The reason why Xiang Zhuang is not too confident is that the battle of Shanwu is the first time that Xiang Zhuang has encountered a large-scale invasion of the main force of the Huns since he went north to the frontier, and it is also the first time that Xiang Zhuang has faced against the Hun army with so many troops, and the enemy situation is not very clear, plus Xiang Zhuang is stable and has a strong sense of responsibility, so he must be responsible for the safety of the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Shanwu City, so he is not very confident in his heart, and the pressure he is under is naturally very great.

At the same time, the momentum of the Xiongnu army this time is indeed very amazing, in the afternoon of the day after the Great Wall pass was broken, the front team of the Huns approached to the northern suburbs of Shanwu, 30,000 iron horsemen shouted and ran under the city, the soldiers, horses and banners could not see the end at a glance, and the rolling dust and smoke covered the sky and the sun, and set fire to the demonstration everywhere outside the city, the fire was blazing, the smoke was filled, and the momentum of the Hun cavalry was set off incomparably great, and the scale was not only with the border Xiongnu tribes that had dealt with Xiangzhuang had never seen before, Even many gray-haired frontier veterans are rarely seen.

Not only that, the arrogant Xiongnu front team also sent envoys to rush directly to Shanwu City and shouted, demanding that Li Zuoche, the commander of the Han army's northern Xinjiang, come out to answer, and threatened that if the Shanwu soldiers and civilians did not immediately and unconditionally open the city gate and surrender, they would slaughter the city after the city was broken. Xiang Zhuang was furious, and was about to give the order to shoot the Hun envoy with arrows, but suddenly his heart moved, and he hurriedly sent someone into the city to give an order, so that one of his doormen who was about the same age as Li Zuoche put on a Confucian shirt and immediately rushed to the city to obey the order.

After a while, Xiang Zhuang's doorman rushed to the city in Confucian shirts according to the order, and Xiang Zhuang immediately instructed him: "Quick, you pretend to be Guangwu Jun, come forward to answer the envoy of the Xiongnu barbarians, and say that our reinforcements will arrive in Shanwu soon, and tell the Hun barbarians to get out immediately, otherwise, as soon as our reinforcements arrive, we will guarantee that they will all die and have no place to be buried." ”

"General, you're not kidding, are you?" The doorman said in surprise: "The villain and Guangwujun don't look like each other at all, I pretended to be Guangwujun to come forward and answer the Hun envoy, in case he knows Guangwujun, wouldn't he be able to see at a glance that the villain is fake?" ”

"Time is in a hurry, and it's too late to find someone who looks similar to Guangwujun, so I can only gamble." Xiang Zhuang said: "But I expect that this Xiongnu envoy should not know Guangwujun, and he didn't expect to really meet Guangwujun, and asked to answer Guangwujun, it should just be a chance to try our luck, we can gamble with the Xiongnu." ”

Seeing that Xiang Zhuang insisted, the doorman had no choice but to stand at the head of the city surrounded by Xiang Zhuang and Xiang It, and shouted loudly through the interpreter: "Listen to the Hun envoy under the city, this official is Li Zuoche, the governor of the three counties in northern Xinjiang of the Han Dynasty, and you and other barbarian clowns jumped off the beam, and dared to invade the territory of my Han ......." ”

Xiang Zhuang expected, the Hun envoy obviously didn't expect Li Zuoche to really come out to answer him, reined in the horse and listened carefully to the threat of the fake Li Zuoche under the city, and then threatened each other with the fake Li Zuoche, and quickly turned the horse around and left, and did not point out to the face that Li Zuoche in the city was impersonated by others, Xiang Zhuang was relieved to see it, and said: "Fortunately, it seems that this Hun barbarian really doesn't know Guangwujun." ”

"Uncle Qiu, don't be too happy yet." Xiang It jumped out again and poured cold water and said: "Maybe the Hun envoy just now has recognized Guangwujun as a fake, but he deliberately didn't break it, wanting us to think that they have been fooled, and then kill us by surprise." ”

"I said Xiang It, can you say something auspicious?" Xiang Zhuang smiled bitterly and said: "I finally used a trick, why can't you say something nice." ”

"Hey, hey." Xiang Qi smiled and said, "The main thing is that Uncle Qiu, you never have to calculate, so I don't have much confidence in you." ”

Xiang Zhuang was speechless, and could only turn his gaze to the Huns in the north, and muttered: "I hope we don't see through it, otherwise we will be in big trouble." ”

The situation may be in the mouth of the crow, more than 30,000 Huns camped out of the city overnight, in the afternoon of the next day, not only a larger number of Huns army from the north, but also Maodun's Baimaoao banner also appeared in the Hun army, representing that Maodun has come to the battlefield of Shanwu in person, personally commanding the battle, but also coincidentally, just in the evening of the same day, the cold wind blows, dark clouds cover the room, the sky actually fell the first winter snow of the year.

Seeing this scene, the Hun army, which was far more than the Han army to adapt to the wind and snow weather, of course, was full of joy, all thinking that this was God's blessing on the army, and the morale was also greatly boosted, but the Han army was in an uproar, and they all thought that this was not a good sign, Xiang Zhuang was even more worried, and said helplessly: "I hope it won't be too cold all of a sudden, if the moat is frozen, you can directly cross the river by stepping on the ice, and this battle will be even more difficult to fight." ”

After personally leading the army to arrive outside the city of Shanwu, Mao Dun first deliberately let the Huns light countless bonfires in the hilly areas in the distance, densely covered with flags, and in the early morning of the next day, countless cooking smoke was lit, and the number of fireworks intimidated the Shanwu defenders, and also made the Shanwu defenders unable to judge the real strength of the Xiongnu through the number of fireworks banners, and could not know themselves and the enemy.

This is not counting, at noon that day, a group of leading the party wearing Han clothes was still under the personal leadership of Zang Di, came to the outside of Shanwu City to explore the terrain and study siege tactics, and at the same time shouted loudly in Chinese to persuade the Han soldiers on the city wall to surrender out of the city.

Not to mention that Xiang Zhuang was worried about the city, it was only said that Zang Tu led a group of leading party to carefully explore the terrain of Shanwu City outside the city, and soon returned to the Xiongnu camp located far away in the west to return to Mao Dun, and said that Shanwu City was quite strong, and if you want to attack the city, you must be fully prepared, and you can only launch a siege with all kinds of siege weapons, and it is also recommended that Mao Dun immediately send people to cut down trees and immediately start building siege weapons.

To Zang Di's surprise, after listening to his suggestion, Mao Dun actually laughed and said, "King Donghulu, do you think Ben Khan really wants to fight Shanwucheng?" ”

"The Great Khan doesn't plan to attack the city of Shanwu? Why? Zang Tu asked in surprise.

"Of course, it's because the grasp is too small." Mao Dun sneered and said: "Shanwu is the rule of Yanmen County, and the city is the most fortified, and we have already determined that Li Zuoche, the barbarian of the Central Plains, is in Shanwu City, which means that the main force of the Central Plains people in the frontier is also in Shanwu, if we forcibly send troops to attack the fortifications, not only will we not be too sure to take Shanwu City, but on the contrary, we may suffer heavy losses in the battle that we are not good at." ”

"Great Khan, where are we going to fight?" Zang Di hurriedly asked.

"To the south, of course!" Mao Dun said with a cruel smile: "Although there is still Pingcheng to the east of Shanwu that can be attacked, but Pingcheng is close to Daidi, and our Zuoxian King has previously feinted to attack Daijun, and it is very likely that Li Zuoche, that barbarian, has increased his troops in Pingcheng in advance to prevent it, and Pingcheng will definitely be difficult to defeat." ”

"But Ma Yi is different, Ma Yi is located in the south of Shanwu, Li Zuoche would never have thought that we would bypass Shanwu and attack Ma Yi directly, and we definitely didn't deploy too many troops in Ma Yi beforehand, it is definitely easier to fight than Shanwu Peace City! In addition, Mayi is the only way to connect Yanmen and Taiyuan, and there must be countless military grain and grass hoarded in the city, so we have laid down Mayi, and we will be able to solve the problem of grain and grass for this southern expedition immediately! ”

"The Great Khan is wise, that's the truth!" Zang Di suddenly realized, and hurriedly flattered: "Your Majesty dares to bet with his head, Li Zuoche's horseman would never have thought that we would directly attack Ma Yi, and it would definitely be easy for us to take Ma Yi!" ”

Mao Dun smiled, and casually ordered: "Pass the order, at the second watch tonight, our main force will go south to Mayi overnight, and when we set off, wrap the horses' hooves, and all the soldiers have stones in their mouths, and we must not expose our whereabouts." The former army under the command of the Right Virtuous King stayed in the camp, lit as many bonfires as possible every day, and produced more cooking smoke, and then suddenly went south two days later to join our main force! ”

"Great Khan, is this necessary?" Zang Di asked strangely: "The tyrant army doesn't dare to go out of the city to fight us, so it is necessary for us to go south so carefully?" And to set up a false illusion, so that the tyrant army thinks that our main force is still good? ”

"Of course it is necessary." Mao Dun's smile was even more hideous, and he said: "First, faking the illusion that our main force is still in Shanwu can make Li Zuoche's barbarian not dare to immediately send troops south to reinforce Mayi, otherwise, if his reinforcements take advantage of our lack of a firm foothold in Mayi, they will quickly rush to the battlefield and rush into the city to defend the city, which will increase the difficulty for us to attack Mayi." Second, let Li Zuoche think that our main force is still in Mayi, and it is possible for him to draw troops from Mayi to reinforce Shanwu, if he really does this, we will definitely have a greater chance of defeating Mayi. ”

"Great Khan Talent!" Zang Di hurriedly complimented loudly and said: "With the wise command of the Great Khan, let's not say that it is Mayi Yanmen this time, even the entire Taiyuan County will definitely be able to take it!" ”

Needless to say, the commander ability of Mao Dun, the founder of the Xiongnu hegemony, was that the main force of the Xiongnu elite with as many as 80,000 people quietly went south at night, and it was not even discovered by any of the soldiers of the Shanwu defenders, after completing the assembly in the distance to the south of Shanwu at dawn, Mao Dun gave full play to the high mobility of the Xiongnu elite cavalry, and took 80,000 elites to force the attack from Shanwu to the city of Mayi, which was more than 100 miles away in the south.

The result of the sudden attack made the Hun army overjoyed, and even after they had seen the city wall of Mayi, the last group of people outside the city rushed into the city to close the door to save their lives, leaving the life debris all over the ground for the Hun cavalry to rob, at the same time, the flag defenders on the city of Mayi were scarce, and the soldiers shouted constantly, obviously panicked by the sudden arrival of the Hun cavalry. In addition, Zang Di and Zhang Sheng and other leading parties stepped forward to check the situation, and were extremely happy to find that there was only one Han army's captain banner and four thousand people flags on the city of Mayi, so it was judged that the Han army in the city should only be more than 5,000 people.

After the situation was reported to Mao Dun, Mao Dun was naturally overjoyed, and immediately ordered the Hun cavalry to set up a camp outside the city, cut down trees and prepare various siege weapons. Zang Di and Zhang Sheng and other leading parties couldn't wait, and as soon as it was dawn the next day, they immediately rushed to the near side of Mayi City to explore the terrain and study siege tactics for Maodun, and soon thought that they should focus on attacking the east gate of Mayi, which is the most open, and the length of the siege ladder only needs to cause about three zhang.

The Xiongnu army, which lacked siege technology, of course, adopted the siege plan of Zang Di and others, and hurriedly organized people to carry earth, stone and firewood bundles to fill the river and open the road on the same day, and the defenders of the city fired arrows together, although it also caused a lot of casualties to the Xiongnu, but still failed to block the footsteps of the Xiongnu to fill the river, and on the same day the Xiongnu army filled a moat outside the east gate of Mayi.

Three days later, the Xiongnu feint army led by King Youxian successfully rushed to Mayi to meet with the main force, in addition to reporting that the Shanwu defenders did not dare to send troops to fight and pursue, but also brought good news that the Xiongnu's rear army brigade had successfully joined the Daijun feint army led by King Zuoxian, and soon rushed south to provide beef and mutton for the Xiongnu elite, as well as to take on auxiliary logistics tasks. At the same time, relying on the hard work of the leading party and the Hun soldiers day and night, the first batch of siege weapons have also been made, and they can attack the small city of Mayi at any time.

Although there was not much food with the army, Mao Dun still decisively adopted Zang Di's suggestion that he could not be in a hurry, and spent more than a day to continue to build siege weapons, as well as fill the moat to open up the road, and sharpen the woodcutter as fast as possible, and then it was in the early morning of the seventh day of arriving in Mayi City, Mao Dun personally led the army to the city of Mayi and launched the first siege battle of this southern expedition.

"Command the whole army! After attacking the city, the whole army disbanded the military discipline for one day, and only half of everything that was grabbed needed was handed over, and the woman who was grabbed could be handed over for three days at will, and then handed over for distribution! If you want to get rich, if you want the beauties of the Central Plains, you will work hard for Ben Khan to attack the city! Kill! ”

With a roar of Mao Dun, countless cowhide war drums sounded almost at the same time, and thousands of Hun soldiers lined up in neat horizontal formations, pushing and carrying all kinds of siege weapons, shouting and charging forward quickly, like a tide rushing, frantically rushing to the 'poor' Mayi town, and like an iron fist smashing down, as if the 'poor' Mayi town could be smashed into powder in an instant......

…………

At the same time, in Shanwu City, relying on the efforts of the scouts, Xiang Zhuang and Xiang It's uncle and nephew finally confirmed that the suddenly disappeared Xiongnu army really appeared on the battlefield of Mayi, and when they heard this report, Xiang Zhuang and Xiang It were of course one more sunny than the other, Xiang It said to Xiang Zhuang with great admiration: "Uncle Qiu, it seems that you also have the talent to use the plan, the Hun barbarians are really fooled, I really think that Guangwu Jun is still in Shanwu City." ”

"It's a good thing your crow's mouth is not accurate, otherwise we would be in big trouble." Xiang Zhuang scolded angrily: "Be careful when you speak in the future, don't say anything depressing to me!" ”

Xiang Qi smiled awkwardly, and hurriedly changed the topic: "Uncle Qiu, what should we do next?" Do you want to send troops to reinforce Ma Yi, and pretend that we are very anxious. ”

"Nope." Xiang Zhuang shook his head and said: "It's time to do the envoy that Guangwujun has given us, from now on, send more scouts to the city to investigate everywhere, no matter what way you think, no matter how much you pay, you must also find us the Hun cattle and sheep brigade, as well as those Hun old and weak women and children who drive cattle and sheep!" Then keep an eye on them and know where they are every day! ”

…………

The picture turns back to the city of Mayi, in the wind and snow, in the deafening war drums, thousands of Hun soldiers lined up in a neat horizontal line, like the ups and downs of the waves, one after another rushed to the small city of Mayi where the height of the city wall was less than three zhang, scrambling to attack the city ladder tower on the city, stepping on the ants attached to the upward, the tall ladder car and the heavy siege vehicle are also constantly approaching the city wall, and the feather arrows shot to the city are like a storm, never stopping, the scale of the siege is huge, and it has created the highest record of the Xiongnu since it has ever been recorded in one fell swoop.

But it is very strange that although the Xiongnu have taken out 12 percent of their strength to attack the city, the small city of Mayi is still standing like a reef pillar in the sea, and countless feather arrows are always rising from behind the city wall, under the guidance of the order flag of the observer, it is quite accurate to cover the head of the siege team of the Xiongnu army, and it is taking away the precious lives of the Xiongnu soldiers all the time. The stones and trees on the city wall are like hail raindrops falling one after another, frantically smashing to the head of the Hun soldiers who are attacking on the ladder, during which they also throw down the nail board from time to time, piercing the instep of the Hun soldiers, so that the Huns soldiers howl and are seriously injured, basically lose their combat effectiveness, and the huge collision wood is one after another to knock over the flying ladder that has been on the city wall, so that the Hun soldiers on the ladder scream and fall down the bloody ground that has been stained red with blood.

Finally, a ladder car entered the range of the Han army's bow and arrows, and countless rockets had been concentrated on the ladder car, and the ladder car continued to advance with difficulty while burning, and was attacked by countless dovetail torches, and finally turned into a huge fireball, completely losing the siege effect.

Not to mention the crashing car, as soon as it approached the city gate, countless stones immediately fell above the city gate, quickly smashing the crashing car to pieces, and also smashed the Hun soldiers who pushed the crashing car forward to pieces, and died like meat sauce.

Seeing this scene in the distance outside the city, Mao Dun's face gradually turned pale, and then he couldn't bear it anymore, Mao Dun roared at Zang Tu and asked, "King Donghulu, didn't you say that the Central Plains army in the city is only five or six thousand people at most?" Now it seems like there are only so many defenders in the city? ”

"It's ......." Zang Di couldn't answer, and only after a while wiping his sweat and saying to himself, "Is that right?" Although the army of the tyrants can mobilize ordinary Qianshou to participate in the defense of the city, it is impossible for those Qianshou Li Shu, who have just entered the battlefield, to use the city's defense weapons so skillfully? It's impossible to play the counterattack rhythm so well, right? ”