Overlord!

Qiao Rui was a general of the Zhong family. His surrender revealed Huainan's military defense situation, making Sun Ce's deployment of the Northern Expedition suddenly clear and sharp.

Knowing the enemy's deployment situation well, Sun Ce immediately ordered Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, and Lu Meng to lead an army each to pacify the counties in Huainan, lead the army to attack the empty land, and then enter the siege of Zhongli.

This is an important military town along the Huaihe River. Its status in defending the army going upstream in the east is exactly the same as that of Hefei defending the army in the south.

Sun Ce, on the other hand, led his own main force to attack Shouchun!
Shouchun City, the first city in Huainan, has a current status comparable to Jiankang, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties in later generations!
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, this city was the capital of Cai State. During the Warring States Period, it was the residence of Huang Xie, Lord of Chunshen.In the late period of the Chu State, under the strong military pressure of the Qin State, it was forced to move the capital eastward step by step.The last Yingdu (the capital of Chu State) was Shouchun.

As the capital of the Chu State and the center of politics, economy and culture, Shouchun soon became a premier metropolis and a military center in the Jianghuai River.After Qin destroyed Chu and was replaced by the Han Dynasty, Shouchun still did not decline and became the capital of Huainan King Liu An.

But it may be due to bad feng shui. Since the Han Dynasty, every king who established his capital in Shouchun has a rebellious heart.

Whether it is Huainan Wang Yingbu, Huainan Wang Liu Chang, Liu An, or even the current Yuan Shu, they all want to become an emperor.

In addition to Feng Shui, probably the biggest reason for such a situation is that Huainan is so wealthy!
Even if Yuan Shu was at the end of his rope, Sun Ce could still obtain more than [-] Yuan Shu's workers and propaganda troops after conquering Lujiang in history, as well as Yuan Shu's wife.

Nowadays, the severe drought in Huainan has just begun, and Shouchun City has not yet been severely damaged. The population of this city alone is more than [-]!

Especially during the war in the Central Plains, countless scholars and powerful people took refuge in Huainan, which greatly increased the population of Shouchun, making the city's population probably close to 20.

The giant city was defenseless, let alone other things. Shouchun's granary in Shaopi was taken by Sun Ce. After the Jiangdong army besieged the city, how to supply the 20 people with food was a problem.

It doesn't take ten days to besiege the city, and the city will be filled with people dying of hunger and couples eating each other.

Yuan Shu could not sit back and watch Sun Ce successfully siege the city. Sun Ce's army arrived at Shouchun City in early April. On April [-], Yuan Shu led his general Han Yin to lead [-] troops out of the south city and crossed the bridge to occupy Sun Ce.

However, Xu Sheng was defeated by Sun Ce's general Xu Sheng. Xu Sheng was heroic and courageous. He led more than a thousand troops and fired arrows randomly, disrupting the enemy's formation. collapse.Xu Sheng took advantage of the situation and fought hard, concealing the killing to the bottom of the city, causing heavy casualties to the enemy.

Yuan Shu's puppet officials, Hu Ben Zhonglang General Yuan Yuanchang, Lang Zhongling Zhang Cheng, school captain Wan Yu and others died in the battle.

On April [-]th, Yuan Shu ordered general Zhang Xun to attack Sun Ce's camp at night, but the attack failed and hundreds of people were lost.

On April [-], Yuan Shu ordered his subordinate Huainan Yin Liuwei to lead an army of five thousand to surprise the soldiers filling the river outside the city.But as soon as the army left the city and before the battle began, there was a rebellion by a wealthy family in the city who wanted to seize the city gate.

The soldiers who left the city were shocked and the display was in chaos.Jiangdong general Gan Ning immediately ignored the summons of his soldiers and rode in, riding alone into the formation, and killed Yin Liuwei of Henan, the puppet court appointed by Yuan Shu.

Cheng Pu took advantage of the enemy's chaos and sent [-] troops to attack the enemy's formation. The enemy army collapsed in the face of the wind. Thousands of people fell into the river and died, and their corpses were buried in the ravines.

After suffering these heavy losses one after another, the morale in the city became even lower!
Under the city, Sun Ce also began to recruit strong men from all over Huainan, filled in the moat, set up ladders, well railings, rush carts, etc. to storm the city.

At the same time, trenches were dug and fortifications were built, and the city was besieged so that the enemy troops could not receive any food and grass.

Yuan Shu's military rations transferred from the north bank of the Huaihe River were attacked as soon as they left Runan and were transported to Jiujiang, resulting in the loss of thousands of stones of grain and grass.

But the army succeeded in all directions, and it failed to conquer until May.

However, the city is already short of food. One piece of silk is only worth three liters of millet, ten pieces of cloth are worth one liter of salt, and the precious clothing is as cheap as dirt.The people ate all the grass roots, wood and leaves, and then collected the floating mud and put rice crumbs into it to make cakes and eat them. After eating, they all became ill, their bodies were swollen and their heels were soft, and the dead were leaning against each other on the road.

It was so tragic in the city, and Sun Ce's situation outside the city was not much better.

The army was unable to attack the city, and the soldiers in the army were not only exhausted, but also their fighting spirit gradually declined.All the officials wanted to return to Jiangdong, and the more than [-] men and women who moved to Jiujiang and Lujiang returned to Jiangdong.

This was not only because the soldiers in the south of the Yangtze River lacked interest in the Northern Expedition, but more importantly, in May, the severe drought situation in Huainan finally emerged.

In the land of Huainan, the red land is thousands of miles away, and the red sun is scorching. The land is all dry and cracked. Except for the hundred-mile land in Shaopi, the fertile fields and wheat seedlings in all counties and counties have died of drought. It is a foregone conclusion that the entire Huainan will have no harvest.

Therefore, in Sun Ce's camp, there were a lot of quarrels every day.

And this time, even Sun Ce couldn't make up his mind about the quarrel.

Because of the two sides in the quarrel, Zhang Hong and Liu Ye are the main ones, and Jia Xu and Lu Su are the main ones!
Both sides were quarreling with each other, and both sides were extremely reasonable.

Jia Xu and Lu Su had proposed to Sun Ce to withdraw their troops several times.

Jia Xu was relatively low-key and only mentioned it once because he wanted to protect his own safety, while Lu Su had a more resolute attitude because he had always been in important positions.

Under the command of Xu Kun, he marched from the lower reaches of the Huaihe River and attacked Shouchun. He also cooperated with Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Lu Meng and other troops to encircle Zhongli.

Zhongli's tens of thousands of defenders saw that Shouchun had been besieged. They lost control and could not defend for a long time. Therefore, after holding on for more than ten days, they were forced to surrender.

The Right Route Army captured the largest military town along the Huaihe River in the First World War, and had to surrender more than [-] soldiers, as well as a large amount of military supplies such as food, grass, and equipment. Their reputation was greatly boosted, and they marched into Shouchun with great fanfare to participate in the encirclement of the enemy. The capital of the country.

However, the siege lasted for more than a month and they were unable to capture the city, and the morale of the soldiers was already low despite the scorching sun.

The point is that this kind of siege is meaningless!
After a day of attacking the city with no results, Lu Su found Sun Ce again at night and said solemnly to Sun Ce: "General, now between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River, there is a thousand miles of red land, and the drought is serious. There is no need for us to suffer under Shouchun City. In Shouchun City We have already run out of food, and the counties have no crops. Even if we give up the siege, Yuan Shu will be disintegrated and scattered, and he will be defeated in vain."

"The top priority is to help the people! If we can collect the 30 people from Huainan and return south, enrich the south of the Yangtze River, store crops, and teach mulberry farming, in less than two years, the east of the Yangtze River will be rich and the treasury will be full, and we can easily raise another [-] troops to go north. Huainan can be determined by your subordinates!"

"Otherwise, is the general going to transport millions of grains from the east of the river to the north to help the victims?"

The most fortunate thing now is that the intelligence coming from Jiangdong shows that the impact of drought in Jiangdong this year is not serious, and the weather in Wujun, Kuaiji and other places can even be considered smooth.The severe drought was mainly concentrated in the Huainan area, and even the impact on Huaibei was relatively small. Cao Cao's farming in Yingchuan was still a great success. This year, he has extended the farming from the Xu County area to all counties under his rule, including Yanzhou and Yuzhou. They are all working in the fields, and there is a lively scene everywhere, preparing for a good harvest.

Sun Ce marched into Huainan, which greatly relieved the pressure on his southern front. Cao Cao could fully recuperate and digest the newly conquered Runan, Chen, Pei, and Lu areas.

By now, most of Yanzhou and Yuzhou were in Cao Cao's hands. He connected counties across the states and governed two states and fourteen counties. He was already one of the strongest princes in the world.

But Sun Ce has not even occupied a single Yangzhou, and Jiujiang and Lujiang are still in Yuan Shu's hands.

More importantly, Yangzhou is far less developed than Yanzhou and Yuzhou.

The bustling population and vast cultivated land were limited to the Wuxian area, and even the area near Jiankang, the current administrative seat, was still very desolate.

Therefore, the opinions of Lu Su and Jia Xu are that now is not a good opportunity to destroy Yuan Shu. It is better to move 30 men and women from the Jianghuai River to the Jiankang area to enrich the population, develop production, and accumulate military strength.

After Yuan Shu declined on his own due to severe drought, he would lead his army northward and directly take over Huainan.

Seeing Sun Ce's silence, Lu Su said: "I know the general is unwilling. But this is also a helpless move under a severe drought. The red land in Huainan is thousands of miles away, and there is no food. The waterways are dry and there is no way for ships. All the luggage, grain, etc. We have to rely on Jiangdong to transport food all the way across thousands of miles. If we continue to consume it, the treasury may not be able to support it."

Sun Ce frowned and said, "Don't you still have the 200 million stones obtained from Shaopi to store grain?"

Lu Su said: "These two million stones of grain are indeed enough to support the army's siege. But if they are used to supply the chariots and riders, they are not enough to pacify the people of Huainan. We need to provide relief to 200 people. Not counting the losses on the road, we only need to provide disaster relief." More than three million stones of grain are needed every year. If the general uses all the stored grain for conquest, all the people in Huainan will be killed or injured, and even if the general conquers Shouchun, what will it do to the royal industry?"

Disaster relief is more costly than war.

In history, there was a severe drought in Guandong. Sima Yi transferred 500 million shi of grain from Guanzhong to Guandong, which alleviated the drought.

This made Sun Ce particularly unwilling to lead his troops and retreat like this.

What is the situation in Guanzhong?All the people were killed and injured, and people in the Qinchuan River for eight hundred miles were eating each other. In the end, there were probably only a few hundred people left in Guanzhong, and there was no rooster crow for a thousand miles!
However, from the Guanzhong Rebellion to the founding of Cao Wei, in just a dozen years, Guanzhong recovered to a population of one million, and was able to transport 500 million shi of grain to Guandong for disaster relief.

The advice and strategies Gao Cheng provided to the emperor were absolutely feasible and effective.

The same is true in Huainan.The fertile land here has vast plains, dense water networks, and perfect agricultural water conservancy.

If we can conquer this place, and take advantage of the thousands of miles of Jianghuai River, and manage it carefully, even if the drought is severe this year, it will be able to regain its vitality next year, and maybe we can accumulate millions of stones that year.

Of course, Sun Ce's refusal to retreat was definitely not because the bridge was still in Shouchun City.

Lu Su solemnly said: "But now Shouchun has been unable to attack for a long time, and the soldiers are exhausted. If the enemy's reinforcements come to attack, we may be in danger of overthrowing! Although Shouchun is trapped, the enemy is not without reinforcements. Pengcheng Lu Bu and Long The garrison at Kang and the garrison around Ru and Cai are all likely to come together."

"If we are trapped under a fortified city, and the enemy forces unite and arrive in large numbers, the offensive and defensive forces will be different."

After all, it is still a matter of failure to attack the city!
Although the giant city is defenseless, with today's siege methods, the enemy will not surrender even if they fight to the death. No matter how superior the siege army is, it will be difficult to defeat it quickly.

In the Battle of Chang'an, Li Jue and Guo Si had such a huge advantage, 10,000+ people besieged thousands of people, and the siege could not be defeated for eight days.In the end, Sichuan soldiers helped them steal the city gate and they were able to enter the city.As a result, when they entered the city, the street fighting was still unstoppable.In the end, siege and street fighting were added, and after more than ten days of fighting, Lu Bu was successfully defeated, forcing Lu Bu to lead more than [-] cavalry to flee.

Even if an army of 10,000+ attacked an empty city, Sun Ce had an army of [-] to attack a city of [-]. It was really not easy to conquer the city quickly.

If the army cannot attack for a long time, Yuan Shu's troops will come to help from all directions. It will indeed be a dangerous situation.

Sun Ce was still thinking, when a generous voice came from outside the tent: "The more this is the case, the more vigorous the general should be! Yuan Shu is poor and tied his face down. If Lu Bu and Tun Jiang come to help him from afar, the sky will Both of them will be destroyed."

Sun Ce and Lu Su turned around and looked at the same time. The person speaking was Zhang Hong, one of Sun Ce's most trusted ministers and the adviser who planned the entire Jiangdong strategy for him.

Zhang Hong walked into the tent and said sternly: "Although Yuan Shu has acquired a lot of land, he is just a subordinate. The only one who really listens to his orders and carries out the government orders is Shouchun City. Now his wisdom is limited, but he is limited. Day and night.”

"The general is coming in a big way, and he should do it once and for all. The counties in Huainan have surrendered to the wind, but the isolated city of Shouchun cannot last long. The success is almost done, so why abandon it! If we turn around now, the thieves will rise again. If If we are more connected, it will be difficult to figure it out later!”

"Even if the enemy has reinforcements, they are still north of the Huaihe River. The general should mobilize the navy to resist the dangers of the Huaihe River. Wait for the opportunity to move, and the enemy will be defeated!"

Now Sun Ce understands Yuan Shao's dilemma very well during the Battle of Guandu.

Every counselor's advice has a grand plan and can achieve great things.

Regarding the two suggestions made by Lu Su and Zhang Hong, who can decide whether they are right or wrong?Such incisive words and such penetrating analysis are a strategy that ordinary people would never even think of!

Moreover, the two of them had no personal grudges. On the contrary, because of Lu Su's generosity and Zhang Hong's elegance, the two had a pretty good personal relationship.Moreover, both were ministers of the shogunate who handled military affairs for Sun Ce in the army. The two also admired each other's talents and knowledge very much, and they felt like mountains and rivers.It is completely different from the contemptuous and domineering relationship between Xu Sheng, Zhang Fei, Gan Ning and Ling Cao.

All the strategies and plans of the two of them were also loyal to the country, and they were for Sun Ce to achieve great things.

But the reality is that their plans are completely opposite!
Lu Su wants to withdraw his troops, and wants to put people first, preserve his strength, and enrich Jiangdong. After Yuan Shu is trapped in Huainan and his power is broken, he will fight to determine the cause of Huainan.This can be said to be a battle without bloodshed, win first and then fight.

Zhang Hong, on the other hand, wanted to finish his work in one battle, and his attitude was very determined.

Zhang Hong sternly said: "Now that the merits are coming to an end, please general order that the teacher will not be returned before the Shouchun is broken, and those who dare to speak of the teacher will be killed! If you can't break through the city and defeat the thief, please general, please behead me as a thank you to the three armies." !" (End of this chapter)