Nearly 200,000 troops gathered in the south of Chenliu, and each other's commanders were all strategic, and this battle of Chenliu was destined to be impossible to end in a short time.

The two sides are fighting.

Compared with Chen Liu's attack and defense, the battle on Dongjun's side is much simpler.

Wei Yan led 40,000 troops to attack Puyang, the 11,000-guarded county of Dongjun, and after nearly a month of fierce fighting, the two sides suffered mutual damage.

Wei Yan's side suffered nearly 4,000 casualties because of the siege, and Guo Huai, who defended the city, also paid more than 2,000 casualties, and the strength of the defending force fell below 10,000 again.

In fact, Wei Yan and Guo Huai at this time both had a bit of a headache.

Wei Yan's headache is that if he continues to attack like this, although he is still sure that he will be able to capture Puyang, it is a bit difficult to say what the casualties will be.

At this time, Jiang Wei proposed that he lead 10,000 soldiers and horses to besiege Puyang City, and let Wei Yan lead the remaining more than 20,000 people to attack Suozao and Yanjin to cut off the back road of the Wei army in Yanzhou.

This approach is theoretically feasible, and with the current defensive forces of Sujuo and Yanjin, it is not a problem for Wei Yan to capture these two places at all.

The real problem is to hold on to these two places.

Puyang City was not down, it was like a nail stuck in the passage between Dong'e and Suojube, and Wei Yan's logistics supply channel was choked.

Wei Yan now doesn't know how much grain and grass are hoarded in the sour dates and Yanjin, whether it is enough for more than 20,000 Han troops to eat, so it is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of logistics channels.

Although it is said that Jiang Wei is responsible for leading the troops to contain it, with Guo Huai's ability, it is not impossible to succeed in dividing a small number of troops out of the city to sneak attack the grain transportation team.

And that's just one of them.

Second, the sour jujube and Yanjin were lost, and Sima Yi, who was left in Chenliu, would inevitably withdraw his troops and return to the defense and counterattack the sour jujube.

In terms of troops, Wei Yan is sure that he can hold out for a while, but it is still a matter of food and grass. In the case of being besieged by Sima Yi, how can there be enough grain and grass to support Wei Yan to defend until the arrival of Xu Shu's main army.

The plan given by Jiang Wei was actually thought of by Wei Yan, but this plan was a bit too risky and far-fetched, even Wei Yan didn't dare to use such a risky strategy.

Available now. Wei Yan once again considered the feasibility of this combat plan.

After all, if you attack Puyang and cause serious damage to your troops, even if you can capture Puyang, I am afraid that you will not have enough troops to continue to march towards Suozao and Yanjin.

Not to mention, he also had to block Sima Yi's counterattack.

Instead of falling into passivity at that time, it is better to take advantage of the strength that still has to go and fight.

It's just that Wei Yan is still somewhat influenced by his old partner Zhang Xi, and he is now finally assessing how risky it is to do so, and whether it is worth it.

And Guo Huai's side, in fact, Guo Huai doesn't want to stick to Puyang anymore.

The morale of the military is a little unbearable.

At present, there are still about 9,000 soldiers guarding the city in Puyang City, and purely from the perspective of troops, it is still possible to hold on for another month or so.

But the problem is that the city has been besieged for a long time, the soldiers have suffered heavy casualties, and the morale of the defenders in the city has dropped very seriously.

From the perspective of outsiders, you will see that there are still 9,000 defenders in Puyang City, and it is not that they have the ability to fight, but from Guo Huai's point of view, he knows very well how many defenders have been killed and injured in the city since Puyang City was besieged.

In the early stage, when Xiahou and he were guarding Puyang, he had already suffered more than 6,000 casualties, and more than 2,000 people were killed and injured in the process of defending the city. That's eight or nine thousand.

Counting Guo Huai's reinforcements, Puyang City should have been guarded by 20,000 people.

Nearly half of the casualties were lost.

If Guo Huai hadn't led his troops to help him halfway and entered Puyang City first, the current military heart of Puyang City would have collapsed long ago.

In this era, there are very few armies that can survive more than half of the casualties without collapsing. As far as Guo Huai knows, maybe only the Great Wei Forbidden Army in the early years can do it.

Puyang City can be defended until now, on the one hand, it is because they saw Guo Huai leading troops to help, and the defending soldiers realized that Great Wei did not abandon them and had the courage to continue fighting, on the other hand, since Guo Huai can lead troops to help, then others may also lead troops to rescue Puyang at any time.

The defenders have hope, and naturally they have the courage to continue to hold on.

Can. It has been another month since Guo Huai led the troops to rescue Puyang City, and the strength of the defenders of the city has dropped to less than 10,000 again, but his own reinforcements have not been seen for a long time.

In this case, it is not surprising that the morale of the Puyang defenders began to decline.

Therefore, Guo Huai had to think about whether if he continued to defend like this, when would the defenders' military spirit be unable to hold on, and whether it would completely collapse to take advantage of the current military morale to break through and retreat to the sour date.

After all, Guo Huai led the troops to come to the rescue, and the bottom line was to hold the sour dates and Yanjin.

Puyang City, if it can be defended, it is naturally better, but if it can't be defended, retreating to sour jujube and Yanjin is also within Guo Huai's choice.

And Guo Huai is also hesitating, after all, Puyang City still has the advantage of city defense, and there is no need to worry about the supply of grain and grass in a short time. Jujube and Yanjin do not have this condition.

Abandoning Puyang is also a matter that Guo Huai needs to make a careful choice.

The two lords had concerns about each other, so the battle of Puyang lasted for another ten days.

After these ten days, Wei Yan and Guo Huai were a little unable to sit still.

The casualties on both sides are still increasing, because Wei Yan is the besieging party, even if he leads the elite of the elite, he can't stand the disadvantage of the besieging side in front of the city wall defense, and it is already a very rebellious thing to control the battle loss ratio of two to one.

On Guo Huai's side, Wei Yan's casualties of 2,000 were still calm, and the number of defenders on his side dropped from 9,000 to 8,000, and his morale was declining in a ladder.

What's even worse is that on the eleventh day, Guo Huai looked from afar on the city tower and found that the Shu thief camp outside the city began to change.

Some of the Shu thieves began to clean up the camp, which was to pull out the village and retreat, while the other part of the Shu thieves were still under the command of the Shu general Jiang Wei and were in battle in Puyang City.

It wasn't necessarily a siege, but it was definitely in case the defenders inside the city rushed out to interfere.

Such an obvious situation, with Guo Huai's eyes, it is impossible not to see that the Shu thieves are going to divide their troops.

So the question is that the Shu thieves divide the troops, who leads the troops, how many troops, and where are they going?!

Guo Huai suddenly had a rather bad premonition in his heart.

And this premonition did not last too long, but in half a morning, two-thirds of the Shu thieves camp outside the city was demolished, especially the Shu thieves who besieged the east gate, and they had already withdrawn completely.

It is an obvious indication that the Shu thief has indeed divided his troops, and the main general who has divided his troops and left, or Wei Yan, what does this mean?!

Wei Yan, as the commander of the first army, did not stay under Puyang City, which shows that the current Puyang City is no longer the main target of the Shu thieves. Within a radius of 100 miles, the only strategic targets worthy of the Shu thief lord's attack are the two places of Sujube and Yanjin.

The Shu thieves are going to divide their troops to attack Suojube or Yanjin.

In these two places, Guo Huai really didn't dare to take it lightly.

First, this is the back passage of the entire Yanzhou Wei army, with huge strategic value, and secondly, the total strength of the defenders in those two places is less than 6,000 people.

Yes, if he defended Puyang, he could indeed bury nails in Wei Yan's grain and grass channel, but if the Shu thief really relied on the sour dates and Yanjin's grain storage, he would completely cut off Sima Yi's retreat. Then there is a fart meaning for this Puyang guard.

Wei Yan also has to gamble on whether he can keep the sour dates, Guo Huai doesn't dare to bet on Wei Yan about his possibility, because once the bet is lost, the nearly 100,000 Wei troops in Yanzhou will completely become a turtle in the urn.

At least from the perspective of the overall strategy, Guo Huai still believes that the value of sour dates and Yanjin is much more important than this Puyang City.

Coupled with the change in the morale of the defenders in Puyang City, Guo Huai also had to make his own decisions.

Organize soldiers, break through the siege and march westward, preempt Wei Yan, and enter the sour jujube defense.

Moreover, the speed must be fast and the action must be concealed.

The Shu thieves outside the city are leaving in batches, and Guo Huai doesn't have that much time.

That night, Guo Huai directly ordered the soldiers to assemble, carry dry food and necessary ordnance, and prepare for a breakthrough.

The next day, when the sky was just dawning, Guo Huai ordered to ignite the grain and grass in the city, burn the grain and grass, and then under the cover of this sudden change, open the south city gate, break through the south city gate where the Shu thieves had relatively few troops, and make a detour to the west.

Jiang Wei, who was at the East City Gate, was indeed a little unprepared for this.

It's not that Jiang Wei didn't expect Guo Huai to break through from the south city gate, but Jiang Wei didn't calculate that Guo Huai was so ruthless and set fire to his own grain and grass in the city.

It's a pity that these grains and grass were burned, let's just say that if this fire spreads, how many people will die in Puyang City.

Therefore, after Jiang Wei noticed the fire in Puyang City and Guo Huai's breakthrough, he hesitated slightly, and finally chose to give up the pursuit and enter the city to fight the fire first.

On the one hand, it is for the people in the city, and on the other hand, it is also for the supply of grain and grass.

After all, Wei Yan and the others were still fighting in the heart of the enemy, and Guo Huai was willing to burn this kind of grain and grass supply, but Jiang Wei was not willing to waste it.

(End of chapter)