Haihun County, Shangliaocheng.
Liu Pan led five thousand Jingzhou troops to attack Shangliao City for four consecutive days, but still failed to break the city.
In order to catch Yuan Yao by surprise, Liu Pan followed Kuai Yue's plan and took the mountain road along the Xiushui River through Ai County to raid Shangliao.
In the eyes of Kuai Yue and Liu Pan, Shangliao is just a small town. With Liu Pan's bravery and his own surprise attack, it probably won't take much effort to win.
But the reality is very different.
Liu Pan led his troops all the way through mountains and rivers, and finally got out of the mountainous area, when they were discovered by Yuan Jun.
Guarding Shangliao was Yuan Yao's military commander Liu Fu.
Liu Fu was a figure on the Cao and Wei side in history. Because he appeared late and died early, he is rarely known.
Although he only served as the governor of Yangzhou for eight years before dying of illness, his achievements in these short eight years were enough to make him one of the "Six Great Prefectures of Cao Wei" along with Jia Kui, Wen Hui, Sima Lang, Zhang Ji, and Liang Xi. "Provincial Governor" is a model of capable local ministers.
Liu Fu was good at constructing water conservancy projects, garrisoning fields to bring peace to the people, and was especially good at building and defending cities.
The city of Hefei, known as Sun Quan's Happy City, was built and completed by Liu Fu. Liu Fu also joined Jiang Ji in repelling Sun Quan's first attack on Hefei.
By the time of the Battle of Xiaoyaojin, Zhang Liao was still relying on the old city of Hefei built by Liu Fu. It was not until the Manchu period that Hefei New City was built. But after the fall of Soochow, the Hefei administrative office moved back to the old city, where it remained until modern times.
Ten miles around Shangliao City, the terrain is flat and the soil is fertile. It is now an important farming area for Yuan Jun.
Liu Fu commanded thousands of military households. According to the military system, five families were grouped together, and ten families were grouped together; a hundred families were divided into a village, with a village chief; five miles was a song, with a song chief.
Plowing cattle and large agricultural tools were used as public items in the village and were used by the army to drive the army.
These thousands of village households cultivated their fields during busy periods, and also practiced military formations during slack periods.
There is also a pavilion set up five miles away, and soldiers are always on duty to guard it. First, it is to supervise the military households in the fields and prevent escapes. Secondly, it serves as a sentinel to guard the surroundings. After all, there are still many Peng clan thieves hiding in the surrounding mountains.
Liu Pan and his five thousand Jingzhou troops were discovered by Tingshao.
The soldiers who were following him immediately sounded the gong as a warning, and then passed one to two, then two to three, and soon the news reached Shangliao City.
Liu Pan was also shocked: "Isn't this Shangliao where Yuan Jun's grain garrison is? Why is it still a farmland?"
Now that he had alerted the enemy, Liu Pan could only change his sneak attack into a strong attack.
However, Shangliao was located on a river island, so Liu Fu promptly ordered people to cut down the bridge and row all the ships away.
No matter how brave and skilled Liu Pan was, he could only sigh across the river.
The contest between Liu Fu and Liu Pan also officially began.
To attack the city, they needed to cross the river first, so Liu Pan ordered his soldiers to cut down the bamboo forest and build rafts.
Liu Fu was not idle either. He summoned his soldiers and mobilized all the military households and civilians who could be mobilized.
Shangliao City has stocked more than 100,000 stones of grain and grass, which is where Yuan Yao's wealth and life lie. Therefore, there are five hundred soldiers stationed there. The leader of this group of troops is Qin Yi, the captain of the garrison.
At the same time, Shangliao City is located between Chaisang and Nanchang, so it is also the place where Yuan Yao trained his soldiers. Recruits recruited from various counties will come here to receive recruit training. Among them, those who are well-trained will be sent to various departments of Yuan Yao's army, those who are average will be sent to various counties to serve as county soldiers, and those who are not good will serve as government servants.
Feng Fang, one of the former eight captains of Xiyuan and now the recruit instructor of Yuan Jun, is also here. There are also more than a thousand recruits in his camp who have been recruited to train the new recruits for a short time.
Coupled with the nearby military households in the field, Liu Yao easily summoned nearly 3,000 people to defend the city, not counting the nearby people.
How did Liu Pan know this? He only thought that Shangliaocheng's "soldiers were no more than a thousand men", so he hastily built dozens of rafts and began to cross the river.
Liu Fu ordered Qin Yi to cross halfway and attack him. Only less than half of the more than 300 Jingzhou soldiers landed ashore. Qin Yi led thousands of Yuan troops to kill them. The Jingzhou soldiers were squeezed into the small beach and could not move at all.
Liu Pan was brave and aggressive, always charging forward in every battle, and he was also among these 300 people.
But the small bamboo raft could not carry the war horses across the river. Liu Pan had no mounts, and there was soft tidal mud under his feet, so his combat effectiveness was greatly reduced.
He and his three hundred men were quickly driven down the river, and many of the dozens of small rafts made of bamboo tied with ropes were chopped down by Yuan Jun.
When Liu Pan returned to the west bank, he counted his soldiers again and found that only 170 people came back.
So the Jingzhou army continued to build bamboo rafts overnight, regardless of rest, and built more than a hundred extremely strong rafts in one night.
Relying on the elite and brave soldiers, Liu Pan divided his troops into three groups the next day and forced the crossing of Xiushui again.
This time Liu Fu did not attack and stayed in the city.
Five thousand soldiers were transported to the river island. In order to attack the city as quickly as possible, Liu Pan had people dismantle the bamboo rafts and transform them into bamboo ladders.
At noon, the Jingzhou army began to attack the city.
Although Shangliao City is small, it is very strong.
The main body of the city wall is a stone wall three feet high. After Liu Fu took office, he used bamboo to raise the wall to four feet and dug a trench one foot deep under the city.
Therefore, if you want to build a ladder to attack the city, you must make a ladder at least six feet long.
Temporarily made bamboo ladders and spliced bamboo ladders are definitely not acceptable.
In the city, Liu Fu had already accumulated enough stone and wood.
There was no need for the defenders to deliberately drop stones to destroy the ladders. Many bamboo ladders themselves could not support the weight of several soldiers.
A hasty siege will inevitably lead to failure. Liu Pan's first ant attack on the city ended in a disastrous defeat.
Liu Pan had no choice but to withdraw his troops and could only let people continue to look for bamboo materials to make long ladders.
Secretly, Liu Pan asked his soldiers to prepare ropes and hooks for a sneak attack at night.
However, Liu Fu was well prepared. He had already stored thousands of dendrobium fish paste in the city.
As soon as night came, Liu Fu immediately ordered people to light fish paste everywhere. Not only on the city wall, lights were lit every ten steps; even Liu Fu below the city was not spared. The brave man ordered a dozen pots of fish paste soaked with cloth strips and placed them outside the city wall to light them.
Liu Pan looked at Shangliao City, which was as bright as day, and felt bad. At first he thought Yuan Jun was lighting lamp oil, but after waiting for midnight and seeing that Yuan Jun's lamp was not dimming at all, he sent a group of soldiers to brave the arrows on the city, forcibly snatched a basin back, and dipped his finger in his mouth. When I tasted it, I realized it was fish paste.
Shangliao is surrounded by water. God knows how much fish paste Liu Fu has stored!
The night attack failed, so we had to continue the attack by force.
So for two consecutive days, Liu Pan attacked the city regardless of casualties. However, the Jingzhou army, which lacked large-scale siege equipment, had difficulty even scaling the city wall, let alone breaking the city.
The six-foot-long ladder was finally built and climbed up despite the arrow stones. As soon as a group of soldiers climbed up, Yuan Jun on the top of the city used a pole several feet long to push the ladder down.
Dozens of strong men, under the cover of shield-bearers, rushed to the city gate carrying wooden blocks. Yuan Jun on the tower poured buckets of kerosene and fish paste, and fired a few rockets, turning the city gate into a fire. Sea of fire.
In this way, every time the Jingzhou army attacked the city, it was all in vain.
Apart from more and more corpses and wounded soldiers, Liu Pan gained nothing.
