Chapter 296: The Fierce Battle in Wancheng on the Third Front
Sun Jian led his army to retreat. Following the western front, the war on the eastern front also ended with Cao Cao's victory.
Logically speaking, Sun Jian's retreat should be attributed to Zhang Liao and others who burned all the Jiangdong army's food and grass. However, they could not receive any reward for this. The massacre of Hefei City was a fact that Zhang Liao and others had to face.
He has an unshirkable responsibility for this. After some discussion between Cao Cao and several civil servants and generals, Zhang Liao and the others found no merit and no fault.
If it was an ordinary fault, it would be fine, but tens of thousands of people in Hefei City were brutally killed. This crime was really serious and the impact was too bad. Even if Cao Cao wanted to protect Zhang Liao and others, he had to think twice, after all, he had to consider all the
and other factors, such as public opinion, public sentiment, etc. What's more, Cao Cao had no intention of protecting Zhang Liao and the others.
Burning the grain and grass was indeed a great achievement, and it can be said that it directly led to the retreat of Sun Jian's army. However, before Sun Jian's army came to Xuchang, the war on the Western Front had ended early, and Xia Houyuan had already led his army into Xuchang. Even though
Without Lu Xun's action of burning the grain and grass, Xuchang City's defense force was already strong enough, and Cao Cao had enough confidence to hold Xuchang City firmly.
In this way, Zhang Liao's and others' actions of burning Jiangdong's military supplies did not seem so necessary, and their behavior of abandoning Hefei City for this reason was also meaningless in hindsight.
Of course, no matter how smart Lu Xun was, he could not have predicted in advance that Chang'an would win so quickly. After all, the defensive strength of Xuchang City at that time was indeed limited, and if Sun Jian had not massacred the city, the result would have been terrible.
Perfect. It's a pity that Sun Jian unexpectedly showed his ferocity and went on a killing spree in Hefei City. Since things developed like this, someone must be responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of people in Hefei City.
After some discussion, Zhang Liao, Li Dian, and Le Jin were finally demoted directly to General Pi. As the initiator of the city's abandonment, Lu Xun himself was not demoted - because his position was already very low, but
Lu Xun was also punished in other ways.
————————————————————————————————The war on the Western Front and the Eastern Front has not yet ended and is still in full swing.
At that time, a fierce offensive and defensive battle was also going on at Wancheng on the southern line of Xuchang.
One after another, soldiers of Liu Biao's army struggled to climb up the Wancheng city wall, and what greeted them were stones, logs and boiling oil being continuously thrown down from the top of Wancheng city.
After a few days, Liu Biao's army of 70,000 had been reduced by 20,000. The huge consumption of siege can be seen.
But the situation in Wancheng was not much better. The stones attacked by Liu Biao's army were very fierce and they had already attacked the city several times. Although relying on the city wall, the number of casualties of Cao's army in Wancheng was much less than that of Liu Biao's army outside the city.
, but nearly 10,000 people have been damaged.
Moreover, because Liu Biao's army was attacking like crazy every day, the defense equipment in the city was extremely consumed. Rolling logs and falling rocks were almost used up. Military advisor Guo Jia even ordered the people in the city to go to their houses to uncover the tiles and use the tiles as
Tools for defending the city.
The lethality of tiles is naturally much smaller than rolling logs, falling rocks, etc. If a large stone is hit, even if it does not kill the enemy soldier who is climbing the city, it will at least knock him off the ladder. But a tile can
If the piece is thrown down, the most it will do is smash the enemy soldiers below and bleed them. No one will be killed, and they will not fall down.
What's more serious is that the arrows in the city are almost running out.
The most important support in a city defense battle is archers. Whether it is rolling logs or falling rocks, their role in a city defense battle is ultimately not as important as large-scale bow and arrow shooting.
Once they run out of bows and arrows, Cao's army will fall into an extremely passive situation, and the difficulty of defending the city will suddenly increase by several levels.
Without the cover of archers, although Wancheng would not be lost soon, it would only be a matter of time after all.
But the problem of bows and arrows is difficult to solve. Even if Guo Jia summons the craftsmen from all over the city and works day and night, he can only make hundreds of arrows in a day, and a single salvo will be lost.
Faced with this dilemma, Gao Shun, who was assigned by Cao Cao to help defend Wancheng, suddenly had an idea and came up with a solution based on the battle examples of later generations. He had people make hundreds of straw men, and then tied these straw men with ropes.
They threw them from the top of the city to the bottom of the city at night. It was dark, and Liu Biao's army saw a figure under the city wall from a distance. They thought that the defenders in the city were out of the city for a night attack, so they all raised their bows and shot arrows. After Liu Biao's army finished shooting, Gao Shun ordered people to
Pulling the straw man up, he saw that each straw man was densely covered with dozens of arrows. Over the course of the night, Gao Shun collected six to seven thousand arrows.
Although the number is not very large, it can at least last a few rounds.
This is very similar to the legendary Zhuge Liang's straw boat borrowing arrows, but Zhuge Liang did not have this strategy in history. The straw man borrowing arrows strategy used by Gao Shun was historically attributed to the Tang Dynasty general Zhang Xun who defended Suiyang.
deeds of the time.
Guo Jia was also filled with admiration for Gao Shun's ingenious strategies. Guo Jia thought that he knew his bad friend and brother-in-law very well and knew that Gao Shun was a rare wise general who could often come up with some excellent strategies, but Gao Jia
Shun's straw man's borrowing of arrows this time still made Guo Jia feel that he didn't fully understand Gao Shun.