In Liu Yan's opinion, with the surprise attack advantage of the Liang army in last night's battle, if it was the Liang army that swept the world before, even if the soldiers were extremely tired, they should be able to defeat the Wu army.

Or maybe their opponent is not the Wu army, but other armies, and they can also achieve victory.

Unfortunately, the tenacity of the Wu army was still beyond his expectations, a chaotic army could regroup in a short period of time and immediately launch a counterattack, this strength is indeed not comparable to the current Liang army.

"I have long heard that when the Wu army selected the forbidden army, there were strict regulations on the height, strength, and age of the soldiers, and after strict training and battlefield training, its strong strength is indeed worthy of its reputation." Liu Yan sighed in his heart.

At this moment, all the generals came to inquire about the military strategy.

"General, last night's raid on the Wu army's camp has failed, if you continue to attack the Wu army, I am afraid that it will be difficult to make a breakthrough in a short time, and the army led by the prince of Wu must be coming quickly, I don't know how our army should use troops next, and please ask the general to show me." Adjutant General Kong Hui asked.

"Yes, now that the situation is urgent, please make plans for the general." The generals chimed in.

Liu Yan's face was calm, he didn't answer directly, but asked, "I don't know if the generals have any suggestions?" ”

"The last general thought that he should take advantage of the fact that before the main force of the Wu army personally led by King Wu arrived, he should immediately lead the army back to Xiao County, and meet General Niu first." Kong Hui immediately replied.

Liu Yan nodded, and looked at the other generals again.

This Kong Hui is Niu Cunjie's henchman, so he will advocate converging with Niu Cunjie first, which Liu Cheng is not surprised at all.

However, the other generals are not all Niu Cunjie's generals, so Liu Yan wants to hear the opinions of others.

After the commander Guo Yi hesitated for a moment, he replied, "General, why don't we just withdraw our troops and go back?" King Wu personally led the troops to come, and the Wu army led by Zhou Ben rushed to Xuzhou one step ahead, even if we defeated the Wu army, but as long as the Wu army closed the city gate and held on, we could not help the Wu army. It is better to withdraw the troops directly. ”

Liu Yan nodded secretly in his heart and withdrew his troops directly, which was also a good choice.

After all, judging from the current situation, there is almost no possibility for the Liang army to recapture Xuzhou, since this is the case, it is not necessary to withdraw the army back without suffering losses now, but also to reserve a strength for the country to deter Wu.

Otherwise, if the forced use of troops results in the defeat of the army, the gains outweigh the losses.

It's a pity that although he has the heart to retreat, this is obviously not something he can decide alone, so he shook his head and said: "It is impossible to withdraw directly, Your Majesty ordered me to come to Xuzhou to conquer Xuzhou, if you withdraw like this, I am afraid that Your Majesty will not be very easy to explain!" ”

His plan now is to try to win a battle, and then withdraw his troops back with dignity, so that everyone can give an account.

After rejecting the proposal to withdraw the troops directly, Liu Jun then asked the others, but unfortunately no one had any good plans.

Seeing this situation, Liu Jun couldn't help but be a little disappointed.

At this time, even if he claimed to be a hundred steps, he couldn't think of any good way, after all, among the many territories of Wu State, Suzhou and Xuzhou, which had just been captured, were isolated north of the Huai River.

Not to mention Xuzhou, Zhou Ben led the army to garrison there.

On the Suzhou side, the raid on the Wu army camp last night had failed, and the follow-up army of the Wu army led by Yang Wu was about to arrive, and when the enemy army gathered, it would be even more difficult to defeat the enemy army.

More importantly, whether it was fighting or retreating, he had to make a decision quickly, otherwise if he was dragged by the enemy, the army would have to choose a decisive battle with the Wu army.

Liu Jun hesitated in his heart, if he returned to Xiao County quickly, there would be only one way to do it, and that was to fight a war of attrition with the Wu army.

Wu has just experienced a major drought, and at this time, the military food reserves are bound to be insufficient, and if there is a protracted war, the Wu army should not be able to afford it.

However, this also means that the Liang army will be dragged here, and now the Yan State is about to perish, although the Wu State cannot afford to drag it, but why is the Liang State not like this?

If the Jin army moves south during the stalemate between the two armies, it will mean that the Liang army will be attacked from both sides, which is obviously not good news.

In addition to returning to Xiao County, another option is to continue to stay here.

However, now that the opportunity has been lost, it is difficult to defeat the Wu army; After all, there are not many troops left in Xiao County, and Xiao County is only a small city, if the Wu army contains Liu Jun here, and then lets the Xuzhou side launch an attack on Xiao County, I am afraid that Niu Cunjie may not be able to hold on.

Liu Yan felt a little headache, and at this moment, a messenger came from Xiao County and reported to him: "General, Your Majesty knows that the Wu army is strong, and is worried that the two generals will be difficult to make enemies with the Wu army, so he specially transferred 10,000 troops from Hezhong and Wei Bo to reinforce each of them. After General Niu learned the news, he sent a small one to report to the general. ”

Liu Yan was overjoyed at first, and then a little worried.

He hurriedly asked, "Does Your Majesty have any other will?" When will the 20,000 reinforcements arrive? Is there cavalry in it? Who is the commander of the reinforcements? ”

The messenger said: "Your Majesty does not have any special will, but only to tell the two generals to be cautious and not to act rashly. As for the 20,000 reinforcements, including more than 2,000 cavalry, led by General He Gui and cavalry led by General Xie Yanzhang, they arrived in about ten days. ”

"Within ten days?" Liu Yan groaned.

Ten days is not a long time, and a casual confrontation can delay the time, even on the side of Xiao County, Niu Cunjie must also have a way to delay for ten days.

However, Zhu Youzhen specially sent reinforcements to come, which strengthened the strength of the Liang army on the one hand, which was a good thing; But on the other hand, it also made Liang Jun have to fight a big battle with Wu Jun, otherwise he really couldn't explain to Zhu Youzhen.

And judging from the fact that Zhu Youzhen deliberately mobilized cavalry to help in the battle, his determination was obviously very resolute, and Liu Youzhen's previous plan to win a small victory and then withdraw his troops back obviously did not work, at least a big fight.

Thinking of this, Liu Yan couldn't help but feel worried.

"That's it, there are 20,000 troops of the two generals He Gui and Xie Yanzhang coming to reinforce, and the strength of our army is not weaker than the enemy's army, plus this time our army has gathered many famous generals, everyone works together, what if Yang Wu, the king of Wu, personally leads the troops? No matter how good a warlike general is, it is impossible for him to really win a hundred battles, so maybe our army will be able to defeat him this time? ”

Liu Yan thought in his heart, and at the same time decided not to rush to set a strategy for using troops for the time being, and was ready to wait for He Gui and the others to arrive before making plans.

Of course, the news of last night's raid on the Wu army's camp and the result of falling short was sent to Xiao County overnight after the battle last night; At this time, he also needs to send someone to inform Niu Cunjie of his intentions, and at the same time ask the other party's opinion, after all, Niu Cunjie is the real boss, and Liu Jun is just the deputy commander.

A day later, Niu Cunjie sent someone back to tell him about the situation in Xiao County, and approved his plan to stay on hold for the time being.

On the side of Xiao County, after Zhou Ben learned that Suzhou was raided by the Liang army, he quickly realized that the Liang army in Xiao County was empty, so he led the army to crusade.

However, what he didn't expect was that in the face of the large-scale attack of the Wu army, Niu Cunjie not only did not choose to defend the city, but decided to take the initiative to attack.

When Zhou Ben just arrived in Xuzhou, he directly took over the city defense of Xuzhou according to Yang Wu's order, and managed to transfer more than 10,000 troops in the city out of the city.

After doing this step, Xuzhou basically fell into the hands of Wu Jun, and then Zhou Ben used various means to appease the people, stabilize the situation in the city, and finally completely controlled Xuzhou without any twists and turns.

However, it was precisely because Zhou Ben transferred the surrendered army out of the city that those surrendered generals felt faintly uneasy; Especially after the arrival of the Liang army, there were rumors in the camp that the Wu army did not trust their surrendered troops, so they were ready to borrow the hands of the Liang army to weaken their surrendered troops in the next big battle with the Liang army.

To be honest, Zhou Ben or Yang Wu after Zhou himself really planned to use the Liang army to consume this army with tens of thousands of troops.

After all, there are so many good and bad in the army, the old and the weak are mixed, whether it is directly incorporated or the rest of the old and weak are directly disbanded after reorganization, this is a troublesome matter.

If you can use the hands of the enemy army to weaken the strength of the first army, eliminate some of the old and weak, and share the pressure of the Wu army, this is naturally a good choice.

Even Jiang Yin and others are well aware of this, and they have no intention of objecting.

However, there were still various rumors in the barracks, which made the morale of the already low because of the surrender of the beam to Wu even more depressed; No matter how Zhou Ben sent people to appease, and no matter how Jiang Yin helped stabilize the situation on the side, the effect was very weak.

When Zhou Benzhen sent this army to attack the camp of the Liang army with the Wu army, the generals of the army were in an uproar, although no one dared to rebel, but the soldiers of the army obviously began to group together, and showed great hostility to the Wu army.

In this situation, Zhou Ben did not dare to trust the surrender army, and placed the surrendered army on the right flank alone when arranging the troops, but arranged it farther away from the Chinese army, and at the same time arranged more troops between the middle army and the right wing of the large army to ensure the safety of the large army.

These various changes are difficult to see if ordinary generals are afraid of it, but Niu Cunjie is worthy of being a famous general of the Liang army, and he can see the problems in the Wu army at a glance and make corresponding arrangements.

He personally led a thousand elite Liang troops to attack the surrendering army on the right flank, and the surrendering army, which was already somewhat unstable, was soon in chaos after being attacked by the onslaught.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Zhou Ben quickly led the Chinese army and the left flank to the rescue, but by the time they arrived, the raiding Liang army had already gone.

Although this raid did not cause much damage to the Wu army in the end, it greatly boosted the morale of the Liang army, and at the same time made the Wu army realize that the Liang army in front of him was not as easy to deal with as the Liang army in the Battle of Jiangling more than a year ago.

Of course, these things have just happened, and on the whole, the Wu army still has an absolute advantage, and it will inevitably gradually increase the intensity of the attack on Xiao County.

On the Suzhou side, Yang Wu, the king of Wu, ordered the army to turn to Suzhou as soon as he was attacked, and ordered Li Jian to try to hold back the Liang army.

However, Li Jian did not make a move, and Liu Jian took the initiative to choose to stay in Suzhou, which made Li Jian's task much easier.

But this also means that Liang Jun is ready for a big battle with Wu Jun, which is not good news.

Four days later, Yang Wu arrived in Suzhou with 26,000 Wu troops, and he immediately ordered the summoning of the generals who had been stationed in Suzhou for a long time, and praised them for their hard work over the years.

The first person to be rewarded by Yang Wu was Zhu Jing, the assassin of Suzhou, who was originally an indigenous hero in Huoqiu County, and was stationed in Huoqiu County under the order of Yang Xingmi.

Later, Zhu Wen led his troops to cross the Huai River to the south, and suffered heavy losses from the Wu army in Haozhou, and the panicked retreating Liang army was frightened by Zhu Jing's surprise attack when crossing the river, and finally trampled on each other and suffered heavy losses.

And Zhu Jing was also valued by Yang Wu because of his great merit that time, and was directly appointed as the assassin of Suzhou.

Over the years, Zhu Jing has been very low-key because he has felt that he was not born orthodox in Wu and has been stationed in Suzhou in the north for a long time, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble.

Fortunately, Yang Wu is a person who knows people and makes good use of them, so naturally he will not notice Zhu Jing, the assassin of Suzhou, and after rewarding him, he immediately ordered him to be promoted to the new governor of Hunan.

In addition to reusing Zhu Jing, the second person summoned by Yang Wu was Wang Yanyan.

Before summoning Wang Yanyan, although Yang Wu had already known Wang Yanyan's general appearance from Fan Yu and others, he was still a little surprised when he actually saw it.

Because in his original impression, since this person came to power by improper means such as mutiny, he must be a sinister and cunning person, but after really seeing it, he found that this person's face was not only not the sinister and cunning type, but looked extremely elegant, with the temperament of a scholar.

is a reckless person in troubled times, but he has the temperament of a scholar, which naturally makes Yang Wu dare to be interested.

Therefore, after Yang Wu routinely rewarded him, he did not send him down immediately, but chatted with him for a few words.

This small talk suddenly made Yang Wu have a better impression of this person.

It turned out that Wang Yanyan was ruthless, and he used mutiny to trap his accomplices and the original Caizhou assassin together, so that he was able to command from a small tooth battalion and quickly promoted to a party assassin history.

However, after the surrender of Wu, this person knew that the system of Wu was very different from that of Liang, and that he had always tried his best to suppress local forces, and did not allow anyone to challenge the authority of the imperial court.

In particular, Yang Wu, the king of Wu, was extremely dissatisfied with the rebellious strength in those places, so Wang Yanyan quickly made a decision, that is, to try to completely integrate himself into the state of Wu.

Therefore, when Yang Wu said that he would be appointed as the commander of the Yiyi Army, Wang Yanyu took the initiative to stand up and ask that his original 3,000 Caizhou army was overwhelmed and had poor military discipline, so he had to carry out some rectification, and hoped that Yang Wu would send someone to rectify it.