The fifteenth day of the first month of the eighteenth year of Jian'an was not a good day for Zhang Lu, because Li Sheng's army had already approached the southern Zhengcheng, and the four battalions in the east, west, south and north surrounded the southern Zhengcheng tightly. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info For a while, there were many flags outside Nanzheng City, the camp was solemn, countless tents stood in the camp, and countless soldiers and horses walked around in it, making it impossible to see how many people Li Sheng brought to attack this Nanzheng City.

"Tell me...... What's going on here? Zhang Lu's roaring voice sounded again in the main hall of the Hanzhong Shijun Mansion. The enemy has already approached the city, and as the ruler of Nanzheng, Zhang Lu naturally has to gather his advisers and generals again to discuss how to deal with it. To tell the truth, Zhang Lu really didn't have any mental preparation for the appearance of Li Shengjun, he originally thought that he had sent Zhang Wei, Yang Ren, and Yang Ang, and sent 50,000 troops to Baocheng to resist Li Sheng's attack, but he didn't want those people to be sent out for less than half a month, and Li Shengjun actually came to the city. "Could it be that Zhang Wei, Yang Ren, and Yang Ang have all failed? Has my army of 50,000 been wiped out? Zhang Lu couldn't believe this, but he really couldn't explain why the enemy could appear here so quickly.

"Please put out the earth-shattering anger for a while." In the face of Zhang Lu's anger, most of the people in the hall bowed their heads and were silent, only the military master Jiu Yanpu stood up and said: "Zhang Wei, Yang Ren, and Yang Ang are the generals of my Hanzhong, and they defend Baocheng with 50,000 soldiers, and Li Sheng is difficult to break no matter how strong his troops are. Therefore, the lord should not be too worried about Baocheng. As for the moment, Li Sheng's army is coming to Nanzheng, I am afraid that it is bypassing Baocheng. Although this has the effect of a miracle, it also puts yourself in danger. If Shijun can rely on the ghost soldiers of Hanzhong to guard Nanzheng, and send another person to break through the siege and inform Zhang Wei and others of the news here, he can encircle and annihilate Li Sheng's army under the city of Nanzheng, and make his earth-shattering achievements. ”

"Huh? Is this possible? Zhang Lu raised his eyebrows, although he was angry, he was still a little hairy in his heart for the enemy coming to the city with such a huge force, "I'm afraid there are no less than 100,000 enemy troops outside." And there are less than 20,000 ghost pawns in my current Nanzheng City. ”

"Please rest assured, the garden is willing to guard the city for the master." Looking at Zhang Lu's stubble appearance, Yan Pu, who understood what his mind was, had to make such a guarantee in front of Zhang Lu while smiling bitterly.

"Then leave everything to Bo Yuan." Zhang Lu had no one to rely on, so he had to rely on Yan Pu, the military advisor. As a prince, he is not too bad, he naturally knows his situation: "I am old, and my ambition back then has been ten percent and ninety percent, and what I am thinking about now is how to let the Taoism I have integrated continue to spread." As for this inheritance of Hanzhong? If you can keep it, you can keep it, but if you can't keep it? Whoever can take it, take it. Zhang Lu thought so, so he gave Yan Pu full power. This was the last bit of effort he made to the current overall situation - in order to show his support for Yan Pu's actions, he directly handed over his seal sword to Yan Pu in the main hall of Hanzhong: "During the period of guarding Hanzhong, Bo Yuan's order is my order, and everyone needs to obey it together!" ”

"No......!" For the determination expressed by Zhang Lu, the hall responded one by one. None of them noticed that Yang Song, the important minister standing first on Zhang Lu's right hand, had an inexplicable flash of sharp light in his eyes.

Li Sheng's attack began the day after he set up camp. First of all, twenty catapults were pushed out of the main camp on the west side, creaking and creaking, and came into range of the archers at the head of the city, guarded by large shieldmen. Although arrows rained down on the city, and people were constantly killed by arrows, this casualty was not very powerful under the protection of Li Shengjun's large shield, which was full of one and a half people high. As the catapults slowly marched to a distance of fifty zhang from the Nanzheng city wall, the counterattack of the oldest artillery finally began.

"Ready...... Percussion! The sound of the trumpet represents the unfolding of the catapult group's attack. A dozen large stones weighing twenty stones, mixed with several specially made clay pots, flew towards the head of Nanzheng's city, inevitably bringing death to the people above. People are unaware of the existence of gunpowder weapons. Even Cao Cao, who had been attacked by gunpowder weapons, did not understand what kind of weapon he was attacking, let alone the Hanzhong army, which had never heard of it. As a result, they didn't retreat when the catapult attacked. So, let the bombardment of the boulder, the explosion of the clay pot produced a huge result: the boulder smashed heavily on the city wall, the strong impact seemed to make the entire city wall tremble, and the explosion of the clay pots mixed with it fell to the ground for a moment The iron sand, iron filings, arsenic, iron nails and other things hidden inside the clay pot shrouded the heads of the soldiers in a radius of about three feet like a fierce storm. And a few who were a little farther away from the landing point, because of the distance, there were not many shrapnel hits in their bodies, so they were humming and wailing over there. For a moment, the people at the head of the city were stunned by this unprecedented attack, and an inexplicable panic rose in their hearts, and the voices of the wounded raised the terrifying atmosphere to the climax.

The countless soldiers at the head of the city were driven by fear in their hearts to become chaotic, and Li Shengjun's catapult fired ten times in a row under the cooperation of this chaos. Although the "explosive bombs" used by Li Sheng were limited in power, and the stone bullets used to achieve longer ranges did not have much attack power, the deterrent effect of the combination of the two was amazing. For the ghost soldiers of the Hanzhong army, who had never seen or heard of gunpowder weapons, such a loud sound and such a terrifying death scene were undoubtedly punishments from heaven. "Could it be that the heavens are angry with us? Want to exterminate us? Such an idea is very marketable for Nanzheng Shoujun, who has always believed in the "Five Bucket Rice Sect" and knows a lot about ghosts and gods. As a result, they became more and more confused, and they lost all will to resist at all.

After firing ten catapults, Li Sheng, who had witnessed the enemy's confusion, began to order the attack of the catapults to be extended, crossing the city walls and directly attacking the facilities in the city, and at the same time ordering the infantry who had been preparing in the city for a long time to charge Nanzheng City. This is a very special tactic, but in Li Sheng's view, it is ordinary: "Isn't it just the extension of artillery fire, and then the suppression of infantry?" I can't make a cannon right now, and I'll have to use the catapult to make up the numbers for a while. Li Sheng thought so in his heart, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the infantry who obeyed his orders and began to march towards Nanzheng. He was nervous at the moment, after all, this was the first siege he and his men had ever conducted.

Silence is the characteristic of Li Shengjun's soldiers at this moment. Although it was time to attack the city, the soldiers who marched under the enemy city did not say much, they silently lined up in formation, silently pulled the wooden bow in their hands apart, adjusted the fullness of the bow and arrow in their hands according to the orders of the captain of their faction, raised the angle of their hands, and deflected, and then shot the arrows in their hands under the sound of the captain.

The arrows that flew out drew an arc in the air, and the head of it fell straight to the head of the city. Nearly a thousand sharp arrows radiated by a full curved soldier were woven into a black web of death in the air. Li Shengjun, who had always attached importance to the characteristics of bows and arrows in the past, and developed them, now used a much better bow than the Nanzheng army at the head of the city, and they could attack the Nanzheng army outside the range of the archers of the Nanzheng army. Generally speaking, even if the Southern Zheng defenders were in good formation and fired at Li Shengjun, Li Shengjun had completely ways to suppress them, not to mention that there was already chaos in the city of the Southern Zheng defenders. During this period, although some people used their "strong bows and arrows" to counterattack the enemy under the city, such a counterattack was not organized, and the range of the bows and arrows was no longer comparable to the range of Li Shengjun's archers, so such a counterattack did not have much impact on Li Shengjun, only a dozen or so unlucky shield soldiers standing in front of the archers to cover for them were slightly hit by a few arrows and suffered some minor injuries.

The tide of battle has gone well here. Li Shengjun's catapult gave them a shocking sensation and caused them to be confused, and the following fierce rain of arrows from the archers extended the confusion. Under the extended cover of the catapult artillery fire, and under the cover of the archers, the sword and shield soldiers who carried out the hand-to-hand mission began to charge the city. They were also in a row of twenty-five people. A platoon carried two ladders, divided into front and rear, and rushed to the moat under the escort of soldiers from the front and left. "Smack!" With a clear sound, a ladder was erected on the three-zhang wide moat. The soldiers quickly made their way along the pontoon bridge erected by the ladder. Although the ladder is full of Kangkang, and it always takes twelve points of caution to step on it, this small problem is not a big deal for Li Shengjun's soldiers, who have already undergone a series of training. They quickly stepped across the "pontoon bridge", quickly set up the ladder at the head of the city, and quickly climbed up to the city with the sharp knives in their hands to kill a small position on the head of the city. For a while, the situation was very good, and it had the momentum to go down to Nanzheng in one go.

"It's going to be a good thing." Seeing that the military flag on his side was already erected at the head of the city, Pang Tong, who was standing beside Li Sheng and watching, couldn't help but show a satisfied smile on his face. At this moment, he and Pang Tong were standing on the high platform at the back of the camp, carefully watching the evolution of this battle.

"Okay? I'm afraid that's all it can be. Li Sheng's face was still calm and calm, and he didn't seem to be rejoicing at the good situation: "You should know that there is such a role as Yan Pu in Nan Zhengli." Do you think someone as powerful as him would not come forward to stabilize the war? At the moment we have used five battalions to attack the four gates. Although the number of troops on the front has increased, it is only a meagre 8,000 men. I don't know exactly how many people the Hanzhong army has on the front, but judging from the situation just now, they have arranged less than 3,000 men and horses on this front. If there are only such a few people at the four city gates, it is definitely not in line with the current estimate of the strength of the Hanzhong army. Yes, I've always suspected that Yan Pu might have been ready to keep the reserves lurking in the shadows. ”

"Are you saying that Yan Pu guy probably expected such a fierce attack from us?" Pang Tong couldn't help but shake his head when he heard this: "That's unlikely." Unless he is really a god. ”

"That's really unlikely. But as far as Shi Yuan is concerned, is it possible to annihilate us with the current situation in Hanzhong? Li Sheng nodded and asked aloud.

"Huh?" Pang Tong, who didn't think that Li Sheng would ask such a question, couldn't help but snort, and then thought of another possibility: "What if...... If Yan Pu really intends to use Nanzheng as a focal point to attract us, so that we will eventually die under the city of Nanzheng, then Yan Pu will not show the strength of defending the city in front of us all at once. They will release some of their strength first, and then increase little by little according to the siege strength we have shown. Every time, we are not allowed to break the city, but they show a crumbling appearance, which gives us hope. If we really have the idea of attacking Nanzheng, then we will inevitably be unwilling to encounter such a situation, so we will always put our army under this Nanzheng city. Alas...... It's so insidious! Pang Tong sighed.

"Insidious? Do you say the enemy or ourselves? Li Sheng heard Pang Tong confide these two words, but he smiled: "As far as I know, the strategy we have set is also insidious." ”

"What's that insidious?" When Pang Tong saw Li Sheng say this, he shouted loudly like a child: "What do you know? That's called wisdom! Wisdom, you know? ”

"Got it, got it." For Pang Tong's sudden attack, Li Sheng only soothed him as if he was really coaxing a child, and while saying words that made him "feel at ease", he stared at the situation in the city with wide eyes. He finally realized that the battle situation in the city was already different from the previous one. To be precise, an accident happened.

The main reason why the defenders of Nan Zheng City looked so unbearable was that they were stupid by the gunpowder weapons that rumbled like thunderbolts. And with the extension of the catapult attack and the beginning of the arrival of ordinary soldiers in the city, some of the bold soldiers remembered their duties and began to resist the attack of Li Shengjun. In the beginning, this resistance was piecemeal and not very organized. It wasn't until Yan Pu joined the battle with the reserves that this resistance gradually became stronger, and gradually suppressed Li Shengjun's attack.

The suppression of his own attack was expected for Li Sheng. But this matter was not so pleasant for Yan Pu. Originally, he believed in his own judgment very much, and he also believed in the strength of his own ghost soldiers, in his opinion, Li Shengjun's first siege would definitely not be an immediate onslaught, but a tentative attack. For this kind of attack, he thought that the more than 20,000 horses he had placed on the head of the city were enough. As Li Sheng guessed, Yan Pu, who consciously used Nan Zheng as a bait, did not have the idea of exposing all his defensive strength at once. He planned to use Nanzheng as a bait, and by constantly defending against Li Sheng's attacks, and constantly showing the reluctance of his defense, he would let Li Sheng's army stumble under the city of Nanzheng, and prepare for the encirclement of Zhang Weijun on his own side and that of Baocheng -- he wanted to annihilate Li Sheng's army under the city of Nanzheng.

Such an idea is not bad, and Yan Pu was originally confident that it would be realized. But Li Sheng's current display of combat power under Nanzheng City surprised him: a powerful catapult attack, a bow and arrow with a longer range, and perfect short-range coordination, etc. In just a quarter of an hour, Li Shengjun's attack on Nanzheng had reached the point where he had to put his reserve troops at the head of the city to support, which made him really a little frightened.

"How can there be such a siege team? With such a powerful attack ability, even Prime Minister Cao Cheng, who ruled the Central Plains, never possessed it, right? Although he reacted quickly in the end, at the moment when Li Sheng's attack first came, he was also frightened by Li Shengjun's strength like most people.

There was no way, in the face of such a fierce attack by Li Shengjun, Yan Pu, who was shocked, was not sure that this was a general attack launched by Li Shengjun, or whether it was "just a tentative attack" as he had always thought. Faced with the beacon flames rising on all sides of the city wall, Yan Pu, who never wanted to lose the city under the enemy's first attack, had to make a helpless choice. Of course, the effect of this choice was still very obvious, and as the team in his hands slaughtered the city, and the sobriety of the soldiers who were already frightened and stupid, the enemy's seemingly frantic attack was stopped. Most of them are pinned down to a few points. And he also saw from the enemy's move that he did not continue to send more men after sending siege troops at one time, and he saw that the purpose of the enemy's attack this time was indeed a temptation.

"Almost. Shi Yuan, order Mingjin. Let's angle the catapult a little more to escort our soldiers back. Li Sheng saw the reinforcements led by Yan Pu, estimated the strength of the Nanzheng garrison, nodded slightly, and said to Pang Tong beside him.

"Yes!" Pang Tong nodded, waved the cyan flag in his hand casually, and passed Ming Jin's order to the snare drummer below.

The swift jingling of the bell rang crisply. As these voices rang out, Yan Pu and his army were subjected to an even more violent attack. Not only did the clay pots that burst constantly explode around them, but they also continued to explode in unexpected places where Li Shengjun gathered, and the raining arrows also flew from the city to the city, and even the encircled Li Shengjun sergeants took out goose egg-sized iron lumps from their hands and threw them towards the southern Zheng defenders. These things seem to be heavy and not thrown very far, but they are just as explosive as the clay pots that will be smashed by catapults. For a while, the loud roar continued to sound on the city, and countless limbs that originally belonged to people kept flying on the city, and the soldiers of Nan Zheng couldn't bear such an attack and couldn't help but retreat, giving Li Shengjun a good time to retreat.

At that moment, Li Shengjun retreated, taking advantage of the moment when Nanzheng defenders were stunned, he quickly stepped down the ladder. Although Yan Pu reacted quickly and ordered a blow to the retreating Li Shengjun at the risk of death, with the support of Li Shengjun's catapults and archers, such a blow did not pose much threat to the retreating troops, and only caused Li Shengjun to suffer dozens of casualties, and finally let Li Shengjun retreat to the camp safely.

"Powerful weapons, smooth tactical coordination, and strong will to fight, the combination of the three has made our army taste such suffering. Can this Hanzhong really be able to defend under Li Sheng's attack? Yan Pu, who has always been confident, also has a not very good opinion of the outcome of this battle after experiencing this series of blows. Of course, for his own sake and for his lord, he still wants to continue this battle, and he decided to recruit more soldiers to make up for the gap between himself and Li Shengjun in terms of elite, which is the so-called use of quantity against quality. For a time, there was chaos in Nanzheng City, and there were ghost soldiers recruiting soldiers everywhere.

Li Sheng, the emergency conscription in Nanzheng City, was not clear, and even if he knew, he did not take this matter to heart. Because the current Nan Zheng is not his target, and those novices who "were still ordinary people yesterday, and today they have to go to the battlefield as soldiers" are no longer in his eyes. The night was already deep, and under the starry dark blue night, Li Sheng's military camp was brightly lit, and the generals except Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong, who had already been sent on a mission, were discussing the next policy with Li Sheng, Pang Tong, Fa Zheng and others.

"Today's fight was generally good. Of course, there are some problems, such as the cohesion and cooperation of the various arms is not close enough, and the attack accuracy of the catapult is not high enough, which are all things that we need to improve in the future, I will not say much about these, and I will find a time to train you slowly in the future. As for what's next, ......" Li Sheng made a slight summary of today's battle, and then began tonight's topic with a slight mutter: "Through today's battle, the enemy's intention is very obvious, they want to rely on Nanzheng to defend and use Nanzheng as a bait to lure us to the death under Nanzheng City, so that they can mobilize the army of Baocheng to besiege us." It's a very cautious and vicious approach. For this plan against us, we have to be stupid, pretending not to see their plan and still attacking Nan Zheng. ”

"That means we're going to have to keep sending troops up for a few days from tomorrow? Will this increase our losses? After all, the defending side in a siege always has the upper score because it has the walls as its backing. The reason why we were able to retreat so quickly today was simply because we caught them off guard. If it were tomorrow, I'm afraid things wouldn't have gone so smoothly. In such a situation, we still have to act, aren't we sent to death? Hearing Li Sheng's explanation, the general in the tent couldn't help but retort.

Li Sheng escaped the prestige but saw that the person who spoke was one of his subordinate Chen Ying, who joined his army when he attacked Jingnan before Chibi, although he did not have a very outstanding performance on weekdays, but he was brave enough to do anything, and today he was directly put into the battlefield as a member of the siege army. It is said that they were directly besieged by Yan Pu's reserves, and suffered some losses, because they were dissatisfied with the fact that they did not send reinforcements in time to support them to expand the results of the battle. Even he already knew about his battle plan in advance.

"Colonel Chen Bi is a person who loves soldiers, of course I understand what you said. But do you think we can really rely on a strong attack to take Nan Zheng? Li Sheng didn't show much surprise at Chen Ying's questioning, he just smiled faintly, and calmly asked Chen Ying: "You have also seen Yan Pu's arrangements in Nanzheng City." Do you think he will take out all the reserves in his hands at once? Zhang Lu's soldiers are different from ours. Our soldiers need three years of training before they can go into battle, but what about Zhang Lu's soldiers? He drew a piece entirely from among the people, and gave them weapons directly, and made them soldiers. Although this has the fruit of low combat capability, it is staggering in numbers. Coupled with Zhang Lu's own prestige in Hanzhong, I can guarantee that as long as Zhang Lu is willing, there will be 100,000 soldiers and horses to defend this southern Zheng City. What can you do about such a large number of troops? We still don't have enough experience in siege, and the cost of siege is too large, so it is better for us to lure the enemy out and force them to fight with us in the field. ”

"Yes...... But...... That can't just let our soldiers die. Chen Ying muttered: "If there is a loss in the siege, no matter how big the casualties are, I have no complaints, but just to confuse the enemy and send our army directly into danger." I was acceptable, but I couldn't explain it to my subordinates. Chen Ying is a very stubborn person, but at this moment, his bull temper is a little indifferent to even Li Sheng, the lord.

"Uh......" was said so sternly by his subordinates, no matter how generous Li Sheng was, his face was a little unhappy, he kept his face calm, gasped and tried to calm the anger in his heart, and said coldly, "Colonel Chen, the army does not exist only for the preferences of that group of people. The army exists to achieve a certain purpose. At present, our purpose is to mobilize the army of Baocheng by besieging Nanzheng, and prepare for the final siege and annihilation of the army of Baocheng by our army. In order to achieve this, you must do what we have planned here, even if you fight your troops to the last man. You are a deviant of a song, and you only need to think about the song you are in, so you don't think it's appropriate to lure the enemy into battle. But as your lord, I must be responsible to all the people of the army, so I think a certain sacrifice is necessary. If you don't want to, I can remove you from the military right now. ”

In the face of Li Sheng's coldness, Chen Yingyan retreated, he shrank back under the hateful gaze of his boss Xing Daorong, but he didn't dare to say anything more. However, because of such a confrontation between him and Li Sheng, it made the big tent, which was originally very cheerful, depressed. Everyone felt a little embarrassed.

"Hehe......" In view of this, Pang Tong had to come out to play a round: "The general plan is to mobilize the army of Baocheng by besieging Nanzheng, and prepare for the final siege and annihilation of the army of Baocheng by our army." This cannot be changed. However, how to implement the specific needs and how to ensure the safety of the decoy troops to the maximum extent is what you need to accomplish. You can figure out for yourselves how to do it. Anyway, as long as the final result is achieved, I don't care what means you use. ”

"This ...... What means can we use? Zhou Li said with a frown. As one of Li Sheng's most trusted people, he was originally responsible for Li Sheng's safety, but now he is now directly commanding a battalion of troops as a general. At present, it is natural that they are also qualified to participate in this military meeting.

"I've heard that in the last two battles, we captured a lot of Hanzhong's surrendered soldiers. I think it's better to let them be the vanguard of the attack on Nanzheng. Anyway, we will send our own elite Hou in the back, and we are not afraid of what tricks they will play. Fa Zheng thought for a moment to give this advice to the generals who felt sorry for the losses received by the sergeants under his command.

"Huh? That's a good idea, so let's do it. Thinking about it slightly, everyone became excited, and nodded affirmatively.