Chaos of the Three Kingdoms Summons

Chapter 2736 Han Xin's Speculation: The Tang Dynasty's Food Shortage

Although Li Mu's troops arrived in January, before Han Xin's troops arrived, they mainly used siege equipment to bombard Li Shimin in the inner city.

As for Wandu City, even if he wanted to engage in a direct confrontation, he couldn't reach them.

The siege only began after Han Xin's troops arrived.

After all, Han Xin brought him a large number of troops!
To put it more bluntly, they provided them with a large number of cannon fodder for siege warfare.

From March to the end of July, the fighting lasted for nearly five months. Their elite troops lost 20,000 men, while Han Xin's cannon fodder troops lost 30,000 men.

They lost 50,000 men in total, but there was still no progress.

During the months-long siege, Li Shimin led his Xuanjia Iron Cavalry out of the city to charge on several occasions.

Especially when the peasant uprising army of Li Tang, organized by Han Xin, was the main force in the siege, the short-range charges of the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry would often cause chaos among these uprising soldiers, and many of them were even driven into the Yalu River.

With the Yalu River serving as a natural moat, the Great Jin Dynasty could only build pontoon bridges and use its naval warships to allow its soldiers to cross the river.

Therefore, even though Li Shimin launched several short-range charges, he would strike and retreat immediately, returning to the city after firing a single shot, which prevented Han Xin and Li Mu from finding any clues about his opponent's moves.

By the time their elite troops arrived, Li Shimin had already led his Xuanjia Iron Cavalry back to the capital city.

So far, their elite troops from the Jin army have managed to hold on.

However, Han Xin had gathered the peasant army from the Li Tang dynasty, and of the 80,000 men, 30,000 had been lost in the past few months. They were now on the verge of collapse.

Therefore, Han Xin had no choice but to withdraw this part of his troops to rest and recuperate for a period of time.

After all, even if it were their own troops, their morale would plummet if the casualty rate were this high, let alone these peasant armies.

The fact that they've managed to hold out until now is all thanks to Han Xin's skill. If it were any other commander, these peasant armies might have collapsed a month or two ago.

If we don't withdraw them and give them a rest for a while, they might mutini.

With casualty ratios reaching 1 to 6, and even as high as 1 to 8, Li Mu and Han Xin completely set a new low for casualties in Jin army siege battles.

Of course, neither of them felt much about it.

After all, when they decided to use the peasant rebels of the Tang Dynasty as cannon fodder to begin the siege, they were already prepared for high casualties.

"Brother Chongyan, dragging this out any longer is not a solution!"

"Generals Zhongqing and Meng Tian are already fighting against the Yuan Mongols in the west, and Protector-General Yue has also attempted to go beyond the Great Wall to contain Murong Ke and Muqali's tribes!"

"But we have 300,000 troops tied up here on the eastern front, and their daily food, clothing and other necessities are astronomical!"

"Only by resolving the war on the eastern front as soon as possible can our dynasty focus all its efforts on the west!"

Inside a fortress outside the city, Li Mu's melancholy face was like a dark cloud.

Over the past few months, they have constructed a series of fortified camps, fortresses, trenches, and barricades stretching for dozens of miles around the two cities, completely blocking the land routes.

In addition, the navy stationed on the Yalu River completely cut off all of Li Shimin's external supplies.

"General Li, war is no child's play!"

"If you get impatient, you'll lose three points to Li Shimin first!"

"At this point, our army has the upper hand!" "We must not be impatient for quick success and give Li Shimin an opportunity to take advantage!" Han Xin advised from the side.

In the past major battles, the Jin army actually created a strategic situation on several occasions to put pressure on the enemy, and then took advantage of the enemy's anxious psychology to force them to take risks.

In this way, they won several crucial battles.

However, today, Han Xin saw a sense of urgency in Li Mu, which is a major taboo for a commander.

Because if you rush things, you're more likely to make mistakes, which gives the other party an opportunity to take advantage of you!

"I understand this principle as well!"

"However, the imperial court is facing considerable pressure in fighting on three fronts!"

"We've already sent several letters urging us to expedite this!" Li Mu said helplessly.

Xue Rengui's side was blocked at Liangkou, and Li Guangbi was also difficult to deal with.

Therefore, he became the commander-in-chief of the domestic battlefield. After all, he couldn't let Han Xin, a surrendered general, weigh on him, a member of the Jin imperial family!
Therefore, the pressure from the imperial court naturally fell on his shoulders!

The imperial court thought that Li Mu had fought so fiercely this time, taking three months to capture Lelang and then advancing directly to the capital of the Li Tang Kingdom.

In just three months, the Tang Dynasty was on the verge of collapse. Even though the capital was difficult to conquer, the court believed that Li Mu would eventually take it over in a few more months!
Otherwise, why would we dare to wage war on three fronts with peace of mind?
Isn't it because the Eastern Front is almost over?

Who could have predicted this?
It's been half a year already, and Li Mu and Han Xin haven't even managed to bring the enemy to the brink of collapse, let alone end the war!
Therefore, the higher-ups sent people over directly to inquire about the situation!

"For the past month, Li Shimin has not led the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry out to charge!"

"In six months, at most six months, they should run out of food!" Han Xin said confidently.

The Xuanjia Iron Cavalry hadn't launched a charge for a month. Even if Han Xin couldn't be certain, he could roughly guess that Li Shimin wanted to conserve provisions.

If the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry doesn't appear again in the next half month to a month, then Han Xin can be almost certain of his guess.

Even if not all of the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry's warhorses were slaughtered, at least a considerable number had been killed.

This does sound quite wasteful, but if the food reserves were insufficient and the city needed to be defended for a long time, Han Xin would have done the same.

Warhorses cannot be fed grass alone; they cannot become excellent warhorses if they are only fed hay.

Normally, the feeding process might not be so demanding.

However, once wartime begins, in order to provide extra nutrition to the warhorses, a certain amount of wheat, beans, or sorghum will be added to the hay to feed them with concentrated feed.

Occasionally, they would even be given raw meat to help them regain their strength.

Therefore, in order to ensure that the food supplies could be used for a longer period of time, sometimes slaughtering warhorses was indeed a last resort.

Especially under the current circumstances, not only can more food be saved, but one warhorse is enough to meet the needs of many people for a day.

From the movements of the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry, Han Xin was able to roughly deduce the remaining grain reserves of Li Shimin.

Therefore, as long as they can stabilize the situation and prevent Li Shimin from taking advantage of any opportunity, they can win this battle within six months at the latest.

(End of this chapter)