Liukang Dynasty, the residence of Prime Minister Zhao.

The door of the mansion opened wide, and a luxurious carriage sped in. Immediately afterwards, Zhao Liangyan stepped on the sedan chair and got out of the carriage.

His expression was gloomy, with hints of sadness and indignation, which made the housekeeper and confidants standing by him couldn't help but look at each other in confusion.

As Zhao Liangyan entered the study, the staff couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Zhao, what are you doing?"

Zhao Liangyan sighed, "I don't know which sycophant taught your majesty. In order to seize power, your majesty has no regard for life and death. As long as he agrees with it, he will definitely oppose it."

The staff member frowned, "Is this what happened in court today?"

Zhao Liangyan nodded and said in a deep voice, "The news that Qin Yi went south and defeated Jing Shou together with Mu Haorang has spread. Your Majesty did not ask me for advice, but asked in the court how to deal with it. All the officials were arguing.

It’s overwhelming.”

After hearing this, the staff immediately understood that His Majesty wanted to evade Prime Minister Zhao step by step. The first step was to convey a signal and let everyone know that His Majesty would not adopt anything that Prime Minister Zhao agreed with, thereby slowly reducing Prime Minister Zhao's supporters.

The hundreds of officials quarreling in the court are proof of this.

His Majesty no longer trusts Prime Minister Zhao, so they are eager to show themselves off in order to gain His Majesty's trust.

It's a pity that Prime Minister Zhao is a loyal man and will not do anything to deceive the emperor. Otherwise, he would have plenty of ways to punish the disobedient emperor!

Perhaps it was because of his loyalty and integrity that he was entrusted by the late emperor to make him regent and prime minister.

"I wonder what your lords' opinions are?" the staff asked.

"Some said to send troops to rescue Qucheng, some said to send troops to rescue Changcheng, and some said to send troops to capture other Linzhan cities..."

"What is your proposal, Prime Minister Zhao?" the staff asked.

As a close aide, he naturally has the right to know Zhao Liangyan's decision and assist in decision-making. This is his role.

"Seek peace." Zhao Liangyan said.

The staff member's mouth twitched, sighing secretly that Prime Minister Zhao was really loyal, and he still proposed such a proposal, knowing that His Majesty would not accept it.

It was His Majesty who refused to listen to dissuasion and ordered the troops to be sent. Now that he was defeated, he immediately sued for peace. Wasn't this a slap in the face to himself?

Your Majesty is looking forward to establishing your prestige and regaining your power, so why would you do such a slap in the face?

"In the end, what is your Majesty's decision?" the staff asked.

He knew that it was definitely not asking for peace.

"Your Majesty refuted my opinion. In desperation, I seconded others and suggested sending troops to rescue Qucheng. Your Majesty heard this, refuted it again, and finally decided to send troops to rescue Changcheng." After saying this, Prime Minister Zhao was extremely unhappy.

There were 90,000 garrison guards in Changcheng, but the enemy general Sun Xingling had only 100,000 infantry. It didn't take much thinking to know that the enemy would not be able to capture it.

But they still sent troops to rescue them. It was just like taking off their pants and farting. It was unnecessary!

When the staff heard this, they immediately understood.

To act like this is tantamount to abandoning Qucheng.

Within Qucheng, there are only 80,000 soldiers and horses guarding Jing. If no reinforcements are sent, they will be like an isolated island. Their fall is only a matter of time.

It seems that His Majesty has no power, but has a strong desire for power. In order to regain power, he listens to others and behaves randomly.

A battle without a goal, a hammer here and there, a stick here and there, and random things will eventually make one's side suffer a lot!

…

Da Jing Dynasty, six cities in western Jing.

Under Liangcheng, the trenches were filled with countless dead bodies. The smell of corpses and the smell of blood merged together to emit a strong stench!

Many flies were flying up and down, lingering, and not far away, there were three or four wild dogs gathering together, eating the stumps.

The whole scene is a scene of purgatory, very terrifying!

The Dali soldiers on the city wall were not feeling any discomfort, their faces were cold, and they stood like javelins, looking into the distance warily.

Under Gu Yulan's command, whether they are Yulan's cavalry or infantry, their morale and combat power far exceed those of other troops, simply because Gu Yulan leads the troops well.

Therefore, even though the enemy soldiers abandoned thousands of corpses and retreated in defeat, unable to launch another attack, they still did not relax their vigilance and stood on the sentry post, fully alert.

Ten miles away from Liangcheng, in the camp of Luo Lingguang, the famous Dajing general, there was a roar of mourning and blood!

Many wounded soldiers were gathered in several camps and treated uniformly by the army doctors.

Hearing this heart-shaking howl, both the patrol team and the soldiers resting in the tent were filled with despair.

They came here with high morale, hoping to recapture the city belonging to Dajing. Unexpectedly, they attacked day by day. After nearly twenty days, not even a city was recaptured, and their own side suffered heavy casualties.

There were 150,000 soldiers and horses at the beginning, but now, there are only 80,000 left!

A full 70,000 of his colleagues died in Liangcheng!

They were despairing, and vaguely felt that they might never be able to recapture the six cities in Jingxi from Dali.

In addition, they are full of fear. Whenever they hear the drums of attack, they think it is the trumpet of death. Either they will die or their colleagues will die...

In the commander's tent, a general reported in a mute voice, "General, in this attack, eight thousand of our troops were killed..."

Luo Lingguang, whose body was covered in blood, trembled in his heart and almost wanted to bleed.

He did not expect that Gu Yulan was not only powerful in frontal combat, but also so sharp in defending the city.

The siege of the city had to be done at the cost of human lives, but when encountering a famous general like Gu Yulan, the attack could not be taken for a long time and the casualties were extremely heavy.

In order to boost morale, Luo Lingguang took the lead in attacking the city every time. As a result, he was injured all over his body. His left arm was hit by an arrow, his right leg was hit by a rolling log, and he was stabbed in the abdomen. Now he is staggering when he walks, but he never flinched.

Still risking his life to attack the city.

Because of this, the soldiers of Dajing could attack the city every day without losing their morale.

Seeing that Luo Lingguang didn't speak for a long time, the general gritted his teeth and advised, "General, we can't fight anymore. If we continue to fight, the remaining 70,000 troops will be killed or injured!"

Luo Lingguang shook his head, with a resolute look on his face, and said word by word, "I made a promise to Your Majesty that I will not return until I die! As long as I can still run, and as long as everyone is still willing to attack the city with me, I will

Can’t stop!”

…

In the past few days, the city has been attacked several times without much success. Just when Sun Xingling was about to stop testing and attack Changcheng with all his strength, the news came that Qin Yi appeared in Qucheng and joined forces with Mu Haorang to defeat him.

To Jing Shou.

Sun Xingling and Chen Yu were very happy to learn that Qin Yi was fine and had escaped from the enemy's siege, so they also sent an order to the entire army to retreat to Linzhan via Fan State.

Their mission was to relieve Qin Yi's pressure so that he could escape. Now that their goal was achieved, there was no need to continue to attack the city.

If they really want to capture Changcheng, they must sacrifice human lives to do so. Their current military strength is simply not enough.

What's more, Changcheng is close to Fan State and not adjacent to Linzhan. It is an enclave to capture and difficult to govern, so there is no need to go to waste.

…

Relying on the war map, Qin Yi solved the remaining two groups of enemy soldiers. Although each group of enemy soldiers only had 20,000 or 30,000 soldiers, which was not much, the total number of enemy soldiers was 40,000 to 50,000, which could be regarded as weakening Liu Kang to a certain extent.

Strength.

Afterwards, he led his troops back and seven days had passed when they returned to Qucheng.

However, Qucheng was still in the hands of Jing Shou, which made Qin Yi slightly surprised. Later he found out that it was the loss of 50,000 soldiers and horses that made Mu Haorang dare not attack. He only planned to besiege the city and use up the food and grass in the city.

The effect of winning without fighting.

But Qin Yi 100% disagrees with this.

There is not enough food and grass, there are horses, there are rich gentry, and there are common people... these are the common people in Linzhan, and Jing Shou will not pity them at all.

If the siege continues, the first people to suffer will definitely be the people of Linzhan.

Therefore, we must capture it as soon as possible to prevent the Jing guards from causing mischief in the city!

But Qin Yi did not immediately urge Mu Haorang to attack. After all, there was no overwhelming advantage between 150,000 and 80,000. If he attacked forcefully, he would indeed lose a lot of troops.

So he was waiting, waiting for Sun Xingling to lead one hundred thousand infantry to come and join him.

At that time, it will be the time for the two armies to join forces to attack the city!

…

Three days later, a scout cavalry quickly entered the camp. After dismounting, he went straight to Qin Yi's tent and said respectfully, "General, General Sun has led 100,000 troops and horses and has arrived ten miles away."

When Qin Yi heard this, he narrowed his eyes slightly and immediately responded, "Send a message to General Mu and tell him that tomorrow morning, the two armies will attack the city together!"

Today, in addition to giving the 100,000 infantrymen a rest, they also had to rush to make siege equipment.

Early the next morning, amid the sound of war drums, the troops of Qin Yi formed a battle formation and headed towards Qucheng.

Mu Haorang had already learned the news and gave up the west and north city walls, while he himself focused on attacking the east and south.

Qin Yi's army was arrayed in the west, but he did not send troops to besiege it in the north.

As the art of war goes, a city must be besieged.

If you don't want the enemy soldiers to fight to the death, you must leave a gap so that when the enemy soldiers are defeated, they will have the intention to retreat and reduce your own casualties.

After the two sides formed their formations and exchanged messages, Qin Yi located in the formation and shouted loudly, "Attack the city!"

Suddenly, flags were waved, war drums roared, and the siege began.

The human-powered catapult at the front of the battle formation, pulled hard by the soldiers, shot out the stones and hit the city wall, making a loud roar.

In the city, many catapults also launched a counterattack, with stones flying and breaking through the air.

Many stones hit the Linzhan catapult, and the wood chips exploded and the equipment was destroyed.

The catapults of both sides had similar ranges. The Linzhan catapult was hit, and the catapults in the city were also smashed. In a short time, the catapults of both sides were damaged and difficult to use.

Qin Yi frowned slightly when he saw it. He knew that both sides had catapults, which would offset each other's damage, but he didn't expect it to be like this, and it didn't have much effect at all.

It seems that when attacking a city, the only way to maintain the crushing advantage is to develop more powerful siege equipment.

Suppressing his distracting thoughts, Qin Yi loudly ordered, "The front army charges!"

Although he doesn't like to attack cities by force or take human lives to fill them, at this moment, this is all he can do.

Fortunately, there is no moat in Qucheng, and there is no thick wall of sheep and horses. Our own troops have up to 250,000 troops, while the enemy only has 80,000 troops, so there should not be too many casualties.
Chapter completed!