It turns out that this time, Li Ru was wrong.

Anyi was not broken by Guo Yan's army, and Zhang Xiu, as the vanguard, was blunt under the city at the moment.

And Guo Yan led the remaining half of the men, and he was just approaching the territory of Anyi.

The plan to attack Anyi has obviously changed.

For this reason, the generals knew it, but no one dared to say it to their faces.

The reason is that Guo Yan, who is the chief general, temporarily divided his troops and changed his plan.

If according to Li Ru's original plan, with Zhang Xiu, who has always been brave in the army, as the vanguard, Guo Yan led the army to follow, avoid other cities, and drive directly to his henchmen, and within three days, Anyi would inevitably be broken.

However, after the follow-up Guo Yan's army entered the territory of Hedong, the speed was not slow at first, but there was also a phenomenon of disturbing the countryside along the way.

In the southeast of the river, the people are rich. The Xiliang soldiers who plundered the countryside made a lot of money, and the speed was naturally not fast, and those soldiers who did not have the opportunity to participate in the plundering did not suffer from inequality, and seeing that their comrades in the army had gained heavy profits, they were also very greedy, and they were unwilling to blindly bury their heads in the road.

Seeing this, Guo Yan was unwilling to severely punish those soldiers of the Xiliang Army who followed the tradition and plundered the countryside, so he had to meet the requirements of other soldiers of the Xiliang Army instead.

However, after all, Guo Yan is also a person who has been in battle for a long time, and he knows that if he goes deep into the enemy territory at this time, if he indulges the soldiers of Xiliang to plunder wantonly, he will undoubtedly kill himself.

Therefore, he sent envoys, with great fanfare, relying on the edict of the imperial court and the coercion of the army along the way, to spread the news of the county, Yishi and other cities, and ordered the chiefs of each city to surrender quickly, and eat pot pulp to welcome the king.

As a result, Guo Yan was slapped in the face. He thought that he would surrender to Xie County, Yi and other cities all resisted and surrendered, and fortified the walls to defend against his own army.

Among them, Zheng Duo, the county commander, is even more stubborn and cunning. After pretending to be willing to surrender, the envoys who went to pass the message and surrender and a large group of cavalry used to show off their martial arts were brought into the city, and their original forms were revealed, and they directly killed the envoys and cavalry who entered the city, and hung their heads on the city tower, in order to show the intention of leading the people of Xie County to resolutely resist the invasion of the Xiliang army.

Guo Yan, who suffered such a great humiliation, suddenly jumped like thunder, and the generals under his command even cater to the will of the emperor and enthusiastically asked for battle. So Guo Yan divided his army into two parts, one continued to attack Anyi, and joined Zhang Xiu's men and horses as the vanguard under the city, and the other part of the soldiers and horses was led by himself himself, turned to the southeast, and swept through Xie County and other cities.

In the face of Guo Yan's army, Xie County ordered Zheng Duo to resolutely resist the city, but the troops were weak, although Zheng Duo led the people to resist at the head of the city, but after a hard battle, Xie County was still broken by the wolf-like Xiliang soldiers.

After Guo Yan won, he was triumphant, and ordered the captured Xie County Commander Zheng Duo to be escorted in front of him, and after wantonly humiliating him, he indulged the soldiers of the Xiliang Army who fought and broke the city to plunder the city.

As a result, the cities and towns in Hedong that had fallen all suffered great misfortune.

The army of Guo Yan, who attacked the county, became more and more courageous, and even went down to the city of Flaws, the city of Jiucheng and other places, and by the power of the great victory, forced to land the Yi clan, the army can be said to be invincible, all the way like a bamboo.

Therefore, when Li Ru sent a flying cavalry to report to Guo Yan that the rear army had designed to break through the Hedong Zhou Division and was leading the army to Anyi to join Guo Yan's main force, he also received a good news from Guo Yan's army:

The main army has conquered the city all the way in Hedong, and has connected the cities of Xie County, Defective City, Jiucheng, Yishi and other cities, and Guo Yan is also leading the victorious army to rush to Anyi with great strength.

However, Li Ru, who received such good news, was not happy and worried, he grabbed the military Chinese book, beat his chest, and said angrily:

"In the past, Le Yi went down to Qi 72 cities, and before Jimo, Tiandan returned to the country. Fu is worse than Fu Jiao defeated the Vietnamese army, and if he doesn't take the meeting, he will swallow Wu. Why? Jimo and Huiji are all cities of Qi and Yue's hearts, and if they don't take advantage of the situation, they are like raising tigers. ”

"The same is true of today's battle in Hedong. Yan Yan exposed the army outside, and the families of the generals and scholars were all in the city of Anyi, if they got Anyi, Yan Yan's army would collapse, and all the cities in Hedong could be passed on. ”

"The general did not know the end, did not take Anyi but took the county, attacked the city all the way, plundered the township, and did not hurt the fundamental point of the enemy. If Anyi is solid, the army will go deep into the enemy's territory, and it will inevitably be impossible to advance or retreat, and when Yan Yan returns to the division to rescue, looking at the realm of Hedong, the people, women and children are all enemies, and we are in it, and if we have a slight defeat, we are all prisoners under the steps, and I am afraid that it will be difficult for horses to cross the river west! ”

Zhang Ji dragged his weak sick body and marched on horseback, he heard Li Ru's annoyance, his face changed slightly, but he didn't say anything, but pointed to the official road in front of him and said:

"Li Shizhong is still too worried, although Anyi has not yet fallen, it will inevitably fall into the siege of our army. After the arrival of the general's army, plus our follow-up soldiers and horses, we will definitely be able to take advantage of the victory to attack, and the odds of victory in this battle in Hedong are still on our side! ”

"I'm waiting to catch up, right now!"

After Li Ru listened, he raised his eyes and looked at Zhang Ji, although the horse's face was very long, he did not say anything to refute it.

According to Guo Yan's character, he is afraid that he may not be able to listen to his subsequent words, even if it is difficult to hear, he will not take it to heart.

Rather than this, it is better to catch up as Zhang Ji just said, go to Anyi City to meet the army, and then wait and see what happens.

···

Hedong, Anyi.

Yan Zhu, who stayed in Anyi, accompanied by Yan Xing, climbed the steps to the top of the city.

He held on to the battlements at the head of the city, raised his eyes from the battlements and looked out, only to see that the originally peaceful and prosperous Anyi outside the city had changed, rows of trees had been cut down, houses on the outskirts of the city had been demolished and burned, and there were no more Qianshou people in the four fields, some were just the roaring Xiliang cavalry and the dense military tents of Guo Yan's army camp.

Zhang Xiu's men and horses, who served as the vanguard of the enemy, arrived in Anyi after the attack, and the roaring Xiliang cavalry did cause a commotion outside the city at the beginning, and the city was even more frightened every day, and the people were panicked.

However, Anyi is the seat of Hedong County after all, there are still 3,000 county soldiers stationed here, and the city defense equipment has been repaired and rectified many times after Yan Xing entered the main Hedong, and the military general Yan Xing who stayed in Anyi hurriedly commanded the county soldiers to defend the city, and Ding Zhuang in the city was soon recruited by the county government one after another, and put into the affairs of transporting weapons and city defense equipment for the city guards.

Zhang Xiu originally drove the captured Qianshou outside the city, wanting to fill the ravines and take the opportunity to attack the city, but after trying a round of siege, he gave up this impractical method.

The city wall of Anyi, in the past few years, has been repaired and strengthened many times, and the moat outside the city has also been widened and deepened a lot.

For this reason, Zhang Xiu chose to build a camp outside the city, and sent light cavalry to cover the battlefield to clear hidden dangers and obstacles for the arrival of the army.

As a result, Zhang Xiu did not wait for the main force led by Guo Yan in the next few days, but waited for a follow-up army and horses that were assigned and led by Wu Xi, a general under Guo Yan's command.

Zhang Xiu was quite angry when he learned of Guo Yan's arrangement, in his opinion, he took the risk of attacking and had already killed the city of Anyi, but Guo Yan's army, which was originally agreed to follow up in the rear, changed his plan halfway and divided his troops to attack the cities in Hedong for the sake of small profits.

Guo Yan's use of troops seems to be for his own interests, so it is natural for him to plunder the city and collect a lot of money and grain, and to capture Anyi, exterminate Yan Yan, and avenge the uncle and nephew of the Zhang family is obviously secondary, and everything must be in the interests of Guo Yan himself and the soldiers under his command.

It's just that under the fence, although Zhang Xiu is angry, he only dares to be angry but doesn't dare to speak.

After joining forces with Wu Xi, Zhang Xiu advocated attacking the city, but Wu Xi, after inspecting the city defense of Anyi, changed his original intention and chose to build large-scale siege equipment, plunder the countryside, and gather military rations and livestock for the arrival of the army.

In Zhang Xiu's view, at present, his troops and horses are rushing all the way, and the soldiers are approaching the city, and the city of Anyi is frightened every day.

If it is delayed, then Anyi's defenses will only become more and more tight, and the determination of the defenders will be stronger, and when the time comes, it will be even more difficult to capture it.

But after Wu Xi saw Anyi's strong city defense, he obviously had other ideas in his heart. In his opinion, other generals followed under Guo Yan's command, conquered the city all the way, made meritorious contributions one after another, and gained fame and fortune, but he was unlucky and was assigned to a group with Zhang Xiu to gnaw the hard bone of Anyi.

Seeing that the city defense of Anyi, it is not something that can be conquered within a day or two, and the strong attack on Anyi, whether it is victory or defeat, can not get much benefit from their own soldiers and horses, rather than let their soldiers under their command be killed and injured in vain, and make a wedding dress for the subsequent arrival of the people and horses to break the city, it is better not to seek merit, first seek no fault, first get a real benefit and merit for yourself, and be in an invincible position.

Therefore, Wu Xi blindly advocated a slow offensive, and Zhang Xiu, who advocated stepping up the offensive, although Zhang Xiu was aggressive, but Wu Xi had more soldiers and horses than Zhang Xiu, and he was a confidant general under Guo Yan, compared with Zhang Xiu, a guest army who had not been attached for a long time, he was obviously much more dominant in the army.

The result of this controversy between the old and the new, and the urgency of the matter, is that the siege of the city is unresolved.

So much so that in the past few days, in the name of building siege equipment and providing food to the enemy, Wu Xi wantonly sent his soldiers and horses to bypass Anyi, and instead plundered other townships outside the city.

And Zhang Xiu was eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the army led by Guo Yan, and on the other hand, he was anxious to look at the shadowy figures on the city wall of Anyi.

Of course, while Zhang Xiu was tiptoeing and looking at the Anyi city wall anxiously and violently, Yan Zhu, who stayed in the city to guard Anyi, also became more and more preoccupied with the passage of time, so much so that he had to personally climb the city wall every day to observe the movements of the enemy troops outside the city.