Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Chapter 761 Where is the honey water?

Li Ji paused, turned around and looked at Yuan Yin, Yuan Shu's cousin, but did not rush to answer.

When Yuan Yin, a brotherly and respectful son of the Yuan family, spoke up, the representatives of other noble families immediately put aside their reserve and hurriedly followed suit.

At this moment, the situation does not allow the Yuzhou families to arrogantly refuse, and more importantly, once someone speaks first.

Those who follow suit and speak up may not necessarily gain much benefit, but those who do not speak up may suffer the demise of their entire family.

The blood of the Xun family had not yet dried, and the Yuzhou noble families also realized that Li Ji did not care about setting more targets to kill the chicken to scare the monkey.

Soon, all the representatives of the aristocratic families who were summoned by Li Ji to his tent expressed their willingness to contribute their insignificant efforts to help Liu Bei unify Yuzhou and support the great cause of the Han Dynasty.

"That's great. I'm sure the lord will be relieved to know that there are still so many noble families in Yuzhou who are loyal to the Han Dynasty. He will understand that you all served the Yuan thief before because you were forced to do so."

Li Ji's response made many representatives of the noble families sweat profusely.

Before the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Yuzhou families still had the qualifications to be tough.

However, those peasants who were armed often restrained the sons of the noble families, causing a large number of Yuzhou nobles who did not have time to escape to be slaughtered. The rest of the Yuzhou nobles also fled towards Ruyang upon hearing the name of the Yellow Turbans.

It seems that Yuzhou is the territory of the Yuzhou noble families, but now the Yuzhou noble families are almost dependent on others. They rely on Li Ji's protection to deter the Yellow Turbans. How can they be tough?

Therefore, this sentence, which would have been enough to make many Yuzhou noble families furious in the past, did not cause any splash.

There were even a few shameless young men from aristocratic families who started to flatter him, saying things that were difficult to understand, such as "my loyalty is to the Han Dynasty", "I am willing to die for the Han Dynasty", and "I have long wanted to abandon darkness and join the light".

However, in Li Ji's view, this is just another "compliance test."

Right now, the Yuzhou families are apparently becoming more and more obedient.

All that’s left for the Yuzhou noble families to completely become like Liu Bei is to capture Ruyang City and rule Yuzhou in a legitimate manner. From then on, they can further train them however they want.

Three days passed by in a blink of an eye.

However, during these three days, as the offensive gradually weakened, the defenders of Ruyang City, who had been on high alert, actually felt a rare sense of relief.

The siege troops outside the city had been fighting for a long time and their morale was low;

But the defenders in the city were faced with even greater pressure. Many young and strong men were almost forced to climb up the city walls. In order to make these young and strong men, most of whom had only received a few days of simple training on how to defend the city, risk their lives.

The number of heads chopped off by the supervisory team alone reached over 2,500.

Under such high pressure, one can imagine the enormous pressure faced by the defenders.

However, with the city gates closed, the defenders had nowhere to escape even if they wanted to. Under the supervision of a large number of supervisory teams, they had no choice but to fight to the death.

"Retreat! Retreat!! The troops outside the city are retreating!"

Suddenly, an excited voice was heard, and then a large number of defenders could not help but stand up and look outside the city.

It was seen that the troops that had surrounded Ruyang City and had taken turns to attack Ruyang City for more than half a month, now began to slowly retreat.

Not only the defenders on the north gate wall who were the first to discover the situation, but also the defenders on other walls discovered that the troops outside the city were retreating one after another.

Soon, loud cheers rang out from the walls of Ruyang City, cheers of those who survived the disaster.

Many young men had no idea what it meant to defend Ruyang City, but they understood one thing at this moment: they seemed to be able to survive.

Instead, he died on the city wall at some point under the repeated attacks from the soldiers outside the city.

Soon, Yuan Shu, who had been dozing for a while, also rushed over after hearing the news. Looking at the soldiers who had retreated so far outside the city that their shadows were almost invisible, he was also so excited that he almost danced with joy.

At this moment, Yuan Shu no longer had the image of a nobleman that he always looked after in the past. He even looked a little dishevelled, and only his conspicuous armor could prove his identity.

Many of the civil and military officials who still followed Yuan Shu could not help but cry for joy.

Even though Li Ji was forced to retreat temporarily, it did not mean that Yuzhou was safe.

The threat from Liu Bei put Yuzhou at risk of collapse at all times, but for the time being, Li Ji was forced to retreat temporarily, giving them a chance to catch their breath.

As one of the few generals under Yuan Shu, Zhang Xun was excited and began to analyze the situation.

"My lord, that bandit Li must have realized that winter was approaching. If he didn't withdraw his troops, he might be trapped in Yuzhou by the heavy snow, so he had no choice but to withdraw his troops."

"This is just as I expected. That little Li Ji wants to defeat me, but it's just wishful thinking."

After the excitement, Yuan Shu couldn't help but feel a little complacent, thinking that Li Ji, whom he had feared in the past, was actually nothing special.

I will just defend myself, and no matter how clever Li Ji comes up with, what can he do to me?
Don’t we have to withdraw our troops obediently?
But unlike the excitement of the others, Yang Hong still couldn't hide the worry on his face.

Originally, Yang Hong also wanted to find an opportunity to escape from Ruyang City, but after Yan Xiang's death, Yuan Shu almost always kept Yang Hong by his side to check for loopholes and fill in the gaps. This meant that Yang Hong had no chance to escape from Ruyang until Yuan Shu completely blocked the city gates.

Even though it seemed that Li Ji had been forced to retreat, Yang Hong understood that Yuan Shu could no longer control Yuzhou.

At the latest by the early spring of next year, Li Ji will surely make a comeback.

By then, how many troops would Yuan Shu have available to reach Li Ji? Would he continue to defend Ruyang City?

Immediately, Yang Hong hurriedly tried to persuade him in a low voice.

"My lord, now that the thief Li has fled, we should quickly send people north to contact Yuan Benchu ​​and open up the passage to Yanzhou as soon as possible so that we can retreat..."

However, before Yang Hong could finish speaking, Yuan Shu interrupted him with some displeasure.

"Today is a joyous day in which we have defeated the enemy. Let's not talk about such a depressing topic..."

After a pause, Yuan Shu licked his dry lips and gave the order.

"Come here, where is the honey water? Send someone to bring it up quickly. Also, the wine in the city has been opened to celebrate with the soldiers."

Seeing this, Yang Hong had no choice but to keep silent.

However, although Yuan Shu was delighted, he did not completely lose his vigilance. While arranging the celebration, he lowered more than ten confidants in a hanging basket to gather intelligence along the direction of Li Ji's retreat to prevent Li Ji from making a counterattack.

A day later, when Yuan Shu woke up from a hangover from the celebratory wine, his confidant who went to investigate brought back two pieces of news.

First, Li Ji really did withdraw his troops and headed straight to Xiang County, apparently planning to leave Yuzhou by water before the Ying River froze.
The second was that the confidant accidentally met Yuan Yin himself, and sent a letter through the confidant.

(End of this chapter)