Xiaoqi

Therefore.I implore my lord to consider carefully, and if necessary, I can order Jin Yiwei to go up to the city to take over the defensive task, and make sure that the city gate is not lost.Hangu Pass is not lost! "

"Uh! Brother Wen He's words are not unreasonable. My ministers agree with me. Please think twice, my lord!" Guo Jia's expression changed slightly after hearing the words, and he nodded thoughtfully.Then he echoed: "The matter of guarding the city gate is indeed no small matter. It should not be underestimated, let alone careless. If the city gate is lost, Hangu Pass will inevitably be lost. Losing Hangu Pass, a natural castle, will be the foundation of the two prefectures of Xiliang. The opening of the east gate will endanger Chang'an City and directly shake the foundation of the Lord's cause. Therefore, it is necessary to choose carefully who to send to guard the city gate. There must be no mistakes!"

Jia Xu and Guo Jia both questioned Gao Shun's ability to command troops and fight at the same time, which was beyond Li Li's expectation.He didn't even think about it before, it can be said that it was unexpected, and he looked stunned for a while, as if it was difficult to make a choice.

As a matter of fact, Gao Shun did not make any great achievements in the past two years, nor did he have any impressive victories.In addition, Gao Shun is introverted, usually not good at speaking, never forms a clique for personal gain, never forms a clique, is taciturn, always lives in seclusion, and does not have many interpersonal networks.But he has always been in a high position. Ever since he joined Li Li, he has been alone and has almost no contact with the generals in the army. Apart from training recruits all day long, he has no other hobbies. "

"Hehehe!" After Guo Jia finished speaking, Li Li shook his head slightly and said with a smile, "What you two said is not unreasonable, but you place too much emphasis on military achievements and ignore the way of running and training troops. Unbiased. It is true that Gao Shun has not had any conspicuous achievements in the past two years, or is enough credit to be envied, but he has always been on an equal footing with the commanders and generals of the battalions. However, in the past two and a half years, the trapped camp has expanded its army three times, and has never asked the general's mansion for money or food, nor has it asked for a fixed camp or a supply of ordnance. The soldiers were recruited by Gao Shun himself, and the armor and weapons were also theirs. Built by myself, there is no fixed camp, and I will stay in Shangdang territory for a long time. I will only live in the Anyi camp every winter, and there are not too many requirements, and the treatment is the same as that of ordinary soldiers in the Anyi camp.

In addition, there has never been a violation of military discipline in the camp since its formation, nor has it committed crimes or wantonly bullied the people. The strict military discipline has ranked first in the entire army for two consecutive years.These are all registered by the subordinates of the general's mansion, and they are well-documented, and they are by no means just talking about it. "

While speaking, the smile on Li Li's face gradually faded: "There is another point that maybe you and most of the generals in the army don't know, this is that in the past two and a half years, in addition to the salary necessary to support his wife and children, almost Eighty percent of the salary was distributed to the soldiers of the camp, and the truth was concealed, claiming that I, Li Li, paid the soldiers. The Gaoshun mansion is still the home furnishings when I gave it to the house for nearly three years. There is not a single new appliance in the house. Apart from the six servants who take turns guarding the courtyard, there are not even a maidservant or handyman in the mansion. All the daily life is borne by his first wife Wu. So the two sleeves are clean and the discipline is strict. Don't say that there is only one person in our army. Even if we go back hundreds of years, how has there ever been such a loyal general?

Because of this, I often praise Gao Shun, saying that he is a real soldier and a veritable general.There is a saying: if a soldier loves one, he will love a nest.Soldiers trained by such upright generals will definitely not be too weak in combat effectiveness, and may even be very strong.If the city gates fall today, and Gao Shun and the trapped camp under his tent cannot even defend a single city gate, then I, Li Li, are incompetent and I have no one to blame! "

Jia Xu and Guo Jia were inexplicably shocked when they heard the words, their cheeks flushed slightly, and they felt a little ashamed.

Indeed, if Gao Shun is really as honest and self-disciplined as Li Li said, then Guo Jia and Jia Xu should really feel ashamed and feel rather dwarfed by comparison; because they cannot be as impartial and honest as Gao Shun Self-discipline, two-sleeve breeze.

Guo Jia prefers good wine and beautiful ladies. At any time, there are hundreds of jars of fine wine in the mansion. There are as many as six to seventy beautiful ladies and young maids, and more than 70 servants and maidservants together.And Jia Xu is even worse. The mansion located in Chang'an occupies a large area and is second only to Li Li's Grand General's mansion in luxury decoration. Li Li clearly stipulated the red line for the number of followers.In addition, he has more than ten houses and manors. Almost all the major cities in the two prefectures of Xiliang have mansions and other courtyards. His family is well-off, and it can be said that he really enjoys the glory and wealth.

Therefore, after hearing Gao Shun's experience at this time, Guo Jia and Jia Xu were speechless, bowed their heads in silence, and acted ashamed.And Li Li's eyes did not stay on the two of them, he got up and stood by the tower to watch Yuan Jun's siege formation, because the siege battle had officially started at this moment.

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"All the soldiers listen to the order, and the archers shoot ten rounds in salvo, and suppress the enemy's arrows for me!"

"The catapult is ready, let it go!"

"Shield cover, step forward with the ladder, let Lao Tzu climb to the top of the wall!"

"Crush the city car, hit the city gate, go!"

150 steps in front of Hangu Pass, Gao Gan jumped on his horse and brandished a knife, and shouted out orders from his mouth, and then tens of thousands of Yuan Jun rushed to the foot of the city wall fearlessly.And Chun Yuqiong and Yuan Xi were beside him at this time, and they also ordered their respective troops to attack the city in a stern manner.

Under the city gate, tens of thousands of Yuan Jun soldiers carried ladders on their shoulders, pushed carts, erected well fences, and bravely rushed to the city against the "swish" falling arrows.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"Puff puff puff?"

On the top of the city, rocks and rolling logs fell with a bang, flying stones were like locusts, densely packed arrows roared and shuttled like dark clouds covering the sun, and fell like rain, smashing Yuan Bing who tried to set up ladders to climb the top of the city one by one. , Thousands of Yuan Jun fell in pieces as the arrows screamed and fell.

All of a sudden, Yuan Bing, who was trying to climb the ladder, was smashed to the ground and fell to the ground, splashing blood. In the blink of an eye, the base of the wall was piled up with broken arms several feet high, and blood flowed like a river.Yuan Jun, who was running towards the city wall, screamed and fell to the ground at a speed that was hard to see with the naked eye, and was immediately trampled into meat by the latecomers. Tens of thousands of Yuan Jun poured into the city gate one after another.

The war horse neighed, the arrows whizzed, the cupping pot burst, the rocks and logs fell with a bang, and the boiling fire oil poured down.The shrill screams were continuous and resounded through the sky, and the deafening rumbling sound swept across and pierced all directions, startling the mountains and forests within a hundred miles of birds and mice to scurry, and the roar of birds and beasts was loud.

"Hey, hey, let go!"

At the same time, the generals of Yuan Jun rolled out catapults and put lit kerosene jars or boulders on them. Then more than 2000 soldiers chanted neatly and manipulated more than [-] catapults to throw and launch at the same time, and went straight to the city. The head whizzed away.

All of a sudden, one by one filled with kerosene, flaming fire pots and huge boulders roared into the sky, leaving arcs and smashing straight to the top of the city.With a loud bang, countless bits and pieces of iron blasted out of the earthen jar suddenly pierced into the body of the defenders, causing the defenders to scream and fall to the ground; but the huge boulders could not fly up due to their heavy weight. The head of the city smashed all over the city wall, causing the city wall to slam loudly, with broken stones flying everywhere and stone chips flying.

The siege battle does not require any preparations. It is full of chaos from the very beginning, and quickly enters a fierce battle of life and death.

For the soldiers of the two armies attacking and defending the city, this is a collision of blood and fire, and the difference between life and death can be seen in an instant.Under the cruel and merciless crushing, every living life is like a spray in the ocean of war, disappearing in a flash, and will eventually be merged into the sea of ​​blood and purgatory.

Chapter 694

As the setting sun falls to the west, a crescent moon rises slowly, and the cold moonlight shines on the world like silver pouring down the ground.

Over the Hangu Pass, hundreds of crows screamed and circled, and more than a dozen vultures darted across the sky, lingering for a long time, unwilling to fly away.

Under the sky, the ancient pass that has been tempered by the flames of war is already blood-stained and devastated, but it still stands proudly among the mountains and streams, guarding the ancient road to the west that goes in from east to west.

At the foot of the city wall, more than a month ago, there were golden dead grass and a variety of tenaciously growing wormwood and wild trees, but now they have long since disappeared. All that remains under the wall are broken bodies, broken arms and bright red dazzling flesh and blood. And the bright red blood water frozen by the cold.

"Ding Ding Ding"

Amidst the clear and loud sound of gold ringing, the tens of thousands of allied soldiers who survived ran away as if they had been pardoned, and evacuated from the city wall as quickly as the cold wind, leaving this hellish gate that was stained dark red by flesh and blood.

For hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, this pass is their lingering nightmare, an abyss hell that has taken countless lives, and it is the source of real nightmares and the root of fear.

Seeing the hasty retreat of the siege, the Xiliang defenders on the city tower did not take advantage of the situation to shoot arrows to chase and further expand the results of the battle. Instead, they watched the allied troops escape from the pass with cold eyes, and then supported each other back to the original allied camp in Loudi.

As of now, the allied forces of the princes have been attacking Hangu Pass for one month and ten days, which is a full forty days.During this period, the two sudden heavy snowfalls in the middle of the siege are not included, if the delay of the two snowfalls for more than ten days is also added together.So the Battle of Hangu has been going on for two months so far, and it took almost half of the winter.

At noon two months ago, the Allied forces stormed Hangu Pass for the first time.

It is slavery.Yuan Shao personally sent 2 troops under his command to attack the city, including 2 infantry to storm the city, [-] bow and crossbow battalions to suppress the formation, and [-] heavy siege equipment to assist the siege. The siege battle lasted from noon to late night.In the end, more than half of the [-] Yuan army was lost, and less than [-] soldiers survived.Thousands of Yuan Jun's wounded soldiers fell under the city wall howling and mourning, but no one dared to risk their lives to rescue them. The remaining more than [-] Yuan Jun all died at the foot of the city wall, and their bodies piled up into mountains.More than ten li in front of the Chengguan was stained bright red with blood, which was shocking.After the war, the Xiliang army opened the city gate and carried all the wounded soldiers back to the pass for emergency treatment, and then transferred to Tongguan for resettlement.

Since Yuan Jun took the lead in attacking the city on the first day.The next day, the princes' army sent 1 infantry troops to continue to attack the city.But this time the siege soldiers were united.The princes of Yuan Shao, Zhang Yan and Lu Bu each sent [-] troops to attack Chengguan together.After a whole day of fierce fighting, the Allied forces once again left more than [-] casualties and evacuated before the pass, but this time the Xiliang army in the pass did not open the city to treat the wounded soldiers, causing thousands of wounded soldiers to freeze to death amid wailing and moaning.Since then, the Xiliang Army no longer rescued the wounded soldiers of the Allied Army, even though they watched the wounded soldiers freeze to death in the dark night, they remained steadfast and indifferent.

This is war.Compassion is acceptable once in a while, but it is impossible to go on endlessly.So as not to leave an opportunity for the enemy to take advantage of.

For two months, as long as there was no snow, the Allied forces came to attack the city every day.Every time the troops are dispatched, there are as many as [-] to [-] infantry, as few as more than [-] troops to make a tentative attack, and sometimes even thousands of infantry are sent to the front of the pass to bluff and pretend to attack. The ground withdrew its troops and returned to camp.

After two months of continuous siege, at least 5 infantrymen of the allied princes and allies fell in front of the corpse pass, and [-]% of the soldiers were seriously injured and froze to death. Only [-] soldiers of the allied army actually died at the hands of the Xiliang defenders. people around.Among the [-] allied soldiers killed in battle, Yuan Shao's Jizhou soldiers accounted for [-]%, Zhang Yan and Lu Bu each accounted for [-]%, and the remaining [-]% ​​was shared by the four towns including Sun Ce, Cao Cao, Zhang Miao, and Zhang Yang.

Chen Liu and Zhang Miao didn't have many soldiers and horses, and only had more than [-] guards around them, but after being encouraged by Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and others to become a vassal of their own, he secretly ordered his younger brother Zhang Chao to urgently mobilize more than [-] troops from the rear of Yanzhou .Although most of his nearly [-] soldiers and horses are recruits and young men who have never been on the battlefield, there are tens of thousands of soldiers and horses anyway, which can be regarded as a solid position for a town of princes and save face for himself.

As for Zhang Yang who stayed behind in Hedong County, even though he was not in the allied army camp, all the soldiers and horses under him who joined the alliance had already crossed the river, and Yuan Shao was temporarily in charge of dispatching them.As a result, after two months of storming Hangu Pass, Zhang Yang's [-] soldiers and horses were almost completely destroyed by Yuan Shao's repeated dispatches.So far, the princes of Zhang Yang's journey are considered to be dead in name only, and there is no other way out except to attach to Yuan Shao, and they are completely annexed by Yuan Shao invisibly; and the two counties of Hanoi and Hedong also naturally fell into Yuan Shao's hands, and the [-] troops stationed in the two counties were completely destroyed. It was controlled by the Jizhou army.

In the two months since the fierce battle at Hangu Pass, the original army of 36 princes plus 30 soldiers recruited by Zhang Miao and more than [-] soldiers privately recruited by Sun Ce, Cao Cao and others made a total of more than [-] soldiers; After the city came down, there were still [-] troops left in the army of the princes. The total strength of the army was reduced by nearly half, and the strength dropped by about [-]%.The reason why it is [-]% instead of [-]% is because the siege soldiers are all weak soldiers under the tents of the princes in various towns. The truly powerful elite soldiers have never been dispatched, or they are reluctant to use them to attack the city.

Therefore, after removing the chaff and saving the essence, the remaining 30 troops are the elite divisions of the allied forces of the princes, and they are also the biggest reliance on their reluctance to withdraw their troops or disband the alliance.

"Has the enemy retreated to camp?"

Inside Hangu Pass, in the main hall of the General's Xingyuan, Li Lifu, after reviewing a pile of bamboo slips that urgently needed to be dealt with, asked Guo Jia softly who walked into the big tent to report on today's battle situation.

"My lord Mingjian, that's true." Guo Jiagong replied.

"Oh, Wen He is here too. Both of you sit down, there is no need to be formal." Stretching his arms and stretching his waist, Li Li discovered that it was Guo Jia and Jia Xu who came together.

"Just now I saw the lord was busy with official business, I dare not make a sound to disturb, I hope the lord will not blame me if I am rude."

"Wenhe doesn't need to be too polite, please take a seat. After two months of fierce fighting, there is a backlog of government affairs. Today I just take the time to deal with it. If there is any delay, I am afraid that Yuan Zhong will come to urge him in person! Hehehe?"

He waved his hands to signal Guo Jia and Jia Xu to sit down, and while talking with a smile, Li Li got up and walked to the hall, where he sat on top of Jia Xu.

After the soldiers served the tea and left, Guo Jiagong said in a loud voice: "My lord, the person who led the troops to attack the city today is Yuan Shao's general Zhang He, who led [-] infantry to attack the city in turn. It was a lot of pressure, and it was quite organized. After a day of fierce fighting, more than [-] soldiers and horses under Zhang He lost more than [-] soldiers and more than [-] wounded soldiers. However, Zhang He ordered all the wounded soldiers to be taken away. Did not take the opportunity to shoot and kill the enemy."

"Zhang He Zhang Junyi?" Li Li murmured upon hearing the words, nodded his head and said with a smile: "I heard that he is good at arranging troops and using terrain to fight. He dared to order someone to carry away the wounded soldiers when he retreated. If I remember correctly, this is the first enemy general who dared to carry away the wounded soldiers under the city wall. This Zhang He is really brave and insightful!"

While speaking, Li Li suddenly changed the subject: "Oh, by the way, what are the casualties of our army today? Gao Shun and the soldiers in the trapped camp can hold on for a few days. If there are too many casualties, they will withdraw and rest for a while, and let Bocai lead the soldiers battalion. Guard the city?"

Guo Jia's expression changed slightly when he heard the sound, and his expression was a little unnatural: "My lord, I'm worrying too much. During the two consecutive months of defending the city, General Gao Shun commanded well, and all the soldiers in the camp were strong and elite soldiers who counted as ten. The camp only lost more than 200 soldiers, and they were all light infantry. The [-] heavy armored infantry has not yet been used. In today's battle, it was very appropriate to trap the camp to guard the city gate. From the beginning to the end, Zhang He was not allowed to approach the gate, and there were no casualties. Great, the whole battalion killed more than [-] people and wounded [-]. It's just"