"Cui Yuan has surrendered! All reinforcements have been wiped out! Wang Lin died in the chaos!"

Due to its important strategic position, Shouyang has always been a must-fight for military strategists, so the inner city walls are taller and stronger than those of other cities. However, after the Han family army captured the outer city, the inner city suddenly became precarious.

The reason is the illegal buildings built randomly in the outer city area.

The purpose of Shouyang to build an outer city was to garrison the army to increase the city defense force, but it did not expect that after Shouyang's maintenance, the population became more and more and the inner city became more and more crowded, so someone took the idea to the outer city.

At the beginning, only a few big families in Shouyang bribed the government and occupied land to build houses in the outer city. Over time, others followed suit. The more houses were built, the more chaotic the outer city became. Even rows of wooden houses were built under the inner city walls.

The chaotic buildings in the outer city brought great trouble to the guards of the inner city. The siege army could rely on these buildings to cover the walls of the inner city, but the defenders on the city were unable to launch an effective counterattack.

Now, the Han family army used the cover of these houses to tie thousands of letters of surrender to arrows and shoot into the city.

It has to be said that this move hit the morale of the defenders in the city more violently than breaking through the outer city.

The Qi army's soldiers guarding the city have always been able to stand on the top of the city to face the siege of hundreds of thousands of troops. It is not because they are brave enough, but because they put their hopes on reinforcements.

As long as you can persevere until the reinforcements arrive and ultimately defend Shouyang City, no matter the generals and soldiers, there will be rewards. This is a promise made by the envoy.

However, now all reinforcements have been wiped out, and even the famous general of the cavalry, Wang Lin, died in the battle formation. The only hope has been cut off, and the morale of the defenders in the city has suddenly been completely extinguished.

"It's over, Shouyang will definitely not be able to defend it now!"

"Even if the reinforcements are undefeated, there are only 30,000 people, which is of no use. Look at the soldiers outside the city..."

"Oh, the city can't be defended anymore, and the rewards are gone."

"When is it still thinking about the one hundred rewards? You should think more about how to save your life."

"It is not difficult to save your life. As soon as the city is broken, we will run out of the east gate. There is no Chen Jun outside the east gate."

"You know, those who run from the east gate will definitely die the fastest! Do you know that you are surrounded by three que 1? Chen Jun must have set up an ambush outside the east gate, and running out from there will definitely be death!"

"I heard that the Chen army would not kill prisoners. Whenever they entered the city, I would surrender immediately..."

When the soldiers were sitting under the battlements in groups, whispering to discuss how to save their lives, Wang Xiangui was also anxious in the governor's mansion.

At this time, anyone could see that Shouyang could no longer be defended.

The only choices before Wang Xiangui are two different choices: surrender or not. These two choices seem simple, but for him, they are extremely difficult.

If he chooses to surrender, he will naturally be able to save his life, but if he is a small family in Yecheng, he is very likely to lose his life because of this.

But if he did not surrender, the first person to be killed after Chen Jun broke through the city must be him, the governor of Yangzhou.

"Everyone can surrender to the upper and lower parts of Shouyang, but I cannot surrender to the lower parts!" Chi Yifeng-cold had not healed, and the blisters on his mouth were swollen and shiny, making him speechless.

Even though he was very ill, he was the first to go to the governor's mansion to persuade Wang Xiangui after receiving the letter of surrender outside the city, so that he could give up the idea of ​​surrendering.

"At that time, Xiao Zheng made a fuss in Zhongli (the capital of Northern Xuzhou, namely Fengyang, Anhui), and the envoy Xian Shouyang surrendered to Qi, causing the Southern Dynasty to lose its land in Huainan. The Southern Dynasty was over and over, and hated the envoy and Xiao Zheng to the core and called it a traitor. Now Gongyi has passed away. Will the envoy want to go to Jiankang to be despised by tens of thousands of people?"

Wang Xiangui was Hou Jing's outer brother. When Hou Jing secretly occupied Shouyang and rebelled, he led his troops to plunder the Southern Dynasty. Wang Xiangui stayed in Shouyang and then surrendered to Qi.

The Qi State's troops won Zhongli and Shouyang, an important town in Huainan, without any blood, and opened the door to the south. The surrender of Xiao Zhengbiao and Wang Xiangui, the governors of the Northern Xuzhou, also attracted the Liang Dynasty's guards north of the Yangtze River to voluntarily surrender to Qi.

In just a few years, Qi State took all the territory north of the Yangtze River without spending a single soldier. This situation was caused by Xiao and Wang.

It is conceivable how much the southerners hated Wang Xiangui.

This alone cut off his way to surrender to Chen.

But Chi Yi was still talking sarcastically: "Even if Chen is generous and does not care about it, the envoy is already sixty-five years old this year, can he still give birth to children?"

"If the Wang family's bloodline is cut off, I wonder how the envoy will face the Wang family's ancestors after his death?"

"Yan Pei...no need to say more."

The sixty-five-year-old Wang Xiangui can be considered a long life in this era, but the older one is, the more afraid of death, so after being destined to sit and wait for death, Wang Xiangui collapsed in front of the desk, feeling that he could not raise any strength in his body.

"The envoy does not have to be so discouraged. We still have 200,000 military and civilians. As long as the top and the other are united, Shouyang will definitely be able to defend it. What's more, my family is small in Shouyang. If Shouyang City is broken, only one envoy will die, and my whole family will be buried with you..."

When Chi Yi said this, he felt bitter in his heart.

But he still felt that Shouyang could hold on.

In this era, it is indeed difficult to capture a strong city, and it is even more common to have a besieged city for several months.

In order to retake Shouyang from the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Liang did not hesitate to mobilize 200,000 people and spent two years to build a Fushanyan hundreds of miles long and dozens of feet high to cut off the Huai River to irrigate the city, which shows the difficulty of siege.

But Chi Yi ignored the most important point of defending the city, that is, people's hearts and morale.

If people are not in aspiring manner, they will lose their morale, and they will not be able to defend even if there is a strong city.

Chi Yi bet on his family's life, and Wang Xiangui's face finally improved: "Yan Pei, can Shouyang really be protected?"

"The city has sufficient food, and as long as the soldiers use their lives, it will not be a problem to stay for a year or two. On the contrary, Chen Jun came from afar, and hundreds of thousands of people would not know how much food and grass to consume in a day. When the food is exhausted, they will retreat without reinforcements!"

Chi Yi became more and more excited as he spoke. He accidentally touched the blister on his mouth, which made him feel "ah" and quickly reached out to cover his mouth.

Wang Xiangui was also infected and regained his spirits. He looked at Chi Yi with hope and said, "Since that's the case, before Chen Jun retreats, I will hand over all the military and political powers of Shouyang to you."

"You can call money, silk, grain and grass in the city. Those who do not obey orders can be executed immediately. There is no need to report to me! Yan Pei, I and Shouyang will all be entrusted to you!"

Chi Yi took a step back and bowed loudly: "Yi Ding will not give it to the envoy's heavy trust!"

After saying that, he turned around without hesitation and left the government office.

After all the military and political power was in hand, Chi Yi first killed several surrendered officials including Liu Ren, the other officials, and then took out the money and silk from the treasury to reward the soldiers guarding the city, and recruited a large number of young and strong people in the city to go up to the city wall to assist in defending the city.

After using these moves, I really couldn't hear the soldiers and officials talking about surrendering to Chen again, but my morale did not improve much.
Chapter completed!