Once the heavy rain stops, it means that Man Chong only needs to hold on for a few days, and the flood will slowly recede.
Although it may take more than ten days for the flood to completely recede, for Man Chong who was guarding the city, they only had to wait for three or four days. When the water level receded to a certain level, Guan Yu had to withdraw.
Otherwise, these naval vessels would have been stranded on the flat ground, completely unable to move.
Compared with Man Chong, he might not be able to hold on for ten days, but for three or four days, Man Chong felt that there was still hope.
Now that the rain has stopped and the sun has cleared, it is good news for Man Chong, but it is definitely not good news for Guan Yu and Zhang Xi.
Zhang Xi even felt a little uneasy in her heart. She always felt that with the development of this matter, she might really go back to her old ways.
Of course, Guan Yu also knew Man Chong's plan, and he also knew that the next three days would be the key to whether he could break through Fancheng.
Therefore, Guan Yu increased the intensity of the siege and took the risk of trying to use boats to transport soldiers to the city wall and use human ladders to climb up the city wall to fight.
This battle lasted all morning, but the effect was not good.
Although Manchong's defenders were flooded with food, their ordnance was basically still there. There was no shortage of bows, arrows and ordnance for the city defenders for the time being.
Guan Yu ordered the fleet to approach the city wall, and Man Chong ordered his soldiers to fight back with bows and arrows.
Although this kind of loss is not small, Fancheng still has some advantages from being superior. In terms of range, it is farther than Guan Yu's attacking fleet.
The most critical thing is that because there is water all around and some flat trees are submerged, Guan Yu cannot use local materials to build siege equipment, whether it is a ladder or a ram, Guan Yu cannot build it.
The only way to attack the city is to let the fleet venture close to the city wall and use human ladders to launch the siege.
However, after all, ships are used as vehicles. Setting up a ladder on a ship can easily cause your center of gravity to become unstable, not to mention that there are enemy troops throwing rocks and shooting bows and arrows above your head.
Therefore, after Guan Yu tried for a whole morning, he found that apart from the loss of soldiers, the siege effect was not great at all, so he had to let the ships retreat and find another way.
At this time, Zhang Xi finally decided to give God a try!
Now that he has decided to change his strategy, even if there is a so-called God and fatalism, Zhang Xi does not intend to accept his fate. He must do his best to help Guan Yu attack the city and break this so-called "fate".
After watching for a whole morning, Zhang Xi finally understood that Man Chong was currently defending the city because Guan Yu's navy had no siege equipment, and both sides were just shooting arrows at the cost of casualties. There was no good solution.
Man Chong was just stalling for time. After waiting for three or four days, the water level outside the city dropped, and he regained the height and protective advantages of the city wall, so he could continue to defend the city.
In this case, Zhang Xi remembered that when they retreated to the ship, the thirteen counterweight catapults in the military camp seemed to have been moved to the ship together.
Of course, ordinary small boats cannot fit them. The boat that can fit these catapults must at least be a large Mengchong ship.
On the one hand, Zhang Xi suggested that Guan Yu continue to maintain pressure on Fancheng from a distance and consume the arrows of Manchong's defenders. On the other hand, Zhang Xi began to modify the ships.
All two large ships and four large Mengchong ships in Guan Yu's navy were mobilized, and the six large ships were connected to each other with iron ropes and wooden boards to create a wide platform.
All the upper coverings on the building ship and Mengchong deck were removed to expand the deck area.
Then, all thirteen catapults were pushed onto this wide platform.
After spending half a day and one night, Zhang Xi finally modified the catapult platform before attacking the city the next day and pushed it to the front of the two armies' formations.
Man Chong looked at it, his eyelids trembling.
Man Chong is very clear about the power of these catapults, after all, he has experienced them himself.
If it were on flat ground, Man Chong could still take the risk of sending troops out of the city to burn this thing, but now he was searching the whole city and could only get out a few sampans. How could he burn such a big thing.
In the Battle of Chibi, King Wei was defeated by an iron chain chain. With such a lesson learned from the past, Guan Yu could not be so stupid as to allow a fire ship to approach such a large platform, right? !
The only thing that still makes Man Chong confident now is probably that the water level is receding.
After all, even with this kind of catapult, it will take at least a few days to collapse the city wall. But as the water level drops, Guan Yu's fleet will not be able to stay for a few days and must be withdrawn, otherwise the ships will be stranded. I can't even leave even if I want to.
Therefore, Man Chong felt that although the catapults were very powerful in attacking the city and would severely damage the morale of the defenders, as long as they held on for another two or three days, Guan Yu's army would still have to retreat after the water level dropped.
But Man Chong didn't expect that this broken catapult could not only throw big rocks, but he could also throw small pebbles, pebbles the size of eggs.
What's more, Man Chong didn't expect that this catapult is counterweighted, and the throwing distance of each throw is roughly controllable. As long as the proportion can be controlled well, the dispersion error of the pebbles thrown by this catapult will not exceed 20 step.
The width of Fancheng's city wall is almost twenty steps.
In other words, Zhang Xi can guarantee that almost all the pebbles thrown by the catapult will be scattered on the city wall.
What's even more terrible is that this catapult platform is built on a ship. In other words, this thing is mobile and easy to move.
Zhang Xi built this catapult platform not to destroy the city wall, but to attack the soldiers on the wall.
The catapult has a longer range than a crossbow. The catapult can project small stones onto the city wall by adjusting the distance to kill the Manchu defenders. However, Manchu's soldiers cannot threaten the catapult at all.
Coupled with the suppression of Guan Yu's soldiers' bows and crossbows, it is not difficult to create an area with fewer defenders in a short period of time.
On the contrary, Man Chong's defenders had no other way to deal with such a long-range attack except to avoid it.
At first, the soldiers of the Manchong Army wanted to hide under the female wall or raise their shields to avoid it, just like they did when dealing with arrows.
But the problem is that arrows can be dodged like this, because arrows cannot cover a large area, and there is always a time interval between shots. A mature archer cannot shoot for a long time.
But the catapult can project uninterruptedly, and it can be projected for several hours without being tired.
The soldiers of the suppressed Manchong Army did not dare to emerge from under the female wall, let alone fight back with arrows.
And raising the shield is of no use. The shield cannot withstand a stone the size of an egg and will be damaged after a few impacts, and the shield cannot hold up for too long.
In the past, when there were no floods, the soldiers could have withdrawn the city wall and retreated to the base of the city wall to avoid the attack of flying rocks. But now there is water under the city walls on both sides. You can't hide in the water, right? !
It would be difficult to hide in the water and come up again.
Therefore, Manchong's defenders could only stand on the city wall and endure the flying stone attacks from catapults.
After a long time, the defenders were not stupid. They knew how to judge the range of the flying stone attack by looking at the moving direction of the platform. Anyway, the city wall is so wide and big. You only have thirteen catapults. At worst, I will stay away. This is so stupid. Stones can't hit me.
The defenders found a trick and began to avoid the catapult's projection range, but Man Chong was going crazy.
Of course, Man Chong also knew that there was nothing he could do with the catapult now, but Man Chong also believed that the catapult's throw would also not last long.
The city was flooded, and it was hard to find the trees around it. Are the stones that the catapults are going to throw so easy to find? !
Now that the catapults can throw, they are just some military stocks that were prepared before. As long as they survive today, Man Chong does not believe that the opponent can maintain such a high density of projections tomorrow.
But now Man Chong saw that his soldiers, in order to avoid being thrown by stones, actually started to actively avoid the projection range of the catapult. How could it be possible? !
Yes, you can avoid the catapult's projection range, but does anyone dare to defend within that range? !
In this way, wouldn't it be equivalent to giving up the defense of a section of the city wall?
At this time, as long as Guan Yu is not stupid. Well, Man Chong has already discovered that Guan Yu is not stupid at all. He has already commanded the fleet and started to attack the city walls within the throwing range of the catapult.
After Guan Yu's fleet approached the city wall, the catapults stopped shooting. The next step was to seize the time to see whether Cao's army commanded by Man Chong returned to the defensive position first, or whether it was the soldiers on Guan Yu's fleet who set up human ladders and climbed up first. city wall.
This is the time to compete for the quality and combat effectiveness of the sergeants.
Both Man Chong and Guan Yu knew, and Man Chong knew even more that his chances of winning were getting smaller and smaller.
First of all, the combat power of Guan Yu's army is no weaker than that of the defenders in Manchong City. Manchong is very clear about this.
The two sides had fought in the field once before, and Man Chong knew the opponent's strength.
Secondly, Man Chong now has no reserve troops. In order to avoid the flood, all the soldiers are on the city wall. The soldiers also know that they have no backup. Once Guan Yu's army gains a foothold on the city wall, they will have to It is impossible to drive people away.
Finally, and most importantly, the Manchu Army was besieged by a flood and was besieged by the enemy. With no reinforcements from outside and lack of food and grass inside, their morale was extremely low.
Guan Yu can fail to attack the city once or twice, but as long as he can scale the city wall once, expand the landing area, and hold on until the reinforcements reach the city wall, Manchong may face a complete collapse.
Guan Yu could afford to lose, but Man Chong really couldn't afford to lose.
Therefore, after Man Chong commanded his soldiers to block Guan Yu's two attacks, he finally failed to block the third attack.
This is really not the fault of Man Chong. It is not easy for Man Chong to be able to command the current defenders to fight like this.
You know, it is quite difficult for the current Fancheng garrison to go up to the city wall to kill the enemy without being completely defeated.
The previous defense was only possible thanks to Man Chong's various promises and verbal incentives, coupled with Cao Wei's strict military law threats, to barely stabilize the morale of the army.
But now, the enemy has attacked the city wall and has established a firm foothold on the city wall. The enemy's reinforcements are continuously climbing the city wall. In a situation where there is no hope in front and no way out, do you still expect these defenders to give you some help? Do you fight to the death? !
Therefore, when Guan Yu's army officially gained a foothold on a section of the city wall, Cao Jun's fighting will fell like dominoes. In less than a quarter of an hour, the city wall was full of surrendered soldiers kneeling everywhere.
And Man Chong knew that things were irreversible as early as Guan Yu's army climbed onto the city wall.
While there were still some soldiers on the city wall resisting, Man Chong boarded the walking boat that had been prepared in advance, took advantage of the chaos, abandoned the city from the north gate of Fancheng, and headed north.
Just like Zhang Xi said, Man Chong knew that he could never be captured by Liu Bei's army.
If someone else is captured by Liu Bei, there may be a way to survive, but if he is favored by Liu Bei, they will definitely die.
The general escaped and his soldiers had no desire to fight. Soon, Guan Yu's army took control of Fancheng's defenses.
At this point, Fancheng was captured.
(End of chapter)
