The Fourth Army is also complaining, although it is not said on the surface, but in private the generals of the battalions have great doubts about Zhang Liao's ability to lead the army, a Yinling City, attacked for dozens of days, countless casualties, but even the head of the Yinling City did not touch it, which made Sun Guan, Hao Meng, Hou Cheng and others who had served as the main attack depressed. Although it is said that Zhang Liao's several attacks on Yinling City are true and false, but every time the fight is fierce, Zhang Liao ordered Mingjin to withdraw his troops, and the generals saw that the city of Yinling was close at hand, but it was out of reach, how not to be angry.

Zhang Liao is calm and relaxed, without a trace of anxiety, every day is still according to the old class of troops, siege, collection of troops, according to the daily siege of the city has become a training subject for him, the difference is that the daily change of direction, today to attack the east gate, tomorrow to hit the south gate, the day after tomorrow is the turn of the west gate, but every day in vain is no different. The defenders in the city became more and more tenacious, but the morale of the Xuzhou army besieging the city was declining day by day, and the shape became more and more unfavorable to the Xuzhou army.

The battle situation on the side of Yinling was quickly reported to Huaibei, and the First Army, which had completely wiped out the remnants of Yuan Shu in Huaibei, had arrived at Xia Cai, and it was already separated from Shouchun by a water. Yuan Shu on Shouchun's side was in a panic all day, and sent heavy troops to garrison on the south bank of Huaishui to strictly guard and prevent the Xuzhou army from crossing the river.

The Fourth Army was unable to take the Yin Tomb for a long time, so the plan to join Yu Shouchun was temporarily shelved. Xu Rong said with a hint: "The progress of the Fourth Army is slow, and it has not been able to take Yinling for such a long time, when will it be able to fight until Shouchun?" ”

Liu Ze smiled slightly: "The Fourth Legion is not lagging, but our First Legion is ahead. This is also a big gift from Ji Ling. Otherwise, if you fight a battle, can it be so smooth? Zhang Xun is not a mediocre general, although he is not enterprising enough, he has more than enough to defend it, the battle of Yinling is not easy to fight, and we have to give Wen Yuan some time. ”

Xu Rong said: "Does the lord believe in Zhang Wenyuan too much?" There was news from the Yinling side that many generals and colonels of the Fourth Army were secretly dissatisfied, and they had been fighting for many days, and the Fourth Army had suffered a lot of injuries but had no achievements, according to Zhang Wenyuan's current style of play. It is impossible to take the Yin Tomb in a short period of time. Isn't it time for the lord to reconsider? ”

Liu Ze shook his head and said, "How can there be no casualties in the war?" It is not uncommon to storm a city with more defenders than ours and pay a certain price for casualties. Wenyuan has the talent of a general. Operational planning. Deeply strategic. I don't expect that in a few days, there will be good news from Yinling. Pass my orders, the military of the Fourth Legion. It is all decided by the governor of Zhang Liao, if the army disobeys the order, Wenyuan has the right to cut first and then play! Liu Ze personally wrote a handwritten edict and sent someone to the Yinling army.

When Zhang Liao received Liu Ze's edict, he was convening the generals to discuss the matter in the big tent, and the envoy read out Liu Ze's edict in public, and the generals were terrified.

Although there is a handwritten edict from the lord, Zhang Liao did not have the slightest pampering and arrogance, and said to the generals in a deep voice: "I know that the generals have been very depressed and irritable in the past few days, and the battle is very poor, and the city has been besieged for a month, and the city of Yinling has been repeatedly attacked, and the governor is in the same mood as you, and I can't wait to take the Yinling in one go." But fighting is not a child's play, Yinling City is well garrisoned, the city defense is strong, if our army wants to attack and take hard, it will inevitably increase casualties, the lord will hand over the 40,000 sons of the Fourth Army in my hands, I must not let them lose their lives in vain under Yinling City. In the past 20 days, our army has launched more than 30 attacks on Yinling City, and the defense situation of Yinling City has been roughly clear. ”

Only then did the generals understand that Zhang Liao's attacks on Yinling City these days were tentative, the purpose was to test the weaknesses of Yinling City's defense, and today's battle was a strong attack in the real sense.

Today, the main attack is still Sun Guan of the Seventh Division, and the direction of the main attack is the south gate of Yinling City. After many days of observation, the city wall of the south gate is relatively weak, so the breakthrough point of Zhang Liao's main attack was chosen here first, which is not surprising. At the same time, Zhang Liao ordered the 6th Infantry Division of Gao Ran to lie in wait outside the north gate, to listen to orders, and ordered the 5th Cavalry Division of Yu Yu to be ready to respond at any time. The 8th Division is the general reserve, which is on call at any time.

As soon as the day dawned, the whistling stones woke up the sleeping Yuan army, originally thought that the Xuzhou army would attack as a routine, but when he heard the sound of the sky cracking and felt the crumbling city wall, Yuan Jun immediately realized that this time the Xuzhou army was going to play really.

Looking down from the city wall through the thin morning mist, the defenders were surprised to find that those huge catapults had been pushed to a distance of three hundred and fifty steps from the city wall, and the catapults projected were no longer thirty pounds of light stone bullets but one hundred pounds of heavy stone bullets, and the target of these heavy stone bullets was no longer the crowd on the city wall but directly to the city wall itself, and the deafening rumble and shaking like an earthquake were the heavy stone bullets that hit the wall. These stone projectiles are not ordinary irregular stones, but are polished into a spherical shape, with the same trajectory and an extremely high hit rate.

After more than twenty days of attack, many of the defenders' heavy defenses had been destroyed by catapults, and now there were only a few bed crossbow walls that could fire huge crossbow arrows, and most of the arrow towers had collapsed. Originally, at a distance of 350 paces, if you used a bed crossbow, you could easily destroy the catapult, but now that Yuan Jun didn't have a bed crossbow, the maximum range of the bow and arrow could not exceed 350 steps, so he couldn't effectively damage the catapult at all, and he could only watch the catapult exert its might there.

Zhang Xun, who received the report, rushed to the south city wall at the first time, and when he saw the situation in front of him, he couldn't help but gasp, he suddenly understood that the attacks of the Xuzhou army for many days were all false moves, and took advantage of the situation to destroy the heavy defense facilities on the city, and now use catapults to suddenly attack the city wall and directly attack the city wall, which is clearly a signal that the Xuzhou army is about to start a general attack.

The south city wall of Yinling has always been Zhang Xun's heart disease, as the main general of the city, he naturally knows the city defense of Yinling City, in comparison, the south city wall is the weakest link in Yinling City, Zhang Liao after many days of tentative attack, finally selected the target of the general attack in the south city wall section, can not help but make Zhang Xun worried.

The city walls of the Han Dynasty are not all made of brick and stone structure, in addition to the use of masonry masonry at the position of the city gate and the enemy tower, most of the walls are rammed earth structure, with wooden planks as molds, filled with clay or gray stone, layer by layer with pestle tamping to build, in order to increase the solidity of the wall, the horizontal direction of the wooden bone wall reinforcement is used in the rammed earth city wall, called "koji". Such a city wall is also resistant to general siege equipment, but for catapults, the defensive ability of the rammed earth wall is a little insufficient, and the round stone projectile weighing 100 Han Jin was thrown high by the catapult from 350 steps away, and smashed heavily on the earthen wall, with a bang, and the thick city wall was obviously smashed into a big pit. Fifty catapults were fired at once, huge stone projectiles whizzed, and the weak rammed earth walls crumbled under the repeated attacks.

"Captain Zhang, it's a big deal, if the enemy army is allowed to destroy it like this, the southern city wall will have to collapse, and the last general is willing to lead a group of men and horses to attack and destroy all the enemy's catapults!" The deputy general Han Hao saw that the situation was not good, and hurriedly sent a strange army to Zhang Xunjian to destroy the catapult of the Xuzhou army.

Although Zhang Xun's mind is a little lively, but peeked at the catapults under the city, and found that the Xuzhou army had already arranged a large number of strong crossbow archers around it, obviously the Xuzhou army had already prepared, the catapult was a sharp weapon for attacking the city, and the Xuzhou army must protect it like a treasure, how could the defenders destroy it lightly, but I was afraid that there would be no return if a group of men and horses were sent out.

Thinking of this, Zhang Xun shook his head and said: "It's not appropriate, we can think of this plan, Zhang Liao didn't think of it, but I am afraid that the Xuzhou soldiers outside the city have already been secretly trapped, just waiting for us to take the bait, our army must not venture out of the city and fall for Zhang Liao's tricks." ”

"But if it goes on like this, the city wall will be destroyed, if the city wall is lost, how can the Yin Tomb be defended?" Han Hao's eyes turned red.

Zhang Xun pondered for a long time, and then ordered: "Life and death, only in today's battle, the order will be transferred to the south gate of all the elite battalions, and prepare another 10,000 sandbags, even if the city wall falls, I must use sandbags to block it, and I must not let the Xuzhou soldiers step into the Yin Tomb half a step!" ”

"No!" Han Hao received the order, and immediately went down to dispatch elite warriors to the south gate to defend, and at the same time prepared 10,000 sandbags filled with sand, and distributed them to the soldiers one by one, if the southern city wall really collapsed, then these sandbags should be used to plug the gap.

Zhang Xun felt unprecedented pressure, but he had no way out, he swore to defend the southern city wall, the city wall fell and used sandbags to block it, and the sandbags were out of use to block it, no matter what, Yin Ling must not be lost!

Starting from dawn, it bombarded for five hours, and under the repeated blows of catapults, the southern wall of Yinling finally collapsed with a bang, deafening, and the dust soared into the sky.

"Kill!" Sun Guan, who had been waiting under the city for a long time, hissed from his throat at this time, and all the soldiers of the Seventh Infantry Division rushed to the gap in the city wall like a tide. (To be continued......)