Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 517 The death of Xia Houyuan, directly taking Yecheng
Hu Zhi and Jiang Ji didn't last long, they were not as stubborn as Liu Ye and Huan Fan, and after the mutiny of the rear army, the two decisively voted.

Liao Hua escorted them and rushed back.

Soon at the beginning of November of the first year of Han Jianxing, Guan Ping and Liao Hua both completed their tasks and broke the two wings of the Wei army.

In this way, there were not many Wei troops left on the entire eastern front, only Xiahouyuan remained with more than 1 people, but Xiahouyuan was surrounded by Guan Yu's [-] troops.

During the eclipse in the morning of the second day, Xia Houyuan patrolled the city wall as usual. In mid-winter, the weather became much colder. Many soldiers of the Wei army were reluctant to leave the camp and hid in the barracks in the city to warm themselves.

Although it hasn't snowed yet, the temperature in Hebei has dropped extremely fast. There were even a few sporadic snowflakes falling down last night, and the nearby small rivers were covered with ice.

The Wei army did not have winter clothes. Xia Houyuan asked Chen Qun to send him winter clothes before, but Chen Qun refused. Now a large number of Wei soldiers can only wear a few more summer and autumn single clothes.

But the reeds were not very warm after all, and many people were so cold that their feet were almost numb, and they patrolled and stood guard on the city wall tremblingly, which made a large number of soldiers of the Wei army hardly care about watching the situation outside the city, and kept shaking in place to disperse the cold.

Seeing this scene, Xia Houyuan sighed. He couldn't order the soldiers to stand guard and patrol well. He couldn't even satisfy the basic winter clothes, let alone get the soldiers to be vigilant.

So he could only pretend that he didn't see it, and at the same time asked the soldiers to demolish some wooden houses in the city, and then chop off some wood that was originally used to defend the city, and set up more firewood on the city wall to keep the soldiers warm.

After making these arrangements, Xia Houyuan continued to go to the east city. His hard riding boots stepped on the hard bricks of the city wall and made a thumping sound, and all the surrounding soldiers were exhausted.

At this time, a sharp whistle sounded suddenly, and then Wei Jun on the top of the city quickly woke up and looked in the direction of the whistle.

"what happened?"

Xia Houyuan happened to be nearby, and the whistle sounded one after another. He hurried over with his personal guards.

That is the direction of Beicheng.

When Xia Houyuan arrived, a large number of soldiers had already gathered on the city wall, looking out of the city wall.

"That is how the matter?"

"It seems to be our people, they are."

"It's over, they're captured."

"Stop talking, the general is here, the general is here."

The soldiers whispered to each other, with terrified expressions on their faces, and when someone said that Xia Houyuan had arrived, they kept silent and looked at Xia Houyuan.

When Xia Houyuan came to the top of the city, he saw the rural roads in the north of the city in the distance. The roads crisscrossed the fields. From the corner of a small hill in the northwest, a huge team slowly walked around the north of Wei County City, heading towards the Han army camp in the east.

When they got a little closer, all the soldiers of the Wei army on the top of the city looked shocked and terrified, because they saw that the huge team was divided into three lines, and the left and right lines were Han soldiers.

Then in the middle are the soldiers of the Wei army. They were all unarmed, tied together in series with ropes, and were escorted forward by the soldiers of the Han army.

Seeing this scene, Xia Houyuan's face turned pale instantly, that direction is the direction of Chuqiu, and now there are so many Han troops escorting the Wei army prisoners here, with his toes, he can tell that Chuqiu's side has already been defeated.

And these Han troops escorted the Wei army captives swaggeringly, obviously not to show off their might, but to tell the people in the city that you have become a lone army, and no one will rescue you.

"Dong dong dong dong."

At this time, the sound of roaring war drums sounded outside the east city gate.

Xia Houyuan was awakened by the sound of the war drums, and hurriedly ran to the top of the east gate, and saw a large number of Han troops gathered outside the city, not only the east gate, but also outside the north gate, south gate, and west gate.

"Sun Tzu's Art of War" has a saying: "Ten times to encircle, five times to attack, and double to fight".Although Guan Yu's army was only five times that of Wei's army, it basically surrounded Weicheng.

Moreover, he did not abide by the three-quee-one rule, obviously he did not intend to give Xia Houyuan any chance to break out of the siege, and wanted to siege him to death alive.

Seeing this scene, Wei Jun in the city was extremely flustered.

Because in addition to the north city gate, there were also a large number of Wei army soldiers escorted to the Han camp at the south city gate.

This means that the support of the Wei army on the left and right sides, the Wei army located in Chuqiu and Fanyang was wiped out, they were completely abandoned and became a lone army.

So everyone became extremely frightened.

"It's over, it's our army in Fanyang, which was wiped out by the Han army."

"What can we do, we are the only ones left."

"Or surrender."

"The general treats us well, but you want to surrender?"

"If you don't surrender, are you going to die?"

"Yeah, who doesn't want to live, now that the general situation is over, you can still live if you surrender."

The soldiers of the Wei army were chatting with each other in trembling voices, and even the officers and the middle and lower generals did not stop them, and even they themselves were saying such things.

The soldiers were panic-stricken, and everyone had expressions of horror on their faces. An emotion called uneasiness spread among the soldiers.

"General"

The guards around Xia Houyuan hesitated for a moment, then went up and asked, "General, do you want to gather the soldiers?"

Under normal circumstances, the enemy is beating drums and gathering troops to prepare to attack the city, and they should also gather troops.

Xia Houyuan remained silent, thought for a while, and said to his guards: "Go back to the mansion immediately and tie up You Quan. If the Han army invades the city, take him and surrender together."

"General!"

Several personal guards looked at him in shock, and one said: "How can the general say that he will be defeated before the battle begins?"

Xia Houyuan shook his head: "The army has no fighting spirit, and few soldiers are willing to fight. What's more, if my expectations are not bad, Guan Yu's methods are not limited to these. In order to avoid unnecessary deaths, you go."

"General, let's run away together."

someone said.

Xia Houyuan looked at them and said in a deep voice: "If you can't escape, just arrange it like this, go!"

Xia Houyuan's tone became a lot heavier as he spoke.

The guards looked at each other, and finally could only grit their teeth and leave.

After a while, the Han army outside the city had completed the entire encirclement. Outside the west gate, the Han army brought the Wei army prisoners over and asked them to shout to the city.

"Brothers in the city, surrender, the Han army will not kill prisoners. Our family is still waiting for us to go back."

"Come out, stop fighting, none of us want to die."

"Open the city gate!"

One after another, the voices of persuasion to surrender were overwhelming, and the Han army continued to project letters into the city. None of the Wei soldiers on the city even fought back with bows and crossbows, just watching blankly.

After a long time, under the persuasion of letters from home and colleagues, many soldiers dropped their weapons, someone opened the city gate, and walked out with their hands raised.

No one stopped this process, and no one scolded, because not only the soldiers, but even the generals chose to surrender.

Their morale completely collapsed at this moment.

Xia Houyuan still stood on the tower and watched. The East Gate was the only gate still resisted by the Wei army.

Some Wei soldiers in the city wanted to capture Xiahouyuan and send him to the Han camp to receive the reward. Hundreds of soldiers loyal to Xiahouyuan stood by his side tenaciously, and the two sides were still fighting desperately.

But after about a quarter of an hour, a large number of Han troops had already entered the city. Soldiers in orange-yellow Han army uniforms climbed up the city wall with weapons in their hands, and began to take over the city defense of Wei County.

A general rode a horse, climbed up to the city wall, raised the big knife in his hand and said: "Stop, don't stop, shoot them all!"

"Chew!"

Rows of Han soldiers immediately surrounded them, and the sharp spear points surrounded the two Wei armies that were still fighting. At the same time, the crossbowmen behind them exposed their hand crossbows from the right side of each spearman's legs, and the sharp crossbow arrows still shone with disturbing cold light.

"Stop it, stop it."

"General, we just want to capture Xia Houyuan and dedicate it to General Guan. There is no malice."

"Put down your weapons first! All those without weapons, retreat left and right!"

That general was Zhou Cang, shouting loudly.

Hearing the sound of "Dangdangdang", a large number of Wei soldiers dropped their weapons, then retreated from the left and right sides, and were arrested by the surrounding Han troops.

And in the middle position, there are more than 200 soldiers of the Wei army lined up, holding a weapon in their hands to protect one person in the center. Each of them has an expression of fear on their faces, but their hands holding the weapon are extremely firm.

As a veteran general who has followed Cao Cao since he started his army, Xia Houyuan has fought on the battlefield for more than 40 years.

"General, we will protect you and rush out."

"Yes, General, give the order."

"If you want to kill the general, you have to step over our corpses!"

These soldiers of the Wei army shouted angrily. Although some people's voices could not help but tremble and fear, this courage to face death as if it were home has a bit of momentum.

Xia Houyuan was protected by the soldiers, and suddenly felt a little emotional.

The mourning soldiers must win, but it is a pity that these mourning soldiers are a bit small. If all the Wei troops in the city become mourning soldiers, it is hard to say that they can really break through.

But letting them continue to fight now is no different from sending them to death, so he waved his hand, signaling for the soldiers to get out of the way, and after the soldiers separated, he slowly stepped forward.

After a while he was in front of the crowd, two zhang away from him, surrounded by the Han army, the city wall was already crowded, the front was crowded with human heads, and it was almost impossible to rush out.

However, Xia Houyuan had no intention of rushing out. He raised his head and glanced at Zhou Cang, who was at the front of the line, and asked, "Who are you?"

"It's my Zhoucang!"

Zhou Cang replied.

Xia Houyuan nodded and asked, "Where's Guan Yu?"

"Are you worthy of calling the general by his first name?"

Zhou Cang reined in his horse and was furious with a knife.

In the Han Dynasty, it was impolite to call people by their first names unless they were elders or had a much higher status.

Like Cao Pi, Sun Quan and Liu Chan, even though they were emperors in history, they rarely called ministers by their names directly, and generally called them Biaozi or honorific titles.

But if it is hostile, or deliberately underestimated, it is naturally another matter.

Right now Xia Houyuan is in a state of hostility with Guan Yu, calling Guan Yu's name directly is obviously meant to despise the other party.

Xia Houyuan sneered when he heard Zhou Cang's words, and he didn't care about Zhou Cang's anger at all. Based on his understanding of Guan Yu, that man would definitely come out to meet him when he heard that he was belittling him.

"Humph!"

really.

A cold snort was heard from the crowd behind.

After a while, the crowd slowly separated, and an old general rode his horse slowly up the city wall, looking down at him.

Xia Houyuan raised his head and looked at it.

He and Guan Yu knew each other naturally, and had known each other for many years.

When Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou several times, the relationship between them changed from hostility to teammates for a short time.

It's just that Guan Yu was only playing with Zhang Liao and Xu Huang at that time. Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan had always looked down on those surrendered generals, so they just knew each other and didn't have friendship, and they even didn't like each other.

Seeing each other again at this moment is another feeling.

At that time, Guan Yu was living under the fence, and Xia Houyuan was regarded as a half-master, so his attitude towards him was naturally superior.

Now that Guan Yu's army is under pressure, he has lost everything and is about to become a prisoner of war.

This huge difference is also quite sad.

Guan Yu approached slowly, looked down at Xia Houyuan, wanted to say a few contemptuous words, but suddenly remembered Zhang Fei, so he held back, and said flatly, "Miaocai, do you want to see me?"

Xia Houyuan looked at him, and chuckled lightly: "Why, we are old acquaintances. Now that we are here, can't you and I even meet each other?"

Guan Yu thought for a while and said, "Well, since we are going to meet each other, we should talk about something. You are at the end of your game, why don't you surrender to me?"

"Put down your weapons and surrender."

Xia Houyuan said to the soldiers beside him.

"General!"

Someone grinned and said, "I will defend the general to the death."

"All right."

Xia Houyuan waved his hand: "Don't die meaninglessly, live well, go back and see your family."

"us."

The soldiers looked at each other, and eventually the first one dropped his weapon, then the second, the third, and the fourth.

They are willing to sacrifice because of their loyalty, but if they can live, who would not want to live?
Seeing this scene, Guan Yu asked, "Miaocai is willing to surrender?"

After all the surrounding soldiers surrendered, Xia Houyuan raised his head and looked at Guan Yu again. He didn't answer directly, but asked, "How is my niece Juan'er?"

Guan Yu replied: "The third sister-in-law is very good. The two daughters she gave birth to are a queen and a concubine."

"Where is Zhong Quan?"

Xia Houyuan asked again.

Guan Yu said, "Xiahou Ba? He's a Marquis."

"That's fine, that's fine."

Xia Houyuan murmured to himself, put his right hand on the hilt of his waist, turned his head to look to the west and said, "My descendants are all uncles of the country, so my descendants will have no worries. Meng De, I'm here to find you."

Before he finished speaking, he drew out the sword at his waist, slammed it across his neck, and then slashed fiercely, piercing his neck artery without any hesitation.

"Pfft!"

Blood splashed out, and Xia Houyuan fell into a pool of blood.

This scene stunned everyone around.

Only Guan Yu looked at Xia Houyuan's body indifferently with his eyes indifferent.

He knew that Xia Houyuan would not surrender, just like if he was captured, he would show his will by death.

"Take his body back to the south!"

Guan Yu left behind these words, then looked towards the west as well, and said in a deep voice: "Order the three armies, pull out the camp, and take Yecheng directly!"

(End of this chapter)