Liu Ziyi lost interest in telling stories, and the prisoners and jailers had to go back to their original positions to rest. This meal was already the highest standard in the prison, and Liu Ziyi swept it away in a short time, like a wind and a cloud.
Feeling that he still had something to say, he went to the wooden bucket that filled the prisoners with water and scooped out a ladle of cold water and drank it down. Then he walked to Wei Changpan and lay down next to him, leaning his back against the wall and letting out a comfortable groan.
"After staying in that ungrateful place for so long, even the prison food tastes delicious," he murmured in a low voice, and then comforted Wei Changpan, "It doesn't matter if I have to stay in the prison cell for two days, General Song will be here anyway.
Now that we have made it clear, do we still have to let him go? If there is some punishment, it is probably ours and has nothing to do with Brother Wei."
Wei Changpan shook his head, "That official in the city seems to be a petty person. Don't do anything cruel to you in this prison."
"How dare he!" Liu Ziyi glared at first, and then murmured to himself, "That's the truth, that guy is indeed very unpleasant to look at..."
"It doesn't matter what monsters and ghosts there are. The soldiers will come to block the water and the earth will cover it. The sky is big and the earth is big. After all, it is Yao who has the greatest kingship."
Now being locked up in this dark prison, he could only comfort himself in this way.
The fourth-rank Jinzhou general Song Zhiwen, whom Wei Changpan and Wei Changpan had been waiting for, did not come in person. Only a handwritten note brought by the staff brought the two of them out of the prison the next day. The prisoners nearby looked at them with fiery eyes.
Staring with envy at the thin piece of paper that could free someone with just a few words, even the few petty officials who were on duty at the Yamen that day went to jail.
"Don't be too happy. General Song will see you for questioning in half an hour." The familiar staff officer first had a cold face, then softened and showed a smile, and saluted Wei Changpan and the other two, "Thank you for your hard work here.
"
Both of them took it calmly.
"It is a matter of course that the two county towns were defeated even without the help of any siege equipment. I and General Song have surveyed the twenty-six cities of Jinzhou since the spring war this year. Some of the city walls are old and have not been repaired.
, you can tear off large pieces of bricks and stones with your bare hands, and the city gate is so rotten that you can poke a hole with one punch." Zhang Ziwen was talking to the two of them along the way about the direction of the war after the fifty people left Jinzhou.
, sighing endlessly when talking about the news of the collapse of the two county towns:
"Even if the people in the two county offices were more careful, not only to build the entire city wall like a round city, but also to replace a few city gates that were eaten away by ants, not to mention whether it would be possible
Withstanding the barbarian offensive, it is not a problem to hold on for at least another ten days, but as for the money to replace the city gate, the people in the two government offices have been arguing about it." He sneered, "In the end, they didn't all give it away.
Barbarians."
"There are six other county towns in Jinzhou that are in roughly the same situation as these two counties. Three of them are in the north of Bingyuan City, which are the easiest places for the barbarians to target. To put it bluntly, according to the barbarians' fighting style that does not take human life seriously.
There is no way, if a thousand-man team is dead, and then another thousand-man team is filled in on the city wall, how can a hole be opened in that paper city wall."
Zhang Ziwen, who was a civilian staff officer on horseback, was heartbroken, "It's just that the decisions made by these officials require the people to bear the consequences. The people in the two cities are gone, and the remaining six are in danger!"
Jinju farmland
It is vast but sparse and plump. If we talk about the annual output, it may not be as good as the richest county in Jiangzhou. If the annual output is not good, it can only be enough to provide self-sufficient rations. It can support the state of Jinzhou, which does not decrease but increases.
It is not easy to build an army, let alone build a defense line consisting of forts and cities in the north of Jinju.
"As early as a few months after General Song took over as the general of Jinzhou, the general took us as staff officers to the top of those city walls. I saw with my own eyes that there were the garrison of the city in front of a large army that was about to attack the border, and the earthen city battlements.
Half of it collapsed without even putting a foot on it. The soldiers are all veterans and they don't look like they can fight."
After Jinzhou General Song Zhiwen took over the mess of Jinzhou military affairs from his predecessor, he realized what kind of situation he was facing. The Jinzhou army suffered unprecedented heavy losses in the spring of the sixth year of Emperor Yao's reign.
The only capable cavalry at Yao's border had lost three to four tenths of its personnel, not to mention the infantry. The Beida camp, which was crushed to pieces by the iron hoofs of the barbarians, no longer even existed. The five thousand soldiers and the man in command
Only about 300 remnants of the participating generals were able to escape, and only one centurion led them. None of the participating generals and the two captains survived.
The conditions of the two camps in the east and west were roughly similar. The tactics used by the barbarians to avoid battle and protect the people when they first went south could no longer be maintained after the emperor's personal expedition. The former Jinzhou general urgently needed a victory to show his military achievements in front of the emperor, at least he could not
Credit also comes with hard work, so the old general issued his own order on his sick bed, ordering the two battalions in the east and west to take the initiative to attack.
The Jinju State Army is not an army of tigers and wolves, not to mention that the general's orders issued on the sickbed did not have strategies or details, but only strictly controlled the schedule. The two battalions, which were already low in morale, even had to be suppressed.
There was a small-scale mutiny, and the orders from their superiors for them to attack were tantamount to death. These soldiers could not tolerate such a request. Fortunately, the chief officer suppressed it in time and did not cause a big mistake.
However, no matter what, they had to fight a winning battle before Emperor Yao arrived. Even if they sacrificed their lives, they still had to exchange for a bunch of heads of prairie barbarians and put them in front of the emperor, so that the Jinzhou Army would not be completely defeated.
It was regarded as a useless army and was abolished by the Ministry of War. If father and son are in the same battalion, the father will attack; if brothers are in the same battalion, the eldest brother will attack.
In this way, the two camps gathered together 4,000 soldiers and more than 200 horsemen. They rushed to the hastily built camp of the barbarians with the intention of death. The barbarians in the camp quickly calmed down after experiencing the initial panic.
A cavalry of 500 people was organized to disperse the Yao people's vanguard, and then there was a one-sided massacre. The soldiers without command fled everywhere, and then they were caught up by fast horses and slashed.
After all, General Jinzhou took out the heads for inspection by the emperor, who was driving the conquest. Half of them were the heads of death row prisoners and the other half were the heads of barbarians. As for the rest, only God knows where they came from.
Then the old man who had served as the general of Jinzhou for decades passed away suddenly before leaving office, leaving a mess for Song Zhiwen that directly affected the current situation in Jinzhou.
The Jinzhou State Army, which was only a second-rate combat force in Dayao, was not good at using foot to control cavalry in field battles. It was only good at defending the city. Song Zhiwen inspected the remnants of the East and West Camps and the relatively intact South Camp.
Coming to this conclusion, the dignified General Jinzhou can only command these thousands of troops at present, so the first priority is obviously to recruit troops.
"Not many people are willing to join the army. They were beaten so badly this spring. The families who joined the army in the whole village are very poor. Not many people have the courage to exchange their lives for a few copper coins. I was responsible for it at the beginning.
The person responsible for the recruitment matter visited several villages outside the city. It took a long time to drag away a few people, and two of them ran away along the way. "Zhang Ziwen looked bitter, stretched out two fingers and shook them,"
Only twenty people were brought back."
"The general had no choice but to ask for a forced recruitment document from the Ministry of War. He then recruited 30,000 strong men and screened out those who were weak or disabled, leaving less than 20,000 soldiers who had been trained for three months.
, at first I wanted to break up and hang out with the veterans, but I never thought that in just a few days, I had not learned how to survive on the battlefield, and I had the habit of being a soldier, so I naturally lost my fighting ability."
"The general doesn't want to fight with the barbarians freely, but why? The Jinzhou Army has more than 20,000 half-baked soldiers who can't even put up a guard of honor? Why go out and fight if you don't stay in the city and guard?
"
Zhang Ziwen, who had been talking non-stop for a long time, finally fell silent for a long while. The three riders walked slowly on the streets of Bingyuan City. The pedestrians had retreated early, "When we went there, there was half a hundred people, and you two were the only ones who could come back."
, I have nothing to apologize to anyone for a long time. If I did, it was I who first proposed the surprise attack strategy with the general...I am sorry to you."
"Would you like to find a doctor first to take a look at your health? The medical officers in the camp may not be available these days. They are busy removing arrows from the soldiers who were shot by arrows and bandaging their wounds. Only now are the medicines to stop the bleeding available.
It's a bit tight, what if there really is a war, it's better to stock up on medicine, rice and food at home." Zhang Ziwen saw that the two of them were listening to his words silently, so he continued, "This may not be what a Dayao soldier should say, but
You all must be prepared to destroy the city."
A circular city with a population of more than 300,000 people could only be defended by more than 10,000 state troops and 5,000 nearby village warriors, but the latter was almost negligible. It was an excellent force to serve as, but it would not be able to withstand the barbarians when they were brought into the battle.
A casual charge would be nothing more than throwing some bricks and wooden barriers at the barbarians at the top of the city.
There are too many explanations for the destruction of the first two county towns. It is natural that the unrepaired city defenses and weak soldiers could not stop the barbarians. But this is Jinzhou City and Yuancheng, the largest city in Jinzhou. If even this city
If every city can't be defended, doesn't that mean that the other more than 20 counties and cities can't be defended...
"If you can defend it, you will definitely be able to defend it." Wei Changpan rushed to Zhang Ziwen's side with his horse under his belly and said to him very seriously, "There must be a way to defend it."
Zhang Ziwen shook his head indifferently on the horse, "This is not something that can be defended by simply defending it. General Song and our staff calculated it for a whole month. The time and place are favorable and we only have a small area to occupy. The round city is now on the street.
When we pulled out a cart of food, there were no soldiers with spears or spears by our side. We couldn't walk a hundred steps without being robbed, and the perpetrators couldn't be found afterwards."
If people's hearts are all in disarray, what can they do to defend this city?