The siege of Ningzhou City finally stopped after another ten days. There is only one reason:

Ning's army ran out of food and could not attack.

In these ten days, the Yan army paid a price of nearly 10,000 casualties, and the losses were extremely heavy.

If it weren't for Nalan Tingye's fatal order to all the generals in the army, the Yan army would have collapsed long ago.

On the top of Ningzhou City, where corpses were strewn everywhere, Nalan Tingye, the Prime Minister of the East Courtyard, stepped over the corpses and stood by the city wall. Looking at the quiet Ningjun military camp, he sneered:

"The siege is over, right? It will be your turn to taste the beating soon."

…

Compared with the tragic casualties suffered by the Yan army, the Ning army outside the city was even more aggrieved.

Starting from the third day of intensifying the siege, Ning's army ran out of food.

The little grain and grass that the army dug out could only feed the siege soldiers and elite cavalry half full, and then they killed horses to satisfy their hunger and maintain the strength of the soldiers. In the end, all the soldiers in the army could only drink rice soup to satisfy their hunger.

On the tenth day, the Ning army's siege was completely over, because there were only a few soldiers who still had the strength to climb the city, and the entire military camp was filled with a strong sense of pessimism.

The most irritating thing is that the Yan army in the city is making fires to cook from morning to night, and the aroma of beef and mutton floats far away along the winter wind.

Those in the Yan family kept writing letters outside the city, trying to persuade the soldiers outside the city to surrender.

In Nalan Tingye's words, they were trying to destroy the Ning army's fighting will bit by bit.

The old man Chang Hantang and his grandson walked slowly around the camp. Most of the soldiers were so hungry that they didn't even have the strength to stand up and salute.

Weapons scattered on the ground, supplies that no one was carrying, soldiers fainting from hunger...

The entire camp was lifeless and lifeless.

Unknowingly, Chang Hantang walked up to a cook. There was a large iron pot on the open space with some soup and water in it.

"General." The cook bowed and saluted, and silently took a step forward, trying to block the big pot.

"Get out of the way~"

Under Chang Hantang's cold words, the cook stood aside cautiously, not daring to say a word.

The old man picked up the spoon, stirred it vigorously a few times, and scooped up a bowl of soup from the bottom of the pot.

There was no oily smell in the slightly black soup, and only a few wrinkled wild vegetables were floating in it.

"Just eat this?" The old man's voice was almost trembling:

"More than 100,000 border soldiers can only eat this kind of food!"

The old man was almost shaking with rage.

He was not angry with the cook, he was angry with himself for not being able to even feed the army.

After leading troops in battles for so many years, Chang Hantang has faced countless crises, but this one worries him the most.

Whether it was Chang Huaiyi, the cook, or the soldiers sitting on the ground around them, they all lowered their heads silently.

So many people, including people and horses, have eaten up everything edible around them. Now even wild vegetables are considered the best food.

Many soldiers in the army starved to death, and the wounded had no medical treatment and could only lie in beds waiting to die.

The Chang family has been betting that they can capture Ningzhou before they run out of food, and they bet that they can capture Ningzhou after killing the war horses...

To this day, they can no longer gamble anymore.

Now only generals and a handful of elite soldiers can eat horse meat every day, because horses starve to death every day and then become food in their mouths.

In order to prevent the Yan army from leaving the city for a sneak attack, the Chang family must ensure that they have an elite cavalry ready to participate in the battle at any time.

When the horses were first slaughtered to satisfy hunger, many soldiers strongly opposed it and were very reluctant. However, they were so hungry that they have become numb today.

Either kill the war horse or starve to death.

No choice~

At this time, Chang Jingzhe walked all the way through the camp, walked to the old man and whispered:

"Father~"

The old man saw that his son was hesitant to speak, as if he had something to say that was inconvenient to say in public, and sighed softly:

"Let's talk back to camp~"

…

In the Chinese army's tent, seven or eight military generals gathered together. They were all the absolute confidants of the Chang family and their companions in life and death.

In front of everyone, Chang Jingzhe told what was barely good news.

He traveled around the nearby cities in the past few days and finally got some food and grass, which he estimated to be able to feed the entire army two more meals.

Two meals, just two meals, is still the kind of food that is a little bit but not full.

There was a dead silence in the handsome tent. Such a small amount of food was really a drop in the bucket, not even a drop in the bucket.

But something is better than nothing.

After being silent for a long time, Chang Huaiyi gritted his teeth and mustered up the courage to speak:

"Grandpa, this battle can't go on any longer. The army must withdraw immediately!"

Everyone's expressions changed, they raised their heads in astonishment, and looked at each other in disbelief at Chang Hantang, who was sitting on the main seat.

Everyone knew that the war could no longer be fought at this point, but no one dared to say so.

Chang Hantang has always advocated using every possible means to attack.

Retreating means admitting defeat. Once the army retreats, the morale of the army will be extremely low. This is one of them.

Secondly, the reason why the Ning army was eager to counterattack was because the Yan army had just occupied Pinghan Road, and its foothold was not stable and its strength was weak.

If they were given a period of time to mobilize reinforcements, deploy troops, and completely control the entire Pinghan Road, the battle would be ten times more difficult.

That's why Ning Jun now feels like he can't advance or retreat.

The old man's brows frowned deeply. This time Chang Hantang did not object, but he also did not agree. The look between his brows clearly showed he was still hesitating.

"grandfather!"

Chang Huaiyi said in a deep voice: "At this point, it is meaningless to fight hard.

The morale in the army was low. Soldiers deserted every day and countless people died of starvation.

Ningzhou City will definitely not be captured for a while, and it is futile to surround it.

We still occupy part of the city on Jiaodong Road, so why not take advantage of the fact that we still have some food in hand, let the soldiers eat enough, and then break camp and retreat.

Let's retreat to Jiaodong Road first to stabilize the situation, and then we can counterattack. As long as hundreds of thousands of troops are still there, we won't have to worry about not having a chance."

Chang Huaiyi had sorted out all the problems in the military.

There have been many soldiers running away in the army in the past few days. At first it was just one or two soldiers, but soon it turned into dozens or hundreds of people running away.

Everyone is willing to fight to take back their hometown, but now they are starving to death and there is no hope of returning home.

The morale of the military will collapse little by little in this situation.

Chang Hantang silently glanced around the tent and asked softly:

"What do you mean?"

No one spoke, but Chang Jingzhe spoke first:

"Father, Huai Yi is right, I agree."

At this time, the other generals nodded slightly, their faces full of sadness.

"Alas~"

The old man's figure was much stooped. He rubbed his brow and said:

"Give me the order to withdraw the troops.

Let the soldiers pack their bags quietly, gather the rations, slaughter all the starving horses, and let the soldiers have a full meal tomorrow.

At midnight tomorrow, the army will gradually retreat!"

All the soldiers' eyes were shocked, they cupped their fists and shouted:
Chapter completed!