Time flies, and more than a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

During this period of time, Chen Ze and his troops have not left Ketan City.

But despite this, he still kept the soldiers ready to march at any time. Even if more and more people were confused about this, he would not explain it at all.

As for Zheng Yuanyun's side.

After breaking through the choke point of Xilong City, as he expected, the large area of ​​Nantes province behind was completely flat, allowing him to roam freely.

The few troops that were originally gathered in Xilong City were annihilated by him in one fell swoop. The five or six auxiliary towns in the rear were already useless. The one with the smallest force was the one with the smallest force. When Zheng Yuanyun's army arrived, they found that there was only one small town in total.

The garrison, which numbered less than a thousand, was trembling on the top of the city.

As you can imagine, Zheng Yuanyun captured the city without spending a single soldier.

This is different from what Ouyang Lixing told Ning Zhenggang to do before.

His original intention, or Chen Ze's original intention, was to delay Zheng Yuanyun for a while, so that he could rush to the scheduled location for deployment, and at the same time, he could wait for the arrival of follow-up reinforcements from the Zhu Yan Empire.

At the beginning, Ning Zhenggang did a good job, and even left Zheng Yuanyun helpless and almost triggered a military outbreak.

But later, due to lack of troops, Ning Zhenggang was taken advantage of by Zheng Yuanyun to attack through the other three empty defensive gates, and finally died.

To say that he was procrastinating for time, he actually didn't procrastinate much.

Admittedly, Ning Zhenggang cannot be blamed for this matter. He did do his best, but due to the huge disparity in military strength, he still failed to save Xilong City.

It can be said to be a crime other than war.

But maybe Ning Zhenggang was eager to make meritorious deeds.

Xilong City was the main city of Nantes Province before, but now it is in decline. As the lord of Xilong City, his power is not comparable to that of Zhang Chengwang who has been killed in battle. How can he be convinced by this?

Later, Zhang Chengwang died, and the position of the top coach of Nantes Province became vacant. Ning Zhenggang was of course a strong competitor, but at this time, the Qingyang Empire refused to give up and actually led its army to invade Nantes.

Within the special province.

This is a crisis, but also an opportunity.

Ning Zhenggang knew very well that if he could stand up and turn the tide at this time and stop the invading enemies outside Xilong City, then he would definitely be rewarded by the empire afterwards, be promoted to a higher rank, and become the highest ranking officer in Nantes Province in one fell swoop.

Coach, these are all things that can be easily accomplished.

Who else can compete with him?

It was based on this consideration that he ordered the surrounding cities to allocate all their troops to him, as the only chess piece of some importance in his hand.

But in fact, if he didn't have this idea and just seriously carried out the delaying task Ouyang Lixing told him, things should not be like this.

His 300,000 troops actually did not play their due role.

Since they were all attacked through the other three city gates, and since they still had no substantial contact on the frontal battlefield, the battle ended.

So what difference does it make whether he invests 300,000 troops or 100,000 troops on the frontal battlefield?

In the same amount of time, the amount of time he can delay is still the same.

On the contrary, because he took away the troops from other cities, those cities had no ability to resist at all. Once Zheng Yuanyun's army arrived, they had no other choice but to surrender or commit suicide.

This resulted in the overall delay of Zheng Yuanyun in these cities in Nantes Province being greatly reduced, so that they were driven straight in.

On the other side, the 500,000 elite soldiers led by Ma Hui and Wu Peng listened to Zhang Hualin and did not pursue Zheng Yuanyun. Instead, they stayed in Xilong City to carry out construction projects and prepared to cut off the traffic.

recover.

But this thing is not that easy to do.

In order to cut off Zheng Yuanyun's future, Ning Zhenggang was extremely thorough.

Not only did they cut off the city-protecting bridge, but they also burned it directly. As for the ships on both sides of Xilong City, not a single one was left.

Later, the two armies fought. Zheng Yuanyun ordered his soldiers to collect countless stones to use as catapult shells, and then cut down many trees to block the river.

This was nothing at all, but when Ma Hui came to the other side of Xilong City and saw that the situation was exactly as Zhang Hualin said, he began to carry out construction work, and then a problem arose.

It's hard for a clever woman to cook without rice.

He couldn't find any suitable materials to build within a few miles.

The area around Xilong City was completely bare, and almost all the stones and wood had been consumed.

If he wanted to obtain materials, he had a nearby method, which was to send people to touch the rivers.

A large amount of stones and wood were used to fill the river channel, and this is really the only way to take them out again.

Therefore, what Ma Hui and his five hundred thousand elite soldiers did every day was to touch stones and carry wood in the Kuhaha underground river.

Sometimes even the wood that was finally moved up is unusable because it has been soaked in water for too long. It seems that this kind of wasted effort is a common occurrence.

This is what is called getting twice the result with half the effort.

Therefore, more than a month passed, and Ma Hui and others finally managed to build the protective bridge, which could lead directly to Xilong City.

But this bridge is simpler and narrower than the original one, and cannot accommodate more people passing through it at the same time. Once its load is exceeded, there is even a risk of collapse.

It is obviously not enough to just rely on this bridge to pass troops. If a large number of troops really want to pass through, it will take a lot of time.

So in desperation, Ma Hui couldn't just leave. He had to send soldiers to search for new forests in far distances and cut down a large number of trees to build troop transport ships.

The amount of this project was not small, and it was even heavier than building a city protection bridge, so that he and the 500,000 elite soldiers were dragged in Xilong City.

But the people in Ketan City knew that Ma Hui had left with his troops, but Zheng Yuanyun didn't know!

Zheng Yuanyun also sent some soldiers back to inquire about the situation behind him, but Zhang Hualin stayed on the back road.

If one came, he would kill one, and if two came, he would kill a pair, completely cutting off Zheng Yuanyun's intelligence.

Although Zheng Yuanyun was later deeply puzzled by the fact that no news had been sent back from the rear, at that time he had already gone too deep and could not just retreat and abandon the city he had captured, so he could only attack while he was away.

At the same time, more people will be sent back to find out the news.

However, he can send people, so why not Chen Ze?

There is no blockade in Ketan City, and his people can come in and out as they please. Chen Ze also sent more people to intercept Zheng Yuanyun's exploration.
Chapter completed!