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.

But Sun Huan was right. The range of the Wei army's thunderbolt was indeed not up to the wall of Jianye, and many stones fell outside the moat, but in addition, there were still a lot of stones that fell into the moat accurately. Splash 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 is not trying to attack the city at all, but to fill the moat with thunderbolt carts throwing boulders and sandbags! ”

Sun Huan looked at the few boulders in the moat outside the city and couldn't help but nod. It's just that he suddenly remembered something and said: "That's true, but when did the Wei army's thunderbolt become so far away, 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! Throw stones for a day today. As a father, I don't believe that this moat cannot be filled! ”

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 and five miles wide from north to south. There were two walls inside and outside, and there were seven gates in the outer city, three in the south, and one in the east and one on the west. Two on the north. The two city walls are several zhang thick and unattainable, and the valley in the city can support 10,000 troops for more than two years. It can be described as a first-class fortified city today.

Since Zhang Liao's siege, three months have passed. For three months, the Wei army worked day and night, first attacking without success. Later, many methods such as night raids and round attacks were adopted, but Xiangyang was helpless. 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 tunnels, and even if the city walls collapse, 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 did not succeed. 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 Octavia, and in combination with the situation that the Wei army did not attack the city in recent days, 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 tunnels between the two armies were connected near the moat. On that day, Sun Huan personally brought 300 dead soldiers into the house to kill the soldiers of the Wei army digging tunnels, and led 1,000 soldiers to the Wei army camp to make trouble that night. But fortunately, the place where the Wei army dug the tunnel was only a partial battalion, and there were only 2,000 auxiliaries in the battalion. 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 could not be overcome, the casualties were numerous, and the morale of the soldiers was already at the end of the crossbow. He could even see the resentment on some people's faces.

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 arrive 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, the northern expedition to Youyan, and attacked Nanjing, Liao, but the siege of the city for several months was unbearable. The physical strength and morale of the soldiers were exhausted, and they were finally defeated by the reinforcements of the Liao. 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. However, it is unlikely that the Liao army will achieve the same record as the Liao army, because it is in Shangyong, west of Xiangyang. An even more difficult opponent, Cao Zhen, the general of the Wei Shang Army, is still eyeing it.

In the big tent, Qiao Ren dialed the wick to make him brighter. And he himself holds a copy of "Sima Zi" and studies it non-stop, and now that he has fewer opportunities to personally command the campaign, he should pay more attention to learning some knowledge about army management and military construction, so as not to appear that this Tai 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 that Ma Chao will return to Xiliang in a few days. ”

"So smooth!" Qiao Ren originally thought that it would take more words to settle the ministers of Shu Han, but he didn't want Zhuge Jin to enter Shu for only a few days, except for the schedule of entering Shu in Chengdu, it was only four or five days before he said that Liu Bei Junchen was moved, 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 temperament, Zhuge Jin would not be bored if he wanted to.

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 his future advancement in Yongliang, 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 envoys from the west are coming! ”

"Envoy? Who? ”

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