Yuan Xi had already been frightened, and when he saw Zhao Yun, he trembled, and answered whatever he asked, but he didn't dare to hide it, but when he wanted to escort him away again, he played tricks again, wanting Zhao Yun to spare his life.

Zhao Yun ignored him and just asked him to drag him away and imprison him. Such a person, it is not a pity to die, Zhao Yun's heart is disgusted. However, not killing him for the time being is mainly left to Liu Yi's opinion. After all, no matter how you say it, Yuan Xi has always been a child of the Yuan family, and the influence of the Yuan family is still there in today's Han Dynasty, although Zhao Yun doesn't care, but he also wants to ask for Liu Yi's opinion. However, damn it, Zhao Yun also knew that Liu Yi would not let it go, but only kept Yuan Xi's dog life for the time being.

From Yuan Xi's mouth, Zhao Yun really didn't get much news, but it made him feel a little worried in his heart.

Yuan Xi was sent to Handan City by Yuan Shao early, and he didn't know many things about the current situation in Yecheng, or rather, he didn't want to know at all, and he knew how to get drunk and dream of death every day.

What can be known is how many troops Yuan Shao still had earlier, and now, Yuan Shao has built some defensive walls in Yecheng.

Well, Yuan Shao, in his most powerful period, claimed to have an army of one million, but, according to Yuan Xi, Yuan Shao should never have an army of more than one million. Zhao Yun felt that this was the truth.

You must know that Yuan Shao only relies on Jizhou, and it is really not easy to have a million troops, one is the problem of troop sources, and on the other hand, even if there are millions of troops for Yuan Shao, I am afraid that Yuan Shao will not be able to raise that million army for a long time.

Of course, there are still a total of about 800,000 to 900,000 troops. But. This includes many temporary recruits.

In this way, Zhao Yun did the math. In the later stages of the attack on Gongsun Zhan, Yuan Shaojun dispatched many military horses to attack the Dazepo base at the same time. And these Yuan Jun. but many were lost. Anyway, Yuan Shao went through the Battle of Right Beiping, the later Battle of Guandu, and the Battle of Dezhou. His strength has actually been reduced to seventy-seven or eighty-eight.

However, none of these battles happened at the same time, and Yuan Shao would immediately recruit troops after every defeat. Replenish the original troops. Especially after the defeat of Cao Cao in the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao was a Han Xin soldier, and the more the better, trying to restore the strength of his army. At that time, most of Yuan Shao's original elite soldiers were scattered among the armies, and in the form of veterans leading new soldiers, many people were pulled up.

That is, near the county seat of Texas. Liu Yi set fire to Yuan Shao's army of 300,000, of which only tens of thousands of horses were Yuan Shao's real elite soldiers, and the rest. I'm afraid they are all ordinary recruits, and those are just Yuan Shao's deliberate misunderstanding and misunderstanding that they are his elite army. But it can't be said that it's not an elite soldier. After all, those Yuan soldiers. It's all after a period of training, if you can win a few tough battles. I'm afraid that those Yuan soldiers will really become elite soldiers again, and become Yuan Shao's strength to fight the world.

Yuan Shao is like this, whenever he loses, he will immediately recruit soldiers, but Jizhou is so big and has such a population, so the more Yuan Shao is conscripted, the more uneven the soldiers in his army will be, and the combat effectiveness will be lower and lower. At present, it is not uncommon for Yuan Shao's army to be as young as 12 or 3 years old and as old as 50 or 60 years old. Such a Yuan army has its numbers, but it is vulnerable.

Now, according to Yuan Xi, Yuan Shao still has about 100,000 real elites, and this army has been with Yuan Shao earlier, and has fought together until now. In addition, there are about 100,000 military horses, which Yuan Shao has been guarding in Yecheng later, if the 100,000 elites are Yuan Shao's Long Live Army, then these 100,000 military horses should be the defenders of Yecheng. will only obey Yuan Shao's orders.

The rest were the military horses guarding the towns in Jizhou, as well as some defenders who resisted the New Han Army on the front line.

Such as Maocheng, Guangping, Yangping, Handan and other cities. The Yuan army in these places should add up to about 300,000.

In other words, Yuan Shao seemed to have been losing battles all the time, but his total strength had never been reduced much. It was replenished immediately after death, so that Yuan Shao's actual strength has always fluctuated in the numbers of 500,000, 600,000 to 800,000.

At present, Zhao Yun has destroyed the cavalry battalion outside Maocheng, and now he has captured Handan City, directly weakening the almost 100,000 military horses of Yuan's army. In other words, Yecheng still has Yuan Shao's real elite 200,000. There will probably be some miscellaneous armies, about 300,000 in total.

If the Yuan army of Guangping and Yangping retreated to Yecheng again, it would be equivalent to having 500,000 troops to defend Yecheng, which Zhao Yun did not want to see.

Fighting an offensive and defensive battle with Yuan Shao's 500,000 army? Even if the New Han Army is the most powerful, I'm afraid it won't be easy. Now, the main force of the Xinhan Army in Jizhou is estimated to be only more than 400,000 and less than 500,000. Comparable to Yuan Shaojun. Seriously, such a comparison of forces is undoubtedly equivalent to a large-scale decisive battle.

As far as Zhao Yun knew, in order to maintain the number of his troops, Yuan Shao was reckless, and almost all the young and strong people in Jizhou were forcibly conscripted. The current Yuan army, in a practical sense, is equivalent to some civilians who were forced by Yuan Shao to take up arms.

The New Han Army started from Youzhou, north of Jizhou, and slowly attacked Yuan Shao, which was originally based on the process of seizing Yuan Shao's territory, and eliminated a large number of Yuan Shao's living forces, so that Yuan Shao no longer had more soldiers and horses to confront the New Han Army. However, I really didn't expect that Yuan Shao would be so frustrated, completely ignoring the vitality of the children of Jizhou.

Zhao Yun also had to admire Yuan Shao's abundant money and food. After so many years of maintaining the rations and salaries of the army of 700,000 or 800,000 people, after fighting so many defeats, there is still the spare energy to raise so many military horses. I really don't know where Yuan Shao's military rations came from.

For this, in fact, Liu Yi's heart is also very strange. You must know that even if it is your own New Han Army, it is impossible to be like Yuan Shao, how many troops are lost, and how many troops will be replenished immediately, completely ignoring local governance and production. Where did he get so much rations?

Well, it's something quite secret.

Actually, Zhao Yun is good. Whether it's Liu Yi or not, they are all from some bitter backgrounds. There is no analogy at all about how rich a true superfamily would be.

The fourth and third dukes of the Yuan family. Its Yuan family has been in business for more than a hundred years, and all the time, there are people in the Yuan family who are high-ranking officials in the court, not to mention the protégés and former officials. I don't know how many industries related to the Yuan family alone, and there are more people who are favored by the Yuan family, and there are rich families in many places. All have a little relationship with the Yuan family. Over the past hundred years, how much wealth has the Yuan family secretly obtained? It's really hard to count.

As for food, you must know that unless there is some natural or man-made disaster, otherwise, the people have to cultivate every year, and every year they have to be exploited, and every year, the grain produced by the people. Most of them were handed over to the government, landlords and wealthy families. And the grain paid to those landlords and wealthy families, they must not be able to consume much. The huge amount of food that was left, they either hid it or sold it. But no matter what. In the Han Dynasty, in China, even in the post-modern era. Huaxia will always have more people than people in the city, with a population of more than one billion. Nine out of ten are farmers. In ancient times, the proportion was even greater. In the era of arable land for all. How much can you sell just by selling that food? So, a lot of it was hidden. Year after year, the Yuan family has secretly hidden grain for more than 100 years, and I really don't know how much there is.

Even, some of the Yuan family's secret granaries have really been stored for hundreds of years, and the grain hidden in them is still not rotten and can still be eaten. This, really don't be surprised, the wisdom of the ancients, sometimes, even in the postmodern era, is amazing, so that future generations can't understand why the ancients were able to do that. There's always a way for them to keep that food in good shape.

And there are some things that are secrets that only the Yuan family's family knows.

Yuan Xi also knew something, but he didn't know much, because Yuan Shao was in the prime of life at the moment, and it was impossible to tell Yuan Xi too many secrets.

Back then, Yuan Shao, as the leader of the allied forces in the world, was sent to the military rations of the allied army by Yuan Shumou, and he was almost cornered, and the reason why he returned to Bohai was that he knew that there was a secret granary of the Yuan family in Bohai. In this way, he could dig up in a short period of time and become one of the top princes of the Han Dynasty at that time.

Now, the economic and political center of the territory under his rule is set in Yecheng, and now, he dares to think of defending Yecheng, that is, in Yecheng, there is a huge granary, and Yuan Shao is not too worried about the problem of military rations.

Judging from all kinds of signs, those dug up princes are definitely not like Liu Yi's New Han Dynasty, almost all of them are supported by their own development, they are definitely prepared for a long time, and have their unknown sources of money and food, otherwise, how can they raise so many military horses?

Just like Cao Cao, he didn't know how many people's ancestral graves were dug up, and he didn't know how many dead people's money and property were looted, so he had the current situation.

Of course, the Yuan family has been collecting money and grain, not that they have the heart of rebellion early on, these are just the basic thoughts of rich people, they will be well hidden by their wealth, and beware of taking it out and using it if they want to use it one day.

Anyway, taking the New Han Dynasty as an example, if it is to maintain the operation of the entire imperial court by relying on its own output, and raise an army of one million, it is basically impossible, even if it is the New Han Army, now only a very small part of the military horses are out of production, and in peacetime, ordinary soldiers have to participate in production. What's more, at the beginning of the establishment of the New Han Dynasty, he won a lot of money and grain from Dong Zhuojun, and later got a lot of money and grain from Liu Biao, Yuan Shu, and even from the hands of Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and other princes, so that the prosperity of the New Han Dynasty is now possible. From these, it can be seen how strong the financial resources of Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and other princes are.

But these are not what Zhao Yun needs to consider now. Now Zhao Yun has to think about the current situation in Jizhou, if he really fights a protracted battle with Yuan Shao in Yecheng, he will definitely be unwilling to do this. Therefore, in Zhao Yun's heart, he desperately hoped that he could go one step further and eliminate Yuan Shao's living force in large quantities.

Let Yuan Shao not still have hundreds of thousands of troops in Yecheng.

In addition, whether it is Zhao Yun or Tai Shici, these generals, they all hope that the entire Jizhou can be unified in their own hands. It didn't have to be Liu Yi to participate in person to finally kill Yuan Shao.

Of course, this is a careful consideration, which they usually don't show up. This one. It's not that they are jealous of Liu Yi or anything, but they don't want to need Liu Yi to personally participate in everything in order to win completely.

Think about it. More than ten years have passed since the establishment of the New Han Dynasty. Among them, in every big war, there is a figure of Liu Yi. Under the brilliance of Lewi, they were all a little indifferent. For these generals, they also have their own pride, although they admire Liu Yi, but they also want to have a chance to express themselves.

and Yuan Shao have all fought to this point, if Yuan Shao is still dragged the main army of the New Han Army here, Zhao Yun is fine. Whether it is Tai Shici or even Xi Zhicai, they all know that this is definitely not the situation that Liu Yi wants to see. At the beginning, when the New Han Army launched the Unification War, Liu Yi mentioned to them many times that he hoped to pacify the Han as soon as possible, and the sooner the Han was pacified, the more beneficial it would be to revitalize the Han in the future.

So. Now, Zhao Yun suddenly had a more adventurous idea.

He wanted to use Yuan Xi to open the gate of Yecheng.

But. If you want to do that, you have to hurry, because. If the time passes, let Yuan Shao know that Yuan Xi has fallen into his hands. Then, it is unlikely that this plan will be realized.

Right now. Handan City has just been broken, and it is not yet completely controlled Handan City. After escaping so many Yuan troops, they would definitely flee back to Yecheng as soon as possible and report the situation to Yuan Shao. It is estimated that by the early morning of tomorrow, the news of the destruction of Handan City must have been sent to Yuan Shao's ears. At that time, it will be impossible to open the gate of Yecheng through Yuan Xi. If you want to open the gate of Yecheng by fraud, you must grasp this time, take Yuan Xi and those Yuan soldiers who escaped, and rush to Yecheng within a short time.

However, Zhao Qu couldn't make up his mind in his heart, because he only had 20,000 horses here, and I am afraid that there would be some losses in this night's battle, and there would definitely not be 20,000 horses. With his own 20,000 horses, what can he do if he opens the gate of Yecheng? You must know that Yecheng is now, but there are 200,000 or 300,000 Yuan troops, and what can they do if they are mixed into Yecheng?

Zhao Yun was a little anxious, he hoped that his cavalry army could arrive in time, so that he could follow the Yuan army that had escaped from Handan City and rush to Yecheng. With an army of more than 100,000 cavalry, Zhao Yun dared to give it a go and attack directly to Yecheng.

Time passed slowly, and the shouting and killing in the city gradually stopped. According to the report of Su Cheng and other generals, most of the Yuan troops who were wandering in Handan City were actually the children of the people in the city, and they fled home, hid their clothes, armor and equipment, and put them back on the clothes of the common people.

In response to such a situation, Zhao Yun simply ordered his military horses to ignore the Yuan soldiers wandering in the city, and let them guard the walls of Handan City first, close the city gates, and prohibit anyone from entering or leaving.

It was precisely because of this that it was possible to clear the whole city until dawn, but now it is still quiet in the middle of the night. Among them, there are still fires everywhere in the city, some houses are affected by the fire, and there are many voices of crying. These signs show that Handan City is not very peaceful.

The New Han army that came to Handan City with Zhao Yun was actually very tired, and Zhao Yun was also a little worried, if they were allowed to follow him to attack Yecheng, open the gate of Yecheng by fraud, and meet a more difficult battle, it was estimated that the soldiers would not be able to bear it. Therefore, although this thought made Zhao Yun linger and was very moved, he could only sigh silently, intending to give up this idea.

I plan to send an order to let the soldiers of the Xinhan Army rest in batches, and make plans early when their army arrives.

At this time, an uninvited guest suddenly came to see Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun was taken aback when he saw it, but it was a drama talent.

"Zilong, I really didn't expect that you would conquer Handan City so quickly, which is a great achievement. Well, it's finally opened up. Xi Zhicai looked very tired, it is estimated that he came overnight, and he was not lightly tired, sweating all over, and his face was dusty.

"Drama Master, why are you here? I'm just lucky, not a credit. Zhao Yun modestly saluted Xi Zhicai.

"Hehe, Zilong doesn't have to be modest, you can capture Handan City in such a short time, this is actually equivalent to announcing Yuan Shao's demise." Seeing that Zhao Yun was as low-key as before, Xi Zhicai couldn't help but step forward and pat him on the shoulder and said: "Taishi Ziyi and Gongsun Zhan, the two generals, they have launched a fierce attack on Yuan's army the day before yesterday, and in the past two days, our trebuchets have bombarded Guangping and Yangping cities almost day and night. However, at the moment, our trebuchets are almost broken, but they have not been able to open up the situation. ”

"Oh? In this way, Yuan Jun's resistance is quite tenacious. After Zhao Yun heard this, he couldn't help frowning. He hoped that Tai Shi Ci and Gongsun Zhan would also be able to break through the defense line of Yuan's army and join forces with him to attack Yecheng, which was unlikely for the time being.

"Drama Master, are you here?" Zhao Yun subconsciously said: "My cavalry army, I'm afraid that I won't be able to reach Handan until after dawn, and when the time comes, I can mobilize a part of my troops and work with Taishi Ziyi and General Gongsun to break the defense line of Yuan's army on the whole line." ”

"No, no, Xi Mou is in such a hurry to come to see you, not to ask you to support Ziyi and Gongsun Zhan. It's a different story. Xi Zhicai shook his head and said.

"Huh? What else? ”

"Yes, we have newly obtained information from the Yuan army, and found that Yuan Shao has already managed Yecheng like an iron bucket, and in Yecheng, I am afraid that there are still 200,000 or 300,000 troops, if we break through the defense line of the Yuan army now, but it is unlikely to wipe out all those Yuan soldiers, and let those Yuan soldiers withdraw to Yecheng, then we will face a fortified city with 400,000 or 500,000 troops and horses. For us, it is extremely unfavorable. So, we came up with something else. Xi Zhicai said to Zhao Yun.

"Another way? What's the solution? Zhao Yun was also worried about facing Yuan Shao's fortified city with hundreds of thousands of troops in the future, and when he heard Xi Zhicai say that he had other ideas, his eyes couldn't help but light up, and he hurriedly asked.

"Ziyi and General Gongsun, they all came to discuss with Xi, they thought that if they wanted to destroy Yuan Shao, as we are now, it is not possible to blindly attack. Attack all the way, and in the end, you have to fight an unprecedented and difficult siege battle. If you don't fight, then you don't know when and when you can eliminate Yuan Shao. ”

"The last general also has such a dilemma, but he can't do it for a while." Zhao Yun nodded in agreement with Xi Zhicai's concerns.

"So, Ziyi and General Gongsun, they all feel that we should disintegrate Yuan Shao's military horses from within Yuan Shao."

"Dismantled Yuan Shao's military horse from the inside of Yuan Shao? This ...... "Zhao Yun couldn't think of a so."

"Well, Zilong, I'm sure you have also seen that the current Yuan Shao's army has actually been scared by our Xinhan army, and they don't dare to fight us head-on at all, or rather, it's not that they don't dare, but they don't want to fight us at all in their hearts. They were afraid and didn't dare, but they had to desperately defend the city. When Xi Zhicai said this, he looked at Zhao Yun and said, "Zilong, don't you think it's strange?" We attacked all the way from Youzhou to the southeast of Jizhou, and along the way, many of the defenders of Yuan's army surrendered to our New Han Army when they saw that the general situation was gone. However, now there is no general Yuan Junjun who will lay down his arms and surrender to us. Don't you think that's a little weird? Those generals of Yuan Shao may not be sincerely loyal to Yuan Shao. ”

"Drama Commander." Zhao Yun interrupted Xi Zhicai's words and said, "I know a little bit about this kind of thing. According to some of the generals of the Yuan army that we captured, the generals under Yuan Shao's account would rather die than surrender to us, mainly because Yuan Shao guarded their families, and if they dared to surrender to the New Han Dynasty, then their families would be killed by Yuan Shao's order. In this way, they had no choice but to die rather than surrender. ”

"That's right, that's why. Now that Zilong knows, what are you going to do? When Xi Zhi said this, he seemed to want to test Zhao Yun.

"Where can I do it? If there was a way, I, Zhao Yun, would have already taken action. Zhao Yun didn't think much about it, shook his head and said.

The family of the generals under Yuan Shao's account must be guarded by Yuan Shao in Yecheng, even if he has any ideas, he is afraid that it will be difficult to do it. (To be continued......)