Guan Yu left with Liu Bei's two wives. The journey to Huojia was relatively peaceful. Moreover, the letter Yang Rui gave Guan Yu in advance did not have any effect. This was because Guan Yu was still Yang Rui's subordinate. At the same time, no one seemed to care about Guan Yu's normal journey.
This was the case within Yang Rui's territory. He did not set up too many checkpoints like the other vassals' territories, and most of them did not have rules such as closing the city gates at night. Only the outer border cities implemented wartime precautions such as curfews.
Yang Rui learned about Guan Yu's situation through the Ethereal Ninja. He immediately felt relieved. From the beginning, Yang Rui had expected that Guan Yu's journey would not have any unexpected changes.
A few days later, the Battle of Jizhou was in an orderly and calm preparation stage. In fact, it was also the calm before the storm. Not only were Yang Rui's troops replenishing their supplies, Yuan Shao's side also seemed to be aware of it. The conventional preparations for war had been in progress.
However, it seemed that no one in Yuan Shao's camp had predicted that the temperature would soar as accurately as Guo Jia. None of the ten cities that were temporarily fortified with smoothies had taken the corresponding emergency measures. This could be seen from the information obtained by the flying pet.
Yuan Shao also continued to fortify the cities. Of course, other than the ten cities that were fortified with ice sand, the rest of the cities were fortified normally. This was probably due to the fact that winter was about to pass and the ice sand fortified cities would be difficult to deal with in the future.
At the same time, the surrounding stones and the like around the cities were cleaned up even more in the area controlled by Yuan Shao in the northern part of Jizhou. The intention was to continue to obstruct Yang Rui's attack so that siege weapons such as the heavy trebuchets would not be able to function normally.
Ji Zhou was originally a vast plain, and the stone resources were very scarce. It was not easy to find some decent stones that could be used to attack a city. After Yuan Shao's deliberate cleaning, it was even more difficult to find suitable 'artillery shells'.
This scorched earth method had previously created quite a bit of trouble for Yang Rui's troops when they were attacking Ji Zhou. Otherwise, even if it was a temporarily fortified city made of ice sand, there would still be a time when the city would be broken through under continuous attacks.
It wasn't that Yang Rui hadn't thought of a countermeasure. He could use spatial items to transport a portion of the stone directly to Ji Zhou, specifically for the heavy trebuchets to attack the city.
However, there was a limit to the number of "unsealed" space items such as small storage rings and souls. The number of stones that could be transported was also very limited. It was possible to launch a few waves of attacks in an emergency, but it was impossible to launch an unbridled attack.
However, it was difficult to transport the stones using normal transportation methods. Originally, the transportation capacity of the provisions and other supplies was somewhat insufficient, so how could there be any spare capacity to transport the stones? Moreover, the weight of the stones was incomparable to that of the provisions and supplies.
Previously, Yang Rui had even tried to use autonomous ice sand to replace the large stones, using "ice sand artillery shells" to attack the ice sand city. However, it ended in failure.
The density of ice sand could not be compared to stone. Ice sand of the same weight was almost two to three times larger in volume. It was impossible to put it into the heavy trebuchets. On the other hand, ice sand of the same volume had an exponential decrease in attack power. It was impossible to effectively attack the city.
Therefore, the process of Yang Rui's attack on Yuan Shao in Ji Zhou was destined to be more complicated. Of course, these complications were only related to the process of attacking Cao Cao. Yang Rui was confident that after the sudden rise in temperature, he would be able to launch a wave of attacks that would catch Yuan Shao off guard. After that, he would still be able to effectively advance.
Ten gaming days gradually passed. In the next few days, Yang Rui checked everywhere in his territory, especially his queens and concubines. After the battle against Yuan Shao began, they had also taken on the task of guarding many places. The cities they were in were the focus of Yang Rui's inspection.
As the queens and concubines of the Eastern Sea, Yang Rui felt that they had taken on too many things that they should not have taken on. Therefore, they often felt apologetic. Fortunately, due to Yang Rui's reputation and the virtuousness of his family, the various cities were extremely respectful to him. It was much easier for them to govern.
At the same time, Sun Jian's forces were busy expanding Gangdong's territory. Yuan Shu's forces in Yuzhou did not make any movements. Even Liu Biao of Jingzhou did not send troops to seize Yuzhou's territory. Yang Rui's territory, including the border cities, was very stable.
With the situation in each territory stable, Yang Rui went to Luoyang Royal City to check on the construction of the merchant alliance's base.
The merchant alliance's base was sold to the members in the form of "unfinished houses." The construction progress of Yang Rui's development had already been completed. When Yang Rui arrived at Luoyang Royal City, he saw a busy scene, which was somewhat unexpected.
Originally, Yang Rui thought that most of the merchant alliance's members might have to wait for the weather to warm up before continuing the construction. However, what he saw was a bustling scene. After all, not all of the merchant alliance's members had the spare money to do construction.
However, Yang Rui underestimated the loyalty of these members to the merchant alliance, or rather, he underestimated his own influence.
Xiaohui had made it very clear during the internal trade fair that King of the East Sea, Blazing Sun, wanted to prosper Luoyang Royal City. In the eyes of the merchant alliance's members, Luoyang would definitely be revived. This was the inertial effect of the merchant alliance's, or rather, Yang Rui's, actions.
Such a lively construction scene was naturally what Yang Rui wanted to see the most. After the base was built, it would definitely stimulate the development of Luoyang Royal City. At the same time, it could also create a lot of labor opportunities for the NPC residents in the city. It was a great situation.
This situation made Yang Rui think again. After some consideration, Yang Rui met with Emperor Liu Xie again and negotiated with him to take out the southeast corner of the square and open it up as a concentrated trade area. It was the half-pull between the southern half of Luoyang Royal City and West Park.
Emperor Liu Xie could not refuse Yang Rui's words. However, he still needed to discuss some details with Cheng Yu, Guan Ning, and the others. After that, Yang Rui only had time to tell the two of them his general idea.
Approaching the last two days of the temperature increase that Guo Jia predicted, Yang Rui returned to Ji Zhou ahead of time to prepare for the next step in the matter of dealing with Yuan. Guan Yu, with Yang Rui's help, arrived at Huojia County after a few days of travel.
Guan Yu's actions also reminded Yang Rui that Liu Bei's whereabouts were about to surface. He was most likely at Liu Biao's place in Jingzhou. At the same time, it also meant that Yi Province needed to prepare in advance.
Thinking up to this point, Yang Rui had his flying pet carry his handwritten letter to Liu Dan in Yi Province.
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