The last three kingdoms

Chapter 1176 Burning Xingyang
When Luo Xian led his troops to the foot of Xingyang City, he saw that the four gates of Xingyang City were closed and the suspension bridge was hanging high. The Wu army stationed in Xingyang showed no sign of going to war at all.

Of course, this was within Luo Xian's expectation. The soldiers of Soochow Wu were good at water warfare but not land warfare, especially cavalry combat, which has always been the shortcoming of the Wu army. More than 7 cavalry from the right army came roaring in. The majestic formation is enough to frighten Wu Bing's courage. A field battle with the Han cavalry is purely looking for abuse.

What's more, the two defenders that Lu Kang chose were prudent and cautious generals who were good at defensive battles but not good at charging. In such a situation, they would just hide in the city and dare not come out even if they were killed.

Luo Xian was not in a hurry to attack the city, but ordered the Han army to besiege Xingyang City first, and ordered that they should only encircle and not fight.

The actions of the cavalry were fast. Only half an hour after Luo Xian's order was issued, the deployment of the Han army's siege was fully completed. Xingyang City was completely surrounded by the Han army. Four gates away, the Han army cavalry was in full formation. , Wu Jun wanted to go out of the city, but he had nowhere to go.

Seeing the cavalry of the Han army galloping back and forth outside the city, with their neat appearance and murderous look, Zhang Xiang, standing on the top of the city, was shocked. For the powder.

Thinking of this, Zhang Xiang couldn't help sighing at Lu Kang's wisdom. Generally, the grain and grass of the army are stored in the wild, and a large camp is set up, and the grain and grass can be piled up however they want. There is nowhere to store the mountains of grain and grass in the warehouses and grain storage points, which attracted the attention of all the generals.

Zhang Xiang, as the guard of Xingyang and the general manager of the grain depot, had to go through all kinds of troubles at that time, occupying and looting the private houses of many people to solve the problem of garrisoning grain.

Now it seems that it is so safe to put the grain and grass in the city. If the grain and grass are placed in the field camp at this moment, the Wu army will not be able to resist a round of attack by the cavalry of the Han army. I am afraid that a large amount of grain and grass will have already fallen into the hands of the Han army. up.Now that there is a strong city wall in Xingyang, the cavalry of the Han army can only look forward to the city and sigh.

Although the Han army surrounded Xingyang City like an iron barrel, Zhang Xiang was not too scared. The cavalry was invincible in field battles, but when it came to siege operations, they were even inferior to infantry. What Zhang Xiang had to do now was Just stick to it and wait for reinforcements. Wu Jun's reinforcements can arrive within three or two days at most, so Zhang Xiang has no reason to be afraid. He ordered Wu Jun to guard Xingyang City at all costs.

As soon as Wu Yan, the Zhennan general stationed at Hulao Pass, heard that Xingyang was besieged by the Han army, he immediately gathered his troops and rushed to Xingyang.Xingyang was the place where the Wu army stored food, and there was absolutely no room for loss. Lu Kang's order to Wu Yan was that if something happened to Xingyang, he would immediately lead troops to reinforce it.

Wu Yan didn't think about anything else, and led his troops straight to Xingyang.

As soon as he arrived at Guoting, he encountered the Qinglong Army led by Deng Pu.Deng Pu's task was to stop the reinforcements at Hulao Pass. The two armies met on a narrow road and immediately fought in one place.

Although Wu Yan brought 2 horses, which outnumbered Deng Pu's cavalry, the comparison between infantry and cavalry in the field was meaningless at all. Deng Pu used a textbook-like Victory came to tell the Wu people what is called the king's division. In field battles on the plains, cavalry is invincible.

Although Wu Jun also launched a long spear array to fight against the Han cavalry, the powerful impact of the Han cavalry was like a flood breaking a bank, unstoppable, and Wu Jun's battle formation was washed away by just one round of impact. It's all messed up, it's horrible.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Wu Yan led the remnants of the defeated generals to flee, fled back to Hulao Pass in one breath, and never dared to come out again.

But Zhang Xiang was eager to see through, but he couldn't wait for the reinforcements from Hulao Pass, but he didn't know that the reinforcements from Hulao Pass had already been defeated by the Han army at Guoting. Zhang Xiang's only hope now was that his troops had arrived at the city of Luoyang Lu resisted.

But how could Luo Xian give him a chance? Although siege was not the strength of the cavalry of the Han army, Liu Yin had already prepared a plan to attack Xingyang.

This time, the goal of the Han army was to collect grain and grass in Xingyang, not Xingyang city itself, so it doesn't matter if it can't take down the city of Xingyang. The important thing is how to destroy the grain and grass in Xingyang. The 20 Wu army is bound to fall into a food shortage situation, and this trick is to push Lu Kang to a desperate situation.

How to burn food and grass without destroying the city, this Liu Yin had prepared in advance.When Luo Xian crossed the river, he brought not only cavalry, but also hundreds of catapults and hundreds of catapults. After the cavalry completed the siege of Xingyang, these catapults and catapults were evenly distributed among The four gates of Xingyang were placed on the front line of the siege.

What the catapult prepares is not a stone bomb, but a kind of straw ball wrapped with straw rope. This kind of grass rope ball has been soaked in tung oil and is stained with oil.And the crossbow bolts on the ballista are not ordinary crossbow bolts, they are all crossbow bolts equipped with gunpowder.

With Luo Xian's order, the catapult and the ballista launched attacks simultaneously.

Fire rope balls flew towards the city of Xingyang one after another, and the gunpowder crossbow arrows flew towards the city of Xingyang with long smoke traces. The smoke filled the air.

At first, seeing the catapults and crossbow carts pushed to the front, Zhang Xiang and Cai Min were still a little flustered. The catapults were powerful, and they didn't know how strong the city wall of Xingyang City was, and whether they could stop the catapults. s attack.But when they saw that the balls thrown from the catapult did not hit the city wall, they were slightly relieved.

But in an instant, Zhang Xiang secretly yelled that he was not good. Obviously, the target of the Han army's attack was not the defenders on the city wall, but the piles of grain and grass in the city.

"Hurry up and put out the fire!" Zhang Xiang yelled, his face pale.

A single straw ball is not terrible, as long as the defenders can extinguish it, it will not cause any harm, but when thousands of matchlock balls fall into the city, it can only be described as a tragedy. Fight hard, but how can you extinguish the overwhelming fireballs? Food and grass are flammable materials, once ignited, they immediately turn into raging fires.And those continuous crossbow arrows with gunpowder not only have the effect of igniting fire, but also have a lot of lethal power.

The raging fire was spreading wantonly in Xingyang City. At this time, it was spring and April. The spring breeze blew strongly, and the wind helped the fire, and the fire took advantage of the wind to burn Xingyang City into a sea of ​​flames.

(End of this chapter)