My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 684: Guo Fengxiao's city was destroyed and his people died, Guan Yu scraped his bones to treat the poison ( words long chapter)
After Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin finished their discussion, they immediately began to organize troops and assign tasks with great vigor and efficiency.

Whether it is pursuing the enemy who breaks through or maximizing the results of the battle.

It is better to take advantage of the enemy's unstable morale and attack Fancheng.

Both of these actions require time and there is no time to take it slow.

Fortunately, Guan Yu was always strict in military discipline, and the troops were mobilized quickly when faced with emergencies.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were brothers who had worked together for decades and knew each other very well. They could save a lot of communication and coordination when assigning tasks. Therefore, all this was arranged safely and quickly.

In the siege battle, Guan Yu would personally supervise the organization of the army and let Gao Shun serve as the vanguard.

The pursuit battle was fully handed over to Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu also handed over all the cavalry units that he could hastily organize to Zhang Fei.

After a few brief instructions, he was told not to be greedy and act rashly, and to only chase the enemy from behind, not to intercept the head or the waist, so as to avoid suffering unnecessary heavy losses when the enemy situation is unclear.

Zhang Fei was usually greedy for merit and had a hot temper. He wanted to win a few big victories to further prove himself.

But there is one good thing about him, that is, he can definitely ensure strict execution of what the eldest and second brothers tell him to do in a short period of time, and he will not ask too many questions. Whatever his brothers say is what he does.

Although Zhang Fei would become lazy and have his own ideas after a long time - for example, twelve years ago, when Xuzhou was stolen, he was very diligent and hardworking when Liu Bei and Guan Yu just left. But it was because of the long time, one or two months passed, that he gradually became lazy.

Therefore, although Zhang Fei was reckless and had his own ideas, he would definitely carry out his brother's orders without any compromise within the three days.

Guan Yu was well aware of this, so in the face of this sudden pursuit tonight, he dared to give a few instructions and then entrusted the task completely to the other party.

He knew that in a battle like this that could reach Xinye within a day or two, his third brother would definitely not cause any trouble.

After hearing the instructions, Zhang Fei also very straightforwardly bowed to Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin and said, "Second brother, Ziyu, don't worry! In today's battle, I will fight the way you say, without hesitation!

Even if Cao Ren shows me more victories than before, I won't even glance at him! I'll just kill him and chase him all the way to Xinye!"

After listening to Zhang Fei's self-review, Guan Yu was finally relieved and patted him on the shoulder. "I won't ask about the mission to Xinye. I'll take care of Fancheng. After we defeat the enemy, we can drink together to celebrate our victory!"

Zhang Fei also shook Guan Yu's arm tightly, then put on his armor, mounted his horse, and rode away.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei have now assembled 120,000 troops in the entire Hanbei battlefield, enough to fight a decisive battle with Cao's garrison in Nanyang County. If we look at the local battlefield, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's troops are more than 2.5 times that of Cao Ren in Fancheng.

However, it was impossible for all these 120,000 men to be stationed outside Fancheng and surround it. There were too many troops, and some reserve troops could not be used for the time being, so they would be stationed in Dengxian and Huyangxian on the flanks of Fancheng for deployment.

At the same time, these support points can also form a confrontation with other garrisons of Cao's army. If Cao's army comes to reinforce Fancheng from the north by land, it will also be blocked by troops in Dengxian and other places.

Otherwise, if they were all crowded together, not only would there be a lot of extra losses in transporting food and supplies, but the army's sanitary environment would also be difficult to guarantee. Once an epidemic broke out, it would be easy for the entire army to be infected.

Therefore, the strength of Liu Bei's camp outside Fancheng City has long been maintained below 100,000, and at this moment, there are only more than 80,000 people.

When pursuing the enemy over long distances, the cavalry must also be equipped with additional horses for the journey. This form of engagement will further limit the scale of cavalry deployment.

Therefore, the number of cavalry that Guan Yu could hastily organize within one or two hours was less than 10,000.

In the end, Zhang Fei brought 3,000 armored heavy cavalry, more than 5,000 archers and light cavalry, a total of more than 8,000 people, plus replacement horses needed for the long-distance raid, and hurriedly chased Cao Ren.

With such a small amount of troops, they cannot advance rashly when the enemy situation is unclear. Otherwise, who knows what ambush or trick Guo Jia has prepared for Cao Ren?

It was already Chou time when Zhang Fei had made all the preparations. When traveling at night, he had to send out scouts far away to expand the scope of surveillance.

In winter, the sun rises late, starting at the end of the morning hour and getting bright at the end of the evening hour.

Zhang Fei chased the enemy until noon but still couldn't catch up with them. After all, the enemy had been running ahead of him for at least two or three hours, or possibly even longer.

However, after daybreak, there was no need to worry so much about ambushes. The scouts' search circle could be slightly narrowed, and the cavalry's marching speed could be increased.

After another hour and a half of pursuit, at the end of the Si hour of the day, which was about 10:30 in the morning, Zhang Fei finally saw Cao Ren's breakout army ahead along the Baihe River.

Before Zhang Fei arrived, Cao Ren also broke through two or three layers of beacon tower blockades set up by Guan Yu. These beacon towers could only serve as sentinels to open up the field of vision, and the number of people deployed was too small to dare to fight Cao Ren head-on.

When the two armies met, six hours had passed since Cao Ren broke out the night before. Cao's army had also marched 70 miles, and was about 40 miles away from Xinye. Moreover, Cao Ren had already sent a fast horse messenger to Xinye in advance, and Xu Huang should have sent troops to meet him immediately.

Cao Ren also knew that the pursuers would come sooner or later, so during these six hours, he let the infantry rest for a while, taking the opportunity to eat dry food and snacks to restore some strength.

Cao Ren knew very well that it was unrealistic to run from Fancheng to Xinye in one go, which was more than 100 miles. Especially for the infantry in the army, if they ran without taking a rest, they would collapse directly when caught up by the enemy.

It would be better to give the soldiers a quarter-hour break every three hours as a meal time.

Seeing the pursuers coming, Cao Ren was not so nervous. He also carefully observed the size of the pursuers. As expected, they were only pure cavalry, and the number should be less than 10,000. He still had hope to repel the enemy a little and then withdraw safely.

……

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

Zhang Fei chased Cao Ren all the way until the 9th hour of that day before he caught up with him.

On the main battlefield of Fancheng, the violent attack began at Chou time that evening.

After seeing Zhang Fei off, Guan Yu prepared for less than half an hour and gathered tens of thousands of troops to launch a full-scale attack on Fancheng.

Nearly a hundred heavy ladders and more than twenty Ge Gong carts that were high enough to reach the same level as the city walls were pushed to the front of the battle by Guan Yu's troops.

These equipments were also Guan Yu's accumulation during the three months of siege. In previous attacks, Guan Yu had not used all of his inventory at once, always keeping a backup plan, but now he was mobilizing all of his forces, which showed Guan Yu's determination.

He sincerely thought that this time he could accomplish his goal in one fell swoop. While part of the enemy's main force had escaped, the remaining abandoned troops would certainly be unstable, so he could take Fancheng in one fell swoop to avoid more trouble.

After all, there was still a lot of grain left in Fancheng. Even if Cao Ren did not withdraw some of his troops, the entire army could eat together until the end of spring plowing next year.

If more than half of the soldiers are withdrawn this time, the remaining soldiers' food intake rate will suddenly slow down, and they will have to wait until next autumn harvest, right?

Therefore, from the moment Cao Ren divided his troops to break out, it was almost impossible to expect to consume the food supply of the Fancheng defenders until the city was broken, or at least it was very uneconomical. In this case, we should fight when it is time to fight, and seize the moment when the enemy is most shaken.

In order to achieve this goal, even Gao Shun was asked to lead the team in the attack today, although it was not the first attack.

Guan Yu himself also rode to the front line to inspect and supervise the battle, striving to ensure that all units could unleash their full combat potential.

"Generals, you must work hard! The enemy's morale must be shaken at this moment! We must capture Fancheng today!"

Guan Yu rode on his horse, galloping back and forth across the front of the formation, giving orders majestically.

The drums and horns in the back row sounded together. Dozens of cowhide drums and hundreds of horns were blown on the attack front that stretched for miles. There was a drum every few dozen steps, and a cow horn every ten steps, and the echo shook the sky.

Today's attack front is mainly concentrated on the west side of Fancheng. The width of this attack surface is even narrower than in the past.

In the past, Guan Yu besieged the west of the city and Zhang Fei besieged the north of the city, and they attacked together in order to divide the enemy's reserve forces and make Cao Ren stretched to the limit and unable to defend himself.

Today, Zhang Fei was temporarily sent to carry out a pursuit mission, and he could only leave behind some deputy generals who commanded the infantry to obey Guan Yu's orders.

Guan Yu thought that since Zhang Fei was not there, it would be better to concentrate his forces to attack the west of the city and let go of the north of the city. This was also to give the enemies in the city more hope of escape. Once the situation was not right, they would choose to abandon the city and break out, making the attacking party less resistant.

After hasty preparations and instructions, more than 10,000 archers of Liu Bei's army, carrying bows, crossbows and arrows, advanced to the moat where rattan shields and wooden formations had been built, and drew their bows and shot arrows at the top of the city walls.

The density of arrows was unprecedentedly high since the Battle of Fancheng began.

The defenders on the city wall could only feel the solemn and murderous pressure coming towards them, which made it almost hard to breathe. Even when they huddled behind the parapets, they could not help but shiver.

The counterattacks of the archers on the city walls also became weaker and more sparse than ever before.

When the ladders and the Ge bus passed through the gap in the moat, they encountered almost no decent resistance.

When the car was pushed close to the city wall, logs and rocks began to fall from the top of the city wall and hit the car body heavily.

A few ladders were hit hard by the rocks and collapsed, and the soldiers pushing the ladders were also crushed. The few who were quick enough to avoid being crushed by the wooden pillars were also scalded by the boiling water poured down from the top of the city wall and fell to the ground wailing.

However, only a few of the ladders were smashed. Moreover, the attacking archers quickly focused their fire on the densely packed wood and stone positions on the top of the city wall.

The hot air balloon invented by Zhuge Jin a while ago also came into play again. It was close to the city wall, and used a telescope to observe the enemy situation from a high vantage point, and roughly instructed its own archers below to focus on certain positions on the city wall.

Unfortunately, the battle tonight came too hastily and too suddenly. It was still dark at the moment, and the battle lasted for a long time until the morning. The view from the hot air balloon was not very good, and the people below could not see clearly when using flag signals.

This situation will only improve after daybreak. The previous one or two hours can only be regarded as a preparation for breaking the city.

Fortunately, the troops that Guan Yu had prepared for tonight's battle already had an overwhelming advantage. Relying solely on the continuous suppression of the bows and crossbowmen, Cao's soldiers who threw logs and rocks from the top of the city wall soon suffered heavy casualties and could no longer form an organized resistance.

When Guan Yu saw all this from the bottom of the city, his expression gradually changed from solemn at the beginning to peaceful.

His furrowed brow gradually relaxed as he pondered, "Yesterday, when Zhuge Deng surveyed the enemy city from above, he saw the troops in full order, no signs of movement. I wondered how many troops Cao Ren could retain to defend the city. Now it seems Guo Jia's skill in disguise may have fooled our scouts. Cao's army is down so many archers; I'm afraid at least two-thirds of them have already broken through. We'll definitely capture the city tonight!"

Guan Yu thought so, and his confidence in the quick attack became stronger. He ordered the reserve troops to move forward and asked Gao Shun to prepare to go to the city himself. The speed of the war machine also increased suddenly.

More and more Ge Gongche approached the top of the city wall and smashed the planks with iron spikes heavily on the battlements of the city wall.

The surface bricks were smashed into pieces, and the iron spikes were deeply wedged into the rammed earth layer of the city wall. Then a large number of armored soldiers rushed up with axes, shields, hammer shields and horse-slashing swords.

Cao's spearmen and halberd soldiers were also numbly driven over to block the gap, and the two sides fought each other at the gap.

At first, Cao's army relied on the advantage of surrounding the gap on three sides and continued to stab and wound many of the first-line warriors. But as Guan Yu continued to invest, more and more horse-slashing swordsmen jumped into the crowd, slashing and killing wildly with their lives, only attacking and not defending.

The scene was extremely tragic, like a meat grinder. After all, Cao's army was relatively short of manpower and morale was low, and gradually a larger gap was torn into it.

"Cao Ren has already escaped! Don't work for Cao Ren anymore!"

"Those who surrender will not be killed! You have all been sold out by Cao thieves! Why are you still serving Cao thieves like dogs?"

"Cao Ren took advantage of the frozen Baihe River to escape! If you don't take this opportunity to escape together, you will all die when the Baihe River thaws!"

The first siege soldiers charged forward and, at the same time, followed the instructions of their commander before the battle, shouted in unison to disrupt the enemy.

The shocking effect of this kind of insults and shouting at close range is still very obvious.

Originally, the soldiers of Cao's army only heard the sounds of drums and horns. Although they knew that the enemy was powerful and were a little scared, they were not directly shaken.

Many of the grassroots soldiers here don’t know what decisions their superiors have made, what happened tonight, or whether they have been abandoned.

Although not everyone will believe everything the enemy says, at least one or two out of ten soldiers will believe it, which will cause them to waver and become confused and stop putting in any effort.

When both sides were fighting with all their might, if one side had one or two out of ten soldiers becoming confused and lazy, the consequences would be fatal.

Cao's army on the city wall was gradually becoming overwhelmed and in danger.

……

While the fierce battle was going on on the city wall, in the temporary shogunate in Fancheng, Guo Jia, who was seriously ill and bedridden, had to be woken up by his subordinates.

However, Guo Jia was not angry. He also knew that since Cao Ren entrusted him with the task of guarding Fancheng, he had to fight for this task until his death without any respite.

He just didn't expect that Guan Yu's reaction would be so quick. Cao Ren had just broken through for a few hours, and Guan Yu rushed to attack the city with all his strength.

Guo Jia was not even given a window of time to stabilize the army's morale - the news of Cao Ren's departure was still strictly blocked until the moment before Cao Ren actually left.

Only the troops following Cao Ren could know the situation. The abandoned troops who were forced to stay behind to buy time were not allowed to know the situation in advance, otherwise they would have scattered and wanted to run away.

Guo Jia originally planned to wait until the matter was settled, since nothing could be changed, and then slowly stabilize people's hearts and boost morale.

For example, he lied to the ordinary soldiers below, saying, "General Cao only wants to save food in Fancheng for the time being. He thinks that defending the city does not require so many troops, and too many people will consume food too quickly, so he split up his troops. After Guan Yu is tired, General Cao will attack back with the help of both inside and outside forces."

No matter how deceptive these words were, at least Guo Jia thought that with his strategy and eloquence, he could still fool ordinary soldiers.

However, Guan Yu did not give him the time to stabilize the morale of the troops!
Before he could say anything to stabilize the army's morale, the enemy attacked! And they didn't care about the strength of the Fancheng defenders at all.

Guo Jia had ordered more flags to be raised and more stoves to be lit to create the illusion that everything was fine for the defenders in the city. But Guan Yu didn't even look at them.

According to the retelling by the officer who sent the message, the enemy troops attacking the city were so vicious that they immediately thought of sowing discord and undermining the morale of the defenders, constantly reminding the defending soldiers that they were sold out and abandoned.

This change in the situation has completely exceeded Guo Jia's plan.

He had originally planned to delay the matter for at least one or two months after Cao Ren left, but now it seemed that he didn't know whether he could delay it until today.

However, Guo Jia is Guo Jia after all, and as a former top strategist under Cao Cao, he will not give up even if he encounters a big change.

It was not Guo Jia's style to sit and wait for death. No matter how difficult the adversity was, he would respond with a strategy. At this moment, stimulated by this series of bad news, Guo Jia seemed to have regained his spirits - of course, it could just be a flash of light before death.

"Someone, carry me to the car! I want to personally go to the city to supervise the battle! I'll go to the west gate!"

"Jijiu Guo, you can't do this! In your health!" The attendant officers beside him were so scared that they dared not joke about Guo Jia's safety.

With a body that looks like it's seriously ill with tuberculosis, if it's blown by a cold wind in the middle of the night, I'm afraid it would... Isn't that courting death?
But Guo Jia would not question it: "This is a military order! Before General Zixiao left, he entrusted the military affairs of Fancheng to me! Those who disobey will be punished by military law!"

After hearing his majestic orders two or three times in a row, the guards did not dare to disobey. They could only cover him up as tightly as possible, stuff him into the cart whose wheels were already wrapped with cattails, and slowly pull him towards the west gate.

Along the way, Guo Jia stroked the hand warmer in his arms, and there was a hint of understanding in his eyes.

"It's also thanks to me that I had thought about the day when the city would be breached, and I also thought about using the urn to lure the enemy. I hope that even if the city is breached today, I can still drag a few more people down with me..."

……

Half an hour later, the sky gradually brightened.

Guan Yu and Gao Shun's repeated fierce attacks have begun to show results.

A section of the city wall on the north side of the west gate of Fancheng has been captured by the siege troops. Hundreds of people have gained a foothold on the top of the city wall and occupied a section of the wall that is several dozen feet wide.

The city walls were littered with broken limbs and pools of dark red and black blood that had solidified like ointment.

Broken weapons and torn armor were scattered everywhere, showing how brutal and repeated fighting this section of the city wall had endured.

On the top of the city wall, a general wearing fine steel armor was wielding a two-handed horse-slaying sword himself. Occasionally, he would chop down two Cao soldiers who rushed up, but more often, he would command his left and right troops with a firm look to continue advancing and seize more sections of the wall.

There is no doubt that this person is Gao Shun. At this decisive moment today, he personally led the "New Formation" to the top of the wall and fought endlessly with Cao's army.

The resilience of Cao’s army today also gave Gao Shun a new understanding.

When he was under Lu Bu's command, he took advantage of Cao Cao's attack on Xuzhou guarded by Liu Bei and Tao Qian, and followed Lu Bu to steal most of Cao Cao's old nest in Yanzhou, with the help of both inside and outside forces. In the end, only the three counties of Juancheng, Dong'e and Fanxian were left intact.

Those three counties were guarded by Xun Yu, Cheng Yu, and Guo Jia, respectively. Their united will, unity of purpose, and rigorous military discipline meant that even Lü Bu, with Gao Shun, who had the old Xianzhen Camp, was unable to capture them. Ultimately, Cao Cao returned, and the two sides engaged in another six months of fierce fighting, ultimately leading to a decisive victory.

Thinking about it now, that was an event that happened nearly fifteen years ago, but Gao Shun still remembers it vividly.

The tenacity of the Cao army's direct troops in front of him today also made Gao Shun feel like he was in the past. Especially since he knew that Guo Jia was also in Fancheng to help Cao Ren defend the city, Gao Shun could not help but secretly admire Guo Jia's ability to stabilize the morale of the army.

"They have already broken through the wall in several places and have gained a firm foothold. The weak auxiliary troops in Cao's army have also fallen into chaos and avoided the battle. But they were able to pick out so many elite soldiers and fight to the death. The ability of Cao Ren and Guo Jia in commanding the army should not be underestimated."

After fighting for a while with these elite Cao troops who were blocking the pass, Gao Shun couldn't help getting anxious, so he decisively ordered the soldiers of the "New Formation" who were on the wall to concentrate all their forces and break through to the south.

"All soldiers, listen up! Go south and attack the west gate tower! Then seize the city wall! Open the gate and let General Guan's main force enter the city!"

Gao Shun shouted orders loudly, adjusted the deployment, and quickly organized the soldiers of the "New Formation" on the wall. He focused on defense on the north side and continued hand-to-hand fighting, trying not to let the "landing site" on the wall be pushed back.

The main attack on the south side was by force. If they continued to attack southwards for less than a hundred steps, they would reach the junction of the main city wall of the east gate of Fancheng and the outer city wall.

Gao Shun's idea was to divide his troops into two groups after seizing the "three-way intersection" on the wall.

They killed their way along the wall of the city wall, reached the top of the city gate tower, cut through the locks, and opened the city gate.

The other route continued southward along the main city wall, attacked the main building of the west gate, and opened the west gate. In this way, both the inner and outer gates were opened, and the reserve troops on the ground swarmed into the city, and Fancheng would surely be captured in one fell swoop.

Gao Shun's plan was a last resort.

Originally, because Fancheng was too strong, attacking from the city gate would require breaking through both the inner city gate and the main city gate in succession, which was too cost-effective. Therefore, when Guan Yu and Gao Shun made plans, they mainly focused on climbing the wall to break into the city.

In other words, when the battle reached this point, we had clearly climbed up the wall and gained a firm foothold, and had a fair hand-to-hand fight with the enemy, and even gained some advantages.

But the enemy did not collapse and was still resisting, which forced Gao Shun to use his last trick - using the troops that had already climbed onto the wall, they attacked the tower along the top of the wall and then seized the inner and outer gates respectively.

The plan was perfect and the execution was resolute. The soldiers of the "New Formation" wielded steel-filled halberds, flying up and down, stabbing and killing, and forcing Cao's elite troops on the wall back step by step.

When the enemy's resistance was really stubborn, the soldiers of the "New Formation" would occasionally use their other hand to pick up the fallen spears of the enemy soldiers and throw them at their faces at very close range like javelins, in order to open a gap in Cao's army.

When the two sides were only five to ten steps apart, they were still in a dense formation with people standing shoulder to shoulder, and the damage caused by the long spears thrown with all their might was still very considerable.

Many Cao's soldiers had no way to dodge or avoid the attack, and a bloody hole was poked in the crowd, and the formation was immediately scattered.

The soldiers of the "New Formation" intensified their attack and continued to advance. They soon reached the "three-way intersection" of the main city wall and the inner city wall, then divided their troops into two directions and continued to advance resolutely.

Soon, Gao Shun led hundreds of elite soldiers and finally attacked the city wall tower, and then the city gate was slowly opened.

After another two cups of tea, the battle on the main tower also entered a fierce stage. Both sides had hundreds of lives lost, and those sent to this battlefield were the last and most elite soldiers of both sides, with excellent weapons and armor, and high will and unyielding fighting spirit.

However, Gao Shun's "New Formation" was more elite after all. After a while, the main city tower was also breached. Then, people rushed down the stairs to the wall, cut off and moved the huge wooden block blocking the gate that was as thick as a man's embrace, and opened the East Gate.

……

"Father, the city gate is open! Let me lead the troops to charge in and seize the city!"

Outside the east city of Fancheng, when the city gate was captured, Guan Ping was overjoyed and secretly delighted. Relying on his better eyesight, he reported the situation to Guan Yu.

Guan Yu's expression was still cautious and solemn. He did not express his opinion immediately, but paused for a moment before instructing his son:

"Don't be impatient! Since ancient times, only the gates of the city walls have been opened. Don't be impatient!"

Guan Ping didn't care and quickly reminded him: "But if we don't send troops in, how can we confirm whether the inner door has been opened by General Gao? We can't see it here!"

What Guan Ping said is also in line with common sense in military strategy.

Many viewers in later generations only learned about ancient wars through film and television dramas, so they sneered at those generals who "rushed in rashly after the inner city gate was opened but the main city gate was not, and ended up being ambushed."

Including when watching "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", I thought that Zhou Yu was too careless to be ambushed and shot by Cao Ren when attacking Jiangling.

But in fact, the actual difficulty of avoiding this situation is much greater than in movies and TV dramas - in the city wall models built in movies and TV dramas, the inner city gate and the main city gate are on the same axis. Even if the attackers stand outside the city, they can see through the open inner city gate whether the main city gate is open or not.

In fact, the gates of ancient city walls were all opened on the side walls, so even if the gates were opened, one had to fight their way in and then turn a 90-degree angle to see the main gate, which would not give the attackers a clear view.

So after Guan Ping argued his case, Guan Yu had no choice but to allow another general to be sent with a hundred or so cavalry archers as scouts to rush directly into the opened city gate to determine whether the main city gate inside had been opened.

In addition, Guan Yu also ordered people to urgently adjust the deployment position of the observation hot air balloon, and quickly pulled the hot air balloon that had just been deployed at the Ge Gongche position in the corner of the wall to the city gate to overlook the city.

It's a pity that the hot air balloons of this era had no power of their own, only buoyancy. If they wanted to move after flying into the air, they had to rely on soldiers on the ground pulling the hemp ropes little by little. It was very complicated to temporarily change the deployment position.

As the scouts sent by Guan Yu rushed into the city gate, soldiers soon shouted loudly and turned back to report to Guan Yu.

"The main city tower has also been breached by General Gao! The main city gate has been opened!"

Guan Yu then breathed a sigh of relief and quickly ordered the entire army to charge into the city.

However, at this moment, a not-so-small change occurred on the top of the city.

The "three-way intersection" on the east wall of Fancheng, where the urn city and the main city wall meet, had already been firmly occupied by Gao Shun's soldiers climbing the wall. Subsequent "New Formation" soldiers also continued to pass through this gap and pour into the urn city wall and the main city tower.

However, with a strange bang, this section of the city wall actually collapsed down a dozen feet deep, and the rammed earth of the wall collapsed and scattered, forming a cross-section in an instant like a landslide or mudslide.

The rear troops who had already climbed up the east wall and had not yet had time to reinforce the city wall and the main tower were immediately cut off. Dozens of people who happened to be standing at the collapsed position also fell directly with the collapse, and were either killed or injured.

"Military Advisor Guo's underground plan worked! Quickly kill Gao Shun who has been cut off from his support! Everyone follow me!"

Several Cao generals roared fiercely, and then led their elite reinforcements, each with at least a thousand men, to charge towards Gao Shun who was in a fierce battle.

These reinforcements of Cao's army all poured in along the city wall on the south side of the west gate. That section of the city wall had not yet been breached by Guan Yu's men, and there were no attackers on the top of the wall, so the path for the defenders to reinforce was smooth.

The attacking party's breakthrough point was on the north side of the west gate, so after the junction of the north side and the city wall collapsed, Gao Shun's reinforcements were temporarily blocked.

Although Gao Shun's troops were elite, their reinforcements were temporarily cut off and no new troops could arrive, while Cao's army was able to continue to send reinforcements. The situation of the battle was immediately reversed, and the cruelty of the meat mincing suddenly rose to a higher level.

During the fierce battle, Cao's army pushed back some positions slightly. Then, with a muffled sound, a heavy gate fell from above the opened main city gate, killing several cavalrymen of Guan Yu's army who were trying to enter.

Dozens of riders had already entered the city, even through the main gate, but once the gates fell, they were immediately isolated and helpless.

Although they could charge back and forth along the long street, causing several times the casualties to Cao's army, the dozens of cavalrymen fell into the crowd of thousands of enemy soldiers and were quickly swallowed up.

Guan Yu himself was lucky. Although he rushed into the city wall only after he felt that the situation was stable, he was not the first to rush in. Therefore, among the dozens of people blocked by the gate, neither he nor Guan Ping was there.

But once the gate fell, he was blocked between the city wall and the main city wall. Some of the high ground around him was also occupied by the enemy, and the situation was not optimistic.

The remaining crossbowmen of Cao's army fired arrows wildly at the enemy heavy cavalry entering the city. Guan Yu swung his sword to block, but unfortunately the Qinglong sword was heavy and it was difficult to swing it quickly. He was still hit by two arrows on his arm. One arrow was blocked by the steel armor, and the other arrow was shot by a powerful crossbow, which still penetrated his muscles and bones.

"Father!" Upon seeing this, Guan Ping quickly asked people to grab a few large shields for protection.

Guan Yu felt pain, but his expression remained unchanged. He shouted in a cold voice: "Could it be that Guo Jia dug a tunnel under his own city wall! If he encounters our army to capture the city, he will set fire to the wooden pillars and let the city wall collapse!
Quickly organize troops to enter the city from the collapsed wall, go around and kill the enemies inside the wall! We will hold on here! Set up a shield formation and shoot at the enemy! With Zhongda fighting to the death on the top of the wall, we will surely be able to turn defeat into victory!"

Guan Yu was a famous general who had been in the military for more than 20 years. He had a deep understanding of the sudden collapse of the city wall. He knew that when Yuan Shao fought Gongsun Zan, he used the underground tunnel method to break the Yijing Tower. He did this by digging a tunnel under the wall and temporarily supporting it with thick wooden pillars. When he wanted to break the wall, he would destroy the wooden pillars and the wall would collapse a lot.

The city wall that Cao's army was guarding today also suddenly collapsed a large section of its height, but Cao's army did not have the gunpowder made by the Zhuge brothers, and no explosion was heard. The city wall just collapsed quietly.

So almost at the same time when Guan Yu was shot by the arrow, he suddenly thought of the enemy's strategy, which was probably the same as when Yuan Shao collapsed Gongsun Zan's wall.

He reacted so quickly, immediately taking advantage of the new weakness created by the enemy to solve the previous problem, and urgently ordered the rear army to change the assault route into the city, which saved a lot of chances of victory.

Although Guan Yu's army was temporarily cut off from reinforcements by the soldiers on the wall and fell into a state of decline, and although the soldiers in the city were temporarily shot by the enemy's crossbowmen for a while, they still turned the tide with their strong tenacity, absolute military advantage, and overwhelming momentum.

Half an incense stick later, Guan Yu's rear army climbed into the city in large numbers from the collapsed part of the city wall and entered the city streets, and in turn killed all Cao's troops inside the city gate.

At the same time, several ladders were temporarily set up to ensure that the soldiers could climb up from the collapsed gap in the city wall and continue to reinforce Gao Shun.

As these two counterattacks were carried out firmly and steadily, the counterattack organized by Cao's army with its last desperate effort was finally suppressed and finally collapsed completely.

Guan Yu was shot in the arm by an arrow, which penetrated his muscles and bones. He must go back and heal his wounds.

Gao Shun was suppressed by the enemy army that was dozens of times his size for a long time. Finally, he was forced to retreat to the collapsed part of the city wall. In order to avoid the enemy's swords, he slipped and fell, breaking one of his legs. After returning to the camp, he had to have his leg set. It is estimated that he will not be able to go to the battlefield for at least half a year.

On the city wall, hundreds of soldiers from the "New Formation" suffered heavy casualties due to this unexpected enemy counterattack and the cut off of their reinforcements.

Dozens of elite cavalrymen inside the main city gate and hundreds of cavalrymen trapped in the city wall also suffered casualties in this short and fierce battle.

But no matter what, Fancheng was finally captured by Guan Yu.

Guan Ping took over from Gao Shun, who had broken his leg, and completely attacked the main tower of the west gate, clearing out the resisters in every room.

When attacking the room on the highest floor on the south side of the tower, Guan Ping realized that the nearby Cao soldiers were all very elite, highly skilled in martial arts, and willing to fight to the death.

Guan Ping led his trusted warriors to kill all the stubborn resisters. When he rushed into the house, he saw an enemy dressed as a civil servant lying on the couch, vomiting blood and dying.

"Who is this guy?"

"This is Guo Jia! All these twists and turns today must be caused by him!"

Guan Ping was so angry that he chopped off the head of Guo Jia's corpse with a knife: "You bastard! You schemed against me even though you knew you were going to lose! You were allowed to have a good ending! It was too easy!"

Fortunately, Guan Ping also knew the importance of the matter and only wanted to show his merit by beheading the enemy, and he didn't want to do anything else excessive.

He had the head packed up, and then ordered someone to send his father and General Gao back to heal their wounds. Other matters such as taking over the entire city and eliminating the remaining enemies were not so urgent.

-

PS: I don’t want to interrupt this plot, so I’ll release it 9,500 at a time.

Also, just to clarify, I am not strengthening the enemy or intentionally creating twists and turns.

Rather, in history, "scraping bones to treat poison" was originally a true story of Guan Yu recorded in the original text of "Records of the Three Kingdoms". I think this story highlights Guan Yu's image, not a negative defeat. It was used when there was an appropriate occasion.

Moreover, this is also the final and strongest voice of the Battle of Xiang and Fan, which fulfilled Guan Yu’s ultimate dream in history. It is not a bad thing to leave some glorious marks here.

In the end, Guo Jia never had a suitable opportunity to die, and it was a pity that he died silently. So dying heroically and fighting to the last moment can be regarded as respecting both the enemy and yourself.

The strategy used by Guo Jia is also in line with history, and he could have thought of it. After all, there were Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan to learn from before, and he only needed to slightly adapt and upgrade it to come up with it. I think it is reasonable given Guo Jia's intelligence.

(End of this chapter)