I am not an ant thief in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 459, fighting wits and courage

After being reprimanded by Yuan Ji and his status in the Yuan family, no one dared to refute, Xu You and the others also calmed down.

After discussing for a while, these counselors decided that Tian Feng and Ju Shou would stay, and the others would follow Liu Bei and the others to flee back to Yuzhou, and integrate the forces of the Yuan Clan in Yuzhou to continue resisting Lei Gong!

Tian Feng and Jushou stayed in Dingtao City to help Zhang Fei unite the army that stayed here, and tried their best to delay Lei Gong's occupation of Yanzhou and buy time for the establishment of a second line of defense.

That night, Liu Bei, Lu Bu, Yuan Tan and others led the remaining 1.5 cavalry to escape from Dingtao City through the south gate, cross Surabaya, and flee to Yuzhou!

And this news was quickly spread to the main tent of the Chinese army by Tanma. The senior generals of the Dagan army all smiled when they heard the news. Dingtao deserted, obviously they had difficulty supporting it.

Song Yi smiled and said, "Liu Bei and Yuan Shao should be among the fleeing cavalry, because now Dingtao City should be full of infantry, and it is impossible for them to escape our cavalry's siege."

Huang Long also said happily: "If Liu Bei and Yuan Shao are really captured this time, the allied forces of the Han Dynasty will collapse for most of the day. Can we take this opportunity to conquer places like Yuzhou, Xuzhou and Jingzhou? It's a pity that more than a month ago, Cao Cao Run away, otherwise we will capture all the three great princes of the great Han, and there will no longer be any forces in this world that can resist our great army, and our progress in unifying the world will be accelerated!"

Xu Wei didn't think it would be a good thing to unify the world too quickly.

Just like the Western Han Dynasty, after the Qin Dynasty wiped out the nobles of the six countries, and then experienced the brutal war at the end of the Qin Dynasty, most of the nobles who had been passed down for thousands of years were completely swept into the garbage dump of history, so in the Han Dynasty At the beginning, there will be a large number of commoner ministers.

And Liu Xiu, the son of the plane, settled the world too quickly, but the residue left over from the Western Han Dynasty has not been cleaned up, so the entire Eastern Han government looks like a lame regime, even in its most prosperous time, it was far inferior The big Han, only talking about military capabilities, the Eastern Han government at most maintained tens of thousands of cavalry expeditions to the desert, and they could not even maintain the ruling power of the Western Regions!Not to mention arresting Hao Qiang to guard the tomb.

It can only be said that the imperial fortune of the Eastern Han Dynasty was good. What the Western Han Dynasty had to face was the Xiongnu who unified the entire grassland and reached the peak of their military strength. First, they experienced 60 years of dormancy, and then they experienced nearly a hundred years of fighting. Even Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty The tough monarchs did not subdue the Huns, but almost broke the big man to pieces.

By the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Huns were already corrupt and split, and they were beaten by tens of thousands of people by Dou Xian. The main enemy they faced during most of the Eastern Han Dynasty was actually a fragmented Qiang. Tan Shihuai, the overlord of the prairie, died unexpectedly just as he planned to attack the Eastern Han court.

From these deeds, it can be seen that the national fortune of the Eastern Han court was not so good. It may be that Yu Meng, the son of destiny, blessed the Eastern Han court. In the 200 years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was not a single enemy who could fight. Even the Western Regions said they wanted to fight. Give up, and there is a stalwart Ban Chao who fell from the sky, took 36 people and cut down the large and small countries in the Western Regions. These countries were so frightened that they did not dare to break away from the big man, and maintained the rule of the big man in the Western Regions for decades!

But because of such a comfortable life, the armed forces of the Eastern Han Dynasty plummeted. In the entire Eastern Han Dynasty, there were very few armies of more than [-] people to fight.
And Xu Wei wanted to completely sweep out the nobles of the Han Dynasty, but the unification process was too fast, and the remaining nobles in the Central Plains would naturally not be cleaned up as cleanly as Jizhou and Bingzhou.

And now the senior generals and officials of the Great Army have the goal of unifying the world, and they can suppress their own desires. Everyone's strength can be used in one place!But if the whole world is really unified by the great army, the target of Xu Wei's struggle will probably change to his former subordinates.

Just like the saying in the film and television drama: "After fighting for so many years, you can't enjoy it!"

The world is unified, I am afraid that many people will start to have the idea of ​​enjoying it in their hearts!At that time, they may not even agree with Xu Wei's action to forcefully clean up the nobles. After all, when the new dynasty begins, they will become the new nobles.For such an unfriendly decree, they will naturally find a way to overturn it.Just like the Western Han Dynasty's policy of relocating tyrants, it has been implemented for hundreds of years, and it is not nothing.

Jia Xu thought for a while and said: "The ruler can send cavalry to chase Liu Bei and others. It would be great if they catch up. Even if we don't catch up, we can take advantage of the small number of troops in Yuzhou and occupy the entire Yuzhou. In this way, our army will attack again. By going down to Xuzhou, you can completely encircle Qingzhou's pastures, and at the same time complete the three-sided encirclement of Sili."

"This time the coalition of princes, Liu Bei supported very strongly, dispatching nearly 20 troops, and as long as we wiped out the 20 troops in Jingzhou, Liu Bei would not be able to recover within three to five years, so when we attack Sili and In Qingzhou, he had no way to help Cao Cao and the others. And after we occupy the Central Plains, even if Liu Bei unified the entire Jiangnan, he would not be our opponent in Dagan County!"

Wan Lang said excitedly: "If we lose this time, the backbone of the big man will be broken by us. If we catch Liu Bei and Yuan Shao, maybe we can unify the whole world in three to five years!

With this temptation, everyone said fiercely: "We can't let Liu Bei and Yuan Shao run away!
Xu Wei immediately ordered Duan Peng to lead all the riders to chase Liu Bei and others who were fleeing!
The next day, the big army launched a full-scale attack on Dingtao City. After all, Dingtao's commander escaped. Everyone thought that Dingtao could be conquered in one go!

Hundreds of flying thunder cannons of the Dagan Army were placed 100 steps below Ding Taocheng, intending to use the powerful power of the flying thunder cannons to destroy the morale of the Han army!

Zhang Fei at the head of the city immediately discovered this move of the Dagan Army!
He shouted nervously: "The ballista is aimed at the flying thunder cannons of the Dagan army, and they cannot be fired!"

If this makes the big army open fire, I'm afraid there will be few people on the city wall who can stand up!Although it was difficult for the Feilei Cannon to break through the city wall, there were more than 10 cannons sweeping the city wall, and only the shells rushed up the city wall within a radius of 10 steps, leaving no humans or animals behind!

"Boom boom boom!" The ballista of the Han army fired a large amount of explosives, turning the people who were bombarded by the flying thunder artillery near the city wall upside down, causing heavy casualties!

Huanglong never thought that Dingtao City still had the power to fight back and caused heavy losses to the precious artillery.He cursed angrily and roared loudly, "Order, all the artillery, bombard the Dingtao city wall, I will make it impossible for even a mouse to survive on the city wall!"

After all, Huanglong's order is very difficult. It needs to adjust the angle of the artillery well, it can't go far and can't go in, and it needs to hit the range of several feet on the city wall just right!
But it seems that the artillery of the Dagan Army, although it is the most backward bronze gun, has very advanced ballistic elements. It uses the exhaustive method to mark the range that the artillery can shoot at every angle. Set the standard, according to the ballistic elements, the difference between the hits of each shell will not exceed 3 feet. This accuracy is equivalent to a perfect archer for the original bronze artillery.

So when Huanglong's order was issued, all artillerymen began to adjust the angle of the artillery, calculate the elements, and then one by one aimed at 2-3 battles on the city wall and fired!
"Bang bang bang!"

"Boom boom boom!"

Thousands of cannons fired continuously. These shells either hit outside the city wall or inside the city wall. Less than [-]% of the shells hit the city wall, and even [-]% of the shells hit the ground on the city wall, but only this [-]% did not. , but hundreds of shells hit the ground of the city wall. Each of these shells will definitely set off bloody winds on the city wall. The ballista on the city wall suffered a devastating blow, and dozens of ballistas and bed crossbows were damaged to varying degrees.

The more important thing is that the soldiers could hardly withstand such an attack, but after half an hour of shelling, the morale of the soldiers on the city wall collapsed, and they fled the city wall one after another!

Zhang Fei and Tian Feng were taken aback, and hurriedly ordered the ballista to be withdrawn to the back.At the same time, a new battalion of soldiers went up the city wall, and the morale-destroyed Han army was replaced by them to restore their morale!

But Zhang Fei's rotation was of little use. The second round of strikes by the Dagan army was imminent. The soldiers of the Han army who had just boarded the city wall were bombarded by artillery again. On this narrow city wall, the soldiers had nowhere to hide. Hide, many cannonballs beat them apart like bowling balls!The entire city wall is like Shura hell!Everyone was in extreme fear, and they ran wild under the shelling. In less than an hour, a battalion of soldiers who had just climbed the city wall was defeated again. The soldiers fled this hell in fear, not even daring to look at the city wall!
But the city wall still needs to be guarded. Zhang Fei and Tian Feng continued to grit their teeth and sent their soldiers to defend the city in turn. The morale of the six battalions was beaten that day, and they did not dare to climb the city wall. There were dead bodies everywhere on the city wall. The blood stained the entire city wall, and even the civilian husbands dared not climb the city wall to clean up the corpses!
The Dagan army's offensive didn't end until dark, but Zhang Fei and Tian Feng were extremely desperate looking at the city wall strewn with corpses, and they were completely thinking of ways to continue to hold on!

Ju Shou said firmly: "We can't hold on like this anymore. Six battalions have collapsed today. If we continue to fight like this, we can only last for four days at most, and we may not even last for four days. Look at these terrified soldiers. Afraid that if we continue to force them to go up the city wall, they will kill us, remind Lei Gong!"

"Then what should we do, should we surrender to Lei Gong now?"

Ju Shou said: "Arrange the soldiers at the base of the city wall, the artillery can't hit here!"

"But what about the city wall, relying on these few steps to climb the city wall, I am afraid that our army will have already occupied the city wall before our army has climbed the city wall. The soldiers of Ju Yi, the soldiers who boarded the camp first can still fight with Lei Gong in the street, if we fight in the street, I am afraid that most of the soldiers will surrender to Lei Gong, after all, Lei Gong treats ordinary soldiers well, they will not fight for us!" Zhang Fei said!
Ju Shou said: "Build ladders on the city wall. Soldiers use these ladders to climb the city wall. The Dagan army will run hundreds of steps longer than us. With the ladders, we should be able to climb the city wall faster than the Dagan army. , as long as we climb up the city wall quickly, we can block the attack of the big army on the city wall!"

Zhang Fei's eyes lit up and said, "This is a good way!"

So he ordered the soldiers and civilian husbands in the city to rush to make ladders overnight, and even used up all the sleepers used for defense. In one night, the Han army made 1300 ladders and erected them in Dingtao City like this!
So during the second day's attack, Huanglong found that there were not many soldiers on the city wall of Dingtao!

He immediately reported to Xu Weihui: "In power, the Han army was scared by us, and now they dare not defend on the city wall!"

Thinking of yesterday's attack, Xu Wei really didn't think that soldiers in the feudal era could withstand such artillery bombardment, fear is a matter of course!
Xu Wei laughed and said, "Take Dingtao City Wall and completely occupy Dingtao City!"

Huang Long replied loudly: "No!"

Then tens of thousands of soldiers charged towards the city wall under his command!

But what Huanglong never expected, when the soldiers of the Dagan Army approached the city wall, tens of thousands of Han troops suddenly appeared, and they threw the artillery shells fired by the Dagan Army, and the huge stones and bricks visiting on the city wall at the soldiers of the Dagan Army. Soldiers, at the same time, the archers of the Han army attacked the Dagan soldiers on three sides, and the attacking Dagan soldiers were quickly defeated!
This scene shocked all the soldiers of the Dagan army. They didn't understand that the Han army climbed up the city wall so quickly and attacked them!

And Xu Wei was also surprised by the fast action of the Han army. He couldn't figure it out at first, but through the telescope he found that the Han army did not appear from the steps of the city wall, but appeared on the city wall at almost the same density at the same time.Xu Wei thought for a while before he realized that it should be that the Han army used the ladders used to attack the city to defend the city!
Then he told Huang Long about this discovery, and said: "There are many talented people in the Han coalition army, and they have come up with such a method. We have to give up our luck and want to break through the city in a few days. Disintegrate the defensive willpower of the Han army little by little!"

"The army was stationed 200 steps away from Dingtao Chengxia, and the Feilei Cannon followed behind. They used soldiers to lure the Han army to climb the city wall, and then used the Feilei Cannon to kill the Han army. I don't believe that relying on these ladders, they You can also quickly escape down the city wall, as long as Ding Taocheng's Han army casualties exceed 3%, the morale of the soldiers in the city will collapse!"

After Huanglong got the new tactics, he immediately used them on the Dingtao defenders. Sure enough, even Jushou didn't have a good way this time. This time, the Dagan army combined the infantry so well. Light and fast thunder cannons kill their soldiers!

Zhang Fei and the others resisted for less than 10 days, and the outer city of Dingtao fell completely!

(End of this chapter)