It's God's help to Yang Xiu,

A few days after he conspired with Yin Kai and Xun Chen and others, he saw that the time for Xiahou Yuan to return to Yecheng personally was getting closer and closer.

It seemed that Guan Yu had taken down Li Yang and alerted the snake. He did not immediately go north and rushed into Yecheng. Instead, he went to make dumplings and wiped out Liu Yan.

Just at the critical moment when Yang Xiu, Yin Kai and others sighed, on June 22, 30,000 Han troops suddenly crossed the Taihang Mountains, attacked from Bingzhou, and rushed straight to Yecheng.

The commander of the army was Ma Chao, deputy general Ma Dai, and Deng Zhi. The cavalry accounted for nearly half of the troops, and the food routes went down the clear and turbid Zhang River.

The troops set out from Lu County on the Bingzhou side. Just two days after entering the country, they took Shuyi County at the mouth of the river where the Qingzhuo Zhang River converged, and then continued to east along the Zhang River for more than a hundred miles and approached Yecheng.

Cheng Yu in Yecheng was shocked several times a day. While Lian Lian urgently strengthened his defense, Pegasus urgently asked Xiahou Yuan to return to defense faster.

After Ma Chao arrived, he was not in a hurry to siege the city. Instead, he followed the Zhang River downstream, passed through the north of Yecheng City, continued to advance eastward, and then camped along the Zhang River east of Yecheng.

Cheng Yu observed this situation at the top of the city, and was a little puzzled at the beginning, but he quickly understood Ma Chao's intention:

Ma Chao received information and knew that Xiahou Yuan was not in Yecheng, and was on the way to hurry back to join forces to assist in defense. So Ma Chao wanted to surround the site to attack the support and block Xiahou Yuan's path to join forces first.

There are at least 30,000 regular troops in Yecheng, 20,000 in Xiahou Yuan, and the remaining 30,000 regular troops in other counties in Jizhou are equally distributed, of which the Nanpi of Bohai County will account for 20,000, and the rest are all miscellaneous brands and new crowned men.

Therefore, from the perspective of force composition, Ma Chao's troops are not enough to attack the city. As the attacking side, he is only as powerful as Yecheng. If he encounters Xiahou Yuan's attack, his troops will be at a disadvantage.

But even so, Ma Chao dared to take the initiative to intercept Xiahou Yuan, and his courage was enough. Thirty thousand people wanted to chase and 50,000 people to fight.

After Ma Chao's exercise was in place, he had only been resting for a day and a half before meeting Xiahou Yuan coming from the downstream of the Zhang River to help Yecheng.

Xiahou Yuan considered that he and Cheng Yu could not communicate military information in real time and could not provide accurate cooperation, so he was easily beaten by Ma Chao, so he did not dare to fight Ma Chao directly.

Xiahou Yuan thought of bypassing Ma Chao and returning to Yecheng from the south by land. After all, Ma Chao did not have enough troops to surround him in all directions, and there would always be flaws.

Unfortunately, after a little attempt, Xiahou Yuan realized that this road would not work, because the elite cavalry under Ma Chao was not a vegetarian, and his rapid response and maneuverability was very strong. No matter where Xiahou Yuan took, Ma Chao's cavalry could arrive quickly and force Xiahou Yuan into a field to intercept the killing situation.

Xiahou Yuan had to retreat for a while for dozens of miles to the lower reaches of Yecheng, and stationed in Feixiang County on the south bank of the Zhangshui River. At the same time, he divided some troops across the Zhangshui River and stationed in Handan County on the other side, forming a junction to avoid being surrounded by Ma Chao.

This is not a mistake in terms of military tactics.

After all, Xiahou Yuan's troops also forcibly marched for six or seven days, and rushed back to the Yecheng War Zone of Weijun from Nanpi, Bohai, and the soldiers were exhausted.

If you go directly to the battle, you will definitely beat Ma Chao, who has been resting for a day and a half, and you will be beaten up. As long as you cannot enter the city immediately, you should retreat and stay and help each other.

Unfortunately, Xiahou Yuan’s nightmare has just begun.

On the third day of his rest in Handan, Fei Township, there were troops in Changshan County in the north, heading south along the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain and heading straight north of Handan. This made Ma Chao block the road in the southwest of Xiahouyuan, and new enemies attacked the north, and it was very likely that they were crossed in Handan.

Of course, some people may ask, Handan is located in the northernmost part of Wei County, and is already on the edge of Zhao County. That place is located away from Changshan County and is separated by the entire Zhao County and part of Julu County. Even if the enemy heads south from Changshan, how could it be that the northern back of Xiahou Yuan will soon threaten?

This involves talking about the Han generals and their troops heading south from Changshan. The generals commanded the troops in this route were Zhang Fei and Wei Yan, and Pang Tong joined the army, with more than 20,000 troops.

Zhang Fei's offensive was brave and sharp, and Pang Tong was good at understanding people's hearts and arranging strategies for attacking the hearts. He used both kindness and power along the way, making full use of the dissatisfaction of the people of Jizhou with Cao Cao and the emptiness of troops in various places.

After all, as mentioned above, Cao's army, except for the troops led by Xiahou Yuan and the two main strongholds of Yecheng and Nanpi, all the other counties had only more than 10,000 regular troops left in jeopardy in the land of Jizhou.

More than 10,000 people were sprinkled in the defense areas of six counties, just as thin as pepper. There were only 3,000 regular troops in Zhao County and Julu County, and the rest were strong men and panic.

After being quickly attacked by Zhang Fei, he made a favour and made a sense, the final result was almost as smooth as Zhang Fei entered Sichuan and captured Yan Yan in history. The entire Zhao County and half of Julu County were drilled into pieces within a few days.

Although some counties far away from the road to march have not yet had time to recruit surrender and occupy, at least the road to Handan has been opened.

After Zhang Fei approached Handan where Xiahou Yuan stationed troops from Julu, two days later, Guan Yu on the southern line had already killed Ma Yan and forced Liu Yan to surrender. Hearing that the Northern Road had succeeded, Guan Yu hurriedly rushed to the north, crossed the Yellow River from Liyang to join forces with Zhang Fei and Ma Chao.

Of course, Guan Yu's 60,000 people could not have all come. He also had to fill the front of Chenliu County, so he only divided half of the troops to cooperate with the Hebei Battle, mainly those soldiers who had followed Xu Huang on the water route.

He left Tuo Yi in front of Chenliu and continued to stalemate with Cao's army in Yanzhou.

Considering that the siege did not require much technical content and there was no room for strategy to play, Guan Yu also left Xu Shu in the military to the Chenliu military aircraft to prevent Tuo Yi from advancing and beating Xun Yu or someone else's plan to lure the enemy.

At this point, 80,000 Han troops, led by Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Ma Chao, have teamed Xiahou Yuan of Handan and Cheng Yu of Yecheng from three directions.

Zhao Yun, who was farthest along the way, had crossed the Yishui River again and headed south along the Bohai Bay coast. This time, Zhao Yun no longer harassed, but attacked with all his strength. Finally, in mid-July, he led more than 20,000 people to surround the Nanpi of the Bohai County.

Because Xiahou Yuan was restrained in Yecheng and Handan, of course, he could not take into account Nanpi anymore. He could only allow the Nanpi defenders to resist Zhao Yun on their own.

In just one month, the battlefield of Jizhou welcomed four sieges of Guan, Zhang, Zhao and Ma. No matter how strong the combat power is, Xiahou Yuan, Zhang, He and Cheng Yu are still unable to make a comeback.

Although the total number of troops on the battlefield in Hebei at this time was still only 100,000 to 80,000, and the Han army only had 20,000 more than the Cao army.

But war has never been a few people. Taking into account the strength factors of all aspects, the gap here is already very terrible.

...

Although the Han army was crowded with people, they still had to respect the laws of nature when attacking and deploying the city.

After the army arrived at the city of Yecheng, it was necessary to fill the trenches, and it was necessary to build trenches and wooden donkeys in the city. It was impossible to save the trenches and trenches.

At most, it is an ancient chariot. Yecheng is a bit useless place. As the three giant capitals on the ground of the Han Dynasty, like Luoyang, Chang'an, there is a urn city at each city gate.

Moreover, the design of the urn is very vicious, so the siege gate is no longer meaningful. If you knock it open, you can't turn around and continue to break through the inner gate of the urn.

In this case, instead of expecting a car to hit the door, it is better to simply strive to break through the city wall.

As long as the casting cart slightly collapses the city wall and lowers it by more than half, then the wooden donkey from the city digs up to the base of the wall and poaches wildly, you can consider going up the stairs and rushing up the soil slope.

All this siege preparation took more than half a month. During this period, Xiahou Yuan also felt confused:

He is in Handan and has already regained his morale and combat power. Ma Chao and Guan Yu are dragging him like this, aren’t he afraid that he will go to the city at night to meet Cheng Yu and Zhang He?

Later, Xiahou Yuan also figured it out. Ma Chao was alert enough and deliberately showed that the enemy was wide outside and tight inside, hoping to seduce Xiahou Yuan to rescue him and then catch him to fight a field battle.

The city defense of Yecheng was severely damaged last year. Now the defensive forces have been divided into this way again. In such a situation, even if Xiahou Yuan’s entire division enters the city, will he be able to defend the winter?

Still not to take risks.

The two sides stalemate for more than ten days without any tension on the surface.

On July 20, the Han army finally filled and destroyed a long enough moat. The catapult also smashed several places to break the soft and collapsed city walls that were soaked in the Zhang River last year, and then launched a full-scale attack.

Yang Xiu and others in the city confirmed that the Han army could officially attack at any time, and finally seized the opportunity to use a section of the city wall under the charge of former Zhongshan prefect Yin Kai, to use a rope to pendant several of the Yang family's confidant families to pass through the war zone in the dark at night and surrender to Guan Yu.

The Yang family's follower was soon captured by the patrol scouts on Guan Yu's besieged camp, but they immediately revealed their identity and were taken to Guan Yu.

When Guan Yu heard that Yang Xiu sent someone to surrender, he was not surprised and met him in person.

Then, Guan Yu quickly confirmed that the identity of the visitor was really because Yang Xiu was very careful and specially chose a housekeeper who had been walking with other relatives and nobles in the court all year round, treating guests and giving gifts.

As early as five or six years ago, Yang Xiu was still in Chang'an as a grand ruling in Liu Xie's court and served Liu Bei, he lived in Chang'an for a year or two. At that time, Yang Xiu wanted to make friends with senior officials of Liu Bei's camp, and they all sent this person to give gifts and posts.

Therefore, Guan Yu himself had personally seen the Yang Mansion butler several times, and had received gold, silver and jewelry from the other party, and had a slight impression of him. The Yang Mansion butler was also a very familiar person and could tell some details about what happened when he met Guan Yu, so he immediately confirmed his identity.

There is nothing strange about this. Those rich families are responsible for welcoming and seeing off the house. They can remember all the preferences and characteristics of the guests they make with. They are good at observing their words and expressions. They eat this bowl of rice.

After Guan Yu asked about Yang Xiu's plan, he immediately made corresponding arrangements and made decisions to advance the next day's siege until the morning hours before the sky was completely bright.

In order to cover the real main attack direction, Guan Yu did not forget to attack together everywhere, but only invested heavy troops in the wall section where Yin Kai defended.

At dawn the next day, the battle started as scheduled. Cheng Yu and Zhang He tried hard to block the leaks and supervise the battle everywhere, but not long after the battle started, an abnormality occurred in the defense area under Yin Kai. Nearly a thousand former Yuan family subordinates under Yin Kai turned against each other and let the Han army climb the city wall.

Yin Kai's direct soldiers, along with the 300 Tiger Guards sent by the Yang family, and nearly a thousand servants from each family, tied additional red scarves on their heads according to the agreed code in advance to show the difference between them and ordinary Cao's soldiers.

The Han army siege troops also got orders in advance and saw that the guards with red scarves tied on their heads were their own people to avoid accidental injury.

After Yin Kai and Yang Xiu launched, Cheng Yu reacted quickly and immediately realized something was wrong and sent heavy troops to plug the leak.

But more than a thousand Han soldiers had already climbed the warriors first, wearing iron armor and slashing the city wall, and firmly controlled a wall that was more than a hundred steps long.
Chapter completed!