On June 27, the south gate of Jinyang City.

Lu Bu was wearing a set of luxurious steel armor originally engraved with gold and silver patterns, wearing a phoenix-winged purple gold crown, wearing a Fangtian painting halberd, and was covered in bloodshot eyes. He was patrolling the city tower for defense inspections.

There were various mottled and etched marks on Lu Bu's armor. Even the tower pillars and women's walls he stroked were tiny pits left by arrows and traces of knives and axes. Outside the city there were even a piece of remains, with wolf smoke and blood everywhere.

It has been a month since Guan Yu set up camp to build equipment. The catapult cart and the divine arm crossbow have been fully deployed and the siege has officially begun, which has been almost twenty days.

The outer defense facilities of Jinyang City were basically destroyed. The loss of siege materials on Guan Yu's side was also very astonishing.

Because Guan Yu mainly relies on the divine arm crossbow that can exceed the range of the defenders at the city and unilaterally cover and suppress the attackers to greatly reduce the casualties of the soldiers of the siege who destroyed the fortifications, Guan Yu's arrow consumption is very amazing.

The 60,000 army opposite Guan Yu was equipped with a total of seven or eight thousand divine arm crossbows. Almost most of the divine arm crossbows deployed by Liu Bei's camp on the battlefield north of the Yellow River have been moved out. In the past twenty days, more than one million crossbow arrows have been shot.

Such a huge consumption was in exchange for Guan Yu's death only cost three-digit deaths, which destroyed the fortifications and obstacles, as well as moats and trenches outside Jinyang Jiancheng.

This casualties are very small, because you must not underestimate the defense of Jinyang City. Guan Yu has fought for many years and has fought countless times, but after this actual battle, even Guan Yu admitted that the difficulty of Jinyang City in attacking Jinyang City is not even worse than that of Chang'an and Luoyang.

Those super big cities in Chang'an and Luoyang seem to be "seven feet high and thick" and have the most majestic city walls in the entire Han Dynasty. However, because the city area is too large, the length of the city wall on each side is as short as eleven or two miles, and the length of the city wall can be twenty miles.

Therefore, without hundreds of thousands of troops, it is impossible to fill the walls of giant cities like Chang'an and Luoyang to every place without any weakness.

As long as the siege battle breaks through one point and continues to pour into the city, the city wall will lose its value and will completely fall into field battles. So although the city wall of Jinyang is only five feet tall, it is actually more exaggerated than the defense of Chang'an Luoyang.

Historically, there were many warlords fighting for the North China Plain after Henan and Hebei changed ownership, Shanxi was still sticking to it.

During the Song Dynasty, Hebei was beaten through in one go, and even Luoyang was lost in Bianliang, but Taiyuan was able to hold on to the death.

When we count the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, it was relatively easy for the court occupying Henan to pacify the warlords of Youji, Hebei, but it was impossible to deal with the Hedong Jiedushi in Taiyuan City.

Li Cunxu occupied Taiyuan and insisted on resisting it, and finally went south to harvest it. After he left, Shi Jingtang and Liu Zhiyuan were also generations of Hedong Jiedu governors to defend Taiyuan and resisting the court that occupied North China, but in the end he even turned against it.

During the Five Dynasties, the three dynasties redirected the entire Central Plains from Taiyuan City, and we can know how disgusting the terrain of this place is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The difficulty of siege is mainly caused by the disgusting terrain in Taiyuan area itself.

This city is relatively narrow and long, blocked in a Fenshui River Valley. On the west side of the city is a mountain, which is very steep. The city walls rely on the terrain, so it is impossible to attack the city from the west side.

Even if Wudang Flying Army was sent to cross the mountains, it would not be able to set up siege weapons positions in the extremely rugged areas on the mountains, and it would not be able to transport arrows and stones to the mountains in batches.

On the east side of the city, it is directly near the Fen River. It is impossible to attack with the Fen River as the moat on the east side. The north side can be attacked, but the troops have to bypass the narrow valley flatland on the east bank of the Fen River, and then cross back to Hexi to expand their positions.

This makes it easy to be cut off from the rear, and the transportation of grain and supplies is also very troublesome. Because the Fenshui River is covered by long-range firepower on the city wall on the east side of Jinyang, it is impossible to transport supplies directly by ship. This requires unloading goods on the east coast of the downstream of the city first, and carrying them by land by livestock or manpower dozens of miles to the north of the city, then back to the west to cross the Fenshui River, and deploying to the siege battlefield in the north of the city.

It's so troublesome, it's better to give up.

So Guan Yu only nominally surrounded Jinyang on three sides of the east, south and west, but in fact only the south side was the main attacker.

On the west side, Wudang Feijun was allowed to monitor the mountain, only surround him and not attack.

On the east side, there were 10,000 people under Zhuge Liang's command, and they surrounded and monitored each other across the Fen River, without attacking.

Lu Bu can concentrate his main force to defend the south of the city, and the position of the offensive troops is not open enough. If both sides spend their lives, they can delay it for a long time.

Although catapults can break through artificial city walls, they cannot flatten the natural rugged terrain and cannot smash the hills. Therefore, even if there is a leverage counterweight catapult, it will only attack the plains and the city is hard to solve, and the effect on the mountain city is much worse.

Therefore, don’t underestimate Guan Yu’s achievement of “destroying Taiyuan’s peripheral facilities after more than half a month of attack and killing less than a thousand people”. This is what famous generals can do with their equipment advantages.

In comparison, shooting one or two million arrows is nothing.

Anyway, Liu Bei's camp had lathes with wooden sticks, and the production efficiency of arrows and guns was far higher than that of the Kwantung warlords. In this regard, it had almost reached the efficiency of the Western Renaissance and the end of the Great Navigation and before the Industrial Revolution.

As long as Lu Bu does not lose his morale and determination, he really wants to hold on, and it is not impossible for him to hold on for a few more months or even spend the cold winter months.

...

"General, go back and rest. You personally supervised the battle all day yesterday. Now Guan Yu is not in a hurry to attack. Let his subordinates help you supervise the battle for a while."

After Lu Bu inspected the Nancheng, he had just found a place in the city tower to support the painting halberd and rest on the pillar. On the other side, he met Cao Xing, who had just inspected the Xicheng, and took the initiative to ask him to take a rest.

Cao Xing limped and had a terrifying scar on his face. He had one ear missing and a large piece of his cheek was torn apart. However, he was already one of the few military generals who were famous in history books under Lu Bu. Other military generals and talents were severely declining, and they all rely on newly promoted middle-level officers to support the scene.

In that battle last autumn, Wei Xu followed the main infantry force abandoned by Lu Bu and made dumplings by Zhang Fei and Xu Huang. The troops lost nearly 20,000 yuan. Of course, Wei Xu was finished.

On the contrary, Cao Xing, although he was shot against Xu Huang in the early stage of that battle, was suppressed by the divine arm crossbow and was hit by two arrows. However, he was also a blessing in disguise and was seriously injured in advance and withdrew from the battle. He was guarded by soldiers and retreated first.

Later, when Lu Bu's army retreated in full swing, although the situation was in chaos, Cao Xing's goal was not conspicuous and he left early, so he followed him to retreat to the realm.

However, the lethality of the divine arm crossbow is amazing. If Cao Xing's two arrows hit the vital point of the torso, he would probably die.

Fortunately, he was just penetrated the calf muscles by an arrow, and did not break the fibula and tibia, but a hole was penetrated on the side of his leg. Another arrow penetrated a hole in his cheek and shot an ear. So he just had a hideous face and lame legs, so he survived.

The arrow shot at the cheek was lingering. It was almost coming to Cao Xing's throat and face. If he was shot directly, he would definitely be a headshot on the spot.

But Cao Xing is also a famous person who is good at shooting, so he is good at avoiding arrows. At the critical moment, he instinctively turned his head and barely avoided the vital points of the throat. His cheeks were shot into a hole.

All other generals who were higher than him were gone, and Cao Xing was promoted due to merit and injuries. In this battle of siege in Jinyang, Lu Bu personally defended the southern city and handed over the defense line on the side of the west city facing the mountains to Cao Xing for treatment.

Every time Lu Bu saw Cao Xing's hideous and seriously injured face, he felt sad. Although he knew that the scars of military generals were all due to merit and medals, he was always reminded by an ugly face that he had suffered by a distorted face, which was quite a blow to people's confidence.

Lu Bu then remembered the tragic ruthlessness of last year and sighed: "How about Xicheng North City? Are the soldiers' morale available? After fighting for so long, they have not killed many soldiers and horses. Everyone will not be desperate."

Cao Xing bowed and said firmly: "The soldiers are still united in hating the enemy and are willing to fight to the end for the general! Don't worry, the soldiers all know that Guan Yu relied on a large number of powerful crossbows to suppress the wild shooting outside the range, which will not last long.

Almost two million arrows shot into the city, but we only shot hundreds of thousands of dollars back, and we still made a net profit of one and a half million! When Guan Yu's entire army pressed over the Ant Support to climb the city, all of them were going to be shot back to Guan Yu! Everyone was holding their breath!"

After hearing this, Lu Bu was a little relieved. What Cao Xing said was similar to what he saw when he inspected the south of the city, and he could trust it.

I have to admit that in addition to being lustful and likes to play with his subordinates and generals, he treats generals quite preferentially. Moreover, he is now the de facto governor of Bingzhou, and his mentality of controlling his subordinates is completely different from the original history of defending Xia Pi City.

In history, the troops were mainly locals in Xuzhou. Except for some generals, the fellow villagers in Bingzhou were all exhausted for many years. People like Lu Bu who protected short-term weaknesses were not very kind to foreigners, but they took good care of fellow villagers.

In addition, when he followed Ding Yuan, he took over the Bingzhou Army and led the Bingzhou Army to expel the Xianbei people for the people of Bingzhou, which was very prestigious. Therefore, the local soldiers of Bingzhou were willing to fight for him to die. The whole country felt that today's battle was to defend their hometown, and their morale was naturally incomparable.

During the end of the Han Dynasty, locals were able to guard their hometown intermittently for more than ten or twenty years and supported by locals. No other warlord could do this except Lu Bu.

Even when Sun Quan was guarding Jianye, the Sun family was from Wujun, and there were many of the four major families in Jiangdong that could be killed, so the Sun family was regarded as an outsider from Huai and Si.

However, the soldiers were willing to use their lives, and Lu Bu was actually a little embarrassed and a little reluctant to get up.

If tens of thousands of brothers trust you, you will really take them to die. This is too unauthoritative and unrighteous.

When Lu Bu thought of the sadness, he couldn't help but yell at the female walls on the city tower, and even made the stone powder fly, and his fists bleed.

"I, Lu Bu, am a man of great power, and have been killing Hu for the country for more than ten years. However, I have been a little bit dirty by Dong, but at least I have abandoned the darkness and turned to the light! In the end, I ended up in such a dilemma!

If the late emperor had not been killed by Yuan Shu, Wen Yuan and I were ordered to go out of the pass and attack Shengle and defeat the Xianbei royal court, and would have died in great battle. Today, whether it is Liu Bei, His Majesty or Yuan Shao, I am afraid that they would have to treat me as a great Han hero.

Now that I am not a human inside or outside, Liu Bei will definitely not allow me to be the governor of Bingzhou. After fighting vigorously, I am afraid that I will be insulted by the Han history written by Li Su's wife. Sometimes I think about it, if I burned Sheng Le, I should not withdraw to the pass, and I will beat Tuoba Liwei in a vigorous manner! I will die in the battlefield and be a great hero!"

Lu Bu's mentality was quite a bit like the Jinsui warlords who were not from the east and west camps, and they felt that they were "wished to die if they resisted Japan and left it ashamed today."

After all, the general who died in the fight against Japan, whether it was a new warlord or an old warlord, and no matter which side gained power later, he was at least a "patriotic general and national hero."

While Lu Bu smashed the stone and roared to vent his anger, a small school on the gatehouse suddenly came to report: "General, the envoy of Guan Yu Army under the city, brought a few prisoners who said they wanted to return them to our army, and told us not to shoot arrows and want to talk to the general about conditions."

After hearing this, Lu Bu felt aroused a desire to survive, rubbed his urge to smash his bleeding fists, and signaled that the soldiers who were clamoring on the city wall would be quieter.

Under the city, a Han army envoy, under the protection of several shield players, carried a tied prisoner in front of him as a shield so that Lu Bu's army would not dare to shoot arrows.

The messenger and the shield-holding and scolding team he brought him also shouted:
Chapter completed!