In August 198, Zhang Lu of Hanzhong joined Zhu Wei and led Zhu Wei's army into Shu, so Zhu Wei sent 100,000 troops to attack Liu Zhang in Yizhou. （）”

As Wang Yuyan suggested, Zhu Wei finally decided to send troops to Yizhou, this battle Zhu Wei transferred 20,000 troops from the Ganning Jiangjiao battalion stationed in Jiangling, and transferred 50,000 soldiers and horses from Jingnan to Zulang's Yueshan battalion, of which 30,000 mercenaries composed of barbarian young and strong people, and 10,000 auxiliary soldiers, which is known as 100,000 troops from Fuling County to Ba County.

Zhu Wei took Gan Ning as the main commander, Zu Lang as the deputy commander, Pang Tong as the military division, and Dong Xi, Zushan, Bunu Liya, Raja Kamai and other former barbarian warriors as auxiliary generals, leaving only Su Fei to guard the Jiangling Water Camp, and Chen Fu to guard the Jingnan Yueshan Army Camp.

Speaking of which, Ba County, the first target of the Battle of Yizhou that Zhu Wei was preparing to launch this time, can also be regarded as Gan Ning's hometown.

Gan Ning is a native of Linjiang in Ba County, and then gathered ranger boys in Shu to do the things of Jinfan thieves, so Gan Ning is very familiar with Shu.

Previously, under the instigation of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, when Liu Zhang had just succeeded to the throne, Gan Ning participated in the rebellion against Liu Zhang, but was appointed by Liu Zhang's Zhengshu Zhonglang to exterminate Zhao Wei and had to flee from Shu to Liu Biao.

Now Gan Ning has returned to Shu with a large army, but he can be regarded as coming back to take revenge, with his familiarity with the land of Bashu, he can also be very suitable for the mode of fighting in Shu.

At the same time, the Yueshan battalion participating in this battle is mostly composed of elite soldiers in the mountains and barbarians in the mountains, but they are also very good at marching and fighting between the mountains of Shu, so they can also resolve the geographical advantages of the mountains of Shudi.

Zhu Wei believed that sending Gan Ning and Zu Lang this time should be enough to make a move in Yizhou, but Zhu Wei did not interfere much in the war against Yizhou Shudi, and everything was left to Gan Ning, Zu Lang, and Pang Tong to make their own decisions.

In this way, after Gan Ning and the Jiangling Navy converged with Zulang's mountain camp, he quickly rushed to Jiangzhou, Ba County, by land and water, as if he was preparing to fight Jiangzhou.

For the time being, Zhu Wei didn't know what the outcome of Gan Ning's battle would be, but at the same time that Zhu Wei decided that Gan Ning would send troops, Liu Bei in Xuzhou united with Zang Ba to send troops together, and finally came to Pengcheng.

However, Zhang Liao and Lu Lingqi in Pengcheng were also prepared, Lu Lingqi led more than 20,000 Xuzhou new troops plus Qingzhuang to garrison in Pengcheng, while Zhang Liao led 3,000 Bingzhou elites and 5,000 Xuzhou new troops to the north of Pengcheng, near the Surabaya River to set up a camp.

In this way, the two armies also formed a corner to deal with the attack of Liu Bei and Zang Ba.

This Pengcheng is located in the southeast of the North China Plain, and the surrounding terrain is dominated by plains, so Pengcheng is also like a high city standing on flat ground, and there is not much special terrain around it that can be used for attack and defense.

Therefore, this battle can only be a siege battle directly against Pengcheng.

However, Pengcheng is the seat of Xuzhou Prefecture, and it can also be regarded as the largest city in Xuzhou, and it is the city of the royal capital of Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu when Chu and Han fought each other in history, so it can also be regarded as a big city in the Central Plains.

Previously, when Tao Qian was the pastor of Xuzhou, Pengcheng, as the core city of Xuzhou, was also rich in population, and it was an important place for Xuzhou's money and grain, but later with Cao Cao's attack on Xuzhou, Xuzhou was weakened.

In particular, Cao Cao once caused a massacre in Xuzhou, so although Pengcheng is still a big city, its population is less than one-tenth of the original, and there are only 50,000 or 60,000 households at most.

In fact, after Lu Bu took control of Xuzhou, he also migrated the people of the surrounding counties to fill the population of Pengcheng, and most of the people from Donghai County and Xiapi County were migrated to Pengcheng.

Therefore, there are so many Xuzhou new troops and young men in Lu Bu's army now, but this has almost drained the young and strong men in Xuzhou, and this is also one of the reasons for Lu Bu's lack of food.

As a result, although there was a lot of population added to Pengcheng, most of the plains and fields that were originally reclaimed around Pengcheng still became barren land, because there were not enough young men to reclaim the fields.

But Lu Bu also had to do this, because after he took control of Xuzhou, he didn't have much time to develop the place, on the one hand, he often fought with Liu Bei, on the other hand, he fought with Yuan Shu, and at the same time, he fought with Cao Cao a few times.

The threat from the outside made Lu Bu have to focus on the military, so naturally he could only recruit the young and strong as soldiers.

In fact, in the future wars in the Central Plains, many times the two armies on the broad plains fought each other, and the siege war was much easier than the war in the south, so the war situation in the Central Plains and the north was often that the two armies were looking for a battlefield to confront.

Just like Cao Cao and Yuan Shao's battle of Guandu, the Guandu Yellow River Valley was used as a battlefield, facing each other across the river, once which side occupies the top, as long as the other party's camp is broken, then the next is basically a plain area of Pingchuan, it is difficult to find a suitable terrain environment, and has a defensive advantage.

At most, only a few big cities have a certain degree of defensiveness, just like when Lu Bu invaded Cao Cao's nest in Gunzhou before, Cheng Yu and others who stayed in Gunzhou could only defend two or three big cities, and the other counties were left to Lu Bu to attack.

But on the battlefields in the Central Plains and the north, it is difficult to defend the enemy army by relying on the city to defend against the enemy's attack.

There are many ways to break the city, such as the city digging tactics that Zhu Wei did before, and the city with rammed earth as the wall in these years can basically be dug up.

Well, let's just say that now in the face of the attack of Liu Bei and Zang Ba, Lu Lingqi and Zhang Liao have already moved the people from the counties and villages around Pengcheng to the city, or sent them to other places, and they can be regarded as realizing the clear of the walls around Pengcheng.

In this way, Liu Bei and Zang Ba could not find food on the spot, nor could they coerce and drive the people to help attack the city, and they could not find any civilian servants to help them build siege equipment or something.

In fact, in terms of troops, the number of soldiers controlled by Lu Qiling and Zhang Liao is not less than that of Liu Bei and Zang Ba's coalition army.

It's just that most of the soldiers on Lu Lingqi's side are new and young, and they are seriously lacking in training, not to mention any combat effectiveness, and only the 3,000 old soldiers and 5,000 or 6,000 Xuzhou soldiers brought by Zhang Liao have some combat effectiveness.

Therefore, Lu Lingqi took a large number of new soldiers to hide in Pengcheng to defend the city, and let Zhang Liao lead the troops to set up camp outside, which is already a consideration of the combat effectiveness of the soldiers.

And the soldiers controlled by Liu Bei and Zang Ba are relatively elite soldiers, and their combat effectiveness is definitely above the soldiers on Pengcheng's side.

In addition, Liu Bei's side has just won the Battle of Shouchun, and the morale of the army is strong, and they have supported Liu Bei to recapture Xuzhou.

In this way, it seems that the outcome of the battle of Pengcheng is really difficult to judge before the arrival of Zhu Wei's reinforcements......