Liu Bei didn't know what Dong Chong, Huan Dian and others said, and to be honest, he didn't care about it.
All the insects can do is to jump around in this three-thirds of an acre of land in Luoyang City. They never have a long-term vision.
Their so-called long-term, no matter what, can only be limited to personal selfishness, and that's where they end.
After he led the army to go on the expedition, he asked the army to march as fast as possible, quickly crossed the Yellow River, entered Hanoi County, and then marched from Hanoi County to Wei County.
By the time he arrived near Wei County, Dong Zhuo's Zhonglang general Niu Fu had led his army to advance along the Zhang River and to Jiuhou City to the west of Ye City. They faced off with the army led by Yuan Shao's Shen Pei and could not win for a while.
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After Liu Bei learned about this, he led his army to approach Yecheng from the south bank of Zhang River. After Shenpei learned the news, he was very worried, so he took the initiative to withdraw his troops from Jiuhou City and returned to Yecheng. He closed the city and defended it without leaving the city to fight Liu Bei.
This time Yuan Shao went on an expedition, leaving Shenpei with an army of 5,000 men to defend Yecheng. Previously, another general, Zhou Ang, led an army to confront Dong Zhuo's army in Sheguo County. However, after Dong Zhuo's army took the initiative to attack, Zhou Ang
If you are defeated, you can only retreat.
After Shenpei learned about it, he asked Zhou Ang to retreat and join him, took over the command, and contained Niu Fu's attack. If Liu Bei's army had not arrived, Shenpei would not have given up Jiuhou City, but Liu Bei led 50,000
The army is coming, and if he doesn't let it go, Yecheng will be lost.
Despite this, he still has more than 13,000 troops in his hands. Yecheng has a tall city, a wide and deep moat, and sufficient food reserves. As long as the city is not breached, it will not be a problem to fight for a year or two, so Shenpei is worried.
end.
He made up his mind to defend and wait for Yuan Shao to make a show in the north, and then come with reinforcements from the Xianbei and Wuhuan people to relieve the siege.
This is their plan.
Before Yuan Shao sent troops to the north, he held a military meeting. Everyone discussed that once Liu Bei led his troops to attack, they would definitely not be able to defeat him in a head-on confrontation, so they could only use the height, width and depth of Ye City to make it difficult for Liu Bei to break through Ye City and give Yuan Shao the opportunity to attack the city.
The main force defeated Youzhou Gongsun Zan to buy time.
As long as Gongsun Zan is defeated, Yuan Shao will be able to control Youzhou, join forces with the Xianbei and Wuhuan people, and then lead a large number of troops south to Yecheng to fight Liu Bei and seek opportunities to defeat Liu Bei. In this way, the situation can be reversed.
The key to all this is that Shen Pei can stop Liu Bei's offensive in Yecheng, so that Liu Bei does not dare to lead the army to continue northward. He needs to be tenacious and tough enough to fight back all Liu Bei's offensive.
As long as this nail is not pulled out, Liu Bei's logistics route will always be unsafe and he will not dare to go north. In this case, even if Liu Yu and Qiao Mao's troops can defeat the army of Yuan Shao's general who is confronting them, it will not matter.
Liu Bei is the most dangerous one. As long as Liu Bei doesn't come, you have nothing to fear.
After Liu Bei and Niu Fu joined forces, they observed Yecheng's city defense status and the surrounding situation here, and came to the conclusion that Yecheng could not be breached in a short time.
"There are many soldiers and horses, the city wall is tall, and the moat is wide and deep. If we want to attack by force, we will have to pay a huge price for every step forward. This is inappropriate. Our goal in this battle is Youzhou. We are going to Youzhou to encircle Yuan Shao and Xianbei."
People, Wuhuan people, cannot suffer too much loss here."
Liu Bei first vetoed the siege.
The generals under his command and senior staff officers all came up with clever strategies and suggestions to help Liu Bei deal with Yecheng, including but not limited to making false claims to the east, attacking in the west, concealing the truth and crossing the sea, etc.
But Liu Bei felt that neither was appropriate. It all depended on luck and was inappropriate.
He also tried to send someone to persuade Shenpei to surrender, saying that he and his family would be safe no matter what, but Shenpei refused.
He had heard about Liu Bei's reputation for keeping promises, and did not doubt that Liu Bei was lying to him, but he did not think that he could live safely. He did not believe in the eunuchs or the people around Liu Bei, and he was sure that he would not end well.
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He did not embarrass Liu Bei's envoy and asked the envoy to come back with a message.
"My ending, apart from dying in battle in Yecheng, is to see the general defeated in Yecheng. There is no third possibility."
Shen Pei's answer angered many people under Liu Bei's command. Everyone thought that this man was arrogant and should give him a lesson. The hot-tempered generals asked Ying to lead troops to besiege Yecheng.
Their anger was suppressed by Liu Bei.
"How can the field elites I have trained so hard be lost under the city? Our real enemy is still in the north, still raging in Youzhou. The army must not stop here, and cannot waste its troops here."
That's what I say, but there must be a way, otherwise you will really be stopped here and unable to move forward.
After thinking for a long time, Liu Bei suddenly thought of something when he stood on the hill and looked at the heavily guarded Yecheng.
He remembered that Cao Cao attacked Yecheng and it took half a year to defeat it. In the end, it was defeated by the surrender of Neiying Kaicheng, but before that, Cao Cao did one more thing.
Facing the fortified city that could not be conquered for a long time, Cao Cao did not take the initiative and turned Yecheng into a meat grinder. Instead, he gave up the fierce attack and surrounded the city with water, cutting off traffic inside and outside Yecheng. He turned around and put Yecheng into trouble.
Laying the foundation for the final surrender of Kaesong.
Yecheng is close to the Zhang River, and the moat comes from the Zhang River. Therefore, the moat is wide and deep, and there is no need to worry about the water source drying up. Moreover, this winter is not very cold, and the water has not frozen. If we want to attack by force, we must pay a heavy price.
But if, on the other hand, the Zhang River is used to counter-encircle Yecheng and cut off internal and external traffic, then Yecheng, as a nail in his logistics route, will lose its actual value and become a meaningless dead city.
Liu Bei's army does not need to spend a large number of troops to carefully siege the city. It only needs to use a small number of troops to defend the place and maintain the counter-siege. Then if the Yecheng defenders want to pose a threat to Liu Bei's rear, they need to take the initiative to attack, otherwise everyone will be there.
Let's spend it here and see who can spend more than whom.
If you have enough food for one or two years in your city, do you still have enough food for three or four years?
Can people in the city never leave the city?
Or do you think you are a fishing town?
No one can guarantee this kind of thing.
So Liu Bei immediately discussed this idea with his subordinates. After hearing about it, the subordinates thought about it and went to investigate on the spot respectively. They found that this matter seemed to be possible.
So a group of people discussed and discussed, did some mathematical calculations, invited professional and technical personnel from the military to discuss, conducted project evaluation, and finally came to a conclusion.
feasible.
Just do what you say. Liu Bei has a strong execution ability. He immediately summoned his generals to assign tasks. The generals went to their officers to assign tasks. They assigned the tasks layer by layer and then started taking action.
This matter took only two days from the establishment of the project to the start of action. Two days later, more than 50,000 troops joined Niu Fu's army, and a large number of civilians were dispatched. More than 100,000 people worked together to create a moat in Yecheng from scratch.
Another ditch was dug on the outside.
The excavation period lasted two days. During these two days, the strange behavior of the besieging army puzzled the defending army.
Shen Pei climbed up to the tower to watch the situation. He didn't understand it at first, and even laughed at Liu Bei's army to their faces, saying that they were so incompetent that all the famous generals in the world were just like that, in order to boost their morale.
A day later, Shen Pei realized that Liu Bei might be doing something bad.
When he finally figured it out, Liu Bei's excavation operation came to an end. Shen Pei was shocked and immediately opened the city gate and sent troops out of the city to fight. Zhang Fei, who had been prepared to attack long ago, caught the opportunity.
Zhang Fei led the elite cavalry to attack and severely defeated Zhou Ang's troops who came out of the city to try to sabotage the operation. If Shen Pei hadn't fired an arrow at the top of the city to stop Zhang Fei's pursuit, Zhang Fei would have been able to rush into the city and fight to the death with Shen Pei.
The action of leaving the city to stop the attack failed and was almost pushed back. Shenpei no longer dared to leave the city to attack, and the attack from the top of the city could not reach that far. He could only watch Liu Bei complete the excavation and then introduce Zhangshui.
The counter-siege operation was successful.
In less than five days, Liu Bei completed the counter-siege of Ye City, cutting off the internal and external transportation of Ye City, turning Ye City into an isolated city, and completely posing no threat to Liu Bei's army's retreat - as long as Liu Bei
The army is not so stupid that it is defenseless.
After that, Liu Bei decisively handed over the task of continuing to defend and besiege Yecheng to Niu Fu. Niu Fu only had to do one thing.
Use all your strength and every means to trap this city.
That’s it.
Niu Fu said - I am familiar with this, just leave it to me!
So Liu Bei led his army to continue northward on the second day of December in the sixth year of Zhongping.
Along the way north, he had never encountered a city with as strong a defensive force and defense preparations as Yecheng. Most of the cities had only a few hundred people in defense, which was not enough to affect the advance of Liu Bei's army. They were defeated in one attack.
In other words, there was no attack at all, so they took the initiative to open the city and surrender.
Despite this, Liu Bei's original idea of resolving the war before the end of the sixth year of Zhongping could no longer be realized. The addition of the Xianbei and Wuhuan people put greater pressure on the war to end early.
When Liu Bei led his troops northward, Liu Yu and Qiao Mao, who had received Liu Bei's orders, also ordered their troops to attack in accordance with the instructions.