Jinan County, Licheng.
This city, built hundreds of years ago, is now surrounded by tens of thousands of barbarian troops.
Sun Fang, the captain of Licheng's guard, was standing on the city wall, stretching his neck and looking into the distance outside the city.
Since yesterday, thousands of Hulu cavalry have gone northeast, and then hurried back before dark. Sun Fang, who received reports from the soldiers, guessed that reinforcements must be coming, so these Hulu cavalry He went to intercept them, and then came back without any fighting.
This morning, Sun Fang, who had been observing the situation outside the city wall, discovered that more than 10,000 cavalry had gathered again and headed in the same direction as yesterday.
Sun Fang guessed that if reinforcements really arrived, there would definitely be a battle today. Therefore, since the morning, he had been staying on the city wall, observing the movements in the distance, and praying in his heart. Heavenly Master, with your blessing, let all these damn barbarians be killed!
However, Sun Fang did not place all his hopes on reinforcements. Although Licheng only had 1,000 soldiers and 3,000 strong men, he still strictly urged the entire army to prepare various necessary strategies for defending the city.
Although until now, the barbarians outside the city have not built complete siege equipment, Sun Fang did not dare to rely on others. He still followed the requirements of the city defense code he received before leading the army and used all possible means to defend the city. All preparations were made.
At this time, on the wall of Licheng, the soldiers guarding the city were divided into three groups by Sun Fang. When the enemy did not launch an attack, these three groups of defenders took turns to guard the city wall, and the remaining two groups were set up under the city wall. Rest in the greenhouse and wait.
Because there were not enough archers in the army, in order to make up for it, Sun Fang ordered piles of stones to be placed on the city wall every few steps to throw the Hulu who climbed the city.
On top of the crucial city gate, a dozen large pottery cauldrons were prepared, filled with boiling water, ready to be poured on the heads of any enemy who dared to attack the city gate.
"Captain Sun, why don't you go down and take a rest first."
I don’t know when, Zheng Jie, the magistrate of Licheng County, came to the city wall and said to Sun Fang.
"Thank you, Mr. Zheng. I'll just keep an eye on it here. I really can't worry about it."
Sun Fang politely thanked Zheng Jie for his concern.
Zheng Jie is a local powerful man in Licheng. His family background has been a figure in the county since the Later Han Dynasty. Although his ancestors have gradually declined since Cao Shuang, the general of Cao Wei, he is still considered a well-known family in Jinan County, and Sun Fang was born in the East. The fishermen in Yin County, Lai County, are usually fishermen, but sometimes they are pirates and bandits. If they had not followed Liu Yuzao fan, how would they have the opportunity to stand and talk with county heroes like Zheng Jie.
Moreover, since tens of thousands of barbarians outside the city attacked and besieged the city, Zheng Jie, the magistrate of Licheng County who was originally indifferent to him, has obviously become much more polite, and even once made Sun Fang forget who Zheng Jie was before. Looks like it.
"I don't know if reinforcements are really coming?"
Zheng Jie also had a worried expression, imitating Sun Fang's example and staring blankly in the same direction.
"Reinforcements must be coming, otherwise, the tens of thousands of Hulu soldiers will not be easily mobilized this morning." Sun Fang paused and continued: "After all, there are tens of thousands of captive civilians in these Hulu formations, so many people It needs to be suppressed and monitored. If there was no emergency, so many people would not be transferred."
After listening to Sun Fang's words, Zheng Jie nodded and felt that it made sense.
However, Zheng Jie then looked around and spoke into Sun Fang's ear in a very small voice.
"Brother Xian, Brother Yu has to ask something. What if, I mean what if, if the reinforcements that come are defeated by the Hulu, what will we do!?"
After Zheng Jie finished speaking, he looked at Sun Fang with a pair of eyes that seemed to be smiling but not smiling.
Although Sun Fang was a rough man, he guessed half of Zheng Jie's thoughts, and he said as if he didn't care.
"I now have 4,000 soldiers in my hands and plenty of food and fodder. The Hulu barbarians outside the city haven't even built a ladder yet. Even without reinforcements, I can guard this city of Licheng impregnably!"
He turned his head, stared at Zheng Jie and said, "Everything on this city is under my control. The affairs inside the city are left to the county prince. If there are any thieves who are afraid of the enemy and deceive the public, the county prince just tell me and I will immediately Lead your troops to arrest them all and drag them to the city wall to boil human oil and light lamps!"
After hearing what Sun Fang said, Zheng Jie laughed awkwardly and quickly laughed.
Although Zheng Jie asked this, he was just afraid that there were more than ten times as many Hulu enemies outside the city. He was a little worried about guarding Licheng and was afraid that his family would suffer if the city was broken. However, he still did not want to surrender to the Hulu. After all, he had heard that The powerful people in Hebei who had their families destroyed were almost reduced to the flesh of the barbarians.
Seeing that the more than 10,000 Huru who left in the morning have not returned yet, Zheng Jie could only comfort himself in his heart. As long as those Huru did not return victoriously, the reinforcements coming to support Licheng would be very difficult. I hope that I can break through the Hulu blockade. As long as reinforcements come, it will further boost the morale of the Licheng defenders. However, I don’t know how many reinforcements came this time. I don’t know if it is ten thousand or twenty thousand. It should not be There are only a few thousand people.
Thinking of this, Zheng Jie looked at the continuous enemy camps outside the city. There were tens of thousands of Jin prisoners and civilians. As soon as the siege started, these people were destined to be the first to fill the trenches.
Zheng Jie thought about this and secretly cursed in his heart, why couldn't these captured Dingkou fight to the death, so they were so greedy for life and feared death that the barbarians were the vanguard.
He completely forgot that he still had a city that could not be defended just now, so he thought of surrendering to the Hulu.
Suddenly, at this moment, Sun Fang next to him shouted excitedly.
"Coming, coming, reinforcements are coming!"
Hearing Sun Fang's words, Zheng Jie and the surrounding soldiers and officials stretched their necks and looked in the direction of the reinforcements.
Everyone looked in Sun Fang's direction, but they only saw a vague blur rising in the distance, and nothing could be seen clearly.
Seeing the confusion on everyone's faces, Sun Fang explained excitedly: "This must be reinforcements coming. If Huru Des wins, he will definitely chase and kill the defeated troops. There won't be so many troops heading in this direction." Come."
Hearing Sun Fang's explanation, everyone on the city wall cheered. Although Sun Fang had been encouraging his soldiers in the past few days, telling them that the Hulu outside the city were weak chickens attacking the city, as long as everyone The city can be saved with bravery, but even so, all the defenders are still on guard. After all, there are dozens of times more enemies outside the city.
Well now, these reinforcements have arrived. Not only have they arrived, they have also defeated the Hulu who blocked them. They have won all the way. With the support of such a strong army, the defenders of Licheng feel that this time they are safe. .
Finally, after a long time, everyone on the city wall finally saw clearly the soldiers and horses rolling in from the distance.
The first thing to appear was a large number of cavalry scattered across the wilderness. It could be seen from the clothing and flags that they were the Hulu cavalry who set out in the morning.
However, at this time, these Hulu cavalry were no longer as high-spirited as when they set off in the morning, but looked like a chaotic defeated army.
Zheng Jie on the city wall silently counted the Hulu cavalry who returned from a distance. He found that compared with when they left in the morning, these Hulu cavalry only lost one or two thousand people. Why were they all in a huge defeat? Losing look.
"We didn't lose many soldiers and horses, did we?"
After listening to Zheng Jie's words, Sun Fang explained: "The barbarians are all cavalry. Even if they are defeated, the entire army will not be destroyed. Most of them can escape. An army of 10,000 people will lose more than 1,000 people, which is considered a loss for the cavalry." Big defeat.”
Not long after the scattered cavalry returned, the flags and still solemn formation of the Qingzhou Jin Army finally appeared in the distance.
With countless flags fluttering in the fierce north wind, reinforcements appeared in the sight of the Licheng defenders. The defenders who finally saw the reinforcements burst into earth-shattering cheers. The sound was so loud that even the Hulu camp in the distance was stunned. There were bouts of commotion.
Hearing the cheers erupting from the walls of Licheng, Shi Le, who had just escaped, was so angry that he wanted to attack the city immediately and slaughter all the people of Licheng.
However, he could no longer care about this. Shi Le, who had just met his accomplice Liu Ling, was trying to persuade Liu Ling to mobilize troops to fight the Qingzhou reinforcements who were pursuing him.
It turned out that when more than 10,000 Qingzhou infantry led by Liu Yu launched an attack on Shile's Huqi who were arrayed to block the attack, the infantry with sophisticated equipment and willpower was not something that Shile's light cavalry could stop.
After Shi Le personally led the only elite armored cavalry to launch two rounds of attacks, but were repelled by the Qingzhou armored soldiers, the Hu cavalry who were roaming around to harass the guerrillas saw that the situation was not good and fled.
Suddenly, the morale of the Qingzhou infantry was greatly boosted, and their original intention of breaking through and blocking became a pursuit.
If all this had not happened so easily and Liu Yu had gathered his array out of fear that it was the enemy's trick, the two-legged infantry might really have chased the four-legged cavalry.
Although the actual losses of Shi Le's cavalry were very small, in the face of the unstoppable infantry, these light cavalrymen who came from herdsmen and bandits were already unwilling to form a formation to attack the enemy's formation no matter what.
Therefore, when the embarrassed Shi Le returned to the camp, he could only place his hope on Liu Ling's troops.
But after seeing Shi Le's defeat, Liu Ling was also frightened. This kind of infantry that would not be intimidated by the cavalry's momentum could only be dealt with by heavy armored cavalry. They didn't even have a piece of leather armor. The light cavalry was helpless.
When Liu Ling thought of another group of infantry who were not afraid of death, he thought of the fear of being dominated by the elite infantry of Bei Gongchun of Luoyang and Ding Shao, the governor of Jizhou.
"Brother Liu, it's not too late. These Qingzhou soldiers have been fighting with me for a long time and have been chasing me for ten miles. They must be at the end of their efforts. As long as you let your elite troops attack, we will definitely be able to take down these Jin troops in one go." Shi Le was anxious. said.
"Moreover, these Jin troops are all fully armored. If you can defeat them, then these nearly ten thousand armors will all be yours, brother. As long as you defeat them, I'm afraid Qingzhou will also be yours. After that, I will recommend it to the King of Han You are the governor of Qingzhou!"
Finally, under Shi Le's persuasion, Liu Ling finally agreed to the request to go to war. Shi Le's troops, who had basically retreated, took over the camp. Liu Ling gathered his men and began to move out of the camp to prepare for the pursuit of Qingzhou reinforcements.
When Liu Yu led 10,000 infantrymen in pursuit and rushed outside Licheng, you could already hear cheers like mountains roaring and tsunami erupting from Licheng.
The soldiers of the Qingzhou Army who heard these cheers were all extremely proud. At this moment, everyone felt that they were heroes like saviors.
Not only did they easily defeat the Hu people in the previous battle, they also chased them for ten miles, chasing nearly ten thousand cavalry so that they did not dare to look back.
At this moment, they didn't even feel much fatigue on their bodies, they just felt new strength bursting out of them.
So when they saw the enemy camp outside Licheng, these Qingzhou soldiers who had been fighting for half a day did not show any fear.
Especially when they saw that a large number of Hulu enemy troops began to form in formation, preparing to meet them, everyone's eyes did not look like they were looking at the enemy, but as if they were seeing pieces of silk and pieces of silk. Farmland and beautiful ladies!
After all, in the battle just now, most of the people didn't make any gains. They just followed the drum and whistle orders and marched in. Many people didn't even get a drop of blood on their swords and guns.
Only a few hundred people actually achieved victory.
In today's Qingzhou Army, as long as a head is captured, it means promotion, wealth, and success.
Therefore, when Liu Yu rode his horse and hurriedly encouraged him in front of the formation, the fighting enthusiasm that broke out in the entire formation even shocked Liu Yu. It was completely impossible to tell that these soldiers had just chased for ten miles.
With the sound of drums, the Qingzhou Army of each brigade marched towards the front with powerful steps. At this time, Liu Ling had just led his cavalry and infantry out of camp and completed their formation.
When Liu Ling's soldiers saw these Qingzhou soldiers who were chasing for ten miles but still had high fighting spirit, most of them thought that these Qingzhou soldiers might be crazy.
Liu Ling, who personally led the guards to guard the central army, looked at the Qingzhou Army that began to charge towards him, and suddenly felt like he had been deceived. These Qingzhou Army did not look like they were at the end of their fight!
Behind Liu Ling's army formation, Shi Le and others who were watching from a distance were also frightened by the momentum of the Qingzhou army.
Diao Ying next to Shi Le said blankly: "Are these Qingzhou troops all crazy? What do they look like at the end of their promised crossbow?"
Shi Le was also startled for a while, and suddenly said in a deep voice: "I think Liu Ling will probably be unable to resist, so we'd better make plans early."
After hearing Shi Le's words, Diao Ying, Tao Bao and others around him all looked surprised.
Shi Le didn't take it seriously and raised his hand to point to the Qingzhou Army and the Hu soldiers under Liu Ling who had collided with each other.
Then he said coldly.
"Could it be that Liu Ling is better than me, Shi Le!?"
