The attack and defense under Gangneung Castle finally came to an end at nightfall.

In this battle, both the Jiangdong side and the Cao army suffered a lot of losses, but they also achieved their goals.

Zhou Yu didn't expect Cao Ren to hide a cavalry, attack at a critical moment, and take Niu Jin away.

And Cao Ren also didn't expect that the two-wing cavalry he sent out as a response was actually hit by the Jiangdong Army's near-devastating blow.

During the day, Cao Ren understood the situation on the scene and knew that Zhou Yu besieged Niujin Camp in order to lure him to the rescue.

But Cao Ren miscalculated Zhou Yu's purpose, he thought that Zhou Yu wanted to use the Niujin camp as bait to force himself to fight in front of the chariot formation, so as to find a way to break the cavalry led by him.

Cao Ren must not be able to do what Zhou Yu wants.

Therefore, Cao Ren first sent cavalry to feint on the two wings of the Jiangdong Army, mobilized the defensive formation of the Jiangdong Army to adjust to the two wings, and he led the 500 cavalry that had not been used to kill when the middle was empty.

At the worst, he can also save Niu Jin and retain his 1,500 cavalry troops to preserve his strength for defending the city in the future.

But what Cao Ren didn't expect was that the Jiangdong Army on both wings was not easy to gnaw, and it was almost delaying time with human lives.

And what he didn't expect was that because of Zhang Xi's temporary suggestion, Zhang Fei actually hid a reserve team of 200 people on hand when he split the car formation.

It was this reserve team that formed a formation at the first time when the middle lane was empty, blocking the route of Cao Ren's middle lane breakthrough, and buying Zhou Yu time to adjust the deployment of military forces in the middle lane.

At that time, Cao Ren knew that his plan to attack the Jiangdong Army was in vain.

Zhou Yu is not an idiot, Cao Ren's hole cards have been completely exposed at this time, at this time Zhou Yu will definitely strengthen the protection of the Chinese army, if he relies on five hundred cavalry to rush in, he will be sent to death if he doesn't do it.

Therefore, Cao Ren changed his plan on the spot, bypassed Zhang Fei's temporary car formation, and turned to Niu Jin's trapped camp, as long as he could save Niu Jin's thousand soldiers, it would be considered a success.

Cao Ren's plan is very good, but Zhou Yu is not an idiot, his ability to adapt to the situation is much stronger than Cao Ren.

As soon as Zhou Yu saw Cao Ren leading the cavalry out of the city, he realized that the situation would become so complicated and his Chinese army would be in danger.

But Zhou Yu saw that Zhang Feijun temporarily blocked Cao Ren's cavalry route and forced Cao Ren to go to the direction of Niujin Yingzhai, and immediately knew Cao Ren's plan, and at the same time made a decision in his heart, and then immediately made corresponding commands.

Zhou Yu ordered Zhang Fei's chariot formation to continue to move to the two wings, forming a formation to block the cavalry on both flanks as soon as possible.

But at this time, the originally hidden crossbowmen no longer need to hide, quickly move to the two wings, and after reaching the firing position, don't care if the car formation is also in place, just shoot.

As for Niu Jin's camp, Zhou Yu's order was to form an army led by Chen Wu and Pan Zhang to form a formation on the spot to block the convergence of Cao Ren's cavalry and Niu Jin.

In other words, Zhou Yu didn't care whether Cao Ren wanted to answer Niu Jin or not, whether he could break through his besieging army, his purpose was to fight with Cao Ren for speed and time.

As long as Cao Ren did not take Niu Jin, then the cavalry on both wings would not retreat easily, otherwise Cao Ren would be in danger of being surrounded in the middle.

Zhou Yu's current purpose is not Cao Ren and Niu Jin in the middle lane.

Niu Jin is good to say, they are all foot soldiers, and it is really not difficult to leave Niu Jin.

But Cao Ren is a cavalry, and there is no way to keep Cao Ren with these infantry of the Jiangdong Army.

Therefore, Zhou Yu quickly made a decision to contain Cao Ren and Niu Jin in the middle, and the purpose now is to leave these cavalry on both flanks.

The crossbowmen were able to move faster than the carts, and as soon as they were in place, they began to shoot.

First, he kicked the crossbow, but the purpose was not to kill or injure the cavalry, but to fly over the head of the cavalry, and cut off the retreat of the cavalry with a large number of arrows, forcing the cavalry to break through the infantry's obstruction before there was a way out.

Then there were the crossbowmen, this time aiming at the cavalry, shooting at all the men and horses.

Most of the cavalry in charge of attacking the two wings of the Cao army were forced to rush forward by such arrow strikes, and the few cavalry who were out of the range of the arrows did not dare to break into it again, so they could only temporarily withdraw their troops back to the city.

And the cavalry within the range of the arrow attack, while using mobility to avoid the incoming bow and crossbow arrows, it is not difficult to break through the interception of the infantry in front of them, after all, the impact and mobility of the cavalry itself is the natural enemy of the infantry.

But soon, as the chariot array commanded by Zhang Fei was in place, the Jiangdong Army retreated, and the cavalry found that they had been brought into a place surrounded by an arrow net.

Rushing forward, not breaking through the barrier of the car formation, and retreating, that is directly hitting the arrow of the crossbow. Dilemma.

Soon there was a clash among the cavalry, some wanted to go to the left, others wanted to retreat to the right. The consequence of this on the battlefield is that the formations are messy and collide with each other.

The cavalry can't stop, and it can't be chaotic, once it stops, there is no speed advantage, and once it's chaotic, it's one arrow target after another.

In the Battle of the Boundary Bridge, Gongsun Zhan's cavalry was finished like this. But as long as these cavalry can break through the 800 shield soldiers with casualties, it must be Yuan Shaojun who will finish first.

But alas, it was the cavalry that first messed up, and then became a live target for crossbowmen.

Now in the same way, Cao Ren's cavalry was also in disarray, and the cavalry that attacked the two wings suffered heavy losses in such a situation, and only a small number of cavalry were lucky enough to risk death to highlight the arrow encirclement network.

Although the Jiangdong Army achieved great results on both flanks, it reaped defeat in the battle in the middle.

The 5,000-strong Jiangdong soldiers, who tried their best not to intercept Cao Ren's more than 500 cavalry, were broken through the formation by Cao Ren and took away more than 1,000 foot soldiers in the Niujin camp.

In this battle, both sides have gains, but both sides also have losses. After careful calculation, Cao Ren's loss was even greater.

Cao Ren not only lost all the camps outside Jiangling City as a fulcrum, but also lost more than half of the cavalry, and now there are only seven or eight hundred cavalry available.

Although the Jiangdong Army eliminated a lot of Cao Ren's cavalry, it did not eliminate Cao Ren's Niu Jin Army, which was a vital force, and it itself suffered more than 2,000 casualties from the cavalry assault.

After this battle, both sides were a little frightened, and for a time they tacitly entered a truce.

Zhou Yu wanted to consider a better siege strategy to avoid greater losses, after all, the cavalry in Cao Ren's hands was enough to form a cavalry assault group, and in this place in Nanjun, facing Jiangdong soldiers without cavalry, the advantage of Cao's cavalry was too great.

And Cao Ren now has not much cavalry at hand, and he also senses that Zhou Yu just wants to destroy his mobile power, so he easily does not dare to go out of the city again to challenge, so he can only retreat in Jiangling City to strengthen the city defenses and prepare for the next siege battle.

As for Zhang Fei and Zhang Xi. When the two of them were fine, they shrank in the camp and didn't come out.

This time, the Jiangxia army led by Zhang Fei also suffered losses, but they were basically caused by Cao Ren's 500 cavalry. Because it was a temporary formation, the car formation was not fully prepared before it encountered a surprise attack by Cao Renjun, and more than 100 people were killed and wounded.

But compared to the Jiangdong Army, Zhang Fei's losses are really nothing, and when he goes into battle, he can't always ask for zero casualties.

What's more, in order to express his gratitude to Zhang Feijun for intercepting the middle in time, Zhou Yu specially transferred 200 soldiers to supplement the losses of Jiangxia's army, and Zhang Fei couldn't say anything.

The casualties are within an acceptable range, and Zhou Yu is also very good at being a person, so Zhang Xi and Zhang Fei are not good at worrying about anything with others, and they seem to be petty.

The two sides temporarily truce, so Zhang Fei and Zhang Xi also continued to close the door and continue to "go to class".

About ten days later, the two were called to a meeting by Zhou Yu again.

This time it was not a separate meeting, but a serious military discussion, and Zhou Yu was going to start arranging a serious siege mission.

It was a field battle before, so all the armies were gathered together, and the generals were also there.

The next step is to divide troops to surround each city gate, so Zhou Yu has to make corresponding arrangements and assign the main generals of each gate to attack.

In the matter of attacking the city, how to attack, Zhou Yu will refer to Zhang Fei and Zhang Xi's opinions, but when it comes to how to implement it below, there is no need for Zhang Xi and Zhang Fei's guest army to participate.

Therefore, in Zhou Yu's siege plan, the Jiangxia army was used as a reserve, and the usual task was to be responsible for the vigilance on the periphery of the Chinese army.

So Zhang Xi said, it's really boring to stay here.

It's been almost a month, except for that thrilling field battle, the rest of the time is either supervising the military drills, or sitting in the military tent and chatting with Zhang Fei.

But no matter how boring he is, Zhang Xi will not take the initiative to help Zhou Yu make plans to attack Jiangling. The lord Liu Bei is estimated to have just sorted out the team and set off at this time, and now Zhang Xi can't wait for Zhou Yu's siege of the city.

Zhang Xi is idle, but the Jiangdong Army is lively at this time.

After assigning the attack tasks of each gate, the next step is to cut down trees and build siege equipment.

After that, it is estimated that it will be a time-consuming and laborious siege war, just like the offensive and defensive battle in Exian County, which can be fought for a long time.

In these years, the siege of the city is really a sinful thing, especially if one party is determined to defend it, it is normal to fight for a few months and a half.

The kind of "counting cities in January" is either too large a disparity in troops, or the defenders of the city surrender on their own initiative.

It's not that easy to storm a city in earnest.

On the side of Jiangling City, there are more than 40,000 people on the besieging side and about 20,000 people on the defending side.

In terms of the will to defend the city, Cao Ren was left by Cao Cao to hold on, which in itself shows Cao Jun's will to defend the city.

What's more, Cao Ren is not alone, he has Xiangyang behind him as support, grain, grass, ordnance and even reinforcements, and he can go to Jiangling at any time. Moreover, behind Cao Ren, Cao Cao also arranged three lines of defense to ensure Cao Ren's retreat, and Cao Ren could not easily abandon Jiangling.

Therefore, don't really look down on Zhou Yu with this example, Zhou Yu has been fighting for more than a year, and he can force Cao Ren to withdraw from Nanjun, which is already quite an excellent record.

On the contrary, Cao Ren has such a big advantage in defending the city, and he can still lose Nanjun, which is really not a "good defense".

(End of chapter)