At the head of Fancheng, there was a special offensive and defensive battle that should not exist in this era.

If the catapults on both sides are replaced by artillery, it is simply a battle of siege and defense of the city during World War II.

At the beginning of the battle, both sides first carried out a burst of artillery bombardment, trying to destroy the enemy's artillery positions.

In the end, it was Zhang Xi's heavy catapult that suppressed Cao Ren's thunderbolt with the stability of range and accuracy, and won the final victory.

Zhang Xi paid the price of the destruction of three heavy catapults in exchange for the complete destruction of Cao Ren's twenty thunderbolts.

Cao Ren's face is quite ugly now.

The Thunderbolt was a siege weapon that Cao Ren regarded as a killer weapon, but it was smashed on the first day of the battle.

It's outrageous. Is Liu Beijun's catapult made of gold, and the power is so different? !

It's not impossible to rebuild, but the problem is that there is no point in continuing to build without solving the other party's catapult.

Fancheng was not completely besieged, and it was not difficult for the defenders of the city to go out of the city to cut down trees and make catapults. Even if you continue to build a thunderbolt, won't you still suffer in the end?

Forget it, no matter what, it's still a conventional way to attack the city.

Cao Ren didn't have a way, he didn't play with Zhang Xi with bells and whistles, he just relied on my large number of people, launched a foot pawn to advance, and attacked with conventional means such as cloud ladders, hook ladders, and rushing cars.

At the same time, on the flank of the offensive end, Cao Ren also arranged a cavalry team, and once the defenders of Fancheng went out of the city to fight, they used the mobility and impact of the cavalry to kill and injure a large number of the living forces of the defenders of Fancheng.

Cao Ren made various preparations for the siege of the city, and then, he gave the order to attack the city.

But. On the head of Fancheng City, a batch of small stones were suddenly projected, and they smashed into the middle of the attacking troops.

Cao Ren was dumbfounded, can the catapult still be used like this?!

I always thought that catapults could be used to smash city walls or castles during sieges, but I didn't expect that they could be used to defend the city?!

And this pebble bar. It is true that compared to arrows, stones may be slightly inferior in intuitive lethality, but the problem is that stones that are smashed at this height and speed will also kill people if they really hit the head.

Moreover, even if they don't hit the head, if these stones hit the arm or thigh, they are often easy to cause minor injuries, causing the soldier's mobility to be inconvenient, thus affecting the soldier's combat effectiveness.

Even Cao Ren could imagine that once the truce returned to the camp, these lightly injured people would inevitably complain about their injuries and illnesses, which would affect the morale of the other soldiers in the battalion.

After all, a minor injury like this is not particularly serious, and the military doctor in the army will not take care of it, and he can't take care of the wounds of swords, guns and arrows.

The more Cao Ren made up for his brain, the more he felt that Zhang Xi was not easy to deal with, and he just put a catapult on the city wall, and he played so many tricks.

But in fact, Zhang Xi really didn't think about it so much, or rather, Cao Ren's thoughts and Zhang Xi's thoughts actually have different emphasis.

Zhang Xi just stood in the position of the defender, thinking about increasing the difficulty of Cao Ren's siege as much as possible.

After thinking about it, Zhang Xi thought of a way to use catapults to expand his defensive range.

In the past, when the besieging party entered the city wall about 100 steps or so, they had to raise their shields and be careful to guard against the arrows shot by the defenders on the city wall. A hundred paces away, it is out of range of the bow at the head of the city.

Now Zhang Xi used the long range of the catapult to fully double the range of this defense, and from two hundred paces, the soldiers had to hold their shields and guard against the stones that fell as they advanced.

At a distance of 100 to 200 paces, use catapults to attack the enemy, and at the same time break up the enemy's offensive organization and delay the pace of the attack.

Within 100 steps is the traditional way to defend the city, a little farther can be suppressed with arrows, close to the city wall and then choose rolling stones and sasswoods to block the siege.

This is the defensive plan that Zhang Xi made for his own defense of the city, he didn't think about other purposes, what would affect the morale of the enemy army or anything, it was something that Cao Ren made up in his own brain.

But Cao Ren really has no good way to deal with such a defensive system.

Although on the surface, Zhang Xi only used catapults to extend the defensive range, it seems that there is nothing remarkable.

But after the actual attack, Cao Ren knew that this trick was quite disgusting.

The defensive range of 200 steps means that Cao Jun must be 200 steps away in order to organize an offensive formation. It's too far from the city walls.

Moreover, from the beginning of two hundred steps, the soldiers must advance with shields, which greatly increases the consumption of physical strength, not to mention, but also increases the configuration of shield soldiers in the siege soldiers, which is a great weakening of the combat power of the soldiers, and at the same time the pressure on logistics is not small.

The most important thing is that Cao Renjun could not send an archer unit to shoot at the arrows of the defenders of the city, and he could not even suppress the arrow rain of the defenders of Fancheng with arrows by relying on the large number of people.

The range of the bow and arrow is only more than 100 steps, and this distance is completely within the attack range of the stone rain thrown by the opponent's catapult, and the archers are basically not heavy armor for reasons such as the convenience of opening the bow, and the troops with no protection are attacking with stones to shoot arrows, which is uncomfortable for themselves.

Of course, although there are many difficulties, it is not that Cao's army cannot attack under the city wall, but the speed and difficulty of this attack are indeed increasing exponentially.

As for storming the walls, it was even more difficult.

After a day of storming, Cao Ren found it difficult for his soldiers to launch an effective attack on the city wall, and even the defenders of Fancheng suffered few casualties, except to spend some effort shooting arrows on the city wall, or throwing rolling stones or sassal wood.

But his own soldiers suffered a lot of casualties.

Of course, there were not many people who were actually killed or seriously injured, adding up to no more than two hundred, but there were a lot of minor injuries, most of which were arrow wounds.

Without their own arrow suppression, the soldiers were completely attacking under the rain of arrows from the defenders of Fancheng, and it was very normal for the arrows to be wounded.

These lightly injured soldiers, plus those who were injured by stones, and were not even slightly injured, stayed in the camp together, and this wailing and complaining sound, Cao Ren felt that he had been losing morale when he heard it, let alone the soldiers who lived in a tent.

It's not going to go on like this. Cao Ren felt that if he had to fight to the death under Fancheng, he would have fallen into Zhang Xi's trap.

This Zhang Xi is really good at defending, but he creatively put the catapult into the defensive sequence, which immediately doubled the difficulty of attacking the city. It's really hard to deal with.

Hard carrying is not a way, although Cao Ren brought many soldiers, but he can't withstand such consumption, not to mention that he has to pay attention to the changes in morale in the army, if the morale is weakened, the war grinds foreign workers, and he can't beat Fancheng in this life.

In the final analysis, he still had to find a way to attract the defenders in Fancheng to go out of the city to fight, so as to reduce his losses.

At this time, Cao Ren, after regaining his composure, his brain returned.

first summoned Zang Ba and Zhang Liao, conveyed the news of the difficulty of Fancheng's attack with the two, and at the same time shared with the two his idea of luring the enemy out of the city to fight in the field, and then sought the advice of the two.

Zhang Liao and Zang Ba had no opinion on Cao Ren's decision, after all, the siege was unfavorable, and seeking to lure the enemy into a field battle was a conventional change routine, not to mention how novel it was, and it was not a stupid choice in the current situation.

But the problem is, how to lure Zhang Xi to leave the fortified city undefended and go out of the city to fight in the field is actually very simple, and the three of them have thought of it.

Therefore, the next day, Cao Ren left Zang Ba to lead 10,000 troops and continue to confront Zhang Xi in the north of Fancheng, while he led the rest of the men and all the cavalry to move to Zhang Liao's army, and began to attack Guan Yu's camp with a superior force of 50,000.

As long as Guan Yu is beaten in a hurry and the losses are big, there is no worry that Zhang Xi is still nesting in Fancheng.

Once Zhang Xi went out of the city to rescue Guan Yu, then Cao Ren would let his cavalry teach Zhang Xi how to behave.

Cao Ren didn't believe it, Zhang Xi could watch Guan Yu being besieged and not rescued.

Indeed, Cao Ren's move is quite yin, no matter how much Zhang Xi is trusted by Liu Bei, he can't save Guan Yu from death.

After all, the identity of the second master is special, not only Liu Bei's second brother, but also the commander of the governor's Jingzhou affairs, and there must be no mistakes.

But the problem is, Guan Yu really doesn't need Zhang Xi to save him.

Guan Yu's purpose in taking the initiative to launch an attack on Zhang Liao was to attract more Cao Jun to his side, and now that the goal has been achieved, will Guan Yu continue to attack like this? !

One more. This Cao Ren is lacking in heart, right, have you forgotten how his 10,000 cavalry didn't have it?!

As soon as Guan Yu saw Cao Ren take the initiative to move the camp, he immediately responded, gave up the existing camp, retreated twenty miles, and re-lowered the village along the Han River, and at the same time ordered Guan Ping to lead the navy to cruise along the river, back and forth.

Cao Ren had a headache.

Guan Yu, Guan Yunchang. Is this still Guan Yunchang, whose nostrils are facing the sky, and no one can look down on him?!

Two days ago, you took the initiative to launch an attack, fighting your old friend to the death, and now in the face of the enemy, you don't want to break the enemy head-on, but retreat twenty miles, putting on a defensive posture?!

This response, is sure that the arrogant Guan Yunchang can do it?!

Originally, Cao Ren thought that with Guan Yu's character, as long as it was a landing operation, there would be no reason to retreat, and he would definitely choose to fight with his own people head-on, Guan Yu's personality and temper were like this when he was in Cao Ying, and no one looked down on him, but he was really capable, and he didn't disdain to play any conspiracy.

But now you actually took the initiative to retreat?!

Cao Ren wanted to take the initiative to pursue and attack, but as soon as he saw that the camp was distributed in a semicircle, he immediately stabbed Cao Ren's PTSD, and he always felt that countless bows and crossbows and arrows would fly out of the warships in the camp and on the river at any time.

Okay, an iron turtle, a big hedgehog, how can you fight this?!

(End of chapter)