Zhou Yu was obviously unwilling to lose so many troops in a small city of E.

Waging a war must have a strategic purpose.

Jiangdong launched this campaign to attack Jiangxia. The purpose was to take advantage of the change of Jiangxia governor and the change of power to advance troops, strive to quickly occupy the entire Jiangxia, and build a barrier to defend Jiangdong in the upper reaches of Jiangdong.

There are two key points in this battle. One is to defeat Jiangxia quickly before Xiangyang can react. The other is to be able to defend Jiangxia when the Jingzhou army counterattacks Jiangxia.

Originally, Zhou Yu still had a good grasp of these two key points.

Jiangxia had always been at odds with Xiangyang, but now Huang Zu was under the control of Liu Zhaosheng and secretly descended. Liu Biao sent his son to be the governor of Jiangxia. There will inevitably be power disputes within Jiangxia. This is the best time for Jiangdong to make progress.

As for Jingzhou's counterattack, Zhou Yu didn't think there would be any big problem.

On the one hand, the most effective part of the Jingzhou Navy is the Jiangxia Navy. Once the Jiangxia Navy is destroyed, it will rely on the naval forces in Nanjun, Jingzhou, who are no better than the fishermen. Zhou Yu will not be afraid of them no matter how many come.

On the other hand, by the time Xiangyang has assembled its troops and is preparing to counterattack Jiangxia, Sun Quan, who is in Chaisang, should have already arrived with a follow-up army to assist. If there really is a fight, it will not be a problem to defend Jiangxia.

But now, Zhou Yu was forced to be trapped under E City for twenty days.

The naval battles in the first ten days can be said to have been a near miss, and the threat from the Jiangxia navy was finally eliminated.

But in the next ten days, Zhou Yu was forced to go ashore and attack the city. These ten days were really difficult for Zhou Yu.

It's not that Zhou Yu is incompetent, it's true. After returning this time, Zhou Yu must write to his lord Sun Quan and ask him to strengthen the training of naval and land warfare capabilities.

After attacking the city twice, they still had the numerical advantage and were assisted by siege equipment. However, they failed to capture the city of Hubei, which was defended by only a thousand people. Instead, they suffered nearly 2,000 casualties.

Zhou Yu led a total of 30,000 soldiers on the expedition, and lost more than 2,000 in the water battle. After being forced ashore, Zhou Yu left 5,000 men to guard the warships, transport grain and grass, and ensure his own retreat. He actually brought them to Hubei.

There are only a little over 20,000 people in the county seat.

But in the past few days, they have been attacking the city and the camp. Zhou Yu's losses are not small. If it continues like this, Zhou Yu will be a little unbearable.

It's not that he can't defeat the defenders of E City. According to Zhou Yu's estimation, even if the defenders of E City can hold on, if no reinforcements arrive, he will be able to capture this small county in about ten days.

But will there really be no reinforcements in Echeng?!

Echeng is not an isolated city.

Because the Yangtze River waterway was blocked, he could not send ships to clean up the city without conquering Hubei. Therefore, Jiangdong's navy could not move up the river to surround the east gate and north gate of Hubei and cut off Hubei's backup road.

Across the river from the north gate of E City is Zhu County, which has never been captured. E City can receive reinforcements from the direction of Zhu County at any time.

Calculated, the Battle of Echeng has been going on for twenty days. No matter how slow Jiangxia's response is, no matter how idiotic the young master Liu Qi is, the reinforcements should have almost arrived.

And even if there are no reinforcements in Echeng, we can conquer Echeng by ourselves in ten days. But so what?!

The main force of the Jiangxia naval force did not suffer much loss. If this happened again under the city of Zhu County, Zhou Yu suddenly felt that the 20,000 soldiers he had on hand seemed a bit insufficient.

Therefore, while Zhou Yu was thinking about the problem of conquering E city, he quickly wrote a letter to his lord Sun Quan, asking him about the follow-up reinforcements.

The best result is that Echeng is a special case. After conquering Echeng, the Jiangdong Army can march straight in and capture the entire Jiangxia in one go.

But Zhou Yu also had to consider the worst outcome, which was that his advance failed and gave Xiangyang Liu Biao time to react. In this case, he might have to join Sun Quan's reinforcements and fight a skirmish with the Jingzhou army on the ground in Jiangxia.

I am afraid that my own 20,000 soldiers alone are not enough to deal with Jingzhou's army.

Preparing for the worst, Zhou Yu continued to command his soldiers to attack the city the next day.

As for Zhang Xi, there is nothing he can do now. Apart from standing at the top of the city and setting an example to boost morale, he can only watch the brutal sieges of these years.

Jiangdong's army rained arrows on the city wall as if they were free, and the rams and ladders approached the E city wall again and again, and were destroyed or repelled by the defenders again and again.

The ladder is a little easier to handle. With the help of the crash car, the soldiers on the city wall only need to guard the landing port of the ladder, and then use the crash car to destroy the front section of the ladder.

But there is really no good way to speed up the car.

The Jiangdong Army's charging chariot was built very large and was covered with cowhide to reduce the power of stones and crossbow arrows thrown from the city tower, and to cover the charging chariot as it approached the city gate step by step.

Several times, when they were within forty or fifty steps from the city gate, Wei Yan had no choice but to risk opening the city gate, leading his soldiers to charge out, scattering the soldiers protecting the charging chariot, and burning the charging chariot.

In fact, this is a very risky behavior.

If Wei Yan could not kill the soldiers near the chariot in time, then Jiangdong Army might besiege Wei Yan while charging directly towards the open city gate without rushing the chariot, and could directly break through the city gate.

Fortunately, Wei Yan was brave enough and the commander was always calm. He successfully burned down the charge car twice when he ventured out of the city.

Watching this scene happen, Zhou Yu felt angry and itched his teeth. At the same time, he once again strengthened his idea of ​​​​training the Jiangdong Army's land warfare capabilities after the war.

Such a good opportunity, as long as we can seize it once, the city of Hubei will have been captured.

The result was good. The charging car, which was protected by hundreds of people, was burned after a small force used a small force to kill the guards. What's there to say?

After another day of attacking to no avail, Zhou Yu finally withdrew his troops and returned to the camp to think of other ways to break the city.

As for Zhang Xi, he was also busy inspecting the troops defending the city, encouraging and comforting the soldiers, and then worriedly went to Kou Feng and Wei Yan to ask what to do next.

Jiangdong's army attacked the city for three consecutive days, resulting in the death of nearly 200 Echeng defenders, and nearly 50% of the wounded. If the defense continued like this, Zhang Xi felt that he might not be able to defend for a few days.

At this time, Wei Yan couldn't care less about the quarrel with Zhang Xi. He frowned and thought for a long time before sighing and saying, "For the current plan, we can only continue to defend and wait for reinforcements from Xiling. As soon as the reinforcements arrive,

, everything will be solved easily.”

"Reinforcements." Upon hearing this, Zhang Xi could only sigh.

Zhang Xi no longer dared to think about what was going on over there in Xiling.

It has been almost a month since I sent out my first letter requesting to mobilize troops to Hubei. If Xiling had sent reinforcements at that time, it would be time to climb to Hubei.

But now, until now, Zhang Xi has not received any news. The messenger sent to Zhu County crosses the river every day, and there is no news about reinforcements.

Zhang Xi is a little desperate now, wondering if she has been treated as an outcast by Liu Qi.

Even Zhang Xi began to think about it - if it didn't work out, he would lead his army back to Zhu County overnight.

As for whether to continue to hold on after retreating to Zhu County or to retreat directly to Xiling and rely on Xiling's solid city defense. Let's talk about this later.

Zhang Xi really didn't want to die, especially before he fell into a desperate situation.

People who came here through time had made great achievements and were granted titles like marquises and ministers. How come they were defeated and died in the first battle they commanded when they came here?!

The purpose of guarding E City is to buy time for Liu Qi and to ensure the integrity of Jiangxia so that the lord Liu Bei can capture a complete Jiangxia in the future.

But now, if it really comes to the last step, if he really can't defend E County, then he should retreat. Anyway, Zhang Xi doesn't want to live and die with E County.

Zhang Xi did not hide it, he brought the matter out openly and discussed it with Wei Yan and Kou Feng.

Of course, I wouldn't say that I was afraid of death, I would just say that I was just in case and looking for a way out.

There was no other way. Without the cooperation of Wei Yan and Kou Feng, Zhang Xi's escape alone was considered an escape. Even if he returned to Liu Bei in the future, he would still be punished by military law.

Wei Yan and Kou Feng never thought about whether Zhang Xi was afraid of death. In Kou Feng's eyes, Zhang Xi had the "brother" filter, so he certainly wouldn't think that Zhang Xi made the retreat plan because he was afraid of death.

In Wei Yan's view, if Zhang Xi was afraid of death, he should have gone out and surrendered when he was defending E County, let alone risking sending troops to respond to him.

Therefore, neither of them opposed Zhang Xi's retreat plan, and even felt that it was a very necessary backup plan.

Wei Yan himself was also dissatisfied with the delay in reinforcements from Xiling. Even though the internal situation in Jiangxia was complicated, Chen Dao still had thousands of troops in his own hands. Could it be that even Chen Dao himself couldn't come to the rescue?!

Therefore, Wei Yan was not surprised by Zhang Xi's retreat plan. This kind of backup plan should have been something that a city lord general should consider.

But when it comes to adopting this plan, Wei Yan obviously has his own ideas. Wei Yan will not easily evacuate Hubei City as a last resort, especially when he still has the strength to fight.

Zhang Xi did not think about running away immediately, but made plans and arrangements to withdraw his five personal guards from the city defense in order to break out of the encirclement in the future.

We still have to defend for at least a few more days, what if reinforcements arrive at this time?!
Chapter completed!