Overlord!

After hearing what Zhuge Liang said, all the generals in the tent had their thoughts moved.

Our army marched all the way from Qingzhou to Jizhou, crossing the county boundaries of Le'an, Jinan, Pingyuan, Qinghe, and Anping.

When it comes to rear supply issues, it is indeed a bit tricky.

Such a long supply line definitely requires troops to defend it.

As the army expanded its territory, a large number of troops were dispersed to various city defenses, and the number of troops available on the front line was inevitably reduced.

But did Gao Lan intend to attack the Song Army's food road?

Wei Yan frowned and asked, "Is Gao Lan so courageous and talented?"

It is not easy to cut off the Song army's food route, especially since Gao Lan is now holed up in Licheng County, Jinan, just one step west of Qingzhou. If he wanted to attack the Song Army's food road, he would have to go hundreds of miles eastward and deep into Qingzhou to find the Song Army's supply line.

The Song Army's Northern Expedition this time involved the entire country's efforts!

Even before the Northern Expedition, local governments had begun recruiting corvees and mobilizing people.

Therefore, transporting grain to Hebei is not entirely by water.

This resulted in the Zhao army being unable to find the Song army's supply line along the river, and marching from Qingzhou to Hebei was not an extremely excellent military route.

Although since ancient times, the Northern Expedition has often marched north from the Qingzhou Governor's Department, and the Southern Expedition has often had Youzhou cavalry attacking Jinan, various military generals considered this place because of its important location and close geographical distance. In fact, there is no through-line here. The main waterway between north and south.

Transporting supplies to the troops was almost entirely dependent on farmers' shoulders. Therefore, the Song army sent grain to Hebei by both sea and land routes, but the cost was extremely high.

Although there was only one accident at sea due to the storm, six ships were sunk, and the consumption of the civilians on the shore was not weaker than that of the frontline soldiers.

In this case, if the Qingzhou supply line is attacked again.

Not only the front line is short of food, but the entire Song Dynasty may be short of food.

The general of the Song Army just felt that Gao Lan was not a peerless general and did not have the courage or ability to cut off the Song Army's food route, so he boldly bypassed him and attacked Anping.

So Zhuge Liang replied: "Although Gao Lan is not a famous general, he is still a useful general. He can carry out military orders and give orders strictly. Now Yuan Shang is blocking my army at the foot of Xiabo City. How can Gao Lan not cut us off?" After that? Moreover, Song has more infantry, and the infantry is in danger; Zhao has more Hu cavalry, and Hu cavalry has the advantage of leveling the ground. How can the Zhao army not take advantage of this to harass our rear?"

Zhuge Liang said that this was also the Song Army's biggest headache at present. As the Song Army's Northern Expedition deepened, the Zhao Army gradually adapted from the initial panic. They began to take advantage of the cavalry to continuously harass the Song Army's rear.

The Hebei Plain is flat and vast, which is where Zhao's cavalry comes into play.

This is because Yuan Shang was timid and only retreated to Xiabo. If he retreated further north to the Anping area, the Song army attacking Zhao now would be no different from the Northern Song Dynasty attacking Youzhou City. The infantry went deep and the enemy cavalry was behind them. Attacks and harassment from all directions made the Northern Expedition army miserable.

Even Yuan Shang knew that he could not let the Song army besiege the city unscrupulously. In the art of war, passively defending was equivalent to waiting for death!

Therefore, his army has been attacking outwards, and the infantry is undoubtedly defending the city, but his cavalry has been attacking from the north line of the city, disrupting the Song army's siege, and even harassing the Song army's rear.

No matter what, he still has more than 20,000 elite infantry and cavalry. Don't always think that the size of the army should be hundreds of thousands. That's all bragging.

In fact, the size of the army was very large when it reached 10,000. Yuan Shang led 20,000 troops to Xiaba. The size of his army was two or three times larger than the population of the city.

Today, a county with 50,000 or 60,000 people is already a prosperous, prosperous, and densely populated large county.

Twenty thousand people guard such a county. As long as their military morale is stable and they have enough food and grass, they can defend it forever, for hundreds of days or even years at a time.

Therefore, Yuan Shang's cavalry can attack calmly.

The problem of the Zhao army has always been that it has a strong force but lacks good generals. They may not be able to show their strength in a battle of equal strength, but at the moment, even Yuan Shang can handle this kind of battle where they are defending the city.

If they were really allowed to stay here for hundreds of days while the main force of the Zhao army rushed to suppress them, the Song army would probably be defeated at the foot of Bo City.

When the main force of the Zhao army was mentioned, all the generals were solemn.

The war has reached this point, and even if the Zhao army is slowly retreating, the main force of the army should dispatch a lot of people back to Jizhou.

Zhang Liao's troops were heading to the southwest, so they were undoubtedly setting up defenses in the southwest, not only to prevent the food route from being cut off, but also to prevent the enemy's reinforcements from coming to the rescue when our own side was attacking the city.

So, the only problem now is how to break the game.

The gains and losses of this city are comparable to the Battle of Youzhou in the Northern Expedition to Yanyun.

But it is indeed not easy to capture Xiabo City. Although it is not a major military town, there are 20,000 Zhao troops gathered here. The Song army only has a slight advantage, and it is not several times that of the enemy.

To conquer Xiabo City is really a test of the generals' talents and bravery in the army.

At this time, Tai Shici spoke and said: "From what I have seen, Yuan Shang is not a famous general. It may also be related to the flat terrain around Xiabo. Yuan Shang's deployment is slightly conservative."

"Since ancient times, good soldiers who defended the city did not huddle their troops inside the city. Instead, they would rely on the geographical situation around the city to build a military town for defense, with mountains and rivers at the top and hills and ravines at the bottom. For example, on the surrounding mountains and highlands Set up camps and fortresses, or set up arrow towers around the moat, etc.”

"But since Xiabo is located on a plain, with only the Zhang River as a screen, and unable to set up a military town or set up a fort outside the city, I thought that we could just divert the Zhang River to siege the city, then surround the enemy, and then besiege the city for reinforcements."

Besieging a city for reinforcements is one of the most famous and difficult tactics in the art of war!

Because once it is not done properly, it will evolve into a situation where the defenders and reinforcements should cooperate internally and externally, and the center will bloom, causing the siege army to return with a disastrous defeat.

Just thinking about it makes it clear that the siege army of more than 30,000 people outside the city and the defenders and reinforcements fought hard in the field for a day and night. Then the 20,000 defenders were waiting for work. After the enemy army was exhausted, they attacked from the city and attacked the enemy. What kind of rout will form after the army!

Basically, the successful cases of siege and rescue are as glorious as the failed cases!

Moreover, there are only a handful of successful siege cases, but there are countless cases of failed battles due to the arrival of enemy reinforcements!

It is true that the Song Army's purpose in this battle was to kill the Zhao Army's elite as much as possible, but such a deployment was actually a bit too risky.

The more important problem is that the Song Army has not completed the siege of Xiabo until now.

There are a large number of counselors in Yuan Shang's army, and their military ability is much higher than that of Cao Hong.

During the Song army's siege of the city by digging ditches and trenches, the Zhao army repeatedly left the city to counterattack, making it impossible for the Song army to successfully encircle the city.

In addition, the Song army wanted to conquer it all at once, so they dug mountains of earth and tunnels around the city, which also hindered the encirclement of the trenches.

So Wenpin frowned and said: "Now that the Zhao army has repeatedly left the city and counterattacked, why can the trenches be surrounded?"

Taishi Ci said at this time: "It can be used as a deception. Our army will destroy the mountains and tunnels, which will make the city happy. Then we will dig shallow ditches to show that if they can be crossed, the defenders in the city will not come out to fight for profit."

"When the ditch is surrounded and surrounded, then dredge it overnight, making it two feet wide and two feet deep, and divert water from Zhangzhou to irrigate it. This will make it impossible for the city to come back!"

"The city of Xiabo is small, so it is heavily fortified, but it also makes the siege easy!" The last sentence successfully persuaded Zhuge Liang.

Draining water from Zhangzhou to flood the city is the most suitable way to attack the city at the moment. Not only can it besiege the city, but the city wall of Xiabo is made of blocks. If it is soaked in water, it will definitely collapse.

When the time comes, the army takes the opportunity to enter, which is also a way to destroy the city!

So Zhuge Liang nodded and said: "I will carry out what General Taishi said!"

And Taishi Ci was worthy of being a wise man in the world, and everything turned out as expected.

When Yuan Shang saw that the Song army had evacuated the mountains and tunnels, and dug underground ditches instead, he actually laughed at it and ordered the soldiers not to go out of the city to fight for profits.

Without the mountains and tunnels, he could defend the city longer.

Both the enemy and ourselves knew that the longer the war was delayed, the more detrimental it would be to the Song army.

Not only will the Song Army lose the surprising effect of its early magic weapons, but it will also become increasingly difficult for the Song Army to supply food and grass.

Especially after several months of confrontation, the food and grass accumulated by the Song Army on the front line in the early stage were exhausted, and they could only rely on the land east of the Yangtze River to continuously transfer northward from Jiankang. The supply pressure on the Song Army would be unprecedentedly huge.

The Northern Expedition of the Song Army was actually forced and a little hasty.

Although the senior officials of the Song Dynasty had been preparing for this for a year or two, the world did not follow the will of the Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers.

Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou and other places in the Central Plains have just experienced wars. The people suffered heavy casualties and were suffering from hunger. The fertile farmland has not been restored.

As a result, the vitality here has not been fully restored, and the food and grass that can be provided is very limited.

If the Song army wanted to support the army's Northern Expedition, which spanned thousands of miles, it could only rely on money and food from Jiangdong.

Jiankang is indeed rich in wealth. It is backed by the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River. Jiankang's treasury is full and the granary is full, but it is not easy to transfer it to Hebei.

Even if later generations can transport millions of stones to the Central Plains and Peiping a year, it will be a national event, let alone today.

According to Hebei's estimates, Jiangdong's grain transshipment to the Central Plains per year will not exceed two million dan, or more than one million at most. Even if they lay the foundation early, the grain reserves on the front line will only be 3 to 4 million dan at most.

These three to four million shi of food supply the needs of 100,000 troops and more than 200,000 civilians for thousands of miles, and may only last from ten months to a year.

This is also Yuan Shao's calculation for daring to proclaim himself emperor. The earlier he proclaims himself emperor, the more passive Sun Ce will be.

If he really insists on proclaiming himself emperor again in the last five or six years, and waits for the recovery of vitality in the Central Plains, millions of additional grains will be collected.

The Song and Zhao armies fought in Hebei for two or three years, and it was the Zhao army that was the first to be unable to hold on.

But in the current situation, Zhao Jun is of course willing to delay. If the war remains in a stalemate for a year, the Song Army's Northern Expedition will probably end hastily. By then, Zhao Jun may be unwilling to cease the war.

They used troops in Hebei, and their food consumption was far less serious than that of the Song army.

Therefore, Yuan Shang watched with a smile on the top of the city as the Song army dug a shallow trench. Even when the trench was about to be completed, he sent cavalry to attack, crossed the trench and once again disturbed the Song army's fortification operations. They also sent out surprise troops to harass the Song Army's grain road, burning nearly a hundred carts of grain, causing the Song Army to lose more than two thousand stones of grain and grass.

But in late February, the defenders could no longer laugh!

A spring rain in February made the soil outside the city extremely soft, and the heavy rain made it impossible for the cavalry to attack.

As a result, the Song army, regardless of the rain, wore raincoats and widened the trench overnight. The trench was two feet wide overnight. Taishi Ci, the general of the Song army, dug water into it and poured it into it. The water was more than two feet deep!

Although the Han system is small, it is more than two meters long, and the two-foot-deep trench is already as high as four and a half meters. At this depth, let alone a human being, even a cavalryman would sink directly to the bottom if he fell into it.

Yuan Shang was shocked at this time and immediately ordered the cavalry to attack. However, the cavalry drowned hundreds of people in the ravine and failed to fill the ravine.

Zhangshui is not a small river. Its flowing water is so turbulent that even the ravines are filled with running water, and a large number of soldier corpses were washed away.

More importantly, the heavy rain greatly slowed down the return of the Zhao army's main force!

Yuan Shang relied on the reinforcements to march at a speed of no more than thirty miles a day, and the forced march caused many soldiers to get sick, and dysentery was rampant.

All this seems to be Sun Ce's luck!

The morale of the Song army was greatly boosted, and they were all ready to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop.

But in fact, all this is just a matter of time.

At the turn of spring and summer, it is easy for the Central Plains to get rain, otherwise wheat fields, millet seedlings and the like would probably die of drought.

The complete siege of the city by the Song Army led to another extremely serious situation for the Zhao Army, that is, they could no longer obtain supplies from Zhangshui.

More than 20,000 soldiers and nearly 10,000 civilians, a total of more than 30,000 people, consumed a huge amount of food!

Xiabo was not a major military town before, and there were not many granaries in the city. Soon there was a food shortage in the city.

During the war, soldiers consumed at least two dan of rations for a month. These 30,000 people plus war horses would not be able to sustain themselves without a supply of 60,000 dan of food and grass for a month.

The siege lasted only five days, and the people in the city were forced to kill horses to satisfy their hunger.

It is not a military town or a place for granary storage. If a county can store two thousand dan of grain, it means the county magistrate is very talented. If it can store 10,000 to 20,000 dan of grain, then the county magistrate is a genius in the world!

Not to mention the Han Dynasty where supplies were scarce, even in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties when food was very abundant in later generations, this county magistrate was famous enough for a while, and promotion was inevitable. Soon he will be promoted to prefect, governor, envoy, governor, etc.

But even 20,000 stones of food and fodder is still a drop in the bucket for the huge defenders in the city.

Soon more than half of the soldiers in the city were killed or injured, not only because of lack of food, but also because of the soldiers contracting diseases.

This heavy rain can be said to be God's blessing to Sun Ce. It rained intermittently for four days and three nights!

Many soldiers of Yuan's army did not have raincoats or military tents. They could only huddle on the city wall holding their halberds, getting soaked by the rain.

There wasn't even much dry firewood in the city. It was constantly being soaked by rain. The soldiers lacked food and clothing, and even less food and grass. The attrition was very serious.

Under such circumstances, after more than ten days of delay, the main force of Zhao's army finally arrived in Anping.

The sun appeared, but it could not dispel the haze on Zhao Jun's head. The Song army, who was waiting for work, was full of morale. Zhao Jun appeared on the battlefield at this time, and the situation was not optimistic. (End of chapter)