At this time, the fighting below the city wall had stopped. As expected, the Qin army was victorious, and the soldiers cheered as they rushed towards Yunxiao.
Yang Duanhe didn't even look at it. He seemed to have expected this result. He still stared at the map in front of him. After a long time, he slowly asked Shen Bing:
"Does the stingy man know what is so difficult about this battle?"
Shen Bing replied:
"It's still food and grass!"
Yang Duanhe nodded, and then asked:
"Tell me why it's difficult to find food and fodder."
Shen Bing looked at the map and replied:
"It is extremely difficult for the general to go south to reinforce Daliang in this battle."
"The water network of Wei State all runs east-west, which means that if the general wants to attack from Handan to Daliang, he must break through the water network layer by layer."
"With the ability of a general, although it is easy to break the water net, it is difficult to defend the water net!"
"And the closer you get to the beam, the more difficult it becomes."
Yang Duanhe nodded in agreement.
This is actually the geographical advantage of Wei State, but Wei State did not know how to use it and Chu State took advantage of it.
At this time, the Chu army deployed troops along the water network. With Wang Jian's ability and the help of pontoon bridges, it was not difficult to break through one and two layers of defense.
The problem is that every time you break through a level, you must prevent the Chu army from sneaking around the waterway and attacking...
The characteristic of the Chu army, in addition to having many soldiers and generals, is that it is good at water warfare.
You must know that this Chu army lives in a place with dense water networks along the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, and its shipping is very developed.
The reason why the front line of the Yellow River is not suitable for navigation is that there are flood seasons in all four seasons: there are spring floods in spring because they occur when the peach blossoms bloom, so they are also called peach blossom floods. After summer, the rainy season extends until autumn, when there are summer and autumn floods, and there are cold floods in winter.
There are few days of calm weather all year round, and the amount of water fluctuates and is irregular, which can cause great trouble to shipping.
The flood season of the Yangtze River is mainly concentrated in the rainy season. At other times, the river has the advantages of clear water, gentle flow, and stable water volume. Therefore, swimming, rafting, boatmaking, etc. are common things for the Chu people.
With this foundation, it is not difficult to build a powerful naval force.
On the other hand, the Qin army came from the northwest region where water was scarce, and most of them were landlubbers. If they were allowed to fight on foot, they might be invincible, but if they were to fight on water, they would be stretched thin.
Therefore, the Chu army could use this advantage to let the navy attack everywhere, sometimes interspersing in the water network and sometimes making sneak attacks, making the Qin army unable to defend itself and exhausted. Even the famous general Wang Jian was worried about this situation.
Especially when Wang Jian's army penetrated deep into the Chu region, that is, close to Daliang, as the supply line behind it became longer and longer, it became more vulnerable to attack.
To deal with this situation, the only way is to change the direction of attack, that is, attack from west to east as before.
But at this time, Qin's food and troops were concentrated in Handan. If he first moved to Xianyang and then attacked Anyi and then Daliang... it would probably take several months.
What's more, this would almost give Handan to the Chu army.
Shen Bing continued:
"The Chu army relies on the power of the water network to block the general, and our army also relies on the power of the beams to block the Chu army."
"It's a situation where no one can do anything to anyone."
"The Chu army can only besiege the city and wait for me to run out of food, so it is still a food problem."
The 100,000 Qin troops under Yang Duanhe not only occupied Daliang Jiancheng and the surrounding water network, but they were also veterans who had fought for many years and were of much better quality than the Chu army. Even though the Chu army numbered 250,000, they could not shake it.
So just like Shen Bing said, no one can do anything and everyone can only waste it.
Yang Duan drew a line on the north side with his finger on the map and said:
"What if I detach a force to go north to support the general?"
Shen Bing objected:
"General, this move is very dangerous."
"If the Chu army uses the power of the water army to harass along the way and then uses the water network to divide our army..."
Needless to say what the result will be next.
No matter how good the quality of the Qin army is, if it is divided into several pieces that cannot support each other, they can only be defeated individually.
Yang Duanhe couldn't help but sigh.
He didn't think of this, he just didn't want to admit it.
Because if this doesn't work, then that doesn't work either, so we have to stick to one path.
If you can defend to the death, there is no problem. The Chu soldiers will retreat after defending for a few months.
The problem is that defending is also a dead end... The Chu army keeps compressing the Qin army's space inward, and the large fertile fields outside the city don't matter to the Qin army. The Qin army will only eat less and less food.
However, the Chu army only needs to surround Daliang City and wait for next year's harvest, without even having to transport grain from Chu.
On the other side, Xiang Yan of the Chu army also had the same plan.
Although he was a little frustrated after launching the exploratory attack, the morale and combat effectiveness of the Qin army did not weaken at all.
Seeing this, Yan couldn't help but complain:
"The King of Wei fakes this trash."
"Not only did it fail to consume the strength of the Qin army, but it also gave the Qin army a fortified city and food in vain."
"If I had known earlier, I would have captured Daliang before Qin!"
The minister suggested:
"General, if the Qin army can burst the embankments and flood the beams, why don't we do the same?"
Xiang Yan shook her head and said:
"How could the Qin army be as stupid as King Wei?"
"They must be guarding the key points at the mouth of the river upstream to prevent our water attack."
"At that time, they only need to block the river channel and they will not be able to flood the beams."
"What's more, the weather is getting colder at this time, and the rivers in the North will freeze in a few days. How can it be effective if the river water is small?"
The general couldn't help but admire him when he heard this, and secretly said that the general had worked hard for this battle.
Of course Xiang Yan has to work hard, and it can even be said that he is bound to win this battle.
Xiang Yan's strategic goal is very simple, which is to encircle and annihilate the 100,000 Qin army in Daliang while the Qin state has destroyed Han and Zhao one after another, and after the battle with the Yan army, its strength has been damaged and there is no time to replace the troops.
This is not only an effective force to attack the Qin army and prevent the Qin army from going south to attack Chu, but also the starting point for Xiang Yan to launch an attack on the Qin army:
If Yang Duan and this Qin army are destroyed, Xiang Yan can gain a foothold in Daliang under the banner of helping Wei to restore the country, and then he can attack South to the south and attack Zhao to the north under the banner of helping Han and Zhao to restore the country.
Of the two, Xiang Yan was more inclined to attack Zhao.
Because once Wei's territory is lost to Xiang Yan, Zhao's territory will be easily surrounded.
If Dai and Yan were to unite again at that time, Wang Jian and his troops might end up with the same fate as Daliang if they did not escape.
In this way, Chu State no longer needs to worry about being destroyed by Qin State, but can return to being the overlord and order other countries to counterattack Qin State.
In Xiang Yan's eyes, there is no point in joining forces to attack Qin.
Because after the alliance, all countries wanted to preserve their strength, so they each had their own agendas. It would be a fool's dream to defeat the powerful Qin in this way.
Therefore, if you want to truly unite, you should bring all other countries into the territory of Chu and form one force to resist Qin.
Today's situation is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Daliang is just the first step of this plan.
After a moment of silence, Xiang Yan said to his general:
"Pass the order on."
"I hereby declare to the army and people of Wei: The Chu army has come to aid Wei. If the army and the people are willing to restore the country, they can join us in resisting Qin. All meritorious deeds will be rewarded!"