Compared with the high mood and generous treatment of the Han soldiers, the Yellow Turban Army, which was surrounded by the Han army, was in a gloomy state.

In order to fight against the Han army, they paid a great price and sacrificed a lot, but the losses caused to the Han army were small, and their own losses were boundless.

The Han army's bizarre fire attack tactics burned their hilltop defenses to pieces, almost ineffective.

It has rained and snowed in the past few days, and the Han army has stopped the fire attack, and the fine weather for more than ten consecutive days has become the biggest reliance of the Han army.

They didn't know why the flames burned so hard, and they were so hard to put out with water, they had to suffocate with sand – but they were too inefficient.

Extinguishing fires can't keep up with the speed of arson, and sometimes a cold wind blows to expand the fire violently, and all the work done before is in vain, if you don't want to be burned to death, you can only give up the fortifications and flee for your life.

Fleeing, fleeing, soon fleeing became a habit, and when he saw the Han army advancing, he did not dare to resist, turned around and ran, almost losing the courage to fight.

For most of the past half a month, they have lost consecutive battles, and they have not won a single victory, and the biggest "victory" is that Sima Ju personally led the troops to attack the logistics of the Han army, but he did not do his best.

After that time, the Han army not only did not shrink the front, but strengthened the offensive, attacking more and more fiercely, the Yellow Turban Mountain and Yue coalition forces could not resist, retreated again and again, and the strength to take the initiative to attack was also exhausted.

Seeing that the Han army had compressed them to the vicinity of the lair, as long as they continued to attack, they could be completely wiped out, and at the critical moment, it rained.

After a rain and then heavy snowfall, the roads became muddy and the air became humid, so the Han army slowed down its attack, did not continue the fire attack, and set up camp on the spot and began to besiege.

Of course, this is a good thing, the Yellow Turbans were able to breathe, but in the midst of the respite, their mood was very low, and the negative effects of successive defeats suddenly exploded.

There were fierce internal contradictions within the Yellow Turban Army over the defeat in the battle, and the command position of Xu He and Sima Ju was strongly questioned.

They think that since the defeat of Xuzhou, the Yellow Turban Army has been moving all the way south, slumping, and even unable to achieve any effective victory against the Han army, isn't this a mistake at the command level?

I think that when they were in Xuzhou, they beat the Han army under Liu Yan to the point of miserable blood, at their peak, one-third of Xuzhou was their territory, but now?

They believe that Xu He, Sima Ju and others need to reflect on themselves and realize their mistakes.

The Danyang Shanyue side also suffered too much loss because of the Yellow Turban Army's wrong tactical guidance, and Fei Zhan was extremely dissatisfied and demanded that the Yellow Turban Army give compensation, otherwise they would no longer help them fight.

Sima Ju was angry at the time, and he didn't have a brain to speak, mocking Fei Zhan's wishful thinking, and asked Fei Zhan to think about what the situation was now, and now he had no other way to survive except to stand with the Yellow Turban Army and fight to the death.

And the benefits?!

At this time, you also want benefits, are you going to bring the benefits to the coffin?

Fei Zhan was so angry that he turned pale and threw his hand away, so the relationship between the two sides became stiff.

In the past few days when the Han army stopped attacking, the weather was very cold, and the people's hearts were also very cold, and what was even worse, the supplies began to be in short supply.

In order to supply the war, the materials previously stored on the mountain were consumed, many of which were burned or captured by the Han army, and the mountainous area controlled by the Yellow Turban Army fell into a state of minor famine, and in order to cope with this situation, Xu He had to order a rationing system.

The soldiers who are fighting on the front line are fully fed two meals a day, so that they have the strength to fight, and the command of the Yellow Turban Army can also eat two meals a day.

The rest of the people, men and women, young and old, can only eat one meal a day, and the food is still rationed, anyway, it is winter, and they are not expected to do any farm work, and they lie down to reduce the consumption of strength when there is nothing to do.

Unless there is a need to deliver supplies to the front, the transporter can eat an extra meal.

That's all.

Some people were worried that this would not work, so they suggested going to Fei Zhan's side to buy food, he must have a lot of food stocks there, but Fei Zhan ignored them and drove their people back directly.

The angry Sima Ju almost didn't bring his troops over to rob it.

It was Xu He who stopped Sima Ju.

"If you hadn't spoken too impulsively, Fei Zhan wouldn't have been like this, and now you're going to go to war with him? Is it open? Don't want to die? The Han army is still besieging us, so you want to fight in the nest? ”

Sima Ju lowered his head, stomped his feet hard, and left.

The days leading up to the Fifth Year Festival of Jian'an were the most difficult days for the entire Yellow Turban Army, and the weather was very cold, but they lacked food and clothing.

The front-line soldiers said that they could eat two meals a day, but the food was mainly porridge, and the content of rice grain was greatly reduced.

Seeing that this was not going to work, Xu He became more and more anxious, and he felt that he had to do something, otherwise if he continued like this, he would not be able to survive this New Year's Festival, and everyone would be finished.

So he found Sima Ju and some other generals to discuss taking advantage of the fact that the Han army could not use fire to attack these days, launch a strategic counteroffensive to reverse the decline in one fell swoop.

"Can it work? Everyone has no food to eat, no salt to eat, no strength, no people are empty, how can they fight? ”

"Unless you take out all the rest of the food, eat a big meal, raise enough strength, and then make a last fight, win and everything is fine, lose, we all have to die, gamble?"

"That's too much of a gamble, isn't it?"

"In this situation, what can you do if you don't gamble? Waiting to die? Or are you waiting for the Han army to starve to death before us? ”

A group of people discussed and discussed, but there was no result, Xu He had no choice but to order everyone to go to their respective defense areas to inspect, Xu He also went to the front line with Sima Ju to inspect and observe the movements of the Han army.

Two days before the Critical New Year's Festival, Xu He and Sima Ju were patrolling the front line, and before they reached the front hills, they smelled a faint aroma.

"Where does the smell of meat come from? Someone caught a wild thing? On the barbecue? ”

Xu He sniffled, smelling the increasingly obvious aroma of meat in the air, and asked his subordinates curiously.

The subordinate smiled bitterly.

Also wild?

These days, the soldiers have exhausted everything they can eat in the mountains, and they are almost three feet into the ground, and even the rats and snakes in the holes have been caught and eaten, and the bark of the trees is almost stripped naked.

"It's the Han army, the Han army camp has been steaming for a long time, and it's been cooking, and the aroma is the aroma of all kinds of meat from there, and when the wind blows, it floats to our side, everyone is very greedy, and the saliva is going to flow into a big river."

When Xu He heard this, he and Sima Ju glanced at each other, and they both saw the solemn look in each other's eyes.

So the two of them quickly arrived at the front hill, and under the protection of the soldiers, they climbed high and looked into the distance, and could see the steaming appearance of the Han army camp around the other hill.

"They're eating stew?"

"Maybe, it's the New Year's Day after that, it seems that the Han army plans to celebrate the New Year here."

“………………”

Xu He was silent.

Seeing the appearance of the soldiers around him twitching their noses and swallowing saliva, Xu He lowered his head, turned around and walked back.

Sima Ju sniffed for a while, and also followed Xu He's footsteps.

"What now? It seems that the Han army will not be withdrawn at all, and the supply of materials is also sufficient, and they can eat stewed meat, we have eaten here without the next meal, just like that, I dare not say how long we can last, at most ten days and half a month, we will run out of food. ”

Xu He was silent for a while, walked slowly for a while, and then slowly stopped.

"The Han army is showing off, demonstrating, using the aroma of meat as a weapon, attacking our defensive line, and we have already lost before we have a short hand-to-hand battle."

"This ......"

"Hold on to it these days, after the New Year's Festival, send someone to discuss with Fei Zhan, apologize, buy some food from him, he is a sensible person, he should also know, without us, he will not have a good end, let's hold on a little longer, we should be able to carry it."

"Okay."

Sima Ju didn't say anything more, and left the front line with Xu He.

Although their mood is very low, I have to say-

The smell of meat from the Han army is really fragrant.

(End of chapter)