data on paper and the large number of soldiers and horses that can be mobilized that Yuan Shu has the intention of arrogance and becomes emperor in 197 AD.
However, it was Yuan Shu's move to become emperor that made Yuan Shu completely doomed, and after Yuan Shu became emperor, Lu Bu first followed Chen Gong's advice to break with Yuan Shu, and Sun Ce later betrayed Yuan Shu on this ground.
You must know that at that time, Yuan Shu's biggest basic plate was the Jiangdong region, and almost all of the Sun family group led by Sun Ce rebelled, which made Yuan Shu's strength shrink by half at once.
And in this year, the sudden drought in Huainan led to a poor harvest of Yuan Shu's grain, coupled with the betrayal of Lu Bu and Sun Ce, the first force in the world that once controlled the eleven counties of Sanzhou was suddenly reduced to a small Karami, and his territory was only pitiful Jiujiang and Lujiang, two complete counties and part of Peiguo.
Finally, in 199, Yuan Shu fell ill and died, and after Yuan Shu's death, his basic plate was divided between Cao Cao and Sun Ce, and the Cao family included Nanyang County and Runan County, while Sun Ce took the Jiangdong region.