Jiangdong's army attacked the city in one day, but did not gain much.
Attacking a city is a very troublesome thing. No army in this era can continuously attack a city every day. After a day of attacking without results, you must take a break.
One is to treat the wounded and restore morale.
The other is that the siege equipment needs to be renovated.
The siege equipment in Zhou Yu's camp suffered heavy losses in the first day of the siege. Seven or eight ladders were broken, and two rams were burned. The remaining siege equipment would be difficult to support the next battle and had to be cut down again. manufacture.
Of course, there is also the threat of Wei Yan's camp, and Zhou Yu also plans to find a way to remove it before attacking E City next time.
For this reason, Zhou Yu found Lu Meng and asked him to explain in detail the reasons for the failure of containment.
Lu Meng did not hide anything and told Zhou Yu everything, without making any excuses for his command errors.
Lu Meng is still very general-like in this regard, very responsible, and does whatever he wants.
Lu Meng also gave sufficient recognition to Wei Yan's leadership ability and ability to grasp fighter opportunities.
After listening to Lu Meng's story, Zhou Yu still restored the real reason for Lu Meng's failure in his mind.
It was obvious that Lu Meng got into the opponent's rhythm from the very beginning.
First, the opposing general actually dared to divide his troops when he was weak and set up an ambush on the periphery in advance. However, Lu Meng may have felt that the enemy had few people and could not make other moves under the pressure of his own army, so he did not notice it.
Second, when the opponent sent out an ambush, Lu Meng made a mistake in judgment and subconsciously believed that the ambush was the opponent's main attack direction. Therefore, he ordered the entire army to turn back to meet the enemy, but he did not expect that the enemy troops in the camp were the main force of the attack.
Third, when Lü Meng faced an enemy attack on his general, he did not immediately command the troops to meet the enemy in batches, or the opponent marched too fast, causing Lü Meng to lose ground. This was the reason for the complete failure of this containment.
After summarizing, Zhou Yu discovered that although there was a command problem with Lu Meng, the military command ability and battlefield sense displayed by the defender in the camp were also comparable.
Zhou Yu started to love talents.
With Liu Biao's level in Jingzhou, even if he had such a wise and courageous general, he probably wouldn't be reused much. Just look at Gan Ning and you will know.
Of course, all this will have to wait until Zhou Yu defeats the defender and breaks the city of Hubei.
Love is all about talent, but first, you have to defeat him.
Zhou Yu immediately began to make arrangements and decided to pull out this small camp in the southeast corner of E City.
Zhou Yu didn't mean to underestimate the enemy, but in a camp with less than a thousand people, it had just experienced a fight during the day. Even if he won, it would be impossible without losses.
And Zhou Yu had more than 20,000 troops in his hands.
A small camp is not protected by a city wall like E County, and it is brightly lit, so it cannot stop the attack of his army.
But Zhou Yu obviously would not only consider taking over a foreign camp, but also must consider the reaction of the defenders in Hubei City.
Judging from the siege during the day, the defenders of Echeng defended the city in a very organized manner, but for a small county like Echeng, the number of soldiers in the city would not exceed 2,000 at most. Even if they went out to rescue the city, in a field battle, Zhou Yu Not afraid either.
Zhou Yu's biggest advantage now is that he has a large number of troops, even if most of them are naval troops, but Jiangdong has always found it difficult to distinguish between naval troops and ground forces, as they have always been common to both.
So Zhou Yu made two preparations.
One is to besiege Wei Yan's city. This one is led by himself. Zhou Yu also wants to personally weigh Wei Yan's weight.
The other one arranged for Ling Tong to command an army of five thousand to guard the south gate of E city, and for Chen Wu to command an army of five thousand to guard the west gate of E city to prevent the defenders in E city from leaving the city to meet them.
There will not be too many garrison troops in Hubei city. The number of soldiers and horses coming out of the city to support them will not exceed a thousand, maybe only a few hundred people, and each of the two gates has 5,000 people. After ordering the two generals to deal with it carefully, Zhou Yu does not believe that anything else can happen. .
After making these preparations, Zhou Yu returned to his military tent and began to prepare for a rest.
But not long after Zhou Yu lay down and was a little drowsy in his sleep, he suddenly heard the sound of gongs and drums, mixed with the sounds of killing.
Zhou Yu immediately stood up, put on his cape, sat calmly in the central military tent, and began to issue orders, asking the generals of each battalion to appease the soldiers and arrange manpower to prepare for defense.
When encountering an attack on the camp at night, the most taboo thing is panic. Zhou Yu must first calm down, and then use his actions to make the soldiers feel that everything is under the control of the commander, so that he can stabilize.
Zhou Yu had his own plan for attacking the camp at night, so he was not in a hurry.
It's just that Zhou Yu is a little confused. Do the people who defend Echeng really dare to take the risk of attacking the camp in the middle of the night? !
Putting aside the fact that soldiers these days are basically unable to see at night, to take a step back, even if the defenders of Hubei City can see at night, are they not afraid that a failed attack will cause heavy losses and affect the future defense of the city? !
Or is it that Jiangxia's reinforcements have actually arrived? !
If reinforcements arrive, then this battle will be a little difficult to fight.
What Zhou Yu hopes most is to fight a quick victory, which will maximize Jiangdong's interests.
Jiangdong also has Jiangdong's shortcomings. If the victory cannot be won quickly and it drags on for a month or two, problems may arise in the rear.
The military system in Jiangdong is different from other places.
In the early Han Dynasty, a conscription system was adopted, and those who were recruited into the army were all from good families, those with a clean family background and property.
However, there is a common problem in the late Han Dynasty, that is, land annexation was serious, and the conscription system was greatly damaged. Therefore, most of the princes in the world now adopt the conscription system. Those who pay money and food recruit refugees as soldiers, and deliver them to their generals during war. Just giving directions.
Only Jiangdong is special.
After Sun Ce took back his father Sun Jian's tribe from Yuan Shu, due to lack of troops and in order to quickly pacify Jiangdong, Sun Ce adopted a rather strange method, which was the hereditary military system.
Let me illustrate with an example.
For example, if Zhou Yu comes to seek refuge with Sun Ce, Sun Ce will give him the title of general and let him command an army of 2,000 men.
But these two thousand people were not directly allocated by Sun Ce to Zhou Yu, but needed to be recruited by Zhou Yu himself. Moreover, these two thousand people were Zhou Yu's private soldiers, and Zhou Yu had to pay to support them. But the advantage is that these two thousand people were recruited by Zhou Yu himself. It can be passed on to one's sons after death.
This is the hereditary military system.
In this way, Sun Ce could quickly pull together a team and quickly pacify Jiangdong, but it also laid hidden dangers for Jiangdong, and even Sun Ce himself was assassinated because of this.
In Jiangdong, the aristocratic families nominally recognize the Sun family's power, but in fact they still retain their own army and land. In this case, Sun Ce is still going to attack and kill the Jiangdong aristocratic family. Isn't this asking for death?
And Sun Quan came to power at a young age. In order to quickly stabilize Jiangdong and to deal with the consequences after Sun Ce killed too many aristocratic families, he had to make further compromises with the Jiangdong aristocratic families to a certain extent.
Therefore, Jiangdong's foreign wars were not decided by Sun Quan alone. If he wanted to send troops to attack a certain place, Sun Quan needed to convince Jiangdong's family interest groups and gain their support before he could act.
If sending troops to Jiangxia this time can lead to a quick victory and bring benefits to the Jiangdong family, then the Jiangdong family would not mind sending troops during spring plowing.
But if they cannot win quickly and fall into a protracted siege battle, then the Jiangdong family will definitely retreat without seeing any benefits.
Therefore, Zhou Yu knew that once Jiangxia's reinforcements arrived in Echeng, although Zhou Yu was still confident that he could win, he could not delay it for too long, otherwise it would be detrimental to Jiangdong.
Zhou Yu suppressed his inner worries and sat firmly in the central army tent, waiting for the reports from his own lieutenants. He hoped to judge from this attack on Echeng whether Jiangxia's reinforcements had arrived, and if so, how many there were.
But soon, Zhou Yu was rewarded.
There was no attack on the camp, but a hundred or so Jiangxia soldiers brought gongs and drums to the vicinity of the Jiangdong camp and played for a while. Before the Jiangdong Army men could leave the camp to see what was going on, they had already disappeared without a trace.
Zhou Yu was stunned for a moment, then laughed out of anger.
Is this all a kid's trick like playing house? !
How dare you rely on a hundred or ten men to carry out the strategy of exhausting your troops? !
If the strength of both sides was equal, Zhou Yu would have to worry about whether this was a tactic by his opponent to exhaust his troops. He would not be able to sleep well at night, and he would be afraid of being ambushed and dare not pursue him. This was really uncomfortable.
But now that you are simply short of manpower, why don't you think it's troublesome to resort to such disgusting tactics? !
Yes, Zhou Yu is now certain that the reinforcements from Jiangxia have not arrived yet, only the defenders from Echeng on the opposite side came out and beat the gongs in the middle of the night in a disgusting way.
Otherwise, the enemy troops who were beating gongs and drums would not have withdrawn so quickly. At least they would have to wait until their own troops were dispatched to check the actual situation before withdrawing.
Running away so quickly not only showed that the opponent did not have any ambush, but also showed that the Echeng defender was not confident enough to dare to lose even these hundred or ten soldiers.
If this is the case, Zhou Yu is not worried at all.
After some rearrangement, some Jiangdong soldiers were put on night duty and regularly arranged to go out on patrol. The disgusting gang from the province would come again with gongs and drums, and then continue to arrange for the rest of the camps to rest.
There was naturally no words for the rest of the night, and it seemed to confirm Zhou Yu's suspicion that the Echeng defenders did not harass them again.
This strategy of harassing people in the middle of the night was naturally the idea of Zhang Xi. The purpose was Zhang Xi really didn't want to disgust people, he really wanted to attack at night.
Zhang Xi originally thought that Jiangdong's army had just arrived and their footing was not yet stable, so they might be able to make a sneak attack, so he arranged a night attack.
But we can't rob the camp directly. After all, there are many people in Jiangdong, and Zhou Yu is a famous general with extraordinary resourcefulness. If we don't rob the camp directly, we will suffer losses.
Therefore, Zhang Xi originally wanted to lure the enemy to send troops by beating gongs in the middle of the night, and then let Kou Feng ambush him halfway. He thought that in case Zhou Yu sent someone to find out the truth, it would be better to do it without saying anything.
After all, it was the middle of the night. Zhang Xi didn’t believe that Zhou Yu would let all the troops go out. It must be that only a small force went out to investigate. So Kou Feng led about 500 people, and he could still run away if he couldn’t defeat him. Zhang Xi didn’t believe that Zhou Yu would let all the troops go out to investigate. Zhou Yu dared to send people to pursue him in the middle of the night.
You won't suffer a big loss.
Of course, it doesn't matter if Zhou Yu doesn't come, just treat Zhou Yu as disgusting.
But Zhang Xi also didn't expect that the sergeants who sneaked close to Jiangdong's camp and were in charge of beating gongs and drums would be so timid. Jiangdong's army was just on alert and hadn't even left the camp, so these people retreated in a hurry.
They all withdrew, and this plan was exposed. So why was Kou Feng still hiding an ambush?
As soon as Kou Feng saw his teammates in front retreating, the Jiangdong Army barracks showed no reaction at all. He knew that he couldn't wait to pursue the team, so he naturally led his team back.
Fortunately, there weren't many mosquitoes in early spring, but Kou Feng was still very angry.
This is too cowardly. With such courage, how can he go into battle to kill the enemy? !
But Zhang Xi was not surprised. Facing Zhou Yu, if he didn't suffer a loss, it would be considered a gain.
Besides, these soldiers were still in the navy half a month ago. Chen was able to stay and give Zhang Xi the command of the soldiers. How else do you expect them to be elite? !
Zhang Xi was already very pleased to have the ability to defend the city as he did the day before yesterday.
After comforting Kou Feng and letting him go back to the house to sleep, Zhang Xi was worried.
Several days have passed. Will the reinforcements from Xiling County come? !
Chen Shuzhi, Chen Shuzhi. If there are any reinforcements, please send someone to deliver a message.
If I continue to waste like this, I might really end up in this E city.
(End of chapter)
