After passing the Ziyun Mountain, this plain area is like encountering cavalry on the grassland, which belongs to the death zone for the infantry.

As I said before, out of a team of 10,000 men in the infantry class, there are only 2,000 crossbowmen at most.

And the light cavalry is everyone with bows and arrows, so even if they are surrounded and shot, Shen Chenjun's 8,000 people only have more than 1,000 archers, but Cao's army has 5,000, and other soldiers can only be targets.

However, during the Han and Han dynasties, the Han people's method of dealing with the grassland peoples has always been to use baggage carts or chariots specially used for temporary construction of camps to enclose the city wall as a fortress.

Li Ling used this method to fight around the prairie with 5,000 Han troops and 80,000 Hun cavalry for several days, and retreated all the way south.

Therefore, if there is no terrain like Ziyun Mountain and no other defense facilities, the cavalry can indeed crush the infantry on the plains and grasslands because of their mobility. But as soon as there was a chariot barracks, the situation was immediately reversed.

Compared to archery, the infantry had chariot cover, like oversized shields, to resist crossbow fire. Compared to melee combat, cavalry is inferior to infantry in attacking fortifications, even in the era of stirrups and saddles.

Therefore, this is why Shen Chen needs to send someone to fetch the baggage wagon from the rear.

At this time, Lou Fa left 1,000 people to guard Kunyang, and he personally led 1,000 people and came to support with 500 baggage wagons. The cars and horses rumbled and the sky was full of dust, like small cars, rolling and surging.

Seeing this, Guan Yu immediately said: "The enemy has sent chariots and horses, we must stop them, we can't let their soldiers and horses converge, everyone attacks the carriage!" ”

"Attack!"

The heralds issued orders one after another.

At that moment, many Cao cavalry immediately turned their horses and killed in the direction of the battlefield.

Shen Chen went to chat with Guan Yu, of course Shen Zhen and Deng Zhao knew it, so even if there was no main general, under their orders, the soldiers of Huangmen Pavilion were still as safe as a mountain.

Seeing that the enemy suddenly turned to the south at this moment, Deng Zhao immediately knew what to do, and immediately said: "Return to the aid carriage, rush!" ”

"Rush!"

The soldiers of the Yellow Gate Pavilion also immediately charged.

The chariot in the distance came, and when he saw the cavalry of the Cao army rushing towards this side, he immediately began to line up into a camp, and Lou Fa commanded the crossbowmen to shoot arrows outward.

The rain of arrows of "Xiu Xiu Xiu" was like a note, and the Cao soldiers turned on their backs, killing and wounding hundreds of people in an instant.

The soldiers and horses of the Huangmen Pavilion in the rear were killed again, and the front and back were attacked, Guan Yu seemed to realize that something was wrong, and immediately ordered: "Withdraw quickly!" ”

"Withdraw!"

The heralds sounded the warning whistle for retreat.

Soon the Cao army left hundreds of corpses and retreated, the cavalry met the crossbowmen like this, Bai Ma Yi was invincible in Youzhou, and the three thousand cavalry met the one thousand crossbowmen of Ju Yi, and the whole army was wiped out in an instant.

If it weren't for Guan Yu's fear that Cao Cao would be suspicious of Cao Cao later under the order, and if he delayed for a while, it is estimated that there would not be many of the 1,500 cavalry who returned intact.

When Cao Jun was far away, Shen Chen immediately joined Lou Fa, and then galloped back to Kunyang, re-downstairs Lou Fa defended the city, and he took a thousand baggage carriages and went north to meet Gan Ning.

And after Guan Yu was defeated, he immediately went back to report to Cao Cao. However, the horse had already exhausted a lot of physical strength when the raid came before, so he could only choose to retreat a few miles, find a place to feed the horses some bean fine feed, rest for half an hour, and then return home.

The main reason is that the endurance of the horses is not very good, if you want the horses to continue to maintain their physical strength, you need to feed them with fine feed before the battle, and even bring some of them yourself, otherwise they can last for a day at most.

For example, the tiger and leopard rode to chase for a day and a night, and Cao Cao led 10,000 elite cavalry to cross the Yanshan Mountains in a month and arrived at the White Wolf Mountain, all with their own feed.

This back and forth delayed for some time, and by the time Cao Cao learned about the situation, it was already afternoon.

"Shen Chen took the chariot?"

Cao Cao saw Guan Yu who came back.

Guan Yu's face was expressionless, he looked dignified, but he actually didn't have a good face for Cao Cao, and said in a dull tone: "Yes, we wanted to delay time, but we didn't expect Shen Chen to send someone to inform the Kunyang defenders in advance, and the Kunyang defenders sent chariots to come, and I couldn't wait for the enemy, so I could only retreat." ”

"Hmm......"

Cao Cao nodded, he was a master tactician, how could he not know that the chariot restrained the cavalry, and he didn't blame it at the moment, and said: "Yun Chang has done his best, you go and rest first." ”

"Yui."

Guan Yu went to the rear to rest first.

After a while, Cao Cao summoned the deputy general to come again, and the deputy general told him what had happened, including Guan Yu going to pursue Shen Chen, and Shen Chen was nowhere to be found.

But there are actually no loopholes in this process, now Guan Yu is famous, Shen Chen doesn't know whether to come out to provoke, and it is normal to be chased away, and Guan Yu's arrangement is not a problem, if he listens to the words of Deputy General Zuo, he takes the initiative to attack, but the loss will be greater.

So in Cao Cao's opinion, there was nothing suspicious about the whole matter, and naturally he didn't delve into it, but he saw from a distance that Gan Ning was already digging trenches and cutting down trees by the mountain forest, and his brows furrowed tightly.

Shen Chen's use of the chariot as cover was obviously beyond Cao Cao's expectations, and it was probably pointless to delay any longer now, because it would take at least three or four hours for the rear foot soldiers to arrive.

And these times are enough for Shen Chen to drive thousands of carriages to come, and when the time comes, they will have no chance to use the carriage to guard against them while walking.

The sun is setting.

Minutes and seconds passed.

By the evening, it was still dark, about the end of the day, and at the beginning of dusk, Cao Cao's soldiers and horses had withdrawn a few miles away.

About an hour later, at this moment, the military formation of Ganning in the distance, although there was no camp, cut down a large number of trees, and burned a large number of fires in the open space of the earth pit dug around it, lighting up the night sky and preventing Cao's army from attacking at night. Eight Chinese Net

Suddenly the wheels rolled in the south, and reinforcements arrived.

Xiangcheng is only forty kilometers away from Kunyang, and Ziyun Mountain is just in the middle.

Shen Chen set out at the beginning of the morning eclipse, and based on the average marching speed of about five kilometers per hour, it took them more than three hours, and they walked more than ten kilometers before eleven o'clock at noon, and arrived at the area of Ziyun Mountain, which was fifteen kilometers away from Xiangcheng.

It is less than 25 kilometers away from Kunyang, under normal circumstances, even ordinary people walk an average of 4-5 kilometers per hour, if you walk a little faster, with the foot strength exercised by the soldiers of Huangmenting, you can walk for another four or five hours, and you can return to Kunyang at about four or five o'clock in the afternoon.

But they were dragged by Cao Cao in Ziyun Mountain, so that when Shen Chen set out from Kunyang again to rescue Gan Ning, it was already close to six o'clock in the evening, and the sky darkened, and he didn't arrive at Gan Ning until nearly nine o'clock.

If there is a delay of a few more hours, Cao Cao's rear foot soldiers will arrive.

At that time, it was a battle with the main force of Cao's infantry in the field, coupled with cavalry harassment, and the consequences were unimaginable.

"Uncle Xingba."

"Ah Chen."

In the night, Shen Chen and Gan Ning soon converged.

The cavalry of the Cao army lit torches several miles away, watching them from a distance in the darkness of the night, and Shen Chen seemed to be able to feel Cao Cao's resentful gaze in the distance.

"Let's go!"

Shen Chen let out a shout and beckoned everyone to retreat.

This time, Cao Jun did not stop it, because Cao Cao knew very well that there was no point in chasing them again, people could completely rely on the carriage to fight them, the baggage carts were coming, the bow and arrow must be enough, and the shooting would only be a loss for the cavalry.

So at twelve o'clock in the evening, with only two or three hundred people lost, Shen Chen and Gan Ning successfully withdrew to Kunyang and held the city.

Two days later, Cao Cao's main army of about 20,000 arrived at the city of Kunyang.

Li Tong's troops, plus a part of the defenders of Xudu and the cavalry he personally led, because there were heavy troops brought from Xudu in the rear, which contained a lot of siege equipment, so after arriving in Kunyang, Cao Cao was not ambiguous and immediately ordered to start attacking the city.

The two sides fought fiercely around Kunyang City, and the troops in Shen Chen's City actually lost part of it when they seized the city of Kunyang Wuyang in Ye County, and they also lost part of it when they evacuated, and now there are only 9,000 people.

In addition, Kunyang City is not a big city, and there is not even a moat, so this battle was extremely difficult, and Cao Cao had catapults at this time, and he also formed more than a dozen vehicles. Although the city wall was fine, the towers at the north gate were all blown down, causing a lot of casualties in the city.

In fact, the catapults at that time were very close, only forty to seventy meters of effective distance, and this range was completely within the range of the archers. But at that time, there was also a kind of thing called a wooden mantle, which was specially used to defend against bows and arrows, and Shen Chen did not have rockets, so under the cover of the wooden mantle, the catapult almost went to the bottom of the city wall to shoot out, constantly bombarding the city.

For a time, the morale of the soldiers in the city dropped rapidly.

However, Shen Chen and Gan Ning personally went to the city to supervise the battle every time, although the casualties were not small, they still maintained their morale, and stubbornly repelled the Cao army several times, and did not let the Cao army take any advantage.

Over the course of a few days, more than 1,000 people were killed and wounded on both sides, and the battle was extremely tragic.

Under normal circumstances, Cao Cao would make more catapults, constantly bombarding the city, giving psychological pressure to the people in the city, and slowly besieging and dying, this time can be long or short, as short as one or two months, and as long as a year and a half.

After all, the catapult at that time was not very powerful, and it was difficult to cause damage to the city wall, at most it was just a deterrent to the soldiers, as long as the soldiers reacted quickly, it was easy to dodge.

But at this time, Cao Cao was obviously a little anxious, and after each bombardment, he would send foot soldiers to storm the city, and the two sides fought fiercely, and there were casualties between the enemy and us.

The reason for this is because Yuan Shao has put too much pressure on him, and no one knows when Yuan Shao will come, so he must eliminate Shen Chen as soon as possible, and after the troubles are lifted, he will immediately go north to Guandu to rearm the defense.

It's just that Shen Chen's tenacity still surprised him, the battle of the city was extremely difficult, and there was no effect for several days, and the soldiers were also tired and demoralized.

On April 11, Cao Cao did not go out today, but rested in the camp to let the soldiers rest for two days, and he planned to prepare a little more and build more siege equipment, and then continue to launch a fierce attack on the city.

It is the scorching early summer, and the lunar calendar is April, but according to the later solar calendar, it is already late May, close to the midsummer of June, so the weather is very hot, and the cicadas in the forest near the city are singing endlessly.

Cao Cao has been staring at the map study of the terrain around Kunyang in the camp, Kunyang is backed by Funiu Mountain, and its west is the mountain range, so from the west of the city because the terrain problem is not very easy to fight, can only be from the north, south and east of the city, Cao Cao is considering whether to send people to attack Kunyang and Yexian first, and then surround Kunyang on three sides.

It's just that I don't know how much grain and grass there is in the city, if he can hold on for a year and a half, then this tactic is meaningless, he doesn't have time to spend it here with Shen Chen.

Just as he was thinking, someone outside the tent suddenly shouted: "Report! ”

"Come in."

"Sikong, Runan is too full of favors and sends messengers to ask for a meeting."

"Let him come."

"Yui."

And the guard at the gate went to deliver the messenger.

After a while, the messenger came in, saw Cao Cao kneeling down on one knee and said: "Sikong, recently, Sun Ce of Jiangdong has made frequent changes, secretly dispatched troops, and threatened to go north to attack Guangling. ”

"Bring it in."

Cao Cao's brows were furrowed, and Sun Ce's abnormal movements naturally couldn't hide from his eyes, otherwise he wouldn't have put Li Tong and Man Chong in Runan.

But at this juncture, he began to move again, which was very worrying.

Sure enough, Man Zhong explained in detail Sun Ce's movements these days, and Cao Cao immediately realized that Sun Ce did have the intention of sneaking up on Xu Du, and his heart suddenly became upset.

It's just at this time!

It's just at this time!

He walked around the tent in great annoyance, although he had not yet taken Shen Chen, as long as he continued to storm on, he believed that Kunyang would hold out for another month at most.

But Yuan Shao in the north has not yet gone south, and this Sun Ce is ready to make the first move, which makes Cao Cao very unhappy, and his anger rises.

"Damn!"

In the end, he kicked the table away and shouted, "Pass my general order, and continue the siege tomorrow!" ”

"Yui!"

The heralds went to give orders to the battalion commanders.

And Cao Cao sat down angrily, the so-called siege of tomorrow is, of course, just a deterrent.

If he doesn't resist at that time, he can take advantage of the situation and pretend to retreat, and Shen Chen will chase after him, and if Shen Chen doesn't come, he will withdraw to Xu Du.

This is the same as in history when he evacuated Nanyang overnight because he heard that Yuan Shao had attacked Xudu.

It's just that now when Yuan Shao gave him a threat, Sun Ce came to mix in again, which made Cao Cao feel even worse.

After welcoming the emperor, in addition to the smooth sailing in the first two years, from this year, the situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse, if it weren't for Jingnan Zhang Xian, I'm afraid he would have to be besieged by Yuan Shao, Liu Biao, and Sun Ce.

This Liu Xie is really a double-edged sword.

Thinking of this, he had no choice but to think on the spot if Sun Ce came to attack, what would he choose?

The waterway is definitely not good, and the land route will inevitably be chosen.

When the time comes, he will withdraw to Xu Du, let Li Tong return to Runan first, wait and see for a while, see the movements of Yuan Shao and Shen Chen, and then decide whether to go south or north.

This siege on all sides is really difficult.

Cao Cao sighed.

Soon, on the second day, Cao's army launched another onslaught, and after a day of fierce fighting, as in the previous days, Cao's army hurriedly evacuated in the evening, leaving hundreds of corpses behind.

At this moment, Gan Ning was covered in blood, and Cao's offensive was indeed rapid, and he hit the city wall several times, but he fought bloodily to repel it.

Shen Chen also slashed two enemies, although his current force value is not as good as Guan Zhang, but it is slightly stronger than ordinary soldiers, if the force value of ordinary soldiers is thirty, he should have thirty-five, after all, he has also practiced martial arts for many years.

It's just that he needs to occupy the command position and constantly give orders, so he doesn't have much success. But at the end of the day, I was tired enough, standing at the head of the city, looking at Cao Jun who had faded like a tide.

After Cao Jun returned to the camp, he immediately began to dismantle the camp, and it seemed that he had plans to withdraw the army in the starry night.

To the north of Kunyang City is a flat plain area, and standing on the head of the city, except for some forests, you can see it for several kilometers.

Gan Ning was also leaning on the edge of the female wall at this time, panting and saying, "Ah Chen, Cao Cao is about to withdraw his troops." ”

"Hmm."

Shen Chen nodded: "We threaten Cao Cao's rear, and it is impossible for him to withdraw his troops easily, which shows that either Yuan Shao has a move to the south, or Sun Ce has a move to the north." ”

"Does this still have something to do with Sun Ce?"

Gan Ning was surprised.

Shen Chen said with a smile: "Sun Ce occupies a corner of Jiangdong, and he has killed extremely heavily over the years, because he has insufficient foundation in Jiangdong, except for Zhou Yu, Lu Su and others, there are very few people in the family who support him. Cao Cao coerced the Son of Heaven to order the princes, and countless families responded immediately, and it was impossible for Sun Ce not to envy this kind of righteous name. ”

"He also wants to learn from Cao Cao?"

Gan Ning pouted, I heard that this Sun Ce is a hairy boy in his twenties, and he still has this eloquence?

Shen Chen said: "Sun Ce Jiangdong Lion is also not to be underestimated. If there is a great drought today, it is difficult to reach Xuchang from Jiangdong by land and water, Sun Ce must take the land route, I expect Cao Cao to divide his troops to Runan, and then we can continue to harass Xudu in the north. ”

"I hope so."

Gan Ning was so tired that he lay down on the city wall to rest, like him, there were soldiers everywhere on the city wall, and the rear reserve team had the physical strength to carry the corpses and stones, clean the battlefield, and be in order.

Shen Chen looked at Cao Ying in the north and was distracted, he was thinking about whether to pursue Cao Cao and give Cao Cao continued to create pressure.

Sun Ce died this year, although Shen Chen didn't know what month it was, but it was estimated that it would be about this month to next month, so Sun Ce would not be able to send troops, and when the news of Sun Ce's death reached Xu Du, there was a high probability that Cao Cao would transfer Li Tongman to deal with him.

At that time, he will face even more pressure, if he can take advantage of Cao Cao's withdrawal at this time, choose to pursue, just like Huan Wen's Northern Expedition to Guanzhong, because of lack of food and retreat, he was defeated by Fu Jian, and his troops were lost.

There is also the battle of Nanyang, Zhang Xiu pursued Cao Cao, who was eager to go north, although he lost the first battle, but he was warned in the second battle, if he could pursue, he might be able to achieve results.

He only needed to be able to kill and injure some more Cao troops, and by the time Cao Cao needed to concentrate his forces on Yuan Shao, Xu Du's defensive strength was further weakened, and he would be able to do more.

However, this idea is definitely good, but we need to wait and see if Cao Cao really retreats, or pretends to retreat and then deceives him.

Therefore, he planned to send scouts to observe the situation and see what Cao Cao was planning.

"Brother Shen!"

"Hmm!"

Shen Changqing walked on the road, and when he met someone he knew well, he would say hello to each other or nod his head.

But it doesn't matter who it is.

There was no superfluous expression on everyone's face, as if they were very indifferent to everything.

on this.

Shen Changqing is used to it.

Because this is the Demon Suppression Division, it is an institution that maintains the stability of Great Qin, and its main responsibility is to kill demons and monsters, and of course there are some other side jobs.

Arguably.

In the Demon Suppression Division, everyone has a lot of blood on their hands.

When a person is accustomed to seeing life and death, then he will become indifferent to many things.

When he first came to this world, Shen Changqing was a little uncomfortable, but over time he got used to it.

The Demon Suppression Division is huge.

The people who can stay in the Demon Suppression Division are all powerful masters, or people who have the potential to become masters.

Shen Changqing belongs to the latter.

Among them, the Demon Suppression Division is divided into two professions, one is the town guard and the other is the demon exterminator.

Anyone who enters the Demon Suppression Division starts with the lowest level of demon slayer.

Then step by step, he is expected to become a town guard.

Shen Changqing's predecessor was a trainee demon slayer in the Demon Suppression Division, and he was also the lowest level of the demon slayer envoys.

Have memories of the predecessor.

He is also very familiar with the environment of the Demon Suppression Division.

It didn't take long for Shen Changqing to stop in front of an attic.

Unlike other places full of slaughter, the attic here seems to stand out from the crowd, and in the bloody Demon Suppression Division, it presents a different tranquility.

At this time, the attic door is open, and there are occasional people entering and exiting.

Shen Changqing only hesitated for a moment, and then stepped in.

Access to the attic.

The environment has changed in vain.

A burst of ink fragrance mixed with the faint smell of blood came to his face, making his brow furrow instinctively, but quickly stretched.

The smell of blood on everyone's body in the Demon Suppression Division is almost impossible to clean.