Yuan and Liu's army attacked for two hours, and at one point it was getting dark, and Liu Bei reluctantly chose to withdraw his troops.

Seeing the fiercely attacking Liu Bei's army slowly retreating from the city wall, Cao Xiu was still frightened. He had experienced many battles with Cao Cao, including the battle to attack Xuzhou, but he had never seen such a brave fighting style.

The siege was done without regard to losses.

After commanding his soldiers to clean up the corpses on the city wall, Cao Xiu did not relax, but continued to strengthen the garrison arrangements and patrols on the city wall to prevent night attacks.

After arranging everything, Cao Xiu quickly found the captain who was counting the battle losses and asked anxiously: "How are we doing? How many casualties have our troops had?"

The captain stood in front of Cao Xiu, clasped his fists and spoke out the battle losses that had just been counted: "Reporting to the general, the casualties have been counted. This time our army has a total of more than 1,700 casualties, of which nearly a thousand were killed in the battle and were seriously injured.

More than 300 people were injured and more than 400 people were slightly injured."

"There are nearly two thousand casualties!" Cao Xiu said with a very ugly face. There were only thirty thousand defenders in Tongguan. At this rate, they might not be able to defend it for half a month.

Seeing this, the captain said comfortingly: "General, although our army has suffered a lot of casualties, the enemy's damage is definitely far greater than ours. There are at least 3,000 people. The opponent cannot withstand such a forceful attack."

of."

To be honest, with such a huge gap in military strength, it is already very good to be able to inflict battle losses of nearly 1:2 when defending the city. It should be noted that most of the nearly two thousand casualties were shot by the opponent's bows and arrows. They were actually attacked by the opponent.

Not many people were killed on the city wall. Liu Bei's army's fearless charge was actually a life-for-life. The opponent's 30,000 siege soldiers alone could not attack the narrow and towering Tongguan city wall.

Cao Xiu was very worried. The defenders of Tongguan were only 30,000, and the main reinforcements of Cao's army were far away in Yanzhou. The combined defenders of Sishui Pass and Luoyang were only more than 10,000, which was a drop in the bucket. And sending troops from Yanzhou to Tongguan would at least be a drop in the bucket.

It would take half a month to arrive. If he asked for help at this time, it would probably take a month to wait for reinforcements from Yanzhou. And even if he could wait, it was still unknown how many reinforcements Yanzhou could send.

Taking a deep breath and telling himself to calm down, Cao Xiu said with a normal expression: "The opponent is attacking so hard, and they can't even bear the damage. Let the injured soldiers go down to rest. The soldiers guarding the city must not relax their vigilance at night.

Beware of enemy attacks at night."

"No!" the captain whispered.

After the captain left, Cao Xiu's expression darkened again. The deputy general came to his side and whispered: "General, we can't continue the fight like this!"

"Why don't I know!" Cao Xiu said bitterly: "If we continue to fight at this speed, I'm afraid we will lose the defense in less than ten days. But do you have any good ideas?"

The lieutenant general hesitated for a moment and said: "General, why don't we withdraw. The opponent is powerful, and we simply can't defend Tongguan with such a small force."

"Where to retreat?" Cao Xiu glared at him: "Once Tongguan is lost, the entire Guanzhong will be unsafe. Can you bear this responsibility?"

"But if we continue to fight like this, we obviously can't defend it!"

"We must defend if we can't!" Cao Xiu gritted his teeth and said, "The Lord is attacking Qingzhou. Even if our entire army is wiped out, we still have to delay enough for the Lord. We must not let Yuan Shu and Liu Bei enter the pass."

"The opponent's arrow rain is too dense. You can send a team as big as some wooden shields and planks. It doesn't need to be very fine. It just needs to be thick enough to block the arrows." Most of Cao Jun's damage this time was caused by the opponent's arrow rain.

Yes, Cao Xiu wanted to solve this problem, but there were indeed too few archers under his command to suppress it, so he could only build more giant shields.

"In addition, prepare more kerosene, rolling wood, etc. Yuan Jun has not participated in the siege today, and tomorrow's battle will be even more fierce." Fortunately, Tongguan is stationed, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack and the pass is narrow. Liu Bei's soldiers attacked

There were only a few, six or seven thousand soldiers placed on the city wall were enough, so Cao Xiu did not force additional troops.

"No," the deputy general said solemnly.

...

In Liu Bei's army, Zhang Fei threw his helmet to the ground angrily and said angrily: "It's so frustrating. This battle is so frustrating. Brother, our soldiers lost more than 3,600 people.

The city's 30,000-strong army lost 10% in just one afternoon. As for Yuan Gongdao, he fired cold arrows and didn't even lose a hair."

Liu Bei sighed softly, walked over, picked up the helmet, put it in Zhang Fei's hand, and persuaded him: "Don't be upset, Yide, Yuan Shu's army did not prepare ordnance this time, we can't let them climb the city wall empty-handed. This time

They also sent 50,000 troops with bows and arrows to suppress them, and they killed as many enemies as we did, so you have nothing to be angry about."

When Guan Yu heard this, he couldn't stand it anymore and said in a low voice: "Brother, if this continues, we will have to kill all our soldiers before Tongguan is captured. The losses from such a strong attack will be too great."

"What if we don't fight like this? It's not like you haven't seen the dangers of Tongguan. If it weren't for the strength of our two alliances this time, which is several times the opponent's, there would be no possibility of conquering it. Now Cao Cao has sent troops for more than ten days, and we

If we don't capture Tongguan as soon as possible, it will be too late." Liu Bei said in a deep voice.

Zhang Fei turned to Liu Ye with a look of unwillingness: "Military advisor, do you have any good strategies to capture Tongguan? We can't just risk the lives of our soldiers like this!"

Liu Ye faced Zhang Fei and gave a bitter smile: "General Zhang, Tongguan was obtained by Cao Cao in the first place, so he must be extremely cautious in this regard. Cao Xiu, who is guarding the city, is a son of Cao Cao's clan. He really can't think of a way in a short time."

Liu Bei glared at Zhang Fei and yelled angrily: "Yide, stop talking nonsense and apologize to the military advisor."

Liu Ye waved his hand: "No need, my lord, General Zhang said what he said unintentionally in a hurry. I didn't expect this situation to arise at the beginning. Now I really can't do anything and can only look to Yuan Shu."

"That softie Yuan Gongli is probably still thinking about how to consume our troops. What can he think about?" Zhang Fei said disdainfully.

Liu Ye shook his head and said: "General Zhang, Yuan Shu will not be like this. At this time, his interests are consistent with ours. He still needs us to attack Cao Mengde and disturb the situation in the Central Plains."

Liu Bei smiled bitterly and nodded: "I didn't expect that not long ago we were life-and-death enemies, but now we have become allies who rely on each other and trust each other."

"There is no such thing as an ally, it's just that we have the same interests. Wasn't it just to guard against Yuan Shu that my lord and Cao Mengde got together? Now that Cao Mengde has begun to exert his strength, we and Yuan Gongli are on the same side again." Liu Ye hit the nail on the head.

road.

"Then will our army continue to fight like this tomorrow?" Liu Bei asked.

Liu Ye nodded: "The most important thing now is to rush back to Yuzhou as soon as possible. Don't worry about sacrificing more soldiers, as long as there are enough troops to protect the lord back to Yuzhou. Tomorrow, General Zhang and General Guan will lead the army to kill together.
Chapter completed!