As soon as he saw that Kui was in an uproar, the generals Li Yu and Tian Yi, who were sent by Gongsun Shu to help him, were also discouraged, and immediately retreated from outside the city of Luoyang to Shangqi (now Tianshui, Gansu).

In this way, the siege was finally lifted after the difficult hold in Lüyang.

Immediately afterwards, Liu Xiu held a grand reception again, which was not only to celebrate the success of Luoyang, but also to publicly commend Laixi.

At the cocktail party, Liu Xiu specially arranged for Lao Lai to sit alone, above the generals, showing his special favor to Lao Lai.

Liu Xiu spoke highly of Lao Lai's great achievements in envoying to Xizhou many times, plotting against the Kui Huan generals, and attacking and defending the lonely city of Luoyang, and ordered him to garrison Chang'an and supervise the generals of the Western Expedition.

At the same time, Liu Xiu also rewarded the old lady with 1,000 silk horses.

I've worked hard during this time, and I've made a lot of contributions, so now I'll go to the Chang'an base camp to supervise the army.

Liu Xiu tried to hit Shangtai, but Li Yu refused to surrender. Liu Xiu probably felt that as an emperor, it was a bit too bullying to fight around a city, so he ordered Geng Yi and Gai Yan to come up and attack together.

Seeing that Kui Huan was at the end of the crossbow, Liu Xiu sent him an edict to surrender and made a final shout:

"If you are captured, your father and son can see each other, not only will they not be punished, but they will also be like Emperor Gaozu treated Tian Heng back then, you can be crowned king and marquis. If you are going to bring about your own destruction, as you did, you have to listen to it. ”

However, Lao Kui still did not surrender.

So, in desperation, Liu Xiu killed Lao Kui's son Kui and ordered Wu Han and Cen Peng to attack Xicheng, and Geng Yi and Gai Yan to step up the attack on Shangtai.

A few months have passed in the blink of an eye, and it is the midsummer of August, and there are only 2 places left in Xizhou, Xicheng and Shangtai, which have been operated for a long time, and Shangtai is still in the hands of Gongsun Shu's reinforcements Li Yu and Tian Yi.

Liu Xiu saw that the battle had reached the end of the sweep, and there was urgent business to deal with in the capital, so he was going back to Luoyang.

Before leaving, in addition to asking the generals to step up the siege of the city, Liu Xiu also made arrangements in two aspects.

First, he made several vassals to Dou Rong's brothers, and at the same time ordered them to return to their own jurisdictions and strive to protect the territory and the people.

Among them, Dou Rong is the Marquis of Anfeng (4 counties), Dou You is the Marquis of Xianqin, Zhu Zeng is the Marquis of Zhuyi, Liang Tong is the Marquis of Chengyi, Shi Bao is the Marquis of Baoyi, Ku Jun is the Marquis of Fuyi, and Xin Tong is the Marquis of Fuyi.

Second, Liu Xiu specially gave a letter to Cen Peng and other generals to advise him on the next strategic deployment.

Since this book is famous, with a clear tone and concise and fluent diction, we may wish to reproduce a few of its verses:

"If the two cities are down, they can attack Shu in the south; People are not satisfied, they are both peaceful and hopeful; The head of each soldier must be white. ”

Here, Liu Xiu clearly explained the next action goal. The rest, that is, with emotion.

People's hearts are suffering from never being satisfied, and they have pacified Longdi, and they are peeping and wanting to take down Shudi. Today's well-known idiom "Delong Wangshu" comes from this book.

Of course, Liu Xiu is not asking the generals not to be greedy and insufficient, but to talk about the hardships of using soldiers.

He also sighed: Every time I send troops, I am so tired that I have to turn a lot whiter!

Liu Xiu sighed in front of the two armies and in the military mobilization order, obviously not for fun, but to encourage the generals to work hard.

At the same time, according to the information we have at hand, this may also be the first time that Liu Xiu's war-weariness has been so formally revealed in the literature.

About a month after Liu Xiu returned, Yang Guang, who was guarding Xicheng, died, and Kui Huan's situation became even more difficult.

Originally, according to Liu Xiu's plan, the war to exterminate the hustle and bustle would have come to an end, and the large-scale use of troops would have been told to Gongsun. For this reason, before he went back, he also explained a specific task, that is: to ask the great Sima Wu Han to send back the soldiers and horses requisitioned from the state and county.

Due to the long distance of the army into the Kuihuan territory, the roads were rough and transportation was difficult, and the supply of military supplies was very tight. What's more, Liu Xiu came to Xizhou to further see that fighting here does not depend on a large number of people. Even in a sense, fighting in this place where mountains and rivers are coiled, there are too many people to come in handy, and it costs money to work and food.

Kui Huan couldn't take down the 2,000 people who held on to Luoyang, which with 50,000 troops, illustrates this.

Therefore, he explicitly demanded that Wu Han mainly play the role of the central army, and that the troops transferred from various counties should sit on military rations and have no work to do, and if there was a phenomenon of desertion, it would in turn weaken the morale of the army, and they must all be repatriated to their original hometowns.

However, Wu Han and other generals did not accurately comprehend Liu Xiu's intentions, and one-sidedly believed that there were many people and great strength, so they did not carry out Liu Xiu's order.

It's still good to work when there are more people, buddies get together, cut down the enemy early, and call it a day!

However, the situation that Liu Xiu feared did not come up soon.

The mixed Han army under the command of Wu Han at the central and local levels was very tired, its military rations were reduced, the number of deserters gradually increased, and its morale and combat effectiveness declined rapidly.

In terms of hustle and bustle, although the vast majority of soldiers betrayed him, there were still a few soldiers who were loyal to him and swore allegiance to him.

Realistically speaking, Lao Kui is humble and respectful, usually treats his subordinates well, and it is completely normal to have a group of hardcore supporters; And in the face of a desperate situation, it is completely understandable that someone will kill himself.

Come and see Wang Jie.

He is Lao Kui's general, and is now in charge of defending Rongqiu, the barrier in the northwest corner of Xicheng.

Faced with the tight encirclement of Wu Han and Cen Peng's subordinates, General Wang ascended to the top of the city and shouted to the Han soldiers:

"As soldiers defending the city for King Kui, we all have the belief that we will die, and we have no two hearts! I hope you will quickly withdraw from the army, please let me kill myself to show my determination! "

After saying that, General Wang killed himself.

The Kui army in the city and the Han army outside the city witnessed this tragic situation and were extremely shocked.

It should be said that Wang Jie's high-profile suicide at the head of the city had two diametrically opposite effects on the warring parties:

For the Kui army, it is the fighting spirit to fight to the death is reawakened, and everyone suddenly feels that to be a man on the battlefield, he should show his own blood like General Wang Jie.

For the Han army, it was the opposite, and everyone had an indescribable confusion - why did we run so far here to fight people? As a result, in addition to being starved and running, the fear mentality and the phenomenon of sabotage soon spread.

This is what Liu Xiu does not want to see, and it is also something that Wu Han and others did not expect and difficult to control.

Therefore, it is not by chance that Wu Han and Cen Peng have always been unable to take Xicheng.

Obviously, if you can't take Xicheng and can't find the whereabouts of Kui Huan, this war can't be over.

One day, Cen Peng came up with an idea to store river water outside Xicheng and irrigate the city with water.

Although we can't know how people in the past used this immoral method, a few months ago, Kui Huan led the army to irrigate Luoyang, which created a tragedy.

We can't expect both sides of the war to be able to take the lead on the battlefield, but we really don't want to see who can achieve their goals and create miracles by doing so.

Cen Peng is no stranger to defending the city, when he ran to other counties as a county magistrate to command the defense and resist the uprising coalition army, he still refused to surrender when the food was eaten up and the people were cannibalistic, and he had already created a miracle of war defense. Today, Kui Huan is hiding in Xicheng, and the conditions in all aspects are no worse than those he was at that time.

In all fairness, Cen Peng was not only brave in battle, brilliant in wisdom, and a rare good general among Liu Xiu's generals, but also rigorous in governing the army, and often did not commit any crimes wherever he went.

However, attacking the city with water on this day, as his donkey skills, is also a stain on him.

Now he is flooding Lao Kui, of course, he is treating others in his own way, but the people in the city are innocent, and we also do not want him to succeed.

Cen Peng commanded the barrage to store water outside the city, guiding to Xicheng, and saw that the water level was not far from the city!

The soldiers of the Han army were also very anxious about the long-term attack on Xicheng, and they all concentrated on making water, hoping that this one could succeed.

Suddenly, a large army from the vicinity came to kill, and the soldiers who ran in front shouted:

"Kill!" "Kill! An army of millions is coming! “”……。“

It turned out that more than 5,000 people and horses from Bashu reinforcements led by Kui Huan's generals Wang Yuan, Xingxun, and Zhou Zong came over. They knew that the Han army was difficult to fight, so they shouted while fighting, not only to embolden themselves, but also to fool the other party.

The morale of the Han army was at a low ebb, and they were all looking at the water and did not make other preparations, and they were fooled by the enemy's bluff, and they were shocked and chaotic.

Wang Yuan and others fought to the death, tore through the encirclement of the Han army, rushed into the city, rescued Kui Huan, and then fled to Jicheng (now northwest of Tianshui, Gansu).

At this time, Wu Han and Cen Peng's military rations were also exhausted, and it was impossible to continue confrontation and pursuit, only retreat. In order to facilitate the march, they burned the military baggage and led the troops to retreat.

Over there, Geng Yi and Gai Yan, who were besieging Shangqi, also ran out of food and worked in vain, and when they saw that Wu Da Sima had withdrawn, they also withdrew.

However, Kui Hustle is gone!

He was unwilling to let go of this last opportunity, and immediately sent troops to follow the pursuing Han army.

In this way, there was a reversal on the battlefield for many days: the Han army ran exhaustively in front, and the noisy general led his troops to fight in the rear.

In a hurry, Cen Peng personally led people to break the rear and fought desperately against the enemy, so as to avoid too much loss and protect the eastward retreat of the large army.

After that, Wu Dasima and other generals had no choice but to return to the Chang'an base camp, and Cen Peng also returned to his station Jinxiang (now Jiangling, Hubei), but the sacrifice was still sick and insisted on resisting the enemy, and led his troops to be stationed in Wangcheng.

When the Han army withdrew, it resumed its occupation of Anding, Beidi, Tianshui, Longxi and other regions.

The results of Liu Xiuyu's personal conquest of Kui have seen a serious resurgence and recurrence.

Fortunately, it was already a harsh winter, and everyone didn't want to use soldiers.