Chapter 2991 Desperate Counterattack 29

But now it is impossible to rob the craftsmen. The north is in chaos. The refugees run far away when they see them and cannot be caught. Others are in Tang Anran's bastion and cannot be caught either. In this way First, where can I find craftsmen? I can only look at these good things in the Central Plains and think that I will no longer be able to enjoy them in the future, and my living standard will drop, which is a pity.

Some people may ask, if they don’t have craftsmen, where do the things they enjoy now come from?

This is very simple. It is said to be shipped from the south, but in fact it basically comes from the Enron base. It was resold through an intermediary. The other party claimed that it was obtained from Jiangnan, and no one doubted it.

This is what the Xihu people did when they first came to the Central Plains and Enron wanted to grow up. They never said that the items they sold were from their own base. They only let the intermediary say that they were from Jiangnan, thus covering up the existence of Enron's base.

Therefore, much of the wealth stolen by the Xihu people returned to Enron's hands through the purchase of luxury goods. This is one of the reasons why Enron is getting richer and richer.

In this way, both sides made preparations for a year, and Enron began to close the net.

The first target should not be too small, as it would not attract attention; it should not be too big, after all, it is a test. If it is too big, it will be difficult to deal with, or even lose the war, it will easily damage morale, so An Ran chose a target away from home. The capital was hundreds of miles away and could be considered an important city, so it launched its own operations.

At that moment, An Ran sent out almost 100,000 troops to surround the city.

The reason why so many people were sent to besiege was because Chongcheng was larger and could not be surrounded without a small number of people.

Such a heavy city has more troops, and at the same time, there are more Xihu people in the city. Because it is a heavy city, it is naturally a more famous city in the past. Xihu people generally like to stay in such big cities because they are more prosperous. , of course, the main reason is that with more troops, they have more family members and servants, resulting in a lot of people in the city.

Once such a city with a large population is besieged, it can only live on its own food reserves. Soon something will happen.

If nothing else, within ten days, there will be no vegetables to eat.

Then the food cannot be controlled for long, because An Ran came to attack before the autumn harvest. The new food has not been harvested yet, and the city is full of old food, and there will not be much old food.

But Anron is different. There are her bastions everywhere nearby. She doesn't have to worry about food and grass. The nearby bastions can provide them at any time.

Don't worry about the nearby bastion not being enough, because food and grass will be supplied from other places at any time.

Therefore, even if Anron dispatched 100,000 troops, because the bastion was nearby, the supply of food and grass would not be a problem at all.

The guard of that important city saw that An Ran had sent troops to surround his city, so he naturally sent people to ask for help from the royal court.

An Ran didn't block it and went with them to ask for help, because she was about to let people know that she could not only defend the city, but also fight in the field.

At the same time, she also had the idea of ​​​​surrounding the area for help, so naturally she would not prevent people in the city from going to the capital to seek help.

When Wang Ting heard that the important city hundreds of miles away was besieged by An Ran's 100,000 troops, he was naturally anxious. After all, this was an important city, and there were many Xihu people inside, so he couldn't afford to make any mistakes, so he immediately sent troops to relieve the siege.

At this time, they also thought the same as the Southern Dynasty. They felt that An Ran's defense of the city was powerful, but the field battle was not necessarily powerful.

As a result, they had cavalry, and Anron also had cavalry - Anron had begun to build a horse farm as early as when he was building the bastion. Using modern breeding methods, he cultivated many good horses and formed his own cavalry; they had armor and iron swords, and Anron There is also armor, and it is also a steel sword.

A war that is not at the same level of technology is unwinnable. After all, Anron's soldiers can cut through the other side, but the opponent's sword is not hard enough to cut through the armor of Anron's soldiers. How can we fight this battle?

What's more, the enemy also has many bows and arrows. When encountering these reinforcements, a burst of rapid fire can cause many casualties to the rescuers.

If the Xihu people hadn't had much more battlefield experience than Anron's people, the casualties would have been even greater.

But even so, many people died.

What’s even more frightening is that at the beginning, An Ran’s men were only armed to the teeth, had little battlefield experience, and were a little bit frightened. Sometimes when they saw the enemy coming, they felt that the Xihu people were skilled in bows and horses and were very powerful. They were scared and thought they couldn’t defeat them, so they just According to An Ran's instructions before, avoid it first - An Ran is afraid that the cavalry is no match and will demoralize the soldiers, so they don't have to fight head-on and waste them. Anyway, they have enough food and grass here. The enemy has traveled a long distance and the food and grass supply cannot keep up. , it will become anxious after a long time.

But after fighting for a few times, we found that the enemy's swords and armor were not as good as our own. When cutting each other, we could hurt the opponent, but the opponent might not be able to hurt us. Everyone became bolder and would not avoid the enemy. , and even dared to ride forward to chase the enemy.

Of course, these are ordinary cavalry, as well as special forces who have fought against the Xihu people before. They are already proficient in bows and horses, so they will never avoid the Xihu reinforcements when they encounter them, and they can fight if they go up.

In this way, the reinforcements soon suffered too many casualties, and with the lack of food and grass, they were afraid that all the troops would be lost here, so they had no choice but to retreat.

It was also at this time that Xihu's senior management realized that they were naive and that Tang Anran's field combat skills were also not low.

The people of Xihu tried their best to rescue, but An Ran surrounded them and tried to rescue them.

Seeing that there were countless casualties among their own people, the people of Xihu could no longer save them, so they had no choice but to reluctantly give up the rescue. After all, they could not save more people in this city.

And without the royal court's rescue, how long can the people of this city hold on?

You might be able to hold on at first, but when you run out of food, you can no longer hold on. The people in the city then sent people to negotiate with An Ran. The content of the negotiation was also very simple: as long as An Ran promised not to kill them, they would surrender.

An Ran said that as long as they left, she would not kill them and there was no need to surrender because she did not intend to accept them.

Originally, these people had killed a lot of people from the Central Plains before, so she just wanted to drive them away, not take them in, raise them, and let them live a good life like other people under her rule in the future.

The people of Xihu didn't know. They were very happy when they heard that they didn't have to be prisoners and were allowed to go.

Although he was worried that An Ran would renege on his word, there was no food in the city now. Even the horses were killed and eaten, and people began to eat people, so they had no choice but to open the door and surrender.

If you don't surrender, you will starve to death. If you surrender, there is still a glimmer of hope.

An Ran naturally kept her word and told them that she would not kill anyone, but if she let them out, she would not be polite if they wanted to cause trouble.

How dare the Xihu people cause trouble? They all saw the failure of Wang Ting's rescue before. They had food, drink, and strong soldiers and horses, but they couldn't beat them. Now they don't even have horses, and they are starving to death. , how to beat others?

He left honestly according to An Ran's instructions.