Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"Uncle, elder brother."

Li Dian spoke sternly. "The enemy's generals are unknown, and the enemy's situation is unknown. If we act rashly, we will fall into the enemy's trap. We should respond to all changes with the same attitude."

"What Brother Dian said does make some sense, but the number of Han troops detected by the scouts is more than 20,000, and there are only 5,000 defenders in Linzi now. Even if we urgently summon the young and strong men in the city to defend the city, there will only be 10,000."

After hearing this, Li Zheng raised his concerns and said, "But if we can't take advantage of this opportunity to greatly dampen the morale of the Han army, Linzi will be defeated if it just keeps defending it."

Li Dian insisted.

"Why do we need to defend for so long? Since General Cao has sent a messenger to warn us that the Han army will launch a surprise attack on Linzi, he will certainly make corresponding arrangements. It won't be long before even the king in Yecheng will know about this."

"Linzi only needs to hold out for seven to ten days, then reinforcements will arrive. The Han army deep behind enemy lines will run out of food and grass and will retreat, and Linzi will be saved."

Li Zheng taught him helplessly. "Brother Dian, aren't you just trying to boost the enemy's morale and feel inferior to them? If the enemy army invades our border, we should try to defeat them and relieve the king of his worries, instead of just trying to avoid defeat."

Li Dian advised. "Brother, the importance of Linzi involves the safety of Qingzhou. You should not act rashly for the sake of military merit. You should be cautious."

Listening to the two brothers with roundabout personalities still arguing, Li Qian raised his hand and said.

"You two brothers both have some truth in what you said, but Dian'er's considerations are a little more comprehensive."

"I heard that Li Zikun personally led a large army to attack Qingzhou in the north. General Cao had no choice but to hastily mobilize the troops from Qingzhou to gather in Beihai County to deal with the situation hastily. The enemy is very powerful, and Qingzhou is in danger. We should focus on stability."

"Even if we want to defeat the enemy and relieve the worries of the Great Wei, we should first find out who the general of this Han army is and ensure that Linzi is not lost. It will not be too late to search for him for a long time."

After Li Qian made the final decision, Li Zheng had no choice but to accept it even though he still felt a little regretful.

The entire Linzi city, apart from continuously preparing supplies for defending the city and strengthening patrols and defenses, had no intention of leaving the city.

While the Han army was slowly building the camp, Pang Tong looked back at the camp which was already about 70% to 80% completed, and secretly felt a little regretful.

When the camp was first established, Pang Tong suggested to Wei Yan that he could secretly ambush 5,000 elite troops on both sides of the camp gate to try to lure the Linzi defenders to attack the camp and inflict heavy damage on Cao's army in one fell swoop.

For this reason, Wei Yan even slowed down the pace of setting up camp and did not even drive away the surrounding Cao army scouts.

"General Cao is so cautious, it will be even more difficult for him to capture Linzi." Wei Yan frowned slightly.

"Not urgent."

Pang Tong's mentality was much better than Wei Yan's. He suggested to Wei Yan that while the Cao army scouts should be left alone, the army should take a rest first and make another move another day.

……

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

After all, Zhao Yun and Wei Yan could only be regarded as special forces, and the main battlefield of the Northern Expedition to Qingzhou was always in Beihai County.

When the 120,000 troops led by Li Ji arrived at Chunyu City and joined Xu Sheng, there were a total of 200,000 troops stationed in a ten-mile area. Yu Jin, who was watching from afar on the top of the city, also had an extremely heavy face.

Especially the big flag with the word "Li" erected in the Northern Expedition camp made Yu Jin feel genuine pressure.

"General Cao, can you tell me when the follow-up reinforcements will arrive?" Yu Jin couldn't help but ask again.

An army chief immediately replied, "There are about 10,000 soldiers on the way, and they will arrive soon." Yu Jin pointed at the mighty Northern Expedition Army outside the city and asked back.

"Ten thousand, is that enough?"

Originally, Chunyu City had 10,000 defenders, and Cao Ren had recently sent an additional 30,000 reinforcements, totaling 40,000 troops to stop Xu Sheng from getting angry.

But as the Northern Expedition Army led by Li Ji arrived at the city to meet up, not to mention the terrifying military strength, just the big flag with the word "Li" erected inside the camp.

Yu Jin, who was far away in Chunyu City, could feel the morale in the Northern Expedition camp, which was completely different from before.

But facing Yu Jin's question, the chief clerk had no way to answer it. In fact, Yu Jin did not expect his chief clerk to be a rare talent who could come up with any brilliant plan to defeat Li Ji.

Therefore, Yu Jin did not wait for the chief clerk to answer and continued to speak.

"Hurry up and send another message to General Cao. Chunyu City needs more reinforcements. Otherwise, I'm afraid we can only hold out for about a month at most."

After a pause, Yu Jin looked up at the somewhat gloomy sky and murmured.

"Unless, God helps our Great Wei and makes the heavy snow fall earlier this year, forcing the Han army to retreat."

When Yu Jin's urgent letter was delivered back to Duchang, Cao Ren said nothing, but he could not help feeling a little irritated.

Increase the troops...

Where did Qingzhou get so many troops?
Since Qingzhou itself was quite poor and its population had been decreasing due to years of war, it was able to maintain a standing force of just over 100,000, all thanks to the military farming system.

Even after learning that the Northern Expedition had begun, Cao Ren urgently sent people to forcibly select young and strong people from the farming population in each county to join the army to replace most of the county soldiers guarding the city, and then drew elite troops from all over the country to gather in Beihai County.

But in such a short period of time, Cao Ren was unable to conjure up more soldiers and horses out of thin air.

The 5,000 troops in each of Anqiu, Chang'an and Zhuxu cities have been scrapped, and Dongchaojin and Linzi cities have also occupied more than 10,000 regular troops. The elite Cao army that Cao Ren has left to mobilize is actually only a little over 70,000.

Originally, Cao Ren wanted to take a gamble and lead all his troops to Chunyu City to defend it to the death.

However, Cao Ren learned that the Han army that broke through Zhuxu City was heading straight for Linzi City, which forced him to send another part of his troops to Linzi for rescue in order to preserve Qingzhou's food and grass.

More importantly, the news that Dongchaojin was burned to the ground had already reached Cao Ren.

This also means that before the end of winter, it may be difficult for Jizhou to mobilize a large number of troops to cross the river to rescue Qingzhou.

The news one after another made Cao Ren feel like he was suffocating, as if a huge net was constantly wrapping him and even the entire Qingzhou tightly.

As important locations in Qingzhou were captured one after another, Cao Ren gradually began to feel uneasy. He did not dare to put all his limited military forces in Chunyu City.

Cao Ren even had the idea of ​​giving up on preserving the entire Qingzhou, giving up Donglai County and Beihai County, and gradually shrinking the defense line to retreat to Qi State, Le'an County and other counties closer to Jizhou.

Even though there is less than half a month left until the arrival of winter, based on past experience, the snowy period will only last about one and a half to two months.

In other words, the Han army only had one and a half to two months to maintain its offensive.

However, the rapid advance of the Northern Expedition Army and its momentum of success made Cao Ren unconsciously feel powerless and unable to resist. (End of this chapter)