Zhao Jiu nodded slowly. This was what he cared about. Wu Jie was still holding out in Fangzhou City the day before, but on the same day, Yelu Ma Wu led dozens of his Khitan Mouke to appear in the lower reaches of Baihe River. These two iron facts combined with the objective geographical conditions could directly lead to a conclusion - that is, no matter which way Lou Shi wanted to take, he had actually divided his troops into an organized manner, and his core main force had been reduced by at least four to five thousand.
This is a very sensitive number.
"Have you sent scouts to Wu Jie?" Zhao Jiu came back to his senses and looked at him seriously.
"I have already sent them out without authorization." Zhang Jun was impatient. "Your Majesty, if Fangzhou holds on, Loushi divides its troops, and the Jin army in Hedong cannot cross the river for the time being, I think we can gather them together and annihilate them! One battle will decide the outcome!"
Zhao Jiu glanced at this confidant who had been in Bashu for so long that he had missed a lot of things. After thinking for a moment, he shook his head slightly: "Deyuan, Liu Yanxiu (Liu Ziyu) has his reasons. This is related to the life and death of the country. We must either have no choice or be fully confident. We can't gamble everything on it!"
Zhang Jun wanted to say something but hesitated, opened his mouth and was unable to speak, but ultimately remained speechless.
Besides, Zhang Jun’s thoughts can be understood without anyone telling him.
One reason was his personality, the other was his eagerness to show off... This attitude was that public was public and private was private, but the little bit of selfishness seemed insignificant after he donated his family property to serve his country.
"Pay close attention to the news and we'll discuss the battle later." Zhao Jiu said, but stood up and started shooting again.
Zhang Jun had no choice but to accept the order and leave.
In this way, the emperor and his ministers were unable to change the core strategy in Chang'an in a hurry... Of course, this is how it should be. The core strategy of a large-scale battle cannot be changed due to slight changes in the local battlefield.
The three-layer defense system based on Tongzhou as an area, Weishui as a line, and Chang'an as a point is still the original plan and bottom-line option for the current war.
However, the news that Wu Jie had probably saved Fangzhou City still brought great encouragement to Chang'an, especially after various news gradually came in...
That night, the report from the Fangzhou local officials and Hu Yinxin’s daily report arrived in Chang'an.
On the next day, which was the first day of May, the scouts sent by Chang'an brought back news of Wu Jie's resistance and counterattack in Fangzhou in the morning. The scouts claimed that they saw a large number of heads of real enemies. In addition, they also brought back news that the Jin army gave up the siege and left the main camp at Hekou to march south.
At this time, many people had wavered in their previous beliefs, and even Liu Ziyu remained silent.
By noon, Wu Jie had sent someone to deliver a handwritten account of the battle in Fangzhou City... Zhao Jiu no longer had any doubts about Wu Jie's record. He even became acutely aware that this general who had previously been ranked below Qu Duan and had suffered repeated defeats might very well be a general like Li Yanxian, who was misled and blinded by his own poor historical knowledge, and then relied on his talent to stand out.
Besides, Wu Jie's letter naturally included some words like "fortunately thanks to the power of heaven", but compared with these empty words, some descriptions that were obviously in line with the objective laws of the battlefield, some realistic words, combined with the irrefutable fact that he had defended Fangzhou City, were what made Emperor Zhao fully realize the essence of his other party's talents.
There aren’t many words like this, only three paragraphs, but they are enough.
One of them said: "Choose strong bows and powerful crossbows, shoot in turns, fire continuously, like raindrops and arrows like a constant stream of troops'... This talks about how to win specifically, and shooting in turns and suppressing firepower are too consistent with an ordinary college student's understanding of the winner on the battlefield.
The second one says: 'The Shenbi bow is the most useful. It is not capable of winning every battle, but it can be used to sweep the battlefield. Craftsmen are stationed in the camp to repair it overnight, otherwise the arrows cannot be replenished'... This talks about the danger of the battlefield and the restrictions on victory, and implies that the reason why Wu Jie chose to take the risk and attack was largely because he was worried about the shortage of crossbow arrows. He wanted to recover the crossbow arrows and repair them overnight in order to seize control of the battlefield.
The third one says: "The Jin people have four strengths: cavalry, perseverance, heavy armor, and bows and arrows. Therefore, we use the terrain to eliminate cavalry, the heat and repeated shooting to eliminate perseverance, and use the divine arm bow and crossbow to counter heavy armor and bows and arrows." This explains his overall strategy for this battle from the theoretical source, and also explains why he gave up Luojiao City before and why he chose to retreat to Fangzhou City to hold on.
To be fair, Zhao Jiu had never seen anyone else make such an excellent summary of the war... Han Shizhong and Zhang Rong were rough, Li Yanxian didn't do it either, and even Yue Fei didn't show anything similar! Qu Duan might have done it, because he was Wu Jie's superior, but his personality was a fatal flaw.
And this Wu Jie is undoubtedly better than Qu Duan, and is a great general like Han, Yue, Li, and Zhang!
On the second day of May, Han Shizhong sent a special express horse to report from the front line that countless Jin troops went down the Beiluo River and stationed in Baishui City. He sent people to capture the Jin cavalry and asked them clearly, saying that Wanyan Loushi, Wanyan Balisu and others had personally led the troops here, and there was also news about Tuhesu being injured and Salihe being defeated and staying behind. More importantly, there were definitely only about 30,000 Jin troops in Baishui City at that time!
At this point, no one doubted Fangzhou's great victory.
And there is no doubt that Wu Jie really relied on his 5,000 remnants to cause the Jin army to lose thousands of soldiers and split 4,000 to 5,000 troops... In other words, an ideal situation occurred. At the most critical moment, an unplanned person used the unplanned 5,000 remnants to exchange for 10,000 Jin army troops.
The whole Chang'an suddenly became bright.
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