Just as hundreds of thousands of Qin and Chu troops were fighting fiercely in Chendu, Zhao Kuo also led his 20,000 troops on the southward journey. Li Mu, who was in Zhi City, also immediately received Zhao Kuo's order to go south. , without a word, Li Mu, who had gathered all his soldiers, immediately embarked on the journey south.
The entire Warring States period instantly fell into turmoil.
On the other hand, Yanbei Jicheng, where the war first broke out, calmed down.
Tian Dan's 70,000-strong army has swept across the entire north of Yan, and all Yan troops, including the northern border troops, have surrendered to Tian Dan's offensive.
In other words, except for the 60,000 troops in Jicheng, King Yan no longer had any troops in his hands.
Sixty thousand versus one hundred and seventy thousand. This huge gap in strength is enough to make anyone despair. More importantly, the side with the absolute advantage in strength also has countless land and reserve troops, but only has a mere 60,000 troops. This side is only trapped in an isolated city. It won't be long before the heavily besieged city may be in danger of running out of food.
You know, as the Zhao State went north, although many cities in the Yan State surrendered without a fight, many Yan people, especially officials, packed up their belongings and fled to Jicheng. This also led to the loss of Jicheng. The population has almost exploded.
The food stored in Jicheng is limited! Faced with the skyrocketing population and the urgently summoned army, even if Jicheng was the capital of a country, food shortages would inevitably occur.
At a time of internal and external pressure, the outcome seems predictable.
Precisely because he saw that Yan's defeat was certain, Lian Po, after discussing with Tian Dan, decided to besiege Jicheng without attacking, and quietly wait for Jicheng's collapse.
It should be said that if the Qin army had not intervened, even if the Qin army did not advance so quickly, Lian Po and Tian Dan's strategy would have been excellent.
This not only reduces Zhao Jun's own losses, but more importantly, Zhao Guo can accept a relatively complete Jicheng. In this way, even this year, Yan Guo can be worth the price. In the next year, the land of Yan State can contribute to the prosperity of Zhao State.
And if Jicheng is attacked by force, the loss of troops is inevitable, and even if Jicheng is defeated, it will definitely become dilapidated. Zhao State still had to invest a lot of manpower and material resources in repairing it.
But Jicheng is not the Luocheng in the world. The dilapidated Luocheng gradually recovered its vitality in less than a year. But Jicheng in Yanbei has not been able to survive for three to five years. Don't even try to recover.
This also means that it is difficult for Zhao State to convert the land of Yan State into national power in a short period of time.
Comparing the two, it is not difficult to understand the choices of Lian Po and Tian Dan.
Of course, I have to say that there are also certain misjudgments in this. It's not that Lian Po and Tian Dan didn't know that Zhao was racing against Qin, but from their minds, the Qin army couldn't progress that fast, and the Yan army couldn't hold on for too long.
But unfortunately, the Qin army's progress was much faster than they imagined, and King Yan in Jicheng was able to persevere better than they imagined.
As Zhao Kuo's letter arrived, a dilemma was immediately placed in front of Lian Po and Tian Dan.
It is definitely impossible to continue the siege. Zhao Kuo has personally taken action over there, but here an army of more than 100,000 people still besieges and refuses to attack. What is the difference between this and self-respecting troops? No matter how high-sounding the reason is, it cannot be justified.
The main army surrounded and refused to attack, but let the king of his own family go up and fight for his life? Not to mention other things, even the soldiers under his command would not agree after learning about the situation.
What's even more terrible is that even if they finally win and return to the dynasty, even if the king Zhao Kuo does not pursue them, the civil and military officials of the dynasty will not let them go easily, and Tiebi Danqing will not bypass them.
Therefore, Lian Po and Tian Dan have only two paths:
First, immediately mobilize the entire army to launch an attack on Jicheng, try to end the battle as soon as possible, and then move the army south to support the king;
Secondly, the troops were immediately divided. Some of the troops continued to besiege Jicheng, and some of the troops went south to support the king.
It should be said that both options are feasible, but they also have their problems.
The whole army attacked the city, since
Needless to say, this is also the easiest way.
But the problem is that Jicheng is the capital of the Yan Kingdom. Although there are only 60,000 regular troops in it, the number of civilians is not small. In desperate circumstances, the King of Yan almost evaded all the civilians and rushed them to the tower. In this way, Even the two veteran generals Lian Po and Tian Dan had no idea how long it would take to break through Jicheng.
Of course, the Qin army over there will definitely take time to attack Chu.
However, even if Jicheng is captured here, it will take at least seven or eight days to rush south from Jicheng to the Kingdom of Han. However, after the Qin Army captured Chendu, it would only take one or two days to reach the Kingdom of Han. battlefield.
In other words, to be on the safe side, the Zhao army must capture Jicheng five to six days earlier than the Qin army.
This is obviously not an easy task.
And if we divide our troops and go south, it is feasible.
The Yan army only had 60,000 troops, and its combat power was far inferior to that of the Zhao army. The remaining 100,000 troops were enough to continue besieging the Yan army, and the remaining 70,000 troops went south to support their king. It can be said that it was the best of both worlds.
However, this seems to be the best of both worlds, but if it doesn't work well, it will block both ends.
Although the advantage of 100,000 Zhao troops against 60,000 Yan troops still lies with Zhao, if there is no absolute strength advantage and the news of Qin sending troops, will the land of Yan, which has just surrendered to Zhao, have a relapse?
Once even one or two cities of the Yan State relapse, and Zhao State's 100,000-strong army is held back by Jicheng and fails to be annihilated at the first time, it is very likely to cause a spark to start a prairie fire, even if it can be suppressed in the end. , the damage to Yandi will also be devastating.
At the same time, the 70,000-strong army was much less, but not much at all.
Even if these 70,000 troops join Zhao Kuo's queue, Zhao Kuo only has a mere 140,000 troops. Compared with the current Qin army's 250,000 troops (plus the 30,000 Korean troops, that is 280,000), There is still nearly double the amount.
With such a comparison of forces, even if Zhao Kuo personally led the army, he could only protect himself.
On the one hand, it may lead to the erosion of the Yan land, but on the other hand, it will not be able to form an advantage over the Qin army. Obviously, this is not a good idea.
If you have to choose one of the two options, if it is for the country, you will naturally choose the first option. Concentrate all your efforts and attack Jicheng as soon as possible. This is the best option for Zhao Guo. But as a minister, the second option is not This is the best way. Without him, I, my ministers, cannot just watch the king step into danger.
Fortunately, Zhao Kuo seemed to have expected that the two would have such a dilemma. After explaining the current situation, Zhao Kuo gave his "suggestion"-concentrate troops and break through Jicheng as soon as possible.
With Zhao Kuo's order, Lian Po and Tian Dan no longer hesitated, and they began to formulate a battle plan together.
The 170,000-strong army is no longer divided into Lian Po's legion and Tian Dan's legion. The two headquarters are merged into one, with Lian Po as the leader and Tian Dan as the auxiliary, unifiedly commanding the 170,000-strong army.
While it was still dark, a letter of persuasion to surrender was once again thrown into the city by Zhao Jun's catapult.
Only this time, the wording of the surrender letter was obviously harsher, and it was even clearer that tonight was the last chance.
This is of course telling the people in Jicheng that I will start an attack tonight.
However, this will not have any impact on Zhao Jun's siege. After all, even if they don't tell Yan Jun, the Yan Jun on the tower has been tightening their nerves.
On the contrary, telling them that Zhao Jun will attack tonight will greatly consume the energy of Yan Jun.
The simple truth is that tonight is a very broad time period. The sun sets, which means the arrival of night, and the day is not over until the sun rises high the next day.
In other words, Zhao Jun may launch an attack at any moment during these long hours.
This is very bad. Anyone with a little military knowledge will think of this possibility.
Therefore, due to the pressure brought by Zhao Jun, the Yan Jun soldiers had to cheer up immediately after dark. This is undoubtedly a kind of torture for a normal human being. All the officers and soldiers of the Yan army
All the energy will be exhausted in a very short time.
The time chosen by Zhao Jun was exactly when Yan Jun's soldiers were most listless and before dawn.
At this time, the soldiers of the Yan army who were responsible for the night watch were already exhausted, and the Yan army from the changing shift had not yet arrived. Naturally, this was also the best time for the Zhao army to attack.
After the time has been arranged, the next step is to deploy the troops.
Because the 170,000-strong army has been unified, Lian Po and Tian Dan arranged their troops, which was also very arrogant.
Except for the more than 30,000 cavalry who were not suitable to join the battle, almost all other troops were immediately thrown into the battle by the two men.
There are four gates in the southeast, northwest, and each gate are occupied by more than 24,000 people.
The more than 20,000 Zhao troops outside each city gate were organized into three groups, taking turns to attack the towers.
As for the remaining more than 40,000 troops, they serve as the central army to support the front line at any time.
Soon, as the two complemented each other, a rigorous offensive plan was hatched.
Immediately afterwards, Zhao Jun began to mobilize troops intensively.
As the sky darkened and Zhao Jun began to mobilize troops, the people in Jicheng were panicked.
The sound of the Yan army's war drums even overshadowed the Zhao army's drum beating for a time, which shows how much the Han army cares about Zhao Jun's possible attack.
On the other hand, Zhao Guo, everything is so determined and composed.
However, in just over an hour, Zhao's army had completed its deployment. But even if Zhao Jun has completed its deployment, seeing that Yan Jun is in such a state of disarray, Zhao Guo can't just leave!
Immediately, the cavalry who did not need to participate in the war were sent to the battlefield by Lian Po and Tian Dan.
The sound of horse hooves quickly tore apart the quiet night sky.
Seeing the neat ranks of Zhao troops advancing loomingly in the light of the fire, the soldiers of Yan State became even more panicked.
Immediately, more Yan troops were sent to the tower, and other Yan troops in the city had to be on standby at any time.
However, just when the Yan army was ready to accept Zhao Jun's charge, Zhao Jun stopped their steps again, turned around, and countless Zhao Jun disappeared into the night.
These same cavalrymen had just left not long ago. Just when the Yan army was preparing to return to camp, they appeared in the light of fire by some strange coincidence.
Truth be told, almost the entire Jicheng heavy troops were driven into a state of nervousness by Zhao Jun.
And the best thing is that the Zhao army, which is about to actually step onto the city to fight with the Yan army, is already fast asleep in the camp.
What, leave Zhao Jun alone?
What if Zhao Jun really comes to take action?
What, leave some troops behind and rest the rest?
The Yan army only has a total of 60,000 troops, and there are still some troops stationed at the palace. After deducting the reserves and disabled troops, the number of troops that can be allocated to each gate is less than 10,000.
Even if some people are allowed to rest, how many can be arranged? Do you still want the city tower?
Obviously, Lian Po and Tian Dan's strategy of exhausting troops is aimed at your lack of troops.
