Chapter 194 Retreat without a fight
By March, all the Jianghuai Army units and the county troops under the jurisdiction of each county began to prepare for the march.

In the Governor's Mansion in Hefei New City, the staff and their assistants were all extremely busy.

In the hall, Li Qinglian held a battle report sent by Lu'an Express Horse: "Geyang City has been breached, the enemy has already approached Anfeng, and is only a hundred miles away from Lu'an and Anfeng."

After Li Yuanhui received the battle report, he read it himself and then passed it to his subordinates for circulation.

After reading the battle report, Guard Xiao Shizhi immediately said, "Commander-in-chief, the western bandits are strong. Anfeng and Lu'an are facing an enemy force of 200,000. The troops are insufficient. At least another battalion of soldiers should be sent to prevent any unexpected events."

Li Qinglian also nodded slightly to show her agreement.

Right now, the situation in Jianghuai looks very critical, and Lu'an has to face Ding Jingzhen's 300,000 troops.

The Wan County and Wankou area also had to face the 300,000-man army of the Western Wei Emperor Cao Xuan and General You Zilu.
And along the river line, there were hundreds of thousands of troops from the Eastern Wei Dynasty watching covetously.

The enemy troops in the northwest, southwest, and southeast directions numbered one million.
Li Yuanhui suddenly laughed when he thought of this, "Three hundred thousand on the left, three hundred thousand on the right, and there are still hundreds of thousands on the Eastern Wei side. Have they never learned to count? A million people? Hahahaha."

As the commander-in-chief, Li Yuanhui's smile also made the generals in the hall feel a little relieved. The solemnity and anxiety that had just appeared also dissipated slightly.

When sending troops to fight, they always have to lie about the number of people. Basically, they always double the number.

Basically, an army of 50,000 or 60,000 people has to say that they are an army of 100,000 or even 200,000.

But given the strength of the two Wei states in the East and the West, it’s not just a false claim, it’s a scam.

How the hell do you get the food to feed a million-strong army? Even if you count the civilians who transport food and the auxiliary soldiers who do odd jobs, he still doesn't have that much.

This is ridiculous, a million troops
Then Li Yuanhui came to the map again, pointed at Wan County and said, "I have just inspected Wan County. The city defense is strong, the fortifications are complete, and the military equipment and food are complete. With Zhou Ben's Lujiang Right Battalion of 3,000 people and Lujiang County soldiers of 2,000 people, the city defense is enough to hold off the enemy."

Then he pointed to the area along the river: "Ruxuwu, Liyang, Jiangdu, Guangling, each has elite soldiers guarding it. Let Ma Deyi lead the cavalry battalion to patrol and patrol, and the beacons along the river will not be slack, so we can know the movements of Jiangdong at any time, so there is no need to worry."

"And this is the only place our army really needs to focus on."

After saying that, Li Yuanhui clapped his hands on the positions of Lu'an and Anfeng.

Having just inspected the defense along the river, Li Si scoffed at the Eastern Wei's idea of ​​stationing a large army on the other side of the river and keeping it in suspense.

Who are you scaring?

If you can and dare to fight, can you still keep your composure?
Therefore, after sorting out his thoughts, Li Yuanhui made a prompt decision to attack the northwest first and attack Ding Jingzhen's troops who had already advanced to the Gushi line.

Although it was claimed that there were 300,000 troops, he estimated that there were only a few hundred thousand soldiers at most, and they were all a motley crowd.

Among the 18 camps in Jianghuai, the Lujiang Right Camp was stationed in Wanxian, the Tianzhushan Camp was stationed in Ruxuwu, the Xuzhou Left Camp was stationed in Jiangdu, the Xuzhou Right Camp was stationed in Guangling, and the Lujiang Left Camp was stationed in Liyang.

Dou Xianjun led the Zhonglei Battalion to garrison Hefei, while Ma Deyi led the Xiaoqi Battalion to garrison Wujiang and patrol the area along the river.

The rest of the troops, except for the Huainan Left Camp which was already in Anfeng, the Huainan Right Camp, Guangling Camp, Jiangdu Camp, Central Army Camp, Hubu Camp, Tuqi Camp, Huaishang Camp, Huaiyuan Camp, Yueqi Camp, and Wuwei Camp, totaling 11 camps with about 30,000 soldiers and horses, were all dispatched.

From the beginning, Li Yuanhui planned to go the elite route. In terms of the number of troops, it seemed that they were only one tenth of the enemy.

Even if the opponent's number is only half of what is claimed, it is still a ratio of five to one.

And because Lu'an is right along the Fei River, the army's food supply can be transported directly by water, and there is no need to even recruit a large number of farmers to transport food; the navy is enough.

Moreover, the Western Wei people chose to take action at this time as their purpose was very clear: they came to Yangzhou to steal food.

The three counties of Jianghuai were the most prosperous places near them. The agricultural production and land cultivation last year were not delayed at all, but the Western Wei had been fighting for a year and now relied entirely on the treasury and granary of Dayan. But these grains were limited and could be eaten up.

So last autumn there was a good harvest, and the winter wheat harvest season is approaching. If we attack Jianghuai at this time, even if we cannot capture the city, we will still make a profit as long as we can grab some grain.

The core idea is that if my neighbor stores grain, I store guns. My neighbor is my granary. But if my neighbor has both grain and guns, how should I deal with it?

Outside Anfeng City, Ding Jingzhen felt a little annoyed as he looked at the city that was still being defended.

Lei Shimeng, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with him, also sighed and said, "It's so hard to fight for Anfeng City. We've been fighting for five days. It took three days just to fill the trenches, and the past two days have been spent fighting against the sheep and horse walls."

Anfeng County is located on the bank of Jueshui River, at the northern foot of Dabie Mountain, and adjacent to Yulou County, only a few dozen miles away. The two cities are mutually supportive, and although they are surrounded by separate troops, the garrison in the city is very strong, which is completely different from the Yan army that the Eastern Wei army encountered in Geyang before.

After several days of siege, they had just filled in a few sections of the trenches, and now they haven't even climbed over the sheep and horse wall, and they have already lost two thousand people.

However, if they failed to capture these two cities, they would not be able to cross the flood. Moreover, both cities were located by the water, with well-developed water veins around them, so even the camps had to be across the water.

As a result, an army of more than 100,000 was unable to completely surround the two cities.

After five days of siege, several generals of the Western Wei army reached a consensus that the combat effectiveness of the Yan army in Yuzhou was no match for the Yan army in Jianghuai.

Over there, Shen Liuxing led his troops to besiege Yulou City, but the situation was almost the same, with no progress either.

For an army that has not yet completely gotten rid of its bandit nature, it would be impossible for them to capture the city even after fighting for ten days.

Almost had to give up.

Because the city would be filled with corpses of their own dead soldiers, some people might be so frightened by the sight of the corpses that their calves would cramp before they even get close, let alone climb the ladders to attack.

So after seven days of continuous siege, Ding Jingzhen began to consider withdrawing his troops.

However, in order to protect the Western Wei Emperor Cao Xuan and General You Zilu who were attacking Wan County from the southern foot of the Dabie Mountains, Ding Jingzhen had to continue the siege.

He also sent a message to Shen Liuxing, asking him to continue the siege of the city and to surround it without attacking.

The main commander of Anfeng County was Yin Gong. He divided the Huainan Left Camp into two parts and stationed them in Anfeng and Yulou respectively. For a small city like this, as long as the garrison of more than a thousand people had sufficient weapons and food, it would be difficult to conquer the army composed mainly of refugees under the city.

So the two sides ended up in a stalemate.

Yin Gong was somewhat puzzled when he saw that the enemy did not attack the city, because in his opinion Ding Jingzhen should have launched a fierce attack at this time and then headed straight to Huainan.

Now that we have reached Anfeng and Yulou, have we stopped?

Before this, they had captured the three passes of Yiyang and Geyang one after another. They looked very powerful and aggressive, but now they look like a group of refugees.

Why did the Yuzhou army lose territory after being beaten? Was it acting? But acting can't be like this, it's too real.
Yin Gong was actually overthinking it. The Yuzhou army was actually weak.

Because the main forces of the elite Zhenrong Army had been transferred away, the current Yuzhou Army, except for a few thousand veterans, consisted of new soldiers recruited from refugees.

They had not undergone long-term training and had no combat experience. Apart from having better equipment, they were no different from the Eastern Wei army in front of Yin Gong.

When they saw that the Eastern Wei army was larger in numbers and stronger in strength, they lost their morale and were naturally no match for the enemy.

The Jianghuai Army has been in existence for more than a year. It has veteran soldiers as its backbone and has undergone rigorous training. Its actual combat effectiveness is quite considerable.

On the fifth day when the two sides were in a stalemate, Li Yuanhui led 30,000 infantry and cavalry and was less than 50 miles away from Anfeng County.

In addition, Huainan prefect Zheng Shandao led 5,000 county soldiers by boat and advanced westward along the Huai River, planning to support Anfeng from the diverted waterway.

It was not until this time that the Eastern Wei Grand Commander Martin Jingzhen received news that reinforcements from Jianghuai had arrived.

So, should we withdraw our troops, withdraw our troops, or withdraw our troops?

(End of this chapter)