This was the first time that Zhang Xi risked his life and went to the front line to kill the enemy in person.
Zhang Xi has always been afraid of death. Even when he was in E County, his military strength was at an absolute disadvantage. At that time, the person commanding the battle on the first-line city wall was Kou Feng, not Zhang Xi.
But now, facing the battle at Jieting, Zhang Xi no longer has anyone to assign. Once Wang Ping leaves the city to make a detour for a sneak attack, he must assume the responsibilities that a military commander should bear.
After putting on the full armor, I climbed up the city wall. I also held the long sword that was just used as an ornament in my hand, and I had to hold the shield in my other hand to prevent it from being lost. To be honest, it was quite heavy.
The enemy army was attacking, and arrows kept coming in the direction of Zhang Xi. Zhang Xi's personal guards tried their best to help resist, and tried their best to protect their commander, and the other soldiers could also take aim. Kill and injure enemy troops without stopping.
Zhang Xi suddenly realized that going into battle in person did not bring any benefits. At least it made the enemy's offensive focus clearer. The defenders on Tucheng could also concentrate their forces on defense. They did not need to set up defenses everywhere as in the past, but instead dispersed the defensive forces. .
But the downside is that Zhang Xi was almost shot by Chuan Xi for the fourth time.
There is no other way. Going into battle to kill the enemy means taking such risks.
Zhang Xi is not not afraid, but under the current situation, he knows the value of his existence and what he should do. Although he is also worried about being shot at any time, as long as he is not really hit by an arrow, he has to hold on when he needs to. .
No one expects Zhang Xi to personally kill the enemy when he goes into battle. As long as Zhang Xi appears on the city wall and lets the defenders see that the commander is with them, then the defenders will have the courage to continue to hold on. This is Zhang Xi's current existence. value.
In this way, Zhang Xi continued to persevere until something unexpected happened on the field.
In fact, it is not an accident, it should be said to be something expected, but the timing of this incident is really not that coincidental.
Just ten feet to the right of Zhang Xi's handsome flag, the city wall there could not withstand the attacks in recent days. After a loud noise, it collapsed.
The wall of Jieting Tucheng may collapse. Not only Zhang Xi, but also most of the city guards know this and won't care too much. If the earth wall collapses, just hold on to the gap and prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the situation to enter the city. Just make some repairs.
After all, it is an earth city, not a brick city, so repairing it is not too troublesome.
But the problem is that the place where the collapse happened this time was within ten feet of Zhang Xi's handsome flag. This location was too close to Zhang Xi's handsome flag. When Cao Jun saw that the city wall collapsed here, he immediately got into a panic. Like rushing towards the gap.
At this time, the defenders were obviously caught off guard, and for a while they seemed unable to defend the city.
At this time, Zhang Xi had two choices.
One, like a regular general, personally led his soldiers to block the gap, drive out the sudden influx of Cao's troops, and stabilize the defense line.
The other is to retreat temporarily to avoid the first wave of enemy attack. As long as the enemy cannot break through the defense line and their follow-up force is weak, they will always be driven out.
Of course the guards chose the second option, after all, their main duty was to protect Zhang Xi's safety.
But Zhang Xi knew that he could not retreat. Once he retreated, God knows what chain reactions would occur. Zhang He on the opposite side would not give him a chance to reorganize his army and make adjustments.
Therefore, Zhang Xi gritted his teeth, picked up his long sword, pushed aside the protection of his personal guards, and rushed to the gap to kill the enemy in person.
The guards were shocked and quickly followed up, fighting Cao's troops who broke into the gap before Zhang Xi could, and trying their best to cover Zhang Xi behind them.
But even so, there were always some Cao soldiers who got the opportunity to challenge Zhang Xi at close quarters.
Facing Sergeant Cao's charge, Zhang Xi tightened his grip on his long sword, took a deep breath, carefully recalled the "sword skills" taught to him by his wife, raised his sword, and stabbed... Huh? ! Where are people? !
The soldiers of Cao Cao who were still in front of him just now have been held up by Zhang Xi's bodyguards, chopped and led to other places.
Zhang Xi was not discouraged and continued to observe, looking for the enemy. Finally he saw one, and then he made eye contact, but was killed by the bodyguard again.
Zhang Xi is depressed. I just want to give it a try to see if the swordsmanship taught by my wife is useful.
But obviously, even if Zhang Xi has this intention, the personal guards around him will not give Zhang Xi this chance.
Commander of the First Army, did you ask you to go into battle to show off your swordsmanship and kill the enemy with your sword yourself? !
At this time, Zhang Xi's most important thing was to ensure his own safety.
Zhang Xi also figured this out. He watched his guards step forward to kill the enemy and protect himself behind him. He always had more than two guards around him to protect him. Forget it, let’s not worry about killing the enemy. , continue to hide behind people with the shield, and just act like a mascot.
After the efforts of the guards and the city defenders who came later, the soldiers who came out of the collapsed city wall were finally driven out again, and the temporary danger Zhang Xi faced was temporarily relieved.
This day's attack and defense was the most dangerous at this time, but Zhang Xi managed to hold on without any danger.
As night slowly fell, Zhang He was not in a hurry and took the lead in calling for gold to withdraw his troops. Zhang Xi also ended the defense of the city and began to re-reinforce the city wall and repair the collapsed city wall. Although the temporary repaired city wall had extremely poor defensive capabilities, it still had a general Better than nothing.
After a day of attack and defense, Zhang Xi carefully counted the casualties at night and found that there were more than 400 casualties.
Although Zhang Xi personally went into battle, the morale of the army was pretty good after defending the city today, but if this number of casualties continues for another four or five days, no matter how high the morale is, it will not be able to sustain it.
In other words, if no other changes occur, Zhang Xi can stay for at most four or five days.
Now Zhang Xi can really only place all his hopes on Wang Ping who has already set off and the three thousand Wudang flying army he led.
At this time, Zhang He was full of confidence.
As Zhang Xi personally went into battle to boost morale, Zhang He judged that Zhang Xi had no other backup at this time. According to the defensive strength of Jieting he saw today, he would need to continue to attack Jieting for at most three to five days. Must be broken.
At this time, Zhang He has not yet received the battle report from Guo Huai, which means that there has not been any change in the enemy situation in the direction of Shanggui. As for the direction of Guangwei County, the latest information Zhang He received is that Guangwei County is still holding on, and Liu Bei himself He led the troops to attack Guangwei County for more than ten days, and he was getting angry.
As long as Guangwei County persists for another five or six days to create opportunities for Zhang He to occupy Jieting, then even if Liu Bei captures Guangwei County and marches to Longshan, facing the situation where he occupies Jieting and Shanggui, he may have no choice but to It's all in vain.
With the great achievement just around the corner, Zhang He was naturally very proud. He chose to be considerate of the soldiers and did not force them to attack the city. He gave the soldiers enough rest for one night and did not continue the attack until near noon the next day.
It's not that Zhang He was careless, the main reason was that the strength of Jieting's troops was getting smaller and smaller, and Jieting's city wall defense was probably reaching its limit. A little delay would not be enough to bring about earth-shaking changes in Jieting's defense.
Now Zhang He is really not in a hurry. He is determined to let his soldiers rest, recuperate their mental and physical strength, and strive to completely defeat the street pavilion within these two days.
In fact, Zhang He's approach is effective.
Zhang Xi felt that Zhang He's army's attack on the sixth day was more difficult than the previous five days combined.
Not only was the city wall of Jieting Tucheng unable to hold up and collapsed in many places, but more importantly, as loopholes appeared in the defense of Jieting Tucheng, the defenders commanded by Zhang Xi became more and more confused when defending. Often, before the danger in one place is completely eliminated, another place is broken through by the enemy.
Cao's army's attacks were getting stronger and stronger. Under the non-stop attacks, the defenders were beaten to the city wall by the enemy many times. It took longer and longer for the defenders to completely drive Cao's army off the city wall, and the price paid was high. getting bigger.
The current Jieting garrison relies on Zhang Xi to supervise the battle on the city wall, and they rely on this breath to hold on. What's terrible is that Zhang Xi doesn't know when this breath will completely dissipate.
In today's battle, Zhang Xi once again braved the enemy to stay on top of the city to supervise the battle. Today, Zhang Xi's luck was not as good as yesterday. A total of two arrows hit Zhang Xi's armor, but fortunately they were all weak, and there was no It completely penetrated the armor, and even Zhang Xi didn't notice that he had been drained. Instead, Zhang Xi's personal guards were shocked.
What really worries Zhang Xi is that when the casualties were counted at night, there were more than a hundred casualties today than yesterday. In the two days combined, there were already less than a thousand casualties.
The number of city defenders that Zhang Xi can still use now, including the number of people who are slightly injured and can go into battle, is only over 3,000.
The casualties were nearly half.
If this number of people cannot appear behind Zhang He tomorrow and effectively kill Zhang He's army, then Zhang Xi may not be able to defend it tomorrow.
(End of chapter)
