Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen: The Discussion in the Military Tent

  The Chu army had been fighting the Jin army all day and was almost unable to counterattack in the face of the enemy's night raid, Luosiqi finally understood why the enemy kept sending troops from the military camp to lure the Chu army into attacking. Also understood what those troops who were sent out were used for.

  They did not use it to help the Jin army attack the capital of Zheng, but instead secretly hid and took advantage of the Chu army's focus on attacking, quietly bypassing the main force of the Chu army, suddenly launching an attack on the weakly defended Zhu City. Now that Zhu City has been occupied by the Qi army, the only passage for the Chu army to retreat back to Chu has been blocked. What will happen next seems to be a foregone conclusion.

  As expected, not long after the news of Tianweizhong's fall, before Losi arrived at his military camp, he received a second piece of bad news from scouts: large numbers of Jin troops had begun to enter the few remaining camps of the Qi army, and behind the Qi army's camps, new camps were being built. The discovered Jin troops numbered over 100,000; they had retreated overnight to reinforce the Qi and Chu armies' battle.

  The general ordered to defend the Bamboo City has no idea whether he was killed or not, which may not be the most important thing for Tian Yu. For Tian Yu and the Chu army, the most important thing is that the Bamboo City serves as a supply city for the Chu army's attack on the Qi army, and Tian Yu has stored almost 90% of the grain and grass in the Bamboo City to supply the front-line Chu army.

  Who would have thought that the rear of Zhucheng would fall overnight? Even if there were only 5,000 troops in Zhucheng, relying on the city's fortifications, it was impossible to hold out for just one night!

  The military tent was quiet and terrifying, with all of Tian Yu's generals lowering their heads in silence.

  The Qi and Jin allied forces that had been besieging the capital of Zheng completely withdrew, entering the few remaining camps that had been attacked by the Chu army, where they began to build new camps and adopted a defensive strategy.

  This formed a situation where the Chu army was facing the Jin army in front and the Qi army behind, while the Zheng troops inside the city did not dare to come out.

  The Jin army still has more than 900,000 combat strength on the positive side, and the Qi army behind also exceeds 400,000 people. The Chu army now has only about 600,000 combat strength. Thirteen to six, it seems that both sides have lost nearly 200,000 combat strength, but the situation of the Chu army is much more severe. This severity is not only an absolute disadvantage in numbers, but also a more serious problem for the Chu army surrounded by the enemy on all sides cannot be solved.

  That's grain and fodder.

  Man must eat food, horse must eat grass.

  Because they lost their bamboo city, the Chu army's current grain and grass can only last for five days. Correspondingly, the opponent obtained a large amount of grain and grass from Chu after occupying the bamboo city.

  The most critical thing is that the grain path to Chu State was cut off by the Qi army occupying the Chu camp. The Chu army can no longer get any new supplies from within the country, which is also the reason why the Qi and Jin allied forces, with their absolute advantage in numbers, refused to come out and fight.

  They want to starve the Chu army to death, winning without a fight!

  Silence won't solve anything, others can't speak, only Tian Yu can say it.

  Tian Wei concluded that from the beginning, the allied forces of Qi and Jin had withdrawn their troops of 10,000 men each to outside the capital of Zheng in order to lure the Chu army into attacking.

  Later intelligence also confirmed this, it turned out that after the Qi state heard that the Chu army was sending troops to rescue Zheng, they secretly replaced the original commander-in-chief Gao Zhi with the famous general of Qi, Sun Wu.

  When Sima Rangju arrived at the front line, he had already received news that Qu Li was leading a Chu army to reinforce Zheng. He felt that once Qu Li's army arrived and joined forces with Tian Huan, it would be extremely difficult for the Qi-Jin allied army to capture Zheng again. Even if they captured the capital of Zheng, as long as the Chu army remained, Zheng would still have an opportunity to recover its country. The Qi-Jin allied army that had captured the capital of Zheng would also suffer heavy losses. Therefore, under Sima Rangju's suggestion, the Qi-Jin allied army showed weakness to the Chu army.

  The battle of Zhucheng was the work of Sima Rangju, who on the one hand used a small amount of Qi troops to put up a token resistance before abandoning the city and fleeing, but on the other hand had laid an ambush at a treacherous spot on the road from Zhucheng to Zheng. Unexpectedly, Tian Yu did not fall for it, instead choosing to hold out in the city after capturing it.

  Then Sima Rui had to come up with another plan. After secretly discussing with the commander of the Jin army, the Jin army began a fierce attack on the capital of Zhengguo. Meanwhile, he openly withdrew the Qi army to the outskirts of Zhengdu to assist the Jin army, but in reality, only a small part of the original 100,000-strong Jin army was attacking Zhengdu fiercely. Most of the Jin army was conserving its strength, while the Qi army was divided into many small teams that secretly bypassed the Chu army's camp at night and gathered near Zhucheng. As a result, on the one hand, the Zheng army did not dare to counterattack and could only defend itself, and on the other hand, the main forces of both the Qi and Jin armies became fresh troops capable of delivering a fatal blow.

  In fact, Tian Yu's defeat was ultimately due to the fact that the Chu army was far outnumbered by the Qi and Jin allied forces. Under the enemy's fierce attack on Zhengdu, the Chu army could not help but counterattack. If the Qi and Jin allied forces had launched a full-scale attack on Zhengdu, and the ruler of Zhengguo could not hold out and surrender, the Chu army would have had to retreat back to their own country. The barrier in the north that withstood the Jin army's southward advance would have been lost, and this result was also unacceptable to the Chu army. Otherwise, King Chu would not have risked being assassinated by Mo Ye to let Luo Siqi join the expedition.

  Lucy's abilities are far from being able to turn the tide of battle, and although she can now condense ice arrows to attack enemies, her attacks that can only hit a few dozen people at a time seem insignificant in a battlefield where tens of thousands of people are killing each other.

  If it were one-on-one or even one-on-tens, let alone the allied army of Qi and Jin, not to mention all the states in the Spring and Autumn period, there should be no one who could match Luosiqi. For example, Mo Ye, the powerful leader of the Night God Sect, would have to lure her into a place without any light before he would dare to fight her. However, on this battlefield where large armies clashed, Luosiqi was also unable to turn defeat into victory for the Chu army.

  In the fantasy novels that Luosiqi had read in modern times, powerful mages could summon meteorites with blazing fire to annihilate tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers. But now, as someone who had gained some magical powers herself, Luosiqi deeply felt how limited a person's magical and spiritual powers were after watching the Chu army and Qi army clash from afar for days. The scene where countless meteorites with blazing fire smashed into the enemy army was not something she could easily replicate.

  "We are outnumbered, our food and grass are exhausted, and we don't have any supernatural magic or spells. In this situation, Tian Yu can only helplessly say to the various generals: 'It seems that tonight we can only take advantage of the night to attack Zhu City and open up a passage back to Chu State.'"

  The bamboo city occupied by the Qi army is on the main road to Chengfu, and the supplies from the rear are constantly transported to the Chu army's camp through this road.

  Tian Yu's suggestion to launch a night attack on Zhu City was strongly opposed by Sima Yue. Sima Yue, being so young and already holding the position of deputy commander-in-chief, was not due to his exceptional talent, but rather because of the prestige of his family in Chu State and the trust placed in him by the King of Chu. To put it bluntly, Sima Yue was more like a supervisor than a deputy commander, and the reason why the King of Chu did not appoint him as a supervisor was that Luo Siqi already held a similar position.

  Although Sima Yue was unaware of his voice when discussing countermeasures, when Tian Yu proposed to take advantage of the night to attack Zhucity, he almost immediately opposed it.

  Simayue opposed for a simple reason, the capital of Chu State had only 100,000 troops stationed, which was already the scale of troops that could be stationed in the capital of a large country. Even with the national strength of Zheng State, it would not be possible to gather 100,000 people. The population of Zheng State was about 70,000, with 50,000 stationed in the capital and the remaining 20,000 scattered in various strategic locations and small cities. Although these small cities had some defensive power, the largest city, Yicheng, only had 3,000 troops, so they could only close their gates and defend themselves. The allied army of Qi and Jin was also unwilling to expend energy to eliminate them.

  The State of Chu sent out 30,000 men to destroy the Night God Sect, and then sent out another 50,000 men to rescue the State of Zheng. The remaining 20,000 men were mostly old and weak soldiers. The city of Chengfu originally had 30,000 men defending it, but Tian Yu took out another 25,000 men from Chengfu to increase their chances of victory. If the Chu army, led by Tian Yu, chose to launch a night attack on Zhucity, they would face at least 30,000 Qi soldiers defending the city, with nearly 100,000 Jin soldiers fiercely pursuing them from behind, making it easy for them to suffer a complete defeat.

  Simayi said to this slowly stood up and looked around at the various generals, he said to these generals: "If it's really like I said, our failure this time won't just be about saving Zhengguo. Our entire army will be destroyed, and with only 5,000 troops defending Chengfu, it will inevitably fall. Then the Qi-Jin allied forces can reach the foot of our capital city, and at that time what happened in Zheng's capital today will be reenacted in our own capital!"

  Simu Yue finished speaking, the tent became extremely quiet. Tian Yu also hesitated after hearing what he said. Simu Yue spoke more and more passionately, saying: "At that time, we will not only be defeated soldiers, nor just sinners of the entire Chu State! Our own wives, children, and elderly will also face the danger of national subjugation and family destruction! Our ancestors and our families will all be humiliated along with us!"

  The generals in the account began to whisper to each other, and Sima Yue's words were entirely possible. Tian Yu sighed and said: "General Sima is right, but we only have five days of grain and grass left. If we don't break through, it will be a waiting death. Why not try to rush back and preserve some fighting generals for the king!"

  In the face of life and death, people often choose to live on, even if they will die in the future. Dying in the future is still much better than dying now.

  Most of the generals were shocked by Sima Yue's words, but they still began to echo Tianyu's proposal and said that it was better to break through.

  Simavie found it difficult to go against the majority, his expression looked both dejected and angry, but he had already said what he needed to say, even if the King of Chu questioned him in the future, he would have room for explanation, although it was very reluctant, but apparently he didn't want to oppose everyone either, so he could only accept it.

  Now only Luoshi was silent in the account, Tianyu obviously still couldn't ignore her idea, although it was clear that even a goddess would find it difficult to save the Chu army from its current predicament. He asked her: "Goddess, what do you mean?"