Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 557 Siege Strategy
The defenders in Hefei City watched from a distance at the top of the city. They saw countless ships swarming in from Chao Lake and soldiers pouring out of the docks.

Qi Ji received the news and said irritably: "Is there someone here again?"

He thought in his heart that there was no food in the city now, and he was just waiting to die. No matter how many people were piled up, he would just die early.

But after all, he went to the top of the city and saw a camp starting to be built on the opposite side. Looking at the flags, it was obvious that Yuan Xi's army had returned.

Qi Ji naturally knew what the other party was doing during this period, and he actually knocked down half of the Lujiang River!
Now the remaining cities in Lujiang are either controlled by Sun Ce, captured by Taishi Ci, Gao Shun, Xu Huang and others, or they are isolated and helpless, like scattered sand.

The fall of Lujiang indicates that Yuan Shu's rear area has been completely lost. Now Yuan Shu's army can only shrink in Jiujiang in Yuzhou and Yangzhou, and Hefei has become the last line of defense to Shouchun.

Qi Ji looked from a distance and found that although Yuan Xi's army did not have many soldiers, the siege equipment that was being assembled blatantly made him smell something bad.

Where did all these equipment come from?
The opponent only used slings to slowly blast away. I was afraid that in a few days, the morale in the city would be gone. How could we fight?
In the past month, it is not that Yuan Shu has not sent reinforcements, but Liu Bei's army shattered Qi Ji's illusions several times. Not only did he have no one to support him, but even the food roads were cut off. He could only rely on the city to resist. Now Yuan Xi's army came again and brought with him With so many equipment, how can we defend this city?
Qi Ji saw that the enemy troops under the city were strong and strong, but his own soldiers were not eating enough and looked sick. He was about to go back to the city to discuss with Liu Fu when he saw a general coming on horseback from the enemy camp, saying, Said: "In the name of Yuan Shijun, there is a letter sent to the city!"

When Qi Ji saw the person, he was immediately angry and stuck his head out from the top of the city, "General Xu, why are you a thief?"

The person who came was none other than Xu Huang. He came to the moat at the head of the city, ignored the archers aiming their arrows, cupped his fists and said, "General Qi, you are well here!"

"Now the Emperor has an edict to defeat thieves and rebels. Why do you insist on following the thieves and doing the opposite?"

Qi Ji snorted coldly: "General Xu, you were helping to defend Hefei earlier, but in the blink of an eye, you turned around and turned around to deal with your previous colleagues. Don't you think it's ridiculous?"

Xu Huang said in a deep voice: "Huang has a clear conscience. It's just for the sake of his former peers that Huang came to show the city a way to survive!"

"With the current situation in Hefei like this, does the general think he can still defend it?"

After speaking, Xu Huang took out a roll of silk from his arms, tied it to an arrow, and shot it up to the top of the city with a whoosh, hitting the pillars of the wall at the top of the city.

Qi Ji asked someone to take down the arrow and unfold it to read the contents. He remained silent and was not in the mood to talk to Xu Huang in the city. He went to find Liu Fu with the silk book.

Liu Fu was discussing matters with Zheng Hun and others in the city guard's mansion when he saw Qi Ji coming in. He stood up and greeted him: "What are you doing here, general?"

Qi Ji said: "Yuan Xi's army has arrived outside the city."

Liu Fu and Zheng Hun were shocked when they heard this and stood up.

Qi Ji presented the silk and said, "After Xu Huang was captured, he had taken refuge with Yuan Xi. It was he who sent this letter."

Liu Fu took it and unfolded it, and when he and Zheng Hun took a look, they saw that Yuan Xi's words of surrender were written on it. He said that Yuan Shu was self-reliant and arrogant, debauched and immoral, and the people under his rule were miserable. Now everyone in the world is punished by the emperor's order. If you help Zhou to do evil, you will be infamy for thousands of years in the future.

Now that Yuan and Liu's armies have arrived, the city of Hefei is in danger, and Yuan Shu has too much time to take care of himself in Shouchun. If you think about your own wealth and life and the people in the city, you should open the city and surrender immediately to avoid military disaster.

Yuan Xi will promise in the name of the Yuan family that when the city is opened, the officials and soldiers in the city will be forgiven and their official ranks will still be retained. However, if they are stubborn and stubbornly resist, if the city is destroyed, the consequences will be difficult to say!

Liu Fu looked at this straightforward and oppressive statement and couldn't help but smile bitterly. This fierce tiger was too direct!

He said: "What do you think?"

"No!" Zheng Hun said flatly: "We have been greatly favored by Duke Zhong's salary. If we surrender without fighting, what will our reputation be and how will the people in the world think of us?"

"We should resist to the end. If things go wrong, we can break out to the north and return to Shouchun. Then Zhonggong knows that we are resisting desperately, so he will not embarrass us!"

Qi Ji didn't expect Zheng Hun to be so determined, and thought to himself, you said it was easy, but I am the one fighting. The generals on the opposite side are more terrifying than the other. Not to mention whether they can escape, even in the previous confrontation, I was almost killed. Now you are talking about resistance. in the end?
I'm working my ass off in front, and you're just talking?

He couldn't help but look at Liu Fu. Liu Fu noticed Qi Ji's gaze, but his expression remained unchanged. He said to Zheng Hun, "What if we can't run away?"

Zheng Hun hesitated for a moment and said, "If the soldiers cut off the rear, dozens of us can always escape, right?"

After hearing this, Qi Ji suddenly felt angry in his heart. He said for a long time, "Are you trying to get me and my subordinates to go against each other for the sake of your own reputation?"
At that time, most military generals came from good families, and their status was much lower than that of counselors who came from scholars. Therefore, Zheng Hun looked down on generals. It was a natural thought and he did not even think about hiding it.

Liu Fu looked as usual and said to Qi Ji: "In this case, I would like to ask the general to organize his troops and horses, guard the city carefully, wait for the battle in the next few days, and then make a decision based on the development of the situation."

After Qi Ji heard this, he had no choice but to take the order.

Two days later, Yuan Xi did not wait for a reply from the city of Hefei, so after discussing with Liu Guanzhang, they each set up battle formations in all directions of Hefei. He led the Chinese army, pushed dozens of trebuchets in front of the battle formation, and began to fire stones into the city.

For a moment, a stone as big as a human head was thrown out by the corpse-throwing machine, drawing arcs of varying heights in the air and hitting the head of Hefei City.Most of them hit the moat in front of the city wall, only a small part fell into the city wall, and a few hit the top of the city, but the soldiers hid behind the city wall, so they didn't cause much damage.

Yuan Xi looked at the formation and thought that this kind of trebuchet still needs improvement.

Liu Guan and Zhang were on the sidelines at this time. When Zhang Fei saw it, he couldn't help laughing and said: "Throwing stones like this will last until the Year of the Monkey and the Horse."

"Besides, even if we suppress the garrison at the top of the city, we still have to climb onto the city. What about the moat that's more than ten feet wide in front of us?"

The reason why Hefei is difficult to conquer is because of the extremely wide moat formed in front of it by diverting water from Chaohu Lake and other water systems.

The moat that flows around Hefei is more than ten feet wide at its narrowest point, and is seven or eight feet wide.Even though it was autumn now, unlike the flood season in summer, the water was still several feet deep, making it difficult for soldiers to swim across.

When Yuan Xi left, Guan Yu also thought of using water troops to enter from the tributaries, and then sail the warships into the moat, and the soldiers behind would use it to cover the siege. However, after trying it, he found that the effect was not ideal.

The warship was still too narrow compared to the moat. The soldiers behind could not use the warship to cross the river. Instead, the soldiers on the warship became a living target for the archers at the top of the city.

After losing a few ships in the end, Guan Yu had no choice but to retreat all the warships.

Liu Bei's subordinates also proposed a plan to flood the city. Hefei is a low-lying city. If water is stored upstream, the downstream is sealed, and then the upstream is dug up, Hefei will be flooded.

But after thinking about it, Liu Bei thought that this move was too harmful to Tianhe, and finally vetoed it.

Liu, Guan, and Zhang had nothing to say in field battles, but they were quite inexperienced in siege warfare, and their subordinates could not think of any good methods. Now they were very curious, what good methods could Yuan Xi come up with?

Yuan Xi saw in front of the formation that the trebuchet fired more than ten rounds of stones, which did little harm to the defenders at the top of the city. The only improvement was to calibrate the distance so that the stones could hit the top of the city and behind the city wall.

Seeing that the time was almost up, he ordered someone to give the order. On the Chaohu pier, dozens of ships that had been refitted overnight entered the tributary and sailed towards the moat.

Zhang Fei saw the black dots approaching from a distance, and suddenly laughed and said: "Isn't this what the second brother thought before?"

"You're going to suffer a lot later!"

After Guan Yu heard this, a faint red color appeared on his face, which was originally as heavy as a jujube.

Did you say that?

proceed if you can!
When the garrison at the head of the city saw the ships approaching from the opposite side, they immediately began to prepare oil-fired wood and equipment to attack the incoming ships.

Previously, Guan Yu's navy warship was under such an attack. The sails were on fire and the deck was smashed. The soldiers were unable to attack the city from the ship and were forced to retreat.

Qi Ji saw the ship slowly approaching from the top of the city. When he saw the shape clearly, he was stunned.

What happened to this ship?

I saw that these warships had even their masts removed, and they had no sails. They were driven only by the oars on the lower deck, so their speed was extremely slow.

In contrast, the deck has been completely remodeled into pointed wooden sheds. The tops of these wooden sheds are all made of extremely thick trees, forming two slopes, with the edges even exceeding The deck is supported by thick wooden piles below.

What's even more special is that the roof of the shed is polished extremely smooth and covered with iron sheets and iron bars. Qi Ji and his subordinates were stunned for a moment. What is this for?

Finally, when the ships came side by side, and the soldiers on each ship connected the bows and sterns of the ships with ropes and chains, forming a series of pontoons connected end to end on the moat, Qi Ji suddenly realized.

This is to use the protection on the top of the warship to allow soldiers to cross the river!
He quickly ordered: "Get ready with flint and thatch, burn all the warships!"

After hearing this, the soldiers on the city hurriedly covered the thatched wood with kerosene and ignited it, and then threw it out with all their strength. As a result, these things fell on the steeple and slid down the sloping wooden top into the river, igniting the fire. Everything was extinguished by the river water.

Qi Ji is indeed like this, the other party is targeted!
He also ordered people to smash down the rolling stones, but the wooden roofs of the ships were made of logs, which were extremely thick and covered with iron sheets. When the stones were hit, only a small dent was left, and they rolled in. In the river.

When Qi Ji's plan failed, he ordered the soldiers to tie pine wood stained with kerosene to the arrows and light them. Braving the rain of arrows below, he took the opportunity to shoot at the side deck of the ship that was not covered by iron sheets.

This was indeed effective, and the side of the ship was soon filled with many lit arrows, which began to slowly burn.

(End of this chapter)