Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

In contrast, although the Han army's casualties were no lighter than the defending troops, they possessed an absolute advantage in numbers and a complete array of siege equipment.

When they launched a new round of strong attacks, the intensity was even greater than the previous two days.

The siege had just begun, and Anqiu and Chang'an were almost simultaneously reporting emergencies, with the resistance of the defending troops clearly beginning to decline…

This was not only due to the casualties of the defending troops, but also because the extremely fierce siege warfare had caused a great psychological impact on the wounded defenders, gradually leading to the belief that it was impossible to continue defending.

Morale, without a doubt, is the most important decisive factor in war.

With high morale, Xiang Yu broke the boats and sank the pots, using 60,000 troops to decisively defeat 400,000 Qin soldiers; with low morale, no matter how many people there are, they are just a mob that cannot withstand a single blow.

Xu Sheng, who was observing the battle situation from afar, was also secretly making his judgments…

Two and a half hours!

If there were no accidents, Anqiu would be captured at noon in at most two and a half hours, and Chang'an, with a similar situation, would probably be about the same.

Just as Xu Sheng did not relax in the slightest and continued to order the various units to intensify the siege, scouts hurriedly reported that, as expected, the cavalry sent by Cao Ren had arrived, and judging from the flags and cavalry attire, it was indeed the Leopard Cavalry, numbering one thousand five hundred.

The arrival of one thousand five hundred cavalry was enough to create a considerable commotion.

And this great commotion was deliberately created by Cao Xiu, the "Thousand Li Colt," who personally led the Leopard Cavalry.

The purpose was to inform the defending troops in Anqiu and Chang'an that reinforcements had arrived, to encourage them to defend the cities to the death, and to buy Cao Ren more time to mobilize his troops.

However, just as Cao Xiu ordered the Leopard Cavalry to sprint at full speed on the periphery, without regard for the horses' stamina, in order to create enough commotion to inform the defending troops, it also caused the Han army to have some fear and slow down the siege.

"Bang…"

"Hiss, hiss, hiss…"

"Ah!!!"

Suddenly, among the Leopard Cavalry, who were still maintaining a certain formation while running at full speed, three or five riders fell down, causing a small commotion.

Pitfalls?!

Caltrops?!

As one of the commanders of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, Cao Xiu scanned his eyes and immediately noticed the problem, his face slightly sinking, realizing that the Han army had made preparations in advance.

"Slow down!"

Cao Xiu quickly ordered the Leopard Cavalry to slow down.

But even so, a cavalry group that had sped up would still need a certain distance to slow down.

In just a short while, the Leopard Cavalry had already lost twenty or so riders, which made Cao Xiu feel great pain and anger, and he cursed.

"Despicable little children, actually using such petty tricks."

If infantry and cavalry arrived together, these petty tricks would naturally be useless.

But in the case of only cavalry, these petty tricks were a rather tricky obstacle.

Besides slowing down, paying attention to observation, and carefully bypassing the arranged traps, it was difficult to find a good solution to this problem for a while.

To Cao Xiu's relief, the Han army was either unable to determine the direction of the Leopard Cavalry's arrival, or did not have enough time to prepare a large number of pitfalls and caltrops, and the distance between the laid traps exceeded ten zhang.

Listening to the increasingly clear siege sounds from several miles away, Cao Xiu personally led the troops in front, leading the Leopard Cavalry to speed up again, in order to affect the Han army's time to break the city as much as possible.

In this way, it was naturally impossible to avoid some scattered Leopard Cavalry stepping on the pitfalls, causing their horses' legs to break, and even the cavalrymen were directly thrown to their deaths.

However, Cao Xiu knew that now was not the time to be concerned about his subordinates.

Before Anqiu was captured, he should rush to boost the morale of the defending troops and threaten the rear of the Han army, perhaps gaining valuable time.

After breaking through all the way, when Cao Xiu arrived three arrow-lengths away from the rear of the attacking Han army, even if he was careful, he inevitably lost sixty or seventy riders.

Cao Xiu did not care about the heartache and immediately led the Leopard Cavalry to continue speeding up, drawing his bow and nocking an arrow.

"Release!"

Different from the ethereal archery mastered by the White Horse Volunteers, the archery displayed by the Leopard Cavalry was more of a uniformity, and the horse bows used were also much larger.

Besides learning from the lessons of the White Horse Volunteers, intending to increase the range of archery, it also reduced the requirements for the Leopard Cavalry's horsemanship to a certain extent, but increased the requirements for the Leopard Cavalry's archers' arm strength.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Ten thousand arrows were fired simultaneously, like dark clouds covering the top.

The Leopard Cavalry's thousand arrows fired simultaneously were also like a shadow covering the rear of the Han army.

However, Xu Sheng, who had been prepared for this, listened to Tian Feng's suggestion and temporarily built many racks in the rear of the army. Facing the attack of the Leopard Cavalry, the soldiers quickly placed large shields on the racks to avoid the rain of arrows.

When the rain of arrows fell, besides the sound of metal colliding, there were very few unlucky people who were injured.

This scene was also one of the methods used by the Vanguard Death Soldiers to resist the White Horse Volunteers in the past, but now it was taught to Xu Sheng by Tian Feng.

Seeing this, Cao Xiu was surprised by the Han army's preparations, and led the Leopard Cavalry around in a circle, approaching the rear of the Han army again.

After all, only a small area at the very back was equipped with racks.

As long as Cao Xiu approached twenty or thirty steps closer, it would be enough to rely on the Leopard Cavalry's strong bows to cross the range of the built racks and effectively shoot and kill the rear of the Han army, thereby forcing the Han army to slow down the siege to find a way to deal with him.

At this moment, Cao Xiu's eyes were like torches, accurately estimating the distance and position, and was preparing to carry out another volley of arrows at the Han army closer.

Suddenly, the soldiers under the racks took out strong crossbows and aimed at the Leopard Cavalry, who had completely entered the effective killing range.

"Release!"

A series of ear-piercing and heart-wrenching sounds rang out.

Due to process problems, the efficiency of strong crossbow manufacturing was difficult to improve effectively, so even the number of strong crossbows in Xu Sheng's army was only six hundred, and they were divided equally between Anqiu and Chang'an.

At the moment, there were only three hundred strong crossbows aimed at the Leopard Cavalry.

But these three hundred crossbow bolts fired simultaneously, the sound of breaking through the air was like a wail, startling Cao Xiu's face greatly, and the Leopard Cavalry under his command wanted to avoid it but it was too late.

"Puff, puff, puff!!"

A series of sounds of entering flesh, the sharp strong crossbows pierced through one Leopard Cavalry after another, replicating some of the shadows of the Vanguard Death Soldiers, directly shooting down a batch of Leopard Cavalry.

In this round of strong crossbow volleys alone, more than a hundred Leopard Cavalry were killed.

Calculated in this way, the one thousand five hundred Leopard Cavalry led by Cao Xiu had not yet made any achievements, and had already lost ten percent.

This shocked Cao Xiu's heart, and he no longer had any intention of advancing rashly, and hurriedly led the Leopard Cavalry back.

Afterwards, Cao Xiu, with lingering fear, did not dare to approach recklessly, and had to create more momentum on the periphery, in order to let the Anqiu defenders know that reinforcements had arrived, and then quickly retreated, turning to the direction of Chang'an.

(End of this chapter)