Cao Zhen frowned and carefully observed the changes in the situation on the entire battlefield.
Today's situation is different from yesterday. From the beginning of the battle, Cao Zhen knew that he would definitely be at a disadvantage.
After all, yesterday I was the one with the superior force, but today I am the one with the inferior force.
But because of this, Cao Zhen made some adjustments to his fifteen thousand soldiers.
Among the 35,000 Wei troops, there were about 5,000 archers. Cao Zhen assigned 3,000 archers to Wang Chang, so that when he led the troops to attack Tongguan, he could cause arrows to suppress the city, and the remaining 2,000 bows and arrows Cao Zhen handed over all the defense lines on the right wing commanded by Dai Ling. At the same time, he also gave Dai Ling 4,000 soldiers, a total of 6,000 people, to block the attack of nearly 4,000 cavalry.
There is no way, the threat of cavalry is too great. Even if two thousand archers and four thousand infantry are equipped with one thousand pikemen, it will still be difficult to cause effective damage to the cavalry troops. It can only be said that in defensive battles , can last longer.
As for the remaining 9,000 infantry, Cao Zhen arranged 5,000 people in the middle army and 4,000 people in the left wing. Cao Zhen commanded the defense.
Among the nine thousand soldiers here, there is not a single archer, so they cannot effectively suppress the attacking Shu thieves. They must choose close combat to prevent the Shu thieves' archers from killing or injuring them.
Therefore, from the beginning of the battle, the battle in the center and left wing directly entered a life-and-death hand-to-hand battle.
Cao Zhen was under great pressure. After all, he had 9,000 men to deal with an attack of 20,000.
If it weren't for Zhang Xi's command in the middle, which seemed to have some problems, and the offensive coordination was very jerky, I'm afraid Cao Zhen would be unable to withstand the pressure now.
But the attack on the left flank of the Wei army was very violent.
The left defense line was violently attacked by Shu thieves.
At the beginning, the war situation was going well. The quality of the soldiers of the Shu thieves was uneven. The Yongzhou soldiers were very good at military formation combat and could make up for some lack of combat power through the cooperation of the military formation. Although the new reinforcements this time looked Brave and brave, but the coordination ability of the military formation is very average. Four thousand Wei troops blocked the attack of 10,000 Shu bandits, and the fight was quite decent at first.
But as time went by, the battle became fierce, and there were too many interactions between them. The left-wing Shu thieves showed a very strong advantage in chaotic fighting.
Once the two sides entered the fighting stage, the effectiveness of the military formation's cooperation weakened, and the Wei army on the left fell into a hard fight.
He was at an obvious disadvantage in terms of numbers, and had no bows and arrows to help suppress the Shu thieves' rear wing troops. He had to rely on the fighting will of his soldiers to hold on. If Cao Zhen hadn't worked hard in the morning, he inspired his own fighting will. , had it been yesterday, I'm afraid the left wing would have collapsed long ago.
But even so, if sufficient reinforcements are not sent to the left wing, the left wing may not be able to sustain it for long.
It is not that there are no reinforcements. Wang Chang's siege troops can be dispatched to support them, but in this case, Wang Chang's siege efficiency will be affected.
Today, Tongguan is the key to the Wei army's escape, and there is no room for failure.
Therefore, Cao Zhen thought about it and decided to mobilize a thousand people from his side and rush to the left wing to support the defense line.
As for the middle side, Zhang Xi's middle troops don't cooperate with each other tacitly anyway, so he can still resist for a while, so it probably doesn't matter.
In this way, the Wei army's frontal battlefield saw personnel transfers.
As for Zhang Xi, Zhang Xi was indeed limited by the unfavorable cooperation between Liangzhou infantry and Yongzhou infantry, resulting in low offensive efficiency.
There was no way, Zhang Xi really couldn't figure out what these Liangzhou soldiers were thinking.
Since these Liangzhou soldiers had just arrived at the battlefield after traveling a long distance, they had a heavy task in this battle. The right wing was given to Su Ze to command, and Su Ze was only asked to play a containment role. In the middle, the Liangzhou soldiers were also responsible for covering. On the flanks, the main attack was left to the 6,000 Yongzhou soldiers commanded by Zhang Xi.
This is a combat arrangement based on actual conditions and also to take care of the Liangzhou soldiers.
But as soon as the war started, his right wing was the first to launch an active attack. On his center side, the Liangzhou soldiers who were supposed to be responsible for flank cover operations suddenly seized the path forward and squeezed the Yongzhou soldiers. The offensive line started the attack on its own initiative.
This forced Zhang Xi to make the first tactical adjustment of the day, letting the Yongzhou soldiers give way to attack on the flanks. Zhang Xi was already a little unhappy about giving up the main offensive position to the Liangzhou soldiers.
What are these Liangzhou soldiers doing? !
Well, if this group of Liangzhou soldiers could cooperate with each other and attack Cao Zhen's army in the middle, Zhang Xi wouldn't be too upset. But there were several times when the Liangzhou army didn't wait for the Yongzhou army to attack. Zibo launched an attack, giving the Wei army an opportunity to focus on defense. However, the Yongzhou army finally attracted Cao Zhen's defense through a flank attack. The Liangzhou soldiers retreated temporarily to adjust their attack.
The offensive rhythm of both sides was never on point.
Zhang Xi was somewhat angry. This was the first time he had encountered such an army since joining the army.
You can say that they don't obey military orders, but you can't say that.
Although a flank attack in Liangzhou was arranged, the attack was essentially still to be launched against the Wei army. However, the attack deviated from the main attack direction, causing the frontal attacking troops to move to the flanks.
But you have to say that they abide by military orders. In the current situation, Zhang Xi does not think that this is an act of abiding by military orders.
Seeing that the attack was not going well, Cao Zhen actually still had the strength to divide his troops to assist the flank. Zhang Xi didn't care and just let go.
He ordered the Yongzhou Army to temporarily retreat and use it as a reserve force, while the Liangzhou Army directly launched the main attack.
According to Zhang Xi's idea, since the cooperation between the two county soldiers is not good, it is better to fight separately. When the Liangzhou soldiers are attacking, the Yongzhou soldiers will retreat as a reserve team. When the Liangzhou soldiers complete an attack and retreat to rest, the Yongzhou soldiers will attack again. , launching an attack in a wheel battle.
This can not only ensure offensive pressure, but also eliminate the need to worry about the coordination between the two armies.
Of course, by doing this, it is indeed possible to reduce the offensive force, but instead of fighting independently and sometimes hindering each other, it is better to use this method. Anyway, Cao Zhen now only has more than 3,000 people to defend.
Zhang Xilai's move put Cao Zhen under great pressure.
At first, because the Shu thieves attacked at a sporadic pace, there was not much pressure on Cao Zhen, so Cao Zhen dared to divide a thousand troops to support the left wing. Now, with Zhang Xi's adjustment, it seems that the Wei army has fewer enemies to face directly. , but the combat effectiveness has been qualitatively improved.
The two sides have already had a certain degree of entanglement. Although the Liangzhou soldiers are not good at military formations, their soldiers are brave and good at chaos. In close combat, the quality of the soldiers of the Forbidden Army under Cao Zhen is really no worse than that of the individual soldiers under Cao Zhen.
But fortunately, there were only about 4,000 soldiers in Liangzhou in the middle. After the war started for a while, there were some battle losses. The total force was similar to Cao Zhen's remaining troops in the middle, and Cao Zhen could continue to support it.
But if the Liangzhou soldiers retreat and the Yongzhou soldiers continue to attack, the Yongzhou soldiers will have the advantage and are good at military formation combat, which will put more pressure on the Wei army in the middle than the Liangzhou soldiers.
What's even worse is that the two armies have different fighting styles, but they use wheel battles, constantly consuming the Wei army's troops. Cao Zhen is not sure whether he can last until dark.
The only thing that can be expected now is that Wang Chang can break through Tongguan as soon as possible and open up his own retreat. Otherwise, even if Cao Zhen can hold out until dark, it is uncertain whether he can continue such a two-sided battle early tomorrow morning.
The casualties suffered by the rear army defense were too great.
On Wang Chang's side, Wang Chang also tried his best to attack.
But Tongguan. Wang Chang also regretted that when he was the guard of Tongguan, he had nothing to do with raising the wall of Tongguan by one foot.
Tongguan was originally built by Emperor Taizu Wu to defend against the Liangzhou Army in Guanzhong. When it was originally built, the purpose was to build it into a majestic pass, so the height of the Tongguan wall was originally built very high.
Later, when Wang Chang served as the guard of Tongguan, he was psychologically affected by being hit by Zhang Xi with a group of counterweight catapults. Therefore, while continuously thickening the city wall, Wang Chang also reported to the imperial court, requesting the imperial court to allocate funds to close Tongguan. The wall was raised another ten feet to prevent the trebuchets from damaging the defenders on the city wall.
Now, the trebuchet has been defended for the time being, but now it is the turn of his own soldiers to climb the eight-foot-high wall to launch an attack.
In matters like siege, it is common military knowledge that the higher the wall, the more difficult it is to siege. The eight-foot-high wall itself is an insurmountable barrier.
In addition, now that the Shu bandits have pursued them to the rear, Wang Chang cannot go out to the camp to cut down trees thirty miles away to build siege equipment. He can only use the ones he prepared before, which will destroy one less one. No supplements.
Therefore, attacking Tongguan depends more on human lives, and the attacker really has no good solution.
Wang Chang also fought very hard, and due to the urgent need to siege the city, Wang Chang also organized his soldiers to conduct wheel battles to siege the city, without giving any rest time to the Shu thieves defenders at the head of the city.
Now, the only good news for Wang Chang is that he has more people, and after some motivation early in the morning, the soldiers' will to fight has become much stronger.
In today's siege, someone from the Wei army was finally able to climb up the wall and fight hand-to-hand with the Shu thieves and defenders.
Although they were quickly driven back by the Shu bandit defenders and a hook ladder was smashed, this was a good sign.
Wang Chang knew very well that there could not be too many Shu thieves defending the city. After so many days of siege, there must be many casualties, and there would not be too many troops to hold on to the city wall.
As long as we can continue to put pressure on the wall and make more breakthroughs, we will definitely have the opportunity to occupy the login point on the wall and transport a large number of Wei troops to the wall for hand-to-hand combat.
Once the Wei army is allowed to occupy the city wall, it will not take long to retake Tongguan. The Shu bandits are in Tongguan and do not have enough troops to hold on.
Therefore, Wang Chang ordered the entire army to attack! ! !
(End of chapter)
