Cao Liang had already moved the general headquarters of the Bingzhou Army to Xiabo, a county town only a few dozen miles away from Xindu, and because it was not in the defense system of the Jizhou Army, this city was abandoned by the Jizhou Army two years ago.

  Now this city has been man-made, the ruins are broken, and there are no people, even in the city, you can see barren grass everywhere.

  Cao Liang did not enter the city, and there was indeed no condition for stationing in Xiabo City, so he ordered the camp to be stationed outside Xiabo.

  To the southeast of Xiabo, is Wuyi, the defenders in this city have retreated, and the whole city is full of smoke and fire, which can be clearly seen from a distance of more than ten miles.

  Not only Wuyi, but whenever the Jizhou army withdrew from the turbulent city, it was burned, which shows the cruelty of the Jizhou army's methods, in order to achieve the purpose of clearing the wilderness, he did not hesitate to set fire to the city that had spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build, and there was only one purpose, that is, to prevent these cities from falling into the hands of the Bingzhou army

  Is it the courage to die and survive, or do they think that this battle is already a certain defeat, so they wreak havoc and pursue the principle that even the enemy they cannot get can not be imagined.

  If this is the case, is it still necessary for Sima Shi's reinforcements to arrive?

  According to the news from Luoyang, Sima Shi has been actively mobilizing troops and horses, and it is expected that troops will be sent to Jizhou soon.

  The sudden withdrawal of the Jizhou army this time was a little unexpected, I am afraid that no one thought in advance that the Jizhou army would suddenly become a frightened bird because of the loss of Lecheng, and all the cities in the north of Jizhou except for Xindu were abandoned, and the cities were evacuated in a hurry.

  Cao Liang was indeed unprepared, if he was really prepared, I am afraid that none of these Jizhou troops would even want to return to Xindu alive.

  But Rao is so, and the rapid reaction ability of the Bingzhou army is still embarrassed to kill the Jizhou army, the Xiaocai battalion intercepted the army of Changshan, the Yuecai battalion intercepted the army of Zhongshan, and the Tuncai battalion intercepted the army of Bohai.

  Although the Xiaocai battalion failed to achieve the goal of completely annihilating the Changshan army, they annihilated several scattered Jizhou troops along the way, and Wen Qin also followed Cao Liang's principle in dealing with the problem of refugees and did not kill innocents indiscriminately.

  Although such a move is likely to be the reason for the failure to completely annihilate the Changshan army, Cao Liang praised Wen Qin vigorously, in Cao Liang's view, it is important to win a battle, but it is more important to maintain the image of the state army, and not to do anything to win, and to ignore people's lives.

  Civilians are innocent, they are already miserable to be involved in this war, if Cao Liang can take Jizhou, the first priority is to restore order in Jizhou and restore Jizhou's economy, but if the people are gone, then what is there to talk about restoration?

  Therefore, Cao Liang's requirements for the men and horses of each battalion are to protect the civilians as much as possible, and never allow the indiscriminate killing of prisoners, and the Sima army has acted perversely on the land of Jizhou, gathering troops and gathering valleys, clearing the wilderness, and pursuing a scorched earth policy, such a move will not only not help them stick to Jizhou, but will arouse the great indignation of the people of Jizhou.

  Those who win the hearts of the people can get it, the water can carry the boat, and it can also capsize the boat, Sima Shi doesn't understand this truth, and his Zhonghui Lu Zhao is even more brutal and ruthless, ignoring the suffering of the people.

  Therefore, on the surface, it seems that the Xiaocai Battalion did not win as much as the Tun Cavalry Battalion, allowing some fish to escape back to Xindu, but the fact that the Xiaocai Battalion did not kill civilians indiscriminately inevitably spread widely in Jizhou, making the originally unstable situation even more unbearable.

  As long as this slogan is carried out, the entire Jizhou army, which has been forcibly recruited from civilians, will gradually turn from passive to active, and more people will come to surrender.

  In the battle of Lecheng, the defenders really died only two or three thousand, and the remaining 17,000 or 8,000 people finally chose to disarm and surrender instead of resisting to the end, which is enough to prove that the Jizhou army can be easily disintegrated.

  Lu Zhao took the initiative to withdraw the soldiers and horses of other fortresses to Xindu, but he invisibly helped Cao Liang a lot, which is probably also the credit of Yanghu, it is precisely because he won Lecheng within two days, which is equivalent to creating a lot of pressure on Lu Zhao.

  It only takes two hours to attack a county city and merge the state army, so other cities such as Nanpi, Zhending, Lunu and Xiaquyang, which have a similar defense level to Lecheng, and Xiaquyang, which have a much lower defense level, will definitely not last long.

  That's why Lu Zhao took the initiative to withdraw the men and horses of each city to Xindu, so as not to cause greater losses.

  But in fact, Lu Zhao's worries were superfluous, the reason why Yanghu was able to win Le Cheng within two days was to use the catapult saturation attack method, smashing tens of thousands of stone bullets at any cost, and finally won quickly.

  Although this attack method is effective, it is too dependent on logistics and supplies, and if it were not for the fact that Lecheng was close to the Fanyang advance base and the stone bullets in the advance base were well stocked, such a saturation attack method would really be unsustainable.

  The next Lecheng almost exhausted the stone bullets stored by the Bingzhou army, so if Bingzhou continued to attack another city, it is estimated that Yanghu would have to use other methods to attack the city, and perhaps the stonemasons would have to reproduce the stone bullets and transport them to the front line before they could continue to use this method.

  But the carving of each stone bullet is time-consuming and laborious work, even if it is a skilled stonemason, a few stone bombs, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of stone bombs, is undoubtedly a literary number, in a short period of time stonemasons can not make it at all.

  But Lu Zhao didn't know, just listening to the state army within two to break through Lecheng, he was immediately stunned, feeling that all his previous efforts were in vain, in order to avoid greater losses, he had to order the withdrawal of the army, concentrate all the men and horses in Xindu, strengthen the defense of Xindu, and ensure that the city of Jizhou is not lost.

  Unfortunately, the great retreat turned into a big tragedy, almost all the men and horses were intercepted by the state army in the retreat, and suffered heavy losses, and his withdrawal plan was completely defeated.