Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

In contrast, although the Han army suffered casualties no less than the defenders, they had the absolute advantage in manpower and a complete range of siege equipment.

When a new round of offensive was launched, the intensity was even greater than the previous two days.

The siege had just begun, and Anqiu and Chang'an began to be in danger almost at the same time. The resistance of the defenders had already begun to decline significantly...

This was not only due to the casualties of the defenders, but also because the extremely brutal siege had already caused a great psychological impact on the defenders, who were all injured, and gradually they thought it was impossible to continue to hold on.

Morale is undoubtedly the most important and decisive factor in war.

When morale was high, Xiang Yu could fight to the death and defeat 400,000 Qin troops with only 60,000 men; when morale was low, no matter how many people there were, they were just a group of vulnerable mobs.

Xu Sheng, who was observing the battle from afar, was also secretly making judgments...

Two and a half hours!
If nothing unexpected happens, Anqiu will be captured at noon in two and a half hours at the latest. Chang'an, which is in a similar situation, will probably be captured in much the same way.

Soon after Xu Sheng did not relax at all and continued to order all troops to intensify the siege on the city.

The scouts hurried back to report that, as expected, the cavalry sent by Cao Ren had arrived, and judging by the flags and cavalry attire, they were indeed 1,500 Leopard Cavalry.

Fifteen hundred cavalrymen running together were enough to cause quite a bit of noise.

This huge commotion was intentionally caused by Cao Xiu, the "Thousand-Mile Horse" who led the Leopard Cavalry.

The purpose was to inform the defenders in Anqiu and Chang'an from afar that reinforcements had arrived, to encourage them to defend the city and buy more time for Cao Ren to mobilize his troops.

However, just when Cao Xiu ordered that there was no need to worry about the horsepower, the Leopard Cavalry sprinted at full speed around the periphery, making enough noise to inform the defenders, while also making the Han army fearful and slowing down their siege.

"boom……"

"Hiss..."

"what!!!"

Suddenly, three or five of the Leopard Cavalry, who were running at full speed and still maintaining a certain formation, fell down, causing quite a bit of chaos.

Horse pit?!

Caltrops?!

Cao Xiu, one of the commanders of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, took a quick glance and immediately noticed the problem. His face darkened slightly, as he realized that the Han army had made preparations in advance.

"slow!"

Cao Xiu quickly ordered the Leopard Cavalry to slow down.

But even so, if the cavalry group wants to slow down after speeding up, it still needs a certain distance.

In just a short while, the Leopard Cavalry had lost more than twenty riders, which made Cao Xiu very sad and angry, and he cursed.

"You despicable boy, you actually used such a trick."

If the infantry and cavalry arrive together, this little trick will naturally be useless.

But when there are only cavalry, these little tricks become a rather troublesome obstacle.

Apart from slowing down, paying attention, and carefully avoiding the traps, there is no good way to solve this problem at the moment.

What made Cao Xiu feel fortunate was that the Han army found it difficult to determine the direction of the Leopard Cavalry's arrival, and they did not have enough time to prepare a large number of traps such as horse pits and caltrops. The traps were set more than ten feet apart.

After hearing the increasingly clear sounds of siege from miles away, Cao Xiu personally led the troops in the front and commanded the Leopard Cavalry to speed up their advance in order to delay the time it took for the Han army to break through the city as much as possible.

As a result, it was inevitable that some of the Leopard Cavalry would step into the horse pit, causing the horses' legs to break, and even the cavalrymen to fall to their death. However, Cao Xiu knew that this was not the time to show sympathy to his subordinates.

Since Anqiu has not been captured, we should rush there as soon as possible to boost the morale of the defenders and threaten the rear of the Han army. Maybe we can buy precious time.

After breaking through all the way, by the time Cao Xiu arrived within three arrow-shot distance from the rear of the attacking Han army, no matter how careful he was, he inevitably lost sixty or seventy cavalrymen.

Cao Xiu didn't care about feeling sorry for himself, and immediately led the Leopard Cavalry to speed up and draw their bows and draw their arrows.

"put!"

Different from the graceful horse archery mastered by the White Horse Volunteers, the horse archery displayed by the Leopard Cavalry was more neat, and the horse bows they used were also much larger.

In addition to learning from the lessons of the Baima Yicong, he intended to use this to increase the range of horse archery.

This also lowered the riding requirements for the Leopard Cavalry to a certain extent, but instead required much higher arm strength from the Leopard Cavalry.

"Bang bang bang!"

Thousands of arrows were fired at the same time, like a dark cloud covering the sky.

The thousands of arrows fired by the Leopard Cavalry were like a shadow covering the rear of the Han army.

However, Xu Sheng, who had been prepared for this, listened to Tian Feng's advice and temporarily built a number of racks behind the army. Facing the attack of the Leopard Cavalry, the soldiers quickly placed their large shields on the racks to avoid the rain of arrows.

As the rain of arrows fell, apart from the sound of metal colliding, very few unlucky people were injured.

This scene was obviously one of the methods used by the first batch of death-defying soldiers to resist the White Horse Volunteers. Now it was taught to Xu Sheng by Tian Feng.

Seeing this, Cao Xiu was surprised at the Han army's preparations. He led the Leopard Cavalry in a circle and approached the rear of the Han army again.

After all, the only area that was put up was a small area at the back.

As long as Cao Xiu got closer by twenty or thirty steps, it would be enough for him to use the throwing distance of the Leopard Cavalry's strong bows to cross the range of the built framework and effectively shoot the Han army from the rear, thereby forcing the Han army to slow down the siege and try to deal with him.

At this moment, Cao Xiu's eyes were sharp, he accurately estimated the distance and position, and was preparing to fire another volley at the closer Han army.

Suddenly, the soldiers under the racks took out their powerful crossbows and aimed at the Leopard Cavalry who were already within the effective killing range.

"put!"

A series of shrill and terrifying sounds rang out.

Due to technological problems, the efficiency of manufacturing powerful crossbows was difficult to effectively improve, so that even the number of powerful crossbows in Xu Sheng's army was only 600, and they were divided into half each in Anqiu and Chang'an.

At this moment, there are only three hundred powerful crossbows aiming at the Leopard Cavalry.

But when these three hundred crossbow arrows were fired at the same time, the sound of breaking through the air was like a whistle, which frightened Cao Xiu so much that his face changed drastically. It was too late for his Leopard Cavalry to dodge.

"Puff puff!!"

A series of flesh-piercing sounds, the powerful crossbow penetrated each Leopard Rider, replicating the shadows of the first-line death soldiers, and directly shot down a group of Leopard Riders.

This round of powerful crossbow volleys alone took the lives of hundreds of Leopard Riders.

Calculated in this way, the 1,500 Leopard Cavalry led by Cao Xiu had not yet achieved any success and had already lost 10% of their troops.

This frightened Cao Xiu so much that he no longer thought of advancing rashly and hurriedly led the Leopard Cavalry to retreat.

After that, Cao Xiu, who was afraid, dared not approach with confidence anymore, and could only make more noise outside, hoping to let the Anqiu defenders know that reinforcements had arrived, so that they could quickly retreat and head towards another Chang'an City. (End of this chapter)