Just when Shen Chen and Ren Jun were fighting fiercely at Bali Bridge, the surrounding areas of Xudu were alarmed.
Cao Cao didn't know the news yet. He was on the front line of Guandu. Guandu was 90 kilometers away from Xudu. Unless the scout cavalry sent by Xun Yu drove a sports car, it would be impossible to deliver the news so quickly.
But Han Hao, Xia Houyuan, Li Dian, Cai Yang and others already knew.
Han Hao is in Yanling, which is twenty kilometers away from Xudu.
Xia Houyuan and others were in Jianqiang, more than thirty kilometers away from Xudu.
Judging from the timeline, Shen Chen set off from Yingyang in the morning and arrived at Yingyin at noon. The team took a short rest, killed Zao Zhi at about one o'clock in the afternoon, and rested in the city.
Then they set off again at around two o'clock, and at around five o'clock, and close to six o'clock, they arrived at the Bali Bridge area, began to line up their troops, and launched an attack on Ren Jun.
In other words, Zao Zhi sent people on Pegasus to report the news to Xun Yu in Xudu at about one o'clock in the afternoon. Jian Qiang asked for reinforcements.
Going to Yanling and Jianqiang, even if the horses are moving at full speed, will take between an hour and an hour and a half respectively.
Therefore, judging by the time, basically not long after Shen Chenjun set off for Xu, that is, around three o'clock in the afternoon, Han Hao had already received the news, and then immediately summoned the troops to start the rescue.
As for Xia Houyuan and the others, they were a little further away. It was almost when Shen Chen's army was about to arrive at Bali Bridge, and it was probably around four o'clock that Xia Houyuan and the others found out about this matter.
But the news they were able to get was that the scouts were riding horses at full speed. If they were infantry, at four or five kilometers per hour, it would take four or five hours for Han Hao to come over, and six or seven hours for Xia Houyuan and the others to come over. It was basically at night. .
Even this is the most ideal situation.
For example, when Han Hao was in Yanling, the Diannong army was also dispersed. It took time to summon them temporarily, and it also took time to bring weapons and equipment. If there was such a delay, it might take six or seven hours to arrive.
Xia Houyuan's side is even worse. They are confronting Liu Bei's main force. If Liu Bei delays a little, he may not be able to come tomorrow morning.
Therefore, to a certain extent, Xu Du's safety at this time really depends on how long Ren Jun can last.
Once he is defeated by Shen Chen before dusk, Shen Chen will have at least seven or eight hours to do whatever he wants in Xudu.
But now, the entire Xudu has almost no troops.
But let’s not talk about how Han Hao of Yanling immediately summoned the Diannong Army and went to Xudu for rescue after receiving the news.
Just talking about Jianqiang County at this time, the battle has already entered a fever pitch.
According to the agreement, Liu Bei began to attack the city two days after he parted with Shen Chen. Today was the third day. Starting from early morning, his army marched out of the camp in a mighty manner. Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yuntai Shici and other leading generals , surrounded Jianqiang in three ways.
The source of his soldiers and horses was very complicated. A small part of them were elite soldiers given by Yuan Shao, about two to three thousand people. The other part were the remnants of the Yuan family recruited in Yuzhou, about seven to eight thousand people.
Then when Man Chong defended the city, all five hundred elite soldiers died in battle, and more than two thousand miscellaneous troops surrendered.
Finally, Li Tong surrendered three thousand troops.
Although they are a ragtag group of people, they cannot stand up to the large number of people. Along the way, some remnants of Yuan Shao's troops came to surrender, and now the total force is close to 17,000 or 8,000.
On the other hand, Xiahou Yuan and Li Dian had very small numbers. Xiahou Yuan only had three thousand, and Li Dian only had two thousand.
Even including Cai Yang's 3,000 men later, the total force was only 8,000.
Therefore, Xia Houyuan and Li Dian were guarding the city in the past few days, while Cai Yang came from the north and was transferred by Cao Cao from the front line of Guandu to the rear to defend Liu Bei's troops. They did not enter the city at that time, so they stationed themselves on the north bank of Yingshui River.
, the south bank of Tishui River, the intersection of two rivers.
On the south bank of Yingshui River is Jianqiang County. In his early years, Cao Hong also defeated the leader of a rebel army here.
Cai Yang, Xia Houyuan, Li Dian and others were guarding each other across the river, and they were at each other's horns. To a certain extent, this could be regarded as a retreat.
Liu Bei's main army besieged Jianqiang County. Only the Yingshui River in the north was not suitable for attack due to its wide surface and fast water flow, so there was no siege.
Over the past few days, Cao Jun has successively transported a lot of grain and grass into the city from the north gate, apparently intending to fight a war of attrition with Liu Bei.
After all, Liu Bei only brought two or three thousand men and horses to the south alone. His source of food and grass was actually supported by the remnants of Yuan Shao who were originally in Runan. However, these remnants of Yuan Shao were defeated by Man Chong and did not have much food. Now Liu Bei has 17,800
People, horses, and food cannot last long.
But they never expected that Liu Bei didn't even plan to build more siege equipment or rest for two more days. Instead, he launched a strong attack on the second day after arriving in Jianqiang.
With the city surrounded on three sides, under the supervision of Liu Guan, Zhang, Zhao Taishi and others, Liu Bei's army launched several attacks on the city head like ants. However, because the soldiers were not very effective and not brave enough, they were easily repelled several times by the two men.
In the afternoon, Liu Bei saw that his soldiers were afraid of fighting and did not dare to brave the rolling stones and wood to rush to the city wall. Knowing that it would be difficult to attack, he ordered his troops to retreat.
Soon Liu Bei's army retreated like a tide, leaving hundreds of corpses at each city gate as they hurriedly evacuated.
Even because the soldiers were not of high quality, they retreated in disarray, as if they had been defeated. They dropped the ladder and started running to the rear almost without formation.
What they knew was that they were withdrawing their troops, but what they didn't know was that they thought they were being hunted.
If it were Zhang Liao, he would have to carry eight hundred men. Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yuntai, and Tai Shici would all be there, so they wouldn't be able to kill him.
It's late afternoon, almost five o'clock in the afternoon.
Xia Houyuan stood on the top of Jianqiang City, panting and looking at Liu Bei's army retreating outside the city, and said angrily: "Damn it, that Liu Da'er is really disgusting, I really want to kill him and his third brother.
."
"The general has a grudge against Zhang Fei?"
Li Dian also came over and asked curiously.
Xia Houyuan seemed unwilling to mention the fact that his niece Xia Houjuan was abducted by Zhang Fei at the beginning of this year. He just said: "These two thieves have repeatedly betrayed Gu Sikong's good intentions. I wish I could kill them and then get rid of them."
"They have quite a lot of troops."
Li Dian licked his tongue: "But their morale and fighting spirit are not strong. If they can attack at night, they may be able to defeat Liu Bei."
Xia Houyuan thought for a while, nodded and said: "Well, maybe there is something to be done, but he will definitely be very vigilant in the past few days. We will hold on for a few days and find a suitable time. It is best to attack Liu Bei's camp at night and kill him.
That Zhang Yide."
General Miaocai seems to be very resentful towards Zhang Yide.
Li Dian thought.
However, he was not a talkative person, so he did not continue to ask.
And just when Xia Houyuan and Li Dian were taking a rest and preparing to arrange soldiers to carry out today's city defense work, someone suddenly hurried up the city wall and shouted: "General, something serious has happened."
Soldiers were coming and going around, some were resting, some were patrolling, and some were carrying supplies to prepare for tomorrow's battle. When they suddenly heard the sound, they looked over and saw that it was a tired scout.
I climbed to the top of the city covered in sweat.
Li Dian frowned, and everyone had just repelled Liu Bei's army. At this time, he said something had happened. The morale of the army was so unstable.
But obviously this only happens in very big things.
Could it be that Xu Du was attacked?
This thought came to him suddenly, and then he saw Xia Houyuan had walked over and dragged the scout over like a dog, slapped him hard twice and shouted: "What nonsense are you talking about? What happened?"
The scout galloped all the way from Xudu. After more than 30 kilometers, the man and the horse were almost dead from exhaustion. He wailed: "The city of Yingyin has been destroyed. Someone attacked Xudu. Xun Lingjun asked the general to come back for reinforcements."
"What?"
Xia Houyuan was shocked and asked quickly: "How many people are coming?"
"It's said to be three to four thousand people."
"When was Yingyin destroyed?"
"Afternoon."
The scout's nose spurted blood.
"Blow the trumpet!"
Xia Houyuan did not feel sorry for the soldier, but threw him to the ground, and immediately ordered people to blow the trumpet to gather troops to return to Xudu's aid.
Li Dian hurriedly came up and said: "General, if we leave the city, it will be more dangerous for Liu Bei's army to go north to Xudu, so we must not go back with a large force, we can only send a small group."
"A small force?"
Xia Houyuan calmed down, thought for a moment, and immediately said to his left and right: "Go, send an order to Cai Yang, and ask him to go north to Xudu overnight to protect Xudu."
"only!"
Immediately leave the city to report the news.
Caiyang is on the other side of the Yingshui River. Liu Bei lacks boats and tools to cross the river, and the bridge is to the north of the city, so his position is very safe.
At this moment, when he heard the news about Xu Du, Xia Houyuan asked him to set off immediately to rescue Xu Du. Cai Yang set off immediately. He didn't even have time to clean up the camp. He immediately gathered the entire army and rushed north at a rapid march speed.
In the evening, when it was close to dusk, Han Hao was only more than ten kilometers away from Xudu, and Cai Yang was still more than twenty kilometers away.
Shen Chen's Huangmenting army broke through the second wall and was almost exhausted.
He didn't expect that Ren Jun would be so difficult to deal with. A general who was only a flash in the pan in history, and who was leading a second- and third-line army, he didn't expect that he could persist for so long.
Every time Shen Chen was about to break through the last fortress of the camp, he would shoot back with a crossbow, and then go into battle himself to launch a counterattack.
The casualty ratio of both sides reached 0.6 to 1.1, which means that Shen Chen's army currently suffered more than 600 casualties, while Ren Jun's army only suffered more than 1,100 casualties.
Although it doesn't seem like it should be the case, because Shen Chen had more than 3,000 people beating someone else's 5,000 people. Normally, Ren Jun should defeat Shen Chen.
But the problem is that these five thousand people do not have bows and crossbows, and they are second- and third-line troops with poor military quality.
You must know that the strength of Shen Chen's army is about 3,200, and there are 600 to 700 crossbowmen in the team, with more than 10,000 arrows, which can almost crush Ren Jun.
However, taking advantage of the favorable location of the village wall, Ren Jun held on hard, fighting from dusk to dusk. It took nearly two hours for Shen Chen to break through the two walls and block Ren Jun in the last fortress.
At this time, both Gan Ning and Shen Chen were injured, and their leather chainmails were soaked with sweat. Due to the lack of water and salt supplies in a short period of time, everyone's lips turned slightly white. The soldiers gathered together Together, there were corpses all around.
Ren Jun is standing behind the high wall. His current situation is also uncomfortable. He did not participate in the battle in person in the previous two rounds. This time, he had no choice but to go into battle to kill the enemy. He was even almost killed by Gan Ning. If it were not for the rescue of his bodyguards with crossbows, I'm afraid he's dead.
And more importantly, he doesn't have many arrows anymore. The original function of arrows is to kill enemies in a wide area. The hit rate of a single shot is limited by the moving target on the battlefield and the influence of wind. It is easy to miss the target and cause an empty shot. Coupled with the stalemate on the battlefield where both sides are entangled, the hit rate is even lower.
Therefore, every time Ren Jun saw that the camp gate was about to be lost after his own soldiers were killed, he would first use his crossbow to force the opponent to retreat, and then let the soldiers replenish the troops, and then he could barely beat them back.
Now that this situation has happened many times, the crossbows are almost exhausted. It is estimated that if there is another wave in the end, all the crossbows they have stored will be used up, and they will be completely out of ammunition and food.
Therefore, Ren Jun's mood at this time also sank to the bottom.
But what he didn't know was that because Ren Jun was unexpectedly difficult to deal with, Shen Chen's army was at the end of its fight.
For an army, physical strength is very important, but willpower is even more important.
If all Huangmenting soldiers were here, they might still be able to fight, but half of them were Gan Ning's army.
These soldiers were not as good as Huangmenting soldiers in terms of physical strength and willpower. In addition, due to insufficient training, they were the ones who suffered the most casualties, so the morale and physical strength of the army fell to the bottom.
Shen Chen looked around. After fighting for more than an hour, the soldiers' faces were full of exhaustion, and their clothes were stained with blood and sweat. The road to attack Xudu was more difficult than imagined.
hateful!
Seeing this situation, Shen Chen also felt helpless in his heart. He could guess that attacking Xu was not that simple, but who would have thought that he was already so close to Xu, but he still couldn't overcome it.
Gan Ning was also wet all over and his lips were slightly white. He said next to Shen Chen: "A Chen, I'm afraid, soldiers."
"Let's do it one last time."
Shen Chen smiled bitterly and said: "Originally, I thought that Ren Jun was not such a powerful person. We could break into Xudu, welcome the emperor back to Nanyang, and let Cao Cao and Yuan Shao fight dogs in the north. Now it seems that I was really out of my mind. This Ren Jun alone is not an easy person to deal with."
No wonder he could protect Cao Cao's food and defeat Yuan Shao's cavalry at the same time. How could he dare to go to Liangshan without San San San? Ren Jun's status is still higher than that of Han Hao and Zao Zhi, which obviously shows that he has real ability, but He died too early in history.
"Okay, let's do it one last time!"
Gan Ning was also furious. He spat in his palms to wash his hands, and wiped the blood and sweat off his body to prevent the handle from slipping. He had killed countless enemies with his sword, and it was almost covered with blood. Soaked.
"kill!"
Following this roar, which sounded like spring thunder, Cao Jun heard a series of dense and rapid trembling sounds of bow strings and crossbow arms, and dozens of arrows and crossbows smashed towards his head and face.
It's the old trick again, first use bows and crossbows to suppress Cao's army on the wall, and then the infantry takes advantage of the situation to cover up the wall and start a frontal attack.
Cao Jun almost instinctively squatted down and climbed on the cloud platform to avoid the baptism of arrows.
Immediately afterwards, Shen Chenjun sounded the bone whistle of the attack. Before, when they charged, they would shout and cover up, but now they didn't even have the strength to shout, and their running speed was also a few minutes slower.
Fortunately, the distance between the two sides was only about twenty steps, and they reached the foot of the wall in an instant, and started building a ladder to rush up the wall.
They had charged through like this twice before, so they had gained experience.
At this time, Ren Jun raised his head and glanced at the sky. It was about to get dark, so he shouted: "Fire the arrow!"
The remaining one or two hundred arrows were all shot in just two rounds, killing and wounding more than a dozen Shen Chen troops. Then the archers dropped their crossbows, slashed with their knives, and stabbed with their spears.
The two sides once again fought fiercely around the wall. The roars, echoes, weapons blocking, miserable howls and groans from the top of the wall almost never stopped.
From sunrise to almost three quarters of dusk, for a full hour and a half, that is, three hours, the front of Ren Jun's camp was being tested at any time, and there was no end in sight to the fierce fighting.
A section of the wall that was less than 180 steps away was spattered with the blood of soldiers from both sides. In many places, the tawny rammed earth was completely soaked with blood, turning it into a dark red color.
Cast iron helmets and flip-leaf hats were visible on the wall, and bald and broken arrows and broken weapons were scattered on the floor.
The corpses of soldiers from both sides who died in battle were piled randomly in the corners on both sides of the village wall. Some of the corpses had severed limbs and were kicked and trampled under people's feet before they could be moved. The battle was so intense that no one could spare the manpower to clean up the battlefield.
The gate of the village changed hands several times, and every time Shen Chen and Gan Ning fought in, Ren Jun personally led his troops to recapture it.
Both sides have pressed forward with all their forces. Even the crossbowmen of Shen Chen's army dropped their crossbows and drew their Huanshou swords from their waists to join the battlefield. Obviously everyone knew that this was a life-or-death moment.
Finally, with a bang, the gate of the camp collapsed, and Cao's army fought and retreated. The three walls of the camp were on the outside, and inside were tent camps and baggage warehouses.
Ren Jun obviously did not intend to surrender, but continued to use the tents and baggage warehouses in the camp for defense.
The sky darkened and the sun set in the west.
After three quarters of dusk, the world finally seemed to turn from gray to pitch black.
But then Cao's army's tent lit up a fire, and Shen Chen's army brought a fire sickle with them, taking advantage of the enemy's internal tent burning to illuminate the night battle.
At the end of dusk, which was around nine o'clock in the evening, Ren Jun led the remnants of more than 2,600 people and retreated to the east gate of the village wall.
Shen Chen attacked from the west to the east, which meant that the first place he attacked was the west gate of the village wall. Now Ren Jun had almost no way out. The fall of the last gate completely declared Xu Du's victory. fall.
But seeing Ren Jun struggling to hold on, the army was about to collapse.
"woo woo woo woo!"
A loud horn sound suddenly came from the north.
It took Han Hao's reinforcements five hours to finally arrive at the battlefield!