At this time, the Han soldiers gathered in the dry pond were dejected. The ups and downs of yesterday's battle in Guancheng made everyone dizzy.
On the 23rd, Yuanling City was destroyed, and on the 24th, thieves surrounded the city.
At that time, there were two thousand soldiers in Guancheng, including 500 original county soldiers, 500 powerful soldiers, and 1,000 nearby reinforcements. In addition, Guancheng is an ancient city, and it has been the fiefdom of Uncle Guan, one of the three uncles, since the Western Zhou Dynasty.
, the city is in good condition and the city defenses are strong. It stands to reason that no matter how you defend it, you can defend it for a period of time.
But the worst thing happened was the new wave of reinforcements.
This reinforcement was sent from Xingyang County, and the main body was Xingyang's county soldiers and powerful soldiers. Facing the Yellow Turban bandits, they advocated holding firm outside the city, which meant that an attack was necessary to defend the city. But not long after the thousands of Han soldiers came out, they were attacked.
The Yellow Turban Army attacked fiercely and could only retreat and suffer under the city walls.
Fortunately, three more Han soldiers came from nearby at this time. They were Mao's soldiers from Yangwu in the east, Ren's soldiers and Pan's soldiers from Zhongmu in the southeast.
These three families are all well-known powerful families in the vicinity. Among them, the Yangwu Mao family is not well-known at this time, but in the later medieval period, the Xingyang Mao family became a famous martial arts family. Among its three generations, there were four founders of the country.
The head of the Mao family in this generation, Mao Yan, was a disciple of the old Taiwei Liu Kuan. When the Yellow Turban Army invaded Henan, the Mao family started a discussion.
Many tribesmen believe that Yangwu, where the Mao family is located, is in the easternmost part of Henan County and will not be attacked by the Yellow Turban Army from the north, so it is better to stick to the local area.
But at that time, Mao Shaoqi, the son of the head of the family, stood up from his seat and said to his father:
"A real man lives in the world, and when he is born, he will be a prince, and when he dies, he will be the food of the temple. If not, he can cultivate his ambitions in leisurely life, and "Poems" and "Books" are enough to entertain himself. I, the Mao family of martial arts, must make meritorious deeds to become famous, so that I can live in peace for a long time.
Officials in counties and counties."
Seeing how magnificent his eldest son was, Mao Yan laughed loudly and took 300 people from his tribe who were good at fighting and handed them over to Mao Shao to help manage the city.
As for the Ren and Pan families in Zhongmou, one of the leaders is Ren Jun and the other is Pan Zhi. One of them is a magnate in the county and the other is a Confucian scholar in the county. They are both great people in Zhongmou. Especially this one named Ren.
Jun, in another life, when Cao Cao passed by Zhongmou to conquer Dong, he would bring his troops to join the army. In the future, he would take over the farming affairs, open up soil and colonize valleys, and enrich the country.
The reason why these two families came to help was because Xu Guan, who had succeeded General He Jin as the Yin of Henan, was imprisoned and died in August of this year because he failed to defend the Taishan bandits from outside Henan.
The newly appointed Henan Yin is the half-brother of General He Jin, He Miao.
As soon as He Miao took office, he ordered all the major clans in Henan to send voluntary soldiers to Guan's rescue. Zhongmou was not far from Guancheng, so Ren's and Pan's families arrived first, and Mao's soldiers from Yangwu arrived last.
But although Yangwu's Mao soldiers arrived last, they were the most adept at fighting, especially the young general Mao Shao, who was extremely powerful. As soon as he entered the battlefield, he killed three Yingchuan Yellow Turban generals, directly stabilizing the position of the Han soldiers below the city.
It was precisely because these three powerful families joined the battlefield one after another that the Han army eased the battlefield situation.
At that time, the general in charge of the battle to conquer the city was Yu Jin. In addition to his own 1,000 men, he also had the 1,000-man Runan Yellow Turbans and the 1,000-man Yingchuan Yellow Turbans. Their strength was not much greater than the Han soldiers in the city.
Yu Jin, who had always been cautious in using his troops, did not plan to attack by force, but held on to the ramparts under the city and waited for subsequent reinforcements to arrive.
But there was Mao Shao, who was not afraid of tigers when he was born. As soon as he united with the Zheng clan soldiers under the city, he began to launch a counterattack against the forbidden fortress, hoping to take advantage of the situation to drive away the Yellow Turban Army and break the siege of the city.
Mao Shao acted as the forward, Ren Jun as the midfielder, and Zheng Hun as the successor. They rushed to the forbidden camp. They held torches and burned down dozens of sentries. However, the person guarding the front camp was Zhang Da, Yu Jin's most reliable general. Zhang Da dispatched archers to return.
The three troops of Shexia, Mao Shao, Ren Jun and Zheng Hun suffered heavy casualties and did not dare to go deeper, so they had to return to the military city and continue to wait and see.
But the situation soon reversed.
Another Yellow Turban Army entered the battlefield. Just looking at the flag, there were two thousand soldiers.
The one who came here was Ding Sheng. He had a thousand old soldiers under his command, and a thousand new Yellow Turbans from Runan. Two thousand soldiers appeared in the south of the battlefield, and together with the Yu Jin tribe in the west of the city, they attacked the Han soldiers in the west of the city.
Afterwards, a fierce underground battle broke out.
The five Han soldiers of Mao, Ren, Pan, Zheng, and Zhang were stationed in Guanshu Ling in the west of the city. This was a high ground in the west of the city and was guarding the rush to the west of the city.
When Ding Sheng's troops rushed to Guan Shuling, the Han soldiers were digging and building a camp. When they saw the bandits rushing in, Pan and Zheng continued to camp, while Mao, Ren, and Zhang rushed forward to occupy Ding Sheng's troops.
At first, the number of Ding Sheng's soldiers who rushed up to the high ground was too small. They were attacked by three Han troops and had to retreat. But soon, reinforcements from the headquarters behind and reinforcements from the Yu Jin Department in the south arrived one after another.
The reason why the reinforcements arrived so quickly is because both Ding Sheng and Yu Jin guessed the purpose of the Han army camping on this high ground.
Obviously, the enemy wanted to set up several camps from this high ground to the base of the south city wall to build a defense line less than two miles away. The purpose was to block the Taishan Army's siege route from west to east and use it as a foothold outside the city.
The subsequent Han soldiers provided a fulcrum for advancement.
Having seen through this, Ding Sheng, Yu Jin and others sent troops to support him.
The five Han soldiers stationed in Mao, Ren, Pan, Zheng, and Zhang could only hold on in the face of the Yellow Turban Army that was constantly marching up the highlands. But suddenly they heard the sound of fighting in Guancheng not far away, and there was no more
Soon I saw several apricot-yellow flags planted on the top of Guancheng.
Guancheng was lost!
It turned out that when they were resisting the Taishan Army, Yu Ban ordered Changxi to pass through the south of the city and launch an attack directly from the north. Guancheng only had about a thousand troops in the city, and many more were gathered in the west city because they wanted to support the five Han troops in the west of the city.
.So when Changxi launched his attack, he broke into Guancheng not long after.
At Guan Shu's mausoleum, the first to collapse in despair were the soldiers of Zheng Hun's tribe. They embraced their young master and wanted to rush south. Later, Ren's soldiers also withdrew, but Mao, Pan, and Zhang's family were still holding on.
The Mao clan soldiers on both sides persuaded Young Master Mao Shao to let him break out of Xiangdong, but Mao Shao was furious and pointed at himself:
"A real man will fight to the death, but An Neng will run away like a lost dog?"
So he joined the battle group with his trusted soldiers.
At this time, Lieutenant Zhang of the county had died in battle. This man was one of the two lieutenants of Xingyang County. He was ordered by the county king to lead 500 county soldiers to aid the administration. Now he died in Guan Shuling, which was also true to his loyalty to the state.
Mao Shao led his men into the battle group, killed several people with his own hands, and rescued the besieged Pan Zhi. However, more and more Taishan troops soon surrounded him. The military commander Chen Qin was under one banner. Seeing Mao Shao's bravery,
Let people come forward and say:
"Guanjun is a warrior. If Chi Jia comes to surrender, you will surely be rich and noble."
Mao Shao was furious and scolded the Taishan Army soldiers:
"Slave dog, how despicable are you to dare to say that you want to give me wealth?"
After saying this, he bent his bow and shot the believing soldier.
But unfortunately, there were countless good archers in Taishan's army. Seeing Mao Shao's ignorance, four or five good archers immediately drew their bows and started shooting.
Mao Shao underestimated the Taishan soldiers and was shot with two arrows immediately. Fortunately, he had armor and the arrows did not penetrate deeply into his flesh, but he fainted from the pain.
Mao Shao's subordinates did not wait for Mao Shao's refusal, and immediately rushed out from the west with Mao Shao on their backs, accompanied by a wave of Pan Zhi's clan soldiers.
But despite this, they and Zheng, who had been the first to break out of the siege, and Ren, the two tribesmen, were besieged in an abandoned pond to the west.
On the outside, there were many Taishan troops watching with eager eyes, and inside, there were remnants of defeated troops and bereft dogs. They were in panic all day long, and it was night.
-----------------------
Mao Shao, who had been sleeping for a day, finally woke up. The first thing he did when he woke up was to drink water.
An older servant of the tribe gave some turbid water to Mao Shao, but Mao Shao just took a sip and spit it out, and scolded his old servant:
"Dog slave, what kind of horse urine are you giving Naigong to drink? Is it also drunk by humans? Come quickly and get the honey water."
The old servant sighed. Seeing Lang Jun wasting such a little water, he felt heartbroken. He pursed his dry lips and said tremblingly:
"Mr. Lang, there is no honey to drink. This is the only water we have now. This is the water we squeezed out after throwing it two feet away. You even spit out half of it."
Mao Shao ignored the old servant and struggled to get up, but he felt weak. With the help of two guardsmen, he finally stood up and took a look at the scene.
I saw more than ten bonfires scattered in a dry pond. Looking around, the Han soldiers were like dead dogs, lying motionless beside the bonfire.
Mao Shao looked hard into the distance again and saw countless fires outside. He knew that it was the bandit army surrounding him. Mao Shao, who was familiar with the scene at that time, no longer thought about the honey water. He sat on the ground and sighed:
"Cangtou, how many soldiers do we have left in our family?"
The old servant said nothing, only looked at the soldier next to him and asked him to speak.
This soldier is Mao's warrior and Mao Shao's right-hand man. When Lang Jun asked, he only told the truth:
"Mr. Lang, there were three hundred brothers when we came here, and they are still with us now."
Xu also couldn't tell, so the man held out two fingers to indicate.
Mao Shao frowned:
"Two hundred left?"
"No, there are twenty people here."
No matter how prepared he was, Mao Shao couldn't accept this number. He was shocked:
"Why did so many of our Mao family members die? It's all because of me that I can't help them!"
Mao Shao burst into tears as he spoke. Although he was brave and brave, he was still young and could not accept the death of these tribesmen.
In his opinion, his journey must be a great success, and these parts of his journey will also follow the dragon and the phoenix. Why is the result different from what he thought?
Only then did he realize that this was war.
Mao Shao was sobbing and thinking about how to explain to his family. The soldier over there comforted him:
"Mr. Lang, don't be sad. Not all of the clan members who didn't come here may have died. We'll break out separately then. They may have been separated."
But Mao Shao still ignored him. After wiping away his tears, he suppressed his sobs and said to the old servant on the side:
"I, the Mao family, have worked hard for three generations to have these three hundred families. But I made one careless move, and in just one day, the hard work of three generations of my Mao family was wiped out. I really feel ashamed of my ancestors."
Neither the old servant nor the soldier knew how to persuade him, so they had no choice but to remain silent.
After a while, Mao Shao came to his senses and asked about the current situation in Pitang:
"We have twenty soldiers left, but where are the others?"
The soldier counted with his fingers:
"Lang Jun, we really don't know the number of other soldiers, and no one is counting them at this time. But I made a guess and found that Pan's soldiers are about the same as ours. The head of Pan's family has visited you several times before, and I miss you so much.
Because of the life-saving grace, the two of us moved closer together to rely on each other. Over there, the Zheng family and the Ren family were the first to withdraw and had the largest number of soldiers. There were probably six or seven hundred people hiding in the pond.
"
The soldier said this, and the old servant over there also added:
"Then Zheng Hun is not a human being. If we hadn't rescued him before, he would have been killed by the bandit soldiers. Later in the battle with Guan Shuling, it was this man who escaped first, which led to our defeat. There was an official before, who should be
The officers under Zhang County Lieutenant gathered around Zheng Hun and cursed him for being the cause of the defeat in this battle. But Sir, do you know what Zheng Hun said. He said that he had few eunuchs and was a humble man.
, how can you shoulder such a great responsibility? Even if you have such a failure, you are not as powerful as others."
After hearing this, Mao Shao was furious and cursed:
"This Zheng Hun is so shameless. I have never seen such a shameless person in my life. He is a son of a noble family. He came to the court at a young age, has a famous name all over the world, and holds an important position. Is this called a rare eunuch? And after that
Once something happens, he doesn't think about serving the country and leads his troops to flee first. Does this mean it has nothing to do with him?"
He finally suppressed the idea of going to Zheng Hun to argue with him. He also knew that Zhen and the man named Zheng had fallen out, and his twenty people would definitely be in danger.
Mao Shao thought for a while and asked again:
"How are our weapons and equipment now?"
He needs to understand the weapons and equipment of his people. No matter what happens next, these are the guarantees for his survival.
Still said by Najia:
"Lang Jun, we are pretty good in this regard. Half of our twenty brothers have knives and a third mate."
"Is this good?"
Mao Shao couldn't bear it any longer. Why was it all bad news?
But who knew that the soldier should have said:
"That's true. When you are able to retreat, it's already a lot of courage to be able to bring armor with you. Because these are the thieves who specialize in killing. Lang Jun, you have to know that the three Pan soldiers who retreated with us are
There are more than ten people but only three knives. In comparison, our brothers are already very courageous."
Mao Shao's veins popped out, he pinched his temples with his fingers and said calmly:
"Then what do you think we should do next?"
Neither the soldier nor the old servant spoke.
"How much food is left?"
Mao Shao didn't ask about water. In the situation just now, if there was still water, would he still be given muddy water to drink?
But the soldiers and old servants all shook their heads and said that there was not even a grain of millet.
Mao Shao was a little dizzy, and it looked like he was going to die here.
No matter what, what else can be done when things are like this.
So, Mao Shao laughed sadly and said:
"In a moment, you two will dig a hole for me so that you can bury me. Although I am not a minister, I don't want to die in blood."
But the soldier and the old servant still shook their heads. In the end, the soldier confessed:
"Lang Jun, we don't have to die either."
Mao Shaoqi:
"Why?"
The old servant pointed outside and then stopped talking.
Mao Shao was puzzled at first, but suddenly he understood. He pointed at the two of them and gasped:
"You dare to sell it?"
With that said, Mao Shao struggled to pick up his knife.
But the old servant suddenly sobbed and hugged Mao Shao's leg:
"Mr. Lang, we are all cheap. If we die here today, we will die in other ravines and fields tomorrow. But you are the bravest of our Mao clan, you cannot die here. Our Mao clan has overcome all obstacles and opened up fields.
It has been three generations, but it is still unknown until now. All our clansmen believe that only you can lead our Mao family forward. Therefore, the Mao family can live without me, but we must not live without our husband."