Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1383 Fighting
As the old saying goes, a ball of mud seals Hangu Pass. Hangu Pass is the only way from Heluo area to Guanzhong. In the beginning, the Qin State relied on the steepness of Hangu Pass to keep the six countries out of the pass. It could fight when it wanted and retreat when it wanted, and finally exhausted the six countries to death.

However, since Liu Bang came to power, the water level of the Yellow River has been declining. People from the Heluo area no longer need to go through the Qin Hangu Pass to go to Guanzhong. Therefore, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, a new Han Hangu Pass was built in Xin'an County to block enemies from the east. At the same time, in order to fill the vacancy of Qin Hangu Pass, Tongguan was built in the middle section between it and Chang'an as a second barrier.

The reason why checkpoints were built along the Xiaohan Road is that the Guanzhong area is located on the Huangtu Plateau. The unique terrain of the plateau is called Yuan, which means that the top is flat, with large areas of villages and towns. On both sides are steep slopes and deep gullies running diagonally from north to south, shaped like mountains. Marching and fighting are extremely restricted by this terrain.

When passing, they would walk along the plateau, and when fighting, they would try their best to occupy the top of the plateau so that they could attack the enemy from a high position. Therefore, as the defenders, they would naturally build fortifications and camps on the top of the plateau early on, using the height advantage to suppress the enemies who wanted to climb up and attack from the bottom of the plateau. This was naturally relatively easy.

The defenders at the bottom of the plateau faced more difficulties. First of all, there was often a drop of dozens or even hundreds of feet from the bottom to the top of the plateau, and the slopes in many places were extremely steep and impossible to climb. The soldiers could only look for places with gentler slopes and find their way under the risk of enemy arrows. At this time, siege equipment could not be deployed to help, which was much more troublesome than attacking a city.

Even when the six nations joined forces, they were still unable to break through the dangerous pass of Hangu Pass. When Liu Bang fell out with Xiang Yu after fighting his way from Hanzhong to Xianyang, he relied on this passage to advance step by step, forcing Xiang Yu's army to retreat step by step and set up defenses.

Among the two checkpoints on this road, Tongguan is the most dangerous. In the later Battle of Weinan, Cao Cao managed to bypass Tongguan and defeated Ma Chao. The same was true when Huang Chao defeated the Tang army. It is extremely difficult to simply attack by force.

Later, the army defending Tongguan set up twelve linked cities to prevent the enemy from bypassing the rear, connecting the entire defense line together and eliminating the entire hidden danger. However, the defenders in this world had not experienced such a sneak attack, although in Yuan Xi's eyes, Tongguan still had its weaknesses.

The first line of defense, Hangu Pass, although the terrain is slightly flat, cannot be taken down by brute force alone. The defense line at the bottom of the plateau needs to be dismantled first before attacking the plateau. This is why Yuan Xi stayed in the rear and was not in a hurry to urge Zhang He, because at this time, the more anxious you are to attack, the greater the losses will be.

As the commander of the front army, Zhang He naturally had his own self-esteem. He leaned on his iron spear, looked at the Wei army camp above his head, chewed some grass roots in his mouth, and waited until the bitter juice stimulated his mouth to tremble, then spit it out on the ground and shouted: "Raise your shields, go!"

The soldiers raised their large iron-covered shields diagonally above their heads, followed the route found by the soldiers in front, and tried to attack the Cao army camp on the top of the plateau.

Dozens of feet above their heads, Cao's soldiers were standing on the fence of the camp, desperately pouring down arrows and stones. The arrows hit the iron shields with a thud, and the stones made a dull puff, leaving pits of varying depths on the iron sheet.

At the front of the team, a dozen soldiers were pushing a battering ram. Although the ram was driven by a steam engine, the slope was too steep and it could only move forward with human assistance.

The route they took was the one that had been explored by the soldiers who had attacked previously, and it was the best option. However, even so, the distance of the drop of several dozen feet took the battering ram more than half an hour to reach the gate of the camp.

At this time, Cao's army slowed down its offensive because after half a month of consumption, their stores of arrows and stones had run out.

Although the top of the plateau has an advantageous terrain, it is covered with loess and it is difficult to find stones. In addition, logistics are also difficult in places with dangerous terrain.

Yuan Xi consumed Cao's army for half a month. His strategy was to abandon the top of the plateau first, and then occupy the deep channels at the bottom of the plateau, deeply blocking Cao's logistics, and putting Cao's army into a vicious cycle of expenditure rather than income.

After half a month of fighting, Cao's defense line at the bottom of the plateau was almost completely destroyed. Zhang He saw that the time was ripe, so he decisively ordered the battering rams to go up the plateau and pushed them all the way to the front of Cao's camp.

At this time, the generals of Cao's army in the village also knew that the Jin army was serious this time, so they shouted loudly and issued orders, asking the soldiers to line up behind the village gate and wait for the Jin army to break in before they could stop them with all their might.

But the Jin army did not give the Wei army any chance. After a round of grenades and incendiary bombs were thrown, the Cao army behind the village gate was defeated. The Jin army's battering rams took the opportunity to break the village gate, allowing the Jin army to rush in.

Under the orders of the Cao army generals, the defending Cao army had to re-form their battle array and reluctantly stepped forward to block the rushing Jin army. The front row used wooden spears more than ten feet long, and the people in the back row placed the spears on the shoulders of the people in front, ready to stab at any time.

The situation for the people in the third row was more troublesome. In order to prevent stabbing the people in the first row, they could only raise the tips of their guns at an angle, ready to fill the vacancies of the soldiers in the second row at any time.

As for the act of smashing with the barrel of a gun, which wastes energy and causes almost no harm, it is strictly prohibited because, apart from interfering with one's own front-line soldiers, it has almost no effect on the enemy.

At this time, the Jin army soldiers with battering rams had already prepared for the situation. They put two battering rams side by side and pushed them forward. With the dual blessing of steam power and manpower, the battering rams rolled over like a monster. The Cao army was in a panic. They raised their spears with one hand and pushed the rams with the other, but how could they stop them?
Seeing that the battering ram had knocked over the front row of Cao's soldiers, the Cao's generals behind were also extremely anxious. They had no choice but to give orders to the soldiers to go around both sides of the battering ram and attack the Jin soldiers behind the ram.

The Jin army soldiers had been holding back for half a month and were ready to fight. Seeing the Wei army soldiers rushing over, they immediately fought back with a roar, and the two sides fought together. The Wei army at the front was naturally the most well-equipped elite soldiers. They were also fully armored, holding a shield in one hand and a ring-handled sword in the other. The long spears and long swords from the opposite side greeted them, making them stagger repeatedly, but they could not break through the defense for a while.

Although their ring-handled swords could not cause any damage to the Jin army's vanguard for the time being, the two sides were engaged in a melee and the Jin army did not dare to use explosive grenades. If the situation remained deadlocked, there might be a turning point when the Wei army behind them came up and outnumbered them.

While the Wei army was thinking this, the heavy armored soldiers at the front of the Jin army made a move that stunned the Cao army soldiers. They handed the ring-handled swords in their hands to the friendly forces behind them, took the new weapons handed over by the opposite side, and then rushed forward waving them.

When the Wei soldiers looked carefully, they found that the weapons on the opposite side were strange in shape. Some had sword hilts with hexagonal iron rods, some had iron bars with iron balls on the top, and some were half iron rods and half chains, with a thorny ball on top.

Although these weapons were strange, when they hit the Cao army soldiers, they immediately made them feel what it was like to be in excruciating pain.

The huge impact force hit the iron armor, and the vibration was transmitted to the human body. The knocked-down Wei army soldier's body stagnated for a short time, and then shook.

Their consciousness went blank at the moment of the impact, especially those who were hit on the vest and head. Although the iron helmets and armor blocked most of the impact, the vibrations endured by the human body were dozens or even dozens of times stronger than those from swords. Many people had their internal organs damaged at the same moment and quickly lost their strength.

Later studies have shown that the fastest way to make a person lose their fighting capacity is to stab the vital points with a sharp weapon or to hit the body with a blunt weapon, especially the front of the vest and other places where internal organs are concentrated. Just one blow can make a person completely lose the ability to move.

Of course, people who wield blunt weapons on the battlefield also face danger. Blunt weapons are not as flexible as swords and often cannot be retracted after being thrown out. This is extremely dangerous when blunt weapons hit each other, so it is also called a one-shot deal. If it fails, the backlash will be much greater than that of swords.

However, the Wei army was not equipped with blunt weapons at that time, so the Jin army soldiers were able to wield the iron sticks and hammers in their hands unscrupulously, beating the Cao Wei soldiers to the ground and causing them to vomit blood.

Soon, the Wei soldiers in the front were beaten to death and wounded, and fell to the ground unable to get up, revealing the panicked Wei soldiers in light armor and no armor behind them.

At this time, the Jin army soldiers in the front row changed back to long swords and spears, and launched an all-out attack on the Wei army in formation. The Wei army soldiers Cao soon became completely confused, and after a dying counterattack, they were finally unable to resist and retreated, showing a trend of fleeing.

At this time, Zhang He took the opportunity to stab the leading general of Cao's army to death. Seeing this, the Wei army soldiers were completely defeated and turned around to flee, running to the bottom of the plateau. However, the disadvantages of setting up a camp on the plateau became apparent, and they could not retreat quickly.

The defeated Wei soldiers were faced with a steep earth slope and were unable to retreat quickly. They tried to support themselves on the slope, but under the shooting of arrows from the pursuing Jin army, they soon rolled down the slope, and their lives were unknown.

On another plateau behind the Cao army's vanguard camp, Xiahou Shang witnessed the entire defeat of the Cao army. His face was extremely grim, and he said to Du Xi beside him: "Occupying the high ground can certainly give us the upper hand, but if the battle goes against us, we will never come back."

"There are obviously some problems with setting up a stronghold on a high ground. If the enemy army cuts off the lower plateau, the upper plateau will be trapped."

"Pass on my order, have the main force go down to the plateau and build a defense line from the bottom of the plateau to resist the Jin army. The next battle will be based on the bottom of the plateau."

Du Xi and others followed Xiahou Shang down from the top of the plateau and ordered Cao's soldiers to urgently build fortifications at the bottom of the plateau. It took most of the day and they met Zhang He who had rushed over again.

The two sides fought for a long time until dark, but Zhang He failed to break through the Wei army's defense line. Seeing that it was getting dark, he sounded the horn to call back his troops and reported the battle situation to Yuan Xi in the central army behind him.

After Yuan Xi learned about this, he sighed to Yang Xiu: "The opposing commander reacted quickly and immediately realized that the key to the battle is at the bottom of the plateau, not on the plateau."

"It's time to change our tactics. We can't let the enemy grow. Otherwise, it will be even more troublesome for them to readjust their defenses in Tongguan."

(End of this chapter)