I will not be king in the Spring and Autumn Period

Chapter 221 The Siege of the Nest
Wu Ju obviously knew that this was a great idea.Therefore, as soon as Li Ran offered his advice, Wu Ju immediately agreed after thinking for a while.

And the last sentence he said was also very intriguing.

What is meant by "If you don't dare to be greedy for merit, your name will be known all over the world?"

It's still a cliche question, this is obviously to use military merit to "force Li Ran to the top of the mountain" directly.

Once Zhu Fan was captured alive due to Li Ran's strategy, not only would Wu Ju be able to get credit for such a miraculous achievement, but if it was publicized again, it would be tantamount to tying Li Ran and Chu State to the same boat.

At that time, if you, Li Ran, are not used by Chu State, where else can you go?

If you want to talk about this Wu Ju, it is not ambiguous at all to arrange Li Ranlai.

So, he quickly allocated five thousand elites to Sun Wu, and handed over the soldier talisman to Sun Wu, so that he could control himself, and no need to report to him for any actions.

Sun Wu didn't leave the camp immediately after receiving the soldier talisman, but he and Wu Ju further elaborated on a specific strategy to lure the enemy...

After Li Ran and Sun Wu had all withdrawn, Wu Ju immediately summoned the generals to discuss.

"What?! Not only do we want our main force to retreat, but we actually want us to give up the hard-won Shujiu City?!"

"Yes! Not only must we abandon Shujiu, but also, all the defenders deployed in Qunshu should retreat [-] li as a countermeasure."

"What? Crazy, crazy, how can there be such a war! Since the two of them are not Chu people, they are obviously trying to deceive our army! If Zhu Fan is not fooled, then we will be in vain!"

"That's right! If the king knows, he won't let me wait!"

It turned out that Sun Wu's trick to lure the enemy was a strange trick of hatchback mediation!On the one hand, it can make the Chu army retreat across the board, and it can also use this as an opportunity to capture Wu Wang Zhufan alive!Let the state of Chu achieve full success, and then return with teachers, and return the peace of the two countries.

And the full retreat of the Chu army also gave Li Ran enough reasons to evade everyone:

I, Li Ran, have tried my best to make the Chu army retreat. Now it is King Wu Zhufan who has no sense of proportion, underestimates the enemy and falls into the trap of the Chu people by mistake. It is entirely his own fault.

But obviously, although Sun Wu's move was well-intentioned.However, the key to this plan lies in Wu Ju!

It depends on whether he can suppress the other generals of Chu State.After all, pretending to be defeated across the board is the most important part of luring the enemy to advance aggressively, and even luring Wu Wang Zhufan to show up.

"I've made up my mind, so there's no need to say any more! All you generals, just control your ministries and retreat together. There must be no mistakes!"

Wu Ju also knew the key here very well.Therefore, an order was issued immediately that all the troops currently stationed in Qunshu retreated for [-] miles in response.

A few days later, the guards of Chu State in Shujiu City also got a secret order, and all of them directly withdrew from the city.

Originally, the Chu army's scattered troops deployed in Qunshu were not too many, but these days they were played around by the Wu army's boat soldiers.Therefore, its morale has been extremely low.

These Chu soldiers didn't want to stay in this right and wrong place, so when they got the military order to retreat across the board, they thought it was the Wu people who were about to kill them, so they were panicked for a while.

Fortunately, the generals of the Chu army everywhere are still able to enforce orders and prohibit them, and exercise restraint.Most of the Chu soldiers were captured by the prestige of the commander, and the literacy they had practiced on weekdays was fairly hard. Although after a lot of tossing, there was barely any major trouble.

But the weather is getting colder and colder, and it will be New Year's Eve soon, everyone hopes to go back soon.So even though the order was to retreat [-] miles, some parts actually retreated [-] miles directly.

In this way, the Chu army's front line looked more like a real defeat, with no rules at all.

In mid-November, under the command of Wu Ju, the main force of the Chu army retreated for more than ten battles one after another. It seemed that the Chu army in the entire Jianghuai area disappeared almost at the same time.

All of this naturally made Wu Jundong see the "opportunity".

Generally speaking, on the battlefield, if one side suddenly retreats so hastily, it is either because there is a big disturbance in the rear, or the logistics supply has collapsed.

Apparently, King Wu and Zhu Fan also considered this way.

Therefore, the morale of the armies of the two countries was suddenly reversed. The Wu army began to move around, frequently took the initiative to attack, constantly harassing the retreating Chu army, and even blatantly launched an attack on the Chu army camp.

The Chu army's defense line retreated again and again, and the camp of the Chinese army led by Wu Ju personally reduced the number of earthen stoves dug every time they cooked.

At the beginning of the retreat, there were still four to five thousand earthen stoves in the main camp for cooking, but after more than ten consecutive retreats, there were only more than 1000 stoves left in the camp.

Apparently, this was also a trick laid down by Sun Wu.

And King Wu Zhufan personally led the army to pursue, and naturally observed this phenomenon along the way.Seeing that the number of the Chu army was inexplicably getting smaller and smaller, King Wu and Zhu Fan didn't know what to do, so he became even more unscrupulous.

At the end of November, when the Chu army retreated 1 miles back again, King Wu and Zhu Fan couldn't hold back any longer when they saw this. The last stronghold in the Jianghuai area - under the city of Chaoyi.

Chao State was originally a vassal of Chu State. After Shujiu was destroyed, Chao State became Chu State's only stronghold in the Jianghuai region.

Obviously, as the existence of "Chu tail and Wu head" in the Jianghuai River Basin.Conquering Chaoyi is also of great strategic significance to Wu.

And when Sun Wu learned that King Wu Zhufan had personally led the troops all the way to the country of Chao, he knew that he had been caught in the trick of trying to catch him.So, he led [-] infantry straight away, and rushed to Chao Country for reinforcements all day and night.

Originally, before Sun Wu came to the aid of Chaoyi, there were only [-] defenders in Chaoyi, so it was impossible to defend against Zhufan's attack.When Chao Niuchen, the city lord of the Chao Kingdom, learned that Sun Wu had given Wu Ju's order, and specially led troops to rescue him, his confidence doubled.

"Quick! Open the gates of the outer city tonight! Changes will come later!"

Unexpectedly, as soon as Sun Wu went to the city tower and saw Chao Niuchen, he didn't say a word, and directly asked Chao Niuchen to open the city gate and let the king of Wu Zhu Fan enter the Wengcheng.

"What? How can this be done?! How can the Wu people come in? The Urn City is low, and the city gate is also small. It can be said that it can be broken in one attack. This move is tantamount to seeking death!"

Without even thinking about it, Chao Niuchen directly rejected Sun Wu's proposal.

Seeing that Chao Niuchen was so shallow, Sun Wu hurriedly shouted again:
"The king of Wu personally led the troops here, and this person is brave and foolish. If we open the outer city gate, he must think that there is heresy in Chaoyi. He doesn't know what to do, so he will definitely lead his troops to rush in!"

"At that time, we will close the city gate again and rely on the urn city, and he will become a thing in the urn!"

"As the so-called capture the thief and capture the king, as long as Zhu Fan is captured, what else do these Wu troops have to worry about?"

After all, Chaoyi is the capital of Chao State, and it is also the largest military stronghold of Chu State in the east.Therefore, the fortifications of this city are extremely complete, and every city gate has an urn.

There is an outer city and an urn city, so Sun Wu just asked Chao Niuchen to open the gate of the outer city. Even if Zhu Fan entered the inner city, obviously he would not be able to break through the urn city in a short time.

And as long as the Wengcheng is not broken, then Zhu Fan, who has the habit of personally charging into battle, will become the fish on Sun Wu's chopping board.

But after hearing this, Chao Niuchen thought it was too unbelievable.After all, Zhufan led more than 1 Wu troops with high morale, and their total number of soldiers defending the city was only [-], and they had to disperse their troops to deploy defenses in other places.

Relying on these manpower alone, if not relying on strong city defense fortifications, how can they resist the more than 1 elite Wu troops in the hands of Zhufan?

Moreover, he has heard of Zhu Fan's bravery. The main force of your Chu army can withdraw more than ten formations one after another. Should I let him in now?Doesn't that mean they are caught without a fight?

"Impossible, this method is too dangerous. The safety of my nest city is now tied to this city, and I would never have taken such a risk."

Chao Niuchen thought about it for a while, but in the end he still didn't agree to Sun Wu's suggestion.

Although Chao State is a vassal state of Chu State, Chao State is still a country and has certain autonomy.So in this matter, if he does not agree, Sun Wu really has nothing to do.

Seeing this, Sun Wu had no choice but to use his trump card.

He took out another bronze token from his bosom, on which were engraved two big characters in Chu script——Wang Ling.

"Can the general recognize this thing?"

He sent the token to Chao Niuchen.

Chao Niuchen took a look at it with both hands, his hands trembled suddenly, and the token almost fell to the ground.

"This is... this is the token of King Chu!"

How could Chao Niuchen not recognize this token?

Every year when the Chao State pays tribute to the Chu State, the people who come to receive the tribute are holding this token representing the highest royal power of the Chu State!

It turned out that before Li Ran went to Shujiu with Wu Ju, the King of Chu secretly sent someone to give Li Ran a token of the King of Chu to express his trust in Li Ran.

On the one hand, of course, it is to further win over Li Ran.On the other hand, I also hope that Li Ran can play by ear, and that the Chu Kingdom can win the victory for him.

Chu Wang Xiongwei, how can he not know people?He knew very well that although Wu Ju was able to command and control the troops well, he often lacked ingenuity.

The King of Chu knew how difficult this expedition was, no less than pulling a tooth out of a tiger's mouth.If it is not a conspiracy, it is absolutely difficult to win.Therefore, he certainly hoped that with Li Ran's "wonderful thinking" he could win Shujiu for him!
After Li Ran and Wu Ju came to the front line, due to the complicated battle situation on the front line, and Wu Ju's command was good, and Li Ran didn't want to make a move, so this token has never been used.

Now that Sun Wu led the army to come to Chaoyi for rescue, Li Ran expected that the defender of Dingchao Town might not listen to Sun Wu, so he directly asked him to bring this token with him, just in case.

Sure enough, it was really used by him at this time.

"Seeing this token is like seeing the King of Chu!"

Sun Wu took the token from Chao Niuchen's hand and turned around towards the guards.

Immediately, including Chao Niuchen, everyone immediately knelt down on the ground.

"Will the general open the gate of the outer city now?"

Sun Wu questioned Chao Niuchen quite dignifiedly.

Hearing the sound, Chao Niuchen no longer hesitated, and immediately nodded in agreement.

Therefore, under the command of Sun Wu, Chao Niuchen immediately arranged the situation. First, he arranged all the city guards to ambush on the tower of the Wengcheng, and then erected a flag on the tower. The gates of the city were flung wide open.

(End of this chapter)