The 30,000 Xiandeng troops of the Wei army pushed the thunderbolt carts one after another and advanced slowly, until they were about to reach the effective range of the ballistae and bed crossbows on the head of the Daocheng but suddenly stopped, followed by the sound of war drums.

Above the head of Xiangyang City, Zhu Ran and Sun Huan looked nervously at the Wei army, who was still almost in the firing range, and the left hand that originally ordered the shooting stopped in mid-air, and it was neither raised nor released.

"General Zhu, what is Wei Jun doing? Why did it stop suddenly. Sun Huan asked puzzledly, isn't this the Wei army looking like a siege? Why did you give up halfway?

"Shuwu, you see what's wrong with the Wei army's formation." Zhu Ran's brows were about to knot, and he pointed to the thunderbolt cars pushed by Wei Jun and asked.

Sun Huan looked in the direction Zhu Ran pointed out and saw only countless thunderbolts on standby, the pattern was smaller than the usual ones, but there was nothing special other than that. "Nothing, huh? That's right! The Wei army did not have any siege equipment other than thunderbolts. ”

was shocked, but what Sun Huan said was really strange, the Wei army actually planned to capture Xiangyang with only a thunderbolt?

"That's true, if the Wei army really wants to attack the city, it won't even have a ladder or a rushing car! That's why a certain family can't understand what kind of medicine is sold in this Cao Xiu's gourd? ”

Boom! As soon as Zhu Ran's words fell, he heard a roar in the four fields, and dozens of thunderbolts broke out at the same time, just in response to his name, the sound was like a thunderbolt, and in an instant, countless huge stones pierced the sky, smashing towards Xiangyang City like meteors!

"Don't panic! Cao Jun's Thunderbolt did not have such a long range. Sun Huan was not afraid of danger, his tiger eyes kept staring at the huge flying stones, and the corners of his mouth twitched when he was so bold.

However, Sun Huan was right, the range of the Wei army's thunderbolt was indeed out of reach of Jianye's city wall, and many stones fell outside the moat, and in addition, there were still a lot of stones that fell into the moat accurately, splashing the originally unprosperous moat.

Looking at the splash, a thought flashed in Zhu Ran's mind and hurriedly said to Sun Huan: "It's a disaster!" Today's Wei army didn't want to attack the city at all, but to fill the moat with thunderbolt carts throwing boulders and sandbags! ”

Sun Huan couldn't help but nod his head as he looked at the few boulders in the moat outside the city, but he suddenly remembered something and said: "That's true, but when did the Wei army's thunderbolt become so long, and even the accuracy has become higher." ”

"The Central Plains is vast, there are many talents, and there are many Mo families who are proficient in mechanical arts!" Zhu Ran replied casually, now is not the time to find out who transformed the Thunderbolt.

"Father, this thunderbolt has really become powerful!" A young warrior in black elite armor said to Zhang Liao.

"Hu'er, this is the work of Dr. Ma Jun, and for this reason, Mr. Yang specially invited him to study the mechanism technique together! Today, as soon as I throw a stone, I don't believe that I can't fill this moat! ”

It turns out that the thunderbolt car used by the Wei army today has been transformed by Ma Jun, the master, not to mention that it has become smaller, and the rest of the range and accuracy have been greatly improved, although it is not as good as the ballista, but the power is the top of the long-range weapons.

Xiangyang City, which is located on the shore of Xiangshui and Hanshui, moved the Jingzhou administrative office to here in Jian'an, and began to overhaul the city defense. After Liu Biao's death, Cao's army took over Xiangyang as a forward position to resist Wu Han, and Wen Ping repaired Xiangyang City. After Xiangyang changed hands to Wu, Zhu Ran and Zhu Huan, who were stationed in Xiangyang, renovated Xiangyang City.

Today's Xiangyang City is seven miles long from east to west, five miles wide from north to south, there are two city walls inside and outside, there are seven city gates in the outer city, three in the south, one in the east and one in the west, and two in the north. The two city walls are several zhang thick, unattainable, and the valley in the city can support 10,000 troops for more than two years, which can be said to be the first-class fortified city today.

Since the beginning of Zhang Liao's siege of the city, it has been three months, and the Wei army has been working day and night for three months, first attacking without results, and then using many methods such as night attacks and wheel attacks are helpless Xiangyang. In desperation, Cao Xiu decided to cross the river from Xiangshui to besiege Xiangyang City on all sides, but Xu Huang's army was desperately blocked by Sun Shengbu stationed on the south bank when crossing the river, and even used a ballista to prevent the Wei army from crossing the river.

After trying many tactics to no avail, Cao Xiu looked at Xiangyang City, where the moat had been filled, and could only look at the city and sigh, but even if Cao Xiu was incompetent, there were countless good generals in his army, and his Chinese hired him to suggest that the Wei army should dig tunnels and trap the city wall.

The method of digging tunnels has existed since ancient times, and the Yuan army had dug tunnels to attack during the battle of Guandu, and Cao Jun also dug long trenches in the camp to resist and crack Yuan Shao's tunnels. It's just that few people use it to trap the city, and it takes too long to dig the tunnel, and even if the city wall collapses, how much manpower and material resources will be consumed.

The so-called digging tunnels to trap the city wall is to dig up the bottom of the city wall to make it collapse, and the premise is that the city must not have a moat or drain the water of the moat first. But if the foundations of the walls are rock-solid, this approach often does not work.

Cao Xiu decisively adopted the strategy of digging the corners of the wall, and the two thousand Wei troops dug a tunnel to the city wall and followed it to the bottom of the city wall. Of course, the tunnel would be supported by wooden piles, and then the bottom earth that supported the foundations of the walls would be dug out and removed, and then replaced with wooden piles to support it. The wooden piles in the tunnel will later be set on fire as originally planned. If everything goes according to plan, the walls will collapse due to lack of support when the wooden stakes used to support the weight of the walls are gradually burned. This creates a gap in the collapsed walls, allowing the besieging army to attack the castle directly.

Although this method took a long time, it was a good strategy for the Wei army at this time, but unfortunately it was not successful. Perhaps it was providence that made people, although the moat of Xiangyang City was filled by the Wei army, but also due to the long-term stone smashing by the thunderbolt car, the soil was crisp and loose, and the Wei army's tunnel was about to dig the moat when the surface was dented, which was noticed by Zhu Ran of Mingrui, and in combination with the situation that the Wei army did not attack the city in recent years, Zhu Ran decisively determined that the Wei army was digging tunnels and trapping the city wall.

Zhu Ran was familiar with the art of war, and he was especially good at defending the city, so he immediately decided to dig a tunnel of his own at the bottom of the city wall and try to intercept the enemy's tunnel. So the tunnel of the two armies was connected near the moat, when Sun Huan personally brought 300 dead soldiers into the house to kill the Wei army digging tunnels, and also led a thousand soldiers to the Wei army camp to make trouble at night, but fortunately, the place where the Wei army dug the tunnel was only a partial camp, and there were only 2,000 auxiliaries in the camp, and Sun Huan's harvest was nothing more than killing some auxiliaries at night.

However, this battle greatly damaged the morale of the Wei army, not only destroyed but also damaged many horses, and the most important thing was that their 100,000 army actually had no way to take a city wall.

Three months ago, the 100,000 Wei army came with the momentum of winning the battle and winning the attack, but after three months, the repeated attacks were overcome, the casualties were numerous, and the morale of the soldiers was already at the end of the crossbow, even Xu Huang, who was good at governing the army, saw from the faces of those soldiers that the memories were no longer the high-spirited color of the past, and he could even see the resentment on the faces of some people.

And the news also spread to the army of Wu in the north, Sun Ce comforted him, praised Sun Huan in public as Yan Yuan of the clan, and praised Zhu Ran for being good at fighting. And Qiao Ren is also concerned about the situation in Xiangyang, now the 100,000 troops gathered by Sun Ce are only two hundred miles away from Xiangyang City, and they will be reached in a few days, and then the Wu army can blow the horn of counterattack!

Today's situation reminds Qiao Ren of the first Song-Liao War in history, when Zhao Guangyi, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, led 200,000 Song troops to destroy the remnants of the Northern Han Dynasty, and attacked Youyan in the north to attack Nanjing, the Liao State, but the siege of the city for several months was not possible, the physical strength and morale of the soldiers were exhausted, and finally the reinforcements of the Liao people were defeated by the whole army. After losing the strength that his brother Song Taizu had accumulated for ten years and the backbone of the Song Empire, the Song army began to breed a fear of war, and literati and politicians began to slander the military.

And now Sun Ce's 100,000-strong army is very likely to be a fatal blow to the defeat of the Wei army, but it is unlikely to achieve the same record as the Liao army, because just west of Xiangyang, in Shangyong, a more difficult opponent, Cao Zhen, the general of the Wei army, is still eyeing the tiger.

In the big tent, Qiao Ren dialed the wick to make him brighter, and he himself held a copy of "Sima Zi" and studied non-stop, now that he has fewer opportunities to personally command the battle, he should pay more attention to learning some knowledge of army management and military construction, so as not to appear that this lieutenant is not worthy of his name.

"Captain!" In the middle of the night, Jiang Ji still had the leisure to come to Qiao Ren.

"Zitong? What's the matter? Qiao Ren didn't raise his head, but slowly sorted out the books he had read, and he should go to bed before the time was too early.

"There is news in Shu!" Jiang Ji took out a piece of silk silk from his arms, although the Han Dynasty had paper, but it was not so conducive to writing, so the official still used silk as a carrier for writing, and the silk silk in Jiang Ji's arms recorded on it was the news from Shuzhong.

"It's finished?"

Jiang Ji nodded lightly, spread the silk silk on the table, and explained to Qiao Ren: "The Overseer General has successfully persuaded the Supreme in the West, and Ma Chao will return to Xiliang without saying anything. ”

"So smooth!" Qiao Ren originally thought that it would take a little more to settle the Shu Han ministers, but he didn't want Zhuge Jin to enter Shu for only a few days, except for the Cheng Cheng who entered Shu for only four or five days in Chengdu, he said that he had moved Liu Bei Junchen, which was too unexpected!

It seemed that he saw Qiao Ren's thoughts, or Qiao Ren's tone was too exaggerated, Jiang Ji explained to Qiao Ren with a smile: "Please take a look!" The letter made it clear that the Overseer and Liu Bei would meet twice, and they had met Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu Han, once in private, or for Zhuge Qiao's affairs. ”

Zhuge Qiao is both Zhuge Jin's second son and Zhuge Ke's younger brother. Zhuge Liang had no children after marriage, so Zhuge Qiao passed on to Zhuge Liang as his heir. In other words, Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang met only for the sake of their family affairs, and did not let Zhuge Liang collude in private, but with Zhuge Liang's surname, Zhuge Jin would not be bored if he thought about it.

This is strange, according to Qiao Ren's expectations, even if Liu Bei agreed, he should not be so fast, and he should wait until the two sides of Wu and Wei are fighting hotly, and if the situation is that the Wu army tends to be down, Ma Chao will be ordered to return to Liangzhou, but now the main force of the Wu army has been sorted out, and it has not yet fought with the Wei army!

"Too fast, isn't it!?"

"Not fast, not fast!" Jiang Ji said with a smile: "You think that if Ma Chao can crisscross Yongliang again, it seems that he has relieved the siege of our army, but in fact, it is he Liu Bei who benefits." ”

"It turned out that he took advantage of the opportunity of our army to attract the 200,000 main forces of the Wei army, and was ready to lay the groundwork for him to advance Yongliang in the future, Zhuge Liang is really powerful!"

Jiang Ji shook his head and said, "According to the overseer's reply, the one who contributed the most to this discussion was the left great Sima Xu Shu in the west! By the way, the envoy from the west is coming! ”

"Envoy? Who? ”

"Shang Shufu shoots Deng Zhi!" (To be continued.) )