After hearing Wu Zhao's words, Yuan Xi nodded slightly at first, and then said doubtfully: "I heard that Lu Bu led his army into Hanoi County and stopped leaving. Apparently he has joined forces with the prefect Zhang Yang."
"He was originally wary of the Yuan family. Could it be that he went to borrow food from Zhang Yang and was unwilling to negotiate with me?"
Wu Zhao lowered his head and thought for a while: "It is also possible."
"However, Hanoi County is not rich either. Lu Bu's subordinates are mainly cavalry. These horses consume a lot of food."
"At the latest, within a year and a half, Hanoi will be left with nothing."
"When that time comes, if the young master continues to negotiate, the advantage will be even greater."
Yuan Xi calculated the time carefully and said with a smile: "Indeed, that time is just right."
"Then we'll just wait and see how things get better."
He calculated in his mind that even after Gongsun Zan was destroyed, the situation around Youzhou would still be extremely complicated.
He and the Montenegrin Army have formed a feud, a fight that will last until death.
As long as the world is not peaceful, the Southern Xiongnu people will immediately jump out to cause chaos. When the world becomes a little more stable, they will immediately pretend to be loyal to the Han Dynasty.
Yu Fuluo is dead, and the position of the newly appointed Hu Chuquan is unclear. He will not be able to deal with such a force for a while, so he can only try to deal with it slowly.
Therefore, Lu Bu, as the force introduced by Yuan Xi, is an important force to balance this region. Yuan Xi has already made some concessions to Lu Bu. After all, the two forces of Montenegro and the Southern Xiongnu have a size of hundreds of thousands.
, I can’t eat it now.
Then there are the remaining large and small forces in Youzhou, such as Yanrou Xianyufu, Wuhuan Xianbei, etc., which cannot be ignored.
The original backbone of this force was Liu Yu's son Liu He, but when he attacked Yijing last time, Liu He led various troops in Youzhou to attack from north to south, while Yuan Shao attacked from south to north, attacking Yijing from both sides, but in the end they failed.
And return.
Then there was no news about Liu He. Later, Yuan Shaojun also searched for his body, but could not find it. He probably died in the battle.
Yuan Xi shook his head, excluding the forces left by Liu He, Youzhou and Gongsundu were really a mess. If he wanted to completely control Youzhou, he would not be able to achieve it in ten or eight years.
However, the top priority is to capture Yijing, otherwise everything will be a mirror image.
Moreover, we have to fight quickly. The three-pronged Montenegrin army, the North route underestimated the enemy and was defeated by luck, but the other two routes are not so easy to deal with!
Yuan Tan's route should not be a big problem. After all, Yuan Tan has been in battle for a long time. What he is worried about is that Yuan Shang is guarding Yecheng. The Black Mountain Army alone cannot defeat it, but will Cao Cao take advantage of it?
However, even if there were changes in Ye City, Yuan Xi couldn't help him if he wanted to. He could only try to help Yuan Shao quickly defeat Yijing and then return to Ye City immediately to aid.
Outside Yijing City, Yuan Jun soldiers still used tunnels and ladders to continuously test the defensive weaknesses of the defenders in the city with attacks.
Now more than ten days have passed, and Zhang Yan's three-pronged army has not yet appeared, proving that they must have been blocked.
But as for what happened and how the battle was going, no one from Yuan Shao's three sons, who were guarding three groups, came back with a message.
Inside the camp, the counselors all looked unhappy. They still underestimated the difficulty of attacking Yi Jing. Eight counselors gathered together, but they still couldn't come up with an effective strategy to break the city. They could only keep filling in people.
And just now, there was a commotion in the northwest, and enemy troops suspected to be in Montenegro uniforms appeared. Yuan Shaojun had no choice but to withdraw his troops and return to the defense camp.
Scouts reported that hundreds of cavalry appeared in the west, all wearing Montenegrin uniforms!
Looking at the direction the other party came from, it was towards the north. Was there something wrong with Yuan Xin's road, or was Yuan Tan defeated?
Xun Chen looked at everyone's expressions and said: "If this continues, the morale of the army will be unstable. Should we concentrate our efforts and defeat all the invading Montenegrin troops first, and then deal with the enemies in the city?"
Jushu said: "What should we do if the enemies in the city take the opportunity to come out of the city and attack us?"
Xun Chen said: "Then we can only divide our troops for defense. After all, it is difficult to take care of both sides when fighting from both sides."
This was quite reasonable, and everyone nodded after hearing it.
At the same time, Gongsun Zan in the city also received news of the arrival of the Black Mountain Army.
A general said happily: "General, the Black Mountain Army is finally here!"
"Although the vanguard only has a few hundred cavalry, the large force must be behind!"
"If we cooperate inside and outside, we can repel Yuan Shao!"
Tian Kai said: "You still need to be cautious about this matter."
"What if the enemy deliberately lets them out as a decoy and then catches them all in one fell swoop?"
"Or maybe these people are Yuan Jun pretending to be here and want to lure us out. What should we do?"
He thought about Tian Yu who never came back after leaving the city, and intuitively felt that the matter was not that simple, and the other party was probably using a trick!
A general asked: "What should we do?"
"If it is true that the reinforcements from Montenegro are coming, if we don't save them, won't we be defeated by Yuan's army one by one?"
After everyone heard this, they all had no idea.
Gongsun Zan looked at the wounded soldiers in front of him and knew that if he missed this opportunity, he would really be trapped in the city and die.
I have been waiting here for a year, but things have not improved at all. I was wrong from the beginning.
But as long as Yi Jing is not breached, there is still a glimmer of hope. Rather than just sitting there and waiting for death, we can only make a last ditch effort!
He said aloud: "I want to send a letter to the other party."
"But if it's an enemy, those sent out will die."
Unexpectedly, as soon as he finished speaking, a group of guards stood up and said in unison: "General, I'm going!"
Gongsun Zan listened and nodded slightly. He walked to the desk, took out several pieces of silk and wrote some strange symbols on them.
He handed the silk cloth to several guards and ordered them to keep it close to them, and said: "You are now on horseback to break out of the encirclement. I will send people out of the city to divert the enemy troops for you. As long as one person delivers the letter."
Several guards took the order and went downstairs, leaving Tian Kai and other generals looking at each other, wondering what they would do if they were intercepted by Yuan Jun?
Wasn’t the content of the letter leaked?
Gongsun Zan said: "This is the secret code I agreed with Zhang Yan before. Only a few of his trusted generals in the Black Mountain Army understand it."
"If it is Montenegro reinforcements, there must be people who understand the code words and can understand these codes."
"Even if they are caught by Yuan Jun, Yuan Jun will not understand them and will not reveal the secret."
"On the other hand, if the Montenegro Army sees the contents of the letter, they will definitely take action!"
The generals suddenly realized that this was the case!
Gongsun Zan waved his hand suddenly and said: "Everyone, go back and prepare your troops. Wait for my order. When it gets dark, it will be the time for us to counterattack!"
The generals were excited and shouted: "No!"
Guan Jing saw the excitement among the crowd and knew that he was powerless to stop it at this time, so he sighed secretly in his heart.
However, he had previously advised Gongsun Zan to be trapped, which made the situation even more unfavorable. In fact, he also doubted whether his advice was wrong.
What if we can really turn defeat into victory?
Outside the city of Yijing, Yuan Shaojun saw the gate of Yijing open, and dozens of cavalry galloping out of the gate, escaping desperately to the west.
The Yuan army ambushing outside the city surrounded them. After a while of pursuit and interception, most of Gongsun Zan's cavalry were killed, and only a small half of them escaped.
When Gongsun Zan and his generals saw this scene on the top of the city, they all felt heavy-hearted. They wondered if there were any messengers among those who escaped.
Dark night came, and all night long, it was quiet outside the city, and nothing happened at all.
Everyone waited anxiously all night, and they were all a little tired, so they had to take a short rest during the day and wait for night to fall again.
Gongsun Zan was sitting on the watchtower. He no longer drank wine, but was recharging his energy.
As night fell again, Gongsun Zan ate all his dinner for the first time, then put on all the armor on his body, and carefully wiped clean the ring-headed sword that had been with him for many years.
He closed his eyes and sat in front of the window, closing the door to meditate. When the maids around him saw him, they did not dare to disturb him.
Gongsun Zan entered an unusually calm state at this time. His ears were extremely sensitive and he could clearly hear the footsteps of people around him, the cry of the baby in Hou's arms in the distance, and the calls of birds flying in the air.
When the moon is at the middle of the sky, it is the time of the second watch.
Suddenly, a dozen miles west of Yijing City, a fire rose up and lit up the sky.
When Gongsun Zan heard the exclamations of the soldiers at the top of the city, he suddenly opened his eyes and strode down the watchtower.
In front of him were a group of generals on white horses.
Gongsun Zan saw this and shouted: "Everyone, get on your horse with me, break out towards the fire, and meet the Montenegrin army!"
Everyone looked excited and accepted the order with a bang.
The familiar White Horse General is back!
The gate of Yijing City opened wide, and thousands of cavalry swarmed out from the gate. What they had to do was to join the Black Mountain Army at the location of the fire, and then jointly attack the Yuan Army's camp!
Gongsun Zan took the lead and sneered in his heart when he saw Yuan Jun's camp raising torches one after another.
I'll let you be in turmoil for a while. When the time comes, you will first rendezvous with the Black Mountain Army, take a detour to the Yuan Army's rear stronghold, attack the camp dominated by civilians, and let them trample on each other and blow up the camp, thus affecting the main Yuan Army stronghold!
He led thousands of cavalrymen, and when he saw the flames rising into the sky in the mountain col to the north, he decided that this was the place where he had agreed to meet the Montenegrin army, and he was about to charge into it.
At this moment, Tian Kai beside him suddenly said: "Since it is a meeting, why is there not a single soldier outside the mountain col?"
"It stands to reason that there are always sentinels, right?"
After hearing this, Gongsun Zan suddenly woke up and broke into a cold sweat.
He stopped the horse forcefully and shouted: "Stop!"
"Look back!"
However, it was too late. There was a sound of drums on the mountains on both sides, and arrows rained down. Gongsun Zan's cavalry were hit by arrows one after another!
An army rushed out from the mountain col. Seeing that the leader was Zhao Yun, Gongsun Zan knew that he had fallen into the opponent's plan, so he quickly turned around and left.
Soldiers rushed out from both sides of the road, holding long spears and pinning the fleeing cavalry under their horses. Gongsun Zan was extremely heartbroken when he saw this. This was his last cavalry strength!
But now, he couldn't care anymore and had no choice but to run away towards Yijing City.
He was filled with hatred, why, why did he get ambushed!
You must know that the code in his letter cannot be deciphered by Yuan Jun, unless something goes wrong with Zhang Yan's generals!