In the city of Xingquan Mansion, Wang Danxu looked at the report in his hand with a sad face and did not speak for a long time.

Although he said that he couldn't read big words before, but for more than a year, he also read and read hard, and naturally he couldn't write this article, and he didn't even recognize many words, but he could still understand the simple text report.

The content of this report is very simple, it is a report of the materials stored in the city.

It is said that the food is not enough for the population of the city for ten days, and other ordnance materials are still sufficient, especially consumable materials such as ammunition and bows and arrows, because when the great evacuation was made, in order to ensure the supply of ammunition for the defenders in the eastern part of Guizhou, there were still small-scale ammunition and bow and arrow workshops in the city, although after the siege, the source of raw materials has been cut off, and the original raw materials can only be relied on for production, but this is enough for the defenders in the city to use.

After all, the guns and weapons in the city are no longer full, there are only 500 muskets, and the artillery is just an 800-pound heavy cannon and more than 10 150-pound battalion guns and a 100-pound bowl cannon captured from the Ming army.

Although the workshops in the city have ceased to work, they still have enough ammunition and a lot of arrows.

As for cold weapons, with the Ming Army, the captain of the transport brigade, the Tang Dynasty has never lacked cold weapons, it is nothing more than that there is less armor in the cold weapons, and the quality of the sword is poorer, but it is still possible to use it reluctantly.

The key now is not so much not the lack of ordnance and ammunition, but the lack of food.

As early as a few days ago, Wang Danxu had already ordered the whole city to concentrate the grain and distribute it uniformly by the military, but the grain collected was not much.

It's not that those big families refuse to hand over their grain, under the pressure of the military's knives and guns, those big families don't have the courage to hide a large amount of grain privately, of course, and a large amount of grain can't be hidden, the city is so big, but people secretly hide some of the private rations.

In this regard, the military is not easy to force too much, and these big families keep their own rations, but the excess must be sold to the military.

However, even so, the food collected is not much, this has been besieged for two months, the food in the city is also fixed, and the big families will not hoard a large amount of food for no reason, and many people have sold a batch of grain at a high price in the early stage, but now there is not much food left.

Putting away the report in his hand, Wang Danxu looked up at the group of officers below, and then said: "Now that the grain and grass can be used for less than ten days, what strategy do you have!" ”

At this time, a captain next to him said: "Regiment commander, if we just break through, now we still have 4,000 warriors, and the ammunition is sufficient, enough for us to fight out of the encirclement!" ”

But as soon as these words fell, a major next to him retorted: "Breaking through the siege is not in the hands of the puppet Ming thief army, they have ambushed heavy troops outside the city, and now only half of our 4,000 people are less than the combat strength of the regular army, and the combat effectiveness of the garrison is poor, if it is a breakthrough operation, it will have to rely heavily on the combat power of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, which uses 2,000 people to fight 40,000 or 50,000 people, this is not a breakthrough, this is suicide!" ”

"Yes, it's not feasible to break through, let's not mention whether we can succeed in killing, but our military can break through, but what about the more than 10,000 people in the city, most of them are loyal people who are like my Tang Dynasty, when the city is broken, how can the puppet Ming thief army let them go?"

Xingquanfu City was previously the temporary capital of the Tang Dynasty, but there have been major changes, most of the die-hard elements in the original city have been cleaned up or relocated, and the rest are cooperating people, in addition, there are still a large number of people who are close to the Tang Dynasty to stay here, these people are all rebellious in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning of the Ming army's siege of the city, it was said that if the defenders surrendered, it was easy to say, but if they refused to surrender, then when the city was broken, the chickens and dogs would not be left.

Don't think that the Ming army didn't dare to do this, they really dared, and they had done it in Zhengtai County!

Zhengtai County as the Tang Dynasty of the Longxing place, and most of the Tang Dynasty high-level are Zhengtai people, the Ming Dynasty after the fight is naturally to kill, after the initial persuasion failed, the Ming army stormed the city, after the city was broken, more than 1,000 defenders and more than 3,000 people in the city were slaughtered, none of them survived.

Fortunately, before the Ming army came to attack, the defenders had already carried out a large-scale evacuation of Zhengtai County, and a large number of pro-Tang people were arranged to withdraw to Liping Mansion through various mountain roads and trails, and later Liping Mansion was not safe, and some even withdrew to Liuzhou Mansion.

Originally, Xingquan Mansion also carried out a large-scale retreat operation, but the population of Xingquan Mansion was larger, and the people who retreated in the early stage were craftsmen, officials and their families, but halfway through the retreat, the Ming army was killed.

Fortunately, most of the craftsmen had been evacuated before, otherwise, several arsenals such as the Liuzhou Arsenal might not be able to start production!

However, even these people who remain in the city can't give up easily unless they have to!

Of course, the main reason why this group of officers said that they could not retreat was naturally not because the ordinary people in the city could not give up unless they had to, but the fourth-level meaning of this was that they could give up under certain circumstances, for example, for the defenders to break through smoothly.

But if you want to break through and whether you can break through, those are two different things!

"If you don't break through, will you stay in the city and wait for death?" At this time, someone spoke again: "The reinforcements have been delayed, and our army's food is almost exhausted, and if we continue to wait like this, I don't know how many people will starve to death!" ”

"Why don't the reinforcements come, the commander has already led his troops to play, although the first siege relief operation failed, but as long as the friendly troops of the second army have some rest and replenishment, they will definitely be able to open up the rescue channel!"

"In addition, didn't there be news some time ago that the Fourth Army in Guilin had begun to move north, and when the Fourth Army arrived, would you still be afraid of these puppet thieves in front of you?"

"If the Fourth Army had gone north, now these puppet thieves in the city could still besiege the city so comfortably, and they would have withdrawn their troops a long time ago. It can be seen from this that it is probably too early for the Fourth Army to go north! ”

Listening to a group of people arguing and arguing, Wang Danxu was also upset!

Breaking through, he thought, and he had already done so, as early as a month ago, he tried to command the troops to break through, but as soon as the forward troops left the city, they were intercepted by the absolute superiority of the Ming army, and in the end they could only return in vain.

Originally, I wanted to wait for a few days of rest, and then find a way to break through, but there will be more and more Ming troops!

When the headquarters of the Second Army came to the rescue before, because the communication channel was cut off, the defenders in the city did not know that the Second Army was attacking, and if they knew, they would have launched a counteroffensive at that time, and maybe this rush would have rushed out.

But the problem is that he doesn't know, because Xingquanfu City is surrounded by the Ming army, and the Ming army doesn't even play the strategy of encircling three and one, but directly surrounds it on all sides.

In this case, even if it is to send fast horses to break through, it is necessary to plan carefully, and even so, there is a great possibility of being intercepted by the troops of the Ming army.

Wang Danxu didn't know that the last time he broke the siege, Fang Xitong sent an envoy to Xingquanfu City to try to get the defenders to cooperate with the battle, but the envoy was intercepted and killed by the Ming army before he entered the city, and he didn't succeed in delivering the news at all.

The first breakthrough operation failed, and the headquarters of the Second Army failed to cooperate with the counterattack when it came to the rescue.

As for continuing to break through, Wang Danxu knows very well that this possibility is no longer very large, just with such a group of remnants under his command who want to break through the siege and leave alone, it is rare that it is not ordinary, just with these 4,000 remnants, and there are only less than 2,000 regular troops in it, you want to rush out, you are a fool to be 40,000 or 50,000 Ming troops outside the city!

On the one hand, he was instructed to save food as much as possible, and could not supply the whole city as well as before, and the food supply should be guaranteed as much as possible to ensure the rations of the front-line combat troops, and this guarantee is also very different from the past, in the past, the regular army's food was full of three meals a day, but now, even the soldiers of the regular army can only eat two meals a day, and one of them is porridge.

In addition, the young people who can help defend the city can also eat a little dry, as for the others, I'm sorry, I can only eat a little porridge every day, barely maintaining a state of starvation.

There is no way, there is only so much food, and if everyone eats with an open belly, they will not be able to insist on the arrival of reinforcements at all.

And the devil only knows when the reinforcements will arrive, maybe it will be three or five days, maybe ten days and half a month, or it may be a month later, and if it doesn't come after a month, then don't come, because no matter how much you save food, it will not be able to support it until a month later.

At that time, the soldiers and civilians in the city will definitely starve to death, and even if they don't starve to death, I'm afraid they will surrender.

Don't overestimate the loyalty of the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty, for the middle and senior officers and civilian officials, it is impossible to surrender, because it is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to let go of those who raised rebellions, not to mention that many of these middle and senior officers are actually from the Ming army.

At the beginning, the Tang Dynasty captured so many Ming troops, and there were many middle and low-level officers in the Ming army who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty.

But the refusal of middle and high-ranking generals and civilian officials does not mean that ordinary soldiers are unwilling to surrender!

Now the situation can barely be maintained, although there is not enough to eat, but there is still to eat, and when the food is completely eaten, it is estimated that it is time for the whole army to collapse, at that time, the soldiers are estimated to dare to kill Wang Danxu in order to survive and then open the city gate to welcome the Ming Wangshi!

So now Wang Danxu is praying, whether it is the headquarters of the Second Army or the reinforcements of the Fourth Army, it is best to arrive within half a month, and within twenty days at the latest, otherwise, the situation will deteriorate to the point where he is completely out of control.

And where is the reinforcements that Wang Danxu is waiting for, especially the Fourth Army, a new force?

They are in Jingzhou, to be precise, they have just entered Jingzhou!