Jiangling is a big city, and the width and thickness of the city wall are not comparable to that of a small town in E County.
Therefore, Jiangdong Army spent more than twenty days just building siege equipment, and prepared forty or fifty large and small siege equipment.
To be honest, Zhang Xi was amazed when he saw it.
If Zhou Yu had used these siege equipment to attack Hubei City, Zhang Xi would never have been able to defend the city for more than ten days. Uh, wait, there seems to be something wrong? !
These siege equipment seemed to have taken more than twenty days to build.
Well, there's nothing wrong with it. My record is not watered down. That's great.
Watching these Jiangdong troops build ordnance and then prepare to attack the city, Zhang Xi always felt a strange sense of familiarity.
The climax of this sense of familiarity was when the Jiangdong Army launched a large-scale siege. The level of this siege was as bad as ever.
In Zhang Xi's view, siege is basically to maintain sufficient pressure continuously. Once there is a sign of breakthrough, immediately increase the intensity, storm the breakthrough point, strive to occupy the city wall, and then expand the gap and invade the city.
But this method is only used when the military strength is absolutely superior. Just like when Zhou Yu attacked E County, the military strength ratio reached ten to one. Naturally, there is no need to think of other ways to attack the city, just press it.
But now, Jiangdong Army's military strength is not dominant.
Therefore, Zhou Yu adopted the second method of attacking the city.
First let Jiangdong's army conduct a tentative attack to find the weak points in the defenders' defense. After testing for a long time, they did not find any weak points in Cao Ren's defense.
Next, Zhou Yu asked Jiangdong's soldiers to be cautious when attacking the city. They would only fight for an hour every day, and they would not invest more than ten siege equipment in one attack. If they were damaged, they would withdraw their troops.
The frequency of attacks was also maintained at the level of attacking once and resting for two or three days. This siege intensity was maintained for nearly a month.
It was this method of siege that made Zhang Xi mistakenly think that Jiangdong Army's siege was as bad as ever, and made Zhang Fei frown.
If Zhou Yu's siege skills were like this, then the Battle of Chibi really gave Zhou Yu an advantage and made him famous in vain.
But Zhou Yu used practical actions to tell Zhang Xi and Zhang Fei that he really did not deserve his fame.
Just one month after the low-intensity siege continued, Zhou Yu suddenly ordered the Jiangdong Army to attack across the board. All forty siege vehicles were deployed, and the three walls were attacked with all their strength.
This sudden change of pace stunned Cao Jun, who was accustomed to the siege rhythm of Jiangdong Army. All three city walls were in danger. Cao Ren, who was anxious, personally led his troops to the tower to supervise the battle, and then barely blocked the attack of Jiangdong Army.
But even so, Jiangdong Army still had no intention of withdrawing its troops after attacking for an hour, and maintained the intensity of its attack from morning to afternoon.
Cao Ren saw that this was not the solution. If he allowed Jiangdong's army to attack like this, he might suffer heavy losses.
Cao Ren, who could not care about so many people, personally led his cavalry out of the city again, intending to kill the attacking infantry of Jiangdong Army and burn the siege equipment.
Zhou Yu would naturally consider Cao Ren's cavalry leaving the city, but Zhou Yu really had no good way to do this.
Zhang Fei had less than a thousand soldiers, which was not enough for dismantling and use, so Zhou Yu led the Chinese army to attack the south gate. Zhang Fei was responsible for the cavalry defense of the south gate, and cooperated with the crossbowmen to shoot down the cavalry who came out of the city to attack. .
The Jiangdong Army officers from the other two gates should attack Cao Ren's cavalry. Zhou Yu's order was to use bows and arrows to harass them. If it didn't work, they could temporarily retreat. The purpose was not necessarily to attack the city. Being able to kill Cao Ren's cavalry was also a great achievement.
Anyway, now Cao Ren only has seven or eight hundred cavalry, and he will feel distressed for a long time if one of them dies. When the day comes when Cao Ren has no more cavalry available, he will have only one option: huddle up and defend the city.
Cao Ren has no choice now. If he doesn't lead the cavalry out of the city, Jiangdong Army's attack rhythm picks up, causing warnings everywhere on the three walls. If he leads the cavalry out of the city, there will always be some losses every time.
The east and west city gates were a little better. At most, some unlucky people were injured by the loss, and the casualties were only single digits.
But once he ventured to attack at the south gate, he would have to face the arrows of Zhou Yu's strong crossbowmen. He could not break through, and he would damage nearly a hundred cavalry in one go.
If this happens a few more times, Cao Ren feels that his cavalry will be finished sooner or later.
Moreover, Cao Ren also needs to leave some escape route for himself. The cavalry is a powerful weapon to open the way, and cannot be lost all under Jiangling City. If one day it cannot be defended in the future, the cavalry will still be needed to take the lead when withdrawing.
For this reason, after several losses, Cao Ren did not dare to let the cavalry out of the city anymore, so he huddled in Jiangling City and waited for reinforcements.
But there was one thing that Cao Ren gradually realized was wrong.
The grain, fodder and ordnance that were supposed to be in place three days ago have not arrived yet.
Military laws are strict, and the consequences of missing the deadline are very serious. If there is no valid reason, then Cao Ren will definitely be beheaded. He does not believe that Xiangyang will deliberately delay the support of grain, grass and ordnance.
Sure enough, Cao Ren didn't have to wait too long. The support grain and ordnance from Xiangyang arrived, but unfortunately, the quantity of documents and the actual items were seriously inconsistent.
At first, Cao Ren thought it was some unlucky guy who wanted to have a taste of military law, but after asking the escort, he found out that it was not that the goods were wrong, but that they had simply been robbed.
People who dare to rob military supplies these days are definitely not ordinary people, not to mention the characteristics of the person who robbed him are very obvious - his beard has grown all the way to his chest.
Cao Ren knew instantly that his escape route had been cut off, and the person who cut it off was Guan Yu.
The generals of the Cao clan generally have a bad impression of Guan Yu. Who made Cao Cao like Guan Yu so much? The generals of the Cao clan felt a little unhappy.
Cao Ren didn't like Guan Yu either, but that didn't stop him from recognizing Guan Yu's ability to lead troops. He immediately began to ask the escort officer how many troops Guan Yu had, where they were robbed, and why he didn't rob them all, but there was still a little left. Own? !
The escort officer answered quickly.
Originally, if the escort was unfavorable, he would be held accountable. Now that he had the opportunity to take the blame, the escort officer would of course try his best to brag about Guan Yu to death.
The escort officer said that the number of troops increased from several thousand to tens of thousands. They were obviously robbed in the northern part of Nanjun. The escort officer was stunned and said that they were besieged by Guan Yu not long after they left Xiangyang.
The bullshit was so exaggerated that I couldn’t answer the last question - why is there still a little bit left?
The more Cao Ren heard, the more he felt something was wrong. If Guan Yu could lead tens of thousands of troops near Xiangyang, then what kind of weapons and food would he be grabbing? Why not attack Xiangyang directly? !
There are only more than 30,000 people stationed in Xiangyang, and they have to suppress some local wealthy families with second thoughts. The troops are not enough to begin with.
At the end, the escort officer said that the reason why Guan Yu did not seize all the food and ordnance was because Man Chong led troops to support and repelled Guan Yu's attack. This is nonsense.
Manchong is stationed in Linju, which is in the northern part of Nanjun, almost close to Jiangling. How can it be considered to be near Xiangyang? !
Also, with Man Chong's ability and the fact that Linju's defenders only numbered a few thousand, how could they repel Guan Yu who commanded tens of thousands of soldiers? !
Cao Ren immediately realized that the escort officer was lying, and after repeated questioning, he finally learned the truth.
Guan Yu did reach the northern part of Nanjun, but he only brought three to four thousand men with him, so after he burned some of the grain and ammunition sent from Xiangyang to Jiangling, and saw Man Chong coming to rescue him, he took the initiative to retreat.
This is a very troublesome thing.
Being harassed like this on one's supply line, although it can be replenished, no one can bear it after a long time.
So Cao Ren quickly compiled a letter and asked Xingye to take it to Xiangyang and give it to Yue Jin who was stationed in Xiangyang.
On the one hand, he was asked to send additional manpower to protect the materials sent to Jiangling; on the other hand, he was asked to organize soldiers to encircle and suppress Guan Yu.
As for whether Guan Yu can be wiped out, this is not within the scope of Cao Ren's consideration.
Cao Ren's duty is to guard Jiangling. If he is harassed by others, Lejin will naturally be responsible.
As for the difficulties Le Jin faced, Cao Ren would not consider them. Such matters were the responsibility of Le Jin as a military officer, and Cao Ren did not need to be responsible for Le Jin.
After Le Jin received Cao Ren's letter, he also had a headache.
Cao Cao's defeat in Chibi made people in Xiangyang confused. The troops he had on hand were not enough to suppress the local wealthy families. How could he still divide his troops to encircle and suppress Guan Yu?
Besides, doesn’t he know Guan Yu’s abilities? !
When Xu Huang and Man Chong led 10,000 troops to Hanjinkou, they were defeated by Guan Yu, who led 5,000 naval troops. How to fight this battle? !
If you want to encircle and suppress Guan Yu, you must lead more than 10,000 people, and they must be led by famous generals. You cannot let him give up his duty as the governor of Xiangyang and lead the troops himself.
But Le Jin couldn't ignore Cao Ren's request.
Let’s not talk about the importance of Jiangling. Cao Ren’s surname is Cao.
Therefore, Le Jin wrote a book to report the situation to Cao Cao in Xudu, and suggested that Cao Cao transfer troops from Runan to Xiangyang to help Jiangling maintain food routes.
On the other hand, he ordered Linju Guard General Man Chong and Fancheng Guard General Xu Huang to send troops from the south and north to attack Guan Yu in an effort to drive Guan Yu out of the hinterland of Jingzhou.
(End of chapter)
