The loud and high voice echoed throughout the wilderness.
The sword and shield hand holds the shield in his left hand and the sword in his right hand, and begins to advance slowly.
Behind them were rows of crossbowmen, covering the sword and shield men as they advanced to the ditch.
Because he was afraid of the crossbows of Shen Chen's army, Ren Jun shouted: "Retreat to the outside of the crossbows."
"Hoola la!"
The spearmen in the front row immediately retreated.
Then Shen Chenjun's sword and shield hand smoothly descended into the ditch and began to climb up.
But although the ditch was not deep, it was still very laborious to climb up, so the soldiers also spent a lot of effort to get over.
Ren Jun saw that the enemies began to arrive on the other side of the ditch one after another, and was about to order an order to return to the camp and hold on.
Unexpectedly, Xun Yu's eyes narrowed slightly and he whispered to him: "General, prepare to order an attack."
"attack?"
Ren Jun said in surprise: "If we attack now, wouldn't we be shot to death by the enemy's crossbow?"
Xun Yu said: "Their crossbowmen can only be on the other side. Once their crossbowmen want to come over, they will have to go down the ditch. This is the time for us to attack."
"I see."
Ren Jun instantly understood what Xun Yu meant.
Shen Chenjun was blocked by a ditch used for field irrigation. Although the ditch was not deep, it was close to a foot long. It would take some time to climb up.
His front row of sword and shield men have come over, but the back row of crossbowmen also need to jump down the ditch and climb up again. The time spent in this process does not seem to be much, but jump into the ditch, climb up, and then reorganize the scattered formation. Assembling, there will be a vacuum period of one or two minutes.
Ordinary generals may not notice this detail. The battlefield is changing rapidly. Even if the generals are watching in all directions and listening in all directions, they may not be able to observe this situation in just a minute or two.
But Xun Yu observed this keenly and immediately made arrangements.
Once Shen Chen is a general who does not pay attention to such details, he is very likely to fall into a short period of danger after his front row of swordsmen, shieldmen and halberdmen cross the ditch. Before the crossbowmen go, Ren Junruo uses A small number of crossbows and a large number of infantry can defeat Shen Chen's army.
However, Shen Chen had actually noticed this detail that Xun Yu paid attention to. He was familiar with the art of war, and it had been three years since the Battle of Nanyang. He had quite a lot of experience, so he naturally understood that when the crossbowmen crossed the ditch, His weakness.
Therefore, after the swordsmen and shieldmen in the front row crossed the river, he immediately shouted: "The swordsmen and shieldmen in the front row will form a formation, the spearmen will cross the canal, and the crossbowmen will be on guard. After the front troops have passed, the archers and crossbowmen will go over in batches."
He actually only has more than 3,000 people now, and he can command like an arm, and soon many soldiers follow his instructions.
After seeing the orderly steps of Shen Chen's army, Xun Yu sighed: "General, retreat slowly."
"Um."
Ren Jun nodded, and he naturally saw that the enemy's front troops had already lined up in front of the ditch, and then pressed forward to make room for the crossbowmen at the rear.
The archers and crossbowmen went down to the ditch in batches, with only one or two hundred people going in each wave, while the rest continued to wait sternly.
You must know that the ditch is only two feet wide, so the two sides of the ditch are actually very close. If he launches an attack now, the remaining crossbowmen can still shoot past the swordsmen, shieldmen and spearmen in the front row. For him It's definitely not worth it.
Therefore, it is better to take advantage of the fact that the crossbowmen on the opposite side have not crossed the ditch and the formation has not yet been set up, and immediately withdraw to the rear camp and use the camp wall to defend it.
At that moment, Ren Jun's army began to retreat.
In the distance, Shen Chen frowned slightly, he had already exposed his flaws, but it was a pity that Ren Jun was not fooled. He was worthy of being the pillar that could protect Cao's army's food and grass.
Soon, in more than ten minutes from when they first crossed the ditch, Shen Chen's army had all passed through, and there were still more than ten scouts left behind to look after the horses. People could cross the ditch, but it was difficult for the horses to cross to the other side. After all, not everyone could cross the ditch. Every war horse can leap three feet away.
After crossing the ditch, Shen Chen, Gan Ning, Shen Mi, Deng Zhao and other generals all became infantry at this time. Shen Chen and Gan Ning stepped out of the crowd and came to the front of the team, while the enemy retreated to the camp and used the stronghold to attack. Wall as defense.
The wall of the village is not high. It is built with some stones and soil from the fields. Wood is used as a pillar at the back. However, there are crenels on the wall for spears to pierce. Moreover, there are also deer villages, horses and other structures laid out on the outside of the wall. some obstacles.
Once a frontal attack is carried out, those obstacles cannot hurt anyone, but they will hinder the soldiers' charging momentum. Then people will use the crenellations of the village wall to stab outside, making it difficult for the crossbowmen to play their role.
This is a way of fighting ancient wars.
Including when encountering cavalry on the grassland or encountering enemies in the wild, props such as front carriages, side carriages, and sword doors are also used to build temporary walls to resist.
Although it does not have as high a defensive power as a city wall, it will bring a huge advantage to the defending infantry.
Shen Chen knew that at this point there was no other way but to attack head on.
Their camp is right here. If you go around and attack Xudu, they can attack behind you.
What's more important is that the soldiers are very fast. Two hours have passed since Yingyin fell, and Jian Qiang's side has probably gotten the news.
Jianqiang County is only thirty kilometers away from Xudu. Xun Yu sent mounted scouts there in the afternoon and sent reinforcements to Jianqiang, which would most likely arrive tomorrow morning.
If Ren Jun cannot be captured before tomorrow morning, Shen Chen will encounter a large enemy force encircling and suppressing him.
Therefore, he could only choose to fight quickly.
At three o'clock in the day and approaching dusk, the sky is still very bright.
The long days and short nights in summer in northern my country are very basic geographical knowledge. Generally, it does not get dark until 6 or 7 pm during the day, and in extreme cases it may not get dark until 8 pm.
Without darkness, the war suddenly started.
The soldiers of Huangmen Pavilion began to move forward in unison. The gate of the village in front was closed tightly. Ren Jun's army was already ready on the wall and at the crenellations of the wall.
"Fire the arrow!"
With a loud shout, Shen Chen's army took the lead in attacking when they were less than ten feet away from Ren Jun's camp, firing their bows and crossbows.
Immediately, the people above the wall and at the entrance of the crenels crouched down, not daring to look any further.
This is some kind of suppressive fire.
Taking advantage of this gap, the infantry in front immediately pressed forward.
The crossbows stopped at this time, and Ren Jun's Diannong army also appeared again. The two sides began to fight around the village wall, stabbing each other back and forth with halberds and spears at the crenellations and walls.
"Throw!"
Ren Jun commanded from the rear.
The soldiers on the wall in front picked up the stones at their feet and carried them to the platform above. The people above took them and smashed them down.
They are not big rocks, only four or five kilograms, but throwing them hard will still cause damage.
Stones continued to be thrown outside, and Shen Chen's army was immediately driven back.
But it's not like they didn't do anything at all. The wall was built with stones and yellow mud and supported by wood. It was not easy to knock it down in a short time.
But the village gate was made of wood and could be cut through with an axe. Around the village gate, the two sides fell into a fierce fight.
Shen Chen and Gan Ning went into battle in person. Both of them held shields in their left hands and axes in their right hands, and they smashed the crackling stones outwards.
However, the distance is not very far, and the village wall is only one foot and three meters high, about two and six meters. If there is no obstruction, the soldiers can even climb up using ladders.
The two people rushed to the entrance of the village. Many soldiers around them were beaten with stones and their heads were bleeding, and they were dragged away wailing.
"Quick, the crossbowmen suppress it."
Shen Chen turned around and shouted, once you reach this distance, you only need to raise the muzzle of the crossbow, and it will not hurt the soldiers on your side.
At that moment, a volley of crossbow arrows was fired, suppressing Cao's army near the village gate until they could not raise their heads.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the two men led more than a dozen guards to the village gate and began to chop at the gate with axes. Wood chips flew everywhere. When a hole was made, spears protruded from the inside from time to time.
After the crossbows stopped, spears and halberds were stabbed down from the wall above. The surrounding guards used shields and halberds to defend and counterattack at the same time.
A guard next to Gan Ning was stabbed to death by an enemy's halberd. He was still cutting down the gate of the village. After the guard fell, there was a gap in defense and almost hit him. He immediately became furious and picked up the guard's halberd from the ground. , stretch and pull upward.
The top of Fang Tian's painted halberd is a crescent blade, while the ordinary halberd is somewhat like a cross blade. Gan Ning stabbed upward with the halberd, and the protruding part of the halberd hooked the halberd in the opponent's hand, like intertwined fates. , and in one fell swoop, they pulled down the soldiers from the wall above, including their weapons.
"Come two people and push me up."
At this moment, a small gap suddenly appeared in the wall of the village. Gan Ning had an idea and immediately had an idea.
At that moment, two sanitary men around him acted as human ladders. He held the handle of the Huanshou knife in his mouth, stepped on their shoulders, and suddenly climbed to the top of the village wall.
There is a step about one meter high on the inside of the two-meter-six-meter wall, called the Yuntai.
This cloud platform was used to stand people. At this time, the top was densely packed with soldiers, fighting with Shen Chen's army under the wall. At the same time, at the crenel below the cloud platform, there were still people poking out from behind.
At this time, because Gan Ning pulled down the Cao Jun who was near the village gate, his position became vacant for a short time. On the tense battlefield, the surrounding soldiers were entangled with each other, but no one stepped forward to fill the gap, which resulted in Gan Ning being left behind. Climbed onto the wall of the village.
"Hurry, there's someone coming over there, hurry up."
An officer in the rear noticed someone climbing up at the gate of the village. His expression changed with horror, and he immediately ordered the soldiers to come and encircle and suppress them.
However, after Gan Ning came up, he jumped onto the cloud platform, slashed left and right, and even took away the halberd of a Cao soldier. Holding the halberd in his left hand and the knife in his right, he killed four or five people in an instant like a god of war. people.
The gap between these four or five people was suddenly exposed. Shen Chen immediately stopped cutting down the village gate and shouted: "Take a ladder, climb up, and support General Gan!"
"Come here."
Shen Tao summoned a personal guard, and the two of them built a human wall under the wall.
Shen Chen rushed over immediately, and the surrounding soldiers also rushed over. They stepped on each other, easily jumped over the two-meter-six-meter-high wall, and jumped onto the cloud platform.
boom!
The sound of landing sounded.
Before Shen Chen could clearly see the surrounding situation, several spears struck at the same time.
At this time, Shen Chen was still on the ground and had no time to react. After all, his martial arts at this time were at least third- or fourth-rate, far from being first-rate like Gan Ning.
It was at the critical moment that a roar was heard. It turned out that Gan Ning had been fighting nearby. He wanted to fight his way out and open the village gate, but unexpectedly Shen Chen also jumped down, not far from him.
They saw him sweeping the halberd in his left hand, stabbing diagonally with the sword in his right hand, helping to block the three halberds with his left hand, cutting down a Cao soldier with his right, and stabbing with the remaining halberds, which were blocked by the fish scale armor on Shen Chen's body.
There was a stabbing sound and a sudden sound of metal friction. Shen Chen broke out in a cold sweat. At the same time, while the Cao soldier had put away his halberd before attacking, he suddenly took two steps forward and slashed him.
Shen Chen's troops around him came down from the wall one after another, and Cao's troops immediately dispersed. Only then did Shen Chen see what was going on behind the wall.
I saw that there was actually a circle inside the wall, like the word "hui", and the entire camp was blocked on the road to Xudu. Circle after circle, like a matryoshka doll, you need to keep pushing in.
Could it be that Ren Jun has been to the northwest?
Shen Chen was puzzled. This way of playing was the same as Qiong Long. It was also the way of camping of the Qiang people in the northwest.
But now is no longer the time for doubts. At that moment, everyone opened the village gate, and more than three thousand soldiers rushed in from the village gate. The first wall was still hundreds of meters away from the second wall.
A large number of Cao's troops gathered in this area, and Ren Jun organized his forces to recapture the village gate. The two sides launched a desperate struggle around the village gate.
However, several waves of attacks organized by Ren Jun were repelled by Shen Chen and Gan Ning. In fact, although he controlled more than 10,000 Diannong troops, it was not that fast to assemble them all in just two hours. The peasant army was widely dispersed.
For example, Zao Zhi of Yingyin led part of the army, and Yanling's guard Han Hao also led part of it. Ren Jun was the general of Dian Nong Zhonglang and was their superior. He had more soldiers and horses under his command, but there were only more than 5,000 people.
Therefore, the strategy chosen by Ren Jun was to delay. The distance from Yanling to Xudu was even closer, only about twenty kilometers. The scouts would have gone there at noon. At the latest, Han Hao might arrive before the people were scheduled to arrive.
Soon the soldiers of Shen Chen's army broke through the first camp wall and entered the camp. This was the last hurdle they had to pass. It would be easy to bypass them and reach Xudu, but Xudu Liu Xie's palace The city is much higher than this, and there are thousands of palace guards guarding it.
Once he was blocked by the palace guards outside Xudu City and Ren Jun attacked from behind, Shen Chen's army would be faced with the dilemma of being attacked from both sides. Therefore, he could only choose to attack Ren Jun forcefully, and he could only defeat Ren Jun in a short time. , and by entering Xudu, it is possible to do more things before enemy reinforcements arrive.
However, Ren Jun was indeed difficult to deal with. At the beginning, Ren Jun's troops came in groups to intercept him. Several small leaders were chopped down and killed one after another, and only after dozens of corpses were left behind did he realize how powerful he was, so he retreated after twenty or thirty steps. , slowly arrived in front of the second wall, and wanted to slowly retreat into the wall.
At this time, Shen Chen's army was still entering the stronghold one after another. In order to prevent the enemy from using the wall to counterattack again, Shen Chen and Gan Ning took the lead in charging. At this moment, dozens of arrows suddenly shot towards them. Caught off guard, many soldiers fell around.
It turns out that Ren Jun didn't have any bows and crossbows, but not many, and most of them were moved to the front line of Guandu. Only his personal guards had hundreds of bows and two to three thousand arrows, so they couldn't sustain the consumption.
Don't think that a small-scale war does not use many arrows. In fact, an army of 3,000 people will be equipped with 300 to 600 crossbowmen. Each crossbowman has ten to twenty arrows in his quiver. A feather arrow, so that the number of arrows can reach 3,000 to 12,000.
Even with a heavy army like Li Ling, the number of arrows for 5,000 people can reach 500,000. The "Book of Han·Li Ling Biography" records: "The Han army retreated south, and before it reached Tuanhan Mountain, 500,000 arrows were fired in one day." All gone."
It can be seen that the consumption of arrows in a battle is very alarming. Even in this small-scale war involving thousands of people, it is common for tens of thousands of arrows to be consumed.
It's just that the number of arrows Ren Jun has is too small. With just two or three thousand arrows, he can't kill many people, but can only deter them at critical moments.
really.
After discovering that the enemy had crossbows, Shen Chen's army did not dare to charge blindly anymore, but began to temporarily form a team, regroup, and continue to advance.
As the sky gets later and later, it is approaching dusk, around six o'clock in the evening, the sun is approaching the west mountain, and the vision is gradually dimming. Shen Chen is panting from exhaustion and sweating profusely.
We had already been walking for a day, and we had to attack the enemy's well-defended camp head-on. We were really at the end of our efforts.
But the good news is that the enemy's combat effectiveness is indeed not very strong. One Huangmenting soldier can often hold up two Cao troops. Although they clearly occupy favorable terrain and have more people, Cao troops are still easily defeated in close combat.
After all, the Diannong Army is not an elite front-line unit of Cao's army. They are also busy with farm work on weekdays. They train two to three times a month, which is far less frequent than the regular army.
And more importantly, lack of oil, water, and strength will be much lower. Unlike Huangmenting soldiers, who are guaranteed to have sufficient oil, water, and protein. In a competition of strength, one Huangmenting soldier may even be able to defeat two or three Diannong troops.
"kill!"
Shen Chen raised the weapon in his hand and moved forward again.
"kill!"
Dragging their tired bodies, Huangmenting soldiers also headed towards the enemy camp without hesitation.
Ren Jun's face looked very ugly.
His zigzag camp actually consisted of three circles in total, especially the outer walls which had the highest defense.
As a result, in less than two quarters of an hour, they broke through the perimeter, killing and injuring hundreds of their own men. If this continues, it will only be a matter of time before all three levels of the camp are destroyed.
It is difficult to defeat the opponent even if they are defending the camp. Even if they evacuate by themselves and then join up with Han Hao, if they encounter the opponent head-on in the wild, they will probably be defeated.
So he could only grit his teeth and shouted: "Hold on!"
"Ouch!"
Although Cao's army was not very effective in combat, it still had some morale.
Because there is the Bali Bridge in front, which is where the Qingni River is. It is said that Guan Yu bid farewell to Cao Cao from this bridge and went south to join Liu Bei.
After passing the camp and crossing the Bali Bridge, you only need to walk another four or five miles to reach the outside of Xudu City.
You can even see Xudu's houses through the jungle behind the camp, or standing on the vast fields to the south.
Therefore, for Cao Jun, with Xu Du behind him, they also had nowhere to retreat.