"What's the situation? Why didn't the rebels attack the city today? ”

In the city of Shuzhou, when he saw noon, there was no sound of rebels attacking the city, and Sun Chen was also a little surprised. According to the previous practice, even if the rebels did not attack on a large scale, they would come to harass them every day, but today the rebels have not moved until now, if it weren't for the soldiers on the city wall who saw the rebels outside the city, he would have thought that the rebels had retreated.

From the siege of Shuzhou, it is already the tenth day today, and after ten days, Shuzhou City can be regarded as a heavy loss.

When the rebels first surrounded Shuzhou City, their strength exceeded 30,000, and the strength of Zhoucheng at that time was only more than 5,000 even if Yang Xingqian's defeated troops were added. Although there were nearly 10,000 armed civilians on the way, the siege battle in the previous days also caused heavy losses to the soldiers and civilians in Shuzhou, with more than 7,000 casualties, and now there are less than 4,000 remnants left. If the rebels launched a powerful offensive in the first few days, no more than two days, Shuzhou City would be broken, and Sun Chen would be ready to coexist with Shuzhou City, but he didn't expect the rebels to reduce the scale of the attack, and they would not attack today.

Sun Chen and the others guessed that the imperial court might have sent reinforcements, otherwise the number of rebels attacking the city would not have decreased. However, they didn't know that the Tiance Army had eliminated and defeated the eight thousand rebels, and now it was approaching Shuzhou City, because there were no telephones or radios at this time, and Shuzhou City was surrounded again, and the people inside naturally didn't know the situation outside.

"I don't know, is it because the rebels have suffered heavy casualties, so they won't attack the city for the time being?" An official below speculated.

"Lord Assassin Shi, could it be that the reinforcements from the imperial court are coming, and the rebels feel the pressure, so they don't have time to take care of us for the time being." Another said.

"It's hard to say about this matter, and now the news is blocked, and we don't know what the situation is outside. What we should be worried about now is the drinking water in the city, now the city is starting to be a little nervous about both drinking water and food, if the siege of Shuzhou is not solved, and the rebels do not break the city by then, we will have a problem ourselves. ”

When it comes to drinking water and food, the people present can't help but be silent, they all know it deeply, as the upper echelons of the city, problems have begun to appear in their mansions, ordinary people can imagine. This can't be helped, no one expected that there would be a siege before, and the last time was the invasion of Nanzhao more than ten years ago, so there were some deficiencies in emergency response.

At the mention of this, Sun Chen's head was a little big, and the siege of the city for many days made him extremely tired, his eyes were sunken, his face was pale, and he had long since lost his previous energy. Of course, the others are no better, after all, after the city is broken, their ending may not be too good, and it is strange that they can be in a good state.

"Is there no food in the treasury?" Sun Chen asked.

"This... Si Cang's eyes were a little evasive, and after seeing Sun Chen's stern eyes, Si Cang hesitated, "There is some grain in the warehouse, but it has to be handed over to the Jiedu Embassy." ”

"How many?" Sun Chen asked.

"About 150,000 stones." Si Cang replied.

In the Tang Dynasty, one stone was 53 kilograms, and 150,000 stones were 7.95 million catties of grain. At present, the total number of soldiers and civilians in the city is less than 100,000, and even if each person has one pound of grain a day, then this grain is enough for the whole city to eat for more than two months.

However, there is a problem, this grain cannot be moved easily, otherwise Sun Chen, the assassin, will not be able to bear the responsibility.

"Sun Tingshi wants to move this grain? Sun Thorn Shi Ke knows that this grain can't be moved, and when the time comes, the festival commander will blame it, even if you are an adult, Thorn Shi can't bear this responsibility. Hearing Sun Chen ask this, Yang Xingqian, who had not spoken before, spoke in a somewhat stern tone.

This grain was to be handed over to the Thorn Mansion, and then handed over to the imperial court. However, at this time, the imperial court is in Chengdu, so it is equivalent to this grain in Chengdu, and to put it bluntly, it is Chen Jingxuan's. And Yang Xingqian is Chen Jingxuan's cronies.

"If you can't defend the city, these grains are also cheap rebels, so it's better to take them out and give them to the soldiers and civilians in the city to eat, at least let them defend the city together." Sun Chen also let go at this time, he didn't want to die here.

If you touch this grain, you will be punished afterwards; But if you don't move this food, after talking about anything, when the city is broken, it's hard to say whether they can survive or not. How to choose, Sun Chen naturally knows.

"The imperial court has sent reinforcements, and we can hold on without using the grain in the warehouse." Yang Xingqian insisted, he naturally didn't worry about running out of food, so he didn't have to care if other people had food to eat.

"There is no sign of reinforcements until now. If General Yang personally led the troops to move the rescue troops, I would not use the grain in the warehouse. "Seeing Yang Xingqian, Sun Chen was very angry, if it wasn't for the other party's chaos, Shuzhou would be besieged?

"Lord Thorn Shi, is this going against Yang?" Yang Xingqian said in an unkind tone.

"Sun doesn't dare, who is General Yang, it is for the sake of military merit that he can kill good and risky merit, or someone else will come nonsense, how can the rebels be so powerful." Sun Chen didn't care so much, Yang Xingqian had a bad attitude from the moment he entered the city, he couldn't bear it anymore after enduring it for so many days.

According to the position and grade, the other party should obey himself, but the other party has always been against him because he is Chen Jingxuan's henchman, and he does not take his own history of assassination in his eyes at all.

"Okay, a lot." Seeing that no one was helping him, Yang Xingqian looked at Sun Chen and the others coldly, and then walked away.

"My lord, is it inappropriate to offend him so much? He is the confidant and favorite general of the handsome. Someone next to him persuaded.

"No matter how much, let's defend the city first. Immediately take out the grain from the warehouse and sell it at the market price before the siege. Remember that each person can only buy half a catty per day, and it is strictly forbidden for those big families to take the opportunity to stock up on grain, and they are not allowed to buy it. If someone takes the opportunity to raise the price of food, he will be arrested directly. "Anyway, if you let it go, Sun Chen will let it go.

Are the big families in the city short of food? In fact, there is no shortage, no matter how you say it, large families will have more or less some food in stock, and it has only been ten days, so it is impossible to run out of food. On the contrary, ordinary people and those who have fled outside the city may not have enough food.

However, he did not distribute the food to the people of the city for free, so it was difficult for him to make a difference afterwards. Although he used the grain that needed to be handed over, he exchanged it for money, so that the sin would be smaller, and the price was the market price before the siege, which ordinary people could afford. Don't think that being a person in the history of assassination is stupid, Sun Chen can get to this point, not just reading sage books.

"Your Excellency is wise!"

Hearing Sun Chen's words, his confidant's eyes lit up, and in this way, the responsibility was much smaller, so he couldn't help but pat himself on the back.

Sycophants, officials basically like to listen to it, but Sun Chen has not forgotten the current situation, the food problem has been solved temporarily, but the siege is incomprehensible, the food problem will not break out, and other problems will also break out.

"Okay, there's one more thing. What I said to Yang Xingqian before was not aimed at him, but now I really need someone to investigate the situation outside the city, is the reinforcement coming? How many came? After we know this, we can be mentally prepared. Speaking of this, Sun Chen looked at the generals below and said in an inquiring tone, "So, generals, who is willing to complete this arduous task." ”

These generals looked at each other, and they were also a little hesitant, and soon one of the generals stood up, it was Hu Liang, the deputy general of a military town under Tang Long before. It turned out that he had led the 600 unity soldiers allocated to him by Sun Chen to relieve the siege of Tanglong, but it was the rebels who waited for him, and Tanglong had already broken the city. There was no way, he could only lead the army back to Shuzhou in the end.

I saw Hu Liang hugging his fists and saying, "Master Assassin, I am willing to go." ”

Seeing that it was Hu Liang, Sun Chen also looked a little complicated, and couldn't help but remind, "General Hu, this mission is very dangerous. Moreover, there were not many troops in the city, so in order to avoid being discovered by the rebels, they could only bring a maximum of 100 people. ”

"It's okay, you only need 50 people for the humble position, and you can set off at night, I just hope that the adults can match all of them with good horses." Hu Liang said in a deep voice.

"Good horse, I agreed." Although Nishikawa has few horses, he is a thorn history, and it is no problem to make up fifty good horses, and many troops have retreated into the city before, including cavalry. In the case of defending the city, the cavalry is useless, if it were not for the preciousness of the war horses, they would almost kill the horses and eat the meat.

"Thank you, sir."

"General Hu cherishes!" Looking at Hu Liang with a stubborn face, Sun Chen didn't know what to say, he wanted to say a lot of things, but when he spoke, he couldn't say it.