After finishing the conversation with Du You'an, Li Tai climbed the Xiashu Tower and looked at Fancheng, a few miles to the southwest.

Although Du Youan has no bottom line of ethics, he is indeed true in some places. Although Fancheng is already a lonely and dangerous city from the front, if you look at it from the side and rear, there is another vast world.

The wide Hanshui River is connected to the two cities on the north and south sides, and from Li Tai's angle, you can clearly see the outline of Xiangyang City and the large and small boats moored on the pier, and the same is true on the Hanshui Pier to the south of Fancheng.

Although the current Han River has been reduced due to the season, revealing a large section of the embankment, it still does not affect navigation. As Du You'an said, if you can't control this section of the Han waterway, you will not be able to cut off the supply line of Fancheng, and it will be very difficult to conquer the city.

The ultra-long-range return artillery can play a certain role in hitting boats and ships on the river, but if the enemy advances and retreats on a large scale, the range and damage that can be covered by two stone cannons alone are relatively limited.

Of course, this is just a normal situation, but the information provided by Du You'an, the descendant, and the attitude he revealed, show that Xiangyang is now in a very delicate period. Therefore, many situations are only afraid and difficult to predict through common sense, and how they will develop will only be known after fighting.

Li Tai thought in his heart that after the arrival of passers-by tomorrow, he would officially launch an attack on Fancheng, and at this time, Xiangyang was also a little chaotic because of the loss of Xiaji.

"How many days has the enemy been attacking? The Lower Guards were lost! ”

Receiving the battle report from the north bank, Xiao Jing, the king of Yueyang, immediately summoned the Yongzhou group in the state capital, and shouted angrily with a blue face.

As soon as he finished speaking, a general stood up and said: "Du You'an, as the commander of the army, can't focus on defense, and when he sees the thieves surging, he doesn't dare to fight, and he actually surrenders to the thieves, which is really hard to blame!" ”

"The city is small, and it is difficult to accommodate heavy soldiers! Its city is just a fortress outside Fancheng, the two places are connected by land and water, and they depend on each other, if Fancheng can provide timely reinforcements, how can the lord of Du Shu be poor and surrender to the enemy? ”

Someone else opened his mouth to put forward another opinion, and his tone was even tougher: "Fancheng guard Liu Fanggui made a mistake in scheduling and guarded unfavorably, resulting in the loss of all soldiers, and he should bear the first responsibility!" ”

"You wait for all to stop, the war is going on like this, and you still have to pass the buck to each other and be cowardly, shouldn't you think more carefully about how to resist the enemy?"

Although King Yueyang was angry and reprimanded, he secretly felt a little happy in his heart, he first looked at one of the generals and said in a deep voice: "Lord Du Shu is in captivity, I know that Gongheng is also anxious, but this war is critical, please restrain your personal feelings and do your best to protect the peace of the country!"

Now that the thieves are forcing Jiangbei, the defenders of Xiangyang do not dare to move lightly, please go west to visit Xinxing and other counties, and invite them to cross the river to fight against the flanks of the thieves. ”

The person called "Gongheng" by the king of Yueyang is named Du An, one of Du You'an's brothers, and also a governor of the state capital, hearing the command of the king of Yueyang, Du An stood up and hugged his fists to receive the order: "The king, please rest assured, the safety of the countryside is the most important, and the last general will visit and persuade the brothers to send troops to fight the thieves in a few days!" ”

When Du An received the order to leave, the king of Yueyang sent his own tasks to the generals who were close to him, and only in the end did he pull down his face and say: "Quickly tell Liu Fanggui that he must stick to Fancheng and not lose it, and don't disturb people with bad news of defeat!" When it was time to help, I sent my own people to help. ”

When the envoy sent by Liu Fanggui heard this, he could only leave the city with a bitter face, and then return to Fancheng by boat, informing the lord that there was still no intention of rescue in the city.

At present, there are still more than 10,000 soldiers and civilians in the city, and Liu Fanggui's need for reinforcements is not very urgent. But who would mind having more personnel in their hands? Especially when in danger. So seeing that the envoy was in vain, Liu Fanggui couldn't help but curse in his heart.

Since he knew that King Yueyang had entered the town, he had been anxious to take power, frequently issued various decrees, and wanted to arrange his royal attachés into the state capital, but was stopped by himself and other old people in the state capital, so that King Yueyang had always held a grudge, presumably to take this opportunity to take revenge on himself.

As for the hostility shown to him by the envoy in reciprocating to the relatives of the Jingzhao Du clan, Liu Fanggui felt that he had suffered an unwarranted disaster. In his opinion, the enemy only threw two artillery carts, although the power seemed to be relatively strong, but the lower battle was far from reaching the level of the city being destroyed and killed, Du You'an himself cowardly begged to surrender, what reason was there to blame himself?

Although he was indignant in his heart, but in the current situation of the great enemy, he could not abandon the city defense and return to the rear to fight any war of words with those people, and it was more important to deal with the business in front of him.

Early the next morning, Li Tai first ordered people to take measurements outside Fancheng, and then erected two stone cannons in a position convenient for attack.

The defenders of Fancheng naturally also saw the tragic situation of yesterday's artillery bombardment, and when they saw that they were about to suffer this treatment today, they were immediately a little panicked, and then some generals suggested to Liu Fanggui that it would be better to send troops out of the city to snatch or destroy the two stone cannons while the enemy army had not yet been set up.

Liu Fanggui saw that the number of enemy troops outside the city was not very large, and after a little weighing, he also agreed to this proposal. Although he laughed at Du You'an for being cowardly in his heart, he was actually a little frightened in his heart about facing these two stone cannons.

With Liu Fanggui's order, the side gate of the city slowly opened, and the cavalry on the plains outside the city immediately noticed it, and quickly warned with a horn. At the same time, hundreds of cavalry rushed out of the open gates and charged straight at one of the stone cannons.

The southerners have few horses, but it does not mean that there are no horses, if they are willing to spend time and money, Shuzhong and Hanzhong can still get some horses. Although the Shu horse is not considered the best quality war horse, it can also provide far more mobility than the foot soldier. These Liang cavalry have been gathering momentum for a long time, and this time they are also quite imposing.

Liu Fanggui looked at the hundreds of cavalry who rushed out of the city, and he also sweated in his heart, this is all the cavalry combat units that can be put together in Fancheng, if it can't be effective, then it will basically say goodbye to the possibility of a field confrontation in the future.

When he saw the enemy cavalry cruising on the battlefield did not react immediately and gathered to block it, he was secretly happy, but when he saw the enemy cavalry gathered and charged towards the open city gate, he was stunned.

Isn't the most important thing for the enemy on the battlefield at this time to protect the stone cannons that have not yet been erected? How did these enemy horsemen abandon such an important ordnance and rush towards the city gates?

He was still puzzled in his heart, but he saw that his cavalry had rushed into the infantry formation of dozens of people in front of the enemy's stone cannon, but the expected picture of destruction did not appear, but instead his own men and horses were flying flesh and blood.

They seemed to have hit a solid rock made of steel, and Liu Fanggui hadn't even seen the enemy's counterattack clearly, but he had already seen that his cavalry had fallen layer by layer!

At the same time, the enemy cavalry had already rushed into front of the open city gate, and at this time there were still sword and shield foot soldiers who were assembling to meet the cavalry in the gate.

Hearing the howl of fighting from below, Liu Fanggui suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and he didn't care about feeling sorry for the cavalry sent out of the city, so he hurriedly commanded a strong crossbow team to go to the city gate to support.

At this time, under the city of Xiaji, Li Tai had just finished reorganizing his troops, and seeing this scene, he hurriedly ordered Gao Le to lead the crowd to reinforcements. Unfortunately, the fighter plane was fleeting, and when Gao Le led the rear men and horses to arrive, the team that almost broke into the city was forced to withdraw by the enemy.

But just a short battle has already caused heavy losses to the enemy army, especially the corpses in the city gate, so that the city gate cannot be closed.

Although Gao Le wanted to charge and kill for a while, but there were many strong crossbowmen in the city gates, and there were also reinforcements from the defenders' archers and crossbowmen at the head of the city, so he could only regret retreating, and found a new target, divided and surrounded the enemy cavalry that was fleeing after an unsuccessful attack, and quickly captured and killed them.

Li Tai's troops collected the corpses of the enemy soldiers on the battlefield, loaded them on ox carts and dragged them out of the range of the bow and crossbow in front of the city gate, and then shouted to the city for their relatives and friends to enter the front to collect the burial: "Our army entered only to punish the Liang army for unjustly disturbing our former division, not to torture and kill the people of Hannan!" Our army will be the commander of Li Dadu, and he will wait for him to live in the city, and the swords will not be injured, if he dares to go out of the city with weapons, he will not be spared! ”

Hearing these shouts, Shang Zi was shocked by the vicious defenders of the Wei army, and the soldiers couldn't help but whisper, to be honest, they really didn't know why this war started, and when they heard the other party's shouting, it didn't seem that they had to fight?

Liu Fanggui heard the whispers of the soldiers, and he was a little nervous in his heart, and he hurriedly ordered the city head to beat the war drums, trying to suppress these shouts. However, at this time, the two stone cannons had also been debugged and began to fire artillery shells into the city.

Seeing this scene, the soldiers who had witnessed the tragic situation of the city yesterday couldn't help but let out a sad cry, praying to God and Buddha not to be hit by the swift cannon stone and end up with no bones.

Two rounds of cannons were fired, hitting the buildings in the city accurately, but the expected thunderclap did not sound, and the cannons seemed to be much less powerful than yesterday, and instead of smashing the buildings, they rolled down the buildings onto the street.

Some people who ran and fled in panic realized that it was not a cannon stone, but a stone, but a thick sack wrapped in the outside, and a lot of paper balls were spilled from the broken sacks. A curious and courageous person stepped forward, grabbed the paper ball and opened it to check, and found that there were still words written on the paper ball, but he didn't know it, and hurriedly called out to the literate person.

Someone volunteered to step forward and read aloud: "The Du clan sacrifices Fancheng and wants to chase the king of Yueyang!" What does this mean? ”

"And, there's! What is written on this one, this one? ”

The people were boiling, although they couldn't figure out what these words were telling and the logic for a while, but they inexplicably felt that something big was about to happen.

Liu Fanggui, who was pale, rushed to the scene when he heard the news, and ordered to disperse the people gathered here, and then collected all the paper balls that rolled out of the sack, and checked them one by one, his face became more and more ugly.

Outside Fancheng, Li Tai was already surrounded by his own soldiers and rode his horse to meet the rear troops who had rushed here. He couldn't tell why he wanted to use this trick, even if he disdained to be in the company of Du Youan and the like, such a strategy was not clever.

If you really want to find a reason for this behavior, it is to hope that the soldiers and civilians in the city can have some understanding, and then protect their lives. Because the sword really has no eyes, when the real war begins, no one can do to discern the innocent.

(End of chapter)