A group of Wei generals, all with their own reasons and excuses, did not pursue Wei Yan immediately, giving Wei Yan a lot of time and space.
Therefore, Wei Yan had enough time to set up camp and prepare for the siege after arriving at the back of Hulao Pass.
Only Wang Ling cursed his mother several times a day. While cursing, he had to look forward to the arrival of some reinforcements.
In terms of time, Wei Yan still has plenty of time.
However, just as Guo Huai expected, the biggest problem plaguing Wei Yan now is not time, but food and grass.
In several counties in the eastern part of Henan County, Wei Yan did not find much food after conquering the county. Wei Yan did not want to lose face and learned some "extraordinary methods" from Cao Wei. Therefore, the food and grass in the Han army were constantly being consumed.
According to the estimates of the grain and grass officer, the remaining grain and grass in the army can probably last for about ten days.
Now, Wei Yan can only do his best to attack the city, and at the same time hope that Zhuge Liang in front of Hulao Pass can cooperate with him to break through Hulao Pass within ten days.
It's just that Hulao Pass is really difficult to defeat.
Hulaogu itself is a pass that surrounds the Heluo area. It is not a temporary defense facility, but a permanent pass.
As long as Luoyang's status remains unchanged, it is impossible for Hulao Pass to remain unrenovated for a long time. No one will ignore their own gate.
Therefore, both the Wei court and the Heluo family attached great importance to Hulao Pass. In the past thirty years, no matter how the world situation changed, Hulao Pass has never lacked money and food for repairs.
This light card, in a sense, is very strong like Tongguan, Wuguan and other important passes.
To break through such a powerful pass, even if Wei Yan had sufficient supplies and complete weapons, it might not be possible in a short time.
But now, Wei Yan's military rations are insufficient, which makes it even more difficult to break through.
Of course, there is not no good news for Wei Yan.
The Hulao Pass garrison was severely undermanned, with only 5,000 men guarding it. Wei Yan not only had 30,000 men, but also 10,000 county soldiers led by Zhuge Liang to attack from both sides, and they also carried dozens of siege equipment. Possibility of breaking through in a short period of time.
And this is Wang Ling's biggest headache right now.
The defense of Hulao Pass is very complete, and there is no shortage of various defensive equipment in the pass. However, no matter how sufficient these objective conditions are, the reason why Xiongguan is a Xiongguan in the final analysis depends on people.
Without enough troops to guard it, no matter how strong the pass is, it is nothing more than a decoration.
But now, Wang Ling only has 5,000 men, and the Hulao Pass before and after combined is enough for eight times his strength.
What's even worse is that Hulao Pass has been besieged for five days, and Wang Ling didn't even see the shadow of half of the reinforcements. Could it be that Sima Zhengxi just watched him being besieged and refused to send troops to rescue him? !
If we continue to defend like this, once the casualties exceed 2,000, then there is no need to defend the Hulao Pass, so we might as well just surrender to the Shu Han.
There is a saying that Wang Ling is not that high-minded, and the Wei Dynasty does not have much kindness to the Wang family. Don't forget, Wang Ling is the nephew of the loyal minister Wang Yun of the Han Dynasty.
To be honest, the Wang family of Taiyuan was deeply favored by the great man.
Shu Han, that is, Han Dynasty. Although Liu Bei is not a descendant of the Eastern Han Dynasty royal family, his status as a Han clan clan member is recognized by the world.
Liu Xiu could inherit the former Han Dynasty, so why couldn't Liu Bei inherit the later Han Dynasty?
If it weren't for the good personal relationship between Cao Cao and Wang Yun, Cao Cao would have taken care of the Wang family after Wang Yun's death. In addition, the Wang family in Taiyuan was in the current situation under Cao Wei's territory. Wang Ling would not have guarded Hulao stupidly. Off.
Especially now that the world situation has changed drastically, there is also a lot of debate within the Wang family in Taiyuan about where to go in the future.
The Shu Han now occupies Heluo in Guanzhong, and the foundation of the emperor is already in place. If Yanzhou can be captured, then the emperor's career is complete, and the Han Dynasty will be reborn, and I am afraid that no one can stop it. There is no need for the Wang family to follow Cao Wei all the way to the dark side. of.
Moreover, it’s not like the Taiyuan Wang family didn’t have Wang Chang, a descendant of the family who served in the Shu Han Dynasty.
As a surrendered general, Wang Chang can still be reused within the Shu Han. Not only is he already the governor of Hongnong, he is now serving under the world-famous general Zhang Xi. Everyone in the world knows what this means.
Wang Ling doesn't think that he is any less capable than his clan brother Wang Chang. If he can surrender at this critical moment and help Shu Han open the way to Yanzhou, his future salary will be much better than that of Wang Chang.
After all, the importance of Hulao Pass today is self-evident.
Well, Wang Ling really thought so, but he didn't do it after all, and still insisted on guarding Hulao Pass.
The main reason is that I can't bear to look like this.
Wang Chang surrendered because foreign aid was cut off and the army was defeated. No one could say anything about this kind of surrender, even on Cao Wei's side. Cao Rui's treatment of the Wang family in Taiyuan remained the same.
After all, Wang Chang surrendered because he had no choice but to do so.
And if Wang Ling offered Hulao Pass to surrender, it would feel like a seller surrendering, and Wang Ling would still have some shame.
In this year and month, it has not yet reached the time of complete moral collapse. After all, Sima Yi probably can't swear on Luoshui in this time and space, and Sima Zhao probably won't have the chance to kill the king in the street. So, reputation, in this era, It's somewhat useful.
At least Wang Ling didn't want to ruin his own reputation, nor the reputation of the Taiyuan Wang family and Situ Wang Yun.
However, if the defense continues like this and nearly half of the defenders have been killed and no reinforcements arrive, then Wang Ling will not be buried with Wei.
It is not yet such a critical situation, so Wang Ling is still trying to hold on.
Moreover, judging from the current situation, what Wang Ling really needs to guard against are the Shu thieves in front of Hulao Pass.
Although the Shu thieves on the back have a lot of troops, with a total of 30,000 people, they don't have any decent siege equipment in their hands, and even the ratio of bows and crossbows is not too high. If they attack the city, as long as they can't climb Once you climb the wall, it will be difficult to pose much of a threat to the defenders.
On the contrary, the 10,000 Shu thieves on the front are not only assisted by more than thirty various engineering equipment, but the bow and arrow suppression capabilities of the Shu thieves on the front can be described as "like divine help".
Really, at least Wang Ling has never seen such a dense rain of arrows. How on earth did these Shu thieves use a thousand crossbowmen to shoot out the arrow vectors of at least five thousand crossbowmen.
During the five days of guarding the city, most of the Wei army's casualties were killed and wounded by the overwhelming rain of arrows.
What's even more terrible is that, starting from the fourth day of the attack, the Shu thieves suddenly seemed to be in charge of a different person from the fourth day of the attack. They could always launch unexpected attacks during the gap between Wang Ling's command. Moreover, the timing of the attack echoed that of the Shu thieves behind Hulao Pass, causing Wang Ling to deploy defenses before and after, and was exhausted from dealing with them. These were the real reasons why Wang Ling had those "ideas".
I really can't guard against it, and I can't stand it anymore.
And on the seventh day of Wang Ling's stay, Wang Ling finally saw a glimmer of hope.
On the back of Hulao Pass, behind the Shu thieves, a large amount of smoke and dust suddenly appeared. This was a sign of the movement of the army.
The Shu thieves behind Hulao Pass also began to stop attacking, retreated to their camp, and began to deploy defenses in the direction behind them.
After about half an hour, Wang Ling finally saw the flag of the incoming army. It was the flag of the Wei army. On the flag of the leading general, there was a big word "Guo" written on it.
Guo Huai finally arrived with his troops.
Wang Ling finally breathed a sigh of relief. Reinforcements finally arrived.
Guo Huai arrived with his troops, not to mention whether they could repel the Shu army behind Hulao Pass. At least, it should not be a problem to break through the Shu army's interception and support them inside Hulao Pass.
However, what happened next was really something that left Wang Ling speechless.
When Wei Yan led the army to prepare to intercept Guo Huai's troops, Guo Huai was also ready to break through Wei Yan's interception and support the deployment of Hulao Pass. At this time, a larger number of troops suddenly appeared on the south side of the battlefield. of smoke.
The scale of this smoke and dust was even greater than the movement when Guo Huai led his troops.
The appearance of this army directly changed the expressions of Guo Huai and Wei Yan.
Neither of them could guess whose family this sudden army belonged to. This was a force that was enough to break the current battlefield situation.
Guo Huai was worried that this was reinforcements from the Shu thieves. After all, Guo Huai really couldn't imagine who else in his army could come to the rescue from the south.
The Fengqiu guarded by Chen Tai is in the south, but Chen Tai does not have enough troops, so it is good to defend Fengqiu. It is impossible to take the risk to encircle and suppress Wei Yan's troops.
As for Sima Yi, he was coming from the east, and it was impossible to take a special detour to the south.
Therefore, Chen Tai was really worried that the coming army was from the Shu bandit side.
But the problem is that with Chen Tai leading the army to block Fengqiu, his own scouts did not detect the movement of Shu thieves on the south side in advance. If this army is Shu thieves, how on earth did they get here.
Wei Yan's thoughts were more relaxed than Guo Huai's. After all, at least half of the troops coming from the south were probably his own.
As long as Xu Shu really defeated the main force of the Wei army in the south, it would not be impossible to appear in Henan County at this time.
However, Wei Yan was actually worried that if the main force of the Wei army led by Sima Yi came, he might not be able to survive until the day when his food supplies ran out.
But no matter what, the two coaches unanimously ordered to form defensive formations and be on guard carefully. At the same time, they observed whose family this army belonged to.
And soon, there was an answer.
It wasn't that who saw the flag of the incoming general clearly first, but that the army was marching too fast, and the noise caused by the march was too great.
The smoke and dust filled the air, and the ground was trembling slightly. Anyone with a little experience in military formations could easily tell - it was the cavalry coming.
This judgment directly made Guo Huai's face pale, and he immediately ordered the entire army to cross cover, and he personally led the spearmen to cut off the rear and withdraw the troops.
(End of chapter)
