Nearly 200,000 troops gathered at the southern border of Chenliu. Both sides' commanders were men with outstanding strategies. This battle between Chenliu and Chenliu was destined to be impossible to end in a short time.
There was some fighting on both sides.
Compared with Chen Liu's offense and defense, the battle on Dongjun's side was much simpler.
Wei Yan led 40,000 troops to attack Puyang, the prefecture of Dongjun with 11,000 guards. After nearly a month of fierce fighting, both sides suffered injuries to each other.
Wei Yan's side suffered nearly 4,000 casualties due to the attack on the city, and Guo Huai, who defended the city, also suffered more than 2,000 casualties, and the defender's strength once again fell below 10,000.
In fact, both Wei Yan and Guo Huai had headaches at this time.
What troubles Wei Yan is that if he continues to attack like this, although he is still sure that he can capture Puyang, it is hard to say what the casualties will be.
At this time, Jiang Wei proposed that he lead 10,000 troops to besiege Puyang City, and let Wei Yan lead the remaining 20,000 people to attack Suanzao and Yanjin to cut off the Wei army's retreat in Yanzhou.
This approach is theoretically feasible. With the current defensive strength of Suanzao and Yanjin, it will not be a problem for Wei Yan to capture these two places.
The real problem is to defend these two places.
Puyang City was unable to move forward, and it was like a nail stuck in the passage between Dong'a and Suanzao. Wei Yan's logistics supply passage was blocked.
Wei Yan now doesn't know how much food and grass is stored in Zizao and Yanjin, and whether it is enough to feed the more than 20,000 Han troops. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the logistics channels are smooth.
Although Jiang Wei led the troops to contain them, with Guo Huai's ability, it was not impossible for him to send a small number of troops out of the city to sneak attack on the grain transport team.
This is just one of them.
Secondly, Sima Yi, who was in Chenliu, would inevitably withdraw his troops and return to the defense to counterattack the Suanzao and Yanjin.
In terms of military strength, Wei Yan is sure that he can hold on for a while, but there is still a problem of food and grass. When he is besieged by Sima Yi, how can he have enough food and grass to support Wei Yan's defense until Xu Shu's main army arrives.
In fact, Wei Yan had also thought of the plan Jiang Wei gave, but it was a bit too risky and far-fetched. Even Wei Yan did not dare to use such a risky strategy.
But now, Wei Yan once again considered the feasibility of this combat plan.
After all, if a strong attack on Puyang results in serious damage to the troops, even if he can capture Puyang, he may not have enough troops to continue to march towards Suanzao and Yanjin.
Not to mention, he had to block Sima Yi's counterattack.
Rather than falling into passivity at that time, it is better to give it a try while you still have some energy left.
However, Wei Yan is still somewhat influenced by his old partner Zhang Xi, and is currently making a final assessment of how risky it is and whether it is worth it.
As for Guo Huai, actually Guo Huai doesn't want to stick to Puyang anymore.
The morale of the military was somewhat unsustainable.
Currently, there are about 9,000 soldiers guarding the city in Puyang City. From a purely military perspective, it is still possible to hold on for another month or so.
But the problem was that after being besieged and attacked for a long time, the soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and the morale of the defenders in the city had dropped seriously.
From the perspective of an outsider, you will see that there are still 9,000 defenders in Puyang City, which is not without the ability to fight. But from Guo Huai's perspective, he knows very well how many casualties have been suffered in the city since Puyang City was besieged. garrison.
In the early days, when Xiahou and others were guarding Puyang, they had suffered more than 6,000 casualties, and he had suffered more than 2,000 casualties while defending the city. In total, there were 8,000 or 9,000 people.
Counting Guo Huai's reinforcements, Puyang City should have been guarded by 20,000 people.
The casualties were nearly half.
If Guo Huai hadn't led his troops to help midway and entered Puyang City first, the morale of the Puyang City military would have collapsed long ago.
In this era, there are very few armies that can survive more than half of the casualties. As far as Guo Huai knows, perhaps only the Great Wei Imperial Army in the early years can do this.
Puyang City can be defended until now. On the one hand, they saw Guo Huai leading troops to help. The defenders realized that Wei had not abandoned them and had the courage to continue fighting. On the other hand, since Guo Huai could lead troops to help, other People may also lead troops to rescue Puyang at any time.
When the defenders had hope, they naturally had the courage to continue defending.
However, another month has passed since Guo Huai led his troops to rescue Puyang City. The number of troops defending the city has once again dropped to less than 10,000, but his own reinforcements have not yet arrived.
Under such circumstances, it is understandable that the morale of the Puyang defenders began to decline.
Therefore, Guo Huai had to consider, if he continued to defend like this, at what point would the morale of the defenders be unable to hold on and completely collapse? Should he take advantage of the current morale and morale to break out and retreat to Jujube.
After all, Guo Huai led his troops to rescue, and the bottom line was to defend Suanzao and Yanjin.
If Puyang City can be defended, it will be better, but if it cannot be defended, retreating to Suanzao and Yanjin is also within Guo Huai's choice.
Guo Huai is also hesitant. After all, Puyang City still has the advantage of city defense, and there is no need to worry about the supply of food and grass in a short period of time. Suizao and Yanjin do not have this condition.
Abandoning Puyang is also a decision that needs to be made carefully for Guo Huai.
The two generals had concerns about each other, so the Battle of Puyang lasted for another ten days.
After these ten days, Wei Yan and Guo Huai were both a little unable to sit still.
The casualties on both sides were still increasing. Because Wei Yan was on the siege side, even though he was leading the elite among the elite, he could not withstand the disadvantage of the siege side in the face of the city wall defense. He could control the battle loss ratio to two to one, which was already A very outrageous thing.
On Guo Huai's side, Wei Yan could still remain calm even though he suffered 2,000 casualties. The number of troops defending the city on his side dropped from 9,000 to 8,000, and his morale declined in a ladder-like manner.
What's even more terrible is that on the eleventh day, Guo Huai looked from afar on the city tower and found that the Shu bandit camp outside the city began to change.
Some of the Shu thieves began to pack up the camp in order to withdraw their troops, while the other group of Shu thieves still formed formations in Puyang City under the command of Shu general Jiang Wei.
It's not necessarily an attack on the city, but it's definitely a defense of the city where the defenders rush out to interfere.
From Guo Huai's perspective, it was impossible not to see such an obvious situation - the Shu thieves were about to divide their forces.
So the question arises when the Shu thieves divide their troops, who will lead them, how many troops they will divide, and where they will go? !
Guo Huai suddenly had a very bad feeling in his heart.
This premonition did not last too long. In just half a morning, two-thirds of the Shu bandit camp outside the city was demolished, especially the Shu bandits who besieged the east gate. By now, all of them had been withdrawn. Both are clean.
There are obvious signs that the Shu thieves have indeed divided their forces, and the main general who divided their forces and left is Wei Yan. What does this mean? !
As the commander-in-chief of the army, Wei Yan did not stay under Puyang City. This shows that Puyang City is no longer the main target of the Shu thieves. Within a radius of a hundred miles, the only strategic targets worth attacking by the Shu thieves-general are jujube and jujube. Yanjin these two places.
The Shu thieves are going to divide their forces to attack Suanzao or Yanjin.
Guo Huai really didn't dare to take these two places lightly.
Firstly, this is the retreat passage for the entire Wei army in Yanzhou, which has great strategic value. Secondly, the total strength of the defenders in those two places is less than 6,000. Looking at the posture of the Shu bandits in front of them, they must divide the troops into at least 20,000. If people go to attack, just rely on Jiang Ji to defend it.
Yes, if he defended Puyang, he could indeed bury nails in Wei Yan's grain passage, but if the Shu thieves really relied on jujube and Yanjin's grain reserves to hold on, completely cutting off Sima Yi's retreat, then he, the Puyang defender, What a nonsense.
Wei Yan also wanted to bet on whether he could defend the jujubes. Guo Huai did not dare to bet with Wei Yan on this possibility, because once the bet failed, the nearly 100,000 Wei troops in Yanzhou would completely become a turtle in the urn.
At least from an overall strategic perspective, Guo Huai still believes that the value of Jujube and Yanjin is much more important than that of Puyang City.
Coupled with the change in morale of the defenders in Puyang City, Guo Huai had to make his own decision.
Organize the soldiers, break through the encirclement and advance westward, get ahead of Wei Yan, and enter Suanzao to set up defense.
Moreover, the speed must be fast and the action must be stealthy.
The Shu thieves outside the city were leaving in batches, but Guo Huai didn't have that much time.
That night, Guo Huai directly ordered his soldiers to assemble, bring dry food and necessary ordnance, and prepare for a breakout.
The next day, when it was dawn, Guo Huai ordered the grain and grass in the city to be set alight and burned. Then, under the cover of this sudden change, he opened the south city gate, broke through the south gate where the Shu bandits had relatively few troops, and detoured to the south city gate. Go west.
Jiang Wei at the east city gate was indeed a little unprepared for this.
It's not that Jiang Wei didn't expect that Guo Huai would break out from the south city gate, but Jiang Wei didn't expect that Guo Huai would be so ruthless and set fire to his family's food and grass in the city.
It's a pity not to mention that these grains and grass were burned. Let's just say how many people in Puyang City would die if the fire spread.
Therefore, after Jiang Wei noticed the fire in Puyang City and Guo Huai's breakout, he hesitated a little, and finally chose to give up the pursuit and enter the city first to put out the fire.
On the one hand, it is for the people in the city, and on the other hand, it is also for food and grass supplies.
After all, Wei Yan and others were still fighting in the heart of the enemy. Guo Huai was willing to burn this kind of food and grass supplies, but Jiang Wei was not willing to waste it.
(End of chapter)
