God Three Group Chat: Three Kingdoms

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Passes are always about utilizing the terrain; to truly defend them, you have to rely on people, well-trained troops, and robust city defenses.

However, for Yan Yan, both of these problems were quite difficult to solve.

Whether it's a well-trained army or a well-defended city, these are basically impossible feats to achieve.

Apart from the veterans who were well-trained at the beginning, the new recruits that followed only made up for the number of soldiers, but did not make up for the lack of combat effectiveness.

Without achieving victory in the war, it is indeed quite difficult to quickly train new recruits into veterans and limit their combat effectiveness.

In contrast, the soldiers of a victorious Rahul army, which conquered cities and seized strongholds, grew stronger much faster.

The difference in morale and quality between the two sides resulted in completely different levels of difficulty for the attackers and defenders. The attackers were getting increasingly successful, while the defenders were finding it increasingly difficult, creating a vicious cycle.

In this situation, Yan Yan couldn't shift the blame, because it was indeed due to her own incompetence.

In order to protect the unripe grain and land in the rear, the entire Yizhou region went all out to support Yan Yan, without any thought or action of hindering him.

The efforts of the powerful and influential families, in particular, made Yan Yan see what a real gap was.

In the past, the powerful families that had been coaxed and given their all were now being treated with utmost care. But when their interests, especially their core interests, were truly threatened, the attitude and power they displayed were quite formidable.

Putting aside everything else, the twenty passes along this mountain road were built in just a few months.

In the past, at most two passes could be built in the same amount of time.

However, under the current circumstances, powerful families personally contributed manpower, resources, and money to design and build on-site, and even utilized external forces such as water flow and terrain to speed up the construction process.

It's fair to say that if the Yizhou aristocratic families had adopted this attitude a few years ago, they wouldn't have had such a difficult time facing Rahul, whose army was clearly not fully equipped.

"People have this kind of thinking, and powerful families are no exception. When things don't threaten their core interests, it's really wishful thinking to expect them to go all out to help with the defense." Faced with Yan Yan's explanation, Lu Jun didn't think it was a problem at all, and even thought it was quite normal.

If powerful families start investing everything at the very beginning of a war, it can only mean that the interests involved have become so great that they are willing to go all out to seize them.

However, for established families that have already secured their interests, the likelihood of them doing so is extremely low.

However, the fact that all the prominent families of Yizhou are now willing to go all out to help is enough to demonstrate a large part of the problem.

After acquiring this vast area of ​​land, and excluding the areas that should have been allocated to vassal states, each powerful family received a region that, while not entirely satisfactory, was still sufficient to sustain them. They then invested significant manpower and technology into these areas, effectively developing and utilizing them.

Some far-sighted, or perhaps even more greedy, families even invested a portion of their manpower in the Wenga region.

However, due to the military's defeat, this far-sighted investment was essentially wasted.

Having learned from this experience, the various aristocratic families were extremely generous with the subsequent needs of Yan Yan's army, including food and related defensive supplies. Even if they were heartbroken, they gave without hesitation, and even sent many of their clan members to fight alongside them.

Compared to peasant soldiers, these scions born into aristocratic families, especially some with martial arts talent and equally skilled in combat, were far superior to ordinary peasant soldiers in terms of physical fitness.

With the support of powerful families in terms of manpower, money, and resources, Yan Yan and Rahul's vanguard forces have not fallen behind in their struggle. In fact, by taking advantage of the terrain, they have shown a trend of gradually stabilizing the situation.

However, with the expansion of the Rahul Road, this advantage will obviously not last long.

"The latest intelligence has arrived. Our reinforcements have crossed the Han-Yue Kingdom and will arrive here in less than ten days. We just need to hold out for another ten days." Yan Yan said this with a mixture of caution and relief.

Reinforcements are indeed getting closer, but the pressure on the enemy is also increasing.

Thanks to Zhang Song's warning, Yan Yan was very clear about the risks of the current situation and the importance of his position.

If we can hold off the enemy before reinforcements arrive, then all our previous efforts will have been worthwhile, and everyone's hard work will at least have some reward. But if we fail to hold them off and the Rahul army breaks through our lines, allowing them to enter the Central and South Asian capital region, then all our efforts over the past few years will basically be for naught.

Even if they manage to retake the land, it will likely take much longer to rebuild such a grain-growing base.

The fact that powerful clans were able to develop the Central and South Asian capital region in just a few years was largely due to their utilization of the local indigenous people and the ruling system of vassal states.

A method of development and exploitation that utilizes the existing order without causing large-scale damage to the other party.

If there is large-scale destruction, especially destructive massacre, it would probably take ten or twenty years to recover.

As for the only benefit after it's been breached and destroyed.

"That's probably because there's no one else here anymore. We won't have to worry about language barriers or disloyalty from local vassal states anymore..."

Recalling the benefits Zhang Song mentioned with a rather unpleasant expression, Yan Yan truly didn't think they were any benefits.

I didn't realize how valuable labor and population are until I actually went abroad.

Because of the issue of population, the Zhang family, who once made a fortune by trafficking in people of different ethnic groups in Yizhou, now want to go back in time and kill their former selves. It's such a waste.

So much so that a portion of the Zhang family actually went to Chang'an to find Chen Xi, hoping to get the people back.

Despite proposing to double or even triple the price, the population was not recovered, and the person was even reprimanded.

"We still have to hold out for ten more days." Lu Jun looked at the military camp on the horizon and the smoke gradually rising from the chimneys. He instantly realized that the ten days Yan Yan mentioned were probably not as simple as she made it sound.

After understanding the situation, Lu Jun glanced at Yan Yan, then looked at the intelligence information about the reinforcements on the table, and calmly nodded.

Ten days. Will Rahul give him ten days? (End of Chapter)