The threat of the opponent's stone thrower was solved and the powerful crossbowman on the other side was completely suppressed, and the attack on the ground really began.

Sun Ce originally had two thousand crossbowmen, and with the total of more than 5,000 brought by King Chen, he sent 3,000 people to set up a formation by the river, with each three hundred people being a small formation, and suppressing and shooting at the other side under the cover of a large shield.

The arrows of both sides sprinted, and the sound of wind broke out. The long arrows flew across the gap, interspersed in the air, and fell into the opponent's formation with a sharp roar.

Cao Ang's troops had more than 5,000 people, and according to the usual configuration ratio, there were about 1,500 crossbowmen. These people were not as good as Sun Ce's subordinates, not to mention the strong crossbowmen trained by King Chen, and their equipment was much worse. Although the gap between the strength of the two sides was not as great as that of the stone thrower and the strong crossbowmen, there was no advantage, but there was no doubt that they were at a disadvantage as soon as they fought, and they were suppressed tightly before the two rounds of arrows were shot.

Cao Ren was very anxious when he saw this. According to this trend, he might not have been waiting for Yuan Tan's reinforcements to arrive. He grabbed a large shield, raised it with one hand, shouted loudly in front of the formation in the rain of arrows to encourage morale. The powerful crossbowman on the tower immediately noticed him, and arrows shot in one of them. In the blink of an eye, two arrows shot through the shield. One of them shot Cao Ren's arm, which was blocked by the armor, but it also shocked Cao Ren's arm. Cao Ren's personal guard rushed forward and held the shield to cover Cao Ren. Cao Ren cursed and waved his sword to cut off the feather arrows on the shield, and ordered the crossbowmen to maintain their formation and continue shooting.

The crossbowmen were inspired by Cao Ren's courage and gritted their teeth and continued to shoot.

When Sun Ce saw Cao Ren on the podium, he secretly sighed. Cao Ren was a gangster who was very tough. Among the royal family of Cao Wei, Cao Ren was not ranked high, but he has always been Cao Cao's indispensable right-hand man and made great contributions to the Cao family. Although he failed to compete with Zhou Yu for Jiangling, he also exhausted Zhou Yu to death. Zhou Yu's death was of great importance to him.

Seeing him running back and forth in front of the formation in the rain of arrows to boost morale, Sun Ce was unmoved. Courage could only work in a short period of time and could not completely make up for the gap in strength. Under such a dense rain of arrows, he could not last long. He had personal guards to protect him and armored, but those ordinary crossbowmen did not. The longer the time was delayed, the greater the casualties.

Sun Ce was as stable as Mount Tai, chatting with King Chen while observing the situation on the battlefield.

The messenger ran back and forth, delivering the latest news to Guo Jia.

Fifty ships and a thousand infantrymen were ready for the assault. These thousand people were all elites from the personal guard camp. If they were not to cross the ferry, these thousand people would be enough to let Cao Ang out of five thousand. Now, Sun Ce only hopes that they can tear open Cao Ren's defense line, gain a foothold on the other side, establish a position, and connect more people to cross the gap.

Sun Ce was very sorry that the ship was too small, with a load of only 300 or 400 stones, and could not carry more than 30 people. Ten people were on the boat, and the maximum number of soldiers was twenty. If a larger ship could transport more soldiers over and break Cao Ren's position in one breath. Now, the casualties must be greater than expected, and perhaps reaching 30%.

When Sun Ce was feeling distressed for possible casualties, Cao Ren felt strong pressure. Although these fifty ships had not left the shore and the strong attack had not yet begun, he was awake. The real test was about to come. Sun Ce's subordinates have always been known for their strict training and excellent equipment, and their combat effectiveness is far greater than that of ordinary soldiers. However, the people behind him have just been recruited. If the losses are too great, Cao Ang will not have the financial resources to recruit more personnel in a short time.

If Yuan Tan refuses to reinforce, should he retreat and avoid too much casualties?

Cao Ren was a little hesitant. They did not intend to fight against Sun Ce, and had a plan to avoid his edge, but they could not do it too explicitly. They had to persist for at least a long time. It would be better if they could persist for one day. It is less than an hour since the real war started, and it was withdrawn too early to cause enough trouble for Sun Ce. Yuan Tan would suspect that they would be passive and lazy in the fight and would lose their trust in Cao Ang.

But if you persist, the casualties will exceed expectations and will eventually be unbearable.

The arrow rain became even more dense, and the personal guards fell one by one. These were the raids who followed him to travel across Huai and Si. After passing through the Bian River and Nanyang, most of them were damaged. Less than two hundred people were left, and any one died was a major loss. Hearing the humble groan when they were caught in the arrow, Cao Ren was heartbroken, and the order to retreat rushed to his mouth several times, and swallowed it back.

Through the wide gap, thousands of people who don’t know each other are taking their lives and not even having the chance to see each other’s face clearly.

——

As soon as the car stopped, Chen Gong got out of the car. The carriage was driving too fast, and his legs were numb. As soon as his feet touched the ground, his calf stinged violently. Chen Gong gritted his teeth, limped into the camp gate, and quickly walked towards the central army's tent.

It was three hundred steps away from the camp gate to the central army's tent. Chen Gong felt that these three hundred steps were longer than all the roads he had walked in his life. When he stopped in front of the tent, his feet stopped hurting, but his face was pale and sweating profusely. Bian Ring Zheng walked out of the inside and was shocked to see Chen Gong's appearance.

"What's wrong with the Gongtai? Are you in good health?"

Chen Gong didn’t have time to let the night chat. “Would you be busy?”

While Rang reacted, he quickly let Chen Gong in. "It's nothing, I'm waiting for news from you. Sun Ce attacked?"

"The attack is very fierce." Chen Gong walked into the big tent. In order to ventilate, the corners of the tent were lifted up, but it was still stuffy and hot. Yuan Tan shook his palm fan with one hand and held the iced mung bean soup. When he saw Chen Gong coming in, he quickly asked someone to bring Chen Gong a bowl. He then noticed that Chen Gong looked bad and asked with concern: "Public platform, you are..."

"Eunuch, Sun Ce's offensive is very fierce, especially the powerful crossbowman brought by King Chen is extremely lethal. We have a lot of casualties. Please help me to help you as soon as possible."

Chen Gong said as he placed two bloody crossbow arrows in front of Yuan Tan. Yuan Tan picked them up and saw that the blood feathers on the arrow almost reached the arrow feathers. He was also very surprised. It could penetrate deep into the human body through a gulf. The crossbow had a very strong force.

"How many stone crossbows?"

"It's probably six stones."

Yuan Tan pondered: "This King Chen is well-known, we underestimate him."

Bian Rang was a little dissatisfied and picked up the arrow and took a look. "Away two hundred steps, even if it is strong enough, it is difficult for human eyes to identify the target, and the hit rate is only 10% or 20%. No matter how good King Chen is shooting, how many such sharpshooters can he have?"

"Fifty shooting towers, each shooting tower has three crossbowmen, with a hundred arrows as a round, two groups rotated, a total of three hundred people." Chen Gong quickly explained the situation in front of the formation and asked Yuan Tan to send people to reinforce, even if it was a archer. Cao Ang had serious shortage of crossbowmen and might not be able to effectively block Sun Ce's infantry from crossing the water.

Yuan Tan thought about it and agreed readily. He not only ordered the transfer of three thousand crossbowmen to reinforce Cao Ang, but also asked Chen Gong to tell Cao Ang that he would support him for a while. Liu Bei was on the way to come and could arrive in at most an hour.

Chen Gong was very grateful, so he thanked Yuan Tan on behalf of Cao Ang and hurried back to the position.

After seeing Chen Gong away, Yuan Tan became more and more uneasy. The war had just begun, and it was only partial contact, and things exceeded expectations. This was not a good sign. He walked out of the tent and looked up at the cloudless sky.

"Wenli, do you think there will be rain in the past two days?"

Bian Rang shook his head. "August day, no one can tell the face of a child."
Chapter completed!