Before dawn, the Xiliang army, led by Ma Chao and Zhang Xiu, bypassed the Hu Pass and headed north.
Lu Yan handed over the command to Xu Huang, and he happily became the boss. The euphemistic name was to give full play to the advantages of talents and cultivate outstanding generals, but in fact, Lu Yan was too troublesome and wanted to fish.
..
The battle at Huguankou is basically not too difficult. It is also good for Xu Huang to practice his skills in order to prepare for his own role in the future and accumulate experience.
After the Xiliang army left, apart from Lu Lingqi's 10,000 wolf cavalry camp, Cao's army still had about 40,000 siege soldiers.
Huguan is higher in the east and lower in the west. It circles the top of the mountain all the way east. Most of them are in Huguan in the Taihang Mountains. You can imagine the dangerous terrain. There are two Sunzi Mountains nearby in the Taihang Mountains. The names of the mountains are unclear. The two peaks face each other.
It forms a natural gap, like a mountain pass or a spout.
After entering the gap, there is a large pot-shaped flat space, which seems to have come in from the spout and fallen into a huge round belly. The slopes are gentle on all sides, and the mountains and peaks are walls. This is Huguan County.
As for Hu Pass, the terrain is narrow, and there cannot be too many defenders in the pass. Those who can go up to the city wall to defend may be more than a thousand people. But precisely because of the narrow terrain at the pass, Cao Jun cannot attack too many at once.
of siege soldiers.
In the official history, Huguankou was stationed by high officials, firmly shutting out Yue Jin and Li Dian's army.
In the end, in desperation, Cao Cao had no choice but to lead his own army to conquer the high officials.
But Xu Huang is not in a hurry now, and he does not need to sacrifice his soldiers' lives to fill this gap.
Before the siege officially started, two hundred trebuchets were lined up in three rows, and then they took turns roaring and dropping stone bombs into the Hu Pass!
"Woo! Woo! Woo!"
The terrifying whistling sound of the stone bullets never stopped for a moment, and the defenders at Hu Pass were under great psychological pressure at this moment.
"Boom!"
A stone as big as a millstone hit the city wall hard.
Zhong Yao, Ma Teng, Han Sui and others who were watching the battle seemed to feel the ground beneath their feet shaking.
Zhong Yao looked at the Hu Pass baptized by stone bullets from a distance, and couldn't help but sigh, "Terrible!"
Ma Teng and Han Sui were even more frightened in their hearts, and thought secretly: "There is actually such a powerful trebuchet with such a long range! And it seems that Cao Jun's craftsmen can build it anytime, anywhere, using local materials... What's more,
Horrible!"
"What if we were to defend the city and face so many big rocks falling from the sky?" Han Sui shook his head and thought to himself: "It's best not to become a rival with Prime Minister Cao..."
The two of them couldn't help but shuddered as they thought about it, and blurted out at the same time: "It's terrible!"
Xu Huang heard the overview of the three of them, but the corner of his mouth could not help but turn up slightly, and thought to himself: "This is scary? If you saw Lu Qiaoqi's 'Godly Thunder' from the sky, wouldn't you be so scared that you wet your pants?"
"
Stationed at Huguankou was Deng Sheng, one of the two generals entrusted with important tasks by senior officials.
Deng Sheng had basically never fought against Cao Jun. Before coming, he confidently assured Xia Zhao that it was absolutely impossible for Cao Jun to pass through Hu Pass.
But now, Deng Sheng, who did not dare to risk his life, began to waver in confidence: "There is such a big place inside the Hu Pass...Cao Jun has thrown so many and dense stone bombs, how can we defend this pass?"
Just when Deng Sheng thought of this, a stone bullet the size of a human head fell from the sky, hitting a soldier not far in front of Deng Sheng who was trying to run towards the city wall from behind the bunker.
There was a muffled sound of "Bang!". After Deng Sheng blinked, he was surprised to find that the soldier who had just emerged was gone, including his head and chest!
And behind the soldier, white and red were painted all over the floor...
"vomit!!!"
The scene in front of him was so exciting that Deng Sheng finally couldn't help it and began to retching.
However, Cao Jun's trebuchet also needed to rest. It would be easily damaged if it continued to project at a high intensity. Moreover, the stone bullets brought in had been exhausted, so Xu Huang had no choice but to order a temporary stop to catapulting.
Although the throwing of stones has ceased,
But before the defenders at Huguankou came to their senses, Xu Huang waved his hand, and two thousand siege soldiers rushed towards the city wall carrying ladders.
Deng Sheng, who had just arrived at the city wall, saw Cao Jun's sudden attack on the city, so he shouted:
"Shoot the arrow, shoot the arrow!"
"Get ready for battle, let me kill Cao Jun!"
...
On the third day of the siege, Deng Sheng repelled Cao's siege again.
"How many times is this the siege?" Deng Sheng shook his head, he had lost count.
Trebuchet bombings, strong attacks by Cao's soldiers, feint attacks, digging tunnels... Various methods of siege were tried, but Cao's offensive was resolved one by one by the danger of Hu Pass and Deng Sheng's alertness.
Two hundred steps away from the pass, Xu Huang led his guards outside to observe the siege situation at Hu Pass.
"Alas...we were beaten back again..." Seeing that the siege soldiers were repelled again, the guards around Xu Huang couldn't help but sigh.
But Xu Huang was not in a hurry. He estimated that the Xiliang cavalry had detoured to Shangdang County, so he ordered: "It is time to send a letter of persuasion to surrender."
"Here!" the ordering soldier took the order and left.
Not long after, the number of trebuchets, which had increased to 300, fired at Hu Pass again.
"Bang!"
Ji Kuo was hit hard, and the letter of surrender that was knocked into the barrel flew into the Hu Pass with a roar.
Deng Sheng felt that the sky was darkening again, and he immediately shouted: "The stone bullets are coming again! Find a place to hide!"
"Bang!!!"
The sky was filled with darkness, but this time what fell was not a stone, but a barrel.
Although a wooden barrel cannot directly smash a person into a puddle of flesh like a stone, it can still cause a person's head to bleed, or even take him away directly.
After the barrel fell to the ground or hit the wall, it broke into pieces, and letters of surrender handwritten by each of Cao's soldiers spilled out.
After two waves of "barrel rain", the sky finally became quiet again.
Deng Sheng picked up a letter from the ground. At first glance, he curled his lips and said, "The characters are written like chicken claws..."
After browsing through it, Deng Sheng couldn't help but feel chills all over his body, "Cao's cavalry has already gone around to Shangdang... If this is true, we will become a lone army at Huguankou..."
Deng Sheng instinctively wanted to suppress the news, but when he looked up, he found many soldiers gathered around some barely literate soldiers, discussing something in low voices.
Deng Sheng also became uneasy, "What should I do? Apart from exiting Huguankou and returning to Huguan County, there seems to be no other option..."
After thinking for a moment, Deng Sheng made up his mind:
"It's better to retreat to Huguan City first. There are still enough defenders and food in the city. As long as the reinforcements from the governor arrive, Cao's army may retreat..." Deng Sheng also had great expectations for Gao Gan.
Therefore, at least he has not considered surrender so far.
But he didn't know that there was a high probability that senior officials would not be able to invite reinforcements...