My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 19: Bloody Battle in Guangling

After more than a quarter of an hour of chaotic fighting, the thousand troops brought by Zhang Fei finally managed to break into Guangling City.
They occupied a section of the city wall several hundred steps long with the northeast gate tower of Guangling as its core, and also burned and smashed the gate's heavy-weight gate.

After a brief panic, the Yuan army defenders in the city found that the enemy seemed to be small in number and did not have the ability to control the entire city.

Just now, we were frightened by the several fires set everywhere by Zhang Fei's army after they seized the gate. It took us an hour or two to figure out the situation.

After calming down, the defenders reorganized a counterattack around 12:00 p.m. and began sending out soldiers to attempt to attack the northeast gate tower.

Zhang Fei's soldiers were too few after all, only about 1,000 men. Liu Xun left behind a large number of garrisons in Guangling, but I dare not say how many there were, at least 3,000 to 5,000.

This does not include the city's urban militia who could be captured on short notice.

However, when Liu Xun attacked Huaiyin, he prioritized taking his elite troops, so the three to five thousand people left behind were of varying quality, and most of them were second-line troops.

A small part of it was even the legacy of the "Chaohu thief" Haoshuai Zheng Bao, whom he had just eliminated. They were the kind of people who were pirates a few months ago.

The combat effectiveness of such a force can be imagined. Although the number of troops was four or five times that of Zhang Fei, they organized several fierce attacks but failed to recapture the city walls and towers.

Yuan's army was divided into two groups, one group rushed eastward from the north wall, and the other group rushed northward from the east wall. Zhang Fei defended the northeast corner of the city firmly and remained motionless. The two sides fought in a bloody battle.

The city wall is narrow and the top of the wall is only wide enough for five people to stand side by side.

Yuan's army rushed along the wall, but they could not make full use of their advantage in numbers. There were only a few people fighting in the front.
Only when the soldiers in front are killed and thrown out of the city can the soldiers behind take over.

The party with more people cannot form a gang fight and can only fight in a round-robin manner at best.

This kind of terrain is very advantageous for the side with strong martial arts and strong morale. Zhang Fei personally led his guards to guard the stairs on one side of the city wall. In just a quarter of an hour, he killed dozens of enemy soldiers.

His bravery frightened Yuan's army attacking from the north, so they had to block the opening and then shoot arrows.

Fortunately, Zhang Fei was well prepared. He wore heavy armor today, and there was a city wall behind him so he could find cover and fight back, so he was not injured.

Zhang Fei fought hard, and was in a trance. He felt that this moment was just like that moment.
For example, more than ten days ago, Xu Dan, a rebel general from Danyang, defended the Baimen Tower and waited for Lu Bu's army to arrive.

He personally experienced the bloodiness of that battle, but it was his turn to be on the attacking side at that time.

"Even that bastard Xu Dan could defend the White Gate Tower for a whole night, am I worse than that old dog? I must defend it for at least a day and two nights! One day and one night longer than that bastard Xu Dan! If that bastard can hold out until Lu Bu comes, I can hold out until Big Brother comes!"

The vivid memory of humiliation and the determination to avenge the past made Zhang Fei unleash unprecedented potential.

Whenever he felt that he was about to be exhausted and out of energy, he would shout and curse Xu Dan as a bastard, and then squeeze out some potential from his body.

Yuan's army attacked fiercely for an hour and it was almost midnight. They were exhausted and the offensive finally slowed down. They prepared to rotate the main attack force and make other plans.

Because by this time, the Guangling defender had already confirmed through reports from scouts that there were no reinforcements for Zhang Fei nearby, so it must be that these one thousand attackers disguised themselves as reinforcements and advanced alone.

In this case, the defenders had to take casualties into consideration when counterattacking. Otherwise, if they continued to suffer casualties, they might not be able to capture Zhang Fei who was defending the city wall even if they fought to the death.

It would be better to take a gamble that "our reinforcements will arrive faster than Zhang Fei's reinforcements."

Late at night, the fighting finally subsided.

……

Zhang Fei fought bloody battles in the middle of the night, and the enemy finally gave up the attack temporarily, which made him feel a little relieved.

Because the city gate was in his hands, he immediately sorted out the situation here, sent an envoy to sneak to the canal, drove a small boat, and reported to Zhuge Jin at the river mouth.

On the bank of the Yangtze River at the mouth of the Hang Canal, Zhuge Jin's boat was a nine-zhang-long river and sea dual-purpose boat, similar in shape to the sand ships of the Tang and Song dynasties, but slightly more primitive.

In the Han Dynasty, one zhang was equal to 2.3 meters, so it was only 21 meters, which was not exaggerated. This was also the largest speedboat that the Mi Zhu family could find.

If Mi Zhu had not promised to send him the best and fastest ship and the most skilled sailors, and had not found some personal guards from Mi Fang, Zhuge Jin would not have been willing to go so close to the front line and personally lead this supply fleet crossing the river in white.

However, considering that after the matter here is settled, he might have to send someone to Chaisang to contact his uncle Zhuge Xuan and inquire about the current situation of his second brother Zhuge Liang.

Zhuge Jin felt that it was inconvenient for him to stay in Haixi County, and sooner or later he would have to come to Guangling where transportation was more convenient.

After all, Guangling is an important port city on the Yangtze River. It is very convenient to go upstream along the Yangtze River to Chaisang in Jiangxi, or Jiangxia and Xiangyang in Jingzhou.

Besides, if he did more things now, he would have an excuse to hire some experienced people from Mi Zhu and do his own things. Considering all these, Zhuge Jin finally took a little risk and came to Guangling in advance to find out the situation and help Zhang Fei control the rhythm and details.

At this time, it was the middle of the night. Zhuge Jin received a report from Zhang Fei's envoy in a small boat. He listened carefully and patiently.

Zhang Fei was worried about questions like "Why would the enemy suddenly stop the attack, can the soldiers take turns to sleep and recover their strength, do most people need to stay up all night to stand guard" and so on.

Zhuge Jin thought for a moment and quickly gave an answer: "Just divide the troops into two groups and take turns to guard the night. Since the enemy has stopped now, they will probably be able to stay quiet until dawn, so the soldiers can take a good rest and recover their strength."

The messenger didn't quite understand what he heard and asked Zhuge Jin to explain it more clearly.

Zhuge Jin confidently analyzed the situation in depth: "It's very simple. The enemy must be temporarily unable to recapture the tower, so they want to wait for reinforcements and the general to take charge of the situation.

If nothing unexpected happens, although General Zhendong will lead his troops here immediately after defeating Liu Xun, the main force of the Xuzhou army is infantry after all, so it is normal for them to arrive after a day or two.

Although the main fleeing troops of Liu Xun's army may not be able to outrun General Zhendong's assault troops, Liu Xun still has Chen Lan commanding the cavalry, so the cavalry of the Lujiang Army will definitely arrive at the battlefield earlier than our infantry reinforcements.

The Guangling defenders are now waiting for the real Chen Lan to come back, so they can personally take charge of the overall situation and besiege the 'fake Chen Lan'."

After listening to this, the messenger suddenly realized what was going on. He reported a lot of situations and asked for some precautions. Zhuge Jin answered them one by one. The messenger then hurried back to the city to report to Zhang Fei.

The two places were several miles apart, and such a staff was the limit of Zhuge Jin's current capabilities, and it was not considered a remote micro-management. Zhuge Jin's position was on the bank of the Yangtze River, so if there was any accident, he could just let the boat drift and run away.

On the other side, Zhang Fei finally breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the report. What seemed to him to be puzzling became clear to him as if he had seen it with his own eyes after Mr. Zi Yu analyzed it, and he even understood it more clearly than his enemies.

After calming down, Zhang Fei tried his best to tell his soldiers about his analysis and encourage them.

When everyone heard that there would most likely be no attack in the second half of the night, the sleeping soldiers felt more at ease.

The next morning, they found that it was indeed the case. The soldiers' trust in Zhang Fei was further enhanced, and they also had a deeper understanding of Zhuge Jin's ingenious strategies.

Everyone thought that as long as they followed the master's strategy, they would definitely win.

Once the invisible morale is boosted, everything will be much easier.

In this kind of battle, it sometimes depends on who has the tougher nerves and can persevere the longest. Zhang Fei was able to keep his soldiers determined to win for two full days, which was better than anything else.

……

As the night passed, it was the early morning of August 11th.

Chen Lan's cavalry, which lagged behind Zhang Fei by seventy or eighty miles, finally arrived at Guangling County at the hour of Yin before dawn.

It's a pity that the main force of Liu Xun's cavalry was Lei Bo. After Lei Bo was given away, the number of cavalry brought back by Chen Lan was actually not many, only about 600 to 700. This number of people was not as many as Zhang Fei's surprise attack force.

When Chen Lan heard that Zhang Fei had disguised himself as a friendly force and seized the northeast city tower, he naturally demanded that the defenders fight back with all their might at all costs.

The cavalry he brought with him were tired from the journey and needed to rest and recover first, so he let the original infantry troops in the city go first. Anyway, cavalry would not be needed for attacking the city.

The Guangling defender wasted half the night waiting for only such a small amount of reinforcements, and was greatly disappointed.

Originally, they thought that after Chen Lan's arrival, their strength would undergo a qualitative change, and they would be able to send in a large number of new troops to directly fight the offensive.

In the end, only an old man who could stand and talk without any pain in his waist came back, and the original people were still doing the hard and dangerous work, which made everyone resentful.

But there was no way, Liu Xun had not returned yet, and Chen Lan was the most powerful general in Guangling City, so his orders had to be followed.

The counterattack in the first half of yesterday night was mainly carried out by the regular troops among the defenders.

So this morning, Chen Lan ordered Zhang Duo, the former Chaohu coach who did not contribute much last night, to take charge of the attack and warned him not to be afraid of fighting, otherwise he would be subject to military law.

Zhang Duo looked worried and at a loss.

Before going into battle, he had to look for Liu Ye, the famous scholar who had brought him to join Liu Xun a few months ago, hoping that Liu Ye would speak to Chen Lan and say a few good words to him so as not to let his troops and Zhang Fei fight in vain.

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(End of this chapter)