Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1232 Revenge
The battle continued for several more hours, and the situation was still stalemate. Tian Feng squinted his eyes, looking at the Cao army on the top of the city wall. Although they had been bombarded by arrows, they were still resisting stubbornly. He wondered if he was really too old to use new things like gunpowder?
Moreover, the response of the opposing Cao army was far beyond Tian Feng's expectations. Seeing that it would be dark in an hour, he wondered whether he should just call it a day. His own soldiers were also exhausted. Otherwise, why not call off the battle now and continue the fight tomorrow?

Just as he was thinking this, a spy arrived and delivered the secret order that Yuan Xi had just issued.

The soldiers took turns to rest and attacked the city all night.

Tian Feng grumbled to himself, are we going to increase the intensity of the siege on the first day?
How many days can we fight like this?
He said to the spy, "The king has already known that I failed in the siege and used up all the gunpowder?"

The spy said, "I have already handed over the military advisor's letter of confession. The king did not say anything after reading it. He only told the military advisor to attack the city normally."

After hearing this, Tian Feng felt even more pressured. The generals on his side might have the strongest overall strength among the three routes, and it was still too embarrassing for them to end up like this. If he didn't make any progress, it would be unacceptable.

Thinking of this, he issued an order, and the front army moved forward another thirty steps, preparing to build a pontoon bridge to attack the city.

Sima Yi, who was standing on the top of the city wall, was surprised to see the Jin army attacking the city at this time. Moreover, the bridge on the opposite side was a wooden floating bridge. Aren’t they afraid that his rockets would burn the bridge?
Seeing the Jin army pushing the flat carts into the water and connecting them despite the arrows from the city walls, Sima Yi could not help but marvel at the ingenuity of the other party's idea. He quickly ordered the soldiers to replace the arrows with those wrapped in oilcloth and shoot at the bridge.

The Wei soldiers set the oilcloth on fire, put it on their bows and shot it at the wooden bridge. The arrow pierced into the bridge deck, and the oilcloth behind the arrow head stuck to the bridge deck and started burning.

Soon, hundreds of rockets were nailed to the wooden bridge and the bridge deck began to burn. Some Jin soldiers wanted to pull out the arrows, but the Cao army archers immediately shot arrows to suppress them, making it impossible for the Jin soldiers to move safely.

When Tian Feng saw this, he immediately ordered the soldiers to operate the tower car forward. The heavy tower car pressed the wooden bridge deck down, and it fell half a foot into the water, and was then supported by the connected iron chains.

The building vehicle then waded forward, and the bridge deck sank into the water, extinguishing hundreds of fires on the bridge deck at the same time.

Sima Yi was troubled when he saw that the other side had easily cracked his plan and used sophisticated tactics. He thought that the Jin army was really full of counselors and it seemed that he could not suppress the other side at all.

Seeing the tower carriage slowly approaching the city wall, the Jin army soldiers in the rear took the opportunity to rush over from the wooden bridge. Sima Yi had no choice but to give orders, asking the defending general to lead the soldiers forward and defend the top of the city wall.

He looked worriedly towards the northern plain, where there were several small hills. The roads between the hills were all filled with Wei and Jin armies. The two sides, led by several of their generals, had been fighting for a day, and the ground was covered with corpses.

Although Ye City is large, the city walls cannot accommodate the 70,000 to 80,000 Wei troops. If they all hide in the city, they will be slowly consumed by the attackers. In this case, it is better to take the initiative to attack and find the enemy's flaws.

This was the strategy Cao Cao had set before the war, and Sima Yi also agreed with it in his heart. However, after the battle broke out, the situation did not develop as the Wei army had expected. This was because the Jin army's understanding and concepts of trench warfare far surpassed those of the Wei army.

Just like the current offensive and defensive battles around several hills, the Jin army first seized the high ground and attacked the Wei soldiers from above with crossbows, forcing the Wei soldiers to fight for the commanding heights. However, on the way up the mountain, they encountered trench fortifications dug in advance by the Jin army.

The Jin army ambushed behind trenches, using arrows to stop the Wei army. When the Wei army was about to break through, they retreated to the trenches at the rear.

The Wei army finally occupied the trench, but found that the trench was blocked by a wall facing the bottom of the mountain, but there was no cover on the side facing the top of the mountain, which meant that the army was exposed to the enemy above!

The Wei soldiers were shooting from low and high, and not only were their arrows difficult to hit, but the Jin soldiers above also dropped explosive bamboo tubes from time to time, which made the Wei soldiers scream in pain.

Even though the Wei army paid a heavy price to capture the top of the mountain, they found that the opposite side had already dug fortifications. Those were tunnels that were connected to each other and closed from the outside. The Jin army soldiers could come and go freely inside, but the Wei army could only enter through the cave entrance. After taking a few steps, they were killed by the Jin soldiers who appeared from nowhere.

At the end of the day, Yu Jin, who was in charge of the infantry, was almost exhausted. He had never fought such a frustrating battle before. Seeing his soldiers being rapidly consumed in this kind of meat-grinding fight, he asked several times to retreat into the city to rest, but was rejected every time by the commander-in-chief Cao Zhen.

Cao Zhen was now bloodthirsty. He had previously fought poorly in Yuzhou and was defeated repeatedly by Wei Yan, which led to his removal back to Yecheng and replacement by Cao Xiu. But no one expected that even after joining forces with Le Jin, Cao Xiu was still killed by the Jin army and his body was transported back.

Cao Zhen went crazy on the spot when he looked at Cao Xiu's body which was hit by at least hundreds of arrows. He felt that Cao Xiu died for him and vowed to cut the Jin army general who killed Cao Xiu into pieces!

As luck would have it, the Jin army that Cao Zhen encountered along the way included Wei Yan and Huang Zhong, the generals who had participated in the killing of Cao Xiu. So when Cao Zhen learned of this, he immediately mobilized all his lieutenants to entangle Zhang He who was attacking him, while he himself led his troops to attack Wei Yan and Huang Zhong.

At that time, Ma Chao was beaten by Wei Yan and Huang Zhong, and Cao Zhen happened to arrive to rescue him. The two sides fought again, but Cao Zhen's mobilization affected the battlefield situation along the way. Several hills and mountaintops were occupied by the Jin army, and simple fortifications were urgently built. As a result, Cao Zhen's army was divided and suppressed by the Jin army on high ground, and they were in a situation where they could not take care of each other. Sima Yi on the top of the city was also very helpless. Cao Zhen was a general that Cao's family could use, but compared with the Jin army, he was still a little tender.

Sima Yi believed that given time, Cao Zhen might be able to grow up, but the current situation would not give Cao Zhen the opportunity. If this route collapsed too quickly, it would affect the other routes.

Thinking of this, Sima Yi felt slightly dissatisfied. It was already such a late stage, and he still let Cao's generals be the main commanders. If he was given the power to be the commander-in-chief along the way, the battle would never have turned out like this!

The shouts and screams brought Sima Yi back to his senses. Another tower car was pressed against the city wall. Sima Yi couldn't help but curse inwardly, wondering how come the Jin army had so many siege equipment? How much had they accumulated before?
Looking down from the sky, in the Yecheng area with a radius of dozens of miles, in this very small area compared to Jizhou, the two sides have deployed nearly 200,000 soldiers and laborers, and after a day of fierce fighting, the number of casualties has exceeded 50,000.

This intensity was something that neither side had imagined before the war, but now no one could retreat, so they had to bite the bullet and continue fighting.

Yuan Xi received news in the central army that Tian Feng's army was still in a stalemate, but Zhuge Liang had made unexpected progress.

Before the battle, Zhuge Liang learned that Le Jin had been seriously injured before, so when he saw Le Jin's flag at the beginning of the war, he became suspicious. He then made secret arrangements during the battle, and after showing weakness repeatedly, he finally lured Le Jin into an ambush.

At this time, Le Jin, under the protection of Li Dian, was relying on the heavy infantry formation to attack Zhuge Liang's central army in a cone formation. He was only a hundred steps away from Zhuge Liang's flag. At this moment, a dozen soldiers in the front stepped on the trap and fell into a deep pit. Le Jin hurriedly asked the soldiers to avoid it, but it triggered another trap. Then several more pits appeared, disrupting the formation of Cao's army.

Now Le Jin knew that he had fallen into a trap. Seeing that the soldiers were in panic, he personally led his men to explore the way ahead to stabilize the morale. He was a famous veteran of Cao's army, and this move boosted the morale at once. But just as he was concentrating on exploring the way and was about to get out of the trap area, the Jin army had already calculated the distance and threw several huge bamboo tubes over, which exploded just around Le Jin.

An iron shuttle hit Le Jin's head straight and he fell to the ground on the spot. Li Dian rushed up and grabbed Le Jin back, but found that he was already dead.

Without Le Jin, the backbone of the southern infantry, the morale of the army was in chaos. Even Cao Hong was unable to suppress it for a while. He had to call Cao Zhang back and retreat to the vicinity of the west gate to reorganize the army and give up the south gate.

After that, Zhuge Liang controlled the area outside the gate and began to attack the city walls without hesitation, and then started shooting rockets into the city. Now the inside and outside of the South Gate were already a sea of ​​fire, and the fire was out of control.

After Yuan Xi learned about it, he thought that Yang Feng would most likely do something at the South City Gate at night. As long as he was ready to provide support, Ye City might be captured faster than he thought!

At this moment, a horn sounded in the city, and the east gate suddenly opened. A Cao army of thousands of people attacked Yuan Xi's central army!

Zhao Yun, who was raiding the battlefield, saw this and immediately went forward to meet them.

Following Yuan Xi's orders, he stayed in the middle and maneuvered. If there were any problems on the north and south routes, he would go to provide support. However, a day passed without any opportunity, so Zhao Yun had to sit on his horse for a whole day. Now that he saw that the Wei army dared to leave the city on their own initiative, he was naturally overjoyed.

When Zhao Yun rushed forward and saw the face of the Wei general clearly, he was stunned and asked, "Xu Chu, you are not dead yet?"

Xu Chu heard this and shouted, "How can I die first without killing your whole family?"

"Zhao Yun, I killed all the people in the several manors where the Zhao family of Changshan was. Are there any of your family members among them?"

Zhao Yun was furious when he heard this, and immediately rushed forward with his horse and spear in hand. Xu Chu wanted to irritate the other party and make him reveal his weakness. Seeing that Zhao Yun had fallen into the trap, he was secretly delighted and also rushed forward with his long axe in hand.

He temporarily changed his weapon in order to target the generals who used spears, because both Zhao Yun and Gao Lan used spears. Xu Chu was full of confidence. He had expected everything this time and had already taken the initiative. Maybe he could kill Zhao Yun by surprise!
He had fought with Zhao Yun before. The opponent should be at the same level as Ma Chao, and not much different from Xu Chu at his peak.

Although Xu Chu had difficulty with his legs, he thought that it would not affect his ability to fight on horseback. He still had at least 80% to 90% of his strength, so it was very likely that he could suppress the irrational Zhao Yun.

But when Zhao Yun stabbed with his spear, Xu Chu realized that something was wrong.

(End of this chapter)