When Xu Qian and Zhou Sheng led the troops to rush to the Chinese army to support, on the side of the Liang army, Huo Yanwei soon discovered the movement of the Wu army.

"General, at present, the enemy and us are in a stalemate, and it will take some time to determine the victory or defeat; However, the Wu army is now mobilizing troops to rescue the Chinese army, which is a great time, and the general is asked to order an immediate counterattack to defeat the enemy army in one fell swoop! Deputy General Pei Fei said with a happy face.

"Yes, the last general is willing to lead the troops to attack, and please give the general an order!" Other generals also came forward to plead.

Huo Yanwei shook his head and said: "Otherwise, if the enemy dares to send troops to reinforce the Chinese army, it must be sure to hold the camp; If our army launches an attack at this time, I am afraid that it will be difficult to win in a short time; Once the enemy's reinforcements arrived at the Chinese army, the situation on General Wang Yanzhang's side would inevitably be reversed, and the major event would be suspended. ”

The generals were stunned for a moment, and hurriedly asked, "What is the general going to do?" Do we also have to divide our troops to support General Wang? ”

Huo Yanwei pondered for a moment and ordered: "Pei Fei, you command 2,000 troops to stop the enemy army, and you must not let the enemy reinforcements rush to the Chinese army; The other generals will attack with the general, and be sure to take the enemy camp as quickly as possible! ”

"The last general obeys!" The generals hurriedly responded.

……

On the side of the Chinese camp, the battle situation is in a stalemate.

The Liang army under Wang Yanzhang had the advantage of surprise attacks, but they had relatively few troops; Although the Xiaoyi army has a large number of troops, it will inevitably have some confusion after being attacked and hastily resisted.

Both sides can be said to have advantages and disadvantages, and it is difficult to distinguish for a while, and if there is no influence of foreign forces, it is difficult to say which side can have the last laugh.

At this critical time, Wang Yanzhang and Wang Yanyan could only resist with all their strength.

Especially Wang Yanzhang, his bravery is not blown, in the past few years when he fought with the Jin army, he was often the vanguard in every battle, galloping with an iron spear, fighting like flying, and the army was called Wang Tiegun.

Although he is almost sixty years old now, he is still as brave as ever, an iron spear flies up and down in his hand, blocking the invincible, and the Wu army around him does not dare to approach at all, only dares to attack from afar.

It was precisely because of his hard work that the morale of the Liang army was boosted, which allowed the Liang army to draw with the Wu army with a small number of troops.

"Death to those who stand in my way!" Just when Wang Yanzhang used the spear in his hand to kill a Wu soldier, the guard beside him suddenly reminded: "General, there is an army coming from the south!" ”

Wang Yanzhang's expression perked up, and he hurriedly asked, "But General Huo has arrived?" ”

"I don't know this yet, that army is far away, and I can't see whether it's friend or foe yet."

Wang Yanzhang's heart suddenly became nervous, if the army here is his own people, then today's battle is a decisive victory; But if enemy reinforcements arrive, the battle will be in vain.

At the same time, Wang Yanyan also found that an army was coming from the south, and like Wang Yanzhang, he was also extremely nervous at this time, not knowing whether it was reinforcements or enemy troops coming.

While boosting morale and claiming that reinforcements from their side had arrived, they were secretly preparing for the withdrawal of their troops once it was confirmed that it was enemy troops.

After a while, that army was getting closer and closer to the battlefield of the Chinese army, and soon, both sides confirmed the identity of the incoming army, it was the Wu army!

It turned out that although Huo Yanwei sent Pei Fei with 2,000 troops to block the reinforcements of the Wu army, what he didn't expect was that the strength sent by the Wu army to support the Chinese army turned out to be 2,000 people, and the scale of this force was completely beyond his expectations.

The 2,000 troops sent by Huo Yanwei were unable to stop the Wu army at all, and the Wu army soon broke through the defense line and rushed to support the Chinese army.

By the time Huo Yanwei realized his mistake, it was too late, so he could only order Pei Fei to lead the remnants of the army to follow behind Wu Jun and come to support Wang Yanzhang; While stepping up the attack, he hoped to break through Liu Rengen's camp as quickly as possible.

Seeing the arrival of Wu army reinforcements, the soldiers who were still fighting hard suddenly boosted their morale, and cheered one by one, as if the victory was just around the corner; On the Liang army's side, Wang Yanzhang's heart sank after confirming the arrival of enemy reinforcements.

"Could it be that General Huo was defeated? No way, even if he is defeated, he will send someone to announce it, and there will be no news at all. Although he thought so in his heart, Wang Yanzhang still understood that he had lost the battle today, and the morale of the enemy army was greatly boosted after receiving reinforcements, while the morale of the Liang army was greatly reduced, and it was impossible to achieve victory.

All he had to do was to withdraw the army as safe as possible.

"Pass the order, all the troops will withdraw in turn, and the general will personally cut off!" Although Wang Yanzhang was anxious in his heart, his complexion did not change at all, and he gave orders in a calm voice.

After hearing this, the generals were relieved and began to retreat according to his orders.

When the various departments began to break away from the Wu army, the reinforcements led by Pei Fei also rushed to support, but at this time it was already too late, Wang Yanzhang had already begun to deploy and retreat, and changing the military order now would only cause confusion.

"Continue to retreat, don't fight. Pei Fei, you lead your troops to break off with the general, Tang Ming, you are responsible for rectifying the army, and then take over the general! Wang Yanzhang ordered one after another.

When retreating, confusion is most likely to occur; Once the army is chaotic and the enemy takes the opportunity to counterattack, it will be difficult for Sun Wu to escape defeat.

At this time, after Wang Yanzhang personally led his troops to break off, the Liang troops retreated in an orderly manner, which made it difficult for the Wu army to seize the opportunity to counterattack; In particular, Wang Yanzhang's bravery made Wu Jun fearful, and he did not dare to step forward to force him, so he could only watch the enemy retreat.

By the afternoon, the battle was completely over, and on Huo Yanwei's side, he finally failed to break through Liu Renzhen's camp, but lost many soldiers in the fierce attack.

In general, today's battle began with a surprise attack by the Liang army, and the Wu army, which was caught off guard, was in an extremely passive situation at first; But after that, Wang Yanyan was not timid at the critical moment, but resisted, and finally blocked Wang Yanzhang's offensive and pulled the battle into a stalemate.

In the end, Liu Renzhen decisively sent troops to reinforce the Chinese army, and Huo Yanwei underestimated the strength of the Wu army's reinforcements, and finally let the Wu army's reinforcements come to support smoothly, and finally turned the tide of the battle and repelled the Liang army.

After the end of the battle, the Wu army found that it had lost more than 800 people and more than 1,000 wounded in today's battle, but the Liang army broke through two camps and lost a lot of supplies.

And the Liang army made good progress at the beginning, and the losses were not large, but when they retreated later, there was a problem, and Wang Yanzhang had him personally on his side, so it was okay to say; Huo Yanwei had a large number of troops on his side, far surpassing Liu Renzhen, so he also suffered little loss when he withdrew his troops; However, the Liang army, which attacked another camp in the south, was pursued and killed by the Wu army when they withdrew, and eventually lost thousands of men, and nearly 1,000 were captured.

In general, the battle was unsuccessful on both sides, but Wang Yanzhang's attempt was thwarted by the Wu army, and the plan to relieve the siege of Songzhou was declared bankrupt, so he was undoubtedly the losing side.

……

When Wang Yanzhang's plan to raid Wu's army failed, in the city of Caozhou, Dong Zhang, the general of the Liang army, who had just led his troops to retreat here, was also preparing for the relief of Songzhou.

Dong Zhang fought bravely, when he was young, like Gao Jichang and Kong Xun, he was the house slave of Li Rang, a wealthy man in Bianzhou; And Li Rang was later accepted by Zhu Wen as a righteous son and changed his name to Zhu Yourang, who was deeply loved by Zhu Wen.

Under Aiwu and Wuxia, Dong Zhang, Gao Jichang, and Kong Xun were all reused by Zhu Wen successively.

Compared with Gao Jichang, who became the envoy of the festival, Dong Zhang's reputation is naturally much smaller, but this person is brave in battle, and he is also a very famous general in the Liang army.

Before the Northern Expedition of the Wu Army, he led the Chongde Army to garrison in the south of Dangshan, which was under the command of Huo Yanwei.

Later, Liu Xin led the Xuzhou army to attack the Chongde army, and Dong Zhang thought that there was no danger to defend the land of Dangshan projectile, so he led the army to retreat to Huizhou without much resistance; When Liu Xin entered the siege of Huizhou, he retreated further to Caozhou.

Many generals were dissatisfied with his actions, and some even publicly accused him, believing that he was afraid of the enemy and cowardly, cowardly as a mouse, and unqualified to lead the army.

However, in Dong Zhang's view, his approach is just to avoid the enemy's edge.

When the Wu army was attacking fiercely, instead of staying in Huizhou, which was not easy to defend, and being surrounded and annihilated by the Wu army, it was better to retreat to Caozhou, preserve strength, and wait for the opportunity to counterattack.

No, the opportunity for counterattack in Dong Zhang's eyes is coming.

"For some time now, the generals have been dissatisfied with Ben General, and Ben will know this. However, whether this general is afraid of the enemy or avoiding the enemy's edge, you can naturally see it clearly. According to the information just received, after the army led by Liu Xin captured Huizhou, it did not go to support Songzhou, but turned to capture Yanzhou. In the Chinese army camp, Dong Zhang's voice was not in a hurry.

"Yanzhou is too far away from us, even if we want to support, it's too late, but Songzhou is very close to us."

"The importance of Songzhou The generals must know better than the generals, and now the imperial court has an order, ordering the generals to lead the army to Ningling to assemble, commanded by General Wang Yanzhang, and prepare to relieve the siege of Songzhou."

"But ......" Dong Zhang sternly looked at the surrounding generals and said loudly: "The general has decided not to go to Ningling, and directly lead his troops south to rescue Songzhou, do you have any opinions?" ”

Dong Zhang's original position was the commander of the Chongde Army, and this official position was neither high nor low; After the withdrawal of the army to Caozhou, Zhu Youzhen ordered him to be appointed as the assassin of Caozhou, and also the southern reinforcement envoy, as Wang Yanzhang's deputy general, leading the troops south to rescue Songzhou, and currently has 15,000 soldiers under his command.

All the generals originally felt that Dong Zhang was afraid of the enemy and cowardly, although only a few people dared to publicly accuse, but those generals who kept silent actually had similar thoughts in their hearts.

Now after listening to Dong Zhang's words, they are surprised one by one.

"General, the order of the imperial court is to order us to go to Ningling to assemble first, and then send troops together to relieve the siege of Songzhou, if we send troops alone, wouldn't this give the enemy a chance to break through? Once the army is defeated, the general is afraid that the crime of defeating the army will be unbearable! After a while, the general reacted and hurriedly wondered.

Dong Zhang stood up, pointed to the large map hanging on the wall, and said, "We are now in the north of Songzhou, and we are only separated from Songzhou by a Chuqiu; And Ningling is in the west of Songzhou, if our army rushes to Ningling first, it will inevitably take a detour; Now that the situation in Songzhou is in danger, if you go to Ningling first, I am afraid that it will be too late. ”

"What the general said is very true, but the edict of the imperial court ......," a general asked, standing up.

"Outside, there is no military order. What's more, the edict is only an order to go south to relieve the siege of Songzhou, as long as this goal can be achieved, even if it violates the imperial edict, His Majesty will not blame. Dong Zhang replied in a deep voice.

The generals nodded again and again, originally they were not obedient generals, as long as it was conducive to victory, they would not follow the rules.

Dong Zhang looked at the generals with satisfaction, and saw that everyone had no opinions, so he immediately ordered: "Since all the generals have no opinions, then the general has decided to send troops south this afternoon." Wang Yan, you lead 2,000 people to open the way as the vanguard. ”

"The last general commands." The general named Wang Yan hurriedly answered.

For a time, the Caozhou garrison set off for the south.

……

At the same time, under the city of Songzhou, Li Chengding was suffering from a headache for the siege of the city.

Songzhou is worthy of being a strong city, the moat around it has hundreds of steps even in the narrower places, and the wider places are hundreds of steps wide, such a wide moat, which greatly limits the siege of the Wu army.

In addition, the walls of Songzhou City were originally built wide and thick, and bombarding them with boulders thrown by Suzhou cannons had no effect other than causing the walls to shake.

Only the thrown grenades caused greater panic among the defenders; Over time, however, the defenders have become accustomed to the terrifying power of this terrifying weapon, which makes loud noises.

The power of the grenade in this era was not large, and the biggest effect was to frighten, and the real casualties were not large; So after the defenders gradually got used to this weapon, the threat of grenades became less great.

Of course, the appearance of grenades still brought a lot of trouble to the defenders, such as the Wu army firing one or two grenades into the city from time to time, which made it difficult for the defenders to sleep; Coupled with the fact that the Wu army had a large number of troops and took turns to attack the city, these days, the defenders have long been exhausted.

Many days earlier, many generals had estimated that the defenders of the city would not be able to hold out for another three or five days at most; Unfortunately, their predictions were always miscalculated, and in the end the defenders not only survived, but still showed no signs of not being able to hold on.

On the contrary, the successive onslaughts on the Wu army's side lost many soldiers and made many generals feel distressed.

Of course, even if they were distressed by the casualties of the soldiers, no one proposed to rest or postpone the siege at this time.

After all, everyone knows that the current situation is urgent, not only the Liang army is in a hurry to relieve the siege of Songzhou, but the Wu army is also in a hurry to break through Songzhou.

If the Wu army takes Songzhou first, it will be able to contain the main force of the Liang army with a small number of troops, and then seize the initiative in the war; If the Liang army succeeded in relieving the siege of Songzhou, although it would not be enough for the Liang army to turn the situation around, it would greatly boost the morale of the Liang army, so as to stabilize the situation and further compete with the Wu army.

So at this critical time, naturally no one is stupid enough to stop and rest, and the only way out is to grit their teeth and persevere.