In the next few days, the Xuzhou army launched an attack on Yinling City. As Zhang Liao expected, regardless of the insults of the Xuzhou army, Zhang Xun was determined to eat the scales, and he would not fight if he lived or died, the four gates were closed, the suspension bridge was hung high, and he put on a shelf of vowing to defend Yinling City. The plan to lure Zhang Xun out of the city and attack with ambushes must have been misperformed, and if he wanted to take Yinling, it seemed that there was only one way to attack.

Zhang Liao was neatly clothed, personally went to the front of the trench to supervise the battle, ordered the sergeants to carry soil and stones, filled the trenches and plugged the trenches, and was the first to fill in the moat, so that Sun Guan led the seventh division to be the siege vanguard battalion and attack the city in a big way.

Sun Guan's spirit after receiving the order was shocked, you must know that this was the first battle after he joined the Xuzhou Army, Sun Guan abandoned his horse and personally commanded the soldiers of the Seventh Division to attack Yinling City. Although this was the first battle of the Fourth Legion after its formation, none of these soldiers had not been on the battlefield. The reorganization of the army, the original Xuzhou army factions of the forces are all disrupted, the current fourth army, there are Tao Qian's old descendants of the Danyang soldiers, there are Xuzhou native army, there are Zang Ba's Kaiyang soldiers, there are also Lu Bu to fight in the Quartet of the state army, although the composition is complex, but each soldier is experienced in a hundred battles and has rich combat experience, if you talk about individual soldiers, there are few armies in the world that can be compared, a little worse, is the overall coordination ability, However, a large number of graduates of military academies filled the ranks of lieutenants, injecting fresh blood into the Fourth Army. The current Fourth Army Corps is like a machine that has just been built with the best parts, excellent and refined, and the only thing lacking is the run-in, that is, the baptism of the war. Tempered into steel, battled into an army!

The good news of the First Legion came, which made the soldiers of the Fourth Legion secretly hold their breath, and they all wanted to take Yinling City in one go and raise the military prestige of the Fourth Legion. Therefore, under the leadership of Sun Guan, the Seventh Division was like a tiger out of the forest, carrying a ladder and pushing a rushing cart, and launched round after round of fierce attacks towards the city of Yinling.

Since Zhang Xun has made up his mind to defend the Yin Tomb, the fortifications of the Yin Tomb City will definitely not be ambiguous. Today, the Xu Junzhou army came to attack in a big way, and Zhang Xun had already personally gone to the east gate to supervise the battle. Faced with all kinds of insults from Xuzhou under the city. Even the deputy general Han Hao was anxious, and asked Zhang Xun to fight several times, wanting to go out of the city to fight with the Xuzhou army.

But Zhang Xun just smiled coldly, these tricks of the Xuzhou army were too naïve. I want to trick him out and ambush him. There are no doors! Ji Ling's experience has already made Zhang Xun determined to defend the Yin Tomb. So Zhang Xun ordered that anyone should not go out of the city to meet the enemy, and anyone who dared to speak out to fight would be killed. Zhang Xun is clear. The target of the Xuzhou army was only Yinling City, and after the failure of the lure strategy, the Xuzhou army would attack the city on a large scale, and he ordered the armies to be ready to attack the enemy.

Sure enough, the Xuzhou army scolded for a while to no avail, and stopped the war of saliva, since the other party has no intention of fighting, then it is useless to waste more saliva, and saliva can't kill people, if you want to kill, you have to rely on knives and guns. Soon, the Xuzhou army began to fill in the moat and prepare for the siege.

The moat is within the range of the bow and arrow on the city, Zhang Xun saw the action of the Xuzhou army, so he ordered the defenders of the city to shoot arrows, although the Xuzhou army was carrying a shield and carrying a bag of stones, but in the face of the rain of arrows, there were still many soldiers who were killed by arrows, and many corpses fell on the side of the moat, and some were directly filled into the moat.

The casualties of the Xuzhou army under the city were increasing, and the moat was barely filled with several passable passages. Zhang Xun sneered secretly in the city, with the defense of Yinling City, let alone 40,000 horses, even if Liu Ze sent 100,000 horses, what can I do?

The death of Pao Ze did not make the Xuzhou army frightened, but it inspired the fighting spirit of the Xuzhou army even more, all of them were full of energy, high morale, and rushed forward with a roar.

Siege warfare is also one of the compulsory training subjects of the Xuzhou army, and the coordination of all arms during the siege will be the key to whether or not the city can be conquered. Each legion Liu Ze is equipped with heavy weapons, in the troops directly under the legion, there are catapult battalions, bed crossbow battalions, equipment battalions, equipment battalions, equipment battalions have ladders, cloud carts, siege towers, rushing cars, city breakers, nest cars, chariots and other siege equipment. The defense technology of the city has been widely used and improved in the pre-Qin and Warring States periods, the city is built higher and more solid, and the means of defense are also endless, correspondingly, the means and methods of siege are also constantly improving, to the end of the Han Dynasty, the attack and defense of the city has a complete set of mature tactics, around the attack and defense of the city, just like a spear and shield, the improvement of the technical and tactical level of the siege promotes the continuous improvement of the defense technology of the city, in turn, The increase in the city's defenses also forced the siege to be further improved.

For the siege of the city, the Xuzhou army has been strictly trained, but it is not a swarm of bees to carry a ladder to rush up, with a blood can take the fortified city, the siege is a high-tech tactic, the need for many arms to work together, cooperate with each other, support each other. In this attack on Yinling, Zhang Liao mobilized almost all the equipment of the battalion directly under the corps, and heavy equipment such as catapults, bed crossbows, rushing cars, nest carts, etc. came in handy, among Liu Ze's four corps, in addition to the third corps, the remaining three corps were equipped with catapult battalions and bed crossbow battalions, each catapult battalion had fifty counterweight catapults, and each bed crossbow battalion had one hundred bed ballistae.

The catapult can project more than 100 catties of stone bullets, with a range of 350 steps, and if it projects 30 catties of stone bullets or arquebuses, the maximum range can reach 600 steps. Whereas, the bed crossbow is a large crossbow mounted on a wooden frame. Install one or several big bows on the bed frame, twist the winch shaft behind it, open the bow to load the arrows, and use the combined force of the big bow to eject long arrows, with a range of up to 500 steps, which is the farthest range and the most powerful crossbow in ancient China, and can be described as the overlord of the crossbow. The arrows fired by the bed crossbow are made of wood as a rod, the head of an iron spear is used as a radiant, and the tail wing is used as an iron feather, which is known as "one gun and three swords and arrows", but in fact it is a short spear with a feather, which has a huge destructive power, and the city is defended with it, and the attacker's chariot, ladder, wooden curtain, giant shield, etc. are all broken; Attacking the city with it, the city fortress is not finished, and if it encounters an earthen city and a wooden wall, it is like being destroyed.

The catapult was arranged by Zhang Liao at a distance of 600 steps from the city wall, it is impossible to throw a hundred catties of stone bullets at this distance, but for the catapult, this distance is the safest, and the weapon with the longest range in the city is only a bed crossbow that can shoot to a distance of 500 steps, that is to say, the defender does not have any weapons to attack the catapult, but the catapult can use thirty catties of light bullets and fire bombs to attack the city in this range. Fire bombs can be oil-soaked arquebuses or incendiary canisters filled with gasoline.

The bed crossbow was arranged in front of the catapult, five hundred paces from the city wall. Further on, there are archers with two-stone longbows, and in front of them are guarded by a row of shield soldiers. Catapults, bed crossbows, and archers formed a network of three support fires to suppress the defenders of the city and assist the besieging infantry in the battle to capture the city.

The main force of the siege was the sword and shield soldiers of the 7th Division, all armed with steel swords and shields on their heads, who crossed the moat in black and pressed down, and struggled to climb along the ladder to the head of the city. In the era when there were no firearms, this way of attacking the city can be said to be the most common and widespread way, and it is also the most effective way.

The attack momentum of the Xuzhou army was very fierce, and the entire section of the east gate city wall of Yinling was shrouded in a rain of flying stones and arrows. The powerful giant arrows of the bed crossbow roared in the wind, whether it was hitting the crowd or the buildings on the city tower, it was like a devastating and decaying one, and one arrow shot directly penetrated several soldiers defending the city. Thirty pounds of stone bullets shot in a graceful arc, smashing on the tower, rumbling, dusty, if it hit the soldiers, it would immediately be a mass of debris, flesh and blood flying. The Xuzhou army also used a strange thing, shaped like a clay pot, that was thrown into the city and immediately shattered, causing a raging fire on the open field.

Yuan's army was horrified, and most of the soldiers were afraid. Zhang Xun braved the arrows and stones, personally went to the city wall to supervise the battle, and commanded the Yuan army to counterattack. Although the Xuzhou army's arrow attack was fierce, causing a large number of casualties to the Yuan army defending the city, Zhang Xun quickly transferred another group of soldiers to defend the city, so that the number of defenders on the eastern city wall remained constant.

For a time, the offensive and defensive sides fell into a bitter battle.

Zhang Liao watched in front of the battle for a long time, and ordered Mingjin to withdraw his troops.

Sun Guan personally commanded the siege under the city, and when the battle was in full swing, he heard the sound of Mingjin in the phalanx, and he still had the heart to fight again, so he had to order the army to retreat.

In the next few days, the Xuzhou army attacked the city from the southeast, northwest, and northwest sides of Yinling, but it was thunder and rain, and the offensive was like a tide at the beginning, but it immediately died down after a slight setback, and retreated. After a few days of fighting, the Yuan soldiers who defended the city were accustomed to the fighting style of the Xuzhou army, and the initial fear of war was slowly eliminated, and they became arrogant.

Not only did the soldiers at the lower level of Yuan's army have this idea, but Zhang Xun and others gradually felt that Liu Ze's army was far less terrible than they imagined, they were also flesh and blood, and they were also helpless in the face of Jiancheng. Zhang Xun couldn't help but be a little smug, complacent about his original choice, with the strength of Yinling, it would not be a problem to stick to it for another year and a half, Zhang Liao wanted to break the city, he was daydreaming. (To be continued......)