Chapter 2541 The war ends, Chu and Wu negotiating


    Chapter 2538: The war ends, the Chu-Wu negotiations


    Just as Sun Wu''s lonely army entered Jiangxia and turned to Yunmengze, the three battlefields of Jiangling, Shangyong and Yangpingguan were also proceeding in an orderly manner.


    In order to break through Jiangling City, Xue Rengui transferred a lot of siege equipment from Xiangyang, and his siege combat capability has been improved by several times.


    However, Jiangling defender Ma Yuan was not idle either. Instead, he took advantage of this gap to stabilize the morale of the army, improve the city defense, and also lead Jingnan reinforcements into the city.


    After the Qin army arrived, it immediately launched an attack on the city, but launched a fierce attack for seven days in a row, but it still failed to shake Jiangling City.


    Seeing this, Xue Rengui knew that Jiangling City was not easy to fight, so he simply stationed and surrounded Jiangling, changing from a rapid attack to a slow attack, preparing to rely on the courtesy of equipment, softly and hard to weaken Jiangling City''s troops little by little, and at the same time minimize his own casualties.


    Xue Rengui encountered setbacks in Jiangling, and Wu Qi also encountered setbacks in Yangping Pass.


    Yangping Pass, which was personally guarded by Liu Yu, is almost perfect in all aspects. In addition, Yangping Pass is easy to defend but difficult to attack, even if Wu Qi personally commands it, it is difficult to break the city.


    Therefore, Wu Qi also adopted the same strategy as Xue Rengui, using siege equipment such as bed crossbows and catapults to launch a long-range attack on the Shu army at Yangping Pass, and gradually weakened the troops of Yangping Pass.


    This kind of fighting style is naturally feasible to deal with mediocre generals, but whether it is Ma Yuan from Jiangling or Liu Yu from Yangping Pass, they are all famous coaches who swept through an era. With the advantage of geographical location, it is naturally not difficult to find a way to solve the problem in the face of such tactics of the Qin army.


    Xue Rengui and Wu Qi''s blunt knife cutting tactics were very effective in the early stages, and both caused considerable casualties to Chu and Shu. However, as Ma Yuan and Liu Yu''s defense became more and more strict, the more diversified the defense methods, the smaller the casualties caused in the later stages.


    However, even if the casualties caused to Chu and Shu are getting smaller and smaller, the Qin army can still shoot dozens of them every day, which is nearly a hundred, so Xue Rengui and Wu Qi are not in a hurry. After all, no matter how small the mosquitoes are, they are still meat.


    If the city cannot be broken in one day, then it will be a hundred days. If it doesn’t work for a hundred days, then it will be a two hundred days. Anyway, they are not short of food and grass, so they will slowly waste their lives with the Shu and Chu army to see who can die first.


    The two battlefields of Jiangling and Yangping Pass were both in a deadlock, and only Han Xin, who was on the battlefield of Shangyong, opened up the situation.


    The two counties and ten cities in Shangyong New City, the generals who were willing to surrender to Qin had already surrendered, and they all had their own difficulties if they were unwilling to do so.


    Either the family is small and the capital is in Xinzheng, or the control of the city is controlled by the aristocratic family, it is unlikely that they will be persuaded to surrender, so Han Xin can only take one way to attack.


    After Han Xin captured Fangling City, he not only encountered tenacious resistance from the defenders, but also fierce resistance from local families during the process of conquering Shangyong County.


    If it was just a local defender, it would naturally be no difficulty for Han Xin, but the local powerful families also participated in it and supported the Shu army to fight against the Qin army, which undoubtedly increased the difficulty for Han Xin to capture Shangyong several times.


    The Qin Dynasty has always only one word for the powerful families who dare to clearly rebel against Qin, that is: killing.


    Jizhou, Youzhou and Liaodong have all sent troops to fight against Qin, but they did not know that they died directly under the butcher knife of the Qin Dynasty, which was the case during the post-war liquidation process, without exception.


    The ruthless attitude of the Qin family towards the aristocratic families made all the aristocratic families in the territory beat the tail and no longer dared to resist the court and resist Qin law.


    The Shangyong family is not fool. Why do they dare to help Shu fight against Qin even though they know that anti-Qin will be retaliated against Qin?


    The reason is still the word "greed".


    Shangyong is surrounded by mountains and has an extremely closed geographical environment, which has caused the aristocratic families to control the local area, which is simply the best in the world. No matter how hard the outside world is to fight to death, it has not changed Shangyong''s pattern.


    Nowadays, almost all the world suppresses the aristocratic families, and only Li Tang values ??the aristocratic families, so the Shangyong family supports Li Tang.


    After the Li Tang destroyed the country, it was replaced by Shu Han. Although Shu Han suppressed the aristocratic families, the intensity was not too great. Therefore, compared with the Qin Dynasty, the Shangyong family was more willing to stand in the side of Shu Han.


    After all, if the Qin Dynasty occupied Shangyong, according to the Qin Law, most of the land owned by the Shangyong family would be taken away and distributed to the local people, and only a small part of the industry, slaves, and tenant farmers would be retained.


    This is something that the Shangyong family cannot accept, after all, it is the wealth accumulated by generations.


    Moreover, if he had committed a major murder case and aroused public anger before, the Qin Dynasty would re-examine the case to uphold justice for the people and win the hearts of the people.


    The Shangyong family exploited the people too much, and none of them had clean hands. In order not to be liquidated, they could only stand opposite to the Qin Dynasty.


    In addition, in order to delay Han Xin''s advance, Liu Yu sent envoys to lobby the major families of Shangyong and made two major promises.


    First, ensure that the property of the Shangyong family is not infringed.


    Second, it promised to send troops to Shangyong soon.


    It is these two points that give Shangyong World the courage to oppose Daqin.


    The Shangyong family, led by Shen, Zhang and Zhao, dispatched all their clan soldiers to support the Shu army in defending the city.


    Some even killed the defenders who attempted to surrender to Qin, took over the city defense and army by themselves, and prevented the Qin army from entering the city.


    The decision made by the Shangyong family was obviously stupid, and they soon paid an extremely painful price for their stupid behavior.


    Although the Shangyong family''s vigorous resistance increased the difficulty of Han Xin''s strategy for Shangyong, it was just a little tricky for Han Xin.


    Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.


    Shangyong''s oppression on the local people was too serious. Shangyong''s people had long been suffering, but they could barely survive, and they were unable to resist, so they had to endure exploitation.


    Han Xin investigated Shangyong and knew that the people had been dissatisfied with the aristocratic families for a long time. Seeing that the aristocratic families had rebelled against Qin one after another. In order to minimize the losses in siege, he was ready to arouse the people''s hatred for the aristocratic families and dismantle the defense of Shangyong Zhucheng from within.


    Han Xin wrote a letter to Shangyong and Wanmen, which denounced the oppression of the aristocratic families and the benefits that the people would get after the Qin Dynasty occupied Shangyong. Then he copied a total of 100,000 copies and shot them into Shangyong''s city with bows and arrows.


    After Han Xin did all this, he also encircled the counties of Shangyong and one, but did not directly attack the city, and then waited for good news.


    The Shen Yi and Shen Dan brothers of the Shen family were frightened and sweated coldly behind their backs after learning about the content of Han Xin''s letter of crossbow arrows.


    How tempting is they even in the contents of Han Xin''s letters to the people of Shangyong? Once they spread, it may cause riots in the people. So they decisively ordered the confiscation of all letters, and all acts of circulating and private hiding are treated as persuasion.


    Han Xin''s letters shot into the city were too many. The defenders searched and confiscated most of them, but many of them were hidden by the people. The order of the Shen Yi and Shen Dan brothers caused a large number of people to be arrested, and they killed many people as a shock.


    Defense is more important than defending against Sichuan.


    The Shen Yi and Shen Dan brothers want to rely on power to force the people to block the mouths, which may be useful in the short term, but it is not a long-term solution. Moreover, the more ruthless the suppression, the greater the hatred that the people will burst out.


    As Han Xin expected, half a month after his besiege, the anger in the hearts of the people could no longer be suppressed, and the civil unrest broke out in Wu County, North Shangyong.


    The people were dissatisfied with the oppression of aristocratic families, so they killed officials and resisted, and attacked the prison, released their imprisoned relatives, and then opened the city gate to lead the Qin army into the city.


    And after the first one, there was naturally a second one soon.


    After Beiwu County, civil unrest broke out in Wuling and Anfu counties, and the defenders were restrained by the Qin army outside the city and could not react, so the city gate was opened from the inside by the people.


    Three consecutive cities were lost due to civil unrest, which naturally aroused the vigilance of Shen Yi and Shen Dan brothers. Under the strict defense, the civil unrest that broke out in Shangyong and other cities were strongly suppressed by the defenders in the city.


    However, the Qin army took advantage of the civil strife of Shangyong to attack Shangyong Zhucheng.


    The Shen Yi and Shen Dan brothers wanted to suppress internal civil unrest and repel external Qin troops. With their ability, they obviously could not do this, so they were easily attacked by the Qin army.


    On the day when Shangyong City was broken, Shen Yi cursed Liu Yu in the city lord''s mansion, saying that reinforcements would arrive within five days, but he waited for more than half a month, but he did not wait for reinforcements from Shu Kingdom when the city was broken.


    At this moment, Shen Yi didn''t understand. He was deceived by Liu Yu, and the price was that the Shen family was about to be exterminated.


    "Liu Yu, you have no faith in your words, and I curse you for being sad."


    After scolding, Shen Yi directly wiped his neck with a sword and committed suicide.


    Han Xin took more than half a month to siege Shangyong Zhucheng, but only three days later, Shangyong Zhucheng was defeated without attack.


    After completely occupying the two counties of Shangyong New City, Han Xin cleaned up the Shangyong family.


    All the powerful families who dared to be in the Qin army were beheaded all direct blood relatives, and all men who were not direct relatives were executed higher than the wheel, while women were incarnated into the Jiaofangsi and acted as official prostitutes.


    The three major families of Shen, Zhang and Zhao, who have suffered the disaster for nearly a hundred years, and more than a dozen other families, were all tragically exterminated.


    After Han Xin captured the two counties of Shangyong New City at a slim cost, he led a large army back and rushed straight to the west city.


    Xicheng is the last gateway to the three major defense lines in Hanzhong East. As long as Xicheng is captured, Han Xin''s army can invade the Hanzhong Basin.


    However, Liu Yu was obviously prepared for this. He took advantage of Han Xin''s strategy to send another 15,000 reinforcements to Xicheng, which made Zhang Ren''s defenders in Xicheng reach 40,000, which was more powerful than Han Xin''s attacking side.


    Han Xin attacked Shangyong and dispatched a 50,000 army. However, the Jintai ambush was defeated by Zhang Ren and lost 3,700 troops, and more than 2,000 troops were lost in Zhuxian City, Shangyong New City.


    If it is not counted as surrendering troops, Han Xin still had 44,000 troops in his hand at this time, of which 5,000 were scattered to guard the major cities of Shangyong, so the total number of troops Han Xin could use to attack the West City was actually less than 40,000.


    As the last line of defense in eastern central and central Han, Xicheng has been reinforced by Li Shimin many times and is now a solid city, and the number of defenders in the city is even more than the attacking parties.


    If Han Xin cannot lead Zhang Ren out, there is only one way to attack. Even if he can break the city in the end, he will probably have to pay an extremely heavy price.


    After thinking about it for a while, Han Xin still did not choose to attack, but wrote a letter to Ying Hao in Chang''an.


    If the emperor must occupy Hanzhong at this time, he would break through the Xicheng at any cost.


    If there is room for reversal, Han Xin will be restrained and will not attack for the time being.


    After receiving Han Xin''s accusation, Ying Hao immediately summoned the strategists for discussion, but finally decided not to attack Xicheng for the time being.


    It’s not that Ying Hao had no confidence in Han Xin, but that Shu Kingdom was all focused on Hanzhong at this time, so it was actually the most difficult to occupy Hanzhong at this time.


    It would be fine if Han Xin had not captured Xicheng. If he had captured Xicheng, he would be forcing Shu Kingdom to expand its army at the limit and then fight to the death with the Qin army in Hanzhong.


    Shu Kingdom is a major country second only to Qin Kingdom, and Qin Kingdom''s next target is the Sui Kingdom in Xiliang, as well as the three kingdoms of Wei, Song and Ming dynasties in the Central Plains.


    Before destroying these four countries, Qin will not break out in a national war against Shu.


    If a decisive battle with Shu at this time will definitely affect Qin''s plan to unify the Central Plains, it will not be worth the loss.


    The original plan of Qin''s troops this time was to occupy Guanzhong. Now, not only did he obtain Guanzhong, but he also occupied the three counties of Longxi, two and a half counties of Liangzhou, and two counties of Shangyong, which have exceeded the task.


    At this point, the Qin Dynasty has already taken full advantage. If it continues, it will easily trigger a chain reaction, and the end of the war is the most beneficial.


    Therefore, Ying Hao not only stopped Han Xin''s attack on Xicheng, but also temporarily suspended Wu Qi''s attack on Yangping Pass.


    At the same time, he ordered Han Xin to form the Shangyong Corps, commanding 50,000 troops under his command to station the three counties of Shangyong, Xincheng and Nanyang, and to restrain the Shu army in the direction of the west city of Shu Kingdom.


    Wu Qi was ordered to form the Longxi Army, commanding a large army of 60,000, stationed in the three counties of Longxi, Wudu and Hanyang, and restraining the Shu army in the direction of Yangping Pass.


    Ying Hao''s order basically shows that the war initiated by the Qin Dynasty was also declared over under the leadership of the Qin Dynasty.


    However, although the war between Qin and Shu ended, the war between Chu and Wu did not end.


    Sun Ce, the prince of the Wu Kingdom, was captured alive by Wu Zhiqi. How could he give up if Sun Jian, the King of Wu, did not save Sun Ce?


    However, Sun Jian also knew that dispatching troops from all over the country might not be able to rescue Sun Ce, so he was preparing to negotiate with Chu State first, hoping to redeem Sun Ce through negotiations.


    (This chapter ends)