The army withdrew to the camp to rest, eat and drink, and Zhao Junsheng, the ministers and generals came to the tent, and one by one they took a large bowl of tea and poured it into their mouths, which was too hot.

Zhao Junsheng finished drinking the tea, put down the big bowl and asked, "Have the casualties been counted?" ”

The medical officer ran in panting with his official robe, "Here it is, here it is!" ”

He paused to catch his breath for a few moments, bowed down and replied: "Back to Your Majesty, the casualties have just been counted, two hundred and sixteen people were killed in the battle, one hundred and twenty-five were injured, of which eighty-five were seriously wounded. ”

Zhao Junsheng frowned, this casualty figure is a bit large, you must know that it is only one morning, if it is fought in one day, the number of casualties is afraid that there will be no less than six or seven hundred, according to this casualty figure, the fifteen thousand co-enchanted army can not withstand such consumption.

He thought about it for a while, and instructed the medical officer: "Now we are the siege party, the medicine and supplies are not enough for the time being, we can't watch those seriously wounded people die, let Lang Zhong try to treat them as much as possible, don't be afraid of insufficient medicine, even if we can't save the life, we can do our best, whether it is for ourselves, or for other soldiers and these seriously wounded have an explanation!" ”

"Also, pay more attention to those lightly injured, now the weather is hot, the wound is easy to be infected and inflamed and suppurated, once it is inflamed and suppurated, it will be troublesome, so let the wounded pay attention to cleanliness and hygiene, and the wound should not be wet!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!" The medical officer agreed, bowed and withdrew.

Zhao Junsheng looked at Su Ji, "General Su, what do you think of the siege in the morning?" ”

Su Ji stood up and hugged his fists and said: "Back to Your Majesty, after all, the time for the reorganization of the Cooperative Army is too short, and it has not undergone strict training from our side, and the tactics used in siege warfare are still the tactics they trained before, and the defenders are their own people, and they are very familiar with their siege tactics, so they deal with them quite methodically!" ”

"Because of the command of our officers and colonels, these co-operative troops cooperated tacitly during the siege of the city, and they advanced and retreated to a certain extent, but because they were former comrades with the defenders, they could not bear to fight during the siege, and they were hesitant to attack, and their morale was not high, their momentum was insufficient, and the offensive was not fierce enough, so they caused relatively large losses!"

"Also, the individual combat strength of the co-conscription army is too much compared to our army's infantry, which is also the reason for the relatively large casualties!"

Zhao Junsheng pondered for a moment and asked, "What charter do you have for this siege battle?" ”

Su Ji replied: "The minister decided to attack the east gate first, make a feint attack on the west gate and the north gate, gradually increase the strength of the east gate attack, try to attract the defenders to the east gate, and then suddenly attack the west gate or the north gate!" ”

Zhao Junsheng nodded and said: "This idea is good, but you must plan and then move, either you don't fight, if you want to fight, you have to fight once to break through the city gate, otherwise it will be a startling snake, so that the enemy army has a defense, and it will not work if you use this tactic in the future!" ”

Su Ji bowed down and agreed: "The minister understands!" ”

Zhao Junsheng instructed Yang Lie again: "You send some soldiers and horses to requisition 20,000 displaced people to come and dig up the earth to fill in all the moats, so that the well fence can be pushed to the edge of the city wall!" ”

"Yes!"

Zhao Junsheng asked Lin Jinghui again: "Where are the reinforcements from the Southern Dynasties?"

Lin Jinghui stood up and replied: "Back to Your Majesty, according to the latest news, about six days ago, 30,000 reinforcements from the Southern Dynasty had arrived at the boundary of Xunyang, with the scale of their 30,000 horses, the speed of the march would not be too fast, and the daily march would be at most sixty miles, and it should be at the boundary of Yangxin County at this time!" ”

Zhao Junsheng frowned and said, "They didn't take the waterway? ”

"Yes, but the Song army's naval ships are still swimming against the current, according to our detailed report, the Song army's reinforcements have absorbed a lot of garrisons from all over the country along the way, more than a thousand, as little as three or five hundred, at this time the strength should be far more than 30,000!"

Zhao Junsheng looked at the generals and colonels: "Zhu Qing thinks that the Song army has a boat and doesn't sit, why do you walk?" ”

Li Song stood up and saluted, "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that they have two intentions in this move: first, it is to absorb the garrisons along the way and draw troops to go west together; Second, it's also to speed things up! More than 30,000 people took the sailor ship, and they were going upstream, and the speed of the boat was definitely not fast! ”

After Li Song finished speaking, he walked to the map next to him, pointed to the map and said: "Your Majesty, colleagues, please see, if you take the land route, the Song army can reach Baling in a straight line to the west, and this road is much closer than taking the water route!" Then the sailors of the Song army must be much faster when they are empty, and they can meet the army at Baling, and then load the soldiers and horses and go to Yiling by waterway! ”

Everyone nodded again and again, this can indeed save a lot of time, and it can also absorb the garrison troops along the way, according to this method, when they arrive in Yiling, the Song army reinforcements will only increase to 50,000 horses.

Zhao Junsheng touched his chin and asked, "National Teacher, how many soldiers and horses does Lu Shuang's army have now?" Where did you go? ”

Dongfang Chen stood up and replied: "Back to Your Majesty, Lu Shuang's army has gathered 10,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, and has now captured Zigui and is marching towards Yiling!" ”

"Okay, pay close attention to the dynamics and positions of the armies on both sides, and report any news immediately!"

"Yes!"

In the afternoon, at the beginning of Shen Shi, the temperature dropped slightly, and the cadres came to the outside of the city again to set up a formation.

Su Ji still followed the previous way of playing, and carried out a feint attack on the west gate and the north gate, although the army formation was open, but only a small number of troops were sent to attack, and the attack strength was not strong, but at the east gate, the cadres launched a fierce attack, which was even more fierce than the offensive in the morning.

There are many recruits on the city wall who have not undergone much training and cannot adapt to such siege strength, coupled with relatively large casualties and low morale, the defense of the city wall was in trouble for a while.

In desperation, the guard general Chen Xian could only send elite soldiers to the city wall to defend, withdraw the recruits, and let the recruits take a break.

The purpose of Chen Xian's deployment is very simple, that is, to train the recruits in a combat manner, so that the recruits can grow and adapt to the battle, but the price is huge, only in the morning more than 200 recruits were lost, and in the afternoon, many of the recruits who participated in the battle this time were frightened, no matter how much pressure the generals exerted, they could not summon up the courage to face the enemy's attack.

The siege battle was fought until sunset, the soldiers on both sides were exhausted, the cadres struck the golden gong to collect the troops and return to the camp, the defenders on the city wall finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the saddest day finally passed.

The men carried the food and water to the walls, and the veterans of the defenders were somewhat accustomed to it, and they were already hungry and they picked up the food and devoured it, while the recruits could not eat a bite, and all the recruits had almost no appetite for the corpses and stumps and severed arms everywhere, and a large amount of dried blood.

Chen Xian ordered the recruits to be forced to eat, if they didn't eat, where would they have the strength to continue fighting?

The persecuted recruits had to forcibly swallow some food.

After dinner, Huang Dian will report to Chen Xian in the future, "General, the battle damage has been calculated!" ”

"How many casualties?" Chen Xian asked.

"Three hundred and sixty-one dead, two hundred and twenty-three wounded!"

Chen Xian was not surprised by this result, the corpses and stumps and broken arms on the city wall could be estimated at a glance.

Huang Yuan continued: "According to the statistics of the last general, as many as 200 people were killed and injured by the stone bullets thrown by the enemy's trebuchets in the morning, and the most were killed by the enemy's arrows using the well railing, half of them were our archers, and the rest were spearmen and sword and shield soldiers, and only a few dozen people were really killed by the enemy climbing the city wall!" ”

Chen Xian asked, "How many enemy casualties are there?" ”

General Huang replied: "There are 480 corpses left behind, and the wounded soldiers should be between 200 and 300, and the number of heavy casualties should be higher than ours, but they are the besieging side, and it is normal if the number of casualties is more than twice that of our army, but now it seems that their casualties are not much higher than ours!" ”

Chen Xian's face was heavy, and his mood was even heavier, he said: "Today, I have observed the whole city, and the individual combat power of these co-conformists is similar to that of our soldiers, but they have become different under the command of the enemy generals, and their combat power has improved a lot!" ”

"Besides, the opponent's siege equipment is sharp, first of all, the trebuchet, the stone projectile actually exploded and splashed when it landed, which gave us a lot of casualties, and their archers, the command rate is very high, far more than our archers, especially when using the well fence to shoot at us, they have the advantage, and the next battle is very difficult to fight!"

General Huang nodded and said: "What the general said is true, the archers of the cadre army are indeed powerful, if they release arrows under the city, the threat to our soldiers is not great, but they stand on the well fence and release arrows have a condescending advantage, coupled with superb archery skills, our archers are completely suppressed, the loss is too great, we must find a way to destroy their well fence!" ”

Chen Xian thought about it and shook his head with a wry smile: "I can't think of a way for the time being, if there is a cavalry in the city, we can plan and maybe we can destroy their well fence, but we don't have cavalry, if we send infantry out of the city to destroy the opponent's well fence, I'm afraid that there will be no return, and we may be able to get the goal!" ”

General Huang said worriedly: "General, if you continue to fight like this, if there are such casualties every day, I am afraid that if you can't fight for a few days, the morale of the soldiers will collapse, and once the casualties are more than half, the morale of the army will be unstable!" ”

Judging from today's casualties, it will only take four or five days for more than half of the casualties, and the consequences of more than half of the casualties will not only be a heavy blow to morale, but will also cause the city defense force to be extremely weakened.

For example, if a section of the city wall is defended by 1,000 men, compared to 500 men, the defense of 500 men will definitely drop by more than half.

Chen Xian thought for a while, and instructed Huang Dian: "You take some people to the city to tear down some door planks and come over, use a saw to see them into pieces of wood, and give each soldier a piece, let them tie the plank to their backs, once the enemy stands on the well fence and releases arrows, they will turn their backs to the enemy army, use the planks to resist, and you can also turn around and counterattack, so that you can not only defend against the enemy's arrows, but also recycle the enemy's arrows!" ”

When Huang Yuan heard this, his eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands and said: "This is a good way, the last general will take someone there immediately!" ”