All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 363: The worst plan is to cut off food supply
Yan Liang and Wen Chou were both famous generals from Hebei and had high prestige in Yuan Shao's army.

The two men died in battle one after another, and the most direct result was a sharp drop in morale in Yuan Shao's army.

The decline is similar to that of a certain stock market.

Chen Ran immediately seized the opportunity, beat the drum and ordered all units to attack on all fronts, taking advantage of the situation to start a melee.

Yuan Shao's army suffered heavy losses due to low morale and was eventually forced to retreat into a riverside camp, where they managed to hold out with the help of the camp.

As it was getting dark, Chen Ran withdrew his troops one by one.

The generals from various armies settled down their own military camps and rushed to Chen Ran's tent to congratulate him.

Personal abilities may vary, but everyone knows how to flatter their lord.

"My Lord, you are so powerful, we all respect you~~~"

"Kill Yan Liang, punish Wen Chou, your lord will be feared by the world~~~"

"My lord is truly the most powerful general in the world!"

"Our respect for the Lord is like the surging river, endless~~~"

"."

Faced with everyone's flattery, Chen Ran accepted it all with a smile.

He also ordered a banquet and served a whole plate of roasted venison.

Everyone was eating and drinking, and the atmosphere was lively.

Halfway through the banquet, Chen Ran asked Jia Xu, "Wenhe, Yuan Shao's camp is quite difficult to attack. Do you have any good strategies to teach me?"

"My lord." Jia Xu put down the deer leg in his hand and said, "I have a plan."

"Wait a minute." Chen Ran interrupted, "Will this plan be detrimental to the harmony of nature? Are we going to throw corpses into the enemy camp again?"

"My lord, you understand me. That's right."

"Forget it, let's think of another way."

This strategy is a double-edged sword. The opponent only needs to do the same and throw it back, and both sides will be doomed. Chen Ran will definitely not use this.

"My lord," Jia Xu said with a smile, "Yuan Shao's troops have set up camp on a pile of sand. Our army can build towers and pile up earth like a mountain, and shoot at them with strong bows and crossbows. We can harass them day and night and break their morale!"

What he meant was that Yuan Shao's military camp was located at a low altitude, so we could pile up earth to form a hill, and have archers stand on the hill to shoot at his camp with bows and arrows, making it difficult for him to repair the camp.

Troops that are exhausted from running around will collapse due to low morale.

Chen Ran nodded immediately, "Yes."

After winning the field battle, Chen Ran's side's morale was greatly boosted.

The morale of Yuan Shao's army was low and they did not dare to leave the camp to fight.

They just watched helplessly as the opposing troops started to pile up mountains within a hundred steps of their camp.

When the pile was several feet high, archers went up and shot towards the camp.

As the saying goes, you can shoot farther from a high vantage point. Perhaps the casualties were not that high, but it put great psychological pressure on Yuan Shao's army.

After all, as long as they move around in the camp, they will be exposed to the threat of being killed by powerful bows and crossbows.

Whatever you do will be affected, and the fear of being shot every day will soon lead to a breakdown.

Yuan Shao, who was grieving the deaths of Yan Liang and Wen Chou, flew into a rage upon hearing the news and forcibly ordered troops from all camps to destroy the earthen hill.

The soldiers with low morale forced an attack, but naturally they were beaten badly by the opponents who had been waiting for them, and fled back to the camp in a panic.

Yuan Shao, who suffered a severe defeat, instead of calming down to study countermeasures, became furious and clamored for the entire army to attack in a fight to the death.

His advisers could no longer bear it and only managed to calm him down after a lot of persuasion.

"The enemy army piled up earth to make a mountain, and set up towers on the mountain to shoot arrows." Yuan Shao was furious and shouted at his advisers, "How should we respond?!"

"This is not difficult." The advisers under Yuan Shao are all first-class in ability and naturally have ways to deal with it.

Tian Feng immediately offered a suggestion: "No matter how far a crossbow can shoot, it can't reach the distance of a catapult. Build more catapults and throw stones to destroy the towers."

"Then do it as soon as possible!"

After being passively beaten for several days, Yuan Shao's army finally produced a batch of catapults, which continuously destroyed the towers on Chen Ran's side, causing considerable losses.

Seeing this scene, Chen Ran simply gave up this tactic and started digging trenches and moving forward.

It is similar to the one dug by Li Yunlong, but covered with wooden boards and loose soil to protect against bows, crossbows and stone bullets.

When digging to the edge of the camp, they switched to horizontal digging and attacked with the earth dragon tactics.

"This plan is not difficult to defeat." Ju Su suggested, "The Zhang River is right next to us. We can dig a ditch to bring the water into the camp and flood the enemy's tunnels."

The tunnel was flooded, and the earth dragon's magic was naturally broken.

After defeating Chen Ran's strategies one after another, Yuan Shao's mood indeed improved a lot.

He laughed at Chen Ran in the camp and said that he was a reckless man and that he would be able to defeat and kill him!
Just when he was happy, Xu You said, "There may be hidden dangers in Bingzhou."

When this was mentioned, Yuan Shao's face darkened again. "I have ordered the senior officials to block the exits of the mountain roads. The bandit troops over there cannot get through."

Yuan Shao was very angry about losing Bingzhou.

If it were someone else, he might have been killed long ago.

But Gao Gan was his nephew after all, so he had to let him continue to make meritorious contributions while serving his sentence and block the mountain road to prevent Xu Huang's troops from going east to capture Bingzhou.

"Not that."

Xu You was a little anxious, "It's the Black Mountain Bandits!"

The Black Mountain Bandits are large-scale bandit groups, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in one group.

Yuan Shao had been fighting the Black Mountain bandits for years and had gradually suppressed them.

Unexpectedly, Chen Ran suddenly sent troops to Yecheng, and he had to mobilize the main force to deal with it. The Black Mountain bandits naturally revived. "My lord," Xu You said loudly, "You should offer high positions and generous salaries to appease the Black Mountain bandits, bribe them with gold, silver, food and grass, and don't let them take advantage of the chaos to harass our army's rear, or even be used by Chen Zihou to cut off our food supply!"

As I said, the people under Yuan Shao are all capable.

Naturally, they also saw the potential threat posed by the Black Mountain bandits.

But the problem is that Yuan Shao doesn’t think so!
"Black Mountain bandits?" He sneered, "They have been beaten to a pulp by me a long time ago, how can they stir up any more trouble? When I defeat Chen Zihou, I will root them out completely!"

Xu You shouted anxiously, "My Lord, no~~~"

The Black Mountain bandits had indeed suffered heavy losses in the years of war with local heroes.

But the problem is that they have sufficient manpower.

The people who served as serfs on the lands of the aristocratic families were all their sources of soldiers, and this source of soldiers was almost inexhaustible.

Often, after a group has suffered a severe blow, they can rest for a year or two, and then gradually recover their strength and continue to stir up trouble.

Historically, Yuan Shao launched a series of heavy attacks first, and then Cao Cao continued to launch heavy attacks after he took over Hebei.

After fighting for many years, they reached the Hebei region where there was no crowing of roosters for a thousand miles and there was no more troops to be found. Only then did they completely wipe out the Black Mountain bandits.

Now, the Black Mountain Bandits still have strong recovery ability.

"Shut up!" Yuan Shao yelled, "I've made up my mind, get out!"

Xu You sighed deeply and left the tent helplessly.

Tian Feng, Ju Shou, Shen Pei and others looked at each other in bewilderment. Tian Feng was about to go out and talk about this matter, but was stopped by Ju Shou, who shook his head slowly at him and said, "My lord is in the upper court. It's useless to talk about this now."

Yuan Shao quickly put the matter of the Black Mountain bandits behind him and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the battle of wits and courage with Chen Ran.

You make a move on either side and I will resolve it.

I make a move and you respond.

The fight was intense.

Gradually, Yuan Shao's advisers realized that something was wrong. "Is Chen Zihou deliberately trying to provoke the lord to fight?"

"That's right, you just want to keep us here!"

"What do you want?"

"What else could it be? Of course it's the food shortage!"

"But Chen Zihou's troops in Bingzhou are all blocked on the other side of the mountain."

"Black Mountain Bandits, Black Mountain Bandits~~~"

When the news came that the Black Mountain bandits had launched a large-scale attack and cut off the food supply of Yuan Shao's army, the humiliated Yuan Shao, the first thing he did was to put Xu You, who kept saying "I told you so", into jail.

"My lord, don't panic."

Shen Pei consoled him, "My lord has formed an alliance with Gongsun Zan. You can send a letter to ask him to come to your aid. The cavalry under Gongsun Zan are capable and daring in battle. It will not be a problem for them to deal with the Black Mountain bandits."

"Humph." Yuan Shao's face flushed red, and he was furious. "Black Mountain bandits, no mercy! Gather all the troops from Qingzhou and Jizhou!"

"This time I will not only destroy Chen Zihou, but also kill all the Black Mountain bandits!"

"My lord, you must not do that." Tian Feng and others hurriedly advised, "How can we gather all the troops in one place when the local area is not peaceful? You must not do that~~~"

"Shut up!"

Yuan Shao was furious. "I have made up my mind! No need to say more!"

His advisers were all helpless because their lord would not listen to their advice.

Previously, Yuan Shao had set up his base in Yecheng, but now Yecheng was captured by Chen Ran, and all the food, treasury, and military supplies previously stored here became his spoils of war.

In order to supply food and fodder for hundreds of thousands of troops, Yuan Shao had to transport supplies and fodder from Bohai Sea over thousands of miles.

In order to guard against the Black Mountain bandits, he arranged Chunyu Qiong to lead 20,000 soldiers to guard along the way.

Under normal circumstances, 20,000 soldiers are enough to repel any group of Black Mountain bandits.

But the problem is that his opponent is Chen Ran.

Chen Ran's hobby is very similar to Prime Minister Cao's. He doesn't like popularity, but he likes to cut off people's food supply.

The previous fight with Yuan Shao was essentially to delay him.

Bribing the Black Mountain bandits to attack the rear was to prolong Yuan Shao's food and grass replenishment time.

Once all of this is done, the next step is to take the initiative and hit the wild enemies hard.

Chen Ran personally led thousands of elite troops, went down the Zhang River 200 miles away, crossed the river and headed north.

After joining forces with a group of Black Mountain bandits, the offensive against Chunyu Qiong began.

First, the Black Mountain bandits attacked Chunyu Qiong's grain transport team, but were defeated as expected.

Chunyu Qiong wanted to gain credit, so he led his men in pursuit.

Chen Ran's troops, hiding among the Black Mountain bandits, discarded a large amount of food, supplies, money, cloth and other items along the way as instructed.

As expected, Chunyu Qiong's troops fell into the trap immediately.

They scattered in all directions to scramble for property, and even fought for it. The entire military train was in chaos.

Chen Ran, who was lying in ambush nearby, immediately jumped on his horse and charged forward with his troops.

Chunyu Qiong's troops, who had lost their organization and formation, were defeated as expected. Even Chunyu Qiong was killed on the spot by Chen Ran!

As for the seized food and fodder, Chen Ran generously gave them as rewards to the Black Mountain bandits.

"As long as you fight bravely and cut off Yuan Shao's food supply, I will never treat you unfairly!"

The food supply route was cut off and the agreed food transport team failed to arrive on time.

When Yuan Shao's army learned that Chunyu Qiong had lost the food supplies, they had less than ten days' worth of food left!
(End of this chapter)