In fact, strictly speaking, it only took five days for Chen Cang City to be besieged until it was captured - because the siege of the second month was officially started on the second day of the second month.

It was just flooded two days ago, but Zhang Ji hadn't realized where the water came from at that time. He thought it was a natural disaster and had no one to send an emergency warning.

According to the second day of the lunar calendar, the scouts of the Leixu army from the Leixu army in Mei County took the initiative to search for Chencang every day, and then immediately reported the emergency to Chang'an. This speed is considered efficient no matter how you look at it.

Li Jue learned the news on the sixth day of the lunar month that the vanguard of reinforcements from the eighth day of the lunar month arrived in Mei County, which was very fast.

Li Jue had a total of 50,000 main forces in Chang'an, all of which were garrisons in the capital, and his combat effectiveness was still guaranteed. However, 50,000 people could not be fully out of their nests, and ships, horses, and carriages were not supported, so he could only split a part of the people as a quick response force to seize the danger first and observe the enemy situation.

The vanguard of reinforcements sent by Li Jue was his nephew Li Bie, plus a general Wang Fang of the Central Army.

Li Bie had 10,000 troops in Huaili to defend Luoshuigukou. Li Jue quickly sent an order, asking Li Bie to move forward to Mei County immediately, and then Li Jue himself drew slow-moving infantry troops from Chang'an to take Huaili.

Wang Fang directly assigned 10,000 people from the Chang'an garrison, marched quickly without baggage, and went to Mei County on time.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, a total of 35,000 soldiers were hoarded in the town of Mei County and the Beiyuan Weiqiao Village in the east of the city. Lei Xu, the governor of Mei County, spent the three days waiting for the arrival of reinforcements to build a simple rammed earth wooden stake corridor connecting Mei County and Beiyuan Village.

This is also to guard against the fact that Liu Bei's army, who besieged Chen Cang, came to the group, harassed or even swallowed Beiyuan Village. If you build a corridor, you can at least look at each other and reinforce each other.

After the three parties gathered, they held a military discussion in the yamen of the county magistrate of Mei County to discuss the enemy's situation.

Li Be and Wang Fang both came here. Without knowing the situation, they caught Lei Xu and asked: "How many people did Liu Bei go out of the valley this time? Should he attack Chen Cang or a feint? Are the people from Wuzhangyuan camp on the other side of yours? Are they still calm? Didn't they respond to Liu Bei's troops sending troops together to harass and restrain them?"

A lot of information, when it was just reported three days ago, most of them heard that it was wind and rain, and they were not very detailed. There must be new gains in these three days, and there will definitely be benefits to ask.

Lei Xu is Zhang Ji's general, so he must speak to his lord. In order to ensure that Li Jue's people attach importance to the enemy's situation, he must make the enemy's situation bigger:

"As far as I know, Liu Bei's army left the pass from Sanguan Road, with at least 100,000 people, and it would not be a bluff. At dawn the day before yesterday, my scout risked his life to advance to more than ten miles west of Chencang City to investigate, and they still saw Liu Bei's cavalry patrols, with a large number of people.

They want to scatter the scouts ten miles away from the city, and how many soldiers they can get to siege the whole city? As for how they attack Chen Cang now, I have no way of knowing it. It is too dangerous. The scouts are not close to the city at all."

Wang Fang didn't say anything when he heard this. As Li Bie's nephew, he has always been accustomed to being a "military supervisor". In the past two years, he has been fighting with the generals below with various "its own plans, but not their efforts."

So after hearing Lei Xu's words, Li Bie immediately questioned:

"Incompetent! The scouts are ten miles away from the city? A good story is made up. If such scouts are in the army of General Cheqi, they will probably be engaged in military law when they come back!

I think it was Liu Bei who claimed to be himself. If you didn't verify it, you believed it directly. The latter general hoped that the chariot and cavalry would work for him whenever there was a war, and his own troops could fight less. What kind of condolence is this?”

Lei Xu's blood rushed to his head, but he knew that his status was low and could not challenge the nephew of General Cheqi, so he had to gasp and endure it for a few seconds, pretending to be smiling and explain tactfully:

"My general and Liu Bei also have blood feuds, why do we doubt it? The reason why the scouts could not get closer was because the mountain torrent of the Sanguan Road broke out, and rivers gushed out, flooding for several miles east of Chencang City, all of which was slumber. How could humans resist this time?

I dare not say some words. I heard from Chen Cang who fled eastward that the river water appeared in the Sanguan Road, and there seemed to be another hidden story, which caused panic. The people... all looked at Liu Bei. For this reason, I have killed more than a dozen random refugees and kept their heads hanging in detail according to the enemy's heads. None of the people who fled said that Liu Bei's army was boundless."

"There is such a thing? It requires careful investigation and no consideration of scout casualties... Our army is too passive now, and it is still unknown how many enemy troops are. We have 35,000 people, and the later general has 15,000 in Chencang City, which is a total of 50,000.

Even if Liu Bei really has 100,000 troops, as long as he is in a strong city, he cannot defeat him for a long time, and the veterans are exhausted, and it is not impossible for us to defeat 50,000 people. As long as the situation is discovered, maybe there is no need to use the chariot and cavalry general to draw subsequent reinforcements, and there is no need to let Duan Pingdong mobilize troops from Huayin.

Wang Zhonglang, would you like to lead the light cavalry scouts in the cavalry of our headquarters to test the direction of Chencang? Don’t worry, you don’t need to wear iron armored heavy cavalry, as long as you are good at riding and shooting and have strong endurance, you can just meet Zhao Yun, just run, be sure to find out the specific scale of the enemy and all parties’ deployments.

If you are worried that Weinan will be difficult to escape, you can divide your troops and investigate along Weibei. The appearance of our cavalry will also inspire the morale of the rear general in the city to defend the city and let him know that the general's army of ches and cavalry will be coming to support."

Although Wang Fang's official position was higher than that of Li Bie, he did not dare to disobey Li Jue's nephew. After thinking about it, he agreed.

Among the 35,000 garrisons in Ji County, there are also 5,000 cavalrymen, among which light-weight bows and cavalry who are good at riding and shooting can also gather two or three thousand people.

Moreover, Wang Fang's troops have also improved slightly compared with the previous year. They are equipped with double-sided hemp rope rings and stirrups, which is more stable than the Kanto cavalry and especially Yuan Shao's Youzhou cavalry. This gives him a little more confidence in performing reconnaissance missions.

Of course, Wang Fang also knew that Zhao Yun's cavalry he was facing must have such equipment, because the double-sided rope ring stirrup was originally learned from the Yizhou Army.

This has to be blamed for a year and a half ago. Li Jue and Guo Si had just counterattacked Wang Lang. Liu Bei couldn't help but personally attacked the king and was defeated in Wuzhangyuan. In that battle, even Liu Bei himself was shot. Some of his personal cavalry guards must have been shot to death, and even his horse equipment was seized. Therefore, those small innovations in cavalry equipment that could be revealed were soon learned by Li Jue and Guo Si.

As for those who are expensive and cannot learn, they can only pretend that they have not seen it. For example, even if they were seized by Li Jie at that time, they would not have the ability to imitate the breastplate in a few sides, and he would not have the industrial strength to imitate it.

In fact, even if Wang Fang estimated so, he actually underestimated Zhao Yun.

Because since Li Jue's cavalry learned to use the bilateral hemp rope stirrup last year, Fa Zheng discovered this situation during the Wuzhangyuan battle last autumn. What's more, Ma Chao, who had a large-scale conflict with Jue and the Cavalry, knew this details more clearly. After Ma Chao joined Liu, he would of course communicate with each other in terms of intelligence.

Since Liu Bei's army knew the extent of the leak six months in advance, of course they were prepared to come again this year. Therefore, Zhao Yun's people have all been upgraded to the double-sided metal stirrups and saddles with wooden high-sad bridges. Anyway, Zhao Yun can always beat the Xiliang army in terms of cavalry equipment's cavalry stability and sprint stability.

...

After a little preparation, Wang Fang specially repaired it for a day, then slept heavily during the day on the ninth day of the third lunar month, and got up until the middle of the night. Then he brought two thousand selected fast horse archers to the Chencang fire reconnaissance.

In order to facilitate escape and be foolproof, he divided 1,000 people from Weinan and Weibei. He personally led the cavalry in Weinan and distributed them to a commander under Weinan. He also said that if he encountered a small group of cavalry of Zhao Yun, he could fight. If there were too many enemies, he would run decisively. If he couldn't run away, he would run a lot of roads, which made Zhao Yun unable to effectively command the pursuit.

Not to mention, Wang Fang has made the escape plan very detailed and clear before he went to war.

It is only ninety miles from Beiyuanzhai to Chencang City. In the second half of the night, I rode my horse slowly and walked slowly. I could stop and rest in the middle and eat something, which would ensure that I arrived at dawn.

The more dawn it was, the more alert Wang Fang was, but as he walked, he found that Lei Xu reported the military situation was wrong.

Especially the commander who was investigating in Weinan, summed up a few abnormalities: "Didn't Lei Xu say that the water vines in the east of Chencang City are ten miles away? Now the walls of Chencang can be seen in the dark light. Apart from some mud and mud on the ground, there is no accumulation of water?

Well, there are more ditches that are difficult to walk on. Is it Zhang Jixiu's fortifications to defend the city? It's impossible, it's too far from the city. But if it's a ditches for irrigation, it's not like Zhang Ji was so diligent in farming in previous years. It seems that among the generals, I only heard that Duan Pingdong did not plunder the people and was diligent in farming."

It turned out that the reason why they walked so close to Chencang City in the dark was less than five miles away because Li Su had repaired and dredged the interface between the moat on the east side of Chencang and the Wei River two days ago, drained all the accumulated water or stored it in a deep dredged water storage lake.

Wang Fang still investigated according to the geographical conditions in the information, and always felt that "it would not be too late to stop when encountering a lake", so he walked away without realizing it. He didn't have a geographical reference when riding a horse in the middle of the night. He didn't know how far he had walked. It was normal to have an error of ten miles on foot.

The reason why Zhao Yun contracted the scout circle was because the water had receded, so there was no need to scatter the scout investigation net more than ten miles east of the city. On the other hand, of course, it was because Chen Cangcheng had already taken it down, so there was no need to be on guard according to the offensive and defensive level.

Finally, it was still the sky gradually brightening, and Wang Fang's cavalry discovered that it was very close to the city, and there were piles of work sheds nearby. Early-updated civilians came out to look out and took shovels and shovels in alertness to warn.

Wang Fang's people immediately wanted to kill people and silence them. They rushed up and chopped up a few civilians who repaired the river, and arrested several living people, preparing to take them back to question the military situation.

But Zhao Yun's cavalry had heard the alarm and soon rushed out of the camp to cover up and kill.

"Run!" The Xiliang cavalry retreated and shot arrows back and delayed the enemy's pursuit, but after a few rounds, they found that the people who could not shoot Zhao Yun. Zhao Yun's cavalry shot faster and more steadily. They shot dozens of Xiliang cavalrymen without running two miles away.

"Run separately as planned! You guys go to the river to kill the civilians who are digging the ditches and entangle the enemy! If you really can't escape from the city gate in the north, and bring news of reinforcements to General Zhang!"

The best way to get rid of the pursuit is to separate some dead soldiers and run in the opposite direction, find the gaps between the enemy cavalry, and attract the enemy's attention. However, basically no one listens to this order to die.

But it is not ruled out that there are some people with poor brains among the people of Xiliang who are considered to be abandoned and executed stupidly. One out of the ten people who were ordered to listen, which will be effective.

There were actually seventy or eighty Western Liang cavalry. After hearing this, they were willing to perform this task of attracting firepower by suicide squads. They divided into several strands and rushed towards the gap between the two strands of Zhao Yunjun cavalry, rushed straight to Chencang City, trying to go around the cramped north, and then enter the city through the city gate.

The northern wall of Chencang City is less than twenty steps away from the Wei River, so it is impossible for Zhao Yun's pursuers to follow him for several miles. They will be washed by the crossbowmen at the top of the city with arrows and all shot to death. Because Wang Fang's troops still do not know that Chencang City has fallen, it is normal for them to think so.

When Zhao Yun saw that the suicide squad with less than 100 cavalry did not retreat but advanced, he was really nervous. He immediately abandoned Wang Fang's main force and rushed over to encircle him. In the end, he killed all the Xiliang cavalry with twenty or thirty times the strength.

Li Su was hiding in a relatively tall wooden house on the Xiuhe construction site at that time. He was in the northeast corner of Chencang City, where the moat was adjacent to the Weihe River. Dian Wei was also protecting him. In order to express his "sharing the joys and sorrows with the people and speeding up the construction progress, Li Su didn't want to rush to command Xiuhe every day, so he lived on the construction site these two days. There must be many bodyguards and guards around him, and they usually have to be supervisors.

Of course, his guardian power was far greater than that of Wang Fang's cavalry who rushed over by chance. After all, he was usually afraid that the prisoners of war in the Western Liang army would not work hard, and would rebel with the shovels he sent. Therefore, the scale of the guardian must be enough to suppress ten thousand mobs holding engineer shovels.

But who made Li Su shy? Seeing the cavalry team rushing over by chance, they immediately hid and asked Dian Wei to block the door and protect him. Fortunately, Dian Wei was not on the turn of Dian Wei to take action. All the cavalry of Wang Fang's suicide squad were intercepted by Zhao Yun halfway, and the nearest ones did not rush to Li Su's house two hundred steps.

"No, it's too unsafe to live outside the city. I'll live back to the city tomorrow and come out to supervise the work during the day." Li Su immediately made this decision.

The Xiliang cavalry who were hunted by Zhao Yun finally rushed to the foot of the city wall north of Chencang City, and then began to shout loudly, asking arrows to be fired on the top of the city to help them block Zhao Yun's cavalry so that they could walk around the city.

But the answer to the city was the rain of arrows shooting towards the Xiliang cavalry, which instantly shot these guys who had survived the disaster. Only then did they realize that Chen Cangcheng was already in the hands of the enemy.

Only a few of them knew a little about water and were active in mind. They rode their horses into the Wei River, rushed downstream along the river, escaped from the encirclement, and brought back detailed information.

Wang Fang on the north bank never took the risk, but he was shocked when he saw the archers on the city wall shooting arrows at his cavalry through the river. In the end, he suffered hundreds of casualties before successfully fleeing back and informed Li Bie of the bad news as soon as possible.

...

"What? This is impossible! Absolutely impossible! Chen Cang City is the strongest city, the first place of the Right Fufeng, and the third auxiliary land. Except for Chang'an and Meiwu, there is no more fortress with stronger city defense. How could it be broken by Liu Bei in a few days?" When Li Bie heard the news, his chin was so shocked that his chin almost fell to the ground.

Wang Fang covered his shoulders with an arrow, which was very convincing: "How is it impossible? I also wanted to send someone to rush into the city to report the message to the general. As a result, the arrows on the city were shooting my cavalry like rain. How could this be fake?

Because of the unknown information, in order to find out the news, I lost five or six hundred cavalry, and several strands of scattered hang cavalry were chased by Zhao Yun and surrounded by Zhao Yun. Zhao Yun chased me for dozens of miles."

Wang Fang was complaining that thousands of cavalry outside Beiyuan Village arrived later, obviously chasing Wang Fang all the way to chase him here. The leader shouted and scolded him in front of the formation and asked Wang Fang to get out and take the battle.

The sentry from Beiyuan Village immediately went in and reported: "General, Zhao Yun led thousands of cavalry to fight outside, as if pursuing Wang Zhonglang. He was still carrying a head with a red slut on the gun bar and scolding him, saying that General Zhang Ji had already given the title and wanted to repeat the mistakes of Chen Cang's defenders, so he fought with him. Now the people in the camp are panic, especially General Zhang Ji's old subordinates, who are at a loss."

Li Fei shivered: "Did Zhao Yun even bring Zhang Ji's head?"

That would definitely not be fake.

Li Bei believed almost instantly that Liu Bei had an army of 100,000, even far more than 100,000. Otherwise, how could he destroy a strong city with 15,000 people defended in a few days?

Liu Bei is too modest, why don’t he pretend to be a few times more?

"Don't go to war! Send a messenger to inform the general of the chariot and cavalry immediately! More reinforcements will come here!" Li Bie is like a frightened bird, demanding strict implementation of the turtle tactics.
Chapter completed!