At the head of Xiao Guancheng, Zhao Zhihai and Wang Min stood in the Guan Tower and looked out, only to see that the Rong people outside the Guan had already set up camp.

Different from the previous Yongyun prayer and Fang Hengxin guarding Xiao Pass, this time the Rong people were huge, looking from the city, there were queues of Rong people on all sides, dense and boundless.

Looking at Zhao Zhihai looking into the distance with a solemn face, Wang Min said to Zhao Zhihai respectfully: "General, are you thinking of a strategy to defend the city?" ”

Zhao Zhihai looked sideways at Wang Min and didn't answer, but said, "General Wang, do you think Xiao Guan can still hold on?" ”

Wang Min shook his head and said with a bitter smile: "General, Xiao Pass is no longer defendable. However, at present, the Rong people have occupied the retreat of Yinyangou, and it is not advisable to break through. Besides, the Rong people are powerful, and they can't go out of the city to resist.

I can only rely on the strong walls of the city to defend it, but I don't have enough food and grass in the pass, so I can't hold it for a long time.

The last general thought that he could send generals to Yuanju to mobilize reinforcements, trying to reopen the gallop road, and transport grain to this point, so that there would be a turnaround, and then he could hold on or break through or fight a decisive battle.

If you can't open up the gallop road, even if you are frustrated, you can also contain the Rong people's forces, relieve the pressure of Xiaoguan, and then you can try to break through again. ”

Zhao Zhihai is not a dull person, on the contrary, he is a person who knows how to advance and retreat.

Faced with the unprecedented situation he was encountering at the moment, he also knew that Xiao Guan would not be able to hold on at all, and would only become a pawn for the Rong people to surround and help.

The only plan in front of him was how to retreat under the siege of the Rong army.

Zhao Zhihai was a little depressed in his heart, for more than 500 years, the reason why Xiao Guan was able to resist the invasion of the Rong people repeatedly was that Xiongguan was in charge, and the soldiers in the pass had plenty of food and grass.

Second, the counties of Yuanzhou are heavily guarded, and on the basis of being able to provide support to Xiao Pass at any time, they can also resist the Rong people who bypass Xiao Pass and enter the interior, effectively depleting the Rong people's troops.

The third is the invasion of the customs in the past, the purpose of the Rong people is to grab money and goods, almost do not care about the gains and losses of the city, and often do their best to plunder the livestock and then go home.

Therefore, all previous battles have been able to successfully resist the enemy.

But this time it was very different, first, the Rong people invaded the pass in advance, and the troops of Xiaoguan and Yuanzhou were not well prepared.

Second, the garrisons of the counties in Yuanzhou are empty, the armaments are rotten, and there is even the phenomenon of empty salaries, resulting in insufficient self-protection in the counties, let alone the transfer of troops to aid Xiao.

The four passes of South Sumeru were broken, causing Yuanzhou to suffer from the enemy, and the counties needed to strengthen their defenses, so after Zhao Zhihai led his troops to Yuanzhou, he dispersed his troops.

Fourthly, Yongyunqi and Fang Hengxin lost Xiao Pass, and let the Rong people seize a large amount of grain and grass hoarded in Xiao Pass, which not only gave the Rong soldiers the ability to fight for a long time, but also made Zhao Zhihai fall into the desperate empty city plan, which is the root cause of the big bad situation.

At this time, after listening to what Wang Min said, Zhao Zhihai thought for a long time, and then nodded: "Originally, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that the Rong people were not firmly established to come forward to fight a decisive battle, so that the people and the people could find a way out from the hilly paths. But I saw that when the Rong people built their camps, each camp was each other's horns, and they had quite the art of war. I'm afraid that the decisive battle will not be pleasing at this time. ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Zhihai shook his head slightly, as if he was still thinking about other methods, and after a while, he finally looked determined and said, "Well, who do you think is appropriate to move troops to Yuanzhou?" ”

Wang Min was waiting for Zhao Zhihai to inquire, and when he saw that his voice had just fallen, he hugged his fists and said, "The last general is willing to go." ”

Zhao Zhihai saw that he answered resolutely, but he was a little hesitant.

"General Wang can know that going to Yuanzhou here, not only is the road dangerous, even if he breaks through the hilly area garrisoned by the Rong people, when the leader of the army comes, he has to deal with the Rong army, which can be described as nine deaths. Otherwise, send someone else. ”

"General, although the last general is dull, but he doesn't want to let the general be humiliated again, this policy is proposed by me, naturally only I can do it, Min only asks the general to fulfill it." After speaking, Wang Min knelt on one knee to show his will.

Zhao Zhihai looked at Wang Min, stopped speaking, and bowed slightly to him after a while.

Wang Min didn't say anything more, then bowed to Zhao Zhihai and got up to leave.

After Wang Min left, Zhao Zhihai silently looked at the continuous camp outside the city in the distance, motionless, until he saw the afternoon from the morning, and then saw the lights in the distance from the afternoon.

In the next few days, the Rong people besieged Xiao Pass, and saw that the defenders were holding on to the city, so they kept showing off their might outside the gates every day, shouting and scolding, coming at sunrise and leaving at sunset.

In Xiaoguan City, Zhao Zhihai strictly ordered all armies to guard the gate and not to go out of the city to meet the battle without authorization.

Fang Hengxin's mistake Zhao Zhihai didn't want to try again, the nearly 40,000 people in the city couldn't keep it which would be the rebel costume of the Rong people.

At present, there are 39,000 people and 41,000 soldiers in Xiaoguan City, and about 10,000 people who are trapped in Xiaoguan from Yuanzhou to escort grain and grass.

Although there are a lot of people, the key is that there is not much grain and grass left in Xiaoguan.

Zhao Zhihai ordered that the originally small grain and grass should be taken care of by Zhao Zhidong and distributed in a fixed amount every day.

The grain and grass that was transported for 70,000 people for a month was divided by Zhong Xu, and some of it was used in the past ten days, and the remaining grain and grass could only last the army and the people for three days.

It has been nine days since Wang Min left Xiaoguan, and if it goes well, the reinforcements are about to arrive at Yinyangou Chidao. Then, the last few days are the key to determining the success or failure of Xiao Guan's army.

As in the past, Zhao Zhihai still stood at the head of Xiao Guan City and looked east. Of course, he already understood the purpose of the Rong people besieging Xiao Pass and not attacking the city.

Didn't they just want to drag down the Qin soldiers, starve the defenders to death, and wait for work.

Now that the goal has been achieved, how can they rashly attack the city, add casualties, and do unwise acts.

In the past two days, most of the soldiers under Zhao Zhihai have been unable to hold back, and they have repeatedly asked the deputy general Zhao Zhidong to fight.

Seeing that the daily distribution of meals was getting less and less, the Qin army in Xiaoguan City had understood the current situation from top to bottom, and no one was willing to sit idly by, but every time they asked for battle, they were reprimanded by Zhao Zhidong with words.

Finally, during the lunch of this day, several lieutenants and marquis found the horse meat, and they were immediately surprised, and understood that the killing of horses had begun in the city, which meant that the food and grass had been cut off, and death was imminent.

These lieutenants and marquis immediately found Zhao Zhidong and asked to meet the general and ask to go to war. In the face of Zhao Zhidong's reprimand, they were still unmoved and insisted on asking to fight. Seeing that the bullet could not be suppressed, Zhao Zhidong had no choice but to agree to see Zhao Zhihai and convey his appeal.

When Zhao Zhihai heard what the sergeant wanted, he unexpectedly agreed to it, and he asked Zhao Zhidong to tell the sergeants to prepare for the upcoming battle.

Two days later, in the early morning.

All the soldiers in Xiaoguan City received a military order and ordered the whole army to prepare for an attack. At the same time, the people of the city were armed and their weapons were distributed.

When everything was ready, Zhao Zhihai personally led the troops out of the four gates and went towards the Rong camp to kill the generals.

Yesterday afternoon, Zhao Zhihai observed in the city that some of the Rong soldiers suddenly left the camp in a hurry and went east, although in order to confuse the Xiaoguan defenders did not pull out the village, but Zhao Zhihai was old in military affairs, and knew at a glance that it must be Wang Min's reinforcements have arrived.

He arranged for the people to be taken out of the city after the soldiers. Most of those people were also people who had served in the military, and after taking their weapons, they naturally knew that this was to let them go into battle to kill the enemy.

As far as the people are concerned, they have also seen the situation in the pass in the past few days, and they know that leaving Hengzhi is death, so they also aroused their ferocity and followed the soldiers to kill outside the gate.

But the people of the city were not in the army, and 40,000 old and young women and children went out of the gate, and when they saw the sound of killing people in armor with their eyes shaking the sky, they had long since lost their attention, so they didn't even care about being afraid, but just ran forward with the flow of people.

As Zhao Zhihai expected, the Rong people's deployment today was indeed because Wang Min had arrived on the east side of the Yinyangou Chi Road with reinforcements.

As soon as he arrived, Wang Min ordered the whole army to attack the two heights on the east side of Yinyangou, the north and south. However, the Rong people operated here for more than ten days, and reinforced it on the basis of the camp built by Zhong Xu, which made the attack of Wang Min's army much more difficult than at the beginning.

However, Wang Min's savior was anxious, and when the number of troops was more than the number of soldiers in this place, he attacked the high ground regardless of the life and death of the soldiers, until sunset, the high ground on the north side was finally taken by Wang Min.

But Wang Min also saw that the reinforcements of the Rong people had also arrived on the high ground on the south side, and the two armies confronted each other across the gallop.

Six days ago, after Wang Min and his soldiers returned to Wonju after crossing the hilly trail through many hardships, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the strength of Wonju had increased from 35,000 to 60,000.

It turned out that Jie Yuan had been keenly aware of it as early as when Zhong Xu took the Yinyan Ditch Chidao, and the Qin State had fallen into a passive strategy in this Xiaoguan battle.

In order to increase the number of mobile troops, he ordered the urgent recruitment of soldiers in Wonju and the five counties, so that in less than 10 days, 15,000 soldiers were recruited in Wonju City alone, and 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers were recruited in the rest of the counties.

Most of these recruits are young men who have served in the new service, and they do not need to be trained, and they are given weapons to fight. If it weren't for the fact that there were 10,000 people who became civilian husbands and followed Zhao Zhihai to Xiaoguan a few days ago, it would not be difficult to recruit 30,000 soldiers this time.

But this is already the limit of the Yuanzhou capital, and I am afraid that there will be no labor to harvest the autumn wheat in Yuanzhou this year. If the war continues, then after the autumn and winter, there will probably be more beggars in Yuanju City.

Shortly before Wang Min came to Yuanzhou, Jieyuan received a military report from Xiao Guan's messenger, saying that the general was trapped in Xiao Guan and asked Xijing to rescue him. Jie Yuan was taken aback when he got the letter, and hurriedly arranged for the stagecoach to send the general's newspaper to Xijing.

At the same time, he ordered several lieutenants in Yuanzhou City to discuss the rescue of Xiao Guan. In the end, Jieyuan decided that Yuanzhou Captain Xian Yuqiong would lead 30,000 troops to rescue Xiao Guan.

At the same time, he sent a military report to Zhao Zhiliang, who was fighting with the Rong people at the four passes of Sumeru, informing him that the current military situation in Xiaoguan was urgent, and it was necessary to mobilize 2,000 soldiers and horses from each of the remaining five counties to be stationed in Yuanzhou for use as a mobile force.

When Wang Min came to Yuanzhou and saw Jieyuan in the general government to explain his intentions, Jieyuan immediately changed his plan and handed over all the 30,000 reinforcements to Wang Min to lead the command.

Since the expedition had already been arranged, Wang Min led an army of 30,000 to Xiaoguan that day, and at the same time requisitioned 5,000 people to carry the army's grain and grass.

When he arrived at the Yinyangou Chi Road crossing on the sixth day, Wang Min did not order a rest, so he let the whole army take turns to attack the high ground on the north and south sides, and finally captured the Beiying high ground before sunset.

However, as it got late and the reinforcements of the Rong people arrived, he knew that he could not fight again, so he had to order the whole army to be repaired, put the people's grain and grass in the middle army, and sent soldiers who did not participate in the battle today to occupy several nearby connected heights, store water and build a fortress, and strengthen the defense.

However, Wang Min didn't know that Xiaoguan had become an empty city at this time.