There are nine counties in Hanzhong, including Nanzheng County, Chenggu County, Xicheng County, Baozhong County, Chuyang County, Anyang County, Xi County, Shangyong County and Fangling County.

The Jingzhou army attacked all the way, of which Fangling County was under the control of Jingzhou, and even Shangyong, Xicheng, Chenggu, and Xixian were collected, and half of the land in Hanzhong had been wrapped in the Jingzhou army. Now it only takes one go to capture Nanzheng City, the capital of Hanzhong County, which can be regarded as a victory. And Wu Yi of Liu Zhang's army took Zhang Ren and Yan Yan to besiege Chuyang County, and Zhang Lu's brother Zhang Wei led an army to defend the city.

Ma Hong did not have too many illusions about Liu Zhang's troops, and could not expect Wu Yi to capture Chuyang and besiege Nanzheng City with him, because Nanzheng City and Chuyang City were the two strongest cities in Hanzhong. Zhang Wei fought against Liu Zhang in Yizhou all the year round and knew Liu Zhangjun's routines. Wu Yi's army is different from Ma Hong, and Ma Hong's Jingzhou army is now an all-star lineup. Fierce generals are like clouds, including Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Gan Ning, Wei Yan, Liu Bei, as well as Xiliang foreign aid Ma Chao and Pang De, for Huang Zhong, Ma Hong doesn't know how to evaluate, these months of getting along, Ma Hong didn't see how much he can do, but the so-called road remote horsepower, maybe after some time, Huang Zhong will have some outstanding performance.

Confrontation, what Xu Shu wants now is to stall for time.

But Ma Hong can't, although Li Yan and Huang Yan continue to collect grain and grass from the captured counties in Hanzhong and transport it to Liu Qi's military camp, but Ma Hong knows that if this war is fought into a protracted war, I don't know what will happen at that time, maybe Liu Biao will let Liu Qi truce for what reason, after all, there is Cai Mao in Xiangyang.

On the second day of Xu Shu's use of the fire tide, the wind stopped, and Ma Hong offered to attack. Generals Zhao Yun, Gan Ning, and Wei Yan led a large shield army to advance, crossing two trenches in a row, and Huang Zhong led sappers to fill in the trenches, pushing hundreds of knife carts through the trenches to form two shield walls to prevent the enemy's charge. At the same time, the catapult advanced forward, projecting three hundred fireballs in a row at the mound array arranged by Xu Shu.

Ma Hong formed a formation of four infantrymen, one in the front and one in the front, holding a large shield and an iron axe, and two people in the middle with a sword. A total of 100 teams, a total of 400 people, with Zhao Yun as the general, entered the mound formation.

Gan Ning and Wei Yan led the troops to press the formation in front of the formation, and Zhao Yun led the troops into the formation only to encounter a few enemy soldiers, and after killing them, they found that the formation was empty, not only was they shocked, could it be that the enemy soldiers laid a suspicious formation to delay time?

At this moment, Zhao Yun suddenly heard a wheezing sound, and instantly felt that something was wrong, and shouted: Mounds ambush soldiers!

Zhao Yun said, waved his gun and stabbed towards the mound, there was no obstacle for the gun to enter the mound, only to hear a scream, and pulled out the gun and brought out the blood.

Then soldiers jumped out of dozens of mounds and formed a gun formation to stab at the Jingzhou army, and the Jingzhou army suffered heavy casualties for a while. It turns out that Xu Shu laid out the mound array, the formation is empty, three sides of the wall with stones, and spread a thick wooden board on the stone, and then spread a yellow cloth on the wooden board, and then spread the cloth with soil, it looks like the mound from a distance, and its soldiers are hidden in the mound. Fifteen soldiers were hidden in each mound, ten with guns and shields in a fist, and five with crossbows and arrows. When the Jingzhou army came to attack, the Jingzhou army, which suddenly attacked, was caught off guard.

The Jingzhou army was suddenly attacked, but fortunately, Ma Hong scattered the formation, and the four of them formed a formation, but they were still beaten and rubbed together, and many soldiers were stabbed to death on the spot. Zhao Yun was trapped in the array of guns and fought back angrily.

Gan Ning saw the situation and said: "Sure enough, fortunately, we didn't enter the battle together, otherwise we would have failed!" ”

After that, Gan Ning shot arrows into the formation with 500 archers, and at this time, he couldn't distinguish between the enemy and the enemy, and the friendly troops who entered the ground array were also within the coverage of the arrow rain.

This is Ma Hong's strategy, at the expense of a few soldiers, to break his position. Zhao Yun had not entered the battle deeply, and he went out with a gun, killed more than ten enemy soldiers in a row, and rushed out of the ground formation alone with a gun.

All 400 soldiers who entered the battle were killed. But this wave of arrows also dealt a big blow to the enemy.

Ma Hong and Liu Bei came to the front of the battle, Ma Hong looked at Zhao Yun who was covered in blood, and gave a military salute: "Let General Zilong be in danger." ”

Zhao Yun turned around and looked at the scene in the formation, and said, "If you don't enter the tiger's den, you can get the tiger." What should the military advisor do next? After the enemy soldiers have killed all our soldiers, they will continue to hide in the mounds, and the feather arrows will not hurt them in the slightest. ”

"Pity those four hundred brothers." Ma Hong sighed and said, "Now that I have figured out the deployment of the enemy's army, then I will do it freely." ”

"Wei Yan listens to orders!" Ma Hong said loudly.

"Wei Yan is here."

"Go back to the camp and take out dry firewood, and use trebuchets to throw fire oil and dry firewood into the enemy's formation, and throw as much as you can."

"No!"

"Gan Ning obeys orders!" Ma Hong Road.

"Gan Ning is here."

"Prepare a thousand rocketeers, burn."

"No!"

"Zhao Yun listens to orders!"

"Zhao Yun is here."

"Prepare 1,000 archers and 1,000 shield soldiers, advance forward, shield soldiers in front, archers in the rear, if the enemy sees the firewood thrown, withdraw the army, attack with arrows first, and then pursue."

"No!"

Xu Shu succeeded in his blow, and suddenly saw that the firewood in the sky was thrown into the array, and the secret path was not good. Yang Ren and Yang Ang commanded the army to evacuate, at this time Zhao Yun first attacked it with archers, and then led the army to pursue, killing hundreds of enemy soldiers. Yang Ang led his army to fight Zhao Yun behind the earthen formation for a while, and only after Yang Ren and Xu Shu withdrew to the second line of defense arranged by Xu Shu did they withdraw the army.

Ma Hong led his troops across the earthen formation, razed the earthen formation to the ground, collected all the stones for the siege, and collected the dry firewood that was put into the formation.

Xu Shu stepped back, and said with regret on his face, he still counted one step less, Ma Hong threw firewood, let him know that he was going to attack, if Xu Shu prepared a team of archers in advance, when the Jingzhou army pursued, with the Jingzhou army's firewood burned for a while, it would definitely be possible.

"If it is delayed for another ten days, this second line of defense should be more firmly arranged." Yang Ren said to Xu Shu

"That's enough to hold them back for some time. When the enemy is tired, we will charge again. ”

Xu Shu relied on using an earthen formation to delay Ma Hong for 15 days, and had already sent people to build two stone walls five meters high and five miles high with stones two miles behind the stone formation. If Ma Hong wants to attack the city, he must break through these two stone walls again.

When Gan Ning approached the stone wall, he looked at the stone wall that had been piled up, and there were thousands of stones on the ground in front of the stone wall, which were thrown on the ground in a mess, seemingly to prevent the Jingzhou army from charging. If the Jingzhou army wanted to attack this stone wall, they had to clear the stones first, and then attack the enemy's defense, which would take a lot of time.

"Your senior brother is quite capable." Gan Ning said to Ma Hong.

Ma Hong said: "He wants to spend as much of our arrows and catapults as possible when we approach Nanzheng City. ”

"How are we going to attack this time?" Gan Ning asked.

Ma Hong shook his head and said: "This war is not a war between me and Xu Shu, it should be a war between my Jingzhou and Zhang Lu, I want to hold a military meeting and ask the generals to analyze the way to break the enemy together." ”

On October 20, the sixth year of Jian'an, autumn was already deep.

In the face of Xu Shu's shrinking style of play, Ma Hong, after consulting with the generals, formed a unified opinion, and could not confront him, and launched a fierce attack on Xu Shu while he was still building defenses.

The Jingzhou Army and the Xiliang Army are attacking!

Only Liu Qi was left with a thousand people to guard the camp, and the rest of the generals were all dispatched!

Zhang Fei, who has been recuperating from his injuries for several months, said: "In the face of absolute power, any strategy and shrinkage are useless. ”

Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun one, Gan Ning, Wei Yan and Huang Zhong one, Ma Chao and Pang De one, attacked the stone wall built by Xu Shu! Zhang Lu sent his eldest son Zhang Fu and second sons Zhang Guanghe and Zhang Yong with 8,000 people to assist Yang Ren and Yang Ang in defending the defensive line.

The Jingzhou army removed the blades of the knife cart, reduced its weight, and pushed it under the stone wall with hundreds of knife carts into shields and arrows.

Zhang Lu prepared thirty mouthfuls of Dading, filled with runic water, and let the people drink water and fight with the Jingzhou army, but unfortunately with blunt weapons in their hands and no armor, the militia and the army without any organization fought for their lives, even if they were not afraid of life and death, it was difficult to resist. The Jingzhou Army and the Xiliang Army formed a sword and shield array, strangled all the way, and the blood flowed like a river and corpses were all over the field. Xu Shu saw that he couldn't stop the Jingzhou army, so he persuaded Yang Ren not to take the army under Zhang Lu's command to confront him, and Yang Ren and Yang Ang withdrew to the city of Nanzheng with the army. Zhang Lu was risking the lives of the people to exchange for more Jingzhou soldiers, but after Yang Ren and Yang Ang withdrew. Ma Hong told the army to stop attacking the people and instead surround the more than 1,000 improvised militias.

Among them, Zhang Guang and Zhang Yong fled back to the city, while Zhang Fu became a prisoner of Huang Zhong.

(To be continued.) )