The quiet and short night passed quickly, and by the time the sun had just risen over the ground, the enemy camp was already crowded.

The army of thieves marched out of the camp, and a new round of attack began.

Yongyang is a small city, the walls are short, and the circumference is no more than a few miles, but in today's situation, this is a good thing for the defenders who defend the city.

Although the number of thieves is large, but the city is so large, their forces cannot be spread, resulting in the thief army can be directly used to attack the city every time the strength is always limited, most of the thieves can only stay behind waving their flags and shouting.

Although the number of defenders in Lin Fan's hands is small, it is enough to hold only these sections of the city wall, and they are horns everywhere, so it is extremely convenient to dispatch in the center. Closer distances can also make it possible to provide timely support in other places when one thing is in trouble.

After the battle in the past few days, the thief army has obviously not made much progress in terms of marching and arranging.

In Lin Fan's opinion, the attack of the thieves lacked discipline, and the battle formation was sparse, and it could even be said that their siege method was to rush up in a hurry.

If Lin Fan had 3,000 elite soldiers and horses and enough grain and grass in his hands, he thought that with these thieves under the city, it would be impossible to capture Yongyang from him.

In this way, Lin Fan did not wronged them when he said that they were a rabble, after all, the elite cannot be trained overnight.

This is not to say that Zhang Feng'er is incompetent, but because the thief army has a bad foundation, and it is possible to let this group of homeless soldiers fight such a difficult battle in a short period of time, without the army's morale, it already shows that Zhang Feng'er is not simple.

Historically, siege has never been a simple matter in battlefield attacks, especially without the assistance of large siege equipment, and the thief army has to pay a great price for every step forward.

However, the thieves besieged the city for many days, and the fighting continued. After many days of attrition, some of the few bed crossbows in the city were destroyed, and the remaining large crossbow arrows were almost used, and it was difficult to pose a big threat to the thief army.

There are not many arrows left for ordinary crossbows, and the defenders can only save some of them, trying not to waste any arrows.

For the thieves under the city, they did not even have a few shields, and they undoubtedly became the best targets for the archers of the defenders, and suffered heavy casualties.

However, the number of thieves was too large, and these casualties were not enough to repel the attack of the thieves, and after the crossbowmen inflicted great damage on the thieves, they were quickly attacked by the thieves under the city wall.

However, for the thieves, attacking the city is only the beginning, and how to climb the city wall to the top of the city is a big problem for them.

In the case that the four city gates were blocked with sacks by the defenders, the siege vehicles lost their corresponding role and were useless.

And heavy equipment like Lu Gong and catapult trucks, the thief army naturally does not have them. And even if they had such precision equipment, they might not be able to maintain and use it because of the lack of enough craftsmen in the thief army and the lack of long-trained soldiers.

Therefore, the thieves can only be used to attack the city, in fact, there are only a few simple ladders, and in the past few days, many have been destroyed one after another. The rest of them will be divided into four city walls, and they will be even less pitiful.

At this distance from the city wall to the city, the power of the crossbow in the hands of the defenders can already be fully exerted. If the infantry bow is mainly for long-distance killing, then the standard military crossbow of the imperial court is a melee weapon.

At such a close distance, it is almost impossible to miss an arrow. Every time the machine sounds, a thief will fall down the ladder.

In addition, all kinds of heavy objects were also thrown from the city by the defenders and smashed on the body of the thieves.

Although the rolling wood and stones on the city had already been used up in the siege battle a few days ago, Lin Fan had already asked people to start demolishing the brick and stone buildings in the city in advance, and even the bluestone road in front of the county yamen was demolished and transported to the city wall for the purpose of defending the city.

The corpses of the thieves who died yesterday had been pulled away last night, which was tacitly approved by the defenders, as long as they did not take weapons, the thieves could approach the city wall to collect the bodies of the dead in battle, and the defenders would not attack, which was actually to prevent the corpses from decomposing and causing the plague.

But a lot of corpses soon piled up under the city wall, and since the beginning of the war, every time the thieves want to get close to the city wall, they have to leave hundreds of lives.

"Ahh Yes... Yes! ”

The thieves let out a series of screams, the result of a ladder being doused with boiling oil by the defenders.

Several thieves on the ladder were also doused with fire oil, and all the meat on the thieves' bodies that was stuck to the oil was scalded at once, making a sizzling sound of frying and emitting white smoke.

The thief screamed and fell down the ladder. But the fate of these thieves did not end there, and the ladder contaminated with fire oil was soon ignited by the defenders' rockets.

A few of the thieves were not killed, but that wasn't a good thing for them. Their bodies were engulfed in flames, and the thieves were burned alive amid screams.

In this battle to defend the city, I don't know how many thieves died under the fire oil, which is also the most useful way to defend the city by the defenders everywhere in the world.

It's a pity that the continuous consumption has exhausted the stock of fire oil, and the ones just now are the last bit left. After that, they can only rely on the flesh and blood of the defenders to stop the thieves.

When the thieves were attacking the city, the archers of the thieves also advanced and began to try to suppress the city, helping the strikers who were climbing the ladder.

Due to the large number of thieves, the defenders of the city were quickly overwhelmed by the rain of arrows.

The defenders of the city could only collect arrows from the enemy and wait for an opportunity to shoot arrows under the city.

In this way, the speed of killing the enemy is undoubtedly greatly slowed down, and it is difficult to effectively kill the thief army.

"Kill!" Without the suppression of the crossbowmen, the thief army seized the opportunity and quickly climbed the city wall, and the shouts of killing soon resounded around the city wall.

A thief soldier who had just shown his head on the city wall, and before he could even take the blade in his mouth, he was slashed in the face by a long knife, and with a scream, he fell headlong from the head of the city, and died with a whimper.

But there were too many thieves, and some thieves kept jumping on the city, occupying positions, and fighting with the defenders.

In terms of defenders, the north gate wall guarded by Lin Fan was the most dilapidated, so it was also the main direction of the enemy's attack, and it was under the greatest pressure.

In the face of a steady stream of thieves like a tide, those temporarily replenished young men and servants soon couldn't resist it, so they could only retreat step by step, and Lin Fan's men no longer had enough elites, so it was difficult to suppress the thieves anymore.

Fortunately, Yang Yuanwang brought people in time to drive the thieves off the city again.

During this period of time, Yang Yuanwang, who is in charge of most of the affairs in the county, has done a lot of things. He and Li Qingshan not only had to train the young and strong to replenish the defenders on the city wall, but also had to be ready to reinforce everywhere at all times, no matter where the situation was, they had to lead the team to arrive in a critical situation.

The most important thing is still in the city, and there are many spies of the thief army mixed in among the displaced people who have taken refuge in the city.

On several occasions when the situation was critical, these spies had created chaos in the city, preparing to join forces with those outside the city.

And these few times, Yang Yuanwang personally suppressed the formation, and took half of the people of the Inspection Department to suppress those people and quell the chaos, otherwise Yongyang City would definitely not be able to defend it now, and it had already been broken by thieves.

Lin Fan and Yang Yuanwang joined forces, and the situation at the north gate was finally temporarily controlled.

Among the four city gates today, except for the east gate, which Chen Fangshu is responsible for defending, the city defense is the most complete, so it is quite stable, and the west gate and the south gate, which are defended by the local garrison of the two banners, are in the same precarious situation as the north gate.

It may be the reason why Zhang Feng'er has read a little military book, or it may be that there is a staff member who has just learned the art of war suggests that the thief soldiers did not attack the city from all sides when they first attacked the city, but adopted the strategy of besieging three and one.

The thief army besieged the north, south, and west, and each attack was aimed at these three places, ignoring the east gate, which was the most well-walled.

The thieves wanted to use this method not only to reduce casualties, but also to demoralize the soldiers in the city, so as to force the defenders to abandon the city and flee. The thieves set up an ambush in the east, which could eat the defenders in one fell swoop at minimal cost.

In normal times, this method is naturally useful, and when there is a way to live, the defenders in the city will not have the belief to fight to the death. As long as people have a lot of eyes, anything can happen.

But he just met Lin Fan, there are too many things written in the soldier's book, how could Lin Fan not know

。

He had already thought of this possibility, not only blocked the city gate hole, but also cut off everyone's thoughts. Moreover, he also used his prestige and the trust of the soldiers to repeatedly emphasize to everyone that the siege of the three is a strategy to attack the heart, there must be ambushes outside, and there is only a dead end to go out of the city, and only by defending the city can we hold on until the reinforcements arrive. In this way, everyone's minds are broken.

Therefore, instead of playing a role, Chen Fangshu, who was defending the east gate, could also lead his team to rush over to support when the rest of the men were in danger, supplementing the strength of the defenders at each gate, which was more conducive to the defenders defending the city.

However, the siege of the city was not stupid, and soon discovered the problem.

Zhang Feng'er and the others later learned the news that the defenders would neither flee nor surrender through the spies in the city, so they knew that the siege of the three was lacking one trick

It doesn't work very well.

The thief army immediately adjusted its deployment, and if it doesn't work, it will be hard, since you don't go and don't surrender, then I can only take the method of pulling nails to pull you out.

The thieves simply attacked from all sides, intending to directly fill the entire Yongyang City with their lives.

This style of play greatly increased the pressure on the already stretched defenders.

The bloody battles continued, and the continuous battles in the past few days had already caused most of the defenders' strength to be lost, and it became more and more difficult to face the attacks of the thieves again and again.

Today, almost all the defenders have reached the end of their crossbows.

Although the crisis at the North Gate has been temporarily resolved, it is far from the time to breathe a sigh of relief.

This time, the thieves attacked the city, broke through several city walls, and climbed to the top of the city. In addition to the north gate, the city walls on the west and south sides were also in an emergency, Yang Yuanwang could only let Li Qingshan lead a team of people to stay at the north gate to assist Lin Fan in defending the city, and he took the rest of the people to rush to the two gates.

Li Qingshan is a literati, and he has no power to restrain the chicken, so it is really difficult for him to go into battle to kill the enemy, Lin Fan can only let him stay on the rear side of the battlefield and try to protect him as much as possible.

Lin Fan looked behind Li Qingshan, and it was empty. He knew that these people in front of him were already the last reserve force in the city, and if the city wall was lost again, no one would come to reinforce them.

This siege lasted from early morning to noon, and both sides held out to the limit at this time.

The thief army can also take turns to attack the city, so that the tired soldiers can get a chance to repair, and constantly replenish the new force.

However, the defenders of the city did not even have a chance to breathe, and everyone was exhausted from fighting until now, and even the arms wielding weapons had long since lost consciousness.

Many people cracked their mouths, and they relied on instinct to wave the blades in their hands and press down the thieves who climbed up to the city again and again.

The sun is high and the weather is very hot, which is unbearable to stay in the shade in the usual peaceful years, and it is inevitable to sweat.

What's more, now the two armies are facing each other and fighting under the scorching sun. What it tastes like in each can only be experienced by the two sides.

The heat was unbearable, and many of the thieves had already taken off their clothes and attacked shirtless.

The defenders were more armoured, and even many of the youngsters wore armor that had been ripped from the dead.

Although the days of fighting also caused most of the defenders' armor to be badly damaged, some were only broken and hung on their bodies.

But Lin Fan still strictly forbade the sergeant to take off his armor, it is always better to have the protection of the armor than to go into battle shirtless, and the chance of survival is greater. There are few defenders, and not a single head can be wasted.

The iron pieces on the armor emitted a burning sensation in the scorching sun, making the person wearing the armor feel as if they were in a large steamer. It doesn't take long for the unstoppable sweat to get wet all over the body.

But at this time, no one cares about this, the two armies are clashing, as long as they are not careful, the blade of the thief may fall on them, but this is not the time to care about this.

So far, countless deaths have been made. Both sides have reached the last moment, and it depends on who can hold out until the last minute.

"Bell, bell!"

When the defenders tried their best to drive all the thieves off the city again, the sound of rapid gold sounded.

The long-term siege finally made it difficult for the thieves to continue, and the thieves, who could not hold on, gave up attacking again, and chose to collect their troops and prepare for the next big battle.