Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 555 549. Hefei City
In Hefei, Cao Xiu's eyes were dull. They had been trapped in the city by the Han army for more than a month. It was as if they were isolated from the outside world. They had not heard from the outside world for a long time.

At the beginning, the generals were in good spirits. Hefei was an important city, and the military food reserves in the city were not small, enough to feed the 20,000 troops for three months.

The number of 20,000 is naturally the number of defenders in Hefei before. Three months is also a relatively reasonable number. After all, Hefei is so important that if it were besieged, three months would be enough for the Wei army to send reinforcements several times. Therefore, these three months were considered to be thorough considerations by Chang Diao.

However, with more than 40,000 people in Hefei now, the rate of food consumption is naturally doubled, or even more than that. The official food is enough, but the food for the people is not so easy to say. Hefei is not a fortress or a checkpoint, full of soldiers, and the population of Hefei is not small, so the amount of food consumed every day is not a small number.

The war came suddenly, and the Han army wiped out half of Cao Zhen's soldiers in one battle, forcing Cao Xiu to be trapped in the city temporarily.

Cao Xiu originally planned to rest for two days and then break out of the city, or at least disperse the Han army outside the city. However, Cao Xiu found that the Han army outside the city did not seem to want to attack the city.

The Han army dug trenches and built earth walls outside the city, making it seem like they were the defending side. Cao Xiu also understood that although the Wei army had suffered a great loss and lost many soldiers, they actually had the advantage in numbers. As long as the Wei soldiers recovered, Cao Xiu would still be the dominant side.

However, it is obvious that the commander of the Han army was not a fool. They did not have many troops under the city of Hefei, so they simply used defense as offense. They did not seek to completely annihilate Cao Xiu, but only to keep Cao Xiu in Hefei.

Cao Xiu tried to break out, but the Han army's defense obviously did not consider siege, so the four gates of Hefei were blocked by layers of defense facilities. Especially the east and north gates, which had water barriers, so the attackers could not use them, but conversely, it was also difficult for the defenders to break out.

As for the west and south gates, it was even more difficult. As soon as the Wei army opened the city gates, they would be attacked by the rain of arrows from the Han army. After finally rushing out of the city, they would face a complex network of trenches, chevaux de frise, and earth walls. Cao Xiu broke through twice, but not only did he not achieve anything, he also lost a lot of people, which made Cao Xiu even more irritable.

Because Cao Xiu knew that he had become a beast caught in a trap, and it was very likely that his life or death was no longer something he could decide.

"We can only hope that Guangling or Luoyang can react and send troops to assist us."

Cao Xiu thought about it for half a month, but still couldn't think of a way to break out. He could only hope that he could defend Hefei like Cao Ren did in the Battle of Fancheng, waiting for the Wei State to react and rescue him.

But now, the food seems to be insufficient, which is Cao Xiu's biggest problem at present. There is no way, being trapped in Hefei is not what Cao Xiu could have expected, and the food rations of the people in the city are almost finished. If Cao Xiu does not do something, it is estimated that the people in the city will have to eat their own children in a short time.

The Han army outside the city seemed to have noticed that the situation in the city was not very good. I don’t know whether they saw the soldiers who were pale and thin because they could only drink thin porridge every day, or heard the riots from time to time in the city. Anyway, the Han army did know that there was a shortage of food in the city.

Every day, some letters full of inflammatory words were shot into the city, from persuading the surrender to promising enough food as long as they surrendered. Moreover, the Han army was so wicked that they even had to find people to eat and drink in front of the Wei army at lunch every day, or start barbecue in the upwind vent to let the barbecue aroma drift into Hefei.

The public opinion in the city could no longer be suppressed. For the common people, they did not care whether it was the Han army or the Wei army. They even heard that the tax of the Han army was lower. But now they felt the threat to their lives. In order to survive, even the most honest civilians would burst out with strength that others could not understand.

The wealthy families in the city were naturally different from the peasants and the lowly people. In this era, no one knew how many cellars these aristocratic families had, and how much gold, silver, jewelry, food, and weapons they hid. However, these wealthy families living in the city were still somewhat inferior to those who had independent manors or even fortresses.

The Han army had been besieging the city for more than a month, and many civilians began to starve. However, the Wei army still had a certain degree of control over the city, so it was not the turn of these lower-class people to rebel. However, even if the hard way did not work, the soft way would always work. There were many cases of theft and infiltration at night, and even many cases of embezzlement, which made the already depressing atmosphere in the city even worse.

Because the Han army had laid siege to the city, all kinds of resources could not enter the city, not to mention salt, vegetables, meat and the like. Fortunately, most people could just make do with what they had and did not have that luxury.

"People of Hefei! We are not our enemies. Only Cao Xiu and the Wei army are our enemies! You were the people of the Han Dynasty a few years ago, but now you are just coerced by the Wei State. If there are people with lofty ideals who can open the city gates, not only will we not blame you, but we will also reduce taxes for Hefei for three years!"

After the Han army had besieged the city for a month, they not only shot some letters in every day or feasted with the soldiers, but also began to openly persuade the city of Hefei to surrender.

However, Hefei City has not yet reached the point where it has run out of ammunition and food, and Cao Xiu is still there. As long as he is in Hefei, there is still a backbone.

However, this situation did not change until ten days later. On the one hand, the food in the city had been consumed, and even small-scale looting had occurred among the people. The edible grass and trees in the city had long been eaten up.

Secondly, reinforcements from the Han army arrived.

It was not the Luoyang reinforcements that Cao Xiu had hoped for, or Jiang Ji's Guangling reinforcements, but the Han army coming from the direction of Shouchun.

When Cao Xiu saw the Han army coming from the direction of Shouchun, he felt that something was wrong. But when the Han army brought another man to the city, Cao Xiu's heart completely died.

"Cao Xiu, you should know this person, right?"

Ding Feng at the foot of the city pushed over a man tied up like a hairy crab and shouted. On the wall of Hefei, there was still dead silence as usual, as if everyone in the city had died.

Cao Xiu naturally knew the other party, that was Cao Cao's son, Cao Yu, the King of Xia Pi. Cao Xiu was in charge of Huainan, so naturally he knew the other party, and the two even had a good relationship.

Needless to say, after the Han army broke through the Guangling defense line, they split into several groups and attacked directly into the heart of Xuzhou. Although Xiapi City was high and deep, the Han army used the flags and military tokens of the Wei army, combined with Deng Ai's understanding of the Wei army, so that cities like Xuzhou could not expect that the Han army had already attacked.

Even if they wanted to resist, the county soldiers, who could only maintain order and deal with bandits on weekdays, had no intention of resisting when facing the elite Han army.

In addition, Liu Bei had ruled Xuzhou for quite a long time in the past, and many people in Xuzhou still remembered Liu Bei's benevolent rule and were not so resistant to the Han army.

(End of this chapter)