Cao Wenyao led his troops to Guandaokou on April 8, and stopped again three miles north of the Guandaokou Fort, and while ordering Yu Fuxiang to continue to command the camp, he took his generals out of the fort and began to stop and look at the temporary earthen fort in front of him.

When he looked at this not too big earthen fort, Cao Wenyao couldn't help but be a little sneering at this fort here, when he followed his brother Cao Wenyao as a soldier outside the pass in his early years, Da Ming's best thing was to build a fort outside the pass, and the forts he had seen could be said to be countless, like the fort built by the Xingtian Army here at the official road crossing, he really didn't pay much attention to it.

"Ridiculous! It's ridiculous that the thieves want to stop our army with just a small earthen fort! You've all seen it, do you dare to take this castle on behalf of your own officials? Cao Wenyao pointed to the earthen fort in front of him with a banner of the Xingtian Army flying high in front of him and said to his generals.

As soon as the words fell, several thousand generals came out of the ranks with their fists and shouted: "The lowly is willing to ask for battle!" ”

Seeing that several generals came out to ask for battle, Cao Wenyao's mood improved a lot, what he was worried about was that his generals were frightened because of the battle of stealing the camp, and now it seems that these people still dare to ask for battle, which means that this battle can still be fought.

Cao Wenyao didn't talk nonsense, ordered two thousand generals, and ordered him to immediately prepare tools to prepare for the attack on the Xingtian Army Fort at Guandaokou, and he himself gathered troops to watch the enemy formation in the back.

Liu Yaoben didn't expect the officers and soldiers to come to discuss with them with kind words this time, and as soon as the officers and soldiers on the other side were ready to attack, he immediately ordered to open fire.

Cao Wenyao led the troops to attack Lushi County this time, and he was ready to attack Lushi County, and at the same time, Yu Fuxiang was also prepared when he went out of Shaanzhou to meet Cao Wenyao, so this time Cao Yu and the two brought nearly 100 kinds of artillery with the army, including both the Franco-style cannons, the front-mounted general cannons, and the light and easy-to-carry tiger squat cannons, and even brought two large-caliber general cannons, which were specially used for siege purposes.

So as soon as the fire was fired, the firepower of the official army immediately suppressed the artillery on Liu Yaoben's side, but the Xingtian Army did not give it in vain, their biggest advantage was not that the quality of the artillery exceeded that of the other party, but that the gunners of the Xingtian Army almost all went through basic and systematic artillery training, so the accuracy of the firing was much higher than that of the official gunners, and after the two rounds of artillery fire, the artillery on the side of the Xingtian Army began to become much more accurate, and the shells fired again began to fall in the artillery array of the official army. Soon several officers and soldiers were overturned.

In short, at the beginning of the artillery battle between the two armies, the battle was very fierce, and both sides also had their own losses, and they could not distinguish one superior, and then the officers and troops began to send troops and generals to launch an attack on the fort in formation.

There is nothing to describe such an attack, in short, in the face of the fire of the Xingtian Army, the official army could not bargain much at all, and soon at the end of the day, the official army repelled three attacks, so that the offensive launched by Cao Wenyao on the first day could only be hastily withdrawn.

After this day, Cao Wenyao had to once again put away his contempt for the dirt fort in front of him, which did not look very strong, and also had to put away his contempt for the Xingtian Army, the group of Xingtian Army troops guarding the fort fought very tenaciously, and the discerning people could see that they were quite well trained, not at all like the thieves that Cao Wenyao had encountered before, they were chaotic and unruly, but they behaved very orderly from beginning to end. The obedience to orders far exceeded that of the officers and troops under Cao Wenyao.

The performance of the Xingtian Army made Cao Wenyao a little surprised, and he believed Yu Fuxiang's evaluation of this Xingtian Army, and knew that this time he had gnawed a hard bone.

So in the next three days, Cao Wenyao continued to send his officers and soldiers to attack this earthen fort in turn, but every time without exception in front of this earthen fort was defeated with a broken head, and the angry Cao Wenyao personally beheaded two generals who disobeyed the military order, which forced the officers and soldiers under his command to continue to attack the earthen fort.

However, although a few days later, Liu Yao successfully commanded the soldiers to repel the attack of the official army, but it was not easy for him, after all, the strength of the official army is much stronger than him, especially the number of artillery far exceeds the number of artillery on his hand a lot, and he always holds the initiative on the battlefield. They were unable to get ammunition supplies, so that the stocks in the fort began to be a little unsustainable after a few days of depletion.

Another problem is that the life of the guns in their hands is limited, after a few days, each guns shoot no less than two or three hundred rounds of ammunition, so that the limited life of the guns is quickly consumed, and on the fourth day, some of the guns in the hands of the spontaneous guns can no longer be fired, and they have no new guns on hand to replace, so that their firepower gradually began to weaken.

Although under the mobilization of him and his subordinate officers, the soldiers of the Xingtian Army exerted a strong combat effectiveness and showed a style of not fearing death, but in the past few days, although they killed and injured a large number of officers and soldiers, they also paid a lot of casualties.

There are many troops on the official army's side, but Liu Yaoben's troops are very limited, the officers and soldiers can attack in turns, but the soldiers and generals in the fort cannot be rotated often, they can only stick to the pass wall, not to mention the casualties in a few days, and everyone is quite tired.

This is also the thing that worries Liu Yaoben the most, the official army continues to attack in turn, what he is most afraid of is that the generals under his command will not be able to support one by one and will collapse, but before the reinforcements arrive, he will not get any replenishment at all, so he can only stick to this place.

These days, under the artillery fire of the official army, the originally not very strong pass wall has been bombed to the ground, and some places have even collapsed, revealing the logs rammed in the inside, which also forced Liu Yaoben to constantly take advantage of the gap in the battle to send people to repair these damaged pass walls, which made the burden of the Xingtian army and generals even heavier.

When the fourth day ended, Liu Yaoben was also wounded, because he came down this day, every time he appeared in the most violent place of the offensive, so that he became the target of the officers and soldiers, at the end of the day, Liu Yao himself was hit by no less than seven or eight arrows, fortunately, he was wearing an iron armor, for him to block a lot of arrows, even so, an arrow still penetrated through the crack in the armor, shot through his waist, if this arrow deviated a little inward, it might hurt Liu Yaoben's intestines, kill him.

When the generals saw that Liu Yaoben was injured, they asked Liu Yaoben to retreat and rest, but Liu Yaoben refused, so he sat on the pass wall, watched and commanded the battle, and untied his armor, so that the medical soldiers helped him pick up the arrow on his waist on the pass wall, and after a simple bandage, he once again put on his armor and climbed the wall to shout and fight.

Seeing that Liu Yao was so brave at a young age, the subordinates under his command had nothing to say, and they all rose up one by one, and killed a group of officers and soldiers who had already attacked the fort wall one after another.

After dusk, the sky began to be covered with dark clouds, and then look at the official road crossing fort, at this time it has been dilapidated, the fort wall is full of craters from the shells, some places also collapsed, the northeast and west three sides of the fort wall are stained with blood, in the trench under the pass wall, there are also lying all over the corpses of officers and soldiers, broken weapons and broken weapons are thrown everywhere, the pass wall is like a reed flower, densely covered with feather arrows shot by the officers and soldiers, It swayed slightly in the wind.

Liu Yaoben's face was slightly pale, his hand was holding on to the wall, looking outside, the official army slowly retreated again, he looked in the direction of Yongning County, and said in his heart, "Dashuai, when will you arrive!" Yaoben has done his best! But I don't know if I can hold out until you go back to the teacher! ’

Looking at Liu Yaoben's back, many generals of the Xingtian Army looked at him with admiration, many people knew that the relationship between Liu Yaoben and Xiao Tianjian was very unusual, but Liu Yaoben did not do despicable things because of Xiao Tianjian's favor for him, on the contrary, Liu Yaoben was very strict with himself everywhere in the army, and every time there was a big battle, he always stood in front of the soldiers, which was enough to make everyone unable to despise him. put Liu Yaoben under the wall, and loudly beckoned the medical guards to come over and change the dressing for Liu Yaoben.

When the medical soldiers untied Liu Yaoben's armor, they found that his wound had been cracked open again because of running back and forth, and the blood that flowed out had soaked his clothes, so he hurriedly gave him medicine to stop the bleeding with tears in his eyes, and told him not to run like this again, otherwise the arrow wound would not heal, but Liu Yaoben gritted his teeth and smiled: "It's okay!" What is this injury, it's just a piece of cake! Just wrap it up for me, it's no big deal! ”

At this time, several generals walked to Liu Yaoben's side, looked at the sky hesitantly, and glanced at the surrounding soldiers, Liu Yaoben saw that these subordinates had something to say, so he waved his hand to let the idle people disperse, and then asked them: "Is there something wrong with you?" But it doesn't hurt to say it! ”

"Sir! It can't go on like this! Thirty percent of the firecrackers in the camp today are out of use, and there is not much gunpowder left, it seems that it is going to rain, and if it rains, even if we use the self-generated firearms, I am afraid it will have a great impact! If the reinforcements don't come again, I don't know if I can hold on tomorrow! ”

"Yes, Brother Liu, the pass wall in the north of the fort was collapsed by the officers and soldiers today, and some of the officers and soldiers attacked it, even if it is repaired tonight, I am afraid that it may not be repaired, and once it rains again, it will be impossible to do it!"

“……”

Liu Yaoben quietly listened to several of his subordinates finish their questions, and then stood up in cloak and said: "I'm not blind, I've seen everything you said, but you have to remember for me, no matter what, we have to stick to it here, until the reinforcements arrive, if nothing else, Uncle Liu should have sent his reinforcements, and the marshal must have received the news, and he should already be on the way to come!"

Not to mention that the fort wall collapsed in one or two places, even if it all collapsed, what would it do? Even if you fill it with your life, you have to drag this group of officers and soldiers here so that they can't enter Lushi County! This is the task given to us by the marshal, even if we die, we must complete it!

Pass the order, rammed earth to repair the wall is not necessary, as far as possible to prepare the soil bag, fill with the soil bag, once there is a collapse, directly fill the soil bag, the straw bag is not enough, just use the clothes and pants to fill the soil, in short, we only have two words, that is, to persevere, until the handsome return to the aid here!

Today I want to say one thing here, if I die, Xiao Xiaoer will take over from me to continue to command, Xiao Er is dead, Zhao Xiang will take over, Zhao Xiang will die, Li Hu will take over, if this continues, we are all dead, let the team take over, anyway, I have one thought, even if we are exhausted, I can't let out here! Have you all remembered? ”

When he heard Liu Yaoben's words so decisive, several of his subordinates also completely gave up all their thoughts, and immediately replied loudly one by one: "Obey!" Fight to the death! ”

"Alright, let's go down and rest! By the way, I went to see the wounded and told the medical staff to treat them as much as possible and let them eat better! ......" After Liu Yaoben's body shook slightly, he waved his hand to let them disperse, and then slowly sat on a pile of soil, pressing the wound on his waist hard, and large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.