"Report!... There is a Wei army on the other side of the river trying to get behind our army to watch the flag. It is suspected that they are guarding Wei Ji from the east of the river!"
During the siege, Qin general Wang Jian received such news.
"Wei Ji..."
Changxinhou Wangjian turned his head to look at the river and saw that on the other side of the river, a Wei army could be vaguely seen heading north quickly.
Wang Jian was no stranger to Wei Ji, the current governor of Hedong in the Wei State. After all, when Wei Ji was still in Longxi, they had clashed with each other many times.
At that time, the Wei State in Longxi had only a few generals who could make Qin feel troublesome, and one of them was Wei Ji.
"I didn't expect that we would have to fight again so soon..."
Wang Jian said secretly in his heart.
Similar to Yang Quan Jun Ying Bo's thoughts, he also felt a little regretful about this. After all, he still had a pretty good feeling about Wei.
However, what is different from Yangquan Jun Ying is that Wang Jian is not as sentimental as the former. Since Xianyang has decided to attack the Wei State, he will not hesitate at all and will never be like Yangquan Jun Ying.
He is so tangled and tangled - just like Gongsun Qi, the Marquis of Wuxin, and Ying Hua, the Lord of Weiyang.
While Wang Jian was thinking to himself, more than a dozen warships were passing by on the river in the distance. On the leading flagship, Pu Banwei Wenxu stood on the bow of the ship with his arms folded, watching Xia Yang's offensive and defensive battle with an expressionless face.
"Is that the warship under Puban Wei Wenxu's command?"
Wang Jian murmured in his heart. He suspected that Wei Ji and Wen Xu might go behind him and attack his camp.
However, he was not worried, because today was just a tentative siege of Xia Yang City. The main purpose was to feel the strength of Xia Yang City. Therefore, Wang Jian only brought half of his troops, so there was no need to worry that his camp would be invaded by Wei Ji and Wei Ji.
The two men continued their sneak attack.
The problem is...
He turned his gaze to the Xia Yang City in front of him and immediately frowned slightly.
There was no other reason than that the front army that was responsible for the first round of attack exerted very little pressure on Xia Yang City. Most of the soldiers were shot to death by crossbow bolts fired by the Wei army on the city before they even got close to the city wall.
Although there were two phalanxes on his side with more than 3,000 crossbowmen shooting at the Xia Yang city wall, they were still unable to effectively contain the Wei crossbowmen on the city wall - there was a significant difference in range between the crossbows in the hands of soldiers on both sides.
.
"Report!... Two thousand general Chang Hu was shot dead by Wei soldiers!"
This is what the soldiers who came to deliver the message said.
"..."
Wang Jian was stunned for a moment, frowning and looking at Xia Yang in the distance.
Chang Hu, a two-thousand-man general, was one of his fierce generals and one of the former army generals responsible for attacking Xia Yang. He never thought that he would die in battle so easily.
"Is it a sniper crossbow from Wei?"
Wang Jian frowned and thought.
As far as he knew, the Wei State had a long-range weapon specifically used to snipe enemy generals, the sniper crossbow, which required two to three Wei soldiers to operate.
The target is only a single target, so the threat of this crossbow is very high.
The Qin State also purchased some of these weapons from the Wei State back then, but it was obvious that the sniper crossbows used by the Wei Army were more than a little more powerful than the ones sold to the Qin Army - mainly in terms of aiming accuracy.
"Bang bang bang——"
The trebuchets in the Qin army's array began to be put into use, throwing out stone projectiles the size of millstones.
But unfortunately, since Wang Jian's army only has more than 20 riprap trucks at the moment, and the Qin soldiers who operate the riprap trucks have not received such training, the pressure caused by these more than 20 riprap trucks on Xia Yang City
, not as big as Wang Jian originally estimated.
"It seems that Xia Yang is preparing to take a defensive stance. In this case..."
Wang Jian frowned and thought, and immediately ordered: "Send the order and withdraw the troops."
To be honest, Wang Jian, the Marquis of Changxin, actually wanted to see Xia Yang's defensive ability again, but the counterattack ability of the Wei soldiers who could not withstand Xia Yang was too strong, causing huge losses to his soldiers, so Wang Jian decided to withdraw his troops in advance. After all, Xia Yang defended
He basically understood the general strength of the army.
"Ding ding ding——"
"Ding ding ding——"
Accompanied by the sound of trumpets, Qin's army slowly withdrew from Xia Yang City.
Seeing this, on the tower of the north city gate of Xia Yang, Mao Bo and Xue Jian, the deputy generals guarding Wei Ji in the east of the river, talked privately. They both felt that today's attack on Xia Yang City by Qin General Wang Jian was really anticlimactic.
"I guess they came here to test the reality of our army." Mao Bo affirmed.
Xue Jiang nodded, then looked at the machine-operated repeating crossbows on the city wall, licked his lips and said: "Speaking of which, the military expenditure of the Hexi Army is really enviable. There are forty or fifty repeating crossbows on the northern city wall alone... Domestic
It was once said that General Sima An was the third richest man in the Wei Dynasty. I didn’t believe it at first, but from this point of view, even if he misses the mark, he is not far off.”
Mao Bo nodded repeatedly when he heard this. His Hedong Army was not as luxurious as the Hexi Army.
"By the way, today's battle, please write a battle report to Lord Wei Ji and General Sima An."
"Well, I'll write the battle report, and I'll leave it to you to clean up the aftermath of the battlefield."
After the two agreed, Mao Bo returned to the outpost in the city to write a battle report, while Xue Jiang supervised his soldiers to open the city gate, clean up the corpses outside the city, and recover undamaged arrows and other objects into the city.
Two hours later, Qin general Wang Jian led his army to retreat to the camp. As expected, Wei generals Wei Ji and Wen Xu were attacking his camp. The two sides fought fiercely for half an hour. Seeing that Wang Jian's troops were in large numbers, Wei
Only then did Ji and Wen Xu choose to retreat.
After repelling the Wei army's invasion, Wang Jian returned to the commander's tent in the military camp and considered countermeasures based on the map.
Today's war seems to have started but ended, but Wang Jian also saw certain problems from it, such as the joint defense of the three cities of Xia Yang, Fenyin, and Puban. Once Wang Jian led his army to attack Xia Yang, Wei Ji in Fenyin would
Wen Xu from Puban would immediately lead his army to attack, not choosing to confront Wang Jian head-on, but waiting for an opportunity to attack Wang Jian's camp.
This means that Wei Ji has a high degree of trust in Xia Yang and believes that Xia Yang City is enough to stop him, Wang Jian, for a while and support him until Wei Ji and Wen Xu capture his camp.
However, judging from Wang Jian's tentative attack on Xia Yang today, Xia Yang's defensive capabilities are indeed extraordinary, so much so that his army lost 2,030 soldiers today, even without posing a threat to the city, and even one of the 2,000 soldiers.
The man will be shot to death by Wei soldiers.
"It's hard to fight..."
He got up and walked to the straw couch in the tent. Wang Jian lay on it with his arms as a pillow and closed his eyes to rest.
As far as what I saw today, Xia Yang is a fortified city that is difficult to capture. In addition, Wei Ji is on the side, and General Wen Xu can respond at any time. In this case, if you want to capture Xia Yang, it cannot be said that it is impossible.
It's possible, but it's really difficult.
"Is there any way to get rid of Wei Ji?"
Thinking of this, Wang Jian immediately thought of the mountain road from the West River to the east of the river. But as far as he knew, there was a strong city called "Beiqu" standing in this mountain road. In the early years, when the Wei State was still
During the war with Korea, Wei Ji, the defender of Hedong, spent a lot of energy repairing this mountain city. So when Li Mu, the defender of Yanmen, sent his army south, his deputy general Li Ren was eventually blocked outside Beiqu City and could not attack Hedong.
pose a threat.
I don't know how much time passed, but suddenly a guard came into the account and reported: "General, General Ji Dong is back."
After hearing this, Wang Jian immediately sat up, nodded and said, "Ask him to come in."
Immediately, a general stepped into the tent and saluted Wang Jian with clasped fists.
Ji Dong is a general of three thousand Iron Eagle Cavalry under Wang Jian. When Wang Jian decided to try to attack Xia Yang today, he asked this general to lead more than two thousand Iron Eagle Cavalry to bypass Xia Yang and head towards "Heyang" in the south.
I want to see if there are any loopholes in Wei Jun's overall defense zone.
"How's the situation...um, what happened to your face?"
Just after asking, Wang Jian noticed a scar on Ji Dong's face, which seemed to be a mark of being cut by some sharp object.
"It's Hu Qi."
Ji Dong touched his cheek and explained: "When the general led the cavalry to Heyang, he happened to encounter a group of Hu cavalry. Although the general had no intention of entangled with them, those guys blew the horns to attract them.
The Hu cavalry nearby attacked the general and his soldiers..."
"Hu Qi...could they be the Hu slaves who herd Sima An's sheep?" Wang Jian asked in surprise.
As far as he knew, in addition to the Hexi Army, there was actually another force under the command of Hexi Governor Sima An, namely the tens of thousands of slaves he had conquered in Sanchuan County. Later, after Sima An was transferred to Hexi, those tens of thousands of slaves also followed Sima An.
Hexi is mainly responsible for herding cattle and sheep for the Hexi army - if the once powerful Jie tribe has now been reduced to the guard dogs of Wei, then these Hu Rong are Sima An's shepherd dogs.
What is puzzling is that Sima An is not friendly to these Hu Rong slaves, and is even cruel. He only gives those people the most basic needs of life, and he does not know why those Hu Rong slaves are so loyal to Sima An.
"Since we met Sima An's shepherd dog, it means that there is a ranch belonging to the Hexi Army in Heyang..."
Wang Jian murmured to himself, as if thinking about whether to send troops to attack those pastures.
But after careful consideration, he still gave up, because the sneak attack on those pastures would not have much impact on the pattern of Hexi. What's more, Sima An's "Shepherd Dogs" had many more people than his Iron Eagle Cavalry, so there was no need to go there himself.
Not happy to find it.
More importantly, when his Qin army captured Hexi in the future, those pastures would become the main facilities of his Qin state, so Wang Jian did not want to destroy them.
After thinking for a moment, Wang Jian finally decided to slow down the attack on Xia Yang City and speed up the construction of siege equipment. At the same time, he sent people from Xihe to attack "Beiqu" in Hukou Mountain to see if he could open up the situation from there.
.
As for a comprehensive general attack on Hexi and Hedong, he does not have the ability for the time being and needs to wait for Wu Xinhou Gongsun Qi to lead the army to this area.
That night, Wei general Sima An, who was in Pinyang, also received a report from his "shepherd cavalry" and learned that they had a confrontation with the Iron Eagle Cavalry under Wang Jian in the Heyang area.
"Master, the Qin State's cavalry is very powerful. Heyang lost more than 300 brothers..."
In front of Sima An, a strong man wearing a sheepskin coat knelt on the ground with one knee, lowered his head and said respectfully.
Sima An glanced at his general Pang Meng, who was grinning and snickering beside him, and said expressionlessly: "Tule, I have told you many times to call me general... If it doesn't work, I will be the governor, and I will be the commander."
The general of Wei is not the chief you are waiting for."
"Yes, master." The Hu man named Tule said respectfully.
Seeing this, Sima An's face turned pale.
Before he could speak, several Hu Rongs behind Tu Le shivered in fear.
Seeing this, Sima An couldn't bear it anymore. He waved his hand and said: "Okay, okay, I understand. You can retreat first. I only have one request for you. Guard the pasture... retreat."
"
"Yes, Master."
Thule and his party quickly bowed and retreated.
At this time, Pang Meng, Nie Ga and other generals could no longer bear it and burst into laughter.
Sima An glared at these bastards fiercely, then took a long breath, frowned and said, "Am I so scary?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Pang Meng gave a thumbs up and grinned: "General, you are the most famous general in our Wei Dynasty, especially for these foreign races..."
Sima An felt really depressed after hearing this.
He knew what Pang Meng was referring to simply because of the novelist school's "Anecdotes". In this book, although he was described as a resourceful and famous general, those bastards of novelists also added to his reputation.
He told some strange so-called experiences, saying that he had massacred hundreds of thousands of people in the Wusu tribe, regardless of age or sex, and that he loved drinking human blood, etc.
Damn it!
Back then, the Wusu Royal Court had only a few thousand people at full strength. Even if the tribe's army was included, there were only more than 20,000 people. How could there be hundreds of thousands of people to slaughter for him? What's more, eating human flesh and drinking human blood were simply unacceptable.
Reasonable!
"It's all those bastards' fault!"
Sima An cursed in a low voice.
Seeing this, Nie Ya said with a smile: "Novelists are the ones who like to sensationalize. If the stories they wrote were not absurd and bizarre, how would so many people come to read them? Having said that, although the general is described as a man-eating monster
, but it is precisely because of this that those Hu Rong slaves are so docile..."
To be honest, this reason would actually be quite convincing if Nie Mo couldn't help but laugh out loud in the end.
"Report!"
Following the announcement, a soldier walked into the room, handed a letter to Sima An, and said respectfully: "General, this is the battle report sent from Xia Yang."
Seeing this, Sima An felt nervous and immediately opened the battle report to take a look. When he saw in the battle report that Xia Yang repelled the attack of Qin General Wang Jian without any danger, he felt relieved.
"We killed more than two thousand enemies and suffered more than three hundred losses...Wei Ji's Hedong Army should not be underestimated." He nodded in praise.
Pang Meng heard this and said disdainfully: "They are defending the city and they have many war weapons. How difficult is it to repel Wang Jian's army? If I were in Xia Yang, I would have taken off Wang Jian's head by now..."
Sima An glanced at Pang Meng and shook his head secretly. It was precisely because Pang Meng was conceited about his strength that he had not dared to ask Pang Meng to guard Pinyang alone, so he sent Nie Ji to assist him.
"Bai Fangming is here in Chongquan, and Wei Ji's army is in Xia Yang... There is no need to worry about these two sides for the time being."
Having said this, Sima An let out a long breath.
To be fair, the battle in Hexi County is not intense at the moment, but this is only because Wu Xinhou Gongsun Qi's army has not yet arrived in this area. When Gongsun Qi leads his army to arrive, I am afraid that Hexi County will not be as peaceful as it is now.
.
A few days ago, he sent his general Le Kui to lead more than a thousand Hexi cavalry to Shangjun. He was unable to support Shangjun, but this did not prevent him from sending Le Kui to Shangjun to see the defense situation there. In this way, even if
Gongsun Qi, Marquis of Wuxin, led his army to capture Shangjun. He could also take precautions in advance.
However, so far, Le Qun has not sent anyone to deliver the news of "the fall of Shangjun".
This is good news.
The only regret is that the "Yuanzhong Fortress" located in the center of the Hetao area, the city where Wei Wujun once garrisoned, was captured by the army of Wuxinhou Gongsunqi.
Just like the situation when Yang Quan Jun Ying Bo defrauded Yueyang and Lian Shao, the Yuanzhong Fortress had no idea that the Qin State had launched a war against Wei State. So when Gongsun Qi led the army to the Yuanzhong Fortress, he took almost no effort.
The fortress was captured and the four border counties of Shuofang, Yinchuan, Jiuyuan, and Yunzhong were cut off from the Wei State.
In early February of this year, Qin general Gongsun Qi led an army of hundreds of thousands to the south, taking advantage of the situation to seize "Quexian", "Linzhong", "Fushi" and other cities along the way. Although from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Sima An
Then he sent cavalry to "Qin's desertion"
News of the "Covenant" was sent to the cities in Shangjun, making them more vigilant. However, due to the Wei Wu army stationed in Hetao being transferred away, Shangjun was unable to block the Qin army's offensive. It could hold on for two or three days at most before being outnumbered.
The Qin army captured the city.
After receiving the news that "Quexian", "Linzhong", and "Fushi" had fallen one after another, Sima An was angry, but he had no choice. After all, the troops in his hands were not enough to allocate troops to support Shangjun, so he only
Can watch helplessly as Shangjun is occupied by the Qin army.
But the strange thing is that after Qin's Wuxin Hou Gongsun Qi captured "Fushi", he did not rush south to force Hexi. Sima An didn't know what happened. In short, Gongsun Qi's army slowed down.
I don’t know what the reason is for the offensive.
In fact, it is very simple, because Gongsun Qi was attacked.
To be precise, it was his army left to guard the Yuanzhong Fortress that was attacked by Wei Guo Yunzhong's Lian Pi.
Speaking of this, it's a bit funny, because the reason was that after Gongsun Qi captured Yunzhong Fortress, a batch of drinks supplied to Yunzhong County were intercepted in the city.
So, after Lian Pi finished drinking the wine stored in the city in Yunzhong, he waited patiently. After waiting for half a month, he didn't see the wine from Yunzhong Fortress, and lost his temper in the county: Those people from Yuanzhong Fortress are here
What are you doing? No drinks have been delivered yet?!
So, he sent people to Yuanzhong Fortress to urge him, trying to order Yuanzhong Fortress to deliver the wine owed to him from Yunzhong County as soon as possible. Unexpectedly, the cavalry who sent the message came to Yuanzhong Fortress to take a look, and was shocked to find that this building had once erected "
The city with the word "Wei" and the flag of "Wei Wujun" is actually flying the flag with the word "Qin" at this moment.
The messenger cavalry found the tribes that were herding sheep in the local area. These tribes were all grassland tribes that had surrendered to the Wei State. Naturally, they did not dare to hide it, so they revealed the truth to the messenger cavalry: At the end of last year, Qin’s army
Somehow, they launched an attack on the Yuanzhong Fortress.
After hearing this, the messenger cavalry was shocked and angry. He quickly rode back to Yunzhong County and reported the matter to the county governor Lian Ref.
When Lian Pi learned about this, his first reaction was: Gongsun Qi, Marquis of Wuxin in the Qin State? Is it because of you that I couldn't drink for more than half a month?
After this, the thought came to "Why did the Qin State capture the Yuanzhong Fortress?"
"General, what should we do?" Lian Pi's lieutenant asked the former at that time.
After deliberation for a full breath, Lian Pi finally decided to attack the Yuanzhong Fortress.
Not to mention that the Qin State occupied the Yuanzhong Fortress, even if Wei Wujun dared to deprive him of his drinks, he would dare to lead his army to attack it!
"Send a message to Feng Ting in Jiuyuan and ask him to send troops to cooperate!"
After sending a courier, Lian Bu mobilized his troops to counterattack the Yuanzhong Fortress that day.
A few days later, Feng Ting, the governor of Jiuyuan, received a letter from Lian Bu and was greatly surprised: Why did the Qin army capture the Yuanzhong fortress in such a good way?
But since the Qin army showed hostility, he naturally wanted to assist Lian Pi in retaking the Yuanzhong Fortress - because he was now a general of the Wei State, and it was definitely not because he was afraid of Lian Pi and did not dare to disobey the latter's orders.
Before sending troops, Feng Ting also sent a message to Zhao Chengyue, the defender of Shuofang County, the second son of King Yu Zhao Yuandai.
After Zhao Chengyue received the letter, he was furious. After leaving some troops to defend the Yinshan and Yangshan areas, he also raised troops to join Lian Pi and counterattack the Yuanzhong Fortress.
In early March, the troops from the three counties of Shuofang, Jiuyuan, and Yunzhong gathered in the north of the Yuanzhong Fortress. Lian Pi took the responsibility to declare himself the general commanding the troops of the three counties, and obtained the recognition of Zhao Chengyue and Feng Ting - Zhao Chengyue was
Because he knew Lian Pi's bravery, he felt inferior to him, but Feng Ting didn't even dare to speak loudly in front of Lian Pi, so how could he dare to go against the latter's wishes.
I don't know whether it was because he was addicted to alcohol and desperately wanted to take back the Yuanzhong Fortress, or because he finally got the chance to repay Zhao Run after waiting for several years. Lian Pi tried his best to attack the Yuanzhong Fortress this time.
Especially on the ninth day of March, Lian Piu personally went into battle, participated in the siege, killed the Qin general Duan Wu left by Gongsun Qi to guard the original fortress, and recaptured the fortress.
A few days later, after Wu Xin Hou Gongsun Qi captured Fushi, he received news from the Yuanzhong Fortress. At this time, he learned that the Yuanzhong Fortress had been defeated by Lian, and Feng Ting, Zhao Chengyue and others had taken it back.
.
"This is troublesome..."
Gongsun Qi was shocked when he learned the news.
He originally planned to capture Hetao, use Hetao as his rear granary, and advance to attack Hexi. Unexpectedly, the Wei garrison troops in Yunzhong, Jiuyuan, and Shuofang actually recaptured the fortress after his army evacuated the fortress.
This time, he was caught between the Hexi Army and the Hetao Army...
what to do?
Should they return to attack the Yuanzhong Fortress and drive out Lian Pi, Feng Ting, Zhao Chengyue and others, or should they continue to attack Hexi?