Chapter 251 Nanchang Raiders

Zhuge Ke had no choice but to ask Lu Xun for help, but Lu Xun didn't have time to pay attention to him, because there were more troublesome things waiting for him now. He just received the news that the Shu general Huang Xu sent 30,000 troops in Guiyang, and he had already broken through Luling, and now he was approaching Yuzhang.

Sure enough, as Sima Yi expected, although Luling borders Shu State, but Wu State does not have many defenders stationed here, it is estimated that they also think that Guiyang is a place where birds do not, and the Shu army will not pay much attention to it, and there will not be many Shu troops here, plus the domestic army has been disabled by the Shu army, there is really no extra force to waste in Luling.

Liu Hou's idea was completely different, he stationed an elite army and heavy troops in Guiyang, not only to insert a knife in the back of Dongwu at a critical moment, but also to prevent the Dongwu people from breaking into Lingnan through the Guò Lingnan Ancient Road.

At this moment, the Eastern Wu court was shaken, and Sun Quan was also shocked, and issued a decree again and again for Lu Xun to hurry up and find a way to deal with it. Although Luling is also the grain-producing area of Eastern Wu, because the place is relatively remote, it is not very important to lose it.

But Yuzhang is different, this is already the hinterland of Eastern Wu, of course, it is also an important grain-producing area, this place is very important, and it is really not to be missed. If this place is lost again, together with the line of Chibi, plus Changsha, Hengyang and other places that were robbed by Liu Hou before, Dongwu will lose one-third of its territory, which is not a joke.

After Lu Xun heard the bad news, he also hurriedly responded, on the one hand, he ordered the Yuzhang County Guard to immediately organize a local garrison to actively resist the invaders, and on the other hand, he had to send another 30,000 elite soldiers from the naval army to the south to meet the enemy. So far, the 200,000 sailors have gone to 70,000, and Sima Yi's strategy has been half successful.

Yuzhang's county guard is also a capable person, he mobilized the local garrison, and organized all the "volunteers", baoding, and even strong men in various villages and townships, which can be enough for 50,000 horses. These "volunteers", baoding, and strong men are actually militiamen, and of course, those local garrisons are actually similar to the militia, and these people are nothing but strength.

When Huang Xu led his army to Nanchang City, the seat of Yuzhang County, the 50,000 militiamen had already gathered in the city. Huang Xu didn't work hard to attack the city, just itching to attack every day, yes, it's an itching attack not a feint, I didn't make a mistake, it means, send a small number of people to attack the city every day without pain, and maintain a certain pressure on the city.

However, the large army of the Shu army was resting on the spot, recuperating and waiting. The officials may raise objections at this time, since ancient times, the three armies have not moved the grain and grass first, and tens of thousands of troops have consumed the grain in the sea every day, so every general hopes to end the war as much as possible to save food when he fights. Huang Xu's doing this is unreasonable.

Why does it cost more food to fight a war than not to fight? Soldiers are still those soldiers, don't they usually have to eat, but only eat when they fight? Isn't it that when there is a war, because some people die, food is consumed a little less?

The answer is that the army at this time, the food supply in peacetime is very small, and the soldiers often do not have enough to eat, and only when the war is fought, the food will be openly supplied, so that the soldiers can eat enough.

After all, if they are not fed at this time, the soldiers will not have the strength to fight, and they will even cause a mutiny. If the battle is lost, the generals will also be unlucky, so even if the generals who deduct their salaries again, they will not dare to deduct the soldiers' rations at this critical moment.

Of course, there is also an explanation that fighting a war is a high-intensity physical activity, and the soldiers consume more energy and eat more food. When training is not required in peacetime, soldiers consume less energy and eat less. This is one of the reasons why many troops are not training. This has also caused the strange phenomenon that many armies consume a lot more food than usual during a major war, or even double it. In other words, soldiers can only eat half full in peacetime, and can only eat full in battle.

But the Shu army is different, the soldiers of the Shu army usually maintain a high-intensity training amount, and their food supply is also sufficient, so whether they fight or not, for them, the food consumed is about the same. Therefore, whether Huang Xu's army stayed in the barracks in Guiyang or stationed under the city of Nanchang, the food consumed was about the same.

The only difference is the cost of transportation. In this era of inconvenient transportation, the transportation of grain mostly relies on manpower, and it is often necessary to supply the amount of food for many people on the front line, and it costs the same amount of food to supply the strong men of the baggage team to eat on the road. However, Huang Xu had no intention of wasting these transportation costs.

He had already made a plan before he sent his troops, not to transport military rations from Guiyang to supply the army, he would rely on the enemy's food. To put it mildly, it is to plunder food in the enemy's territory. Along the way, he occupied several county towns and emptied all the treasury inside, so that their supply of grain and grass was very sufficient.

Fearing that this would be a protracted war, Huang Xu also sent people to some nearby county towns that were still in the hands of the Soochow to ask for grain and grass. There are not many people who go, as long as each county sends one or two thousand people to intimidate, often many county orders will open the city and surrender.

Even if they don't surrender, they will send some grain out to "send these plague gods out of the country", and the Shu soldiers don't even have to do it themselves to carry grain and grass, and they have these county orders to organize local strong men to do it for them.

This method will allow the Shu army to not have to worry about food for a few months. Of course, if it takes longer, Huang Xu will either not withdraw from the army, or he will have to consider collecting food from the people, but the little emperor of Shu has always been kind to the people, if he knows that he has robbed the people, there will be no good fruit to eat in the future, and Huang Xu will not do it until the point of last resort.

Huang Xujun passively attacked the city every day, and Nanchang City held out in panic for more than a month. However, in the past month or so, although Huang Xujun did not dispatch firearms and did not attack the city with all his might, the defenders of Nanchang still suffered heavy casualties. Originally, the low-intensity siege of the Shu army would not cause much casualties to the defenders.

But ten days after the start of the war, some craftsmen rushed to the Shu army camp and began to make zuò stone throwers from local materials. Of course, Huang Xu was reluctant to use firearms in this kind of battle, because it was difficult to replenish firearms. But a stone thrower is different. The main raw material for making a stone-throwing machine is wood, and there are a lot of forests nearby, and you can cut down thick trees at will, and it only takes a little manpower to build a stone-throwing machine.

The "ammunition" of the catapult is just stones, mud balls and other things that can be obtained everywhere, and there is no cost, and making a catapult siege is simply a good thing. Therefore, Huang Xucai urgently transferred a large number of craftsmen to make stone throwers day and night.

Although he didn't plan to attack the city with all his might, he certainly wouldn't let it go if there was a way to reduce the casualties of his soldiers. So, in a month, dozens of stone throwers were erected outside Nanchang City, and they carried out mud and stone work in the city day and night.

However, the method of carrying it was a bit rough, and it always fell from the sky, and the defenders of the city were killed and injured by these littered mud or stone balls. However, the emperor lived up to his wishes, and after more than a month of hard work, he finally made them wait for reinforcements.