Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 261
It has been ten days and it has been raining non-stop.

Even in the daytime, the sky looks very low, which makes people feel very heavy.

What is even more depressing is that the captive soldiers still did not retreat.

The soldiers' patience exceeded Yang Chao's estimate.

Yang Chao originally thought that the captive soldiers would withdraw by themselves in a short time.

Because the captive soldiers certainly could not have too many supplies. Unlike the Ming army, they can always find support for local operations, and of course this support may not be much.

However, the captive soldiers will definitely not get any support for this kind of plundering operation that spans thousands of miles in a foreign land. If they can get it, they will have food.

Yang Chao knew that the captive soldiers had rushed thousands of miles from Shandong to Boluo, and he had never found any signs of the captive soldiers carrying luggage, because they had no vehicles, and all of them were war horses. Even if the war horses could carry some supplies, they were very limited.

It stands to reason that this kind of battle can last for ten days, which is already the limit, but the captive soldiers insisted on trapping Yang Chao for more than half a month.

Moreover, since Yang Chao blew up the moat channel of the captive soldiers, the captive soldiers have never launched an attack again, neither tried to refill the moat, nor even harassed.

On the contrary, from time to time, captive soldiers were dispatched, small groups of small groups, one person with two horses or even three horses, and sometimes they set off in the morning and came back at night.

After detailed investigation, Yang Chao knew that these captive soldiers had gone out to plunder, and every time they came back, they would immediately carry their loads, needless to say, they were going to grab supplies for a living.

This situation continued for ten days.

And it has been raining for ten days.

It rained lightly for the first three days, and from the fourth day onwards, the rain did not stop, but became heavier instead.

At first, Yang Chao thought that the captive soldiers did not attack the city because it was raining. When it rained, the weather would be humid, and if the weather was humid, the bow would be soft and unable to fight. The captive soldiers stopped attacking the city.

But when he found that the captive soldiers didn't even harass, they just besieged the city to death, and then went out to plunder continuously. Yang Chao felt that things were not that simple. The captive soldiers wanted to surround himself to death.

I couldn't help but think of the Tang newspaper I saw last year. Zu Dashou was besieged in Jinzhou for more than half a year, and finally had to rely on cannibalism to persevere.

Yang Chao didn't want to do this, he really ran out of food, he would rather lead his troops out to fight the captives.

Yang Chao thought about the outcome of the Haizhou battle a lot, but never thought that this would be the case.

Unexpectedly, it would become a long-term siege by captive soldiers, within the territory of Daming, besieging a Daming city for a long time.

This is simply unbelievable. Yang Chao was not surprised that the captive soldiers were able to surround Jinzhou. Jinzhou is outside the pass, at the junction of the enemy and us. The captive soldiers have cavalry, which can be said to occupy a geographical advantage. However, Haizhou is in the territory of Daming, and it is the land of Daming. , already located in the Jianghuai area, but the captive soldiers were able to encircle Haizhou.

This is a miracle in military history. To achieve this, apart from the fact that the captive soldiers are strong enough, have rich experience in long-term combat, have extremely low survival requirements, and be able to maintain combat effectiveness through looting, the most important point is that the Ming army It gave the captive soldiers the opportunity to gallop like no man's land.

If the Ming court could mobilize reinforcements and relieve Haizhou from the siege, the captive soldiers would never dare to be so bold as to choose such an unimaginable tactic. Liaodong has reached Haizhou.

The objective conditions of both the enemy and ourselves have caused the current result.

As for reinforcements, Yang Chao couldn't help but think of the performance of some military officers in Huai'an. He estimated that he had stayed in Haizhou for a year, and no one came to rescue him. Zu Dashou persisted in Jinzhou for half a year. The reinforcements led by the famous generals were all taken away by the captive soldiers, but Zu Dashou had something to look forward to, but Haizhou now had no hope. If the captive soldiers continued to surround him like this, Yang Chao felt that he was going out of the city to fight to the death. There is no choice anymore.

But if you want to go out of the city for a decisive battle, a late battle is obviously not as good as an early one. At present, Haizhou has not run out of food, and can still eat for ten days, but it is really going to be a decisive battle at that time, when the supplies are insufficient and the morale of the army is unstable. , is not an optimal choice.

Yang Chao had to choose between leaving the city immediately for a decisive battle, or holding on for a few days and waiting for the captive soldiers to retreat.

The siege shown by the captive soldiers also made the Haizhou people feel uneasy. Various violent incidents began to occur frequently, and incidents of robbery and theft surrounding food and property continued to appear. The situation of the servants.

Seeing that Haizhou City was getting out of control day and night, Song Lian Dianshi was finally willing to lower his head to discuss with Yang Chao. First, he hoped that Yang Chao would send troops into the city to maintain it. Second, he wanted to discuss whether to reduce the daily ration ration by half.

If the food ration is reduced by half, it will naturally be able to support the established grain storage for twice as long, and Haizhou can last for a month.

But Yang Chao still refused after thinking about it. During the suffocating siege process, Haizhou City has begun to show signs of mass collapse. If the rations are tightened now, it will be tantamount to the tension in the hearts of the people in the city. , plus a heavy weight, the string would break if not done properly, and the entire Haizhou City would lose control in an instant.

As for sending troops into the city to maintain order, this Yang Chaodao didn't refuse, and he didn't need to send out his elite soldiers. He just asked the officers to lead the civilians, run around the city with weapons, and shouting slogans was enough to deter Xiaoxiao.

But none of this can solve the problem fundamentally. To solve the fundamental problem, we must focus on how to repel the captive soldiers and how to solve the siege of Haizhou.

"My lord! The captive soldiers in the north of the city have moved!"

While Yang Chao was meditating in the room, the guards in charge of guarding the north wall suddenly reported an emergency report.

Although the captive soldiers did not attack the city, and it was raining heavily, it seemed that the possibility of attacking the city was unlikely, but Yang Chao still kept some troops to defend the city. Of course, it was only a small number of people, and a flag team was placed on one wall.

It was the soldiers of Sun Changfu's banner team who came to report, and they were brought into Yang Chao's room by the soldiers.

After Yang Chao inquired carefully, he confirmed that the captive soldiers were not simply dispatched to plunder, but a large-scale operation dispatched by the entire battalion. Yang Chao immediately set off for the North City, and at the same time ordered all resting troops to be ready at all times.

Yang Chao quickly came to the north city wall, and he did see that the captive soldiers were in large-scale action. Teams of cavalry were dispatched, each with three or even four horses, and carts pushing bags of grain. shaped object.

The situation of the captive soldiers made Yang Chao very puzzled. It didn't look like they were leaving the city to plunder, nor did they look like they were preparing to attack the city, but rather like moving.

I saw a car and a horse of captive soldiers starting from the North Camp and moving east along the canal far away.

Yang Chao's soldiers followed the barracks all the time, and soon discovered that the target of the captive soldiers was the barracks in the east of Haizhou City.

Surrounding three missing one?

Yang Chao couldn't help being suspicious.

Prior to this, the situation in Haizhou had been blocked on all sides, surrounded by captive barracks. The Qushan camp in the south of the city was the main camp, and there were one barracks on the east, west, and north sides of the city. slightly smaller.

Now all the soldiers from the north battalion of the captive soldiers have gone to the east camp, revealing a direction for Haizhou City to break through, and Yang Chao can't help but guess what the captive soldiers want to play is to encircle the three and lack one, and hit the morale of the Ming army one by one to lure the Ming army. Break out, and then they chase after each other.

But Yang Chao always felt something was wrong, did the soldiers really underestimate him so much?If this is the case, then they will probably not give up the siege. Even if they looked down on the fighting power of the Ming army at first, after a contest in Haizhou City, the captive soldiers should wake up.

Since the captive soldiers attached great importance to Yang Chao, why would they use such a naive strategy, perhaps because they wanted to damage the morale of their own soldiers.

Yang Chao thought to himself, until he reported that all the soldiers from the northern camp had withdrawn to the eastern camp and did not take any further action, Yang Chao was still puzzled and couldn't figure it out.

Then quietly let people risk swimming across the river in the evening, but inspected the abandoned northern camp.

The result of the report was both reasonable and unexpected. The sentry reported that there were many places in the northern camp of the captive soldiers.

After so many days of heavy rain, the river is almost full of water. The terrain of Haizhou is high in the southwest and low in the northeast. Therefore, the Qiangwei River flows from south to north, turns to the east, and finally flows into the sea.

The north is the most downstream, so the terrain is the lowest, and it is not surprising that there is water here.

It has been raining heavily for days, the river has soared, and the camp has accumulated water, which is nothing more than normal.

……

The captive soldiers are in the camp of Qushan.

Turg is listening to the situation of Beiying moving to Dongying, and it is not so easy to move the big camp.

There are too many hunting and tribal habits in the captive soldiers, that is slavery, property and even people have owners, and the entire army is a slave owner with a group of slaves, so the barracks are full of mountainism, you My points are very clear.

If the looting went well and enough supplies were grabbed, then of course there would be nothing wrong with it, but once the tension fell and the supplies were not enough, there would be frequent disputes. If the North Camp and the East Camp had to cooperate, the main problem was the supply of various supplies. The problem, the relocation of Beiying to Dongying involves the transfer of various materials and the occupation of Dongying's resources.

You can quarrel over a tent for me today, and a bucket of hay for me tomorrow.

Turge was very annoying, so this joint venture was delayed until now, and they didn't start the joint venture until the water flooded the North Camp.

Turg understood that it was not really because of such a little thing. He was really nervous now, but he hadn't reached the point where he couldn't go on.

What caused everyone to be anxious was the long-delayed war. Now there are various complaints. Basically, no one wants to fight this battle. No one is willing to continue procrastinating on so many things.

"Master, I really can't continue the fight. Today, four of the five bullies under me have collapsed. If we drag it on, let alone enter Haizhou, they will all die of illness."

Turge couldn't help snorting, one of his servants reported the joint venture and took the opportunity to complain to him.

But Turg also knew that what the slave said was not all made up, and the disease had indeed become a big threat to them at this time.

(End of this chapter)