The once prosperous county town of Puyang is now particularly deserted.

As a large county on the south bank of the Great River, the city had a population of more than 100,000 in the past, but now the city is crowded with more than 100,000 Northern Zhou soldiers, and it has become a large camp of the Northern Zhou army.

The city gate that was burned down during the siege has been repaired completely, and the brick wall blackened by smoke and fire can still be seen on the city gate, and some soldiers on the city wall are repairing the city under the command of the officer, and this will be the county town under the rule of the Northern Zhou Dynasty in the future.

Although the county town of Puyang was very damaged during the retreat of the Xia army, the main city wall and the houses in the city were not damaged much after all, so it is the best place to live in terms of safety and winter cold.

Because the county guard in the city had been burned down by fire, Wei Chi Hui chose a relatively intact rich merchant residence after entering the city and settled it, which temporarily became the location of Wei Chi Hui's Chinese army.

While the soldiers of the Zhou army inside and outside the city were discussing the battle situation in front of them, Wei Chi Hui smashed the contents in his study, because the front army sent to pursue and retreat the Xia army yesterday was actually ambushed and suffered heavy losses.

In the nearly 20 days when Wei Chi Hui attacked Puyang County, because Yuan Jia used a large number of weapons such as trebuchets, rockets, thunderbolts, and even gunpowder packs, Yu Chi Hui lost more than 20,000 soldiers under his command, but in the end, he only captured Puyang City, which was already empty.

Although Gaoping County occupied by Yu Wenjian, the king of the South Road, was also empty, but because the number of Xia troops defending Gaoping County was small, the losses of the army under Yu Wenjian were relatively small, and the Xia army of Puyang County seemed to be fighting against themselves, and even the cavalry had more than 40,000 people.

If it weren't for the strong strength of the Northern Zhou Dynasty now, the abundant war horse resources after occupying a large number of horse breeding land, and the fact that it seemed rich in cavalry, otherwise it would really not be as good as the cavalry of the Xia army.

As the main force of the army, Wei Chi Hui commanded 150,000 soldiers, 50,000 cavalry, in the case of more than 100,000 Xia troops defending with all their might, even fought in disgrace, and finally when the Xia army withdrew from Puyang City, the Zhou army that tried to pursue was also beaten a counterattack, and lost nearly 10,000 people again, which was really too embarrassing.

In the face of the continuous retreat of the Xia army, Wei Chi Hui couldn't help frowning, this time the Xia army withdrew for more than 200 miles, and withdrew to the front line of Jeju and Jibei County, where the Northern Qi army confronted it, obviously preparing to fight a decisive battle with himself here.

Wei Chi knew that it was here that the Sanqi side blocked the first round of offensive of the Northern Qi army and successively wiped out hundreds of thousands of Northern Qi troops.

Although the battle between the Xia army and the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Northern Qi Dynasty ended in failure, Wei Chi Yuan did not have the slightest intention of underestimating it, because he himself knew that the Northern Qi was able to defeat the Xia army and finally recover most of the three Qi, or relying on the advantage of drastic weather changes.

At that time, the commander of the Qi army, Hu Lawyers' Association, learned that the weather was about to change through a Futu monk who was good at astronomy, so he made preparations, even if it failed, it would be a big deal to attack the Xia army again in Jibei County, so this factor cannot be replicated.

In addition, now that the Xia army has emptied West Yanzhou, Yongchang County, Puyang County, and Gaoping County in one go, the more than 200,000 troops of Wei Chi Hui and Yu Wenjian cannot replenish food supplies from here.

In order to obtain a sufficient supply of grain and grass, it is necessary to transport it through these hundreds of miles, not only to draw a large number of people from the rear, but also to deploy a large number of troops along the route to defend the grain route.

As soon as he thought of this, Wei Chi Yu felt very powerless in his heart, it was so difficult for the Northern Zhou Dynasty, which was so powerful, to support his hundreds of thousands of troops, didn't Wang Yong have to spend any money when he moved these people? That's tens of millions of people!

If it were someone else, Wei Chi might think it was forced persecution, but wasn't the King of Sanqi always known for loving the people? These four counties used to be prosperous and wealthy states and counties, with at least more than 2 million people, and even if some of them are relocated now, there will be at least 780,000 people, right?

After all, Wei Chi Hui couldn't understand how rich the Xia Kingdom was today, nor did he understand how much grain storage the Xia Kingdom brought about by the extremely high production efficiency brought by the production of large farms and large pastures, not to mention that the Xia Kingdom also had marine ranches all over the world that could catch a large number of fish.

If Wang Ze knew Wei Chi's doubts, he would definitely show off to him: The mortals of the local tyrant world don't understand after all!

Although shocked by Wang Yong's generosity, Wei Chi Hui was even more troubled in his heart, if his army continued to advance eastward, the number of people requisitioned and issued would at least double, and the consumption of transporting grain to the front line would also double, at least until the Northern Zhou Navy had the strength to defeat the Xia State Navy, this situation should not be changed.

Fortunately, at present, the military resources of the Northern Zhou army are all along the Weishui into the Yellow River, and then transferred to Jishui in Northern Yuzhou, and transported to West Yanzhou, so that they are transported to Puyang County by land, and the consumption of materials is not as great as in the past. Raindrop Book House

Thinking of this, Wei Chi Yu suddenly thought that in the past few days, the next batch of supplies should also be transported from West Yanzhou, right?

"The general is not good!" Just as Wei Chi Hui was thinking about this, someone suddenly shouted anxiously outside the big tent, which made Yu Chi Hui's heart suddenly 'chuckle', is it really afraid of something?

"Panicking, what's going on?" Wei Chi looked at the captain in front of him with displeasure and said, "The most taboo in the military camp is to shout, if you lie about the military situation, you will be beheaded!" ”

"General, our fleet transporting military rations and materials was blocked by the Sanqi Navy on Daze, and the fleet was wiped out, only the Navy General Dugusheng escaped!"

Just one sentence shocked Wei Chi Yu and left him speechless for a long time, and after a long time, he held back his anger and asked: "Wasn't it arranged a long time ago, and all the materials, grain and grass in the rear will be transported to West Yanzhou, and then you must not continue to advance eastward?" Why did he dare to disobey orders? ”

The young lieutenant who was stared at by Wei Chi was so frightened that his face turned pale, but he could still speak, "Dugu Sheng, the general of the naval army who is responsible for transporting grain and grass, thinks that West Yanzhou is too far away from Puyang County, and the materials consumed are too much, if you can land directly from Daze, the distance from Puyang County can be shortened by at least half!" ”

After hearing this, Wei Chi sighed: "Stupid! Don't they know how powerful the Xia Army's naval army is? There is still the courage to enter Daze directly, and our front army still has more than ten days of grain and grass, so let the rear hurry up and continue to expedite the delivery of grain and grass! ”

Jishui is in the west of West Yanzhou, because the river here is not so wide, so the Xia army ships adapted to the sea are inconvenient to move after entering this section of the river, and they can easily be set on fire by the Northern Zhou Dynasty using fireboats.

Therefore, in this section of the river, the Northern Zhou naval army has the advantage, and the water surface is controlled by the Northern Zhou, and after the section from West Yanzhou to Daze, because the water surface is much wider, the depth of the river can also ensure the activities of Sea Shark-class warships and sea foxes.

Therefore, when the careless Northern Zhou Navy escorted the grain ship in, it was soon discovered by the Xia Army sailors who were cruising here, so soon the grain and grass escorted by the Northern Zhou Navy became the trophies of the Xia Army.

At this time, the Northern Zhou army had captured Puyang County for three days, and Wei Chi Yuan was originally going to continue to attack eastward in these two days, but after losing the grain and grass needed by the army, he had to stop the plan to continue to advance eastward.

He must wait for the arrival of grain and grass in the rear in Puyang City, the people take food as the sky, and even the army can only persist in fighting under the premise of ensuring sufficient food and grass supply.

But Wei Chi's troubles were not over, and at this time, Yu Wenjian, the king of the South Road army, also sent him an urgent letter, and there were some problems with him.

According to the first military combat arrangement, after Yu Wenjian captured Gaoping County and Yanzhou City, he originally had to cooperate with Wei Chi Hui to attack Jibei County in the north, so that the more than 200,000 people of the Northern Zhou army were divided into two ways to attack, and Yu Wenjian should threaten the flank of Jibei County after capturing Dongping County, and the Xia army there would inevitably not be able to withstand such an offensive.

But now these circumstances have changed, because Nan Chen, who had not moved at all, began to sit still, and they continued to increase their troops in Pengcheng County and other places, so Yu Wenjian had to stay and defend the line of Yanzhou, Gaoping County, and Yongchang County to protect the flank of the Northern Zhou army.

Yu Wenjian had to leave the army to guard these cities, and also to guard the grain roads in the rear, so at least 60,000 troops were needed, plus the number of nearly 10,000 people lost by Yu Wenjian's troops in the previous battle.

In this way, he could only send a maximum of 30,000 troops to support Wei Chi Yuan's attack on Jeju County, 30,000 people seemed to be a lot of numbers, but the role played in this kind of general battle of hundreds of thousands of people was far less effective than the previous 100,000 people.

As soon as he thought of this, Wei Chi Hui's face suddenly became embarrassed, but he also knew that Yu Wenjian's approach was right, otherwise when his hundreds of thousands of troops were fighting against the Xia army on the front line, suddenly hundreds of thousands of troops from Nan Chen attacked him from the rear, and the Northern Zhou army would definitely be defeated.

However, things soon took a turn for the better, after Wei Chi Hui waited for ten days, he suddenly sent tens of thousands of sets of heavy infantry full body armor from Xiangzhou, north of the big river, which were made in the past six months, plus the heavy infantry under Wei Chi Yuan, he already had 20,000 heavy infantry.

In the cavalry, another 3,000 sets of armored cavalry equipment were also sent, so that Wei Chi Yuan could equip the cavalry under his command with 5,000 armored cavalry troops, but what surprised Wei Chi Yuan the most was nothing else, but a batch of secret weapons personally escorted by Yu Wenyong, a royal general.

After learning of this weapon, Wei Chi was overjoyed, after learning the number of this weapon, he swept away the past fears, and began to command the army to continue to advance eastward, he wanted to annihilate the Sanqi Xia army in Jibei County before the year.