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Chapter 660 Turning from defense to offense

Next, taking advantage of the momentum, the Lin State army pursued all the way.

Zhou Chang was grateful to Wu Ling for being loyal and staying, so he gave him the opportunity to be the left vanguard and lead the charge.

Jiang Meng did not object. After all, most of the capable generals of King Xian had passed away with the coffin, and most of the remaining ones remained neutral and could not play any big role in the military camp.

There is also a saying that a strong general has no weak soldiers under his command. Jiang Meng was not really a "strong general", so the soldiers under his command were also "weak".

Therefore, although they were pursuing the victory, in fact, after repeated pursuits, they were blocked outside the city of Shucheng.

It started with defending the city, but now it has changed to siege.

What Zhou Chang didn't expect was that he thought the enemy troops would become smaller and smaller as the fight went on, but in fact they became more and more numerous.

The Shen State occupied the land of the Three States all year round. Although the Shen State had few people, it also deployed troops and city defenses everywhere in the Three States. Previously, it had only lost Maizhou, and then it quickly gathered troops from Shuzhou and Jizhou, retreating back to Shuzhou while defending.

When Zhou Chang and Jiang Meng led their troops to attack, the situation immediately reversed. It became that the enemy was watching on the city wall while they set up camp outside the city.

Although Jiang Meng attacked the city several times, he failed to capture it after a month.

Zhou Chang had no choice but to recommend Wu Ling, who had been put aside.

However, he did not expect that Wu Ling, though a smart talker, was useless on the battlefield. He was injured in a short time and could never go to the battlefield again. He could only stay around Zhou Chang all day and barely serve as a vanguard.

Zhou Chang was disappointed and thought of Zhou Tang again.

It was said before that Zhou Tang would be promoted to be the vanguard, but whether to use him or not would be up to Jiang Meng.

Therefore, before Zhou Chang recommended someone, he made a detailed investigation of Zhou Tang.

The evaluation received was that Zhou Tang was an upright and sincere person with both courage and strategy, but he was never given a high position during the period when Lin Fang was in command. This was mostly due to the serious corruption within Lin Fang's army. Without connections and money, there was no way to get promoted, so it took him so many years to become a captain guarding the city.

So Zhou Chang formally recommended Zhou Tang to Jiang Meng again.

No matter what Jiang Meng thought in his heart, he appeared to obey what Yi Wang said.

Of course, this is also the reason why Zhou Chang has always been cautious and never made excessive demands on Jiang Meng.

The relationship between the two is delicate now, so they must guard their respective bottom lines.

Since Wu Ling was useless, Jiang Meng officially appointed Zhou Tang as the left vanguard, giving him the opportunity to charge into battle.

Zhou Tang lived up to Zhou Chang's expectations. He went into battle, killed the enemy, and captured the general's head.

But after that, the Mirage Army also learned from their previous behavior and hid in Shucheng City and did not go out.

This made Zhou Chang and Jiang Meng very anxious.

Although Jiang Meng obtained permission and support from the imperial court, and military supplies gradually arrived in the rear, it was still a drop in the bucket.

Over the years, the three states have been plundered by the Mirage Kingdom, and there is a shortage of food, cattle, horses, clothing, charcoal and medicine.

The deeper they go, the scarcer the resources become. It becomes increasingly difficult for the army to obtain resource supplies from local areas.

Therefore, every day the war is delayed will result in a huge loss for both the country and the people.

More than a month passed, and Shucheng had been under siege for a long time. Zhou Chang then thought of learning and applying what he had learned.

Unfortunately, whenever I see military books, I get overwhelmed and can’t rely on this “Buddha’s foot”.

Zhou Chang searched his mind again for all the stories about wars from his two lifetimes, and in the end the only thing he could think of was "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". However, he had a vague understanding of the plots and characters in it, so it was of no use.

Just when she was about to pull all her hair out, she thought of silver again.

On the one hand, Zhou Chang began to have the engineers dig tunnels on the Shucheng position overnight, saying that it was inconvenient to bribe the Mirage Army generals in public, and digging a tunnel would facilitate transactions between the two sides.

On the other hand, word was spread that money had been paid to the relevant parties in the Mirage Kingdom, and that the Mirage Army was only pretending to defend the city, but would actually be defeated by the neighboring country in a few days.

Just saying this is not enough to convince either side.

In order to put on a complete show and win everyone's trust, Zhou Chang even used the "Yufengshe".

To be more precise, several rumors were spread using the three words "Yufengshe".

Zhou Chang claimed that he had asked "Yufengshe" to bribe the anti-war nobles of the Shen Kingdom. They would certainly do their best to stop the war, or find a way to make the Shen Kingdom withdraw its troops and be defeated.

Rumors always run faster than the wind, without any distinction between direction or friend or foe.

Zhou Chang believed that within a few days, not only would everyone in their military camp believe it, but even the Mirage Army in Shucheng would hear about it.

On April 15th, even the weather in the far north began to warm up, and tender green buds sprouted on the earth.

Zhou Chang stood on the chariot, with the left vanguard Zhou Tang on his left and Gao Yuan on his right. Behind them was a battering ram team of several hundred people, but the rams were not loaded with pointed logs but large wooden boxes piled with gold.

The chariot slowly walked towards the south gate of Shucheng and stopped in front of a four-meter square and two-meter deep pit that had been dug last night.

Across the earth pit is the Mirage Army’s new coach, Beishan Ye.

Zhou Chang had been "laying the groundwork" for many days, so he was now at ease as he moved his gaze upwards from the earth pit: "I heard that the man called Beishan Jue who was killed by our vanguard officer a few days ago was your brother?"

Beishan Ye was a rough man in his fifties, with a face full of flesh, covered in armor, and holding a long-handled knife with an extremely heavy blade.

Behind him, the gate of Shucheng was wide open, and tens of thousands of soldiers stood behind him with spears and shields in hand, ready to meet the enemy with all their might.

Bei Shan Ye's eyes flashed with ferocity, and his voice was like a broken gong: "Stop talking nonsense, are you challenging me? Are you that Zhou Tang?"

The Mirage Kingdom was founded by bandits and had no culture of its own. Most of the so-called nobles used the same written language as neighboring countries, and only the poor used later-created symbols and musical notes to communicate.

"I've already said it when I challenged you just now. Today we're going to make a bet. I'm enough for this bet. We don't need to be the left vanguard." Zhou Chang wore a silver helmet and silver armor today, and had a harmless smile on his face.

Beishan Ye ignored him and moved his fierce eyes to the right side behind Zhou Chang.

Behind Zhou Chang, Gao Yuan was also riding on a horse in full armor, but because he had only one arm, he was holding the reins and had no weapon.

Beishan Ye noticed something was wrong and shifted his gaze to Zhou Chang's left.

Behind Zhou Chang on his left side, Zhou Tang straightened his chest, which could no longer be straightened, on his horse, and looked at Beishan Ye fearlessly, giving him a contemptuous snort.

Zhou Chang didn't get any response, so he spoke again: "If you don't bet with me, don't even think about fighting with our vanguard, let alone avenging your brother."

Bei Shan Ye was at a loss, his short beard sticking up to the sky: "Who are you?"

Zhou Chang did not intend to reveal his identity: "It doesn't matter who I am. You will know it after you fall into the pit and are captured."