The young couple were overjoyed. When they turned around, they saw a young man about thirteen or fourteen years old, with a sallow complexion and thin skin, and was mentally exhausted.
The young man was wearing tattered linen clothes and his bare feet were covered with blood and had begun to suppurate.
His eyes were bloodshot, but sparkling with an indescribable light.
The young woman said: "From your accent, are you from Taishan County?"
"Why did you end up living in the plains?"
The young man's eyes darkened, "Everyone in the city was massacred, and I ran out."
The young man sighed: "It is true that Cao Cao's army was too cruel. Now Yuan's army is collaborating with them to attack our plain. You are really unlucky."
The young man lowered his head, then raised his head again, and said resolutely: "Counting me, there are two men."
He pointed at the girl: "In this way you can take her into the city."
The young couple looked at each other with joy on their faces. The young woman said, "But if this is the case, you will be taken to defend the city if you enter."
The young man said: "As long as you enter the city, no one can escape, right?"
The young man said: "In that case, thank you very much, little brother."
As the team moved, the four of them entered the city smoothly. The young woman took the girl into the city gate. When she looked back, she saw the previous couple sadly leaving with the two girls in their arms.
As soon as they entered the city, young men and teenagers, together with more than a dozen people, were immediately taken to the top of the city.
The girl she was holding began to cry. The young man came up and whispered a few words to the mother and daughter. Then the soldiers shouted, and the man had no choice but to follow.
Seeing that the young man was about to leave, the young woman hurried over, handed him a piece of bread in her arms, and said, "You can keep it."
The young man squeezed the dough tightly, waved his hand, turned around and followed the soldiers towards the city.
He put the still warm noodles into his arms and followed the soldiers up the cold bluestone steps, the pain on his soles becoming more and more obvious.
The soldiers brought more than a dozen people to the top of the city. Several corps commanders came over and picked people off one after another. The young men from before were also taken away.
When the last old corps leader came over, only a few men, including the young man, were left. The old corps leader looked at it and sighed: "Just make a living, come with me."
The young man walked on the cold city wall, his feet became more and more uncomfortable, and his posture started to limp. The veteran took them to a city wall, turned around and saw the young man's appearance, and coldly snorted: "You don't have any shoes?
"
"When your feet freeze off at night, will you still be able to walk with only one pair of hands?"
He looked around, walked up to a wounded soldier, tore off half of his clothes with a sharp sound, found a piece of hemp rope and handed it to the young man, saying, "Wrap his feet."
The wounded soldier cursed and said: "Old Wu, do you want to freeze me to death?"
The old corps leader scolded back: "It's already like this, and you're still eating here. Go down by yourself quickly and don't cause any trouble to me."
The wounded soldier cursed, but did not dare to reply. He was no longer fit to defend the city. He only stayed on the city wall to get a few meals. Otherwise, he would not be able to earn a living when he arrived in the city like this.
.
The young man tore the hemp rope into two strands and wrapped his feet with rags. Only then did he feel much more comfortable.
The old corps commander looked at the five or six people standing in front of him, sighing and saying, "What you have to do is push the enemy down when they attack the city."
Someone said: "Are there any weapons?"
The old team leader snorted, "Even if I have it, if I give it to you, will you use it?"
"When the people come up from the city, we'll just rob them."
The man cried bitterly: "How can I grab it with my bare hands?"
The old captain pointed to a few bamboo poles on the ground: "You can find a way to sharpen them yourself and just poke them at people."
"You guard the city tonight, and you will have food to eat tomorrow morning."
After saying that, he ignored everyone, found a sheltered place, curled up and took a nap.
Everyone had no choice but to stand muttering at the top of the city to blow the wind. The young man walked to the edge of the city wall, and with the afterglow of the setting sun, he saw a thin line across the sky in the distance, which should be Jishui.
He could vaguely see that there were many ants squirming on that thin line, and he wondered, could it be that someone was crossing the river?
Nowadays, the Yellow River Jishui is dry and the riverbed is exposed in many places. It seems that Yuan Shao's army will definitely come to attack this place after crossing the Jishui River.
When lining up to enter the city just now, the young man heard from others that the army had occupied Pingyuan City these days, crossed the Yellow River, and occupied several cities between the Yellow River and Jishui.
Now they are about to cross Jishui and attack the counties south of Jishui!
Thinking of his father and mother who were killed in Feixian County, he couldn't help clenching his fists.
More than ten days passed in the blink of an eye.
The young man had adapted to life in the city. Although he had two meals a day, each of which consisted of two pieces of half-cooked dough mixed with wild vegetables and whole grains, it was still much better than the days when he fled and ate wild fruits and grass roots.
But such a good day came to an abrupt end one morning.
The man guarding the city with him had just stood up and stretched when an arrow penetrated his neck.
The young man saw the arrow coming out of the back of the man's neck, bringing out a stream of blood. The man fell to the ground, twitched his limbs a few times, and then died.
He yelled, and several soldiers who had dozed off woke up and were immediately covered by an overwhelming rain of arrows.
Immediately, warning drums sounded from the top of the city.
The young man was lying behind the city wall, watching a few people who couldn't dodge being shot through by arrows. At this time, the old captain rolled over and hid beside the young man, cursing: "Why are you attacking the city at this time and not letting people sleep?"
Have a good sleep!”
The young man stood up and wanted to see what was going on outside through the arrow hole, but the old captain held his head down and shouted: "You are crazy!"
Before they finished speaking, there was a loud noise behind them, and something hit the top of the city. Stone debris flew into the air, and then fell onto the ground full of rubble on the top of the city.
The old corps leader cursed and said: "Damn it, there's a trebuchet!"
The sound of bullets and arrows piercing the air continued for half a quarter of an hour, then gradually slowed down and then stopped.
Immediately, a loud voice rang out from the city. It roughly meant that the Yuan family came to rescue the people of Yuling in the name of the Han Dynasty. If the people in the city surrendered immediately, everything would be safe.
After hearing this, the old corps commander sighed: "Looking at this, the county magistrate is afraid that he will surrender."
The young man wondered: "Why?"
The old corps commander sneered, "You don't even look at it. Until now, except for you group of cannon fodder, regular soldiers have never appeared. They are all hiding under the city."
The young man was stunned: "Are we cannon fodder?"
The old team leader said disdainfully: "What else?"
"I'm afraid a lot of the money for the city defense armor and equipment has been embezzled, and I can't even raise a neat garrison of several hundred people. Otherwise, how could they coax you to go to the top of the city to defend the city?"
The young man was even more shocked: "Then why are you still here, old man?"
The old corpsman sighed, "Isn't there someone at home who wants to eat? Why don't we come here to die?"
The young man was speechless.
Yuan Xi was at the foot of Yuling City at this time.
He was riding a horse waiting on the left wing, with Zhang He on the left and Zhao Yun on the right.
In the past half month, Yuan Tan conquered five or six county towns in a row, running wildly all the way, crossing the Yellow River, crossing the Jishui River, and leading his army to the foot of Yuling County.
After reading the spies' reports, Yuan Tan felt that the county town was vulnerable, so he didn't even advance step by step and set up camp. Instead, he took advantage of the darkness and ran for more than ten miles and hit the city directly. He thought of capturing Yu Ling directly and then the army
Enter the city to rest.
Yuan Xi has learned a lot these days, but he still vaguely feels that things are going a little too smoothly.
Among these five or six county towns, the largest city has only a few thousand people, and the total number is less than 10,000, not counting the fact that many of them are ordinary people.
But what about Tian Kai’s soldiers?
A dignified governor of Qingzhou, he could bring out tens of thousands of people to confront him before, but now he can no longer defend the city?
He mentioned this to Yuan Tan last night, but Yuan Tan just didn't take it seriously and said, "Even if Tian Kai goes out with all his troops, I'm not afraid of him. There's nothing to worry about."
Yuan Xi felt vaguely uneasy, but couldn't express it.
Are there really no people coming from Xuzhou?
Moreover, was Yuan Tan too smooth and did not set up camp after crossing the Jishui River, or was he a little too impatient?
Yuan Xi understood that Yuan Tan was trying to grab time. This time it went more smoothly than expected, but more than half of the army's food supplies had been consumed.
It's funny to say that it was because the war went so smoothly, with fewer people dying and more people left to eat food, that food and grass were consumed faster than expected.
Originally, it was expected that at least 10,000 people should have died, but now only a thousand people died, and there were quite a few wounded.
When Jushu mentioned this issue last night, he shook his head repeatedly. He had no good response to this situation. He could only send people to Yecheng to adjust grains, but soon the Yellow River would be filled with water, and it would not be possible for a while.
Shipped.
Yuan Tan saw soldiers shouting for a long time under the city, but there was no response from the city. Suddenly, the city gate opened wide, and a troop of hundreds of soldiers and horses rushed out and went straight to Yuan Tan's main formation!
The leader was a general, and he was seen charging towards Yuan Tan with his horse and gun drawn!
Yuan Jun did not expect that the opponent would have such courage, and there was a sudden uproar. At this moment, a group of soldiers rushed out of Yuan Jun's main formation.
Everyone took a closer look and saw that it was Yan Liang!
He dragged the two-foot-long sword on the ground, pulled out sparks, and went directly to meet the enemy general!
When the general saw it, he shouted loudly and rushed straight towards him. The two knights got closer and closer. When they were still a few feet away, the general shook his hand and thrust his gun towards Yan Liang's face!
The next moment, Yan Liang shouted loudly, and his arm suddenly grew bigger. The long knife bounced from the ground like lightning, and slashed hard at the waist of the enemy general. The general was thrown into the air by the knife, his armor was broken, and there was blood on his waist.
He sprayed wildly and was dead when he landed.
Yuan Jun cheered, and Yuan Xi secretly sighed in his heart, this is the most powerful general in Jizhou. The generals from the previous cities who dared to come out to challenge were all killed by Yan Liang in one shot!
Yan Liang rushed into the enemy's formation, as if he were entering an uninhabited territory. The Qingzhou soldiers wanted to escape back to the city, but they did not expect that the city gate had been closed long ago, and they suddenly started to curse.
The old captain on the city wall sighed to the young man: "You see, those who died first are all honest people."
When Yuan Tan saw this, he shouted loudly: "The whole army attacks the city!"
Tens of thousands of people carried earth bags on their backs and poured towards the city wall.
Teams came out one after another to surround the city gates. Yuan Xi also led Zhao Yun to block the east gate.
As soon as he arrived, there was a rapid sound of troops withdrawing from the formation.
Something happened!
Yuan Xi immediately ordered the team to change formations and slowly retreat towards the main formation.
Along the way, he saw the siege soldiers running back in disorder, and the generals tried their best to stop them. It took a lot of effort to prevent them from being defeated.
Yuan Xi breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this. If they really broke up, trampled on each other, and were defeated before they even fought, it would be the most ridiculous thing in the world.
This is the difference between leading hundreds or thousands of people and tens of thousands of people. The more people you lead, the difficulty of command increases exponentially. Once a problem occurs, the consequences will be more serious.
He asked Zhao Yun to rectify the team, rode to Yuan Tan's side, and asked: "What happened?"
Yuan Tan looked gloomy: "The enemy's reinforcements are coming!"
"It's a three-way trip!"
The generals were talking a lot, and Yuan Xi listened for a while before he understood that the scouts reported that three armies were coming this way, forming a siege on Yuan's army!
Along the way were Tian Kai's Qingzhou soldiers, at least tens of thousands of people.
Along the way is Beihai Kongrong, with at least three thousand people.
At the end of the journey, the banner of Xuzhou Liu Bei was used, and the number of people was at least five to six thousand!