Under the intensive preparations, in just a few days, the army of Yuan Shu's Northern Expedition has been completed. Huaxiong commanded 30,000 Xiliang iron cavalry, and Pang Tong was the military division. Sun Jian and Xu Rong each commanded 40,000 foot soldiers and were appointed as military advisors. Coupled with the 3,000 tiger troops and 3,000 trapped camps around Yuan Shu, a total of 116,000 people, they were ready to go, and they went north on a warship.

Whether it is the construction of the Jinling Palace or the entry of the Xiliang soldiers into the city and the expedition of Yuan Shu's army, Yuan Shu has no intention of hiding, so the princes of the world have the news at the first time.

Yuan Shao, who was in Jizhou, was instantly furious after learning that Yuan Shu was building a palace in Jinling, and directly ordered Xun Chen to build a palace in Yecheng within half a month, and the specifications were slightly expanded according to the palace standards of Jinling. Faced with Yuan Shao's angry behavior, Xun Chen sighed lightly after his persuasion was fruitless, and had to try his best to arrange it.

The scale of the palace built by Yuan Shu is not any different from the scale of the former palace in the old capital Luoyang, which is the result of Yuan Shu's reluctance to spend money. After all, this place is for him to live, and he is not the kind of person who is unruly, there is only one wife and three concubines, and the area where the harem concubines live is much smaller than the Han palace.

The construction of a palace of this scale is only a drop in the bucket for Yuan Shu, and even Tian Feng, who is not pulling out a dime, bluntly said that it can be expanded. However, Yuan Shu did not intend to use Jinling as the capital after unifying the world, so he did not over-expand.

Although Yuan Shao is much richer than the princes of the world, he is far behind Yuan Shu. The money required to build a palace of the same size was enough to make Yuan Shao feel pain for a long time, but for the sake of face, Yuan Shao still insisted on doing it.

With Yuan Shu's action of becoming the emperor, Yuan Shao also directly tore through the disguise, and the heart of the emperor was obviously thirsty. The situation in the world changed suddenly, Gongsun Zhan was excited at this time, but Liu Bei and Cao Cao became extremely resentful.

......

Sanyang-gun, Changyi City. Liu Bei's army of more than 70,000 people has been sandwiching the city for several days, but under the command of Xun Yu in the city, Changyi City is still impregnable, and there is no sign of being breached.

"Mingjin, guards!" Seeing that the soldiers under his command who rushed to the city wall were once again repulsed, Liu Bei gritted his teeth with an ugly face. It has been five days since such a strong attack, and the losses of Liu Bei's corporal have been nearly 20,000, in exchange for the loss of less than 4,000 defenders in Changyi, the battle loss ratio is close to 1 to 5, and the casualties are simply unbearable for Liu Bei, and many soldiers have lost their morale and lose their fighting spirit.

"Lord, such a strong attack is not a way, our soldiers have been attacking for many days before, and now they have been attacking for several days in a row, and they are already sleepy and lacking horses, if they continue to attack, I am afraid that their morale will collapse. Let's take a break and build more siege equipment before attacking the city! After days of hard fighting, looking at the army under his command that was gradually resentful, Chen Zhi couldn't help but admonish.

Liu Bei's face was gloomy at this time, since he learned the news of Cao Cao's attack on Qingzhou, he was anxious, and led the army to attack all the way without rest, in order to kill Cao Cao by surprise, capture Yanzhou as soon as possible to return to Yuzhou or continue to attack Cao Cao north to expand the results. As a result, under the escort of Guan Zhang, they did not stop all the way, and they did win consecutive battles and successfully entered the hinterland of Yanzhou, but they were defeated in Changyi and sunk in the sand.

Xun Yu stayed in Changyi, although he only had 20,000 defenders under his command, but he built Changyi like an iron bucket. Catapults, bed crossbows, arrow towers, inner walls, and countless means of defending the city made Liu Bei feel desperate, and he directly ignored the forced army under his command to attack the city. However, after five days, the losses of the soldiers were numerous, but the efforts were in vain.

Watch the scramble to retreat. With a frightened look on his face, Liu Bei sighed lightly: "According to what you said, rest for two days first." ”

Guan Zhang and the others were also a little relieved when they heard this. For Liu Bei's order, the two of them carried it out directly for no reason, but seeing the soldiers under their command engaged in a meaningless war of attrition under their exhaustion, the two of them were also quite distressed.

After withdrawing to the camp, Liu Bei gathered everyone into the camp with the commander, and said with a little tiredness: "Now that our army is surrounding Changyi but can't go down, what are your plans?" ”

Everyone looked at each other, but they were silent. Siege warfare is to use the lives of soldiers to pile up battles, not to mention a one-to-five battle loss, if there is not a pass, it is not strange to play a one-to-ten battle loss. Don't look at the two battles of Tongguan before, they were so easy, but the first time was because the Xiliang soldiers were not good at defending the city, and the defense equipment was insufficient, and the second time was because the advantage in troops was too large and the many long-range suppression of the archers under Yuan Shu's command contained the battle damage of the siege to about one to two.

Now Liu Bei is facing the well-prepared Xun Yu, although the strength is three times that of the other party, and there are fierce generals like Zhang, but he really can't take advantage of it for a while.

Seeing that everyone was silent, Liu Ye couldn't help but sigh lightly in his heart, and stood up and said, "Lord, Changyi is not something we can easily capture. If Xun Wen defends the city without leakage and has many means, it is not a good strategy to attack. ”

"But Cao Cao has now reached Donglai and besieged Lu Bu in Huang County, if we don't take Changyi again, I'm afraid there will be no way out after Cao Cao defeats Lu Bu and comes back!" Liu Bei said anxiously.

"Also, my lord, there's bad news." Chen Qun stood up and said in a deep voice: "Yuan Shu has already sent troops from Jinling, and led more than 100,000 troops to send me to Yuzhou, and it is expected to attack in three days." Lord, Yuzhou only has more than 20,000 defenders at this time, and it won't last long. ”

Hearing this, Liu Bei's heart became even more anxious, he looked at Chen Zhi frantically, and said coldly: "Uncle Zhi, how is the training of the white-eared elite soldiers you trained?" ”

Chen Zhi looked at Liu Bei's crazy appearance, his heart trembled, and he clenched his fists in a low voice and said: "My lord, the combat power is already small, enough to fight." ”

"Good!" Liu Bei said with a resolute gaze: "Take a break in the past two days, build more ladders and rush cars, and two days later, with the Bai'er elite soldiers as the vanguard, at all costs, we must capture this Changyi City." ”

"But, my lord!" Chen Zhi was anxious to dissuade him when he heard this, although the white-eared elite soldiers were known to be able to fight in a hundred battles, but it was too wasteful to use them in siege warfare. Siege warfare is not like a head-on battle, a rolling stone, a piece of gold juice down, the outcome of the white-eared elite soldiers and ordinary soldiers is no different. Wasting the elite soldiers he had painstakingly trained on this kind of battle, Chen Zhi really found it difficult to accept. But before Chen finished speaking, he saw Liu Bei's cold eyes, which were full of murderous intent, and his whole body was soaked in cold sweat in an instant, and he stopped speaking.

"The white-eared elite soldier is the absolute elite trained by you in a certain life, in order to turn the tide in a certain time of crisis. Now that the situation has eroded to this point, a certain must take Changyi as soon as possible, otherwise Yuzhou will lose. I know that the white-eared elite soldiers are your hard work, but thousands of elite soldiers and a state land, which is more important, I hope you can wake up. After this battle, I will allocate thousands more elites to you, and the white-eared elite soldiers can also be rebuilt, but once such a good opportunity is missed, it will never come back. Finding the slight dissatisfaction in Chen Zhi's heart, Liu Bei made up for it and explained.

"Don't worry, my lord, I understand." Chen Zhi was a little depressed, but he still nodded.