My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 492 If you are decisive, you will get it in vain
The next morning, Wei Yan was in the newly built Diaoyu City. He was looking at the Cao army camp in the distance with the only copper tube crystal telescope in the city. He felt excited and a little nervous in his heart.

The enemy camp opposite had at least 30,000 to 40,000 men, and it was estimated that reinforcements would arrive in the future. Based on the total strength of Cao's army in Hanzhong, plus the surrendered Zhang Lu's army, it would not be surprising to have a total of 70,000 to 80,000 men.

Looking at the well-organized enemy troops, Wei Yan sighed in a low voice: "Xiahou Yuan has indeed arrived, and he has quite a lot of troops. How is the east camp wall being repaired? Have you arranged for deep defense?"

His deputy general Zhuo Ying responded, "The east wall has been raised to 10 feet. Time is short, so it can only be raised this high for now. Fortunately, Diaoyu Mountain is steep, and there are winding roads to be built later. We have hastily laid out two antlers along the way. If we can hold out for a few more days, we can lay out two more antlers."

Wei Yan stroked his beard and thought for a while: "It doesn't make much sense to put more deer horns. If the enemy can really break through the first layer, they can break through the second and third layers. Let's focus on raising the east wall day and night.

If Xiahou Yuan could see that our army was continuously raising the height of the east wall, he would certainly be anxious and want to rush to attack. In this way, he would not wait until he had enough ladders and chariots to fight, but would hastily prepare some flying ladders and battering rams and quickly test the attack, which would give us a good opportunity to dampen the enemy's vanguard's spirit."

Zhuo Ying was about to tell his soldiers to adjust the construction. But as soon as he turned around, Wei Yan had an idea, and remembered the two successful "empty city plans" in the old city of Dianjiang County a few days ago. He couldn't help but pull Zhuo Ying aside and tell him a few details.

Zhuo Ying suddenly realized and went to make arrangements without mentioning it.

……

Cao's army moved its camp to the slope east of Diaoyu Mountain, and it took a whole day just to move the camp.

In addition, Wei Yan had cut down and destroyed all the trees around Diaoyu Mountain in advance, and all the wood in the old city of Dianjiang County was also dismantled. Those that could not be transported away were tied up on the spot and thrown into the river for rafting. In short, he refused to help the enemy.

Therefore, it was quite difficult for Xiahou Yuan's troops to raise wood. It took them two days to cut down some wood needed to build engineering weapons.

In this way, the army was delayed for another three days. Xiahou Shang was eager to achieve success, and without waiting for the siege weapons to be built, he led the cavalry to patrol back and forth outside the east wall of Diaoyucheng every day to scout for the enemy situation.

Of course, Xiahou Shang is also the son of a general, with a profound family background, so he would definitely not make low-level mistakes.

When he was scouting the enemy, he always kept his observation outside the maximum range of the crossbow, at least a mile or two away. The enemy looked like ants from a distance and it was difficult to see them clearly.

After two days of observation, he finally discovered something unusual - the eastern wall of the Fishhook Mountain opposite was actually getting higher every day.

After Xiahou Shang confirmed it, he immediately reported to Xiahou Yuan: "Uncle, we can't wait any longer for the construction of the ladders and the Ge Gongche! Wei Yan's new camp was just established not long ago, and they are still reinforcing and raising it day and night!

If we delay for ten or eight days, we will have enough ladders, but the enemy will also raise the east wall several times higher! It is better to take advantage of the low height now and let my nephew gather a batch of flying ladders tomorrow and attack quickly! "

When Xiahou Yuan heard about it, he hurried out of the camp to check it out in person. Recalling the situation two days ago, he found that the camp opposite had indeed become higher, and it was very obvious - the originally neat and uniform camp wall, the northern section was now several feet higher than the southern section, obviously it was newly built.

"Isn't Wei Yan raising the height evenly? He is raising it in sections. Is he afraid that we can't see it? Is there something wrong?" Xiahou Yuan was still experienced and felt that something was wrong.

If Wei Yan wanted to hide the fact that he was constantly under construction, he should have raised the height of the entire section of the east wall evenly, for example, raising it one foot higher every night, which would not be easy for the enemy to notice.

However, the young and energetic Xiahou Shang felt that his uncle's worries were a bit unreasonable and overly cautious.

He pointed out in a hot-blooded manner: "Whether Wei Yan is deceiving or not, we will know it by giving it a try. Anyway, as long as we can break through the wall and enter the pass, then it is not a deception. They have only established this Yugou Mountain stronghold for a few days? It is already very difficult to concentrate all their efforts on repairing the wall, so how can they have the energy to do anything else?
Maybe it's just a lie, because in the old city of Dianjiang County, we used the empty door trick to kill Yang Ang and Gao Zuo, so Wei Yan wanted to repeat the same trick and deceive us again. How can we let him succeed in the same trick three times?"

Xiahou Yuan thought about it and it was true. No one would use similar tactics repeatedly and the enemy would fall into the trap repeatedly. Even if Wei Yan made some small moves, it would definitely not be the same as before. Anyway, it would be fine if he made a tentative attack.

Xiahou Yuan finally made up his mind, and then he made three rules with Xiahou Shang: "If you want to pursue a quick attack, your uncle will not stop you, but you must be careful. You cannot lead the team into the enemy's encirclement before you are sure that the wall has been completely broken. Yang Ang and Gao Zuo were killed by Wei Yan because they personally led the team into the encirclement."

Xiahou Shang quickly said that he would be careful.

……

The next morning, which was September 26th.

Xiahou Shang collected nearly a hundred newly built simple flying ladders and brought a dozen thick battering rams with him to the east wall of Diaoyucheng.

After a few days of preparation, the size of Cao's army outside the city actually increased by several times. Xiahou Yuan and part of the rear army, led by Zhang Xiu and Jia Xu, moved from the Jiameng Pass battlefield in the north along the Jialing River to Diaoyu City. Cao's army had more and more troops and was fully capable of fighting a big battle.

The east wall of Diaoyucheng is less than 300 meters long, with only a stone tower in the middle. Even the city gate was demolished from the old city of Dianjiang County. The rest of the wall is rammed earth, not covered with bricks and stones on the outside, with only some stone parapets on the top as a shelter for archers to shoot arrows. Such fortifications are not strong for a city. For the attackers, the biggest problem is that there is no room for detours, and they can only attack this small section of the wall. As long as the defenders have enough troops, they can continuously send reserves to the wall, and finally it will become a war of attrition like a meat grinder.

Up to this moment, Xiahou Yuan and Xiahou Shang did not know how many troops Wei Yan had, and could only conduct a few test attacks to find out the enemy's strengths.

"Today's battle is the first time our army has defeated Liu Bei since entering Sichuan. All generals must fight to the death! Anyone who dares to be cowardly and refuses to move forward will be killed!"

After Xiahou Shang gave the pre-war military orders and slogans, he personally waved his flag and ordered the attack. The drummers beside him also beat drums and blew horns desperately, and the sound was deafening.

"Kill!" Countless surrendered soldiers of Zhang Lu's army were urged by Cao's direct infantry, and rushed forward in a black mass carrying flying ladders.

"Shoot!" Under the command of officers at all levels of Liu Bei's army, the archers on the east wall did not spare their firepower and shot arrows desperately at the attackers. The dense arrows were like rain, splashing blood among the Cao army's infantry.

Many surrendered soldiers of Zhang Lu's army who were carrying ladders were shot to the ground, while the others could only continue to charge forward with the ladders numbly. If they slacked off even a little, they might be trampled by their own people.

The Cao army's direct line soldiers, who had a higher rate of wearing armor, were in a much better situation when facing a rain of arrows. The first group Xiahou Shang selected was mostly sword and shield soldiers, who were suitable for climbing and close combat. As long as they put the shield on their heads, they could at least block 70% to 80% of the arrows that could have been shot.

"Set up the ladders!" Rows of ladders were set up on the top of the wall, but some of the ladder carriers fell directly into the pit in front of the east wall, and their feet were pierced by the deer-antler chevaux de frise below, causing them to scream and wail in agony.

Wei Yan dug a dry trench several feet deep in front of the east wall. Because it was a mountainous area, it was naturally impossible to fill it with water to form a moat, but the dry trench could also be dug with a double bottom.

Some areas are deliberately dug deeper, and then a layer of crossed branches is laid on top, covered with straw, and then covered with loose soil. It looks as deep as the ones next to it, but if a ladder runner steps on it, it will definitely collapse and cause casualties.

This kind of pit must be dug in sections to maximize its effect. If you dig the entire way, the enemy will realize the problem after suffering some initial casualties and will fill the pit first, and the killing effect will not be so good.

Digging two or three sections out of ten sections like we are doing now, although it cannot delay the enemy for much time, it can cause the enemy to suffer more casualties due to paralysis, and it can also force the enemy to move and make the enemy bypass those attack positions.

The Cao army's attack front became narrower after being divided by the pit formation. Wei Yan could have used his elite halberd soldiers and horse-slashing swordsmen to fight hand-to-hand with the Cao army's sword and shield soldiers in a front less than 200 feet wide.

In this way, only five or six hundred soldiers are needed in the front row to fill the entire battle line, and Wei Yan's reserve troops are enough for him to rotate for more than ten layers.

No matter how many people Xiahou Shang's troops have, they are squeezed in such a narrow section for frontal hand-to-hand combat, and they cannot fully exert their numerical advantage. They can only be crowded there and fight in a rotation, and the back row cannot play any role at all.

At the beginning, Xiahou Shang saw that Wei Yan had raised the east wall, the northern section was high and the southern section was low, so he specifically focused his attack on the southern section.

Unfortunately, after the actual fighting, Xiahou Shang realized an unbearable feeling of powerlessness - the southernmost section of the east wall of Diaoyu City was right next to the commanding heights of the main peak of Diaoyu Mountain, and there was a cliff blocking the main peak.

After a large number of Cao's troops blocked this gap, Liu Bei's soldiers on the main peak of Diaoyu Mountain were able to roll down huge rocks and logs along the cliff to kill Cao's troops from the side.

This is like when you are attacking along a winding mountain road, there are enemy troops building a wall to block the road in front of the road, and there are people throwing things down from the top of the cliff on the high side of the road.

Cao's army was hit hard by this three-dimensional attack.

Xiahou Shang's eyes were bloodshot. He waved his sword and shouted at the top of his lungs, urging his soldiers to fight back. They must not give up.

Thousands of Cao's reserve troops swarmed towards this relatively low opening in the earth wall. The two sides engaged in a bloody fight, and the corpses on the front line soon piled up.

Liu Bei's army had the advantage of terrain and could use long weapons to gather bayonet and shield soldiers, at least achieving an exchange ratio of one to ten. But Cao's army also relied on the corpses of the cannon fodder troops to fill the front of this section of the earth wall, which was about ten feet long, with a gentler slope.

Wei Yan, who was standing on the main peak of Diaoyu Mountain and controlling the situation, also saw this scene clearly. He felt that the situation was about right, so he gave the order: "Prepare to set fire, and let the soldiers blocking the entrance withdraw in batches to the second antler trench for defense. The soldiers guarding the east wall north of the tower are not allowed to move, and continue to hold on!"

Zhuo Ying immediately sent a signal with a flag, and did as Wei Yan ordered. However, he was still a little worried, and after sending the signal, he couldn't help asking, "What if the defenders on the northern section of the city wall can't hold on? What if Cao's army breaks through the southern section, and then attacks from south to north along the eastern wall? How should we resist?"

Wei Yan shook his head confidently: "The southern section of the east wall is several feet lower than the northern section. I specially raised it in sections to lure the enemy to attack the lower section, and also to facilitate our reserve troops to fight from a high position.

Even if Cao's army climbed the southern section and rushed to the northern section along the wall, they would have to climb again. They couldn't carry the ladder up to the wall, and they couldn't do it in a hurry. The tower would never fall."

(End of this chapter)