,!
After the military meeting, Chen Chong ordered the ministries to build mountains around Mianzhu. At the same time, he ordered the ministries to fly into the city and shoot arrows. However, these arrows did not hurt anyone. They just tied letters to the arrow shafts. Within about half a day, the Han army quickly Thousands of letters were quickly shot into the city, and they all fell into the hands of the Shu people in the city. As for the effect, we can only wait and see.
The strategy of attacking the heart did work quickly. It was night, and the soldiers on the periphery heard a lot of noise in the city. When they climbed up and looked into the city from a distance, there seemed to be flames that were flickering. It seemed that it had indeed caused a commotion in the city. But the scale was not large. Before the Han troops outside the city had time to respond, the riot in the city had subsided and failed to cause a larger riot. This surprised the Han army.
At Yin time the next day, the Mianzhu defenders suddenly opened Wangchun Gate to attack the camp, and then started a fierce battle with the Han army in the north. The sound of killing was loud on the battlefield, and the Han troops guarding in other directions also woke up from their sleep, looking at the firelight of the northwest sky trail, just watching from the sidelines. Many Shu people who had defected to the Han army came out of the camp in surprise and looked at it. During the day and night, the Mianzhu city wall was hidden in the mist. After listening for a while, the sound of fighting did not subside, but intensified. This can't help but scream. They were quite surprised: at this point, the defenders in the city still had the fighting spirit to fight and were quite capable. It was really incredible.
After a while, the entire army received a notice saying that the Shu people in the city sent out elite soldiers to fight, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. In the Han army, Lieutenant Kong Xin, the assistant military commander, was beheaded by the enemy general. However, with the gradual reinforcement of the Han army battalions, the Shu people were unable to open a gap and all retreated through Wangchun Gate.
It turned out that the soldiers sent by the Shu people were the rebel general Wu Yi, the Anding Zhonglang general Liu Xun, the Shu commander Zhao Wei and other troops. Everyone wore iron armor and covered their faces with iron masks to fight. Most of the soldiers were veterans of hundreds of battles, and Liu Xun was commanding desperadoes released from prison, who were far more difficult to deal with than ordinary Shu people. Therefore, the Han army was caught off guard and allowed them to break through half a mile in one moment.
Kong Xin, the auxiliary captain of the Han army, saw that the Shu people were unstoppable, so he rushed across the enemy formation from the flank, intending to cause chaos to the Shu people. Kong Xin relied on his bravery, and along the way, he encouraged the trend of despising the Shu people. So when he entered the battle, he only took a dozen cavalry with him. He also decorated his iron pocket with white feathers, which made him quite popular among the army. Eye-catching. Due to the chaos of the battle and the extremely poor visibility, some archers did not distinguish between friend and foe, so they shot randomly at the place where they were wearing white feathers. They actually killed and wounded Kong Xin's cavalry, and the rest dispersed. Kong Xin was also hit by more than ten arrows, but because of his thick armor, he was not seriously injured.
At this moment, Liu Xun, who was traveling with the rebellious general Wu Yi, saw that he was riding alone in the battle without any knights to protect him. He hurriedly raised his spear and rode back to challenge. When the good horses were facing each other, the two of them were facing each other because they were preparing to attack. Due to the lack of strength, the first attempt was all empty. But Liu Xun had quick eyesight and quick hands. Before Kong Xin could draw his sword, he dropped his horse spear and reached out to grab the opponent's spear pole. At the same time, he quickly drew his knife and cut it along the pole towards the opponent's palm. Kong Xin lost three of his fingers. Kong Xin let out a cry of pain, and then Liu Xun grabbed his neck and inserted the tip of the knife along the soft flesh of his tongue. Blood suddenly gushes out of his mouth. Liu Xun successfully cut off Kong Xin's head and took away his mount.
Although the Han army suffered many casualties in this battle, they repelled the Shuren's surprise attack. The Shu people retreated hastily, leaving many wounded behind and became prisoners. The Han army learned a lot about the situation in the city through interrogation. From the prisoners’ mouths, they learned that the one who beheaded Kong Xin was Liu Xun, Liu Zhang’s son; there were also powerful generals such as Gao Xiang, Fan You, Zhan Yan, Chen Feng, and Chen Shi in the city; and Liu Zhang had already sent word to Nan Dong He's army in the army will arrive in about half a month to provide support in Nan'an.
As for the Shu people who caused trouble in the city, there were actually not many, probably only a few hundred people. Although Liu Zhang was a weak man, he still won the support of the local people in Mianzhu. Many people remembered the old kindness of Liu Zhang and Liu Fan, so they did not follow him. Then he continued to interrogate the prisoners and asked Liu Zhang about his methods of mobilizing troops. It turned out that after the siege of the city, Liu Zhang opened his treasury and rewarded everyone in the city with goods. He also promised that when Liu Fan returned to help, he would reward them with land. He said this: "Last year Zhang Liao went to What a catastrophe caused by welcoming the emperor, and my brother even promoted him to captain. If Mianzhu is saved, there will be no reward for the general and below!" Although the words are simple, there is real gold and silver in front of them, and the already decadent military spirit of the Shu army Immediately, they were greatly mobilized, and only then did they launch a counterattack before dawn that day.
When Chen Chong heard that Liu Zhang's son was trapped in the battle, he couldn't help but sigh: "Time waits for no one. Liu Jiyu's son has reached the age of being trapped in the battle."
Since it was not possible to persuade him to surrender, all the generals came to invite him to attack the city, and Chen Chong agreed. Kong Xin died in battle because he recklessly entered the battle, which was also related to the fact that his subordinates were reluctant to patrol and were unable to provide rescue services. Chen Chong ordered Kong Xin's men, all wearing white rags, to be the vanguard of the main attack on the west of the city. He also ordered Ma Chao to lead his troops to camp in front of the bamboo forest in the north of the city. This was because the Shu people often went out to Wangchun Gate and might repeat their old tricks. Therefore, the most elite Fufeng cavalry were stationed in the north of the city, ready to attack the Shu army at any time.
After the Shu army rose up from the mountains and began to attack Mianzhu City, the Shu army knew what the offensive was like. The arrows above their heads were like clouds, the carts and stone carts were rushing under the door, coupled with the waves of drums and shouts of death, it really made many Shu people breathless. Resist. The city wall of Mianzhu is tall and complete. Wu Yi, the leading general who defended the city, led dozens of his followers to climb up to the city tower and command the defense even though he was in trouble.
As a veteran of hundreds of battles, Wu Yi had a high prestige in the army. The people of Shu were so excited when they saw that their commander was fearless and braved the enemy personally, that they risked life and death and fought to the death with the Han army. After a whole day and night, the Han army still could not break through. The attackers suffered heavy casualties. The fighting was especially fierce in the west of the city, where the corpses of Han soldiers in white and linen were piled up and down the hill. That was Kong Xin's command, and he was ordered to capture the city first. Most of them died in the fierce fighting that day and night.
After the Han army suspended the attack on the city, Wu Yi ordered the injured from the Shu army to be carried down for treatment, and the wealth and silk from the county treasury were carried up to the city tower to reward the soldiers. The money in the mansion was exhausted, so he sent people to Liu Zhang's mansion to request Liu Zhang to allocate the palace's property to reward the three armies. In fact, most of the palace's belongings were taken to Jiangling by Liu Fan, and no one else knew about it. Liu Zhang could have replied that he had no money, but after thinking about it, he donated all his private wealth and said to Wu Yi: "There is not much gold and silver in the palace, but there are thousands of pieces of brocade, which can also be used as military supplies." .”
It was past midnight, and they had just experienced a long and fierce battle. There was deathly silence above and below the city. Whether it was the Shu people or the Han army, most of them fell asleep tiredly with the smell of blood and sweat. Regardless of his fatigue, Wu Yi rushed to the north of the city to look at Chunmen, and carefully observed the situation outside the city through the crenellations. He sent people to call Chen Shi, Liu Xun, Gao Xiang, Fan You, Zhan Yan and others to rush to the north of the city to discuss.
Chen Shi and Gao Xiang arrived soon. Everyone waited for a while, but Chen Shi and Liu Xun still didn't arrive. After waiting for a long time, he saw his servant returning alone. He said: "The two generals said that they were tired from guarding the city. It would not be too late to discuss it until dawn tomorrow. If there is any dispatch, just call someone at any time."
Wu Yi had no choice but to say to Chen Shi and others: "To be honest, although there is a lot of grain and fodder in the city, I only have a few boxes of gold and silver to reward you." Chen Shi and others had expected this, and looked at Wu under the torch. Yi's bloodshot eyes. I didn't know how to answer for a moment. Wu Yi patted Chen Shi hard on the shoulder, pointed to the dark and desolate Han military camp outside the crenels, and said: "If you want to defend the city, you must win another battle to motivate the soldiers. Don't be too discouraged. If you persist for another month, I guess your highness will The army is coming!"
Chen Shi agreed enthusiastically and said: "The generals have sacrificed their lives, so naturally we are not far behind. Gold and silver are just extraneous possessions. Apart from anything else, hundreds of thousands of people in this city have entrusted their lives to us, and we will not give up even if we die." !”
Gao Xiang also agreed repeatedly. So he sent an order to summon more than 3,000 of his elite soldiers, planning to go out and kill them again at the ugly time. It's just that Wu Yi was still thinking about Chen Chong's previous methods of instigating rebellion. Although only a few people made trouble the night before, there were still many others who were preparing to make plans. So while waiting, he asked everyone again if there was anything unusual. The group of people pondered for a while, and Fan You suddenly said, "I heard that Duke Xu Wenxiu and Chen Chong had a family relationship. I wonder if there is such a thing?"
Xu Wenxiu is Xu Jing of Runan. During the reign of Emperor Xiaoling, he presided over the Yuedan Review and commented on the world's figures. He was well-known among scholars in Kyushu. However, since Dong Zhuo usurped power, he had been wandering around and traveled to Henan, Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, and Jiaozhou. He did not move to Yizhou until the eighth year of Yanxing. For this reason, Lin, a sergeant in Shu, called him "a suave and magnificent man who has the tools of the world and should be a guide for scholars." However, Liu Fan, the king of Shu, never put him in high regard. He only had a sinecure and stayed in Mianzhu to occasionally ask questions.
When Wu Yi heard Fan You mention this, he immediately remembered that Xu Jing had closed the door to himself for the past few days and had no contact with the county government. This made him tremble all over. He immediately picked two hundred people and rushed to Xu Jing's house, catching Xu Jing's entire family: it turned out that he was digging a tunnel privately in the house, trying to escape to Chen Chong.
However, Xu Jing's reputation was well-known all over the world and his identity was extremely sensitive. Wu Yi did not dare to make his own claims, so he had to suppress Xu Jing and his wife and children to meet Liu Zhang. Liu Zhang was greatly embarrassed when he saw this, and he personally untied Xu Jing. Jing put the rope around his body and sighed: "What does my brother owe to Duke Wenxiu that he wants to go away like this?" Xu Jing was embarrassed, lowered his head and said: "Since I have been captured by the envoy, I can do whatever I want." But Liu Zhang thought that this battle was uncertain, and killing Xu Jing would not be enough to calm people's hearts. On the contrary, it would easily lead to changes, so he did not order the execution, but just imprisoned his family in the dungeon of the palace.
