Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 514 The family letter is worth ten thousand gold

Wei County was surrounded by groups, and Xia Houyuan's scouts could hardly be sent out. He could only anxiously watch the Han army's actions in the city every day.

Although the Han army was in a siege war, the Wei army was in a defensive position.

However, their morale was so poor that they could hardly go out of the city to fight the Han army, so they could only hide in the city.

They saw with their own eyes on the city tower that after more than ten days, the Han army suddenly divided into several units and went in the direction of Fanyang and Buqiu, which made Xia Houyuan very worried.

"The scouts of the Han army are now all over Wei County, not just here. A few days ago, before Guan Yu surrounded us, the last official document from Yecheng said that even Dangyin and Anyang have now been surrounded."

Xia Houyuan sighed and said to Xia Hourong: "Youquan, all our soldiers and horses in Fanyang and Chuqiu were discovered by them, and they are now passive. If you want to wait for the rabbit again, I'm afraid it will be impossible."

"As expected."

Xia Hourong shook his head: "Now the enemy is strong and we are weak. The whole Wei County is under attack from three sides, and Xiangguo in the north doesn't know how long it can last. What I fear most is Sima Yi. If he has a different intention, even if we can defeat Guan Yu, Wei's power will be exhausted."

"Hey, Youquan, maybe I shouldn't bring you out this time as a father."

Xia Houyuan was in a complicated mood.

Xia Hourong is very smart, and this time he probably expected that the Han army would definitely notice their deployment, but they have nothing to do now.

It's hard for a clever woman to cook without rice. No matter how smart Xia Hourong is, he can't change anything without the right time, place and people.

Only fight to the death.

Xia Hourong said softly: "Even if I died in battle with my father, the child will have no complaints or regrets."

In late October, the weather is getting colder and colder.

In Fanyang, General Cao Wei Zhenglu, General Huan Fan of Dong Zhonglang, and Liu Ye, the leader of the Central Army, were in the city.

Cao Jun on the Eastern Front suffered heavy losses in the battle of the Yangtze River with Guan Yu.

More than a dozen generals including Lu Qian, Wang Shuang, Pu Zhong, and Chang Diao died. Zang Ba fell into the water during the war and almost drowned. He died of illness not long after he fled back.

At that time, there were several counselors around Cao Xiu. Dong Zhao, Liu Ye, and Jiang Ji ran away with Cao Xiu. Later, the three were recalled to Luoyang. Cao Pi did not kill them.

Huan Fan had been the governor of Xuzhou and Qingzhou before, helping Cao Xiu supervise the transportation of grain and grass in the rear.As a result, after Cao Xiu's death, Cao's army on the eastern front had a blank period. It was Huan Fan who organized troops and horses to barely hold on until Xia Houyuan came.

At this time, Xia Houyuan had few major generals, and he himself led some soldiers who could fight to garrison in Wei County, blocking the main force of the Han army, and then let Huan Fan and Liu Ye come to Fanyang as his right wing support.

In addition, Hu Zhi, the former governor of Dongguan, was guarded by General Jia Zhenwei, and together with his friend Jiang Ji, he guarded Chiqiu and supported the left wing of the Wei army.

In fact, Cao Wei's talents are quite withered now, and many more famous generals in the later period are either not well-known at this time, or have not been reused.For example, Du Yu is only six years old, Yang Kui is only seven years old, and Wang Jun has just become an adult and has not yet been an official in the village.

There are even many former senior generals of Cao Wei who are now the Han army, such as Deng Ai, Zhoutai, Wenpin, etc., are now senior generals of the Han army.

And even if these people are reused, the current national power of Cao Wei cannot support them to grow up.So now that Cao Wei has reached this point, it is no different from the end of the mountain.

At this moment, Huan Fan, Liu Ye, Wu Zhou, Yang Ke, Lu Fan, Wu Zhi and other generals were guarding the city together.

There is also a Wei army camp outside Fanyang City, which is a corner with the city.

In the northeast of the city, there is a Han army camp. A total of three camps were built in Chengpin characters. The flag of the chief general on it is clearly written with the word "Guan".

Of course, it was not Guan Yu, but Guan Ping.

At noon, the Han camp heard the sound of drumming and gathering soldiers. The Han army had more than 2 people, and the Wei army only had more than 1 inside and outside the city. There was still a big gap between the numbers of the two sides.

Guan Ping personally led the army and ordered his general Zhong Limu to lead 5000 men to guard the camp, and then led the rest of the generals Ding Feng, Dai Lie, and Chen Biao to march.

Many of the middle and lower-level generals in the Eastern Han Army were Jiangdong generals in history, and most of them came from aristocratic families.

After all, the Jiangdong family has been shattered too badly now. Those who followed Sun Quan's rebellion were basically ransacked and exterminated, and most of the people who did not rebel were confiscated.

In order to continue the development of the family, there are basically only three ways for the great Han in the south, one is to participate in the imperial examination to obtain a scholar, the other is to be appreciated by dignitaries, and the last one is naturally to join the army.

So now there are quite a few generals from the Jiangdong family in the Han Army on the Eastern Front. Basically, as Zhuge Jin and Lu Xun were slowly promoted, the Jiangdong Group gradually gained a firm foothold and began to exert its strength.

After Guan Ping led more than 1 soldiers out of the camp, he made a deployment, ordering Ding Feng and Dai Lie to lead 3000 people from the headquarters each, and a total of 5000 people first surrounded the Wei army camp outside the city, and then he led about [-] people to stop between the city and the camp.

Seeing the densely packed Han army marching forward in dozens of rows outside the city, their leather boots kicking up a long circle of dust, and heading towards the Wei army camp stationed in the distance outside the city like a rainbow, Huan Fan and Liu Ye immediately knew something was wrong.

"The Han army intends to make it easy before making it difficult. First break through the camps outside the city, let us lose foreign aid, and then concentrate our forces to attack the city."

Liu Ye looked into the distance, and said with a sinking face, "If our army has enough defensive strength, we can take advantage of them to attack the camp outside the city by surprise, so as to help each other. But now they have far more troops than us. If we go out of the city to fight fiercely."

The role of mutual horns is that if the enemy concentrates on you, then your teammates can attack the enemy, and vice versa.But now that the Han army is strong and the Wei army is weak, Liu Ye feels that they may not be able to defeat the Han army and rush to the Wei army camp outside the city.

Huan Fan stared intently at the outside of the city, frowned and said: "Let's see what the enemy is going to do first. If they fail to break through the camp, they must be impatient. Maybe it will be a chance for us to go out of the city and defeat them."

"hope so."

Liu Ye also kept looking into the distance.

Seeing the two parts of the Han army split, Guan Ping led the men and horses to stop between the main city and the outer camp. 5000 people arranged ten small square formations with Qu as the unit, and listed the formation.

And Ding Feng and Dai Lie each brought 3000 people closer to the Wei army camp outside the west city, and began to approach slowly.

Wei Jun's horns and drums sounded "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom." Wei Jun on the high oar on the arrow tower looked at the direction from a distance and kept shouting to the people below. Wei Jun on the wall looked nervously at the situation outside.

The Han army approached in an orderly manner. Ding Feng was riding on horseback. He was less than [-] steps away from the Wei army's camp. This distance cannot be shot by bows and arrows, at least a hundred steps away.

According to the normal attack method, the Han army needs to use wooden mantles or shields to cover the death squads and rush out of the camp, then climb up the wooden ladder and start climbing the wall to forcibly attack the camp.

However, Ding Feng waved his hand a little, and the Han army behind him immediately surged forward. Under the cover of the shield array, they stopped only at a distance of about eighty steps, and did not continue to charge forward.

There was silence for a while. The Han army was holding an iron shield at the front, and it was also protected by an iron shield above it, like a turtle shell. This formation is often used for defensive positional warfare.

But it is clear that the Han army is the attacking party, isn't the other party planning to attack the camp?

This kind of question filled the minds of every soldier of the Wei army. Because of the silence in the field, they were a little surprised, and they whispered to each other, feeling quite nervous.

"Quiet, quiet, don't speak, crossbowmen get ready, crossbowmen get ready!"

"Stop talking, be careful."

"Before the order is issued, everyone is not allowed to shoot arrows. If you hear me, everyone is not allowed to shoot arrows. Anyone who violates the order will be severely punished!"

Uneasy emotions enveloped all the Wei troops. Seeing this scene, the general Lu Fan stationed outside the city quickly issued an order to calm the soldiers, and the officers at all levels quickly passed on the order.

Moreover, Lu Fan still told the soldiers not to shoot arrows privately, they had to be strictly prohibited, and they would not release arrows until the higher-ups wanted to release arrows.

This is not to ensure the unified action of the army, but a simple lack of supplies.

The Han army has reached eighty paces, which is normally within the range of bows and arrows. If it was Cao Wei, who was rich and powerful in the past, he must have started shooting arrows indiscriminately, trying to kill a few more Han troops on this hundred-pace death charge line.

However, as Cao Jun retreated steadily and the national power declined sharply, the entire Henan region and even many places in Hebei region fell one after another, and logistical supplies and material replenishment became difficult.

When Xia Houyuan retreated from Qingzhou, he hoped that Chen Qun could replenish food, grass and equipment for him. Unfortunately, Chen Qun was powerless, so he could only send troops to plunder the people.

So at this time, Cao Wei seemed to have a total force of more than 20, but in fact it was already stretched and almost on the verge of extinction.

The Han army outside the camp had been silent for a long time, like the calm before the storm, causing the soldiers of the Wei army to look outside extremely nervously. In the early winter, many people began to sweat, and the hands holding their weapons turned blue.

After about a quarter of an hour, there was finally a change on the side of the Han army. They continued to move forward, and finally stopped when they were less than fifty steps away from the camp.

At a distance of 50 meters or about 70 meters, the Wei army was condescending above the camp and was already able to pose a huge threat to the Han army. However, because the Han army was covered by shields, the Wei army above did not shoot arrows for a long time, and still looked down anxiously.

At this moment, the upper shield suddenly opened, revealing the crossbowmen below, and the general of the Wei army roared in an instant: "The enemy is about to shoot arrows, let them go!"

"Fire arrows!"

"Quick, let go of the arrows!"

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom!"

The thumping sound of the bowstring kept ringing, and the arrows from both sides shot at each other.

However, the quality of Wei Jun's soldiers was very poor. Many crossbowmen didn't have any accuracy.

There was a constant "clinking" sound outside, and almost all the arrows were shot on the shield.

Because the Han army attacked suddenly, and they were well-trained, they closed their shields immediately after shooting, which caused the Wei army's crossbows to be completely useless.

A large number of arrows covered the sky and the sun, and then fell into the Wei army camp like rain.

The generals and officers of the Wei army were still yelling at the soldiers to continue to fight back, and the second round of arrow rain had already followed, suppressing the upper wall of the village to the point where they couldn't stick their heads out.

However, the duration of this rain of arrows was very short, almost less than 2 minutes later, the four rounds of arrow rain passed, and the movement outside disappeared. When the soldiers of the Wei army stretched out their heads to look, they saw that the Han army had retreated slowly.

"They seem to be gone."

"really?"

"Hey! Look, what is this?"

Many Wei Jun squatted under the wall of the village with their heads in their hands. After the movement outside disappeared, some of them boldly looked out, and some of them came to their senses and looked around.

I saw that in the chaos, many feathered arrows shot by the enemy had a small bamboo tube hanging on the arrow shaft.

The generals of the Wei army didn't understand what it meant, they picked up the arrows and opened the bamboo tubes one after another.

"what is this?"

"Looks like a letter."

"Is it a letter of persuasion from the Han army?"

"This is... a letter from home, our letter from home."

"what?"

The soldiers of the Wei army who didn't know why suddenly exploded.

Although the literacy rate is not high, there must be some literate soldiers and low-level officers.

After they picked up the letters, they immediately began to read them, and soon determined that these letters were not letters of persuasion, but letters from their families.

Most of those who escaped with Xia Houyuan were from Hebei, and there were quite a few people from Weijun, Qinghe, and Julu. Lu Xun sent more people to search for the families of soldiers, especially the families of officers, no matter how far away they were.

Then he asked the military scribes to copy a large number of them, and then sent them to Cao Ying through arrows. Many Cao soldiers heard that these were family letters, and suddenly they didn't want to fight.

Lu Xun collected tens of thousands of letters, copied them and sent them to Cao Ying in various places. The letters from his family members who could be matched and lucky enough to be picked up by him must be very few, just like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But as long as there are just one or two, it will immediately cause screams again and again, and a large number of soldiers will surround them all at once, wondering what the family members of the same robes wrote to them.

Seeing this situation, Lu Fan was furious and said, "Give me an order that you are not allowed to pick up arrows. What about the supervising team? When the supervising team goes over, all those who pick up arrows will be dealt with according to the military law. All arrows and letters will be collected and destroyed by me. Don't disturb our army's morale."

"General!"

The guard next to him said with a bitter face: "The supervisory team has gone to pick up the letter."

"what?"

Lu Fan became even more furious, and shouted: "You all come with me!"

As he said that, he went down the wall of the village, and with a knife in his pocket, he beheaded several soldiers who were picking up letters, and shouted at them: "The one who picks up letters will die!"

This sudden scene immediately froze the atmosphere in the camp. All the soldiers dropped the arrows and letters in their hands, and looked at Lu Fan's direction dully, with expressions of fear and anger on their faces.

"Everyone, throw away all the letters. Where is the Supervising Team? Clean up and burn all the letters!"

Lu Fan roared.

"General!"

One of the soldiers just found a letter from his family, glared at Lu Fan and said, "This is a letter from my family, why burn it?"

Seeing his angry expression, Lu Fan glared at him and said, "Disturbing my army's morale, you still dare to stare at me? Kill him!"

"I am innocent!"

The soldier raised the knife in his hand and roared angrily.

"kill him!"

Dozens of guards around Lu Fan were about to go up and kill him.

But suddenly, without knowing when, hundreds of Wei Army soldiers approached slowly.

Each of them had an extremely unkind expression on their faces, and each of them clenched the hilt of the knife tightly in their hands, looking at Lu Fan with eyes full of indifference and hatred.

There are even many officers among them.

And more and more Wei army soldiers joined them.

Seeing this scene, some middle and lower generals who were going to suppress them swallowed their saliva and silently retreated to the side.

Lu Fan didn't realize that something was wrong until this time, and said in shock: "You will not be able to mutiny!"

Before the words were finished, one of the army Sima shouted: "Kill Lu Fan, we will surrender to the Han army, we will go home, and we will stop fighting!"

"kill!"

In the camp, there was a shocking cry of killing, followed by continuous screams. After less than two or three minutes, the sound slowly subsided.

Then the gate of the Wei Army camp was opened, and all the soldiers of the Wei Army dropped their weapons.

(End of this chapter)