It had been ten days since the Qin army entered the siege of Xiangcheng, but the gate of Xiangcheng was closed, and Xiang Yan's Daxu stood firmly at the head of the city, ignoring any temptation and provocation.

Although the siege equipment was being built in an orderly manner, two attempts to siege the city ended in failure, and the commander of the Qin army did not seem to be in a hurry, so that the soldiers built two new barriers to resist the enemy outside the military camp on the south bank of Yingshui.

So in Heifu's opinion, this siege is too leisurely, which makes him more and more suspicious of whether Xiang Cheng is the real main direction of attack.

Sure enough, on this day, the news that the Qin army's "partial division" broke the Chu army and marched forward in Huaibei came, which made the Qin army's siege camp outside Xiangcheng boil.

The army is a place to report good news but not bad news, and the military officials will try to hide the news of failure, but if it is good news, they want every soldier to know. Inside and outside the camp, this good deed was being told, which relieved the depressive feeling that the Qin army had not done an inch in the ten days of siege, and there were joyful laughter everywhere.

Hefu was also in this atmosphere, and as a short-range guard, he was much more well-informed than the average officer, and when he inquired from several other short-handed generals, he got many kinds of explanations.

"It is said that General Meng Tian personally commanded 30,000 elites in Guanzhong, and he has broken Pingyu and Sleeping Hill in a row."

"In the battle of Bedhill, more than 10,000 enemies were killed, and the Chu people were defeated, no wonder there were no reinforcements from the Chu State to Xiangcheng these days."

"Some people say that General Meng Tian has arrived in the lower reaches of Yingshui and is ready to fight Juyang, and those ships carrying grain outside are going to support!"

Although there are many theories, it is still possible to make up a route for the march, and Heifu thought to himself: "My intuition is really right, that so-called partial division is the real main attacking force, and now it has broken through the flat and sleeping hills from the flank, and the troops are close to Yingshui, so that they can get the support of the upstream ships to transport grain and straw, which is really a good idea." ”

But to be able to carry out a long-distance attack of 300 miles, this army must be lightly armed, and it may not even bring enough food and arrows, let alone siege equipment and the like, so it is impossible to expect this partial division to attack the city, and Li Xin should just go to find the enemy to fight.

In any case, in this way, the balance of victory seems to be slowly tilting towards the side of Qin, and some people even boldly estimate that the war will be over before the arrival of spring......

However, Heff is not so optimistic.

As if God favored it, he gave victory after victory to the Qin army: in Dunxian, in Pingyu, and in Mengqiu......

But with the continuous victories of the Qin army, Heifu became more and more afraid.

The battle situation is complicated and changes in an instant, which makes Heifu even more puzzled, what happened in the final failure of this originally high-spirited battle of Vachu?

He didn't have Baidu at hand, so he had no way of knowing, so he could only sharpen his sword blade, wait around for news, and wait day and night.

……

On the arrow tower at the head of Xiangcheng City, Zhou Wen also noticed a small movement in the Qin army's camp and frowned.

"Qin Jun seems to be happier today than ever, isn't there some news coming from outside?"

As the "sun" of the Chu army, he had to wait on the wall all day long, observing the movements of the Qin army: whether there were new enemy troops arriving, whether there were enemy troops quietly leaving, those seemingly ordinary arrangements, and even the number of enemy campfires during cooking, he had to record them one by one. And we can't mistake the strategy, because in these years of war, we always like to mislead the enemy by reducing or increasing the number of targets.

In addition, it is necessary to note the various arrangements of the Qin camp: where are the two fortresses where the defense is the weakest, where is the tent of the commander, where the people live, and where are the horses and chariots concentrated? In which camp was the steady stream of grain from the direction of Chen Ying piled up?

The gate of Xiangcheng was closed, surrounded by two rammed earth barriers built by the Qin army, cutting off all contact with the outside world, and they could only understand the reality of the enemy camp through this method.

These observations by Zhou Wen will not only help the "General Xiang" in the city to judge the enemy's situation, but will also lay the foundation for their future counteroffensive......

Unconsciously, night has come, and behind the two walls, in the camp of the Qin army, the campfire is slowly lit, like the thousands of stars of the Milky Way, it is difficult to count it clearly by Zhou Wen alone.

After recording what he saw and heard today, Zhou Wen walked down the arrow tower, and the walls of Xiangcheng were full of Chu soldiers wearing red leather armor, they all lived on it, and waited for the city in twos and threes, although the Qin army's siege was not fierce, but the soldiers were still vigilant.

For the Chu people, the Qin army is an invading thief, and the jackals are wandering outside the city, how can there be a reason to relax and sleep?

The hatred between Chu and Qin began when King Huai of Chu was deceived into Qin and died in a foreign country, and in the following decades, new and old hatreds between the two sides continued to accumulate, so among the six countries, the one who disagreed with Qin the most and resisted the most fiercely was Chu.

Zhou Wen himself is a typical example.

His ancestor was originally a native of Jiangling, Nanjun, and was a small official in Yingdu, and when he was his grandfather, Bai Qi attacked Yancheng, and the Zhou family had no choice but to flee east with the king of Chu, and the family left Yingdu, where he had lived for generations.

Sanlu doctor Qu Yuan watched this scene and wrote "Lamentation", which can be said to be the voice of those who moved away from Chu.

"The emperor's impure life, why the people's sorrow?

The people were scattered and lost each other, and Fang Zhongchun moved eastward.

Go to your hometown and go far away, follow the Jiangxia to exile ......"

That fiasco and migration left a deep memory on the Chu people.

If it is said that before this, the state of Chu was distracted and unwilling to fight with their lives because of corruption in government affairs and flattery of the Manchu dynasty, it is "the country does not know that it has its people, and the people do not know that it has its country". Then, after the scars of the eastward migration, the nobles and commoners of the Chu State began to hate the Qin State, and the forces calling for the main battle continued to rise.

It is a pity that the kings of Chu have always been afraid of Qin like a tiger, they moved from Yingdu to Chendi, and then moved from Chendi to Juyang, and finally to Shouchun in Huainan. In the past 50 years, three generations of Chu people have moved the capital three times in fear of Qin, and the king of Chu has never tired of it, but the Chu people have been exhausted, and even Zhou Wen was forced to leave his hometown Chen Ying last year and live in Huainan.

They can't imagine where they can migrate if they lose this war again.

Koto? Wu Yue?

At least in Zhou Wen's opinion, he didn't want to run away in embarrassment anymore, and they decided to stay and fight to defend their Lilu under the call of Xiang Yan of Shangzhu State.

Thinking like this, Zhou Wen had already entered the military camp tent in the city, and the general had to listen to them every day to report the enemy's situation, and then make the next day's defense arrangements.

When Zhou Wen walked into the hall with a wooden slab in his hand, on the left and right, there were already many generals of the Chu State, all of whom were talking about each other, the point was that the Qin army ships that were going south along the Yingshui River seemed to be full of grain, could it be that the Qin army had already gone downstream?

Zhou Wen approached and bowed respectfully to the main general sitting in the middle.

"General Xiang, depending on the day and Zhouwen, come to report the enemy's situation!"

"Say it."

A neutral voice came, but the face reflected in the light was extremely young, a general in the prime of his thirties, with dark hair and a burly figure, where was the veteran Xiang Yan with gray sideburns?

Although he does look like Xiang Yan when he was young......

The "General Xiang" in the city is not Xiang Yan, but Xiang Yan's eldest son, Xiang Rong!

In the camp of the Qin army, Li Xin's handsome flag was hoisted high, and the dragon flag was feathered.

At the head of Xiang Chengcheng, Xiang Yan's high teeth and big teeth are also unveiled, so not majestic.

The two flags confronted each other, creating a false impression that "the commander of the enemy army is here" on both sides.

But on the chessboard, the black and red generals in the Nine Palaces have long disappeared......