My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 103 Conquering Xuyi
"My Lord, My Lord! It's bad! General Le was assassinated by that unknown enemy general!"

"Our army was defeated and the enemy general led the cavalry to pursue us. They were very close. Liu Sima, who was guarding the gate, didn't dare to open the gate. He could only watch the defeated soldiers go around the city and flee all the way to Huailing!"

In the Xia Pi prefectural government mansion in Xuyi County, Hui Qu, who had been full of confidence early in the morning, was suddenly shocked speechless for a long time by the bad news reported by the scouts.

"Did the enemy take advantage of the situation to attack the city? How much did our army lose?"

"The enemy troops are all cavalry, so they can't attack the city. Our army shouldn't have suffered many casualties, but we can't return to the city. Most of them have fled. I wonder how many General Liang in Huailing can take back."

Hui Qu swallowed his saliva and felt his throat dry and sticky. He quickly ordered: "Guard the four gates tightly and send all soldiers to patrol the city. Don't be careless! Then, while the enemy is unprepared, send warriors out of the city on horseback to the rear to ask for help. Ask General Ji to speed up and come to our aid!"

After all, Zhao Yun's cavalry was small in number, and it was impossible for them to block the gates of Xuyi County all the time, so Hui Qu's letter for help was successfully delivered.

Zhao Yun had no intention of stopping them, but calmly withdrew his troops back to the camp, letting the soldiers go out to collect firewood and wait for Tian Yu to arrive.

Even though the defenders of Xuyi saw the enemy from the city wall, they did not dare to leave the city to harass, for fear that there might be an ambush.

Nothing happened for the whole day, but at night Tian Yu arrived on time. Zhao Yun had already helped him cut enough wooden fences and firewood for the other 4,000 men to set up camp, which was really considerate.

Tian Yu was secretly amazed when he saw this. What he cared about was of course not this piece of wood, but the fact that Zhao Yun had actually scared the defenders to such an extent that even a small group of people scattered around to collect firewood, and no one dared to harass them.

When he asked about the cause and effect, Zhao Yun said calmly: "Nothing much, I just saw that the enemy didn't know my name, so I lured and killed the city guard to vent my anger and humiliate them."

Tian Yu could not help but gasp. He also knew Na Lejiu, having fought against him last year. Although he was not a famous general and was definitely inferior to Ji Ling, he was also average and could still manage a few thousand soldiers.

He was killed so casually by Zhao Yun, who even said that he did it just to vent his anger. This kind of open-mindedness is something you can't learn.

……

The army had just arrived, set up camp hastily, rested for a night, and began to build simple siege equipment the next day. One day was enough to build dozens of simple flying ladders and a few battering rams.

As the reinforcements from both sides would not arrive for several days, the defenders of Xuyi had to hold their ground behind closed doors. There is nothing more to say about what happened that day.

On the third day, June 8th, Tian Yu wanted to continue to strengthen the camp defenses and get more wood to add a shell to the battering ram to create a battering ram.

Zhao Yun went out for a tour early in the morning and came back to advise him:
"Why not use flying ladders, battering rams, and rattan shields to try to attack the city. There should be less than 3,000 defenders in the city now, only half of our army. If we wait another three or four days, Ji Ling will arrive, and then it will be impossible to break the city - when I killed Le Jiu the day before yesterday, I captured a prisoner and tortured him about the enemy reinforcements' itinerary."

Tian Yu was stunned: "My lord, you didn't expect us to break the city. We just used the attack as defense to delay time. All we have to do is to strengthen the camp and ensure that Ji Ling can't counterattack and break it after he arrives."

Zhao Yun: "But my lord, you don't know that we will attack and kill Le directly, and force the enemy to flee and unable to return to the city. The city is so empty, and the people are panic-stricken and morale is low. How can we be willing not to give it a try? If we take the city and let Ji Ling attack it, wouldn't it be easier than defending the camp?
Moreover, even if Xuyi County was captured, Yuan Shu would not be angry. At most, he could leave Huailing County unattacked, and when attacking Xuyi, he could leave three of the troops without one, and deliberately let Xiapi prefect Hui Qu escape, so that Yuan Shu would not lose Xiapi County. "

A county shouldn't make Yuan Shu angry, right? Zhao Yun thought so.

Anyway, Xia Pi County under Yuan Shu's rule originally had two counties, so keeping one would help preserve the reputation of Xia Pi County.

Tian Yu had no choice but to agree to give it a try, but if the enemy resisted firmly, he would stop decisively.

It is still too much of a stretch to attack a city with twice the number of troops, unless you encounter an enemy whose morale has collapsed and you don't want to fight anymore.

Zhao Yun had no experience in attacking strongholds, so he let Tian Yu personally lead the siege.

Tian Yu then assembled 3,000 infantrymen and divided them into two groups to besiege the southeast gate, leaving the northwest gate unattacked.

The terrain of Xuyi is that its north side is completely adjacent to the Huai River, and its west side is also relatively close to the river. There is only a very narrow and long area where troops can be deployed, so it is quite troublesome to surround it on three sides while missing one side.

Tian Yu did not have many troops to begin with, so it was more appropriate for him to attack only two sides. He could switch the main attack to the direction where the enemy's defense was weak at any time.

The Han soldiers placed long rattan shields in front of the formation, and the archers hid behind the shields and shot arrows at the top of the city walls.

The armored infantrymen, holding swords and shields, followed the laddermen and prepared to attack.

The two sides exchanged arrows and stones, and the firepower from the top of the city was quite dense. The first people to climb up several flying ladders were killed by the defenders.

Tian Yu carefully observed the situation and found no obvious flaws. Not wanting to suffer more casualties, he decisively ordered a withdrawal.

Zhao Yun originally thought that he was going to give up, but after withdrawing his troops and returning to the camp, Tian Yu took a short rest and actually took the initiative to propose:

"I just observed the defense of Xuyi. Although there is little hope for a strong attack, the enemy's defense is not very resolute. It all depends on a few generals to give orders. The deployment is rigid, and the soldiers don't seem to be fighting to the death spontaneously. If we can further disintegrate the enemy's morale, we may be able to break through in one go.

The enemy reinforcements will take several days to arrive anyway, so we can try for two days. After surrounding the two gates, we will harass and shout day and night, and shoot arrows and letters into the city to spread the word that all the Han princes have risen up to besiege Yuan Shu.

"Xuyi County was still under the rule of the Lord last year, and the people in the city should be on the side of the Lord. Yuan Shu has been in power for a year and has done evil things. He is definitely unpopular. If we use shouting to win their hearts and minds and spread the word that Yuan Shu is a traitor, perhaps we can shake them."

After hearing this, Zhao Yun thought about it and decided that it was just a bluff and there would be no loss if it failed, so he took the initiative to undertake the task of sending cavalry to shoot arrows into the city.

That night, the Han army wrote hundreds of notes with the simplest and crudest wording, which simply emphasized that Yuan Shu was rebelling against the Han Dynasty and was a traitor to be punished by the whole world, and that the soldiers should not make mistakes.

Starting from that night, Tian Yu took turns to shout day and night, while Zhao Yun sent his men to the sections of the city wall where the enemy's defense was less well-defended, and had the cavalry archers approach the wall and shoot signals inside.

Hui Qu was indeed frightened, thinking that the Han army had received more reinforcements, so he had to take precautions and sent people out of the north gate, crossed the Huai River, and rode fast to Huailing to ask for help.

Huailing and Xuyi are very close, only forty miles in a straight line, but the Huai River turns here, so the entire journey by water is more than seventy miles.

Hui Qu was anxious to seek help, so he asked his men to ride horses directly after crossing the river, which saved a lot of time. They set out in the middle of the night and arrived in Huailing at dawn the next day.

The Huai Ling defender Liang Gang did not have many troops, only a few thousand men, plus he took in thousands of Xuyi soldiers who had fled back after Le Jue's death the day before yesterday.

He originally thought that he only needed to guard his territory well, and that General Ji would arrive with his main force in three days, leaving him nothing to do. Unexpectedly, Governor Hui was so cowardly that he could not hold out for three days and still had to ask for help.

Moreover, Hui Qu emphasized in his letter that it was not that the soldiers were not strong enough, but that he was worried that the people and wealthy families in the city would rebel and welcome Liu Bei. Moreover, Le was shot dead by the despicable enemy general. Now the defenders in the city lacked a backbone and it might be difficult to command.

Liang Gang couldn't help but believe this factor. He knew that a civil servant like Hui Qu didn't know how to lead troops. So he had to reluctantly mobilize his troops early in the morning and go downstream along the Huai River to Xuyi to help for two more days until Ji Ling arrived.

……

Tian Yu's psychological warfare failed to cause the defenders to abandon the city. Instead, it made the defenders feel guilty and desperately asked for reinforcements from the rear that could respond more quickly.

After Liang Gang sent out his troops, they were able to reach Xuyi in less than a day because the infantry sailed downstream on boats and the cavalry followed them running.

So, when he arrived at the west of Xuyi City, it was around the afternoon of the ninth day of June.

When Tian Yu received this news from the scout, he was a little disappointed. He thought that his achievements in this battle had ended here and he had to return to the camp and defend it.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Yun became excited again and quickly led a thousand cavalrymen to intercept Liang Gang.

The only help he asked Tian Yu for was to find a few old broken boats, pile up flammable materials on them, and set fire to the dock outside the northwest gate of Xuyi City in order to scare the enemy and prevent the enemy infantry from directly landing and entering the city.

Hui Qu in Xuyi City did not have the courage to stop all this and allowed Tian Yu to do what he wanted outside the city.

Liang Gang's troops saw the flames rising from the Xuyi wharf from afar and had to prepare their battle formation in advance and advance slowly in battle formation, for fear of being dragged into a long snake formation and being attacked by the enemy.

Then they were intercepted by Zhao Yun. "You were originally soldiers of the Han Dynasty, but now you are following the traitor Yuan Shu! Aren't you ashamed? Those who surrender will not be killed!" Zhao Yun shouted first, and the cavalry around him also shouted.

Liang Gang immediately took full precautions and did not let his guard down again. Le Jue's death made him very cautious, especially the details of Le Jue's death the day before yesterday. He had heard the detailed report from the defeated officers and knew it very well.

The enemy is probably Liu Bei's mixed Hu cavalry, who are good at riding, shooting and fighting, so you must be careful.

After making sure that the battle formation was stable and the flank guns and crossbows were deployed, Liang Gang asked his men to yell back: "Shameless fellow, you only dare to shoot arrows from behind! If you have the guts, do you dare to attack our battle formation!"

Zhao Yun had nothing to be afraid of, but he would not tolerate being insulted, so he decided to make a final rebuttal and provoke:
"How ridiculous! The day before yesterday, Le Ju and I were not fighting generals, but he relied on his large numbers and took the initiative to lead his people to attack me, and he didn't even allow me to fight and shoot arrows? If we had agreed to fight, I would naturally not need a bow and arrow!

"Liang Gang, you are nothing but a shameless thief, why are you pretending to be a famous general! Don't you want to steal my horse? If you have the ability, just come and take it yourself, so as to avoid the two armies fighting with arrows and stones, and accidentally hurting the horse - I don't need a bow and arrow!"

As Zhao Yun spoke, he pulled out the carved bow from its saddle sheath, threw it back and handed it to his cavalry, then rode his horse forward for dozens of steps alone, galloping back and forth, so that Liang Gang could see clearly that he had no bow and arrows.

This squeeze put Liang Gang in a morale disadvantage. Although there was no tradition of fighting between generals in the late Han Dynasty, he could still refuse.

But he was the one who started the topic today. He first accused the other party of not following martial ethics in a fight. Zhao Yun refuted frankly and with reason and evidence, and even threw away his bow and arrows. Liang Gang could not afford to lose face if he did not fight.

In the end, it was Zhao Yun's not-yet-famous resume that made Liang Gang waver - if the person facing him today was Guan Yu or Zhang Fei, who they had fought before, he would definitely not dare to do that.

"Although this thief killed Le Jiu, the soldiers who escaped back all said that his cavalry fighting skills were not as good as Le Jiu's, and he just took advantage of the surprise attack. Now that he has abandoned his bow and arrows, he is probably no match for me. Moreover, the horse he rode is really rare. It would be a pity to injure him if he was shot by arrows during the chaotic battle between the two armies. It would be better to kill him and seize his horse..."

Thinking of this, Liang Gang finally decided to fight Zhao Yun in a fair fight. He rode out alone for more than a hundred steps and waved his sword to meet Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun didn't say anything else and rushed forward in silence.

At the moment when the two horses were about to meet, Zhao Yun slightly pushed the horse's head to the left, and dodged his upper body slightly to the left. He pushed hard with his left hand holding the butt of the spear, and accelerated the thrust with his right hand with all his strength. He stabbed directly into Liang Gang's armpit, then cut the entire shoulder socket ligament and went out from the back.

The spear was blocked by the huge force of the two horses' collision and bounced back several feet. However, Zhao Yun let the spear handle slide several feet in his palm with his right hand, relieving all the impact and holding it firmly again.

Liang Gang's broadsword flew past Zhao Yun's head diagonally above him. After the two horses crossed, they charged again for more than ten steps before Liang Gang's body fell heavily off the horse.

"What a pity. I only had two chances to pretend to be an unknown general, and in the end I failed to kill Ji Ling. It's truly God's will and cannot be forced." Zhao Yun took out a piece of silk from his arms, leisurely wiped the blood and flesh off the spear blade, and sighed helplessly.

Killing Liang Gangle was a good thing, but this was achieved after Zhao Yun had used up all his excuses for pretending to be weak. Thinking about it this way, this result is really not good enough.

The entire battlefield was deathly silent. The soldiers of Yuan's army had no idea that General Liang was even worse than General Le in front of that despicable enemy general who was said to be able to win by sneak attacks. He was killed in a single blow.

The Han cavalry suddenly became very powerful and separated into two wings to charge towards the enemy.

Zhao Yun would not give up this opportunity. While the enemy was in chaos due to the death of their main general, he charged into the enemy's formation with his spear.

The death of Liang Gang temporarily left Yuan's army without a unified command, and the various units did not know when to fight or retreat. There were only a few generals who ordered the archers to shoot, while most of the archers wasted the opportunity to shoot three arrows in the battle in vain in the chaos.

Once Zhao Yun successfully engages in close combat, no one in Yuan’s army can threaten him anymore.

Their only chance was to shoot arrows to stop the enemy within a hundred steps, but this opportunity was wasted due to Yuan's army's own chaos.

Zhao Yun's spear was flying, his moves were simple yet extremely efficient, and in a moment he killed more than ten people. He stared at Qu Junhou, who had ordered his men to shoot arrows, and stabbed him to death with another spear.

Zhao Yun would identify anyone who dared to organize resistance or order arrows to be fired from Yuan's army, and after killing them through the army formation, he would name and shoot them. Such a fierce momentum completely frightened the remnants of Yuan's army.

Although Liang Gang's troops had a three-fold advantage in numbers, they were defeated again. Soon, the main force of Tian Yu's Han army also arrived at the battlefield one after another, and launched a surprise attack, further expanding the victory and capturing more than a thousand people.

……

The Han army was very motivated after two victories in the field battles. That night, Tian Yu continued to intensify his shouting and attacking the enemy, and spread the news in the city that Liang Gang had been killed and the reinforcements had been destroyed. The morale of the Xuyi defenders plummeted, and they became increasingly anxious.

On the morning of the tenth day of June, Tian Yu ordered the Yuan army soldiers captured in the two previous battles to be organized. He ordered the disarmed prisoners to carry soil and stones, ladders and wood, and directly forced them to go into battle with weapons to assist in the siege.

Anyway, it was not a pity to use these cannon fodders, as they could show the determination to attack regardless of casualties. The Han army soldiers only served as archers and first-line soldiers.

Hui Qu wanted to personally supervise the battle, but the morale of Yuan's army was already too low. On the morning of that day, several fires broke out in the city, and some wealthy families in the city organized their servants to respond to the Han army.

Seeing that there was no way out, Hui Qu had no choice but to take a boat from the north of the city and retreat to Huailing with his troops. Moreover, he did not dare to go to the south bank of the Huai River, but only to the north bank.

After Hui Qu left the city, the abandoned guards in the city gradually learned the truth and soon surrendered one after another. Tian Yu captured hundreds of prisoners and the city was then pacified.

"Yuan Shu's claim to the throne has caused the army's morale to drop to such a low level. The people of Xuyi also responded in such a way because they miss the Han Dynasty. It is really lamentable. Is Yuan Shu a fool who doesn't even know how many people's hearts the Han Dynasty has won over for 400 years?"

After entering the city, Tian Yu quickly rushed to the pseudo-prefect's office and took control of the situation. Afterwards, he could not help but express his emotion to Zhao Yun who came to join him.

After Zhao Yun entered the city, he quickly inspected the two main streets in the city, rounded up the defeated soldiers to prevent them from harassing the civilians, and then returned to the government office.

The two expressed their feelings and quickly focused their attention and energy on the follow-up arrangements.

Now that Xuyi has been conquered, there is no need to guard the siege camp outside the city anymore. We can openly meet Ji Ling's arrival inside the city.

The two men had a clear division of labor. One went to patrol the city to urgently repair the damaged parts and reinforce the gates that had been hit. The other counted the grain stored in the government warehouse and found that the military grain in Xuyi was enough to feed tens of thousands of soldiers for half a year, including the summer grain that had just been harvested this year. He immediately felt relieved.

When Liu Bei lost Xuyi last year, he was well prepared and did not leave any food for Yuan Shu. But this time, Yuan Shu was obviously lost in a mess and was not prepared at all.

……

Another day later, Ji Ling's vanguard arrived hurriedly, mainly cavalry and some infantry on a forced march. Ji Ling also accelerated his march after knowing that Xuyi Le had been killed.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at Huailing, he ran into Hui Qu who was retreating from the front and learned that Xuyi had been broken.

Ji Ling was so angry that he cursed loudly, but he also knew that it was meaningless to rush for time, so he ordered the vanguard troops to station in Huailing and wait until the main forces of Li Feng's central and rear armies were all gathered before advancing downstream.

On June 12, Ji Lingcai assembled his entire army of 40,000 and marched forward to Xuyi, preparing to retake this city that was originally his.

Unfortunately, Ji Ling also needs to spend time building siege weapons on the spot, and the enemy will not give him more time.

Soon, Liu Bei also rushed to Xuyi with a main force of more than 10,000 people and Zhang Fei, and used the original remaining camps to form a pincer attack with the defending army.

Ji Ling and Li Feng tried all kinds of conventional siege methods, almost all of them in turn, but they only increased casualties. With Tian Yu and Zhao Yun's defense, they could hardly make any progress.

The three previous defeats dealt a heavy blow to the morale and fighting spirit of Yuan Shu's army.

Ji Ling had no choice but to accept this reality and switched from continuous assault to siege to reduce casualties, hoping that friendly forces from other routes could make a breakthrough.

Throughout mid-June, the Huaiyin-Xuyi battlefield was frozen.

Ji Ling could only hope that Lu Bu would suddenly launch a surprise attack on Liu Bei, or that Liu Xun and Qiao Rui on the southern front would be able to successfully steal the city.

　There is no way to control the rhythm of the two-line operation, so it can only be done this way. Tomorrow morning, I will return to the protagonist's southern battlefield. Because Guangling and Yuzhang are enclaves, they are too far apart, so I can only skip and write.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)