Chapter 702: Stalemate!

Hebei, Henan, Shenzhou City

"The Marquis' scouts reported that Ma Zhongjun personally led two battalions of 7,000 people to Sanshengpo..."

Walking up to Xu Zhaojie, Liu Chaohu whispered:
As soon as these words came out, Xu Zhaojie immediately shifted his gaze to the coordinates of Sansheng Slope on the sand table, carefully observing the situation around Sansheng Slope. Xu Zhaojie asked in a deep voice:
"How is the enemy's offensive in Shangzhou?"

Liu Chaohu thought for a while and said:
"According to the scouts' treasure hunt, Yuan Song still only sent about 10,000 people to attack the city every day, just like before. Several battalions under his command took turns to attack the city. The siege time was not long, only about half an hour to an hour. However, the artillery of the Fengwu Army was indeed very powerful, firing at least hundreds of shells every day. Now the four walls of Shangzhou City have been destroyed to varying degrees!"

Hearing Liu Chaohu's words, Xu Zhaojie frowned and his expression became serious. Although he expected that the troops stationed in Shangzhou should hold out for at least a month, after realizing the powerful artillery advantage of the Fengwu Army, his psychological expectations had dropped significantly. He was already very satisfied that they could hold out for half a month.

Today is the fifteenth day that Shangzhou has been besieged by the Fengwu Army, but the situation surprised Xu Zhaojie. He should have attacked Yuan Song with all his strength, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. He attacked Shangzhou slowly every day, as if he didn't care at all about taking Shangzhou before Ye Mingsheng led his troops to arrive...

What is Yuan Song going to do?

Thinking of this problem, Xu Zhaojie couldn't help but have a headache. As the Fengwu Army entered the pass and captured cities, Yuan Song, who was known as the first general of the Fengwu Army, was gradually known by people all over the world.

However, Xu Zhaojie still looked down upon Yuan Song. In his eyes, Yuan Song was nothing but the first general of Fengwu Army. He was just a clown who wanted to be king in the mountain without a king. He was no different from the unknown person of Longxiang Army back then.

With this mentality, Xu Zhaojie set a trap for Yuan Song in Chengfeng County. Although he finally succeeded in outwitting Yuan Song and caused the First Army, known as the ace of the Fengwu Army, to lose more than 3,000 people, this did not satisfy Xu Zhaojie. It was the decisiveness and calmness shown by Yuan Song in that battle that left a deep impression on Xu Zhaojie, and he realized that Yuan Song was not a simple character.

After the Battle of Chengfeng County, Xu Zhaojie led his troops into Hebei and Henan as he wished. Although he was always one step ahead of Yuan Song, Yuan Song was steady and cautious, relying on the superior overall strength of the Fengwu Army to gradually compress the space for activities of the Zhennan Army.

During this painful process, Xu Zhaojie tried several times to expose a flaw to lure Yuan Song into a trap in order to change the situation of the battle, but Yuan Song was like an old monk in meditation, and would rather go slowly than underestimate the enemy and advance rashly.

Facing Yuan Song who was like a turtle, Xu Zhaojie had no good solution. After all, without an overall advantage in strength, the only way to defeat the First Army which was escorted by cavalry and artillery was to use a surprise attack. However, Yuan Song did not give him this opportunity. Despite the doubts within the First Army, he still went his own way and advanced slowly...
Seeing that there was no way to force Yuan Song out on the battlefield, Xu Zhaojie took another approach and ordered the spies stationed in Youyan to spread the word that Yuan Song was deliberately not fighting a quick victory, but was nurturing the enemy and plotting something bad. Xu Zhaojie knew that Ye Mingsheng was a suspicious person, so he wanted to use this method, hoping that Ye Mingsheng could put pressure on Yuan Song!
Just when Xu Zhaojie, who thought he had a good plan, was preparing to reap the rewards of Yuan Song's troops, he did not expect that Ye Mingsheng did not believe in his plan at all. Instead of putting pressure on Yuan Song, he arranged for people to send comfort items to the First Army to express his support for Yuan Song in this way. Not only that, the Coordination Office also took this opportunity to uproot the spies planted by Xu Zhaojie in one fell swoop, causing Xu Zhaojie to lose both his wife and his troops and suffer heavy losses.

Although Xu Zhaojie was filled with hatred when his tricks failed, he could only helplessly compete with the Fengwu Army in strength. Although he didn't know what Yuan Song was up to, the Zhennan Army guarding Shangzhou had lost a lot of soldiers in the attack of the Fengwu Army, but there were still five or six thousand people. These people were all veterans of the Zhennan Army and one of the few elite troops of the Zhennan Army. Xu Zhaojie was really reluctant to abandon these people in Shangzhou and let them be annihilated by the Fengwu Army!

Thinking of this, Xu Zhaojie made a decision. No matter what conspiracy Yuan Song was planning in Shangzhou, he was not going to play with Yuan Song in Shangzhou anymore. He wanted to bring these thousands of Zhennan troops back from Shangzhou. Thinking of this, Xu Zhaojie immediately made a decision and ordered:
"Send a message to Gao Song, asking him to lead his troops to break out of the city at 11:00 tomorrow night. I will arrange for Liu Zhengyuan to pick him up..."

"Yes!"

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May 23rd, at the gate of Wankang County, Jinzhong.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

On a small hill outside the city, dozens of cannons were roaring, firing ammunition towards the city wall of Wankang County not far away.

In the fortifications behind the city wall, Tang Kai was listening to the deafening roar in his ears with great frustration!
What he had imagined in the past was that the Fengwu Army's artillery fired at others. When would it be others' turn to fire at the Fengwu Army?

Although he felt very aggrieved, Tang Kai could only choose to endure the current situation. He didn't know where the Hujie Imperial Guards who were attacking the city got these dozens of cannons. When they started the siege yesterday, they also imitated the Fengwu Army's siege mode and bombarded the city indiscriminately.

Fortunately, when their Fourth Division entered Wankang County, they found that the county wall was very dilapidated and could not withstand the fierce attack of heavy engineering machinery, so they spent a month to carry out comprehensive repairs and reinforcements. Otherwise, the city wall of Wankang County might not have lasted long.

Yesterday, the Fourth Division defending the city took advantage of the fact that their red cannons had a longer range than the enemy's Zhengdong cannons and the Fengwu Army's gunners were more experienced and more accurate than the enemy, and launched an artillery battle with the opposing Hujie Imperial Guards. Although the Fengwu Army's artillery had the upper hand in the artillery battle, they only lost two artillery pieces and destroyed ten enemy artillery pieces.

However, due to the shortage of artillery shells, the Fengwu Army’s artillery was forced to cease firing, and could only wait until the enemy attacked the city to unleash its power...
After a cup of tea, the artillery fire outside the city stopped roaring. Seeing this, Tang Kai instantly became energetic and roared loudly:
"The damn enemy troops are coming! Brothers, if you dare, kill these bastards!"

"Fuck those sons of bitches!"

At Tang Kai's command, thousands of Fengwu Army soldiers stood up from their fortifications and ran back to their respective positions. Tang Kai, who came to the watchtower, looked at the Hujie Imperial Army soldiers outside the city wall, holding ladders and pushing battering rams, and a little disdain appeared on his angular face. Unlike the infantry and artillery coordination of the Fengwu Army, because the Zhengdong Cannon was developed and equipped on a large scale in the army in about half a year, the Imperial Army's gunners lacked time to train and operate.

In addition, in order to make up for the artillery disadvantage of the Luoan Imperial Guards in the battle with the Fengwu Army, Shangguan Hongyuan gave a death order to the officials in charge of manufacturing the Zhengdong Cannon, requiring these people to manufacture a large number of Zhengdong Cannon in a short period of time. In order to complete Shangguan Hongyuan's task, these people could only relax the quality requirements.

This also led to some quality problems with the Zhengdong Cannon, especially when the intensity of the war was high, the barrel would explode. In the daily training process, there were also several cases of gunners being killed or injured. This also made the gunners of the Imperial Army fear the Zhengdong Cannon and resisted operating it, and they were not serious in the training process···························

All these reasons led to the fact that the artillery of the Imperial Army's expedition to the east was not accurate enough. At the beginning, they wanted to learn from the Fengwu Army, with artillery bombarding while the infantry followed behind and charged. However, practice proved that they did not have the ability of the Fengwu Army. Doing so would only result in artillery shells falling on their own people. After a lot of trouble and more than 200 casualties, under the strong opposition of the infantry generals, the commander of the Hujie Imperial Army, Tang Peng, finally gave up the idea of ​​​​imitating the Fengwu Army's infantry and artillery coordination, and let the artillery and infantry fight separately!
Seeing the enemy's infantry getting closer and closer and coming into the killing range of the Fengwu Army's artillery fire, Tang Kai finally ordered the Fengwu Army's red cannon to open fire.

With the roar of the red cannon, the enemy troops in the front were immediately in trouble. Two or three hundred people fell in a pool of blood. However, under the gleaming ghost-head swords of the supervision team, the other soldiers of the Hujie Imperial Guards could only bite the bullet and continue to charge towards the whistling hail of bullets from the Fengwu Army.

After suffering five or six hundred casualties, the imperial guards' ladders were finally placed on the city wall of Wankang County, and the two sides then engaged in a brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Although the enemy’s offensive was very fierce, because this siege had only started for a day or two, the Fourth Division had plenty of troops on the city wall. Therefore, the soldiers of the Hujie Imperial Guards only had time to rush up for a cup of tea before they were all driven back...

Looking at the enemy retreating in a panic, Tang Kai wiped the blood off his face, and a smile finally appeared on his face!
In the last wave of offensive, even if the Hujie Imperial Guards did not lose a thousand people, they lost more than eight hundred people. It is getting late now, and the enemy should not attack the city today. They have survived today. There are still eight days left until the end of the month. As long as they can hold on for these eight days, they will be able to withdraw from this Shura field!
Although the enemy's offensive was repelled, this did not mean that Tang Kai's work was done. He continued to inspect the wounded, encouraged the confidence of the soldiers on the front line, and urged them to repair the city defense. After persisting for two hours, seeing that it was already dark, Tang Kai handed over the shift to the general who replaced him and prepared to go back to the house to rest and recharge for tomorrow's battle.

However, after sleeping in the room for only an hour, Tang Kai was awakened by a messenger. Peng Ce wanted to see him for something. Tang Kai hurriedly put on his clothes and came to Peng Ce. Seeing Tang Kai, Peng Ce said in a deep voice without any nonsense:
"The enemy has withdrawn its eastern camp!"

Tang Kai was stunned at first, then he said sarcastically:

"Didn't Tang Peng promise Shangguan Hongyuan that he would annihilate us? How come he changed his mind so quickly?"

Listening to Tang Kai's words, the mature Peng Ce did not pay much attention, but opened his mouth and ordered:

“Tang Peng is planning to surround three sides and leave one side open in order to give our army a way out and reduce our will to resist. So I plan to block all four city gates and put them in a desperate situation before they can survive…”

Tang Kai was a little surprised when he heard this. After thinking for a moment, he said tentatively:

"If all the city gates are blocked, what will happen when our army retreats on June 1st?"

Peng Ce shook his head and said:

"We are now in Wankang County and we have to live one day at a time. There is no need to think so much. The He man gave us a death order. We must die in Wankang County. The enemy's offensive will be even more fierce next time. We must be prepared for the worst!"

Tang Kai nodded upon hearing this. Seeing Tang Kai nod, Peng Ce stroked his beard and said, "I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy.
"I called you here now mainly because I want you to do one thing before you block the city gate!"

Tang Kai blurted out upon hearing this:
"Blow up their powder magazine?"

Upon hearing this, Peng Ce nodded seriously and said:
"That's right. Although the enemy's artillery is not very accurate, it still poses a great threat to our army. So if we can blow it up, it will reduce a lot of pressure on our army. According to the scouts, the enemy has protected their artillery very well, and it is difficult for our army to have a night attack. Compared with the gunpowder depot, our army still has some chances. We have also conducted scouts at this location before. If we are lucky, two or three hundred people can complete this task!"

Hearing what Peng Ce said, Tang Kai nodded without any hesitation and said:

"Got it, I'll lead the team to blow him up right now!"

Seeing that Tang Kai wanted to lead the team himself, Peng Ce waved his hand to stop him:

“This matter is too dangerous. As the deputy general, you cannot do it. Pick a brave warrior among your men who is willing to sacrifice his life for justice to complete this task…”

(End of this chapter)