When Wang Lin's battle letter was conveyed to Wu Mingche's headquarters, the offensive and defensive battle of Shiliang City had come to an end......

At this point, Wang Lin's calculations can be described as exquisite and accurate to the extreme, and Qi General Ke Zhu Hun Daoyu has been guarding the lonely city for more than a month.

During this period, although Chen's army marched all the way to "recover" the surrounding cities, the armies of various states and counties also tried their best to resist, so that Wu Mingche's troops who were deployed outside suffered heavy losses, which led to a stalemate that Shiliang City could not advance for a long time.

After several vicious battles of attack and defense, Shiliang City and even the entire Jingzhou were in disarray, farmland and houses were seriously damaged, and even a few Wu forts were demolished.

When Wu Mingche led the army into Shiliang, he saw wildfires all over the place, and most of the towers were knocked down and laid on the ground, but Zhu Hun Daoyu's head had already been cut off and hung at the city gate, staring at Chen Jun who was constantly entering the city with wide eyes...... There were dead bodies everywhere, which showed the fierceness of the previous battle.

But the capture of Shiliang did not give Wu Mingche much excitement, but made him a little worried...... Originally, he expected Shiliang to overcome without a fight, but the fact that the war had dragged on for so long was also very unexpected to him.

In this battle, not only was the Huainan army and people resolute in resisting, but the Chen army, which was fighting on multiple fronts, also began to expose some serious shortcomings, such as insufficient troops, insufficient food and grass, too deep and too wide a range of strikes, too scattered troops, and sometimes some generals connived at the looting of soldiers and soldiers, arousing the indignation of the people.

Etcetera.

If these things were just one or two things, then there was nothing to worry about, but as Wang Lin's strategy of "exchanging space for time" slowly took effect, these drawbacks began to explode in a concentrated manner.

The first triggers for these things to happen are, of course, external:

From the troubled times of the Sixteen Kingdoms to the troubled times of the north and south, Huaibei and Huainan are the concentrated areas where the war between the north and the south broke out.

Let's ...... Wang Lin was able to divide Huainan and surrender to the north in the past, and these people did not make a small contribution, such as Wang Lin's Yuejia Pei family, these people have been co-opted by the Northern Qi court over the years, and gradually forgot about the Southern Dynasty, and their hearts turned to the Northern Qi.

The Chen Dynasty attacked the Huainan city all the way, and when it wanted to clear the surrounding area, it encountered stubborn resistance from these people.

Wu Mingche's middle route soldiers were not many, only more than 30,000 people, and there were only more than 50,000 people including civilian men and auxiliary soldiers.

After conquering the city, it is necessary to appease the local heroes and people, and to divide troops to garrison.

In this way, no matter how elite Chen Jun is and how safe the generals are, it is inevitable that they will be overstretched.

First of all, two months ago, when Wu Mingche was confronting his eldest grandson Hongluo, a township tyrant in Jiangbei played the Qi number of the Northern Qi Imperial Court, and led 5,000 villagers to attack Guabu, which was wiped out by Ren Zhongping; In early February, the officials of Hezhou received a letter from He Ruobi, surrendered and rebelled, and were pacified by Wei Zai's army...... Several large armies, except for Ren Zhong's road, which was quite smooth, even Huang Fayan had to run back and forth for the "rebellion" in Ruyin, Beichen and other places, so as not to disrupt the good situation again.

In addition, due to the lack of national strength of the Southern Dynasties, it was temporarily unable to transport the materials needed for the war, and more than half of the military funds, money and food of the various armies could only be replenished by themselves.

Chen Ji's Northern Expedition was under the banner of recovering his homeland, but they came to Huainan with such an attitude, which has to be said to make people feel sad and ridiculous. This is destined to cause many future troubles, and the most important one is the people's back!

During the period of operation of the two Huai, the Northern Qi attached importance to the development of people's livelihood and strengthened its control over the two Huai regions. After a few years of development, it has a bit of a pure land taste, and once became the granary of the Northern Qi Dynasty, and the army of the Southern Dynasty came to the north in a big way, and there were signs of burning, killing and plundering from time to time, which caused serious damage to the Jiangbei region...... In late spring, the agricultural season has already passed, and in many places even the seedlings have not yet had time to be sown, so this year's harvest can be imagined, and the resentment in the hearts of the people can be imagined!

This is also the fundamental crux of the rebellion in the rear of the Chen army!

Although Wu Mingche was well aware of the drawbacks of Chen Jun's actions, he was helpless.

On the one hand, Chen Guo really could not ensure the timely transportation of grain and grass, since ancient times, pay attention to a soldier and horses have not arrived, grain and grass first, Chen army to advance quickly, "take from the people" is an inevitable thing;

On the other hand, since ancient times, emperors have not sent hungry soldiers, and in this era, you expect an army to "freeze to death without demolishing houses, starve to death without plundering", and "wholeheartedly for the people" when material desires cannot be satisfied, that is simply a pipe dream.

The consequences it will lead to will inevitably be that the army has no fighting spirit, and even mutiny!

In this case, the generals of the Chen army could not be restrained, but they could not be too strict, which led to a vicious circle, he Wang Lin would not be destroyed for a day, and Huainan would not fall into the hands of Chen Guo for a day, so don't think that the rear would stop.

Therefore, it is inevitable that the troops will be dispersed, and it is also inevitable that the stamina will gradually be insufficient!

The reason why Wu Mingche failed to take Shiliang City quickly is here.

To this end, Wu Mingche made a special remedial measure: temporarily disperse the troops, and let Wei Zai, who is good at internal affairs and logistics, calm down the troubles...... He attacked under Shiliang City, obviously sitting on 20,000 elites, but he did not directly set off to the north, which was precisely for this consideration.

It seems that everything is normal, they are advancing north according to the original plan, Wei Zai can sooner or later pacify the rear and stabilize the transportation line of Chen's grain and grass, and he will definitely be able to capture Shiliang and seize the entire territory of Jingzhou, but something went wrong in Xiao Maha's ring!

Zhongli, Jiashan, several defeats, Xiao Maha more than 7,000 soldiers, only less than 2,000 have returned south, this is the biggest defeat he has ever suffered since he knocked on the pass and entered Huainan!

At this time, Wang Lin's war letter was lying quietly on the case, Wu Mingche took off his helmet and stood in the center of the big tent, the clothes on his body were wet and stained by rain and mud when he entered the city, but he didn't have time to change them, and the generals at all levels around him were also described in the same way, almost after the fight was just over by Wu Mingche, everyone was sitting in danger, and the atmosphere was a little tense...... Wu Mingche turned around twice in front of everyone's attention before he considered his words:

"Wang Lin invited me to a decisive battle, what do you think, is it possible to fight a decisive battle at this time?"

When these words came out, although the tone was quite flat, everyone here knew the meaning of the words, so all the generals of the Middle Route Army in the tent, from Cheng Wenji onwards, all changed color. After another long time, Cheng Wenji raised his fists and said cautiously:

"Wang Lin, a treacherous person, but he has always been decisive, he said that he wanted a decisive battle, perhaps he really wanted to fight...... This man first expected that we would not be able to go north immediately, so we would use Shiliang City as a delay, slowly accumulate strength, raise strong soldiers and horses, and find the right time to succeed in a battle. ”

"I expect it to be the same, 100,000 troops, he can really blow it, if he had 100,000 troops, he would have killed them a long time ago, would he still invite me to the north for a decisive battle? He wanted to take advantage of the danger of Jiashan to fight a war of attrition with me and drag me to death on the edge of the Chi River! ”

Wu Mingche nodded, and then asked, "Then according to what you see, how will Wang Lin fight?" ”

Wu Mingche raised his eyes and looked, and all the generals looked at each other, and no one made a sound.

Wu Mingche's eyes were slightly mocking, and he said lightly: "Many of you were his subordinates, what is the old official's fighting style, don't you even know?" Don't be afraid, I won't blame you if you don't say it well, just say it. ”

Still no one.

Wu Mingche looked around, and his eyes fell on Xiao Maha: "Yuan Yin, you have fought with Wang Lin, what do you think of this person's tactics?" What is the combat power of the Qi army? ”

Xiao Maha's body and face were bandaged with white cloth, and when he heard Wu Mingche's summons, he immediately stood up and arched his hands and said with difficulty:

"Wang Lin and his people, showing treachery on the outside, in fact, no matter how safe they are inside, I think that he is waiting on the bank of the pond to induce our army to line up with him, and there is actually a big article behind it, and there is a secret killing trick...... The officers and men of our army must strictly inspect the surrounding areas, and must not give Wang Lin a chance to take advantage of it, and the main force must slowly push forward, and there must be a partial division to sweep the formation, guerrilla reinforcements, so that it can be safe. ”

Wu Mingche already knew what kind of opponent Wang Lin was, although he didn't think that Xiao Maha was comparable to him in terms of military and political strategy, but after all, Xiao Maha had only fought with Wang Lin recently, and for Wang Lin, Xiao Maha's feelings should be the most intuitive, so he listened to it somewhat, and when he was thinking about it, someone suddenly said:

"I think this is exactly what Wang Lin has fallen into the hands of again, and General Xiao also said that Wang Lin is cunning on the outside, but in fact, he is very safe in his bones, and he will fight tough battles and tricky battles. Such a Wang Lin, how could he expect to put all his family wealth in Jiashan, which has no one in the city, and we can win? This person is Zhou Luohu, the fierce general of Chen Guo who took Xiao Maha to kill the bloody road not long ago, I saw this person squint his eyes, and said chiseledly: "His hope must be Chihe, this is the article he wants to do!" ”

Wu Mingche didn't know much about Zhou Luohu, but he often heard that Zhou Luohu was an all-round talent in civil and military affairs, and last time he almost single-handedly rescued Xiao Maha, and he also paid a little attention to it, but after listening to his full words, Wu Mingche couldn't help but laugh dumbly: "Chihe? …… Tell me about it. ”

"The Chihe River protects Zhongli and Matoucheng, contacts Jiyin, and passes through the Huai River to Xuyi, which also belongs to the waters of the Huai River...... Jiashan is the general of the upper reaches of Chishui, he occupies Jiashan, on the one hand, with Zhongli and Matoucheng as the rear basics, on the other hand, chokes the Chihe, and uses the Chihe River as a link to incorporate the protection of Jiyin and Xuyi into the palm.

"It seems that the front is too long and too loose, but they are interrelated, Wang Lin has taken great pains for this battle, as small as the people's hearts to figure out, as large as the deployment of military forces, he has been planning the layout since a long time ago, Jiashan is just a point of his basic plate, his purpose is to use the area around the pond as a side of the wrestling between our two armies, as long as we fall into the game, he will increase the chips again and again, and finally force us into a very dangerous situation."

Everyone was in an uproar, and they all looked suspicious, Wu Mingche only stroked his beard lightly, and said:

"What you say is reasonable, but isn't it an exaggeration? No one can manipulate such a big game, Zhongli, Jiyin, and Xuyi, spanning too far...... Besides, you say that he used the pond water as a link to control Jiyin and Xuyi and reject me, which is also unrealistic...... Wang Lin is not a fool, he will not be unclear, the pool is so narrow and shallow, it is easy for me to cross it, let alone break this so-called link.

"You mean I shouldn't be fighting?"

"I don't mean that, Wang Lin has forced us to this point, but now it's the spring flood," Zhou Luohu said suddenly: "The heavy rain has been falling for several days, it looks like it will rain for a long time, no matter how shallow this pond is, it will also rise, if we are not facing a river that can flow, but a raging river, let me ask the general, where are our sailors, where are our big boats?" ”

Wu Mingche froze in place, dumbfounded for a while.