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The next day, when it was just dawn, Tian Sui got up from his bed, and before he could straighten his body out of the house, he saw a tall figure standing in front of the city gate in the morning light.

Liu Quan, with a glimmer of dawn sprinkled by the morning sun, carefully checked the whole picture of the fortress of Luluoling. The internal space of the fortress is quite large, the city wall is one foot eight feet high, much higher than the ordinary fortress, the fortress has three gates in the north, south and east, and the west gate is completely blocked with masonry. There were brick and stone towers on the gates, and there were also corner towers at the four corners, and tall watchtowers were erected inside the castle, so that you could condescendingly inspect the situation of enemy troops outside the city. The castle was fortified with six forts, three of which were equipped with bed crossbows and three with trebuchets. For a peripheral fortress, such a defense should be said to be perfect, no wonder Zhao Kui said to Zheng Yunming that even if the Mongols dispatched 10,000 people, it would be difficult to conquer the camel ridge at will.

However, the only drawback was that there were woods on the mountainside of the Camel Ridge, and the enemy could easily approach the city and set up a position. There is no more convenient benefit for siegers.

Of course, Zhao Kui couldn't do anything about it, after all, there was not only one fortress on the periphery of Xiangyang City, and cutting down all the trees near all the fortresses was a rather laborious task, and he didn't have enough manpower or enough time to complete it.

Liu Cheng strode up to the city, at this time the morning sun has jumped on the horizon, the camel ridge under the light of ten thousand rays of light is particularly bright and moving, if it is not for looking at such a heavily guarded fortress and the murderous soldiers in the city, this is definitely the ideal idyllic paradise of the literati, but Liu Cheng turned a blind eye to this wonderful scenery, he looked in the direction of the Mongolian camp in the north.

Some black flags had already appeared in the distance, and the Mongol Tanma Red Brigade was far away around the Camel Ridge, and they stopped at the foot of the mountain, naturally unable to see the real situation inside the fortress. The lookouts in the fort stood on a tall lookout and had a good eye on the activities of the rangers on all sides. While these scattered rangers pose no real threat to the castle, everyone knows that they are merely a prelude to the majestic Hu invasion.

First lay out the eyes and ears, and then the minions and teeth together, tearing apart the enemy army. This is the secret of the Mongols' undefeated victory. Liu Cheng watched from time to time when a ranger suddenly urged Ma Jia, rushed halfway up the hillside, and fired arrows into the city from a distance. Then they fled with great speed, as they continued to harass the defenders of the city. Although the arrows shot from afar fell into the city, an arrow falling from the sky from time to time was a test of the morale and spirit of the defenders.

Of course, the archers in the city also tried to counterattack when the horses approached, but they were far less able to open their bows than the warriors who grew up on these horses, and an arrow could only fall into the flying dust.

Liu Quan was not shaken by these games of hide and seek in the slightest, he just looked at the large force of cavalry in the distance being assembled, as well as a large number of people and miscellaneous servants, and the other party's flag had moved forward to Luhuoling? On the top of Luqi Mountain on the right side of the Camel Ridge, if you want to launch a full-scale attack on the Camel Ridge, this is obviously a more suitable command location than the foot of the mountain.

The flag at the top of Luqi Mountain is a black flag with five streamers embroidered with a wolf's head in white silk thread. This flag is the general flag of the Mongolian Hudu Tiger. At this time, Kuduhu was already sitting on the top of the Luqi Mountain, and the thousands and hundreds of households around him were chattering, whispering about the plan to attack Lutuoling.

The Mongols have won a series of battles since they rose to the north of Mobei, and although they have suffered many setbacks in the middle, they really cannot find an opponent who can fight with them on an equal footing. For commanders, on the one hand, this proud attitude can bring more decisive judgment, higher morale, and the belief that victory will prevail. But on the other hand, it is inevitable to despise the opponent.

The Han army besieging Xiangyang, the Mongol army of 50,000 households, and the rest of the tribal army's 30,000 households6 continued to evacuate the city of Xiangyang and went to the hinterland of Jinghu to plunder. The remaining cavalry used to surround and monitor the defenders of Xiangyang was only more than 20,000 cavalry. This is not a particularly risky strategy. In the past, when Genghis Khan first entered the middle capital, he was helpless in the face of the tall city walls. At that time, Genghis Khan also besieged Zhongdu with 20,000 cavalry, and since the division of troops to more than 70 cities in Hebei and Shandong, there are 100,000 elite soldiers of the Jin State. And at that time, the combat power of the Jin soldiers still existed, and they were much stronger than the Xiangyang defenders in terms of overall combat strength. Today's Mongol armies have considerable experience in besieging the defenders in the city, and there is no reason to suspect that they will not be able to deal with the 60,000 infantry army in Xiangyang.

As a Jurchen who grew up in northern Liaoning, he has a kind of contempt in his bones for the combat power of the Southern Dynasty's military horses, if the 60,000 Jurchen strong army could destroy the prosperous Song Dynasty, he has no reason to doubt that the army of the Southern Expedition could not capture a small border area of the Song Dynasty.

He also believed that it was a waste of combat power for the 60,000 defenders of Xiangyang to guard it with 20,000 troops, although there were Zhao Kui, who was known as the famous general of the Southern Dynasty, and Zheng Yunming, who had recently become famous. He also thought that only a few thousand Mongol troops would be enough to intercept them inside the city and not come out.

He could do something else with the rest of his troops. He first retreated his 5,000 Jurchen headquarters to Junzhou to eat, Junzhou had already garrisoned a Mongolian army at this time, and the grain was also continuously transported from Shangluo Mountain to the Xiangyang front, Junzhou is a transshipment place for grain, rather than waiting for the grain to arrive at the front line and redistribute, it is better to let the Jurchen headquarters go to the upper reaches of the Han River to replenish first, so that their people can enjoy the highest priority of supply, probably the selfishness of each general.

He also had to deploy to clean up the forts around Xiangyang. Qu Chu didn't give much explanation for this task, because most of the countries he faced after joining the army were the ruined Jin Kingdom and Western countries, and he didn't quite understand the importance of clearing out the outlying fortresses to attack a stronghold. However, as a military general in the Central Plains, he knew that in order to capture the city, he must first clear the periphery.

The total number of troops attacking Luhuling was about 3,000 men, and there were more than 1,000 scoundrels who brought their own rations with the army to the south, and they joined the army completely voluntarily, and were not entitled to any rewards and food supplements from the army, and their only hope was the capture and plundering of the countryside and cities after the victory. Qu Out's forced return to the rogue Han who accompanied the army to participate in the battle to clean up the outer castles caused resentment among these people, and it is difficult to expect them to make a big difference.

The attack was accompanied by thousands of servants, who were one of the tens of thousands of servants who arrived under the city of Xiangyang. Originally, the siege operation could have been more smooth, if it were not for the Song army attacking Dengzhou, Tangzhou and other places as outposts before the Mongols moved first, destroying the materials hoarded by the Mongols, and then carrying out a series of small-scale attacks in the rear of the army. Needless to say, the Song people demolished all the bridges in Tangzhou, and in order to repair these bridges, the people who traveled to Xiangyang from the north spent a lot of time. However, under the strict supervision of the Mongolian missionaries, the people recruited from Qiaozhizhou County in Henan and Hebei still arrived in front of Xiangyang in a steady stream.

As for whether Shun Lì can capture Xiangyang City, these people will not be able to play a role in waving their troops and horses. Even for conquering castles like Luhuoling, the people have their own uses.

In fact, for Liu Quan, who was guarding the fortress, he also hoped that he could use enough labor at this time. But the fortress is not Xiangyang City after all, and the food inside cannot support the consumption of so many mouths of soldiers and people. The only manpower he had at his disposal was the defenders, and he had to think carefully about the balance between them, so that he could not afford to make the crowd feel less fit to deal with the Mongol attack by reinforcing the fortifications.

After all, the attack of the Mongol army is imminent, and the current crisis should be considered first.

Zheng Yunming, who was standing on the west wall of Xiangyang, led the generals and staff of his headquarters to see the Mongols' movements. Today's autumn is crisp, the field of vision is excellent, and Zheng Yunming can clearly see the crowd of people on the opposite side without much effort. It was the enemy army preparing to provide support for the attack on Luhuo Ridge.

That's when he needs to be proactive.

A personal soldier from the government office on the horse road hurriedly came, bowed to Zheng Yunming, and asked, "The marshal asked when the deputy commander would send troops. ”

Zheng Yunming turned his head to look at Yang Luo and Wang Deng, and the two nodded in unison.

"Commander Shangfu, our army will send troops immediately." He said to his own soldiers: "Please ask the marshal to urge the rest of the three soldiers and horses to attack together as agreed, and take the Tartars by surprise." ”

After the Mongol army withdrew from the city of Xiangyang, there was an opinion in the army to attack the city while the enemy was outnumbered. And the soldiers and civilians in the city are even more discussed, and they all think that it is a good time to go out of the city. But Zhao Kui has not moved, and as in the usual battles, he is waiting for an opportunity. Waiting for the moment when the Mongols' defenses were further relaxed.

Two days later, when he saw a part of the Mongol army leaving the city wall and heading west, Zhao Kui understood that it was time to attack.

He gathered all the generals and issued orders to attack one by one, with Zheng Yunming's Tulong Army and Zhenwu Army of 8,000 people, attacking from the West Gate, aiming directly at the base camp set up by the Mongol army on the east bank of Tanxi. With 6,000 troops of Wanwensheng's army, they attacked from the south gate, first destroying the fence and ditch used to block the Song army's movement at the south gate, and then turned to the enemy's catapult position in the southwest corner and destroyed them all. Meng Jing of the north gate attacked with 4,000 people, and turned to the west gate to support Zheng Yunming's department after leaving the north gate, and Hu Xian of the east gate attacked with 4,000 soldiers, including 500 tea merchant troops, 500 elite troops in front of the tent directly under the government office, and three militias of the loyal Rui army, the loyal filial piety army and the loyal and righteous army, a total of 3,000 people, broke the enemy in front of them after leaving the city, and then turned to the south gate direction to respond to Wan Wensheng's army and horses.