Chapter 2759: Another Way
The emperor brought his men back to the main tent, leaving only a few important ministers and generals behind, and asked the rest to go and report.
Zhou Man was also kept.
He looked at everyone, "My dear ministers, what do you think of Lord Bai's proposal?"
Minister Feng said, "We can give it a try. If it succeeds, the losses will be less than a brute force attack."
The Duke of Zhao, however, was very hopeless. "The city walls are strong, and these Goguryeo soldiers are all prisoners. They can't demand the city gates be opened, so even if we subdue them, I'm afraid it won't make much sense."
The governor, Niu, said, "Rats have their own paths, and snakes have their own paths. Perhaps there really is such a place?"
The emperor thought so too. The cost here was not high, just some medicinal herbs and food. The most important thing was Zhou Man.
Then the emperor looked at Zhou Man and said with a smile: "I'll entrust this matter to Mr. Zhou."
Manbao bowed in response.
The emperor said, "We must do this, but we must also make other preparations. Goguryeo dared to use such a vicious plan, obviously still harboring high hopes. Surrendering in a short time is impossible."
He said, "Select a death squad from the army, note their names, places of origin, and families, and there will be a generous reward for them regardless of whether they live or die."
Duke Zhao asked, "When will the raid be launched?"
The emperor turned his head to look at the dim sky outside and said coldly, "Tonight is a good opportunity. You have seriously injured two of my most trusted ministers. They must be very happy, right?"
Minister Feng immediately asked, "Your Majesty, where do you want to raid? The city walls?"
Goguryeo had just poured water on the city wall yesterday, and it was slippery now. Even if the enemy's defense was relaxed, a surprise attack at this time would be ineffective, or even no success at all.
He did not recommend taking risks with the lives of his soldiers.
The emperor glanced at him and said, "Of course it's not the city gate."
He motioned for Gu Zhong to bring the map over, unfolded it, pointed at a few places, and said, "We attacked from the east, and this area has been completely conquered by us, but the northeast and southeast areas are still reserved."
Even Duke Zhao was speechless. "Your Majesty, there are only three towns in these two places, not even a county town."
What's the point of them taking over a place like this?
It doesn't take much manpower at all, okay?
The emperor said, "Anyway, there's no good outcome from storming the city. The siege is getting them angry, and since we have nothing to do anyway, we might as well take over this area."
General Ashina asked, "Your Majesty, do you wish to make Neigucheng a truly isolated city?"
The emperor sneered and said, "After taking these important towns, we will collect food and fodder on the spot and find the wealthy families and village heads in the towns. The soldiers will be short of food and fodder, which will be a good opportunity to replenish it."
He wanted to see how long the domestic city could hold out without external support and supplies.
Although others thought this method would not work, they still followed it.
Anyway, that is a small town. There are some small county towns next to it. There are not many defenders in the city, so it is not difficult for the Jin army to capture them.
They don't attack these places because it's not worth it.
Once we capture Guonei City and enter the Goguryeo Palace, even if Goguryeo is destroyed, these small towns will belong to the Jin Dynasty without any need to fight.
If they cannot capture the domestic cities, and send troops to attack these places, they will retreat afterwards, and these places will still return to the embrace of Goguryeo. Therefore, there is really no need to send troops out, which not only wastes manpower, but also wastes food and grass.
But it would be different if it was done in the name of collecting food and fodder.
Now the Jin army also has to support the people in the small town who have been forced into poverty by the army led by the Shangshu, so food and fodder are in short supply.
They now have only two sources of food and grass: the Ministry of Revenue raises it domestically, and the army collects it from the cities it has captured.
Although it seems like a lot, we don’t know how long the siege of the domestic city will last, so it’s always a good idea to prepare more.
So Xue Gui, Niu Zhishi and others took the initiative to request troops to fight.
The emperor gave them two teams of troops and asked them to attack the towns in the northeast and southeast.
By the time Gao Zhi learned about this, Xue Gui and Governor Niu had already captured more than ten towns and three cities.
It’s not that Gao Zhi’s news is delayed, but that they are too fast.
The troops around Guonei City were either withdrawn to support Anshi City and now became prisoners. In other words, they were summoned to Guonei City to jointly defend Guonei City and the royal palace.
There were not many soldiers in the city, most of them were yamen runners guarding the city, not to mention the villages and towns outside. Except for some wealthy families who led their servants to defend the city out of habit, the Jin army was simply in an empty city.
The main reason was that Goguryeo did not expect that the Jin army would be so crazy as to waste its manpower to attack these towns.
These places are neither checkpoints nor on their offensive routes, so they have no strategic significance, okay?
Who knew they would take it?
After Xue Gui and Governor Niu occupied these places, they began to send people to collect food and fodder.
The problem was discovered as soon as the food was collected. Many poor people fell to the ground crying, and some even chose to escape in the cold weather rather than provide food and fodder.
"General, in the past two months, Goguryeo has already levied grain and fodder three times. Many families now have no food at all. We went into the houses and found that many families were eating tree bark directly."
Another soldier said, "It's not pure bark. There's still some rice in it, but not much, maybe a few dozen grains."
Xue Gui: ...
He had no choice but to call back all the soldiers and stop the campaign. The Goguryeo people who were already trying to escape were stunned.
Xue Gui also sat on the stone in a daze, "No wonder Minister Feng and Duke Zhao disagreed with the raid on these places..."
Because it's really not worth it. Not only is it a waste of manpower, but also a waste of food.
When the troops are dispatched, the soldiers will have to do a lot of exercise, and coupled with the cold weather, they will consume more food and fodder than usual, isn't that a good thing?
Xue Gui scratched his head in pain.
On the other side, Governor Niu, after occupying the small town and the large village below, directly ordered people to call the elderly people in the village and town for questioning. After asking about the tax situation of Goguryeo in the past six months, he had a rough idea.
He randomly picked out a section of the area and brought the children from each family over to ask them questions: what they ate for breakfast and dinner, what time they went to bed, what they did every day, and whose dinner was the most delicious...
After asking all the questions, it turned out that Governor Niu did not go to the homes of ordinary people, but took his troops to sit in a few houses.
He didn't even have to ask, the owner would prepare several carts of food for him to take away.
Governor Niu calculated that these grains were only enough for their own consumption and were not enough to support the army.
But after thinking about it, he felt that it was not a loss. After all, the army would spend less on food and fodder for 2,000 people, and there would be this part of food and fodder left over, which was also a profit.
So he said to the soldiers, "Go back and tell the logistics department that our food and fodder supply is temporarily unavailable and we can be self-sufficient."
See you at 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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