Chaos of the Three Kingdoms Summons

Chapter 2609 Ren Gui's Flying Tiger Pursues the Immortal, Li Mu's Mighty Army Attacks Ji County

In order to deal with Han Xin, Xue Rengui even borrowed Li Cunxiao from Li Mu's army.

More accurately, it was to borrow Li Cunxiao's Flying Tiger Battalion.

Xue Rengui used the Pan River as a means to combine his infantry, naval, and cavalry forces to isolate Han Xin east of the Pan River.

However, it was still not time to let their guard down, for fear that the other side might break through their blockade if they were not careful.

Therefore, Xue Rengui's solution was to personally lead the Flying Tiger Cavalry to relentlessly pursue Han Xin's two thousand cavalry, giving them no time to cause trouble.

Xue Rengui even wanted to try to annihilate Han Xin's army in the process, or even capture or kill Han Xin.

Han Xin didn't say much about this. A decisive battle was out of the question; he would instead focus on circling the enemy.

When he decided to burn the Jin army's supplies, he had already acknowledged the possibility of failure. After all, he himself understood that it was a risky plan with a limited chance of success.

However, given the current situation and the vast disparity in strength between the two sides, he had no other choice but to give it a try, no matter how low the success rate was.

Even after his defeat, he had already imagined the possibility of dying in battle.

The current situation is far better than he had anticipated.

Xue Rengui personally led his troops to pursue Han Xin, while the city of Anci was left to Pei Xingjian to lead the attack.

However, in order to contain Han Xin east of the Pan River, Xue Rengui wasted too many troops on this blockade line, so much so that Pei Xingjian only had 40,000 troops left to attack Anci County.

With twice the number of troops, it's clearly not so easy to take them down.

After all, although Han Xin left with two thousand cavalry, the person he arranged to guard Anci County after his departure was not an unknown figure, but Qin Quliang, a famous general from the Youzhou royal family.

The Qin dynasty has never lacked famous generals and strategists; what it has always lacked is simply the mandate of heaven.

After all, in the early days, with Liu Bang on the left and the Tang Dynasty on the right, facing powerful enemies on both sides, every step was difficult.

After finally defeating Liu Bang, within a few years, the Manchu Qing dynasty in the north replaced Liu Bang's role and still did not give them room to develop.

Even Yuan Shao in the south would occasionally come over to provoke them during those years.

As a result, the later Qin dynasty became weaker and weaker with each battle.

The Qin dynasty was not lacking in strong generals or strategists. Even with the deaths of figures like Kuang Zhang and Wei Liao, it still had no shortage of famous ministers and capable generals.

Whether it's Wang Zhi, or Qin Ji and Qin Quliang who are from the imperial clan, they are all capable of shouldering heavy responsibilities.

With Qin Quliang present and Pei Xingjian having only twice the number of troops, this siege was naturally not going to be easy.

Although Pei Xingjian's forces were not particularly abundant, Li Mu, who was leading the attack on Qin Zheng's main base, was in a completely different situation.

Wang Zhi transferred some troops to Han Xin to guard Anci, while he led the remaining troops back to defend Ji County, where he joined forces with the famous general Qin Ji, a member of the imperial clan, to guard the main camp.

Even after Qin Zheng transferred some troops to Zhang Han in the northern regions of Dai and Shanggu, Ji County still had 20,000 troops.

However, even with Lian Po dividing his forces, Li Mu still had a full 100,000 troops at his disposal.

Faced with this severe shortage of troops, Qin Zheng wasn't unwilling to temporarily conscript a force. Even if such a hastily assembled army was largely ineffective, it could at least serve its purpose. If they couldn't fight in open battle, couldn't they at least defend a city?
Back then, didn't Liu Xiu and Zhu Yuanzhang both temporarily conscript soldiers when they were short of troops?

However, the situation in Youzhou was different.

The battle they fought against both the Tang and Manchu dynasties simultaneously inflicted immense trauma on them, especially since they were already in the midst of a protracted war and had not yet recovered.

The key issue is that after suffering repeated setbacks, instead of getting a chance to recover, they faced three years of pandemic.

So many people died in the major wars and the three-year pandemic; the population cannot be replenished so quickly in just five years.

Despite this repeated setback, and even after five years of recuperation, the country has not yet fully recovered.
Conscripting soldiers always requires food. After all, once conscripted, it's unclear where they'll be placed; they'll actually be put to fight, even if it's just defending a city—it's real warfare.

The difference in the amount of food and provisions required to support a civilian is significant compared to that required to support an soldier.

In short, the grain and fodder stored within Ji County simply did not allow them to temporarily conscript soldiers on a large scale.

As for Qin Zheng's previous permission for the powerful families in Dai County and Shanggu to conscript soldiers on a large scale, and since he did not need to provide them with food and supplies after the conscription, Qin Zheng naturally had no burden!

Li Mu launched a reckless attack on the city right from the start, clearly wanting to end the battle as quickly as possible. After all, they still had the problems of Dai County and Shanggu to deal with.

In just half a month, Li Mu's army of 100,000 had already lost 20,000, and had also managed to defeat Qin Zheng's 6,000 troops.

Li Mu didn't even blink at a casualty ratio exceeding one to three. In a siege battle, such a casualty ratio was nothing special; it was considered a normal casualty ratio.

In siege warfare, it is not impossible to achieve a casualty ratio of 1:5 or even 1:6.

In the Battle of Jiangxia back then, even Bai Qi achieved a casualty ratio of more than one to four.

In the past two weeks, both sides have lost more than ten generals.

Cao Kerang also showed off his archery skills, shooting Qin generals Xin Sheng and Li Ruhui directly off the city wall.

After a bloody battle, Qin general Di Simi and Jin general Xin Wenli both fell off the city wall.

When Di Simi was born, he was already over thirty years old. Over the years, his basic martial arts strength has finally risen from the initial 103 points to 104 points, and then dropped to the current 101 points.

Time is fair to everyone.

Especially for a powerful warrior like him, his fighting prowess has dropped rapidly in recent years due to physical reasons.

The Jin general Wang Nande displayed the same daring and fighting spirit he displayed when he served under Cao Cao, always being the first to charge into battle. In one siege, while climbing a ladder, he was crushed to death by rolling logs and rocks.

Qin general Ruan Wengzhong was killed by Zhang Shan and Zhang Kui in an attempt to protect the Qin government.

On the twelfth day of Li Mu's fierce attack, the battle was the most brutal. Ji County was in grave danger, to the point that Qin Zheng had to step forward and personally climb the city wall to boost morale.