The biting cold wind was still raging, Zhang Xi organized the last three thousand soldiers to defend the city with a serious look on his face, and started a new day of defending the city.
No one knows how many comrades and colleagues will be able to survive after today, let alone whether the street pavilion can be defended.
The morale of the army was quite low. Even if Zhang Xi continued to stay at the top of the city and command, there would not be much change.
Although the tradition of Cao Wei's army besieging the city and killing prisoners still has a deterrent effect on Zhang Xi's army, and Zhang Xi's army will not lose its fighting spirit now, some smarter soldiers are probably already considering breaking up and escaping deep into the mountains and forests. They cannot defeat them and cannot surrender, but they have not yet surrendered. Doesn't mean you can't run.
Running may be a way to survive.
At this juncture, Zhang Xi could not ask for too many soldiers. In the final analysis, the soldiers these days just wanted to survive in troubled times.
If you can keep it for a while, then it's a temporary thing.
As for Cao Wei's army, the current atmosphere is completely different from that of the Jieting defenders.
Everyone from Zhang He to ordinary officers and soldiers could see that the garrison at the street pavilion was outnumbered and could no longer hold on.
A war is about to end. There are many people with this mentality. Not only the lower-level soldiers, but also Zhang He, it is inevitable that they will have such thoughts.
But no matter what, the battle that needs to be fought must be fought.
Zhang He gave an order, and Cao Jun, who was in neat formation, launched the first attack of the day.
Zhang Xi naturally responded, asking the soldiers to rely on the tattered city walls to resist first, and then continue to hold on if they could repel the enemy's attack.
When the enemy can completely break through the city wall defenses, Zhang Xi will naturally not stay where he is and wait to die. At that time, Zhang Xi will also organize his soldiers to break out to seek a chance of survival, but for now he will continue to hold on.
However, at this time, Zhang Xijun's defense could no longer be comprehensive. Even Zhang Xi's personal guards had been severely reduced in number. Now it was quite difficult to completely protect Zhang Xi.
Upon seeing this, Zhang Xi simply broke the jar and ordered all his guards to join the battle. As for himself, he rarely gave up the fear of death. He held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, barely protecting his vitals, and stood on the tower to supervise the battle.
Cao Jun did not concentrate on attacking Zhang Xi's retreat. After all, Zhang Xi's army was full of defensive loopholes. It would only be a matter of time before it was defeated. There was no need to fight Zhang Xi to the death.
In the first round of offensive during the day, all Cao's troops had already reached the city wall, and they started a fierce hand-to-hand battle with Zhang Xi's troops on the city wall of Jieting.
This time, no one can take care of Zhang Xi anymore. Even if Zhang Xi retreats relatively far back, some Cao soldiers will still break through the line and surround him. Zhang Xi's swordsmanship finally has a place to use.
Facts have proved that the swordsmanship taught to Zhang Xi by Sun Shangxiang is really not just for show, it can really kill the enemy.
But the problem is that Zhang Xi's strength, speed, and agility are only at the level of an average soldier.
Relying on the protection of his body armor, although Zhang Xi was hit in the shoulder by Sergeant Cao's sword, he did not suffer any substantial damage. On the contrary, he stabbed out a sword smoothly. But unfortunately, Zhang Xi's attack power , it is limited to stabbing the enemy and forcing the enemy to retreat.
Zhang Xi had no time to sigh after failing to score his first kill in his life, because the second Cao army had already come over.
Under this situation, Zhang Xi had no time to think and immediately faced the enemy and killed them. Although he still failed to kill Cao Jun, he was able to scare away two Cao Jun soldiers with his bluffing posture.
Zhang Xi also wanted to take advantage of the situation and kill the enemy again, but after all, there were only a few Cao soldiers who could break through to Zhang Xi, and Zhang Xi was not without his own soldiers. Therefore, after pursuing for two steps, Zhang Xi found that the hole in the defense line was blocked again. On board, Cao Jun is no longer around him.
At this time, Zhang Xi had the intention to raise his head again, observe the situation on the battlefield, and wonder whether after repelling Cao's attack, it would be time to organize his soldiers to break out.
If we continue to hold on, we can no longer hold on. It is better to organize a breakout while everyone still has physical strength, and use everyone's desire to survive to gain a glimmer of hope.
At this moment, Zhang Xi discovered that there seemed to be some smoke and dust rising behind Zhang He's army camp. Was this Wang Ping finally arriving? !
Zhang Xi was not sure, so he continued to be patient and watched with hope. He did indeed see the smoke and dust in the rear of Zhang He's army getting bigger and bigger. Zhang He's army also began to make adjustments and mobilized a group of soldiers to the rear, so that the frontal attack Cao Jun's offensive slowed down slightly.
At this time, Zhang Xi could no longer care about so much, and quickly ordered the remaining soldiers to move closer to him. After gathering more than a thousand soldiers, Zhang Xi ignored him and immediately raised his arms and shouted, "Soldiers, the reinforcements have been If we don’t kill the enemy now, then when will we wait?!”
After saying this, Zhang Xi took the lead, personally rushed to the front of the team, and led the troops to kill Cao Jun.
In fact, at this time, Zhang Xi was really not sure what happened in the rear of Zhang He's army, or whether Wang Ping really led his troops to kill him. But Zhang Xi knew that at this time when everyone could see hope, his own soldiers would definitely Stimulated by the desire to survive, it will briefly burst into extremely high combat effectiveness.
If Wang Ping is indeed leading the attack at this time, then Zhang Xi cooperates with Wang Ping at this time to attack Zhang He's army from both sides, and there is a certain probability of repelling Zhang He's army.
If there was only some turmoil within Cao's army at this time, and it was not Wang Ping who killed him, then Zhang Xi could also take advantage of this opportunity to encourage the army's sergeants to break out of the encirclement and seek a glimmer of hope.
After guarding the street pavilion until now, Zhang Xi can no longer demand too much from his soldiers. Now it is time for him, the commander-in-chief, to lead everyone to find a way out.
Therefore, Zhang Xi made the decision to break out in advance and led more than a thousand soldiers in front. If the other soldiers were willing to follow, they could rush together. If they wanted to break up and escape into the mountains, Zhang Xi would not stop them.
However, not only Zhang Xi but also Zhang He underestimated the situation behind him.
Zhang He was on guard against the rear army, but this precaution was based on Zhang He's caution and routine.
After all, Zhang He always believed that his back was protected by Guo Huai. With Guo Huai's ability, it was unlikely that he would be defeated again in a short period of time by Zhang Fei, who had a military disadvantage. Even if he was defeated by Zhang Fei, with Guo Huai's ability, They will also warn themselves.
Therefore, Zhang He really believed that his rear was safe, and the soldiers he sent to protect his rear wing were just a precaution, with only a thousand-man troop.
Although Zhang He was a little surprised when he saw the smoke and dust rising behind him, in Zhang He's opinion, the people who can appear behind him are probably the troops sent out by the Jieting garrison to ambush. The number will not be too many. In addition, since he has arrangements in the rear army, if nothing else, it should be no problem to delay the time until he sends troops to relieve the siege.
Therefore, Zhang He did not worry too much. He only dispatched two thousand people from the front army to support the rear army and try to block the small army attacking from the rear.
As long as he defeated the Jieting Shu army head-on, this small army that attacked and harassed them by surprise would naturally not pose any threat.
But what Zhang He didn't expect was that what came after him was not just a small army, but more than 7,000 elite infantry led by Zhang Fei himself.
There are three thousand of them, and they are the most adept at mountain warfare.
This number of enemy troops was completely beyond Zhang He's expectations. Therefore, when the soldiers Zhang He sent to the rear army were easily defeated by Wang Ping's Wudang Feijun, Zhang He was not mentally prepared for this at all.
Zhang He didn't react, but Zhang Fei's reaction was very quick.
After seeing Wang Ping defeat a group of blocking troops in the rear army, Zhang Fei did not fight in the rear army and seek unnecessary kills. Instead, he directly ordered Wang Ping to lead the Wudang Fei army to take the lead, taking advantage of the barbarian soldiers' characteristics of running in the mountains. The first thing you need to do is to break into Zhang He's middle army without killing the enemy. You only need to open a gap to give your follow-up infantry a chance to break into Zhang He's middle army and cause a burst of chaos in Zhang He's middle army.
Once Zhang He's army was in chaos, Zhang Fei would repeat his old tricks and lead a thousand elite troops to raid Zhang He's headquarters and replicate the Battle of Danqu, forcing Zhang He to be unable to effectively command the army and plunge the army into chaos.
Although Zhang He's army has more soldiers, once it falls into chaos, no matter how many troops there are, it will not be able to exert its combat effectiveness. On the contrary, Zhang Fei's army, who is prepared, can really defeat Zhang He's army with less and defeat more.
Zhang He really didn't have much preparation for this. The main reason was that Zhang He never imagined that more than 7,000 Liu Bei's soldiers would be killed in his retreat. His current number of infantry was only 15,000 or 6,000. With these 7,000 people coming in to create chaos, how can they be effectively commanded? !
Not to mention, the person leading the troops was Zhang Fei. Zhang He really couldn't figure out why Zhang Fei appeared behind him, but Guo Huai, who was supposed to be guarding him, didn't react at all? !
Then it is the most serious and fatal thing - that Zhang Fei, just like during the Battle of Danqu, led his army to raid his Chinese army tent. If Zhang Fei is forced to climb the mountain to escape again, what will happen to Zhang He in the future? Don't lead the troops to fight anymore. The front is under Shanggui City. It was a shame to finally defeat Zhang Feixue, but it was all in vain.
Therefore, Zhang He could not retreat. The leader, who gritted his teeth, fought with Zhang Fei's assault troops, and a melee broke out between the two sides.
With the experience and lessons learned from the Battle of Danqu, Zhang He understood that he must first repel Zhang Fei's assault team, so that he could free up his hands to command the soldiers to calm down and use the advantage of large numbers to surround and kill these assaulting soldiers.
But the problem is, not to mention that Zhang Fei is not easily repelled, even Zhang Xi, after discovering that Zhang He's army was in chaos from the rear to the center, would not just think about breaking out and escaping, and had quickly adjusted the direction of the attack. They also tried to cover up Zhang He's front army.
The chaos between the central and rear armies obviously also affected the attack of Zhang He's front army. The front soldiers did not know what was happening behind them, and each of them fell into a brief confusion, not knowing what they should do next.
Zhang Xi seized this opportunity and broke through the blockade of Zhang He's front army in one fell swoop, and also attacked Zhang He's central army.
There was nothing Zhang He could do about this. He had to concentrate on getting rid of Zhang Fei first.
Just at this moment, something happened that made Zhang He even more desperate.
Behind the street pavilion, a large cloud of smoke suddenly rose, and a cavalry team of nearly ten thousand people was rapidly approaching the direction of the street pavilion.
The rear of the street pavilion was in the direction of Guangwei County. Zhang He didn't believe that the prefect of Guangwei County, under the siege of Liu Bei, still had enough energy to send cavalry to besiege the street pavilion.
Therefore, this must be reinforcements sent by Liu Bei.
Soon, Zhang He saw the figure of this cavalry and the banner of the leading general of this cavalry - "Shenwei Tianjiangma".
This time Ma Chao did not miss the deadline. On the contrary, he arrived early.
(End of chapter)
