I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 259: Reputation

While Yuan Shu was busy with these things, Duan Xing was not idle either. He still followed the traditional siege tactics and first persuaded the people in the city to surrender.

With Yuan Shu's guarantee, the recruits from Sanhe did not object to the order not to massacre the city, so Duan Xing openly ordered a large number of soldiers with loud voices to shout to the people in the city.

He said that in this battle, the Han army must show the demeanor of a royal army and only kill the main culprits, and not kill ordinary soldiers and residents in the city.

As long as the people in the city can kill the main culprit, they will report to the court and be rewarded with a thousand gold coins and be granted the title of marquis.

Liu He, Wang Ji, Gao Cheng, Wen Mu and others were all on the list.

The heads of the rest were rewarded with a thousand gold coins and were granted the title of marquis. Liu He received even more, with a reward of five thousand gold coins, and was directly granted the title of county marquis, with a guaranteed fief of at least one thousand households, and he could also grant titles to his wife and children, thus directly crossing the class barrier and reaching the pinnacle of life.

If you can capture him alive, the reward will be doubled.

This is not false. Duan Xing believed that a living Liu He was indeed worth the price.

If this versatile figure in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, who was a member of the eunuch's gang, a relative of the Han royal family, and a brother of the gang, could be captured alive and sent to Luoyang to be handed over to Yuan Feng and Liu Kui, he would definitely be given the title of a county marquis without hesitation!

Duan Xing had his soldiers shouting at the city for a whole day, making many of them hoarse, and then they rested for another day. On December 23rd, he officially gave the order to attack the city.

The siege mode was very formal. First, fill the pits, then remove the barricades, and then because the moat was frozen, simply lay a layer of sandbags on the ice. There was no need to spend too much manpower to fill the moat.

During this period, the rebels on the city walls used bows and arrows, crossbows and crossbows to launch defensive counterattacks.

However, the old problem still exists. Although the number of rebels is large, their average quality is too low. This type of technical soldiers is very rare. Among the 40,000 to 50,000 defensive troops in the city, less than 2,000 archers can be mobilized.

The Han army outside the city had more technical personnel who could use the crossbows and crossbows to launch a large-scale counterattack and suppress the fire on the city walls, thereby covering more soldiers to carry out siege operations outside the city.

Duan Xing was a general who cared for his soldiers and paid great attention to protecting their lives, so he was very proficient in the use of protective gear such as shields. When the infantry was advancing under the city, he would definitely ask the shield soldiers for protection.

A large number of shield soldiers held shields in front to cover the infantry behind them to fill the pits and remove the barricades. A large number of archers shot arrows at the top of the city to suppress the enemy. As a result, the entire preparation work before the siege caused almost no casualties to the Han army.

After the preliminary work was completed, Duan Xing ordered an attack on the city to test the combat effectiveness and fighting will of the rebels on the city, and at the same time ordered earthwork outside the city to prepare to build an earth wall that was higher than the city wall in order to shoot into the city.

It was the middle of winter, so earthwork was actually easier. The soil had to be dug out and piled up, then ice was chopped to get water, which was then poured into the pile. It took less than an hour and the soil was soon frozen solid.

In this way, the efficiency of building earth walls will be greatly improved.

The only thing they need to worry about is that some soldiers may come out of the city to attack and destroy the earth wall, either during the day or at night. Duan Yu also made targeted defensive preparations and would definitely let those people know how powerful he is.

In short, Duan Xing had calculated Puyang City thoroughly within the area where he could play a role.

The soldiers in Puyang City also felt great pressure because of this, and because of the previous calls from the Han army outside the city, many rebel soldiers in the city were shaken and did not want to be buried with Liu He and others.

However, after Liu He and others shouted at the Han army, Wen Mu suggested that they directly confiscate the weapons of most of the soldiers in the city. Only the front-line soldiers who climbed up the city walls to fight could get weapons. The other soldiers either had to carry things or do miscellaneous work. All of them acted under the supervision of officers and armed soldiers to eliminate the possibility of resistance.

These guys were also guilty and afraid. They were worried that there would be a mutiny in the city and they would be taken away in one go. That was why they did not allow ordinary soldiers to have weapons, and only allowed officers and a small number of trusted soldiers to have weapons. On the one hand, this was to monitor the ordinary soldiers, and on the other hand, they really needed their service.

The Han army had too great a tactical advantage, so they could only sacrifice their lives, hoping that Zhang Hao and Jiong Pei could cut off the Han army's food supply as soon as possible. Only in this way would they have a chance of survival.

Despite this, the tactical advantage of the Han army also brought them great deterrence, especially the fact that the Han army took four days to complete the earth wall and began to launch a rain of arrows attack on the city from a high position, which also caused great losses and deterrence to the city.

In fear, Liu He decided to send soldiers out of the city to destroy the earth wall, but he was repelled three times in a row by the prepared Han army and was unable to threaten the earth wall at all. He could only watch as the Han army archers continued to suppress the rebels on the city from a high position while he was unable to fight back.

What's more terrible is that because of the successful suppression of long-range firepower, the deterrent power of the Han soldiers carrying ladders to climb the city walls was greatly increased. On average, seven or eight rebel soldiers had to die in exchange for one Han soldier, which made the casualty rate of the rebels on the city walls remain high.

A battalion of soldiers went up to defend the city, but after just one day, all those who could fight and dared to fight were gone, and the remaining ones were all cowards and their spirits were not right, so they had to be replaced. The losses on the Han side were still not great, and Liu He was worried that if this continued, he would fight all his troops and horses and still not see the dawn of victory.

Zhang Hao.

Jiong Pei.

You guys need to hurry up! Hurry up!

Liu He hoped that these two people could hear his voice.

During this process, Yuan Shu was not idle either.

In addition to wearing helmet and armor and personally leading the army to attack the city, he mainly focused his energy on the wounded camp. Whenever he had free time, he would run to the camp to look after the wounded and frantically increase his reputation.

On this point, he and Duan Xing have the same attitude.

Duan Xing loved his soldiers and he also cared for his soldiers. Before the war, he prepared a large amount of medicines and enough doctors, and arranged a large number of soldiers to help, so that the wounded could receive timely treatment and would not die because of minor injuries.

When Yuan Shu arrived at the wounded camp, he personally bandaged the wounds of the injured soldiers, changed their dressings, and cleaned their wounds. No matter whether they were from the Luoyang Central Army, the Sanhe Recruitment Army, or his own armed forces, he would take care of them all equally.

He would also pay out of his own pocket to buy poultry and livestock from surrounding counties, and have the firemen cook broth for the wounded soldiers, and give them extra meals to supplement their nutrition and help them recover better.

The wounded soldiers who entered the wounded camp could eat more meat than the soldiers outside.

As a result, Yuan Shu's reputation for caring for soldiers quickly spread in the army. All the soldiers who came out of the wounded camp praised Yuan Shu highly, and lamented that Yuan Shu was a rare good commander, and that he cared for soldiers almost as much as General Duan.

When have they ever seen their superiors care so much about the lives of soldiers like them?

Since ancient times, only a small number of soldiers died on the battlefield, and most of them died in the wounded camps. The wounded soldiers who could not receive medical treatment were the bulk of the death list. As long as they could receive proper care in the wounded camps, most of the wounded soldiers could actually recover and return to the team.

But there are very few armies that can do this.

Fortunately, these soldiers are in such an army.

After gaining such a reputation, Yuan Shu's previous request not to massacre the city was also considered to be a sign that Yuan Shu was kind-hearted and did not want to see too many deaths, so he did not allow his soldiers to massacre the people after breaking into the city.

He would also try his best to protect the lives of his soldiers during the battle, showing that he was a true good man who practiced what he preached, and all the soldiers in the army respected him very much.

When this news reached Duan Xing's ears, Duan Xing was very moved. He lamented that Yuan Shu, a rich and wealthy young man, could actually swallow his pride and lower himself to get along with ordinary soldiers, and even personally bandage their wounds and cook broth for them. It was really rare.

Not to mention people of his background, most officers couldn't do it. They wanted to treat the privates like cattle and horses to show off their status. So, if he couldn't achieve great things, who could?

Duan Xing was secretly delighted by this.

On December 30th of the first year of Zhengshi, the last day of this turbulent year, Duan Xing gave the entire army a holiday, took out a lot of wine and meat for the Han soldiers to eat and drink at will, allowed them to gamble and have fun, indulge themselves, celebrate the New Year, and even spent a lot of money, which won the favor of the entire army.

Yuan Shu also personally participated in the soldiers' party, drinking and celebrating with them, singing and dancing with them, and even personally engaged in hand-to-hand combat with officers and soldiers, winning applause from the whole audience.

The bustling and noisy atmosphere of the Han army made the Puyang city seem particularly cold and desolate...

Although there was sufficient food in the city, leaders such as Liu He never considered it their obligation to ensure that the soldiers were well fed. Giving the soldiers an extra bowl of meat soup during the New Year was considered an honor to them.

Still want to eat meat?

(End of this chapter)