The curtain of slaughter officially opened! The garrison of Chen County was not the ten thousand that Cao Cao had originally estimated, but a full thirty thousand. Just the west wall alone had two thousand people guarding it, so the three thousand Cao soldiers were not much more than the garrison.
Cao Hong, who was commanding the attack at the east gate, immediately noticed the abnormal situation in front of him. This made him extremely angry. It was not because of the dead veterans. It was very easy to recruit soldiers these days. If there was food, he could easily recruit tens of thousands of people. It was because he felt that he had just boasted to Cao Cao, but something had gone wrong on his first attack. However, it was obvious that he still did not realize how powerful his opponent was. If he had staked everything on this and sent all his 10,000 men, there might have been hope of successfully attacking the city. However, he had foolishly made a very low-level mistake. He had used the strategy of adding fuel and sent another 3,000 men from the second echelon to charge.
"Kill!"。。。。
The battle outside the east gate had already reached its climax. With the lesson of the first failure, the second wave of soldiers were much more careful. They formed a scattered formation and gradually approached the city wall. Then, they quickly rushed closer to the city wall. After paying a certain price, they successfully approached the city wall and began to attack.
"Ah!" A wooden ladder was pushed down from the city wall by the guards, and the soldiers on the ladder let out a dying scream.
Before the city guards who had pushed out the ladder could cheer, the archer covering the city had already shot an arrow through his throat. The two sides, attacking and defending, fought back and forth, and it was difficult to determine who was the winner.
Two hours later, Cao Hong's army's offensive was finally repelled. Out of the three thousand people who went out, less than half of them returned, and almost all of them were injured. Corpses were strewn all over the city, and broken limbs could be seen. The city walls had been washed with blood from top to bottom, and had been dyed red. The ground below had been dyed dark brown because it had absorbed too much blood. The entire eastern district of Chen County had become a living hell.
The defenders weren't having an easy time either. Although they had repelled several enemy attacks throughout the morning, their casualties were not small. Moreover, the ones who had died in the front were all veterans who had been on the battlefield before. When the veterans were wiped out, no one knew if the new recruits could withstand the next attack. Fortunately, because this place was facing the Cao army camp, Luo Jun had allocated a few more ballistae to him. There were a total of five ballistae. The thick ballistae caused a great shock to the Cao army. Usually, a single bolt could nail a row of people to death, forming an empty space.
Li Bo, the general of the East Gate, stood on the city tower of the East Gate. His body was also stained with blood. His left hand had been injured in the chaotic battle. His eyes swept across the city. Experienced veterans were instructing the Ding Zhuang to move the dead bodies. The enemy's bodies were directly thrown down the city tower, and their own bodies were carried to the empty space behind. In just one morning, the temporary mortuary was filled to the brim. No less than 300 corpses were densely packed there. Many of the new recruits who had just entered the battle were already vomiting.
"There will be another fierce battle in the afternoon!”He withdrew his gaze from the city wall and nodded firmly. He judged that the enemy's attack would be even fiercer at that time.
Outside the city gate, the attacking army was gradually retreating to the back of the formation. When the attacking army had completely retreated, the formation outside the city also began to retreat slowly. In the end, all the soldiers disappeared from sight.
"Oh oh! The enemy has been defeated!" The soldiers on the city wall cheered. Seeing the enemy leave, the soldiers seemed to have lost their strength and fell to the ground in twos and threes.
"Cao Hong! What crime do you deserve?" In the tent, Cao Cao flew into a rage. He didn't expect that he couldn't even take down a small city wall even though he had several times the number of soldiers.
In the tent, other than Yu Jin, who was leading the troops outside, the other generals and strategists had all arrived. Everyone stood there silently. Cao Hong kneeled in the tent, his armor unkempt. His hair bun had fallen off somewhere, and he looked disheveled. His mouth was muttering something like a resentful woman.
"Ming Gong, the enemy is too strong! Those arrows were so dense, and there were even bed crossbows. Our troops suffered heavy casualties. More than ten thousand brothers, and no less than five thousand casualties! My lord! These are all my disciples!”
"Shut up! Bastard! Where is your heroic spirit from this morning? If you continue to spout nonsense here and mess up my morale, be careful that I will punish you according to military law!”Cao Cao roared loudly.
"Ming Gong!" Cao Hong still wanted to argue!
"Humph! Zilian, do you still remember the military pledge? Someone come! Pull him out! Kill him!"
"Lord, you can't! It was unlucky to kill a general at the last minute!”Guo Jia quickly came out to plead. He knew that Cao Cao wouldn't really want to kill Cao Hong, so he quickly came out to smooth things over and give Cao Cao a way out.
"That's right! My lord, please give General Cao a chance to redeem himself!”Gou You also came out to plead.
"Please reconsider, my lord!" The generals bowed in unison.
Seeing so many people come out to plead for mercy, Cao Cao also found a reason to forgive Cao Hong. He could put aside the matter of him making a military pledge. Not only could he protect his cousin, but he could also show the seriousness of law enforcement.
"In that case, I'll temporarily take your head. After the war is over, I'll settle the score with you!”
"Thank you, Ming Gong!" Cao Hong retreated dejectedly.
"Fengxiao, after this battle, do you have any good strategy to break the city?”After dealing with Cao Hong's problem, Cao Cao changed the topic to how to take down Chen County.
"I saw that the number of soldiers in the city seemed to exceed the original estimate of ten thousand people. Perhaps Luo Jun brought some soldiers back from Yangxia or recruited some able-bodied men from the city. The only way now was to build more siege weapons and surround them from three sides. Then, he would arrange for spies to sneak into the city and investigate the enemy's situation before making plans.”Guo Jia suggested.
"We'll do as Feng Xiao says! Zi Yang, I order you to finish forging the siege weapons within a day. How about it?”Cao Cao asked Liu Ye.
"Ming Gong, please give me another ten thousand men. I will definitely complete it!”Liu Ye raised a finger and replied.
"Good!" Cao Cao replied readily. The first failure was due to the lack of information about the enemy and the underestimation of the number of defenders. The second was that the Cao army had underestimated the enemy and did not even prepare much siege equipment. They simply built some scaling ladders and began to attack, so they were defeated. Cao Cao was indeed a veteran. After realizing the problem, he immediately made corresponding changes. The siege battle a day later would be even more tragic than today!
On the 15th day of the 12th month of the 2nd year of Xingping, Cao Cao failed to attack Chen County and lost 5,000 soldiers. On the same day, Liu Chong, the king of Chen, led 1,000 troops from Woniu Castle and advanced towards Chen County.
Feilu novel Chinese website welcomes you, welcomes you to come again, remember us,
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]