A generation of heroes was burned to ashes, but the war in Youzhou was not over.

Tian Chou was ordered to set up an ambush in the Taihang Mountains, but he was just one of Liu He's several followers to deal with Gongsun Zhan, even if Gongsun Chan was not burned to ashes, then he would be drowned, trampled to death by random horses, and shot to death by random arrows......

In short, Liu He was determined to kill Gongsun Chan this time.

On the road of warlord hegemony, the law of the jungle is pursued, or the principle that big fish eat small fish and small fish eat shrimp, if Liu He doesn't want to be eaten as shrimp, then he can only work hard to be the biggest fish.

Youzhou's territory was originally able to accommodate Liu Yu, Gongsun Zhan and Gongsun Du, but with the continuous growth of warlords in various places, a small Youzhou can no longer bear the strength of the three warlords at the same time. If Liu He wanted to control the vast territory north of the Yellow River, the first obstacle he needed to solve was Gongsun Zhan.

The contradiction between Liu He and Gongsun Chan cannot be reconciled at all, and Gongsun Chan is not like Han Fu who can be willing to live under others, so he can only die.

At the same time that Tian Chou solved Gongsun Zhan, Liu He had already led 7,000 infantry to withdraw from Laishui to Jicheng, while Zhang He also led the cavalry back to Jicheng, and Xu Rong escorted more than 10,000 Gongsun Zan troops to Zhuo County to hand over to Sun Li and Xu Miao.

Of the 30,000 soldiers that Gongsun Zhan brought from Qingzhou this time, 10,000 were his descendants and subordinates who had been brought to Qingzhou from his hometown Lingzhi, and the remaining 20,000 were brave soldiers selected from the captured Yellow Turban Army in recent years.

The three thousand white horses in the south of Dai County were wiped out by Zhang He, and the two thousand descendants of Gongsun Chan were buried in the middle of the nameless valley, and the other five thousand veterans who had followed Gongsun Chan for many years died in Laishui, some died under Wuruan Pass, and some died in Zhuo County and Zhuo State, and finally there was not one of the ten left.

Nowadays, the vast majority of these captives are young and strong people from Qingzhou, as long as they have undergone Xu Miao's education and transformation. It is believed that soon they will be qualified soldiers. Liu He has always been kind to soldiers, food and clothing are the bottom line, and officers are not allowed to beat and scold and execute soldiers at will, so it is easy to get soldiers from poor backgrounds to serve him.

Since taking power, although Liu He insisted on fighting to support the war, he was very cautious in the expansion of military strength, and never did stupid things to fish for the sake of exhaustion, so the number of young and strong laborers he recruited from Youzhou in these years was very small, less than 20,000 so far, and the rest was supplemented with the surrendered troops captured each time.

For example, after he repelled Gongsun Zhan. Later, Tai Shici captured more than 5,000 Yuan Shao's troops in Jizhou, and was also sent to Youzhou for transformation and training, and then joined the army in Youzhou, and then Liu He also asked Xu Rong to take 5,000 Xiliang troops north to Youzhou, which was equivalent to a collective reorganization.

In addition to these three large-scale surrenders, Liu He also abducted 5,000 Wuhuan cavalry from the Wuhuan tribe controlled by Yan Rou when he went south to Jizhou.

In this way, Liu He has saved at least 20,000 young and strong laborers for Youzhou in recent years. If you count the thousands of Xianbei captives captured at the beginning, then Liu He not only did not reduce the population of Youzhou because of the war. On the contrary, it has also added a considerable number of labor force to Youzhou.

Liu He's seemingly slamming approach may be looked down upon, but it can receive long-term benefits over time, and it is definitely not as simple as it seems.

In the era of cold weapons, warlords fought for hegemony to the bottom. The fundamental factor is the number of people. As long as the number of people controlled by Liu He continues to increase, then the number of troops he can recruit will inevitably increase, and the territory he controls will naturally expand after the army increases, which in turn will raise more people.

Such a development model is a virtuous circle.

Contrarily. If Liu He is reckless, kill chickens for warmth, and squeeze out Youzhou's demographic dividend as soon as possible. Then, as the number of his army expands dramatically, the number of young and strong laborers in the fields will decrease, and when the army has no food to eat, it will plunder everywhere, scatter and flee, and harm innocent people, so that the population under his control will decrease, and finally restrict his further expansion.

When Xu Rong led the army to arrive outside Zhuoxian County, Sun Li had already released the more than 2,000 troops detained in Wuruan Pass back to Zhuo County one step in advance, so Xu Miao, the "Propaganda Minister", was too busy to go out of the city to meet Xu Rong.

Sun Li has been training in the army for more than two years, and has gradually faded away from the original youthful and reckless energy, and now he has been promoted to lieutenant, which is rare among his peers. After he led the army to capture the state of Yan, he first succeeded Liu He in Laishui, and after the defeat of Gongsun Zhan, he went to Wuruan Pass to hand over to Zhang Zhan, and escorted more than 2,000 troops back to Zhuo County from the pass.

Hearing that Xu Rong was coming with a large army, Sun Li hurriedly went out of the city to greet him, and greeted Xu Rong, Xiahou Lan, Han Heng and others in turn.

"General Xu, it only takes 2,000 troops to escort these surrendered troops, why do you need to take a trip to Zhuoxian with a large army?" Sun Li has a lot of respect for the battle-hardened veteran Xu Rong, and even if he has doubts in his heart, he is very polite when he speaks.

Xu Rong explained: "Gongzi's bureau this time is very large, not only to solve Gongsun Chan and Gongsun Du, but also to take the opportunity to go south to Jizhou to receive all the territory occupied by Gongsun Chan, I happened to pass through Zhuo County this time, so by the way, I brought more than 10,000 prisoners over." Today I have handed over these captives, and tomorrow I will immediately leave for Yongnu, I wonder if there is ready-made grain and grass in the city for supply? ”

"General rest assured, Gongsun Chan had stored a lot of grain in Zhuo County, enough for tens of thousands of troops to eat for more than two months, as long as the brothers can move away, they can take it as they please!"

"This must not be done! Originally, he would have taken only enough food and grass for the road. This time I want to nag you a few more words, these grains in Zhuoxian County must have been collected by Gongsun Zhan from Zhuo County, and they are all the blood and sweat of the people of Zhuo County, you must not waste it, you must save it, so as not to dislike it when you turn back and ask about it! ”

was reminded by Xu Rong like this, Sun Li suddenly sobered up a lot, and he was very grateful to the veteran for his advice.

When Xu Rong led his army to leave Zhuoxian, the combined forces of Gongsun Yue and Gongsun Du finally came to Jicheng.

Until this time, Gongsun Du did not know that Gongsun Chan had been defeated and died, so he launched an attack on Jicheng according to Gongsun Chan's original deployment.

Even if Liu He stood at the head of Jicheng City at this time and told Gongsun Yue the truth loudly, because Gongsun Chan had turned to ashes, it is estimated that Gongsun Yue would not believe it, after all, such news was too shocking.

What's more, Liu He didn't plan to tell Gongsun Yue the news.

In Liu He's layout, this time not only Gongsun Chan is going to die. Gongsun Yue also could not escape death. As for Gongsun Du, who is far away from Jicheng, Liu He plans to eat the cavalry he sent first, and then send troops to Liaodong in a year and a half to clean up this scourge.

Because of the large number of troops outside the city, the strength of Jicheng defense is only 20,000, if Gongsun Yue knows the truth about Gongsun Zhan's defeat at this time, then this goods will definitely lead the army to flee back to Lingzhi, and the troops in the city alone cannot keep the tens of thousands of troops of Gongsun Yue and Gongsun Du, so Liu He chose to forbear, and never showed up, as if he had never returned to Youzhou.

Gongsun Yue suffered a lot at the beginning. Therefore, he led the army to attack Jicheng this time and made all kinds of preparations, not only brought a large number of siege equipment, but also had the successful experience of capturing Luxian, so it was not so easy to dismiss.

The troops sent by Gongsun Du had fought against the Goguryeo, Fuyu and Xianbei people for a long time, so their combat power should not be underestimated, and if they could be swallowed in one bite, then Liu He's cavalry strength would increase greatly.

Since Liu He's career, it seems that he has done a lot of things to win more with less, and to swallow big with small. This is also the secret of Liu He's stronger and stronger the more he fights. Now Liu He has Guo Jia behind him to give him advice, so his appetite is getting bigger and bigger, and this time he wants to swallow all the 50,000 soldiers and horses besieging Jicheng on the East Road at a small price!

Nowadays, there are Zhang He, Xu Huang, Murong Ping and Li Meng in Jicheng, and Guo Jia, Li Ru, Zhao Gai and Du Ji in the text. Liu Yu's father and son are working together, so don't look at the 50,000 troops outside the city, as long as they plan properly, they will eventually become Liu He's appetizers.

Gongsun Yue outside the city commanded a large army to besiege Jicheng for three consecutive days without success. So he temporarily suspended his troops, wanting to wait for the news of Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao's army meeting on the Western Front to come back before launching a follow-up siege battle. This will not only boost the morale of the army. It can also hit the morale of the defenders in the city hard, which is also in line with the way of the battle formation.

Not to mention, after Gongsun Yue waited for a few days, he not only waited for the good news he wanted, but also waited for a reinforced army!

This unit that came from Zhuojun to reinforce was wearing the standard Gongsun Chan army uniform, holding the weapons of the Gongsun Chan army, and holding the flag of the Gongsun Chan army, no matter how you look at it, there is no flaw. What particularly reassured Gongsun Yue was that the generals who commanded this reinforcement force were none other than Gongsun Zhan's cronies Shan Jing and Changshi Guan Jing.

Shan Jing came to Jicheng and told Gongsun Yue a good news: under the attack of Gongsun Chan and Yuan Shaojun's east and west, Xu Rong's troops on the western front had been completely resolved, and now Gongsun Chan was leading 20,000 troops to stay in Daijun to prevent Yuan Shao's army from occupying the fruits of victory, and their 10,000 people were originally stationed in Zhuoxian and Wuruanguan and other places, because they received Gongsun Zhan's order, so they rushed to reinforce urgently.

Gongsun Yue did not doubt him, because the practice of placing troops in Yongnu City to work without contributing was too much in line with his style of a small family.

Hearing that Gongsun Chan had won a great victory on the Western Front, Gongsun Yue's confidence was greatly increased, so he spread this amazing good news to the soldiers, and then once again commanded the army to attack Jicheng.

When Gongsun Yue announced the "good news" to the soldiers, Liu He also announced the good news of the destruction of Gongsun Zhan's entire army to the soldiers in the city.

The morale inside and outside the city was the same, except that the truth was told and the lie was spoken.

After another three consecutive days of fierce fighting, Jicheng was still unbreakable.

Gongsun Yue was a little annoyed at this time, he sent someone to see Shan Jing, and asked Shan Jing to lead 10,000 troops to assist the army in attacking the south gate of Jicheng, and no longer hide in Yongnu City to watch the excitement.

After a single excuse, he had no choice but to lead the army to attack the south gate of Jicheng.

I don't know if it's because Shan Jing's shit luck is too good, or because the soldiers defending the city are on the verge of collapse, anyway, after Shan Jing launched a night attack that night, he actually took the south gate of Jicheng!

Shan Jing led the troops to Hulala and stormed Jicheng, and the news reached Gongsun Yue's side, he was anxious at that time, and hurriedly rushed to the south gate with the army, and then rushed into Jicheng after Bu Shan Jing......

On the tower of the South Gate, Liu He and Guo Jia looked coldly at the Gongsun Yue soldiers who were constantly pouring into the city, as if they were watching an old turtle crawl into the urn.

"Alas, Gongsun Yue, a fool, has not yet seen that Shan Jing's subordinates are actually pretending to be Xu Rongjun!" Liu He shook his head, looking down on a low-level opponent like Gongsun Yue.

Guo Jia reminded Liu He: "Don't be complacent too early. Although Gongsun Yue entered the urn, the nearly 20,000 subordinates of Gongsun Du outside the east gate were not so easy to clean up, and they didn't move at all tonight. ”

"I estimate that the army led by Tian Chou should have arrived on the east bank of Qiushui, and Zhang He also took advantage of the chaos inside and outside the city tonight to lead the army out of the city, even if these Liaodong cavalry run fast, I don't believe that they can continue to cross the two defense lines of Gushui and Qiushui!" (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the monthly ticket support of the book friend "Yu Si Mu Yu", and thank the book friend "Yu Piao Snow Rain" for your continuous reward!