At the foot of Jiangling City, Zhou Yu looked helplessly at the map in the military tent without saying a word.
The time has come to the beginning of July, and two months have passed since Soochow officially launched its strategy to attack Jingzhou.
But Zhou Yu's current mood is still not peaceful.
The offensive was launched for two months, from early summer to early autumn, and the siege attack had also been carried out for a month, but there was still little progress.
An army of one hundred thousand, and now nearly ten thousand people have been lost in battle, but they have not even had the chance to climb to the top of Jiangling City. They knew Zhang Xi was difficult to deal with several times, but they did not expect Zhang Xi to be so difficult to deal with.
As time goes by, the longer the war lasts, the more disadvantageous it is to the Soochow Army.
The first disadvantage is the problem of food and grass supply for these hundreds of thousands of troops.
Hundreds of thousands of people, a day's consumption of horse chews is not a small number. Coupled with long-distance transportation, whether it is transporting grain and grass from Jingnan, or transporting grain and grass from Jiangdong through the Yangtze River waterway, the number of civilians who need to be recruited is not small amount.
No matter how big the Soochow family is, maintaining an army of more than 100,000 soldiers is still very stressful.
If this consumption continues and insufficient progress is made, the logistical pressure alone will bring down the Soochow Army.
The second disadvantageous factor is the reinforcements that may appear at any time from the Shu army.
Xiangyang, on the other hand, had seen through their own plan to mislead the enemy, and took out a hand to go south to support them.
Although he responded in time and sent Quan Cong to intercept him midway, Zhou Yu was not sure whether he could stop him.
This is only the reinforcements from Xiangyang. If we include the reinforcements from Bajun in Shu, it will be a big problem.
Although Zhu Ran's navy was responsible for intercepting them midway, if the Shu army in Bajun did not take the water route, but set off by land, crossed the rugged mountain roads, and came to Yidu County to help, Zhu Ran's navy would be defeated. Stopped a lonely one.
Therefore, Zhou Yu is also thinking now, should he divide his troops and let Lu Xun lead 10,000 soldiers to attack Yidu County first to intercept possible reinforcements from Shu? !
Of course, the most important disadvantage is that no matter how the Jiangling City in front of them blocks the reinforcements of the Shu army, if they cannot capture the Jiangling City in front of them, everything will be in vain.
But... whether it's a crossbow battle or an attrition ant attack, there's still no good way to take advantage of Jiangling.
And Zhang Xi, this bastard, is staying in Jiangling City and attacking without dividing his troops, determined to fight you. Zhou Yu has nothing to do with Zhang Xi.
As for other siege methods, such as water attack, Sun Sheng actually proposed it.
Jiangling City is close to the Yangtze River. It is not impossible to divert water from the Yangtze River and irrigate Jiangling City.
But for this suggestion, not to mention Zhou Yu, Lu Xun and others, even Zhuge Ke rolled their eyes and sneered at Sun Sheng.
Please, we are accumulating heavy troops in the south to besiege Jiangling City, and the terrain of Jiangling City is high in the north and low in the south. If the Yangtze River water floods Jiangling City, will it flood the enemy or ourselves? ! !
Can't you use some brains when planning? These were Zhuge Ke's exact words, which almost made Sun Sheng angry.
No matter how you say it, Sun Sheng is still a general of the Sun clan, and he is a veteran who has been in the army for more than ten years. How can he feel better after being ridiculed by a junior like Zhuge Ke?
But Sun Sheng couldn't say anything. It wasn't that he thought his strategy was inferior to others. The main reason was that Zhuge Ke was not only the son of Zhuge Jin, but he also had a close relationship with the prince Sun Deng.
This is a member of the princeling party. No matter what Sun Sheng does, he can't offend the prince, can he?
As a clan general, Sun Sheng knew the reason why he was now able to lead an army alone, so he could only swallow this matter hard.
Similarly, it can be seen that Zhuge Ke was so arrogant and domineering at this time, and Zhou Yu saw it, but there was always a hint of gloom in his heart.
No matter who the next generation of Soochow is, they don’t look very reliable.
But in any case, Zhuge Ke can see this, which shows that he is not the kind of person who is brave and foolhardy, but his character and temper are somewhat of a problem. Zhou Yu still reprimanded Zhuge Ke and comforted Sun Sheng at the same time.
This was actually wiping Zhuge Ke's butt, but Zhuge Ke didn't seem to appreciate it very much. After the military meeting ended, he returned to his east gate defense area overnight.
Zhou Yu didn't even know what to say.
Regardless of the junior, the most important thing now is to consider how to capture Jiangling. Zhou Yu continued to think about strategies to defeat the enemy, but then, he was disturbed by an urgent military report, which made his whole heart confused.
The military report was sent by Lu Dai from Gong'an City, and this military report has become the biggest variable in the current battle of Jiangling.
Moreover, it was a variable that neither Zhou Yu nor Zhang Xi expected.
Wuling County was attacked by the Shu army.
Zhou Yu really couldn't figure out what method the Shu army used to secretly attack Wuling County now that Wuling County was in the rear area.
As for this, Lu Dai explained it in the battle report. This matter has something to do with Lu Dai.
The person who attacked Wuling County was none other than Shi Bao.
At first, Shi Bao led less than 3,000 soldiers and horses, broke out from the west gate of Lingyang County, and penetrated into the mountains of Wuling County.
At that time, Lu Dai judged that Shi Bao was either lost in the mountains of Wuling County, or was betrayed by the Wuxi barbarians of Wuling County, and had his head cut off to come to Da Wu to receive the reward. Lu Dai really didn't expect that Shi Bao was actually there. There was such a big commotion in the mountains of Wuling County.
In fact, at the beginning, Shi Bao never thought that he would one day return to Wuling County.
Shi Bao's original intention was to take advantage of Wuxi Man's territory, take a detour to the temporary ferry on the bank of the Yidu County River, and retreat to Jiangling. But when Shi Bao arrived at Wuxi Man's territory, he found that things were not what he thought. Yes, it seems a little different.
First of all, several tribal leaders of Wuxi Barbarians have a very good attitude towards themselves.
Essentially, Shi Bao was defeated and fled to the Wuxi Barbarians' territory, so Shi Bao was still wary of the Wuxi Barbarians. It was impossible for Shi Bao not to know the virtues of the foreigners these days.
Shi Bao also didn't want to have his head cut off in his sleep.
Therefore, at the beginning, Shi Bao was still cautious. But he couldn't stand it anymore. Several Wuxi barbarian tribes were very friendly to Shi Bao.
Shi Bao's original intention was just to borrow a way, so he didn't ask too much from Wuxi Man. He wanted to have good relations with several leaders of Wuxi Man. His purpose was just to hope that they could provide a few guides to lead him out of the mountains of Wuling County.
But who knew that this group of Wuxi barbarians not only enthusiastically provided a guide, but also presented a batch of grain and grass to Shi Bao.
The most terrible thing is that the Wuxi barbarians are still trying to figure out when the Han army will return to Wuling County. They will definitely welcome Master Wang.
Damn it, are all the foreign races these days so submissive to kings? !
Shi Bao began to pay attention at that time, trying to find the reason for the alien's attitude.
Originally, Shi Bao thought that he would need some intrigue to learn the truth about what they had really done from the mouths of Wuxi Man. However, Shi Bao opened his mouth and asked, from the leader of the Wuxi Man tribe to the ordinary members of the Wuxi Man tribe. Everyone, everyone who pours beans through bamboo tubes has spoken.
Actually, the Wuxi barbarians were indeed quite unruly in the early years. They have always been a source of instability in Wuling and Lingling counties.
Including when Liu Bei had just conquered the four counties of Jingnan, the Wuxi Barbarians had the same attitude.
After all, Wuling County is mountainous, and life in the mountains is really difficult. Now that the Han people have come, they want to restore the rule here, make the Wuxi Barbarians bear all kinds of taxes, and plunder the last bit of food from the Wuxi Barbarians. Who can do this! ?
Therefore, at the beginning, the Wuxi barbarians were hostile to the rule of the Han Dynasty.
However, I couldn't stand the person who implemented government affairs in the four counties of Jingnan at the beginning, named Zhuge Liang, and I couldn't stand the people who later guarded Wuling County, one named Xu Shu and the other named Xi Hong.
Xu Shu's own political ability was not bad, and he almost completely followed Zhuge Liang's governance strategy without changing it at all.
Xi Hong himself was very popular among the Wuxi Barbarians. Almost most of the leaders of the Wuxi Barbarian tribes had friendships with Xi Hong. Samoko, the titular barbarian king at the time, had a close friendship with Xi Hong.
Under the governance of these two people, Wuxi Man's life was actually quite good. At least he didn't have to worry about not being able to survive when winter came, and he didn't have to worry about being oppressed by the Han people when he went out to trade.
However, after being oppressed and exploited for many years, Wuxi barbarians still did not dare to have enough trust in the Han government although they felt that the current Han government was okay.
Coupled with the personal interests of the clan leaders and elders of the Wuxi Barbarians, the Wuxi Barbarians and the Han government have always maintained an inseparable relationship.
Sometimes they would help the Han people for some price, but sometimes they could no longer survive in the mountains, so they would still go out to rob the Han people in order to seek a chance to survive.
All this was developing slowly until the Wu people in the east occupied Wuling County.
Soochow's attitude towards foreign races can basically be referred to the fate of Shanyue, which is a Dingkou and troop base, and it is the kind that is thrown away after use.
It doesn’t matter whether Wuxi Man can survive or not, as long as you come out of the mountains to farm for me, I don’t care about anything else.
It was only at this time that the leaders of the various tribes of the Wuxi Barbarians finally understood that the good Wu people in the Han government did not regard them as Wuxi Barbarians as human beings.
If there is a nominal leader like Shamoko within Wuxi Barbarians at this time, then Wuxi Barbarians do not have to suffer this penalty. It is a pity that Shamoko died of illness five years ago. Within the Wuxi Barbarians, due to various struggles for power and dissatisfaction with each other, there was great quarrel and they could not unite at all.
After the past few years, after Soochow Wu ruled Wuling County, the dissatisfaction of the Wuxi barbarians has accumulated more and more, and inevitably, many tribes will feel that it is actually allowed to be ruled by the Han government. Wu Ling is not something that cannot be accepted.
And this is why, after Shi Bao led his troops into the Wuling Mountains, he was welcomed by the Wuxi Barbarian tribe. They thought it was the Han government fighting back.
After figuring this out, Shi Bao was keenly aware that his opportunity to make a contribution and become a prince seemed to have come! ! !
(End of chapter)
