"This is Youzhou City",

I looked at the towering behemoth in front of me and said with some emotion.

"It's also a big city."

It is obviously different from the generation of Shenjing and Luodu, which are known as the sky and the clouds and the majestic atmosphere, spanning the two banks of the huge Luoshui River; Youzhou Chengzhi, which is also crossed by a tributary of the Yongding River, looks vast and vast, but it is obviously a lot shorter on the light-toned city wall;

Of course, even though it was relatively short, it was at least two or three feet high, but it looked like the moss was deep and the weeds were growing, and there were even clumps of small trees and thorns that had grown for an unknown number of years, and the walls were also pitted with peeling and cracking.

After all, it has been a long time since there were soldiers here, and the last time it was attacked and threatened by war was almost twenty or thirty years ago, and the location of some enemy platforms, female walls, and arrow towers seemed to be incomplete and hastily filled with wooden fences and the like.

The only relatively new thing is that near the city gate, from the edge of the city wall against the muddy moat, a circle of relatively low arc-shaped sheep and horse walls has been rebuilt, and in front of these sheep and horse walls are several rejecting horses and moats full of sharp piles and thistles, and behind the wall are already full of defenders standing in battle, and the ten city gates are corresponding to the internal and external double urn city structure, which seems to be quite a large volume.

However, bigger is not necessarily better, especially for defenders who are in a state of passive defense. Although the city is also too huge and the circumference of thirty-two miles is thirty-two miles, the tens of thousands of Huai troops I brought cannot achieve the real meaning of the encirclement, but can only focus on monitoring and blockade; But it also meant more flaws and breaches for the defenders of the city, as well as the possibility of exhausting them.

Just like Luoyang and Chang'an in the Anshi Rebellion, they had the name and grandeur of Xijing, the eastern capital, but once they lost the periphery and danger in front of the An Lushan rebels who came from Xingshi, they were almost vulnerable to a single blow and fell at the same time.

According to the maps and public opinion I have obtained from the locality, in the heyday of Youzhou City, it used to have four or five hundred thousand household registrations, but now after several changes, there are still about 100,000 permanent residents, plus the military and civilian people who have withdrawn from all parts of Pinglu Road and fled to the past, the maximum population can reach nearly 200,000.

Therefore, on the basis of anticipating the enemy's leniency, the number of young and middle-aged people who can be used in the city is estimated to be about seventy or eighty thousand.

Prior to this, when the strongholds along the way were conquered by advancing and sweeping all the way, in addition to the native soldiers and archers in those places, as well as the temporary recruits of the townspeople, there were about 20,000 or 30,000 town defense troops who were successively defeated and eliminated. Then, after breaking the defense line of the Gaoliang River, because of the tactics of successfully outflanking and cutting off the rear road, there were more than 10,000 and 6,700 enemies who were broken on the spot and subsequently annihilated;

When the outer strongholds and fortifications of Youzhou from east to west were defeated, there were hundreds to two or three thousand of each, especially after breaking through the fortress in front of the city in Youzhou, which was against each other, the cage fire city, and more than 4,000 prisoners were caught by surprise and panicked, and in addition, there were tens of thousands of stones of rice, grain, salt, vegetables, wine, sauce and various military supplies that were searched out in the warehouses in the city that were burned down.

Therefore, according to the current situation and the capture of the mouth, the number of remaining defenders in Youzhou City is roughly estimated to be between twenty and thirty thousand; It is mainly composed of the remnants of the Jingluo Army, the Jingsai Army and the Weiwu Army returned in advance, the local Huancheng Guards in Youzhou, and a small number of tooth soldiers from the Governor's Mansion, as well as some of the town defense troops who abandoned the defense and fled into the city from Xiaoxiguan and Xiama Town.

However, the corresponding food and ordnance stocks are somewhat unclear. After all, it has only been a few years since the intelligence infiltration work was carried out against the northern regions, especially the Pinglu Dao, and there is no way to obtain deeper things through long-term layout and infiltration, or even several generations of lurking, like the Southern Dynasties or the Northern Dynasties. It's not just about superficial market information.

On the contrary, it was the remnants of the Boluo Society led by Li Ji who took refuge and brought me the important records left within the corresponding organizations in the past, which were collected during the activities in the Northland under the superficial cover of more than a dozen large and small chambers of commerce and regional guild organizations, including some old things and evaluations of the middle and upper echelons of the Andong Xingying and the Pinglu Governor's Mansion. Although most of them are no longer human, the part that is still there still has considerable reference value and comparison.

In addition, there are still traces of some things to follow, Pinglu Dao itself has been drained of the foundation accumulated over the years by the Northern Dynasty defense war, and it has been greatly damaged by the large-scale entry of the Northern Saifanhu, and has been in a continuous famine; Later, although these wandering internal troubles were expelled and cleaned up, and they were temporarily calmed down, because of the lack of young and strong labor, the harvest was limited, and the momentum could not be fully relieved;

Then, under the continuous raising of foreign troops, he suffered heavy losses in western Liaoning, Hebei and other places one after another, and even in recent years, agricultural production was seriously damaged by foreign attacks, and he had to adopt the means of dividing troops to eat, and to tide over the temporary difficulties at the expense of the interests and livelihood of the local people.

But this process has been disrupted and interrupted by the Huai army, which is marching northward; Because my army advanced relatively quickly, they were forced to retreat to Youzhou even if this year's harvest was not only harvested, but even the pain was not carried out thoroughly. Therefore, comparing the population and storage ratio in the cage fire city, it can be expected that the storage and storage in the city will not be much.

In addition, there is also not so pleasant news and judgment, because those second- and third-rate opponents and miscellaneous troops have been wiped out before, so the Pinglu army gathered in Youzhou City is a relatively elite and relatively core part, and the proportion of experienced soldiers who have been on the battlefield for a long time is not small, and it belongs to the type of hard bones that are not so easy to gnaw.

If you add Ding Zhuang, who was temporarily recruited and armed in the city, it is even better than most of the Huai army I brought in terms of quantity, plus the natural geographical advantages of the city defense and the passive bonus of the slogan of defending the homeland, it seems that there is no decisive battle with our army, or the capital of follow-up maneuvers and confrontation in the attack and defense.

However, sometimes things are not just based on the number and scale on the surface, there are many factors and considerations.

"Let the heavy artillery regiment of the siege battalion hurry up,"

I looked at the cascading fortifications and gave orders to my side.

"We're ready to start tearing down the wall."

"Let's start at the outermost level."

。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

Hebei Jizhou Zhizhi Xindu City,

Zhang Bangchang, the governor of Hebei, had just finished meeting with a special messenger and returned to his small study.

"Isn't it possible that the way of the world is going to change again."

He sighed with some emotion, and said to several henchmen and humerus who were waiting here

"The momentum of Huaizhen's rise is inevitable."

"Where should we go?"

"I thought that the Southern Dynasty Liang had an inherent destiny, but I didn't want to be so clumsy"

"The direction of the world is going to be confusing again."

"All in all, just for a corner of the name bestowed by the Southern Dynasty"

A counsellor said unscrupulously.

"It's unacceptable to strain the soldiers with Huaishang."

"However, once the Huai army pacifies the four towns of Pinglu."

Another staff member asked

"Won't you get Longwang Shu, and then seek to take the whole territory of Hebei?"

"How should I deal with myself then?"

"That's a few years away,"

The advisor retorted.

"Am I not able to do anything here?"

"Instead of being confused by the momentary profit, do the salvation of the remnants of the Pinglu Party from temporary peril. but he who set himself on fire"

"Actually, we can do both"

The other said in a soothing voice

"At the expense of the states behind the mountains...

"I decided."

At this time, Zhang Bangchang, who was silent, spoke again to interrupt them.

"I'm going to go all out here."

He reached out and clicked a location on the map on the wall.

(End of chapter)