Zhoutai is also in trouble.
Leading the troops from Xiangyang to rescue Jiangling, they marched in a hurry and arrived at Jiangling City three days faster than expected. They indeed made a great contribution.
After Wang Ji welcomed Zhou Tai into the city, he almost immediately credited Zhou Tai with credit.
After all, after more than ten days of defending the city, the number of troops Wang Ji had dropped from 12,000 to less than 10,000.
Although the defenders had an advantage in the city defense battle, their troops were still tight after all. Now that 10,000 reinforcements had arrived, Wang Ji suddenly felt that his back was getting tougher again.
Of course, Wang Ji also knew that Zhou Tai had marched all the way here in order to quickly lead reinforcements. Although the soldiers arrived, they were still quite tired and needed some time to rest before they could regain their fighting strength. But Wang Ji was not at the end of his rope, either. There is no need for these reinforcements to be put into battle immediately.
Therefore, Wang Ji's order to Zhou Tai was to let him lead his troops and recuperate, and then go up to the city wall to defend after he had recovered.
But Zhoutai is obviously not satisfied with this.
Although the credit for leading troops to the rescue in time was not small, it was not considered a credit from the battlefield, and Zhou Tai was somewhat dissatisfied.
Zhou Tai was still thinking about further establishing his merits by repelling the Jiangdong Army's attack at the foot of Jiangling City.
As an official from a poor family, he needs to seize any opportunity so that he can gain a foothold in this world, honor his ancestors, and have his wife and children as his wife.
Therefore, when he saw that Lu Meng launched charging chariots to attack the city, and Wang Ji could only be beaten passively, Zhou Tai took the initiative to ask Wang Ji for orders to lead his troops out of the city and burn the charging chariots.
Wang Ji thought for a moment before telling Zhou Tai that it was not the time yet.
Wang Ji certainly didn't want to watch these rams hitting the city gate every day. No matter how strong the Jiangling City Gate was, it couldn't withstand such continuous impact.
But now that the troops are insufficient and the reinforcements have not regained their combat effectiveness, he cannot risk leaving the city now.
Ke Zhoutai said that although the reinforcements had gone through a forced march and most of them were relatively tired, it would not be a problem to mobilize three thousand men who were still capable of fighting.
Besides, to be beaten so passively, Wang Ji had to put two thousand reserve troops in the hiding cave just in case. Isn't it also a waste of troops?
It would be better to take the initiative and burn down part of the ram chariot. This would deter Jiangdong's soldiers from attacking so blatantly and free up the soldiers in the Tibetan Soldier Cave. Wouldn't it be the best of both worlds? !
Wang Ji thought about it for a while and thought it was right, so he asked Zhou Tai to lead 3,000 people out of the city to burn and rush the cars.
Of course, Wang Ji was always cautious in doing things. Just in case, he asked Guan Xing to lead 3,000 people as support and ambush behind the city gate.
Zhou Tai led his troops out of the city and really caught Jiangdong Army by surprise. As soon as he left the city, he defeated Jiangdong Army's front army protection and set several rams on fire.
But Zhoutai's good luck did not last long. Soon, with the massive pressure of Jiangdong Army, Zhoutai fell into the siege of Jiangdong Army.
On the one hand, Shizhoutai was a little eager to make meritorious deeds and wanted to burn a few more rams. At the same time, he underestimated the enemy's combat power. As a result, he delayed his retreat and was surrounded by Jiangdong's army.
On the other hand, Lu Meng's reaction was quick enough. When he saw that Zhou Tai was interested in fighting, he never missed any opportunity and commanded the Chinese army to quickly encircle him.
After Zhou Tai found out that he was surrounded, he immediately led his troops to break out of the encirclement, but was blocked several times by Jiangdong's army.
Zhoutai was surprised to find that the combat effectiveness of this group of Jiangdong troops was really not bad. Although his soldiers were mentally and physically exhausted after long marches, they were not in a comprehensive state in a battle with the enemy. Downwind.
Now Zhou Tai regretted his greed for merit and war, but fortunately, Zhou Tai did not panic because of this.
There is no other way, things have reached this point, the only option is to order the soldiers to shrink their formation and wait for reinforcements. There are still soldiers in Jiangling City. You can fight under the city without worrying about no one to respond.
Wang Ji in the city soon realized that something was wrong. Seeing Zhou Tai slowly starting to shrink his formation and stand firm, he asked Guan Xing to prepare for going out of the city to respond. He went out to respond at the critical moment, which prevented Zhou Tai from taking the troops out. The soldiers were lost, and Zhou Tai was finally brought back.
But this time in the battle, Zhou Tai also lost nearly a thousand men, which was greater than Wang Ji's loss when he defended the city for five days.
Really, if it weren't for the recruitment of people during the war, Wang Jidu would have had the heart to seduce Zhou Tai and let him be a big soldier.
However, Zhou Tai's participation in the battle caused Lu Meng to misjudge a problem. Although the reinforcements received by Jiangling City numbered 10,000, their actual combat strength was not high.
A single field battle involving burning siege equipment out of the city can result in the loss of nearly a thousand people. So, will these ten thousand people be exhausted in ten more such field battles? !
Okay, to put it this way, it’s a bit over-the-top, but if the number of reinforcements is not large and the combat power is not strong, Lu Meng feels that there is really no need to retreat so quickly.
As long as Xu Sheng still holds the line at the rear, or to say the least, as long as the public security officials have not organized a navy fleet to threaten Lu Meng's food route, then he still has hope of conquering Jiangling.
Even if Jiangling already has reinforcements.
Lu Meng, who suddenly had hope again, ordered his soldiers to continue attacking the gate of Jiangling City, and at the same time began to calculate the chips in his hand.
The army that originally numbered 45,000 people had suffered nearly 7,000 casualties in the siege in the past few days, and more than half of them were the Chinese army under his direct control.
The so-called Chinese Army was actually an army directly under Sun Quan and given to Lu Meng to command.
Before the war began, Lu Meng led 35,000 men, of whom 20,000 were Chinese troops.
The police left 5,000 men for Xu Sheng and 5,000 for Lu Xun. Lu Meng only had 10,000 Chinese troops left. Now after several attacks on the city, Lu Meng only had 5,000 Chinese troops left. There were about a thousand people.
With such a small number of troops, they certainly cannot continue to attack the city and must seek support.
Ask the generals to secondment private soldiers. Even if they agree, they probably won't attack the city with all their strength. What Lu Meng lacks most now is time.
Therefore, it must be troops directly under Sun Quan. For example, the 20,000 soldiers brought by Sun Huan and Sun Yu.
Although they are also directly under Sun Quan's team, Sun Huan and Sun Yu will not simply lend their soldiers to Lu Meng for use. If they hand over the command so easily, Sun Quan will not have the need to train clan generals to lead the army.
Therefore, Lu Meng had to negotiate with Sun Huan and Sun Yu. In the end, he had to let Sun Huan and Sun Yu command the army. He could not directly command.
But Lu Meng felt that it was not a bad idea to do so. After all, the Sun brothers did not need to work as foreigners on the battlefield. Sun Quan would benefit the most from conquering Jiangling and occupying Nanjun.
However, this is not a complete solution. After all, the command of the army is not in his hands, and Lu Meng still feels that he is not reassured enough.
Therefore, Lu Meng ordered Lu Xun, who was attacking Yidu, to return to his army.
The peripheral troops of Yidu have been cut off. Yidu will not be able to restore these troop shortages in the short term, and there will be no reinforcements from around to rescue Yidu. It is better to withdraw temporarily, and then attack Yidu after Jiangling is captured. alright.
As for Lu Xun, Lu Xun was beating Meng Da very hard at the moment.
It was a rare opportunity to lead an army alone, and he managed to successfully use a trick to eliminate Meng Da's reinforcements, and the beating was very enjoyable.
That is to say, Meng Da, the governor of Yidu, is quite capable. The defense of the city was well organized and did not give Lu Xun too many opportunities. Otherwise, this place would have been captured by Lu Xun long ago.
However, Lu Xun felt that as long as he was given enough time, he would not be unable to capture it. But Lu Meng's order to return to the army had already arrived.
Lu Xun was slightly dissatisfied.
It wasn't that he was dissatisfied with Lu Meng for letting him return to the army, but mainly because Lu Xun felt that Lu Meng's approach of sending troops to attack at one moment and letting people return to the army at the next was a bit of a joke.
Changing orders day and night is not something a mature military general should do.
But, even if Lu Xun was dissatisfied with the order from his superiors, he could only carry it out. After all, the soldiers he brought were not the private soldiers of the Lu family, but the Chinese army directly commanded by Lu Meng.
Even if he wanted to attack hard, no one would listen to him.
Furthermore, Lu Meng also explained the reason to Lu Xun in the document of returning to the army - although Jiangling's reinforcements had arrived, their combat power was very average, and there was still a possibility of victory. Therefore, Lu Meng needed troops to strengthen the attack on Jiangling.
Lu Xun thought about it, this may not be true.
Lu Xun also came into contact with the battle reports of the reinforcements. One thing he said was that the level of the unknown general who set off from Xiangyang was really not too high.
Although he led the troops to quickly rescue Jiangling, he did not hide his whereabouts at all along the way. It was easily judged that the rescue time would be replaced by Guan Yu or Zhang Xi. They would definitely not march so blatantly, and they would definitely cover up. , making it impossible for you to judge the number and location of reinforcements.
The things on the surface are not scary, but the reinforcements that make people confused are the most scary.
From this point of view, the level of this unknown general is indeed inferior to Guan Yu and Zhang Xi.
But it cannot be inferred from this that the unknown general is not good enough, let alone that the soldiers' combat effectiveness is not high, right? !
Being able to march quickly to support Jiangling, and marching for more than 500 miles without any broken troops, can't it be considered weak in combat effectiveness? !
Lu Xun didn't quite believe in Lu Meng's judgment, but it had nothing to do with him for the time being. Since the governor asked him to withdraw his troops, he would do so.
It's just a pity. In a few more days, I estimate that I can conquer a county with 5,000 men.
After receiving the military order, Lu Xun repeated his old trick, pretending to be an empty camp, but actually leading his soldiers to retreat before dawn. By the time Meng Da discovered Lu Xun's retreat, Lu Xun had already left Yidu County for twenty miles.
Meng Da knew that even if he pursued, he would not be able to catch up, not to mention that he did not have enough troops, so he did not dare to pursue at all. This made Meng Da feel deeply humiliated.
As a representative of the Dongzhou people, a romantic figure as famous as Fazheng and Li Yan, he was fooled from beginning to end by an unknown young general, and he never had the initiative on the battlefield for a moment.
In the end, they took the initiative to retreat, and I barely managed to save Yidu County. Even when they retreated calmly, I didn't dare to pursue them. It was an absolute shame and humiliation.
Meng Da wrote down the name of the general named Lu Xun, thinking that he would get it back the next time he had the chance.
(End of chapter)
