The news of the Flying Eagle Brigade's victory in the first battle quickly spread into the city, which made Wang Houchun and Zhao Si breathe a sigh of relief, after all, the strength of the enemy and us on the sandbar at this moment occupies an absolute disadvantage compared to the side of the Tiance army, if the other party does not have any concerns and attacks the city with all its might, then the sandbar will definitely not be able to hold for long. The task of the Flying Eagle Brigade is to do everything possible to delay the time of Cao Rengui's attack, and if necessary, to confuse the opponent's public opinion and buy time for the main force to return to the sandbank.

In fact, at this time, the strategy of the anti-Tang alliance was almost exactly the same as that of the Tiance army, and the Uighur coalition army on the Yizhou front, plus the troops sent by the Shatuo people and Khotan, totaled more than 300,000 people gathered in the Yizhou grassland, just to drag down the main force of the Tiance army at all costs, so that Wan Yi could not go south to rescue. As soon as the Shazhou side was breached, the entire anti-Tang alliance would be able to take advantage of the situation to enter the counteroffensive, and Cao Rengui, who was in the position of a bridgehead, also became the focus of the game between the two sides, which was also the fundamental reason why the top level of the two Uighurs finally decided to support Cao Rengui and ignored his recruitment of descendants with the surname Zhaowu and even let him pass. The will of the Tiance army for Anxi made all the tribes in the northwest aware of the fact that if they could not defeat the Tiance army, then the entire Anxi would sooner or later rejoin the arms of the Tang Dynasty, and the various tribes in this land, especially the Uighurs, who had occupied a hundred years of domination, either became obedient people, or they could only accept defeat and then move westward to compete with the Qarluq and Samanid dynasties in the farther region for land for survival. This can be seen from the encounter between the Xiongnu and the Turks in history, and the struggle for dominance with the central dynasty can only be in vain in the end. Although the Uighurs showed all their strength this time, there was an inexplicable force within them, and they did not have so much hostility towards the Tang Dynasty, perhaps this was the deterrent that the powerful emperors of the Han and Tang dynasties fought with iron and blood.

However, at this time, Wang Houchun and Zhao Si did not have the slightest intention of relaxing, the city defense and defense equipment in the city were strengthening as much as possible, the original four hundred and fifty bed crossbows have now been strengthened to more than six hundred, in addition to the other three city walls each placed more than a hundred, the west city wall responsible for the front directly concentrated more than two hundred bed crossbows, which almost emptied the arsenal stored in the sandbar by the Guiyi Army before, and countless crossbow arrows were placed next to the bed crossbows, More than 600 people were selected by the city defense army, plus 3,000 young men selected from the city, who were responsible for manipulating these crossbow arrows to attack Cao Rengui's headquarters under the city at any time. The main force of the city defense army is all armed with formal rifles and relies on the female wall to train the use of city defense tactics day and night, the city defense army was originally the national guard, itself has a good basic combat power, and at the latest tomorrow Yang Yi will personally lead a national guard to arrive at the sandbank, on the one hand, to strengthen the strength of the sandbar defenders, on the other hand, it is responsible for defending the city. The artillery in Sandbank City was equipped with more than 100 artillery pieces at this time, and with more than 100,000 shells attached to the Sandbank Armament Depot as the basis, these artillery could easily defeat any siege force.

"I've already communicated with the deputy prime minister, it's really not good to organize those young people to go up to the city wall to line up for archery, anyway, Cao Rengui under the city will definitely have a lot of troops if he attacks the city, so these young people will still line up and shoot arrows with their eyes closed." Zhao Si saw Wang Houchun's face cold, knew what he was thinking, and came over to comfort him.

"How's the situation over there in Yizhou?" Wang Houchun shook his head, everything that can be done on the sandbank side has been done, the key to the battle of the sandbank is not in the city, but when will the reinforcements arrive?

"The latest news came from the dark guard side this morning, I'm afraid that if the marshal doesn't fight, it will be difficult to have a way to draw troops out, after all, the opponent's troops are nearly thirty percent more than ours, and almost all of them are cavalry troops, once a large-scale field battle occurs, the pressure on that side will not be much less than our sandbank." Zhao Si smiled bitterly: "Now that both sides are stuck in time, I'm afraid that the other party we can think of may not be unexpected, otherwise the Uighurs will not fight their main force and we will face each other to buy time for Cao Rengui, which was almost impossible before." ”

"What about the inner responders that you have placed among the Uighurs? Isn't Xuan Yingwei's plan to drive a wedge between the two Uighurs? Is there any effect? Wang Houchun also knew the general problem in Yizhou, so he asked instead. Xuan Yingwei's pawn Shi Congxin was not only tasked with transmitting information and separating the Shatuo forces, but most importantly, trying to drive a wedge between the Uighurs, after all, the Uighurs of Gaochang and Anxi had been separated for nearly a hundred years, and there were constant wars between the two. Therefore, when Xuan Yingwei formulated the plan, he thought that the relationship between the two Uighurs on the Yizhou front line would definitely not be very harmonious, and it was more of a need for them to come together against the more powerful Tiance army. If someone instigates or uses a discordant trick at this time, it will definitely work.

"It has already been implemented, but in fact the relationship between the Uighurs on the side of Yizhou is very delicate at this time, and there is no trust between the two sides, and Shi Congxin's side has already begun to act." Zhao Si waved his hand and said with a wry smile: "But their relationship only affects the battle on the Yizhou side at most, and I have ordered the secret guards on the front line to report all the specific situations to the marshal, I think this is also the reason why the marshal is ready to fight first." As long as the battle is fought and targeted, then it will inevitably directly accelerate the collapse of the Uighur coalition on the Yizhou side. But in the short term, it will not play a big role for us, and it is related to the development of our entire strategy, and I don't think the marshal will fully trust Shi Congxin. Therefore, if you plan a campaign, you will also use more yang schemes, which will make it more difficult to plan. ”

"Now it's up to Li San'er how many days they can delay? If we can delay for more than five days, then we will have no problem relying on our current preparations to hold on for more than 10 days. Wang Houchun took a deep breath and turned his gaze to Cao Rengui's camp opposite.

In fact, when Wang Houchun was pinning his hopes on Li San'er to delay Cao Rengui's troops more, Li San'er was also seizing the time to make a plan. After a day of fierce fighting last night and today, Cao Rengui's defense against himself will inevitably be greatly strengthened, and the battle will inevitably be even more difficult. But this situation is not much difficult for Li San'er's Flying Eagle Brigade. Therefore, Li San'er still divided the troops into two groups, and one group took advantage of the darkness to start laying minefields between the Shazhou city wall and Cao Rengui's camp. The other continued to infiltrate the camp under his own leadership. However, this time Li San'er did not implement the tactics of last night, but directly began to raise his gun to shoot those patrolling soldiers, because the effective range of the official rifle still reached more than 500 meters, reaching the standard of later generations, so Li San'er They almost unscrupulously stood outside the camp of the camp and raised their guns to shoot, killing those patrolling soldiers on the spot. Moreover, when the other patrol soldiers and troops stationed on the other side began to deal with Li San'er's presumptuous tactics, they sent a small force to blend into the opponent's large camp and lay trampling mines, and surrounded them in positions that were basically on the roads in those camps. This method then made countless soldiers of the Guiyi Army suffer greatly, and they never expected that such a weapon that could penetrate the ground and then explode and shatter itself could appear in their own camp.

Li San'er's side was responsible for the frontal attack of the Flying Eagle Brigade in the dark night like a ghost, divided into several groups around the continuous camp of more than ten miles and continued to kill the opponent's soldiers, the crisp and pleasant sound of gunfire made all the soldiers on the other side grit their teeth but helpless, the front and back of the righteous army sent countless soldiers into the counterattack, but the range of the Flying Eagle Brigade and the incomparably accurate marksmanship made these soldiers continue to fall on the way to counterattack. As soon as there were many people, these people immediately scattered in all directions, and took advantage of the cover of darkness to quickly detour to other places and began to attack, and continuous gunfire continued to sound in all directions of the camp. If you look down from the sky at this time, the camp of the Guiyi Army is like a huge elephant at this time, and the soldiers of the Flying Eagle Brigade are like mosquitoes and flies around the elephant waste. Moreover, during Li San'er's attack, there were several mortar squads following the action, and the shells that took time to rise in the air quickly overturned countless Guiyi soldiers after they landed, and they were obviously better at selecting targets than regular artillery, and almost every time they were able to throw shells into the densest places in the crowd, thus causing the most damage.

In front of this group of soldiers, the Guiyi army had no good way to deal with it, although Cao Rengui was furious, and even personally commanded the troops to counterattack in the later stage, but the effect was not obvious. Although the number of the Tiance Army is small, the damage caused is not small at all, and the most important thing is that under such continuous attacks, no one in the major battalions dares to rest at all, and can only keep their eyes on the enemy who appears at these moments, because in the later stage, the Flying Eagle Brigade does not even care whether it is a patrolling soldier or not, and almost immediately shoots inside after seeing the tent tent, regardless of whether it can hit the target or not, their purpose is to create chaos and create terror and unrest, so that the soldiers of the Guiyi Army can't sleep at night, Thus losing the ability to attack the sandbar.

In the second half of the night, even some of the Shazhou city guards in charge of patrolling began to stand on the city wall and watch the performance of the Flying Eagle Brigade with great interest, secretly rubbing their hands and thinking about when they would be able to compete with the Guiyi Army outside the city. In this way, the morale of the defenders in the city was also improved when the Flying Eagle Brigade was constantly harassing the Guiyi army, and the city defense army, which had been a little depressed by the number of terrorists outside the city, began to return to normal. And the attack of the Flying Eagle Brigade also appeased the people in the city, and the Guiyi Army garrisoned the city for two days, if you count the time from Shicheng to the border of the sandbank, almost ten days have passed, and the Tiance Army relies on a small number of troops to suppress the opponent's huge hundreds of thousands of troops, which also greatly improves the people's confidence in the Tiance Army, at least in these two days, there is still no need for the personnel of the Security Department to be on duty on the street to maintain order in the city, and the business and trade that were interrupted in the past are also gradually recovering spontaneously. Tuoba Si's originally tense heart also began to gradually let go as the situation stabilized.

In this way, when Li San'er led the main force of the Flying Eagle Brigade to withdraw from the battlefield at dawn, Tuoba Sizhi even walked out of the mansion of the Guiyi Army's Jiedu envoy after a long absence, and came to the city wall to look at the chaotic Guiyi Army camp outside the city and point. At this time, Wang Houchun had a hasty breakfast at the back, and when he came over, he saw Tuoba Sijian and immediately smiled: "It seems that the results of the Flying Eagle Brigade have also made our deputy prime minister put down his burden, how about it, after the war, the deputy prime minister asked Mr. Cen to award a medal to the Flying Eagle Brigade." ”

"I'm very willing, I will ask the prime minister to apply for them after this battle, if it weren't for their continuous fighting day and night for the past two days, I don't think the city would have been able to stabilize so quickly." Tuoba Sizhi nodded and smiled, agreeing with Wang Houchun's witticism, but he looked into the distance and said: "However, although the Flying Eagle Brigade continues to suppress their morale at the lowest point, Cao Rengui will definitely not sit back and watch such things continue to happen, I am worried that if they find that they cannot counter the attack of the Flying Eagle Brigade, they may forcibly move the soldiers to attack the city, so that your delaying tactics may not be able to work." And if Cao Rengui goes crazy, I'm afraid that after the casualties, you will have to face even more pressure. ”

"Not a possibility, but a certainty. If I were Cao Rengui, I would definitely immediately attack the city defense at all costs. Wang Houchun smiled bitterly: "However, although Cao Rengui is thoughtful, his personality is uncertain, although the decisions he makes are correct, but the timing is often not too good." So I expected that at least during the day, Cao Rengui would not think of attacking the city defenses. So we bought the day. If Cao Rengui launches an attack tomorrow, I think Li San'er's side will definitely have something to target, and when the time comes, we will attract the opponent's troops and let him make a detour to make another sneak attack behind him, and the combat strength of Cao Rengui's rear army will inevitably be greatly reduced, and the siege battle may have to be stopped halfway, and then five days will be about the same. If the senior brother's estimate is good, we should start a war here, and cooperate with the Xuanying Guard to carry out the plan to divide and disintegrate the Uighur Alliance, and when the time comes, we will hold on for a few more days, and the Modao Battalion will definitely arrive as scheduled. As long as the battle on the senior brother's side begins, Khotan's side will definitely be notified to attack Boxian Town, and all the plans will be linked together at that time. ”

Wang Houchun's words made Tuoba Si Zhi nod for a while, but he frowned and said: "Li San'er's old trick is to attack Cao Rengui's camp again, but I am afraid that it may not be possible." If the attack doesn't go your way, are you ready to resist? ”

"It's okay if the attack doesn't go well. The Flying Eagle Brigade consists of 4,000 people, and even if the 4,000 people do not go well in a sneak attack, the strong attack will catch Cao Rengui's rear army off guard. Don't underestimate these 4,000 people, they can exert the combat power of 40,000 people, they are the veritable king of soldiers, and in their combat field, no one is their opponent. Wang Houchun's explanation made Tuoba Siji's face begin to smile, and he shrunk his neck and smiled: "I'm relieved to hear you say this, I haven't had breakfast yet, do you want me to let someone get some wine and food, how about we have a few drinks on the upper floor of this city?" ”

"Haha, the deputy prime minister has a treat, I can't ask for this matter. I'll call Zhao Si, let's have a game too." Wang Houchun laughed, glanced at the outside of the city and waved his hand to ask the guards behind him to prepare.