The road is one foot high, and the war is becoming more brutal under the impetus of artillery.

The city wall is hung with grass and mud bags, which was originally the defensive battle of Yin Yangcheng in Bailiyan, and was created by drawing on the military equipment of the Southern Song Dynasty. After draping the grass and mud bags, the city wall can resist the frontal bombardment of falling rocks under 30 catties, and it is also effective against shells with solid projectiles.

After the Xian army's defense of the city was flooded, the Black Turban Army innovatively inserted the grass and mud bags into the waves, which undoubtedly weakened the penetration of the projectile on the surface of the city wall.

The principle is the same as that of adding logs to the front and sides of the tank, both of which are designed to weaken the blasting and penetration power of the warhead.

Before the appearance of fuze blasting shells, the damage of solid projectiles to the city wall only stayed at the thorough killing of projectiles.

The artillery of the Xian army was mostly six-pound guns, and there were very few twelve-pound and eighteen-pound guns, and there was no way to defend the extremely strong city wall, so they could only storm it.

Even if you switch to the use of slinging machinery, there are also in the Black Turban Army Pass, the range is still farther than that of the Xian Army, and the use of fire and thunder bombs and a swarm of bees to counter the Xian Army, under the strong attack, not dead and wounded tens of thousands of people, can not take Dongping Pass at all.

Returning to the Xianjun camp from outside the gate, Bailiyan asked Zhao Anling to the tent to discuss:

"Mr. Zhao, Wanchuan was the land of the law back then, why didn't Mr. say a word today, and your Zhao family has no way to crack it?"

"This Wanchuan, since ancient times, there are two roads in and out of the east and west, if the defenders do not surrender, they can only attack by force, and there is no other way. However, in the next suggestion, it can be besieged but not attacked. ”

"Oh, besiege but not attack! How to besiege without attacking? ”

"The north and south of Wanchuan cannot enter Sichuan, so they only need to capture Shangguan County again, and they can trap the Wanchuan rebels from Shangguan and Pengyuan. In this way, it is only necessary to take one more land of Ganfu, the land of three counties, and in fact, the four counties are all obtained by our army.

Hou Ye was worried about the population of more than 5 million in the four counties, but if he did not take Wanchuan for the time being, there would be more than 1.3 million people in Sichuan, and in a short period of time, the defenders in the city and Sichuan would be burdensome, and our army would not need to bear the cost of food and grass.

After a year and a half of this delay, the situation in the three counties improved, and by that time, the grain and grass in Wanchuan had dried up, and the defenders had only one way to surrender. ”

"But it is the descendants of the Black Turban Army who are guarding Wanchuan, if there is a famine in Sichuan, it will not surrender again, and under the forcible capture of our army, the people in Sichuan will starve to death by hundreds of thousands, so it is too cruel."

"Wanchuan has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times, and it was also the place where the capital of the country was located, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and extremely difficult to break through from the outside. In order to capture the land of the law country, Sun Guo was after capturing Shangguan County, and then detoured north to the territory of Changsun today, captured Peng Yuan, and besieged it for several years before destroying the law country. ”

The situation of Wanchuan County into Sichuan is more sinister than that of Bashu, there is the Han River in the east of Bashu, and there is an ancient plank road into Sichuan in the north. The cliffs in the north and south of Wanchuan County are precipices, there is neither land route nor water route to pass, only two land routes in the east and west, and there are few examples of storming and taking down Wanchuan County since ancient times.

Decades ago, Zhiguo went out of the Central Plains to the west, and fought with Sun Guo around Wanchuan for more than ten years.

With the national strength of the Xian country, it is not surprising that under the strong attack, it is not surprising that it lost 100,000 people. Zhiguo didn't take Wanchuan this time, most of them were bitten by a snake once, and he was afraid of the well rope for ten years, and the psychological shadow has not disappeared.

After pondering for a moment, Bailiyan spread out the topographic map of the mountains and rivers of Sun Guojun County and took a closer look. It is said that it is careful, but in fact, the useful information on the map is better than nothing.

There are neither contour lines nor topographical representations, and the current map is seriously distorted and exaggerated, and it still stays at the ideographic level, which can only be seen approximately.

To this end, starting a few years ago, Bailiyan began to promote the mapping work one after another, striving to launch a set of effective mapping technology within two years, and complete the one-to-one million scale map as soon as possible throughout the country.

After a while, Bai Liyan sighed and said:

"Alas...... This picture is also the most sophisticated picture at the moment, but it is useless, which is really hateful. ”

"Master Hou is trying to find a way into the mountain from elsewhere?"

"Mr. Zhao didn't know, when Ben Hou went south to conquer the Jin Xuedi people, in the Qiu Bigong Mountain, which is difficult for the Jin Xuedi people to enter, he forcibly found two ways in and out, if it weren't for Ben Hou's heavy responsibility now, he really wanted to personally lead a road to find a way into the mountains from other places."

"Master Hou doesn't have to worry so much, if you capture Shangguan, Wanchuan will be at your fingertips, so why rush for a while."

"Having said that, if the war drags on for a long time, the people of central Sichuan will suffer for one more day, and if the war cannot be stopped as soon as possible, it will be Xianguo that will be damaged in the future."

Although Zhao Anling's method of besieging but not attacking avoided his own casualties and solved the tactical problem, the ensuing collateral casualties were unbearable.

People are the fundamental driving force of all social economy and wealth, and the population of Xianguo is now only 7 million, excluding the people's army, foreign army, new vassals, hermits, foreigners and their families, the population of Xianguo itself will not exceed 5.5 million, of which more than 1.5 million people are the result of Bailiyan's efforts to increase the population in the past 15 years, and the death of wars and disasters has also offset the population growth.

After the turmoil of the Central Plains in the past 20 years, the population of Xianguo should have decreased by more than 30 million, and the number of people who died directly due to drought, war, disease, and vagrancy in the past 20 years in Xianguo alone was no less than 16.7 million, and the original population of Xianguo was more than 8 million, a sharp decrease of one-third in 20 years.

The worst hit by the Black Turban Army was the Xu State, the population decreased by more than 9 million in 15 years, although the Weiguo, Zhiguo, Song and Xihai countries were not directly affected by the Black Turbans, but the results of the six years of war in the south, the results of the post-war statistics show that only more than 4 million people died in transit, more than 1.5 million soldiers were lost in battle, nearly 2 million people, other indirect deaths and casualties in the suppression of rebellion within the Black Turban Army, 30 million people died directly due to disasters and battles before and after are still conservative estimates.

Wanchuan County is also different from the Sichuan Basin, except for the central basin, Wanchuan is relatively fragmented, arable land is scattered between various mountainous areas, coupled with backward farming technology and agricultural tools, animal power is scarce, with the current agricultural technology and productivity of the Black Turban Army, it cannot maintain the existing population of 1.3 million and tens of thousands of troops in Sichuan food and logistics supply.

Wanchuan besieged but did not attack, and after a long time, the defenders refused to surrender, and famine was the inevitable result. Even if only two or three hundred thousand people starved to death, the ultimate weakening would still be the economic war potential of the salty country.

After surveying Dongping Pass, the group returned to Shuotian on the second day, stayed for a day, and Bailiyan went to Changyin County non-stop to take over Ye Xin, Xiao Qu, Gu Zhong, and Xu Jin.

From Pengyuan to Changyin County, it is necessary to borrow the Daozhi State Dingxiang County, Dingxiang County and Wanchuan, Pengyuan, Xiaguan, Changyin four counties are all bordered, the Zhijun from this west to the Central Plains is extremely advantageous, but Wanchuan is pressed on the top of the head like a fish in the throat.

In the early years, he competed with Sun Guo for hegemony, and after seizing hegemony, he only bought a hidden danger for the decline of Zhiguo because of the breaking of Wanchuan.

This time, Zhiguo avoided Wanchuan and did not attack, obviously wanting to leave this hard bone to the Xianjun to gnaw, so as to reap the benefits of the fisherman in the future.

The Zhijun attacked Xiaguan and the soldiers and horses were led by Gongliangyi's eldest son, Gongliangchen, and Gongliangwen's eldest son, Gongliangsong, who fought for several months and were still blocked from the Xiaguan portal.

Gongliangchen is a generation of newcomers with both wisdom and courage in the Gongliang family, and he is not inferior to Gongliangxiu, but Gongliangxiu is scheming and governance, which is beyond the reach of Gongliangchen.

As for Gongliangsong, Bailiyan had already been taught during the Southern Expedition, and Wu Yong Kejia was generally wise, which was comparable to Su Hong. You can worship the general, but you can't worship the commander.

When passing through the lower pass, Bai Liyan did not go to visit Gongliangchen and Gongliangxiu, one was not on the way, and the other was that Gongliangsong was a little mediocre, but he had a lot of bad intentions and bad ideas, and often tried his best to have bad ideas. That Gong Liangchen is also a cunning person, but I am afraid that if I go to his two-person camp, I am not allowed to cause trouble.

The second is that it is indeed not a good way, there is really no need to go a special trip, so as a famous general in the Central Plains, they deigned to go to the meeting of Gong Liangchen, but raised their status.

In March, the temperature has risen, and the local temperature is still lower than that of Beihai.

The war between Changyin and Shangguan restarted, the camp of the Zhi army was set up in Yingcheng, and the camp of Ye Xin and Guan Longxiang Xian army was in Lintai, and the two places were more than 200 miles apart from each other.

Half of Changyin County was already under the control of the coalition forces, and the Black Turban Army relied on the advantages of the Sishui River and constantly used warships to transport troops and reinforcements from Jiangxi, which brought huge obstacles to the capture of Changyin West County

On the twenty-eighth day of March, Bai Liyan led the military battalion to Lintai first, instead of going to the closer Yingcheng. Ye Xin, Guan Longxiang and others went out of the city to greet them:

"The last general will wait for the deputy marshal!"

"You don't have to be formal."

"Vice Marshal Xie."

After everyone finished saluting, Ye Xin said:

"Vice-marshal, does the king have a will?"

"The king ordered Benhou to take all three places before the Changsun army invaded the three counties of Ganfu, Shangguan and Wanchuan, and the burden on your shoulders is not light."

At this time, Guan Longxiang said:

"With the current situation, if the Changsun Kingdom is pressed from the north, the Black Turban Army will inevitably flee to the south, and the front of our army will be even tighter. If our army attacks northward, fighting to the death for one city and one place, not to mention the loss of troops, I am afraid it will be difficult to take all the three counties in time, and Hou Ye has a clever plan for this time. ”

"It's wonderful, but it's not fast. Let's go, let's go into the city first. ”

Entering the city and coming to the governance office, Ye Xin gave up his position, and when everyone sat down, Bai Liyan continued:

"Governor Ye, how many soldiers are in the battalion?"

"Back to the deputy marshal, not counting the wounded battalion, there are more than 120,000 soldiers in the battalion, and 40,000 soldiers and armorers operating in the battalion, totaling more than 160,000 people."

"How many cavalry are there?"

"More than 24,000 people."

"How many frontal enemies are there in our army?"

"Our army has more than 20,000 rebels in Gongcheng in the north and Yinqu City in the northwest, and there are 30,000 people in Zhaocheng west of Lintai, but in the northwest of Yinqu City, it is the main force of the Divine Power Heavenly King of about 80,000 people.

However, the rebel city wall is draped with logs and grass and mud bags, there are moats or moats outside the city, and the city gate is also equipped with a copper fence that opens from top to bottom. ”

Ye Xin explained the military situation in detail, and Bai Liyan asked Guan Longxiang again:

"Mr. Guan Long, where is the rebel artillery now?"

"In the camp of the Divine Power Heavenly King, according to the detailed report, the number of artillery pieces in his camp has increased to more than forty, which seems to have been obtained from the hands of the eldest grandson. I heard that at the beginning of the year, Changsun suffered a defeat in the two counties of Nuotang and Shutian, and I thought that most of the artillery was captured by the Changsun army. ”

"If you don't use it, you want to harm our army, it's really a guy who has more than enough success and more than failure."

Bai Liyan scolded, Ye Xin agreed:

"What the deputy marshal said is extremely that the Changsun Bu Army is not vulnerable at all, it took more than 400,000 people to attack Nuotang, but the black scarf only used 150,000 people, and the armor was lost and abandoned, and now the artillery has fallen into the hands of the black scarf, and it is really hateful to use it to harm our army."

"Let's not mention this matter, at the beginning of April and the end of April, two batches of a total of 50 artillery pieces will arrive at Lintai, and our armed battalion will have one artillery piece each of 6 catties, 12 catties, and 18 catties, plus 22 guns in the battalion, a total of 75 artillery pieces, and our army's firepower will be completely suppressed by that time."