Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

A ray of smoke rose up into the sky.

This made Luoyang, which was being constantly attacked by the Hu people, seem even more tragic.

However, Li Ji, who was waiting on the city wall, had a little more smile on his face.

Taishi Ci lived up to expectations and broke through.

Then, what Luoyang needs to do next is to hold on, hold on until the army returns, hold on until the urn prepared for the Hu people is completed, and then cook these Hu people.

This beacon will be the first small fire in this jar.

The conspicuous beacon fire was also noticed by the Hu people, who immediately sent people to find out who lit the beacon fire.

But by the time the Xianbei cavalry found the place where the beacon fire was lit, everyone had disappeared.

However, this also made it difficult for Han Sui not to connect the escape of the Han messenger from the Southern Xiongnu last night and the sudden beacon fire, and realized that Li Ji might have conveyed some information to the Han people outside Luoyang.

Han Sui was also familiar with the name Li Ji.

This made Han Sui inexplicably feel uneasy. On the one hand, he suggested that the Xianbei deploy more scouts in the direction of Hulao Pass to monitor whether there was any Han army reinforcement coming from that direction. On the other hand, he urged the Hu people to intensify the siege on the city even more desperately.

The location of Luoyang is not only related to the Han Dynasty's control over the Western Regions Protectorate, Liangzhou and most of Sili, but also has a profound impact on the three states of You, Bing and Ji north of the Yellow River.

Due to the barrier of Taihang Mountains, Bingzhou could only go through the Taihang Mountain paths which were easy to defend and difficult to attack to plunder Jizhou. If they wanted to bypass Taihang Mountain, then Henei County, which was the only way to go, would be directly threatened by Luoyang.

As long as Luoyang was still controlled by the Han Dynasty, once the Xianbei wanted to bypass Taihang Mountains and enter Jizhou via Henei County, the Han army could send troops from Luoyang at any time and cut off their retreat from Jizhou to Bingzhou.

Therefore, only by capturing Luoyang could the Xianbei plunder and seize Jizhou without restraint after controlling Bingzhou.

The Xianbei, Han Sui, and Li Ji were all very clear about this.

The gains and losses of Luoyang are almost related to whether half of the Han Dynasty will be threatened by foreign invaders.

Capturing Li Ji would determine whether the Hu people could gain a real foothold in Han territory.

Under Han Sui's constant instigation, the Hu people's offensive on Luoyang continued to increase, just like hanging a carrot in front of a donkey to hook it forward.

In Han Sui's view, the lives of the Hu people are not lives and are worthless.

The same is true for many Hu leaders. As long as they can take Luoyang, their interests will be guaranteed.

The battle situation became more and more brutal.

As the number of casualties continued to rise, the Hu people, who were trapped in sunk costs, attacked more frantically, while the number of troops available to defend Luoyang continued to decrease.

As a last resort, in order to consolidate Luoyang's defense, Li Ji had to order the mobilization of some of Luoyang's young and strong men to go up to the city wall.

One day, two days...

As the days passed, the number of defenders in Luoyang, which had been holding out for half a month since the Hu army began to attack the city, had dropped to more than 40,000.

More than 40,000 troops were no longer enough for the long Luoyang city wall.

As Zhang Song counted the casualties of the day, he couldn't help but speak with worry when reporting to Li Ji.

"Prime Minister, it's time to light the beacon fire. We can't wait any longer. The morale of the Xiliang army and Hanzhong County has become unstable. If this continues, Luoyang will be in danger of being captured."

Lighting the beacon fire was the signal to send troops as agreed upon by Li Ji in the secret letter.

It has been about ten days since Taishi Ci sent out the secret letter. According to the estimated time, the Northern Expedition Army has returned to Hulao Pass for rest and can enter the pass at any time.

"hold on……"

Li Ji knew what Zhang Song said. He knew the current situation in Luoyang very well, but what Li Ji needed to consider more was the movements of all parties.

The Northern Expedition Army's turnaround and rest is one thing, in addition to that there is also the dispatch of troops towards Hanzhong.

After half a month of unsuccessful attacks, the Hu people's morale was greatly reduced and their casualties were also heavy.

Now the Hu people are relying on Luoyang as bait. Once the Northern Expedition Army enters the pass, the Hu people will realize that it is hopeless to capture Luoyang, and they will most likely choose to retreat on the spot.

If we fail to gain enough time to plug the gap and allow these Hu people to escape back to the grassland, all our efforts will be in vain.

"Prime Minister, I am afraid that even if the Ziwu Valley plot succeeds and Chang'an is captured, we will not be able to stop the more than 300,000 Hu people outside the city."

Although the Ziwu Valley route was proposed by Zhang Song, he is now becoming more and more pessimistic.

There is no other reason, it is because the route in Ziwu Valley is narrow and difficult to navigate, and it can only accommodate 5,000 troops at most.

Even if these 5,000 troops successfully captured Chang'an, they would be unable to stop the Hu people in large numbers if they did not wait for reinforcements from Shu.

However, the roads in Shu were rugged and difficult to travel, and Zhang Song was well aware of Liu Zhang's indecisive nature. He was afraid that any delay would greatly miss the opportunity to fight.

At this moment, Zhou Yu walked in from the door and took over the topic.

"Unless we can inflict heavy damage on the Hu people before they retreat."

"Severely injured? How can this be easy?"

Zhang Song said this unhappily, feeling that Zhou Yu, this pretentious boy, was really arrogant in his tone of voice.

However, when Zhang Song turned to look at Li Ji, he found that Li Ji's expression seemed to be somewhat surprised by the coincidence.

Zhou Yu also noticed Li Ji's gaze and asked.

"Has the Prime Minister also thought of a way to inflict heavy damage on the Hu people?"

Li Ji suddenly felt a little playful and raised his hand. "Gongjin, don't say it out loud. Let's write it down on paper and see if we have the same idea."

Zhou Yu, who also had a bit of a competitive spirit in mind, agreed immediately.

When Gu Wei handed the pen, ink, paper and inkstone to Li Ji and Zhou Yu respectively, they all bent over the desk and wrote for a while, then picked up the paper.

When the two pieces of paper were brought close together and opened, there was a word "fire" on each of them.

"fire?"

Zhang Song stared blankly, but couldn't figure out how to use fire attack, so he asked, "Prime Minister, are you planning to attack the Hu camp at night and set it on fire? But this is too dangerous."

Zhou Yu looked at the answer he had been thinking about for many days, and found that it was the same as Li Ji's. He couldn't help but sighed and then spoke.

"No, the place where the Hu people set up camp is flat. Even if they set up camp in a disorderly manner, there is no hay or firewood. Even if we set fire to the Hu camp, how many tents can we burn?"

"Then how can we set the fire?" Zhang Song asked.

Seeing that Li Ji looked calm, Zhou Yu slowly spoke out what Li Ji was thinking, "The one who set fire was... Luoyang."

"what?!"

Zhang Song was so shocked that he pulled off a small tuft of his beard, stood up abruptly, looked at Zhou Yu in disbelief, and then hurriedly advised.

"Prime Minister, what shall the people of Luoyang do now that it is burning? And how shall the Prime Minister find shelter? Will the barbarians perish together with him? This is absolutely unacceptable!" (End of this chapter)