Zhang He's three thousand cavalry Fei also retreated to the northeast, but the Liang army did not give up. The hundreds of cavalry who had gathered on the banks of Mianshui shouted and whipped the horses and chased them. As they ran, the light cavalry Feiyu and the heavy cavalry were far apart.

After the light cavalry flying feathers who were walking in front of him were within range of the other party, they began to shoot arrows. The arrows shot towards the Wei cavalry like raindrops. From time to time, someone was caught in an arrow and rolled down from the horse.

When Zhang He saw that this would not work, he turned his head and looked at the pursuers again, and found that there were only two or three hundred enemy cavalry, and they were not the heavy armored cavalry of the Liang army. So he ordered a general and academy to lead hundreds of Wei cavalry to intercept the pursuers.

However, when the Wei cavalry captain led hundreds of war cavalry to retaliate, the Liang army's light cavalry Feiyu did not fight, but turned his head and left, but the arrows in their hands did not pause at all.

The light cavalry Feiyu's horse speed was much faster than the Wei cavalry, and soon ran back to the vicinity of the heavy cavalry behind. The Wei cavalry were still chasing him. When they found that the heavy cavalry of Liang's country was pressing over like a wall, it was too late to turn the horse's head. The cavalry was chasing them in rows, pushing and crushing the hundreds of Wei cavalry like pushing down dangerous walls. As people shouted and neighed, blood and flesh sprinkled the wilderness on the northeast shore of the Mianshui...

After the Liang army destroyed these Wei cavalry, the light cavalry chased after them again. Seeing this, Zhang He did not dare to send troops to stop them, so he could only ask his subordinates to speed up their escape. The Liang army chased for ten miles in one breath before he could finish his rest. The corpses of the Wei cavalry and the wounded soldiers who rolled off the horse from time to time along the way.

After a day of rapid travel, Zhang He, who was in a mess, met with his main force in Rangcheng, ninety miles southeast of Dankouwu Fort as planned. Zhang He told Xu Huang and Xu You exactly what he had experienced.

Then, Zhang He said: "I am good at making a decision and lead troops to Zhuyang to provoke Liang's army, and I was suffering this loss just now. This is all a fault. Please ask Gongming to punish him according to military law."

Xu Huang shook his head and said, "Brother Junyi is saying what this is. You are the deputy commander of the entire army, so you have the right to make decisions on your own. Moreover, your decision is not wrong. If it were me, it would be the same when I passed by Zhuyang. But we didn't expect that the bandits and defenders in Zhuyang were still so strong."

Xu You also twisted his beard and said, "Once our army comes to Nanyang, we will lose two games in a row. It seems that we still underestimate Feng Zhe's Handong County."

Xu Huang, Zhang He and Xu You were all silent for a while. In fact, they were thinking about the same thing in their hearts, but they were not willing to speak first.

According to Cao Cao's instructions, the most important purpose of their visit to Nanyang was to gain a foothold in Nanyang and stabilize the Wei State's control over Nanyang, so as to prevent the Liang army from advancing from Nanyang to Central Plains. Invasion of Handong County was only a secondary goal. If it was too difficult and the price was too high, it was not necessary to complete it.

So at this time, the three of them were thinking that since the Liang army in Handong County was obviously difficult to deal with, it would be better to act perfunctorily. Otherwise, if there were too many soldiers and generals in the process of attacking, it would be difficult to explain to Cao Cao when he went back. Even if he lost too much, the Liang army fought back and rushed over the Mianshui River, he would not even be able to meet Cao Cao's basic requirements.

Finally, Xu Huang said, "No matter what, we should act according to the king's instructions. Dankou must be fought!"

...

At dawn, the sun just rose from the horizon. The soldiers at the top of Dankouwu Fort discovered that on the horizon east of the Nanyang Plain, countless black silhouettes were rising slowly against the sun. They were overwhelming soldiers and horses, and you could hear the noise of people shouting and roaring horses several miles away. If it weren't for the noise, people would have mistakenly thought it was a large cloud sweeping by the storm.

"Wei Army! The Wei Army is here!" Although the guards were prepared for a long time, they still shouted in panic when they saw so many soldiers. The sound of horns of the gathering soldiers sounded one after another, and a large number of Liang army soldiers rushed out of the fort barracks and climbed onto the walls of Dankou fortress. The torsion springs and rope strings of the crossbow were pulled by the winch.

Although Dankou Wu Fort is on a high ground, the terrain of the high ground is flat, with an area of ​​hundreds of acres. It is very suitable for large-scale warfare. At this time, tens of thousands of Wei army troops had divided into more than a dozen strands and rushed to the high ground along different slopes. The Dankou Wu Fort surrounded Dankou Wu Fort from three sides. However, the Liang army guards in the fort could also connect with the Liang army on the other side through the Mianshui waterway and the Danjiangkou Dam.

As soon as the Wei army was distributed, the crossbows on the fort began to show their power, with dozens of stone bombs and hot bombs smashing into the dense crowds of Wei soldiers. The Wei army was prepared for this and deliberately arranged them loosely when arranging the formations. Therefore, it seemed that the bombardment of the crossbows was very powerful, but the actual killing effect was not great.

However, the subsequent longbow sniper caused real losses to the Wei army. From time to time, Wei soldiers fell to the ground with screams. However, Shen Dan's Class C Legion was stationed at Dankouwu Fort. The longbowman skills configured were far inferior to those of the Class A Legion, and the number was very small. In fact, this damage was nothing to the Wei army with tens of thousands of people.

Xu Huang, Zhang He and others discovered that there was a vague force running along the dam on the other side of the Mianshui River. It was obvious that they were reinforcements driven by the Liang army from Dankou City.

Seeing this, Xu Huang ordered a general attack before his army formation could be completed. In an instant, drums and whistles rose up in the Wei army, and the Wei army on three sides rushed towards Dankou Dou Fort like a tide.

When the Wei army approached the fort, the Wei army's crossbowmen began to stoop the bow and shoot arrows at the top of the city. Their number was as large as thousands, so the arrows could be imagined to be so dense. However, such dense arrows did not hurt the defenders at the top of the fort.

It turns out that this Dankou Dock Fort has a special design. The city is a stepped wall, divided into three layers. One layer is higher than the other, so the soldiers in the front do not affect the vision of the soldiers on the back. Each layer has four-foot-high wall guards. As long as the guards are sideways or bend their knees slightly, they can hide themselves in the shooting blind spot of the wall. Stand up and shoot or snipe the enemy at the chest-high clutch.

Although the Wei army's arrows could not hurt the fort defenders, they covered a large number of soldiers and used firewood to fill the trenches and erected ladders. They began to climb towards the city like ants. The Wei army's crossbowmen also stopped the arch shooting with only cover.

At this time, the crossbows in the fort began to shoot and bombard the Wei soldiers near the city wall. The Liang soldiers on the outermost layer of the city also began to use a special device to roll wooden rocks outside the city without exposing their bodies.

Flames rose from time to time outside the city, and where the wooden and rocks fell, all the Wei soldiers climbing along the ladder were smashed to their heads and bleeding.
Chapter completed!