Chapter 1337: Rear Sweep

Chapter 1337: Rear Sweep

Chapter 1337: Rear Sweep
The daytime of June 13th was another routine siege.

This time the main attack direction was changed to South City.

The outer iron covering of the outer gate of the city wall had long since fallen off and the door panels were burned. The soldiers from Daliang rushed into the city wall and engaged in a bloody battle with the enemy soldiers who poured out of the hiding cave.

The soldiers of Jicheng were defeated, so they lowered the capstan, closed the door to the hiding cave, and locked out a few of their own soldiers along with the Liang soldiers.

Thousands of arrows were fired from above the city wall, eventually killing both sides on the spot.

When Muyu Gen looked down from above, he saw corpses piled up layer upon layer and the smell of blood was so strong that it was sickening.

On both sides of the city wall, the Liang army came accompanied by the south wind.

It was still the same old routine, the trench-filling truck went up first, lowered the door panels, filled the roads, ditches, and trenches, and then the smoke trucks and ladder trucks went up together and launched a swift attack.

Behind them, the ground was filled with people carrying and sifting soil. The platform was built inch by inch, which was disconcerting to look at.

Li Chong personally came to the south of the city and led the governor's army to attack.

Occasionally he would turn his gaze to Prince of Yan Shao Yu who was commanding at the front.

This boy has made some progress in recent times, and Li Chong has noticed it all.

At the beginning, the King of Yan was in a hurry to command, and even forgot some things. For example, on the first day when he was in charge of the feint attack, there was also a south wind, but he actually forgot to send out the smoke car. He didn't remember until the front team set off, and immediately sent out more. Although he made up for it, there was still some disharmony in the coordination. Of course, whether to send out the smoke car is actually a small matter. The smoke car is really not very useful, but it can only be said that it is better than nothing.

By today, he had written down every detail on paper.

Good, it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, it’s good enough to admit them and correct them.

When the world was in turmoil, the sons and nephews of various princes often led troops to fight at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Who could avoid making mistakes? As long as they could continue to improve, by the time they were thirty or forty years old, they would be able to handle things with ease.

After looking for a while, Li Chong began to inspect the camp.

After so many years of fighting, he certainly didn't want to spend a lot of lives to win, but he wouldn't hesitate when it was time to do so. He was too pure, so pure that he only considered military issues most of the time.

After he left, a shout broke out in front of the battlefield.

Li Zhong did not look back, he knew that they were young men captured from the wild, both Hu and Han. Although they were not particularly familiar with the garrison, they were related to them.

These people shouted on the battlefield, urging the defenders not to work for the "Donghu" anymore.

You farm and he herds; you eat millet and he drinks milk. You are not the same kind of people. After fighting for a long time, not many Xianbei people died, but the Han people fell one after another. It was better to surrender, and everyone drew their swords and attacked the Xianbei people.

Well, strictly speaking, this is a bit inconsistent with the current emperor's purpose of "peace between the barbarians and the Chinese", but Li Zhong will not consider these, he only thinks about how to win.

After arriving at the camp, Li Zhong carefully inspected the cavalry camp.

When a mixed infantry and cavalry force sets up camp, the construction and management of the infantry camp is relatively easy, but the construction and management of the cavalry camp is the most complicated and requires the most skill.

First, they had to be close to a water source or dig more wells, because the cavalry had a large demand for water;

Secondly, the camp gate should be wide to facilitate entry and exit, but also tortuous to prevent people from rushing in directly;

The open space in front of the camp should be flat and open, because the cavalry needs distance for jogging, running, and charging;
Fences should be mud-coated to prevent fire, as horses are more likely to become agitated, and…

After checking it over, Li Chong was very satisfied. He then asked Guo Shi, the attendant of Prince of Yan's Palace who was accompanying him, and Guo Shi said that it was taught by the emperor himself, so Li Chong had nothing to say.

The current emperor is an expert in the use of cavalry, and everyone is convinced by him, so there is not much to say.

After leaving the camp, the fighting ahead had become increasingly intense.

A group of Youzhou miscellaneous Hu soldiers could not hold out and collapsed. The cavalry on standby in the rear immediately rushed forward and shot arrows like rain.

These people turned around and rushed towards the city wall, crying and shouting.

The cavalry pulled the reins, trotted around, and returned to the starting position.

The battle continues.

******
On the south city wall, General Muyu Ni, a member of the Chengda Muyugen's clan, was hit by a stray arrow and fell to the ground with a scream.

Experienced warriors all know that "stray arrows" are the most damn scary things on the battlefield.

It is not aimed at you at all, and there is no way to defend against it. As long as you happen to be at that place at that time, congratulations, you've been hit by a stray arrow. You don't even know who the arrow was originally intended to hit, or where it was shot from.

Mu Yu Ni was shot directly in the eye and bleeding profusely. He was carried down by four personal soldiers.

There was chaos on the top of the city wall. At the critical moment, Yang Jing, the doctor of the Prince of Yan's palace, rushed up with more than a hundred of his followers. They engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Liang people who had stepped onto the top of the city wall. In the end, with the help of the archers on the city wall and the soldiers who came to reinforce from various places, they managed to hold on. The siege was not breached before the fourth day.

Mu Yu Ni was carried onto a carriage, and his followers gathered around and cried along the street.

The Xianbei nobles opened the gates of the courtyard one after another and silently looked at Mu Yu Ni, whose head and face were covered in blood.

"Get out! You are all afraid of death and unwilling to fight." Mu Yu Ni's nephews and nephews waved their whips and dispersed a team of infantry who were about to come over to relieve guard.

The infantry were mostly servants of the wealthy families. Some of them were indignant when they heard this. One of them cursed, "We have been defending the city for four days. Except for the few hundred cavalrymen who died on the first day, who fought the rest of the battles?"

"If you're talking about being afraid of death, I think you Xianbei are the ones who are afraid of death! How many of you are on the top of the city wall?"

"If you have the ability, stop washing horses all day and go to the top of the city to fight the Liang people. Let's see how long your bow legs can last."

Siege warfare is also different in terms of intensity.

The most ferocious is the "rush attack" commonly seen in history books. In this case, the attackers do not care much about casualties, and take the city as the first goal. Correspondingly, the casualties of the defenders will increase sharply.

The Liang army lost 3,000 men in the first day of the fierce attack, which was definitely no less than a "rush attack". The intensity was slightly reduced in the next three days, but it was still very fierce, and the defenders really couldn't bear it. With so many casualties, they got angry and ignored some of their previous concerns, just having fun first.

Mu Yu Ni's nephews and nephews were also in a bad mood. Moreover, not all Xianbei people were cavalry. They had always fought mainly on foot. When they heard the other side's scolding, they immediately retorted and even pushed and shoved.

The shogunate's military officer Ju Yungang and his fellow Qingzhou people were nearby. Upon seeing the situation, he immediately stepped forward to mediate and finally managed to separate the crowd, thus averting a crisis.

But he also sighed a little.

Things were not going well. The defenders were gradually divided into two distinct groups: Han and Xianbei. This was not a good thing.

It's only been four days since the siege, and we still have to defend for dozens more days. We have to find a solution quickly. If we can't solve it, then we can only...

"Bang!" The nobles from various tribes who had just opened the gate to watch the excitement all shrank back.

Ju Yun glanced at them and thought to himself that he had to let these Xianbei cavalry attack at the right time, otherwise, who knows what would happen if it dragged on.

This is the embarrassment of the State of Yan, as no single force has absolute dominance.

You say that the Xianbei people are numerous, but they are not that numerous. The 200,000 people from the Central Plains who poured into Pingzhou at the end of the Jin Dynasty already occupied a large portion of the population of the Yan State.

You say that the Xianbei people are few, but that is not true. The total number of all the tribes is still larger than that of the Han people, but they do not usually live near cities.

It's hard to say who is stronger and who is weaker. Many wars with Yuwen Xianbei, Goguryeo and even Duanbu Xianbei were fought by scholar-generals, and they fought very well. When the Xianbei were hesitant at the critical moment, these scholar-generals dared to fight hard. Not to mention the battle to break the siege of the three families, Murong Wei led the Han nobles' infantry as the main force.

This country has always been like this. Everyone thinks that they have made a great contribution, but there has not been enough time for adjustment. At least there have not been many cases of intermarriage between tribal leaders and Han scholars.

If this problem is not solved, the foundation of the country will be unstable. Thinking of this, Ju Yun felt that it made sense for Shao Xun to keep mentioning "peace between the barbarians and the Chinese" and encourage intermarriage between the two sides. At least he was trying to solve the problem.

"What a mess!" He sighed secretly, and took his fellow villagers to Xicheng to change guard.

******
Near the tail end of Yiwulü Mountain on the north side, there are hills and valleys crisscrossed and dense forests.

Such a terrain is not suitable for large-scale cavalry charge, but what if the two warring parties have always been mainly cavalry? For example, Yuwen Xianbei and Murong Xianbei? Then there is no way.

She Yiyu (a night worker) glanced at Ye Li who was waiting eagerly not far away and said with a smile, "Are you so anxious to defeat the thieves so that you can meet your lover?"

The wild fox ignored him and continued to look at the undulating terrain ahead.

She Yi was a member of the Yuwen clan, and in terms of seniority, he was her uncle. He was a brave and valiant man, and was her father's most trusted subordinate, holding a high status. For this reason, he was given a separate city in the Zuole River area as his residence.

The Twelve Yuwen Tribes suffered repeated defeats in the war against the Murong clan, and few had the courage to confront the Murong cavalry head-on. She Yi Yu was one of them, and he had won several small victories. Even the Murong Xianbei had heard of She Yi Yu's reputation for bravery.

They saw sheep dung in the wild a few days ago, and then saw people out collecting firewood. They concluded that there must be a Xianbei tribe hiding nearby, so they gathered more than 10,000 cavalry and rushed over, ready to capture this hiding tribe.

However, the Xianbei people were not pushovers. They discovered them halfway and gathered their troops to engage in a battle at the northern foot of the Yiwulü Mountain.

Each side had only about 3,000 cavalry, and the battle was extremely brutal. Perhaps to defend their homeland, the Xianbei fought desperately, and the Yuwen cavalry, which had slightly more people than them, could not hold on and was about to be defeated.

She Yi Yu became anxious, and immediately called upon the last 300 riders under his command, all of whom mounted their horses, said hello to Ye Li, and then rushed down the hillside.

The warhorse under Yuwen Yeli snorted uneasily. She gently soothed it and continued to stare at the battlefield.

She Yi Yu's uncle was indeed brave. All the 300 elite cavalrymen under his command were wearing armor. After they rushed into the battle array, they rushed straight to the point where the Xianbei people and their horses were thrown to the ground.

Yuwen Yeli secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

She subconsciously looked towards the northwest, where a thousand cavalrymen from the "Hengchongying" of the Shanyu Protectorate of the Daliang Dynasty were rushing towards them.

Their most important task now is to search for the locations of the Murong Xianbei tribes.

If he encountered a large group of troops, he would immediately notify the camp recruiting envoy. He had elite troops such as the Yicong Army, Youzhou Cavalry Commander, and Shooting Eagle Camp at his disposal, and was ready to engage in a large-scale cavalry battle with the Murong clan at any time.

If you encounter a small tribe, then charge at it first. If you can defeat them, then beat them. If you can't, then follow them. Then gather more troops and try to defeat the smaller tribe with more troops.

It doesn't matter if we can't win. The important thing is to make these Xianbei people panic and prevent them from responding to Murong Huang in Jicheng, or even affect the morale of the army in Jicheng in turn - I don't believe those people can sit still if their own tribe has been defeated.

The battle ahead soon came to an end.

The Xianbei people retreated and scattered all over the mountains and plains.

She Yiyu shouted loudly and chased after them with only a few men. He was really a rare warrior among the twelve tribes of Yuwen. He was almost invincible under his spear and rushed forward very bravely, uh, perhaps recklessly.

In an instant, Sheyi Yu's horse's front hooves softened and he fell to the ground. Suddenly, hundreds of Xianbei cavalrymen rushed out from the woods on both sides.

When the Yuwen cavalrymen in the rear saw this, they cursed and shouted to advance.

She Yi Yu's entourage quickly gave their war horses to him, and asked their nobleman to retreat, while they took the initiative to move forward, but were soon submerged in the surging wave of cavalry.

She Yi had several arrows stuck in his back. After he fled back in a panic, he became angry and humiliated, and led a large group of people to fight back.

There was another melee between the two sides.

Yuwen Yeli sighed. This uncle was indeed very powerful, but his brain was really...

Smoke and dust rose high in the northwest. It was obvious that the 1,000 cavalrymen of the Hengchong Camp had received a message from the messenger and were speeding up their advance.

Yuwen Yeli waved his hand and allocated half of his troops, 500 cavalrymen, to go around the hills in the south and harass the rear of Murong cavalry.

No matter what, we must rob this tribe this time.

(End of this chapter)