Silver Fox of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 71 The Battle of the Valley
Cao Ren?

Do you really dare to come?

Shen Chen sneered twice in his heart, but he didn't know that he had already prepared too many things for today.

Seeing Cao Ren's figure below, Shen Chen sneered and said, "Who am I? It turns out to be Cao Ren, the one-eared thief. The blood debts of hundreds of relatives gathered in Zhuangyang will be settled with you today."

One-ear thief?

Cao Ren's eyes turned red instantly, and he pointed to Qionglong in the distance, "Kill him."

"General, there is no entrance to the watchtower."

A low-level officer who had followed Cao Yong in before hastily stepped forward and said, "I have nowhere to attack."

"No entrance?"

Cao Ren said in astonishment, "How is it possible?"

Above, Shen Chen continued to hold the loudspeaker and said: "Cao Ren, do you want to find the entrance? Tell you, the entrance is underground. If you have the ability, you can dig it in."

"General, there are signs of loosening of the land over there, and it was buried by some dry grass and branches."

A soldier just happened to discover the hidden entrance.

Cao Ren was not stupid, he knew that since the other party dared to tell him that the entrance was underground, he was confident, but at this moment, he was already on the verge of riding a tiger. He came here in the name of revenge, and lost his brother Cao Yong.

So he could only bite the bullet and said: "Let the army search for other entrances first, and then let the dead soldiers go in and have a look."

"only."

The officers selected the death squads.

Ancient bows, crossbows, and armor are very important strategic reserve resources. Huangmenting's stock of arrows is not much, and it is impossible to destroy Cao Ren's army with bows and arrows.

So from the very beginning, Shen Chen didn't simply rely on Qionglong to deal with Cao Renjun, the real trump card was still underground.

Cao Ren currently has more than 4000 people left. In addition to the 500 people who met outside the valley, about 3000 people came in and conducted a blanket search of the valley.

Soon, they finally found four entrances, located in the four directions of east, west, north and south.

The quartermaster prepared torches for them. When the army travels, a fire sickle and a certain amount of fish oil are necessary, but the quantity is not very large. They are stored in water bladders, that is, pig bladders, and can be used for ignition and lighting at critical moments.

There are a large number of branches around to cover the entrance, and there are wooden boards at the entrance, which were cut down by the soldiers, split into sticks, sprinkled with a little grease, and lit with a scythe to become a torch.

The members of the Death Squad took torches to visit at the entrance first, and the inside was dark, like a huge mouth opened by a giant beast, as if to devour them.

Many soldiers swallowed their saliva. Everyone knew that going in was a narrow escape, but Cao Jun's military law was harsh, and most of them were Qingzhou Yellow Turbans that Cao Cao surrendered back then.

If you resist the order, not only will you suffer, but your family will also be imprisoned.Therefore, even though they knew that the road ahead was very dangerous, the members of the Death Squad could only bite the bullet and start walking down.

Soon everyone filed in. The first batch was purely sent to die. There were not many people who went in. There were only more than 30 people.

After entering, the imaginary ambush did not seem to be there. There was only a very long corridor, like an underground corridor, with solid rammed earth walls on both sides. The group of people walked about forty or fifty feet away, and the road ahead still had no end in sight. .

"Strange, what is this hole for?"

A soldier was walking, and suddenly noticed a small hole in the wall on the right, and was quite surprised.

"No, hurry up!"

These 30 people were led by three superintendents and a captain. The captain, who was well-informed, changed his face in shock and hurriedly called the soldiers to retreat.

It turned out that this person used to be a soldier in a secret army under Cao Cao. He followed a Faqiu Zhonglang general to dig a tomb in Mang Mountain. He had seen this kind of hole in the wall in the underground palace back then.

More than 300 people went to the ground that time, and only more than 80 people left with gold, silver and jewelry.

In addition, the Faqiu Zhonglang general also died among them, without a leader. After that, the team disbanded, and this soldier was also transferred to other posts, and now he came to serve as the captain under Cao Ren.

Seeing this kind of tunnel wall again now immediately reminded him of that bad experience back then, and he hurriedly told everyone to retreat.

But it was too late.

In fact, Shen Chen had read the Mohism's mechanics and Lu Ban's books by the public loser. These things were not lost in the Han Dynasty, including Zhuge Liang's construction of wooden cows and horses, all of which were made with reference to these books.

In addition, he was a design dog before crossing, and he had seen many tunnel designs and architectural designs before, so he had some experience in designing underground passages.

The hole in the tunnel is indeed a mechanism, but it is not the mechanism for buckling and firing the crossbow as recorded in the mechanism technique, but a spear mechanism.

Almost after the soldiers of Cao Jun discovered that something was wrong, an iron fence door suddenly moved horizontally from the wall behind them, blocking their escape route.

This fence gate is a design that actually appeared in tunnel warfare in history. Since there is no welding equipment, the gate is spliced ​​with fired iron bars that are still hot and red.

On weekdays, they hide in the cracks of the walls and cover up with rammed earth.Once needed, people push a fence door behind the wall to block the front and rear roads.

As soon as the road was blocked, a large number of spears appeared in the hole and pierced out.

Suddenly screams were heard.

Sharp spears pierced into the body one after another, and the sound of puffing into the flesh continued, and soon blood flowed profusely. There were corpses everywhere in the passage, and the blood seeped out along the drains on the rammed earth.

After about two or three minutes, as the Huangmenting soldiers on both sides of the wall continued to poke back and forth with their spears, the sound in the passage became weaker and weaker, and Cao Jun's soldiers all died in the mechanism.

There was a second group of troops behind them, watching helplessly as the iron fence gate separated them from the front team, and then they were massacred by spears. leg.

"General."

The officer who escaped from the inside scrambled and ran to Cao Ren's side, terrified and said: "There are organs below."

Cao Ren said impatiently: "There must be an agency, have you seen clearly what agency it is?"

The officer still had lingering fear, and said with a pale face: "There are holes in the wall. Once you step into the mechanism, an iron door will protrude from the wall to lock it, and a spear will stick out of the hole."

Iron gates blocking roads, holes stabbing spears?
Cao Ren thought for a moment and asked, "Have you recorded the location of the iron gate?"

"take note of it."

"Then this mechanism is easy to crack. You dig a hole at the iron gate, and then insert a long boulder into the pit. When the iron gate is pushed out, leave two people to push it back, and the rest use shields to block the wall. Either stab it with a spear, or cut the shaft with a knife, understand?"

"understood."

"Go."

"only."

The officer got the order and immediately began to follow Cao Ren's arrangement.

It has to be said that although Cao Ren was irritated by Shen Chen, he still retained his rationality, and he was very smart, good at thinking, and quickly thought of a solution.

Since the iron gate was pushed out from the wall, they just pushed it back. The hole protruded with a spear, and they could use the spear to poke it.

And only the spear head is made of iron, and the spear shaft is made of wood. They can use shields for defense. When the spear comes out, they use a knife to cut off the spear shaft, which can also damage the enemy's weapon.

Cao Ren didn't believe that he could have a lot of weapons and equipment with the strength of Huangmenting Xiangju alone?

In fact Cao Ren was right.

In the final analysis, even if Shen Chen tried to expand Huangmenting, their size meant that they would not have too many weapons and equipment.

More than 1 arrows were all racked up and tried every means to get them.Some were made by themselves, some were confiscated from the Yellow Turban Army, and some were secretly bought by big merchants like Zhou Lin and the others.

You must know that being discovered is a capital offense. Whether it is Liu Zhang or Liu Biao, such strategic materials are strictly prohibited from being exported. Wooden poles and feathers for arrows are all included in the contraband.

Therefore, regardless of arrows or armor, there are very few Huangmen Pavilions. It is not that there is no iron for making arrows, but that they lack wooden poles and feathers specially used for making arrows.

However, normal knives and spears are well stocked, because the Han Dynasty did not prohibit civilians from owning weapons, so it is very common for ordinary people to wear swords and swords. In peacetime, you only need to spend [-] pieces of five baht to buy one Wrought iron sword.

After Cao Ren gave the order, the officer quickly followed his instructions and sent another group of troops down the cave. According to Cao Ren's instructions, these soldiers blocked the position of the iron gate with stones and blocked the hole with shields.

The Huangmenting soldiers repeated their old tricks and continued to stab them with their spears.As a result, the stabbing was either blocked by a shield, or the wooden pole was cut off by Cao Jun soldiers, or even stabbed back, injuring several brothers.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Deng Zhao, who was in charge of the command, immediately issued an order: "Withdraw, go to the second pass."

So Huangmenting soldiers retreated one after another.

The soldiers of Cao Jun finally passed this level. After everyone filed in, they found that there was still an iron gate in front of it, but there was no one behind it to push it.

Appearing in front of them are two passages on the left and right, which lead to the rear of the left and right walls of the corridor they came from.

At that time, Huangmenting soldiers stabbed them with spears behind these two passages.

The soldiers of the Cao army who came in sent troops to the left and right. After occupying the passage, they hesitated because they didn't know what danger was ahead, and sent someone to report the matter to Cao Ren.

Knowing that the entrance has been occupied, Cao Ren gave another order to let the soldiers rush in from the four entrances at the same time, block all the entrances, and then send a large group of troops to follow behind the dead soldiers and slowly explore forward.

The strength of the dead soldiers in front was replenished, and with the men and horses behind them, their confidence was greatly increased, and they moved forward again from the left and right passages.

Then.

Then the tunnel collapsed.

It turned out that the tunnels going in from the left and right sides of the passage were hollowed out. Before that, wooden boards were laid, and then soil was sprinkled on the wooden boards.

When Deng Zhao's Huangmenting soldiers walked over the plank, at first they planned to wait for the pursuers to come, then immediately remove the plank and let them fall into the trap in the pit.

It turned out that the other party did not chase after him, so Deng Zhao followed the plan Shen Chen said, if the enemy did not pursue, he would use a saw to saw off most of the plank, leaving only the small half.

Cao Jun's dead soldiers did not pursue immediately, and the passage was very long, and the sound of sawing boards was not heard.When the reinforcements arrived, they had already stepped on the plank and rushed forward one by one. When the plank couldn't bear the weight, it broke and everyone fell into the pit.

The pit was full of sharp wooden stake barbs, and in an instant, more than ten Cao soldiers died in the passages on both sides.In addition to this situation, except for one of the passages dedicated to the elderly in Huangmenting Township, the other two passages are also the same.

After a while of flying around, Cao Ren got the news that the second pass was a trap.He asked the soldiers to carry the ladders that were originally intended to attack Huyang City, and built the ladders, and finally passed through the pit cave.

However, the tunnel is winding and winding, and there are still several checkpoints.Behind it is another crossbow and arrow mechanism, another boulder rolling, and even poisonous smoke coming out.

Almost all the ancient anti-theft tomb techniques are used except for the zongzi.It made the few low-level officers who participated in the activities of Cao Cao's Faqiu Zhonglang and Mojin Xiaowei have a feeling of deja vu.

And after nearly seven or eight hundred lives were paid, and corpses were scattered all over the tunnel, Cao Jun's soldiers finally despaired, because the name of the last mechanism was Duanlong Gate.

On weekdays, these huge boulders are locked with winches and iron chains. Once they are attacked, they are put down to stop the enemy.

The only place that doesn't have the Broken Dragon Gate is an entrance to the west.

This entrance has the fewest traps, because this is the entrance of the Huangmen Pavilion for people to enter and exit on weekdays, so there is no pit, no crossbow arrow trap, and no dragon-breaking stone.

No matter how stupid Cao Ren was, he understood that three of the four entrances were fake, and only the west entrance was real.

And Shen Chen's location is in Qionglong Lane on Gaoling Mountain to the west.

So Cao Ren became ruthless and ordered the soldiers to rush in through the west entrance.

However, although there is no broken dragon gate at this entrance, there is poisonous smoke.

This poisonous smoke was prepared by Shen Chen with poison and gunpowder, because he is not a chemical major, although he used to read online knowledge and knew that the gunpowder formula was one nitrate, two sulfur and three charcoals.

But he didn't know the specific formula ratio, the gunpowder produced had a lot of impurities, and the combustion would produce a lot of smoke, more than fireworks.

So he simply mixed a certain amount of arsenic in it, paste it with mud on the outside, ignited and threw it out, and the mud cracked to produce a lot of poisonous smoke. The smoke filled the air and would cause huge damage in a small space.

Of course Shen Chen didn't know that the thing he invented was called Poison Smoke Ball in the Song Dynasty, but it was more comprehensive, with more poison in it, and the power it produced was even greater.

Fortunately, he was using it in a tunnel, and throwing it out here immediately sealed the tunnel, and the violent wolf smoke spread out along the tunnel.

Cao Jun's soldiers choked to death, poisoned to death, and soon caused hundreds of casualties.

"General, the poisonous smoke below is too violent, causing too many casualties."

The face of the retreating officer turned pale, and he also smelled a little smoke. Now he only feels dizzy and dizzy, and he is on the verge of falling.

"hateful."

Cao Ren was furious, and he hadn't killed a single enemy so far, but he had lost more than 1000 troops. In addition to Cao Yong's previous loss of soldiers and horses, the 5000 troops he brought this time have been lost by nearly one-third .

"General, get out."

Chunyu persuaded: "Since the enemy dared to place poisonous smoke, it means that they have another exit outside the valley. If they can find the exit, they may be able to trap them to death."

"Shen Chen is really hateful!"

Cao Ren also knew that a strong attack was unrealistic, so he could only say bitterly, "Go!"

With an order, the soldiers fled to the exit one after another, relieved.

At this moment, Shen Chen's face on the qionglong cage has become serious, and now he only regrets that he has no fish oil.

If there is, a large amount of oil is poured from the Qionglong into the mountain road, and the fire will surely make Cao Ren's army trapped inside and unable to get out.

When Gan Ning's army arrives, they will catch a turtle in the urn.

It is a pity that in ancient times, fish paste and oil were not only very important strategic materials like arrows and armor, but also a necessity for people's lives.

The source of fish paste oil is very scarce, and can only be obtained by refining livestock or hunting prey.

It was already scarce, and the price was extremely expensive in the market. Even if Huangmenting was a little rich, it could barely guarantee the living needs of the people, and it was impossible to hoard it.

So he could only watch Cao Ren retreat.

However, it is impossible to retreat completely, Shen Chen shouted: "Shoot arrows for me, shoot them to death!"

"Kill!"

Hundreds of archers in the surrounding Qionglong bowed their bows and set their arrows again.

This time, I intend to shoot all at once, almost without reservation.

"Shhhhhh!"

The arrows began to rain down like raindrops, and soon the arrows were consumed at an astonishingly fast rate.

After some soldiers had no arrows to use, they immediately picked up the guys, drilled into the hole from the passage below the qionglong, and then followed the maze-like tunnel towards the exit.

There is actually more than one tunnel exit, but at this moment, at the exit near the Shahe River in the north, the floor was opened, and countless Huangmen Pavilion soldiers came out.

At the beginning of this year, Huangmenting's soldiers were only 200, and later Gan Ning added 300 to them as the main force.

These 300 people were born as Jinfan bandits, and they were very brave.

There are a total of 500 people, about 300 of whom are archers on Qionglong in all directions, and more than 1000 people are hidden in the tunnels below, fighting Cao Jun in various tunnels.

After using the tunnel to kill a large number of Cao Jun's viable forces, they had to face the fact that Cao Jun planned to retreat.

If there is no fish paste and oil to block the road, it can only be filled with human life.

So Deng Zhao and Shen Zhen led more than 1000 soldiers respectively, drilled out from the north and south exits, and rushed towards Cao Jun.

Outside the valley there were hundreds of troops left behind by Cao Ren, and when they saw the enemy rushing towards them, they formed formations and prepared to fight without hesitation.

Deng Zhao charged forward, and the tragedy of the Huangmenting Township Gathering was vivid in his mind. His hatred filled him with fighting spirit, and he broke into the crowd like a jackal, fought hard, and hacked a Cao Jun to death.

He had just killed his opponent, and the left and right sides were slashed with swords.

Seeing that Deng Zhao was about to die on the spot, several clansmen around him rushed over to help him block and cover him from fighting.

In the final analysis, only fierce generals like Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun can charge alone, and ordinary low-level soldiers and officers need to cooperate more.

Especially when there are fewer people fighting more people, this kind of cooperation is particularly important.

Fortunately, this time they had more people and fewer people, and coupled with their close cooperation, each time they attacked one or two Cao soldiers in groups of three or five, killing the five hundred Cao soldiers who stayed outside the valley and retreated steadily.

However, Cao Jun in the valley was still breaking through. Stones, arrows, and wood were constantly smashing into the mountain road. Cao Jun was trapped in it, and it was impossible to jump from the top of the mountain. Arrow rain rushed out.

Shen Chen stood on the Qionglong cage, his eyes fixed on Cao Ren's position.Due to the full firepower of Qionglong, Cao Ren didn't dare to risk his life and could only let the soldiers consume their reserves, so he was still behind at the moment.

The valley is not big or small.The location of Qionglong is above the surrounding hills. Even with the blessing of high towers, it cannot shoot that far, so it is very safe near the center of the valley.

The sound of fighting came from outside, and Shen Chen shouted loudly: "One-eared thief, your death is approaching!"

"Shen Chen, one day I will kill you!"

Cao Ren roared angrily.

"There is no other time, you have to die today!"

Shen Chen disturbed his state of mind.

Cao Ren gritted his teeth, the veins on his face throbbed violently. He admitted that he had underestimated Shen Chen, but he did not expect him to construct such a terrible trap.

But he felt that even Shen Chen wanted to stop him?Idiots are dreaming, when he escapes, he must let the elder brother send tens of thousands of elites to level the entire valley.

"Look, General, Wolf Smoke!"

Di Yuan beside him suddenly pointed to Qionglong in the distance and said.

Cao Ren hurriedly looked up, and at some point, the wolf smoke was rising from the Qionglong cage.

"Oops, it's a trap."

He immediately came to his senses, it turned out that Gan Ning was not refusing to rescue Huang Menting, but was waiting for them to send a signal.

Immediately, his eyes turned red and he shouted: "Kill, kill, hurry up!"

"The general has an order, rush out!"

The soldiers immediately went to order to let Director Chunyu, who commanded the opening of the road, break out of the encirclement as soon as possible.

However, although the mountain road is not too narrow, with a width of more than ten meters from left to right, it is already densely covered with corpses, rolling stones, lumber, and even lime falling from the sky.

There are too many obstacles, and the mountain road that is less than a hundred meters short seems to have become a Shura field, and countless things in the cage above are smashed down.

All the young and strong men in Huangmenting went out to fight, but the old and weak women and children were still there. These old men, women, and children went to battle. Even Shen Chen's mother, Mrs. Deng, remembered the hatred of the neighbor Shen Min's family and threw them down. Out of the stone.

Soon Rolling Stone ran out of wooden bows and arrows, and even ceramic pots, porcelain bowls, porcelain plates, furniture and wooden utensils, as long as they could be thrown, were all thrown down. At this time, the power of the clan broke out completely, just for revenge.

"General, they've gone mad. They're throwing everything down. There's shards of pottery all over the floor, and caltrops and nails."

Director Chunyu was beaten badly, and he returned to report to Cao Ren with a mournful face covering his wound.

There were nails in the Western Han Dynasty, but generally only the coffins of nobles were nailed with iron nails, while ordinary people used mortise and tenon structures.

The main reason is that the output of ironware is too low and the cost of iron nails is high, so it will not be mass-produced. It was not until the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties that iron smelting technology was greatly improved that it was widely used.

However, Huangmenting's iron smelting technology is an epoch-making technology, and the iron production volume is very large, so a large number of iron nails were manufactured for this time.

A large number of nails were thrown into the mountain road, together with porcelain fragments and barbed wire, causing great damage to Cao's soldiers.

Although the shoes worn by soldiers in the Han Dynasty are varied, there are round-toed cloth shoes, wing-pointed shoes, duck tongue shoes, straw sandals and so on.

But in the final analysis, they are all single-soled flat shoes, and many of them don't even have a sole. They are just ordinary straw sandals. Stepping on nails can directly pierce the instep.

In this case, the soldiers could not rush out at all.

"Hold the shield above your head and step over the corpse." Cao Ren's face was so dark that he had a bad premonition.

Soon the soldiers followed Cao Ren's order, and after paying thousands of casualties, they finally rushed out.

Cao Ren was the last to leave. At this time, Huang Menting's reserves had been exhausted. He could only watch him go down the mountain. When he turned his head, he sneered and shouted: "Shen Chen, I will not let you go."

However, Shen Chen didn't feel too sad, but shouted through the loudspeaker: "One-eared thief, look outside, do you think you can escape today?"

Cao Ren went down the mountain, and the fighting was still going on outside the valley. At this moment, more than 3000 people came in, and only 500 people left to go out. Outside, the fighting was between 500 and 200 people. It was almost over, and the remnants were less than [-] people. .

Seeing this scene, Cao Ren remained calm and composed. He was confident in fighting head-on. With more than 2000 horses, he could easily defeat his opponent.

But in the next second, his face froze.

Dust billowed in the distance, Gan Ning's army finally arrived at this moment.

　I originally wanted to write it all at once, but found that this location is very suitable for breaking chapters.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)