Liu Bei didn't know what Dong Chong, Huan Dian and the others had said, and seriously, he didn't care about that.

All the insects can do is to jump around on this one-third of an acre of land in Luoyang City, and they have never had a long-term vision.

Their so-called long-term, no matter what, can only be limited to the portal's private schemes, and they are here.

After he led his troops on the expedition, he had his army march as fast as possible, quickly crossing the Yellow River into Hanoi County, and then marching from Hanoi County to Wei County.

By the time he arrived near Wei County, Dong Zhuo's subordinate Zhonglang General Niu Fu had already led his army along Zhangshui and advanced to Jiuhou City to the west of Yecheng, where he confronted the army led by Yuan Shao's subordinates, and could not achieve victory for a while.

After Liu Bei learned of this, he led the army from the south bank of Zhangshui to approach Yecheng, and after learning the news, he was very worried, so he took the initiative to retreat from Jiuhou City and return to Yecheng, closed the city and defended it, and did not go out of the city to fight with Liu Bei.

This time Yuan Shao went out to fight, leaving an army of 5,000 people to defend Yecheng, after another general, Zhou Ang, led the army to confront Dong Zhuo's army in Sheguo County, but after Dong Zhuo's army took the initiative to attack, Zhou Ang was defeated and could only retreat.

If it weren't for the arrival of Liu Bei's army, the trial did not intend to give up Jiuhou City, but Liu Bei led an army of 50,000 to come, and if he didn't let it, Yecheng would be gone.

Despite this, he still has more than 13,000 troops left, and the city of Yecheng is tall, the moat is wide and deep, and the food is sufficient, as long as the city is not breached, it will not be a problem to fight for a year or two, so the judge has a good heart.

He made up his mind to defend to the death, wait for Yuan Shao to make a name for himself in the north, and then bring reinforcements from the Xianbei and Wuhuan people to relieve the siege.

That's their plan.

Before Yuan Shao sent his troops to the north, he held a military meeting, and everyone discussed, once Liu Bei led the troops to raid, the head-on confrontation would definitely not be defeated, so it could only be dealt with the tall, wide and deep Yecheng, making it difficult for Liu Bei to break through Yecheng, and buying time for the main force led by Yuan Shao to break through Gongsun Zan in Youzhou.

As long as Gongsun Zan is defeated, Yuan Shao will be able to crisscross Youzhou, join forces with the Xianbei people and Wuhuan people, and then take a large number of troops south to Yecheng to fight Liu Bei, seeking an opportunity to defeat Liu Bei, so that the situation can be reversed.

And the key to all this is to be based on the ability to block Liu Bei's offensive in Yecheng, so that Liu Bei does not dare to lead the army to continue north, he needs to be tough enough and tough enough to fight back against all of Liu Bei's offensives.

As long as this nail is not pulled out, Liu Bei's logistics route will always be unsafe, and he will not dare to go north, so even if Liu Yu and Qiao Mao's army can break the army of Yuan Shao's generals who are fighting against them, it will not hurt.

Liu Bei is the most dangerous, as long as Liu Bei doesn't come, he is not afraid of anything.

After Liu Bei and Niu Fu joined forces, they observed the state of Yecheng's city defense and the surrounding situation here, and came to the conclusion that Yecheng could not be broken in a short time.

"There are many soldiers and horses, the city wall is tall, the moat is wide and deep, if you want to attack, you have to pay a huge price for every step forward, this is not appropriate, our goal in this battle is Youzhou, we want to go to Youzhou to encircle and suppress Yuan Shao and Xianbei people, Wuhuan people, we can't lose too much here."

Liu Bei first vetoed the siege.

The generals and senior staff officers under his command made their own tricks and made their own suggestions to design for Liu Bei to deal with Yecheng, including but not limited to the supernatural powers such as attacking the east and the west, hiding the sky and crossing the sea.

But Liu Bei felt that it was not appropriate, it all depended on luck, and it was not suitable.

He tried to send someone to persuade him to demote the match, saying that he and his family's lives could be safed no matter what, but the trial refused.

He had heard of Liu Bei's reputation for heavy promises, and he didn't suspect that Liu Bei was lying to himself, but he didn't think he could live safely, he didn't believe in the eunuchs, and he didn't believe in the people around Liu Bei, and he was sure that he wouldn't end well.

He didn't embarrass Liu Bei's envoy and asked the envoy to come back with a message.

"My ending, except for dying in Yecheng, is to watch the general defeat in Yecheng, there is no third possibility."

The answer of the trial angered many people under Liu Bei's command, and everyone thought that this person was arrogant and should teach him a lesson, and the hot-tempered generals asked Ying to lead troops to besiege Yecheng.

Their anger was suppressed by Liu Bei.

"How can the field elite I have worked so hard to train be lost under the city? Our real enemy is still in the north, still raging in Youzhou, and the army must not stop here, and cannot consume its forces here. ”

That being said, but there has to be a way, otherwise it will really stop here and not be able to move forward.

After thinking about it for a long time, when Liu Bei stood on the hill and looked at the well-guarded Yecheng, he suddenly thought of something.

He remembered that Cao Cao attacked Yecheng, and it took half a year to defeat it, and finally he relied on Neiying Kaicheng to surrender, but before that, Cao Cao did one more thing.

In the face of the long-lasting fortified city, Cao Cao did not go up, did not let Yecheng become a meat grinder, but gave up the onslaught, besieged the city with water, cut off the communication inside and outside Yecheng, and turned the offensive, which made Yecheng fall into a trap and lay the foundation for the final surrender of Kaicheng.

Yecheng is close to Zhangshui, and the moat comes from Zhangshui, so the moat is wide and deep, and there is no need to worry about the depletion of the water source, and this winter is not very cold, the water surface has not frozen, if you want to attack, you must pay a heavy price.

But if it is the other way around, using Zhangshui to counter-encircle Yecheng and cut off internal and external communications, then Yecheng will lose its practical value as a nail in his logistics route and become a meaningless dead city.

Liu Bei's army does not need to spend a lot of troops to carefully besiege the city, only need to use a small number of troops to defend this place and maintain the counter-encirclement, so if the Yecheng defenders want to pose a threat to Liu Bei's rear, they need to take the initiative to attack, otherwise everyone will spend it here, and see who can consume whom.

Do you have a year's or two year's worth of grain in your city, and another three or four years?

Can people in the city never leave the city?

Or do you think you're Diaoyu City?

No one can guarantee this kind of thing.

So Liu Bei immediately discussed this idea with his subordinates, and after the subordinates heard about it, they thought about it and went to the field separately to investigate, and found that this matter seemed to be really a possibility.

So a group of people discussed and discussed, and also did some mathematical calculations, and found professional and technical personnel in the army to discuss, conduct project evaluation, and finally came to a conclusion.

Feasible.

Just do it, Liu Bei's execution is extremely strong, and he immediately called the generals over to assign tasks, and the generals went to the subordinate officers to assign tasks, assigned the tasks in place layer by layer, and then began to act.

Two days later, more than 50,000 troops joined in with Niu Fu's army, and a large number of people and more than 100,000 people were dispatched to operate together, and a ditch was dug outside the moat of Yecheng from scratch.

The excavation period lasted for two days, and during these two days, the strange behavior of the besieging army puzzled the defending army.

The judge climbed the city tower to watch this situation, and at first he didn't understand it very well, and laughed at Liu Bei's army to his face, saying that they were poor in donkey skills, and the world's famous generals were nothing more than that, so as to boost morale.

A day later, the judge reacted and realized that Liu Bei might be doing something bad.

When he finally figured it out, Liu Bei's excavation operation had also come to an end, and he was shocked, and immediately opened the city gate to send troops out of the city to fight, and was caught by Zhang Fei, who had already prepared for an attack.

Zhang Fei led the elite iron cavalry to attack, and defeated Zhou Ang's troops who went out of the city to try to sabotage the operation, if it weren't for the trial match to release arrows at the head of the city to stop Zhang Fei's pursuit, Zhang Fei would have been able to rush into the city and fight to the death with the trial match.

The action to stop going out of the city failed, and it was almost pushed back, and the trial match no longer dared to attack out of the city, and the attack at the head of the city could not reach such a distance, so he could only watch Liu Bei complete the excavation, and then introduce Zhangshui.

The anti-siege operation was successful.

In less than five days, Liu Bei completed the counter-encirclement of Yecheng, cut off the internal and external traffic of Yecheng, made Yecheng completely a lonely city, and completely no threat to the back road of Liu Bei's army - as long as Liu Bei's army was not brain-dead enough to be defended.

After that, Liu Bei decisively handed over the task of continuing to defend and besieging Yecheng to Niu Fu, and Niu Fu only needed to do one thing.

Do everything you can, do everything you can to trap this city.

That's it.

Niu Fu said - I am familiar with this, and you will give it to me!

So Liu Bei led the army on the second day of December in the sixth year of Zhongping and continued to go north.

On this way to the north, he never encountered a city with strong defensive forces and defensive preparations like Yecheng, and the garrison of most cities was only a few hundred people, which was not enough to affect the advance of Liu Bei's army.

Despite this, Liu Bei's original idea of settling the war before the end of the sixth year of Zhongping was no longer realized, and the entry of the Xianbei and Wuhuan people made the pressure for the war to end early.

At the same time that Liu Bei led his troops north, Liu Yu and Qiao Mao, who had received Liu Bei's orders, also ordered their troops to attack according to the instructions.

(End of chapter)