Qiao Mao left with forty thousand soldiers to eliminate Liu Dai's influence in the East County and restore his own influence.
The next morning, Liu Dai once again sent a messenger out of Puyang City to deliver a message to Yang Rui, expressing his strong desire for peace. However, Liu Dai hoped that Yang Rui would make some concessions. Yang Rui's previous conditions were too much for Liu Dai to accept.
However, Yang Rui had no intention of backing down. After rejecting Liu Dai's request, Yang Rui organized a siege for the first time. Over a hundred siege chariots were sent out. Although they did not use any other forces to attack, they did not cause much damage to Puyang City. However, their momentum was immediately shown.
Moreover, the siege chariots' javelins had a longer range than the strongest Sixth Grade archers in Puyang City. As a result, the defending soldiers on the walls of Puyang City suffered a small loss.
This was Yang Rui's demonstration of his strength and determination to attack the city! Liu Dai understood this as well. However, with his current situation, even though he knew that this was Yang Rui's demonstration, there was nothing he could do.
In the next few days, both sides of Puyang City seemed to have put aside the matter of peace talks. Yang Rui did not send any more messengers into Puyang City, and Liu Dai did not send anyone out of the city to communicate with Yang Rui.
In truth, Liu Dai had always wanted to send someone to communicate with Yang Rui. However, he was already in a passive position. If he continued to act shamelessly, it would only make the situation worse. The other party's conditions were not acceptable to him. Otherwise, Liu Dai might have already given in.
Furthermore, from the looks of the current situation, the Qingzhou Tribe had over two to three hundred thousand soldiers and had completely surrounded Puyang City. However, it did not seem like there were any effective ways to attack the city.
This caused Liu Dai to feel a trace of hope.
In the next few days, the Green State soldiers only used siege chariots to cause some damage to the defending soldiers. They did not make any other moves to attack the city. They did not even get within an arrow's range of the city walls, let alone pose a threat to the city.
From this, Liu Dai could even see the enemy failing to attack the city and having no choice but to retreat!
However, even Liu Dai himself felt that this idea was unrealistic. The Qing Province troops weren't simple characters. Previously, Guan County and Li Hu were heavily guarded, but they were taken down by the Qing Province troops commanded by Yang Rui!
Thinking of this, Liu Dai was a little worried. Guan County and Li Hu had both been taken down by the enemy's schemes. At first, it was the same as Puyang City. There were no signs, and they did not forcefully attack the city.
Therefore, it was hard to say if the Qing Province soldiers were plotting something against Puyang City!
Liu Dai shook his head with a headache. The strategy that the Qing Province army had used to take Guan County and Li Hu was simply too unimaginable. What kind of method would they use to deal with Puyang City?
The previous two plans would not work. Puyang City's terrain was not suitable for a water attack, and Liu Dai believed that he would not be tricked out of the city in any way. However, the Qing Province troops' performance was simply too strange. It was hard to guarantee that they would not do something else.
After another day passed, the thing that Liu Dai was worried about finally happened. Several messengers from around Puyang City abnormally appeared in Puyang City and told Liu Dai that Governor Qiao Mao was trying to restore his influence.
The East County was originally Qiao Mao's territory. Qiao Mao appeared again and gathered his forces. It was obvious that he did not want to give Liu Dai a way out!
Qiao Mao had a foundation in the East County. Now, it was not difficult to take advantage of the Qing Province soldiers to restore their influence in the East Commandery. Liu Dai also knew what the Governor of Taishan Commandery, Ding Yuan, was doing. If the Qing Province soldiers, Qiao Yan's troops, and Ding Yuan's troops divided the East Commandery, what was the use of protecting Puyang City in the end?
In order to defend Puyang City for as long as possible, Liu Dai had evacuated most of the city's NPC citizens. If Qiao Mao and the others took over the East County, Liu Dai would lose all of his foothold.
At the same time, there was no telling how long the Qing Province troops would besiege Puyang City. The longer it dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for Liu Dai.
Not only would Liu Dai lose his foundation, but he would also lose the support of the people.
Thinking up to this point, Liu Dai actually sent a messenger out of the city to find Yang Rui. He agreed to all the conditions that Yang Rui had proposed.
Liu Dai's reaction was beyond Yang Rui's expectations. In the past few days, Yang Rui had been discussing with Guo Jia and the others how to force Liu Dai to submit or come up with a plan to take down Puyang City. He did not expect that Yang Rui would deliberately let a few of Liu Dai's messengers into Puyang City to bring news of Qiao Mao's movements to Liu Dai.
As a result, it saved Yang Rui a lot of effort. After all, capturing Puyang City was not an easy task.
To be honest, Yang Rui's conditions were enough to force Liu Dai into a desperate situation. It did not matter whether they captured Puyang City or not. These conditions were not inferior to the agreement that Yang Rui and Dong Zhuo had reached.
First of all, in terms of territory, Yang Rui had given Liu Dai a lot of restrictions. He had only left the area south of Fan County in the East County to Liu Dai. As a result, Liu Dai's territory had been reduced from half of Yan Province to half of a county.
As the Provincial Governor of Yan Province, except for Beihai Country and the East County, Liu Dai's influence had covered almost all the other regions of Yan Province. Although he had only loosely controlled it and had gradually gained more power after he changed his position from Provincial Governor to Mu, it was undeniable that he once had a large territory.
However, this situation had been broken by Yang Rui. First, he had helped Qiao Mao resist the attacks of Liu Dai and Yuan Shao, reducing Liu Dai's strength to the East County, Dong Ping Country, and Ding Tao Country. This time, Yang Rui had taken the initiative to stir up trouble, leaving Liu Dai with only half of the East County.
Liu Dai had completely fallen into the hands of Yang Rui!
Secondly, in terms of compensation, Yang Rui had still proposed ten million gold coins, the same as the compensation that he had previously agreed with Dong Zhuo.
Liu Dai had been the Provincial Governor of Yan Province for a long time and should have accumulated a lot during this period. Moreover, he was born in the Han Dynasty and should have a lot of money in his hands. This could be seen from the speed at which Liu Dai had expanded his army.
Recently, Liu Dai had said that he had expanded his army by two to three hundred thousand soldiers. According to the recruitment standards of provincial, county, and county soldiers, it would cost at least a few million gold coins, or even more.
On this point, Yang Rui could compare it to his own recruitment expenses. Some time ago, he had expanded his army by three hundred thousand soldiers and spent three to four million gold coins. Many of the soldiers were Yang Rui's own private soldiers.
Although Liu Dai had accumulated some financial resources, he was clearly inferior to Dong Zhuo, who had once occupied Luoyang's Imperial City. The same amount of 10 million gold coins might only make Dong Zhuo's heart ache, but it might cost Liu Dai his life!
As for the third condition, what Yang Rui wanted was not as simple as money. He also wanted to find a way to get the 20000 soldiers that Liu Dai had captured under his name, saving him the trouble of trying to get them to surrender.
This was a method that Guo Jia had thought of. In fact, it was not difficult to implement. He would let Liu Dai come forward and use his name to transfer all the soldiers that Yang Rui had captured to Linyi County in the northern part of the East County. Then, he would put the county under Yang Rui's rule and solve the problem.
Yang Rui had asked Liu Dai to give up the East County to the north of Fan County. As for Linyi County, it was close to Pingyuan County and was already under Yang Rui's control. If Yang Rui could not take over the rest of the territory that Liu Dai had set aside, he would coordinate and give it to Ding Yuan and Qiao Mao. At that time, they would need to discuss the details.
Guo Jia's method was ingenious and solved the problem of getting 20000 soldiers to surrender. At the same time, it provided Yang Rui with a way to solve similar problems in the future. It was also a reference for him to solve similar problems in the future.
However, it was only a way to solve the problem. After all, no one would cooperate like Liu Dai if they were not forced into a corner!
As for the fourth condition, Yang Rui noticed that there were some Sixth Grade archers among Liu Dai's troops. As such, he tentatively asked Liu Dai for 10000 sets of Second Grade to Sixth Grade archer skill books. In the end, Liu Dai actually agreed.
Judging from the number of Sixth Grade archers that Liu Dai had in his possession, there were at most a few thousand of them. Now, under Yang Rui's request, Liu Dai was willing to take out 10000 sets of skill books. Yang Rui even suspected that Liu Dai might have more archer skill books.
However, Yang Rui was not too worried that Liu Dai would produce more archers. This was because Yang Rui's fifth condition was to limit Liu Dai's military strength.
In order to limit Liu Dai and prevent him from making a comeback, Yang Rui not only divided up most of his territory, but also limited the number of troops to no more than 150,000. In other words, apart from the soldiers that Liu Dai currently had in Puyang City, he could not expand his army any further!
If Liu Dai violated the agreement and the number of soldiers exceeded the 150,000 threshold, Yang Rui would be able to attack him at any time. This was also the most important condition that Yang Rui had set for Liu Dai.
Without expanding the number of soldiers, Liu Dai could only increase the grade of the soldiers if he wanted to increase his own strength. However, based on the current situation, the increase in strength through this method was very limited.
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