Although Ma Yin temporarily recruited 40,000 troops to defend the city, he also knew that these people were just a rabble, and whether it was the physical strength of the soldiers, the level of training, or the strength of the organization, they were far from being able to compete with the elite of the Wu army. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

So to confront the Wu army, these people can't count on it after all, and at most they can delay time.

In addition, the Wu army was good at attacking cities, which is also a well-known thing, the tall and mighty Suzhou cannons, and the strange and unpredictable gunpowder, these are all sharp weapons against the city wall; If it was really attacked by the enemy army and came down to the city, with the morale of these rabble, Ma Yin really didn't know how long he could resist the Wu army.

Therefore, Ma Yin's choice was to build a large number of camps in dangerous places outside the city, and send heavy troops to garrison them to divide the enemy's strength.

In this way, if the Wu army wants to attack the city of Tanzhou, it needs to pull out these camps one by one.

This would buy Ma Yin a lot of time and make more preparations for the next defense of the city.

Therefore, from October to November, the Wu army had to send troops to attack the camps outside the city, and gradually advance the battle line to the foot of the city wall; And Ma Yin also refused to give up an inch of land, constantly sending troops from the city to counterattack, and repeatedly fought with the Wu army over those camps.

It was not until early December that Wu's army managed to break through the outer defensive line and successfully reached the city.

Of course, the battle for more than a month, although the Wu army was relatively tired, also gave the Chu army a lot of casualties; In particular, the rabble of the so-called "word tyrant" were killed and captured by the Wu army because of lack of training.

At this time, Ma Yin knew that the situation in Tanzhou was already very dangerous, but the reinforcements on the Liang army's side were nowhere to be seen, and it was obviously unrealistic to want to keep Tanzhou and Yuezhou at the same time.

As for Yuezhou, it depends on whether the Wu army will break through the city faster, or the reinforcements of the Liang army will arrive faster.

Of course, before that, the Yuezhou army had to return to Tanzhou safely at the risk of being pursued and intercepted by the Wu army.

It is not an easy thing to withdraw troops in front of the enemy, and if you don't do it well, you will be taken advantage of by the enemy, which will lead to a big defeat, so how to withdraw the army also needs to be well planned.

At the beginning of December, an army of 40,000 led by generals Xu Dexun and Qin Yanhui set out from Yuezhou to withdraw back to Tanzhou.

After Wang Maozhang learned the news, he immediately left Zhu Siqing to lead 10,000 troops to contain the defenders of Yuezhou, and he himself personally led the remaining 30,000 people to bypass Yuezhou and pursue the retreating Chu army.

At the same time, after learning the news, Li Chengsi's side also sent troops from Tanzhou, preparing to intercept the returning Chu army.

And Ma Yin also knew that the situation was critical, so he gathered the defenders in Tanzhou City and forced them out of the city to launch a counterattack against Li Chengsi in order to contain the Wu army on the Tanzhou side.

The distance from Yuezhou to Tanzhou is close to three hundred miles, and with such a long distance, it is naturally not easy to retreat safely.

After discussion, Xu Dexun and Qin Yanhui decided that if they wanted to get rid of the enemy's pursuit, they must first ambush the enemy's pursuers with ambushes, so that they would know that the pursuit was also dangerous, so they could not pursue it as fast as possible.

On the evening of December 9, the sky was gloomy and there was no moonlight.

Baisha Pass.

This is the camp of the pursuing vanguard of the Wu army.

There were a total of 5,000 soldiers of the Wu army in the camp, and the general who led the troops was Cheng Ying.

Cheng Ying is the nephew of Qian Biao, who is just 30 years old this year.

Unlike his uncle, Cheng Ying came out after Huainan annexed Liangzhejiang, so he did not have the identity of a general, plus he himself had good ability and bravery, and was appreciated by Wang Maozhang, so he became the vanguard general of the pursuit of the Chu army this time.

At this time, while he was resting in his camp, there was a sudden commotion outside.

Then, there seemed to be shouts of killing coming from outside.

"Not good, there is an enemy attack?"

Cheng Ying was shocked, and hurriedly got up and put on her armor, ready to go out to check.

At this moment, his guards outside ran in in a panic and said: "General, it's not good, the enemy has attacked the camp, our army is not prepared, and now the camp is in chaos!" ”

Cheng Ying was even more anxious in his heart, he really didn't expect that the enemy army who was being pursued by them would dare to reflexively attack their camp, and now although the army was encamped according to the regulations, the soldiers' inspection work was not neglected, but the soldiers in the barracks were in a state of complete relaxation.

In addition, the army under his command was not the elite of the hundred battles that had been fought for many years, but a newly formed army at the end of last year when Wu Guoguo was in power.

Although the training was impeccable, after all, he lacked actual combat experience, and now he was suddenly attacked at night, which made him panic.

"What are you doing? Hurry up and gather the troops and organize the brothers to resist! ”

Cheng Ying scolded loudly, and left the camp after speaking.

However, when he left the camp, Cheng Ying found that the chaos in the entire camp was even more chaotic than he imagined, and the enemy troops continued to shoot arrows into the camp in the dark, and at the same time sent troops to attack the camp from all sides.

In the panic, the soldiers completely forgot about their usual training, and only knew to raise the bows and crossbows in their hands and shoot arrows at will into the darkness.

Naturally, this could not effectively resist the enemy's attack.

As a result, there was a night of scuffle, and the Wu army suffered heavy losses.

Early the next morning, when Wang Maozhang personally led the main force to arrive, the Chu army that attacked them had already run out.

Wang Maozhang was furious and immediately ordered to continue the pursuit.

"Governor, since the enemy dares to attack our army's camp at night, it is also possible to ambush our army! Isn't it for the departments to be careful and not to chase too quickly? Zhu Qianyou reminded in a low voice.

Wang Maozhang frowned, shook his head and said: "If all the departments act carefully, then the speed of pursuing the enemy army will naturally be much slower, and the enemy army will return to Tanzhou safely!" Therefore, it is necessary not only to continue to pursue the enemy army, but also to chase it all the way, and it is certain that the enemy army cannot be let go! ”

Although Wang Maozhang was angry, he did not completely lose his judgment, he knew that the purpose of the enemy's night attack was to slow down their pursuit, so he must not fall for the enemy's plan at this time.

At his insistence, the Wu army hit the road again and launched a faster pursuit of the enemy.

However, what he didn't expect was that the forward of the rapid march was once again ambushed by the Chu army.

Fortunately, this time it was the former Huainan elite who served as the vanguard, and although they suffered certain losses in the face of the enemy ambush, the total casualties were not large.

"Pursuit! Keep on the pursuit! Be sure to catch up with the enemy army! Wang Maozhang once again urged the army to advance.

The enemy's constant ambush of them made Wang Maozhang completely see through the enemy's intentions, and naturally chose to pursue resolutely.

This time, the Chu army finally had nothing to do, and was completely overtaken by the Wu army soon after, and it was inevitable to get out safely.

In desperation, Qin Yanhui and Xu Dexun had no choice but to leave their subordinate general Yang Dingzhen to lead the 10,000 army and lead the rest of the army to continue to retreat.

This choice is like a strong man breaking his wrist, abandoning part of the army in order to preserve the main force.

The 10,000 elite soldiers led by Yang Dingzhen struggled to intercept the pursuers, buying enough time for the withdrawal of the main force of the Chu army.

However, the price was that Yang Dingzhen, who stayed behind, did not know what to do after the defeat, more than 2,000 of the 10,000 troops were killed by the Wu army, more than 5,000 were captured, and the rest were scattered and fled as routs.

However, the Chu army, which managed to escape Wang Maozhang's pursuit, was still not safe, and they were intercepted by Liu Xin again soon after.

This time, after a major battle, the Chu army finally broke through the interception of the Wu army at the cost of losing more than 5,000 people, and successfully returned to the city of Tanzhou under the personal leadership of Ma Yin.

However, at this time, the 40,000-strong army at the time of departure was only 25,000 men.

……

Kaifeng Mansion, inside the Houliang Palace.

At this time, when he heard the news that Wu sent 80,000 troops to attack Ma Yin, Zhu Wen immediately convened his subordinates to discuss whether to send troops to aid Ma Yin.

In terms of strength, today's Zhu Wen still has strong strength at this time.

The Battle of Luzhou and the previous series of defeats, although Zhu Wen caused certain losses, but in fact, these losses were all losses in troops, but his territory did not lose much, and the most prosperous area of the Central Plains is still under his control.

Therefore, those lost soldiers, he can quickly replenish them, and he will not shake his position as the strongest force in the world in a short period of time.

In addition, because Ma Yin and Hou Liang actually bordered, Zhu Wen could do it if he wanted to interfere with the war of the Wu army against Ma Yin, and it would not be like Qian Biao back then.

At that time, Zhu Wen considered that he did not border with Qian Biao, and it was difficult to do so even if he wanted to meet Qian Biao, so he gave up Qian Biao and began to support Ma Yin as a pawn to contain Huainan.

However, after so many years, Huainan has not only not been contained, but has become stronger and stronger, and now it is a powerful force that can confront Zhu Wen head-on.

On the other hand, Zhu Wen's side, in addition to maintaining absolute suppression of Li Maozhen, lost one after another in the battles against Huainan and Hedong, and suffered great losses.

In particular, the sudden rise of Li Cunqiao made Zhu Wen extremely vigilant against the forces of Hedong.

Perhaps Zhu Wen did not specifically summarize history, let alone realize that since ancient times, there has only been a phenomenon of unification from the north to the south, but he instinctively realized that if Hedong rises again, the threat it brings will definitely be stronger than the threat of Huainan.

One of the most direct places is that Wu lacked cavalry, and it was difficult to fight with the elite of the Liang army in the north.

The Jin army was different, not only did they have far more cavalry than the Liang army, but their combat power was much stronger than that of the Liang army.

Therefore, there was a big disagreement in the court about whether to send the army that should have been used to besiege Luzhou again to the south to rescue Ma Yin.