Chapter 358 Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition

Faced with Dayu's aggressiveness, Qin was helpless.

The sudden natural disaster, coupled with several years of man-made disasters, made Qin somewhat powerless.

Fortunately, the war agents and wealthy households were powerful enough, otherwise Qin would not have been able to fight again this time.

After the Qin army arrived in Xingyang and Daliang, Dayu immediately changed its strategy and set up camps to confront it. At the same time, cavalry went out to continue to destroy the rear, harass the grain road, and plunder the population.

The strategy of Dayu's army was very clear. I just wanted to fight for consumption.

Use your own strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses!

The biggest weakness of Qin now is food and grass.

This made Meng Ao and Wang Jian very helpless. They could only send cavalry to fight against Dayu's army, otherwise they would really become deaf and blind.

For the Qin army, the best thing is that their chariot formation still maintains an absolute advantage. The combination of chariot soldiers, cavalry and space cavalry can also fight with Dayu's cavalry.

However, the huge loss made them a little unbearable.

On Wang Jian's side alone, 200 to 300 cavalrymen died in battles with Dayu's cavalry every day, but how many cavalrymen did Wang Jian have in total?

The answer is 20,000.

At the rate of 200 deaths per day, it would take 100 days, but war is not calculated in this way.

With such a ratio, Wang Jian's cavalrymen would probably collapse in a month at most.

On the other hand, Huang Zhong's cavalrymen had a total of 100,000 iron cavalrymen, and this was just the space cavalrymen.

Huang Zhong's cavalrymen and other natural cavalrymen added up to 50,000.

The total strength of Huang Zhong's army exceeded 500,000, including 30,000 elite Xiang's army.

Since Xiang Yan was severely fooled by Wang Jian in the battle of Bashu, he had been gritting his teeth and sharpening his sword all day, wanting to compete with Wang Jian again.

Although he was under the command of Huang Zhong this time, in addition to the 30,000 "Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain" army headquarters, there were 70,000 people who were also included in his headquarters. In terms of military strength, he was not inferior to Wang Jian.

Huang Zhong's army's strong military advantage made Wang Jian feel great pressure.

Even though Wang Jian's army had 50,000 Qin elite soldiers, Huang Zhong's army was not inferior to Wang Jian's army in terms of the number of elite soldiers, and other armies would be even more.

Wang Jian found himself in the most annoying war mode again.

Wang Jian liked to defeat the enemy with absolute strength, but since he met Dayu, he always commanded weak troops.

"For now, it's useless to defend Daliang, it's better to eat up these 500,000 troops first!"

A bold idea emerged in Wang Jian's mind.

Wang Jian was in a difficult situation, and Meng Ao was in a similar situation.

Meng Ao was afraid of Dian Wei, because as early as when Xinling Jun led the five-nation coalition to rescue Wei, Dian Wei, who was still leading troops on behalf of Han and accepted Xinling Jun's command, almost killed Meng Ao in the battle array.

For such a tiger, Meng Ao was inevitably afraid.

After all, Meng Ao is old and has experienced the pain of losing his son. Both his energy and strength are not as good as before. The reason why he fought so hard, in addition to his belief in revenge, is to leave enough political heritage for his two grandsons so that they can become high-level officials of Qin without any surprise and avenge their father!

This time, Meng Ao used his troops very conservatively. As the disadvantaged party, he did not want to have such a hasty decisive battle with the Yu army.

Now he just wants to be stable.

Under such circumstances, the main forces of the two sides on the eastern battlefield between Qin and Dayu became strangely quiet, and the main battle became a large-scale land confrontation between cavalry.

Dayu wanted to knock out the Qin army's scouts and compress the Qin army's space for activities; the Qin army could only passively fight and occasionally fight a few counterattacks; but overall, Dayu still took advantage.

After several times of coercion, Meng Ao directly decided to give up this meaningless consumption. The army was stationed in Sanhuang Mountain, north of Xingyang and backed by the Yellow River, and connected with the navy; at the same time, troops were divided to guard Xingyang.

Meng Ao's operation made Dian Wei confused.

After such an arrangement, the Qin army not only became a pincer attack, but also had a key canal route behind it, so the food route was safe; more importantly, the Qin army here could use the advantage of the navy to maneuver at any time, and could not only reinforce Wang Jian's troops, but also retreat at any time, coming and going freely.

After Dian Wei attacked Xingyang several times and failed to lure out Meng Ao, he was also very angry, but he had no way to deal with it.

He didn't even dare to take the initiative to attack the main force of Meng Ao's army.

Dian Wei knew very well that it was no problem for him to protect people or charge to death, but if he really had to command hundreds of thousands of people to fight, he was sorry that he really didn't have that ability; Cheng Yu, who merged with him, didn't dare to say that his ability to command on the battlefield was better than Meng Ao.

To put it bluntly, Cheng Yu was a counselor and could also be a part-time military general, but when it came to commanding and making decisions on the battlefield, he might not be as good as Dian Wei.

Everyone has their own specialties, and everyone's areas of expertise are different after all.

But the two of them together are enough to deal with Meng Ao.

"General Dian, the battle of Nanjun is about to start. The Qin army can't send more troops here. General Taishi can take care of Wancheng. Let General Le lead the attack on each county one by one! I will order the whole country of Han to mobilize and recapture the old territory of Han; at the same time, let the prime minister allocate some more space soldiers!

The Qin army can avoid the battle, so we will block it here, dig deep camps, store up food and grass, and don't fight a decisive battle with the Qin army. We will just capture the city and take away all the people if it is of low value. I want to see if Meng Ao can watch this place turn into a wasteland!"

Cheng Yu used a blatant conspiracy, but this conspiracy was even more sinister than the conspiracy.

"Good idea!"

Dian Wei rolled his eyes and said, "It just so happens that my Bai Niao and Que Ge also need to recruit talents. Zhongde can send people to select talents from the rescued population, and let Le Jin and Taishi Ci participate."

"That's right!"

Cheng Yu clapped his hands and laughed.

Cheng Yu played with corpses all day long, so he didn't need any talents, but a smart man like Cheng Yu keenly grasped the key point in Dian Wei's words - Que Ge!

Everything is self-evident.

The workplace elite is worthy of being the workplace elite!

Cheng Yu used a blatant conspiracy, and Meng Ao became uncomfortable.

If you keep the land but lose the people, you will lose both the people and the land. Meng Ao certainly understood this principle, but he had no choice.

Meng Ao was as steady as an old dog, unmoved, but secretly mobilized troops to support Wang Jian by water.

Meng Ao saw it clearly. If it was just a defense, 100,000 elite troops would be enough. In this case, it would be better to let Wang Jian open the situation first.

After Wang Jian received reinforcements, he immediately arranged for a decisive battle with Huang Zhong's army.

However, the reinforcements of Wang Jian's troops were discovered by Huang Zhong's troops. No matter how Wang Jian provoked, Huang Zhong's troops would not fight.

Although Huang Zhong's troops had 500,000 people, the strategic goal was to consume and contain, so Huang Zhong was not in a hurry.

In fact, because of the previous fierce battle with Meng Ao's troops, Huang Zhong only needed to delay the Qin army this time, and he would have achieved his strategic goal.

As for the temptation to defeat Wang Jian...

Huang Zhong had figured it out. Since Xu Chu had defeated Wang Jian, wouldn't it be better for him to beat Xu Chu when he met him?

He believed that he still had the ability to beat Xu Chu!

As long as he was stronger than Xu Chu, wouldn't he be stronger than Wang Jian?

In fact, there were many people who had similar ideas to him. Even Zhao Yun, who was steady in character, couldn't help but want to compete with Xu Chu.

Who made Xu Chu's dog-crawling handwriting so irritating? ——

When the elite soldiers of Dayu and Qin fought wits and courage on the front line of Han and Wei, Zhuge Liang's troops had already started fighting with the Qin army.

Zhuge Liang almost followed the route of Guan Yu's Northern Expedition in history. The main force took Yingdu (Jiangling) as the base, went up along the west bank of the Han River, and relied on the Han River navy to ensure logistics and rear roads. The army marched calmly to Deng (Xiangyang).

Yue Fei's troops marched along the east bank of the Han River and aimed directly at Deng's rear, the location of Fancheng in later generations.

The minimum strategic goal set by the cabinet was to capture Yancheng, but for Zhuge Liang, who was independently commanding a large army for the first time, and Yue Fei, who was eager to make enough contributions and grow into a general who could independently command a large army, the cabinet's strategy was too conservative.

For them, if they can't even take Deng, then what's the point of fighting!

Their minimum goal is to take Deng, and it would be best if they can take Wancheng.

The goal has been set, and the morale of the whole army is high.

Whether it is Zhuge Liang or Yue Fei, their ability to train soldiers is first-class.

The Zhuge Liannu soldiers and Wu Dang Flying Army, the natural human soldiers trained by Zhuge Liang, have been very formed and powerful. There are also certain breakthroughs in Zhuge Liannu, but there is still a lack of runes, so it can't reach the penetration of Zhuge Liannu produced in space, but it can be mass-produced, and there is no need to fight a battle to consume millions or tens of millions.

Not only that, the training of crossbow soldiers is not as troublesome as archers, so many Zhuge Liannu soldiers are part-time Wu Dang Flying Army.

In addition to Wu Dang Flying Army, Zhuge Liang also trained Tujiang, Wuqian, Sanqi, Wuqi, Chariot Soldiers and other arms, as well as a large number of siege equipment.

Zhuge Liang's ability highlights a comprehensiveness. The cavalry may not be strong enough, but there is no obvious shortcoming, and the ability of infantry is even more amazing.

The most important thing is that he is very good at arranging troops and can switch freely between various formations, and has strong command ability in battle.

The army he trained is naturally very comprehensive in all types, and there will be no obvious shortcomings in the war.

Yue Fei is also a general who is very good at training soldiers and horses. His elite infantry and cavalry are both real heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, but they are also good at raiding and brave.

The two armies came out together, and the cities near the Qin State were suddenly in a panic.

Because the map is too large, attacking Deng can only be a long-term plan. At this stage, we have to go south to Yancheng first. Before Yancheng, there are cities such as the place on the west bank of the Han River and Quan, and on the east bank of the Han River, there are important places such as Goumu Mountain, Qiu, and Yu.

In addition, there are a large number of small cities, including small cities of war agents.

The Dayu army, which had prepared a large number of siege equipment, launched a crushing attack on small cities along the way, but encountered resolute resistance in large cities and strategic locations.

Wang He, the Qin general in charge of the defense of Nanjun, was no simple character. The central government of Qin had anticipated Dayu's attack on Nanjun, so they had already carried out the fortification and clearing of the fields, and strengthened the city defense, built camps, and deployed heavy troops in important locations.

The Qin army almost completely adopted the strategy of Dayu's army when they surrounded Yingdu before.

However, the Qin army was short of food.

The front-line important towns were better, with at least three to five months of food reserves to last until the summer harvest; but other places were hard to say.

Moreover, even if they lasted until the summer harvest, how much food would they be able to receive?

Dayu had already carried out various production sabotages many times, and coupled with the bad harvest, at least one-third of the fields were barren. Even if the remaining fields could be successfully harvested, who could guarantee that the Yu army would not come back?

Under such circumstances, Nanjun, Nanyangjun and other places could not actually provide much food and grass support for the army.

With insufficient food and grass, Wang He's army could only disperse to find food. Except for the important frontline towns, the rest were concentrated in Yancheng, Dengcheng and other places.

Under such circumstances, Wang He really didn't dare to go deep into the front line to fight with the Dayu Army. He was afraid that he would be surrounded by dumplings due to insufficient food and grass.

Although Wang He was not afraid of fighting the Dayu Army head-on, the Dayu Army's defense ability and mobility and penetration ability were really strong.

Wang He finally decided to ask for help while searching for food and grass, and concentrate his forces to switch from comprehensive defense to key defense. As long as Guanzhong could support a certain number of soldiers and enough food and grass, he dared to attack again.

Wang He chose to retreat strategically, and few of the besieged cities on the front line could hold out until the summer harvest.

When it came to the summer harvest season, the Dayu Army really used the same trick again, and the space cavalry was sent out without money, regardless of the loss, and would rather kill 800 enemies and lose 1,000 of their own, and never let go.

Using one's own power to hurt others is the most unsolvable.

However, except for Dong Huang, who treated space soldiers as human beings, the other high-level officials of Dayu really only treated space soldiers as cannon fodder.

This made Wang He miserable.

Fortunately, the Qin Dynasty, which had made the people of Guanzhong suffer, finally squeezed out a large amount of food and reinforcements.

Unfortunately, due to the influence of weather and other factors, the grain harvest in Guanzhong this year was not good.

But anyway, the food came.

But new problems arose.

At this time, Zhuge Liang's main force had already entered Yancheng. The Qin cities and camps to the west of the Han River and to the south of Yancheng were either broken or surrendered after being trapped for three or four months and isolated.

East of the Han River, Yue Fei's troops had also captured the not-so-strong Yancheng.

Wang He knew that he was powerless to turn the tide, so he took the initiative to give up Yancheng.

In Wang He's view, Yancheng was indeed not worth defending.

Yancheng was originally an important town of Chu State, with a dense population and strong defenses, but it was flooded by Bai Qi, with hundreds of thousands of casualties. Many places are still haunted now.

Today, the population of Yancheng is less than one-tenth of its heyday, and with the previous example of being flooded, Yancheng is undoubtedly a dead place.

Strategically, there is nothing wrong with giving up Yancheng. As long as the Dengcheng line is defended, Qin State will still have a strategic advantage in the direction of Nanjun.

However, after Yancheng was easily obtained, the strategic significance for Dayu was extraordinary, because it marked the completion of the "Nine Songs" mission.

Dong Huang received the news of the completion of the mission in the underground tunnel.

[Temple Mission-Nine Songs Completed.

The level of the War Agent Temple is upgraded, and the Zhurong Temple is upgraded to level 6; the "Conferring God" authority is obtained, and the War Agent can confer the priesthood of his subordinates as the emperor.

Due to the identity of the war agent Donghuang Taiyi, the war agent can confer the following gods:

1. Five Emperors: Taiyi's assistants are called the Five Emperors;

2. Dongjun, Yueshen, Xingzhu, Yunzhongjun, Xiangjun, Xiangfuren, Dasiming, Shaosiming, Hebo, Hunzhu;

After the subordinates of the war agent are conferred as gods, they can automatically obtain the power, attributes, and powers represented by the priesthood.

The strength of the divine power of the conferred gods has nothing to do with the qualifications of the subordinates, but is related to the strength of the power and the specialties of the divine power. The stronger the power, the more people with pious faith, and the stronger the divine power condensed by the conferred gods. The divine power of the gods can be integrated with the strength of the deified, but they do not affect each other.

After the deification, the gods will be integrated with the power of the totem. Soldiers can choose to engrave the totems of gods with different attributes to obtain bonuses that are more in line with their own power attributes.

The strength of the gods and their troops will double when they fight in their own exclusive war space and in the mission space territories that have been occupied for more than ten years; the strength will increase by 50% when they fight in the mission space territories that have been occupied for more than three years; the strength will not be reduced when fighting in hostile forces, but the divine power cannot be replenished! 】

This good news made Renisi eat a lot.

"Master~~~"

Renisi stuck out her tongue with a charming look.

She is a smart woman. The more she sees Dong Huang's strength, the more loyal she becomes.

Now he is so loyal that he hides his evil intentions.

Dong Huang just stroked Maeve's hair and digested the good news.

He knew that it must be Jia Xu and Zhuge Liang who took action.

Dong Huang was very happy about his subordinates' self-determination.

He only cared about what kind of victory his subordinates could bring him!

Zhuge Liang, Yue Fei and other troops who had been victorious all the way were also very happy, but they knew very well that the Qin army's retreat now was just to fight a defensive counterattack in Deng.

Zhuge Liang was not afraid at all, and continued to advance with Zhao Yun as the vanguard.

Yue Fei's troops and Zhuge Liang's troops supported each other and moved forward steadily.

——

I'm asking for leave. I'm busy these days deciding whether to get married or marry into the family. I may update less frequently. Please forgive me.