At this moment, Zhou Anguo walked in quickly from the outside, his face full of joy. He was still four or five steps away from Lu Runxing and said loudly: "Your Highness, Your Highness, good news! The king has pacified the làn in Hunan and led the imperial camp north along the Han River. He will arrive in Xiangzhou in five days!"

"So quickly?" Lu Runxing was overjoyed when he heard this and asked anxiously: "Governor Zhou, is this serious?"

"How dare I play such an important matter? The king's messenger was outside the prime minister, and I just happened to meet him!"

"Okay, please send him in!" Lu Runxing said quickly, but his joy immediately faded away, and he showed a sense of sorrow. Zhou Anguo, who was beside him, looked at it and felt suspicious, and asked, "Your Highness, the King's Imperial Camp has arrived. The two armies can definitely defeat the thief. I see that you have a sad face, but why?"

Lu Runxing sighed lightly, and informed Zhou Anguo of the messenger that the Liang army had just sent a surprise attack on Jiacheng. After the narration was finished, he sighed: "My father is half of the country. But I have fought hard for half a year, and I have worked hard and mobilized countless wages, but I have suffered consecutive defeats. He is so old that he has to wear armor to fight, so how can he have the face to see him!"

Zhou Anguo hurriedly comforted, "Your Highness, you can't say that. Since you sent troops, you can defeat Jingnan and encircle Xiangzhou, which is considered a great victory. Liang is a great country in the Central Plains. He uses his troops to support the country, and even the King of Wu may not be able to do better here. As for the destruction of Jiacheng, it is just a small setback. The victory or defeat is not yet decided, so why bother Your Highness?"

Lu Runxing was stunned and asked, "Listen to what Governor Zhou said, is our army still a chance to win?"

"That's natural!" Zhou Anguo said in a deep voice: "Wang Yanzhang followed the attack and broke into Jiacheng, but my main force was not damaged, and the floating bridge was there. The army can freely go with the Han River and transport grain through the Han River. At most, abandon the encirclement and station troops waiting for assistance. The other party will be divided on both sides of the Han River. It is inconvenient to communicate with each other, and the situation is not as good as us!"

"The siege of Xiangcheng was lifted, I was afraid that it would be combined into one inside and outside, and I was afraid that its troops would increase greatly!"

"What's wrong with this? Your Highness, you also know that there are more soldiers and less food in the city of Xiangzhou. After being surrounded by us for half a year, the city is afraid that people will eat each other. It's fine to defend the city by being on the verge of danger, but how many people can be pulled out to fight in the field? On the contrary, it's a drag. In the opinion of a certain family, didn't Wang Yanzhang want to rush into the city? He might as well let them enter the city, and then block the important roads and prevent them from transporting food in. He would let him open his mouth a few thousand more in the city, and starve them to death!"

After hearing this, Lu Runxing couldn't help but lit up. As Zhou Anguo said, the Wu army marched very quickly last year, and the autumn grain outside the city of Xiangzhou basically entered the belly of the Wu army soldiers. Xiangzhou was originally a capital, with a prosperous household registration. Including the soldiers guarding the city, there were probably no less than 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers in the city. After so many people were trapped for more than half a year, the food storage in the city was probably very nervous. In this case, even if Wang Yanzhang opened Jiacheng and relieved the siege, he still had to face the problem of shortage of food. Unlike the past, in addition to solving the army under his jurisdiction, it was not easy to fill the 70,000 or 80,000 mouths in the city of Xiangzhou.

"Yes! If you can't beat them, you will starve them to death!" Lu Runxing laughed loudly, "I will immediately send an order to General Chen lead the troops to take Xu Tuanlian's headquarters back to the old camp, and then use the raiders to cut off Wang Yanzhang's food route so that he can't transport grain into the city!"

Zhou Anguo coughed softly and said, "As far as the old minister saw, instead of retreating troops in front of the enemy, it is better to let General Chen lead his troops to set up a horn with Xu Huangzhou troops, and confront the Liang army, and move with the camera. Let General Chen govern the Hannan army, and I will send the navy to patrol the river for only ten days at most, and Wang Yanzhang will be unable to take it."

"Well, let's follow the governor Zhou!" Lu Runxing nodded, and had to admit that he was still too young than those old corps who had been rolling on the battlefield for decades after Lu Fang's battle against each other, and often the skills of using troops were not smooth enough.

After Zhou Anguo waited until the officer who was sent the order retreated, he said in a deep voice: "Your Highness, as I see, the Liang army in Hanbei will be afraid that it will echo the enemy army in Hannan. After Wang Yanzhang broke through Jiacheng, the Liang army in Hanbei will also launch a fierce attack to restrain our army from returning to aid. Your Highness must be wary in advance!"

While asking his personal soldiers to put on armor for him, Lu Runxing nodded and responded: "Well, I'll go inspect the camps immediately! I'll trouble you, the governor in Xiangcheng!"

Xiangzhou City has been surrounded for more than half a year, and daily necessities such as grain, vegetables and firewood are getting more and more difficult day by day. Generally, small households cannot live a life. Large households try their best to hoard grain. The more they hoard, the more panic the grain, and the more the grain prices rise. A few grain merchants who still have grain are unwilling to sell all their food because their origins are broken, and they often lock up the big ones on the pretext of no food and raise the market price. Although Kong Jie repeatedly ordered the price of grain to be raised, and grain merchants must sell them at the prices stipulated by the government. Not only is it prohibited

Instead of staying, it prompted the food store to be closed and the people without food gathered in front of the government office. The personal soldiers finally dispersed it. Kong Jie was unable to do so, so he had to behead the grain merchants in the public and confiscate the food they had hoarded. However, he did not send out the food to provide relief, but hoarded it as military rations. In this way, people still starved to death every day. At first, they were promoted to the common people, but later, even the wealthy families starved to death. The burning smell of burning corpses could be smelled everywhere in the city, and the entire Xiangzhou city was silent in the dead air.

There was a bowl of mixed grain porridge and a few pieces of Hu cake on the tables in front of Kong Xie. This was his breakfast. Even Mu Shou could not escape the hunger in the besieged city. At this time, a burst of rapid footsteps came from outside. Kong Xie raised his head and saw the face of his general Yi Rong, who shouted loudly: "Mr., you have saved it! You have saved it!"

Only a light sound was heard, and the chopsticks in Kong Jie's hand fell down. He stood up and didn't realize that the long sleeves had turned the porridge bowl over. Kong Jie's mouth grew bigger, opened and closed it silently twice, and asked, "What?"

"Rescue!" Yi Rong shouted loudly: "When the last general was patrolling the city, he saw a fire rising in Jiacheng west of Wu thieves, and sent a provoy to investigate. He reported that an army had opened Jiacheng and was fighting against Wu thieves in Jiacheng."

"Okay, okay, okay!" Kong Jie, who had reacted at this time, said three times in a row, and then he reminded him: "Send troops to help!"

Yi Rong smiled proudly and said, "Don't worry, my grandson has sent a thousand people. Now a hole has been opened in the west. The rescue is Wang Tieqin and Wang Yanzhang's soldiers. Seeing that the situation is unfavorable, the Wu bandit has retreated to the small town in the east. It is estimated that in a while, the Taiwei Wang will come into the city!"

"It's him! Only Wang Tieqin has such courage and ability!" Kong Jie praised twice. Only then did he realize that his sleeves were covered with slaughter, and hurriedly said, "Come here, take my official robe and change my clothes to welcome General Wang!"

In the west of Jiacheng, Wang Yanzhang stood on the tower and looked at the battlefield from afar. It was already noon. After a morning of battle, the Liang army had captured the west and south of Jiacheng. The Wu army's old camp also fell into the hands of the Liang army. Xu Wuji led the remaining 7,000 remaining soldiers to retreat to the near Dong'en, where there was a warehouse. After a morning of hard fighting, the Liang army's vanguard also lost more than 2,000 people, and the rest were very tired. Wang Yanzhang was hesitating whether to put the rear team on the battlefield and defeat or eliminate the part of the Wu army he participated in in one fell swoop.

An officer ran up from below and whispered to Wang Yanzhang: "Governor, the envoy of Xianggong Kong in the city is here!"

"Oh! Please come up!" Wang Yanzhang turned around and sat down. Soon a junior school student came up and bowed: "I will pay homage to Taiwei Wang!"

"Get up!" Wang Yanzhang asked, "Is Mr. Kong good?"

"I'm sorry, the general asked!" The school kowtowed again and said, "My head is safe. He sent a villain to ask the Grand Marshal to lead the army into the city!"

"Yeah!" Wang Yanzhang nodded and asked, "Don't hurry to enter the city, let me ask you, how much food is left in the city?"

"The food storage is confidential, and the villain has never known it!" The school replied: "But the city is very short of food, and the soldiers guarding the city eat one meal a day. Many people in the city have been out of food for many days!"

"What?" Although Wang Yanzhang also guessed that there should be shortage of food in Xiangzhou City, he did not expect that even the soldiers guarding the city could only eat one meal a day. If he had been late for a month, the banner on the top of the city would have to be replaced with the word "Lu".

"How could this be? Xiangzhou is the capital of Shannan Road. It has not been fought for many years. The grain from all prefectures and counties has been transported here. How could it be like this for half a year?"

"The Taiwei didn't know that there was still a lot of grain in Xiangzhou City, but last year, he transferred a lot of grain to Xuzhou. I heard that Lu Wu was going to use a lot of troops there. Originally, the autumn grain could be replenished, but within a few days Lu Wu broke Jingnan and rushed north to the Han River, and the autumn grain was in their pockets-"

"No need to say it!" Wang Yanzhang interrupted the other party's words. The bad situation in front of him now: after finally untiing the siege of Xiangzhou, not only can't count on the army inside, but also try to fill the tens of thousands of mouths inside. What else can be worse than this?

After Wang Yanzhang paced back and forth for a few steps, he suddenly stopped and said in a deep voice: "Send the order! The back team stepped forward and took me the last city controlled by the Wu thief!" Wang Yanzhang pointed his finger at Xu Wuji's remnant army. Since the city was short of food, the only way in front of him was to chase and fight hard, and the battle was decided quickly, and the outcome was between this drum.

In the east of Jiacheng, the walls on both sides were covered with wounded soldiers, and flies crawled on them. Whenever someone walked past them, a large area of ​​buzzing sounds started. Whenever people walked away, they fell on the wounded soldiers, enjoying the blood on the wounded...
Chapter completed!