Every time you watch a war movie, the most exciting picture is the two sides fighting, and the ancients in the era of cold weapons often engaged in hand-to-hand combat, spilling their blood on the battlefield, face to face with heavy casualties, but in fact, more pictures than fighting are talking about siege.
So the question is, why do you have to spend a lot of effort to besiege the city? Fight, you have not rushed in, upstairs archery, throwing stones, pouring hot oil, let you lose countless soldiers; can not fight, if the other side ten days and half a month will not come out, we are stupid outside waiting useless, around can not go around? Experts responsibly tell everyone: bypassing it will also die.
Point 1, the main road of transportation. We all know that in ancient times, transportation was very inconvenient, and going to a place for several months was a common thing, so they generally did not go far. Most of the ancient cities and pools were built on the main road of transportation, and the principle of "the shortest line between two points" is known to everyone, and the detour will increase the pressure on the logistics of the army, which is closely related to the second point.
Point 2: Capture grain and grass and supply logistics. We all know that one of the most important elements in a war is logistics, because without logistics there is no food and grass, and even the most powerful soldiers cannot win the battle even if they are hungry.
For example, in the "Battle of Guandu", Cao Cao secretly attacked Yuan Shao's granary, and Yuan Shao's army, which had been hungry for a few days, had soft legs, so how to fight? Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao's elite soldiers of 110,000 with an army of 40,000 men, which is a typical example of victory over more with less in history.
Moreover, the other party has been hiding in the city for several days, there is no movement, you don't know what medicine he sells in the gourd, waiting outside, you will consume a lot of grain; take a detour at will, you may be attacked. Therefore, they could only attack the city, seize the supplies inside, and let the soldiers rest comfortably.
Point 3: A city is like a small country. In ancient times when the productive forces were backward, it was not a simple thing to build a complete city, and once the city was chosen to be established in this place, it showed that this place was very important to the country, and breaking through important cities was to attack the enemy's self-confidence.
Secondly, you bypassed this city today, can you bypass the next city tomorrow and the day after tomorrow? Blindly avoiding the problem cannot solve the problem, and the official road is so one that it cannot be done if you want to take a detour all the time. And take the city, you can "change the attack into defense", even if the opponent sends reinforcements over, you can also defend in the city, reduce the loss of the army, and maybe you can also come to a "close the door to fight the dog".
Of course, in ancient times, there were also armies around the past, but they were usually cavalry teams, they directly pounded the Yellow Dragon, the so-called "capture the thief first to capture the king", the king was gone, the enemy naturally dispersed, such as Huo Qiyi, Wei Qing did this kind of thing. But excellent horses and cavalry are very precious, Han soldiers are usually mainly infantry, so there are not many Han cavalry, and most of them are generally nomadic.
It turned out that they did not want to capture the city, but had to fight. Do you think there is any other reason?