Lu Wende knew very well that in order for Li Xia to regain Hanzhong, he must stop Brother Mo.
Otherwise, let Wang Zhongchen bring more than 20,000 Gong Chang's troops to Hanzhong and beat him up.
That is to say, taking advantage of the present, Brother Meng is dead, Wang Dechen is dead, the Mongolian army is blocked in Sichuan and Shu, and the little boy Wang Weizheng in Lizhou has not officially succeeded as the commander-in-chief... so that Li Xia has a little chance.
That's why Li Xia tried his best to grab time, returning to Chengdu from Diaoyu City, and fighting from Chengdu to Jianmen Pass, the whole journey was in a hurry.
If it were anyone else, I would have thought that with the Great Khan of Mongolia dead, Sichuan and Shu could also take a breath and take a break.
Now that you are out of breath, do you still want to take it back?
After taking a break, let alone Hanzhong, Lizhou, Jianmen is closed...even Kuzhu Pass, I will never touch it in my life.
In short, he, Lu Wende, understood Li Xia's entire strategy very well.
When Duanping entered Luo, he followed Zhao Kui to Sanjing, and it was the same damn situation.
In order for the Lu family to occupy Hanzhong and engage in border trade business, they will block it for another ten days!
Lu Wende acted cruelly and personally sent troops to attack Dahuo City. Because Dahuo City was like a nail nailed to the Song army's defense line.
I thought I could catch him, but I didn't expect Yang Wen'an, a little beast who was familiar with the terrain, to block his attack.
For several days, the city could not be attacked.
Lu Wende even hit Yang Wen'an with an arrow.
The arrow got stuck in his Mingguang heavy armor. Although it was not fatal, it seemed like a slap in the face to Lu Wende in front of the three-army formation.
"Lü Heitan! I look down on you!" Yang Wen'an shouted wildly in the mountain city.
So the surrendering troops on the city were thundered, and they cursed in unison at the Song troops at the foot of the mountain.
"Let Lu greedy for money enter Shu, it would be better to surrender to Mongolia!"
"If the food and salary go to the Heitan Tuan, the Song Dynasty will be destroyed from now on!"
"..."
Obviously, Yang Dayuan was very popular when he was guarding Dahuo City, and the people in the city survived because of his surrender.
"Damn it, it's all rebellion! Counting the classics and forgetting one's origins!"
When the battle reached this point, Lu Wende also became angry and vowed to kill Yang Wen'an and send his head to Lin'an to ask for merit.
However, Brother Mo deliberately slowed down the frontal Jiang defense offensive and sent Yang Dayuan to personally lead 2,000 cavalrymen to take a detour of more than 300 miles.
Later, while Lu Wende was storming Dahuo City, Yang Dayuan suddenly rushed out and the Mongolian army attacked together.
Seeing that the Song army was attacked on both sides, Yang Wen'an decisively led his army to kill them.
At this point, Cangxi was completely lost, and Lu Wende had no choice but to order a retreat to Langzhong.
After making an agreement with Li Xia, he has kept it for twelve days...
"Is there any news about Li Xia?!"
"The latest news arrived three days ago, saying that... Lizhou will be captured soon."
"Damn it! You haven't captured Lizhou yet? There are still more than three hundred miles of Shu Road from Lizhou to Hanzhong!"
Lu Wende was furious, swinging his ax in his hand and shouting curses.
"I finally understand. It's impossible for him to take Hanzhong and he's just kidding me! So what if I defended it for ten days? The Mongols are now driving their horses into the rice warehouse road. Even if they walk with their eyes closed, they can get there faster than him!"
Lu Wenfu also deeply agreed and asked: "Brother, why don't you forget it?"
"never mind?"
Lu Wende frowned and thought for a while, then asked: "Liu Zheng, has Xiang Shibi been hit in the chin?"
"I worked hard at Shibi to attack the city, and I almost managed to break the city..."
Lu Wende twisted his eyebrows and was very confused.
He took a closer look at the casualties in the army. Although he felt distressed, as long as he held on for a few more days and waited for the attack on Jazhong, the situation would be completely different.
"Brother? What do you say?"
Lu Wende thought about it and finally gritted his teeth.
"Fight for a few more days."
"Why?"
"I'll kill this little beast Yang Wen'an first."
Lu Wende actually refused to retreat. While setting up defenses in Langzhong, he kept sending people to urge Liu Zheng to attack Shibi and attack Bazhong, and urged Li Xia to attack Lizhou.
Li Xia is still far away from capturing Lizhou.
He must first remove the small town of Zhaohua south of Lizhou.
Li Xia never even told Lu Wende about this matter. Anyway, Lu Wende didn't know the specific terrain here very well.
Up to now, how many Song troops have been to the north of Jianmen Pass?
Zhaohua is located forty miles south of Lizhou City, at the confluence of the Bailong River, Jialing River, and Qingjiang River. If you look from a high mountain, you can see the mountains and water here surrounding each other, like doing Tai Chi.
It is the only place where the Golden Bull Road must pass, and it is also the exit of the Pavilion Road of Jianmen Pass.
Zhaohua was the seat of Hanshou County in ancient times, that is, Hanshou in "Han Zuo Yongshou".
During the Shu Han Dynasty, Liu Bei stationed his troops here for training before taking Chengdu; Zhuge Liang left Qishan six times and kept busy on the Golden Bull Road, and the Prime Minister's Mansion was located here; Guan Suo's wife Bao Sanniang also died here in battle.
It can be said that it has witnessed the vicissitudes of the entire Shu Han Dynasty.
When he arrived here, Li Xia suddenly had some understanding of the Shu Han people's ideal of "Han Zuo Yongshou" and their ambition to continue the Northern Expedition.
…
Of course, the situation was urgent, but Li Xia's attack on the city continued unhurriedly.
This was his first time fighting a serious siege battle, and he was really not very good at it.
Not only him, in terms of siege experience, the current Song Army infantry is really inferior to the Mongolian cavalry.
In this case, Li Xia believes that the more haste, the more likely it is to make mistakes, and haste makes waste.
Before he attacked the city every day, he would send soldiers to shout to the city, saying nothing more than that Meng Ge was dead and the Mongolian army was blocked in Sichuan.
"Fellow folks! How many of them were kidnapped from Sichuan and brought here? The Song Dynasty has defeated the Mongolian army. Those who are willing to return to their homeland should not go to the city walls to work hard again!"
"The general pities the people and is unwilling to attack the city and cause too many casualties. Don't stubbornly resist anymore..."
After shouting like this, the Song army would hit the top of the city with cannons and rocks, cover up the soldiers and pile up earth under the city, and build a series of earth walls.
For more than ten days, there were very few occasions when a cloud ladder was set up to attack. Occasionally at night, the Song army would try to sneak attack with a rope ladder.
At this time, the Mongolian general guarding Zhaohua City was named "Li Tingwang", who was the younger brother of Li Tingyu.
When Jianmen Pass was breached, Li Tingwang was shocked and quickly sent his horse to Lizhou to ask Wang Weizheng to send troops to support.
However, after seeing the Song army's offensive in the past few days, he was confident of holding Zhaohua, so he sent his own soldier Li Cuo to report the battle situation to Lizhou.
Li Cuo quickly arrived at Lizhou and saw a busy scene inside and outside the city.
Originally, in order to support the Mongolian army in attacking Diaoyu City, Lizhou spent a large amount of baggage... Unexpectedly, the situation suddenly changed and it was too late to transport the baggage back to the city.
"Report! I was ordered by Qianhu to report the war in Zhaohua..."
Soon, Wang Weizheng met Li Cuo in person.
Wang Weizheng was only eighteen years old at the time, and like Wang Dechen, he was not tall. But his appearance was much more handsome, and he had an air of elegance all over him.
He also had a white cloth tied on his forehead as a token of mourning for his late father.
"There is no need to rush to send troops for support. Tingwang can already defend Zhaohua?"
Wang Weizheng used to call Li Tingwang as an uncle, but now that he has succeeded as commander-in-chief, he can still show off his airs.
"Yes." Li Cuo responded respectfully: "Qianhu said that the Song army was not good at attacking cities."
Wang Weizheng was cautious and asked carefully: "How can you see it?"
Li Cuo said: "Whether it is the location of the camp or the position of the artillery carriage, it is not right. Qianhu also said that the Song army is too kind and does not dare to attack by force. The longer it is delayed, the worse it will be for them..."
Wang Weizheng felt relieved and said: "Then please ask Tingwang to stay for a few more days, and then send reinforcements when Lizhou is completely repaired."
After he finished speaking, he rewarded Li Cuo and let him go down to rest. After that, he turned to Wang Hanchen who was sitting beside him.
"What does the fifth uncle think of my nephew's response?"
Wang Hanchen shook his head and said: "What Li Tingwang said is wrong."
Wang Weizheng was surprised and asked: "Why?"
"The stupidest thing is to attack a city with ants." Wang Hanchen said: "There are three levels of siege, one is Dharma, the second is technique, and the third is Tao. Dharma means tunnels and floods, while ladder ants have the greatest casualties; technique has the greatest casualties. The Taoist seduce the enemy, instigate rebellion, and encircle the three towers; the Taoist shun the real and focus on the imaginary, and do not attack fortified cities."
"My nephew doesn't understand...how to break a fortified city without attacking it. Why is it called the 'way' to attack a city?"
"If the Great Khan does not attack Diaoyu City and goes straight to Lin'an, then Diaoyu City will be equivalent to being attacked."
Wang Weizheng was silent for a moment and sighed.
"My nephew understands."
Wang Hanchen nodded and said: "The Song army did not use the 'method' of using cloud ladders to attach ants to attack the city, but wanted to incite the generals to rebel against the city. This 'technique' of attacking the city is even more brilliant."
"Why break it?"
"The New Year is approaching, and the officers and soldiers in the city will be rewarded generously to calm the morale of the army."
Outside Zhaohua City.
Li Xia held the book of war and said slowly: "There are three levels of siege, techniques and Tao. I am new to siege, so I will start with the simplest one."
Kong Xian responded with a smile: "I don't think so. The general is pretending to be clumsy and slow to confuse the defenders in the city. This is a siege technique."
Liu Jinsuo scratched his head, glanced at Lin Zi, and asked in a low voice: "What do you mean?"
"The tunnel has been dug."
"It's not...it's just a tunnel. How could it be a magic spell?"
That night.
In the west of Zhaohua City, a "da" sound came from a corner.
The earth was pushed away, and a shovel was stretched out.