"Report! Lord Zhangyang (Xiong Zheng) has led his army to capture Bolangsha River Port."

"Report! Lord Peng Li (Xiong Yi) has led his army to capture Xiangfu Port."

In the early morning of August 13th, as soon as Chu Shuijun got up in the handsome tent, he received these two pieces of good news one after another.

"good!"

Lord Chu Shui was overjoyed.

Although the attack on Daliang City in the past two days has suffered setbacks, let alone conquering this old capital of the Wei Kingdom, it cannot even pose a sufficient threat to the city. However, the capture of two river ports in Liang County is also

Something very worthy of celebration.

You must know that the Wei State built four of the largest river ports, namely "Luocheng Port", "Bolangsha", "Xiangfu Port" and "Shangshui River Port". The tax revenue collected by the Wei State from these four ports every year is considerable.

Especially the "Bolangsha River Port". This river port took the Wei Kingdom more than six years and spent countless manpower and material resources to build it. It is the largest port with the most concentrated logistics in the entire Central Plains. There is no other port in the Central Plains.

River ports can be compared with it.

Compared with the surprise of capturing Bolangsha River Port, the capture of Xiangfu Port would not surprise Chu Shuijun too much, although Xiangfu Port is also a very large river port.

After being surprised, Lord Chu Shui immediately summoned two of his close soldiers and ordered: "Immediately send orders to Lord Zhangyang and Lord Pengli to maintain law and order in these two river ports and not allow soldiers to loot and kill innocent people indiscriminately."

"Yes!" The soldier bowed and retreated.

It's not that Lord Chu Shui also governs the army harshly and is not used to seeing his soldiers looting everywhere. He just doesn't want the two river ports of Bolangsha and Xiangfu Port to be destroyed. After all, in his eyes, these are two underdogs.

The golden hen, how could he kill these two hens just for a small profit?

Yes, Chu Shuijun never thought about returning Bolangsha and Xiangfu Port - to be precise, he never thought about returning all the land and cities of Wei captured in this battle.

Don't look at the fact that Tian Dan of Qi State and Chu State are not of the same mind. In fact, Chu State and other countries are not of the same mind - like Qi and Lu, their purpose is just to weaken Wei State and bring Wei State back to the

South Korea is on an equal footing with Chu and the "Qilu Alliance"; but Chu wants to take advantage of this opportunity to defeat Wei in one fell swoop and replace Wei as the overlord of the Central Plains.

Even further than Wei State.

At this point, whether it is Chu King Xiong Tuo or Chu Shuijun, their interests are the same.

Of course, defeating the Wei State in one fell swoop was only Chu Shuijun's highest strategic goal. In fact, he also understood that the Wei State still had the strength to fight against the coalition forces of other countries. After all, there were still more than 300,000 elite troops attacking.

South Korea.

What's more important is that once Wei's disadvantage becomes too great, regardless of Yue's attitude, Qi and Lu will definitely have other ideas.

No, the day before yesterday, Qi State's Tian Dan recommended Lu State's generals Ji Wu and Huan Hu to attack Chengling King Zhao Shen who was stationed in Dongshan. Chu Shuijun had already realized that the armies of Qi and Lu must have reached a tacit understanding in private.

Get ready here

Withdrawing from the battle - Maybe in Tian Dan's view, Wei lost Song County and Yingshui County in one fell swoop, and even Liang County was about to fall. This was enough to make Wei weak, and there was no need to continue to weaken Wei.

country, sitting in the state of Chu in disguise.

But even though he understood this, Chu Shuijun couldn't tell the truth directly and break up with Tian Dan. On the contrary, he still had to support Tian Dan. After all, it was Qi State that supported the coalition forces of all countries for a total of 150 years.

If the food and fodder for thousands of troops annoys the Qi State, it will undoubtedly be a fight between chickens and eggs.

Therefore, Chu Shuijun decided to set the strategic goal of "capture Liangjun" - if the Wei State wanted to stick to Chenggao Pass and Yique Pass, then it would be up to him. Anyway, it would lose Liangjun, Yingshuijun and Song Dynasty.

After the counties, even though the Wei state still had Sanchuan County and Hedong County, Shangdang County, Hanoi County, and Handan County in Hebei, the national power would inevitably be greatly affected.

Of course, the premise is that he can capture Daliang.

The city of Daliang was of great significance to the people of Wei. As long as this city was captured, the morale of the entire Wei state would be greatly reduced. Only then would the Chu state be able to smoothly implement the follow-up strategic plan.

"Bolangsha and Xiangfu Port have been captured, and the only ones left are Daliang City and Yecheng..."

Chu Shuijun thought to himself as he walked around the handsome tent with his hands behind his back.

In fact, there are "Dongshan" in the east of Daliang City and "Daliang Academy" in the southeastern suburbs of Daliang that the coalition forces of various countries can take offensives at the moment, but these two places were ignored by him.

The reason why Chu Shuijun gave up attacking Dongshan was because he felt it was unnecessary. After all, there were no things or buildings worthy of the Chu State on Dongshan Mountain. There were only the tombs of successive Wei monarchs and heroes - well, it is said that there were also ancient Wei dynasties in the mountain.

The royal mausoleum of the monarch.

As Ji Wu of the State of Lu said, in this era of belief in heaven and earth, and belief in ghosts and gods, few people would do such a derogatory thing as digging ancestral graves, not to mention that the only people who retreated to Dongshan were Chengling.

There were some defeated generals under Wang Zhaoshen who had returned from Song County. Chu Shuijun did not think that these people could have much impact on his strategy of conquering Daliang City.

As for giving up the attack on "Daliang Academy", that was because of the attitude of the world.

After all, Daliang Academy has gradually become a gathering place of Central Plains culture. Due to various considerations, Chu Shuijun will not destroy it - on the contrary, he will send troops to protect the academy until the Chu Kingdom is completely destroyed in the future.

After taking control of this land, he even invited back all the students and literati who originally lived in the academy.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Yecheng has become the most worthy target in Liang County besides Daliang City.

I still remember that at the beginning, Chu Shuijun planned to take Daliang City in one fell swoop with the help of his absolute superiority in military strength. However, he did not expect that he encountered an unprecedented blockage in Daliang City. This made him realize that this old Wei state

The capital city may not be captured overnight.

Therefore, he retreated and did the next best thing, first surrounding Daliang and attacking slowly, and at the same time, he sent other troops to capture Bolangsha, Xiangfu Port and Yecheng.

At present, the two river ports of Bolangsha and Xiangfu Port have been captured by his Chu army, leaving only Yecheng.

It has to be said that apart from the special significance of Daliang City to the Wei people, Chu Shuijun most hoped to capture Daliang's companion city "Yecheng". After all, this small city was the location of the Wei State's Daliang Smelting Bureau.

This place is where the highest craftsmanship and technology of the Wei State are concentrated. As long as this city can be conquered, the Chu State will be able to obtain the craftsmanship and technology of the Wei State - the craftsmanship and technology of the Wei State is now much higher than that of the Lu State.

"Xiang Pei, Lord of Xinyang, and Wu Qi of Yue State led an army to attack Yecheng. With the strength of the two of them, they should be enough to conquer the small city, right? I don't know how the battle will be."

Chu Shuijun thought secretly.

In fact, as early as yesterday afternoon, Xiang Pei, the king of Xinyang of the Chu State, and Wu Qi, the general of the Yue State, led their troops to Yecheng and tried to attack this city that contained the highest craftsmanship and technology of the Wei State.

Similar to Chu Shuijun's thoughts, Xinyang Lord Xiang Pei was initially very confident about this battle.

Because according to what he saw, except that the city wall was slightly higher than that of ordinary small counties, there was no big difference in this city.

What's more important is that 70% of the people in this city are craftsmen and family members of the Wei State, and the number of troops stationed there is only five to six thousand Wei soldiers.

Although with such a strong city and such a large number of garrison troops, it can be said to be a city with strong defensive power, but how strong is it for the coalition forces?

You know, the combined forces of him and Wu Qi amount to a hundred thousand troops. Is such a huge force not enough to overwhelm Yecheng?

Thinking of this, he discussed with Wu Qi to attack the city without even setting up a camp.

As for the tactics, they are still the old tactics of the Chu State, which is to first invest in food and recruit soldiers to consume the physical strength of the Wei soldiers in the city.

While the Chu and Yue armies were gathering outside the city, on the east gate of Yecheng, Hou Dan, the general of the Daliang Imperial Guard, was talking with Wang Fu, the Director of the General Administration of Smelting and the Director of the Military Casting Bureau in Yecheng.

Li Jin and other officials discussed ways.

In Hou Dan's opinion, the most useless person among this group of people was probably the director named Wang Fu. He was simply a waste, and his face turned pale after being frightened by the large number of enemy troops outside the city.

On the other hand, the officials under his command, those named "Chen Dan", "Cheng Lin", "Xun Xin", "Lu Yu", "Gu He", and "Zheng Zhao", looked particularly calm.

Even in Hou Dan's opinion, these officials were a little too calm.

Under Hou Dan's gaze, these heads of the Metallurgical Bureau were all holding up exquisite and compact telescopes to observe the enemy troops outside the city, and they were talking loudly.

"Is that the army of Chu State?"

"The people at the front should be the rumored food recruits... They don't even have the most basic armor, and these people are sent to the battlefield. Hey, the state of Chu's national system is really worrying..."

"The rear of the grain-recruiting troops is the main army of the Chu State, right? The armor on these soldiers...is it leather armor? They are all made of cow leather? Wait, the colors are different, it seems that they are not all made of cow leather...

...Well, maybe some of them are made of pig leather, horse leather and other materials."

"Speaking of which, Chu's main army only has leather armor, but no arm armor or wrist armor..."

"Note: The ancient armor, the single armor part, is a bit like a short-sleeved T-shirt. Although it can protect the shoulders, it cannot protect the arms and wrists. Therefore, you need to wear additional arm armor and wrist armor. If you are pursuing defensive capabilities, you should also

Wear a goggles on top of the body armor as a second piece of armor to protect the vital parts of the chest.』

Listening to the officials from the Smelting Bureau talking critically about the armor of the Chu army, Hou Dan, the deputy commander of the Daliang Imperial Guard, twitched at the corner of his eye.

It has to be said that he had underestimated this group of people before - he thought that after learning the news that the coalition forces of various countries were attacking Yecheng, the officials and craftsmen in the city would be frightened and panicked, but it turned out that the craftsmen in the city

They were still studying and forging as before, but officials like Chen Dan and Cheng Lin even had the courage to come to the city gate tower and chatter something that most of them couldn't understand.

This courage is too much, okay?

Hou Dan wondered if this group of officials who were obsessed with craftsmanship were so heartless that they dared to comment on the armor of the enemy soldiers when a hundred thousand enemy troops were attacking the city - you know, even he

I myself felt a little weak in my heart.

Shaking his head secretly, Hou Dan stopped paying attention to these officials and lowered his head to stare at a city defense map in his hand.

He was not familiar with the structure of Yecheng. After all, it was not him who was responsible for the security of this city in the earliest times, but Jin Ju, one of the eight former commanders of the Imperial Guard, who is now the Presidential Commander of the Daliang Imperial Guard.

He is Jin Ju's deputy.

But a few days ago, after learning that the coalition forces of various countries had captured Song County and were heading straight for Daliang, Jin Ju hesitated for a long time, and finally decided to take charge of Daliang himself - although Jin Ju also knew that in fact, the value of Yecheng was higher than that of Daliang.

Daliang is higher, but the problem is that Daliang has a very high status in the hearts of the Wei people. As a Wei person, Jin Ju cannot tolerate the old capital of his Wei state being easily captured by the coalition forces of various countries.

Since Jin Ju was personally in charge of Daliang, Hou Dan was transferred to Yecheng and became the top military commander in Yecheng.

Since Hou Dan knew nothing about the structure of Yecheng, Wang Fu, director of the General Administration of Metallurgy and Construction, handed over Yecheng's defense map to Hou Dan.

On this city defense map, not only the buildings of Yecheng were clearly marked, but also some traps were marked. The problem was that these traps were so dense that the words marked were very small, which made Hou Dan blink.

Watch carefully with your eyes open.
To be continued...