Although Liu Bei wanted to take advantage of Cao Cao's new funeral to go south, Guan Yu had a different opinion, he said: "Taking advantage of people's mourning to cut them down is unjust!" ”

Taking advantage of the fact that someone else's monarch has just died, sending troops to attack is immoral.

Liu Bei said disapprerovingly: "If you don't crusade at this time, you won't have a chance in the future!" ”

Guan Yu said again: "Even if we can win in the field battle, those fortified cities built by Cao's army will not be easy to deal with. ”

As Shinrikyo spread throughout India, artillery technology spread everywhere, and the princes were able to forge their own cannons. Even if the technology is relatively backward and the cannon is too heavy, it can be erected on the city wall and used as a fortress cannon. In this day and age, the defense has been greatly strengthened, and the means of attack have been much weakened.

If you really want to fight, unless you have an absolute superiority in strength and firepower, otherwise, you can only slowly wear it out.

Liu Bei was very confident, and he said to Guan Yu: "There is a lot of help for the righteous, but little help for the unjust." Cao Cao has been fighting in the east and west all these years, and he has already had a grudge with the princes, and now I raise my arms and shout, it must be the one who responds like a cloud! ”

A month later, the replies from Lü Bu, Xu Wen and other northern princes arrived, and these people were reluctant to send troops to fight. First, the siege war is really too deadly, it consumes countless money and food, and countless soldiers are killed and wounded; The second is that the local natives of India are really easy to rule, and they don't have to worry about it, and they will send the tax revenue up.

Where there is an iron head like the Chinese, if you squeeze it hard, you will immediately run away, or simply turn into a bandit. Even if the people here die, they want to die under the sword of their masters. After arriving here, whether it was Lu Bu, Liu Bei, Cao Cao, or Sun Quan, the combat effectiveness of the army under their command was worse day by day.

With so many indigenous people to exploit, who wants to fight to the death? Even if Cao Jun's military law is harsh, he can't control the soldiers under his command from escaping in groups. Later, Cao Cao had no choice but to use a lot of Huairou methods, otherwise the people under his command would run out.

This is also why Cao Cao asked Cao Ang not to think about revenge when he was dying, this land seems to have a kind of magic. No matter how ferocious an army you are, when you come here, you will be corrupted quickly. Sun Ce only brought 10,000 remnants of the defeated generals, and many of them were family members of the army, who could fight less than 5,000, and then patted Cao's army back.

Hearing that the princes of all parties did not want to fight, and just wanted to live a small life by guarding their own one-third of an acre, Liu Bei said angrily: "I don't want to be a prince, I am all a man with a small eye!" ”

If the others don't come, they can't stop Liu Bei's determination to send troops. He raised an army of 50,000 and slew it to the south. Among these 50,000 people, the only ones who can really fight are 4,000 troops composed of Han Chinese, and the rest are local natives, although their combat effectiveness is not negative, but it is also very doubtful.

Sure enough, the army had only traveled a hundred miles, and tens of thousands of people did not know where to go. In the eyes of the Han people, many of these Ah San look the same. There are no households here, and no one can be found if you want to settle accounts after the autumn. Like the previous conquerors of the land, the Chinese have become the new ruling class, completely separated from the untouchables, the lower castes.

In the eyes of the natives, fighting is a matter for the upper class, so they are reluctant to get involved. And there is also the problem of language barriers, which are not even possible to build grassroots organizations like in China.

Before he could fight with Cao's army, the army was only a little over 20,000 left. If we continue to move forward, I am afraid that the number of troops will be further reduced. This is not the time of 20 years ago, when there were many people and there was no use. Flesh and blood are just living targets in front of the cannon.

When Cao Cao was first resurrected, he also captured many natives to attack the city, but as soon as those people heard the roar of the cannons, they fled without a trace. Now Liu Bei also encountered the same problem, the locals are very docile, but they are also too docile, they all love peace, do not like to fight, and they can't understand Liu Bei's ideal of "governing the country and leveling the world".

On horseback, Liu Bei's face turned pale, he increased his forehead with his hand, and sighed: "I don't want military discipline to be corrupted so much!" ”

Guan Yu persuaded: "Barbarians are always very strange, those Hu people on the northern grasslands are not afraid of death, and the barbarians here are like local chickens and dogs. It is better for us to withdraw our troops for the time being, and when the number of Chinese increases, it is not too late to send troops to fight. ”

Liu Bei sighed, shook his head, and said, "I'm only five or six years younger than Cao Cao, and now that he's dead, how long can I live?" If you don't take this opportunity to knock down the south, I'm afraid that there will be no more chance. ”

Guan Yu said: "Even if our generation can't do it, there is still the next generation!" ”

Liu Bei smiled bitterly: "Since coming to this address, the soldiers have become arrogant. In the future, I'm afraid it will be even more unbearable. When the rest of us are gone, I guess no one will still have the dream of unifying the world. ”

Isn't it, how comfortable it is to be the master at home, usually bully Ah San, and grab a few women back when you are bored, isn't it beautiful these days? Who would want to go to the battlefield and fight?

Guan Yu was speechless, because he also clearly knew the situation below. And he himself has millions of acres of land, has established more than a dozen estates, and has a group of wives and concubines and children in the family, even he is like this, how can he restrain the people below?

If it weren't for his loyalty to Liu Bei, he wouldn't have wanted to come out to fight. The fortress was equipped with cannons, which magnified the advantage of the defenders several times. Whoever attacks suffers, and this kind of lesson in exchange for blood and tears has turned most people into lovers of peace.

Liu Bei took Guan Yu and Zhang Fei to continue to lead the troops forward, and the soldiers and horses under his command continued to decrease, and when they arrived at the Cao army fortress, there were only more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under his command. The soldiers set up camps, dug trenches, erected artillery forts, and methodically prepared for the siege.

The soldiers are all trained, and they all have combat experience, and they are already very skilled in doing these things, but it is also obvious that their fighting enthusiasm is not high. After spending five or six days to prepare, the cannons were dragged to the gun emplacements and fired sequentially.

Liu Beijun's twelve-pounder Napoleon guns were all exchanged from China, and their power and accuracy were very amazing. But after so many years, there are many more means of dealing with shelling. The walls were built very low, with several ditches and earthen ramparts, and the cannons were loud but did not do much damage.

But when the infantry began to charge, the defenders would poke their heads out and teach Liu Beijun how to be a man with arquebuses and tiger squatting cannons.

The rate of fire of the Tiger Squat cannon can reach four rounds per minute, and more than a dozen infantry cannons fire together, knocking down the attacking infantry in pieces. Then the smoothbore gunners stood up and fired a volley at the enemy. Long flames erupted, and white smoke suddenly enveloped a large area.

The attackers also dragged up the infantry guns, and the two sides opened fire on each other through several trenches, and the fighting was very lively. In a few moments, the indigenous army that had been sent to charge had been crushed. Although they had undergone rigorous training, and there were Han Chinese as low-ranking officers in command, it was really difficult for them to face the artillery charge.

Iron balls and lead bullets flew sideways, and from time to time someone fell to the ground screaming. Because the defenders had a breastwork wall as a cover, they were slashed in the counter-fire, and the casualties were only one-third of Liu Bei's. Half an hour after the exchange of fire, the battlefield was shrouded in thick white smoke, and it was impossible to see where people were.

Only the flame at the time of fire indicates that there are still people in that place.

At this point, the distance of one hundred and eighty paces could no longer play any role, and under the shouts of the officers, the soldiers marched quickly with muskets and spears in their arms, and launched a fierce attack on the defenders.

"Boom!"

The cannons on the fort continued to sound, and loaded shotguns shot out, knocking down many people. The cannons deployed on both sides aimed at the enemy rushing out of the smoke, firing shells desperately into the middle. Shotguns are piece-kill, and a single shot can knock down many people.

After losing several hundred men, Liu Bei's army crossed several trenches and rushed to the vicinity of Cao's position. The smoothbore gunners fired a volley and, having knocked over a dozen enemies, threw away their muskets, drew their swords, and pounced on them howling. Not to be outdone, the defenders also returned the color.

Hundreds of defenders also fired a volley at Liu Beijun, then retreated to the rear, hand-to-hand combat to the pikemen. The armies of both sides fought to the death on the breastwork, on the ramparts, and in the trenches, and from time to time some people fell to the ground screaming. In this era, steel armor has become very common, and the elite soldiers in the army are equipped.

But even if you put on steel armor, you can't stop bullets and shells. Soldiers on both sides were scuffled, and musketeers and artillerymen were desperately firing projectiles in the rear. Because they are all equipped with steel armor, it is difficult to cause much damage by hand-to-hand combat alone, and the main output still depends on cannons and muskets.

In this regard, the defenders again had an absolute advantage. The fierce battle lasted only more than ten minutes, and Liu Beijun had already suffered heavy casualties and lost a lot of morale. They threw away the cannons they had pushed up, abandoned their comrades who were wailing on the ground, and withdrew in disarray.

The artillery on the fortress roared again, killing dozens more people.

Just launched an attack, Liu Beijun lost five or six hundred people. If a person dies at this rate, as long as it takes six days, there will be no one left in Liu Bei's hands. On both the way of charging and retreating, the defenders will be severely attacked, but they will not be able to do much damage to the enemy.

Today's battle once again proves that without a threefold superiority in firepower and a fivefold superiority in troops, one should not think of attacking the enemy's fortress. Seeing his soldiers retreating in embarrassment, Liu Bei's body on horseback trembled. He suddenly felt a little dizzy, shook a little, and fell to the ground.