After more than a quarter of an hour of chaotic fighting, the thousand troops brought by Zhang Fei finally successfully entered Guangling City.
They occupied a section of the city wall hundreds of steps long with the northeast gate tower of Guangling as the core, and also burned and smashed the gate's thousand-pound gate.
After a brief period of panic, the Yuan Jun garrison in the city discovered that the number of enemies seemed to be small and they were unable to control the entire city.
They were only frightened by Zhang Feijun who seized the door and set off a few fires. It took him an hour or two to figure out the situation.
After calming down, the defenders reorganized their counterattack around midnight and began to send out soldiers to try to attack the northeast gate tower.
After all, Zhang Fei's number of soldiers was too small, only a thousand. As for the garrison Liu Xun left in Guangling, there were too many to say. There were still three to five thousand.
This does not include Shoucheng Xiangyong who can temporarily capture Ding.
It's just that when Liu Xun attacked Huaiyin, he prioritized the elite troops under his command, so the quality of the three to five thousand men left behind varied, and most of them were second-line troops.
There is also a small half that is even the inheritance of the "Chaohu Thief" Zheng Bao, who he just eliminated. He is the kind of thing who was a water thief a few months ago.
The combat effectiveness of such a unit can naturally be imagined. Although there were four or five times the number of Zhang Fei, they organized several storms but failed to recapture the city walls and towers.
Yuan Jun's soldiers were divided into two groups, charging from the north wall to the east and from the east wall to the north. Zhang Fei defended the northeast corner of the city and the two sides fought very bloody.
The city wall is narrow, with only enough space for five people to stand side by side on the top of the wall.
Yuan Jun charged along the wall, and it was difficult to take advantage of the large number of people. There were always only a few people fighting on the front.
The soldiers in the front had to die in battle and be thrown under the city before the soldiers in the back could fight against it.
The party with more people cannot encircle and fight at all, and can only engage in a wheel battle at best.
This kind of terrain is very beneficial to the side with strong martial arts and tenacious morale. Zhang Fei personally led his personal guards to guard the stairs on one side of the city wall. In just a quarter of an hour, he killed dozens of enemy soldiers.
His bravery and bravery once frightened Yuan Jun, who was attacking from the north, so he had to block the opening and release arrows.
Fortunately, Zhang Fei had been prepared. He was wearing heavy armor today, and there was a tower behind him, so he could find cover and shoot at him, so he was not injured.
Zhang Fei fought hard until he was in a trance. He only felt that this moment was exactly like that moment.
For example, more than ten days ago, Danyang's rebel general Xu Dan defended Baimen Tower, waiting for Lu Bu's army to arrive.
He had personally experienced the bloody battle, but it was his turn to play the attacker.
"Xu Dan, a dog thief, can guard the Baimen Tower for a whole night. Am I not as good as that old dog? I have to guard it for at least one day and two nights! One day and one night longer than Xu Dan, a bastard of a dog! If the bastard of a dog can hold on until Lu Bu comes, I can hold it. Come to me, big brother!”
The humiliation was still fresh in his mind, and his determination to avenge his past shame allowed Zhang Fei to unleash unprecedented potential.
Whenever he felt that he was about to be exhausted and the fuel was running out, he would yell and curse Xu Dan, a bastard, and then squeeze out some of his potential.
Yuan Jun attacked fiercely for an hour, and it was almost midnight. The offensive finally slowed down due to lack of strength, and he was ready to rotate the main attacking troops and make other plans.
Because by this time, the Guangling guard had also confirmed through the scouts' reports that there were no reinforcements from Zhang Fei nearby. It was probably these thousand sneak attackers who were pretending to be reinforcements and went deep alone.
In this case, the defenders must take casualties into account when they counterattack, otherwise if they continue to suffer casualties, they may not be able to capture Zhang Fei who is defending the tower.
It's better to gamble that "our reinforcements will come faster than Zhang Fei's reinforcements."
Late at night, the fighting finally subsided.
…
Zhang Fei fought bloody battles in the middle of the night, and the enemy finally gave up the attack for the time being, which made him feel a little relieved.
Since the city gate was in his own hands, he immediately sorted out the situation here and sent an envoy to quietly go to the canal, drive a small boat, and report to Zhuge Jin on the Hekou River.
On the bank of the Yangtze River at the mouth of the Hangou River, Zhuge Jin's boat was a nine-foot-long river and sea boat. It was similar in shape to the sand boats of the later Tang and Song Dynasties, but slightly more primitive.
In the Han Dynasty, one foot was divided into two and three meters, so it was only twenty-one meters, which was not an exaggeration. This was also the largest clipper that the Mi Zhu family could find.
If Mi Zhu hadn't promised to send him the best, fastest ship and most skilled sailors, and also found some personal guards from Mi Fang, Zhuge Jin would not have been willing to go so close to the front line and personally lead the white-clothed ferry. Jiang's supply fleet.
However, considering that after this incident is over, he may have to send someone to Chaisang to contact his uncle Zhuge Xuan and inquire about the current situation of his second brother Zhuge Liang.
Zhuge Jin felt that it was inconvenient for him to stay in Haixi County, and sooner or later he would have to come to Guangling where transportation was more convenient.
After all, Guangling is an important port city on the Yangtze River. Going upstream along the Yangtze River, it is very convenient to go to Chaisang in Jiangxi, Jiangxia and Xiangyang in Jingzhou.
Moreover, if he does more things now, he will have an excuse to hang out with Mi Zhu's Clippers and do his own thing in the future.
Out of so many comprehensive considerations, Zhuge Jin finally took a little risk himself and came to Guangling in advance to check out the situation and help Zhang Fei control the rhythm and details.
At midnight, Zhuge Jin got an envoy from Zhang Fei who came over in a small boat to report the situation, and he listened carefully and patiently.
Regarding Zhang Fei's concerns about "why the enemy suddenly stopped attacking, whether the soldiers can be allowed to take turns sleeping to restore their physical strength, and whether most of them need to work hard all night," and other issues.
Zhuge Jin thought for a while and quickly gave the answer: "Just divide the troops into half and take turns to watch the night. Since the enemy has stopped at this moment, they can probably stay there until dawn, allowing the soldiers to rest and regain their strength."
The messenger still didn't understand something and asked Zhuge Jin to analyze it more clearly.
Zhuge Jin analyzed it in depth with great confidence: "It's very simple. It must be that the enemy is temporarily unable to recapture the tower, so they just want to wait for reinforcements and wait for the general to take charge of the overall situation.
If nothing else goes wrong, although General Zhendong will rush over with his troops immediately after defeating Liu Xun, the main force of Xuzhou Army is infantry after all, so it is normal for him to arrive after a day or two.
Although Liu Xun's main defeated troops may not be able to outrun General Zhendong's attacking troops, Liu Xun still has Chen Lan commanding the cavalry, so the Lujiang Army's cavalry troops must have arrived on the battlefield before our infantry reinforcements.
The Guangling garrison is now waiting for the real Chen Lan to return, and will personally take charge of the overall situation and besiege the 'fake Chen Lan'. "
After listening, the messenger suddenly realized. He reported a lot of situations and asked for some precautions. Zhuge Jin also answered them one by one. Then the messenger rushed back to the city to report to Zhang Fei.
The two places are several miles apart. This kind of staff is already the limit of Zhuge Jin, and it does not count as remote micro-control and random command. And Zhuge Jin's location is on the edge of the Yangtze River. If there is any accident, he can just let the boat float down the river and escape.
On the other side, Zhang Fei finally breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the reward. Things that were incomprehensible to him were immediately analyzed by Mr. Ziyu as if he had seen them with his own eyes, and he could even think about them more clearly than his enemies.
After calming down, Zhang Fei also tried his best to explain this analysis to the soldiers to encourage them.
Everyone heard that they would probably not be attacked in the second half of the night, and the sleeping soldiers felt more at ease.
The next morning, it was discovered that this was indeed the case. The soldiers' trust in Zhang Fei was once again enhanced, and they also had a deeper understanding of Zhuge Jin's magical plan.
Everyone feels that as long as they follow the master's plan, they will definitely win.
After the invisible morale boosted, everything became much easier to handle.
This kind of fight to the end is sometimes about seeing who has tougher nerves and can persevere better. Zhang Fei could make the soldiers maintain their belief in victory for two whole days, which was better than anything else.
…
As the night passed, it came to the early morning of August 11th.
Chen Lan's cavalry, which was seventy or eighty miles behind Zhang Fei, finally arrived at Guangling County at Yinshi before dawn.
It's a pity that the main force of Liu Xun's cavalry is Lei Bo. After Lei Bo was given away, the number of cavalry brought back by Chen Lan was actually not many, only six to seven hundred. This small number of people is not as large as Zhang Fei's surprise attack force.
When Chen Lan heard that Zhang Fei pretended to be a friendly army and defrauded the northeastern city tower, she naturally asked the defenders to fight back at all costs.
The cavalry he brought with him were tired from the journey and needed to rest and recover first, so he let the original infantry troops in the city go up first. The cavalry was not needed to attack the enemy anyway.
The Guangling guard wasted half the night, waiting for only such a small amount of reinforcements, and couldn't help but be disappointed.
Originally, they thought that after Chen Lan arrived, their own strength would change qualitatively, and a large number of new troops would be able to directly fight tough battles.
In the end, all they had to do was wait for an old man to come back who could stand and talk without pain in his back. The same people were still doing the hard work and dying, and everyone was resentful.
But there is no way, Liu Xun hasn't come back yet, now Chen Lan is the biggest military commander in Guangling City, and his orders must be carried out.
The counterattack in the first half of yesterday night was mainly contributed by the regular troops in the defenders.
So this morning, Chen Lan ordered Zhang Duo, the former Chaohu marshal who had not contributed much last night, to be the main attacker, and warned him not to be timid in fighting, otherwise he would be subject to military law.
Zhang Duo had a sad face and was helpless.
Before going into battle, he had no choice but to go to Liu Ye, the famous scholar who had brought him to surrender to Liu Xun a few months ago. He hoped that Liu Ye would come forward and say good things to Chen Lan so that his troops would not be wasted with Zhang Fei.
