Zheng Yunming stood up and said to Zhao Kui: "It doesn't matter, the cowardly soldiers who were captured by Jiuzhongyi the day before yesterday have escaped from the prison, and I have already ordered the city to start a pursuit." ”

Sure enough, it is not a big deal, but at this moment of fierce attack and defense, Xiangyang can't bear any small negligence, Zhao Kui instructed: "Be sure to step up the pursuit, otherwise this handful of people will make trouble in Xiangyang, but it will be better than thousands of soldiers outside the city." ”

Zheng Yunming gave up his promise and said: "Strive to capture all of them before dawn, so that no one escapes the net." ”

In the end, he said something bigger. By daybreak, most of the escaped captives had been captured intact, except for one who had escaped the net.

To be honest, it was not easy to be able to do this, but to Zheng Yunming's surprise, it was Zhang Shijie, who he paid the most attention to among these captives, who escaped.

Zhang Shijie's escape plan was surprisingly bold, he knocked out a soldier defending the city, stole his clothes, and disguised himself as an ordinary militiaman. Then he blended into the search team that searched for fugitives at night, took advantage of the night to sneak into the East Gate, and then took advantage of the short chaotic time of the East Gate shift change to use stolen ropes to go down the wall and escape from the heavily guarded Xiangyang City.

After leaving Xiangyang City, he didn't know the situation, and he didn't dare to go to his army easily. I had to lie dormant in the grass outside the east gate and wait for the opportunity. The second day, as expected, was another arduous battle of attack and defense, with hordes of Mongol soldiers storming the city of Xiangyang on the corpses of the first climbers. At the West Gate, they bombarded the southwest corner of the city with hundreds of trebuchets, but they made a fatal mistake again. As bombarding the walls alone was ineffective, they instead targeted the houses in the southwest corner of the city. However, Zheng Yunming had already arranged for everyone in the city to either retreat to a safe distance, or hide in the crypt to avoid the attack of flying stones, and the boulders only destroyed the houses, and the damage to materials and personnel was not serious. The Mongol army then launched a second assault on the city with Zhang Rou's troops as the vanguard. After yesterday's thrilling battle, the Song army carried out a tight defense of the command position of Zheng Yunming at the head of the city, and increased the number of artillery at the head of the city, and the soldiers who crossed the moat under dense artillery fire were immediately attacked by bows and arrows, rolling wood and stones, and hot oil. This time, the Mongol army was even able to climb the city wall with only five or six ladders, but it was overturned by the Song army without much fighting.

In the north of the city, the army commanded by Yang Weizhong stormed the north gate with the help of copying and thinking and the army. They used reinforced pontoon bridges to force the moat and threw heavy goose carts into battle, but Meng Jing, the commander of the Song army at the North Gate, ordered the throwing of 10,000 enemies and gold juice, which was a weapon to melt the copper and iron in the city with a cauldron at the head of the city and sprinkle it directly under the city for arson. The effect of the golden juice is more terrifying than the boiling oil, in the face of the fierce killing of the Song army, the goose chariot soldiers were burned to death, the stench of human flesh was burned in front of the north city gate, this day's battle was also horrified by the Mongols called "the Yama Hall of the north gate of Xiangyang".

The Jurchen troops and Yan troops at the south gate did not take much action, and the battle situation at the east gate was different from the day before. Under the pressure of the 3,000 Jingchu army led by Chen Guang, the militia troops showed extraordinary tenacity and tenacity, and they personally supervised the battle several times, led the death squad to climb the city, but were repelled by the defenders' arrows and stones, and when the battle was most intense, there were even militiamen who rolled down from the city with the enemy who boarded the city. And this battle also made Te Wuhu, who despised the militia of the East Gate, suffer. He was hit by an arrow in the shoulder, and his head was also damaged by the stones of the Song army's slingers.

In this battle, the Mongol army besieging the city first used Han soldiers to attack the city, and then replaced the Jurchen Uighur soldiers to attack the city, and did not conquer, and finally used the Mongol headquarters to attack the city, and was also defeated, with more than 100 dead. Outside the city lay the dead bodies of the besiegers.

Zhang Shijie lurked in the grass to witness this battle, when the two armies fought, he did not dare to go out lightly, afraid that the Mongolian army would mistake him for the Song army, this is the moment of life and death, and killing will happen at any time regardless of the reason. It wasn't until the Mongol army blew the mustache to withdraw his troops that he came out of the bushes. He had seen the banners of the Mongolian tribes clearly, and immediately walked towards Zhang Rou's camp.

In the camp of the Mongolian headquarters, the sentinels can be sent more than ten miles away. Zhang Rou is the Han army of ten thousand households, its marching operations are completely a set of the Central Plains army, hundreds of steps outside the camp are arranged with bright posts, more peripheral places are deployed with dark posts, when Zhang Shijie took advantage of the darkening night to come to the periphery of Zhang Rou's camp, he was immediately blocked by a few black-clothed people who came out of nowhere.

"Who is it? What is the password in the army? The first one shouted.

Zhang Shijie suddenly felt tears rolling in his eyes, he was captured by the Southern Dynasty for the first time he experienced a real war as a weak-crowned boy. Although Zheng Yunming did not suffer any special losses in the prison because of Zheng Yunming's strict prohibition of mistreating prisoners, it can even be said that the treatment was acceptable. But the generals of the Southern Dynasty ridiculed him a lot for being a cowardly Han land. Probably because of the weakness of the Southern Dynasty's troops, the Hu people have suffered a lot in the past 300 years, and they have no good impression of the so-called Hu people and the Han people who joined the Hu army, especially Zheng Yunming's subordinates, who used to stimulate nationalism to fill the lack of loyalty to the imperial power in the Middle Ages. But the overemphasis on Yanhuang orthodoxy had the effect of provoking the anger of the generals against the Mongol army and the Han army in the northland. If it weren't for Zheng Yunming's repeated orders strictly prohibiting insults and provocations from prisoners, Zhang Shijie's situation would have been much worse.

During this period, the lobbying from Jing Chujun never stopped. They sent all kinds of people from the army scribes, generals and staff members to lobby, and these civil and military officials who were born as scholars were completely devoid of the general vulgarity and unliteracy of military generals in this era, and all of them were clever in quoting scriptures. It is not surprising that several Han and Di cowardly Xue who were captured with him surrendered one after another, even if they were the children of the powerful people in the Northland, after all, they were only children in their early teens and twenties, and it was difficult to grasp their minds under the repeated brainwashing of the scholars. Even some Jurchen and Khitan disciples, as well as a few cowardly Xue Balluhua from the Mongolian headquarters, also surrendered to the Southern Dynasty, but Zhang Shijie took a firm stand and resolutely refused to surrender. And now his persistence has finally paid off.

He shouted loudly: "I am Marshal Zhang Rou's clan, Fanyang Zhang Shijie is, I was originally a soldier under the account of Lord Qidu of Bald Luhua Thousand Households, and I was unfortunately captured by the Southern Dynasty during the Southern Expedition the day before yesterday, and now I escaped from the city when the army was in danger of attacking the Southern Dynasty, and came to Marshal Zhang, please lead the way." ”

The head of the sentry looked him up and down suspiciously for a long time, and his voice suddenly became stern: "Now that the army has surrounded Xiangyang, it is difficult for even a mosquito to fly out, and the Song dog in the city is also doubly martial law, and it is difficult for us to penetrate into it with all kinds of temptations." How did you get out! ”

Before Zhang Shijie could tell the difference, suddenly there was a bang bang in the distance, and the sound of shouting and killing and swords and guns was heard in the distance, and from time to time there were several sounds of firearms shooting.

The sentry chief's face changed, and he shouted: "I see that you were sent by Song Dog to deceive you!" Left and right, take it for me! As soon as he gave the order, the Mongol soldiers on both sides of the flank, each with their blades, pounced fiercely.

Zhang Shijie didn't even have time to grit his teeth and stomp his feet, he took a step forward and shot first, knocked a sentry in front of him to the ground with a punch, grabbed the knife in his hand with his hand, parryed the opponent's knife and gun while fleeing backwards. Fortunately, the Mongol sentinels were worried about the night attack of the Song army behind them, and no one came to chase after him, the man who had fallen into the desert and "Song State Surrender".

When Zhang Shijie was in the field and couldn't vote, looking for a place to hide, Chen Guang had already returned to the city with the surprise attack team. On the day when the enemy army is attacking the city, it can sneak attack at night, which is the usual tactic used by many famous generals of the previous dynasty. However, Zheng Yunming's surprise attack was not a complete success. He sent three surprise attack teams to attack the front, middle and rear three battalions of Zhang Rou's department, only the front and rear two battalions succeeded, and the middle battalion was discovered by Zhang Rou in time all the way, and led the personal guards to launch a counterattack, annihilating hundreds of surprise attack teams.

Chen Guang made a painful oath to Zheng Yunming: "Please let me attack again tomorrow night, and I must avenge the brothers who died today!" ”

Zheng Yunming just waved his hand indifferently: "In the next ten days, our army will have only one task, that is, to hold on!" ”

Yang Luo became anxious on the side, and said to Zheng Yunming: "Attacking and defending is the right way, if you only defend and don't attack, the power of the art of war will not be brought into play at all." ”

"Of course we have to attack, but it's not us who attack." Zheng Yunming patted him on the shoulder and said, "What we have to do is to sit at the head of the city and watch how Meng Puyu fights." ”

Meng Hui's rescue operation did not go as smoothly as expected. Although the Mongol army's defense line at Guimen Pass was swept away by the Song Dynasty's naval division, the Mongol army felt a little blessed by the defeat because of this defeat. Furious, Qu Chu recalled Zhang Zhongren, the marshal of the naval army who had not fought well, and sent a decisive general as the commander-in-chief of the peripheral interception reinforcements. This person is the prince who is second only to Qu out in the army in terms of proximity and nobility.

The warmth of the mouth is not only the son of the first Genghis Khan's Temujin clan, the son of Belgutai. As a Mongol nobleman, he was also one of the main front-line generals who followed Hehan's campaign. Although Tasigui was said to be the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in this campaign, for the Mongolian tribes who were close to each other, his authority was actually under the prince.

And the mouth is not warm, and he is definitely not a person who is not good at recruiting and killing. After he took over the task of blocking reinforcements from the periphery, he immediately gave up his plan for a decisive battle with the Song army's naval division on the Guimen Pass River. He judged the situation on the battlefield, the Song army had a strong naval division and the Mongol army was almost equal to no naval army, and it was difficult to gain the upper hand in a hasty battle with the powerful warships of the Song army by taking civilian ships and bamboo rows. So he gave up the defense of the naval army at the Ghost Gate Pass, and on the other hand, he focused on the land with more than 10,000 elite Mongolian cavalry in his headquarters. The strategy of not spending money was that the Song army could not last long even if it was alone with a naval army, and even if some ships could reach Xiangyang, as long as there was no cooperation of the army, it would not be able to have a decisive impact on the battle situation in Xiangyang.