At night, the city lord's mansion.

The lights in the city lord's palace were brightly lit, and there were many figures in armor and stomachs gathered in the middle hall. Liu Yu, Liu Bei, generals, and Li Mengxi and others spent the whole night talking about the future war strategy. There were many generals on the Jicheng side, but on the Julu Army side

, one Liu Bei, one Li Mengxi, and nothing else. The other generals either went to clean up logistics or went to work overtime to train troops, but no one was present.

No one in Jicheng recognized Li Mengxi, and all the generals in Jicheng looked at him sideways when they saw a young man under Liu Bei's command being added to the throne.

Li Mengxi focused entirely on thinking and didn't care what others thought.

In the current situation, the bandits abandoned the city in a hurry and their power was weakened. The defenders of Jicheng held on for a long time. Suddenly, the besieging enemies retreated, and the morale of the defenders was greatly boosted. In addition, the reinforcements of the Julu Army arrived, and the defenders joined Ji City.

With the power of the two giant deer armies in the city and the power of thunder, it was time to take advantage of the victory and pursue them.

Li Mengxi frowned for a long time. He stared at the huge map of Youzhou in the hall for a long time, and his eyes stayed for a long time on the location of Yuyang County, north of Jicheng.

Yuyang is not too far from Jicheng.

From a tactical perspective, there is no doubt that sending troops to pursue immediately can achieve good results, but from a higher strategic perspective, sending troops to pursue may not be the optimal solution.

Predicting the development trend after sending troops to pursue, trend 1 is that the enemy has sufficient strength and the pursuit failed to severely damage the enemy. The Julu Army and Liu Yu's army fought hard with the enemy. Although they were able to defeat them, their own casualties were inevitable.

Trend two, according to intelligence, Yuyang is also a fortified city. The enemy has both troops and a fortified city. If the enemy has sufficient food and grass and defends the city, it will be even more difficult to easily annihilate it.

Trend 3: If the enemy is afraid of fighting and flees, unable to catch up with them and allowing them to escape, the war will be greatly delayed.

Regardless of whether the enemy is defending the city or fleeing, this is a major strategic disadvantage for the Julu Army. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare in advance for the enemy's tendency to defend or flee.

Li Mengxi had precedents to follow in countering the enemy's defense. The only way to make the defending enemy dare not defend anymore was to make the enemy think that if they defended, the situation would be dangerous, so that the enemy would not dare to defend anymore.

When they besieged Huangfu Song, they sent tens of thousands of manpower to dig trenches all night, and surrounded Huangfu Song with trenches overnight. Huangfu Song initially wanted to hold on, but after waiting for him to defend for a day, the trenches would become deeper. Every time he waited, the situation of the officers and soldiers would change.

As the situation became increasingly dangerous, Huangfusong was forced by the increasingly pressing situation to dare not stay where he was.

In the same way, if the enemy is holding on to the city and has many soldiers and supplies, and heavy casualties in a strong attack, they can follow the method used to siege Huangfu Song that day and dig a lot of trenches outside Yuyang City and surround them without attacking. In this way, if the enemy

If you want to hold the city for a long time, you will have to stand for one more day. If the trench outside the city is too deep, it will be more difficult for the enemy in the city to break the siege. At the same time, the greater the geographical advantage of the Julu Army, the less siege manpower needed to take advantage of the geographical advantage, and the less money and food will be consumed.

In this way, as time goes by, the advantage of the Julu Army will also increase. The longer the stalemate lasts, the deeper the enemy's desperate situation will be. At this time, if the enemy commander has a certain vision, he will not dare to hold on and will lead the army sooner.

Attack to get out of trouble.

He abandoned the fortified city and led his troops to attack our trench walls. He not only lost the advantage of the city, but also had the advantage of hitting our trench walls head-on. The offensive and defensive positions were changed, and our casualties would be greatly reduced.

The enemy's tendency to hold on has been resolved.

If the enemy still has a tendency to escape, there are two ways to prevent the enemy from escaping. Method 1 is to lay down a dragnet to surround the enemy on all sides so that the enemy cannot escape; method 2 is to prevent the enemy from having any intention of escaping.

The key lies in this second method. If you want a temporary gain, rush the army to pursue the enemy. Of course, taking advantage of the enemy's retreat and striking it with the power of thunder can indeed achieve huge results. However, the enemy still has a chance to catch the enemy.

Yang Genji, no matter how great the results are, they cannot achieve total annihilation in one battle. If the main force of the Yuyang enemy army loses all will to fight and retreats because of this, it may take more than a month or even several months to wipe out an army that only retreats without fighting.

When it is over, the loss of time, money and food will be greater than the cost of casualties in the war.

Taking into account the more far-reaching plan, if you want to win all the victories in one battle, chasing is obviously not a good choice. Not only that, not only can't you pursue, but you can't even let the enemy see your figure, which will save the enemy from scaring them away.

——

Thinking carefully and working out the overall plan, whether it is to change the siege from passivity to initiative when the enemy is entrenched, or to lay down dragnets early to block the enemy in all directions when they retreat, all of this requires a lot of manpower.

With the main strength of the Julu Army, plus the troops and horses in Liu Yu's hands, the two forces combined are enough to severely damage the enemy's army on the frontal battlefield. However, if they intend to besiege the city, or intend to encircle all the enemy's retreat routes, the strength is far from enough.

Fight to annihilate the enemy.

More troops are needed and reinforcements are needed.

There are reinforcements, and a large number of reinforcements are coming towards Yuyang, and counting the time, all the ministries are almost here.

The strategy was finalized, but only one corner of the entire battle plan was missing.

Yuyang is to the north of Youzhou, and Youzhou is to the north of Jizhou. The Julu Army set out from Julu and dispersed a large number of manpower halfway to rush to the counties to complete the assisting defense matters. From a large strategic perspective, Julu Army

The various units of the Lu Army essentially formed a giant pocket formation against Yuyang County. They were all surrounded to the east, south, and north of Yuyang County. Only in the north, no team had ever circled around Yuyang County.

Far far away in the north, the encirclement has its flaws in the north.

The north of Yuyang is the most important direction. Julu Army and Liu Yu Army came from the south. The easiest direction for the enemy to retreat is definitely in the north. The north should be surrounded, but it is where the flaw lies.

If the fish happens to get out through the holes in the fishing net, then as far as fishing is concerned, no matter how large the other parts of the fishing net are or how dense the mesh is, it will be the same as nothing.

As the saying goes, those who walk a hundred steps are half ninety.

In order to block the gap to the north of Yuyang, Li Mengxi decided to lead his troops to go around it. He was afraid that he might scare the enemy away, so he wanted to go as far as possible.

We have to consider dividing our troops again.

According to the plan, a huge encirclement as big as Yuyang County must be laid out in order to be able to lay it out at a long enough distance without anyone noticing. Such a huge undertaking, if only relying on manpower, even if millions of people are thrown in, it will be impossible.

It is not enough to accomplish the task, so we still have to rely on barriers and combine manpower with fortifications, so that one manpower can exert ten times or even dozens of times the manpower's siege capability. Only in this way can a huge encirclement network be completed with limited manpower.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Li Mengxi has been working in the countryside for more than a month, digging trenches for a month, and he is exhausted physically and mentally.

, I didn’t expect that in the blink of an eye, I would have to dig another ditch.

Li Mengxi took the initiative to propose that he should lead troops to the north of Yuyang, that is, the direction behind the enemy's rear. Liu Bei thought for a while and agreed.

——

The military situation is urgent and cannot be delayed.

They only rested for two days in Jicheng, that is, the second day after the enemy troops withdrew from the siege. Zhang Ju, the retreating traitor, did not know whether he had escaped back to Yuyang County. The Julu Army simultaneously launched a partial division to stop the enemy army.

retreat.

In the early morning of Jicheng, a red sun slowly rose from the east of the city. The Julu Army's 5,000 men, carrying sufficient supplies of grain, grass and other supplies, had been assembled and were just waiting to set off.

The team was drawn up all night last night. It was disrupted last night and I didn't sleep all night long. One or two of the team's sergeants yawned again and again.

Before parting, Li Mengxi got on his horse and bowed his hand to Liu Bei as a greeting.

"Xi'er." Liu Bei stopped.

Li Mengxi, who was about to lift the reins, stopped and turned around, "What's wrong?" he asked.

Liu Bei looked at Li Mengxi and couldn't help but said, "If nothing happens..."

Li Mengxi grinned, "Don't worry. I'll find a village, build a wall, dig a ditch, and I won't be able to get out."

While others listened in confusion, Liu Bei fully understood what Li Mengxi meant, and Liu Bei also laughed.

He nodded towards Li Mengxi and said, "Okay! Get on your way early and see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow. Come on!"

Li Mengxi led the team away cleanly and elegantly. He took away the five thousand elite troops of the Julu Army. Chizhi'er's Xiliang Cavalry Camp was here with him, and Zhou Cang's several hundred heavy-armored warriors' battalion was also here.

, as well as eight hundred shield crossbowmen, carpentry camp, blacksmith camp, military medical camp, fishing camp, pottery camp and other logistics teams, more than half of them are here. With so many elite troops to rely on, according to Li Mengxi's own words, find a village and use the village

As a foundation, make some clay, build a circle of city walls, and lead troops to defend inside. Even if the enemy has tens of thousands of people to attack, it will be difficult for him to conquer it in a short while.

The team of five thousand people walked away in a mighty manner. Liu Bei watched the team go away, looking at each other for a long time.

On the side, Liu Yu turned around and asked with a smile, "Xuande, are you trustworthy? Don't worry, he will go alone?"

Liu Bei nodded seriously and replied, "Reliable, reliable."

Wasn't it reliable last time? Not long ago, Liu Xuande confronted the enemy at the foot of Nanpi City. On the agreed date, the military advisor led a huge army to rescue him. How could it be unreliable?

Seeing Liu Bei's confidence in his young military advisor, Liu Yu was filled with emotion. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was still very early. Liu Yu couldn't help but said, "Let's have a hot meal before we leave. What are we going to do while we're away?"

."

Liu Bei was silent for a moment. He wanted to say that he had eaten hot food before dawn. "Soldiers need to be quick." Liu Bei stared at the team that was about to disappear from sight in the distance. "We can't waste a day and a half."

Liu Bei is also very powerful now, and the art of war comes out of his mouth. Liu Bei knows very well the difference between leaving a moment and a half early and leaving a moment and a half late. If you leave half a moment early, you can walk half a moment longer on the road, and walk an extra mile.

, you will be able to encounter more camping spots, and the camping spots you choose will be better.

Sometimes, there is only two miles to go, and there is a good camping spot two miles away. Unfortunately, either because we left half a moment late, or the reconnaissance failed, or because of lack of time, it was dark, so we had to camp immediately

Camp, or if you want to camp at that perfect camping spot, you have to walk another two miles in the dark.

The scouts did not conduct investigations, so they could not know; there was not enough time, and they could not reach the best camping spot before dark, so they could only camp haphazardly on the spot. In case of a sudden attack that night, due to different camping spots, the best camping spot should be set.

It doesn't matter if there are less than three or two hundred people killed. And if it is, we must set up camp in the best position and rush in the dark. Although the remaining distance is only two miles, and the road to go in the dark is only two miles, but if there is a crisis

It happened at this time that the adventurous night march was suddenly attacked, and an army was about to be defeated in an instant.

Leaving a quarter and a half earlier and a quarter and a half later can result in hundreds of casualties or even the cost of annihilation of the entire army. So Liu Yu asked, why not have a hot meal before leaving. Liu Bei had his own idea. Marching and fighting would make him more tired.

A little, just work a little harder, no matter how tired you are, it's better than death.

Li Mengxi led the troops forward, and Liu Bei also began to be busy behind him.

Liu Bei didn't want to rest for a moment and immediately began to devote himself to military training.

Liu Bei is also well aware of the current situation of the Julu Army. Currently, a considerable part of the Julu Army are temporarily recruited rural warriors. The training time for these rural warriors is only early January. The training time is too short, so they have to take advantage of every opportunity to drill rigorously.

.

When the training began, the Julu Army opened up its ranks. Teams of people lined up for training shouting slogans. There were orders in the field, and the footsteps sounded like thunder as the queue moved. The entire training ground was solemn and solemn.

When the Julu Army was busy, the impact was huge. Seeing the Julu Army working so hard, Sergeant Liu Yu, who was originally leisurely and carefree, suddenly felt uncomfortable.

Liu Yu especially felt something was wrong. He looked at the formation of the Julu Army and then looked at the laziness of his own army. Liu Yu suddenly felt that his face was dull. In order not to lose face, Liu Yu immediately ordered the sergeants to start training.
To be continued...