After dealing with a few government affairs, at this time, Fan Yu came in and said with a happy face: "Your Highness, there is good news, General Wang Maozhang has captured Yongqiao Village not long ago, and now the enemy's camp in the south of the water has been captured by our army!" ”

Yang Wu was surprised and delighted, and hurriedly asked, "What about the casualties of our army?" How is the enemy reacting now? ”

Suzhou Castle is located in Fuli County, north of the water, and is a typical military fortress, but this city is not large, and its wall is only eight miles in circumference. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

In other words, it only takes 10,000 troops at most to cover the city walls, but now there are as many as 30,000 Liang troops in Suzhou.

The sufficient troops allowed Kou Yanqing, the defender of Suzhou, to send troops to build a camp outside the city, echoing the defenders in the city and delaying the siege of the Huainan army.

In this way, if the Huainan army wants to attack Suzhou City, it needs to clear the Liang army camp outside the city first, and the Liang army can also send troops from the city to compete with the Huainan army for the camp.

Therefore, in the more than ten days after the Huainan Army crossed the river, the main task of the Huainan Army was to clean up these camps.

These military operations take a lot of time, but the troops needed are not much, and too many troops cannot be used, so Yang Wu did not go into battle in person, but sat in Qi County, and handed over the task of cleaning up these camps to Wang Maozhang.

As for Zhang Xun and Zhou Ben, they were responsible for dividing troops to attack the surrounding counties and looting the population.

For Yang Wu, it is still uncertain whether he can break through Suzhou before Zhu Quanzhong's reinforcements arrive, so it is only right to snatch the population back to Huainan first.

As for the problem of insufficient population after the capture of Suzhou, Yang Wu was originally prepared to use Suzhou as the forefront of the fight against the Liang army, and it was not a big deal if the population here was large or small.

"Our army suffered few hundred casualties, and we lost a few hundred people, and captured more than 1,000 enemy soldiers. I heard that the Liang army originally sent more than 3,000 reinforcements, but was repelled by General Wang Maozhang, and the Liang army should have abandoned the camp south of the water. Fan Yu said.

Yang Wu nodded, after clearing the enemy camp south of the water, the Huainan army still needed to continue to cross the river to clean up the two camps established in the north of the water.

These two camps are about the same size as the previous camps, and the troops stationed should be about the same, but because they are closer to Suzhou City, it is easier for the Suzhou defenders to reinforce them, so it must be more difficult for the Huainan Army to completely break through these two camps than before.

"Pass the order, order Zhang Xun and Zhou Ben to gather their forces, each attack a camp, and let Wang Maozhang's people withdraw!" Yang Wu ordered.

Replacing Wang Maozhang with Zhou Ben and the others is not only to let Wang Maozhen's people get rest, but also to give them the opportunity to go out and loot, otherwise they are working hard to attack the city, but other troops are robbing everywhere, which is easy to cause dissatisfaction.

After giving the order, Yang Wu then asked, "Is there any other news?" ”

"There is also news, I heard that recently, the 60,000 troops of Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, and Yang Chongben, the envoy of Jing Nanjiedu, were defeated and fled by Liu Zhijun, the envoy of Kuang Guojiedu, who led 5,000 soldiers and horses in Meiyuan County. However, this news is somewhat shocking, and the subordinates are some doubtful about the authenticity of the news. Fan Yu said.

In this era, a big victory of this level is indeed rare, and it is normal for Fan Yu to have some suspicions.

However, Yang Wu did not doubt it at all after hearing this, because in history, Liu Zhijun defeated the coalition army of Li Maozhen and Yang Chongben in Meiyuan, but the time seemed to be much earlier.

"So how does Liang Jun react now? Is Zhu Quanzhong's main force still in Bianzhou? ”

"There is no major movement of the Liang army at present, and the Liang army stationed in Bianzhou has also not changed." Fan Yu said.

"Well, Lone knows." Yang Wu nodded.

Judging from the current situation, although Zhu Quanzhong defeated Li Maozhen, he may still be guarding against Li Keyong, and he wanted to let the army get enough rest, so he did not immediately go south to relieve the siege of Suzhou and Yingzhou.

However, judging from the current situation, there is not much time left for the Huainan army, and once the main force of the Liang army moves south again, Yang Wu is not sure of victory.

Therefore, if Suzhou is not broken by then, it seems that this Northern Expedition will only be in vain.

Thinking of this, Yang Wu ordered again: "Tell the two generals, Zhou Ben and Zhang Xun, let them speed up their attacks, and within three days, they must break through these two camps!" Recruit Kang Huaizhen and Guo Chongtao again! ”

After a while, Guo Chongtao and the others arrived in a hurry.

During this time, the relationship between Yang Wu and Guo Chongtao was very delicate, although Guo Chongtao had made up his mind to take refuge in Yang Wu, he did not take the initiative to say it; And Yang Wu is the same, although he noticed the change in Guo Chongtao's attitude, he didn't break it.

In Yang Wu's opinion, Guo Chongtao is still the envoy of Li Keyong, the king of Jin, but once he defects to Huainan, Yang Wu will not be able to give him a high position for the time being.

Now that Huainan is gradually on the right track, all the preparations for transforming from a feudal town into a formal kingdom have been almost done, and Yang Wu is not willing to suddenly promote a person too high without a special reason.

Therefore, he hopes that Guo Chongtao will make enough contributions first, at least let the generals see his ability, and then Yang Wu will have enough reasons to add him to the official position.

And Guo Chongtao also understands this truth, so he actively behaved himself in the military conference during this time, and now he has been preliminarily recognized by the generals.

"Mr. Guo, General Kang, I just got the news that the Liang army defeated Li Maozhen under the command of Liu Zhijun, so now our army is fighting alone!" After a salute, Yang Wu smiled and said to Guo Chongtao.

Guo Chongtao's face changed, and he said: "It seems that it will not be too long for the Liang army to go south again, and His Highness must break through Suzhou as soon as possible!" ”

Yang Wu nodded and said, "That's true, Gu has already ordered the two generals Zhang Xun and Zhou Ben to step up the attack. General Kang, you have been operating in Suzhou for many years, and you know the most about the city defense of Suzhou, I wonder if there is any way to help our army quickly break through Suzhou? ”

Kang Huaizhen shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Although the city of Suzhou is not big, the city wall is extremely strong, and the defenders are sufficient, if you want to break through it in a short time, I am afraid that it will be difficult, and the last general will not have any good way!" ”

Yang Wu couldn't help but be a little disappointed when he heard this, he originally thought that after the Liang army was defeated and returned to Bianzhou this time, Li Maozhen, Yang Chongben, Li Keyong and other feudal towns would definitely not let go of this opportunity to take advantage of the fire to rob.

With the containment of these feudal towns, the Huainan army would have at least two to three months to attack Suzhou and other places, and that would be much more sufficient.

However, who knew that Li Maozhen and Yang Chongben were so useless, or that Liu Zhijun opened up in advance and defeated the Qi army with only 5,000 people in his hands; In addition, Li Keyong, who had always spared no effort to fight Zhu Quanzhong in the past, did not jump out this time as Yang Wu thought, and the result was that the Huainan Army had not enough time to attack the city.

In fact, the purpose of the Liang army to build a large number of walled cities outside the city of Suzhou was to delay as much time as possible.

It will take nearly 20 days for the Huainan army to clean up these camps, and after the siege of Suzhou, it will take time to fill in the trenches outside the city, and it will take time to build siege equipment, etc., and there are many defenders in the city, and it will also take time for the Huainan army to destroy them.

"Could it be that this Northern Expedition can only loot in the end, and it will not be possible to plunder some people and go back?" Yang Wu was a little unwilling.

Although this Northern Expedition did not intend to have a hard encounter with the Liang army from the beginning, it was a rare opportunity after all, and it would be a pity to go back like this.

"Your Highness, the last general may have a way to give it a try!" At this time, Kang Huaizhen seemed to remember something and suddenly mentioned it.

Yang Wu hurriedly asked, "Tell me quickly, what is the solution?" ”

"In the past, the city wall of Suzhou once rose sharply and washed away a section of the city wall, and the current city wall was repaired later. However, because the world was in turmoil at that time, and there were rebellions in various places, this section of the city wall that was hastily repaired was relatively rough. ”

"Now that His Highness is attacking the city, if you use many Suzhou cannons to bombard that section of the city wall, you may have a chance to collapse it!" Kang Huaizhen said.

Yang Wu is overjoyed, this is also Kang Huaizhen's many years of operation in Suzhou, so he can learn this kind of secret news, although he doesn't know if he can succeed, but after all, it is also a kind of hope, at least stronger than when he had no clue before.

Because of the small size of Suzhou City, it is difficult for the Huainan Army to give full play to its superior strength, so it is difficult to break through Suzhou City in a short period of time if it wants to rely on general means.

However, if you blast a gap in the wall, you may have a chance to break through the city in one fell swoop by attacking the gap before the enemy can react.

Two days later, the two camps outside Suzhou were broken by Zhang Xun and Zhou Ben respectively, and the Liang army sent troops to launch a counterattack, and the two sides continued to fight fiercely for the two camps, but the Liang army saw that it could not defeat the Huainan army, and finally retreated.

At this point, all the Liang army camps outside Suzhou City were uprooted by the Huainan Army, and Yang Wu also personally rushed to Suzhou City to start the final siege.

In Suzhou City, Kou Yanqing loudly issued military orders to his generals.

"Zhang Sheng, you are responsible for guarding the East City!"

"Liu Zijun, you are responsible for guarding the West City!"

……

"Ben should personally lead his subordinates to support the ministries! Generals should know that our army has already defeated the 60,000 troops of Li Maozhen and Yang Chongben in one fell swoop in Meiyuan, that is to say, more than 100,000 of our troops stationed in Bianzhou can go south to reinforce our troops at any time. ”

"All the generals should fight bravely to defend the city, as long as they hold on for a maximum of half a month, our army reinforcements will definitely arrive, and when the time comes, they will be able to defeat the Huainan army and avenge the previous defeat!" Kou Yanqing loudly boosted morale.

After dismissing the generals, Kou Yanqing said to his cronies: "Before the enemy army is completely surrounded, you immediately go out of the city to Bianzhou to ask the king for reinforcements, let the king's reinforcements come as soon as possible, just say that the Huainan army's offensive is unstoppable, and the last general cannot guarantee how long it will resist!" ”

"Yes! The subordinates will go out of the city! ”