Chapter 663

"Eld… Eldest Young Master?"

"Mr… Mr. Tian?"

The two figures appearing below the city tower were precisely Yuan Tan and Tian Feng.

Back then, when Gu Yi attacked Yuzhou, Yuan Tan, Tian Feng, and others were ordered to lead troops south to support Xia Houyuan.

But in the end, not only did they fail to save Xia Houyuan,

but Yuan Tan and Tian Feng themselves also became captives.

Subsequently, under Gu Yi's coercion, Tian Feng chose to surrender.

Of course, Gu Yi had never employed Tian Feng.

It was not that he dared not use him, but that there was simply no need to.

Tian Feng himself was also a member of the Jizhou aristocratic families.

The relationship between Gu Yi and the Jizhou aristocratic families had long since reached the point of being irreconcilable.

Employing Tian Feng would be adding trouble for himself.

It was better to force Tian Feng to surrender to use him to add trouble for the Jizhou aristocratic families.

This feeling is just like Cao Pi promoting Huang Quan in the original history, letting Huang Quan serve as the Inspector of Yizhou and ranking him as General of Chariots and Cavalry—it is the same principle.

This move was purely to disgust the Shu Han side.

And Tian Feng, besides being used to disgust the Jizhou aristocratic families,

now appearing below the city tower of Ye City, gave the Ye City garrison a head-on blow!

This blow was not light.

It was like the "Storm Nebula Crack" of the Fierce Tiger King, directly stunning the vanguard!

With the appearance of Tian Feng,

those Ye City garrison troops who were originally full of fighting spirit under Shen Pei's encouragement all had faces written with confusion.

Damn it!

We foot soldiers were planning to fight to the death to defend the city.

As a result, Tian Feng, a former high-ranking member of your Jizhou aristocratic families, is now appearing in the enemy's camp?

Besides the decline in morale,

the collapse of belief was undoubtedly more fatal.

But now, standing beside Tian Feng, Yuan Tan was clearly an even more heavyweight figure!

Tian Feng was a high-ranking member of the Jizhou aristocratic families.

What about Yuan Tan?

That's the Eldest Young Master of the Yuan camp!

As the Eldest Young Master of the Yuan camp, he was now standing openly in the opposing camp.

Let alone those Ye City garrison troops,

even Shen Pei, at this moment, became incomparably dazed.

And following behind Yuan Tan and Tian Feng were the troops from Gu Yi's command.

The news of feigning attacks on Zhao, Zhongshan, and Guangping commanderies was merely a smokescreen deliberately released by Gu Yi.

In reality,

the army responsible for attacking the three commanderies only feigned an attack for an hour or two before quickly bypassing the three commanderies and heading toward Wei Jun, where Ye City was located, to rendezvous.

But… the garrison troops of the three commanderies dared not pursue at all.

Because they simply dared not gamble.

What if the enemy turned back to counterattack after they left the city?

One must know,

after the Yellow River flooding incident,

the morale of all garrison troops in Jizhou had been significantly affected.

Without a reason, only a fool would think about dying on the battlefield.

After all,

the four words "horse-hide shroud" usually refer to dying meaningfully.

But for grassroots soldiers,

their purpose in becoming soldiers was just to earn a living.

Dying inexplicably on the battlefield for the sake of some games played by the upper class was simply not worth it.

Consequently,

the garrison troops of Zhao, Zhongshan, and Guangping only dared to watch helplessly as Gu Yi's army bypassed these cities, but they dared not leave the city to pursue.

Even,

they didn't even have the courage to dispatch scouts.

If one must blame someone, blame Ju Shou and the others of the Jizhou aristocratic families for being too harsh on the lower strata.

If they died in battle, there was no compensation; why should the grassroots soldiers gratuitously sacrifice their lives for them?

Under such circumstances,

the three routes of Gu Yi's army soon left Zhongshan, Zhao, and Guangping.

Even though they hadn't captured the cities of those three commanderies, they still passed through them and arrived at Wei Jun.

If this had happened in the past, it would naturally have been impossible.

After all, the significance of a city's existence was to resist the enemy's attack.

But after successive defeats,

the garrison troops of the three commanderies dared not leave the city at all.

This indirectly facilitated the realization of Gu Yi's plan to "bypass the three commanderies and besiege Ye City."

But the key point is,

Ju Shou, Cao Ren, Su Puyan, Yan Rou, and others had not received the latest intelligence notification from the garrison troops of the three commanderies.

This led to the fact that,

with intelligence lagging by a whole level,

they were still foolishly leading troops to support the three commanderies.

Although Ju Shou reacted in time,

it was already too late.

At this moment, Ye City was in imminent danger, swaying in the wind and rain.

Besides this,

Gu Yi used the armies of generals Gao Shun, Pang De, and Xu Huang as a rescue team to settle the commoners.

Gu Yi could not ignore the commoners of Ye City and the surrounding commanderies.

Although the military strength in Ye City had significantly decreased after Ju Shou and the others were tricked into splitting their forces to support the three commanderies,

with the decisiveness of Ye City Magistrate Shen Pei, he would still send a portion of his troops to pursue the commoners fleeing Ye City.

This portion of the army, which was the one led by the minor generals mentioned in Chapter 240, needed Gao Shun and the three generals to lead troops to defeat them.

In this way,

Gu Yi could besiege Ye City from different directions,

and could ensure that the portion of commoners fleeing from Ye City and the surrounding commanderies could be spared from the ravages of war to the greatest extent.

Of course, changes on the battlefield are always instantaneous.

Even Gu Yi could not determine exactly how many commoners would flee from Ye City.

Therefore, he did not explain the purpose of the mission to Gao Shun, Xu Huang, and Pang De beforehand.

But he believed that with Gao Shun's rigorous and steady character, he would certainly be able to make the most appropriate judgment based on the changes in the situation.

"Do not use those you doubt, and do not doubt those you use"—this is precisely the principle.

However,

Gu Yi was not some saint.

He could not abandon the siege of Ye City for the sake of the commoners. ===== CHAPTER 664 =====