In addition, in order to prepare enough firewood and grass to defend the city, Zu Yang demolished a small half of the houses in the entire Wanling City! Rao is like this, it is almost not enough to deal with the Jiangdong soldiers who can crawl all over the city wall every time the ant is attached to the siege. If it weren't for Zu Yan's temporary decision to slaughter all the cattle, sheep, pigs and horses in the city, and boiled enough boiling oil, he wouldn't have been able to hold it.

In fact, this is also the reason why Zu Yang guarded the city and never sent scouts to Zhang Xiu in the end. Even the letter cavalry sent by Zhang Xiu to contact him on the seventh or eighth day, Zu Xun directly cooked and killed his war horse to make boiling oil soup for defending the city.

After all, at that time, Zu Xun was really at the end of the battle. There are less than 2,000 soldiers under his command who are not wounded, and it is no longer possible to use crowd tactics to offset the charge of many fierce generals and brave generals in Eastern Wu.

And a pot of horse fat soup, at the cost of only one horse and a few thin beams, can replace the lives of at least a dozen Jiangdong soldiers! On the eighth day, Zu Yan was really killed, and his brains were exhausted, and he wanted to pull a few more Jiangdong soldiers on his back!

On the ninth day, Zu Yan, who knew that he could no longer resist the Jiangdong Army's attack on the city with a scale of 10,000 people, was ready to die or be captured. But from dawn to noon, the Jiangdong military camp in the distance was still lifeless.

Zu Xun's subordinates no longer have scouts who have war horses, and a few walking scouts who used hanging baskets to go down the city reported: "Sun Cejun's camps are empty!" ”

In this fierce battle, after all, Sun Cejun took the lead and failed to hold on.

Zu Yan, who breathed a sigh of relief, did not dare to launch a pursuit, the reason was not that he first thought of a possible ambush, but that he first considered the casualties of his own army!

Later, three more letter riders came to Zhang Xiu's side. Zu Yun weighed the pros and cons, and finally chose to use these three letter riders as scouts and sent them to follow Sun Cejun to inquire about the situation.

This is the reason why Zhang Xiu did not get a return on the ninth and tenth days, and it is also the most direct reason for the misunderstanding of Zhang Xiu and others.

It's not that Sun Cejun can't hold on physiologically, in fact, after Zhang Xiu counted the corpses all over the city of Wanling, he came to the conclusion that Sun Ce could still attack for another day.

Because there are less than 15,000 corpses in the city!

According to the calculation of conventional ant-attached siege warfare, the wounded are often about twice as many as the dead in battle. That is, there are at least 10,000 healthy people under Sun Ce's command!

But Zhang Xiu understood Sun Ce's choice on the eighth day and night of the siege. At this time, even if Wanling is taken, with less than 20,000 capable warriors, it will not occupy any advantage in the face of the upcoming 60,000 army of Zhang Xiu. Especially when Sun Bofu can't put on armor and go into battle in person.

In fact, Zhang Xiu's southern expedition can be completed here.

The purpose of Zhang Xiu's southern expedition is nothing more than two, one is to expand the territory and lay a large rear for himself to compete for dominance in the world. The second is to kill Sun Ce, a potentially threatening opponent.

And now it seems that Zhang Xiu's two main purposes have basically been achieved. The three thousand miles of land in Jiangdong are already within reach, and Sun Ce's situation seems to be no longer a threat to Zhang Xiu.

To tell the truth, Zhang Xiu didn't expect that Sun Ce would be in Wanling City and would be killed under Zu Xun.

Originally, according to Zhang Xiu's script, Sun Ce would lead the Jiangdong soldiers and Zhang Xiu to a life-and-death decisive battle after capturing Wanling City.

Of course, in Zhang Xiu's script, this life-and-death battle will eventually be the last battle of Sun Ce, the hero of the world, and it is reserved for the funeral of Xiaobawang.

It's just that now it seems that the scene of himself and Sun Ce's two horses intersecting before the two armies face off may never appear.

However, for the sake of insurance, after Zhang Xiu met Ji Ling's 20,000 troops in Wanling, he raised the whole army to pursue Sun Ce's army after a little rest.

Chop the grass and remove the roots, Zhang Xiu still knows this. Although the current Sun Quan is not enough to fight against himself, he must also crush all the hopes of the Sun family's rise!

To put it bluntly, Zhang Xiu does not seek to completely annihilate the Sun Group, but seeks to severely damage the Sun Group so that it can no longer stand on its own feet.

Four days later, Zhang Xiu chased him to Jing County. Although the city of Jing County is low, it is still a city with complete defense in Danyang County. Sun Ce stayed behind the general Li Shu here and allocated 3,000 of his wounded soldiers to block Zhang Xiu's army.

It's just that before Zhang Xiujun set up the siege formation, Li Shu, the general entrusted by Sun Ce with a heavy responsibility and extremely close to him, decisively took the soldiers of his headquarters and the soldiers assigned to him by Sun Ce out of the city to surrender!

From the victory of the Battle of Wanling to Li Shu's surrender, one good thing happened after another, and Zhang Xiu couldn't help but have some doubts these days. If it weren't for the small size of Jing County, the tens of thousands of troops who would not be able to hide Sun Ce's troops by digging tunnels temporarily, Zhang Xiu would have seriously doubted whether this was another trick by Sun Cejun!

Why do I use the word "again"?

accepted this unexpected surrender of Kaicheng, but Zhang Xiu did not have a good impression of Li Shu, who abandoned his master to survive at this critical juncture. After controlling the critical area of Jing County and disarming about 5,000 men and horses under Li Shu's subordinates, Zhang Xiu only made eye contact with Jia Xu, the military advisor who accompanied the army, and then suddenly turned his face and denied people, and ordered his relatives to tie up Hu Che'er and tie Li Shu, and the sword and axe hand in the army who carried out military law directly beheaded him.

In fact, Zhang Xiu is not a face-turner. The turning of the face was based on the previous situation of treating each other with a good face, but Zhang Xiu maintained a cold face before and after Li Shuxiancheng's surrender. Maybe in Li Shu's opinion, this is the dignity of a monarch, but in the eyes of Jia Xu, a poisoner who even knows what kind of fart to put on Zhang Xiu's cheek, this Li Shu, who thinks he has saved his life, is already dying.

According to common sense, Zhang Xiu should adopt some gentle tactics under this obviously advantageous battle situation, so as to greatly reduce Sun Cejun's resistance and make it more lucky, and finally achieve the effect of breaking the enemy's military spirit so that it will not resist desperately.

But in Zhang Xiu's view, everything must be subject to the development of the actual situation.

These days, Sun Cejun has clearly revealed the intention of being defeated by Zhang Xiujun, and the current direction of the march is also evasive. However, Zhang Xiu found that his army did not appear in large numbers of surrenders or deserters from Sun Ce's army during the pursuit. Although I also encountered a lot of Jiangdong soldiers from groups of three or five kneeling to ask for surrender, but the number together is not much, and a considerable number of them are left behind due to injuries, and they are not familiar with the terrain of Danyang mountains and forests, so they can only ask for mercy.

What does this mean, it shows that in the minds of most Jiangdong Army officers and soldiers, Sun Ce's retreat is only temporary!

Since it is already clear that even if the Jiangdong soldiers surrender, they will only be unconvinced, so don't deceive yourself, just be direct, anyway, when you made the decision to conquer Jiangdong in the south, you have already made up your mind to kill in Jiangdong, and now is the time to implement your own iron-blooded policy.

Of course, on the other hand, Li Shu, who was born in a wealthy family, really made Zhang Xiujun and other generals disgusted. This Li Shu's surrender was very simple, but the process made Zhang Xiujun's upright generals, including Zhang Xiu, a little disgusted. Because Li Shu not only made the disloyal thing of betraying the lord to survive before the two armies faced each other but directly opened the city to surrender, but also killed a group of lieutenant generals and colonels loyal to the Sun clan on the spot.

In fact, you just need to control these people, and you don't have to be too desperate to be a person or do anything. Li Shu's move undoubtedly laid the groundwork for the ending when he was executed by Zhang Xiu for no reason, but no one present gave advice to Zhang Xiu.

Of course, if Zhang Xiu and his soldiers knew the "glorious deeds" of Li Shu in history, I am afraid that there would be no surprise about Li Shu's surrender today.

Li Shu in history was Sun Ce's cronies and reused. The cronies reached the point of being Sun Ce's minions, and they once killed important ministers of the court for Sun Ce. It has also been reused to the extent of serving as a feudal official. But after Sun Ce's death, he immediately created Sun Ce's heir, Sun Ce's brother Sun Quan's rebellion.

With such a person, Zhang Xiu's stay is actually equivalent to planting a time bomb for himself.

……

Six days later, Zhang Xiu and Ji Ling led the army to chase down Lingyang City. Lingyang City is even lower than Zhijing County. It was so low that some of the most athletic soldiers could climb it without the help of ropes, and it was so unbearable that it seemed that a single rainstorm would soak and collapse the walls.

But this time, I couldn't help but treat Zhang Xiu incorrectly. Because Sun Ce obviously learned the lesson of Li Shu's surrender without a fight. The big Sun character Daxu fluttering under Lingyang City proudly proclaimed that Sun Ce was going to personally lead the army to fight a Zhang embroidery.

There are not many Jiangdong soldiers who stayed in Lingyang to prepare to meet the main force of Zhang Xiu's army, and there were only 10,000 of them in the full battle, and most of them were wounded in the battle of Wanling, and their combat effectiveness was a little enough compared to the Huainan army under the command of Ji Ling! Of course, the authenticity of this information was also confirmed by Zhang Xiu after synthesizing all aspects, and it was all obtained after double verification of Zhang Xiujun's meticulous work in Lingyang City and the scouts scattered in all directions, and there was no mistake.

But Sun Cejun's generals were a bit luxurious. In Zhang Xiu's words, the first reaction to watching it can make people drool.

Just by sneaking around the edge of Lingyang City, Tai Shi Ci caught a glimpse of many familiar faces that had been imprinted in his mind as early as the Battle of Shenting.

Sun Ce's younger brother Sun He, veteran Huang Gai, and Xiao general Song Qian, although Tai Shi Ci only glimpsed them from a distance outside the range of the bow and crossbow, they were all recognized by the ape-eyed Tai Shi Ziyi at a glance.

Sun He is Sun Ce's extremely close brother, and basically has the impression that Sun He, as Sun Ce's personal general, has never left Sun Ce's side since he joined the army. The existence of the veteran Huang Gai is the representative of the other two Sun clan veterans, Cheng Pu and Han Dang, who may accompany Sun Ce according to the past practice of Sun Ce's battles. In addition, I also saw Song Qian, the representative of the younger generation in Jiangdong, this battle made Zhang Xiu see the possibility of hitting the essence of the Sun Group in one fell swoop!