Chinese New Year

Chapter 516 Military Discussion and Division

On July 16, the troops spent the entire day searching the entire city and eliminating the remaining enemies.

Shao Xun was not in a hurry to go in. He was in the camp outside the city, planning the next stage of the war with his staff.

To some extent, Yecheng is the third capital of the dynasty. It is a large city with complete facilities. It is the largest city in Hebei and one of the most powerful cities in the world.

Well, don’t be afraid when you see a big city. In fact, big cities are not necessarily easy to defend.

Just one question, did you see the Tang army defending Chang'an? No.

No one is a fool. Don't assume that those battle-hardened generals are ignorant of military affairs. There is a reason why they didn't defend Chang'an. This city cannot be defended at all.

For a city wall with a circumference of dozens of kilometers, if there is one person standing every meter, it would require 40,000 soldiers. In fact, this density is not enough at all, and it would have to be doubled again and again - which is simply unrealistic.

The city wall is only five meters high, with scarce defense facilities and is very thin and easily destroyed. Even the city walls of many county towns are stronger than it.

There are so many people in the city that the food consumption is astronomical. Once the siege is over, people will start to eat each other.

Who is smart enough to defend Chang'an?
Luoyang and Yecheng at this time were far smaller than Chang'an and Luoyang during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, or even smaller than Yecheng and Luoyang during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, all the residential areas outside Luoyang were included in it, and an outer city was built, which increased the city area several times.

But no matter how small Luoyang and Yecheng are, they are really difficult to defend without tens of thousands of troops.

Shao Xun was very skeptical about how many people Shi Le could gather now.

"Liang Xi and others used the strength of the people in Jizhou and the materials from the mountains and forests of Shangdang. The magnificent system can be seen in the Wenchang Palace, the Tingzheng Palace, the Golden Tiger Palace, the Bronze Sparrow Palace, the Minghe Palace, the Cattail and Zizhu Palace..." At the meeting, Hu Wu Fuzhi shook his head and talked about the old story of the construction of Yecheng during the Cao Wei period.

"The stronghold of Yecheng is the Three Terraces, just like the Jinyong City in Luoyang."

"There are gardens and forests in the west of Ye, and the city walls are short and thin, so it is not difficult to take them down."

Shao Xun listened quietly and nodded repeatedly.

He had been to Yecheng once and had some impression of it. Yecheng itself was actually not difficult to attack, and even part of it could be captured, but the three towers in the western half were relatively solid, like Jinyong City, and were very difficult to capture.

In his memory, in the original time and space, the last cities to fall in Luoyang and Yecheng were Jinyong City and Santai.

With these two places, we can hold on for a long time and fight repeatedly if there is food.

"Ye has the solidity of Santai, connected to Taihang in the west, surrounded by mountains and rivers, and is also located on a major highway. It is truly the backbone of the world and the throat of Hebei. If you can get it, you can move here like Cao Mengde did." As he spoke, Hu Wu Fuzhi's thoughts diverged and he began to go off topic.

Shao Xun frowned when he heard this.

The other generals and officers all looked sideways at Hu Wu Fuzhi.

Their roots are in Henan, and they are extremely reluctant to go to Yecheng. What are you talking about, Hu Wuyanguo? Who ordered you to do this?
Hu Wu Fuzhi seemed not to notice and continued, "Shi Le was so slow to go south last time! This shows how difficult it was for him to raise food for the army. I think that Yecheng does not have many defenders and not much money or food. You can go north boldly and annihilate them in one battle."

"Oh?" Shao Xun was somewhat interested and asked, "Do you think Shi Le will fight me?"

"If Shi Le flees without fighting, he will have no choice but to serve Liu Cong as an official. For him, it is better to fight. If he flees without fighting, his influence will be greatly reduced, and he will have to rely on Liu Cong for protection; if he flees after being defeated, he will still rely on Liu Cong. Since he will be controlled by Liu Cong no matter what, it is better to fight. Once he wins, the whole situation will be saved."

"Yan Guo's prediction was very accurate this time." Shao Xun praised: "I also expected that Shi Le would fight me in a big battle, but I don't know whether it would be a battle to defend the city or a battle in the field, or whether he would send elite cavalry to attack me from behind."

It is only about 190 miles from Yecheng to Fangtou.

One person and three horses, it won’t take more than two days.

One person and two horses, it only takes three days.

A human consumes three kilograms of food a day, and a horse consumes nine to ten kilograms - if that is not enough, the horse can be allowed to graze for a short while.

In other words, carrying 60 kilograms of dry food, Shi Le's cavalry could move in the wild for two to three days without having to graze.

If they can graze, the food consumption rate will slow down and the activity time will be longer.

This is the advantage of cavalry: explosive power over short distances.

Shao Xun thought about it and decided that Shi Le had two possible ways of dealing with the situation.

One is that the infantry defends the city, while the cavalry uses its explosive power to harass his food supply in the wild, which is actually the same tactic as before.

The second option was to mobilize the entire army and engage in a main battle with him under the city of Ye.

Both possibilities exist, and Shao Xun is happy to see both.

What he least wanted to see was Shi Le abandoning Yecheng and running away!
If that happens, it will be like the first time the Huns attacked Guanzhong, with so many surrendering that they failed to completely defeat the enemy and will have to attack again.

After all, if Shi Le's soldiers surrendered to you, can you really trust them? Will they really not rebel?
Unless he was cruel and tyrannical, he might as well kill all of Shi Le's surrendered soldiers, no matter whether there were 50,000 or 100,000 of them.

Putting aside the fact that he was unwilling to do so, the consequences of doing so were not something he wanted to see - from then on, every enemy soldier would fight to the death and refuse to surrender, and the price would be too high.

"My lord, I think Shi Le may hold on to Yecheng. He should have tens of thousands of troops. Although Yecheng is big, thirty or forty thousand people will be enough. If it doesn't work out, we can retreat to Santai, a place that is easy to defend but difficult to attack. By delaying the situation and waiting for changes, there may be a turning point." Wang Que'er said on the side.

Shao Xun nodded and looked at the others.

Yu Chen, the lieutenant of the Imperial Guard, stroked his beard, pondered for a moment, and said, "Mingsir, you must be prepared for a decisive battle with Shi Le."

"Why do you say that?" Shao Xun asked.

"When Shi Le fought against the city, the soldiers were calm, and when they were calm, their morale was high. This is the first reason."

"Secondly, if we can win in one battle, our infantry will have difficulty retreating, or suffer heavy losses. Would it be difficult for Shi Le to chase us on horseback and kill 10,000 people? In this way, Hebei will be stabilized. After you are defeated and return to Henan, someone may rebel, and the situation will be chaotic, which will give Shi Le another chance."

"Third, if he flees to avoid the battle, Shi Le will certainly become dependent on Liu Cong. Will his troops be able to be saved? I don't think so. When Liu Cong issues an edict to transfer Shi Le's troops to Guanzhong, will Shi Le listen or not?"

At this point, Yu Chen paused, then looked at everyone and directly stated the conclusion: "For Shi Le, it really doesn't matter if the army is defeated in Yecheng, killed by Ming Gong, or annexed by Liu Cong, because he won't see it anyway. Shi Le actually has only one way, to fight in the city and defeat Ming Gong."

My father-in-law is really reliable! Shao Xun secretly praised him.

He also tended to think that Shi Le would fight him at Yexia, but his reason was different from Yu Chen's. They were all people vying for hegemony over the world, so why not run away without a fight? Go home and farm as soon as possible!

Anyway, if he were in Shao Xun's shoes, he would never do such a thing. The only reason is that he doesn't want to be looked down upon by warriors.

To put it bluntly, it's prestige.

Ambitious people in troubled times still care more about things like prestige.

If you have prestige, you can even let your subordinates go hungry for a day or two while they fight. Without prestige, even if you feed and water their subordinates, they will still be unruly and pretend to obey you but actually disobey you.

The founding emperor could make a murderous general tremble in fear with just a glare.

In peaceful years, the emperor had to rely on various conspiracies and tactics to restrict his generals.

The founding emperor was a man of distinct personality. He could laugh, cry, and scold at will. He would scold when he wanted to and beat when he wanted to.

Emperor Chengping was a sinister person who wove conspiracies and euphemistically called them "Emperor's Mindset". To put it bluntly, he had no choice but to do so due to his lack of prestige.

Shao Xun enjoyed a high prestige in the army, and everyone respected him wherever he went.

He has been careful to maintain his prestige.

He didn't believe that Shi Le didn't care about prestige.

"Jin Zheng, what do you have to say?" Shao Xun looked at his beloved disciple again and asked.

"Mingsir, if Shi Le is still a man, he should fight to the death." Jin Zheng said loudly: "If he dares to avoid the battle, I will call him a worthless person. We will attack Yecheng directly and offer Shi Le's wives and concubines to Master Shao."

"How can you talk like that?" Shao Xun couldn't hold it in anymore and cursed with a smile.

Jin Zheng suddenly realized, glanced at Yu Chen and smiled awkwardly.

"Daohui, you haven't said a word, but what are you thinking about?" Shao Xun looked at Xi Jian and said gently.

"My lord, I believe Shi Le will definitely go to war. He can't afford to delay," said Xi Jian.

"Yeah." Shao Xun nodded and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"It is already the middle of July." Xi Jian said, "In August, the fields will be golden with wheat and grain, and there will be food and grass everywhere. If Shi Le is trapped in an isolated city, you can send people to harvest the food to meet the military needs. In this way, even if the siege lasts until heavy snow falls, there will be no worries about insufficient food for the army."

Shao Xun laughed when he heard this.

Isn’t this a replica of Liu Yu’s attack on Southern Yan?
On the way of the march, his food supply route did suffer losses, but the Xianbei cavalry was never able to completely cut it off, and Liu Yu's army was unable to starve - the food supply route was repeatedly harassed and there were losses, but food was always transported to the front line.

By the time we entered Shandong in August, the fields were full of ripe crops that could be harvested at will, and there were no longer any restrictions on food supply.

At this time, the countdown to the demise of Southern Yan had already begun. Under the city of Guanggu, the Xianbei cavalry was forced to launch a desperate charge against Liu Yu's army, and the result was naturally very bleak.

How similar! How similar!

"Chang Can, what do you say?" Shao Xun finally looked at Chang Can, the governor of General Longxiang's shogunate, and asked.

"The Jie cavalry is nothing more than that. In the battle of Anyang Bridge, the government soldiers attacked the cavalry with infantry, and the Jie cavalry retreated repeatedly." Chang Can said, "I will listen to you, sir."

"Okay!" Shao Xun slapped the table, stood up and took two steps. After glancing at everyone, he said, "In three days, we will go north to attack Ye."

"Yes." All the generals responded in unison.

Shao Xun paused and said, "Yan Guo, please write a letter for me and send it to the people of Yecheng."

Hu Wu Fuzhi spread out his writing brush, ink, paper and inkstone and looked at Shao Xun.

"Just a few." Shao Xun said, "First, since the last emperor, Hebei has been in chaos many times, and the court has repeatedly sent out brave warriors to defeat the bandits. In the battle of Feixiang, the jackal in Hebei was killed, and in the battle of Yemagang, the evil atmosphere in Yecheng was quelled."

"Secondly, Shi Le was the remnant of Ji Sang. He persecuted scholars and common people and corrupted loyal people. His crime was his own fault, not God's. Heaven and earth are very kind, but there are still severe frosts. The law must punish him, and it is difficult to forgive him."

When Hu Wu Fuzhi wrote this, he paused for a moment, and then continued to write.

He understood Chen Gong's attitude towards Shi Le: he must be killed.

"Third," Shao Xun continued, "If any of the soldiers who were coerced by Shi Le repent, take off their armor and hide their bows, and return to their hometowns to resume their work, we will not ask any questions. The idle land given by Shi Le will still be allowed to be cultivated, and no one will be held responsible for it."

"Fourth, how can the people of a great country and the people of China serve the Jiehu for long? If you can capture the leader of the bandits and bring him to surrender, you will be given an official position. If you already have an official position, you can be promoted to the second rank and appointed."

"Fifth, there are scholars who, under the pressure of the fierce power and for the sake of their families, have no choice but to serve as fake officials in the prefectures and counties. If they can deeply feel ashamed of their past mistakes, reform themselves, and surrender the city, I can submit a petition to the court to grant them the official positions and keep them in their old positions."

Hu Wufu's writing was so fluent that he was thinking as he wrote.

It is obvious that these points are all aimed at dividing and disintegrating the Shi Le group.

Shi Le distributed land and houses to the soldiers, but Chen Gong still acknowledged that as long as Chen Gong retired from the army, returned to his hometown and resumed his business, he would be fine and would no longer work for Shi Le.

If anyone killed the generals of Shi Le's group and surrendered with their heads, he would be promoted and get rich.

The county officials appointed by Shi Le can surrender now. Lord Chen will fight for you to turn the "fake officials" into "official officials". Your interests will not be lost at all, you will just change your loyalty.

In short, Shi Le was only guilty of this crime, and his followers were not held accountable.

Da Hu must die, Mr. Chen must kill him. You still have a chance to survive, so don't make the mistake.

After Hu Wu Fuzhi finished recording, he thought for a moment, then began to polish the manuscript and then gave it to Shao Xun for review.

After reading it, Shao Xun ordered: "Send many people to copy it and distribute it to important roads, villages, towns, and cities, so that everyone will know it. The rest of you, prepare your troops and horses and get ready for battle. In this battle, we are invincible and we will not return until we win."

(End of this chapter)