Zhang Fei listened to Liu Qi and Xun Yu's words, and was stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "The lord and Xun Gong don't really want to let the enemy people come out of the city by themselves, right?" ”

But Liu Qi laughed and said, "What's so difficult about this? As long as our army adopts a strategy to attack the heart and use generous treatment to attract the enemy and the people, why worry about the people not complying? It's just that now that we are in a period of war, the people of the enemy city may not believe it, so we need to set an example for them, just like the standing wood bounty when the Shang monarch changed the law. Hehe, as long as it is supported by the people, even if Mao Jue has the ability to reach the sky, he will definitely not be able to keep Liyang. ”

After finishing speaking, Liu Qi ordered Xun Yu to draft a letter of "Letter to the People of Licheng", in which he first sacrificed the banner of justice, declaring that Liu Qi, as a relative of the Han family, was ordered by the Son of Heaven to crusade against the national thief Cao Cao, and returned the people of the world to a peaceful and prosperous world, hoping that the people could support it. Now Licheng has been besieged by 500,000 troops, and the defender Mao Jue did not hesitate to mobilize the people to defend the city in order to protect himself, and relied on the method of sacrificing the people to survive, ignoring the interests of the people, which is really a very shameful behavior.

Righteousness is in hand, and I have it in the world. Next, Xun Yu declared that the people in the city should not sacrifice their lives for the sake of national thieves, as long as the people give up resistance and return home to protect themselves, the king of Chu can guarantee the safety of his family after the city is broken, if the people destroy their own grain and grass materials in order to avoid allowing Cao Jun to obtain grain and grass materials, after the city is broken, the king of Chu will definitely compensate for the loss. If the people are willing to submit to the Chu army, each family can be given 30 acres of fertile land, 3 catties of cotton, 300 money, tax exemption for one year, and the military households will surrender after the city is broken. The reward is doubled, and the service is exempted for two years.

In the end, Xun Yu declared in a stern tone that Wang Shi was worried about the people, benevolence and righteousness came first, if there were still people who helped the rebels defend the city. After the city is broken, once it is verified, it will be punished as an anti-thief, and the children are not slaves, if this is really the case, I am afraid that "under the nine springs, you will have no face to see the ancestors again." ”

After writing it, Liu Qi and the others read it all again and found that there was indeed no problem. He gave it to the clerk to transcribe hundreds of copies, and then selected hundreds of soldiers who were good at shooting from Huang Zhong's Tuifeng battalion, tied the letter to the bow and arrow without arrows with a longbow, and shot into the city from different places, and at the same time ordered the army to stop the siege, and then quietly waited for the good news to come from the city.

In fact, at this time, Mao Jue was also depressed and sad, after all, Licheng is now facing the siege of hundreds of thousands of troops, although it is not as many as 500,000 as Liu Qi preached. But there should still be 200,000, and a small city does not have such a large population. In addition to the old, weak, women and children, there were only 30,000 defenders in the city, and there were only 100,000 people who could really be sent to the city to defend them, including 30,000 regular soldiers, and thousands of officials, miscellaneous servants, catchers, fangding, prisoners, etc., these people were actually no different from ordinary people. In fact, their role is not really to fight with the enemy, but to do some rough and stupid work, such as carrying stones, repairing the city wall, making some simple equipment to defend the city, burning oil pots and other auxiliary work, the main force of defending the city is still the more than 20,000 regular army soldiers.

However, after several days of strong attack, the regular soldiers in his hands had suffered nearly 20% casualties. There are vacancies in some positions, which makes the originally watertight defense gradually become a little cracked, and in desperation, Mao Jue had to order some shrewd officials to put on military uniforms and disguise themselves as regular soldiers to defend. However, he knew that this was just a trick to deal with emergencies, and once the big war really started again, these disguised soldiers would soon be exposed, because the soldiers' plain names were really incomparable, and the gap was too big.

Fortunately, I don't know why, the enemy's offensive suddenly stopped, which made Mao Jue, who had been so nervous for the past few days that he often couldn't even drink a sip of water for a day, finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the whole process of the army and civilians was finally able to take the opportunity to recover, recuperate, and prepare to fight again.

Of course, Mao Jue also knew that Liu Qi suddenly stopped attacking the city, and he must have ulterior motives, so he still didn't dare to relax completely, and he still insisted on patrolling the city in person as usual, in case there would be any sudden changes.

And it turned out that Mao Jue's worries were not unreasonable, and the sudden change happened quickly, that night, in the process of Mao Jue's tour of the city, he suddenly found that there was a group of people gathered near the city gate, discussing something together, but as soon as he saw him leading his own soldiers to arrive, they immediately scattered and left.

Mao Jue couldn't help but feel weird when he saw this scene, because with his reputation among the people, the people often came forward to call when they saw it, especially after the siege of Licheng, these people had the same hatred and hatred as the Wei army, and they regarded him as a relative, but now after seeing it from a distance, they immediately opened it more, and avoided it, which is definitely strange.

Mao Jue immediately sent a personal soldier to rush forward to ask what was going on, and the personal soldier stopped a man in his forties, and then asked a few words with a smile, but the man was flustered, and he had no patience to answer the questions of the personal soldier at all, just dealt with two sentences and left in a hurry.

"What the hell is going on?" Mao Jue's eyes suddenly narrowed, and he thought with doubt.

After that, Mao Jue saw several waves of people gathered together in the process of patrolling the city, and they all dispersed when they saw themselves like Fang Cai, and they couldn't ask a result, and finally because the family of a pro-soldier was also in the city, the pro-soldier went home and asked, and finally knew the truth of the matter.

"It turns out that all the qi is the ghost of that Liu Qi, well, there is also Xun Wenruo, the old man, their "Gaoli City People's Book" is really powerful, Liu Qi was originally a member of the Han family, Xun Yu appeared again, these two people united, although they were not able to instigate the people to go out of the city to surrender and destroy their property, but it has already made the people's hearts shake, and successfully separated the military-civilian relationship in the city. So that the people will not want to help us defend the city anymore. In fact, if you lose the support of the people, Licheng may not be able to hold on for even three days, what can you do? ”

Thinking of this, Mao Jue couldn't help but feel worried, now that the people have been centrifuged, they can only use Huairou means and not strong, because once they are strong, they will be further pushed to the opposite side, which is the fulfillment of Liu Qi, but the people don't want to see him at all, how can he appease the people? Besides, now Liu Qi is still standing on the position of justice, even if the people listen, how can they persuade him?

Mao Jue sighed deeply, then shook his head and smiled bitterly, and said secretly: "I'm afraid King Wei didn't expect the Han family to have such influence among the people, right?" Otherwise, he would not have publicly claimed the title of king, which is exactly the opposite of my original intention of persuading him to cooperate with the Son of Heaven to order not to be subordinate, and the purpose of supporting the Son of Heaven is to win the hearts of the people and use it for me, but the title of prince is only to prove your ambition, although it is helpful for the great cause, but it has lost the support of more people, which is really unwise. What's more, you are called the king and have achieved those Han clan relatives, especially Liu Qi, otherwise, you have the dignity of the prime minister, and you have the edict of the Son of Heaven in your hands, how dare Liu Qi invade our state and county at will? ”

Just when Mao Jue smiled bitterly, he suddenly heard a report from his own soldiers, and the people were all gathered in the south of the city, asking to go home to rest and no longer participate in the defense of the city.

Mao Jue was suddenly shocked, and hurriedly led the team to rush over, because once the people no longer help defend the city, it would be difficult to resist Liu Qi's attack by relying only on the more than 20,000 troops in the city, because in addition to the normal defense of the city, they also have to do the rough and heavy work that the people are currently doing, which will double the fatigue of the sergeants, and most importantly, without the support of the people, will the army's heart be as stable as it used to be? Will morale be as high as it used to be? The results of these problems are so strict that he doesn't dare to bear it.

In desperation, Mao Jue had no choice but to play with his lips and tongue to persuade the people to protect their homes and drive away the invaders, but his words, which were originally very able to arouse the enthusiasm of the people, were now like drinking boiled water, without the slightest taste, and the people were indifferent at all when they heard it, and they were still clamoring to go home.

Seeing that persuasion was useless, Mao Jue could only put his heart sideways in the end, and immediately announced that all the people who helped defend the city would be rewarded with money and grain, ten yuan a day, and three liters of rice.

There are more than 70,000 people defending the city, if all the people who participate in the defense of the city are paid, the treasury will pay seven or eight hundred thousand dollars a day, more than 2,000 stones, plus the army's food expenditure, the grain stored in the treasury may not be able to support even a month, Mao Jue is tantamount to drinking water to quench his thirst, but he can't watch the fall of Licheng, right? So even if you drink to quench your thirst, you can only do this.

Mao Juetongguò's method finally calmed the people, and most of them no longer insisted on going home, and continued to help defend the city.

But then Mao Jue found that these migrant workers were passive and slacking off, and the average daily workload was less than half of the original, which was of course related to Liu Qi's suspension of the siege and the easing of the situation, and also related to the fact that the people listened to Liu Qi's words and were unwilling to sincerely help the thieves, so as not to be held accountable after the city was broken in the future, but the threat of the Chu army is still there after all, Liu Qi will step up the siege of the city at any time, if these migrant workers are still as passive as they are now, how can the city be defended?

What's more, these migrant workers are not working in vain, they are given ten five baht money and three liters of rice every day, they are equivalent to being hired by the government, and they don't work with money and food.

What worries Mao Jie even more is that the soldiers in the army were already dissatisfied with him hiring migrant workers at such a generous price, and now they are full of complaints when they are passive and slacking off, and the contradiction between the military and the people is getting bigger and bigger. (To be continued......)