Chapter 486: General Ye! What you said is totally wrong!

Outside Yijing City, outside Fengwu Army Camp

Yuan Song, Lin Huaiwu, and Guo Zhiping bowed in unison to Ye Mingsheng and his group who were approaching slowly, saying:
"We are waiting to welcome Your Excellency..."

Ye Mingsheng, who rushed to Yijing, listened to the words of his three generals, smiled and nodded, then slowly walked into the camp surrounded by the crowd.

After entering the military camp, Ye Mingsheng gave another public speech in front of hundreds of military officers of all levels and tens of thousands of soldiers of the Fengwu Army.

Ye Mingsheng's speech had three aspects. The first was that Zhao Fuqu was cruel and ruthless, and that the Youyan high-level officials were seriously corrupt, and the people of Youyan were in dire straits. Ye Mingsheng had compassion for all living beings and could not bear to see the people of Youyan being bullied and suffering, so he wanted to restore a bright and peaceful world to the people of Youyan.

Secondly, Ye Mingsheng highly affirmed the achievements made by the First, Second and Third Divisions in the Battle of Entering the Pass, and personally commended the advanced individuals and collectives who performed extremely well in the battle!
In addition, Ye Mingsheng also made a lot of promises, promising his brothers that as long as they could capture Youyan, positions and money would be no problem. He also reiterated that the local government would be responsible for supporting the disabled veterans who returned home, and the government would provide pensions, subsidies, and preferential policies to the families of those who unfortunately died in battle.

At the end of his speech, Ye Mingsheng also reiterated the military discipline and military law. Everyone must fight bravely and not retreat at all. Anyone who deserts the battlefield or is afraid to fight will be punished by military law.

With Ye Mingsheng's combination of kindness and force, the fighting spirit of the Fengwu Army soldiers in the camp was immediately raised to a new level. They were all eager to capture Yijing and present it to Ye Mingsheng...

After completing these tasks, Ye Mingsheng and a group of senior generals of the Fengwu Army walked into the central army camp to listen to the combat reports from the front line.

After laughing and joking with Yuan Song and the others for a few words, the meeting entered the main topic. Yuan Song, the front-line commander appointed by Ye Mingsheng himself, naturally took the initiative to stand up and walked to the Yijing sand table in the center of the camp to report to Ye Mingsheng:

"Reporting to the commander-in-chief, our army has been besieging Yijing for three days. During these three days, our army used a combination of real and fake tactics to attack the seven gates of Yijing, constantly changing the targets of the main attack and feint attack, making the Yan army in the city exhausted and suffering heavy casualties!"

“At present, our army’s casualties in a series of battles since entering the Pass are: 318 killed and 609 injured in the First Division, 421 killed and 583 injured in the Second Division, 411 killed and 491 injured in the Third Division! A total of 1,150 injured and 1,683 injured…”

Hearing this number, Ye Mingsheng remained calm and calculated in his mind. At present, the total number of casualties should be about 3,000. Before their three divisions entered the pass, the number of soldiers was about 20,000. Adding up, the total is nearly 60,000. So the casualty ratio should be about 5%!
Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but nodded slightly in his heart. In the pre-war staff simulation, He Jingyun and a group of staff members gave a casualty ratio of about 7% after the first ten days of war. So from the current point of view, the expected goal of encircling Yijing has been achieved, and the number of casualties has also been reduced by 2%. It seems that the plan is progressing smoothly!
While Ye Mingsheng was calculating in his mind, Yuan Song continued to introduce:
"Since entering the Pass, our army has annihilated a total of 15,000 enemy troops, including more than 5,100 killed and more than 10,000 captured. In addition, there are more than 5,000 militias who tried to recruit Yijing. We have seized a large amount of food, weapons and horses!"

“At present, the defenders of Yijing are seriously short of manpower due to the effective killing of our army’s tactics. We have begun to recruit a large number of young and strong men in the city to defend the city. We are confident that we can capture Yijingcheng and wipe out the remnants of the Yan army in the city in no more than ten days...”

Listening to Yuan Song's report, Ye Mingsheng looked around at him, Lin Huaiwu, and Guo Zhiping and praised with a smile:
"You're doing great!"

Faced with Ye Mingsheng's praise, the three Fengwu Army generals did not dare to take credit for themselves. They said very humbly that they could achieve such results because of Ye Mingsheng's proper command, the perfect planning of the colleagues in the General Staff, and the good support of the brothers in the logistics department.

After saying this, Ye Mingsheng asked:

"Are there any problems on the front line that I can help you solve?"

After hearing Ye Mingsheng's question, Yuan Song and the other three looked at each other, and Yuan Song spoke again:

"Sir, my soldiers on the front line are currently in high spirits and have sufficient food and fodder. If there is any problem, it is that we are short of firearms and gunpowder!"

Ye Mingsheng frowned slightly and asked:

"Didn't we prepare for you what you need for ten days of high-intensity combat before we set out?"

Facing Ye Mingsheng's question, Yuan Song said helplessly:
"Sir, it rained all night a few days ago. Although we have wrapped it with many layers of oil paper, some gunpowder is still damp. In addition, in order to break through Yijing as soon as possible, we have prevented several large-scale offensives in the past three days, so the frequency of using firearms has also increased accordingly, and the loss of firearms has also increased a lot..."

"At present, there are still fifty red cannons that can be used on the front line. About 80% of the Weiyuan guns and the Polu guns can still be used. There are about 200 boxes of grenades left. The gunpowder and bullets we have stored can be used for a maximum of five days according to the current intensity of our war!"

"In addition to firearms and gunpowder, we can currently guarantee the supply of hemostatic medicine and knife wound medicine, but the reserves are not very large. We have ordered to find doctors and medicines from all over the surrounding areas, but we still need the brothers in logistics to work harder!"

Listening to what Yuan Song said, Ye Mingsheng felt a slight headache. He rubbed his temple and said:
"In addition to bringing 20,000 soldiers to the front line this time, I also brought some ammunition. Send someone to receive it later!"

"Thank you for your consideration!"

As soon as these words came out, Yuan Song, Lin Huaiwu, and Guo Zhiping all showed surprise in their eyes, and they bowed to Ye Mingsheng in unison and thanked him:
Ye Mingsheng waved his hand and smiled and said:
"Just fight well on the front lines. You don't have to worry about logistics. The General Staff and I will keep an eye on it for you..."

An hour after the battle meeting, Yuan Song began to organize the offensive against Yijing, and Ye Mingsheng also appeared in front of the battle to supervise the battle. In front of Ye Mingsheng, the soldiers of the Fengwu Army worked even harder. Under the cover of the red cannons, they bravely launched an attack on Yijing City without fear of life and death. They attacked the walls of Yijing and stalemated with the Yan Army for almost half an hour before they were forced to retreat because they were outnumbered. Although they still failed to capture the walls of Yijing, Ye Mingsheng could feel the overall decline of Yijing through the telescope. If things continued like this, he believed that it might not take ten days to capture Yijing City!
Realizing this, Ye Mingsheng was in a very good mood. The General Staff divided the war of invading Youyan into three stages. The first stage was to enter the pass, sneak attack Jizhou, and capture Yijing, the power center of Zhao Fuqu's Yan military regime.

The second stage was to deal with the counterattack after Zhao Fuqu led the main force of the Yan army back, and the third stage was to repel the counterattack and capture the remaining prefectures and counties of Youyan to achieve the goal of completely controlling Youyan.

The advice obtained from the sand table simulation of the General Staff before the war was that as long as the Fengwu Army could capture Yijing within fifteen days, there would be enough time to deal with Zhao Fuqu leading the main force of the Yan Army to return to Youyan and counterattack. Now it is likely that they can capture Yijing in less than fifteen days, which undoubtedly gives them a certain advantage in dealing with the second phase of the war...
In order to cope with the work of the next day, Ye Mingsheng prepared to rest early at 1:00 p.m., but he was a little surprised that Qi Dechao came to his tent and reported:

"Sir, Zhao Jianan has sent an envoy here! He wants to negotiate with you!"

Upon hearing this, Ye Mingsheng immediately guessed what tricks Zhao Jianan was trying to play. The so-called peace talks were fake and the real purpose was to delay time!
Zhao Jianan saw that the situation in Yijing was difficult, so he wanted to delay time and wait for his reinforcements to arrive. It seems that he has run out of tricks now and has to resort to even such a trick!
Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng was too lazy to meet this envoy and was ready to let Qi Dechao drive the man away. Although he had seen through the other party's tricks, there were still rules that two armies should not kill envoys when fighting, so Ye Mingsheng was not going to make things difficult for the other side's envoy.

However, when Ye Mingsheng was about to give instructions, Qi Dechao continued to introduce:

"My lord, the man here is called Sun Zhunde. He is a senior official under Zhao Fuqu, the Minister of Youyan. Do you want to meet him?"

Hearing the name Sun Zhunde, Ye Mingsheng blinked, with a hint of excitement in his eyes. If he remembered the intelligence given by the Coordination Office correctly, this Sun Zhunde was the right-hand man of Zhao Fuqu's regime second only to Huang Wenzhe, and Zhao Jianan's greatest helper in Youyan. It was really surprising that Zhao Jianan could send him here...
After hesitating for a while, Ye Mingsheng saw that it was still early, so he thought it would be okay to meet Sun Zhunde, so he instructed Qi Dechao:

"Bring him here!"

"Yes, my lord!"

After a cup of tea, a tall middle-aged scholar walked into Ye Mingsheng's tent. Qi Dechao introduced Ye Mingsheng:
"Sir, this is Sun Zhunde, the councilor of Youyan!"

Following Qi Dechao's introduction, Sun Zhunde made eye contact with Ye Mingsheng, then bowed to Ye Mingsheng and said, "I'm not humble, I'm not arrogant, I ... arrogant, I'm not humble, I'm not arrogant, I'm not arrogant, I'm not arrogant, I'm not arrogant, I'm not arrogant, I'm not arrogant,

"My name is Sun Zhunde, nice to meet you, Governor Ye!"

Ye Mingsheng nodded when he heard this, and then he didn't bother to talk nonsense with Sun Zhunde, and went straight to the point and said:

"Does your master have reinforcements? Is he sending you here to delay time under the guise of peace talks?"

Sun Zhunde was shocked when he heard this, and gradually realized that General Ye, who came from a poor family and was stationed in Liaoyang, was no easy man to deal with...

Because Ye Mingsheng's arrival today was quite a big deal, the Yan army in the city also knew about Ye Mingsheng's arrival. At first, some generals in the city suggested to Zhao Jianan that they send a hundred death-defying warriors out of the city to see if they could kill Ye Mingsheng by surprise. Even if they couldn't kill Ye Mingsheng, they would at least give Ye Mingsheng a slap in the face to disgust him.

Faced with this suggestion from his subordinates, Zhao Jianan thought for a while and chose to give up. After all, it was not very realistic to get rid of Ye Mingsheng under the protection of thousands of troops with only a hundred or so death warriors. In addition, the defenders in the city were not sufficient. Every soldier had to be used on the blade. Using a hundred death warriors to disgust Ye Mingsheng was undoubtedly a very extravagant thing.

After the siege in the afternoon, Zhao Jianan felt that the Fengwu Army's offensive was too strong and it would be difficult for him to hold out until reinforcements arrived. For some reason, he came up with a trick, which was to ask Ye Mingsheng for peace to delay time and hold out until the moment Zhao Yong and Zhao Fuqu returned.

Zhao Jianan was very pleased with the plan he had come up with after racking his brains, thinking that he had come up with a brilliant idea. However, when he told his subordinates about it, he encountered a very realistic problem, that is, there was no one suitable person willing to go to the Fengwu Army camp...
If you want to be an envoy to the enemy army, then your status cannot be too low, otherwise the Fengwu Army may not even see you. And those who are qualified are hesitant and afraid of death, afraid that they will not be able to go, so there is no way. Although Sun Junde was not very optimistic about Zhao Jianan's plan, in order to prevent Zhao Jianan from being embarrassed in front of everyone, he could only volunteer to step forward and negotiate with Ye Mingsheng.

Now listening to Ye Mingsheng's words, Sun Zhunde could only sigh in his heart. Zhao Jianan's plan had already been declared dead before it was even implemented!
Although Zhao Jianan's plan failed, after all, now that he had met Ye Mingsheng, Sun Zhunde still wanted to work hard for Yi Jing, so he adjusted his mentality, stared at Ye Mingsheng and said:

"General Ye, do you think you can defeat us Youyan?"

Ye Mingsheng smiled and shook his head when he heard this.

"I know you are waiting for Zhao Fuqu to come back from Jinzhong, but do you think that Yijing can hold on to its current state?

Will it last until then?"

“Besides, even if we take a step back, what does it matter if Zhao Fuqu comes back? It will only lead to more deaths and he may also lose his own life here…”

Feeling the strong self-confidence in Ye Mingsheng's words, Sun Zhunde's heart sank, but his position still made him angrily scold Ye Mingsheng:
"General Ye! What you said is totally wrong!"

(End of this chapter)