knife

Chapter 580 Lure the Enemy
Feng Kuan deeply felt that the morale of the enemy in Yong'an County was rapidly declining.

The first wave of attacks on Yangcheng resulted in the Chu army holding out for a full ten days before finally retreating on a dark and windy night. These ten days cost them thousands of casualties.

The second wave of attacks on E County saw the defending troops retreat after only five days. It's important to note that E County was a higher-ranking county than Yang County; one was an upper-level county, the other a lower-level one. E County had a full 5,000 troops stationed there, while Yang County only had 3,000.

After capturing two places, more good news arrived: the Tiger Legion, the only force that Feng Kuan cared about, had actually gone to Huangpi under the leadership of its commander, Kang Zhen.

Kang Zhen approached He Yiming.

Kang Zhen seemed to understand the principle of picking the weakest link, knowing he was outmatched, so he went to find the ragtag army led by He Yiming.

Kang Zhen intended to use the cities along the way to block him first, and then after defeating He Yiming, he would attack his rear. At that time, with fortified cities in front and Kang Zhen behind, the battle would naturally be difficult.

The plan is good, but the problem is that the morale of the Chu army is simply not high enough to execute such a strategy.

Moreover, behind him were not only newly recruited troops from Xiangfan City, but also the troops of Yang Lixin, who had been mobilized by the General.

Yang Lixin's troops numbered 20,000. If it weren't for the need to guard against Li Guohua's raid on their base in Henan, the general would have loved to send in all of Yang Lixin's troops.

This battle was the one that truly turned the tide for He's troops.

Once the predetermined strategic objectives are achieved, the world will no longer be a three-way standoff, but a four-way struggle for supremacy.

He spurred his horse forward, gazing at Yongxing County ahead.
This is the last barrier before Yong'an County City.

This battle won't be so easy.

Once Yongxing is captured, Yong'an County will be indefensible.

The key issue is that He Jiong and his group in Yong'an County have nowhere to go.

They could only defend the city to the death.

Han Zheng of Ruyin County will be under pressure from General He and will be too busy to help Yong'an County.
Jiang Qian's only way to escape was to flee by boat, but once she boarded the boat, it would mean her complete failure.

Getting into the water is easy, but getting back on shore is difficult.

Yong'an currently has no more than 80,000 troops available for battle, including Kang Zhen's 30,000 elite soldiers.

According to reliable intelligence, nearly 5,000 of Kang Zhen's 30,000 elite troops had fled, and what Feng Kuan found most ridiculous was that 3,000 of them had colluded with Yi Hong's naval forces and escaped by boat.

As a military commander, Feng Kuan knew how devastating such an event could be to an army.

Small-scale escaping can be concealed, but the escape of thousands of people in an organized manner is impossible to cover up.

Therefore, Kang Zhen did not dare to challenge him to a duel, but instead chose to attack He Yiming.

This was a move he made out of desperation.

Hopefully, He Yiming can hold on.

He Yiming has over ten thousand men under his command, a mixed bag, but three to four thousand of them are quite capable fighters.

Of course, it doesn't matter if you can't hold on.

This is a good opportunity to reorganize them as well.

Ke Wuji, that old man, relying on his past merit of welcoming the general south, has always acted arrogantly because of his age. If his troops are lost, let's see if he still dares to smoke his pipe and blow smoke rings in his face.

"Prepare to attack!" Feng Kuan glanced at the Chu army flags fluttering atop Yongxing City in the distance and gave the order.

With the thunderous sound of drums, the army began to change formations, and all sorts of siege equipment were pushed out from the ranks. Under the cover of the infantry, they began to advance towards Yongxing City.

Although he underestimated the fighting power of the Chu army, Feng Kuan, a veteran of many battles, still made all the necessary preparations.

When a lion fights a rabbit, he also uses all his strength.

Otherwise, if the rabbit fights back and bites the lion, even if the lion loses a tuft of fur, it will be a huge loss of face.

On the city wall of Yongxing, Zhang Yuan reached out and wiped the cold sweat from his face.

He glanced back at the man in civilian clothes inside the city gate. Yongxing City didn't have only five thousand garrison troops as Feng Kuan had thought; there were a full eight thousand, five thousand of whom were the formidable Tiger Legion.

The commander of the defense of Yongxing City was nominally Zhang Yuan, but in reality, it was Kang Zhen, the commander of the Tiger Legion and a ninth-rank Xuan Yuan expert.

The strategy of abandoning Yangcheng and Exian to lure the enemy deep into their territory has been completed.

What needs to be done now is to lure more of He Zudao's troops into this encirclement. Once everything is ready, the navy will circle around to the rear, block the rear, and trap the enemy.

Feng Kuan's 25,000-strong force and Yang Lixin's 20,000-strong force were both part of this scheme. If He Zudao's nearly 50,000-strong army were wiped out, how could He Zudao still hold the eight towns south of the Yangtze River?

"Prepare for battle!" Zhang Yuan roared.

Busy activity erupted atop the city walls. Looking at the Tiger Warriors dressed in county soldier uniforms, and then at several officers whose ranks were several levels higher than his own, Zhang Yuan couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat again.

He didn't need to give orders; any one of these people could be more skilled in martial arts and more experienced in combat than him.

His task was to stand in the most conspicuous place for the enemy to see.

This was a very risky task. To shoot a man, you must first shoot his horse; to capture a thief, you must first capture his king. The enemy attacking the city had discovered him as the general guarding Yongxing, so why wouldn't they target him specifically?

Therefore, Zhang Yuan's primary task in the upcoming battles is to find a way to save his own life.

So he wore two layers of iron armor.

As the sharp whistling of arrows shot up the city walls, the Battle of Yongxing officially began.

One after another, powerful crossbows fired thick bolts, and catapults hurled bowl-sized stones heavily onto the city walls. Newly built siege engines, amidst the shouts of the soldiers, slowly approached the city walls; these siege engines were even taller than the city walls themselves.

More soldiers, carrying sandbags, rushed towards the city wall under the cover of a rain of arrows and stones. After throwing the sandbags on their shoulders into the moat, they turned and ran back.

The Qin soldiers were well-versed in attacking city walls and had a complete set of procedures. Of course, the Chu army was also very familiar with this.

What we're seeing now is just an appetizer before the main course.

The real, brutal battle was the swarming warfare that followed after the moat was filled in.

The counterattack from the city walls may not look intense right now, but it's causing considerable damage.

Instead of a barrage of arrows, a carefully selected group of highly skilled archers were hidden behind the battlements and fired at the enemy lines.

Pick them up one by one.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of soldiers were pinned to the ground by arrows from the city walls.

This made Feng Kuan very annoyed.

"Is that Zhang Yuan, the garrison commander of Yongxing?" Feng Kuan said through gritted teeth, eyeing the arrogant fellow on the city wall. "Does he think he's some kind of peacock, afraid we won't know where he is? Xiao Kuan, go and give him an arrow!"

One of Feng Kuan's lieutenants chuckled, grabbed a guard next to him, stripped him of his clothes and put them on himself, then grabbed his bow and charged out.

With a swift movement, he used the cover of the soldiers carrying sandbags to quickly approach the moat. Looking up, he saw Zhang Yuan still baring his teeth and claws on the city wall. He sneered and drew his bow, firing an arrow.

He has always been extremely confident in his archery skills.

If Kang Zhen hadn't happened to be by Zhang Yuan's side at that moment, Zhang Yuan, the nominal highest military commander of Yongxing City, would have been killed in battle immediately.

Kang Zhen pulled him down, and the arrow flew past his nose, startling him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat.

"Why are you always staying in one place?" Kang Zhen said irritably. "You're a veteran who participated in the Battle of Xiangcheng. How did you survive that battle?"

Zhang Yuan wiped away another cold sweat. In recent years, not only had his spleen and muscles grown back, but his vigilance had also gradually faded, and he had become somewhat unfamiliar with war.

This is a deadly battlefield!
He seemed to be recalling those near-death experiences from many years ago.

"Pretend I'm not here!" Kang Zhen scolded. "Show me what you've got. If you win this battle, you'll have a bright future. If you die, then all is lost! Now that those people are on the city walls, they're your subordinates. Command them as you see fit."

"Understood, General!" Zhang Yuan nodded repeatedly.

(End of this chapter)