Hearing the sound of Mingjin withdrawing troops behind him, the Zhao army infantry who had gathered under Jincheng County and could not be defeated immediately shrank their heads and fled back as if they had been amnestied. Under the walls of Jincheng, an extremely spectacular scene suddenly appeared: thousands of Zhao army foot soldiers, like a tide, rushed back in the direction of their camp.

Li Yanzhao, who saw this scene on the sentry tower in the camp on the other side of the river, looked at the gray-white figures in his sight, his expression was quite solemn. He walked down the sentry tower, and then made a brief report to Han Ning, the commander of the big tent in the camp, and a cadre of generals according to the battle situation he saw.

Hearing that the Zhao army's attack was frustrated, Han Ning personally led several guards to climb the wall to take a look. The failure of the Zhao army's first attack was already expected by the generals of Liangzhou. However, looking at the dense corpses under the city wall on the west side of the Golden City, it is still intimidating. Judging from the huge number of corpses of Zhao Jun, you can imagine how much pressure the defenders of Jincheng County are under.

Han Ning took in the scene carefully, and the banner of the word "Jin" set up by the defenders of Jincheng above the city was still fluttering in the wind. It declares the sovereignty of the city. The accumulation of corpses under the city wall on the west side has witnessed that this place has become an insurmountable chasm for the Zhao army.

The Jincheng army at the head of the city was also extremely tired. In the face of the attack on the western city wall by thousands of Zhao troops fearlessly and fearlessly, their nerves were as tight as arrows on the string. Now that it has suddenly relaxed, the soldiers who are still alive are leaning on or sitting by the women's wall. As if the dejected color after exerting all their strength appeared on their faces, the city head on the west side of Jincheng County, although it was full of dense soldiers, presented a quiet scene where the needle could be heard.

Liu Yue, the king of Zhongshan, was taking those loyal Hun cavalry subordinates at this time, quietly an arrow away, watching the foot soldiers who had fled back one after another, crashing into the camp like frightened birds. Then the sights which they had seen and heard, which had caused them deep fear and fear, spread like a plague through the camp in which they were located.

In this initial attack on Jincheng, the Zhao army had already lost more than 1,000 foot soldiers. Although he knew that it would not be easy to capture Jincheng, the tenacity and strong combat effectiveness of the Jincheng army in the defense of the city still made Liu Yue, the commander of the Zhao army, feel terrified.

The corpses of the Zhao army under the city, as well as those abandoned ladders and shields, etc., showed the failure of this attack, but Liu Yue did not know that there were even greater setbacks waiting for him later.

It was nearly noon. Liu Yue ordered each battalion to bury pots and make rice. Then he summoned several of his subordinate Qiang and Han Chinese generals and ordered them to continue to organize a more powerful attack in the afternoon. Although it is not expected that a few attacks will destroy the fighting spirit of the defenders of Jincheng and thus capture Jincheng. However, after learning the unfavorable lesson of the morning attack, Liu Yue still made sufficient and tedious preparations for the afternoon attack.

In the morning, taking advantage of the first wave of tentative attacks, Liu Yue ordered a group of soldiers in the camp to go to the beach of the big river and collect a lot of stones and clay. Back in the camp, he mixed the clay with water, then wrapped it around the stones, and made it as smooth as possible, making nearly 100 mud bombs. The men in charge of operating the rudimentary trebuchets also moved the trebuchets to the ideal firing position.

After the Zhao army was arrayed, dozens of oars and shields were launched. And in accordance with Liu Yue's orders, some foot soldiers found hammers, chisels and other civil engineering tools. Carrying them with them, ready to rely on these shields to block the arrows of the Jincheng army in the afternoon siege battle, these foot soldiers advanced to the foot of the city wall and destroyed the base of the city wall with tools.

The infantry soldiers of the Zhao army who were ordered to set out to attack the city in the afternoon, after a full meal, packed up their armor under the gaze of those Tongze who fled back in the morning, and then concentrated on standby, seeing that they were about to embark on the road of no return.

Just when the Zhao army was intensively planning the offensive operation in the afternoon, in the camp on the north bank of Jincheng, under the auspices of Han Ning, the left capital, the generals of the Liangzhou army held another military meeting. This military meeting was to discuss many countermeasures to assist in the defense of Jincheng County.

Seeing the extremely tragic defensive battle in the morning, Han Ning was already busy sending messengers to the state government to ask for help. No matter what the circumstances, even if the Zhao army on the opposite side is a rabble, with the current 5,000 or so troops on both sides of the river, it is bound to not last long.

At the military meeting, Han Ning, Du Jie and other senior generals still established the general strategy of connecting the two sides of the strait with pontoon bridges, and the big camp and Jincheng as each other's horns and taking care of each other. However, in terms of details, Li Yanzhao proposed to use sentinel cavalry to go out and monitor the river situation within 50 miles downstream, so as to prevent the enemy from erecting pontoon bridges to smuggle in, and then take advantage of the situation to attack the camp.

It was also necessary to add two more pontoon bridges a few miles upstream of the existing ones. In order to prevent the enemy from jumping over the wall in a hurry and destroying the existing pontoon bridge, the movement of troops and material resources on the north and south banks will be paralyzed.

In addition, the addition of two more pontoon bridges will also make the mobilization of troops between the two sides of the strait faster and more convenient. After hearing these two suggestions, Han and Du nodded in agreement.

After the military discussion, Li Yanzhao quickly dispatched Cao Jian to lead his troops to the east, responsible for monitoring the situation on the river within 50 miles downstream, and the rest of the cavalry went out of the camp to the west, concentrated to the west, and continued to select a site in the upstream direction to erect a pontoon bridge.

Upstream currents tend to be turbulent, and pontoon bridges are obviously more difficult to erect than in the middle and lower reaches. However, even in the upper reaches of the fast-flowing water, there are occasional places such as wide shoals that are suitable for building pontoon bridges. After Li Yanzhao's troops left the camp, Shao Lei led his subordinates all the way upstream to find a ferry suitable for building a pontoon bridge, while Li Yanzhao personally led the rest of his troops to cut down wood and look for ships.

Zhang Lang, the Taishou of Jincheng County, had already sent a letter of help to Han Ning in the camp on the north bank after counting the casualties in the first battle in the morning.

After Han Ning received the letter, he confirmed that everything was normal on the river near the place where the Zhao army was stationed downstream, and then he sent his 1,000 elite infantry soldiers to join the Guangwu Army's shooting battalion and infantry battalion with 1,000 people, a total of 2,000 people, to cross the river through the pontoon bridge, and then enter the city through the north gate of Jincheng.

As a result, the defensive strength of Jincheng County at this time was nearly 4,000. In the defensive battle in the morning, although the Jincheng army fought bravely, it still lost more than 300 men. The wounded soldiers have been transferred to the Jincheng County Government, where Lang Zhong, who remained in Jincheng County, and doctors and others will be treated.

Although the casualty ratio in the early battle in the morning was as high as one to three, the 30,000 Zhao army pioneers outside the city, even if they were exchanged according to this casualty ratio, the Liangzhou army on both sides of the river at this time still could not afford to change.

Moreover, the generals of the Liangzhou army all saw it clearly above the city tower, and the Zhao army, which was preparing to attack in the afternoon, obviously had changed in deployment. Not only did a few hideous and ugly trebuchets appear behind the Zhao army's formation, but among the Zhao army's attacking foot soldiers, behind the rugs and shields, there were already many earthworks armed with hammers, axes, chisels and other things.

Zhang Lang looked solemnly at the dense line of troops composed of thousands of Zhao army infantry soldiers in the distance, pushing closer and closer, knowing that a fierce battle in the afternoon was inevitable.

When the battle was over, the firehead army in the city had already brought corn cooked with mutton to the robes who had been fighting all morning. However, although these soldiers fought for a long time, many of them were accustomed to seeing bloody scenes, and when they saw mutton and corn, they only felt their stomachs churning and had no appetite.

However, the crossbowmen in the Jincheng army were forced to eat such a bowl of fragrant corn by the generals. Compared with the generals who have more experience, the soldiers at the grassroots level obviously do not know how to preserve and recover their physical strength in this rapidly changing and dangerous battlefield in order to deal with the more brutal battles in the future.

"The enemy is coming, ascending to the city!" With Zhang Lang's order, the trumpet and drum on the city tower sounded at the right time, and the soldiers who had been resting at the back of the city rushed to the city and quickly ascended to the city.