My father Liu Xuande

Chapter 580 The Perilous Path of the Bo

Zhang Song nodded with a livid face: "I will discuss it with the other families, but I don't know how much more grain the prefecture needs?"

Upon hearing Zhang Song's offer, Wang Shang secretly breathed a sigh of relief and replied, "I need 120 million in cash and 100,000 shi of grain."

Zhang Song's face darkened further, but he nodded.

Although he didn't say it aloud, he had already gone through the calculations in his mind.

When Zhao Wei rebelled, Chengdu allocated 60 million coins to Pang Xi as a reward for the soldiers of Dongzhou.

When Pang Xi retreated to Luocheng, Liu Zhang sent Huang Quan with 12,000 troops to reinforce him.

Before Huang Quan and his men set off, they rewarded the troops with another sum of money: two thousand coins per person, and several times that amount for officers according to their rank. This sum amounted to another thirty million coins.

When Pang Xi and Huang Quan retreated to Chengdu, there would be at least 50,000 troops in the city.

To boost morale, the rewards will be extremely generous this time, especially for the soldiers from Dongzhou, who will likely receive double the amount.

Based on this calculation, if each Shu soldier received 3,000 coins, the 20,000-plus Dongzhou soldiers (including the Dongzhou troops newly recruited by Liu Zhang in Chengdu) would receive an average reward of over 5,000 coins per person, exceeding that of the local Shu soldiers. Adding the extra rewards for officers and generals, the total is conservatively estimated at 200 million coins.

It's not that the money has to be given, but the strength of the army is directly related to the amount of money.

Despite their repeated defeats, the Dongzhou troops never completely collapsed and maintained a basic level of combat strength. Besides fearing retribution from Zhao Wei, the rewards they received were also a significant factor.

If Liu Zhang wanted the Dongzhou soldiers and Shu commanderies in Chengdu to fight for him, he would have to go to great lengths. Moreover, judging from Zhang Song's assessment, the reward money probably wouldn't be enough; he would definitely need to add goods like cloth.

"I tried my best to persuade everyone to hand over the money to the treasury within a month."

"late."

Wang Shang shook his head: "What Fangbo means is... within ten days."

"hiss……"

Zhang Song was now truly anxious: "Why the rush?"

Wang Shang replied with a bitter face, "The governor must have been frightened by the performance of the Dongzhou soldiers in Luocheng. He means to reward them as soon as they return to Chengdu."

Zhang Song's face turned ashen, and he was so angry he couldn't speak.

In the end, he could only grit his teeth and nod, then turn and leave, fearing that Wang Shang might make some new demands.

Wang Shang, standing behind Zhang Song, watched him leave with a wry smile, knowing that Zhang Yongnian must have come to resent him as well.

After standing there for a long time, he shook his head and turned to leave.

**
On the city wall of Bodao, Yan Yan calmly looked down at the city below. A young man was being lowered down the city wall in a basket. The man inside was surnamed Yan and was Yan Yan's illegitimate grandson left in his hometown of Linjiang.

The reason he appeared on the city wall of Bodao was naturally because of Liu Feng.

However, Liu Feng sent him over to persuade him to surrender, but he didn't really give him much hope.

Yan Yan has a very strong personality and is quite loyal. Although he would take the easy way out for the sake of his family, he was also actively fighting in the original timeline and was captured because he was not strong enough.

In any case, they are much better than those who change their minds depending on the wind.

In Chinese culture, such people are highly respected.

If unyielding spirit and a willingness to die rather than surrender are considered the top tier, then someone like Yan Yan would easily be ranked in the 1.5 tier, even surpassing the second-tier war god Li Jing by a few points.

After all, Li Jing was forced to speak out to save his life due to the situation and Li Yuan's narrow-mindedness and lack of discernment. If it weren't for Li Er's intercession, Li Jing, with his great talent, would not only have been made a villain but would have been beheaded by Li Yuan.

Liu Feng summoned Yan Yanshu for two reasons: firstly, to persuade him to surrender, and secondly, to lay the groundwork for future actions.

The Yan family was a prominent clan in Linjiang, and Yan Yan himself was a famous general in Sichuan, enjoying great prestige throughout Yizhou.

If Yan Yan could be persuaded to surrender, even if he was captured after the battle and forced to surrender as he did in the original timeline, it would greatly help Liu Feng to quickly win over the hearts and minds of the people in Shu.

However, no one knew what Yan Yan was thinking. After listening to his grandson's persuasion to surrender, he neither flew into a rage and berated his grandson for his lack of loyalty, nor did he threaten to cut off his grandson's head to boost the morale of the army and demonstrate his integrity of preferring death to surrender.

Yan Yan simply said that Xichuan only had generals who would rather die than kneel, and then drove his grandson out of the Bodao.

Zhuge Liang, Lu Xun, and others were not surprised by this result. After Yan Yan's grandson returned to Liu Feng's army, Liu Feng's army, which had been waiting for half an hour, launched its first attack on the Bodao.

Bodao is indeed easy to defend and difficult to attack, because strictly speaking, it is surrounded by water on three sides, and only the west side has enough plains to provide for the army to deploy its formation.

Although there is a flat area to the east, it is surrounded by water on three sides and faces the city on one side, making it a dead end. Once the army is defeated, there will be nowhere to escape.

Generally speaking, no general would dare to send his troops to camp here. Even if they did, their soldiers weren't fools or madmen; they would disobey orders even when faced with a death mission.

But for Liu Fengjun, the situation was quite different.

Zhang Nan's two thousand elite soldiers not only dared to set up camp in a desperate situation, but also braved the enemy's crossbows and arrows to build a trench and earthen wall.

Subsequently, a large number of siege catapults were transported from the other side of the river.

As a result, the Bodao region, which originally faced only one enemy, now faced enemies on two sides, one to the east and one to the west. This made mutual support extremely difficult, forcing the troop force to be divided in two. Moreover, because there were also enemies to the east, the previously undefended southern and northern cities had to be reinforced with additional defensive forces.

Yan Yan was indeed a famous general in Sichuan, and his reputation was well-deserved. Even though there were only 5,000 garrison troops in the city plus more than 2,000 young men who had been conscripted, he launched four night raids outside the city in the past half month, attempting to drive Zhang Nan's troops down the river, or at the very least, to force Zhang Nan to retreat.

However, Zhang Nan fought to the death and refused to retreat, and the control of the river was completely in the hands of Liu Fengjun.

Zhang Nan's wounded soldiers would soon be sent across the river for treatment, and his troops would be replenished immediately. Therefore, even after Yan Yan had suffered more than 700 casualties, he still could not drive Zhang Nan away. Seeing that Liu Feng's army's siege equipment was becoming more and more complete, Yan Yan finally had to abandon his plan to force Zhang Nan to retreat first so that he could strengthen the defense of the Bodao Pass.

It was precisely because of this that Yan Yan already felt the problem of insufficient troops even though Liu Fengjun's offensive had just begun.

Fortunately, the Three Gorges Dam exists, preventing large ships from Liu Feng's downstream vessels from crossing the dam. However, during the Yangtze River's high-water season, the Bo Dao will not only face attacks from two sides, but also besieged by catapults from the ships on both sides facing the water.

During the period from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Southern Song dynasty, in most of the frontal sieges of cities in the Central Plains dynasties, the attacking side's main target was invariably the city gate. Attacks on the city walls did occur, but the primary focus remained on the city gates. Even city walls were designed with the city gates as the core, extending outwards in both directions.

The reason is because of its cost-effectiveness.

Only by breaching the city gates can the army enter the city in an organized manner, thus achieving victory in the siege. The reason why the breach of the city walls still revolves around the city gates is essentially to allow the army to sweep through the surrounding areas and open the city gates after breaking through the walls.

Under this mode of warfare, Bodao, surrounded by water on three sides, truly deserves the title of a fortified city.

Such a fortified city, guarded by the loyal Yan Yan, was naturally not afraid of falling. Even if it couldn't hold out, it would take at least a year or two, until the city was running out of food and medicine.

But what Yan Yan encountered was a revolutionary counterweight catapult.

Catapults existed as early as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, but the East never focused on mechanical development. Instead, it went astray and only thought about increasing manpower.

Even if the two people work together skillfully, they are still not one person, and the timing and amount of force they exert will differ.

This not only disperses the force, but more importantly, it severely affects the accuracy of the slingshot, especially since this effect is irregular, making the trajectory and landing point completely unpredictable.

The counterweight catapult is different. The counterweight of this catapult is almost identical. Not only in the same machine, but also in catapults of the same specification, the counterweight and data can be used interchangeably, and at most only some minor adjustments are needed.

This greatly improves the accuracy of stone throwing, making it possible to hit the same target with stones.

As a result, the methods of attacking cities underwent a significant change. In addition to attacking the city gates, a strategy of attacking the corners of the city was also developed.

After discussing with Lu Xun, Zhuge Liang decided to take a two-pronged approach.

Eight counterweight catapults and twenty-four catapults were deployed at the front to launch a fierce attack on the two-hundred-step city wall centered on the city gate. The eight counterweight catapults and twenty-four catapults were also divided into two groups of four, positioned on the left and right flanks respectively, forming an angled sweep to attack the corners of the city.

As a result, at the eastern corner of the city, the east and south walls were subjected to a pincer attack by two counterweight catapults and six catapults, making it impossible for the city's reinforcements to cross the area blocked by catapults to reinforce the corner of the city.

Yan Yan had already retreated to a high building in the city. Stones were falling like rain at the city gate in front of him, and the city gate had been smashed to pieces. There was no place for anyone to stand.

Yan Yan hastily ordered his soldiers to retreat to the city walls and conscripted able-bodied men to build earthen ramps inside the city, then placed catapults on them in an attempt to launch a counterattack.

However, there were only ordinary catapults in the city. Originally placed on the city wall, their range was not as good as that of the counterweight catapults. Not to mention that all the catapults on the city wall have now been destroyed. Even if the remaining ones are placed on the earthen slopes inside the city, their range is completely unable to reach the counterweight catapults of Liu Feng's army outside the city. They only barely pose a certain threat to the catapults deployed in the front.

However, these catapults were extremely inaccurate, and the opposing catapults immediately retreated, resulting in no significant gains whatsoever. They barely managed to force back some of the enemy's firepower.

Fortunately, Liu Fengjun's counterweight catapults were not inexhaustible. Not only did the machine parts need maintenance and replacement, but the large stone projectiles also needed special polishing.

Although the Shu region is mostly hilly and mountainous, it is not easy to manufacture suitable stone bullets, which gave Yan Yan and the Bodao garrison a chance to catch their breath.

Although he didn't understand why Liu Fengjun didn't launch a major attack at this time, Yan Yan seized this safe moment, personally took to the front lines, boosted morale, and led his soldiers and able-bodied men to repair the city walls, build up earthen mounds, and construct a row of wooden palisades close to the base of the walls inside the city walls.

These wooden palisades were meant to protect against flying fragments of trebuchets. At this time, under the threat of Liu Feng's trebuchets, it was almost impossible to deploy soldiers on the city walls.

The only thing Yan Yan could think of was to house the soldiers in the hidden troop shelters below the city wall. But these shelters had only ever been used to house reserves; they couldn't possibly hold so many troops.

Left with no other option, Yan Yan could only deploy the extra soldiers to wait beneath the city walls. However, for these soldiers, the threat wasn't just the boulders; even the small fragments from the broken boulders were deadly. With the protection of this row of wooden palisades, the damage would be significantly reduced unless they were directly hit by a boulder.

Inside the city, Yan Yan was actively repairing the city's defenses, while outside, Liu Feng's army was replacing damaged parts in the siege equipment and supplying more and sharpened stone projectiles. For a moment, the battle entered a lull. But it was foreseeable that an even fiercer and more brutal battle would follow.

**
Liu Feng was stationed in Jiangzhou, and battle reports from all over the country kept coming back from the front lines.

Good progress has been made on all fronts. Jiang Qin captured Han'an, Zhou Tai captured Langzhong and Chongguo, and Zhuge Liang successfully joined forces with Lu Xun and is now besieging Bidao.

The various pieces of good news greatly excited the officials around Liu Feng.

However, Liu Feng frowned slightly, mainly because the military grain reserves had not been significantly increased.

Throughout the entire Shu region, the main grain-producing areas are the three counties of Shu, Ba County, and Yizhou County, representing the southern grain-producing area.

Leaving aside the grain-producing areas in the south, their quantity is not large and transportation is quite difficult. At present, being able to receive Liu Feng's army under the Bidao Road and share some of the pressure on Jiangzhou is already quite satisfactory.

The grain output in Ba County is not low, and the grain handed over to the central government each year accounts for more than 20% of the total income of Sichuan.

The problem is that Zhao Wei is too good at plundering, and he has a high reputation in Ba County, so he can mobilize a large amount of grain reserves at a relatively low cost.

After Zhao Wei's ransacking, Ba County's grain reserves were really low. Even though Liu Feng used powerful tools such as sugar, salt, sesame oil, and iron pots, the effect was precipitous after he successfully raised a batch of grain in the early stages.

Even though Jiangling and Jingzhou went all out, constantly transporting grain to Jiangzhou.

However, after more than a month, Jiangzhou had only managed to accumulate less than 300,000 shi of military rations, apart from those used to supply the front lines. This included the portion of grain that had been procured in Ba County.

According to Liu Feng's plan, Jiangzhou would need to have a reserve of over a million shi of grain to feel secure.

This was not only to supply the needs of the three armies, but also to lay the foundation for the subsequent transfer of He Qi and Gao Shun's troops from Jingzhou into Shu.

The slow pace of grain accumulation has begun to affect Liu Feng's subsequent troop deployment plans.

The combined forces of He Qi and Gao Shun numbered 36,000 men, and each month they consumed over 70,000 shi of grain just for food, not even counting the small number of warhorses and the large number of livestock used for transport.

Once they are transferred to Sichuan, the grain reserves in Jiangzhou will only be enough to feed them for four months, and there can be no mishaps, otherwise the situation will only get worse.

(End of this chapter)